Utilities Committee - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call the meeting of the Utility Committee of London Dairy Together at 7.03. I am expecting Ann to come tonight. She said she was going to come. But I know that Mike Speltz is not going to be here tonight. He told me he's not going to be here. So, Joy, will you vote? If we have to take a vote, will you vote for Mike? And I think that's all we have to do for that. Okay. With that, I'll start.

Lynn's not going to be here. Lynn's not going to be here either, but there's an alternate.

So we don't care about replacing his vote. I mean, not that he's not very important, but he's very important. Okay, I pledge allegiance to the flag Okay, no public is here. I'm sorry, I was on both sides. I didn't know where to sit. Okay, so first I'm going to see, John did send out minutes. I sent him a few corrections. Does anybody else have any questions about the minutes of our last meeting on June 2nd? Nope, good, okay. Could I have a motion to accept those minutes? So move okay second a second Okay, and all those in favor aye It's unanimous. Okay Now I'm going to move now to town staff report. James, I don't know how much we can add to this from what we heard at our last meeting, but whatever you have to add, we're interested.

certainly there's not a whole lot to add as you mentioned uh... it's just progress on on each of the projects that have been happening uh... high-range road project actually started uh... on monday they are actively moving forward and uh... uh... they're gonna they're gonna hit a hard and fast and and hopefully be uh... uh... in a really good spot for the end of the summer and into the fall uh... the woodmont sewer project they've made great progress i think the Hardy Road piece is complete now and they are coming into the switchback curve of this week to get that work done they're really going to start getting into some hard ledge now as they as they round the corner and and come into the station I don't know the status of the station itself and and where they're at and that that construction process that doesn't look like it's been started at all I know earlier in the process they were looking to blast ledge and get the ledge part of that project done, but I don't know about the installation of the station. Old Derry Road, I think, is done at this point. Everything has been connected. I'm not sure on testing as to where that part is at. And then the only other thing that's kind of missing from this list is the South Road water main is going actually quite well. They're moving faster than expected.

Okay. That's good. Okay.

Yes. So I have a comment to the engineering department. The little videos that you have your guy like out in the field saying, oh, this is what we're doing, and he's standing on the street. My wife loved it. She even sent it. She sent it to her family members, and she sent it to people I know in Missouri, and everybody thought it was just the greatest thing because it's very clear and it's very well explained. It was fantastic.

Are you talking about Dave Wally's video that he did at each of the project sites?

He's talking about construction work on the street. He's like, yeah, we're working on this, and this is what's going on, and here's where we're going. And it was four thumbs up from my non-technical family members.

Yeah, Dave's really good about that. He's really good about getting the communication out to the residents. He regularly gets really positive comments on his Facebook page. efforts to really get the word out. We get the comment from other communities who give thumbs up on a regular basis on the work, and he gets 100% credit on that for sure.

It was great, real charismatic, very easy to watch, very well presented. It was great. Can I ask a question?

I think it's great, and your department does it the best, one of the best.

Can I ask a question?

Yes.

In regards to Pillsbury Road and Hardy Sewer, they're doing a considerable amount of blasting. And on the other side of the road is the water lines. Yes. So when you're doing blasting, I have concern that there's a possibility of disturbing water lines. So is anybody going to be monitoring that in regards to testing for leakage on the water lines?

Well, first and foremost, the water line itself is an asset that's owned and managed by Pentachuk Water. It's not owned and managed by the town. And secondly, the blasting companies are well versed in blasting next to adjacent utilities. The water main I think is 15, maybe 20 feet away somewhere on that range. It might have been more closer to 15, you know, on the other side of the road. It's a very common practice. And certainly if there's a break or a leak, Penachuk will be right on that. They'll address it. And if it's a liability thing where the sewer contractor is responsible for fixing it, certainly that'll come into play.

Yeah, but we're really not going to know unless somebody is monitoring that if it's kind of Chuck that exists should be doing that exists in every system everywhere.

You're not going to know unless something happens there. There are certain tests that have been done to find leaks once a leak is discovered, but systems systems do require maintenance.

Did you do pretty good. They do have pressure gauges for drop pressure drops the big ones. What they forgot to do this time that was when they do blast a lot of people getting dirty silt. So I want to know it shook the lines enough so it and it you get so.

All the lines to Berkeley late and get you know ugly colors in there.

Yeah, why that's nice Brown, but it was all right to go out those go and that that that can happen.

I think the water, when it's come across the border from Manchester, is monitored, the volume, how much is coming across versus how much is actually being used, which also gives you an indication whether or not you have leaks or not.

Oh, yeah, of course. Of course, yeah. The system is measured so that, you know, the town can pay its bill to Manchester Dairy and Penachuk, and each individual home is measured. So those two numbers, you know, subtracted from one another, you can identify that the system does, in fact, have leaks, but... you know those leaks are you know throughout the entirety of the system it could be an installation area it could be a crack it could be a broken bolt it could be a loose bonnet it could be a number of things but that's just regular system maintenance it's not it's not uncommon by any stretch of the imagination okay I don't want to hold you up go ahead

Okay. All right. I guess that's all I have for you right now, but I'll come back to you when we're talking about energy because I want to follow up on something that came up last month. But energy, I have corresponded with Lynn, and he said that Paul is going to give us our energy update. The latest update. The latest update.

Let me fill you in on a couple of things. Eversource has filed for their default service rate with the Public Utilities Commission and has been approved starting August 1st, in three weeks or so. It's going from 11.3 cents to 14 cents. And that'll be for the next six months through the end of February. So our rate of 9.5 cents will look very favorable compared to the 14 cents for Eversource starting August 1st through October. So let's stop there. Community Power has gone from 14.6 cents to almost 15 cents for their service in this particular area. Right now, the first two months of billing, it was 6.7 million kilowatt hours billed under the 9.5 cent rate for the first month, and it's jumped to 6.9 million kilowatt hours. The second month, and I expect, given the heat wave we just had, it's going to be significantly higher for the next billing cycle. So I believe the town has signed another contract with my understanding with Freedom Energy. And this is to take the existing contract, which ends in October, and extend it one more year. And they wanted to lock in some prices before the significant increase in demand and the war. overseas and so forth and so on. So that price, we have 9.5 cents now. We have a signed agreement, I understand, to 13.5 cents, which will be below the Eversource rate. And then I'll work with Lynn at the next meeting, and we can actually give you some actual dollars being saved for the approximate 9,200 customers that are participating in this program.

And he said that he'll update us next time.

Yeah, it'll be some significant savings. The difference between the $0.95 and now the $0.14 starting August 1st in the middle of the summer will be significant.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's great.

Think that just about covers Did you say that 9200 9277 was the latest count that I believe Let me see if I can yeah 9277 currently active and

Those who enrolled were 10,858, so about 15% dropped out or didn't qualify for whatever reason, which is not unusual. That's a typical, I'd call it retention rate for the power.

Okay. Sounds good. The other thing that I want to mention while we're on energy, because Lynn had filled me in on this, was that the last at the last meeting we had spoken about um clean energy of new hampshire uh dot org and they are think it I think it costs like something like $50 for a municipality to join that so Lynn and I met with the town manager and yes 500 500 okay okay sorry sorry 500 and I stand corrected and we did we did speak to the town manager and he said that he he thought that that was a good idea to go along with that and so Kirsten is going to be putting in the application for the town to be part of that and they will be another entity that will be advisory to to our committee that we can call upon Since we all feel sometimes we're fish out of water and we don't have enough expertise in this area.

Their website is Clean Energy New Hampshire.

It's called cleanenergynh.org. all right okay um and um he also said that um the town manager um was supportive of um us um partnering with the school lynn is going to take the lead on this partnering with the school um to possibly use Freedom Energy as a solar advisor for solar projects in the future that would be for the town and for the school if they so choose. But he also mentioned that because of full-day kindergarten coming into play this year and the SAU building going up that that's kind of a priority for the school right now so this is something that is in the future that we will be looking at but it would be good if we if if the town and the school could partner together because obviously that can save some money too for the town as a whole.

You mean the school board or which school? You said school and I'm sort of... School, well, all the schools in London are, so the school board.

School board, okay. Lynn said that he's gonna be talking to Bob Slater, who's the chair of the school board. Right, right, okay. Okay, and also the finance... person for the school district is there any chance with the new building they have has there been any discussion about putting solar on that building yes and there's been talk about putting solar on that building in addition to this building that needs a new roof so this so solar may be going on to this building as well

And what's what is the status of those discussions? It will happen or may happen or no, it's pretty I I am pretty sure that it will happen on the new building and on this one on this one.

Yes So I do think okay That would be negotiated

between the town and and the school no no no no i'm talking about the cost of doing that so i think that the town manager is going to present information on this um at the july 20th yes town council meeting and and i believe that they'll have more information on this so we don't we don't know at this point no we don't right it's not it's not for certain at this point but They are gathering numbers, and I think they have two companies. Is this correct, James? I don't know if you know there's two companies.

Yeah, there were, I think, three bids or three companies that were solicited. And the the bid that is the most attractive is from, I want to say, Granite State Solar. And they're they're meetings and whatnot have been discussed. Right now the intent is to have the town's construction manager for the SAU building addition to manage each of the solar installations for the buildings. And the buildings right now that we're talking about are this one, police station, fire station north, and I think that's at the north fire station.

Are we going to own it or are we going to sublet it and take the power? Are we going to own the solar plants or are we going to have the developer own it?

No, I believe that we will own the solar. And there's a whole discussion on ROI that we had as early as today. So that's been moving forward. And as far as funding the work, I can't speak with competence on that.

Funding would be important. I mean, where's the money coming from?

I can't, I don't know the answer to that question, Ray, so I'm not going to.

We have a lot of other burdens to deal with.

Yeah, I unfortunately don't know the answer to the question, so I can't answer that. I don't want to make a statement of a certain location where the funds may be coming from and be wrong. So town manager will present all that information to the town council when the time arises.

Very good.

And when's that going to be presented? He said the next town council meeting. The 20th.

He said July 20th.

Paul.

so there was something that was sent out to us is it the yeah I'll check my email

I honestly don't know the exact date so yeah I do feel like it's probably the next town council meeting which is the 20th whatever that Monday is yeah yeah I believe it is the 20th but yeah I think we should double check on that but it it will be presented to town council right it's in the yeah okay do they have to vote on it approve it

This project that's wait until the 20th.

We'll find out we have to find out when when only in our 20th because yeah.

So I think the answer is yes, but the not at this meeting anything that was expenditure has to be monies where they come in from where is it taken all that kind of all of that.

So yeah, James the You're looking to have one vendor for all three buildings is that the correct at this point correct have they thought about future buildings will they Be working with that same vendor or are there issues if the town has multiple solar vendors? Have you guys talked about that?

It's not so much the solar vendor as it is the solar product, so long as it's not a sole source type of thing. Like as an example, the fire alarms, I think, in the buildings have been a standing problem because they can only be Bought by this one company from this one company and we don't have the luxury of getting alternate You know fire alarm panels kind of thing. It's it's it's a kind of a weird setup So we want to avoid that type of situation so again I don't think it's so much the the vendor as it is the product and making sure that the product is either compatible with other products or We can get that product from another vendor.

I So you're looking then at least on these 3 buildings to standardize have one type of solar panel on all 3 buildings.

Yeah, that was that's what was presented this morning is a singular type of panel that are going to be on these 3 buildings and to answer the other question of expansion in the future. It just makes sense providing that you know this this works out to the town's advantage.

Anything else? Nope. Okay. James, I have another question for you because last... I do have a question. Oh, sorry.

So this company that is supposed to maybe help us, do you know when they can come on board so we can question them? I think it would be good to have some knowledge while this is all happening.

What do you mean, the clean energy of New Hampshire? Yes. I don't know exactly when they will come on board. I don't know. What I was told was that Kirsten was putting in the application. Whether that's been done or not, I don't know.

When's the next energy meeting? Do you know? the next energy subcommittee meeting.

So prior to our August utilities meeting will be.

I've got concerns. So I'll bring my concerns to the meeting. There's been comments made about people not having expertise in solar, but some of us do actually. So I'm really concerned because I think Paul knows this. Every time we put up alternate energy, whether it's solar or wind or whatever, There's a cost to that. And we pay the cost because the generating plants still have to have 100% backup. We are not doing away with fossil fuel or anything like that. Also, those solar panels have a maximum 20-year lifespan. I'm nervous about us owning those things. They are not recyclable. And the amount of energy to produce those is not green. So, you know, I used to be wicked pro. So I dug up all my college books from.

Seventies could be old information.

I was sort of going through it. I go all the way up to present. I'm collecting the data. I'm kind of buried with stuff. But I mean, I'll just come to the energy console. This gentleman over here has a lot of knowledge about what you can do, what it costs, how they get subsidized and all that kind of good stuff. So. I'm a little nervous that we may be going the wrong direction. I was always pro-solar. Now I'm more greener. What's the footprint? What's going to happen? Okay. And the other quick thing I wanted to mention was there are what they call, I don't know if you guys have this message or not, but plug-in solar panels now. And it's House Bill 540. And you can buy these things. You plug them in. The problem is that has not been spec'd out by the state.

Is that the balcony solars?

I don't know what the name of the company is.

Yeah.

Yeah. So again, that's, that's happening, but you could, if you're not on the grid or approved or, you know, the code for stuff like that, it's not been disballed by the New Hampshire department. I just get just a public service announcement. That could be dangerous. So, okay. That's it. Sorry.

Okay. So we will, we will follow up on that with the energy committee, but if, might not be a bad idea if you have certain things that you know john to have a little conversation about 20 pages i got 20 pages and i want other people i think that they're seriously talking about this now james would you agree with that that they're seriously talking to these these vendors now right

For the solar? Yeah, we got bids on it. It's a path forward at this point. I didn't know it was moving that far. We obviously would need the approval from council, but it is a definitive path forward.

Okay, so there you know that.

Just remember I was pro because when I was in California, I did some research. I love the whole idea of putting them over the parking lots. It saves plowing and places to visit the park. But now I look into it. The hail storm in Texas wiped out quite a few of them. So things like that we have to be careful about.

Okay.

Move on.

All right. The next item on, so we talked about solar progress, so the next thing is water.

Water. Got too many projects going on. Well, one big project and too many projects going on with water. We continue to work with the town on the special assessment district contacting. The town's doing a lot of work on that. Kirsten has some good reports on it. And it's moving forward. I believe the number is 60% of the value and 50% of the residents, if I remember correctly off the top of my head. And I believe last time we spoke, on her first mailing, she got like 30%, I think. She sort of mentioned it offhand. I didn't write it down. So it's progressing. But they're required to get that. sign-ups before they can get the paperwork done so they can do the assessment. We're also getting some data from Pennachuk on the cleanliness of their water as it's treated from them because we're getting a lot of data on well water. We're also looking to get information on how clean their water is when we get it and what they put into the environment as well, like what they put into the Merrimack or wherever they dump it. whatever I want to call it effluent. I'm not sure if that's the correct word. Okay. Yeah, discharge. And we're also looking at make make, I call it making friends with other water committees in southern New Hampshire. So we can sort of form a little mini Coalition is maybe too strong of a word, but at least we have open lines of communication when water problems come up that we can communicate quickly and effectively and know the person to call in Litchfield and Nashua and Salem and Derry. Martha's volunteered to work on that. And we have a courageous volunteer to work on community outreach. Joy and I are going to be working on either compost or recycling first. And I think the next one coming up quickly will be sewage. No, septic. But we need to get a project manager for that. Um, but joy and I will be, I will contact you later this week and we'll figure out how long we want to make it, what topics we want to cover, how the logistics work and just, you know, we'll talk about how we want to do it, do a little brainstorming and then do a little work and we'll change it and then we'll, we'll start moving the ball forward. Hopefully we'll have at least the draft of this, um, script.

By next month, and then we start with the outreach focused on the special assessment. It's 2 different things.

Yeah. 2 different things. The special assessment is us talking to people in that sense. Yeah. And the community outreach is just, I think that's a great idea. Actually, that's a phenomenal idea. We can do a video. I mean, to point phenomenal idea, we could do a little. uh video on what how important the special assessment district works and how it works and the structure and i'm going to make a note of that great idea um but the community outreach is on the different topics you know it's you know we did our first one on the high range road thing and we're talking about one on pfas and there's you know the talk on the septic and then recycling and it's just Things that we as a group know about that are related to our committee that we can talk about on the Londonderry public access and Londonderry YouTube stuff.

Okay.

Question now yes, sir on the videos do you have or did it just the town have a counter on those videos in terms of folks that view I I know there's I I suspect there's one on the YouTube video.

That's just part of what YouTube does I don't know how they would count it on like the town if there's a public access TV channel But I know the town YouTube channel that I've watched, there's usually not a lot of watching, you know, 50 or 100 or two couple hundred maybe at the most.

Are you talking about videos or town meeting type things?

Videos that I've watched. I've never seen one that has gone viral as the kids say. Okay.

No, I just was wondering how many citizens actually look in on the videos and is that frankly the best way of communicating with them? Maybe it's the only way, but... Well, it's a way.

If we do a video just by... If we do enough work to get a 20-minute video on recycling put together, sort of by default, we'll have enough for an article, something that we can put on the Facebook page, and something that we can put in Deb's newspaper. You know, because doing the work, it'll just naturally flow out of the work. You know, this is what we're talking about. This is what's going on. So we could, you know, we could double that with a... you know, however many words, article, and explain the math, maybe not the math, but the benefits and the values and how it works and what you can do.

I thought we were going to try to make them shorter on, yeah, like Facebook or something like that, that if somebody, you know, blipped onto it, it would be a more quick thing. But anyway.

Yeah, I mean, the takeaway is we have...

We get started.

We have number one. We have project number one, and we're going to start moving forward. And we hope that once we get the first one done, we get a little smarter, and then we can do other ones quickly and efficiently, and we'll get smarter about outreach and You know, we'll understand whether or not YouTube or the town thing is the most effective, and we'll figure out if, you know, if X or Instagram or TikTok or whatever. Whatever tool works best.

Yeah, tool works best.

The only reason I bring it up, and I like the idea of we're doing a video, and then you can generate an article on a Facebook page and all that stuff. It's sort of a package of stuff coming out, which is good. Sure, sure. But I think certainly in my former life I went through enough training programs where they would at the end of the training program give you a dummy quiz just to make sure you went through the whole thing. That's a great idea. All right. And there was some inducement sometimes. Generally speaking, it was you get to continue your employment. But it might have been something as simple as a coupon to something or a small credit towards your property taxes or something to induce people to watch the thing and then to provide some feedback that allows us to count them.

and say hey we did this video and it and it impacted a thousand people in our town i like that maybe like a a link on the end of the video you click on and it moves you to a survey on at the town website or somewhere

that then we can collect the answers and you know we know how many people have taken the quiz and now how much the information has got absorbed particularly where the town manager has brought up and joy you're going to give me the technical name because i forget but there are a number of at-risk septic systems in our town um

yeah I don't remember that I have a report here with me but I don't remember what the term is probably James you could say to that but it was it was definitely when they did that study they identified the septic systems that were you know older or you know closer to water boundaries and so so they had identified kind of those were the ones that we should be targeting outreach to people to You know, so they know what proper maintenance looks like for their septic and how can we reach them and either?

get them to watch our video or get them to Do what we need them to do with their septic systems just Often with the questionnaire you will people will do questionnaire at the beginning before the video and Like three questions, three, four questions. And then take those same three or four questions and put them at the end of the video. So you get a sense of, okay, did people learn something from this? Is this useful? And you can actually then prove that, yeah, they learned something from this video. What did they actually learn? What stuck with them?

That's a good idea, Ann. So we've got a couple pairs of hands that are going to start moving forward.

we'll have to consider more ideas as we get something together then we will have more ideas and we obviously will run it by the town to make sure that they're okay with us posting everything out there and we'll get when we'll get smarter about it as we go you know we understand the process learn what works what people like I like the idea of the quizzes before and after you know and we'll figure out other topics you know something about the

the community community power purchase thing that might have been an interesting topic so people understand what's coming down the pipe I'm just sort of curious because of septic systems you know a little bit about it on septic systems are you guys focusing on the residents residential homes septic systems okay

I think that's the idea. I mean, that's what we've kind of more focused on and just really getting people because, you know, John mentioned in our meeting, he knows somebody who just didn't even really know what was happening inside that septic system. It's kind of like a black box to people. And so, you know, I think we even I think just need to not even um you know targeting people who might be in those in those categories of starting to get older systems but but anyone who is in londonderry where who are has a septic system is i think most people don't really understand what they are they need to get them pumped every couple of years right and why why is that well somebody might might think well i can i can push it well Well, you shouldn't push it. And here's why. Here's what's happening inside your, you know, inside that septic system.

So what's the frequency? How many people in your house? If you replace it, replace it with a two stage tank and a three stage tank doesn't cost much more, works better, all that kind of stuff.

Yes, we we plan to concentrate on this topic a little more at our next store and solid waste. So I'm going to cut that off here now. um but um james i did want to ask you about one thing from um our last meeting um mike spence had um spells excuse me had mentioned to you um clean diesel grants clean diesel grants and he wanted um to know if the town was checking in to those at all or if those would be of any use to the town did you find out anything about that

I did not a I have I actually saw that note today Dave Dave Wally myself have been playing phone tag over the last a few weeks me being out now him he's actually on vacation right now I've taken a couple weeks off myself so this is one of the things that's a phone through the cracks as we are 2 ships passing in the night here was last couple weeks.

okay so maybe for our next meeting you could just make a note about that oh yeah absolutely diesel grants and and um and mike will be back by then too i actually intended on having that answer for you tonight but i neglected to do so i apologize for that okay that's that's fine um okay then we're going to move on to sewer and solid waste john

Thank you. The last sewer and solid waste meeting was interesting. We put a one-hour deadline on the meeting so that we would move through things fairly promptly. I think it was the center point of the meeting was the memo that was composed on the trip up to Purpose Energy up in Vermont. And there were a couple things that came out of that discussion. One was there was at least a majority consensus that it was part of our responsibility to provide an opinion, ideally an educated opinion, on what we saw up in Vermont. to the town manager, the town council, and to the chair of this committee. And the second thing that came out was that, let's see, how am I gonna put this? Some abatement to my more aggressive flourishes in that memo were called for, okay? And so there was some discussion. There was a good contribution from, I think, everybody on the committee to modifying some of the words and coming up with something that, by a 5-0 vote, we decided was in a form that could be submitted to the town manager, the town council, and to the chair. And basically it was, after going through the gist of the inside of the memo was unchanged, but in terms of the conclusion paragraph, that was modified to support, but perhaps not as aggressively as we did originally, the concept of purpose energy here in legendary. Beyond that, and again, we confined the meeting to an hour, we had a couple of other things, but one of the things I thought I'd do is Joy had an opportunity out of that meeting to meet with the town manager on a couple of items related to this, and maybe she can share with the group.

Yeah, so I met with town manager and Bob Carey last Monday, or last Wednesday, excuse me. And we talked about how to get a little bit more information out there so our town manager is willing to help us kind of get a composting education program going for people. And so we talked about that and kind of the timeline of how that would work. So part of what I'm working on right now is developing website information or information for a website. So that will go along well with developing information for a video as well. and Bob is looking at getting some more solid information on numbers for our landfill waste our information for our landfill waste the cost per capita the so I have to follow up with him I'm sure he's got those numbers by now and we're just going to you know try and see if we can get some interest in this in this program There's a recycling fund that has been set aside for this type of program, and so our town manager has agreed to purchase 100 compost bins, four household compost bins that will be, this is an individual program, this isn't like a town-wide program. but getting residents to learn about their own household composting to get started on their own, reducing what goes into the landfill. And the goal is to, you know, number one, to actually reduce the amount of stuff that's in the waste stream we pay by the tonnage food has a high weight to it. And so the idea is that if we move this from the waste stream, then we can reduce our costs. So that's one of the bonuses. And of course it also produces a great product that you can then put on your own gardens, your own lands, in order to help your own land grow.

So. How does the individual 100 compost facilities tie into the purpose energy? Is this separate?

yeah this is completely separate yeah this is completely separate from that um this is um so I so the purpose energy they are still trying to work to see if there would be um they would be able to take some of our household waste that to have a drop-off site for us but that is not you know there's nothing concrete of that at all yet this is purely for household level um individual systems okay um and so So we have a timeline of kind of where we want this program to kick off to have in-person education systems in April, so targeting around Earth Day. That's great.

Can I just ask one question on the purpose energy folks that I guess because I was the one at the last meeting is a little concerned about us as a group as utilities committee coming out in support of this particular facility in our town. after one visit to one facility. And I guess one of the things I was thinking about was potentially, because there are folks in the town that are concerned about it, so it seemed that it might be helpful for us also, or the folks who maybe went to the St. Albans in Vermont, to talk to some of those folks in person to get an idea as to what their specific issues are and we know generally what their issues are but the hows and the whys from those folks and might be useful just meet with some of those folks who consider themselves stakeholders um to find out what their concerns are before we move ahead or think about providing a letter to the town council or to the town manager in support of this particular facility. I'm just thinking we should meet with a variety of different people so we have a better idea of what all the issues are.

from different perspectives. Don't disagree with you, but by the same token, I think there have been a number of meetings on this topic already, including one that was led by the, and there were concerned citizens at those meetings, which is one of the reasons the memo focused on five different areas of concern. Those weren't something that we brought up. Those were things that were brought up in that meeting.

No, I understand that, but I'm asking if we You guys who went to visit the facility, the individuals who went to visit St. Albans, Vermont, helped craft the memo, have met with some of those folks who disagree with this facility. the siting of this facility so i'm just wondering if it wouldn't be useful for you guys to meet with some of those people how some of the citizens how would we locate those people and meet with those people pretty easy to find out who came to the meetings you all say that you have you know people came to the meetings planning board meetings people on the planning board must know who the people are who came and spoke against the facility right well i don't think that they do do that at the at the meetings they have um you know i suppose that there must be a record of public comment they had public comments so we yeah we could go back and and once you talk to one or two then those one or two people will give you names of other people i'm sure But I'm just thinking it would be useful to talk to those folks who have a different perspective and try to get a little more information from them as to their perspective and where they're getting their information.

So I think that's why we went to visit was because we were taking the comments that they were given at these various venues and recognizing what their concerns were that they have voiced um and you know trying to investigate that ourselves at this facility um and and so I to be honest I'm not really sure that we should spend a ton of time on this it really isn't you know as we have no power at all on this project you know we were doing our due diligence as as committee members who have you know dealings with utilities And we had the opportunity that everybody was invited at those meetings, the planning board meetings. You'll see Purpose Energy is inviting anybody in the public who wants to go and see their plants. We just felt kind of it was our duty because we are committee members. okay we can do this in their stead and so I you know I think we can welcome people to come to our meetings but I honestly I do not have I don't have the time and I don't think that it's I think that we need to put our time towards other things that again we don't we don't have any bearing on whether or not this plant

When the invitation was extended by Purpose Energy at the meetings where these people were at. The planning meetings. The planning meetings and the State of New Hampshire meeting and those.

But none of us were at those planning meetings, right?

Let her finish. No, you, I was at them.

I was at the planning meeting.

I was at the, yes. Okay. And the invitation. Purpose Energy, the guy that was at the meeting here for the state of New Hampshire, invited people from that neighborhood to come and view. And he said that they, when I said, oh, can we go up and see it? He said, oh, gee, if I'd known that you were going to go, I would have arranged it. They all went up. I would have arranged for you to go at the same time. So a bunch of those people took the same trip that we took. Oh good, okay. And went and saw for themselves. Okay. And one of the women that I met at that meeting who had a notebook full of information, who had a lot of concerns. When she left the last meeting, she said, I'm not worried anymore. She said, I feel confident now that this is a good thing.

so i i really think that for the most part i think that there there's been that outreach already yeah there's an opportunity to write the letter such as you know this is you know we're from the utility or the sewer and solid waste committee in the utility committee this is our background this is what we saw when we saw it this is a piece of data this is not the final i think that's exactly what we did report this is this is our findings that's yeah this is we are this is our background this is what we found That's a piece of data. If other people disagree or have concerns, that's going to be the package that the decision makers need to look at.

That's exactly right.

But we can provide our slice. You can provide what?

Our observations.

Our piece of evidence.

You'll provide the observations and not necessarily recommendation. The...

I'm going to let you answer that.

I think the conclusion, the last line was probably the most modified line in the whole initial memo. And the sense of the line was that we felt that there was a potential benefit to the town and to the state of this rather than, I think originally I might have used the word win in there. And I think that was sort of the last line in the report drawing on what we saw.

See, the reason, and I'm not trying to be an obstructionist, the reason why I'm a little concerned is because when I would go and inspect a number of different, say, federal facilities, federal agencies, DOD, agencies you could go to an air force facility and if they had been given notification that we were coming facility would be in great shape everything would be fine because they would have rallied and cleaned up the facility you go to a facility where there it's a surprise inspection or a surprise visit you often found very different situations so and it's all the The reason why I'm concerned is because all these facilities are being run by different people. You never know exactly what you're going to get. You've only gone to one. Maybe we should think about going to the national facility or a couple of others. You know, it's just to base a judgment that we should bring this type of facility to Londonderry based on... That's not the conclusion of the committee.

That's not the conclusion of the committee, what I heard.

What I heard is we did a trap... What I'm asking is, is it a valid judgment?

Let me finish.

No, I was talking, you interrupted me. Right. That's what just happened. So what I understand... What I'm saying, and trying to say it in as polite a way as I can, is that to go to one of these companies' facilities, is that a valid...

p enough piece of information to say yes we trust this company and we want them to come into london dairy can i say one thing to that i'm just asking a question okay and i'm just going to say one thing to it and then i'm going to cut this off okay that we as utility committee have no control over this company coming to london dairy but you have influence we we we do at this point we don't they they are going through their approval process that they have to go through with the state and that they've been through the planning board and we don't we don't have that enough influence to make a difference and why write a letter because people came and had some concerns and we thought we would address those concerns that we saw as a committee advising the town of what we saw at this. When we went to this facility, Everything goes through pipes. There's nothing out. It's all piping that goes everywhere.

So this letter, do we go to town council and say we support this? Right. Do we go to town council and say we don't support this? Or are we just writing a letter and say this is our observation?

Right. This is our observation.

That's all I want to know. And to your point, I understand what you're saying. But if we did bring this back up, what can we do? It's kind of late in the process.

Let's say it one step at a time.

Yeah.

The letter goes out. We're not saying we're approving it. We're saying this is worth looking into. That's what I heard. This is a benefit to look into. And that is what I heard.

Let me finish. That last sentence. Let me finish.

Let other people talk.

Well, you have the sentence. You wrote the sentence, so just read the last sentence that you wrote. And then everybody will know what it says. What was the last sentence?

Go ahead, Joy. So I just want to make the point that the letter, we voted to approve the letter at our subcommittee meeting. It is from four of us. The four of us who traveled. It is not from the full committee. It's not from even the full subcommittee. It's from the four of us who traveled. The last line does say a little bit, we recommend. However, it is part of our mission as the utilities to make recommendations. I I think it is valid yes and I see your point that when you announce a visit to somewhere they're going to present their best foot forward absolutely however these digesters are run all across the country they are these anaerobic digesters have been in you know for decades have their their places where they have operated for decades there were two of those huge tanks that you saw in the pictures the other last week were actually holding tanks They are not even the digested component. They are open to the air. There was no smell on site. And so, again, it's only been running for a year. So there is that caveat as well. However, these plants have been so well engineered. They have been... studied and engineered over long periods of time and I know in fact that there are that there are plants that have anaerobic digesters on site where they hold weddings at because their their plants are so beautiful it's a bright water plant in Seattle so it is it is it is completely possible that this plant that we saw is an accurate depiction we of course don't know that but I think that I think that we should leave it in as is again we are part we are asked to do recommendations We have nothing, no bearing on whether or not this moves forward.

It isn't even a recommendation. It's not.

It's not a recommendation. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's too strong a language.

It isn't from the committee. It's from the attendees. Attendees.

Process question. Has the subcommittee agreed to the language in this letter yet? Yes.

Yes.

Now, when do you plan to bring it to the full committee?

We do not plan to bring it.

It was voted on in the meeting to send it to the chair because 91 a I can't distribute to the full committee has to go through the chair and was also we decided at that meeting to submit it to the town manager and the town council.

So that's that's that's what it comes to this committee, everything supposed to come from the committee first. That's what I was. That's why I send out stuff to everybody, a blank copy. That's why Kirsten reminds me of that.

I haven't sent it anywhere yet.

Yeah, but I sent it to you.

Yeah.

Yeah. And to the town council and town manager. That's what was downloaded on me.

Oh, you sent it to everybody at the same time.

So it's gone.

If you sent it to all those people, then it's gone. Yes. Okay, then it's gone.

Yeah, but in terms of distributing to the people on this committee, that's you. That's your call.

That's my call.

Okay.

Okay, that's not the way it works.

No. Because I've not seen the letter.

That's why I'm asking the process question. None of us have. That's not the way it works.

None of us have. It goes to you, Martha, first. I mean, after it goes to the committee, the subcommittee, it would have to go to you, and then you would have to distribute it to the rest of the committee, and then the rest of the committee would decide, well, how do we feel about sending this to the town council?

Or come from the subcommittee, or did it come from the utility committee?

It came from the four attendees. Then it did not come from the utility committee.

No, it did not come from the utility committee. Done deal. Yeah, that's what I said. That's why when we were talking about the language, all we said was the attendees that went. And we said that we only went because we recognized that these issues had been raised. So we looked at those issues. We questioned them about those issues. But we did say that this shouldn't go from the whole committee. It should go from the four attendees who went.

If the town council wants to kick it back to us, let them.

That's exactly right.

It wasn't a recommendation. It was an observation document.

It was an observation. I understand.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you.

All right, what's next? What in general we do as subcommittees, collect data, we can blind copy, send it to you, and that way everybody is on the same page when it comes to information.

I will take full responsibility for this, and I will apologize. No, you don't have to. There's no accident. I can certainly send it to everybody if you want to. I mean, the letter's already gone out. These are copies that we could hand out right now? Sure. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it.

I agree with you. While you're doing that, last thing that we had was the discussion on septic systems. That's been discussed, and each of the committee members has been charged to bring research and information on septic systems to the next sewer and solid waste meeting.

Thank you, John. By the way, for you four that went, thank you. That was a good informational research. Thank you.

Okay, now we're going to get to John's favorite topic. I'm going to make it quick.

It has buried me this much. That's okay. So, after a lot of research and working with Comcast, and today I'm on my fourth different box. I identified four key issues with them. I think I mentioned some of them real quick. The box stops responding. You have to do a restart. It just freezes. Box is slow. No response for three or three minutes. If you keep on hitting the button, you'll crash the box. You have to reboot it. Any recorded program in more than one hour, if you try to fast forward or do anything, it jumps to the beginning. Or it says something's wrong with your recording. Do you want to record this at a different time? You say no and get out quickly and you reboot the box. That way you can get control and you can then watch the recording. After midnight, and this is the big one, this is the one that kind of got me, so I had to put my scope. I noticed my box was retrying. And what it does after midnight is, you know, the program guide and stuff and updates it.

Yes.

Okay. Besides fighting Tuesday nights with Microsoft doing updates, it's trying to take and do that. But I noticed I was getting latency back. And I finally convinced the technician this morning. They were kind of surprised and said, how did you figure that out? It's 300 milliseconds too slow. Let me show you. So they said, Oh, your box is not compatible with our network.

And I said, I told you that three months ago.

They gave me two boxes, which is good because I'm getting questions from people. I don't know how they track me down. Hey, John, how do I do streaming? A streaming box is basically you have your cable come in, and you don't want to put cable throughout your whole house. So you get this box. It's about this big. And basically, it's a Wi-Fi signal, but it's a cable box controller without going through your Wi-Fi connection. So your smart TVs hook up to it, and you still have the full control like you're looking at a Comcast. Same thing when you get your phone. I'm out on a trip somewhere. I can watch movies. It's streaming. So the problem with that box, I said, I'm sorry, unless you have a one gigabyte plus service, it'll never work. That's a problem. So they gave me two boxes. I'm testing the other one right now. It seems to be working, but it doesn't solve this problem. No signal TV and Internet for 10 to 15 seconds. Blank screen. we're getting skips on the network, big time skips. And you'd have to be able to monitor to understand that that cable that comes in is carrying two things. It's carrying your internet, but it's carrying the internet for cable TV. All your boxes is a server. That's what it is, basically. It's a server. And when it stops, just like your computer stops, if I was doing a trading video on welding magnesium and whatever, it stopped. And I'm saying, oh, I know exactly what's going on. So one thing at a time. New box went in today. Well, the first one didn't work. Second new box went in today, and I'm testing it right now. 12.30 tonight, I'll test it again, and then we'll go from there. In the meantime, I also asked for information as part of the package that you asked me to do. I'm starting to construct that. Here's where you go. Oh, by the way, if you've been a Comcast user for a long time and you've had the same package... you might want to call them up and say, I want a better price because those packages have changed so much. You could get a better price easily. Matter of fact, you can buy a complete streaming package for all the streaming things for about $33 except for Apple TV plus another $15 for Apple, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying it through your basic cable service. Oh, yeah. What's the other thing? Oh, I'm checking into Senior Citizen Discount, which a lot of people do not know about. So I'm checking into that.

How old do you have to be for that?

I'm 32. There you go. In my dreams.

I qualify.

There's a racing saying, by the way, the older I get, the faster I was. Think about that. So that's what I'm up to right now. And I hope to get back on track. And then hopefully you and I can get together to call those people so we can start linking up with the other towns to do. I have a thing I want to put together about let's do a consolidator. What's the big deal for water? I jumped to water, but yes, you and I try. We've been both kind of busy. So that's where we are now. is the kicker. If it is a box, I'm going to ask Comcast for them to ping all those boxes and let people know they got to trade them in. And it is right now, the box. Yeah, think about that. Think about why they haven't been forthcoming.

That's going to cost them money.

Yeah, they get a lot of money. So that's one thing. However, they do know and they agree we still have network problems in the town. Some of them are because some of the installers don't know what they're doing. Some simple things like the barrel connectors on the outside, you don't put them in and face them up because then the water runs behind the barrel and corrodes the thing. You're supposed to put it facing down with a rubber shield or better yet through the side, things like that, little things like that. I'm interested because I am still at what they call the old head in sight. So there is a massive truck right in front of my house. So they can go up there, get on the pole, and stop monitoring about half the town. Wow. That's why I asked, and some of you said, yeah, I'm still having the problem. I'm pretty sure you are. So that was quite the detour for my time this month.

It sounds like fun, actually.

No, it's not. It means I have to stay up to 1 o'clock every morning to monitor this thing. But that's okay. I usually go to bed at that time.

In the past month, I have received at least a half a dozen, we're working in your area.

Yes. So I must say that when I tell people if you have a problem, call them. They keep a log. And one of the things I will post when I do this document, if you have a problem, call your neighbor. Because part of the contract says if three people on the same street have a problem, they have to respond immediately, within two hours.

Okay. Wow.

I'm going to see Kirsten because I don't have the latest and greatest contract. The one we have in there is the old one. The new one that was signed is not in there. The contract is up in 2030, by the way. Drew posted something when they did the contract about the cable budget, his concerns, and I agree with his concerns. One of them said the lack of not collecting all the revenue. And I'm going to be public about this. We have people in the town that offer cable services. They're supposed to pay us a franchise fee. Are you saying there's people that aren't? There's cable companies in town that are supposed to be paying that aren't? Yeah. Fios is a hardwire company. Now, the satellite companies, we can't. Right. They're exempt. But I'll take that up with the town manager a different time. I just want to get this fixed first. I don't want to... expose too much stuff because Even though a lot of people are having problems, to let everybody know we're having problems means Comcast is going to get buried. It's not going to help the situation. I'm trying to fix as many things as I can ahead of time. And that's it. End of discussion. Thank you.

Great. We appreciate that, John.

I feel bad because I want to do that water thing with you and do the outreach, but we'll get going.

We will. You were going to say the last meeting you talked about fiber and what people should do is to go towards fiber.

Oh, no, I can't say that.

I'm just curious about that. Because I know very little about this at all. So I'm just wondering, what does that?

I get kind of busy working with the Comcast folks. I do have a call into the fiber folks to make sure they are 100% fiber. Okay. What I hear from people is the performance is outstanding.

And who would be fiber folk? Like what's the name of the company that would offer fiber?

Fios, Fidium, two companies, Amphidium.

Fios, Fidium.

No, no, Fios, Amphidium.

Oh, okay.

So what's happened is, for example, T-Mobile. With 5G, it's gotten fast enough. So they'll come in and put a box in your house, and it's nothing more than a wireless receiver. Okay? You then have internet access. I don't know if you've ever seen me once, so I'll turn this on, and I'll turn it on so my computer's internet access. It's a hotspot. So your box becomes a hotspot, okay?

And what happens if your box becomes a whole?

Oh, oh, oh, oh. So then you don't need all those cables and stuff like that. So they are fast enough now so they can offer that service. Now, two of the kids get gaming with their friends, it might slow down. It is very sensitive to loading. So that's why. Even though T-Mobile says up to five users, all that kind of good stuff, I'm still skeptical. I'm also switching over two of my computers to Tuxedo and testing that at the same time to see how that streams. Instead of Windows, never mind.

Okay.

It's a whole different subject. So, okay. So, yes, I'm still looking into it. I just want to make sure I get this fixed first. Then I got to talk with the town manager about if there are companies that are running cable services, what are we going to do about it? The cable franchise fee now goes into the general fund But the town council then budget is whatever true pretty close to what he needs the rest gets used by the town It's about 30,000 a year We pay for it. So yeah, but people are leaving Comcast and that could affect the money's going to the cable studio Which I put five years of my life into what you don't know about but we'll go on to a next object next Okay

okay well that pretty much it so now i'm going to do round table ray do you have anything you want to add tonight um do i have anything to add tonight that's a good question actually i do have a question for our town engineer

There was discussion. Actually, I think you brought it forward at the town council meeting in regards to the head of 128 and 28 Rockingham Road. Yes. About what is thought would go on there. This is something that's been on the 10-year DOT plan for a long time. Okay. And it is escalated from $1.7 million to $7.7 million.

Sounds about right.

And the one for Stonehenge Road has escalated from 1.6 to $5.9 million. And still we don't know what's happening there. And I guess I have to wonder how much the town of Londonderry is involved with this discussion with the DOT. And why is it escalated that much in a matter of four years?

Home that relatively easy question answer the prices. I hate to use this terminology, but prices since covid have dramatically jumped across the board. That a. 100% 200% increase in the original estimate is is is not uncommon at all, regardless of the project and regardless of the funding and regardless of the entity.

Well, we understand the cost of everything has escalated. However, the New Hampshire's budget is way over and they are in a position of cutting back on a lot of these projects that were on the 10-year plan to move forward. For instance, 93 going through Concord. and others. And so my question was, how much influence does the town of Londonderry have in whether these things move forward or not?

I can't answer that question. I don't have enough experience in that realm to give you a valid answer. But that being said, I do know the Stonehenge project has been funded and it is moving forward. And as of right now, I believe they are setting up for utility relocation so that the in ground road construction can begin shortly thereafter utility relocations have to be done first before that the groundwork can be done the route 28 and mammoth intersection is again that one's kind of in its infancy stages of may have been on the 10 year plan for quite some time but it's actually moving forward now in the design realm So that's one of those things that they were actually making progress on.

Yeah, and my concern is that in the interim, a lot of projects are moving forward on Rockingham Road, Route 28, that the town is approving, and yet we have to deal with all of this coming up and additional traffic, and I think that's a real concern, and I'm suggesting that that the town should have a lot to say about that.

Well, an intersection project of that magnitude certainly takes build-out by way of traffic into consideration. So there's a projection of how much traffic will exist in a future time period, and that is how that intersection is designed for that future traffic flow. So the ongoing development that's happening in that area now, it's already been considered in the future flow calculations.

Thank you.

John?

No.

Yeah.

Nope. I don't think I want to invoke executive council privilege. Oh, no, I can't do that.

Next. Oh, dear. Okay. No, it's okay you can ignore me Motion can I have a motion to adjourn so moved second? Aye. Aye.