Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

And it's also on recorded on YouTube. So all the information be there for people that could wait for it to so it's 6 o' and I start the public hearing. Uh this is anformational public hearing where um we are going to share with you um two ordinances that we are proposing and um also our our town government budget for the upcoming fiscal year. So we'll start with we have a little PowerPoint. 30 seconds. So, next slide. We're starting with the um ordinance. So, um so copies of the blade ordinance are up there if you didn't get any. Um there it's also been published on the website. Um so this ordinance is it recording or not? No, it is recording. I was just making sure we're showing. So the BL ordinance the BL regate regulations. Um so we already have um state statutes and building codes that are in place um for us to enforce um most of the blight and pretty

much the same blight that's in the ordinance. But we don't have anything in order to fully um enforce those. we need uh like a procedure and a way of find which is um defined in this ordinance. Um and and the ordinance also creates um paid positions that would more than likely have to be paid um being the flight enforcement officer. And the other position is the [Music] They're the ones that are like the judge hearing and of course they'll also be legal as well. But if you guys want to talk about um Can I ask you a question before you start? You grew up in this town? Uh since 1967. I've been too. I've been here since 2005. Okay. So, um I'll explain the ordinance. Um, [Music] I am with the idea of the ordinance, but I'm not with the cost associated with it. Um, because um, we'd have to hire those two people. Um we also could um anticipate legal fees and we are would all the town would also be responsible um if a say a home is um cited for blight and they're uh they're going through the procedures. They're being

fine. they're not doing anything because the town has determined that that property is a is a safety hazard or a blade as defined in the statute. The town's then responsible if the property owner does not they're responsible for tearing down the property. So that could be a huge cost um to the taxpayers and it could be an unexpected cost depending on the state of the building because a lot of the older buildings have leaded um and would need to be remediated also which adds to the clock. Um we because it's something that we can't predict the cost or how many homes would be affected by the BL officer in a certain year. We're anticipating for to go with their first year with the ordinance. We're um adding $300,000 to the budget um coming from the taxpayers to cover any potential cost so that we don't have to pull it from the grand list. Um which cost of cost of the blight ordinance which would be the the cost would be the um how many hours or how the the officer paid on the um the what's called the citation reviewer or whatever. Yes. and also to pay to tear the house down, which we could put as a lean on the property for the property owner, but the property owner, the town wouldn't see that money until the property owner sells their property, which could be 20 years from now. Who knows? And on the tear down, if there's, as Tracy said, if there's ladder asbestos, then you know, the cost skyrockets for tearing that property down.

Why is the county there anybody's property now? Have they contacted all is this become a problem or in particular? Has anybody been sent a letter called? Well, we don't have the in place yet. So, is there an issue then? There are issues with um a lot of houses in town that are not lived in that are safety hazards, health hazards that there's also, correct me if I'm wrong on this Tracy, but there's also a liability concern if the town does nothing. So a house no I don't know about if the house is not if we do nothing about it a liability on the town should be on the owner right it's not it's not for that it's it's only liability for the town if the town has started a procedure or does the blboard they're in the they gone through that this town operates on the international building code correct you have a building official correct yes you know in the building code section in there for the individual who has a right to condemn the house if it's unsafe and you get the health department involved. Not so much the fire module, the single family dwelling because that's a castle and you get an engineer, the town can get an engineer to look at the structure and make sure it's not fit to stay and then the building official can order it down. So, we don't need this plight program. I'm against this plight program. I'm just going and that's why we have to. Yeah, but you got you don't even know the cost that's going to exceed to this town. The tax has been risen in this town two or three times already since I've been here and I'm done with the taxes going up for what? And I know the majority of it is the school and I'm not against the school. We got to teach our kids. But this blight program is designed for a city, not a town. Most towns don't have a small rural town. There's only 2,200 people in this town. First of all, it should have went to a referendum. You

still don't have a right just to shove it down a throat. No ordinance has been passed. I know that, but you guys are going to You were going to vote on it, right? No, we we got the referendum. Yes. Yes. Why don't you tell me that? Well, we eventually got there, right? Good thing you brought it up. There's a lot of people against it. I can tell you already know. We don't want it. Yeah. Anybody who's read this should not just take personal property. This also includes junk cards, right? And it's usually the blank issue the towns deal with. It's not the condemnation of buildings. But for the poor soul, the enforcer who has to go around and operate under triage, right? Which one? Which should he pick? he or she picked first to present to the town that this person needs to cease and desist of devaluating that person's property of their neighbors. I've already gone through this so I know how this works. Right? That's a selfguided thing. That's where I as an individual bring my concern to the town and they send out the zoning officer. They take pictures. This is all historical by the way. and that person gets a cease and desist and then they become my enemy. So that that that to me is like the number one issue is not the actual buildings. There's not that many buildings the number of people who have by definition of these rules junk in their yards. Would you agree or disagree with that? Hey, my my issue would be that uh in order to pay for the real problems, you know, the houses and dwellings that are a real problem that in order to to pay for that every, you know, every, you know, buddy's getting fined for something in order to pay for this bite, you know, um the the job that's going to be created to deal with the real

problems, it's going to get paid for by making a lot of problems that aren't really problems. That that's what we're concerned. So, let let me also add to on the car, the junk car thing. Yeah. The zoning officer has a right to enforce that. I know. That's my question. How do you guys en envision imposing this poor person going out there picking someone's neighbor and saying, "Okay, this person is going to be subjected to these rules." How how do you go about the triage, if you will, of doing it? I'm going to step up and say I was the one that has been the strongest proponent on the board to put a blight ordinance in. And just to quickly explain the reason why I think it's important there we have had a situation where we've had a building condemned. We have gone and reported a building up. We have sent letters to the property owner. They came down here several times and then nothing happened. This is what over the course of 18 months. We need to have a lever. We don't want to take people's property away from them. We don't want to tell you how high your grass is supposed to be, but what we need is a lever to encourage people to either remediate the problem or to sell the property to somebody else who will remediate the problem or find them so that they'll understand, gee, this is going to cost me money to decide that you can't make me do what I should do. Well, that again, you're dealing with problem. But my question revolves around someone takes this list, who do we pick? And and and yeah, we're not picking anybody. Somebody would have to come in and basically file a complaint. That's there's no need for the new program if that's what we're going to do about those items. This program is designed in your minds. It sounds like largely. That's what I was thinking of this. But to your point to your point, there are people who collect tractor

trailers and leave them parked and they haven't moved in 30 or 40 years. That's a zoning issue. That might be an issue. It's a zoning issue, not blight. No. And I I that's zoning, not blight. Sorry. Under the zoning regularly. That's true. So you don't need blight. Listen, I did this for 22 years. I worked in big cities and everything. I know what happens and I don't want that happening here. So, there's other ways to do to get what you want and zoning is part of it. But, you know, I don't want blight. I don't want my neighbors saying, "Hey, Sip's got a dump truck that he's been working on for 5 years. I won't let you out of my property. I'll buy you right now." So, that's why I don't guess and I seen it and I seen you invest in the budget to the town. When you issue a bite to someone, right, you make an order. I did it. They don't do nothing. Like you said, they ain't going to do nothing. You send them a letter, blah blah blah. The only recourse you have, even with a blight, is to go to court. So when you go to court, it goes to the housing prosecutor. The housing prosecutor, there's one in knowledge. There's one in London, and then it goes before a judge. I've seen it where the judge said, "Hey, the guy's got no money." They don't order them to do nothing. But in the meantime, you're going to pay 60, 70 grand, 50 grand for some blade guy that you don't need. For town that's 2,200 people. It's mostly rural and it's mostly state property everywhere and everybody has a couple cars in this. I don't know all your zone regs, but you're allowed two unregistered motor vehicles. That's kind of the state rags in Connecticut. So, I am totally against this blight cuz I am totally not going to pay for a blight guy to make 50 60 grand a year cuz that's what you're going to pay plus all the pennies and then all the cost all the court fees and stuff. The city the town attorney fees

are going to go skyrocketing the people start writing laws. It's going to go to the court. So, I'm against it. I'm sorry. I know what you want, but there's other ways to do what you want to do. And I'd be more than willing to sit on a board to help you do that. But I don't want no B approach. This is not a city town. And there's a lot of farms here, too. Like me, my land foresty. You going to come to my property and tell me I can't have a tractor. Yeah. I'm going to tell you to hit the road. So all I'm saying is there's other ways to get to what we want. I'm not for people's house like over here. There's houses that are falling down. I understand that. There's ways to do it without a blight program. We don't need them all the time. Exactly. Anyone else have anything to add? Ron, back when I started selecting around 2000, the board of selection tried to they looked into how many people were interested in having a blight ordinance and there was no backing for it. The cost for officials is expensive. And then if you got to go to court, like Jack said, it's going to cost an aromat. Oh my god. And most of the time you get judges that are just gonna throw it out because you're wasting their time. Now you're wasting money. Yeah. Well, you wasted more than enough money to hire a man to to do that job. That could be a miserable job for anyone. Yeah. And it's going to be an expensive job, too. Obama did not like it at all. There's a carve out in the proposition. Well, for certain the way it's written is for who's to say what you know what's not what's not what you can't have in your yard. Got projects here. I got 1956 Chevy that's been sitting out there for nine years, but I haven't been able to do it. But someday I'm going to do it.

Who's to say, you know, I got a trailer over there. I keep it stuck in my car. I got piles of logs or I got brush. I can see if it's a safety issue, but that's a totally different ball game. Like he said, there's there's ordinances for that. You get the u you know the town guy to come in. He had a building inspector and put something down on the house and all you really inspect is limited. I have a um I have a comment I have a comment from someone that um was a resident that wasn't able to make it tonight but sent an email statement. So I'm going to read it. It's a Charles D. [Music] Um, I understand the places that are being targeted by this ordinance, but I worry that the way it's written may be too broad and able to be applied in a harassing manner. Nosy neighbors and the like whose property values aren't being affected by derelic buildings that are hidden away from view on another person's land would still apply from this blight ordinance. This problem could be perhaps resolved by saying it needs to be easily visible from the street. It could also be applied to some of the lovely agricultural ruins that are scattered around derelch barns that have reached the stage of art rather than blight. I'd hate to lose those ruins because someone decides to report it to the town. Thanks, Charles. And so I straddle two towns here and also one Massachusetts has 40,000 houses in it. So at any one time we have this problem as you can imagine it's 20 times this periodically you drive around you'll see a house for the next year on the property right they fall under the building to do that everything that's been brought up here it's been contention in town for instance my neighbor is a great guy and horses on three acres well he doesn't own a farm so everybody reported his horse trailer

it's up the other road he's got a boat he's great all and he's like look it's here before then and Then then it's like what's agriculture? What's a farm? What's not great? So just let it go and that was it. Um there's been a couple other cases too. You left your stuff in the front yard too long. all all that kind of stuff along with what Charles is saying that you got to really narrow in what you're going to do on define it and it gets pretty complicated like any law this well not this well that well this case and around it you know so it does get expensive and my town relies on it well the building to do well they would they would even come in before we had city water city sewer and even say your sub you know and then force them to do something about it right let me just say as far as the building official those he's very limited. If it's a single family home, he has no right to order anything unlike a blade. But if you have a home in this town that's run down, I mean really run down and there's people in there that could die. Okay, that's a health issue, right? I did this in the London for 20 years. I just call the health department cuz I had no right to go in there was an old lady. She was 93 years old. Had two hippies living there. call them hippies and they trashed the place so bad I just looked in the window I knocked on the door cuz I have no right to go in I called the health department the health department came met me he went there he has a right to go in he has a right to go in it's the health issue he went in then he invited me in order and I went in we ended up condemning the house and the woman got relocated till it was cleaned up with an attorney involved all I'm trying to say to you guys you open up a can of worms with this boy in a town like this, you're looking for trouble. I'll tell you right now, you're going to have neighbors fighting with each other, maybe complaining each other. It's no good. This town doesn't warrant a blight program. You don't even have hardly any

two families in this town. There's a few, but it's mostly single family home, so it's a joke. I know you I I got a feeling you're dead set on doing it, and so is a need. We don't want it. Understood. And the reason why, and I'll build off of what Jim said, is if you drive around this town, there's somewhere between 10 and 15 buildings, single family homes that are completely abandoned. Okay? Some of them are completely grown in. You can't even see them from the road. You don't need a bite program to attack them. So, when Tracy, I'm going to ask for your help on this. When we reached out to the lawyer with what we could do with current town resources, we were told there was basically nothing we can do about those properties. Yes. And that's what took us down exploring. There's a fire in that building. There's a fire in that building. What do you do then? Say someone kid lights a fire in the building burn down. It's half up, half down, burn. What do you do? I know what you do. What do you think you can do as a building official? He can. So from a now we're into a safety standpoint. That's right. A building official can order a demo and the town can pay it and lean the profit. Do that anyway, which is what Yeah, which you do anyway. All I'm saying, guys, I just don't want blight in this town because I know what it does. Understood. And that's why we have you got to research other ways to do what you want to accomplish. You could still send a letter to the property owners that are abandoned. Somebody owned it. And if they're dead, well, pardon my French, but there's other ways to do it. The town can re take it. I'm sure if it's abandoned, they're not paying taxes. They are paying taxes. Yeah. Who Who is it bothering because there's a house there, but the guy's paying the taxes. He's paying the town.

More kids going to school and he's still paying taxes on it. What's the issue? It's an eyesore driving by. What? No, it's not just eyes. The these are properties that are bringing down property values for the neighboring houses. And I'm also worried about squatters when we squatters and so maybe they squatter in any of the big light's not going to throw squatters out. Number one, they can't even throw a squatter out. He breaks in your house tonight. Say cops come and say, "Yeah, he lives here." Look what what is it where I well I voted against this on this discussion of a limited amount of people in the town to a decision. What what has to be done? Well, if the board if the board decides to move this forward, it'll be at the town meeting and um we will either we have a we have a we're still waiting to find out because the tabulators are changing for the election. So, we don't know how many questions we can have on our referendum ballot. So, depending on how many questions we can have on the ballot, this will either be voted at at the town meeting or on the referendum. I thought you here at certain times down for the voting. Yeah. When when can you propose that? This will be as this is the um everything we're talking about today is for the town meeting which is on May 20th and then and then it would stay down through the year until we finally get to the point we No, it'll be voted on either at the town meeting on May 20th by vote. That's a That's a legalbody. That's May 20th. So, it'll either be voted on then or it'll be voted on at a

referendum. It depends on it depends on the tabulators. town should put a big adap so everybody knows we will if the board decides to move forward with this ordinance that it'll be that's how it'll be handled it's not in fact we know that I mean that's we want the town to make a decision as long as they have a right to see it totally as reported on the county overwhelmingly no. We we we can hear that loud and clear. It's we Jim and I just both felt the need that we had to do something because our options were limited on what we could do for the blighted properties that are around town. So, we're trying to come up with something that we can do and we hear now 15 properties or however many you said there were. How many of those 15 property owners have been sent letters right now? One. Well, because we can only hand like as far I mean just send a letter or have a conversation or stop by and say hey bud or hey whoever or say to pay it's too much to go after all of them at once. I didn't say go after just a courtesy letter say hey guys can somebody do something or what's going on? Does somebody need help? Maybe it's an elder person that can't take care of it themselves. Maybe there's some other circumstances. I mean, these conversations aren't Yeah. The the overwhelming majority of the properties, again, 10 to 15 or so are they are no one is living in them. The owners do not live in town. They don't even live in Connecticut, but they're paying taxes. But they're paying taxes. But when you say when you say paying taxes, you own residential property, right? Probably like a lot like mine. You're paying $4,400 a year in property tax. Okay. If you have if you have a shack and it's appraised at next to nothing, you are paying property taxes too, but

you're not paying 4,400. Maybe you're just paying something crashing back couple hundred bucks. And you leave this blighted structure there that maybe bring kids in who might cause problems, start a fire, do drugs, whatever. Maybe attractive enough so that squatters move in. Yeah, they're paying taxes, but they're not carrying the burden that you're carrying. Yeah, but that's not that's not your guys' business. That's that homeowner's business. Actually, we're the governing board of the town. We're we're not telling you what we're going to do. We're suggesting to the town. The town gets to vote on this. And if the town turns it down, fine. Enjoy looking at the post office. So, are the are the neighbors complaining about these houses? The 10 to 15 They're complaining. Have they gone over there? They can't say anything or talk to them or there's no one there. There's no one living in these houses. Safety issues. I mean, are there on some of these houses? There are more likely than not there are safety issues. What's the safety? The fire department will not allow their men to go inside the building. I'm very interested in the house 49. No, they do not exhale. that owns the house on 49. I know on the same side that Dennis lives on a lot of things. The house se you got Dennis's house, you got the driveway, then you got that house. Nice house right there with the turn around. Spalding house. You see the Spalding's house, the people that own Rhode Island. I mean, have you sent them a certified letter asking them if they could sell the property and do something with it? But it's a fire. I know who it is. Even a shirt. I know exactly what it is. talking to contact. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't mind trying to buy that property. So, that point just to your point, it's my point

auction. I see this more than anything is simply being a lever to get somebody off their duck. Either remediate the problem, right? Correct it, fix it, or tear it down. And if you don't, there's a financial penalty to encourage you to decide, okay, I don't want to deal with this problem. I'm going to sell it to you and you can deal with it. But look, there's ways to do it without a blind. That's what I'm You got in your head. You're dead set wanting Mr. B. Yes, you're going to put it out to the public. Thank God. That's what I without the penalty base. How do we implement it? But you don't get a penalty. So I have a piece of property. Say I live in Florida. I have a piece of property here. You guys are putting the blank ordinance on it or whatever. And I'm like, I don't care. Whatever. We're going to go to court. It's going to cost the town $150,000 to get rid of my house now because it's got asus and lead and all of that stuff and getting rid of demo at that price. It's ridiculous. I don't know if you guys know how much it is, but it is ridiculous. I'm going to get a piece of property now that's leveled. Great. Got foundation. I'm going to build now. You just made my profit and I'm not going to sell it. I'm going to keep the house. You guys just made my property nice and clean for me to keep it there for another 30, 40, 50 years and put a nice house on it. Get it? It's going to get a nice house on it, but you guys paid to do it or we all paid to do it. Do you know what I'm saying? What if it cost the town $150,000 to clear to demo somebody's house? They'll put a lean on it and the town won't get the property. You won't get the property until I sell it. You won't get the money back. Yeah, but if they did anything to act for the town, there would be a lean. Yeah, but you won't the town won't get the money, but we won't see a dime of that until it's sold in 20, 30, 40 years. Yeah, you won't understand while the interest collects it 28% or whatever the town's getting at percent and a half a month on whatever they're owed. I know, but it costs us now for future dollars that who knows when we would ever see cost who now who wants to spend this money. Does anybody

want to spend this money for this? And how much does it cost you to send a letter to all these property? You said she sent me only one. you think would love to 14. And you know what? Before we go any further, maybe Tracy, you can take a minute to explain the steps that we've taken with that particular property on the letter. That's one particular property you had a problem with. I understand. I'm just saying this is representative of everybody saying you can do this with one is not representative of the 15 you're talking. There's always a bad I'm saying that it's representative what we expect of what I would expect to happen. So what did we do? We sent letters. Send one. Yeah. Tax letters went out to everybody. We incorrect numbers as well. But like I said, what's the issue? Just because a house looks ugly and it's run down. Is there a safety issue? I mean, what's what's the issue? Who's to say what the issue is? Because I don't like looking at it in my neighbor's house. I don't like looking at it. So, I'm going to get the BL enforcement go over there and find the guy. You know, we we had also had a concern that people would use the sass of people, right? My suggestion, it's simply been fine. You have a filing fee. if you want to make a complaint against we can't do that your neighbor so on and we decided we couldn't do that but I thought that you know having a filing fee to make a complaint would keep somebody who's a bad why the town triple permitting fees can't say because we could talk about this all night but we still have a lot of stuff to talk I'm watch um the town meeting. Um it'll be there'll be two votes about this at the town meeting. There'll be one do does the um blight ordinance um yes or no per ordinance and then yes or no for an additional um $300,000 added on to the um proposed

budget to fund it. to fund it. May 20th per year have to rent over here like 300 33,000 in the proposed budget. So approximately added on tax. to more people voted down people that are in this town. It doesn't take 1100 more. No people are at the meeting. So represent the town. Yes. That's the way the town meeting works. Yes. And sometimes the town meetings we have as low as 20 people show up. Sometimes we've got 100 plus. depends on the issues that are being discussed. I'm going to predict that you're going to be 100 plus. I I hear you. You tell all your friends today. Yes. We proposed a couple of years ago for um was it changing the the alcohol? No, for

it was for control or something on and we got a lot of people hearing and vote to vote because they were like, "Yeah, too many people don't like this. We're just not going to move it forward." I'll see all you till May 20th. Then I'll see you on June 3rd for the referendum. if it goes forever. So, thank you all very much for showing up. I mean, there's still more to the meeting if you want to stay, but thanks for showing up and making yourself here loud and clear. We'll move on to the parking or the parking. I'll vote against I'll buy you a beer. Right. I'll see you then. And I will gladly have a beer with you. Now the parking um the parking regulations are um put in place for safety for safety reasons. Um these are so that we can um send citations to people. Now, these are when they're um when they're when they're in here, it talks about um tickets coming from the board of selectmen, that makes them citations, not motor vehicle tickets. So, they're not they're not tickets that show up on motor vehicle records. If they're if we're giving them if the police are called and the police give them, then they are motor motor vehicle. Yeah. We're in parking. We're in parking. So, um these are for the um for the parking regulations that are violated and they're and they're fined by the board selectman. Like I just said, they're citations. Um these are for um we've been having issues um for snow. Um it's a safety issue when the plow can't get through and have to go

around. Um so it'll be done then. uh for winter parking. This is just so that like when we have when the flood crews have to go out, when the flood crews have to go out for a storm um in the morning or late at night, it's just so when we have a um a snow a snow parking ban that people aren't parking overnight. Um and even just from November 1st to April 30th, they just know not to park in case it snows or gets icy or for whatever reason. And um it's just also because our town roads are are really narrow roads and if people are parking if people are parking and the vehicles in the roads then um it's hard for emergency vehicles to get through. So that's the purpose of this ordinance. It's just to uh keep safe and it would only um really be enforced if there's a problem. Make sure ambulance can get to every door. Yeah. Make sure the roots could be cleared so the ambulance Yeah. that unbended circle. It's a really tough I have a hard time getting my in my parents' driveway a lot of times. So I don't understand. So primarily win when you're talking about winter snow removal or is this like these parking these parking regulations will be in place all year. Um but wait the biggest problem we have right now is just for is winter and snow. Just just question in a situation where like say you've got a home where there's a big party going on. You've got a lot of people but you don't have enough space to park them in your car. As long as they're make as long as they're not blocking the road so that they picture a fire truck like if a fire truck can get through then you should be good. Okay. But also by truck 12 full 12 feet. But also it could be a problem too if um depending on the the sight lines of where the party is. I' I've actually had to have people move

before because if they're having a party at their house and their house is like in between corners and cars are in the way so that if you just have to think safety wise if they're going to cause a car accident because someone's trying to go around and there's oncoming traffic. um that's it's only going to be enforced if those issues are in place. Well, it's and there's complaints on it. This just gives us us um enforcement because we don't really besides calling the state police and having them come if it's really hard to get them to come and enforce anything on the town roads um because we don't have a resident trooper. Um if we had a resident trooper then we probably wouldn't have a parking regulation. So who actually in the town this would be complaints to the board of selectment. So it would be um usually what happens especially like with the snow with the snow at night public works will take a picture of the plate of the car and they'll be like this car is in the way. Can you contact the property owner? So that's how it would be. It would be pictures of license plates or pictures of cars in front of properties and that's how it would be informed. I'm not going to show that people's houses. We're not hiring anyone to drive around town as the parking enforcement official yet. Uh so that's the um parking regulation. Does anyone have any questions on those? Any other questions? So now we're on to the budget. So this year we um had a couple of interesting things with our budget. Um it was a reval year. On the back you can

see the numbers. if they're kind of small, but um so the total real estate um values for for um last year's grand list, GL brand list, that's the way that we figure out the budget is the grand list is the total value of everyone's properties in town um and land. And uh so we assess our taxes off of the brand list and we and our budget um the taxes are what pays for what's in our budget. Um so you can see the difference from since we had the reval the property difference went up on the grand list 534 54%. um housing values increased a lot as you all noticed with your assessments. I noticed it with mine as well. Um and so that's what happened with the rebal. But we're also facing another challenge with motor vehicles. Um most people will notice um the state is assessing motor vehicles differently this year. um instead of going by the blue book value, which was a lot of times crazy. Um it's if anyone that had trucks has noticed in the past couple years, it doesn't matter how old or what your truck looks like. Um the tax probably went up on it um because it was assessed by the Kelly um blue book value and now they are moving to MSRP. Yeah. So, so sticker price that nobody ever paid in the first place except for 2020. But but it's a data point that they can stick to that will reverse the trend of taxes going up on older vehicles and then they depreciate it. Exactly. And then there's a depreciation schedule

based off of the MSRP. So we are going to be losing revenue of it over $5 million based on almost% based on the the um lower value of the vehicle. So, um, that was the state's idea to do that without giving the town, and I they know full well that the towns get all of their money towards their budgets, pretty much all of it. We do get some revenue from the state, but everyone knows that's not much either, um, from property tax. And the governor is constantly saying that he's going to lower taxes this, lower taxes that, but they then they pass things without compensating the towns for loss of what they're passing. So the $5 million we're losing, which is good because everyone's taxes are going down, but also we're losing the revenue. But we're but we're making up some of that revenue. Well, pretty much all of that revenue we're making up because everyone's property went up. So they both moved. But those were some of the things we had. Other towns that did not have uh revals are just taking hits on. So um the rebal suck, but in other ways they they helped us with our taxes and that. Um so that's one of the changes with the reval and the car taxes. Um, so as far as our budget goes, we did have some increases this year. Um, and the biggest areas are in public safety and in our elderly services. Um for public safety, [Music] uh so for public space day, one of the

biggest places that we're looking at um is in emergency responders. We currently have um two, excuse me, paid staff for their town paid staff for EMT and fire. We have two paid staff on five days a week. Um we have been requested by the fire department to go to seven days a week. Um it's getting harder um to find volunteers to respond to calls and um the the volunteers we do have are um aging out and it's getting harder for them to um to do what they've been doing for in most cases 20 to 25 30 years. Um and we're not getting to volunteer. The average age of our fire department is 1450. No. No. Was it 57? 57. So that's who they're doing a great job, but how much longer can average age 57 year olds be charging into a burning home to try and save them? So they're just not getting young kids, you know, out of high school. Kids just aren't interested. So this in this budget we are um proposing to add the um the the two people for Saturday and Sunday during the day which will help a lot. That's where insurance. Yeah. And um so that was the public safety and then for the elderly services we have an increased we have a huge need for elderly

transportation. Um that we currently have we have a program currently. Um we received our um senior van um that we got for free from grants and um we have people calling and waiting to get this van going and we get a $21,000 grant from the state to run it. and it's a matching grant. So, we need another 20,000 um to match it, which gives us um almost or pretty much all the money that we need to get the main going. So, it's a huge need. Our our population in town is um is the highest. Yeah, the highest population is the senior population and the senior population is living long living longer and this um transportation is very very beneficial for people aging at home. So we have a lot you have somebody that drive who drive the van. We haven't we we haven't um hired anyone yet and we're we're in the process right now of hiring um an agent for the elderly who it's going to be a part-time position and they're going to be in charge of the scheduling and um hopefully when we get them hired they'll help us hire and train and and make the bus the drivers. Yeah. Can one of like can a bus one of the bus drivers drive that bus? Yeah. Okay. They actually have a list of retired and bus drivers who are ready to go. They need to have CDL, right? Um, not for that. They don't need that one. But it's a a smaller bus, so it doesn't need. So, it's it's not much bigger than the one that the the wheelchair van that the school uses. And I know from talking

to the bus drivers that they do not need a CDL for the driver of the wheelchair van. So, so does anyone have any specific questions about the budget? If you can get a copy, they're on the table over there. Anybody need a copy? What is the total revenue that this takes in? Um, yeah, that we we we don't know 100% what that actual amount's going to be yet until the state passes their budget. But Julie is our finance director and she can explain that to Anita. We follow this budget. are falling within what we're taking in. We're not like will we go up? Yeah. The schools um we don't have the schools budget yet. They're expected to go up about 150 grand right now which is March. So it'll be close to a mill in a perfect year without a rebal it would have gone up but with the rebal it's actually going to go down seven. So it's actually going up technically three mills taxes. No, it's going it's wring a bigger check. It's going up if there was no rebell going up this year. But with the rebell the mill rate actually going down because a mill is now a higher higher number call whatever whatever math we want. It still would rate a check for more. It'll be it'll be it'll be a little more for for most people. We don't we can't we can't figure out the exact we can give you last year the mill rate was um 29.33. If the school and the budget stay the same rate would be 21.75. So if you have that chart with

So there's a chart in the back with the mill rates on it. It shows what the mill rates were from 2017 till the proposed one. Julie, could you just read those out your just me read any of it? 2017 we're 29 45 then we went to 28.92 29 21 29 21 2807 then we don't went down to 2777 stayed the same for the next year last year 29 24 and now we'll be down to 2172 so when was the last reval was the light blue one um 212 is the last year. Yes. lower lower rate. Yeah. So, we're still waiting on the school budget and we're still waiting for the revenue, the anticipated revenue. So, we don't So, we don't know if this proposed budget is going to fall under what you you expect to take in. Um this the budget that we're talking about right now is we're talking about the spending part of it. Um for the revenue, what we're looking at from the state right now, they haven't actually passed anything yet. So we don't know if it's 100% what's going to happen, but right now we're looking that they're holding us farm list for the we're the ETS funds

that they were going to cut. Um we were we were anticipated to be cutund about 117,000 I think and this year and also next year in ECS funds which together they're almost a millilate but um last I heard they we were going to be held harmless again. So for the next two years we wouldn't that wouldn't be a cut so we'd be fine there. Um, we they from the other estimates I've seen, these are all things that have passed appropriations, but they haven't voted on them in the House or the Senate yet. So, the governor hasn't done anything, so we don't know. Um, the pilot funding is the same. Um, and I think we actually had an increase in um, county roads by over 50 grand. So the the revenue that we're looking at from the state has us up is up from last year. So we're not anticipating any cuts to her. So do you know if they'll make decisions before we vote on our budget? Um they should. So it's the state we I know. Don't hold your breath. I know. Trust me. We're not we're not anticipating a loss in revenue from the city. Um if there if there is anything um we're hoping to hear from it before we vote, but we can always do um supplementals if anything happens, but we're not we're not anticipating. The town budget and the school budget is voted for separately at the meeting and we are moving we are for sure moving the budget parts to referendum. So those will be voted on referendum either. There's um the school budget, the town budget, and the capital project budget, which if no one has any other questions about the budget, we can

move on. And when the vote comes for all this, we can vote on everything. The all residents get to vote. Now, what about property owners that live out of town? They can vote on these matters as well. They can if they certain amount in taxes they pay. What's the number on that? I think it's a thousand. I think it's a thousand. Over $1,000. You can vote. Yeah. If you're a property owner and they just come in, it's a referendum. So, they just come, they'll be on a list. They just come in with their ID like they But like I said, last year only 125 of them total payment all day. I hope not. It's boring. We stay here all day. So, please come visit us. Yeah. And um so the capital improvement plan um the money for the capital improvement plan is money that we already have. So it's not it doesn't come from taxes. It's money that we have in our um general fund and we're just assigning it to projects. Um so what we're um recommending is a total of $300,000. Um, and it would be uh $200,000 for public works, which is our match for a steep grant that we applied for. Uh, we we were supposed to find out today if we got that grant or not, and we did not. So, find out or we didn't get it. We didn't find out. Said we didn't get Oh, did I? Well, no, we didn't get an answer. I think we didn't get it. But to be clear, we didn't get an answer. We don't know yet. Don't know yet. you on what I printed out that was on the town's website the other day. It was in the town hall. There was dog fund and IT computer upgrades. They did that all about dog fund. It's not there now. Weed at the last meeting. So I don't know.

Well, the computers we need um our firewall at the end of life. But the uh the dog fund the dog fund we have decock is fired to take care of our services and we have to pay them um certain amounts we have to fund that yeah we changed yeah the move from here to the budget and I'm just curious the public works portion what is that for 200 000. The 200,000 is a steep grant. We applied for a steep grant, a million dollar grant um to do um drainage, uh culverts and road work on Congen Road um it's a for it's a million dollar grant and the town has to put $2,000 towards it,000,000. Yeah. When I looked on the Oh, so you actually get a million dollar. You got a million dollar. So we have to put $200,000. Will we get 800,000 is pretty much Okay. Okay. 1.2 but we put in 200. We put in 200 to get that million dollar grant on the So the project's 1.2 the policy management the paperwork from there says it's recommended but it's not required or preferred but not required to put in 20%. We in the application we said we put into 100,000 most of the time you won't get the grant if you go for the anybody take a shot and try it and I mean the roads already if we do that then we miss the entire cycle. It's not like we can amend it. It would be we don't get that million dollars and we have to wait another year. This is our best shot to get it. 500,000. We've never had grant a million dollars. This is our best shot at get one of the roads done. We don't we don't we don't want to put a million dollars in the budget for everybody to pay for to do a road. Our roads are significantly under our shot of getting a road down

that we did not pay. And this is for what road? Yeah. Yeah. Roads aren't cheap. Okay. What's the one down the road? 3 mill 3 million for that down the road. 38 million. And there's what? 30 37 miles of town road 20 29. So there's 29 miles of town road. So it's a million dollar just for Compton Road, which is what makes it really a lot for the amount of rain that we've been getting. So these are the capital projects. the 200,000 for the skate. Um 40,000 for the fire alarm at the school. It It needs to be completely red on over there. Um 40,000 towards an ambulance. We've been putting money towards it um every year. Uh we're going to need new ambulance within probably a couple of years. And and the price of the ambulance was what? 400K. Yeah. closer to a couple years it's gonna be 800. Yeah. So, so we do things like that for 40k per year away for it. And Jody said it takes like three years old. Yeah. that um and then the computer upgrades. Um the computers are just at their end of life and need to be repaired. That's where we are voting for the money for and that's all unless anyone has any other questions about anything. So the 20th at the school. Yeah, 20. Oh,

these are grants that we that we have gotten. Um, we had the 21,165. That's the money I was talking about for senior transportation. We put on the right then we and the Portill Bridge project that we're working on with the DOT, that's 5.5 million at present. um the condent road million dollars that we're still waiting to hear about. Um the community connectivity grant um that's what we're working on for sidewalks and the Connecticut transportation rural improvement program that sidewalks too. the community connectivity the walking track and sidewalks around making they came this area around Gate Street and um all the way down sidewalks in so that people can walk from like the park to the brewery the town like we're trying to make it safe for people to get around the town and um the community investment fund water study is they're currently studying to see if it's feasible to um put in community wells. Uh one um in the downtown area here and one um down in the Bennett Circle area so that um though the properties are small in both areas so that people can um take the wells off their property and have more room to improve their um sewer and pool. And um that's what the project is. We're still waiting to see if that's even possible because we're trying to find places. Now, if there is a community water any place, is that something that would be town owned or No, no, no. There's already one community well in town on um Valley Drive. Thank you. Thank everybody

water owns on the rights to have so that 250 has to study to see if it's possible to see if it's possible. So when is the construction going to start on board road? Um that is looking to start in April of 2026 I think is when we actually start doing stuff. They're still one question on the road. We where they what do you want to put them? We're still trying to figure out where to put them because uh 250,000 figure it out. Let me ask you this question. that we're gonna we have to do test wells to see if the area that we're looking at can even get the they need the water pressure and like all this scientific. Let me ask one question. Yeah. Does uh Bronson's stump have a liner on it. Oh, I don't know. No, but that's not where we're looking. We're looking We're looking behind the school. How do they say stuff flows downhill? What acupers are very different. Yeah, they're saying be very precise and there have to be a lot of different studies done because you have a super fund right in your backyard. Yeah. But remember stuff with dumping air more toxics than you could think of back in the 50s and 60s and 70s. But that's one thing to just keep in mind about where that dump is where you put them. Well, the spot we're looking at or the um one up here is behind probably like more behind the housing authority. There's town property back there. So, that's where we're looking to test probably circle. Yeah. And then circle circle path there. We're talking about two different Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I was confused. Yeah, that would cost a lot. Yeah.

So, we're just in the study phase of that and and that would be if they if it ends up feasible for either of them, it would be grandfunded because there's no way these are able to pay for. So, these are all grants that we've applied for and gotten except for the million. This print we haven't heard yet. We were we were really supposed to have known by today. So that's why we had it up there. Hopefully we'll find out. Thank you. And if not then we can uh take it out for you. We have [Music] other questions. Thank you. Well, if this budget doesn't pass, is there is the idea of the cuts that will take? Um, if it doesn't pass, then we would have to get together and decide what's cut out. Um, I don't know what that would be. We don't want to cut public services. So the what we don't know if we would start with what's proposed and take it out which would be the fire department staff or system the senior services that's a different that's a different budget I realize that a great but if this budget doesn't pass we can't cut the school budget for that to pass they both have to they're two separate ones one could pass and one could fail y 15% of main reason the budget is just the publication. That's what we'd have to consider. Yeah. And the vote on May 20th, that's all you're open already or May 20th. Is that

town that that's a town meeting? 6 p.m. Oh, all right. The town meeting at 7 and and the vote is from 12 to 8, I 12 to 8 is the referendum. June June 3rd, the meetings May 20th, vote 30. Yeah. Yep. Is there a possibility? And depending on whether or not May 20th, the new voting machines can handle more than a certain number of items. How many questions we can have on the ballot? So, we may be voting on the um the ordinances at the town meeting rather than referendum. So just make sure everyone's fully aware. Yes, the budgets definitely will be at reference. I think it's easier for everyone to vote that way. Well, it's preference to have everything. It would be, but if we can't do it on the if we can't do it on the machine, then we can waiting to hear back from the fabulator company. It's a new company. So, if this was an election year, we would only be able to No. So, yes, it's a different ballot. It's a yes and no ballot, which we have. State of Connecticut got new tabulators this year. We haven't even used them yet. Um, God help us. So, we're not sure because it's a totally different system than what we used to have. When we asked them about putting yes and no questions on it, they were kind of like, uh, what do you mean? What's because they didn't know what a referendum was because a lot of states don't have them. A lot of towns don't have referendums. They don't a lot of times we don't vote on your budget. The board of whatever finances does it and you just go with whatever they say. though they were waiting to hear back on whether or not we could do yes and no questions and how many we can put on there.

Yeah, they'll be like those ballots are set up differently. It's just we don't know if they'll they can set up. Yeah, because when you vote for for offices there's like you check you just check bubbles. You're not doing yes or no. Reinventing the wheel. So, when you do go to vote, take the two seconds to read the machine because it's all new machinery. You have to literally look at the machine and watch what it says because it will say to you your ballot is casted or you overvoted or you undervoted. Do you still want to cast it? You have to say yes or no. You can't just put it in the loop and walk away. It's all new. Kind of puts it on you guys instead of on us if the ballot is left there. For anyone that doesn't know, Belinda is one of our registars. She's been going to a lot of training about Yeah. So, any other questions you guys? We've got one more item that we want to make sure we hit. Volunteers. We need volunteers. So, if anyone's looking for any way to get involved, um we have the farmers market and recreation events, um boards and commissions. It's an election year, so if you're interested in anything, um you can we we have vacancies. You don't have to wait until November. You can look at what vacancies are available. Um EBC has vacancies. Whichever the boards planning and zone I don't know. I haven't seen I don't think planning zoning plenty of opportunities. There's there's at least four open positions right now on boards and commissions that we could just fill if someone wanted to volunteer for it and then you could run in the election. the historic and if you're interested in and holding an office over the for the election um get in touch with um the Republican if you're Republican or Democrat or unaffiliated. If you're a Republican or Democrat, there's a Republican town committees and Democratic town

committees. They have meetings regularly. Um you can ask me or anyone when the next meeting is for anything and we'll let you know. Um they're usually um try to get them on the website or on the c they're on the calendar at least. Um the historical society needs members, friends of the library, um the fire department as we mentioned before and um and they need younger people. Well, she's clear. One more Memorial Day. Oh yeah, the Memorial Day committee. We need help with the Memorial Day parade. So and that's it. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming. Thank you. Thank you. It over there. Thanks, too. inside.