Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

This is our second meeting for July 27th, 2026. And we will start in 30 minutes. um and today i don't think we've actually had anyone signing yes and good good favoritism

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. My name is Representative Susan Portelli. I represent Hampton Falls in Kensington. Tonight, I wanted to give an update on the status of the Exeter Drink Water Road long web, large groundwater withdrawal application. So there was a community, several, several people asked me about this. So I reached out to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and a communication was sent to the town in March. And there is the final approval. So my request is I couldn't find it on the website if it's not posted. I sent you the document. If that's something that you could post, I think it would be very helpful. so the international department of environmental services issued the large groundwater withdrawal permit to the town of exeter for the withdrawal of water for the purpose of community water for the drink water well of 576 000 gallons over a 24-hour period however this was subject to a specific condition the condition was the initial withdrawal volume had a restriction. The well shall limit its cumulative withdrawal of groundwater from this drink water well to no greater than 288,000 gallons in any 24-hour period for the initial 24 months. So that approval was issued on March 27th of this year And one of the conditions was that there would be groundwater level monitoring and groundwater quality monitoring. So far, they have assessed three addresses in Kensington for this monitoring. And it's in the document. 12 Laurel Lane, 6 Oak Ridge Road, and 106 Drinkwater Road. So my question to DES is if additional residents would like their wellness monitored, what is that process? So there's a lot of information in that document. It does reference a lot of the comments that the townspeople have submitted and just the process they went through to do this approval. So I will be submitting a bill to strengthen the requirements of essential need and making sure that impacted communities are considered during this application process since there is a large number of these permits being requested throughout the state so i want to give that update thank you thank you

Thank you, Alfred. Then on to Westwood Road, Kensington.

The last meeting we had here, I think it was to 12th. I asked for it and requested a copy of the lease agreement between the town and the library. Thank you very much for providing the academy. But the question was, is there a possibility, because if anyone really knows in the town, as a matter of transparency, if I didn't request that, and unfortunately publish it on a public, on like a Facebook website, which I think is not appropriate. I think it would be best if the town could use all contracts, all leases, as well as personal contracts, employee contracts, placed on the Kensington website as a matter of transparency. I mean, people need to know exactly what's going on and it gives them a lot of information. It's really kind of disingenuous for me to kind of put it on you know, a Facebook page because it allows for a lot of back and forth that's not necessary. And I think if the town had a matter of transparency, as we did with the school board, the school board put the teacher's contract as well as all the other ones on their website. I think it's really important that people have some transparency and that prevents the unfortunate back and forth on websites, social media websites that doesn't need to occur. So I hope you'll take it under consideration.

I would just also add that the challenge with that is being in a default budget.

Every little thing like that also incurs costs. And so right now there's unfortunately limited pools to try to pull from in order to do things like even that. That's something that you can't just go in there and code and you shouldn't have put something in. That'd be a cost of going to somebody who didn't help in the IT department and folks that we work with in that. Just to add some more context to the challenges there. So I stated that there's a minimum cost for relief. I thought it was something like broader press for the public to see in that transparency so of course we need to see all these thoughts uh then we will close the public comment section and into a public hearing

which is a continued public hearing from I-13 seating. Importance would have to say 419A to establish a visit fees for a down social alcohol. If we continue this for my seating, we can see why I don't want them to present their completion requirements.

should we start seeing um

We've done identification with my friends.

To get people up to speed here, there is a special alcohol permit application required if you have alcohol served in public spaces. The town has one already. This is a revision to that. In the process of looking through the revision, We had an anonymous fee of $50 because there was quite a bit to having alcohol, so just a, oh, sure, that sounds good, let's do it. And so in the process of going through that, there was a comment about the indemnification clause. In the past, this document had a hiddenly approved and reviewed statement that was not being made brief. This is not brief by any stretch. It is half a page. And it is applicable to all contractual relationships. And I do believe that sitting through, which is not something worth doing. Take a minute here to look through. Okay. We're going to take a quick minute here to make sure we're looking through these things appropriately. So please bear with us as we look through this. This is the first time we're able to work together for a long time. Please go with us as we look to the identification clause of the discussion. I'll call it. We'll be back in a moment.

I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. was one of some of the things that was happening in the 80s and 60s because we had this sort of business. And then over the years it got serious. Several of your films weren't fine, so you had to come to a place where you weren't so obsessed with it. To get by, it took a lot of time. It took me a few hours of work to get through it. But it was something that you had to do. And that's what happened. That's what happened.

through the identification laws it will be changing uh there's an option eight in the header there's an option there's only one option so that we're going to move to within the identification clause it refers to the contractor contractor will be changing to the name person applying for it to the applicant, not a contractor. So, the big changes here are that there's now a $50 application fee to come with this. There's an indemnification clause, which all three of us have reviewed and the degree is written correctly, minus the revisions I just mentioned of removing the red contractor and replacing the red applicant, as well as revising the header to just say indemnification. So with that in mind, I look forward to a motion to review. The aggregated submission of all permanent applications is now in motion.

Seconded by motion.

All in favor?

All in favor? Very good.

Do we have any more comments on that before we go to the subsection? Both those in public hearing or the .

from CPCM who wanted to appear on the main presentation.

I'm anticipating a septic waiver conversation, maybe a bit longer, so if we've got some people out of town, I want to let them come up and speak first, if that's all right with everybody.

Wait, we have to do it again. Thank you for the answers tonight. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your patience. So we came to this evening to serve as a resource for you all.

As you know, we're translated and it's automated. It's a completely public transparent entity.

So we like to interfere with forms, boards, and the inter-part of the process. First, what I wanted to bring to your attention is to give you some information on your website. If you're having an conversation about a website this evening that's based in another town, as part of the services provided by the program, we maintain and maintain our website all the time. And at the top of that webpage, you can find a lot of links to the access links for people that engage with the various content, One link in particular actually brings you to a shopping comparison tool. It's called Utility Under Supply Rates. It's a shopping site where you take advice from an important community so that customers can easily compare the rates offered to the local community power program and the suppliers and your local utility, which is a unit selling. So that's something I wanted to highlight. On the next page, there's a little bit of information about customer communications. So when a customer different ways they can call the contact center they can send an email or they can use a self-service portal on the website it's best they have their utility bill handy for all the accurate information there but it's really easy to get in touch you switch in and out of the program change products So people can come and go as they make sense of them. And we've actually seen that to a great degree. Customers are really paying attention and they're acting in the options that make the most sense for them. And we see that as being positive. Furthermore, in addition to the comments and the info I've run, we've seen the options as well as to join mailing lists in various capacities. really nice for the rate change notifications. So if someone is joining or leaving, they want to stay informed, you can simply enter your name, your email, if you're comfortable, your phone number, and then you can, you know, proceed directly to the Boston phone anytime for an exchange and decide when to come in. And then finally, on the last page, I'm going to flip it back to where I want to talk about some of those. Because it's attending to be the power of .

And so one of the main .

We want to profit. We want to be governed. We want to be a member of the . And so that brought in the coalition's finances and staff. You know, this is providing customers with a lot more . Furthermore, I have another sheet that I passed out that speaks to this, but we're really engaged a lot, and we have a customer base in public advocacy. And so we're helping to represent the public utilities commission, along with the consumer advocate. We go to those hearings, members that we have, which are made up of 64 municipalities and 14 municipalities. We decidedly have been supporting a platform that's related to climate and energy legislation that's going to be good for enabling programs like storage, mapping, planning solar,

So the public is doing all that information is available.

And, you know, we do have other types of programs and program development. We're able to leverage the scale of the almost 200,000 customers that participate with us, the communities, to offer programs like direct navigation. stream for local projects. In terms of the handouts, I mentioned that people can sign up for rate announcements. So this is a game of a recent rate announcement that was distributed, posted on the Grand Line, the red boxes, and I don't know who represented us. But you can read all about that. It doesn't go through a big piece here. But I did want to point out, in terms of the comparative landscape, the Public Utilities Commission about a year and a half ago directed utilities to start increasing the amount of spot parking exposure they have and the rate setting without getting super in the weeds. What this has done is it's forced the utilities to set a rate without actually understanding the true cost of it. And that has resulted, collectively, because our utility is about $40 million in collections. Now, Unitil is a smaller component of that, $3 million or so, but the reality That has made it difficult for people like that in the marketplace to compete as a result of that. Fortunately, we are engaged actually alongside the utilities with taking out these issues we've mentioned and trying to help them provide their methodologies so they're not having these problems and carrying their reflections. And it really isn't true just to have this comparison in the marketplace for consumers. So, I think it's consumer-positive and forward approach that we can have as a state in mind. So, I wanted to mention that, you know, certainly our rates are already in the mix with the utilities, and it's at a percent about unital. Of course, when the program launched here in Kensington, it couldn't launch without offering customers a savings, so that was one of the stipulations for this program, and then they were going to have to, you know, they had to include the savings, they had to include the additional extra costs, And we're seeing things sort of level out in the middle at the moment, despite some of the issues I mentioned at the PUC. And then finally, I did, for a minute before Andrew actually passed it out, I'll leave behind one of the examples of sort of some of the regulatory and legislative work we're doing as it pertains to units alone. We are collaborating with them on exploring options for more advanced metering infrastructure, which would be a first in the state of New Hampshire. Really what it comes down to is, you know, secure but streamed access to data allows for more advanced rollout of the programs and projects, which will allow for customers to take advantage of things like pay surgeries, like time and use rates, allow people with solar panels to be compensated more fairly instead of the current sort of death by utilities and some other issues that we're really working to address with them so we appreciate that collaboration you know you can tell them you know they do provide an important business and maintaining infrastructure so that's obviously a critical service so i'm going to take a pause there

You mentioned that there is an ability to opt in and out essentially, I mean,

We're not excited about this. We didn't have the ability to opt in or out at their discretion. So that's . Do people know that?

I think that the energy committee is trying to really share that information across town when, especially when rates were more accredited on the unity side, making sure that folks knew if they wanted to opt in, they could do that. Like I said, we opted in and then we had to opt out. uh the last thing they can give us so they've got information but jerry i didn't know how to actually get the rates texted to me when i was coming to that's how it's all yeah yeah the more information the better always okay now that was missing without thank you so if you were with the third party or with cpcna like one of the issues with unitone

was that you would be placed in the variable rate until the next rate period, which is actually pretty expensive, pretty much every rate period up to now. It was just announced that UNITO is no longer doing that. So if you opt out of CPC&H, you would immediately be placed on the fixed rate. So it's a small detail that some citizens that were really following along called out, and they were absolutely right. It was a pretty difficult pill to swallow if you all of a sudden had to pay a triple check. It was usually for this one month, but it was still in the green. But now that's out of the question.

Yeah.

and then we gave it away and something was made so we didn't do it

um so now we move into the board of house i have a waiver request um And I just wanted to start out by saying we've been thinking about some conversations we've had over the last day or so, but we're probably going to need to zone in more and planning more on the early way in. Hopefully we're going to be thinking about some things that I know y'all are good friends with. I'm sure you have a lot of conversations and questions, but I do think there's some zoning and planning that we have to have.

Good evening. Thank you for allowing us to present tonight. My name is Steve Wilbert with KCS Architects. I'm joined here with our disability engineer, Tim Madsen with KC Westrom Associates. And as we said, we are here seeking a waiver from the town's 35 foot setback for any subjects. There's a series of diagrams that I'm going to um is the existing conditions of the kensington library um this front part here is the historic building the historic brick building and then the night what we refer to in the 1970s edition is back here uh amesbury road was over here on the left hand side of the garage just off the north on top of the page and the elementary school parking lot is over here on the right hand side. This project is to do a certain amount of renovations in the existing building in Orange and then putting on an addition wrapping around that 1970s portion of the building using the new septic system in the leach field to go down here along the south side of the building along with the septic tank. I'll just point out a couple of other components of the site design. I'd just like to say that we are planning to make a presentation that we're planning Most of the components on the site as well. In the southeast corner, we're cleaning a small infiltration pond to deal with stormwater in the event of a significant rainstorm. On the north side of the building, with a little space, there's a large rectangle up here. so um this is a piece that is required uh to provide water for the state which is going to be going to the fire it's this kind of a brief overview of um the overall segment of the project we when designing the acceptance system and all that we talk about this in much more detail in the seminar But we have a couple of restrictions on the site. First is this blue line that we've drawn around the building. That is a state requirement that the septic system has to be at least 10 feet off the face of the building. So that's our first restriction here. And as you can see, our new leaching field, this position is as close as possible to the building, just outside of that 10 foot setback. Then when we overlay the town's 35-foot setback off the property line, that's this red line that you can see here around the building, and it's 35 feet off the property line surrounding the building. The next diagram, by overlapping these two property lines, is if we follow these setbacks, that is the only amount of space on this property, which is about half an acre, that we could potentially put a leaching field in. And it's no more than a couple of feet wide at the widest, so it's just not practical in following these setbacks to put a leaching field and septic system in.

And so the final diagram I'm going to show you is

We are 31 feet off the property line. there's real no allowing the space to work in um but we achieved the first set basis so that's why we're asking for this waiver um we are we are exceeding that setback but only by about four feet that four feet across the whole line in the left line or just a little bit more Yeah, it's probably about 4 feet up at this corner, and because of the angles, it's going to be closer to exceeding it by about 5 feet on the west side. So it's about 31 feet at this corner, and it's probably about 30 feet if we draw a line down on that side.

So it'll be about...

The other restriction on this site is that the existing well that will continue to be used is up on the north side right here. And within this property, our new septic system has to be 75 feet away from the well that's on the same property. So that is another constraint that pushes our leaching field kind of down in this direction as well. questions does this turn goes and take like this uh example does that mean the 75 feet requirement for any of those it does the back line is strong that's probably not because that's sort of working

The first stone is on the north side of the building and it consists of two tags.

This is the existing septic system are these two tanks up here, so there is no leaching field.

And do you make no distance from the abutting well?

The abutting well on the south, the property on the south. It's approximately 50, 51 feet as best as we can tell.

I had something new questions going to come up, so we can learn research into it. I actually learned a lot during this process to figure that out.

Basically, there's an RSA, there's a Supreme Court case, protective well rating by funding companies. It's very wordy. It took me a while to digest it. I'm not going to lie. I kind of have summarized it, but essentially what it says is for private wells serving buildings other than commercial buildings, which would be the case here, if the protective well radius cannot be fully maintained on an existing lot of protection due to the size and physical characteristics of the lot, which is exactly the case with both of these very small lots, then the on-lot protective radius should be maximized not necessarily the case here but people were putting their wells on their property lines and then saying you can't build 75 feet on your property

I think this is your best foot forward in terms of meeting that requirement, while also maintaining this feedback every day through the system. Is there any conversation about sending water in each field? So, as an example, you have that overrun, runoff treatment area.

that i don't know yeah there's certain are you saying no model that's coming off the roads so the state has regulations about how far you can get away from those that was also considered a design and just another restricting factor i believe it's 35 feet is a requirement from um once the donors see my water table and that's placed more than 35 feet away This plan's been reviewed by Mike Homo, who reviews your septics here in town. He's from Rockingham County's conservation districts. He had no issues with the design itself, save for the 35 foot side back here. It'll also be reviewed by H.P.

What about parking placements? I know that's come up with some of our septic waivers, that there needs to be a space on the property for a specific placement. Is there space for that?

Yes, as I said, we plan here. So yeah, they require preserving. Basically, it's just another location that could be used if needed. And that's shown right here.

If this location were to be the one that was decided

Yeah, that was the first place we looked. Trust me, we wanted to put it here, but the implications, considering the proposed addition, not letting themselves dwell for putting a second there. When we did a test bed out there, basically we'd be intercepting the seasonal high water with the ratio of the elevation. Now, that wouldn't be the case.

But one of the upside, if you notice, we're actually plumbing up to the ladyfielder to get an interesting rotation to the southern side. I mean, I think the idea is that it fails at some point, but there's a lot of action getting made. I've also heard in some of these previous sessions that

If nothing really failed, then it's the option to refill and then continue to use the same spot. I don't have a technical explanation, but yes, we need to have a reserve on that. It would also be the option to reuse the one at Everland.

It's more of a checklist item. But yeah, that's really kind of the point about just to check the site, but there is not a location site that's feasible for early to do that.

That location can be tested back?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I know you've got some additional training up in these other questions if you've got.

No.

this i'm moving away from the five feet uh the biggest concern was the well and the jc uh that the u.n that uh germany is the last state i do remember reading something on that and didn't fully pay it in um

Yeah. We will open public comment.

And we will make other public comments.

We'll go back seven slides before the additional swears actually to the current.

Yeah, just the existing conditions plan like this.

Or do you want more? Yeah, yeah, it wants some color. We go back to some subject here.

Is it shared by everyone? These flags, is it simply shared? Yeah. At this point, you know, I think.

But you know, you guys are. I was going to tell you this, but I clearly didn't. I don't need to do this together. I'm going to have to get you up to a site because you know, you know, you have to be able to do that. That's an option. Yeah.

For you, right?

Lawrence, let's do a well conversation. And in the scenario where a new well would need to be, right, let's play, hey, we're 10 years ahead. Fire, range, whatever, somebody needs a new well. And it's somewhere near there. At what point in time do you, how does that affect you? Because let's say the leach field is already existing, because this would have already been achieved, or even happens right now. It doesn't seem like you have a lot to really put it anywhere else, based off setback requirements, right? It seems to be that you guys keep recording stuff, and it works, and you're like, it's like our favorite lesson, right? So it's, you know. So how does that factor into future endeavors such as like, hey, in fact, can we run this as well as work anymore, or whatever? It came up in the last segment meeting at length, right? and I would have a lot of conversation about it. Does that set the precedent for a new development, a new well that doesn't exist technically, right? Or does having a potential new well then factor into, you know, like, it's a conversation of what needs to be factored in. It's hypothetical futures that don't exist, but may exist, need to be factored in. Does that not exist, therefore does need to be factored in? Are you speaking the best that you will on the library property or another property? Yeah, again, it's a fun joke. That's why I bring it up because I don't have the correct assumptions to even have it. You can see I'm stuttering through this conversation because I'm not even sure what assumptions to bring up.

Because at the hotel right now, there's a library, fire department, and a green machine.

Yes. Yeah. So I can kind of speak to this a little bit. I think I kind of get where you're going. Basically, I think the required well rate is most likely would not fit the outside of the property balance. Basically what happens is the state will make, you know, the well earlier and eventually gets up to 10 and has to sign what's called a well release. Basically just says, yes, we know that our well is, the boundaries stand outside the property line. We're okay with that. That tells us for sure it's developmental on those properties. a lot of new stuff that they can decide on small amounts where, well, we can extend that somehow.

Right. Thanks. You got my statement. Yeah. Honestly, it was, learned a lot about false research in this fall, so.

Two points to bring up.

Reserved area. Does that have any things Um, originally it's a septic system.

Um, we found that it was too low with the test bed information that came back. It was too low and it would intercept seasonal high water based on the elevation of the building addition. So that's why we moved it to the other side. get above that table so that's something to be considered um with the the way that the walkway is created to actually get site access to both up to the building and down on some stairs to get to the basement um that's not something that could be a problem here without significant modifications based on your comments again correct and the tanks that the police can be promised today are they still at the phone when you're looking to get another tank

Yeah, there was, to be honest, I don't know quite what they are. They're probably, Steve, you might be able to answer this. Our new district will be built off of where you're currently located right now, so they can stay here.

They will be removed as part of the construction project. It's always on the side of the building that you

What he was describing is in order to maintain the walkway connection to the parking lot here, just, you know, just We can't really mount up any higher without having to put in any additional stairs, which would not be accessible, or significant ramping, which we just don't have the space for the common ramps. So that's another reason why it doesn't work in that form. And we should build a school-educated The parking we would have set up is going to go in the future. There's only four spots allocated to the library. So we're not proposing any changes to the school. So as long as it's in my life space, this will remain. But when you're putting it in this side of the building, you're obviously changing what could be capacity for people to go out there and park, right? Because they want the community, which is further in the park. So more people going back there, then there's four spots. that are a bit on the right hand. So it seems to me to walk with your goals at this point. You're not going to be needing a bunch of access to that apartment.

It's maintaining an existing vision. It's still a big deal. You still need to know about this. You're okay with it. It's going to be a big deal.

same response there's currently a walkway connecting library to that helping models i understand quite a few kids uh if these are all going after school to get from the school to libraries we will be repeating that that walkway giving improvements to it but it basically could be anything to go maybe maybe i'm misunderstanding everyone

I think the concern may be people going back there, parking, regardless of the four spots, right? It's a school parking lot. People, you know, go back there. Again, the school should be aware.

So if they need to put signs around it, let's say school parking so that they can. We will be meeting with the school principal and hopefully the next couple of weeks or so. We've met with the police chief and the fire chief to review some projects with them. We've listened to their feedback and we're beginning to do the school principal as well and um i don't i think we were kind of here but you know earlier we had a problem with sketching and i'm pretty they put an appointment with you know to move the building from the building center we've been gradually trying to reach out to folks in town and introduce the project to them and here's how it started so We've gotten a lot of good comments from the police department and the fire department, and we've been very happy to try to accommodate those to the project, and we'll continue to do that with the school.

So you've got a slow event.

Yeah, I think since they've gone driving, so you can't predict the future. Question for you. So I work in a highly regulated industry and if I have to design or a program that doesn't meet requirements, I'm generally required to meet what is commercially reasonable to have some restrictions that I have designed myself. To Peter's point, There is another spot for a septic, but that was your second location, right? The one that you flashed is this top right? And with building, so I think there's current restrictions with high level of seasonal water. That was great, thank you. And there's virtually viable abilities to remedy that by elevating it, if you have to, right? Yeah, there's a way to make that happen. I assume we're going to the question, you know, still be within that, but if you have to learn. Yeah. It's within the 75 setback of the well, it's within the setback requirements that otherwise would not be required to get a waiver. and you have the ability right this is your design so you designed it this way um therefore um That's not only real. That's my last point. It's just I get the fact that they're four or five feet away depending on the angle of the set of the leach field. You do have to buy the location that doesn't match your intent of your design. However, it's feasible and reasonable to expect that could be an option. That's not really correct. Yes, it doesn't match your intent, but it would mean all of the RSAs. If we were to avoid them? If we were to use their location.

Yeah, it would be all state requirements. However, we still require.

We don't want you to fill in the blank. Because it wouldn't. Yeah, it still doesn't fit in that 35% of that. Okay. Yeah, right. If you were to give me an answer on how far that second location is from the budding, well. If you were to go to the top, I don't know if you would give me an answer on how far that would point from the. I'm assuming it would be a lot of people interested in stuff like this. Yeah, I think. So it's still be close to the 35 feet.

Yeah. So I do see what Steve's got on the screen there. He was using the middle of the middle. That red is the 35. And then where was that? Okay. And the blue is the 10. All right. That's the yellow.

The yellow is the tangent where yellow is. So one foot area. Thank you. the last thing you had was on the time you just got from the pond your first enjoyment so i'll show you excess going into the large product does that set the conditions no we've adjusted that so it now just charges to the east um to the swing on the backgrounds between the um library property line and the school parking lot

What was the distance? This is from the line to the reserve area. Bear with me. I'll tell you what that is.

The state requirement or the state standard is two feet to the ideology. If we consider going from the way we were born in the Pacific, but we got away from four feet to what I think would be eight feet. Um, yeah.

I'm saying nothing. Look at that side again. I don't know.

Yeah, there's another kind of wrinkle that. We really discussed there is that stay area. Maybe there's a permeable capability proposed there for the area we walk out the basement. So again, the permeable permeable paper is the same infiltration cost. There's also set X from from the permeable papers as well. But I see what you're saying. Yeah, I guess is there a specific reason?

I'm just trying to make sure all of the board is looking at it. I'm just seeing if... You know, the board of ambassadors is on the way to the separation. So it's something that they would probably consider if they were going to get it. It's part of what they think is more. So we need a sense of that way before the separation as well as the truth of the site. Yeah, it's great. It's a long fight.

Yeah, based on the designs that we've done on the site at that time and the other location, we feel most that we'd like to feel that this is the best possible. Yeah.

And in terms of the the legal perspective concerns, I mean, that's a, you know, another private wall that lives there. Is there concerns that that would be under that 75 feet regardless of what the law says?

Yeah, it was such a small system, you know, obviously there was But there's not really flow. There's not a lot of flow going here. I mean, since the flow we have calculated for this is less than the same kind of house. It's really just employees and, you know, your visitors going in to read or go and basically learn yourself.

It's not something that we're concerned about, but we do recognize that it's something to consider.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the chat.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the chat

On the septic and the leach field and everything, will there be a big mound out there by the stream? There will not be a huge mound.

So this is, this line right here represents the 200, or basically the 200 elevation of the existing ground out there. There's basically going to be a one foot mount. This is 201 closed around the system. It's basically going to be a one foot mount out there. So it's going to light. It's going to be a three foot mount. You should plan fairly well.

It's a really sad question. Let's follow on. The reserve that we were just discussing, do you have an idea of what that elevation would look like? Okay. But it would be more than one foot, I imagine.

Yeah. 500 feet.

uh for whatever problem so um i'm just wondering too we know most people in town you know there's a plan now for the library to expand do we have an idea of how many what size the expansion is how many square feet now

As I mentioned earlier, we're planning to do a presentation to the planning board, I think early August 19th, next month, where we'll be presenting the whole project. So tonight's presentation is very specific to this waiver request. But next month, we'll be showing and presenting the floor plans, the building, explaining how the inside is being arranged. We'll have exterior elevations, perspectives, So the existing building is about 4,700 square feet. We are putting a new addition on that's 5,700 square feet. So it's a little bit of doubling the size of the building. So the total building at the end of the project will be 9,000 square feet.

That's more than the total rent of last year.

It's roughly the same. It might be about, what did it say? It's probably about 200 square feet more. We increased the basement space. We had, the original plan was going to be too much space. So I'm actually going to need an area underneath the first floor plan. And we actually took advantage of grabbing that space The sprinkler system requires a fire dome. So the cistern that I was describing earlier, we need to have a sprinkler fire dome to pump that into the sprinkler system in the event of a fire. And so that's what increases the spray efficiency.

Does that answer your question? Can I ask one more question?

Is the library going to be asking for another bond for this expansion? Because I've read your, you know, minutes and stuff on these, and it said that they had raised $4 million, but before the post, the cost was $5,500. So there's the other million. I think I'll probably direct to any of your websites in the library here if you all speak to that. We have a lot of fundraising and drinks. Do you plan to get an entire class without asking if they're going to buy a class?

We have about 25 more people.

This question may be for you as well. Are you going to have all this money together before they start construction? This isn't, well, this really isn't a meeting the house question. I understand why, but you see, if you start construction and you don't have money, it's going to fall on taxpayers. We have enough money to start construction. We have four and a half million. We don't have enough to start. I wouldn't start a house with half or part of the money that I needed. I would want to make sure that I have all the money. Well, I can assure you we will have all the money.

By application? Yes. And so there are four that are going to get presentation with planning board. We decided to have in the library, come in, present a slide board meeting as well. We'd like them to go through the zoning board and planning board steps and make sure that everything is, is clearly ready there. So we made the folks know what's going on and we need to make that publicly available. One, make sure they get everything kind of square away from the right part.

I think you'd like some guarantees. Considering our town voted against the million dollar loan that they want to know and so now we are some of us a little bit nervous about this there is not the money nobody goes to the project without the money so we don't want to get we don't want to get billed or have some emergency well we have to pay the money there is not waiting for the challenge it's the library and the trustees that are assuring that you have some money to build it so there's guarantee that we're never going to get us our money for this yeah okay thanks

another question on the plan too excuse us i don't really know what the infiltration bond is so i know it's not the plans i know that there's also been some drainage issues currently on the abutting property and i'm wondering if you can filter it if you want to address those if there's some other way they can maybe cost yeah um yes yeah the idea is that this will um

We're required to basically meet three of the most flows that's what we're required out here. So the infrastructure component has been designed appropriately for that. The emergency spillway that we kind of talked about, I mean, we could switch the location of, really doesn't see any flow coming through, it's a large storm event, so. Flows that we take, like in pre-development conditions, and look at those numbers. Then I take a look at what the post-development conditions look like, and we add the extra impervious area for the building. In tandem with the . This is actually to reduce the . This is actually flowing into . So the locations in the event that there's a large storm event, see the soil out here, you're able to get into that little drain.

So you're able to do your deployment then, you know, and get into the drain.

A lot of that gets into the ground and you don't even see it. The pond holds it for a little bit of time as it fills up and then it will continue to infiltrate and it starts to dry out. The emergency spillway is there. In the event that there's a large front event and the pond were to fill up and not be able to drain enough, then yes, water would eventually spill over into that soil.

I'm worried about going into the school parking lot and say it's at a point where everything might freeze. Are we then creating that? Yeah, there is a way that stormwater is going to flow

To take a look at the screen, you can see the wall line here. There's kind of a 192 contouring system. It's already kind of an existing low point pond in here for a runoff from the school property. So we've done a kind of practice that already done, especially for the team car runoff on our property. Schools were done once on there. um two years ago um i mean i don't want to say there's

That's the libraries. Do you want to see that now, William? Correct. Do you think this construction would have an impact on the school? Like you said, the school deals with the errors going on? No, because our training sponsor looked at a holistic approach, so it includes the runoff coming from the school.

Okay.

Is there another question?

The septic system, I remember you saying that it was small relative to the building, is that correct? I heard the word small. How, if you were going to compare this to the septic system for a house, what would it be, the room size?

Do you know what you mean? It's actually a single-family home. Yes, it's actually a single-family home. How many times can you push the toilet here?

For a single-family state,

The stay required for three and a half hours per day is likely to be higher than seven and a half hours per day, so it's all counts.

How many visitors do you think are going to be flushed in the toilet?

There's calculations on the seven and a half hours per day. Can you just tell me? Yeah, absolutely.

Yes, the difference between a house and a municipal is no showers, right? Right. I think so. So it's going to be just the library. Two restrooms, two toilets. We are replacing these and we are adding seven toilet rooms and with the total of three toilet rooms. And then we are adding two sort of convenience, convenience type settings. We have a small kitchenette and that's going to be in one bedroom. Children's room and the library is also but um there's no shower uh i have time to fix it in the laundry which is 75 oh yeah gmed is now I don't really think I got an answer. How many people can use the toilet per day? For the toilet. How many people can use the toilet per day?

that's not that's not how the state requires septic seismics being looked at how what they look at is an estimate of employees and visitors per day which is a way of providing that's what i want to know yeah radio 10 gallons per day for office employees plus five gallons per day transient is three employees one full-time two part-time so 30 gallons per day 28 transients per day which is based on 2025 data of $178 per day.

Just curious about that. So 2025 data is the existing platform that exists, right? It's not the expanded footprint. But the expanded footprint, I think the idea there is that it's more of a community area, you're getting higher foot traffic and et cetera, et cetera. And so would you want to plan for over?

So that $178 down spray so the system is already almost double the size of what it's required to be just based on nhds requirements you can't design a system smaller than what we have so that's already been affected and done um

First of all, I want to applaud the board. I think, from my experience, it's very unusual for the board to be dealing with these types of issues with the degree of detail and sophistication that we've seen here, and certainly prior to its being reviewed and approved by the Planning Board, Resilient Board, or any other board that might come up in this context. So I certainly give you my applause. I recognize that the chair and director of the library here. So hopefully my comments will not offend them. I, as I told you earlier, he supported libraries, and he is still going forward. However, I would like to sort of echo some of the concerns. And in order to articulate it, I have prepared uh some uh papers so if i may i'll just bring them to you um you want me to

I don't want to .

So to try and understand some of these concerns, let me first just ask a couple of preliminary questions of the engineer. I was an engineer. You're the engineer. You're the . You don't have a law degree, do you? So my first observation is probably it's better not to rely on an engineer for advice any more than I would rely on a lawyer for engineering advice. So insofar as whether the court decision that he cited is germane to the facts and circumstances here with the abutting a landowner is one that I would ask you to suspend your decision on until you've heard from a council on that particular issue. Should you decide to go forward in this? And I'm assuming you will not go forward until you've gotten approval from the planning board, zoning board. So that gets to the next question. Has an application been submitted to the planning board at this point in connection with this construction?

No.

That's right. I just wanted to ask... No, not at all. I just wanted to know what you had. So the first item that I provided for you, you undoubtedly already know, since two out of three of you are, may I say, newcomers. You'll note that this is a reformatting of the information that appears for the operating statement for the library. What you see is, to put it briefly, is that the town pays basically for all of its expenses, from somewhere between 98% and 105% of the expenses from year to year over the last five years. It's increasing, at least in many respects, as somewhere between 17 and 22%. What that also means is that the relative positive income is ranging from a little over $2,700 to a little less than most recently of $6,300 generated by the library. On there, as you know, it's a non-profit. It's an organization under 503. Therefore, they file an annual return on Form 990-PF with the IRS. That's number two of the exhibits. You'll see there that they have total assets of 337.80. And that they took in contributions last year. Last year, by the way, is April 30th. They are on a fiscal year, not on a calendar year basis, of roughly $34,500. So we have a library that is, forgive me, completely subsidized by the county with assets of, you'll see that in the upper left corner, of $338,000. They are contemplating constructing a project that I heard most recently needs $6 million. I mean, it only needs five and a half, and they just want the extra equipment. I don't know. The number I heard most recently some of the director with $6 million that you're looking for. Correct? So I'd like to turn your attention to document number three. Document number three is only one that the Secretary of State would really like, so I apologize for submitting it to you. This is a two-page, and you'll see that it has 66 listed panels. that are in range of population from about 2,500 to about 1,000. There are 46 other mounts, which are smaller than 1,000. I did not include them in there. They aren't really relevant. What you see here is that the current square footage that is represented in the FAQ of the library is 4,885, and that was, at the time of the FAQ, proposed to be a 9387 square foot. Total after the addition, the addition was at that point 4900 of the libraries that fall into this category for a town the size. This will be the second largest by a lot of any library in New Hampshire. The larger one is in cold rooms where you can understand they might need as much of a community as they could obtain. So you'll also see that the libraries expensive there amount to almost a quarter of a million dollars. I heard recently that um one this is a plan that was contemplated back before covid 2019 and one of the perhaps examples was the addition added on to the greenland uh library the greenland greenland as you know is a town that's almost twice the size of kensington And their library, the cost per year is $485,000. Almost three times, actually more than three times what this town is paying at $143,000. So the question arises, is this really a right size type of addition for the library? I heard for what, for me, was the first time that this was contemplated to be a community center, along with the library. When you look at the designs for the library, you'll see that there are actually a very few showing.

The shelving is, I think, front for libraries. The community area is only moderates, and that is more of like not a community center.

So this is a large project arises whether it's the appropriate size projects this time, whether the costs are going to be appropriate, whether the whether we like on this, whether the issues that are arising in the context of a systemic system is appropriate, whether it's the library oversized, or along the lines of what 66 other libraries, frankly, 112 other libraries are like, for their communities. whether then there would be the appropriate setbacks, concerns about the abutting landowners at the same level as there are there. I appreciate your taking the time to look at this. I think it's really invaluable for me. Hopefully it is for you. My only last suggestion is that this this board as you've already echoed will in fact um let this go through the process of going through their plan your planning boards jumping board employees thank you yes i think it'd be the opportunity to mention something about the permit and your application process

Yes.

Since the library is a municipal building, state law exempts it from local zoning. So what I understand and I've communicated with the town manager about this is that we are obligated to make an informational presentation to the planning board, take feedback from the community, But we do not need planning board approval for the project, nor do we need zoning board approval for the project. So that's one thing. I believe we are on the agenda for the August 19th planning board meeting, at which point we'll make a presentation and talk more about the floor plans, where do we need those steps to ensure the floor But part of our rationale for meeting with youth folks first in terms of knowing where we can put the septic system on the site if we choose not to approve what we're proposing tonight then we will need to rework our site start to close it a little bit before um and assuming we're going to do that we would have to come before you again soon and then we would like to have that resolved before making um

Sure.

I would just like to mention that I think the concept was not public billing. I think the concept that he's trying to excuse me, the engine, the architect is trying to address is the concept of government use. And this is an open question. As I understand it, the reason why is the social library actually has a private board and maintains that they own it, not the town that owns the building. Is that correct? The question is whether this appropriately falls within the definition of a government use or not. There are a couple of provisions in there. If it is a government use, then it is the town that has to make the notification that it's a government use in order to trigger that provision. If it is not a government use and or the town doesn't make that application, then it is the applicant, excuse me, notice, then it's the applicant, in this case, the library, that will have to do so. I can't give you advice on this. This is something you'll have to confer with your own council. But that's my understanding.

Again, that is a question we're looking into clarifying. We've had this question as well, and my understanding is that our library and lease structure, in terms of a social library trustees owning the building and the land and the town leasing it, we are one of the last few counties in the state structured this way. So it's taking us a little bit of time to make sure that we're...

This is absolutely nothing to do with the septic. But it was interesting comment that popped up when we speak to the microphone. It was an intriguing point that one has a larger house, one has larger heating costs, et cetera, et cetera. And it was very clearly at the town for our conversation. I believe, Steve, you were there, right? I was. Okay. And I remember multiple times people came up with the question, larger space equals larger expenses. I don't remember where that came in, in the conversation, other than I believe you already know this foundation, because you were mentioning higher efficiency, giving higher efficiency electric. And so, And this conversation is not going to stop, and it will continue to be posed of, while you're making a larger building, therefore it would be more expensive. And I'm sorry that this has literally nothing to do with the subject at all. Maybe just give an executive summary of what you mentioned in the town board conversation. Yeah, I apologize. I don't have like... That's okay. I'll take it to my office. I'm fast. But yeah, in general, it is a larger building. And so, presumably, the operation costs presumably be larger. I can't say that again. I don't have a sense of anything like that, but what I can say is this. We are completely replacing the heating and what there is in the cooling system and the heating system is natural gas. We're completely replacing the entire system with a new all-electric heat pump system, which is naturally is going to be more efficient. We are The new addition, which, as I said earlier, in terms of square footage is larger than the existing building, that will surpass the current energy environment in the state of New Hampshire. So the roof, the walls, the exterior windows, even the doors will be much more insulated. The building itself has minimal insulation. original drawings so and we are wrapped in a significant portion of that building with a new addition we're moving over that building the back part of the building with a new addition with a much more care performing envelope and so even though you know i i think honestly the operation in terms of you know will increase somewhat um it's going to be a more efficient building overall in the end. In addition, the entire building will have cooling. So that is an advantage. And then the building currently doesn't have a ventilation system. We will be installing a ventilation system as well. So the overall indoor air quality and environment is going to be significantly improved with a very efficient operating system.

And I think, you know, we just wanted to get the zoning board and the deciding board to weigh in on some of this before. That's my take on this. And you mentioned that I think we denied the waiver that you'd have to redesign. Looking at the design below the red box on it.

it doesn't really look to me at your slides that there's even that they're really that there would be another option you would typically please um you post i think significant challenges to the design society and i am particularly worried about just pedestrian access and cleaning accessibility of exact same challenge for me was really oh okay well remember yeah you have two violent spots both of which are the exact same you should get do we want to defer this to the until we hear from the zoning board and planning board or contingents contingent upon that of course One, to find out about the government use and if that is fine with the students. Regardless of that, I think hearing there, it's like missing the baton around the same trust as it may be. This is where you're allowing somebody to have, personally, the ability to work at a piece of work and an option to die. Yeah, my only question is, I know time is a constant and work is planned for certain durations and milestones. Would the deferral of our overall opinion to pending a general positive planning board have any detrimental impact on the overall progress?

We have been consuming to start construction on this

Because I find that an informational presentation to the zoning board, in addition to the planning board, with our understanding of the use of the building and the state law in regards to zoning, I'm not quite sure, other than an informational presentation to the zoning board, is there clearly at this point, if we would be asking than just feedback on the project. Yeah, and I think based on what Sarah mentioned earlier, we're still in need of that assurance on our side, and I'm sure that we need it. Right, if we can get some feedback from the town, determining whether this library is considered a government or, I would say the terminology is going to be something that I mean, there are certain scenes of it based on logic and reasoning. Their proposal scenes generally follow in my one opinion. We meet on August 31st, which is only about, I think, what, 10, 11 days after any board meeting? So I don't think, unless you're telling me that maybe 12 days, 12 calendar days, I imagine, wouldn't be hugely detrimental to the overall project timeline. Maybe that's what works for you. I mean, it would give us the satisfaction of understanding that we would have time to make sure the conversation that we just discussed is ongoing. And we would have lots of time to have folks that are much more educated in these areas than we are review this and look through it with you all to come back here. We don't need to redo this because we've already done this. So it would be a rather quick conversation, right? Are you okay with that? And that works for this timeline. on the approach, I think. And I understand this presentation tonight is sort of our first formal presentation on the project. And it was a very focused piece of it. And I understand there are many more questions about the project. As I said earlier, maybe this use was just sort of looking at this component of the project. I also set up sort of a larger project, so. Which makes a lot of sense. You can see our conversation went from something in the middle, so it came back in. Yeah, you know, it's fine. It's fine. But yeah, I think in terms of overall information, we need to know more than finished. If we weren't, that's the top of our list.

So, it sounds like you folks have a lot of homework to do in terms of making that determination. How can we put that to the library?

I didn't see the library.

Yeah. Yeah. Just trying to figure it forward in terms of that steps. We have ongoing inquiries from our side and so let's take that information out and give everybody that information. Perfect. And just a reminder that this deck be shared in the meantime. Can this deck be shared? Yes, I apologize. After we submitted the initial set of drawings, you know, you kind of talked me through and you thought these type of things would all kind of illustrate at least the crux of the problem. So I, uh, I think I acknowledge you, Mark.

Thank you.

Thank you. Put me on that. Absolutely. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for it. Yeah, this is going to be great.

Thank you.

I just don't understand how it works.

Will the select board be making the final decision on this project or is it only about the waiver for the leach field and the well? It's only about, this is only about the leach, the waiver for the subject. is that the site work doesn't have any of anything to approve that in any other building we wouldn't that would be the planning board approving such things and that's where it becomes a question about is there a need for school use and is there approvals or not and what about taking into consideration increasing the operation operating budget for the So when we approached this and when we just revised our lease, we were clear that we're not taking where the town is not taking on additional costs with this. So the way that that would then go is starting our annual budgeting process, where like any other department can make a submission and we can have that conversation with them and be part of the public line. Because of course the cooling costs will be an increase and the pumping will have to that everything that's going to happen. We guess that was a journey, but you said we're going to have to introduce some class. Maybe, maybe not, we won't be long. So obviously, we'll have to see. Which was, what we've heard is we think it's a larger space for sure, but it's also going to be more energy efficient. So I don't think anybody today can say, That's what it is here. We don't like any numbers. I don't think anybody today can say this is exactly what the energy costs are going to be, because we don't know. Excuse me. Thank you. Also, the cost of energy for buildings is going up. So there are incremental costs that we see across the board. it was around all of our individual thoughts there are things like that that we can't control more and if you will see those things go up on a budget for us what i've said though is that the time is put together in every library where things are coming up that we're not taking on we're not agreeing as a town to take on additional costs right now anything that is an additional cost you have to go through the same budget process we've always gotten supposed to have the opportunity to see how to make the decision as those things come We don't know if that increase in energy costs is going to be because the building is not working, but because the cost of oil and gas is going to be. There's all sorts of contingencies that we can't avoid. But everything will be transparent and not much of a process when it's proposed.

I'll do that in two minutes. The library's more energy-conservative approach is any reflection of what the town halls are doing, it'll be extremely possible. already is the roi will be there so like you know again as sarah and everyone's mentioned already you know we don't know what we don't know yet but we've seen some very very positive outcomes with what c can be uh energy committee has done at the town hall we'll get some similar options at the library so thank you good job

We can post as we got to the news department and clarify.

Posting.

All the way from yes, pick you up. Yeah, yeah, so it's gone. It's been pulled back from here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we want to address in the Facebook posting that was addressed since the time and the police department. Misinformation on some issues.

Here's a tax point for his police department.

I guess we start off first with you guys. Obviously this posting so we can kind of follow the direction we're going with this.

So with regards to received back in December, the donation was in the mail box on the side of the couch in regards to paying people's taxes and

it's, you know, a guide and addressed it as, you know, we're having rules and regulations that the state has, you know, they can't accept it. And with it being cash, she was concerned about making sure that we can't send it in the mail. So she did ask us, it'd be good to turn them on to the Senate.

That's correct. Yes.

and regulations about accepting, you know, TAP, you know, any type of violations that she can't just accept it as tax money. So again, in terms of being TAP, she would work with all the power that was going to be sent at her, which our officers did at the time. My concerns with this is that, you know, we'd be trying to work with the town together, all upstairs and everything. So Carly asked us to do this for, We did this, you know, police violence, escort money all the time. So, you know, who else would you rather not have it? It's documented. You have to report on it. All the cash was documented with the exact numbers. So, we have all that. You know, the concerns I have with this, on my end, is how it was brought up as, in this, I don't know where this person is trying to go with this, but it's, you know, The officer advised me, you know, talking to the body camera. We did the body camera footage today. The body camera footage was three minutes and 16 seconds. The date was 12-23-25. Out of that three minutes and 16 seconds, the officer spoke to that individual for 45 seconds. He was waiting for that person to come, so it was a 45-second conversation. In this conversation, the officer advised that use the conversation with being recorded by him, which we do that also. The individual understood that so it can follow up with that. The officer explained to that individual that they just couldn't accept that from the time, wouldn't accept the donation.

The officer never included any laws.

It's not our job to quote those laws when we deal with criminal stuff. Again, working with Colleen with this in regards to this. You know, there's no questions about at the time, about the money being returned. It's all twisted in this is intimidation by a police officer or blah, blah, blah. I'm hoping to let anybody watch this video because it's 45 seconds and the officer, there's nothing intimidating. He wished her a Merry Christmas. And there's nothing intimidating about it. So this is not wrong right now. Facebook misinformation is possibly not, you know, what direction we're trying to go with this. I'm not sure. Trying to say that there's police officers for stuff that probably shouldn't be. Again, we try to work together. If there's something that I thought we shouldn't do, I would have told them we're not to do this. Again, we have a report on it. We did everything. And it was it seems to be consistent you know you say you're intimidating in this but then you said it was nice in the beginning. So there's contradictions in this whole thing. It's frustrating for our employees to see this. It's frustrating to me because someone's trying to paint a picture of these people and how they do things. And yes, in my eyes, it's frustrating.

That's all I have to say. To see this again, if anyone else comes to the body camera footage, how? You know, I'm not playing football like you're doing. Yeah, there's a lot of nonsense on. I don't really want to do so far in Michigan, but have done different things and we see this side of the chair. One is the. He likes that going down certain roads here. He took a very appropriate approach of we don't want to get people in trouble. We don't want to be over the top. We want people to be safe and we will. continue to make sure that that happens and that we don't undo issues with folks in this town. The other one that is way more impactful was the ICE grant. You had every right, but we could not stop you from going in and applying to that and utilizing it. And you said, I'm not here to rip apart the town. I don't want to do that. That's not what the police department represents. It's not who we are. It's not who we want to be viewed. You said that very publicly. And that was a rather large-value inflection for the department in general. And it could have been something where you said, we just need the money, we just need to do this, and we'll deal with the consequences of the fallout. But you did not. And so for me, you know, the fact that my children still like to trade police officer cards around their school. I think it's an indicative morale of how we were viewed as a department. There will always be people in the world who maybe don't quite understand intent, but are misconstrued. I can feel very frustrated when you spend a lot of time and effort as a department or as a pull-out figure within this town to try and do your best. uh for the best interest of those around and so i appreciate you bringing this up um and i hope that the fellow folks in town know that your department and the departments all represented here do their best all the time um Yeah, it's not reasonable because I keep inviting people to come to this forum and don't ever sit in here, and so I just won't sit up on it. My issue with the police office was intimidating.

Again, so I'm going to look at my job to see if there was some question about my office. Because if there is, we're going to address it. And there was nothing bad, even close to it. So that asked me to foster to the violence, you know, making sure that this agency is working for the town is doing things to lower pressure on their residents.

I would use it living. I think that, you know, we've been sort of back in the old university. We bring up a lot of good points that, you know, the comments about intimidation and things like that. Unfortunately, I think we live in a society where there's people who get their news on Facebook and don't do their own investigations, so they start to take whatever they read as facts. But I'd also add, I mean, there's just the fact that then almost the individual suggesting the, you know, more people request the video for freedom of information, especially so dated after the fact, which is, again, a use of time resources. And so I think just calling out the fact that this is certain apocalyptic And this individual's had multiple that I've taken screenshots myself of because there's been comments about the board making decisions that suit our own best interests, which I don't know that we've made any decisions up until this point that have had any self-interest designed behind it. So, you know, we're, you know, we could not support even our information if that's on record that what we're reading doesn't match the reality of what it is. Is that when this happened? Yes. So the date of this decision was the 23rd or 25th. Okay.

So you're right. I had that on the tips in my brain when I originally read this.

This is what I'm saying. I don't know where it's coming from. This is

I think the challenge, as you said, it's the misinformation that's out there and it's challenging to address it, sort of saying please kind of ask the next questions, come to these meetings, reach out. I'm very open if you have suggestions on the other ways to against the decision. I'm not going to go into Facebook and try to say something and I'm not going to hype these people on Facebook.

I think my vision was the intimidation thing. Again, I want to look into it, see if there's something you need to be concerned or look into. There's nothing, you know, close to it.

That's a thought of mine.

I'm visually going to be taking the thought form too. So, straight on it. Let us know if there is being continued supporting with the department to make sure that the information is correct.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else?

Do you want me to follow up with what I received? Sure.

Yeah, I'm going to draw a line. I'm going to write about my son's stomach pain in November.

was just telling me to give it to somebody that needed it.

And when I had no authority to do that, I didn't have the authority to go along with it. This is just the same. That was my mistake. The big thing that they thought we were going to do was not to refuse to buy it. This didn't belong to the tax collector or that office.

There is an RSM, the people that they meet when they're needed the most.

There is an RSM where they are not able to take any of the meetings. It has to be a direct person. It has a title of mortgage property. They'll be able to pay the same expenses and put taxes just to help out some of them I wanted April to be the next person saying, if I don't get it, I don't think I'm going to do that. So I . So I was supposed to save seven months, and I think it was . it's that we will raise you.

The town and the tax authority cannot do that on an individual basis. And the abatement has to be done through things that we call an exemption. So there isn't a way for the structure to do anything with the donation that comes through, not only to distribute to whoever we deem.

I need a warrant for them.

Thank you.

Thanks. There's certain ways for neighbors to call neighbors.

Because I'm going to read also that supposedly said that I would not develop a list of when you can leave. And I do it all the time, so I'm excited to see what's going to happen.

That's some good news. The tanks are done. It is sitting currently in the stadium.

The radio is going to be installed. is the third and the sales rep trainer come down and give us a full long-term training on the job. And then we're going to have a briefing ceremony on August 8th at 10 a.m. It's been invited, but it's still to be guided. We have five teams that have been invited to the main event. Our sales rep, he will be there. So we'll be pushing the ceremony. That's pretty much it for fire. EMC, I don't have anything to report on our experience in the house until September, so there really nothing to do with the program. There'll be anything until then. So that's all I got.

I'm going to be away. I can't join. I can't attend the question ceremony or having a video.

I'm not. Nor am I a questioner.

I think we always want to reach out to the past board members because they were comfortable in the process too.

Thank you. Thank you. It's impossible to cross talk about anything with microphones.

So hard to hear back there. We're so aware that you guys are going to pick up the phone and you're not controlling it. We're talking nowadays. We can't hear you. We don't have one.

We can't listen to you better.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Where it was just. Yeah.

I don't think so.

Okay.

So make sure your phone's slow.

So, we also have a lot of things to say.

thank you harley anything else to record on your end

So we can go into elections.

You've kept me up an hour beyond my bed time.

So let's make this good.

Me too. Anything transpired? I know that the chief went to get it managed and that's not a solution. We're six weeks away from the day. Oh, what's up?

Sorry, I tried. Yeah, no, I understand.

My question was if we have anybody that reached out to or if we were interested in reaching out to, you know, Building Block Commons came up with some recommendation, you know, middle and high school age students, seeing if we could get, maybe they have a service club or something there that would be interested. But also, I know that this September election in particular may be tricky, whether it's for them or others, with it being on Monday, it's Labor Day. So something else to keep into consideration for, you know, maybe September is different than November in terms of how we stop it.

I think the answer is not much. Okay.

Again, it is your statutory responsibility. I've been doing it for 17 years. I don't want to say I'm done with it, but it's a tremendous amount of work for me to do. I don't want to burden you folks with it, but you have to come to terms with this. We've got November, September, next March, then we've got a relief. But then in 2028, we have four elections. So this is an ongoing municipal responsibility. And again, I'm there. There's no question.

I know that Stu had mentioned like an Eagle Scout or like the Boy Scouts. It could be something else that we research as well.

And there was some hesitation around that when we mentioned it before. Are you open to us reaching out to schools or like an Eagle Scout or building blocks?

Volunteer members.

I can reach out to them. I mean, there's also the possibility of reaching out on social media. And I'm sure there are people in town that will volunteer, but that's a short-term stopgap solution. It's not really a longer-term problem. And I just, I really want to reinforce that this is something that it's not just your responsibility. It's an ongoing responsibility. It should not rely on the individual. I've lectured you that before. I'm sorry to keep hammering away at that point.

Well, it's important and it needs to be covered and addressed. I'm also wondering if we could just, just like others,

the box like it could be you know actually they're hiring us something that yeah i think the key that would be to carol's point having something that's consistent so if it's so that it's not these three students that picked it up this year but that it is officially the whatever club or a unit or you know somebody with an ongoing responsibility for it and then

Yes, we're petting it in the southern end.

It's transported from Hayford School. Carolyn, can you remind me, who's been in the last few years, who's been helping you?

Ben, but Ben's responsibilities are tremendous now at Southern Hampton. had fights through the process, saying he said I'm 72 years old, I should have no addition. Yeah. Okay. So basically it's been goodwill. It's been goodwill. Yeah. And normally it belongs to the school. In Exeter, it belongs to the school staff. And in local elections, that might work, but we don't have that option here in Kensington.

There's staff that's not made it only to us in Kensington.

All right, so I will then take this on social media challenge this time for September. That would be our building block comment on social media.

I think it shows that we need a solution that can at least fix in the interim while we come up with a solution. I know you've given us ample time and I'm not sure we have taken it. I think a small blitz for this one is probably the most likely outcome to be successful. However, it's very obvious that we need to do more on our side.

If you charge like a set-up committee, you know, and just appoint them as a set-up committee, can you say that they're going to probably function set-up day down, see if they're going? I mean, you want to tell me a few times again. Yeah.

Carol, would you like me to assist you on this social media? Yeah, we'll see. Let's see how it goes.

As I said, we're six weeks out, so it would probably happen like two weeks out because people tend to volunteer. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's a good approach.

I think so too.

Yeah, that gets away from the information.

Yeah.

If you think something is a short word, what it is that it provides, honestly, I don't even take it if you're not given such a whole list. That's the extent. And the next day you come in and say, yeah. Yeah. So no mind listening to it over and over again.

Over and over again. Yes. I agree with that. folks are off the hook.

I think we could invite folks to an upcoming meeting if they want to hear more, discuss the past questions. Awesome. One other question, with this one being the Tuesday after Labor Day, and you talked before about getting into the school, like after three students, like after students are out, is there any change for when you can access the building on Monday, with it being Labor Day? Okay, just want to make sure someone is there, makes sure we can get into the building.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your patience. I appreciate your time.

Yeah, so this is really related to Sprint Data Scotland website content. I know it's come up a few times about what we should be posting on the website or if this is supposed to go. I'd love to, you should say, can I come up with a, here's what the purpose of the website is and what is posted there so it's clear if something should or should not go there. I know Tommy brought up the, you know, in terms of cost to do that. So I mean, there's a lot of information in there. So we're obviously public, but I also want to make sure that the MIP website remains as easy to find stuff as it can be. And so we need some information that we then need to think about making sure it comes out in the top page, the new one's up, and what are the possibilities for that. So I don't know if anyone has thoughts on that, and I create sort of a I don't know if policy is not necessarily the right word, but an overview. Yeah, procedure of what we would have done, I would say. And then maybe that would be good for residents. If they're not seeing something, it's not because it doesn't exist, but this is where you would find out how you would have assisted them. And some of this stuff would be sensitive information to the government act. Yeah. So the level of

Okay, I think earlier, first of all, thank you for even considering this. And I think listening, you made a lot of my arguments today about Facebook. So the challenge is, if I need to get information, I have to write a 91A request to Kathy. Kathy's really busy, and that 91A request has a limit of five days. If she doesn't respond in five days, she's going to tell us why she's not responding in five days. And then that stuff gets posted on a Facebook page, right? Because there's nowhere. It just so happens. was a lot of questions, a lot of, and no one knew there was even a lease. And what happens is, I think it gives us more with the town, more credibility, more transparency, if contracts, as we had them do with the school just recently, posted, because then other people can see that, you know, what, you know, regardless of, it's not about who's getting paid what, it's getting to know what the contracts are in town, and it invites people to participate. Because most people don't even know that anything's going on. So if we have, to your point about having more people come here rather than Facebook, if there's something that they can get involved in or they can read, automatically, if I post it on Facebook or something, it's automatically controversial because then you get people on this side and people on this side. And all of this is facts. I never tell it. for yourself. And I think if that's available on the town and say, oh, you know, contracts in here and here's the link and, you know, and people can just go to them and see them. It's much better than someone misrepresenting something in a post. I think it's better to bring more people to the town. It's transparency. It's a public right to know anyway, and it just takes away any more pressure or work for Kathy. If I have to ask for an AOP, everyone's asking for an AOP. So if you would consider it, I think it's a great solution and it shows real transparency. I think it takes people, more people will participate.

Thank you. Thank you.

I would just add that I agree, right? You know, more easily navigable. I mean, again, the default budget adds challenges, but I think when the time comes, where there's leaps and bounds in technology and the way things can be edited, so I think

I think it just clarifies that folks know they're looking for something just because it's not on the website doesn't mean it doesn't exist so that they can't access it. I think I probably have some thoughts on some things that maybe don't belong on there. I feel like that's an individual. I don't know if I have any contracts posted on my site. That's public information and you can ask them. Those agents will know when you have that posted publicly.

I know, but that was the challenge with the school too. We kept asking because people don't know to go to the SAU 16 website. If you go to the Kensington website and all the other towns have their school board salaries, it's already published. Ours was on the SAU 16 website, but no one knew to go there. So what happened, it only started a controversy. It was like the school was hiding something, right? That wasn't true. No one knew where to look. If you go to the SAE 16, you'll never find it anyway. But that wasn't the case. just got a 91 a put it out there and it makes people it doesn't matter it's the fire chief the police chief any you know every every town does every town has the availability and it is you know no one likes that it's uncomfortable but it is a public employee so i understand both sides but um i'm just thinking we want to get more people to participate we want more people to come um and the more we get them off facebook but unless someone feels that's the only place to communicate then they won't come in here so thank you um

there are starting to put their request into the town though it would be the best thing to do in the context of those that we are aware of and submitting to the month-to-month process I'm going to inform something and say that you know to include health and fairness in the city of Virginia where there wasn't any kind of convincing survey searching

But it's been done in the past, except the ones that we've always had on there.

We decided to put them in as layered warrant articles, instead of making them go through the petition warrant process. Because again, they're $20,000. They're $1,000. They do the items. I know it was a contention at the beginning of the session that we should be teaching more articles instead of selecting more articles. So I just didn't know if you have thoughts on that or if you wanted to start something where if there's a new social service entity that comes forward, maybe we make the undue petition more of an article first here. And you see that on the dance floor.

And so I'm going to put my petition up.

It seems reasonable to me. Not once since I've been going here has that been voted down, as you mentioned. And they're the typical ones that come every year when you change. Similarly, the dollar amount hasn't really changed either, as far as I can tell. So I would just continue that the way it is to make it as easy as possible for us. And I really like your suggestion of any new should go that makes a lot of sense all right because a lot of them make millions yeah anything because i think that's the bottom of the sound right now anyway so allow them a little bit more for each one and then so anything that would be giving them their opportunity as well yeah i think that approach okay there's a position to divide that

Yeah, we have signatures from the town. They used to go outside of the salons we went to. It's only a part of their social services to get their signatures because there isn't like a real gathering spot within the town. Some of the social services have people from the town that volunteer for those. So they all start signing and then they'll be, you know, here they go or have their things and get them signed.

Yeah, that's what you get, I'd say.

okay perfect um another thing was just an implication that um the paramedic program um and i did sign it as um the town of the administrator consent bond that they needed to have it by uh

And it was just .

So I just . And that's if it were intended to be much money that the ALS program is supplying . Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So . They're trying whatever hours they can. So that's comfortable.

That's under the new coalition? The new ALS coalition?

Yes.

The mosquito update.

Do we need to do anything for that?

No. You're good. This is just information. I just want to make sure you all know this. Signed by me and put forward for the channel to be a supporter of this grant. Opportunities are good. When the mosquito control was up, they didn't know what we wanted. We needed to propose like a finding instead of grief. So for me,

That's funny enough. Last year, when we were all playing baseball in Slater Park, and everyone was like, oh, we should probably stop. We're about to get hit by an mosquito. I think something that affects public safety is something that would definitely be of interest to the broader mass. I'd say that, for me, seems appropriate.

Right.

Definitely. And so as we start making the procedure of your last call of safety.

Yes, right. And the effects on a negative way. So yes or no, then they should go. But yeah. But the environmental stuff, the environment is a really big key. I mean, water is an interesting one. So the most precious resource in the world sooner than later. Perfect.

So when you sign up to the $322,000 valuation, that will change the amount due, which will be coming out plus the interest.

And then the only thing that's changed on this would be that, you know, the 382 and the 382 showroom. But we actually know what that's been like because that 6800 is long back. Got it. So this is just signing and saying, you know, it's the 38 to not 45,000.

That was part of the building relax policy. Yes. Yes. Part of the recommendation was to correct some figures and possibly what we paid on the last section. Thank you.

So I also did the assessment when I used change tax. It gives a section there to explain it. So I put the original explanation and then I also added it in when the board made the decision And I described it in the original open page where it was reported. Just to face the fact. Because this is important because when we go to the town itself, following current news, then it's one way that the state does draft within the towns. So it needs to be correct. I don't know what you needed to say. Just a second. Just a second.

Sorry.

This is just to be vital. We're going to have to Because I was honest.

Those minutes are somewhat, yes.

But Kathy, did you cover the social services? Yeah, I missed it. I missed it. What was the outcome?

Um, just that, um, to perhaps, whether or not to have them do the petition warrant was the question because I'm already starting to receive them. Yep. So, with the work, and I discussed about going towards doing the ones that we already have, and then maybe once, maybe having them do the petition warrant as well for the process.

and then keep the ones that we have so you want to grant by the the previous ones who said no we can't either just utilize the existing structure that has been in play for the rest of its i'm not sure it's a great father i'll just say utilizing existing structure and all new ones that come into town require repetition it's only facts and injuries um the ones that have been in play for And in the voting structure, people have the right to say no if they want to, but they have continually been tasked with almost no impact on the tax structure. I think you'd be stumped in the room, but if you're going to do it, you have to do it for everybody and keep doing it halfway.

That's the challenge. And we ask the citizens to do a petition one on one. No citizen gets any, if they're raising money or anything, every citizen has to pay for it, as well as to do a petition one on one and is required to get to 25 names. I think we're making a special exception. I'm afraid we're creating a two that you don't think about this. We're creating two ways of people to do this and no different from people from the town. Anyone that comes here, a citizen and a taxpayer has to do a petition warrant article. A lot of these people, they're incredible services. No one's degrading them, but they're not from the town. And we're creating a double system for people who were here and then not here. And it just, to me, it doesn't, if we're going to do it, do it all or don't do it at all. But I believe we, you know, it should be,

I think there's a difference between a citizen and an entity that has been receiving funds from the town year over year with voter support for it. The select board costs, the ability to say if we can put those on as more from the selection than that for a community. So that's at least 16 or so. Right.

Look at the numbers that have increased. I mean, if you look at how many there are now, they just have to show up. That's what I'm saying. The citizen pays taxes here and does this, has to step up to the 25 signature level in anything that happens. We voted, I believe we voted to change this, to have this change. And so having dual systems is unfair for the people who come after, as well as the people. It's just a judgment call on your part.

um like i say i think it's it's if we're going to joke with jordan from all off right now thank you to the board running for me that's to approve for june 6th june 15th in july yeah

So now we can get a motion to approve all three.

I think that's a good idea.

I'm going to approve the board minutes from June 6th, 2026, June 15th, 2026, and July 13th, 2026. I second that motion. All in favor?

Aye. Second.

Second.

Second.

Second.

i still don't know too i'm going to be uh i won't be doing all the summers this friday next friday thank you very much Thank you. Thank you.

The snake turn off.