Town Council - Regular Meeting

This is the uh town council strategic planning workshop for Wednesday uh April 22nd, 2026. Everyone please stand for the pledge of 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. All right. All right. You're up.

Okay. So, again, agenda today, very similar, except we're not going to go over all of the stuff that we did before. Um, just remind everybody what the strategic plan is in case we have anybody here who wasn't here last time. I don't think we have many, so it's going to be fast. Um we'll go over the functional areas. We'll do the second four functional areas. I apologize I didn't update this slide completely and we'll talk about next steps. So again basic strategic plan is near sets near-term priorities that are designed to be achieved. It's not a wish list. It's an action list and it makes sure that we all are pulling in the same direction. Does anybody have any questions on a strategic plan in general at this point? Awesome. And the functional areas, we reviewed the first three last week. Government excellence, digital services, and fiscal stewardship, communications, civic trust, and community engagement. How we speak to people and how we earn their trust. Growth, land use, housing, and economic fatality. So now we're moving on to the second four, infrastructure, transportation, and asset management. What the town owns, how we take care of it, and how we monitor maintenance needs and keep everything up to the standards that our town's people expect. Environment, water, and conservation. This was a recurrent theme with the public, maintaining the health of the community. um prioritizing public health and open space and preserving resources. Next one is public safety, emergency preparedness and municipal resilience. This is kind of the backbone of emergency services, public safety and making sure we can take care of the people who live here adequately and um protect life and property. And the last one is community character, recreation, arts and culture. And that's why Lenandere over any place else. So

what does community life look like? How do we use these things to improve the quality of life of people here which has um significant tangible impacts on health and well-being as well. So [snorts] without further ado, unless anybody has any questions overall on the functional areas, we can get right into the first one, infrastructure, transportation, and asset management. We have our um public works and engineering team here to answer questions. we brought them up so they can speak to it and the first objective is to create an integrated asset management and facilities planning system. So this is really not just this is not just a particular program it is a process procedure and fundamentally adjusting the way we approach our assets how we monitor their condition and how we take care of them for the future to preserve their longevity in our investments. So on over to Sean. So, just a couple things in order to speed the process up. We're going to have these people actually come up and sit here that that remember this was this is a process. We had public input, we had boards and committees, we had staff. So, as we move to the next time, they're just going to move up to these seats. So, if there are questions of them that you have of them, we can do that in a more expeditious way. We're really going to need to get through hopefully the four of these tonight. So this one [clears throat] obviously there's lots of money involved with infrastructure millions of dollars of assets the town owns and keeping those functional operational is a key uh u key important function for us to take care of. Oh, implement and or expand asset management tools for roads, drainage, signs, guardrails, cemeteries, uh, fleet, parks, facilities, and IT hardware. Conduct phase facilities assessments for DPW, recreation assets in the town buildings, and establish ownership and accountability standards. Develop life cycle replacement schedules for vehicles, fire apparatus, PPE,

personally protective equipment, hardware, and other critical assets. Advance cemetery mapping, perpetual care planning, and related trustee training. Track condition data such as manhole cover elevations, field efficiencies, and deferred maintenance backlog. Road map with the plan for refurbishing the public works facility to accommodate, maintain, and protect town assets at an adequate level. I have a quick question for you before you. So, when you say advanced cemetery mapping, would that be similar to the things that you and I saw we went to that conference? Um there was a woman there that had Yes. That had That's what we're looking at. Something like where everything's mapped out. People can pull it up on their phone,

right? And we don't really have a good handle on where people are buried. So we it's important that we we get that figured out and that and that way we could Yeah. the public can access that data and people like to do geological similar that that program seemed seemed like it was interactive for custom or for uh the public. Yes. And again, a lot of people like to do genealological work and they actually do a lot of work with cemeteries and they can do that remotely now and some it requires uh on-site work, but it will be a lot easier for folks to do that and then we'll know what we have and where it's available and it'll be a lot easier for everybody. I think it would be really helpful for the people who are dying to get in there.

Thank you for that. Yeah, it it is 6:30 so we got to have at least one of those tonight. Thank you, Council Combmes. Um, we'll put that on later on in terms of counselor ability to provide jokes and things of that nature. It could be a new objective and we'll look at the key performance indicators in regards to that. You want to talk about Doug, can you add a counselor standup night to your recreation plan? Thank you. Awesome. Can I go through indicator?

So, the key performance indicators, you'll notice with most of these objectives as opposed to the three that we covered last time, these are highly technical, hence why we have these folks up here to answer the questions that I can't. 100% of newly acquired vehicles and equipment are input into open gov within 30 days of acquisition by the end of the year. So putting in that workflow by the end of fiscal year 27. Pavement condition inventory complete and fully integrated into asset management system by the end of calendar year 2026. Cyber services equipment inventory complete by June 2027. 100% of public works and recreationbased facilities built out in open gov by the end of fiscal year 2027. Facility ownership and accountability review and assignment complete by the end of fiscal year 2027. Complete one full facility assessment by June 2028. Create a master list of assets requiring a life cycle replacement schedule by June 2027. NHMA annual trustee training made available to 100% of cemetery trustees by June 2027. Roadmap the plan for digital cemetery management. Ron, this is what you were referencing by create a road map for that by March 2027. Identify and list all instances of deferred maintenance across police, fire, public works, and recreation by June 2027 and a DPW facility roadmap plan presented to town council by December 2027.

And so we will open this up to these folks for question. I've got a question for anybody that wants to take it. Uh on the first one where it says 100% of newly acquired vehicles, what about the old vehicles? Will they be incorporated at some point too? I I think that's what she means is just they already are. They are they're already in. Okay. They're already in. Yeah. So, as we require them, we'll acquire them. We'll input new new equipment. Yeah. [clears throat] [snorts] The questions you have of this one, this is obviously a big one. There's a lot of things in here. A lot of this is already underway as you already know. Um, so they're

the pavement condition index is going to start soon or has it started yet? they are gearing up to get out there and get their um uh field inspections done. Uh like I think uh if you may recall that was a you know three to four day process to get the actual field work done. Um and then the data crunching is is will take some time but um I was hoping to get them out a little bit sooner. They're they're not quite there but they're uh they are tracking still ahead of schedule. Okay.

Any other questions? Go ahead. Uh, so I'm looking at this and my thought is, uh, as we get ready to go into the budget season, we have this information in there. Is that something where we can access and say, "All right, Dave, you've got a truck here that's coming up next year or two years from now." So, we can plan for budgeting. Uh, roads. We need to look at how many roads that you've, you know, flagged for repairs. Um so is that something that is going to be accessible online? So I guess access into the open gov type system I so

no the onboarding and assessment of the conditions. So as James said pavement condition index it's it's ongoing right now.

We won't have most of these things will not be 100% complete in turn for this budget season. That's not saying we don't have access to the data that Dave Dave maintain Dave John and James maintain the data [clears throat] is on where everything is in their life cycle right now on paper and so that we do have access to that. Um we won't have complete access to the pavement condition index for this budget season. It'll come in mid-budget season but the goal of this is to have a really robust plan as we swing into the um the following budget season. or are you specifically ask asking if you would have access into the open gov that's I think the question so users staff what will happen is you'll be getting the reports reports generated out of

sending those to you folks and then it'll be on our website too because right now nobody knows what roads we're doing so you're going to see a map of the pavement condition in every road in town it will give it a color code what its status is and then it'll give a number where it is from one to 100 what the condition of that roadway is and then we'll update that when we fix new roads because they'll do a new report and they'll put it in there and then we'll have the list of roads we're going to be doing this year and the ones that we're planning to do the next year, although that can change, but we don't have that right now, right? So, that's what you're going to see on a web page. That's what I'm That's what I'm hoping once this is implemented that we can go on there and we can look at it and say, "All right, uh, I know this is what we're looking at for budgeting this year,

and I'm looking into the future for future planning, and I know that there's going to be other equipment that you're going to be looking to replace, roads that needs to be fixed, something in the, you know, uh, sewer system that needs to be done." Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, please. Uh first off, I'm really glad that you guys sat in a good pattern. Blue, white, blue. Thank you very much. [laughter] Um but first, what is considered cyber services equipment under this department?

So cyber services. So we don't the plan isn't organized strictly by department. It's organized more by functional areas. So as you look in this one, you'll see that there's a number of different functional areas, a number of different departments here that are accountable. No, what he means is that that's the cyber service equipment across the entire tower. Our computer equipment. So we'll have an inventory of all the computer equipment that we own. That's what that is. Yeah. So cyber services will do that piece. Okay. And then what is considered base facilities for public works and recreation?

Uh that's an that's a reference to how the facilities are built out in the asset management system. Base facilities are basic floor layouts, buildings. Um eventually the goal is to get everything up to specific mechanical equipment and everything in there, but that's going to take some time. Yeah. So the goal is to get the base facilities completely built out over the course of the next year before we put in equipment and Yeah. So an example is you take town hall, the base is the building, but then within it, they call them child assets, the HVAC systems, the child assets. In this case, we're going to have two sets of HVAC systems because the new building is going to be attached. um and all the subcomponents of it because you're going to track warranty for each of those pieces of equipment. Y

and all that's going to be in the system and we're we're going to buy them at different times and they're going to have different replacement schedules and life cycle cost. So that's why you want to build all those child assets out of there by getting the base buildings in there all them in and then you start to build out all the child assets within it. Gotcha. Other questions we can answer on this one on D1? No, we're going to move on to D2.

All right. So, these folks are going to stay up here for this one. This is improve infrastructure, asset maintenance, and related operations. So, if the last one was about tracking, this is about performing maintenance. um consistently adhering to service standards, improving our readiness and um adhering to those schedules that we have for maintaining the assets.

So develop annual operating and maintenance work plans for public works, sewer, solid waste, recreation facilities and related field operations, including seasonal priorities and staffing assumptions. Um, use pavement condition index and analysis of roadway conditions to identify a prioritized list of critical areas of town roadways to be addressed, which is your question, Council Bushard. Basically, establish service levels and response expectations for common operational activities such as drainage maintenance, roadway patching, signage repair, field uh utility field response, and seasonal preparation. Just sort of an example, we have so many miles of uh roadway drainage that has to be cleared and cleaned on a regular basis. How many miles do we have? How many staff hours does it take to do that? What's it actually cost? So when a truck goes out there with two people in it, we have the cost of the truck and the salaries of those two people and they spend if they spend eight hours cleaning ditches, then we know we can track what it costs to do that. We don't have any of those data points right now. We don't know how how many hours we need to do that. Uh patching potholes, replacing signs, doing guardrail inspections, um all those various tasks. We don't have that data, but we're going to be able to have that data now. So, we can see that in the schedules by which it's supposed to happen. Guardils are supposed to be done every two years. We're not tracking any of that. And then we can show that, yeah, we inspected it two years ago and this one's up this week. It'll pull up on their maintenance schedule so they know what to to go out there and make sure it gets taken care of and checked off. and we'll also see how far behind they are on whatever that might be. So, we'll have those data points. Uh expand use of work order tracking and maintenance documentation systems so departments can monitor completion rates, backlogs, response times, and recurring problem areas. Give an example. I was up on Wilson uh road um checking out that area because there's a a PUD being planned up there and uh there was a rather large pothole in there. So, I had to send an email to Dave. I'm guessing he had to send it to

somebody else then had to tell somebody else to fix it. Now, if I normally I would just put that in the system myself and I could actually do it on my phone. There's a pothole and here's a GPS location of it because I'm sitting over it right now. Um and then that I just put that directly in the system. It shows up on the work schedule and the supervisor, the foreman's handling that will go with that and add that to the list when they go deal with potholes and then he's going to check it off that it was complete. If a citizen made that inquiry, it would send an email back to the citizen. We received your email and then a day later whenever they fix it. Uh, by the way, we were out there today and we we patched that pothole. Um, so that's how that system is capable of functioning. All right. Report annually on maintenance completion rates, service performance, operational backlogs, and major risk affecting routine service delivery.

All right. And your key performance indicators on these is implement open gov work order ticketing system internally by the end of the fiscal year. And then 100% of town departments have at least one employee trained in work order ticketing requests by March of 2027. So train people and then have it implemented. The idea then would be to roll it out publicly the following year. There's a couple of additional components we have to work on to get that there. Identify the 10% of town roadway mileage in the most critical condition by September 2026. That's that pavement condition inventory when it return is returned. Establish baseline response times to service requests during fiscal year 27. By June 2027, much like last time, there's things we don't track right now that shifting to this software will make it easier for us to track and quantify. Create a master list of assets requiring annual routine maintenance by the end of fiscal year 27 and create a master list of recurring problem areas by the end of fiscal year 27 and prepare an annual report on maintenance completed needed risks and roadblocks in public works, fire, police, and recreation by the end of fiscal year 27. And that's a report for the council that will also be public. So Dave,

this would allow you to track the guys on that are cleaning the catch basins on the clam shell, right?

Percent will know by percentage completed and we had a meeting today about that very thing and just how we have been traditionally doing it and how we're going to do it this year. But this will be able to, you know, the goal is is that eventually they're out there with a tough book and they're on top of the asset. Hey, we're here. They're measuring the sump. We know how much material they're pulling out. Observations and it all just goes in live. At the end of every day, you can literally tell, okay, we're we're x amount complete of how many basins we have and we're going to clean the whole town every year or a third each year and we'll know exactly which ones are done and then have that reporting back, which also helps us with our compliance for MS4. And this would probably help you because I know down the road you're probably thinking about getting a different machine to clean those catch basins to to vacuum it up. But

what I'm thinking, Dave, is this would allow you also to be able to track how many manh hours, how long it takes. If you get this machine, right, it's going to cut down the amount of time and maybe instead of having two people there, you can have one person doing running the machine, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean that that's the idea is again Tom manager said it best. We just don't have the raw data. You know, right? I can sit up here and pontificate all day long about how hard we work and all the things we do and you see the trucks out there and we communicate out on Facebook. Sure.

But at the end of the day, when you're trying to forecast and plan a $40 million budget plus, you know, $50 million budget plus, you want to have good raw data to analyze and say, where are we falling behind? Where are we deficient? And you can either do that on volumes of vast amount of paperwork or you can have a system that is tracking all that live as we're performing the work and it's immediately available and then when budget season comes around. Case in point, best best case is uh signs, right? I' I've said, you know, hey, best I can tell by driving around in our town, our signs were at about 60% compliant. That's just my own personal observation. You know, once the the PCI is done and some of the other raw data that we can pull out of that, we're going to have some of those definitive numbers. So we'll know exactly how how how far behind are we. Then we'll know how many signs we're going to purchase. We know how much they cost. And then it's just the installation cost. So um our guys going out there and doing it. So that's the whole driver behind this.

Yeah. I think this is a great idea to do this. Thank you. Set to move on to D3. [clears throat] All right. So, I think you guys can probably Well, instead of having them wait a minute, we have we'll have you stay for one more. Yeah. All right. So, this one is improve traffic safety and address traffic congestion. This is a big one. And Sean's going to talk mostly about this one.

So, there's a lot of pieces on this. As you know, we have the traffic safety committee. We also have the traffic management working group. And we're going to be making a presentation to you in June, the first meeting in June of uh status report and where we're are where we are. Uh so the first item is use crash data. The JAR uh our RMS analysis um and JAR is a traffic counting device um that is used out there. Right now we have Central New Hampshire Regional Planning that provides us a couple of those and they'll do a couple of spot locations here and there. But we're looking to enhance that and get some permanent and real-time traffic data uh equipment out in the field. As I talked about this the other day, we have four traffic counting devices. two of them don't work and the other two we can't take the data out of and the two that don't work they haven't worked in years is my understanding um so we've got to up our uh our systems in that regard and then RMS's records management system which is what the police department has in terms of that crash analysis taking the crash analysis the complaint analysis and looking at that and say okay look we have limited traffic enforcement resources we want to be able to focus those limited resources at the right place at the right time based on where the accidents are, the types of accidents and focus those efforts there the times of day, days of week, day of the week and take that limited resource and put it there to solve that try to solve that particular problem instead of just sending people out randomly and hoping for the best. So, uh using the data to to be more efficient. Um implement uh targeted action plans for the 12 priority areas. We have identified 44 and there are 12 priorities of those. Uh we're going to talk more about this on uh the meeting on June 1st. We'll go into detail of what those are. Uh and some of those will include enforcement uh signal timing, striping, signage, uh circulation changes, crossing improvements, or capital upgrades to improve those areas. Incorporate traffic safety and congestion findings and development and development review, capital planning,

and corridor improvement decisions. Conduct directed enforcement high-risisk corridors and during peak travel periods with emphasis on speeding, distracted driving, and impaired driving. Expand public education and outreach related to safe driving, school area safety, pedestrian awareness, and high-risisk behaviors. Publish an annual traffic safety and congestion summary identifying trends, priority loca locations, and plan responses. And a lot of that again is produced in that data. We we have a traffic management page now. It's got some materials. We our plan is to significantly enhance that. The police department's going to be replacing its records management system with a new system. They got a grant to do that with a couple of other communities around us. Uh so the idea was to be able to push that data out to folks so they can see uh and benchmark how we're doing. Um and as you know, we've had some serious accidents here in town the last year. We had a fatality uh due to impaired driving. Um so that's we need to do what we can to try to prevent those things from occurring. And when that takes active steps to do that and it takes a comprehensive plan uh public education enforcement and then roadway improvements to reduce those risks KPIs.

So you'll find that most of these KPIs are linked to some of the things that the town manager has already said are ongoing here. So review the corridor studies and develop implementation plans for the related priority areas by June 2027. review, revise, and update the guidelines for traffic consideration in the development review process by June 2027. It's my understanding that that is already a conversation that's underway. Publish a public facing heat map of traffic safety data and establish a regular schedule for updates by June 2027. Conduct two public awareness campaigns addressing school area safety, speeding, distracted driving, or impaired driving by June 2027. And this came from the folks at LPD in their strategic plan. And prepare an annual traffic summary and congestion summary by the end of fiscal year 2027. I'll just talk about the the heat map. It's actually there. If you go on the traffic safety page, there's actually an overlay that's provided. Now, it's not ideal. Um, and it doesn't provide qualitative data. Um, but you can click on it tells you the number of incidents at a particular intersection. Um, but we need to we need to up significantly upgrade that and improve that and that's part of the work that's being done. The traffic management group working group, we have our GIS person Mike Zian who does that work. He's on that committee and he's on that committee for that reason and others. Uh, so that's a work in progress and again these things are already underway. Any questions on um D3? Well, not a question, but um so as you were talking and my my mind goes kind of crazy sometimes, but what I envision is this is a great tool for zoning planning um board to look at um before meetings, before they look at a project. Um yeah, there's going to be traffic studies, but you know what? this information will um

either confirm what the traffic study says or there could be conflict there which would definitely help in a decision. I think um I think it does help the boards to be able to get this data that we're gathering and use it for the benefit of the town um as they're looking at projects coming in because lots of times um I notice that they're they're different and so I think that's is that how it would be one of the ways it would be used. That's exactly it. Certainly my the rest of my team can jump in on that, but that's exactly part of that process because if you take the one PUD that we have, well, we have two now, but there were traffic estimates that were produced in 2013 of what they thought the traffic would be, right?

And then there was an update in 16, but what is the actual traffic impacts that are going on with that? That's why permanent speed counting devices that provide real-time data are critically important to be able to do that. And it's critically important for us, but actually the business sector uses that as well when they look at, well, how many cars drive through here a day if they want to a business, right? Exactly. And then they have that data available because it'll be on our website. They can actually mine it and get it, you know, just do a Google search and get it.

Yeah. Because I personally someday hope we have an economic development board like some towns have um that actually go out and recruit businesses and and work with them and make sure that not only do they come to London, but they're successful in London. tools like this help them do that. Um, and it's just a cost, it's in a cost-effective way to have an economic development department as opposed to you do it through volunteers. Um, kind of like a chamber. Um, and it makes that businesses that are already here who might be struggling have a lifeline to try to get revitalized through help of the town. So, [snorts] I think this is good. Thank you. So Deb, as as Sean indicated, if you [clears throat and cough] look at the third bullet under the priority action items,

that's what we're talking about looking at the corridor studies. Yeah. So again, when a development comes in, we have them do a corridor study. So they can say, okay, in 2026, this is what the [clears throat] existing traffic was, right? We're going to have background, you know, the town will grow. So there'll be that added number and they're going to they're adding a McDonald's or whatever it is. What's right? Because right now they do the study just say in 2026, but they don't even [clears throat] start building until 2027. There's going to be a huge difference and that traffic difference should come into play when they're doing your curb cuts or your how you going to do things. I how you going to figure things out. It it helps to be more real time than living in the past.

To go back to that 2026. So what's what's occurred? What changed? Yes. What has actually occurred? Well, built. So, right. No, I get it. Thank you, John.

I just want to echo that um how important this is because uh we hear a lot in town about traffic traffic and uh we need to plan ahead. I mean, some of you who have sat on this, you know, working group for traffic. Uh it's interesting when yeah we have two speed counters over there on Stonehenge Road but you know then then we find out that can't get the information off of it. So what good is it? But you know it's one thing to say you know developer comes in we haven't put this in but there's no plan to continue maintaining it and and keeping up with the information. So yeah, I you know, traffic, traffic, we hear about it all all the time in town and I think this this hits it. Thank you.

We we should be showing people what we're actually doing about it and that's the purpose of that page and we'll have the updated data there. Again, there's data on there now, but we need to significantly enhance what we do have available to people and that's why that meeting in June, I think, is going to be helpful. Uh that my the team will be putting together a PowerPoint presentation and we're going to show folks what uh the plan is and uh all the pieces that go along with that. Great. Other questions about D3 before we move on to D4? All set. All right, we're moving on to D4. [snorts] All right. And at this point, John, would you mind jumping over there to the John Man on that one just so because a lot of these are things that the utilities committee sewer and solid waste subcommittee specifically were referencing. So this is about

Martha too. Yeah, Martha, do you want to join him? There's no

Sorry, I apologize. I didn't see you come in, Martha. Um, so this is about developing a coordinated utilities, waste, and energy resilience strategy for the town. So you'll notice this one focuses on everything but water. Spoiler alert, water is uh in the next section. I couldn't put water in orange. It had to be in blue. Um, this is talking about reducing our solid waste, improving our services, and identifying emerging emerging energy needs so we can be prepared for the future. So, update and revisit septic condition research and identify tools that could support risk reduction. Implement a street sweeping program in compliance with MS4 regulations. Um, that's a permit we're required to have. I think you know, but anybody else who's listening, MS4 is an EPA permit we're required to have for our storm water. And, uh, we are one of those communities that is MS4. We have to comply with those federal regulations. And it does require us to sweep our streets once a year. So, it's not an optional. It is a requirement by EPA regulations. There's 60 municipalities in mostly southern New Hampshire that are under that requirement and we are one of those. Uh design and pilot a food waste, composting, education, and diversion option plan. This is critically important because we talked about this a number of times. Compostable waste is has a lot of water. It is heavy. We pay for disposal of trash by the ton. So, uh, obviously it's an environmental issue, but it's also an economic issue. It costs us money to get rid of that and that that material can be diverted and reused um by it's it's a good amenity for soil and if you want to use it in your garden, but we've got to find ways to get some of that waist stream out because those costs keep going up.

Um, and they're about to they implemented the new um the legislature passed a bill that for every ton of trash, they're adding $3.50 to it that the state will collect now. So that those fees are going up uh to offset um the uh dees operating expenses up there for the dees staff assigned to solid waste. Some of that goes back to those communities that have landfills and some of it's for grants for recycling, things like that. Uh design um yeah uh assess EV charging, solar energy independence and other resilient oriented infrastructure opportunities. We don't have to look too far to see what fuel prices are right now with the problems we're having in the Middle East. If we can get ourselves off the grid, it makes a lot of business sense to try to do that where that is practical. Uh evaluate drop off uh center partnerships and fee structure. Uh that's one of the things we're we're looking at to see if there's a better way to do that. Obviously, we're not open all year round and I think we're probably the largest community that doesn't have a facility that's open all year round. uh and provide maybe some way we can do that a better way whether that's through the private sector or a partnership with another community. That's something we're taking a look at um because right now it's it's a cost burden on us and right now it's subsidized by property taxpayers. The fees that we're collecting down there do not pay for that operation. So that's something we're taking a close look at there. Sean, can I just interrupt that just and [clears throat] just as we've been open now for the last two weekends,

you know, just so you understand the impact that it has on our own staff,

it what happens on Saturday, they can't keep up. So, we we've been sending folks [clears throat] down there the last couple of weeks on Mondays and Tuesdays to clean up all the additional cardboard that came in, metals, and have to sort things and get them in their containers because we're just absolutely bombarded with all of the backlog from all winter long. So, that's something that I just wanted to bring to light what we're talking about it right now because it is an impact to our labor force that we we got so much road work we should be doing, but we're down there cleaning up on an after the fact or trying to catch up because we were closed all winter. So, that's something that you don't see or hear about a lot, but it it is an impact to our department. So, lake [clears throat] utility planning, the growth areas, environmental constraints, and long range capital planning. John Martha, do you want to add anything to any of these? Obviously, your committee did a lot of work on these objectives as well.

Um, first I guess happy Earth Day. [snorts] [clears throat]

We haven't covered that off. Um, Sean hit a key point I think with uh, uh, food waste. Um, uh, our waste management contract is one of the largest contracts that that you guys oversee. and [clears throat] uh and there's also a [snorts] der of landfills and new landfill opportunities in our state. So um we have to find ways to reduce that and and hopefully get London area out in front of a potential problem coming down the road 3, four, five years. So um we've taken a look in in my subcommittee at at uh what are the options that we can offer to folks right now. So, we'll have over actually rolling out over the next year, uh, a backyard composting program for the do-it-yourselfers. Um, but we have a large group of other folks in towns that live in 55 plus communities where having a compost bin in your backyard might not be an option. Living in a in a in a condo or an apartment. Um, so we're also working at identifying ways that those folks can uh uh compost um and reduce food waste into our our stream. [snorts] And um there are some services etc that do some that do residential pickup, some that offer drop off opportunities um for folks that want to get involved in that. So um that's one of the things my subcommittee is looking at and and I think septics uh we don't have to tell you guys that 90% of the residences in town have se are relying on septic tanks and one of the things that that we've discovered particularly with the younger members of our community is they don't know what to do with them. So, [snorts] one of the things we've uh focused on here is um what is the education opportunity? What what can we do to help them understand and we've sort of started to plot out um a a video a training type program? What should I be doing with my septic tank? What should I not be doing? And there are some points of controversy over over how you

maintain a septic tank, but we we want to do that. And then we've added some other things here with regard to identifying high-risisk septic tanks adjacent to conservation land uh uh freshwater streams, that type of thing. So, um that's what I would add to this. I see that Mike Speltz has stepped in. Mike, would you like to come up and speak about some of the solar stuff that you're looking into for our energy subcommittee? [clears throat] It's a good problem to have that you have more people giving input than microphones. That's a good problem. What's going on with that?

The uh the energy subcommittee is looking at how can we introduce solar power into the town operations for sure. Um, we're not anywhere near as far along in that effort as the water subcommittee is on water and because it's a a complicated problem and it's a complicated environment right now. But uh we are in the process of trying to identify potential sites and potential partners uh with the goal of seeing how close we could come to uh meeting our own uh energy electric needs. And uh that you know stay tuned for that. We're going to continue to work on it. That's not something that we're going to come back here even a year from now and and declare our victory. But we we we recognize it from the standpoint that uh Dave's talking about and u we recognize it also as a an environmental uh plus for what we should be doing and certainly a health plus for the town.

Mr. Chair, may I ask my question? Yeah. Are you looking at solar panels for our buildings or solar panels on the ground areas that we can potentially put them on the ground? All of the above. uh we the net metering allows us to generate in one place and have that you know be credited to uh consumption at at another place. So we can be very flexible. Our really frankly our our biggest constraint is how we can get near to the three-phase power line because you need you need that kind of pipe that that large diameter pipe to move the electrons along. So that that's one of the things we're we're working with.

Well, it depends on how many solar panels at one time, but yeah. Right. And I think the angles of our roofs here are probably not the right angles to be able to collect the solar. Certainly not on this building. Well, we can do flat roofs. I mean, they've got one up at Sunny Stonyfield. So, it's you can Well, this isn't a flat roof. This is angled this way, right?

The sun comes this way. We're going to be missing the sun. Well, there also are installations that do very well with east west. So, you get you get morning sun on one side, evening sun on the other. And so, like on my house, we're it's all facing due south. So, I'm missing that. So you can you can u ma model it where that it it could pay off, but we're not at anywhere near looking at specific buildings to put put roofs on or panels on the roof. Do we have any potential pieces of land that are flat piece of land that we can do so besides up at off of Auburn Road that are

right? And the problem with Auburn Road, which would otherwise be pretty ideal, is that uh it's too far from the three-phase correct line, which is why that project failed a couple years ago. It didn't go forward,

right? It didn't go forward. Is is correct. Uh we're keeping an eye on whatever source is doing with their three-phase power lines, too. We also have the option of of of, you know, build it yourself if if we could make that work, you know, make the numbers pencil out. But, uh, the the only other one that we're well, there's two. One up at by the airport that, uh, looks like it will probably be something that would be out owned and operated by the airport, not by us. And then, um, we've made some very preliminary discussions with Federal Aviation Administration. Um, if you know where the spaceship is, kind of right behind up in in Max Orchard there, uh, that area between there and the ball fields, uh, would probably be a good area to put in a ground mount array,

but it's we're dealing with the federal government at a time when their federal government isn't real enthusiastic about solar, but that's definitely something we're going to keep pursuing. Okay, thank you. We're going to roll into KPIs unless there's any particular questions. questions.

No, I just I'm I'm happy that you know when when I created the um utility committee, the whole mission was net zero. I mean Dave came and we talked about you know how we could do this stuff and most of you guys were on the board at the time and you know with the solar um Derry wanted to buy the panels at the same time with us and that's why I was kind of pushing that because I was having that conversation with Derry um and we would have both benefited because we would have got the panels at a an exceptionally lower price because it of the volume um except we couldn't figure out how to get to that panel, dear. But I'm I'm glad that the utility committee is is doing what it's doing. I'm I'm really happy that you've subdivided things because it's just too much

and there's so many great things to look at. So, I applaud you guys for doing the work that needs to get done. And I think in the long term, um if we can get to net zero, that will be a huge cost savings to the town and the environment. So, [clears throat] I'm happy for it. Thank you. I'll just throw one plug in here for a really big roof would be over a new DPW facility. So, we can start [laughter] there. We got 13 acres down there. We can [laughter] You had your chance with the last objective, Dave. Just saying. Thought jokes aren't I thought we were white women jokes. No, [laughter] we might have [clears throat] to turn his mic off, but anyway.

All right. So, back to the performance indicators. So utilize the previous survey to plot high-risisk septic tank areas in Lenanderea by the end of 2027. Create one septic tank maintenance video by the end of fiscal year 2027. And create one food waste reduction video by the end by December 2026. Create a master list of potential composting opportunities or programs for town residents by March 2027. road map and create a proposal to implement street sweeping for presentation to council by March 2027. Create a master list of energy infrastructure opportunities including locations and funding opportunities. And this is something that James and Mike have already been working and talking about by June 2027 and the drop off center fee structure evaluation complete by March 2027.

There any questions? We'll move on to objective. Any questions? There are videos already made. I know Derry's done a couple and some other towns. I mean, just to help you kind of get an idea of what you want to do. It's easier to look at what they did. Gives you a good starting point. Awesome. Well, thank you, gentlemen. I think you three are released. You two shouldn't go anywhere. [laughter] Real quick on the assessing of EV charging. We have no EV charging in town besides I believe one business has it. Correct. It not sure about that. That's part of the assessment. Again, we're very early stages on that part. Okay. Yeah. So, it's assessing the opport not just assessing what's here, but assessing opportunities to put it in. Gotcha.

There were grants for that through the state. Are they still around? Probably gone for electric. Um, no, those are gone. It's gone. They're gone. There was $10 million and those went I I when I was on utility, that's was one of the big things we were trying to get encourage businesses to take advantage. All right. So moving on to environment, water and conservation. This first objective, extend access to clean water through monitoring, education and infrastructure expansion should come as surprise to nobody because this is currently this whole objective is about continuing what we're already doing. You want me? Yeah, you want to talk about that?

Okay. So the first one is to launch a private well PAS testing encouragement campaign with a communications plan and a reporting dashboard and continue to gather test results at a town level. This is helping us build this would help us build out our home our home by home dossier that we are working on for our hotspot areas. Um trying to build out testing results for each home tracking communications tracking movement concerns. We're trying to build this up for each individual property that's in a hotspot area. Um, and the more testing results we have, the better picture we have of the issue. Publish regular water updates to the town council and hold community engagement events on water topics. Again, the uh one that was hosted by brains uh the brain that was the brainchild of Ray Brereslin and put together by the utilities committee was hugely successful and we'd like to continue that momentum. establish special assessment districts to create an additional funding mechanism to connect homes to water manes. Um, you all know that that passed the Warren article and I'll be talking to you more about that on May 4th about where that stands. Pursue funding opportunities for the 12 waterline extension projects outside the Senko Bay consent decree area. These are the 12 projects that the utilities committee and um you've presented to the state create and maintain. Just on that one. So you you you completed two grant applications for those.

One for um the off old Dair Road there, Kala and Iris Lorden Commons. We did submit one to the Congress for Lorden Commons and one to uh Congress for beginning the construction to that area between Shasta and Lichfield east of High Range. So while the consent decree will be able while Seno Bay moves forward taking care of the consent decree, that'll enable us to take care of the people who are outside the consent decree. but still subject to the same contamination. That's through Senator Shaheen and Congressman Papus. Yes, correct.

And create and maintain consistent communication channels with residents within the Seno Bank consent decree area and the area plan for remediation linked to the Tinkham super fund site. So simply because they're not one of our waterline projects doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to consistently communicate with them. Um I get a lot of calls um borderline more than I can handle. So, if anybody's watching this and I haven't called you back yet, I apologize, but there's a lot of interest in this. So, this is something that we really need to um make sure that we're doing proactively. And so, our KPIs on this um complete property water dossas for all 12 waterline extension projects by the end of the year. Those are those houseby-house ones that I was talking about. Uh give two updates to the town council on the status of all water projects by the end of fiscal year 2027. hold one neighborhood specific water public engagement session. Um that's old school community engagement, right? You go to where the people are. And so that's our goal is to hold one next year. Hold a second annual water town hall session. So repeat the event that we did this year uh by March 2027. Submit a minimum of two applications for water projects to Congress by March 2027. And that's two additional. We did two for this fiscal year 2027. That's submitting two more for fiscal year 2028 and doing it and till it's all done.

Build out update pages on the town website with a subscribe function for each water contamination area and priority water project by the end of fiscal year 27 and build a water testing result submission portal on the town website by uh June 2027. It's challenging to have them submitted in many different ways. So, if we can standardize the way the information is submitted, then we can automate the way that information is logged in our database. So, because this is such a priority area for the town, it's worth investing the time to do that. Those dates are pretty ambitious. So, a lot of them is communication. You're right. Yeah, they are ambitious, but it is. I I believe in you. But, yeah,

I do. But again, this is not just me. Well, you too. These folks over here, the utilities committee is instrument. We could not have gotten done a tenth of what has gotten done if it wasn't for them. Um, they're just not sitting there with the phone next to them all day. So, when the people are calling, I get them. But the work the work is done by these folks. I cannot stress that enough. Yeah. I mean, they hold Saturday meetings. So, that's above and beyond as far as I'm concerned. Thank you. So when you say build a water testing result submission portal, are you going to use some of the state data to help us also?

Yes. So we uh the state does share certain data with us, which is great. Um sometimes people get tests rather than asking the state to do like a consistent download and send it to us and then comparing it. It's also helpful to let people submit their own results because not and not always most of the time they get to the state but not always. So if we can just create a form online where people can put in the information and then it's automatically autopop populated. Um that will help for those cases and for when between when we get the state downloads. Those are critical for those grant applications to show the magnitude of the problem for us. We got to make the case. So we really need that data.

I'm supporting it. I just wanted to know the time wise if we could use some of the state data and help us. We are right now. Y that's all. So right now the current uh those projects that we built out that's all using state data. Excellent. Um the advantage of having residents submit it is that it connects it with their personal information. The state understandably when they supply us with the data it's linked to address but it's not there's no contact information. So we can't

we have to go through a couple extra steps to reach out to those homeowners. This would bring that all together in one spot. So following up on that, um, so I get quarterly results for my water because I'm in the consent decree. Would they update that on the website? Would you get it would you get the results here at the town level or would I have as a resident to submit that to you to update it? Like we if it goes to the state, we'd we'd get it in state updates, but again, it would be helpful if residents were willing to do it on their own again so it can be linked to that contact information. and we can have those conversations and check-ins because I think that's important. Y

it's more about developing relationships with with the actual residents who are affected. That's really a big emphasis of this program moving forward is to really make those connections. Any other questions? And water, not just with people water. Sorry, my jokes are bad. Oh, anything else on either one? Good. All right. Okay. Marge and Mike if you come up for B2. [snorts] John Martha. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. John, don't go to anywhere because you're you're doing double duty with heritage today.

All right. So, this one, objective E2 is conserve priority land and expand public stewardship of natural resources. Um, you have the conservation commission in front of you. um they have set some goals of their own but they are also um an significant part of this what you see in front of you came from our public information from our public input sessions. So,

so I'll just read through these. Um, you see the goal at the top. Uh, by 2030, advance the conservation commission goal of protecting 30% of lended's land area by sustaining annual progress of at least 100 acres or equivalent opportunity capture while updating the open space plan and broadening public understanding and use of conserved land. Priority action items. Update the open space plan and hold a public workshop to gather input and build support. Identify grant opportunities and match priority uh properties or conservation opportunities to available funding. Evaluate increased land use change tax allocation or other funding support for open space objectives. Publish recurring conservation education content and sponsor hikes talks on conserved land. Explore compatible passive recreation and stewardship opportunities including trails, community gardens, and easementbased access where appropriate. KPIs.

Yep.

So, we have a hold a public workshop on the open space plan before March 2027 and then the 2013 open space plan updated and submitted by June 2027. And if you think those are ambitious, you have the gentleman who picked those dates sitting in front of you. Um establish centralized list of grant opportunities to be added to as identified by December 2026. So start a rolling grant list. Hold two public hike hikes talks or recreation events on conservation land by June 2027. Publish three conservation matter columns in the lenary times and on the town website by June 2027. update and revise the conservation commission page on the town website by June 2027. And this is actually dovetailing with the other land use boards updates that we talked about on the 13th. This is the conservation commissions, but it's on the same timeline. Establish a working group to look at the land use change allocation. So, establish that group by September 2026 and hold a Lithia Springs grand opening event by September 2027.

[clears throat] Marge, Mike, do you want to add anything to what we just talked about? One thing I noticed that I think those the dates on the first two bullets might have gotten switched around. We should have the plan before we uh briefed as the public. We can fix that. Anything else before we open it to questions from the council? All right. Questions from the council, Mr. Chair. Yeah. Go ahead. Do you guys know what your percentage is that you is held right now and what the percentage is held by easement held by the town owned by others and easement held by others?

Looking at the GIS map, it looked pretty high in percentage. Yeah, I think I think it's around 15%. I'm looking at the map, it looks like way more than that. But the map counts things like wreck fields, additional land that belongs to those schools that isn't technically conservation. It it doesn't have a permanent protection on it and that's the difference. [snorts] I guess I don't entirely see the difference. I mean, I'm also seeing owned by others and there's a lot of land owned by others that is in conservation. Correct. Like that could be fish and game or Right. But are you making it that it needs to be owned by the town? No, that's part of No,

that's considered conservation. That would be part of that because it's written here as the town. 30% of London's land area sustainable, right? To me, that sounds like you want it to be owned by the town. 30%. No, that's certainly not the intent. I'm not sure what it say. Okay. Well, it's just it's 30% protected. Okay. Whether that's done by us or fish and game or the forest society or

I'm not sure. I mean, can probably be done by the town GIS person who equate the acreage, but it's certainly seeming like we're way above 30%. And I know years ago, I believe it was equated to closer to 35 to 40%. So, I'm not sure.

Again, they included things that weren't protect protected. They're they're open space, but it's not protected. So, the example for that would be, and stop me if I'm wrong on this, but if we decided that we weren't going to have wreck fields at West Road anymore, right? Right now, they're open space, but there's no guar there's no permanent protection on them that says that they would need to stay open space, so they could be filled. That could become our new public works facility. Don't you do anything, Dave. But you So, that's an example of something that is not actually it's open space. So, that's not even that doesn't even pop up on the GIS map. We can certainly get that number for

you pop up. The fields for the schools don't pop up. Oh, we will definitely be able to refine it because part of the the previous open space plan did exactly what you're asking for and and categorized everything in those categories and percentages and when we update the plan, we'll have a, you know, an up-to-date answer to the question that you're asking.

Okay. I mean, it just seems like a vast amount of the town is already under one conservation or another. I'm not saying that it's under an open space. I'm saying it's under conservation if you just go to the GIS mapping. And I have a tough time putting more in conservation without hard numbers, especially when a large vast amount of the town is already in conservation. If we if we were 30% protected, I I wouldn't argue with you, Ted, but we're not. And it certainly looks like it by the map. Well, we'll go. The numbers are available so we can

Yeah. Let we'll let the computer decide and that way it won't have to be a uh you know quantit qualitative assessment. Other questions you might have about this functional area. Any questions? No. I'll say we're going to move on to E3. Um,

you guys might not want to go anywhere yet. So, E3 is integrate sustainability and environmental compliance into municipal operations. Um, so this is all about bringing into these criteria into our conversations consistently when we're talking about capital improvements, transportation, facilities development review, pretty much anything. Um, again, this came very strongly from the public. And I actually like this objective from the perspective that you can see that there's limited action items and limited um, KPIs. Not every one of these is going to be enormous. Some of them are smaller. Some of them are small steps. And this is an example of one of them that contrasted with like the digitization one which was substantial. This is smaller but it still came up as a priority for the people who contributed to this

uh embedded sustainability and life cycle component review criteria to planning and major capital project evaluation. As you know, we don't do that right now. when we look at how we're going to build what are the life cycle costs of the facilities we're operating and the and the maintenance costs we have not done that in the past we really need to be doing that when whenever we build uh any facilities incorporate energy efficiency electrification readiness and resilience consideration uh consideration of facilities and fleet planning as I tell folks we're not a business that's going to operate and sell itself off uh we have been around since 1722 as it says and we're probably going to be here um a long So we need to be planning for the long haul. Pursue relevant grants or external funding for environmental and resilience initiatives.

And so the KPIs for this is add a sustainability and life cycle component review category to the CIP review documents by December 2026 so that when we enter the review CIP process in 2027, it already exists in submissions. Evaluate and roadmap the addition and/or revision of exist of sustainability criteria into design review by June 2027 and identify three priority sustainability andor efficiency improvements and any applicable grant opportunities by June 2027. Now, this isn't saying apply for them, come up with a plan for them or anything yet. It's identify three things that could be done and where we could potentially go to get money for them. This is one we have to clearly crawl before we walk and run on it. We have a lot of work to do in this area and we don't have any none of our buildings were designed or thought about in that way. So that's a it's a new approach for anything new that comes online and moving forward. Any questions on this one before we move on to public safety?

Okay. All right. Want to thank you very much folks. Thank you very much. Phil, come on up. Oh, yeah. Mike. K, before you go, just a just a a comment if I if I may. This is a a very good example of why we need to have a strategic plan that integrates because if you look at the list of boards and departments that are there, it's it just it just screams integration and and and joint working groups. And uh I'm I'm very glad to to see that that it shows up that way. Okay. And uh I think we can pledge that the conservation commission will do our part. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So now shifting gears into public safety, emergency preparedness, and municipal resilience. Um there's definitely overlap here between fire and police on this. The first one is um improve emergency communications and fire response readiness. And so this is working towards improving planning and response times and coordination to support the preservation of life and property.

Train telecommunications uh telecommunicators and implement revised dispatch run cards and vendor alarm testing procedures. Deploy Zetron system. That's a station alerting system. if you're not familiar with that u or other supporting technology improvements tied to response time performance. Again, Zetron is already being installed uh in our fire stations to be able to do that. And we're going to be able to have some real uh good data in terms of the response times. And I had a discussion with the fire chief about this in terms of what's called a heat map to be able to see where your fire calls are, your response times, and also we don't have we don't have a we don't do this here. other communities do this, but also what our response time. They're not circles, but they're more like blobs. You have a fire station, how, you know, what's the circle or the area that shows that we can get to with them in four minutes, 6 minutes, 8 minutes, 10 minutes, and beyond. And you do that for each of your stations. So, you can see what parts of your community are outside of the national standard of four minute response to a fire EMS call and see what that actually looks like and how many homes are not covered within that. It's a planning tool that we should uh have and and have real data updated to that which we don't presently have.

Uh research and implement pre-planned software and complete uh phase commercial pre-planning. Certainly the deputy chief can talk about that, but when they respond to that fire alarm goes off for a commercial building and there's chemicals in that if they're able to pull that up on their computer screen as they're responding there, they'll know what they have a better idea what they're dealing with and how they're going to respond to that before they get there. uh track response performance, call type trends and readiness metrics through routine management review and meet emergency response missing there requirements based on National Fire Prevention Association standards. Uh and and you can do KPIs and then if there's any questions for the deputy chief, he can certainly answer those.

Yeah, I'm mostly going to just read these because Phil's one who knows what they mean. So, the list of commercial occupancies [laughter] requiring a pre-plan reviewed and updated by December 2026. 25% of all commercial occupancies have an updated pre-plan by June 2027. Determine the feasibility of achieving the arrival of a fire engine staffed with fur p four personnel to all fire calls in less than six minutes from the time of call no less than 90% of the time by June 2029. So that means

figure out if that is possible and what it would take and that is the NFPA standard. I do know that one. Establish baseline data for response performance, call type trends and readiness metrics by June 2027 and reduce department run cards by 50% by June 2027. Deputy Chief, you want to add to that before they open up for questions?

Um so a couple of things um at the top when we're talking about Ztron, we've had that system for a long time. We're upgrading that system now. So, we've been using that for quite some time. Um, pre-planning software would be wonderful. So, we did pre-planning for a long time, but we did it on paper. We had our guys go out with a a hand wheel and a piece of paper that had all of the information and they filled it all out and we did all the pre-plans, but it was just kept on paper. So, there was no easy access to that. So, if you scroll to the KPIs, please. Um, so we we have a list of commercial occupancies that require pre-planning and almost all of them uh with the exception of maybe a half a dozen have been pre-planned before, but there was no place to put that information. Um, it it again comes down to having the software to implement it and do it in a manner that is um efficient. Um, so any other questions? No, but again, I see this as a tool for for boards, you know, like planning boards and zoning boards. And

the pre-planning could be used by by everybody, right? It's great for for the fire department because it tells us where the fire department connection is. It tells us where fire hydrants are listed on commercial properties because the but to your point, the boards can use it, the PD could use it. If they had to go there for uh some kind of activity that's not fire related, they would be able to know where the exits, the entries, all those things are. A lot of those commercial buildings, if we're talking about sustainability, have giant solar arrays on the top of them that you would never know are there, right? And so that becomes a safety issue, but it also becomes a a utilities or or a conservation or, you know, right. No, I understand what you're saying, but I I see how it integrates and I think it's absolutely it's really important because if you do have a big development coming in,

um you can say, well, we need extra hydrants over here. We know this is the standard but because you know there's certain re what I mean it helps. Yep. And it does keeps us safe and we we have certain developments or developers that have come to us ahead of time and we talk about those things and others don't. So I think you all should let me ask you the hard taxpayer question. Okay. Because that that's the one I that's the one I'm looking at. It has to do with dollars. That's not for me. That's for the man. [laughter] No, we all we all we all want to determine the feasibility of achieving a fourperson staff. Are we also going to think about how much that's going to cost the taxpayers to do that at the same time when we doing that feasibility study? We going to look at the cost of that also?

Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean, once you get the number, the number will tell you how many people you're going to need and then we can we can extrapolate out what that's going to cost. And I'm going to tell you it's it's a lot of money if you want to reach the national standard, right? NSHA NSHA is one of the only communities in the state of New Hampshire that meets the national standard and has four four personnel on their fire engines and their ladder trucks when they go out on calls. That's why this task is to determine the feasibility, right? That's why I was just I wanted to throw it out there as a taxpayer. I want to know like are they going to talk about the cost?

The heat map the heat mapping of the stations is great because this town like many towns built their fire stations where there was land available, not where they were centrally located to those districts. So, you know, uh, central station here is not really central. Central and Londereerry is actually by St. Jude's Church. That would be would have been the ideal place to put a central fire station, but that didn't happen back in 1970, whatever. Yeah. Um, so the heat map will be great because it will identify areas like the top end of Auburn Road from station one, having to come all the way across and go up

to um get there. So those will those will show great data on where it takes us longer to get to from our current locations and where adding a force station would help bring some of that down. So the 6 minutes it refers to 2 minutes to receive the call, dispatch the call, get in the truck, four minutes to actually arrive on scene for fire or EMS call. Can you tell them why that is a standard? why that how fire grows geometrically and obviously the harmless

the fire grows um it doubles in size basically every 2 minutes. So you know the longer it takes to get out the door to get there the fire is just going to keep growing and honestly it probably grows even faster than that now because with the products that are in your homes they're they are synthetic and they're growing quicker. Um we currently we have a standard lendary fire that they that men and women have 90 seconds to get out the door from the time of dispatch. Right. Um, our dispatchers have one minute to receive the call and get the call out. That doesn't always work because 911 drops a call from 911 and conquered down to us. But sometimes they drop the call with very minimal information. So, we wait to gather the information before we send them out the door because it becomes inefficient to say, "Hey, go to this location." And then it's not there or it's somewhere else, right? But those are our standards that we try to meet internally to um to to meet these. But I can give you an example. The men and women coming out of Central Station a lot of times can get to Season's Lane by the sleep in uh by the the stumble in faster than Engine One in that district can from where it's located just geographically on how the roads work within our community. So having that data helps greatly to show those outlying neighborhoods specifically um the times it takes to get there.

And then EMS calls, which is the biggest part of your business and why that's important to be able to get there within the four minutes,

right? And we had this conversation, I think, at a town council meeting about heart muscle and life and and and muscle dying and all of that. And that's that's the same thing as fire. For for the amount of time [clears throat] an a muscle doesn't get oxygenated blood to it, it starts to die. So if you're thinking about the brain or the heart, the longer it takes for us to get there, the the more that there's going to be death there, the likelihood of survival or somebody um fully recuperating from whatever that is is greater. Um the the station alerting which we implemented a number of years ago does do uh is a great help because it it really pinpoints um what apparatus is supposed to go out the door at that time and what they're going for. Right? So because our men and women cross staff apparatus over there, right? The the the crews that run on engine 3 out of central station also run on the rescue truck. Without that station alerting, they'd have to wait for the dispatch to know which truck they're getting on to go, which also takes time because they don't have seven sets of gear that they can station at every vehicle. So, they have to pick that stuff up and move it every time there's a call that's going from one place to the other or put it someplace centrally located and then move it. So, having that station alerting is huge because it cuts down on that time. It allows them to get ready and get out the door.

Questions on F1? Any other questions? We're good. All right. I have a comment. I did a little bit of research. Nashville is about 31.7 square miles and they have a population of 91,000. We're about 42 square miles with a population of about 27,000. Our fire department budget is about 10.2 million. Nasha's is 35.6 million. So size comparisons. Nasha meets the standards. They're smaller, more people. We're bigger, fewer people. That's our budget. budget. That's why I asked you the question of the taxpayer. $15 million is a big deal. [laughter]

All right. So, this brings us to our second objective in this functional area, which is strengthen emergency preparedness, continuity, and critical records protection. Update the emergency operations plan related response classification documents. As you know, um the last update to the emergency operations plan was 2017. Wasn't actually adopted by the town and they're good for 5 years. We're out of date. Uh that needs to be updated

and that is funded by grants. We just need to apply for that and get that done. Uh developer update the town's cyber uh security response plan. This is an area that I won't talk a whole lot about, but we need to move expeditiously to accomplish that task. set up regular cyber security training and achieve full employee compliance. As you know, we're already doing that. We started that several months ago. Uh the no before training that is being done now on a consistent basis. And then we're also doing fishing testing, random fishing testing, uh spear fishing testing to um to get that I'll call it muscle memory of folks because if you fail that, you have to do the training all over again. So there is a penalty for not paying attention. Um, when one of those comes across your email,

provide all town employees with IC train. I failed one. You You don't You don't have to tell everybody. No, it's all right. Ron was looking [laughter] at me. I'm you know, so I took the training.

Yeah, they caught me, too. But anyway, provide all uh town employees with uh in it's called ICS incident command system training, which aligns with emergency support function specific responsibilities. Um, everybody in our town, every staff person should have ICS 100, 200, uh, 700 and then for supervisors it should be 300 and both the police and the fire chief should be 400. DPW director should be as well. Um, so we're plotting along and making progress on that, but we there's more work to be done. But everybody who works for us should have that basic level of training. When we have a natural disaster or even a man-made disaster in the community, every single department of this town should be able to snap into its emergency management function role and serve the people as is needed. develop and facilitate annual townwide training for emergency management, including annual drills that effectively exercise all emergency staff functions of the emergency operations center. The only drill that we really do right now is the airport drill and that's not managed by us. It's managed by the airport. We other communities do multiple drills sometimes a year. They they'll do a full scale exercise and tabletop exercise. We really I don't know when you did that last year um but we really need to get in that habit because that's where people learn um and it keeps us fresh and our level of readiness is at a higher state uh well at a state that it needs to be which we don't we're not quite yet where I would like us to be. Pursue grant opportunities that support continuity and emergency planning work. Increase public awareness of emergency preparedness and safety protocols. One of the best tools is to make sure your general public is aware of what they need to do in an emergency, which reduces the amount of uh support they need from the emergency uh uh departments in a major crisis. That's critical. We don't have a continuity of operations plan for our departments and we don't had a we don't have a

continuity of government plan. Uh those need to be included in that and we don't have a disaster recovery plan either. So there's you do the granite ridge training though, right? But that's not that we do that um for our responsibilities with Granite Ridge, but that's not a townwide emergency preparedness. That was excellent. That's

so that's that that is us because we have a responsibility to Granite Ridge as their backup confined space rescue. So we do that every year as our signed agreement with that, but we don't we don't sit down to uh the town manager's point and plan something out with PD and the town and the schools and all of that. Now, we do that to an extent with the airport every 3 years, and every year there's a tabletop drill outside of those three years, but that's very specific to something that happens at the airport. And since the airport is a secured federal, right, entity, it's a little different than our our town and there are grants for those those exercises. They pay for that. I just want to acknowledge that you guys do the training because it was excellent.

KPIs. So this brings us to 100% of town employees have received IC 100,20, and 700 by June 2027. And before you I know cost is a concern. Those are free online courses offered by FEMA. So they're offered through the federal government. You create an account, you do these online, but we would also like to train one town employee to deliver IC 100, 200, and 700 training by March 2027. And that's because obviously some people learn better in a inerson environment would like to ask situationally [laughter] appropriate questions and there's no guarantee that the FEMA portal will exist in its current shape forever. So this would create more resilience in our training.

So just one thing we I talked this talks about staff. I told you years ago I worked in a smaller town. Everybody on all the boards and committees all had a role in emergency management. The council or the board of selectmen they were my cooks at the shelter. Mhm. So they're all out there cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for people at the shelter and they did a really good job at it.

So it's every single person in the community has an emergency management function and we had real disasters. We had flooding where you know we had people 100 homes that were underwater and people are out of the house for six months and we were running shelters and those sorts of things. And when you've got a community that pulls together like that, people are trained. We can help those in need when we need to do that. Keep going. 50% of department heads and managers trained in ICS 300 by June 2027. And whereas ICS 300 is generally there are some online. It's more of an inerson thing. Um we're actually I think halfway to that goal in ex right now because I think a good number there's a few of us who already have ICS 300 um plan and roadmap a townwide emergency drill to be held in fiscal year 28 but create the plan for it by the end of by June 2027. Submit the application for the homeland security emergency management grant to update the emergency operations plan. submit that application for the grant by June 2027 and build a high frequency event standardized media toolkit by June 2027. And what that means is there's there's high frequency events and low frequency events that you talk about high frequency events um extremely hot day in the summer, right? We open warming we open cooling shelters. uh snowstorms,

ice storms,

emergency ice storms, things that we know are going to happen a lot and we can create evergreen content to remind people what to do and that's part of increasing that public awareness of emergency preparedness and safety protocols. Creating that evergreen content. Elections is another one, right? So, we just know that we can click put it out. Everybody's on the same page. Everybody who's involved in those operations knows what it is. My only thing is um I don't know how many people know exactly what some of these um like ICS stands for or ESF stand for. That's my only thing. Just because you know somebody else knows what it is doesn't mean that everybody knows what it is and stand that would be the only like little add-on I would have is like a you know breakdown of what these initials are some little key box or whatever. And that's an excellent suggestion for those are the type of things that once we get to the vision statement part of it once this is these are the things that'll be fully explained in that

but I have to say it now because I might forget. Absolutely. No, it's glad it's on [laughter] the recording for notes because we don't have Tanya tonight. So I got a question on the deputy chiefs. When was the last time that we had a coordinated training uh emergency training with police and fire? 2006 when I was the gunman at the high school. Mhm. I mean, that's the last time that I can remember us doing something to that effect. It was when I first got hired. It was 06 or 07. And because I was 22 years or 21 years old, they had me pretend to be the shooter in the high school. I was going to say pretend to be were crucial words there, Phil. Pretend.

Pretend to be. But I did have a a gun with blanks in it. So, um, and I have a military background, so maybe that was part of it. But, uh, that was the last time that we did a coordinated with the school that I can remember. Yeah. I I don't I can't recall an exact date. The nice thing is is that I mean we kind of run a unified command. We get real time experience every day. I mean we work handinand with each other all the time with that unified command. So yes, we let's do the training. It's we do the tabletop at the airport. We do the trienal. It's all worth doing. It's good exercise. We do

one of the things we've we did um the state did and I don't remember what it was called but it was basically an active shooter um course that the state fire academy put along on in conjunction with the state um police academy and we did it here at the middle school. So it was basically uh fire personnel and police personnel entering into an active scene, specifically one of violence where we were working in conjunction with PD to go in and remove patients or people who were injured in a safe manner while there was still an active threat. Um so we did that. I don't remember what date that was, but that was good training.

Yeah, that was another good thing that we've done together. But I I think it's it's you know, we work really well together. Um, you know, it would be good to add the schools into that. Uh, to the to the town manager's point, the incident command system is a great standardized system. At the fire department, when you take go through the fire academy, you get ICS 100, 200, 700, 800. So, all of our members are certified in that. Some of our lieutenants have 300. All of our battalion chiefs have 300. I have 400. Chief Hinrich has 400. The fire chief has 400. Um, and like Jear, the town manager said, they don't cost anything. In May, I'm going down to Texas A&M through FEMA to do a whole uh incident command reallife course. It's all paid for by FEMA, so it doesn't cost the town anything. Um, you know, those are good because much like an MCI, you can plan it out on paper, but until you do it, it's it's not the real thing, right? Um, and you can train till you're blue in the face. And even if we did all these drills, we would be really proficient at it, but there was something else that would come up, right? So, it's it's that it's doing it and functioning together and physically doing it and functioning together that you really learn. And that's why the airport drill is great because you actually get the stuff out um and use it versus just talking about it.

The idea is to get to a point where we're doing full scale exercises every two years. In the off year, you're doing a tabletop exercise to keep the level of readiness and you have staff turnover. So it gets people in new positions so that we stay ready to be able to respond to those emergencies. And as you indicated 2000 20 years ago was the last time we did a full-scale exercise. That's way too long.

Anyway, we'll get our walk crawl. We have to crawl walk before we run. And this is the start is the basic training first. Get people there and work our way [clears throat] through the process. And just to emphasize Sean's point, um, you know, police and fire do a wonderful job of this within their own organizations and with each other, but in the case of a low frequency major disaster event, that's where we need to expand that readiness beyond the professional public safety. We need to get our public works involved and all of those folks trained, but we also need our finance. We need our continuity of operations folks so they know what to do. In the case, you know, you and in a case of a disaster or an emergency, you have a lot of people who step up and want to help. But if you don't have a plan, that help isn't help.

Here's a an a simplified Let's just be clear though. Your your emergency responders do have that plan. They are they are great. Yes. [laughter] Squared away to include the DBW, right? We we have a we have a we have a conversation anytime there's a major snowstorm. But but case in point to cheer on like say the the finance piece of it.

CO happened. CO was a major emergency, right? We we kind of don't look at it in the same way because it took so long. But due to not having this type of plan in place, it took the fire department and the finance department after the fact working with the state to recuperate $600,000 worth of funds that we spent during COVID. Had this been in place, had the ICS been in place, we would have had uh individuals whose role was finance, not just the finance department who was also trying to run the finances for the town, working on those things and keeping track of those things. So, we didn't have to go back and try to dig up all this data and bring all this stuff back, including bringing the state in to help us to get that right. And so that's kind of how uh you know on a larger scale we were able to recoup $670,000 for the town which is great. It just would have been easier to do that had this been in place during something like that.

Other questions for

Well, I just want to say I I participated a couple of time a couple of years. I haven't done it in a while, but New Hampshire has a readiness class um through the volunteer New Hampshire program is uh Prep New Hampshire and Readiness New Hampshire. And we did classes in case there was like a nuclear bomb that went off in New York and the winds blew certain ways. And it was it was horrifying, mind you, but it was good to know. And for some reason, maybe because it was so horrifying, the thoughts stayed in my head. And still to this day, I remember what they were saying what needed to get done. You need to have a place, a central place if there is a natural like where to go. You got to have the cs ready. What's could you take out a whole school and make it as uh a a makeshift kind of hospital if hospitals are filled? I mean, it went through all of these different scenarios. And I mean, the state does it and we should do it because it's important. I mean, God forbid we don't want any of this stuff to happen, but they showed a bunch of videos that was just I mean, it really I had nightmares. God bless you guys. Really, cuz I couldn't imagine it.

You need to do it. Yeah. But I mean, I saw it and I saw what they had to and they were they knew like they were like each town that participated in this readiness thing for the state. Okay. What's the regional area? What could we turn into a hospital? What could we turn into like a makeshift hotel? How can we, you know, what would be the water supplies if water supplies were damaged? No electricity, how you going to get the water? Where is it going to come from? It was just, I don't know, it was very apocalyptic, but in some weird way, it could happen. And it really came true to me when I saw CO because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what happened?"

And by doing, you learn, right? We with the ice storm, we learned. We open up the shelter. We learned our deficiencies and we we plan better beyond that. So now we have the right supplies over at the high school should we have to open that shelter up again, right? Um yeah, you know, I mean on its simplest form, old home days, how many years have we been planning for that and every year we learn something and we change, right? So doing these things helps you learn, right? That's Yeah, I mean that's a case in point. We had a real threat a few years ago and we had to deal with that and thankfully we were able to deal with it and it went off without a hitch. And I think most people probably don't even realize that there was a real threat, you know. So,

all right, I'm ready. I'll set on F2. We'll move on to G. All right. So, from the impending apocalypse to arts and cultures. Um, Stephanie, Art and Doug, will you guys come up please? We have Stephanie Mville who's the vice chairtreasurer of the arts council here along with art and Doug from recreation commonly known as the fun people the fun people. Now we doom and gloom to fun.

So this the first one in this area community character recreation arts and culture is expand inclusive recreation arts and community programming. One of the common themes that came up is that there are some underserved groups in Londereerry. Um, older school age children to some degree. Um, young families, people who don't fit easily into the like elementary school or kind of um senior population. There's there's definitely some gaps and so it's all about taking what's been successful and expanding it in this one. Add new recreational offerings for seniors, adults, early childhood participants. Adaptive [clears throat] users, and residents seeking non-athletic programming. Inventory and evaluate spaces that can support arts and community gatherings. Partner with schools and youth serving organizations to expand arts participation and connect teens with young families to programs, coordinate community events and programs that reinforce local identity and create intergenerational participation. talk about KPIs and then we'll turn it over to these folks to add whatever they

one note here is that you don't see the library actually in this plan um due to the timing and everything we didn't they didn't have an ability to integrate themselves into this plan but under potential partners you see leech library we see them as an integral part of this effort so key performance indicators hold one new dual town and private pro private or nonprofit partnership arts or w event next year create a master list of performance and arts spaces with specifications and use protocols by June 2027. Increase arts council youth art art contest submissions by 10% in fiscal year 27. And that's viewed to be a measure of success of outreach to the schools. And we have the evidence right around the room.

Yep. On the wall. Um, introduce one new non-sports recreation program each for adults and youth by June 2027. Introduce two new early childhood family recreation programs by uh December 2026. Increase overall recreation program participation by 10% over fiscal year 26 in fiscal year 27. Research and roadmap a plan to expand arts and recreation outreach to un under underserved groups i.e. younger millennials/gen x to request input and develop events. So reach out to them and ask what they want. Jenz, I think you meant to say.

Sorry, Jenz. Yeah, Gen X doesn't want to participate in anything. Um, I'm teasing. Sorry, I'm picking on Dave today. [laughter] [gasps] one public art event by June 2027. Folks, you'd like to add anything to that? Uh, so actually regarding releasing the third edition, we are about to release our second edition and we have our kickoff party at the Reverend Morrison House on May 30th. So, the red one. The red one. Yes. So, we hope you can join us. Hey, Kevin Smith is watching. He now knows where to go, right?

And his wife.

But don't forget to register if you can. So on on our end, I think as we've talked even through the budget season, this uh this past budget season was you can start to see the numbers expanding with with recreational offerings. So as we're continuing to look at these KPIs, we are also looking to start we kind of have a nice core with an age range. You know, that 8 to 12 is kind of the sweet spot with with with participants. So now we start looking at the at the the edges of that. So expanding to younger younger ages as well as those next next generation older ages, too. out. Recreation is fortunate because we we kind of in our field we talk we kind of work with everybody from cradle to grave. So there's no real, you know, limitation in terms of the ages that we can deal with. Uh but we do work and coincide with the other groups and departments that are in there to make sure there's not the overlap. We're trying to make sure that what the library is doing well, what senior services is doing well, um that that they keep that in in their realm, we we support them as needed. But then we're also expanding on our end and trying to find different ways to do that. Whether that's bringing in instructors, doing it in-house, uh working with the local leagues and organizations and utilizing the spaces that we have here in town, that's how we start to begin to offer not only just programming, but also as you can see in here, some events that that that'll benefit residents in town in general. So, beyond what's just happening at Old Home Day, uh you know, Teddy Bear Clinic has been an event, but we want to expand upon that and again keep using our recreational spaces for those purposes. So, um, just going to continue to look look to do that. We're already doing well this year ahead of last year in terms of participation numbers. So, that you know, some of these numbers that are on there percentage- wise, we we should blow that out of the water this year, which is great.

Questions on G1? I just want to comment, Doug, that um as far as your programming and and things, uh I recently learned that, uh some women wanted to do a basketball league and you you you know spearheaded that and got people signed up and I guess you got quite a few people interested in it, which is great. U so starts up Yeah, that starts up next next month. So, it's only 6 weeks right now, but we'll look to continue that into this into the school year, similar to what we do with some of our other um adult leagues, you know, whether it's men or co-ed, we'll have a specifically for women's 25 up basketball program as well. Just want to say thank you for that. Of course.

Anything else on G1 before we move to G2? Okay. All right. G2,

Stephanie, I think you're good if you want to head back. So this one if the last one was about programming and events and what people do this is about our physical plant and taking care of it for recreation. So improve document and standardize recreation facilities policies and user experience. Assess park fields courts playgrounds lights and related recreational assets and develop a 10-year improvement plan. This again is linked into asset management. advanced priority facility improvements such as Nelson Road basketball courts and other identified park upgrades. Complete annual facility and equipment inspections and track maintenance response times. We talked about playgrounds have to be inspected now as you probably know and that list is going to continue and um in terms of liability issues update u um reservation payment fee and installation tulip guidance u tulip is like insurance for when we have events that go on. They have to get special insurance to do that and that's what it is. And more transactions online where feasible. Uh coordinate recreation capital planning with DPW finance and community fundraising partners KPIs.

Yep. And just as a note, what part of the reason that this one is separate from the public works one is the operational um the operational workflow for recreational um overseeing the maintenance plans and the inspections that go into it. They're diff they they function a little differently under insurance and operations and how they're used and the flow. So it was worth splitting them out. So key performance indicators compile data to display current usage of field space in the past five years by June 2027. Complete renovations or upgrades on at least one recreation facility by June 2027. Thank you. Restore the Rex. Establish annual inspection schedule for the playground, fields, lights, and utility features by March 2027. Evaluate three potential future locations for re recreational spaces by June 2027. An updated recreation facility use policy and fee structure approved, published, and in place by 12:31 2026.

Questions? I have a question. Um I I'm not sure if I should have said this the last time or here, but I know as a council we discussed um for a little bit I pocket parks and neighborhood trail connections and the trails that we have. Um where would that be? Would that be in here um or in the one before it? No, it would probably fit most best here. This is where the best place for that. Okay. Can we can we add that in there? that because I really think that the connection between

communities or neighborhoods, you know, take kids riding a bike off a street and on a trail that's, you know, clean and safe but suitable for them um is is probably a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's just that as you know, we don't actually manage the like the rail.

I know we don't manage them, but once you set them up, usually neighborhoods like Yellowstone has a a beautiful community park in the end there that they they take care of and you know, you have Artisan, they take care of their little circles and they've got their little trail that comes through that they connect. Um, I think once it's established and they know it's okay to use, people then feel okay with taking care of it. they don't want to get in trouble and say, "Oh, shoot. I'm not supposed to really do this."

So, the way this works is we have to we have to craft some language. So, we should just think about the the phraseiology we want to put in. So, um I'm going to ask Wreck to help do some of that. Think about that. We'll shoot it to you and we'll just wordsmith it now and then hopefully on the 4th of May because the idea we want to have the the draft that's going to go to the public hearing on the 18th. So, that's sort of the timeline. We need to get that fleshed out and of course the council has to agree to add that in there. Yeah. But we should also talk to the the rail trail people. Yes, we should. They should be, you know, connected in here because not just rail trails. It should just be trails because yes, we can have many trails within our own

like in the musquash and and you know, Kendall, there can be other trails within cons. So conservation should really be involved um as well. I mean, I I do know that conservation had we paid as a town and we did all the site plan work at Scobby Pond for a beach and a nice launch and we just got that beautiful canoe launch a couple years ago. Yeah, they actually had that up there. If you look up when you went back up there, talked about passive and recreational opportunities in the conservation land. So, that is one of the ones that was on fire, but this I think this is a little bit more nuanced to what you're talking about. I just think we need to flesh out the language. Well, what I'm talking about creates neighborhoods. Sure. Well, we we just need to flesh out that language a little bit better between now and the 4th

so we can get that in front of the council and have the council agree to add that and then that will go to the public hearing on the 18th. Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to have Rick who's going to work with you. Yeah. Right. So I'm sorry working together flesh out the language. We can get that in front of you folks on the 4th. Okay. Council meeting on the fourth. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. Go ahead. Uh, I wonder if we also want to add in here some wording of uh, not just 10-year improvement plan, but a a plan for additional recreational facilities. Kind of leading off of our conversation from Monday where we have So, that would be the evaluate three potential future locations for recreational spaces. Which bullet is that?

That's the second from last KPI. Evaluate three potential future locations for recreation. I guess I was looking at the action items ones up above where it didn't really mention that

other the the other question is some residents have broached me and I'm good personally not as a counselor but just as plain old Deb um is working towards putting together a uh farmers market um to go on the same day that um the concerts on the commons go on so that they don't have to get music. The music's already there cuz that creates the vibrancy like that when I when I did it with some gals over there in in Derry and that that was like one of the most important things and I thought that it where would that go in here or does that go separately?

No, this this would be the areas that that would fit in. But we remember the important thing is I can't remember. I'm sorry. Well, and I said at the beginning, this has to be something we're actually going to do. We're going to commit to doing. And who's going to do that? I don't have the capacity with staff and wreck to take on any more than what they have. No, this would be a citizens thing. Sure. So, it would have to be a group that is willing to sponsor that and can commit to doing that, then that should go in here. So, what you might want to do is study the feasibility and what potential partnerships to do that. Okay? That would be the task item that would be in there. But I want to be really cautious about putting things in that we haven't fully fleshed out, haven't done the feasibility and who's actually going to do what.

Okay. So, so basically I put together a business plan for the farmers market to present to the have somebody else do it presented to the council or to you and then it moves forward from there. Is that correct process? So for this what you might the the action might be to determine the feasibility who the partners would be to put a farmers market together. That's a a simpler task. Yeah. Then once you've got that then the next step when we update the the plan would be we now have a partner and then we're going to implement this on this state and this is how we're going to do it. Who's going to be responsible for what? Okay. Because right now we don't have the resources to manage that. I I wasn't trying to burden the town. I was trying to enhance it.

Um but I didn't know the exact process. So I figured now is a better time than ever to bring it up. So I think just jumping in on some of that I think with that sort of creating that sort of opportunity in town, it's going to fit into some of these action items in the You think so?

KPIs. Yeah. Because what when we're put talking about the policies that we're implementing too, the town or the recreation department right now oversees the common and kind of alliance hall pavilion area. So if you're kind of talking about using that area potentially as a location once we get these policies in place you would be able to fill that out and these groups would these organizations whether they're residential non-residential groups can can apply through our system through our department and gets approved. So you'd be working in conjunction with our department to get that going but they'd be their own entity taking taking that no your department I get it right. So

yeah, there's a lot of pieces like uh um Kristen was putting together a facilities use policy and an events policy which we really don't have. We got some deficiencies shall we shall we say there that need to be corrected. So she's already drafted that and I've been making some kicking back some other suggestions on that. So all that there's already the pieces of this to allow these types of events are underway already. Oh, good. We just need to find a partner might want to do that. But that's how you would flesh out the language of doing that because as you know a lot of communities have these and they're pretty popular, right? Um

because I I do want to uh after speaking with about six other well a couple of farmers and a couple of local tiny farmers like you know at their homes um we're talking about putting together an agricultural committee and um where would that be put together? Would we have to come to council? That does that's in your administrative code. we would have to adopt that and you asked for that agenda item so it's in the draft. Okay. So that would be for the council to consider which when because that those are the people who their farmers that are already in town. Those are the people who are going to be working with me to put this out there to encourage more sustainability with on their own properties. So that's cool. All right. Now I get a better understanding. Thank you both of you.

Further questions on G2? No. Anyone? Good. Okay. Going to go to G3. All right. Thank you gentlemen. Good to go. And John man, would you come up to the he is our representative from the heritage commission this evening. So objective G3 is preserve heritage, strengthen placemaking and clarify town design identity. Uh this is also you can see there's a linkage between this particular one and the one where we talked earlier about creating a place brand identity when we're talking about who what is Londereerry in the economic development section. They're not uh entirely separate objectives.

Create update inventory priorities for historic properties and identify maintenance funding and grant opportunities. Use arts, cultural programming, and placemaking projects to reinforce town identity and support local destinations. Integrate discussions of heritage assets such as historic districts and other civic places into long range planning and capital conversations. Seek out ways to increase the visibility of Londere's history and heritage and everyday spaces and in public information KPIs. And then we'll turn over to John. So, complete a dossier of reference photos for the Heritage Commission lookbook by June 2027. Road map, a path forward for the Reverend Morrison Meeting House, Lions Hall, 256 Mammoth Road by December 2026.

That's the white one, right? Not the red one. It's the white one. 256 Mammoth. So, we're clear in case Mr. Smith is watching. Review and update the historic properties list to include risks and needs by June 2027. Hold one new history or heritage focused event by June 2027. Create a centralized list of grant and fundraising opportunities for historic preservation by June 2027. Create one new piece of heritage focused video content by June 2027. And I know Drew is already all over this. And post two stories about London's history on the town website and social media by June 2027. So, John,

um, couple three points because we're probably already six innings in on the Red Sox Yankees game. [laughter] Um, uh, the the list of historic properties was last updated. If Art Rug was here, he'd give you Bible and verse is when it's about 20 years ago now. And the criteria that was used was homes or residences, locations over a hundred years were added to the town's historic list. Well, it's 20 years later, so we probably have a whole bunch of other homes that now should be added. And unfortunately, we probably have some of the homes that were on the list that no longer exist. So, that's that's an important task. We haven't been successful recently in trying to obtain a grant to do that. Um, and we will pursue that again u this coming year. Um the big whale on when you consider the heritage of the of the town is obviously what are we what's going to happen with the Marson house and uh I know there's an important listening session scheduled for next week and um uh I think we need to get beyond what color is the Marrison house is it the red one or the white one and and get to the point of what are we going to do with it because the heritage commission is certainly in favor of preserving that building um But we've got to figure out and and frankly get the taxpayers on board uh with doing something to preserve it. And uh that's an important task coming forward in the next next few weeks actually. Um and I think that's it. I think I'll throw it back to you guys if you have questions for us.

Mr. Chair. Yep. Go ahead. So, the first KPI that KPI one um I'm concerned about that date because the planning department already has all the photos that we've submitted even three years ago now that the heritage commission was expecting a completed document last month on that lookbook and that wasn't provided to us and I don't know why we have a date of 6:30 2027 to have that lookbook be done. That should be done next month or maybe the month after. I mean, I don't understand what's taking so long for that lookbook to be completed when they've had these pictures for three years, right, John?

I I don't disagree with you. Uh I don't it shouldn't be another year. Well, I I think a year is for maybe the completion, but I think we need to add some additional pictures there and probably as a committee, heritage committee, because we we it governs us more than it governs anything else is uh uh get those pictures taken, get acceptance of them over at planning and then and then just end the project and move on. Right. I mean, we were expecting it to be done for last month's meeting and it wasn't done. We were all looking at each other confused by why is this on our agenda if it's not even a done document when it was supposed to be done a while ago.

Well, now that we have a KPI on this, I know. I just hate to put a KPI of another year out. I'd like to see a KPI of this year, not next year. I'm not sure if the town manager staff would be able to take a look at that or not. So, I'm about right now I'm down half my staff in the plan department. I'm just really disappointed that they've had these documents for over three years, right? But you've got four people in an apartment that other places would have six or eight for all the development you have in the community. So if you want those things and you want them done faster, then I would ask you to give me the resources to get it done and it'll be done. But otherwise, right now, I'm down half of my planning department. Okay.

Half. So you'd have to keep that in mind.

Okay. Well, before you step down, John, on a positive note, um the way they got the uh listing of all the houses with the photos um for the historical data is that it was an Eagle Scout project. So, maybe you could reach out to somebody in town who's trying to get their Eagle Scout project um you know, badge to to do that for you guys. Um, and I think that as potential partner, the um, senior resource committee should be on there or the senior center because it would be wonderful if we could capture stories on video. We tried to do this years ago before they leave us. Um, you know, to hear their story of what Londereerry looked like and, you know, what's going on and and and I think that's kind of cool. I mean, it's too bad that Mr. Clark and Andy Mack are no longer with us to be able to elaborate on those stories, but the people that we still have, it would be nice to to do a little interview with them and, you know, be able to capture that. And I think that the seniors um at the senior center that one time they wanted to come and tell stories and that's a great way to pro focus on focus on history. might not necessarily be London, but we have we have seniors in this town that have done amazing things whether they were a chef at the um you know Ringling Brothers and Barerman Bailey Circus and traveled the world with them and uh that's a great story and to know that that person lives in your town is kind of cool and just things like that you know like one of the farmers here used to be produce all the chickens for Campbell's chicken noodle soup. I mean, those things are kind of quirky, but that's what makes the community fun and exciting and it brings a little light to history. Um, that those are my only two positive notes I can I can say. I think this is great and um we're only as good as our history. So, and it's good to know it and look back at it and and

appreciate it. So it's very interesting that particularly the heritage community tends to be property focused rather than people focused and that but that's an interesting point of view but they live somewhere right

so in 30 years from now or 50 years from now that person's house will be and so you're creating your book or your listing of houses in the future. Do you know what I'm saying? So you can say, "Oh, this house was so and so's." Like I would go interview the some of the people, knock on their door that still live in the school houses in town that still exist, you know, to to be able to talk to them. How long have you been in there? What made you buy an old schoolhouse? You know, and keep it this way. It's kind of eclectic, I think. I don't know. We're trying to keep people interested. So I know

I think there's a newspaper in town that could take advantage of some of those ideas. [laughter] If you want to write it, you can send it to me. I I can't afford to buy another writer. John, if you're curious, the Red Sox are down for nothing. Thank you. They're not hitting again. Other questions about G3, but do you I guess do we think that they're a partner, the senior center? I do. Yeah. Okay. So that actually it's I I can't subordinate a committee to be on here, but you can as the council ask that they be part of that. So council

remember we the way we did this we went out to boards and committees and ask for their input and that's why you see these items on there staff and the general public. So if that's something that you think that committee should be on I would talk to the chairperson of that committee and make sure that that's something they you know agreeable to. I should do it or should Ron do it? I don't want to overstep steps. Ron doesn't have unilateral authority. This is the council. The council would ask them to do that. So, I asked the council if they're interested in doing that. I'm fine with you doing that, De. I don't have anyone else have an issue with that. That's great to have the seniors. Everybody in consensus with it. So, it's okay to reach out to them and do that. I'm fine with it. Yeah. Do you good with it? Sure. Okay. I just didn't want to I don't

So if there's no more questions on this and that actually brings us to the next the last agenda item for today which is next steps. So what happens now? Thank you John. Um what happens now is we take the input and the questions and the suggestions that you've made and you vocalized over the past [snorts] two workshops and we add them to this draft. And we publish this draft. We put the draft with those suggestions that you as a council have already made before you on May 4th for conversation as an agenda item. At May 4th, at the end of that, we open up the draft that exists at the end of the May 4th meeting. So any other changes you make on that red lines, crossouts, additions, we put that forward for public viewing before the public hearing on the 18th. And then the public will have a chance to weigh in either by reaching out to one of you. We'll put a form online so they can, you know, they have the strategic plan form online. They can give their feedback on that page. They can come and speak at the public session on the 18th.

And that's a heavy meeting, isn't it? Yeah, I I think I think the 18th is too soon. I'll just say I'll just say there's one counselor. I think we need to push that back a little bit into June. Um the 18th is a big heavy meeting, but not just because of that because this is a big project. I think if we want to get public input and we want to do it the right way, I don't think the 18th is the right day to do it. That's probably too I'm one guy on the council. I agree. So when do you when do you want to do it? Because we started this in July of last year. So what if we pushed it to the second meeting in June just so we had some time to gather the feedback from everybody. So, you want the public hearing second meeting in June. So, June, that would be like uh June 15th. I don't want to speak for everybody's, but that's Let me just say bring up the calendar.

Yeah, your June meetings are June 1st. As of right now, the meetings are scheduled for June 1st and June 15th. You think the 18th? I think the first is fine. We've got all the data. It's pl I more concerned with how much stuff is on that meeting. I don't want another midnight meeting. That's all. I think the 15th. The 15th sounds fine. Okay. Okay. Dan, you have an input or I think that'll be I see 315. So, you might as well go with the 15. Dan, you always got to say that like this is open discussion. I'm just throwing it out there. Like, I just think it gives us a chance to talk to everybody and and get feedback. Well, and it also provides more time for the public. Plus, Right. But plus, it also gives you time to talk to the seniors, you know, and see if they want that will be done and off my plate by the end of the

Okay. So, we'll get it. It's a challenge. I'm going to call you tomorrow, see if you get it done. We'll publicize it. We'll publicize it for June 15th and then it's an agenda item for the 4th of May. So Deb and and Reck have some language they want to Yep. add and then and then we'll we can add the senior resource committee on here if you agree at that time to do that. And other than that, I haven't heard any other particular changes. So if there are, we'll be good to get those on that date so that we can incorporate that so the draft goes out, the public has time to be able to look at it and then provide. But when do you need to know if we want any changes to go into the draft? We need to know about that. Well, I think it would be good to get it on the 4th of May if you could, but then you're going to have the 18th meeting in May. Right. Right. And then you got a meeting on June 1st.

So, I mean, you have opportunities to do that. But again, we want to get a draft out to the public so they can look it over and then they can develop what feedback they want to provide to us. Go and do the draft and then have that. I'm just thinking,

yeah, doing the draft way before the public hearing. I don't know that that makes a lot of sense. I mean, they can give us feedback on what's here. I think we're going to be looking over what's here too as well. So it it because okay, we we we set the draft on May 4th and we all of a sudden, you know, May 15th come up with some changes or something else. Now, we've got to republish that for a public hearing. And I think part of the taking the time is taking the time to gather an input, being able to process this whole thing because it's a large document and then having that ready for the public hearing so that people can see what we're thinking after we take in all the feedback.

So, I guess so. So, we're going to take you're going to make any changes you want on May 4th. You're going to have a meeting on May 18th at which you'll provide additional feedback if you choose to. And then there is June 1st that you can provide yet additional feedback and changes. Like we do with every meeting, we would publish that packet for the meeting on the 15th so people have time to observe that draft. So that's the question is when do we need Okay. So So you're um what you're saying is the fourth wouldn't be the only meeting to make Okay. That's why you've got those. That's what I was concerned about. Okay. Right. But the sooner we can get it,

the better because we have a web page and we're just going to keep updating that. So, whatever you give us on the 4th, we'll update it then. Whatever you give us on the 18th, we'll update it then. And when you ever give whatever you give us on the 1, we'll update it then. But after that, the idea would be to publish it to give people time to be able to absorb. Idea would be to have all the suggestions in by June 1st for the meeting so that you guys can publish it and then we can have the public hearing on the 15th. Are we all on the same page? Yeah. That sound good? That makes sense. Okay, that makes sense to me. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. That gives a good amount of time, I think, for us to gather the and and gives you time because you're busy, you know, for us to get you these suggestions. Right. Right. But this this is this is what this is an important piece because this tells us the direction we're going in. Yeah.

And we're find the council's going to provide us a document that tells us this is what we want to achieve. So that's why it's I think those dates make more sense. Yeah. I know. I I just feel more comfortable and that way we can spread it out and then we're not attacking you all at once on one day and just saying, "Hey, here's So, would you like this as an agenda item under old business for the next three meetings then?" We will be. Yeah, I think so. So, we'll put it as under old business because that way the next meeting we can get Deb's feedback she's going to get tomorrow. Okay. If she answers me, I will call her. I'm just Okay. So, I will ask Tanya to put it as an as the most updated version as a old business agenda item on the 4th, the 18th. And that way as as residents give us suggestions, we can put it in and then if there's any that we miss, they can tell us on the 15th of June.

Yeah. So the feedback, we won't make any more changes to the plan. When we get the feedback from public, we're going to bring that to you on those respective dates and then you will have to agree to ch make those changes and we will make them as you direct us to do so. Sounds good. I'm good with that schedule. Ted, you good with that, Dan? Sounds good. Dan's not quiet. Deb think we're good. Very good. And that's all we have for you. And we have time one minute. One minute afterwards. We're one minute. So motion to adjourn. Excellent job scheduling these splitting up the way you did. So thank you. I would. So we didn't we didn't have an official meeting, huh? Yeah. I don't think we have to.