Town Council - Regular Meeting

It is Monday, April 20th, 2026, and this is London Town Council meeting. Can everyone please stand for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We have a couple pieces of town council business here. Um, I've received several emails over the last few weeks regarding social media issues. So, I've decided that we as a council are going to provide elected officials uh social media training. The second business we have here is I have an anonymous case number 531514 that I received on 11326. And for this I need a vote from the council to to do an investigation.

Motion to move forward with the investigation. A motion from Ted. I'll second it. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Opposed. Opposed. Chair was in the affirmative. Oppos.

Okay. Can you just make clear for the recording secretary as to who opposed? I'm sorry I didn't speak the mic. So you guys are saying no. Correct. We can do a roll call vote which we should uh roll call vote. Holmes. I'll abstain. Um Ron Dunn, yes. Dan Bushard, no. Deb Paul, no.

Okay. So that would mean the motion would fail. Okay. Um, up next I have a proclamation which Mr. Combmes is going to read.

Yes. Thank you. Uh, today I have the great honor of a proclamation in honor of the National Small Business Week 2026. Whereas small businesses are the heart of our nation's economy, serving as the engine for the innovation and invention that drives technological advancement, builds our nation's infrastructure, creates opportunities for those in our community, provides valuable services to lenders, residents, and enriches the fabric of our town. And whereas small businesses employ more than half of American workers, including thousands of residents in the town of Lendere. And whereas the town of Lundere admires, respects, supports the role of small businesses in helping Lundere thrive. And whereas in 2026, the town of Lundere takes particular pride in Gray Consulting and Therapy, a Lundere business, which was selected as 2026's New Hampshire Womenowned Small Business of the Year by the US Small Business Administration in recognition of Heather Gay's exceptional resilience, innovation, and community impact. And whereas National Small Business Week has been pro proclaimed by the President of the United States since 1963, honoring the vital role of small businesses in creating jobs, growing the economy, and honoring our economic communities. And whereas the town of Andre joins in this national effort to recognize the contributions of small businesses to the American economy and our own community. celebrating their importance and preserving the vibrance of Londere now and in the future. Now therefore, let it be proclaimed of the Lendary Town Council that May 3rd through 9th, 2026 is National Small

Business Week and all citizens are encouraged to support small businesses and celebrate their many achievements. Thank you. And as well, congratulations to Heather Gray for Gray Consulting and Therapy. Up next, we have an update from Captain Captain Patrick Cheetum on the Bring Back the Trades Expo that happened on Saturday. It was a wonderful event, sir. So, thank you.

Uh, Mr. Chairman, members of the council, Mr. Town Manager, and, uh, the packed audience we have here. Good evening. As the chairman said, my name is Patrick Cheetum. I'm a police officer and a captain with our police department. And while every day in London area I think is a great day, we had an especially great day this past Saturday at the Londoner High School where we held our second annual Bring Back the Trades Skills Expo. Uh Vice Principal Katie Sullivan who is co-chair locally with me uh couldn't be here tonight uh but she deserves a tremendous amount of credit for all the work that she did uh in our event. We're very proud to say that in the just the short one year uh in which we've been bringing this program to Londereerry uh this year uh our event was uh attended by nearly 1,200 young people not just from Londereerry but from around the state Massachusetts Maine and Vermont while our target audience was is our our community and people in New Hampshire. Uh we gave out more than $35,000 in scholarships uh to 14 different young people uh so that way they can pursue uh education and training and anything from welding to automotive uh technician type stuff uh carpentry uh any type of trade that they so choose. In comparison to last year we were able to give out three scholarships totaling $4,500 although we raised $30,000 last year. uh to say that we gave out a few more scholarships this year compared to last um was we were very pleased by the level of participation not just from uh local residents uh but also the Londere School District, Dan Black, our superintendent was there as well as Rick Barnes, the principal of the high school, both were in tremendous support and I don't know if he walked in um before I stood up, but Bob Slater wanted to join me uh this evening as well. Is Mr. Slater here?

No. Um, but uh Bob Slater, superintendent of uh our school district as well as a local business owner, longtime resident has been supporting our program for the last two years as well. I'd also like to recognize that every member of the town council stopped in or or said hello or sent a text message just checking in about how busy the parking lot was. So, I really do appreciate your support as well. And uh next year under uh Katie's leadership of the new Lancer Academy, I believe that we'll probably house this program uh under under her tutelage going forward. Um, one question I was asked on Saturday and then I'll I'll wrap it up. I know we have a busy agenda or you I'm sorry, you have a busy agenda. This is my agenda. Um, you know, why is the police department involved in a bring back the skills trades expo? Um, so a year ago, January, Katie and I were at a lendary Rotary meeting over at the coach stop in at 7:30 on a Wednesday morning and Shaina Brun, executive director of Bright the Trades, came to share what their program was all about looking for a donation and Katie and I approached her afterwards and said we need to do this in London. Last year we had four months to plan our event and it was while well attended. It was a great start. Um and as a function of my role as the um department CEO, community engagement officer um you know Katie and I just you know ran ran with the ball and I have the chief and the deputy chief support always in programs like this. So I I believe we are the only police department in the country that co-sponsors a bring back the skills trades expo and uh happy to say that London leads the way when it comes to trades expose in uh in our region. So, thank you very much. I'm happy to take any questions. Um, but

well, I want to personally thank you and Kathy for all the work you did. It was an excellent event. The governor came. Governor was very happy. Yeah. Governor Governor said she was very happy to come to London area and see how we lead the way. And Governor to her credit, she spent nearly an hour and a half at our event and a bit. So, for a woman with a very uh busy schedule, I think she uh had a personal touch with almost every business owner uh indoors, inside and outside. And we and thank you for uh sharing that. I don't want to It's important that we recognize the government as well. Anybody else have any questions? No, I was just impressed. Every time I drove by on Saturday, the parking was completely packed all day. All parking lot areas, not just the main school lot.

I think we we might have to reserve Matthew Thornton uh parking lot for next year and maybe even run some shuttles. But ser in all seriousness because uh um it was it was full to say the least. And excellent. Thank you to all the vendors that participated um made it happen. And thank you both again. Great wonderful event. Thank you very much and thank you for your time.

With that, I'll open up public comment.

Good evening, Mr. Chair. I'm great. Kevin Smith, 6 King Phip Drive. Um, I noticed that there's some listening sessions coming up on I'll call it the Lion's Hall. And there's a reason I'm calling it the Lion's Hall. So, I just wanted to share with you an anecdotal story that happened between my wife and I recently. This was probably like 3 weeks ago. But we're driving through the center of town and I noticed that the Presbyterian church had yellow caution tape up around the doors and I said I said, "Uh-oh, I hope something's not wrong with the structure of that building." I said, "It would be a shame to lose both that building and the Lions Hall." And she said, "Yeah, and the rever Reverend Morrison House." And I said, "Yeah, I that's what I said, the Lion's Hall." And she goes, "No, I know you said that. I'm talking about the Reverend Morrison House, the red house." And I said, "No." I go, "That's the same same thing." She goes, "No, it's not." She goes, "The Morrison House is the thing, the red house down Pillsbury Road." And then she pulls out her phone and starts going on the internet, pulls up the historical society and shows me the Morrison house being the red house. And I said, "No, that's the Morrison house museum. The other thing is the Reverend Morrison meeting house." And I that's when it occurred to I said to her, "What did you think the Warren articles were when he went and voted?" She said, 'I thought they were to fix the red house.' She said, 'I couldn't figure out why we were spending $3 million to fix the red house, she said. And then the second warrant article, she said, I thought it was to fix both the Lions Hall and the red house. So I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

And she goes, no. And I know it sounds like we don't talk, we do, but we don't talk about this stuff, believe it or not. So she gave me permission to share this story art. So then she said, she goes, because she's a school teacher in town, she said, "Well, I'm going to go in and I'm going to talk to the teachers at our Lendere residence and see what they thought." So she comes home the next day and she says to a person that she talked to at the school, they thought the Warren articles were about the Red House and not about the Lions Hall. So, I share that story with you because I think for those of us that are like in the 0.5% town hall bubble, we all understand what's being talked about. But for those people who have a life outside of here, uh, they may have actually been confused on what the war warrant articles were intending to fix. So going forward for the marketing of what's going to happen there, um I just think a much better job needs to be done about distinguishing what is the meeting house, Lions Hall and what is actually the museum on Pillsbury Road. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thank you.

Thanks, Kevin. Good evening, sir. How are you tonight?

Hi, John Farrell for Hancock Drive. So, um I posted on the town uh Facebook page that you're having this taking off on what Kevin said, this listening session next week. It's vacation week. And um taking on what Kevin was saying, I said in in my post, I said maybe it'd be a good idea to get the Lions Club and the Historic Society involved in helping host it rather it just be, you know, a town event. They might actually think about things that are not millions of dollars and they may think about things that, you know, will go out and get grants or maybe they're looking to take more of a position on the whole thing. But, you know, just continuing with what Kevin's saying, one other thing I wanted to comment on is is um this anonymous thing. It's silly. You know, we didn't need it for until just recently. It's silly. I don't know why you keep doing it and spending money on it. If if you're going to be anonymous, go go play on Facebook. Okay? If you got something to say or you have a complaint or you want to do something, if you don't put your name on it, it's probably not worth saying. So moving over from that, um the town treasurer is Tom Dolan. I am his deputy. A um the treasurer charter change went to the voters twice in the in the last few years. The voters of London were clear. They don't want a change. They want the oversight provided by the town treasurer and they want it to be independent. Let's make no mistake in understanding these are public funds. For the first time maybe in history, the London Derry Town budget at almost $57 million is now higher than the $55 million budget being presented in Derry. And we all know how the people of Derry feel about their tax bills, which have traditionally been significantly higher than the town of London. The town treasurer has been analyzing and reviewing monitoring the expenses. As

someone who is personally involved in the development of the current budget myself, while we all understand it's a bottom line budget, it appears that a lot of coloring outside the lines or line items have been increased. Many of these items are of a recurring cost nature which will rolled into this next year's default budget. This is another reason why I am always seeing the default budgeting as a law that needs to be rewritten for today's economy, which I've been worked on with you, Mr. done the chairman and we recognize that the default budgeting needs to be adjusted. The voters approved a budget a cost in collective bargaining agreements with the expectation that they would be honored. So the voters approved these. It's the job of the elected officials all of you to provide oversight. We've never had a revenue problem in London. Revenues keep going up. Motor vehicle property taxes. Everybody loves their property taxes, but if you're not careful, you're going to have a spending problem, which many other towns in this state have. During many years in past with Mr. Smith as the town manager, we'd freeze hiring, spending freezes to affect cost control over costs. I'll be very interested in the finance department update. How much money will be left to return to the voters in the UFB, otherwise known as undesated fund ballots? My guess is not much. It requires over $150 million to run all government and school bodies here in town. Over $125 million comes through this building. The community takes great pride that we do everything possible to protect our precious assets at the schools, children, staff, first responders. Are we providing that same level of protection here in town hall or was that money spent coloring outside the lines?

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anybody else in public comment? Good evening. How are you tonight?

Good evening. My name is uh Tyler Vickery from Hudson, New Hampshire. Like to touch base about the skatepark, just say a few things. I've been skateboarding for over 20 years. In that time, I've seen skatep parks come and go. What I've learned is these parks are more than just concrete and ramps. There are places where people find passion, community, and purpose. Having a local place to skate is incredibly important, especially for the kids. There they are students getting out of school right across the street who may not have transportation or means to travel far. A skate park nearby gives them a safe, positive outlet where they can go ride after school and do what they love. Taking away a beautiful place tucked away in Londere won't just remove a park. It will impact the entire community. It affects the kids of today and it will affect the kids of tomorrow. I've seen this happen before with the David WDN skate park in Nshawa. When it was torn down, it hit the community hard. A lot of my friends stop skating as much. Not because they lost interest, because they lost their place to belong. At the time, at the same time, I've also seen what happens when a community comes together. When a new park was built to replace it, it gave a whole new generation a chance to grow, connect, and thrive. Seeing young skateboarders enjoying that space reminds me how important these places really are. Skateboarding has evolved. As of 2020, it's even part of the Olympics. This isn't just something that happens in driveways or empty parking lots anymore. It is a recognized sport, a lifestyle, and a for many a path forward. A skate park is where skills are developed, friendships are built, and confidence is gained. It is a place where people from all backgrounds come together and support each other. I understand that funding is always a concern, but I truly believe if we come together as a community, we can find a way, whether it's fundraising, partnerships, or creative solutions to keep this space like this alive. I've seen firsthand how passionate this

community is. I even have friends like Drew Hupold in Londereerry who have gone on to make a career out of designing and constructing skate parks. This passion starts in places just like this. So I asked you to consider the park really represents not just a recreational space. It is an environment for our youth, our community and our future. I hope we can come together and preserve the skate park in this beautiful town of London, New Hampshire. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. How are you tonight? Good evening. I'm well. How are you guys? Good. Um, so I was here the previous meeting and it was the wrong meeting. Say your name and address for the So I'm back. Say your name. Just say your name and address for the record.

Yep. Uh, Drew Upold. Um, I'm a resident of Londereary and have been my whole life. I'm an avid skateboarder who frequency skatepark. I am concerned with the possible loss of the skatepark as I know how impactful they can be on a community. Not only do they bring traffic through town, which is beneficial for local businesses and things alike, but they're extremely beneficial for the youth as it provides a safe haven for local kids to gather and express themselves through skateboarding and other action sports such as BMX or scooter rollerblading. It's great for physical and mental health and also produces strong determination and perseverance in oneself. Myself, along with countless others, have used our free time to maintain and clean up the park whenever it needs to be done. The thought of losing this place is unimaginable as how impactful it's been on the New England community. I know that funding can be an issue and there's ways around that. I mean, uh, we're very close with the Eastern Borders, a local skate shop, and they have a big following and they are they've already set it they're down to help, you know, in any way possible to fund raise and, you know, whatever we can do to get an event going. Um, and I just know that the community here, I mean, maybe we have small numbers tonight, but if we really get an event going to get some fundraising, I know that it's it would hit. Um, I know plenty of people who would be willing to donate their time and or money to keep this place alive and thriving. Uh if worst comes to worse and building a new skatepark isn't foreseeable, maybe at least we leave the space so we can continue to have ramps that people can, you know, build in their free time or uh you know, just have like a space that we can skateboard because if you're going to push us out of there, then where are we going to go? for the kids at school who I grew up going to London Derry and I was always

able to bring my skateboard with me so I could just walk over to the skatepark after school and I mean that was one of the best things ever. I grew up doing wrestling and playing hockey. I believe I wrestled with John, right? Uh yeah, great guy.

Thank you. And um you know it's just like skateboarding like those are two great sports and they do a lot for someone but for some reason skateboarding's always stuck with me over those and I know it's done for a lot of other people too. Um I work for a skate park company build concrete skate park so I know what I'm doing. if uh we can you know keep the space and maybe we can make something work you know trying to just make it skate place. I don't know I'm losing track but uh the locals alone are capable of building it myself and a few others work for concrete companies specializing skateparks. We have built a few ones nearby such as Portsmith, Dover, Manchester, Lincoln, Nasha, Meredith. Um we've got one coming up in Bethlehem. like it's the amount of towns that are, you know, revamping their skate parks and whatnot. It shows that it's beneficial to the community. I think um skateboarding means so much to us, the community, and it would be unfair to take away a space like this for future generations cuz the amount of friends you get and just lifelong friends, a lot of benefits happen from that. And uh it's just I don't know. It's crazy what the skateboarding community can do. And I not going to stand to see it go.

All right. Uh thank you. And I don't know if uh do you guys answer any questions or anything or is this kind of just a comment? Yep. All right. Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Anybody else in public comment?

Good evening, sir. How are you tonight?

Good evening, town council. My name is Paul Scalar, 20 Woodvine Drive. Um, I'm back again for reasons you probably understand why I'm back. Um, just to kind of bring people up to date, last u couple of weeks ago, I was in here to talk about the citizen petition letters and um was uh you wanted to make sure that those letters went out as prescribed in the citizen petitions and I know now that those letters did go out and those letters went out with one signature, not five signatures. Um, I was not given any kind of reason as to why that was happening. Um, none of you provided a reason. I reached out via email. Um I think two days after the uh that meeting I heard back from one person that being councelor Bousard who responded back thank you. I think there might have been a period at the end of the thank you and that was the extent of the communication after two two emails where I tried to explain provide context as to what was to be to be done. Uh to reiterate, um both of those citizen petitions uh prescribed within the petition that uh the that the town council uh send letters to both the governor's office and to the state legislators and our senator uh alerting them to the fact that there was a vote taken. uh the percentage and the number of people who voted for both petitions. As I mentioned before, uh both petitions were overwhelmingly approved by over 72% of the voters. We had a record turnout for a town election during that period. And yet you took it upon yourselves to not sign the petitions or the sign of petition letters uh providing again no explanation as to why that is. I can only then assume uh why that was done and I can only assume that was political in nature. Uh Ron, you asked um at the time if you don't agree with it um is it can you not sign it? U and I know Dan asked the same some words to that effect

that if you didn't agree with the the substance of the petitions uh were you compelled somehow to put your signature on it. As I said before, uh these letters were purely administrative. That's all they are. there. You guys are the body that moves it forward to the next body, the governor's office and to the state legislators. For you not to have done that and put your signature on that is essentially a an election nullification. You're saying that this vote never happened. You're putting your own personal imprint on a letter that ought not have your imprint on it at all other than your signature and moving it forward. Um, really disappointing. I'm not going to let it go because it ought to be redone. The prescription for that is to have another letter written, to have the same letter written and allow you people to kind of uh rethink your initial response to this and hopefully provide your signature. I want to say thank you to Ted Combmes. Ted did the right thing. Sign the letters as prescribed in the petition. Again, this isn't was not an opportunity for you guys to vote on it again. You had that opportunity prior to the deliberative session. You opted not to do it. You had an opportunity at the election uh to to to vote on those two uh citizen petitions and I assume you did it at that point. You don't get a third bite at the apple and do it again in the form of this petition letter going to the governor's office and the state legislators. I've never been an advocate of state reps being also on town councils. And I think this this is kind of one of the reasons why. I think when you when you inject your political persuasion, political uh um you know imprint on onto a a subject like this, it creates problems. You've now made what should not have been controversial controversial. There's enough controversy in this town council right now. You don't need you need more. The school board had two petitions.

No problem. They put them forward, sent to the governor's office, sent to the state legislators. No issue. No controversy. No problem. For some reason, this town council made it controversial. Um, councelor Dunn, with your permission, I just like to ask uh Sean Mahaland for a couple of questions, if I may. It's public comment, so you direct it to me and Okay. Yeah. All right. So, um, what I'd like to understand is, uh, in with with, uh, town manager Mahaland is, uh, I know he's worked in municipal government for a lot of years,

and I'm assuming during that period of time, he's run into scenarios like this where where letters that are going forward to the governor's office or to state legislators, come out of the town council or or selectmen or whatever it might be. So, I'd like to understand if if in his experience if typically those letters have the signatures of all counselors or all selectmen on it or if they don't because right now the letter we sent up had one signature. If I'm the governor or if I'm a state legislator getting that letter, I'm looking at it like why is only Ted Col's name on this? Where are the other signatures? Why are they not here? It makes no sense. And so, um, I think there there are a few questions I'd like to know. I'd like to understand that from Sean Mahal. I'd like to Is that my time?

Yeah. Okay. But I I I'll personally get back to you and I'll and I I would like to hear So, if you don't answer the questions now as to why individually you you guys did not decided not to to to uh to put your signature on it, I'd like to know at the at the end of the public session or the next public comment why that is. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Anybody else in public comment? Good evening, Christine.

Hi, Christine Perez, 5 Wesley Drive. I spoke to him after the meeting because I didn't understand. But one of the things that was brought to my attention signing that did not mean that you agreed with it. It was just a means of, as was explained to me, it was just a means saying that you were willing to put it forward. And I think that's something that was probably not understood by everybody. I'm sure it probably wouldn't have. That's I just wanted to clarify that to make sure that you understood. It didn't mean you agreed with it. It just meant that you were moving it forward as a representative of the town. The other comment that I'd like to make is I want to acknowledge these young men that have come forward twice now. We don't hesitate to fix up parks for baseball, softball, football, soccer, whatever, field hockey. We don't hesitate to do that. These young men have come forward with a request and they're willing to put skin in the game. They're willing to make it work. And I think that's the spirit of the town that we are looking for in people. And these are young people that are willing to do what we want the town to do. Step up if they want something done to take ownership. So, I think you really need to consider all the effort that they have put into it and that they're willing to put into it and how important it is to them. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. How are you tonight?

How are you guys doing? U my name is Mark Daniel Bigger Jr. Um I'm right now currently residing in New Market. I uh originally was a Londereary resident for years. Um my dad actually served as a police officer with some of you guys. So um and uh you know during that time frame while I was living here, I lived in I think the first time I ever went to the skatepark was like 2001 maybe. Um and since then I just have been there almost every year since. Um, this skate park single-handedly uh was kind of like a creative outlet for me. Um, my dad of course working as a police officer, he was working all the time. Um, no offense to him. Uh, but I would just walk over from school um, and just pretty much skate and just stay there until he came and picked me up. And I always looked super cool cuz he picked me up in a cruiser. So people would think of they're like, "Oh yeah, he's getting arrested." No, no, no. But uh but no, I uh I currently am a volunteer at uh Manchester Police Athletic League um as an instructor for skateboarding. And um one thing I've learned about skateboarding is that if you give someone a space, that's where the community goes. Um so this space, especially that ground, I view it as a holy land. Um you know, when I first heard about everything that was going on with the park, um I literally cried. uh because it meant so much to me. Um going there, seeing all of my friends, most of them are right over there. Um you know, the amount of tricks that have have gone down there and and just all of us being able to be together, it's like church for us. Um so to have that space and make sure that that space is maintained for us. Um I live in New Market and still drive out here. Um, I have two little girls that are itching to

skateboard. And most of the skate parks, they're they're so busy. And the one thing I loved about London was that it was busy, but it's so spread out that little kids can actually go and skate. Um, have the chance to learn and have the, you know, the creative outlet that I did. So, but um, but yeah, definitely want to uh say keep the skatepark 100%. It's definitely a staple for this town. So, thanks. Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening. Martha Smith, 38 Shafts to Drive. Um, I just want to um reiterate what Paul Scaric said, too. I I think that the that basically you were just certifying to the state and the officials at the state who represent us what our vote was. It wasn't saying you agree or disagree. It it had those who disagreed there were represented and those who agree were represented. So I think it would be very weird. I would if I was receiving that letter. I would be saying where where are the other signatures? Did did the town of Linder make a mistake when they sent this up here? And you know was everybody else absent? What what happened? So, I think it is very strange. I would like you to reconsider as well. Um, and as an older person living in the town of Londereerry, uh, I would like to put my vote in for the skateboard, too. Um, the skate park, um, that I don't believe that we have enough for the young people in town, and I think that's a great outlet for them, and I commend them 100%.

Thank you, Martha. Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening. Hello. Uh my name is Stephen Shepard from Derry, New Hampshire. I'm here for the skatepark. Uh I've been going to that skatepark since I was 11 years old. I moved here at that age uh to Derry and didn't have many friends. I didn't play sports. didn't really wasn't into that lifestyle and I met bunch of those guys sitting right there and I've been friends with them ever since. Um, but skate park means a lot to more than just me, more than just them. There's kids that go there every day. Um, I myself work with Drew over there building skateparks. Uh, this is something that we all have put our lives into and just love and it's a great outlook for kids who don't like sports. uh maybe come from a broken home, can't go home, don't have parents are working late, yada yada yada, you know. So, it's a great spot for the town. I think it's good. Um I think it'd be a shame and very upsetting to the community, not just the skateboarders, but just even the town of Londereerry if we got rid of the skate park. So,

yeah, that's all I got to say, I think. Thank you.

THANKS FOR COMING OUT. GOOD EVENING. HOW ARE YOU TONIGHT? UM, so my name is Nick Castileto. Little bit of a different perspective. I'll keep it short and sweet. Um, in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, I started driving from Massachusetts to London because I heard about this little skate park secluded in a corner. And I kind of lived a second life because of that. I've met friends that I have now, we'll call them friends for the rest of my life. People who I never thought I would meet in my entire life. And now I'm 37 years old. So, it's for all walks of life, all walks of community. And that specific Blue Skate Park changed my life. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. So to even think about taking it down without at least a call to action, a fundraiser, multiple fundraisers, would be a disservice to all of us who go here and have our escape for a few hours after work every day. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else with public comment? Seeing that, I will close. Yep. If I may, I was wondering if we could have at least the uh uh recreation director come and speak upon the skateboard park as we had agenda. We actually have it for coming up. Yep. It's on the It's on the agenda. I didn't actually see it on the agenda. Thank you. No, absolutely. We'll have to do that,

Mr. Chair. I got a couple. Sorry. Okay. Go ahead. Uh on March 16th, I asked that we put retirements and resignations on the agenda. I still haven't seen that on our agenda. Uh also on uh March 16th, the emergency management director position came up and it was said that we were going to address it at our next meeting. We still have not addressed that. Um and my last thing is what is being done regarding complaints that have been filed and are not anonymous? When will these be made public? Uh we do have some complaints that have come in uh signed by uh individuals or written off by individuals and I'm wondering when are we going to address those as a council? Okay. All right. Can I get an answer on um on any other stuff or is it just kind of

I thought you said that was the new rule. We were going to answer all questions at public comment. We're going to answer them as in the next meeting. So I don't as far as the retirements I just have to find out when it's going to be on the agenda. I just have to ask the lady, you know, when she's going to put all and and the emergency management director that was supposed to be discussed at the next meeting after March 16th and we've had that meeting and that has still not been addressed. Correct. We're just falling back to the current one for now. And how about the complaints that have been filed? Are we going to address those or

are we just going to kick this down the road? Which complaints are you talking about, Dan? Uh, we've had I know a couple that I've gotten uh complaints you've all gotten them. I just I just addressed four of them tonight. We're going to we're going to do training for the Facebook and for the uh social media. Well, these are complaints that were filed by against council members and these people sign these complaints. Mhm. and I'm sure they're waiting for a response and like to know what's going on. Okay. All the ones that I've gotten on social media are going to address the training

and we're we're we confirmed this last meeting. We said that we are going according to the policies on how things were in the past and how they were in the past didn't go with some formal announcement of them at the beginning of the meeting or anything else. We processed them as they came in decided what an approp you know the chair generally decided what an appropriate action was to be taken with them and we moved on or we we addressed it or we did what I know we addressed the last one saying that we're not going to address anonymous complaints these are not anonymous these were signed by individuals there is no formal policy Rob so I believe I have addressed all the complaints that I've received we're going to do it through training

are you still in public comment no we close public comment oh you No, I didn't close it. You did close. I did close comment. I did close it. All right. We didn't vote on it. That's fine. All right. Uh boards and appointments, interviews for Leech Library Trustees. Up first, we have Linda Lampkin.

Good evening. How are you? Hey, if you want to say a few things about yourself and then we'll see if the council has questions. You can stand or sit, whatever you prefer. Okay. Um, hi, I'm Linda Lampin. I live at Fort Griffin Road in London. Lived here since 1998 in the same house, same place. um spent the last two years on kind of retired cuz my school closed. But before that, I spent 27 years working either in the London School District or the Dair School District as a librarian, library assistant, something in a library.

Questions? Any questions for Linda? Uh I don't have any questions. You were up in front of us before. Yes, I was. Yeah. For a very long time. Yes. When we were looking at alternates, we were interviewing people for alternates. So, I'm all set. Yeah. No need to be nervous. We're We're old friends at this point. So, yeah, I'm still nervous. I'm sorry. Any other questions? All right. Thank you for playing. Thank you, Linda. Have a good night. Yep. Thank you. Um the next applicant, Mary, I believe she's not here, correct? And you had a statement to read for her.

That is correct. Um she is not here. She did ask me to read a brief statement on her behalf. Um she sent me an email saying that I serve as head circulation librarian at a public library where I manage daily operations, oversee circulation workflows, and work closely with the public. In addition to my operational duties, I review and update library policies to keep them relevant and fair. I also help develop the library strategic plan and action plan, turning long-term goals into practical steps. I also have experience in collection development and data informed decision-m including tracking usage patterns and improving systems to better serve patrons. I regularly contribute to monthly reporting and collaborate with colleagues to maintain efficient and transparent operations. I value public service and would bring a thoughtful, collaborative approach to the board.

Excellent. Up next is Russell Lu. Good evening, sir. If you want to say a few things about yourself. Sure.

I'm Russ Lu. I'm at to Fidilius Ridge. Um I don't have library experience. Uh but approaching this from a little bit of a different angle. Um more thinking of boards and uh trustees as similar to companies that have um board of directors is the board of directors t uh typically tend to come from outside the company with all kinds of backgrounds and just bring in different p uh perspectives. I've been in town since 1986. Um I had my own uh small business as well. Uh actually an environmental consulting company. Sold that in 2014 to a um somewhat larger company. Worked with them for a few years. Then I went up to the Department of Environmental Services at the state and wound down my uh environmental consulting career with them. Um uh in previous uh life decades ago, I was on the planning board. served as the uh chairman of the planning board. I was uh on the 2013 master um plan steering committee. Uh I've been on the um served on uh the um historical properties task task force years ago that identified all the old barns and and properties in town. Um energy efficiency task force. I served on that as well. And uh I served on the uh police station building committee back when we before the police station that is here now. Uh we worked I was on a small uh committee that worked for three years to get um to get that approved and built. Uh prior to that the police uh police station was actually sharing an old an older building that was here um that was never never built to be a police station. So I've I've got some all that just to say that I've been on boards and committees before. I don't know how they run. Um and uh and I was reading or I was uh

looking over some information on the um library trustees uh position and what they what they need for help and I had never really considered um being in a position like that. But as I was reading through it with everything that's going on at the moment with the building with the mold and with um reconstruction, that kind of thing. I'm a civil engineer uh by training. Um, as I said, an environmental engineer part of my environmental engineering um company that I had primarily uh focused on um oil remediation, contamination, asbestous, that kind of thing. But we did have a small side business um where we did mold testing and assessments and then um oversaw um rehabilitation. So, long story short, um hearing where they are at the moment, I thought well, you know, it's possible. I have more time on my hands now. I am retired that I could potentially lend a hand to that. So,

thank you. Any more questions? I just want to say I'm very impressed Russo everything you know I've read about you and uh I think you do a a great job as board of trustees. Appreciate that. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Appreciate it, Mr. Chair. Yeah. I would ask that uh as the lay on to the library uh our chair of the library board of trustees is here. Uh I did attend a meeting where they did discuss all these positions and I'd like their input if possible. Sure. I would agree with that as well. Sure. Yeah. Come on, Nancy. Come.

Thank you for that, Dan. Thank you, Nancy Hendricks, 14 King John Drive, chair of the Leech Library Board of Trustees, and thank you for having us here tonight. And thank you for hearing us on the recommendation of the individual to fill the open trustee position. We were happy and grateful that three really wonderful people came forward for consideration. We met last Thursday and discussed each candidate. After spirited conversation, we have agreed to recommend Miriam Malik. Miriam is out of the country and unable to be here this evening. Miriam, as you just heard, is the head of the circulation librarian at the Lucius BB Memorial Library in Wakefield, Massachusetts. She has daily operations experience which will be helpful particularly as we put our financial house back in order and will also be helpful as we work on our upcoming budget. She also has staff management experience which will be very helpful as we begin negotiations with the union. We are revisiting our personnel handbook and Miriam's expertise in policy development will be helpful there as well. She has a global understanding of the overall function of a library and a deep understanding of how a library serves its community. To be fair, the other candidates brought great and different skill sets. There was no question about that. But given all of the work that we have to get done in this next year, we felt that Miam Malik was the best fit. and we hope that you would support our recommendation. And also I wanted to um reiterate to you that we are very thankful and grateful for the support that you are lending the library. We re re remain committed to opening our library, reestablishing our relationship with our community and rebuilding trust with our staff. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for saying y further discussion, Mr. Chair, I'd like to go off of the recommendation of the library chair and their board of recommending uh Miriam Malik. Second. So, I have a motion from Ted, a second from Sean. Discussion.

I I think that all the cal candidates are very very qualified and but looking at the background of a lot of the trustees we already have, they're all very similar. The one that's different is Mr. Loo. Now, I have worked with him. I know he knows budgets. He knows fundraising. He has a deep compassion for this town and an understanding. And I think with his background brings a different element because he's run meetings. He's he he knows how to structure things. He knows how to put together contracts. He knows all of this stuff. Um, I think that he brings an element to the to the board that's not there, something that's missing. And um, even though these other candidates are very very qualified when it comes to library,

but you already have all these people with a library background. And so I'm thinking he has more of a professional business sort of thing, which is a little bit different. And so I personally my choice my first choice would be Russ and then my second choice um would probably be Maryanne but that's okay my personal choice Dan you any further discussion

so we have a motion on the floor from Ted and we have a second from Sean to to nominate uh Miriam Malik Oh, Marian. I'm sorry. I thought it said Maryanne. Oh, chair glasses on. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Chair votes the affirmative. 5-0. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Confirm that vote again because this is the problem we had with our administrative assistant who's trying to do the recording on this. It was 5. Okay. I didn't vote. I didn't either because I didn't get it out. I said it too quick. You said I said it so quick. I didn't get a chance to say anything. But that's all right. Okay. Then we'll revote. It's okay. It's just I I don't know.

You're not caught off guard that a vote's happening. I wouldn't pretend that. He just said 5-0. If it's not a pretend, you know what? When you get older and your mouth gets dry, you come some can't open it quick enough. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Chair host the affirmative. 5. 5. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The next three positions, we're going to interview all the applicants first because there's several there's a couple applicants that have applied for different positions. So, we'll apply them all and discuss each one separately afterwards. Say that again. So, we have three positions to nominate, right?

There's people there's people that have applied to different ones. So, I'm going to invite in interview all the applicants and then we'll take each one after that. Okay. Thank you. Yep. So up first we have Ariana McHugh. I said that correctly. If I didn't, I apologize. Good evening everyone. Ariana McCory. Awesome. You want to say a few things about yourself? And then

absolutely. So I um I'm a resident of London. I live in Lawson Farm Road and I've been a resident of Londereerry since I was a kid. I went through the school system in London, Matthew Thornton, Londereerry, Lancer in 2010. Um, so I went off to Boston College Law School and graduated in 2017. From then, um, on I I have a prosecutor's background. I worked in Middle Sex County in Massachusetts for some year, several years, um, prosecuting just in different district courts, Lel, Malden, Cambridge, kind of all over there. And then I was appointed to, um, be the head of what was called our young adult diversion program in Middle Sex County. And in there, what I would do is I would interview uh young adults that were uh accused of certain crimes. They were typically those under 25 years old and um prosecutors would recommend them to me to interview them and determine whether they were candidates to alternatives to prosecution in our diversion program. So I had a lot of experience working with a lot of different types of people in my capacity in Middle Sex County. And then um sometime in 2021 2022ish, I went up to uh prosecute uh in the special victims unit and I prosecuted mainly um defendants accused of sex sexual assaults and in uh crimes against children. Um I have a lot of experience with working with all different types of people, listening to people from all different types of backgrounds. Um I think that's probably my best skill set is really taking um in consideration what people have to say and applying them to facts and law. So right now uh for the past four years I have been practicing in civil litigation. My main practice is in real estate. So right now uh my main practice is really property disputes and municipal land use and planning. So, um, over the past few years or so, I've had an extensive opportunity to represent clients all

over the state in front of zoning boards of adjustment, planning boards, um, select boards, whatever, you know, municipal matters they may bring to me at my firm. Um, but I've developed a very good understanding of those sorts of matters. I think I'm very well qualified to take any given set of facts uh before the that may become become maybe come before the zoning board of adjustment to sort of consider um not only does that meet the the criteria and our our zoning ordinance but um really the statutes in in law in New Hampshire which is what really governs everything. So, I have a lot of experience in um just reviewing those types of matters from my own perspective and representing clients and a a very good grasp on the law and how to apply facts to law and just generally um in terms of the procedure that comes along with that in terms of appeals. I've I've handled appeals all the way to the Supreme Court in New Hampshire for those types of matters. So, I think I am pretty qualified. I'm a lendary girl through and through and uh this is the year that I've decided that it's really my time to sort of branch out and join uh different um committees. I've been uh just this past year I've joined various committees in the bar association. I've been appointed to what's called the New Hampshire uh leadership academy through the bar association. We do a lot of different um continue education about like leadership skills and things of that nature. um and also the women's bar association uh new lawyers committee where I assist new lawyers with developing um skills and getting connected with other attorneys and um with that comes with planning events and and kind of coordinating things of that nature. So um this was one of my this is a special interest of mine. I love practicing municipal law. Um and yeah, I I just thought that it was time to try to get more involved in lender. I'm not somebody that is really town involved. If you look me up on Facebook, you'll see kind of things for my hobby and very, you know, small. I'm not, you know, I'm I'm not really out there in

the town besides this. And I think it's time to get a little bit more involved in in a capacity where I feel comfortable. So, I'd welcome any questions, but that is a little bit about me. Thank you for stepping up for us. Appreciate that. Any questions? The fact that she loves law, I know, makes her a perfect fit because you really need to stick to those five points of law. And, you know, That's really important with the ZBA remove emotion and your personal feelings and you really it makes the job much easier to confine it to the law. And this is your first choice, right? I just Yes. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Jennifer is not here, correct? That is and she's asked be put on a future. Yes. Okay, perfect. All right, up next is Kevin Kohler. Good evening, sir. Good evening. Thank you for stepping up. Uh, London Derry, Anthony Drive. Um, I got kids coming to school age and I'm just trying to get involved with the town. Um, like most of the gentlemen spoke earlier, I have a young son coming and he's interested in skateboarding. So, I like to um just be involved in town and do what I can and be involved in my children's life and the town. But I don't know if you have any further questions, but any questions? Yes. So, it says uh candidate second choice. What was your first choice?

Uh recreation board. Okay. Okay. Excellent. Any other questions? Thank you for stepping up. Appreciate it. Yeah. Up next is Leonardo Karia Mia. Say that Maya. Sorry for that, but thank you for stepping up. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. My name is Leonardo Maya. Leo for short. Yep.

I'm originally from Brazil. Rio Janeiro and United States became home 10 years ago and London there became home five years ago when I met my wife. We got married and now we have beautiful two girls at home. So uh finding trying to find time to give back to the community and I'm bachelor in architecture and urbanism and uh construction uh manager. So I'm used with construction and I like to see around and understand what are the impacts that different zoning and construction can cause to the society. So when you bring um new developments or kind of stalling companies or factories in place that can affect the community. So I'd like to bring this kind of perspective and try to help the community with that.

Thank you for stepping up. Any questions? So you you checked off quite a few um things that you'd like to be on. What was your your number one preference? Or maybe one and two. No, I think he didn't. I did just one. Yeah, just one. Yes. Yes, this is on board. Yeah. Okay. You may be looking at Jennifer's. Jennifer had checked on quite a few. I just want to make sure. Okay, there he is. I'll make a motion. All right. I'm the alternate to the ZBA. Yeah, we have to finish the interviews first. We're not done. I thought we are. Okay. We have four. Thank you. I don't have any other question. I want to interview Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to interview everybody because this

So Dan, I interview everybody because there's people that want different boards. That's why. Um, let's see. Next up is Mona Belmmet. Okay, thank you. Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Mona Bmet and I have been living in Londere for over five years now. Um, as I'm raising my kids in this town, I've become invested in how the sort of activities that are offered in the town and what to do for my kids on my children and I've become interested in like getting involved with the town. Um, my daughter is in first grade at Matthew Thornton, so I started volunteering there um, starting last year. And for the past 10 years, I've been volunteering on and off um different capacities, whether it's like through my employer or on my own. Um I've done with like Girls Inc. mentoring program. I've done for dog adoption for many years. Um volunteering as well as like some cleanups around the town when I worked out of Massachusetts. Um so and my background is in um biology for my undergrad and I got my MBA. So I've been doing been involved in operations, marketing, um project management. Um have been in healthc care and science field for the last two decades. Um so when I saw this post thing on Facebook, I was really interested and I wanted to apply and it was like my calling. Um, I don't know if you have any specific questions that you want me to answer.

Thank you for stepping up. Yeah, absolutely. Any questions? Go ahead, D. Um, I don't really have a question. So, I I see you you put two down, correct? Yeah. So, this was my first choice and aviation is first. Yeah. And then the hometown I think old home day, sorry. Um, was ad hoc position. Well, the reason I I say that listening to your background, I um I know that excuse me, being on that board, I was on it for a while and understanding how it works, you need a lot of organizational skills, which you have. Yeah. And marketing and promoting and those are all, it sounded like strengths of yours. Yeah, absolutely. And that's really,

you know, coordinating and and that's really what that is. I mean, setting off a huge event like that requires a lot of balancing of balls and making it all come together. Um, so yeah, and I've like in most of my jobs I've worked with many stakeholders and kind of staying on the timeline and kind of meeting everyone's expectations and bringing everyone to consensus and being able to stay, you know, with the goal that is the end goal of the project. And it seems to me that you you're not afraid to go to a business and help with fundraising. No, not at all. That's necessary. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Up next, we have Michelle Galuzo. Did I say that right? Thank you for stepping up. Oh, hello.

Hi. Michelle Galo to Sades Way London area. Um it's very nice to meet you all. Um a little bit about myself. I have my master's degree in public administration and for the past 15 years I've been working in corporate security. So managing very large budgets and projects primarily but also a lot on the operations side. I very recently took a step back from that career to stay home with my three young kids. I have a four-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a six-month-old. Um my oldest, she'll be starting kindergarten at North School in the fall. So very excited about that. Um my family and I, we spend a lot of time outdoors. were very into hiking, biking, skiing. Um, back when I was young and fun, I did hit up some skateboard parks, so I got that going for me. Um, I'd probably kill myself if I tried to do that now, though. But maybe my daughters. Um,

yeah. So, I really just I welcome any opportunity, honestly, to, especially in this phase of life, volunteer and serve the community and kind of bring my perspective as somebody who's kind of relatively new to the town. I moved here in 2019. London is my um my husband's hometown, if I didn't say that already. Um, that's how I ended up here. Um, but really just off like like looking forward to kind of helping out in any way that I can and and bringing that perspective. So, thank you. Any questions? Go ahead, D. I'm I'm the pain. Go ahead. No. Um, so why recreation? I'm sorry. There's something going on with my voice. Why recreation?

Yeah. So, I think that that's just a passion of mine, like anything fitness, wellness, outdoors. um my daughter's into soccer now. So, we're just kind of getting into that phase of life where we'll be um joining sports and and all of that. Um and getting into the schools, but um really anything recreation especially is a big passion of mine. My husband's Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? No, I think that's it right now. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate you stepping up. Up next, Bob Corning. Bob was not able to make it this evening.

Okay. Thank you, Kevin. We already talked to Kevin. Jennifer's not here. Uh uh Karen, uh Karen Botenhorn. Say that right. I did not hear from Karen. So maybe we could hold over her nom her application till the next meeting. Yeah. Or we could just put her in the future. Right. All right. So coming back to the board, we heard from the applicants. I'd like to make a motion to nominate Ariana McQuary to the Zoning Board of Adjustments. Okay. So, I have a motion from Shawn. Second. Second from Dan. Discussion. Everyone good? All right. You good? Debbie, you look like you want to say something. No.

Okay. Uh, all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Chair votes the affirmative. 5-0. Thank you for stepping up and see the clerk to get sworn in. I I just think you should say something to the other person that applied to CBA in case he wants to reapply for something. Thank you for stepping up and putting that application. We can keep your keep your name on file. We appreciate it. Up next, let's discuss recreation. Oh, this a tough one. There's one position and we have five people that were interested. Um, Mr. chair. Yep.

I thought we added more positions to the rec commission. Did we? I believe we did. This is the This is the position. So, you added two positions in December. One of them was filled last month. This is the remaining empty one that you filled. Oh, okay. So, with this position, the recreation commission will now have a full seven members and three alternates. Mr. Chair, I'd make a motion to appoint Bob Corning. Um Bob's been involved a lot in recreation, especially down on the soccer fields, doing a lot of work for the town. Uh saved the town a lot of money down there on irrigation systems and stuff. So I have a motion from Dan.

You said Bob couldn't make it today. Yeah, that is correct. He was unable to make it this evening. I'll second Dan's motion. All right. Uh, second by Deb. Discussion. We have so many great candidates. This is really hard. And that's why I brought up Old Home Day because I felt that um Michelle um Galuzo um she would be perfect for that position. Personally, it's up to her. It's her choice. We should ask her if she'd like that position. And I do know they need people on that committee. Um I don't know if you want to ask any of the other candidates if that's something they'd like to do.

Well, Deb, we have we have one, two, three of we have four candidates that made it their first choice. Kevin, Bob, Michelle, and Mona that wanted as their first choice. So, we only can pick one. Yeah. And they're all good. And they're all good people. They're all talented. My point is we still have openings. That's why we should ask them if they is there something else they would like to do that we have an opening for. Um this way we don't have to pay to put it back out there and do all that stuff. They made choices on the sheet if you look at the sheet. Yeah. No, I just that way I did

what? Um so we have any further discussion? Okay. So the motion is from Dan, a second from Deb to nominate Bob Corning. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed. Chair hosting the affirmative. 5-0. Bob see the clerk.

Encourage you to stay involved and uh come up again. I believe we may have more positions that will be turning over uh at the end of the year. Um I'd like to see more young people step up and want to be involved in town. So, please do so. Up next, we have Beautified London. Jennifer couldn't make it tonight. Karen, we have two full-time positions, correct? Mhm. Yep. I'd make a motion that we appoint Jennifer and Karen to both of them.

Second. Okay. I have a motion from Dan and a second from Sean to nominate both to the full-time positions. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Chair the affirmative 5-0.

I need Jennifer and Karen to see the clerk, please, to get sworn in. And anybody else that wasn't chosen, please stay on the list. We really appreciate you stepping up and uh we need volunteers. So, thank you very much for stepping up. All right. Up next, Up next, we have a public hearing. Receive public input. Discuss and accept unanticipated revenue from New England HIDA in the amount of $30,000. Mr. Chief, you're up.

Good evening everyone. So, uh I'm here tonight to uh accept funds moving forward. As you folks recall, uh about a year ago, we entered into a program with our federal partners to uh be liaons and run a program called Nibben. And to refresh your memory, the NYN program is where our officers in their off schedule time or days off respond to areas within the state of New Hampshire to help uh trace crime guns. Uh that money is paid through us through federal funding. So we have in uh anticipated a revenue of 30,000 uh for the upcoming year. So what we need for you folks is to accept that. And uh for those of you that maybe recall or don't, this is the van uh the trailer that you guys see out back that's towed by our officers to area police departments. Um this program, as you guys know, um they chose us for our ability to lead in the state to be partners with our federal agencies and local law enforcement. And it was host uh sponsored and put into the law enforcement nightstick magazine for all of New Hampshire law enforcement. So, yet again, another example of your police department being leaders in law enforcement throughout New Hampshire and New England.

Excellent. Any questions for the chief? Go for it. Take the money. All right. Wonderful. I will accept a motion to open the public hearing. So, motion from Dan. Second. Second from Ted. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Gentle affirmative. 5-0. Four. Um, anyone four? Oh, sorry. Four zero. Thank you. Uh, anyone from the public wish to comment on this? Seeing none, I will accept a motion to close the public hearing. So move. Motion from Dan, second from from Ted. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Chair votes the affirmative. 40. Back to the council. What do we want to do?

This is wonderful to see the funding come in from uh the federal government for this again and to be able to keep this program moving forward. Thank you guys for doing this. This is Blender leads the way, right? That's what they say. Yeah. So, um I will ex accept a motion to receive these funds. Motion to approve receiving the these funds. Sir, have a motion from Ted. Second. Second from Deb. Any discussion? Good. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Chair votes in the affirmative. 40. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next under new business, discussion regarding resident request for a skate park renovations sponsored by councelor Paul. you want to say a few words or I personally believe if any resident takes the time to come and want to do a presentation and want to do something in their community, I say let them have the time to talk. So yeah, absolutely. Does anybody from uh the skate park the skate park does uh see the name on the what was the name on it? It's Drew.

Drew Drew. Drew uphold. Do you want to speak to it? Yeah. Come on up. Oh my gosh. You you you um you took the time to so come on up. So I know you said some things in public comment, but if you want to just uh tell the audience here and the audience at home why you think this is important to you and why we need to address it, that would be Yeah. Um should I talk into this?

Yeah, absolutely. Please. Uh I believe that we should have a skate park because you know like someone said earlier sports isn't always something for the kids you know or you know sports are costly and they can't always afford them. Um so it's another really good outlet for kids to do such things and um the amount of friends you make the you know just lifelong friends is pretty crazy. Um, you get so much support through everybody, even if you're out in the streets skating in the city. Like random people are always stoked and it's just a very good thing. Teaches you determination. It's also accessible from the schools. Like I said earlier, I could bring my board to school and leave it in say the principal's office or my locker and it was right there. I could just walk over and um I think the kids should have that. if that's taken away like I don't know what would go there like pickle ball courts or you know that's pickle ball courts are cool but the amount of like the age range that people use for pickle ball courts is probably higher and they're going to have to walk down that crazy hill to get to the pickle ball courts and you know they're probably going to roll an ankle or something or maybe you know it's not the best place for other than a skate park I can't imagine anything being there you know Um, and I think we have a lot of support from the community. It seems like that it is beneficial for the youth and adults like myself. You know, it created a career for me. I build concrete skate parks for a living and, you know, it's the definitely the best job I've ever had. Um, get to travel all around, you know, see the sites and that's kind of what life's all about. take the journey and skateboarding has brought that journey for me and many others and I

think it's really uh you know just important in a community and seeing all the other towns around as well like Derry and Manchester's getting one NSHA you know it shows that it is good for the community and all the youth go there and mold them any questions for Drew from the council I don't have any questions I got some issues I'd like to hear from our recreation ation director on the inspection report that was done. Sure. Thank you. Appreciate you stepping up. Thank you. Yep. Um Art, do you is Drew here too? Do you want both? I would like both. I mean, technically Doug is our recreation director. Um Drew, do you mind coming up too? Um

Doug. No. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Drew. Sorry. Doug, sorry. I I'm looking at my fault. Doug, do you mind coming up? My fault. Oh, I'm looking at my fault. Welcome.

Now, I've gone through the inspection report and I have a tour with Doug at the site. There seems to be quite a bit of deficiencies and they've labeled it as a failure from the inspection report from our uh insurance company. Is that correct, Mr. Chair? May May I just pick this off from staff from the beginning of this? Yeah. Um obviously we have a situation that the structures have been determined to be unsafe by our insurer Primex. We have a risk pool that does that work. You've seen a copy of that report.

Um so we have ordered that the place be chained up so nobody can access it so no one will get hurt. That's the issue that we have there. We have a park that has existed for quite some time there. Uh it is not per se managed by the town. It's on town property. we are responsible for the liability insurance on that. If you look at similar structures like the playground, we have to inspect that to make sure that it's properly maintained uh and that's there are no safety issues and we've clearly have a report that indicates that we have some significant safety issues there and you've got the cover sheet that I provided.

Certainly these folks can talk about more about that, but I've asked them to look what the options are. Uh the structures do need to get removed because they are unsafe. These are the type of skatep parks that we had all over the place. I used to use one of these myself when I was younger and I did get hurt a couple of times because I really didn't know what I was doing. But anyway, um

they were a lot of fun and they were made of wood generally and they had pieces of metal in some cases put over them, but those are pretty much all gone. And as Drew indicated, he builds the ones that are the ones that meet the standards now. Uh and they tend those do get inspected to make sure that they're safe. I've seen those in a number of communities. there obviously expensive like everything else. Like playgrounds used to be rather simple and they were rather low cost and the playgrounds we have now are super expensive as you probably know. Um thousands and thousands of dollars, not a simple swing set like we had when we were younger, which was a long time ago. Um, so anyway, um, I've asked them to assess the existing property to give time wherever it is that wants to use that space, whether it be a skate park, whether it be pickle ball or wherever else has an interest and athletic athletic activities that could be used at that space. I've asked them to do that assessment, work with those people to come up with a proposal to do that. We can't have a situation where we had before where people were doing things down there that we had no control over or we weren't supervising. that puts us at substantial risks and that's that's a problem that cannot continue to happen there. So there has to be a plan and of course this is going to cost money. They can tell you what the cost of these parks or of the communities have built them. They're they're not cheap because they are the standards have changed.

Thank you. Gentlemen, go ahead. Did you have some specific questions? Ted, you want No, I just wanted to add into that that I've seen all these structures. They're

rotting away. The wood's rotting. Um, the metal is rusting and sharp. The screws are popping off all over the place that are becoming tripping hazards. And I'm surprised no one's gotten more hurt there already. Um, I'm concerned with the inspection report from Primex that with the the failure rating that they gave it. Um, I don't want people to get hurt there and then it become our liability. The problem we have, we had it inspected. Insurance company says it's a no-go. It's too dangerous. If we were to open it back up and somebody were to get hurt, and I asked her, I asked the person this, "Well, what would happen if we opened it up and you guys have said no?" She looked at me and said, "Well, we probably wouldn't cover you then, which means we would be putting the town at a huge liability. Um, multi-millions of dollars possibly. I don't know. It's not anything. One of my main goals is never to put the town in a liability." And it would be I happen to be I think the kids need a skate park. I I fought for it back in 1999 and 2000. Um, but this one that we have right now, it would be like going down the highway in a car that with bald tires and the brakes are bad and everything else just hoping you hoping you make it down to Salem, you know, and it's just it we can't we can't open it. I I can't open it in good conscience knowing that it's unsafe and we won't be covered. So, like the town managers just said, it's going to have to come down.

What happens after that? I don't know. If people get together and they say, "Well, this is what we'll do." It can't be a do-it-yourself project. It's, you know, like we have somebody here that builds them professionally. Do you want Doug and I to go down there and build one or do you want somebody who does it professionally? Those are costly. The Bedford Bedford put in a Warren article in the last election for a new skate park in the their tab was $800,000. I don't know where that goes. It It's probably somewhere between $400 to $800,000. I don't know. It's a lot of money that very difficult to come up with candy sales and bake sales. So,

right, that's why we bring it to you guys because it's going to be a big ticket item. I think it's worth it, but I come I I have a slanted view because I think we should be doing that stuff. The only objection I have is somebody get up here and said that um skate skateboarding is good for kids who don't like sports, but it was just an Olympic sport. So, it is a sport, you know. It's not a ball sport. It's not a team sport, but it is a sport. And then I think it's a worthwhile activity. Before we had the skate park, we would have kids going down Mammoth Road.

Oh, yeah. um from the town common down the hill to Max 35 m an hour I don't know we had multiple complaints from Shaws and every other store that was up at the little mall because kids were skating there you know so I give them a place to go but that's that's going to be up to you guys and it's going to be up to the voters

and I I certainly think that we should have a park it just seems like what we have right now is in unsafe conditions and especially with the report and your uh communications from our insurance company that we would not be insured anymore and face a serious problem if we did open it back up. So, I'd like for us to come to a solution at some point in time, but clearly it cannot be at this time with that park with how it stands.

No, I think the park's it's got to be taken down. Everything in there is going to be taken down. Then we go to step two. that's next. And if if we get a group that that comes together, then we'll do that. I I I was a little myiffed that somebody said, well, somebody had spoken a few meetings ago about it shouldn't be taken for another sport. And I don't know where that came from. Doug and I haven't even we hadn't talked anything about that, what we're going to do with it. Um, but we do need to we do need to take it down. Dan, I had a question for you guys. No, just a question. I got a few things. Okay.

Uh, I reviewed the report from the insurance company and uh all the deterioration of the ramps and structural components, the rotting material, missing fasteners, and various damage. The liability to the town and the individuals that use it. That's my concern. I know that not too long ago we were looking at putting lights up on the common and we didn't want to have just anybody do it because of liability. Uh this is it's not safe and we should remove all the unsafe structures. Last Wednesday when I was over there doing some work, some of the uh out of town girls that had skipped school in a neighboring community were trying to gain access to it. and I'm concerned that somebody's going to gain access to it even though we have it locked up. Um, I'd like that we have the town man, we direct the town manager and the recreation department to take a look at the location and come back with recreational options for this area. Uh, perhaps it's a it's a skate park, perhaps it's something else, I don't know. But um a survey of the residents that live in this community would be nice to see what they want to see the town move forward with. You said 800,000 art. Uh I think we'd have a hard time selling the community on 800,000 dollars. But I also look at uh what gentlemen did on the basketball courts. They saw a problem and they came forward and they addressed it with you and they raised the money. They got people together and now we're going to get new basketball courts. So that's what I would like to see.

So Mr. H more question. Yeah.

Thank you. Um so I have a couple of things. I agree with some of the stuff you said, Deian, that we should in general, it would be great if on the rec page or at some of your events you had like a little monkey survey or some survey. What other wreck stuff would you like to see? Because that's good to have like moving forward for our CIPs and just expanding our our town's recreation. Okay, so that being that's that. I just it's hard for me to wrap my head around how long it took for somebody to step forward to say that this problem with this park like it was going into dis you know like if we had taken action earlier it probably would have been I'm not blaming it I just we but we have we've here here's the problem when you have wood if you have a wood deck in New Hampshire It doesn't last for 40 years because of the weather. And when they built it, they didn't use stainless steel screws. They used regular screws. So, they put the metal in and then over time that metal rots and you've got a hole there and that's where the water gets in. That's where the water rots. We replace the screws with stainless steel screws and we've welded the the metal plate, you know, put a little scab underneath and welded over it. So, we've done maintenance on it.

Okay. But what it it's it's just like you've got an old car. At what point do you say I don't want my driving?

I understand what you're saying. And I know you are the the king of frugaless and making sure things get fixed. And I do not question that you did not take care of it. That wasn't it. I mean, but it should have been, in my opinion, things like this. That's why we need these kinds of plans that Mr. Maholland is trying to put into place and you know to say okay look I've replaced the screws how much longer are we going to get out of it what's our plan moving forward so it I I agree it has to get taken down I agree with that and I do agree and I do like the idea that the basketball people came forward I personally think that that Drew should sit make an appointment and sit with you and Doug and maybe even Trevor um to give him some guidance as to put his friends together to do the same thing or a similar thing. Getting um sponsorships from corporations to do that sort of park to put it in there so it lessens the cost. Um that that's just my opinion. I I I I think you need a plan, but you do we do need to take it down for safety. Safety is number one.

This is step one. Yeah, that's that's what I said. That's safety. Step two is the hard one as to how to do this, right? But I think while we're taking it down that those gentlemen in the audience and whoever else is out there that's an enthusiast should reach out to you guys and try to sit down and get a plan together because they may not understand how to do that. And everybody knows how to contact me. Feel free to contact me. I would try to help you market and tell you how to reach out and maybe even help you figure out a way to set up some sort of nonprofit group to do this if that's something you want to do because at the end of the day this organization would have to be responsible. But that's

I think really where a lot of this comes down to is we set up buildings, we make buildings, we make recreational facilities, but we then don't go the extra mile and set up a plan maintenance plan for them and put aside money for these facilities so that we can either make the band-aids or the repairs when need be or we then have a kitty fund to then redo the whole project as it should as a safety measure that it should have been done for. But,

you know, this is a a failure that we've been encountering over the past 25 years that we should have been putting money aside for these recreational facilities and it's something that we've really been abandoning all this time and now we're set with a a problem that's going to be 8 $900,000. Agreed. Sean, I had a question.

Um, more or less just a comment on the situation. I just want to thank everybody who came. It's just a great showing of support. Um, skating meant a lot to me when I was younger. Um, you know, you have those hard days with your parents or other things going on in your life and there's nothing better than the cool night air. You're skating around somewhere just on you. So, um, I just want to reiterate some of the points they made because I think this is really important and I think this is a community need that we've got to find a way to address. um you know having something near the school with somebody the ability to access that so kids after school you know not everybody wants to do all the regular after school programs there are but here's something that's just you know self-done that people can go out and get to and you know the the the whole place to belong really means something because people always say the young people in this town don't have anything to do and here we've got something that they can get out and do and enjoy doing and gathers a whole community around it that we don't address and that hasn't been addressed by some other traditional things. Um, you know, it's it's it's something where, and I agree with your art, when they said not a sport, I'm like, I mean, seeing some of the things they do out there, tell me that's not a sport. That that's that's something else. Um I if we don't have something like this and I've seen this in other communities and we used to do this when we were skating when we were young because they didn't you know in my day with we didn't have skate parks everywhere. So we were off on curb stops and everywhere else and there'd be no skateboarding signs up here there and everywhere and we move on to the next skateboarding sign. Some of the other people just ignore those skateboarding signs and run when something

Not you though, right? Yeah. Not me. No, I was always in the approved. Um, but it's it it it it draws it into a safe place where there's people around, where there's proper lighting, um, where the equipment is safe. It's not just an ad hoc thing. It's not a rail down by the library, um, you know, or down a giant flight of stairs. It's it's a it's a it's a it's a safe place designed for that. And I just think it'd be a shame if we got rid of this and we didn't do anything to address that need. And it's this community we've got here. Um, and you know, we we say we want more youth involvement. Well, we saw what draws them out. Let's let's give them a reason to come back. So,

and I think probably our long-term solution would be is I mean, we have 5 acres of land right next to the police station between here and Pillsbury. I think using that land for recreational purposes is probably the best use of that land being in the center of town and having a going forward with either a warrant article for the money to reduce uh uh to build that park.

Mhm. and or you know potentially having uh concrete companies that are in town who may want to donate time and labor to help put forth to produce that Warren article as well. I think that that'd be the right use going forward. Well, in building on that, I think that um if you look back a couple meetings of what the the people who brought forth the basketball courts, that's a that's a great blueprint about how to get something done and go through we wonderful basketball courts. They did a they did a great job on that.

And I think if we we don't get traction on that, we go to a Warren article, too, or maybe do a combo, but um it it's something, you know, there's people willing to help and and and try to help get this through and get it solution that works for for everybody. So yeah, I I agree with you. I'd like to echo both your comments. I I think it's wonderful everybody that showed up tonight. Really really good support for skate parks, you know, for to come here and show us you guys is important to you. Means a lot to me. So thank you all for coming out tonight. Means a lot to me that you guys took the time to come out. So you did your civic duty tonight. So very happy. Um we want to just we just need a direction. I I don't Okay,

I already told you the direction go. So, they're gonna they'll produce a report and the options to give these folks a chance to be able to do some work on that and then we'll come back with what that'll be. So, all right. Would you be okay if if Drew got in touch with you and you guys Here's the question I have. Yeah. In theory, you all support Yeah. the kids need things to do. Mhm. But the question is, it's going to come down to a vote where you're going to have to vote to spend some money.

And that's where the rubber hits the road. And we can have the great the most wonderful plan, but if you five don't back it, it circles the drain and goes down quickly. So, it's going to cost some money. I don't know how much money it's going to cost.

Um, as far as everybody says go out and get people to donate, but the same people are getting hit over and over and over again. And I'll say this again, probably my last time in front of the board, but I think kids should be able to recreate. People should be able to read a book. We don't I don't I I would be I'd be holding I've never pictured it in my life, but I would be if you started charging a quarter to rent a book at the library. And I think at some point the community has to spend the money to do this right. And like Ted said, have a plan to keep things going because we've had a lot of problems with different buildings, heat here, water there, all that stuff. And it's not a way we take care of our own homes.

So, we shouldn't take care of our town property that way either. Well, and I think this council with as far as maintenance of things goes, um, you know, we it's definitely something that's a priority to us. It's not, you know, it's not something that we want to just build these things and then let them kind of go. I know, but I get it because you've got to, but if we're going to build a skate park and not get into it, to me, I don't want to build it if we're not going to maintain it. I think that's You said it better than I could, Mr. Chair. Yeah. They're looking for direction.

So, no, I know he's he's not looking for direction. He knows what he needs to do for closing it down for the time being. Our recreation uh department is looking for direction. I'd like to give direction for them to come up with a plan for a potential what would a a site look like next door a recreation complex a whole recreation new complex. Yep.

And not just for skate park but other components of recreation that you can build into that. That way the voters are not just voting for skateboarding. They're voting for other recreational pieces with that. So, it's a whole new recreational park that I think the voters would be more inclined to vote for when it's not just one piece. And, you know, if we can put together a plan, but it's also maybe at the same time, we'll have discussions with maybe some of the concrete companies that are in town to see if they would be for willing to help with that design and the costs. I know it' be a bit of a lift on you guys, but to come up with what kind of pieces could we put in that land? The

the It's becoming more confusing because we're going to we're looking to do a skate park. Yeah. And now you're saying let's do this other stuff. So the price tag goes from whatever it is to like triple that. I know. And eat an elephant one bite at a time. That's why you need a plan.

You need to have a plan or at least a site or at least components. I think we need to direct them with the skatepark for right now because just just keep it to the skate park because I was thinking maybe you could get with Drew and maybe maybe his company be willing to help us. I don't I don't I don't want to speak for him but maybe maybe the company he works for would be willing to put help but maybe we could just keep it simple and just maybe work together to see if we can fix the skate park area and and to not let your comment go past. So you asked a question of would we vote to spend money on this and it's with everything else that comes before us. It depends on the plan. It depends on, you know, and and that's where the important part of getting people getting it written down because like as you said, there's only so many people that donate and we've got a lot of people that, you know, when it comes to gathering donations, sometimes we see proposals come before us that don't, you know, nobody steps forward. And when we see a clear set, just like the basketball court, that was very clear, that helps get a plan we can get behind because we know it'll work and we've got to get something that we know will work

and it has to be somewhat reasonable price for the voters to vote for it. So, I'd like to keep it just to a skate park, you know, get a plan for that. Any I'd like to see more of a long-term plan as well, though. That should be part of our strategic plan. That should be in the should I think maintenance of anything we do. Well, no, not just maintenance. No, recreation. I'd like to see a whole a new recreational complex. Yeah. And a long-term plan with that. So, this would be like a municipal recreational complex if you took all the land in this area with paths and trails and it connects to the schools. So, it it's creating um a center really,

right? I'm just thinking for tonight. Just confirring what what Ted was saying and that's a phasing thing. So, but this should be added to the strategic plan. Anything else for I guess I I have one more question. Good. So, we we did say that we're going to tear it down. Um when would that start and how much would that cost? I'll be using DPW to do that. So, it's when they can fit it into their schedule. But obviously, when I get it down before, as we indicated, we got people trying to get in there when they shouldn't and someone gets hurt, we're going to be in some deep trouble. Well, that's what I was the quick the sooner the better. Yes.

Okay. And I just wanted to say to Drew, Drew, please, you've got my number, my email. Just uh reach out. I got a couple ideas. Thank you. Anything else for Art? Thank you. Thank you. And thank you again to everybody that showed up tonight. We appreciate it. Up next, we have a presentation from the utilities committee on community aggregation program. Mr. Wilds been very patient. Oh, Martha. All right. Bring in the big guns.

All right. Yeah, got Martha. Thank you both for being patient. Our pleasure. Uh, good evening, uh, Mr. Chair, members of the board, managers, staff, Uh I was up here back in February to talk about the community choice aggregation program just to give you an idea of where we were at at that point in time and um since then lots have happened and I just wanted to brief you on that just to bring you up to speed and talk about some of the next steps. So uh I'm Lynn Wilds 46 Bartley Hill Road. I'm the uh chairman of the energy subcommittee, a member of the utilities committee, and with me tonight is

Marcus Smith. I am chairman of the utilities committee at 38 Chester Drive.

So, um the the quick story up front is we're live. We went live with the program on April 1st and uh that was right on the schedule that we presented back in February. Um, you know, when I was here in February on the 17th, uh, we were looking forward to launching the CCA on the London area CCA website. We've done that. We did the mailings, the opt- out card mailings. They went out. Uh, that was in February. Uh, that was in March, actually. We had a public information SK uh, session over at the high school on a Saturday morning. And uh you know when we closed out the opt out period at the end of March, we had really fulfilled all of our duties or all of our uh regulatory requirements to go live with the program. And so that we did uh customers will see the uh the effect on their bill, the lowered effect on their bill with their May uh bill coming in. uh the program was effective with a March or excuse me with an April meter read date but that would be reflected in your or reflected in your May bill. So just to give you kind of a big a big uh view here of what it uh we are looking at. So in Londereerry uh the data that we received from Eversource there were 14,080 individual meters and this may be households it may be small businesses uh a lot of uh households and small businesses have multiple meters at their address. So it's it's it doesn't really correlate to uh customers out there. It's just the number of meters. uh of the 14,000 10,756 were eligible for this program and that meant that they were ever sourced customers uh for the most part

and I'll get into the the data in a little bit uh as to what that breakdown is. uh the there were 3,324 ineligible meters and that really related to people who were on third-party contracts or people who were net metering power from their solar panels back into Eversource. Of the 10,756 eligible meters, uh we had an optin rate of 9,98 which is a little over 92%. And an opt out rate of 8%. which is really comparable to what other programs like this see across the state. So, uh I think we're right on target with our program and the results I think are speaking for themselves as to uh eligibility and participation that we're seeing. So, if we go to the next chart, you can see the numbers broken down. So there were 9,592 people automatically opted in. Uh under a third party supply contract, there were 2,686 meters. Uh you know, there was some comments about the optin opt out aspects of this program. As you can see, 848 people decided to opt out of the program, which which is fine. Um net metering, the net metering customers weren't eligible. Uh there were 360 of those and uh the last category dropped rejected with just some bad data points from the data that we received from every source and so that just kind of fell out of the program at the very end. So um not a lot more to say other than next steps looking forward. So, we signed a seven-month contract with our power supplier and uh once again that was effective on April 1st. Uh so, we're going through October with the current rate structure that we have. Uh

Eversource should be coming out with their new rates, their new PUC approved rates in August, and that would be for the period starting in February of 2027. So that'll give us So the August to October time frame gives us a little bit of a a nice negotiating feature. We can really start looking at rates as soon as we know what Eversource is going to be doing for rates. We can start looking at rates on the on the open market for our program. And then when we get to a point where we think we have a a good rate for a good period of time, we can sign it and lock it in. But I think we have a little bit of time there to react. And I and I think that's a great thing. Um, anything else to add, Martha?

No, I would just say that uh that we we're hoping that we'll we'll definitely see reductions uh in the electric bills uh on the supply side only. And everyone out there should understand that um there's two there's a supply side, there's a distribution side. This program deals with the supply

and uh you know as we all know what's happening in the world today. The uh the whole energy uh market is in turmoil. We have no idea where this is going to be going for the rest of the year. All I can say there is you know we're watching it. Our uh our third party uh partner Freedom Energy Logistics this is their business to watch the markets like that. So, um, you know, the other side of the coin is Eversource has the same issues when they're setting their rates, too. So, but I think the program, I know we had some, uh, comments coming back. I think most of the negative comments we received were regarding the opt-in opt out aspect of the program. But, you know, anecdotally, I had a lot more people thanking us for trying to save them some money than I did people complaining that uh, they didn't have the choice to opt in or opt out. And just uh from my uh utility bill uh this coming month based on what I'm expecting our usage to be at our house, we're going to be saving $25 to $30,

you know, and you an annualize that and it it adds up. So Deb, you had a question. Maya is just really I hope I think you did a great job and I think it's great that you're coming here giving us an update like I think the citizens like as it gets closer to when there may be a change in the rates if people want like that's something we should keep them a breast of moving forward if so if you two don't mind coming back reappearing on the Ed Sullivan show. Um did I date myself?

I knew what you're talking about. I don't know, whatever. Um, I think that's real important, you know, cuz people forget that they even have that because they, you know, just busy. They don't look at their bill or it's an automatic pay to have you guys come like right before, you know, there's another change, you know what I mean? Like after the end, right before the seven, like six months or whatever. That would be awesome. That's all. Other than that, I think it's great. Good job. I think the next time we'll be here uh will be after Evers Source gets their rates set by the PUC and that'll give us that line in the sand as to what we can expect to have to work compete against. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Just so everyone understands the Eversource rates are locked in every six months. So when August they come out with their rate that will be their rate for the next six months. Right. But we can't control ever source. We can only as residents, we can only control this aggregate. So to make sure that we're still getting the lowest that gives us the freedom to go go shopping. Yeah. Yeah. No, really. I get it. Martha, thank you. Dean had a question. So if somebody's got a third party supply contract now and they want to come opt in, can they do that?

So they can certainly do that. Uh, anybody can opt in or opt out at any time with no financial penalty. Understanding that it becomes effective with the next meter read. It doesn't become effective the day that they make a phone call. Right. Yeah. Uh, the only thing I will caution anybody with a third party contract is understand what that contract says about cancelling it early. Right. A lot of those contracts, you know, used car salesman put those contracts together, right? there's stop there's charges for uh cancelling early and you know you just got to really pay attention know what you're going to be canceling about but but given that as soon as they cancel the contract they can uh they can opt right in Mr. Chair. Yeah.

Good. Good. Do you know from our uh CCA program if we're able to convert more of the third party people on over into the program if they might be able to get a better rate because there's then more um more users in the program. So I would I would think from a users, you know, an economies of scale type question, Ted, right? Uh probably not make that big of a difference. Okay. Just wondering if that would be more of an incentive to try and get some of the PE that 2686 people who are still or or businesses who are still on third party

to move on over. So, I think the biggest thing we can do to appeal to those people are running like we had some articles in the Monair Times just to tell people what this program is about, right? I just wasn't sure if that's a question that we can pose to them if if we can get more of these third party people to move on over it would be a better rate for everyone, not just for the people who are existing. Yeah. And I I don't know if I could give you an accurate statement at any point, you know, what the economies of scale would be if they made that move. But uh

and then um I did notice that I had received uh one of the notifications at my home when I'm a metering person myself. So I was just surprised that I had received a notification about joining the plan. And I was like, hm, that's surprising. Shouldn't they know that I'm net metered? So they do they do uh there were a couple of instances where people were sent the wrong mailer. Okay. And uh and the mailer itself required you to read it. You couldn't just look at the headline and understand what it was talking about. You had to read the entire thing of course.

And it talked and the mailer that you should have received talked about the fact that you were net metering back and you were not going to be eligible for the program or you could join the program but it's not going to be in your best interest financially. Um, and I also found it interesting from here that we have 360 solar homes in town or properties. I think that's pretty interesting to have as a factoid. And once again, that's based on data from every source. It's not based on data from the assessors, of course. So, so we're just uh but that's probably a pretty accurate number. Any other questions?

Well, I want to thank you both on the utility committee for all your hard work you've done in this. I know you guys put a lot of time into it and I think it I think it paid off very well for the residents. I think they're going to be very happy when they get their bill. Yeah. Excellent. So, thank you. Just to plug the utilities committee a little bit, I I think uh we have some very passionate people on the committee and uh you know, we're certainly involved in water and energy are the two focal points. Uh solid waste is becoming another focal point for the committee, too. But I think we're doing some really good work with some there's some very good work being done by some passionate people. Thank you both. Appreciate it. You're welcome. And I believe Precopia asked to be put off until further notice. Correct? They did. Yes.

Okay. So, up next we have discussion and authorize the town manager to execute a memorable understanding for Pillsbury realy. Miss Karen. So, actually I'm going to grab it for her.

So, just uh a few things on this. Uh obviously, we've had a PUD that's been effect for quite some time. Um and you get u at least the plane board gets updates every year in terms of the status of that the cost share pieces of that and obviously the town has continued to grow throughout the town and those uh pressures in terms of traffic have mounted on different roads in the municipality especially Pillsbury road in particular and of course it would have been helpful if we had the procopia discussion which you folks are familiar with and that addresses a lot of those with the developer. It was a good relationship working between working with the developer as well as Pillsbury really to come to a resolution on that to be able to deal with those infrastructure issues that we are faced with across the entire town. U so we have worked on thisou with uh uh Pillsbury realy to how we're going to move forward from this point. It's important that we have good baseline data and that's an area that we have some degree of weakness in our town. We talked about that. That's one of the reasons we had the warn article before the voters, the transportation, uh, that will allow us to get some traffic counting devices and get some real-time data and permanent data and year-over-year data, which we don't have. We have presently four devices and two of them haven't worked in years, and the other two we can't collect the data out of them. So, that's not real helpful. Um so in terms of this um this is a a framework to be able to allow us to start moving forward with what needs to be done uh in particular with Pillsbury Road and uh we had talked I worked with uh Kevin um as well as our engineers on doing a corridor study of Pills what I what I refer to as Pillsbury Road east from the intersection of Route 128 of Mammoth Road all the way to the dairy line. uh all those that stretch of road that corridor of that roadway all the way to the dairy line and all the intersections that are involved with that are impacted by the the traffic that has resulted in from the growth

that's occurred in this community. Some of which is Woodmont but not all of it. Uh because it's I drive through every day and I'm one of those new people who moved here months ago and I'm one of those people adding to that traffic problem and that's a development that occurred over on Gilchrist Road. Um so we worked on this de this proposal to put this together and you saw pieces of that with a procopia agreement in terms of the cost share on that but it has to be proportional. It has to be directly related to the impacts caused by the particular development. We have to be able to articulate that we have to have numbers to be able to do that. You cannot charge them for things that they have not done. It's only the impact that they actually create. So, uh, we met with Kevin and his engineer as well, as well as our engineers, and we have a proposal that we're working on through HTA that will do that corridor study. I don't have a price on that yet. They're still, uh, writing up the scope on that. Uh, and the plan is that that will move forward. That will also be in our CIP. There'll be three corridor studies that I'm proposing. Uh, Lichville Road as well as Auburn Road. And in the case of Auburn Road, uh I expect the developer to pay the cost for that one as well. And that's that large PUD that's being proposed up in that area of the town on the Auburn line. Uh and also the installation of permanent uh speed and traffic counting devices so that we'll again have that data that I spoke about earlier that we don't presently have. We should be making decisions based upon data uh not on guesswork or um old studies in many cases. So we had a study from 2013 that was done in terms of the planning board approval for the PUB and then it was uh refreshed in 2016. Uh so we need to take that the data from both of those find out what was projected and what the actual traffic is out there and how much to the extent that we can how much of that actually comes from Woodmont how what what how much of it actually comes from other sources.

We have certain intersections that we know based upon the VHB study that was done that Procopia paid for that are at level F, level of service F. It goes A through F. F is the lowest level of service. That means the intersection is not adequately handling the traffic flow that's coming through it. Certain times of the day, certain days of the week, not every time, not all the time. It's probably crickets out there right now. But in the morning uh and in particular the evening actually uh certain legs of those intersections are not performing at an adequate level because they can't handle the traffic volume coming through there. You mean F is not for fantastic? Say it again. F is not for fantastic. I I missed it again. I said F is not for fantastic.

No, it's not for fantastic. Yeah. And it's not for fun if you're in a traffic queue waiting to get through. Yeah. Um

Yeah. So it it's and of course that will get worse over time if we don't do something about it. Uh Woodmont has been uh working with us on this. They recognize this issue and how we're going to move forward. So the first step is going to be the corridor study and then that corridor study will also provide us with conceptual plans at the different intersections and stretches of roadway as to what our options are whether it be a signalized intersection, roundabout or some other solution to those problems uh to be able to deal with those various intersections along that way. Exit 4A I think will also contribute to that. Uh people don't people used to follow the main roads in the old days as they are now GPS tells them where to go and depending upon the time of day and day or week it's going to tell them to go a different route and a lot of times that's back roads cut through roads uh and there's there's more development as we know that's planned in Woodmont. So I view this as a partnership with Woodmont to be able to develop this framework and then as each project comes online when I say online when they submit a site plan application we'll be assessing the cost of that the infrastructure needs on a application by application basis but working with Woodmont will at least come up with a framework and what the plan is for that corridor. That's what I'm talking about here today. That's what this framework does. Uh, council Paula asked some really good questions today and I provided a lot of feedback that I was well done in terms of the questions that were asked. Um, and uh, you know, again, I provided a lot of feedback on that. So,

any other questions from the council? Well, I have a my little thing here. Please don't move. So, I get a little nervous doing this, believe it or not, but I don't believe it. I think this is true.

It's true. Well, you know what? I have dyslexia and I have anxiety and then it all comes to a when I'm here. That's why I have my worry rock. Um, so I read this and I think it's a fantastic first step. The step that we've been missing for a very, very long time and applause to Kelly and Mr. Mhalland for their work and effort in and even Kevin for helping out for putting this together. Um, just a few of the things that I had brought up to Mr. Mhalland that caught me when I read this document was uh appropriate cost share. Um that's really vague. Um so we as we move forward we need to have a clearer formula for who pays for what and what is the percentage. um appropriate can mean anything and that puts taxpayers at risk because is it going to be do we have to fully do it or we're going to take 90% they take 5%. So it's very important to have the language nailed down and and we need to before things are signed we need more numbers as Mr. Mhulland said not general language and and I know that will come as we move forward uh in this process. Um the other thing was that developers get to get a veto power over the consultants. That kind of bothered me a little bit. Um the uhou gives the developer the right to approve or reject vendors. That slows us down and puts the town in a weaker position when negotiating. um if we're paying and managing the work, we should also um have a little bit of control in that process. You know, if we say we want this person, you know, there should be a little bit more negotiating there. Uh when it comes to

uh vendors also um and it's not long uh the timelines and triggers. There are no deadlines for improvements, no connections to building permits, occupancies or project phases. Without timelines and improvements, um we can expect um delays to be indefinite while we're while the development is continuing. In other words, oh yeah, we're going to put that in, but we don't know when we're going to put it in. It could be 10 years from now. There needs to be more rigid timelines to hold people to what they said they're going to do. Um, also, uh, no financial protection for the town. There's no escrow accounts, no performance bonds, no guarantees. If the developer sells, passes, or walks away, taxpayers could end up covering the gap, which is also an issue that needs to be addressed. Um, there were no requirements that uh that the improvements happened before, excuse me, there are no requirements that improvements happen before more development. So, in other words, the MOU doesn't tie like we were just talking inter intersection upgrades to future approvals. So we need more improvements before the additional traffic happen. So in being proactive as opposed to reactive citing that yes this is where this stands and it's not all them like Mr. Mhalland said but we can't do it after the fact. We should be doing it before they're allowed to build more. Um long-term maintenance falls entirely on the town. Um Mr. Mahullen straighten that out so that's not an issue. Um, I was a little confused in the wording. Um, subdevelopers aren't clearly addressed in this document. Woodmont has

multiple builders. Theou doesn't explain how much each one contributes to um, their fair share. So, we don't know how that and if they change hands, how that works. Um, we need a system that tracks and changes with each subdeveloper fairly. So, as it progresses down the road, we need to have the plan. So, again, I they're not huge things. They're just little things. Um, but I think kudos to the three parties working together to move something finally in writing that is of a town benefit that is really detailed and explicit to what we want to do. And I think by doing these sort of things, it's more it's beneficial to the builder. It's beneficial to the residents. It's beneficial to our quality of life. It's beneficial to the taxpayer. It's beneficial to our environment here, our resources. So, yay. That's it. Excellent.

I will say, Deb, a lot of your points are addressed in the site plan. That's why they're not in MLOU. I think Sean did respond to each one of those points. Um, well, it's a different I have that here, too. Okay. Sorry. I get That's right. Yeah. Just just to to sum that up, the place for that is in the site plan. When these get developed, it's not in theou. That's why it's not in here.

Well, the problem with that, Sean, is and I'm not saying you're wrong or right. It's just an opinion. And in my opinion, the more detailed you are and in the more places you have, which is expected of someone, the easier things flow, the quicker it flows. And the quicker it flows, and the quicker the people know the same page, that's great. The problem with it just being in the site plan is you get a new board all the time. You get different perspectives, you don't have the history all the time, so you don't know. So if it's written in a document in various places, there's no confusion on the board as to what the intent was and what it is to be moving forward.

So there's been rulings on this, most recently a Supreme Court ruling where you we cannot put stuff like that in anou that has to go. I'd like to see that, Sean. I have not seen it. If you could send it to me.

Okay. If I could just tell Paul with that. That's why we have site plan regs and subdivision rigs and it's the planning board that implements those right and then and the planning board did that in the procopia development and they the condition was they had to thee not theou but the agreement with the town development agreement so that's the mechanism by which you do that we you as the council cannot do what's called exactions those sorts of things are the only people who can do that are the planning board that's why that process is there and just a couple of the other things too is that we're talking about Woodmont paying for the cost of this corridor study. So, they should get a say on who we're going to uh who we're going to choose to do that. And there's a process out of the planning board uh statute right now that if we choose a a contractor to do something, a consultant, they can object to that. There's a whole process they put that in statute. So, we those are discussions that would occur anyway.

I I'd like to hope so, but sometimes things like that I see don't necessarily happen. And that's nobody's fault. It's just that there's a lot to know and a lot to understand. And like I said with you have personnel turning over, planning board turning over. Um the more places you can refer to um the actual process is great. And I'm not faulting Woodmont. I'm glad that they're moving forward and stepping up. That's applauded. Um, I just think that like one of the changes for the PUD is to add that everybody get a a development agreement. As you know, we've been giving it to some, not the others. What's in those agreements? There's a whole lot of different things that happen. And so, you have to really, really follow the line and think about tying up all the loopholes and loose hand ends. And I know everybody says the more restrictive you are, the more chances are you are going to get sued. But when I looked at I think it was seven other towns, I read their PUDs and I compared them to our PUDs and they've had them in place. They've implemented it and none of them were sued. So their language being tight was fine. They moved their PUDS and these these PUDs were successful. I actually went to Google and like I didn't drive out to all of them just so you know, but I did look at them and they were pretty amazing. Um, so that's all

I will say I think limiting or restricting what they're able to build without fixing this one intersection I think would be over overstepping our bounds. Why? If it's going to affect it and it costs something. But if they're working on improving this item, but yet you're going to be limiting what the other items are doing and until they finish it. Yeah. Because what holds them to finish it? I think that I think you have to I think we would be messing into a a sticky legal battle potentially.

Well, I can just say it's happened in other towns. There's not been sticky wheel things. And the thing the problem is when you're loosey goosey and you allow things and um we're not here as counselors to work for the developers and make sure that they have a nice easy time. We're here to do what's right for the taxpayers. New Market. God, now you threw me off. Hold on. It was in the package I sent you. Did you read it? Yeah, I read it. All right, then you know the town. I didn't memorize it. I did not receive this. Didn't receive It's in me a package with the your uh in for tonight. It's in the package.

I sent it out. It was put in the package. It's at the very last end. It comes in with the PUD stuff with um Greg Carson's. He had like two or three pages of suggestions as well for consideration later. Yeah, we we discuss the PUD later. So, yeah, we'll stick on the I was answering this question. Yeah, I just wanted to ask because brought up um Bedford Marramac Dova was one of them. Well, three of them. And then there was uh New Market and um Lebanon. Lebanon had a great one. Any further discussion on theou? Yeah. Go. Oh, sorry. D

I just want to thank our town manager, Mr. Mahalland, and all the work that he's put in this and his staff. Uh I want to thank Kevin you know, for working with the town. Um, for years we've heard a lot of negative stuff about Woodmont impacting this, impacting that. It's nice to see, you know, Pillsbury realy come to work with the town, try to address these traffic issues. Um, it's easy to sit up here and say, "Yeah, we got to address traffic." But this is one way of looking at it. I've been involved with the um working group with traffic working group and I think this is really going to help us and I just want to say thank you Kevin thank you Mr. I think this is a great idea, good good way to move forward. Things change from day one when they first proposed that and you know we need to make changes as we move along.

In favor say I. I. Any opposed? Chair votes in the affirmative. 5-0.

Uhoh. Up next, discuss and approve expenditure from the Police Equipment and Technology Capital Reserve Fund. Chief, you're up once again. All right. Thanks for being patient. Happy to be here. So, I'm here for money. I don't Which is rare for you. So, it is rare for me. I don't I will give you that

ask you folks for stuff. uh back on the I believe it was the March 30th uh council meeting, the town manager had brought to your attention that we were looking to expend uh some money from the police technology capital reserve fund uh in the amount of $53,546. Uh this is to replace an outdated Pharaoh system machine. It's a 3D image machine. Uh, one of the questions was asked by, I believe, councelor Paul, how old was the former system and what money do we have in the account is what I recall. Um, so the machine was 14 years oldish. Uh, the software has been outdated. So, it's at near life, uh, end of life. So, rather than waiting, uh to have that thing completely, uh, be useless, we've moved forward with the the new updated Pharaoh. Um, this one here, uh, again, I'll give you some rundown on it. Uh, this is for scenes such as, um, fatal motor vehicle accidents, homicides, suicides, uh, crime scenes, etc. We use it for mapping buildings, town halls, schools, libraries, and so on. Um, it also provides us the ability for better presentations in courtrooms. It's a improvement for recognition on crashes. Back in the day when we all were young patrol officers, uh we'd hold one end of a measuring tape, uh go to a fixed object and yell the measurement out. We would take Polaroids and then sketch it out on paper. As you recall, Dan with the blue blitz using that little uh tool to get the police uh sketches done. This machine here, we set it up and it's it scans everything, gives us exact measurements of everything in the scene. It's it's obviously it's more professional, it's it's timely. Uh we have a program also that integrates with

our drones capability to aerial mapping, etc. So, this is a muchneeded tool for the police department. And again, um we're looking to replace the the u the old one. And again, we're asking for approval out of this account of $53,50469. Uh the question again was how much do we have in that account? We have $84,24710.

Any questions for the chief? Yeah, good. How is that account funded? We had this appropriated I believe it was last year through uh the budget process. It's a Warren article. Thank you, Justin. Yeah. And you already have the money to Yeah. maintain this unit. Correct. What we also pulled out of there was the portable radios that I I don't remember what month it was, but several months back we came to you folks for five portable radios. Okay. So, um after this, we'll have roughly 31,000 left in it. Is there a lot of maintenance to this machine other than software and training? That's about it. That's it. Yeah. Do you have to certify it for anything or

Yep. And then we the officers who are trained in it specialize in that training with it. So all that comes with updated software, additional training, etc. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. So more of a a accommodation. Um you've gotten $20,959 in discounts uh from the company for all of this. How did you go about doing so? the people that apply for these things, the guys in charge of the of the programs, they're the ones that the networking, the relationship building aspect, and I also believe as a salesperson, uh, they look to close a deal. So, they have to do what it takes at times, I'm assuming. So, uh, we're very fortunate to get on that.

Thank you to your guys for working them down on their pricing where they could and absolutely saving the town, uh, almost $21,000. So, it's huge. Thank you, Ted. Any other questions for the chief? You guys need a copy of what the breakdown of that machine is, like what it does and all that. Oh, you can email it to all of us. Oh, you've got it printed. Look at you being all You get a star in your forehead. No, he does. I don't get them off paper. So

I'll move that the London Dairy Town Council hereby approves order 2026-08 and directs the trustee of the trust funds to disperse $53,54.69 from the police equipment and technology capital reserve fund for the aforementioned items. Have a motion from Sean second. I heard Dan first second from Dan. Further discussion seeing none all those in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Chair host the affirmative 5-0. Up next, discuss and approve a withdrawal of $33,87.76 from the cable equipment reserve fund. Is Drew gonna do this or you? No, Drew's got a call. Okay, so I'll do it. And um Erin, she's in that back room. Might jump in if we need to

depending how many questions there are. So, it's it's this was a longer term plan to replace the equipment we talked about many times in here tonight about replacing things that need to be replaced, and that's the equipment to uh for our video and audio equipment in live stream, particularly in this room and cameras in this room. Uh so we can provide better quality because some of the quality is not the best. Um and that's that's what it's for. paid for the capital reserve fund from uh the cable equipment which is funded by franchise fee money. So any questions questions? Were you not able to get as good discount on products as the police chief was? Wow.

I don't I don't know because uh I don't know what what sort of discounts they provide for those sorts of things. I don't know. Jesus. So, I'll move that the London Area Town Council hereby approves order 2026-09 and directs the trustees of the trust funds to disperse $33,872.76 from the cable equipment capital reserve fund for the necessary control room upgrades. Have a motion from Sean. Second. Second from Ted. Further discussion. Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Jeff in the affirmative. 5-0. Up next, receive a quarterly budget status update. Mr. Cample, thank you for being patient with us. Absolutely. How's everybody doing tonight? Good. All right. So, I provided you guys with the normal format that I uh give to you regarding the quarterly updates and what we've done. So you can look through and see that at this point of the year we're about 69.13% of the budget is spent when we should be at 75.07.

Oh that's good. Y um so through this portion you have a combined expenditures if you were to take out several items of uh sorry hold on a second I skipped ahead to the uh debt service. So debt service is currently at 83% which this is one of the ones where they are scheduled payments. So even though it's ahead of schedule, we know that we don't have a random debt service payment coming up and it's on track. Um capital outlay and transfers, those are pretty much done throughout the year. If you were to look, you'll see that we have 641 under expended. That's the rail trail warn article that is going to be taking process over the next year or so. You also will see that we're well over in capital other. That's because of the um warrant warrant article for the water from last year. So, it's carried forward. So, it doesn't actually impact the budget because the budget is appropriated from last year and carries forward, but the expense carried in this year. So, you'll see the expense there. Uh revenues were trending above. We're at uh 80.67%. If you were to take away the uh one-time payments that we know are coming, whether year end or at a certain time, that number jumps up to 84.36%.

And then I have our other funds where you can see the revenues and expenditures and how they are uh doing at this point. So that's a high level overview. I can continue further in detail or answer any questions that you may have. Continue what we'll answer at the end. Do that. What's that? I think he is done, right? Oh, he's done. That covers everything high level, Mr. Chair. Yeah, please go. So, Justin, um I guess one critique I have for you is under the revenue area. Um make it bigger. Well, font slightly bigger maybe. Yes.

No dollar amount. Hey, I mean he's doing pretty decent. I guess flipping around the over under. Instead of putting the over in brackets, put the under in brackets because usually if you're negative on a number, that's usually in brackets. Yep, I can do that. That's how I'm used to seeing it. At least in financial reports usually. Yep. Um but it's nice to see that our interest in cost on late property taxes is quite high. Um, I'll be honest, that's one I'd like to see a little bit lower because that means people are paying on time. Well, I guess there's that, but we're collecting more money if they're paying late, right?

Um, zoning review. What goes into that number for revenues? So, that would be your uh zoning plans. Uh, give me one second. ZBA applications uh the fees associated with that typically for the most part. So right now we're making 15 grand over what we had budgeted for. Yeah. Which um tracks I believe with the projection or over I should say because if you recall we updated our fee schedule for the land use fees and that's um the primary factor to that.

Okay that's good to know. I guess maybe back to you Kelly. other departments that you're seeing right now from the fee schedule that you're seeing an increase in revenues than what we were projected for. Are you seeing that with what you were hoping it to be based on Justin's report? I'd say it's on track if not ahead. So wonderful.

So if you look at building permits, we're expecting that to pick up as building season kind of continues. And those were one of the other ones that the fees were increased on. And if you look, you'll see that the revenue during the budget process for building permits was uh 550,000 at tax rate setting time. We increased that to 1 point uh 1,250,000. So a significant increase. And while it's slightly below, most of those usually come in the fall and spring when it's easier to build. Gotcha. Yeah. Right now we're under by 450,000. So, right. But I would expect and you have to keep in mind this does not include April. This is only through March. True. Yeah. Most people are doing a lot of work in the springtime, right?

Any other questions for Justin? Do we have a ballpark projection of what UFB is going to look like on maintenance this year and what we want to do with some of the lingering items out there? I would say we're looking between 200 and 500,000. And that depends again on the projects as well as any unforeseen that may happen. And I say it in Jess, but we literally had to deal with a plane falling out of the sky one year. That's on the appropriation side. That was only a year ago. I mean, come on now. Just so we're clear, UFB is a combination of what's left over for that is Yeah, that does not include the revenues. That is only excess revenues that goes to UFB. So that's yeah, just a different number.

The the items that we don't know about, of course, is the HVAC units at the library. We're going to find out what the story is with that. They're working on getting those that that's an unknown number we have right now. And then, yeah, that's the biggest one that we're waiting on. So, just one of the biggest factors there would be the interest. The motor vehicle permits is trending 4% above. Um interest revenue, I believe, is also trending above. And then you also have some of the uh one-time receiving items such as meals and rooms which is 2.7 million that we received in December. So that going at the percentage aspect that calculates for everything into it.

Okay. So that rooms and meals was more than expected to as well. Okay. Yep. So when it comes to the tax rate setting time, when it comes to budget season or budget revenue season, what we do is we budget what we received last year and then when the tax rate setting time comes, we'll increase it to what the state provides us. Um that's happened every year with one exception or COVID where we weren't sure where meals and rooms was going to be. So in order to kind of give the taxpayers a better way, we decreased what it was from the previous year for the budget and then it actually came in higher which was a nice little added benefit at that point

because it lowered the tax rate during the tax rate season and or during the tax rate setting time and the voters when they went into March election saw a higher tax rate than what they would have had we estimated higher. Mhm. And so this is Q3, but Q4 will be ending the end of June for us. So you're expecting to close up this $4 million gap by the end of June on revenues or more.

Taking away the use of fund balance, I would say we are likely going to be higher than what we have budgeted. This doesn't include the use of fund balance. So when we use fund balance that goes in as a budget revenue but we don't actually have the revenue to offset it because we're using the fund balance to cancel it out. You take that away as in just the revenues we know we're going to be receiving. Yeah. I would I would estimate that we are going to be above unless something significant happens. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions? You good? Yeah, I'm good, John. Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Up next, we have old business continuing discussion on the PUD. Miss Karen, did you want to start us off or was it uh just to note that I did make the update for your consensus from the last meeting which was uh section 526c about ownership and requiring all PUDs to have uh development agreement. So that's reflected in this most recent draft and I'll answer any questions you have. Did you want to start us off? Yeah, I I have a little thing. Thank you. I didn't know if Kelly had anything to say, so I wanted to ask her for us. So, but yeah, please go.

No, no, no problem. No problem. Um, basically, this is um over the past seven several years, London's PUD ordinance has produced developments that do not resemble the true planned unit development. Instead of balance of mixeduse neighborhoods with commercial and civic and residential components, we've seen large residential projects with um minimal benefit with and excuse me, minimal public benefit and long-term service burdens on the taxpayers. At this point, the ordinance is no longer functioning as a planning tool. It has become a loophole for developers. It should be paused while we work on improving it if the improvements are going to take a longer time than a month or two. Um because when an ordinance stops protecting its community, it must be fixed. And that's what we need to do. We need to take the this is an important document. We need to take the time bite by bite and digest what is being said and look at what is in the best interest of our community and our town. That's why this review is structured section by section. A PUD ordinance is only as strong as its definitions, requirements, and enforcement mechanisms. If even one section is vague or optional, the entire ordinance becomes vulnerable. This process defines weakness weakness, excuse me, defines weaknesses,

compares our standards to successful PUDs found in other New Hampshire towns and recommends clear enforcable improvements. Every change I am proposing serves one purpose and one purpose only. To restore the original intent of a PUD and protect the taxpayers, the infrastructure in our town and the long-term vision of what this community means. It's been said that I am against building. That is not true. If you're not building and growing, your town is dying. And that is not what Londereerry is doing. But there is something to be said about fast, rapid, large growth. It becomes unsustainable when your infrastructure is falling apart and you need water and you need to think of your services, fire, police. These things are all important and all need to be thought about. growth is wonderful and can create a marvelous community with all kinds of recreational pocket everything that you could possibly imagine when it's done smart and done in a way that is systematic written and and and brought forth. So that is my little intro. Um I don't know. Uh starting at the bottom of page five, section 52.6B, uh track size. Uh the town says it allows parcels separated by roads, utility corridors, or waterways to count as contiguous unless the planning board decides otherwise.

My suggestion um for best practices is the minimum track size for a planned unit development shall be 100 acres of contiguous excuse me contiguous developable land. Parcels separated by major roads, utilities, corridors, rail lines, or other significant barriers shall not be considered as contiguous unless the applicant demonstrates through specific independent traffic study, safety, and infrastructure analysis selected by the town and funded by the applicant that the parcels function as a single unified development. without creating adverse impact to traffic circulation, emergency response or municipal services. Wetlands, steep slopes and protected natural natural resources shall not be counted towards the minimum acreage requirement. Why this matters? This closes the patchwork PUD loophole that aligns with Bedford, Marramck, and Dova's best practices. This is merely a suggestion. If you want, I can just keep going or we can stop. How would you like to do this, Mr. Chair?

I think if you want to present your whole case, then we can we can talk about it. Okay. After you finish,

section two five, excuse me, exec section 5.2.6D. 6D utilities. The town draft summary requires PUDS to be served by public water sewer and says service must be reasonable and consistent with sewer facilities master plan. The suggested rewrite all PUDs shall serve be serviced by public water and public sewer systems. Sewer and water capacity shall be verified through independent engineering analysis selected by the town and funded by the applicant. Services shall comply with the town's sewer facility master plan and no PUD shall be approved unless adequate capacity exists or the applicant funds all the improvements necessary to achieve the compliance for adequacy. So basically why this is important, it removes vague language, prevents um approvals without infrastructure and ensures capacity is verified independently and built before the occupancy. Section 52 5.2.7 permitted uses. A planned use development shall include a balance of mix residential, commercial, and civic use to ensure economic, sustainability, and aligned with the town's master plan. The following minimum use requirements shall apply. Number one, the commercial component. A minimum of 30% of the total floor area shall consist of commercial use that is generating employment

services or taxes, excuse me, or tax revenue storage only on lowac shall not satisfy this requirement. Um, number two, civic community space. A minimum of 10% of total floor areas shall be dedicated to civic or community unless accessibility to the public, excuse me, with accessibility to the public. Number three, residential cap. Residential use shall not exceed 60% of the total floor area with the PUD. Number four, mixuse integration. Use must be designed as integrated walkable environment with coordinated circulation and shared infrastructure. Number five, master plan consistency. All permit permitted uses shall demonstrate clear consistency with the town's master plan. Section 52 5.2 2.8a parking and loading. The town summary draft requires parking to generally comply with site plan regulations but allows planning board to approve shared parking or reduce ratios with parking analysis. The rewrite off- streetet parking and loading shall comply with the town site plan regulations unless modified through the PUB plan approval. Any requests for shared parking, reduced parking ratios, or alternate parking arrangement shall be supported by an independent parking uh analysis. Um basically this matters because parking under parking protection neighborhoods

are insured um and reduce our base independent data um not from the developer. This is we just seen this on Hardy Road and I know it's not a PUB, but one of those seven new houses that they built had a party and they didn't have any parking and they were parked in the street and it was um causing major problems going down the road. Section 5.2.8B building height. The town drafts limits building height to 50 feet unless planning board authorizes more than that for the um airport overlay compliance. The rewrite basically says it limits not to exceed 50 ft unless approved and that the houses next to it are are relative. So, in other words, you can't have a hotel with a little little tiny house right next being built next to it. And that's basically what the land um with the suggested change is saying that all structures shall comply with FARA requirements and that they shall um be consistent with uh and compatible with the surrounding development. Why this is important? It ensures height increases are tied to safety, compatibility, and emergency assets, not simply a developer's preference. Section 5.2.8C, residential desens

density. I sorry, my mouth is very dry. The draft sets a baseline density of six unit per acre and allows density bonuses based on community benefits. And I put that in quotes. It does not require infrastructure infrastructure capacity analysis nor does it tie density to commercial or civic um delivery. The rewrite residential density within a PUD shall be directly tied to capacity of existing and planned infrastructure including roads, schools, utilities and public safety services. Um, baseline residential shall not exceed six dwelling units per gross acre. Density bonuses may be granted only when infrastructure capacity, independent third-party analysis by the town and funded by the developer, commercial, it goes on and on and on. And why this one matters is that it ensures that density is based on actual independent verified structural capacity. It prevents overloading of schools and public safety services and eliminates loopholes that previously allowed density increases without corresponding commercial development or mitigation. This section was added by me um because I saw it in another town and I thought it was very important. This would be added to section 5.2.8D compliance with other regulations. States that PUDs must comply with all other applicable regulations unless modified through the PUD process. This section is mostly produc

does not contain loopholes. So the rewrite for this basically is and why it matters. I'm going to skip right to the why it matters. I will be here to midnight. So um why this one matters is um this prevents the PUD from process from being used to bypass core regulations and ensures any flexibility is justified with objective evidence not subjective claims. This is another section um is open space 5.2.8E 8E. The town draft requires open space but allows flexibility in what counts. That does not require permitted protection, does not prohibit um counting wetlands or unusable lands as total open space. Um basically why this one this change matters and you can read these if you want. Um it matters because it prevents loopholes from count uh counting unusable land as their open space. This ensures that we get live we get usable open space for the people who live there and the civic activities to participate in will happen. This is something that New London, Lebanon and Keen have in their PUD. I added this as well. environmental protection um easements and basically this is a very long one and why this matters is it eliminates all the loopholes that allow COOD buffers reductions and ensures environmental impacts are independently verified and protected. Londereerry's water resource and natural systems are very very very important to our community and to our existence.

The next one is 5.2.8 circulation transportation. Um, and why I made some changes here again I'll just summarize because it's very long. Um, this this these changes that I made would ensure traffic impacts are independently verified, prevents cut through traffic, requires mitigation before occupancy, and protects emergency response times. Please keep in mind these changes do not affect the three PUDs that we have in place right now. These changes are for anything new coming in to our town. Uh section 5.2.8hultural and site designs. Again, I really feel bad reading all of these and it's boring to you people, I'm sure. Um why this one these changes that I've suggested are important is it creates an enforcable design standards prevents um inconsistency or low quality development. It ensures that the PUD delivers a comprehensive walkable and attractive builtout environment which is something that Londereerry should hold dear for its standards. Um, this also is another added section phasing. And why the changes I've made and added to this are important is it prevents developers from building all of the housing first. It ensures that commercial and civics um uses are actually materialized and generates infrastructure is in place before residential residents are ready to move in. This again protects us so that

developers will not um just come in build all the residential and then we don't get everything else that was planned. This is another um section that I added. Uh this one here is uh 5.2.8J public amenities and community benefits. This one um the rewrite is public amenities and community benefits provided as a part of the PUD shall be clearly defined, measurable um and and and the impacts should be held to a following standard. And then I go through the um definition of eligibility and whatever. But why this one matters is it prevents u vague and low value benefits. This ensures benefits are real and deliverable early and it ties density bonuses to ver verified measurable public value. The next one is also added. This one is storm water management. the changes that I've made, which is almost almost a page long, um, helps prevent flooding, protects water quality, ensures independent verification, and requires storm water systems be built before residents move in. This is also added 5.2.8L, utility and infrastructure. Oh my goodness. Again, this provides that um this one here is landscaping and buffers. The this one here had a lot of changes. I added it. Um perimeters minimum of 50 foot landscape buffers shall be provided along the perimeter of a PUD where it abuts existing residential

neighborhoods, which is what we have already. Um then I added some more with another uh section which was lighting and signage. Lighting and signage within a PUD shall be designed to ensure safety uh minimize glaze. Create a cohesive look of visual for the environment. The following standards should be applied. dark sky compliance which we already have in our in our ordinances but this puts it all in one spot to put it into their master plan. Um the next section is also added which is um public safety and emergency services uh rewrote the whole thing. Um that one speaks for itself. This basically is to make sure that all the new residents that we would be obtaining would be protected and that the cost of that protection would not fall on the taxpayer. Um the fiscal uh impact and municipal services which is something else that I had added. Um also went on to add something another section which is the town has which is 5.2.9 2.9 um restrictions and easements. Right now, the town does not require enforcable standards, does not require the town to improve of legal documents, that does not require maintenance of funding of mechanisms, does not require consistency with the PUD master plan, does not require obligations run with the land. It um leaves us loose and weak and uninforcable documents. I rewrote it and why this matters is it gives us insurance on long-term enforcability. It prevents maintenance and um it protects the town from inheriting private obligations and guarantees that

all commitments made during approval remain binding on the future owners. So, we've had developments that went in a long time ago and they were supposed to take care of the roads and then they went through different people and next thing you know we have the roads and we have the maintenance and we have the cost. So, to prevent those things from happening in the future, it is very important to have these things nailed down. Um, section 5.2.10 administration and enforcement. The town's draft includes only minimal administration language. It does not define who enforces the PUD. It does not require compliance monitoring. It does not establish penalties for violations. It does not require amendments. Um, it does not update studies during buildout. It does not clarify the planning board's authority and it does not provide mechanisms um for relocation of of things. Um, so this leaves the town with no leverage if developers deem it from time to time to change the plan. Um, the changes that I I put in there fixes this and it protects the town on many many different levels. And again, I'm not going to read all of the different ones. As you can see, it's very long. um performance. That's all part of the performance. And why all of this matters is this section gives the town real enforcement power. It ensures that developers cannot drift away from commitments and protects the taxpayer by requiring monitoring, amendments for changes, penalties of violation, performance guarantees,

independent ver verifications. Section 5.211, amendments to approve PUD. The town draft includes no clear amendment. uh procedure for PUDs. This is a major gap. Without a defined process, developers can attempt to a shift users, b increase density, deny um delay commercial and civi civic components, alter phasing, reduce open space, modify infrastructure obligations, change architectural standards, all with a formal public review. We need reform packages that require strict transparent amendment process for the developer to go through which I have laid out. Again, I'm not going to read all of it. Um, it's like two pages long, but why this section really matters is, excuse me, that this section will prevent developers from quietly changing the project. projects. Protects the town from density creep. Ensures civic and commercial components cannot be removed. Requires public review for meaningful changes. Ensures update studies. Reflects real impact. Keeps the PUD consistent with what was proposed to the residents. We have section 52 5.2.12. This one here has to do with expiration lapses and extensions. The town drafts contains no expiration or lap provisions.

The PUD approves major gaps without clearing a timeline. The PUD approval could sit for 20 years or more. Market conditions could change. Traffic, financial, environmental impacts could also change. And yet we have no recourse. Development could bank approvals indefinitely. Um the town loses control over phasing and timing. We need a reform package that requires expiration rules and update studies as time lapses on which I did a substantial um write up on that with ways to do it from other towns, not my ideas. um why this section is important. This section with the changes I've made or suggested prevents approvals from lingering for decades. Ensures impact studies are current. Protects the town from outdated assumptions. Gives the planning board control over timing. Ensures phase development stays on schedule. allows the town to apply update regulations if if the project stalls for too long. This is very important. Um with a project like Woodmont, we saw these phases, you know, slow down and in the interim we had a lot of other things like Mr. Mal Holland's project down on Gilchrist get built and all of that and that changed what was happening. And so we should have been able to adjust their master plan to fit and and granted we can't change any of it. It is what it is and we have to work within the rules. Um this would prevent that

from happening in the in the future. So that's kind of an update of all of the different things. And uh I could have I I have a top like eight must fixed which is really really simple. Um but in closing I want to thank everyone for putting up with me and thank you for reviewing this ordinance section by section. What you've seen tonight is not just a list of edits. It's a plan to finally make our PUD ordinance work the way it was intended to work. We hear it all the time from residents. This is not what we were told we were going to get. For years, our PUD has delivered housing without the commercial balance, public benefit or infrastructure protections the ordinance promised. And because Londereerry has no impact fees, every strain on police, fire, schools, roads, and water is shifted directly onto the taxpayer. A weak PUD ordinance combined with no impact fees is a recipe for long-term financial harm to our town. Other New Hampshire towns have shown us what successful PUDs look like. clear standard, enforcable comments and development that aligns with the master plan. London Derry deserves the same, if not better. These changes ensure that any future PUDs must deliver real mixed use, real public benefit, real infrastructure mitigation, and real accountability. They close loopholes, straighten

enforcements, protect taxpayers from carrying the full cost of largecale developments. This is our opportunity to correct the course and put Londereerry on the path toward responsible, balanced, sustainable growth. These changes aren't just improvements, they're necessary. So, please, if we have to take a long time to do this, press pause for more PUDs to be added so that the new ones we get are done correctly and stop doing damage to our town. Let's get it right. Our citizens deserve it. Thank you.

Thank you, Deb. I'm gonna I'll start off with a few comments. Um, I think just about I did the same as you. I met with residents. I met with planning board members. And I think that our old PUD needed to be updated. And I think the document that the planning board sent us is a compromise. I think it's a a document that I think I won't speak for the planning board, but I think the majority of them would want it looser, and I think they sent it to us a little more restrictive because they knew what the council was looking for. I feel like with the amendment that we made, the one I made. Yeah.

When you made it to the plan, whoever made it, I think that that gives them the flexibility for future changes and allows them to put a lot of what you said into that agreement and make the each PUD more individualized and have them have more flexibility and be able to be more workable. Um, I would like to know who you spoke to on the planning board because I also spoke to planning board people and I got a whole different perspective. Okay. Which made me delve even deeper into what I delved into. Okay. So, I'd like to know who you talk to. Yeah. Um, but I think I think that this document is is more or less a compromise. I don't believe so. If you read the old one and then let him finish.

Yeah. I I just I think I think that Can you excuse me, Mr. Chair? Yeah. Sean, this is a conversation between Ron and I. And please, you'll get your opportunity to speak. Be a big boy and wait a minute. You're speaking over the top of others. A long time to speak. I am speaking with Ron. And Ron and I are having a civil conversation. I'm sorry. You can't deal with that. So I I just feel like the planning board did a lot of work in this and a lot of things that you that you said can be put into the development agreement and can fix those certain areas where where you have a concern if a if a property has something where you know it has a has an issue with

I understand the problem. I'm just going to bring this forward. We need to find out then clearly what can and cannot be put because I think that do you know did they tell you what can and cannot be put in a development agreement. Most of these things that I said cannot be put in a development agreement. So I just want to go on the record of saying that the other thing is I don't believe that this is a compromise. Um what can't be put in develop an agreement? I'm I'm speaking to Ron. Excuse me. I'm asking a question like you're asking a question. You said a lot of these things can't. What can't? You just want to be controvers. Can I finish my conversation with Ron?

Go ahead. Dein finish. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm not sure. Kelly would know.

Mr. Mahaland would know the exact things. It is my understanding that the things I am talking about here cannot be put all of them into a development agreement. I also think that when you have change of boards things get lost. I want to do what's right for this town. Um, I feel that having no time limits on things elapsing, I don't believe that you can. And and the thing is is you're being upfront. To me, when it's in the ordinance, you are being upfront and forthright and transparent with the developer. They know exactly what they're buying. They see the car, they test the doors, they kick the tires, they know exactly what they're getting. When you come in back door on the end with the development agreement with there's a negotiation, it's not us telling them what to do. It's us working with them to get there. It's already too late. You now have wasted their time, our time, and we're only getting a quarter of what's in here. And I think that this is why I took the time to do this. And I did go to the public um workshops that the that the planning board had. And I think they did do a lot of work. I mean, poor Kelly had to write this thing from scratch because the other one was so bad. So that being said, there has been monumental work done. I do believe that there is more work that should be done at the planning board and four out of the five people I believe who were there and Sean was one of them um said that they wanted to move this to the council to fully delve in deeper because Greg Caution came forward with some of the stuff that I'm saying in this. I did what the planning board said to do. take

the data that the residents brought forth, which I did. Took my own opinion, which I did. Took Greg Carson's opinion, put it all in, and put it together. That was what was requested by the planning board at their last meeting. So, I did it. You did. And I think that it deserves more conversation, more look at, and I I really really would encourage you to tell me who were the planning board people you spoke with. Did you have a question? You're not going to answer me, right? I'm It's not really fair for me to say that, is it? But I did speak to them. Who did you talk to? Can I ask my questions now or

who did you speak to about the development agreements and the the document you produced? I spoke to one, two, one, two, three attorneys. Um, I spoke to planners in a couple of other towns and I spoke to a couple of people on the planning board. I spoke to a ton of residents and this is what I came up with. She won't name any of them. Why? If Ron doesn't have to, I don't have to. It's a two-way street. Sean, can I can I finish what I'm saying before you jump over the top of me? I'm just saying to you, it's a two-way street.

Which of those towns that you named are covered by development agreements? I don't know. I didn't look, but I'll find out for you. And hold on. So, you you said things about the PUDs that have damaged this town. Which PUDs? Are you Are you serious right now? I will say that Woodmont, Technology Hill, and the one coming down have all hurt this town. The other two aren't complete. Doesn't matter. What they're doing is not what they said they were going to do. Period. End of conversation. So, Dan, Don, I answered your question. Can you not talk over the top of me? Can you ask smart questions? Deb, come up. Not trying to catch me in a loophole.

Not catch me in a loophole. You said discussion. You wanted to know which towns had PUB. I want to get this right. Which towns have development agreements? I'm also asking you since you claimed PUDS did damage by Woodmont and we've had a presentation from the planning board. Anyone can watch it by development agreement. They have to be tax positive to this town by development agreement. The other two aren't in place. Uhhuh. So whatever you're saying have done damages I don't know what PUDs you may be speaking of other developments when you speak of Gilchrist and other things those aren't puds I know that Sean

you mentioned it in your long speech

I did and I I mentioned it in the fact that because Woodmont want took so long their traffic studies which we did not get updated ones time lapsed when that time lapsed development had come in that now affected their old traffic study which they go by and there is nothing that says they have to get new ones and updated as they move forward. Yes, each individual site plan does but that now affects different as we're addressing the town manager is addressing different intersections now that have become affected. So this should have been planned for and it wasn't. You you asked me something else now and I can't remember what it was because you asked too many questions at once without me.

You asked me something else. What was the other question? As far as your phasing goes, this is already covered in here. If you would have read this stuff, some of the things are covered by development agreements. Some of them have been covered by this. Some of them are already covered by our current regulations and some of them are against the law. So, it's Could you could you please tell me which ones are against the law? Why? Because you can't answer those questions. I'm going to get you your answers. You can sit there and be a little baby boy. But the answer is I want the answer. We'll get an answer to your question cuz I don't Thank you. All right, Miss Karen. Is there anything in there that you would consider the answer? Sorry. Is it too quick to put you on the spot? I don't want to.

Is there What's your question? Is there anything in there that that is illegal in councelor Paul's comments? Yes. I I don't want to put you on the spot. If you want if you want to get back to us, I just I don't want They're probably appropriate for legal counsel. Yeah. Sorry, that's a hard question to answer off the cuff. Sorry, I didn't mean to put on the spot, Mr. Chair. Sorry. Yes. Go ahead. So, were these already presented to the planning board and gone over by the planning board? No. The planning board did not look at this. It was at the last meeting. You're the alternate. You should have went and you should have known that they did not look at it. They pushed it here and asked us to look at it. No. Yes. The board received it. Yes. The board received

the day of their hearing. Yeah. The day of their hearing, they received these items and they uh they had read them, I'm assuming. Correct. No, I don't. Oh my god. I'm not going to speak for the board members, but I can tell you they received it the day of their hearing. Yeah. All right. All right. So, I'm assuming that the planning board did not want to take these changes into effect. Correct. Yeah. Well, we have a member of the PL. Well, Kelly of the planning board. I'm assuming they didn't want to take these changes into effect. Do you want me to speak? Absolutely, sir. Absolutely. And please speak, Miss Karen.

My understanding from the planning board was given the timing of the comments and the um want for more direction from the council with respect to changes to the PD ordinance. they chose to move this to the council for your discussion and consideration. I'm not saying they didn't read or consider uh councelor Paul's comments or Mr. Carson's, but at that stage we had had

three work sessions in a hearing. So, I believe that they were looking for some more direction from the council andor your final decision on what to do at this point since they've put a very significant amount of time into it so far. I think you have a planning board rep here. Obviously, you have councelor Faber, but there's also a member of the planning board here. Should you want to ask them? Does he want to be put on the spot is the question. That's not really a fair deal. and here too. Um, yeah, you have two two members. Do do the two planning board members want to come up in opine or you're welcome.

I don't think so. Um, and Champa 28 Wedgewood Drive. I voted to voted no because I wanted to continue the conversation because I didn't see what Jet Deb had proposed that she wanted us to see. I didn't see it. Okay.

And I didn't hear I didn't get to hear before the meeting anything like um um what Mr. Carson had written out. I would have liked to been given some time to go over that in detail. That's why I was the only one that voted no to pass it along to you yet because we still I felt we still we have we still as a planning board had work more work to do to check what the what was provided to us and possibly integrate to that into our what we were working on. Excellent. Tony you

uh Tony D. Francesco. Um, the chair couldn't be here uh this evening and he asked to make sure that that I was here. Um, there's a lot to unpack, right? So, I want to start from the back instead of at the front. And I want to be clear that when you have a large tract of land that's owned, the owner can do whatever they want with that land as long as it meets the underlying zoning. So let's take let's take a 100 acres of land, call it the middle of town. someone buys it based on state regulations. Because let's let's be clear, the state regulations can and do override local legislation that's not legal, okay? For for obvious reasons. We'll take that 100 acres of land and that developer can decide what they want to put on it. Let's say it's AR1. Okay. So, we're going to call it AR1. With the current legislation coming down to the state, if there's land, if there's water and sewer, you're pretty much on halfacre zoning, give or take, not not one acre, not an acre and a half. And the town can't legislate that. Okay. based on the new legislation that came in by by the state of New Hampshire. So 100 acres, you could get 150 houses in there. Done.

Who's going to who's going to plow the roads? The town. Who's going to fix the roads? The town. Who's gonna if the drainage um something happens to the drainage uh covers get washed out or whatever, who's going to take care of that? The town there's a whole bunch of other things. 100 acres of land, you're probably talking about at least a couple of uh additional DPW employees. You're talking about more trucks. He may be talking about um additional um uh things just for the roads and the infrastructure of those roads. Now let's take a PUD for that same 100 acres of land. The roads have to be built to certain standards, right? The developer pays for that. When everything is done, the town has no responsibility. because it's a PUD and because there are also other things that are built in town where the town is not responsible for the roads either. But in the PUD specifically, the town is not responsible for those roads. If a culver gets washed out, it's basically a condominium setup, right? It's a condo setup. Somehow they have to deal with it. If the roads gets washed out, they have to deal with it. The road gets potholes, they have to deal with it. They have to plow it. They have to sand it. They have to do all of those all of those things that the town will have to do if there's no PUD, if there's no agreement. Okay. So, I had to get that off my chest, but it's because it seems to be it seems to be a missing element that that the average person doesn't understand

that the land is going to get built on. It's a supply and demand economy, right? If the houses are going to sell, a developer is going to come in and build houses. The question is, does the town want to control have some control over the land? and does the town want to sign off on those roads to somebody else for for maintenance and upkeep and whatever. Now, as far as all the other stuff, first of all, I want to clear up one thing. All that stuff was in our packets for for the meeting that's in question. It was in the packets. Who gets the email when? That's that's beyond anybody's control. Who doesn't look at their emails until the start of the meeting? Who looked at their emails the day before? Who worked on it the weekend before? That's up to individual folks. My opinion is if you're not prepared for a meeting, shame on you because when I took the oath, I took it seriously. And when my email doesn't work, I'm here in this building making sure that someone fixes it, right? If it doesn't come through on my phone and ping me when I'm out of town, I'm here making sure that that that it gets fixed, right? And so that's up to individual people. Um and and other than how I do it and how I operate is all I can respond to. How other people do it, that's up to them. It was in the packet. Whatever. Now, the planning board specifically sent this product to you for input and for changes because the contemporary wisdom at the

time was this needs to be a combined effort. Not a planning board does it. Kelly writes it all up. up a plane board, make some changes, whoever whoever's checking on who's checking what, whatever. Fire department's queuing in, police department's queuing in, whatever. Kelly handles all that stuff. It's this is too big a thing, right, for just the planning board. And so, we wanted y'all to look at it. The document that we gave you is an excellent document. Mhm.

The document that we sent you could be used with zero changes, but we expected some changes. The biggest change that we wanted you to do was the one you already that you already did was to put in the um uh the the everybody everybody has to have an agreement. Whether it's one owner or a 100 owners of the property, they all have to do a development agreement. What I know about development agreements is as long as you're meeting the RSAs, there's nothing that can't be agreed to in a development agreement. Now, I'm getting nods, but I'm not a lawyer, right? There's lawyers that deal that that deal with these contracts between towns and developers. that happens at a different level, right? So when you do the development agreement, it's important that the sitting board at the time is the one that makes some of the decisions. If you write a document that's 100%, tie it with a bow, it is what it is, 100%. Now to what we said earlier tonight, things change, things do this, things do the other thing. Well, now you've let now you have a you have a legal document, a municipal document that was written 10 years ago and things have changed. Mhm.

Well, if you leave it a little bit, if you leave a little bit of movement in there, the board that's going to sign the agreement with the developer has some wiggle room to say, "Well, you know, the spirit of how that was written is different today than when it was written." Am I making sense with that? Okay. So that's where a municipality gets in trouble with cast in stone. That's where they get that's where they get in trouble with a a definitive line in the sand. And I will tell you, listen, if if you all decide that you want to have that you want to have these these parcels that are remaining, and there aren't too many of them anyway, but if you want to if you want to have these parcels totally untethered, have at it. There's no skin off my back. You know, it's it isn't. But my opinion is, and again, I took my oath seriously when when some of you were on the board that appointed me, I took my oath I take my oath seriously to help protect the town. And one of the ways that you protect the taxpayers in the town is to have a PUD. That's how you do it. And I will say that councelor Paul, you did a you did a great job of of uh homework. However, I haven't had a chance to to look at it.

That's fine. But there's several Yeah, there's several inaccuracies in there that that I will respond to at a later date, but I welcome it, Tony. That's what I wanted tonight.

I got this. Thank you. I got this. It's rhetorical. It's rhetorical. You're welcome. You're welcome. So, so there are there are some things that I will respond to when it's time and probably at the public hearing because there were several inaccuracies in there that that it's never on purpose. It's just a misunderstanding of how things work. Okay. And one of the things you that you have to understand too and having built commercial and having built housing, a a piece of land that's zoned, let's call it industrial because industrial is different than commercial, right? Let's take let's take that piece of land and call it industrial. It could sit there for 50 years, 75 years. Some of that land up at the airport, a hundred years sitting up there, un unbuilt. It was always zoned. People say, "Well, how come why isn't the town bringing in uh industrial uh industrial businesses?" Well, the land is there ready to be built on. I don't It's nobody wants to come. No one wants to. There's no industrial project that's ready to come in to Londereerry at this time. Right. So, it is what it is. It's it's supply and demand no matter no matter how you look at it. You know, the other thing I will caution you is be careful what you wish for. You know, there are people running around town and we heard it here tonight that a certain development in town is hasn't been done as promised. Well, from a planning board perspective, when I look at it and I look at that PUD and I look at what's gone on because of a lack of phasing, which is one of the things that we would like you to to to help with the phasing part of it, and we talked about that at the meeting when we

pushed it to you. Um the yes the the commercial is not built yet and you have housing but the housing on the north side of Pillsbury Road contrary to what you see on social media was always going to be housing. Always. From day one it was going to be housing from the Cherrettes. It was going to be housing. It was always going to be housing. So, so you know, some of the rhetoric that go that goes around when when when you when you look at the documents, you go, "Well, yeah, it was going to it was going to be housing." So, um, the the the north the norththeast whatever it is of 4A, that's where the commercial industrial is going to be, right? So,

so that's that. Questions for me, please. Any questions? Enough. One quick comment. Um, there is some commercial there. I just want to make sure like for people watching, it's not like there's no commercial. There's Market Basket, there's 603 Brewery, there's there's two medical places that just one of them just opened up. There's like 30,000 ft of commercial space in there. So, there there is some commercial. It's not none. We also we do address the phasing in this document at the planning board level. We were working on this.

Yes. Correct. And and and just to be clear, there are spaces in the in the I call it the tower. The current building now I call it the market basket project. In the tower where where the the the the rentals are their rentals. Um on the bottom was supposed to be the the commercial part, right? The the the little the little businesses. They're there. They're they're they're but they're empty. Mhm.

But the space is there. It's supply and demand. You can't you you you the building was built. The spaces are all there. There's a bunch of empty spaces in there that aren't that that aren't occupied. That's nobody's fault. They're not occupied. It's it's you what do you do? We can't dictate supply and demand. Correct. That's my point. You can't force a business into there. That's my point. And so how do you you know when you get to that point what do you do?

Well and we've been told time and time again from Woodmont presenting to us in the past that multiple times they've been told by restaurants and other commercial entities that they want to see the residential before they come because they want to have the walkability. They want to have the guaranteed residents that will be potentially using their space or going to their business. And as I see it, we cannot dictate supply and demand, right? We cannot say you can't build residential until your commercial industrial is built. That that just sounds like we're dictating and uh there's, you know, they have the rights to build on their land. What's ability for their land

and we can't control that on that? So to the point about phasing. So actually this draft ordinance it doesn't quite do do it to that extreme but that's the intent of that section is to it it's phrased as active and substantial development specifically for the commercial piece. That is what the board spent a lot of time discussing.

And to Kelly's point that was a that was a piece that I hammered on. How do we how do we get it so that you know there there was a situation in Bedford that I that I detailed that it was supposed to have this and it turned into that. Well, how how can we make an ordinance that that does that? You kind of can, but again, it's supply and demand. Things changed. You know, what do you what do you do? But but but the but the other thing too is when I and I didn't finish u completely my thought be careful what you wish for. Make sure that uh make sure that you get on social media and you take a look at what's down going on in the town south of us with the very large uh PUB.

Uh people are not happy. Police department is not happy. The fire department, ambulance, safety, whatever you call medics are not happy. Uh the residents are not happy. There's nobody happy. So be careful what you wish for is is is all I'm saying. When you when you have a project that big, there's a lot going on. So Tony, I got a question for you. Yeah, it's not really a question. So I'm not against PUDs, Tony. I'm really not. Never said you were.

Um I just wanted to clarify that because I I'm not. I just want to make sure that we're doing what's right and and that takes time and it takes a level of discussion and and you know going back and forth and yeah, I might have interpreted it one way. you interpret it enough. But that's why you should go through it and do your due diligence and get it done correctly. That's how I feel and that's what I tried to do. I did my best at doing what I thought could be changed. No, no argument here at all. And I I just wanted to say that. And um I also think that Market Basket, that little plaza is not it's not part of the PUD PUD. It's not

that first building was kind of what was at the conception the very beginning they wanted it to look like commav is what I remembered being say said by um John Michaels um when we would go to those the high-rise you're talking about the highrise apartments with the buildings underneath that's with the commercial underneath. Yes. Yes. or even on the second floor of the you know like level and then second floor or you know if we had had basements in the basement whatever and then apartments on the top which was what was brought up. I do remember on the north part where Proopia is going was supposed to be um there had been talked about a golf course with a restaurant. Uh yeah, there was

no Oh, I went to every Sharette meeting. There was never a golf course

and it was supposed to be uh Mr. to Kenbach's brother-in-law that was going to do that at one point. Um, but that's beside the point. I I just wanted to address when you were talking about 100 acres and, you know, halfacre zoning and you're going to get So, even if you got I mean, I don't know if those 150 houses includes the road you would have to take, the setbacks, the unbuildable land being pulled out because you can't build on it because it's so much ledge or it's wet or whatever. Even if you got a hundred houses on 100 acres, um that's like 200 people, maybe 400 people added to the town. When you talk about high density and you talk about just Woodmont, 1,400 times two residents coming to the town yet, that's a lot of people. That's a lot more. That's school, fire, police. Okay, we might not have to take care of their roads, but we still have to take care of th those people coming that amount of people coming on to our roads that are already to me what's been missing in this town for a long time and I and I've brought it up at I don't know if you remember I've brought it up at meetings many many times. We're so behind the eightball in infrastructure. We should have been doing this all along. I I had come to meetings many many times planning boards I've zoning boards I've said the same thing we should have been checking our roads making sure they're wide and putting in the bike paths putting in the things that we need and then the building wouldn't have been so oh my god look at all this traffic all of a sudden because it would have it would have naturally kind of flowed into it and that's when I say smart building is you have to think about those things

and to your point You're you're 100% correct to your point. We have cow paths leading to large developments. Yes, that's what we have and it's all over town and that and you know I read a lot on on on a lot of planning books, planning studies, whatever. And part of the problem that Londereerry has is we have one we have one center for commerce at exit 4 and everybody in town needs to come to that. And the new the new theory of developing a town if a perfect world where there was nobody and you could start all over would be a town like Londereerry having a minimum of two centers like we have at exit 4 and maybe as many as three.

Correct. And now there's nothing we can do about that today. You know we can we can do our best. And could you could you please please stop? I have a hard time thinking as it is. Please stop. Could the Could the audience just please listen? Go ahead, Tony. Go ahead, Tony. Okay, Ann, please Tony. So, so anyway, you're absolutely correct and it's not and it's not uh something that can be fixed today, but we can certainly move towards that now. And I agree with you, just so you know.

Thank you. My my feeling is that you all have a very good document. We do

to deal with. You don't you don't dump very good in search of perfect. My opinion, one person's opinion. This is not a planning board opinion. One person's opinion. You will not write a perfect document ever. It's not going to happen. especially one as complicated as that where where you have underlying zoning on top of new zoning on top of a PUD and then you have to dovetail the RSAs into it all at the same time. Right. So, I don't know, Kelly, did you have anything else to to add to the current document and where we're at?

The current draft? Yeah. I mean, well, so you know, you're very light on on on 100 acres, 100 houses. That's not going to happen because the because the Well, you said 150 and I brought it down to 100. The state Yeah. The state just right, you know this, they just reduced or well I was going for all intents and purposes eliminated zoning, you know, and so

they can kind of, you know, other than green space, if there's water and sewer, you're going to almost have zero lot line zoning like you've had in Manchester for 75 years or so. And um so it's going to be a lot more houses than that. And I'm and you know I'm still going to fall back on I would rather that a development owns the roads and maintains the roads than to have us have to at the taxpayers's expense hire DPW people and vehicles to do it to take care of them. And you know I would rather control it with a development agreement having the two sides get together I I personally if when I become king it's going to happen and it's going to happen eventually

because the older I get the more I'm the more I'm king-like but but when I become king and I and all of this stuff happens I want to control the land. I don't want a developer to to come in that that to buy up a whole bunch of acreage, has a hundred acres, and says, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. Bye-bye." I want to be able to control that developer. You do that with a development agreement and a PUD. And that's what I'm trying to do with this is so that we can control it.

And I think it should be I think somewhere in here, and I never put it in here, that maybe this needs to be looked at every four or five years as an ordinance. We should put it in there that all of our ordinances should be looked at and view evaluated and updated. We do it to our master plan. You know, we should be doing it. I mean, 100%. All it takes all it takes is staff about two to three times bigger than what you currently have in this building and and a whole bunch of money. That's all it takes to do that. Every time those suggestions are made, the cash register goes off in my head because because that's what it takes to do that stuff. Well, that could be debated, but

it could be. I mean, I I I I don't think it takes that much, but Ted has a question for you. Sorry, Tony. I know you didn't want to talk this long, but No, I'm here. Clarific clarification. I'm here and there's a microphone for Tony and for Kelly. So, I believe correctly, you can potentially have up to six units um per acre. So, if you had, for example, 100 acres, that'd be 600 units of residential. Was that am I reading that correctly? It could be a little more a density bonus. Yeah, it could be 7.5. Okay. Depending on if you utilize the density bonuses, it's up to 25% but it's capped at one and a half times. So, it's capped at 7 and a half.

But but some of those density bonuses take away buildable acres. Correct. So, then that wouldn't actually equal.

Right. There my point is though there's a cap. There's still a cap. So when a fine example is we talk about units in a development and how oh it's some people have an opinion that it's overburdensome. When Woodmont first came to town, the architectural firm that was designing Woodmont, DPZ, told us all that the number of units that we were putting into Woodmont was way below the number of units that they designed. And every every single other one of their developments across the country. I've been looking at their other uh projects that have the same amount of acreage. They have double or more the number of units to make it a successful project. the number of units that they have in there most likely will not make it a successful project to make the commercial industrial want to be there and for us to want to limit housing to not have a project be successful I feel like we're shooting ourselves in the foot

that's not what I said yeah and so and so to get to get back to the let's go back to let's talk about green space okay because one of the examples I gave in the planning board meeting was if you have let's say it's um 16 houses 16 one six houses and in between each house you have setbacks 15 feet on for each house right so that's 30 ft of green space right that all adds up to the total amount of green space in a project okay and I'm talking hypothetical

instead and I what I call I call that nonusable green face. As a developer, I would say, "Yep, I met all your requirements." But you know what? I'd be I'd be driving home saying, "Boy, that really stinks for those land owners because they have no usable green space." Exactly. Instead, what you do in the PUB is you you um uh increase the density.

You don't have even have to do the density bonus yet. You increase the density and you take that green space that you had in between the houses and you pull it all out and you put it over here on the land and you take whatever acreage that was. Let's say it's an acre and a half of nonusable because it's only 16 houses, right? So, let's call it an acre. And you put that entire acre over here. And you put a swing set on it and and a sandbox and and and and some jumpers and dog area.

Dog park didn't last time that was brought up. It didn't go well. But at any rate, you have so you have it you make it usable and that's where the density actually helps a community. To Deb's point, a little pocket park. Remember that? I do. Wasn't too long ago, right? I'm still fooling. So, so that's part of what a PUB could do and that's part of the negotiation process when you have the development agreement to to to get that type of stuff. You can have that you can have that building 30 units, whatever, but you got to provide the green space because

in the underlying documents it says you got to have x% of green space. How am I doing? Am I doing okay? Am I getting an A? Sure. Gonna give him a gold star, too. Kelly, yeah, you go ahead.

Just to your point, that's why I changed something in here because on some of them, I was noticing that they were including unbuildable, unusable space as their green space. And that was a change that I made that I said that shouldn't be included because so as they're planning and thinking about how they're going to use this that that's why I wanted it to be upfront so they can think they don't have to spend as much money on design redesign design redesign that saves them money. So if they know that they can't include this wetland or this riged area as part of their green space and that they need to accommodate for it over here it helps them with their design flow. And that's why I changed it a little bit because it wasn't specific or cleared that that could not be included in your green space. So I could walk in and say, "Oh, we get this great pond, but that's going to be our green space." Well, no.

But I see I I disagree with you on that one. I think it should be okay because where I grew up, I lived on swamp 86. Okay. And in Swamp 86 was that it was a green space that couldn't be touched. And we we skated there in the winter, we we caught polywogs in the summer, we fished in the spring, and we did all those things. And so I personally, again, when I'm king, I would I will I will let the developer do that and and make that part of the green space because I think that's valuable. But if that's the only green space they have, if they have no other space for, like you said, the little swing set or this or that, that's where you then what are you going to do for those kids?

Yes. Yes. Exactly. And see what you did was you boxed you just boxed yourself into a corner because what you did was you gave yourself no flexibility. No, no, I'm adding to the green space. No, you did. You just boxed yourself into into a corner with it. I I disagree to disagree. And that's okay. That's what that's what it's all about. But it's all about any of the I'd like you to look at these Tony, too. Yeah. Yeah. If you don't mind. Any other questions for Tony? Go ahead, Dan. Not Tony. I don't have any questions for Tony. Okay. Can we Can we let Tony go? Anyone else? Yeah, I'm going to stay. So, and I'm not going anywhere, but Thank you, Tony. Thank you. I appreciate the call. Go ahead, Dan.

Uh, my only ask would have been that we have a town council rep that gives us a complete breakdown of what is changing and explain why the planning board went with this draft. I mean, did you see anything, Sean? Um, so, so this has been covered a couple times. There wasn't really a a redline agreement of this document. You've got to just read through and it it's it's explanatory. More or less it puts in the phasing stuff. And this is what I was telling Deb, some of the stuff's already covered. We And if you watch the discussions, and that's that's part of it. Well, that's why you have we have you there.

We do, but I can't relay a a hourlong discussion to you in five minutes. I can't. It's it's better for you to to watch it, take it in, see the discussion, see the points that people are making from their own mouth because I could mischaracterize them and then you're seeing exactly what they're saying. And there's been you don't have to watch the whole planning board meeting. Just watch the part about the discussions and it it it goes through this. We we were as a planning board really concerned with the residential coming before the commercial. We've got, I think, the best way to legally address that and make sure that we can get through this stuff where we actually get commercial and not just get a bunch of residential and get it dropped on the town. We wanted to make sure that there's a development agreement and you know through the the full the conversations of the planning board, we came up with a development agreement for everything. Then so this this takes it it it also one aspect of it to to describe it further to you is the the the density bonuses for doing the right things. So in her commentary Deb had asked for you know we we need usable things for the town. Those are outlined in a chart within there. And then you get further density bonuses if you do this that that are beneficial. And there we had a long discussion over these the language not being specific enough. And so we adjusted the language as as the course of these discussions went on to make this specific enough to make it actionable. Um there were some things that got thrown out. Um there were there were talk originally when this came up of changing the the definition from a 100 acres down and we decided to keep it at 100 acres. Um off the top of my head those are the big ones. Um but I would encourage like and and I'm I'm not trying to not tell you but I just gave you a couple minute update and that doesn't even begin to cover the discussions why people felt that how we got there. This has been this wasn't just one simple meeting. It was it was a lot of meetings um to to go over this. A

lot of feedback taken in, a lot of discussions back and forth. So there there was a lot to go through on that. But that that's the best summary I can give you. Okay. Uh my personal opinion, I don't like the original PUD. I think it's terrible and this is tighter than that. I think this is tighter, but I think it still could be looked at, you know, uh, and maybe address some of these concerns that Council Paul had. Um, I don't know. That's that's my concern. Okay. That's my statement. I really would love Kelly's input. Any any further? I mean, I watched the whole entire hearing, public hearing that the planning board had.

It's like a four or five hour meeting or more. Um, I I thought all the commentary was worthwhile from the board. Um, and the changes that were made, need be. Um, certainly this is a better document than what we had before, but I also don't think what we had before was a bad document. Um, I was at every single planning board meeting back when this was originally being put together back in 2010, 2011, 2012. And those meetings went on till 121 a.m. And there was a lot of things that were being considered and went through at that time that they spent a lot of time going through. Um the only thing that I wish that was a change is that they had the architectural of the buildings be the same throughout to have it a be a consistent plan. That would be the only thing that I'd want to have be changed or fixed because you want to have a cohesive looking project. That's the only big change that I would want to have be seen and certainly I think technology hill is doing that. They're having a cohesive architectural look throughout their buildings. Now they're commercial industrial and they're those buildings they may have a different look to them but the residential uh buildings and their smaller commercial they have a cohesive architectural look to them. I mean, that would be the only change that I would want to see at some point, but what we have in front of us is a, you know, a big step forward compared to what we had before. And the planning board has spent a lot of time going through this

and they did and it it is a brand new document. So, you can't really look at a red line. I know. Go ahead. I know there's no red line. So, well, you wanted to know what all the different changes back and forth were going to be, but you can't really see that when it's a brand new document. Are you talking about the changes the planning board made to what Kelly did? Is that what you're saying, Dan? I'm not I'm not going to get into this. Okay. Thank you. I can just quickly just for the sake of time, I can answer your question at a high level if you want. Thank you, Kelly. Yeah, Kelly, if you could answer that. Yeah.

So, generally the the larger changes were focused around defining more of a public benefit. um which you see those increased definitions. Yeah.

Uh adjusting the the density um or sorry the community benefit table that outlines the um bonuses that you get depending on which of those four um items that you're choosing to go and and seek. Um, I think councelor Faber hit on that well in terms of summarizing that, but making those definitions more specific. Um, and then again having it ultimately deferring to the council, but the planning board was in agreement that all PUDs should have a development agreement, which is something that our current ordinance doesn't obviously um, articulate. And then um there was lengthy discussion about track size and ultimately uh the track size didn't change. It's still 100 contiguous acres.

Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. Welcome, sir. Come to join us at 11 o'clock in the evening. Why not?

Absolutely. Um, just real quick, you know, it sounds like what I'm hearing is that you want a little bit more change to this document. Correct? So, my recommendation would be this has come to the planning board. We've presented you with a document. If you guys want to continue to make change to it, you're well within your right to do so. Talk amongst yourselves. Make it figure out what you want to add. talk about it here and don't send it back to the planning board. The only reason I say that is because uh when did we start this? Almost a year ago. Yep. Yeah.

I believe it was right when you two got on, right? Council in July. You've had three work sessions in a hearing.

Correct. So if you decide to say we want you to continue to change this and send it back to the planning board, you're going to be in six more months of trying to change this for it to come back to you. So I think this board is at a point now where you have a document that's put together and it's up to you to decide what you want to change to it. So all I'm getting at is I don't think it would be in your best interest to bring it back to the planning board. if you want to. Obviously, we will we'll we'll do this over again, but I think when it comes to time, you're looking at another five, six, eight months when this board is well within their right to take a look at it and recommend changes through the five of you. So, personally, my recommendation is to to to get the old one off and get this one in as it is with very little changes, but I really believe we could continue and tighten and move things forward, which we can do throughout the year moving forward. I don't know if you got a chance to look at some of the things. Some of them are crazy, some of them are. But I'm really thought that you know sometimes you get you you look at something so much your your eyes and it's always good to have different eyes, different perspectives, different understandings. And that's what I was hoping to have was more of that dialogue. Did I expect these to happen tonight? I did not. But I I wanted to put them out there to get people thinking and looking. And my goal is we did you did a you guys did a lot of work that there's night and day between the old one and the new one. And I agree that the new ones is step forward and we should put it in place just to protect ourselves. that's how I feel and then move on and maybe have some listening or work sessions a work session like you know with the planning and counsel together talking because we see things a little differently or I do

than you do than he does and and I think you know taking a think clip from Mhalland's playbook there with the strategic plan like the way they do it it just getting more input because if we can fix it and get it even tighter and better. Who does it hurt? Nobody. That's my two cents. I don't know how you feel, Jake, but that's how All I'm getting at is I showed up because I felt as though I was waiting for one of you to say, "Let's send this back to the planning board." And I don't think that's in your best interest. No, it's not.

Did you have a question? So what what I'm getting what I'm getting from you Jake is that this document that you prepared okay can still be added to or change to down the road. Of course, anything. Okay. So, if we went with this document, looked at the ideas that councelor Paul had, you might look at it and go, "Eh, maybe we could incorporate this. It's up to you. You can incorporate, but you could do that on the planning board." Ultimately, we do. It's ultimately us.

We've done what I'm getting at is we've done our part. It's at the council now. Don't don't go back. We've we've spent a lot of time on this. We've got it prepared for the council. If you want more added to it, add to it. What I'm saying is don't go back. Don't don't say we want this X, Y, and Z added to it. Now, let's send it back to the planning board and and have them it's it's done. It's past the planning board at this point. So, I'm getting to if you want to I think what you're saying is if you want if you want to adopt this draft document right as it is now, yes, you can do that. And then in the after you do that, after you adopt this draft, we can still look at

changes. Councelor Paul's list of suggestions. Absolutely. Yeah. What I'm getting over a period of time. What I'm getting at, Jake, is that we all know things change. So, as things change, you might be looking at the document and going, you know what, we need to look at something here and send it to the council and see if we can get this changed. That's all I'm asking. Of course. I'd like to make a recommendation to do what um Kelly just said to um move this new one forward with the new changes with the amendment thing and whatever else they changed and maybe look at things at a little further later on down the road if that's amendable.

That's called a negotiation amendable to you guys. I believe all we have to do tonight is schedule the public hearing. Correct. Correct. which is that's scheduled actually for the fourth for you to do that. Is that enough time to notice it and everything? Is that Yeah. Okay. 10 days. That's all the agendas we have is just notice the public hearing. All right. So then Well, I I just want to know if that's something you guys are thinking about or not. Mhm. I'm good with moving. I'm good with that. Let's move to the public hearing, please. So the public hearing will be what date? The next meeting? May 18th. May 18. So that's the date of the public hearing. Okay, perfect. If you schedule it. All right. Well, yes.

Thank you to everybody that came, planning board members that came to discuss. Much appreciated. I lost the stupid. Up next, we have approval of consent items. Mr. Chair, I have a issue with the minutes of March 30th. Sure. Line 26 and 28. Hold on. Hold on. What page? What page? Page you want? Page one. Page one, line 26. 26 through 28. 26 through 28. Okay.

Okay. Uh, it says it's a 50. I did not vote for this and I, as you know, we had a citizen come up questioning why we didn't sign stuff. I did not also sign the contract either. Not that I don't think that the tax collector deserves it. I think she does. I did not vote for it because it was not fully disclosed to the public. And I'm going to explain something. On March 16th, the contract came up. Councilors Faber, Dunn, and Kums moved to cut the proposed pay, and you voted on it and passed it. Now, Mr. Chair, I'll quote you as you said, we're trying to get everyone at 5%. Everyone treated fairly and not unfairly. That translates to a 5% in line with what the town manager was proposing, not being unfair, staying with 5%. So, council favor move that the London town council hereby approves the terms of the contract between the town council and the tax collector. You did not ask for any discussion and the end result was that you approved 11.9% increase totally different from the 5% that you had stated on March 16th. So I want the record to reflect this that I did not vote for this. Not that I don't think she deserves it. I think she does. I just don't agree with how it was done.

Any other changes? And he asked you a question. Any other changes? No, just that. No, no, just just 26 and through 28. So, I'll make a motion to approve the the consent items with the minutes um for March 30th as amended by Dan. I have a motion from Shan. Second. Second from Ted. Any discussion further? All those in favor say I. I. That's as amended. I Yeah, as amended. As amended. Any opposed? Chair post the affirmative. 5-0. Any lesson on reports tonight?

Yes, I had the uh Linda Arts Council meeting back on April 9th. Uh it was a good meeting that we had um uh going forth with um we'll have a a good showing of bands in the summertime. They'll be having another uh uh what do they call it? Wild I believe wild oats uh wild no sorry wild apples uh coming out this spring uh with a whole new group of submissions. Um we'll be very uh interested in reading some of them coming up and they'll have a an event for that I believe. Uh when is that? That is May May I put it in my calendar? Um believe it's either May 16th or May 23rd they'll be having another event at the um historic uh Morrison Meeting House Museum at the MAR. Uh so they'll have uh some good events there and they're certainly looking to see how they can get more kids involved in some of their arts programs and how they can get them involved in the arts going around. So

excellent. Yeah, it was a good meeting. Any other lesson on reports tonight? Well, I I didn't have a meeting, but I did go to Beautify Londereary and I helped them out at the desk. Um we had a great turnout. I think it was the most amount of people stepping up to volunteer ever. Um, so they did a lot of work. Um, good job to all of them. And, uh, Max apples always stepping up as they do. Um, they gave out 100 free ice cream cones to the lacrosse and can't remember. Oh, the Boy Scouts, um, who came and, you know, people who cleaned up, the kids got ice cream. So, that was nice of them.

Oh, and Mr. Mr. Chair, I wanted to mention we also had a old home day meeting this past uh was it Thursday or Friday? Uh it was good productive meeting moving forward. Uh currently we right now have the full board as we appointed Kirsten to be on the board. Uh so things are moving forward. Um so it'll be a good time. We're looking at one person on that or Kirsten stepped in.

Well, Kirsten stepped in. So, we have a five member board, but she's more than willing to step down if we have someone who would like to take the position. Um, I know we're reaching back out to the uh Rotary uh to see if there might be someone there who would like to step in or if there's anyone else from the community might want to step in. Um, but we're looking at the uh I believe the naming of the or the theme of the event this year is uh Londere 250 to go along with America 250. So, it'll be a good time. Excellent. Any other less on reports? You're good, Dan? I'm good. Okay, you're good, too.

All right. Um, town manager report. Well, we have the chancellor of the X check here has come up to the mic. mind gave me an opportunity to just clarify something that uh I got back to my seat and had heartburn about people panicking that we're going to have a shortfall on revenue and

um so Ted had mentioned that we're currently 4 million short. What that is is we're threequarters of the way through the year. If you were to look at just percentages that number should be about 5.1. looking at a, you know, worst case doomsday scenario. If we were to, we know we're going to get the airport pilot tax. If you take the lowest amount of motor vehicles we've registered in April, May, and June for the last two years, you look at building permits and take the lowest amount since March of 24 and put that over the three months. Uh you look at a couple other lower items that we know we likely will get higher as well as things such as the interest revenue 94,000 over the next three months when I already know we have 146 in CDs coming in with those worst case scenarios we fall $52,000 short of the entire revenue. That being said, if you just change the motor vehicle to the average over the last two years for those months, we are 120,000 above what we have budgeted. So, I just want to clarify because I felt like I did a terrible job explaining that and I was not going to be able to sleep tonight if I didn't do a better job of it. So, just wanted to let you all know that.

Just Thank you. Just so you know, Justin, I'll be contributing for building permit and uh registering of also. There you go. Thank you.

Oh yeah, I'm going to skip most of what I said. That way we can all get home before it's the end of the day. Um because we're close to another day already. So I'm just going to go over the agenda uh for the next couple of meetings. We have the

second part of the strategic plan workshop scheduled for this Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30. again 6:30 to 8:30. The original agenda was sent out at 7. Um it's not at 700, but it's 6:30 to 8:30 here. Um and then on May 4th, presentation from Londary Arts Council on the 2026 conference in the common and then discussion set a public hearing for May 18th regarding the 2027 2022 proposed strategic plan. uh discussing scheduled public hearing regarding um a proposed revision to municipal code uh in regards to the administrative code I mean I'm sorry ethics code of ethics um that was pushed from one meeting to the next and so now it's presently scheduled for May f uh May 4th and then you would schedule a public hearing for uh May 18th for that and then we have continued discussion regarding zoning amendment plan unit uh development ordinance that you're familiar we had that discussion tonight and there's more room for that on the 4th May 18th interviews uh an appointment for the vacant position on the budget committee and again I have scheduled the public hearing assuming you schedule a public hearing for May 18th with the strategic plan. Uh discuss and receive public input regarding the code of ethics and then hopefully approve that on that date and then the plan unit development will be scheduled for public hearing. So we have three public hearings on that date or the busy night. um and discuss um the proposed TC 105 regarding use of legal counsel. This has been pushed several meetings. So now this is scheduled for May 18th with a public hearing on June 1st and discuss provide guidance to town manager to for the development of the FY28 budget. Rather important piece um that the council should consider that and you should be thinking about that obviously between now and the 18th. We

have had some discussions with several of you about different options with that whether you request multiple versions of the budget and if you did that early in the process that would give us time to develop those and then you'd have options at the end. As you know in the last process we were talking about making certain cuts and we didn't do that until we were well into the process. This might be a way to look at that at the beginning of the process. Uh and as you I think you're all aware that uh chairman Don and I will be meeting with the chairman of the budget committee and staff to look at and school of the uh combined schedule for the FY2028 budget process with hopes of starting that earlier especially when it comes to CIP and those sorts of things that we can get out of the way with that.

Like I said I'm not going to go into the long list of other items because we will be here into the next day and I don't think any of you want to do that. There's email and I will inform you by email as I normally do. Thank you. I will own public comment. Don't

Christine, thanks for your patience. Thank you. Sat too long.

Christine Perez, five Wesley Drive. Couple of things. When you This is what gets people frustrated. You have a public hearing and then nothing that is spoken to about from the public and you have a 10-page document or six-page document from Greg Carson and nothing that is spoken about is taken into consideration. That's why people they feel as though by the time it's public comment it's a done deal. And it's my understanding that we did not have any development agreements with Woodmont. Is that correct? That's not correct.

We had I know

you did. How about with Technology Hill? None with Technology Hill. And it's my understanding that Technology Hill was supposed to do not do their residential first, but yet that was the first thing that went in. That's just But anyway, on another subject, there have been three that I know of, not anonymous complaints put in in the past month, not anonymous, that have not been brought forward to the public. I'm upset about that. And one of them was mine. And according to the ACLU, my civil liberties were violated by a council member. And having a let's learn how to use Facebook is not going to fix that. It's not just my civil liberties were violated, but other people's were too. That's huge. That happened to a state rep several years ago and it went to the ACLU. Yet you decide not to do anything about it.

Christine, I'm going to stop you. I didn't say I was doing I said three times actually that I'm going to address it with education. We're going to have elected officials be educated on social media. Okay. Well, you're a public official that violated my civil liberties, my freedom of speech, knows very well that he violated my freedom of speech and that having you don't have to instruct counselor Faber. He knows what he did was wrong. So now it goes to the ACLU.

Thank you. Tony, you've been so patient. I know. We didn't hear from you. Patience is what I do.

Patience is what I do. And people that know me are laughing right now when I say I have patience. My son always said, "I have a lot of patience for a short amount of time." Tony D. Francesco one Cheshure Court. Um so um just for the record, Technology Hill did not have a development agreement because it was a oneowner development. One owner owned the land under the current PUD which we changed for the new one should you choose to adopt it for a whole bunch of reasons. The we're going to leave it at that. Okay. Um so keep it at that. um the sequencing is uh for that project is on schedule. So it's not, you know, it is what it is. But I just I wanted to frame it. We had the conversation, right? And so this is part of the reason why we're thinking we're better off. Let's have all of them have um agreements. So, and you've already made that change. So, thank you. And I appreciate you giving me the time as well.

Thank you, Tony. How am I doing? Good evening, sir. Thanks for your patience.

Glen Douglas, 6 Overlook A. I'd like to know when this training is going to happen. Is it going to be public? Are you guys going to hide with a little non-meating? Because I agree with Christine. Multiple people have comment, filed complaints. I was one of them. There should be a reason stated why it is that a counselor chooses to selectively hide comments on his Facebook page from constituents. He was asked, he refused to answer. I filed a complaint. You refused to acknowledge my complaint. And as far as I know, the other complaints that were filed, you refused to acknowledge those as well.

I acknowledge them all tonight, sir. So, if I just decided to stay home, which I really should have done, I'd have no idea unless I watch a 5h hour meeting, six hour meeting. That's the way it works. No, I think the proper method is to educate everybody first on social media. It's it's a violation of the law. Okay. Okay. You you can keep them with the smug looks there, Sean.

Just I'll talk to whoever I want to, unless you'd like to have me escorted out and violate my civil rights again. This is ridiculous. You have people accusing people of illegal things, then asking them to, "Well, what's illegal?" I don't want to answer that. You talk to planning board members. Oh, I'm not going to answer who I'm going to talk to. We have serious 918 questions going on. I get multiple people, more people than I've ever had contact me before saying, "What is with this 91A? Everything seems to be decided before they even get there." And it is. It's absolutely ridiculous. So, you know, when you ran for reelection, you said you were the most approachable counselor there is. You don't answer any emails. You don't respond to people. You won't even respond to questions here. Oh, I'll get back to you. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Absolutely rid ridiculous. It's unacceptable. I think there should be other complaints filed and I think there should be people that actually should step down from this board. Thank you. Anybody else have public comment?

You've been very patient, sir. Yes,

very long night. Paul Scidlar, um, 20wood bind drive, London area. I'm not going to blavorver this because we want all want to get the hell out of here tonight. But, um, I just want to, uh, I wanted to end my, uh, initial public comment just saying there is a remedy for, uh, what we've discussed or what I've discussed previously. Uh, and you don't know what to me if there are 3,300 people or so that voted for those two petitions. um they need they they deserve answers as to why um people on this board would not um put their names put their signatures on those letters and I think you owe them that explanation. You don't have to do it certainly tonight. Uh you can think about it and you know come back next meeting if you'd like. It's up to you. And I'd also suggest um and I'm not going to speak for uh town manager Mahaland that if a similar letter uh came to his desk or a similar scenario came to his desk in previous positions, I would likely uh I would suggest that they would probably all be signed by the full body and not just one counselor or two counselors. Uh that they would all come together and sign that document as would was prescribed in the petition. So again, I ask you to do that. I'd ask you to reconsider it. The way you do that is with a fresh document to allow all signatures and and resend that. So, I'd ask you for that consideration tonight.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anybody else in public comment? I don't. Ron, I'm going to add on to what Paul said. I think we should all be able to respond to Mr. Scudler. He's spoken now three times on this and he's also emailed us wanting a response from the rest of you why you won't sign the documents or not. I think it's we owe it to the voters. Well, I had my hand up. I was gonna respond to Okay. to respond to. You've had plenty of time to respond. I haven't had plenty of time to You You've uh he's emailed and he's spoken multiple times and you should have signed the document the first time.

Well, I'm going to make it very clear. All right, Paul. Um mine was not politically motivated. Um mine was I didn't fully understand it. I do not sign things I do not fully understand. Just like I didn't understand what this whole thing was with the tax collector and I didn't sign that contract. All right? Even though I was told by two other counselors, you got to sign that. I'm not going to sign it because I don't agree with it. All right? So, I did not fully understand this whole thing. That's why I didn't sign it. It wasn't politically motivated. So, I guess do you understand it now? What's confusing about it? Well, it was explained a little bit today

better tonight about I didn't understand it either when you intro, you know, spoke about it. I I understood it better. Okay. So, uh So, you're open to signing it now? I So, I mean, reach out to me, but you know, some some people would prefer to go to Facebook and start slamming me, but that's fine. I emailed I emailed all of you. I think you recognize that, right? You did. And I actually meant to get back to you and then I forgot because life gets busy and I apologize. But I know if you talk to people who've sent letters, I try to get back to if you called me, I probably would have got back to you. Martha had called me and explained to me

and I went through this whole scenario thing from what I was explained about how this worked, which wasn't what you said. So, um, I don't have a problem signing it. I did vote for one, not both. Sorry. Um, but I don't have a problem. I'll just selling it. I didn't understand it. I'm glad you came and took the patience to come and explain it. I'm glad Martha took the time to pick up the phone. Actually, before you got here, I was texting her back and forth and going back and forth. So, I hope it's clear now and I I hope that it is for me that you'll again reconsider and hopefully get your signature. So, anyone else want to explain?

I'm good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else have public comment? Seeing none, I will close public comment. We're going to go non meeting. Yes. Pursuant to 91A colon 3 2A, I need a roll call vote to go into nonpublic. Hi, Tech Holmes. Hi, Sean Faber. Hi, Ron. Dunn. Hi, Dan Bashard. Hi, Doug. Paul Drew, we will be back um to ajourn