Select Board - Regular Meeting

Liter to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, Sean, would you like to make a motion? Yeah. Make sure I'm reading the right spot. Oh, just reminding him. Uh, I do. Where am I reading it from? It's right here, right? Yeah. Right. Right on the inside. It should be on the inside.

Yeah. No, that one doesn't. Okay. So

it it is, but you have to word it your way. All right. Hey, you do it and I'll I'll I'll All right. Oh, and yeah. So basically say I make a motion to seal the non publicly. Okay. Make sure as session affect. Okay. All right. So yes, I'm learning. Yes. Make sure you say the first session because we will have a second session tonight. Okay. So, I want to make a motion to uh uh seal the non-public minutes uh indefinitely from the first session that we had earlier tonight uh because they could uh adversely affect the reputation of any person other than the member of this board. I have a second.

Uh motion by John, second by Shawn to seal the minutes of the earlier non-public session of tonight's meeting. All those in favor I

Any opposition? The eyes have it. Uh for those of you watching at home, we are continuing our work session. Uh that was supposed to only last till 6:30, but it's going to take a little bit longer. So, and then we will continue with the rest of the agenda from there. So, back to Chief Lash to discuss the um fire department capital reserve funds accounts. Yeah. Sorry. So, just to to John's point though, what he's saying, right, is is what I think he's saying is the way we do things allows us to even have this revenue because if we didn't,

it would be a loss of say $270,000 in revenue and then funding the $230,000 that we produce from the tax, right? That that's that's basically the point. So that's why I don't look at it as a loss in revenue. I think I think that's it's an income source that we're allocating to do equipment replacement, right? And instead of paying interest on bonds, but make a little bit of interest off it.

That's correct. Listen, I still think there's a lot to do in, you know, as you pointed out the point that I was making about the when you said 500,000. I just in my head I really want to make sure that we've accounted for. So basically anybody that has or any of the funds that we have from a savings perspective, whatever we're savings for, we just want to make sure we can articulate here's the replacement cycle of the thing, whatever the thing is, right? Like it's because it's unless we say as a community we want to change the service levels where we want fewer fire trucks. Okay. But still we're a community of 3,000 people with this many buildings and we you know our requirement is is X, right? So that that's the Anyway.

Okay. I basically spent the last month having a emotional meltdown in breaking uh meltdown about the cost of replacing this godforsaken fire apparatus. The engine with the ladder. I I just can't wrap my head around that. Um, but we do have, you know, as as as you said, as long as we agree that this is a level of service that we're going to provide to people in this town, and I think it is, we have to find a way, we have to find a way to pay for it, right?

Um, I have not always been a fan of the capital reserve funds, but I've come around on them. Um I just that's a big bite. It's hand sanitizer. Yeah, that's that's a big bite. Take that much revenue out of the out of the ridiculous. Yeah. Now the only other thing that was interesting uh chief was you have on here on the sheet the starting balance of 73k in the water art proposal doc it says our 2024 balance which fund the fire equipment capital reserve different that's different

um all right so I'm blending the two when we talk about the 500,000 I thought we were just saying you want to change SRF that's ambulance revolving Y that's different than this fire equipment. This is different. So, but it but but that would drop down to say 50. Yeah. Instead of a 180, right? Yeah. And we have effectively like 450 coming from building revenues going into into now revolving into Oh, I see. So, we're we're lowering this. We're not we're it's not lowering the ambulatory revolving fund in favor of this. It's the other way around because of the way it operates. Right. Right. Okay.

If you're looking at these sheets when you're looking at it on the computer, right, it makes more sense. There's probably a label that could be on here. The first, right, it says change SRF to include fire apparatus, retain and fund CRF. The first table from 25 to 20 is the is the SRF. That's not actually the right label for it, but it's easier to call it that. The second one is with the capital reserve fund which is that I had 431. I guess the exact balance is 426. So that's the two different funds and then the funding strategy to meet those needs. And then again that last one's just the total take the total and that's what the tax impact is every year.

Yeah. So right now what we're saying is instead of the 180, this is where you were saying earlier about instead of 180 make it 50 and basically instead of having it as a reserve fund here, we're going to keep it all in SRF. No, you'll still have the capital reserve fund. The trustees handle the capital reserve funds and the treasurer handles the uh revolving funds. So okay, so you'll still have two separate funds. This number, by the way, is going to drop. Um my new estimated number is 379605. So in the fire equipment I'll thickness but right one year what I have that coming out. Oh is that that's got to be the compressor that we just approved. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. All right. I'm better now.

Yeah. Sean, I agree. I hate it. I think it's crazy. I mean at the end of the day the prediction was we would be somewhere in the $700,000 neighborhood. So, I mean, when you're getting to that point, what's another 300 grand? But, um, yeah, it's it's time and space. It's this rev group issue that again, Congress is doing whatever Congress does and maybe they'll, you know, fix it a little bit or something. Um, and then it's just the changing kind of the changing world that we live in. And, uh, this isn't certainly just to be known, right? This isn't we're not looking at a million-dollar fire truck cuz we are like, "Yeah, we're going to buy the Pierce or the Sutbin or the Rosen, you know, the high-end." But this is still two of the, you know, kind of more bluecollar community manufacturers that are competing at that price. Cuz if we were going to those manufacturers, we would be $1.3 million. We know that cuz we have a bid from them of $1.3 million. So, um, the other benefit here and and doing it this way and obviously the not financing it thing is is a big benefit, but is it opens up the door to conversations that we've had at the department, Rob and I have had of, you know, and I can't sit here today and say that there's going to be an offer to replace engine 2 as a used, you know, piece of apparatus that we can, you know, find the right deal on. Um, for a number of reasons. one cuz the used market is super crazy as you can imagine just like it is in any other vehicles. The other side of it is is as your primary attack truck you really you know it's it's tough to say oh we can concede on that for 10 or 15 years of use. I really think and I think it's going to make a sense a lot of sense to really be looking at the the used ladder truck

market when that comes due. So, at least if nothing else, when that come, you know, when that time comes at $2 million and maybe four or five years down the road, you're planning on increasing that a lotment and you spend one six or five or four or seven on a on a replacement. Now, you can forego that for a couple years. you know, this will be a a work and living document, but it opens up those possibilities versus saying, "Yeah, well, this is what we know we're going to do, and we're going to finance new trucks at 2 million and $3 million down."

Okay. So, logistics, if we if we put that on the um warrant to change that, do we also have a warrant article to to buy the truck or do we you wouldn't have to because then you'd have next year $500,000 that you could put down on a new truck,

right? probably at some if it were to move forward then in all likelihood at some point over the next year we would come forward with whatever that low bid is and say it's time to sign a purchase agreement and then we would have that right that discussion around you know what do an early chassis payment we would not be in the boat to pay for the whole thing up front I can guarantee that um but that early chassis payment right now looks like it's probably like a $50 to $60,000 savings over the overall number. So that's real money, right? Um I have that kind of worked into this price right now. So it's not going to make these numbers look any better, but um yes, it does allow you to do that. Should the town, whether this group or the town at town meeting not want to move forward with that plan, it starts to put us pigeonhold toward financing and bonding. And we absolutely by 2027 have got to have engine 2 ordered. one, we're just going to continue to see ridiculous price increases, but two, it's going to take, we've got to plan on it taking four years. Hope that it takes three or 30 months and know that it may take a little bit longer than four years, but it's uh you know,

it's also going to fail in that point in time at some point. It in all likelihood is so the sooner we can at least have the truck on order, the far better off we are. whether it's a pump or it's going to be a good public not you know I think I think the thing is is and you know it's definitely a goal of mine there's a total cost of ownership that you can argue about an individual piece of equipment but honestly I think you can almost go by department right like so I don't know the overall fire budget's roughly 1 n 2 million

2 million yeah Right? So, it's around $2 million. Okay? So, again, you start to look at that at the overall piece of the budget. Again, it's a services conversation. Mhm.

You know, I've not met a single person from a community side that said, "No, no, no, we don't we don't want to have that, right?" Like they right all I think there's tremendous support. It's incredibly important to us. It's why I asked the question about the 500 where is it 550? Like just making sure we have everything properly categorized. That way we go in and go, "This is what it costs to run this department." Okay, fine. You didn't want to do ambulatory services. Well, guess what? If we got out of that business, you're now going to make up the difference because it's not like we're going to we're not going to have an engine two and it's not like we're not going to have a bladder truck. Mhm. So, that that's sort of the to me that's sort of the put and take char.

I'm good with making the change. We can avoid interest. So, we'll confirm the wording um with the attorney and the DRA and get that added in here. Then, no, at the end of the day, it's the best value for the town to provide the best service.

Anything else? I don't think so. That's all I want to have to deal with this year. Focus on those numbers in my mind. Can we There's one more thing for Ben real quick just because he's here. That's okay with you. Yes. Um on the if we skip um article X9 is police reporting that we're not putting it on for radios. So that will come off. I just texted and found out. Um article 10 is your capital reserves. Question on the fire equipment. This says 180. If we are going to do this um change the ambulance revolving fund, what would this number? Doesn't that drop to 50? To 50 then is that?

Yeah. And then based on what happens, we might amend it afterwards. Okay. So, why would we drop an X9? Um he he's looking into lease options. Okay. And I said that if it's anything over a year, he still has to submit it before the board, but it doesn't necessarily need to be a warn article if it's in his budget. So, does it make sense to I don't know, chief, if you want if if you should meet with CI U planning board, CIP and budget committee just to just to go, okay, hey, just to lay this out, here's what we discussing.

We'll present these draft we present these warrant articles to budget committee anyway. Okay. Um, so I have to present the draft and then they come in for the public hearing usually and present. All I'm saying is is you know this particular piece is I mean intricate draft. It's a big Yeah. You know what I mean? Because this is a change in operating mode is really what this is. This isn't a hey, we want to save this much. It's a we're doing it this way. Here's how we're fun. I'm having problems over here. Um, I'm going to I'm I might actually have Ben come when I do the draft because I think it would be a good conversation at the draft level. Yes.

Before they vote on it. So, if Ben was agreeable to that. So, have to check the schedule. I see you. Okay. Um, and then the rest are

Joanne's here for public, but she's also um wanted to talk to you about I didn't change it. Yeah, I did. Um, so next one's under X10, which is the capital. Yeah, we did the others. Um, under capital reserves, um, accured wages, I left it at 25, which was last year. I didn't change it. Um, we had the um, assessment. So Julian and I reviewed the assessment capital reserve together. We're down to $8,000, but we may have to spend that 8 most of that $8,000. Um we're reviewing we have to talk about meet tomorrow sometime and talk about it. We've got a a bill from the assessment company saying they didn't bill us right over the past four year cycle

and it's like what is it $14,000? Yeah. Um it can't obviously all come out of the capital reserve and we are going to dispute some of that because I don't understand I'm going to check the past contract.

Um but not worrying about that if you just look at our contract with the and Julian you you want to explain you can I can jump in but the contract total for the next reval is $217,000. So even if you divide that out, it ends up being roughly 434. So we left we decided to put it back to what it used to be in the past years which is 45,000. There will be a change potentially next year when we do when we go to not next year the year after we may have to up that number and we'll talk about that in public depending on the utility appraisal. Next year we're going out to RFP and we'll explain that more. But for now, 45 would cover the $217,000 bill that we have to pay for the next uh revaluation.

What did we have in that line last year? Um I we dropped it to 25. Okay. And the year, but the years before that, I think we've been while when I was doing it, I know we've been 45, but we've been slowly knocking it back down a little bit. And then we just got this brand new contract and the contract jumped drastically. So who found the billing error? They did. Well, yeah. And that and the conversation that we need to have um is because I I had asked for end of year billings. Yeah. Um, and this is what I do every year to to get things built from this year.

And the individual, the partner indicated that she found that in past years some things were not built, which in my opinion is Yeah. Oh, that's too bad because Yeah. something to discuss with legal. Yeah, we we'll look at the contract, see what the contract said, and see if this is over and above the contract because then I that'll be a different discussion, but we'll deal with that tomorrow.

But um even without that said, the new contract is 217,000 total. Um it's 35,000 the first four years right and 77,000 in the last year. So if we average it at 45,000, we won't deplete the account, but we'll but we will spend every penny by the fifth year except for probably what 5,000 but we are going on a few years. We did already. We already went. Yeah, we did already. We got one response sign contract, right?

So that's why we recommended 45. Um, we'll I'll change the fire equipment to 50 highway equipment capital reserve. Um, that came from CIP, but the cost of and um, and he left before we could talk to him about it, but I believe the next truck. I think I looked it up last time we talked. The next truck or the next ambulance? No, the on the highway equipment. Oh,

yeah. the that's a hund um the ne so the bigger trucks are over 200,000 um the smaller trucks are close to 100 depending on what we're getting the FI50s have been close to that so the I think we said actually it was the backhoe wasn't it yeah the backhoe is the next stop so 180 he's only got 20 roughly um actually he's got 180 99,000. It just depends on what the following year is going to be, too. You probably want to look at the two years together, right? And the next one up is another big truck. Is a big truck, right?

No, it's not. It's Victor's truck. Oh, the 550. Yeah. So, Vinnie, how much is the backo? Did we ask when we talked about this? 50 to 175. Yeah, I thought we said 175. Yeah. So, we do we do probably want to fund this then, but do we need to fund it at the 180? I don't know. That's a question. Probably when Don I was going to say, wouldn't CIP try to figure that out with the department? Well, the Don does that and Don does the that's based on his recommendations. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Um, police vehicle was taken from CIP, which is 77,000. So, and then town building maintenance. I put what we did last year was 10, but if we're looking for another building, we probably should up that number. Yes. Probably to 50. In my guess, it's 15. You know, if 10 was sufficient, we're going to be below 50. Uh, in my opinion, it needs to go to 20. Yeah, I'm good with that. Okay. How many police vehicles do we have? Um, four.

No, we have more than that. We have probably six or seven, but we have almost as many cruises as we have officers. Not quite, but close. Yes. Yep. Really? Um, worksheets. I'm going to go to the CIP and just look real quick. Um, it used to be we had basically four front line. We have seven and two. Yeah. We we ran six vehicles for a long time. We have the K9, the Chief, and then five others. Yeah. So, Yep.

You now right now you have four, I believe, four assigned. Yeah, that's it, right? Tim C9.

Okay. Um, oh, you will note at the top of the page, I move the article two is to see if the town will allow the operation of school districts. School, I keep calling them school districts, social districts in within the town of Bristol. that's going to be on the ballot. So that will be article two right before the zoning amendments. And then X1 um I got the wording straightened out with Joan and I did we went into the DR portal and um this is the shall the town adopt the provisions. So technically we have to adopt it even though we already have this um veterans credit but because the way the law is changing now we have to adopt it as the option.

So it's an optional tax credit of 2500 for the service connected total disability on residential property. And because this is not a is a non-monetary, even though it's a $2,500 credit, the only people who vote on it on the Warren article for recommendation is the board. So that's why there's only the one line. Okay. Article 12. Um Joanne and I sat down and went over these. This is the wording from the DRR. Um, one thing that Joe, um, uh, we did put in, um, one one thing that wasn't on the Excel we talked about was the breakdown of income, which currently I'm going to let you talk.

You can, you're doing a great job.

Currently, the net income is um, the same numbers that you see in this war and all of them. We're recommending keep them. And the only reason is is because the state levels are so single is like 13,000. You have to be utter poverty if you're only making 13,000 because you it'll disqualify everybody. So a single person not more than 25,000 or married 45,000. We didn't feel we needed to change those, but that would be up to you. We what we did change was the asset limits um which currently it's 40,000. So, we upped it to 70 and then we changed what it was per um category.

And that was that Excel sheet where Joanne showed you the towns. Um I don't know if you have any questions about that one. And I I did watch the meeting, the last meeting where you guys reviewed it and so forth and I'm in total agreement. You know, I don't think we want to be the highest, nor do we want to be the lowest. And in comparison, um in Grapen County, um you know, some of them are are are very low. Some have not even adopted them. Um, but I think this puts us in a much better position considering the fact too we had not done anything since in many instances since 07 or 09.

Yeah.

So, um, article 13 and again there's only the board recommendation on that one. Um, article 13 is the exemption for the disabled. Um it these um so actually third 12 13 and 15 match. So that's your disabled exemption, your deaf exemption and your elderly. They match exact they match right now exact as well. Um what happens with disabled and elderly? You can't you if you apply for both, you can't qualify for both. You can only qualify for whichever's the higher amount, but these match. So, any questions on those? Um, so article 14 is different. It's the exemption for the blind. You don't have to meet income and asset limits. You just have to be determined blind by the blind services program, which is Department of Education usually.

It's weird. The Department of Education determines that you're blind. Um, and that that was moved from 30 to 45,000. No questions. I'm just something on these. Not. Okay.

No, I mean um, you know, these are they're existing things. use this as an easy, you know, although it's a little it's a little bit a little bit monotonous because, you know, you could go through each one and you got the numbers and you explain, you know, why what changed and where it changed, but this isn't anything new. This is updating based on property values and cost of things. Yeah. Um, you know, overall I don't think it's a I don't think it's a hard sell, nor do I think it's not unwarranted. So,

I don't know if it's good. Uh, but yeah, I mean, you know, to to be fair, I know you guys put a lot of work in that. I'm not going to spend a lot of time uh breaking out each one of those and figuring out if it's a if it's the right amount or uh you know we we test task you with you know getting us there in the middle and this is one of those things that we rely on the expertise of others for. Yep.

So article 16 is I moved it to the end because I thought that's where you'd want it um that day if you're going to put it on the warrant. So the course cost discussion is it's the C pacer article. This is the wording. I've highlighted some things I need to verify what goes in those and I can if we put it on the warrant. Um I Jo I'll let Joanne speak to it because Joanne did meet with Paul Beis. Um she has done a little bit of research about the impact. I'm sorry.

Um, yes. Um, I believe Paul came before the board and and shared uh his opinion. Um, based on I think your comment to Paul was for him to set up a time for us to to chat about it to determine what the workload or impact would be to the land use team. Uh we did do that and um you know obviously no municipality has adopted this yet. It's brand new so it's hard to know what the true impact is going to be.

However um I will say based on the program um and who may want to take advantage of it, I think the impact will be very minimal. Um, and I say that because the um, business financial advis New Hampshire business financial advisory committee is really owning most of it. um the application, the processing. Um the town obviously will get involved with the assessment of the property um and applying the leans um and having it recorded with Grafton County, which is really not that unusual for things other things that we do do. Um, so again, I it's hard because, you know, I couldn't call another town and say, "Hey, what's your experience with this and is it burdensome or anything?" Um, but I do I don't think personally I think if it does make it on the Warren article um and people it does get adopted, I don't see a lot of take. Um, so I mean I'm I'm a proponent of it. You know, I think it's a good thing. Um, certainly from a economic development um perspective and maybe something to entice businesses with um for betterment or improvement. You know, Paul shared with me his example of being Otisa. you know, bronze, they've just spent all that money on the coffee shop and, you know, he says it's, you know, leaking energy and maybe that's something that they would want to consider doing is improving it, but they just don't have the capital to do it or maybe that's not

where they ultimately want to be forever. Um, so this would follow the the actual property. It doesn't follow the the owner. Um, so you know, I I don't have a lot to offer on it only because it's right there's nothing nothing out there for us to compare. My big concern with this article is that no other town has adopted this yet, right? And I'm one of those people that likes to slow play and see what happens with everybody else and make that decision. And I was the same thing. I had the same opinion with the U. Solar. What do you call 66? What's that? Pop 66.

No, the um the solar reserve and 70 uh the solar for the No, the capital. Oh, either community power or the capital community power. I was going to say fire truck. No, I was I I'd rather slow play this. Um

well and I did I did just realize so there's one part highlighted that says which shall encompass the entire area. So those words you actually have to decide where you want this encompass. I put in this and highlighted it because I I figured I'd have to ask you because it on the actual war article it says shall and end and then encompasses in parenthesis encompass the entire area within the boundaries of the so I was thinking town of Bristol or there's another spot or another spot but it doesn't tell you what to put in them but you could decide maybe it would be

like district so And under that scenario, should the planning board have input into we want this in certain zones? I don't know. I'm just, you know, for me, I know I know when I talked to Paul, I my first concern was just sort of workload. So, from your perspective right now, you're not worried about the workload. You kind of look at this and go, okay, follows the property. I know that when I went through the the documentation he presented the last time, there were a couple of spots where it's like the town is still the administer like the town still has to administer the program. It doesn't hit us financially, but we still have to do stuff. So,

right, that's what I was ultimately worried about the last time we talked about Scottish. Yeah. after the boundaries. The next highlighted area, you know, whereby properties within the boundaries of the district may find qualifying may fund qualifying improvements to real property through private lenders. This is what this says. What did I an assessment agreement that that doesn't

it says may fund qualifying improvements to real propert because they typed it wrong. Um to real property through private lenders whereby the fine Oh, I missed the sentence. That's a good point. It says whereby the financing is then secured by a special assessment lean on the property. So I got to fix that um if we put it but but so agreement between the property owner and the well I left that it's blank. It doesn't say um that's the Warren article with all these blank spaces you're supposed to fill in. I'm not clear. But that's where that's where the program goes.

I have to go read the RSA. Well, because it says you can assign. So, it does say it has to be placed on the annual warrant by the governing body. It can't be added petition, but it we still have to hold a public hearing after this even after it's voted. And then I don't have enough information at this point out. I agree. I would love to see another town do it and show us the process. you know, what do they word? Let's look at the towns that at the end of this, let's look at the towns that do it and say, okay, how did they word the document and what does it

and how much was their workload really? Right. Right. M Joanne, maybe you could talk to Paul because I know I'll say this to maybe the energy committee should um do an inventory of where we think this is and then and then sort of go to some of those property owners because it's all going to take all this going to take time anyway. We did ask him to do that already. Um but if you were going to pick a space, my recommendation wouldn't be the entire town of Bristol. Yeah. It would be maybe village commercial commercial commercial areas because this is what this is go for is

well so so that's actually my point so I don't know that I would want this available in residential zones right so we would do probably industrial and commercial and and honestly this is where the planning board would be sort of like hey guys we're thinking about this like you know it it sounds like the consensus is to hold off for you I agree I do have to let Paul Oh, I pulled um he might be watching, but I had I pulled his Buzz article because we hadn't decided to put this on the warrant yet, right? So, we won't put it in the Buzz the article, but I'll let him know that I pulled it and the board has decided not to put this on the warrant this year. Okay. And then we can have a bigger discussion with them. So,

let's move in. Oh, can you see the last question on the bottom? Does the board wish to do award article for lightning in the new municipal law or I'm getting the quote. We do have to light up the law a little bit. I haven't gotten the quote yet. So, I don't know if I should just I don't know if you wanted to do more lights to tie it into the downtown or if we just wanted to worry about a couple for now. About a couple. Got it. Yeah. Can we do something off that current utility pole? We're supposed to be. I'm waiting for the because I'd rather wait to do the final plan when Yep. If we look at redoing the last million%. Okay, got it.

Let's get back on track to the main agenda. Um Joan, you can hang tight right there. Just work through a couple things here. Um non-public and public meeting minutes for the December 4th meeting. Make a motion to approve the non-public and public meeting minutes of December 4, 2025. I'll second a motion by Sean, second by John to approve the minutes. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? You guys have it?

Consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda of 121825 consisting of accounts payable special payment manifest dated 121225 accounts payable reserve funds manifest dated 121225 accounts payable manifest Grafton County 121625 accounts payable AC manifest Harpers and Wex 121825 accounts payable manifest 121825 payroll payment manifest dated 121825-year review of veterans credits for the following map lot 203131 in the amount of 750 map lot 11456 in the amount of 750 map lot 115 047 in the amount of 750 map lot 219030 in the amount of 2450 50. Map lot 115 024 in the amount of 750. Map block 229010 in the amount of 2450. Map block 219024 in the amount of 750. Map block 21660 in the amount of 750. Map lot 107064 in the amount of 750. Five-year review of approval of elderly exemption for map lot 114016 in the amount of 2450.

That is written wrong. Sorry. Look. Okay. Hold on. Uh updated approved veterans credit for the following map lot 116003-30 in the amount of 750. Map lot 11630 in the amount of 750. Approval of new veterans applications for 2026. Map lot 203078 in the amount of 750. It goes on to the second page. Going on page. Oh, sorry. I didn't know there was second page.

I don't know if you want to go back. And on number eight, do just approve it without it's elderly exemption and a standard veterans credit and just don't do the dollar amount. Okay. So, uh that was eight. Going back to eight, five-year review and approval of elderly exemption for lot 114016. Uh and then continuing item 10, which was the approval of new veterans applications for 2026, map lot 115074 in the amount of 2450. Map lot 205020 in the amount of 750. Intent to cut 25-059-03 for map lot 219044. Intent to cut 255902 for map lot 102 018 and 102050. Intent to cut 250059-04 for map lot 209047. Removal of veterans credit for the following properties as they no longer qualify. Map lot 219018, map lot 104029.

I'll second someone that John second by John to approve the consent agenda as read. Any discussion? We got the verbiage right for number eight. Yeah. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed and the consent agenda is approved. Okay. Uh tax rate.

I put this under Joanne just because I figured it was easier to I thought it would be good to have a conversation about how the board established the tax rate um where we started and then how um what we applied to it. Um, I only put the the approved tax rate is under the number 5 A, but I do have where we started if you want.

Okay. So there's obviously been a uh a lot of discussion um around town on social media and everything about uh assessments in the past year and how that was going to affect people's taxes and uh a lot of people concerned that because their uh assessments increase that or almost doubled that their tax bill would almost double. Um and we're here to um allay those concerns. And um the tax rate has effectively dropped uh approximately $10 per thousand as we set the tax rate at $1316. Uh which was offset by $500,000 from the general fund. uh to keep that rate a little bit lower uh while still maintaining a healthy balance in that account so we don't have to continue to um borrow money for payments uh to the schools and the county etc. Um anybody have anything else they want to add on what I just brought up?

Uh just one point of clarification. um effectively it's the same but it's important uh that the 500,000 comes from the unexpended fund balance and not the general I'm sorry um which uh there are only a couple of reasons we can actually spend from that

natural uh declared disaster emergency uh and and when it comes to uh setting the setting the tax rate and those are funds that if we don't spend our entire higher budget in in a year or we have additional revenues. Those are funds that that go into that those are dollars that go into that fund. Um and so it's recommended to keep it at a certain level. Um s that was a conscious decision also to try to I know my feeling was that we had enough money in there to be able to do that. and I was all for the 500,000. Um,

if we did use the 500,000, the tax rate would have been $1363. So, it did using the 500 did drop a little bit about 50. Yeah, roughly. Yep. And just for reference, if I look at my own property, I saw an assessment increase of about 89%. Um, in going with that, uh, using the $13.16 tax rate, I was looking at a increase of about 3.4%. I didn't do the percentage on mine. Um, yeah, you did. Uh,

my my valuation effectively doubled within a few thousand dollar. Um and uh my tax bill uh went up a little under a little under 200. And I think the other thing that's obviously important, right, is is we're talking about diminishing portion of the rate. Correct.

Right. So that's, you know, one one of four pieces. I do think because I'm still trying to do the comparisons of the education portions and again you know I think I've said this to everybody separately like we need to educate kids that is a you know that has to happen but I'm looking for some more transparency in how we compare the numbers for number of students that are in Bristol. I said that too. Yeah. But I there was still some questions. So like do we have can we have do we talk to that like how do we go through that cuz I don't think it's anything

we we don't well we don't that but if you have questions about it we can certainly set up a point you know have them come in and try and answer those questions. Okay that because that to me is still you know I'm trying to like look at that and I know you guys have done a whole bunch of other comparisons but that isn't something we control like like at from a Bristol perspective. I do think though we have to make sure we dig into that so we're properly representing the Bristol taxpayer.

Um can I make a comment too? Um just to kind of go on the the tales of you guys. Um, I would like to publicly thank you guys um for your support and um all the social media um comments and and so forth as well as really the the taxpayers in the town. I know it's been unsettling uh because you know people have opinions to share and it it goes like firestorms and you know I just I appreciate the support of this board um in how you've responded to some of those. We've tried to stay at bay a little bit in responding to some of those comments. Um, you know, Cheryl and Carrie have been fielding calls nonstop as well as obviously our our side of the house. So, I appreciate everybody's patience. Um, we certainly would have loved to have had the tax rate out much sooner. Um, but actually we beat last year. I think last year we didn't uh have it until like the 17th or 18th. So

to say though was it were due until 4 though, right? We're a little we were a little ahead of schedule. So um too funny. Yeah. Well, thank you and your staff for you to get that done. Okay, moving on. Do we do you need an official vote on the right? No. Okay. Uh, no. Sorry. No, because I can't change it now. All right. Uh, tech warrant approval.

Those are that's in your packets under number. My screen changed. Um, it should be 5B. And Joanne um Joanne runs the numbers um runs the assessments in the system. shows a little check. Um, exemptions, credits, oh yes,

those kinds of things. Um, and then, um, the second page of that shows you the commitment breakdown. Um, so it gives you lean and value, current use, non-utility improvement value, and then it brings it all the way down to you'll see the total property tax. the veterans credits get deducted off of that and it gives you the total commitment amount and then they minus the first bill and then that's why it gives you a different commitment amount at the end. So, and then we would need a vote on this um and then have three copies that we sign usually. Would somebody like to make that motion?

I'm happy to make the motion. What do you how do you do you have it up? I I I'll just make it. Um so I would make a motion to approve the tax collector's property tax levy uh in the amount of $7,122,000 uh $122,58.11 second. Okay. Uh any discussion on that? Okay. All those in favor? Opposed? Any guys have? Sorry, we're done.

All right. Uh, let's see. Where am I? Supplemental tax, supplemental warrant review and approval.

C. We we have a property uh New Found Meadows here in town um that has opted um under to fill out a PA65 which is there's either to do the regular tax assessment based on value of property or based 10% based on rental income. and it's a 10-year contract and they renewed their contract in 2021. So, they are under the rental income um supplemental tax program until 2031. Um where they provide us their financials and so forth and we do a bunch of calculations in a system and we send them um the 10% of that. Um so what you have before you I think it's 18,535 um which is the second portion of this this tax year's bill. They are the only property we have participating in this particular program.

So is this what's best for Bristol? Well, we have to do it. It's statute. So, if anybody elects to do it and they qualify, then we have to do it. Okay. You've obviously they qualify. So, all right. So, the thing with this, we only have the one property.

Um, they get a substantial break obviously and it's an alternate assessment calculation, but it and we have to do it as a supplemental tax. So, you do have to approve it. Somebody want to know that hearing? None. I'll make a motion to approve the tax collectors property tax supplement warrant um for the property New Found Meadows uh located at 40 High Street, Newf Found Meadows Housing Association. Second. You have a second.

Second. Okay. Uh any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? All right. And we have one more addendum here.

Under 5D. Um I can tell you why why we did this and I have Joanne explain it. Um we were realizing our utility appraisers contract was off from our regular appraising contract for reval. So, I asked Joanne to go back to Brian Fog, who's our utility appraiser, and to amend his contract instead of being um a one-year contract to match the rebell. So, we knew what the rebell price would be at the end. So, I'll let

Jo Yeah. So, I I reached out to him. Um, you know, since I came on board, our contracts were ending at different times. And so we finally we got onto a 5-year schedule uh for our general assessing and our full um measure and list for the rebal um which is Commer and Perkins. Uh in conversation with Christina, she wanted us to or see if we could mirror the utility appraisal contract the same. So, I reached out to there's there's only a couple util utility appraisers. Um, and we reached out to I reached out to Brian F. We did go out to RFP years. It was probably

a while ago. Yeah. For utility. Um, but we were under a one-year contract with Brian uh which was 2025. He sent a new contract in for 2026 through 2028. I asked him if he could mirror the 5-year contract. He's not quite sure about his um tenure or how long he's going to stay in the business cuz he's getting up in age. I don't know what that means cuz I don't know how old he is. Um but he was he feels he felt comfortable enough to do a contract between 2026 and 2029. Um which obviously leaves us some exposure. Um and in conversation with Christina, we felt we could go out next year um to RFP and see if there's any new new takers. um in that field.

So our recommendation and we have ways to get out of this contract to go. So our recommendation was to sign it for the next four years. It's not to exceed number. Yeah. It's not to exceed 3,000 per year

to do the utilities each year through the first four years. So, but if even if next year we go out to RFP and we find a better solution to get us through our through the fifth year, which is the rebaler, then we could get out of this contract and go with the new provider. And he understands that that's what we we're considering. Um there we're limited to who we can get for utility appraisers. Um we if we use CMP which is our current appra appraisal firm they do it by um they don't actually they use a Hardy Whitman book it's called to do their values. Um so they're not really utility appraisers. They're not the the professionals who know what these values are. Um, George Sansusi's firm is the firm that we've wor with for years, but one of actually probably shouldn't say that. So, we decided to move from George and Susi's firm to Brian Fog. Brian Fog used to work for George Shenusi and and went out on his own. Um, and we had a better rate with Brian Bo. So,

so just a couple of questions, I guess. in here the the payment for a single year contract in 2025 is 20,500. So it's 20,5 that was for the rebell. Yeah, that was the Okay. Um and the payment terms are net 15. So pay the bill within 15 days. Is that really common? We don't we we do normally um anyway, but usually people are not 30. Um, yeah. I mean,

I've not fielded any calls from anybody or or I I will tell you the turnaround time um is pretty quick from my perspective on processing invoices and it's the end of the year that causes more problems. Well, no, I guess just generically just having net 15 just that's generally pretty aggressive now. Again, we have relationship with them like whatever. So it's becomes if we're going out to RP next year as well. Yeah. The only other point might be to check with Eversource themselves and say, "Okay, for utility, they're going to not want you to hire a utility appraiser." We've already experienced that with them. They're valuing

real. Yeah, we experienced that with people. Utility companies do not want you to hire a utility appraiser because they're going to dispute that. We've been in court many years with correct. Oh, no question about it. I mean, yeah. Yeah. But that's just my opinion. Um out.

I was just saying like if we need other because it sounded like we need to try to figure out other contacts. So we there is the problem we have is because um we run into is there are utility appraisers that have are working with some of those utilities. So it becomes a conflict of interest. So they if they put in a bid in past years they only can put them in for a certain number like for instance KTC Hydro was one of them they couldn't put in a bid because they were working for them. The whole point is just to try to get it. Mhm. Right. So that you actually have bids. All right. So we need to approve this. Um. Yes. All right.

That's not a mistake, by the way, that they go around and hire all those appraisers. So they not a mistake at all. Yeah. All right. So, uh, so I'd like to move that we authorize the contract for Brian D. Fog LLC appraiser and evaluation consultant. I second. Okay. Motion by John, second by Sean. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed?

Um um do you I had to throw one in under 5F and the short-term rentals is going to become a longer discussion. Can we do 5F? Um, I was going to do it under the TA report which but since Joanne's here, we've got this late this afternoon. It will present preliminary results of the 2025 equalization ratio which of course we should be close as possible% in your folderization. Oh, there it is.

Yeah. So, um, Mandy gave this to Mandy's our assessor. Um, Mandy gave this to Joanne. There's a memo in there that tells you, um, this is a preliminary equalization study that has been completed. We usually have to turn them in in December. Um, and Dwayne, I don't know if you have anything. No, I mean, obviously it the numbers speak themselves. Um we are 99.9 currently.

So um what it could that number can change. This is just the permission to submit this. Um and you have to sign a data you have to approve and sign a data certificate which is page two. Um and then um it's uploaded. Joanne will upload it, submit the whole report that goes and then the DRA does their thing and then they may come they come back to us and tell us this is what we found your ratio. We can either dispute it or agree with it and then it becomes final.

What do they how does this number get used? The median assessment ratio is what is the general ratio for where your assessment should fall. There are multiple ratios. There's a ratio for that's um look at the report now. There's a weighted mean ratio. There's a median ratio. There's a mean ratio. There's a coefficient of dispersement. But

so each one is used for different purposes. But the one we go by is the median ratio, which is where assessment should be. So they're saying our assessments currently are at 99.9 and we should be as close as possible to 100% which is market value and we were at 50.8. Yep. Yeah. I was going to say we were down in the 50s last year. Okay. And and so D I'm just trying to figure out like if DRA says no, we disagree blah blah blah. Yeah, that's why I was asking like how does it get

Oh, so DR will review this and trim out some things that they think are wrong. So, if we marked a sale um and we said it was a valid sale, they may go in and say we didn't believe it was a valid sale. If we marked something that we said wasn't a valid sale, they may come back in and say it is a valid sale and throw it back in. So, historically, it and it says it right on the page. Historically, basically the state has said if you're if you're under 0.9 and or over 1.1, you need to start thinking about doing something to get back into alignment. Right? The last several years the state has said we don't they basically threw their hand up on that and said we don't know what to tell you

because everything went everything went crazy. So uh they were saying whole patch just just but effectively so you can use okay that makes more sense for the average person they don't they don't they don't know they don't understand the equalization rate they don't I couldn't even tell you the whole but basically it's a way of saying okay um your valuation is not mar is undermarket valuation by by 4.5 or whatever you know the difference. You don't get an approval on this.

Yeah. You have to you have to vote to sign the municipal assessment data certificate. All right. Make a motion to uh approve and send the what she just said. Municipal assessment data certificate. Yes. I'll second shot. Second by John going back to last names again uh to approve the 2025 municipal assessment datos. Would anybody be opposed to taking a [Music]

Yeah, you're going to need it for the next discussion. That's what I was afraid of. There you go.

Okay. Back there after him. Oh, Rob didn't sign this one. No, he didn't sign. Rob didn't sign that one. No, he Oh, I'm sorry. Rob didn't sign No, that means Rob didn't do anything. Hold on. He drafted one of them. No, the pack. Nope. He didn't do any of them here. Yeah, the pack. That means he needs us, too. No, he doesn't need that one. You sure? I thought I saw his name, but he handed his name. Yeah, he's Elsa. All right. He passed it right over and went to you. Okay. Did I take out the whole

Are we still on? Yeah, we're taking our five minute break while we're live. All right. Is it live or is it MRX? Don't pick your nose. I bought these straps. So now cuz I caught myself doing this. So, it's hooks from this side to the other. It's a pain to hook. I never touch my strap now. It's always there. After I saw me do that in public, I was like, there's one in the other side. If you go in the other side. Oh, yeah. There you go.

Just what he's facing to use the bathroom. I said, why is that bathroom?

uh short-term rental stuff.

So, you'll want to start with the my computer first. Um start with 5E1. It's the attorney response. I to the packet of short-term rentals that we sent. Um, probably should read through that if you can. [Applause] Keep going off. So hold on. [Applause] [Applause]

Sean's got you guys. Yeah, I'm done. I'm done. Um Joanne, Donna and I also had a verbal conversation with the attorney. Um and he is push he strongly recommended that we do which is where we've talked about in the past that we consider business licensing or commercial licensing whatever we want to call it and we and um and across the board. Now one of my question to him was can you set different levels or categories because when when I talked about doing it when I was in assessing land use we talked about um no charged and part why we wanted to do it was be proactive so that the first time you meet land use or assessing isn't when we say you're doing something wrong we want to say this is what you need to do and but um but we never did we weren't able to get the licensing pulled off Um, so but you said you could do different categories. You could charge different fees, but you would have to do you can't just focus on one. You got to go do a more broader approach is what he said. That's what he told us verbally. So

So all right. Um, I guess the only real concern I have with his response when I went through it, it was more like I don't know that we're trying to do this to limit them, per se, cuz that's we have an we have a vacationbased economy.

So, you know, because he he sort of says that in both cases where it's like we're really trying to figure out a limit. I'm looking at it as an economic opportunity from a a revenue perspective. So having a business license to me makes perfect sense. That that makes like okay awesome. Um you know we just go through that process cuz Yeah. But then you've got to require mom and pith that want to open a five and dine downtown to have a business license too. But if we any of these home occupations too. Yeah.

Yeah. But but but if we can have a different fee schedule for mom and pa, you know, I I disagree with them. I mean, this this is we're talking about residential areas. We're not talking about commercial occupancies. Yeah. Mhm. And I don't know, it's a fight that I'm going to want to take up. Do you want me to have him come to great a January meeting to talk to you about it? Because he's they're going to be the ones that have to defend us, right?

And if we do something that's opposite of what they're saying, how does that how did that affect their defense of us? And maybe if he heard if hearing we've talked to him, right, but maybe hearing more he might be able to give us more. So is he saying don't charge fees and don't

No, he's not necessarily saying that. He's saying he and and I I do I I would feel better equipped with him coming to the board because it kind of derailed my whole way of thinking. um because we have been so focused on this. But he's he's basically saying if the town wants to the town should look at business licensing and short-term rentals will be one of those that gets licensed and there could be different fee structures and I I thought I brought it in. You'd think I had it with

So, how does the town discourage corporations from coming up in and buying up affordable housing? So, that's like I I'm not going to sit here as a town and be steamrolled by Airbnb, Vasa, whatever those are that that are these corporations that are coming up coming in and buying places to rent for profit. Mhm. But you licensing it, is it going to stop that? It's not going to stop it, but it might be able to discourage it and then create revenue from it, right?

But the thing is is is first of all, like when you look at Airbnb and the others, all they really are is a platform to enable a behavior, right? So like you have an asset, you use their platform, and they're managing that. But all right, it's a poor example. There are companies out there looking to buy properties for the sake of rent of renting them. Yep. As short-term rentals.

Yes. And and and you're absolutely right. So then there's a whole scenario around how do we how do we look at housing in Bristol? Right now, as it relates to short-term rentals, I'm looking at it as more of a how do we understand our business landscape? How do we make sure that we are well attached to that? So then that way it's proportional when you start to look at our overall budget, right? So, like that's why that part is important. I agree with you because if you look at the behaviors of the short-term rentals, it has definitely helped increase our valuations because of some of those activities, right? Like there's, you know, the way that they'll buy a home. Um, the harder part, I think, is, you know, we can't we can't stop if somebody's willing to pay something, we can't stop a transaction because we may not like that it's a corporation that's trying to buy the thing. But when it's affecting the quality of life of the town citizens, that's a different story

and on services and and the demand on services. Yeah. Like I we've got one on our road now. I see out of state plates, different cars with out of state plates every goddamn weekend flying up and down my road. Yeah. I think as much as I hate to sp I think it would be worth to have him in [Music] because we I would I would like to have a back and forth for 20 minutes on whatever we can do to make their life difficult because even I don't know did you get all the attachments for those comments? No, you're all good. Yeah. I mean there's all under five

like every everything that we had created to potentially you know he had comments about I mean the thing is we weren't you know we weren't the first ones waiting into the pool right like you know one of the things that you may want to ask him so one piece of advice might be if he can get a hold of the town attorney at son I don't know like one of the other ones that has it and then you know get the experience in that community from that perspective and maybe he knows him or maybe he's representing them. I think Sun was what he told us got sued. There's Yeah, there was too.

Actually, he said Sun and Meredith both in our conversation but some of you lost so I don't know what they had to change right. Um but uh from what I remember

at the end of the day I think this is us or at least from my perspective this is us trying to look at this part of our economy as a town and go okay how do we understand it? How do we know how to plan services for it? How do we look at the budget? Because you look at our budget there's roughly $1.2 $2 million in our budget that uh goes up in the summertime because of tourism, right? With increased sanitation, with the things like the fireworks, you start to like total that stuff up, demand on services, police, fire,

right? So, those are all great things for us as a community. It helps the business environment, but the whole point of this, and that's where some of the argument back goes, is okay, how are we supposed to be able to plan for that? So anyway, there you go. Well, and then you get the intangibles of it of do you want this? Do you want your neighbors? Do you want neighbors or do you want a revolving door on each side of your property? And I don't Yeah. I I don't But I don't know how I don't know how as a government entity we can say this person owns it or that person. If you if you sold your house, you want to be able to sell it for whatever you want to be able to sell it for. Sure.

I mean, so, but it's all in whether or not that use of that house is regulated or not. But, so I'm not for regulating people's properties, but I'm all I I'm all for, you know, controlling being able to put our foot down when it comes to the quality of life of the people that live here year round. Yeah. So, so completely agree with that statement. So now that means short-term rentals when you look at the zoning we don't allow it in we don't allow it across the town there are there's one zone that doesn't allow it industrial I think I think I don't know maybe that's there's one zone in town everywhere

but but again like if if if Rob lived in a zone that the next door became a short-term rental and it wasn't zoned for that that's the mechanism by which we go okay it's not allowed Right. They can still apply for Right. So it's not allowed. They still they could go through step and still get approved though. Yeah. They got Right. They have to go through that process. Right. So So I think

if if we wanted to there two different conversations. The one is if we intend to have less exposure to short-term rentals across the community, then we need to go to the planning board. and the planning board needs to do its thing around editing the uh maps to go okay here's how we will not allow this in other zones then there's the conversation around how do we license them in this case and so we know where they are and we say yeah you're in an approved zone so to the point that Christina made a few minutes ago there's somebody that's bringing because it is a business it also allows us to say you can't have 15 people in that house the house is a three-bedroom septic

you know it's reasonable as probably eight people right and allows us to set that so like when he says we can't do all those things like those are the questions that I have around well you know we have we have many examples where they're sort of breaking us so we need to figure out a way where we can limit these short-term rentals too that's so they're not bothering the rest of us so then that process I think is we need to probably ask the planning board to go look at where those things are in those zones

so right now we're Short-term rentals are not allowed in village commercial. Oops. Fall in line. Sorry. They're not allowed in village commercial and they're not allowed in industrial. They are required to get a special exception in village residential and downtown commercial, but they are allowed in corridor, rural, and lake. Special and special exception is much easier to get than a varian. Yeah. So then we just need to ask the planning board to go take a look at that and and we can have a conversation first but Sean with some of these questions. Um

anyways that's what I'm saying. I think there's two different things right there's the there's the lure of the things so we understand it we can make sure they're safe and fundamentally we can do things like have a process that we understand the status of septic systems so we protect the thing that everybody wants to come here for which is the lake. You can do that under health. Yeah. Did say that we could still do 5,000 bucks. Um but the one Joanne did do a little bit more research um using AI. Yeah. I didn't bring it in though. Okay.

And one of the things we talked about earlier today was um that and that came up on one of the subjects under the TA report is that you can you should charge a reasonable fee and have a base off of um cost administrative cost. So why I looked at how tried to tried to guess how much is probably the budget. So again like you know you look at it's not like proportionately we're going to go get an extra million dollars out of this. or not. It's going to be more in the neighborhood of 15 to $20,000. 5,000 bucks. Done. Sold. Jo, huh? That's what I want to hear. Yeah.

I also think there is an opportunity. I mean, we're obviously this conversation's about short-term, but business licenses, too. I think there's that's a whole other conversation. And we were and and when we were like I said when we were thinking about it more it's just being it's more on a proactive basis. Does it need, you know, I even asked Sean, do we even have to set a fee for some of them? And no, but you should try for shortterm rentals is Bridgewater, perfect place. And then they can come all here and spend their money.

Cuz the reality is they're all going to still come. is whether or not they, you know, it how much it disrupts other people's daily lives in this town. So, if we could limit that somehow, that would be great. I didn't know you got a tax bill in Bridgewater. Oh, now I got it. That was funny. And by the way, it did go up in your folders under GA. Um, I saw the actual text. I I was going to um

I was going to do under under um selectment items, but since Joanne is here, did you pass along the issue with the quote unquote nonprofit on the Hill Road? Yes. Okay. Yes. I do want to follow on that. Yeah. Is that the way you I took that um some of that out of the minutes because Yeah. It was a little too much and I didn't not know it until we know more about it. I didn't think that should be there. So that's fine. That's fine. Just I Yeah, I drove by the other day and I was thinking about it again. So

So yes, we um we start reviewing the So we request information for them. They have to submit June um April 15th and June 1st depending on what they So according to the state website, they're not in good standing. Right. Yeah. And another something else that came up too is that that location also has a garage that um looks like it maybe is according to their listing not you you can't use it, right? So what so it should be right should be taxable. So it should be tax. So you need me to drive them down their tax bill and be happy.

They they got substantial tax bills on those three lots in the past. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, uh maybe one of the because I was going to do this also and from a select board perspective. Um last night I actually asked everybody about the master plan and one of my questions and and this goes also to the rest of the board like um I asked if the HDC was working on a section for the master plan and they said no. So I was I asked them to maybe ask that. So, I don't know if the board wants to ask as well as a section.

Well, no, no, I know, but were they working on updates? Because, you know, when I think about what they were working on last night for signs, for murals, for like updating zoning, like all of the things that they were working on of all of the committees that work on stuff for the master plan, HDC has a has a set boundary and they're trying to figure out how to protect history, which means it's already happened, right? So, it should be easier to do an inventory versus say conservation who's going, "Okay, I'm trying to think through what somebody wants to do in the future,

right? Or even planning around what they're trying to do from a zoning perspective." I don't know. I just felt like I I was giving them a little bit of a push last night to go, I think you guys should ask them because that could really be helpful. it could help in how they're looking at it and you know because the section they have in there isn't very like it talks about why the history of Bristol's important but it doesn't lay out what within the district they're looking to truly protect and I think that would that would help the select board we can bring that up they meet again in January January 13th but I mean and that Rob knows um that that board is dwindling dwindling

so here's a plug. If anybody wants to serve on HGC, does it need to exist? Yes. Sorry. It doesn't. Well, two reasons. Because we have a historic district, so you have to have a commission. Second reason is we qualify under a certified local government. Okay. And because we are certified local government, you have to have a commission. I mean, listen, we've had some very passionate people. So, if dwindling, that's why I asked the question. But if there's interest, then awesome. You know, it's not about maybe disappear. It's just Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. No, we definitely need I mean, as of right now, it's a select program in two in two other members.

I mean, Jous does a great job. They both do a great job with it, but they need help. Um, yeah, Tay. Um, that's it. So basically I think where we're at on this is bring bring a lawyer. Yeah, we can have a general conversation with him first. See if we can get better answers and then if we still feel but we'll have a schedule to come in. I I think he's scheduled to come in regard but you guys should prep them more. But I think have you know as Sean said I think it would be a much more fruitful conversation. I would agree

because we'll do this for weeks. Mhm. I may have him on Zoom if I have a laptop. Um I may have him on Zoom um instead of making him drive here because we'll pay mileage. Um Oh yeah, sure. But um if he tends on Zoom if you can tell us how to prevent getting overrun by shorts, he might be able to get well, right? Okay. What's it for you? I think so. Anything else for me from anybody?

Uh, no. I would just reiterate um you said thank you to us, but really you guys did the lion share of exactly that and our assessor and um you know, you guys were the spear catchers and uh you know, it's just you did such a great job with it. Um, and yes, we have you back, but you did a great job with everything and our appreciation to everybody in the office. I know it was a big lift. Thank you. Yeah, I know she gets paid to do it, too. But our assessor, you know, work she's so good. Yeah. So, are you getting many abatement requests in?

Well, they can't. So, they go. Yeah. So they can't submit it until March 1st. So you know and I people already talk about it online but they I I know and I and only reason I'm saying this is because I think people get you do not understand the abatement process. You can't um you just because you don't like your tax bill or you feel your tax bill is too high. you can't you can file for debatement but you have to justify why you feel it's too high right

um or if your assessment is not comparable in other areas you have to come up with those things and and that sometimes makes people upset when they get Yeah. So basically, you could have a recent appraisal to be like, "Hey, my house appraised at 100,000 less than your assessment, right?" Because especially cuz we're at 99.9 technically. So if your recent appraisal comes in and says that support,

it has been very educational for me as well, obviously in this in this role. Um, you know, we we've heard from people on the lake in multi-million dollar homes. They can yell just as loud as the people that are in a $38,000 home that has just been reassessed or for 58. Um, but it's interesting to see when you can show them what has happened in the market. Yeah. Um, to say people realizes that they realize that their tax bills aren't going through the roof. I think that's some people.

Yeah. You know, I mean, in a perfect world, you know, it'd be great if you could get the tax rate at the same time. you know, well the other but part of it people act as if every 5 years we have to remind people this is how you pay for everything and so unless you're willing to and you know not unless you're willing to change the entire structure which may be the answer by if right you know property is how things get paid for and this is not a we're not reinventing the way and that's Mandy's point too like this isn't changes,

right? And and the other thing I and the other thing I'd like to remind people of is not as if we can spend any more money than you've allowed us to spend, right? So something So something has to happen, right? So it's not like, yeah, your assessment doubled. People think, well, all of a sudden my taxes doubled, but how how could that happen? We're not allowed to spend more than you've authorized us to spend. Sure. That's it. Honestly, it's a great point because I know I've said this to a few folks.

It's really about the service. The service levels. Yeah. The service levels actually govern it all. It's like you go back to the fire department, right? $2 million of our budget is the fire department. I've really not met a single person that said, "Oh my god, that's so not worth it." Mhm. And I pick on the fire department because it's, you know, becomes so personal to so many folks when that's the person that comes and takes them out of a situation that's probably one of their worst days, you know. So, the other thing I like to I I will say often is, okay, you don't like you don't like the police department, we'll get rid of the entire police department and your rate will drop $140. Correct. You know, or whatever, you know, $150. Yep. Okay.

And then it goes up, you know, next year. It'll be good when we go to town meeting this year. I'm actually kind of looking forward to kind of going through. I really am. Like I'm Joanne's like you really looking. I I enjoy it. And my Sorry, I didn't mean to keep you here, but I wanted to praise you. So first democracy there is. It is. All right. Thanks. Thanks Joy. Thank you. All right. Highway department beach street project. Um so uh yeah, how do we do that? Those are under your number six. So, um all of the bids that came in are listed there from number three through number 10. Okay.

Um there is a um tabulation document, handwritten one I wrote, but there's also one under number one that shows the the the list. So uh for anyone watching we this has already been discussed uh during our work session earlier um and the board has come to a consensus. We've re received eight bids um uh those that met the parameters of the bid range between 159,850 to $430,000. [Music] Um and the board earlier um discussed awarding the bid to Jeremy Hilts Excavating uh for the amount of $166,595.

I make a motion to award the bid to Jeremy Hilts Excavating. Second. Okay. I have a motion to award the bid to Jeremy Hilts Escavating for the amount of $166,895. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I opposed and the eyes have it. Um, and that work is most likely set to commence in the spring, I believe. So, very cool. Yep. All right. Contingent. And it'll be contingent on depending on what?

Yes. Oh, yes. That will be going on the warrant for Tony. So uh so we will be contingent upon approval of the warranty. All right. Uh 2025 encumbrances. Talk to me. Um those are if you go under TA report discussion items I for some reason I threw them under there and didn't realize I was going to put them on your agenda. Um under that is number three. Um the Excel document is the list of them. And I've just added uh I added the one we were talked about during the work session um which was the ambulance to repair. That's the quote. We have the quote that's coming from the 18 policy fun button. So that's added on to it. Um we've I didn't I'll start from the top. So the master plan work we've already kind of talked about. But we did a purchase order um to sign the contract for them and we were going this is the master plan work from the conservation commission. This is the amount that's left in the master plan budget which is $5,618 and we're taking that to apply to the contract to finish all of the work next year and we also budgeted amount so we can pay for it. Um number two is the generator. This is a warrant article number 13. We have to encumber it. This is the bit. Um there's a quote in there for the and you can look at if you'd like for um I rounded it to 12,000. Um Goodun Enterprises um submitted it. It was the best quote. They would do all the wiring. We have to enumber it in order to save the Warren article or we have to put it up again.

And this is the fire department public safety building. Yep. It's the fire department, public safety, sorry. And it's um is so it's 125,000 was the original warrant article. The quote was is 102,000 the remaining and we had 125,000 offsetting because the this will be paid for by grant um through I believe FEMA.

Okay. But we have to encumber the funds or we're going to completely lose it and have to start over again. Next one down is the electrical work for the compressor. Um, this we actually talked about this. We approved the compressor purchase order at the last meeting. Ben and I talked there's money in the public safety building electric line. So, we would like to encumber that money to use to the electrical work for the compressor. Um, that's the 11 1,165 The container for Nton, it is out right now being um repaired. It will come back almost like a brand new um container. And that's his new equipment line. Um it's $3,100. We've already paid for one out of his budget. If we can encumber that money, it would they won't be back until January so that we can pay for the container. uh face. So, these next two are probably a conversation we should have. And also, there's an extra in uh quote in your folders that Sean John just sent me. Now, I'm doing it. Uh the next two, phase three and phase four are part of our remediation plan. Those two numbers with Nesset are we haven't final we haven't finalized the full project scope where we have a quote and those are in your folders and one is um 22,000 and server migrations are 18,750. My concern with not encumbering that money at least is when we start next year behind the APA um being able to do any of the other the rest of the remediation projects. But John also has a quote that I put in.

It's basically the replacement of the video unit over here. It's the quote marked town and Bristol NH R25P. M so that's not in consideration cuz I we just and this is what we've talked about about making this room better for anybody online or on Z you know on Zoom making it better for recording with Cade even. Um so this quote includes many things. It doesn't mean we have to do all of these things but it is $30,000 right now with that total.

Yeah. Okay. I think it's more like 22 to do the work that we want to do because I don't think doing because we talked to them about doing an extra TV and stuff over there. I don't think that that's what we do. And then the last one on that list is the um auence to repair and that's the $9,987. So if we go forward with this or add anything else, it's 162620. We would save from the 2025 budget and bring to next year to to pay for these costs.

I also put those additional ones aren't on. They don't show up here. the ambulance and the other show on yourself. No, I saved it though. Isn't that weird? No. So, we need an updated total to approve. I can print it. I guess the question would be um I also put I put a budget in there in case there was anything you wanted to look at in the budget and question why we weren't trying to save anything. um any incumbences there in case you wanted to look at it so you don't have to do it for a total

the total well what we have to decide if we're putting um John's quote we have that money if you look at the 4194-342 it gives you where where we're at the top of the page Um, so if you look at the top, we had a $268,000 budget and we have 126,000. Some of that is the remediation costs. Some of that's I don't have that either. I put them in there.

Is it a different page in Excel? It fits this one. Sorry, Sean. 4194 342. It's a PDF. some there are some additional costs that still have to come out of that. Um but it says we have right now it says we have 126,000 while those phase three and phase fours are technically part of this. Okay.

Yeah. The phase three and phase four the interesting part is really it's about we're up for replacing a lot of the IT equipment that we still have. Right. That goes back to the conversation we were having around what's the overall strategy. So, moving forward, um the video unit stuff for in here, that goes back to the overall goal of making the remote experience better. So then that way everybody that uses the room, it becomes a little more consistent. You know, the question becomes is is that what we're, you know, is that is that a a goal for everybody? Well, I think I think so. If we've raised money for that, we should be doing it. And then we have on our priority sheet, it was down at the bottom.

What was to improve make improvements to the audio visual? So, all right. So we we got the money. We're and we're I don't think we could do all phase three and phase four incumbrance. We could have to take we can take one of those off, which is okay if we take one of those off and it would just move to be paid next year because those aren't going to even start probably until January. We're in phase one and phase two which is um Sharepoint and One Drive. Office 365. Office 365 and one drive setups. Moving everybody there and then Yep. Um printing. Printing. Thank you. Cloud printing.

Yeah. So we're we're working on those now. I've paid for those have been paid for. Um, so the we could take and just encumber the phase three that is for mobile data management. It is. So that would be a good one. We could encumber the 22,000 take phase 4 off and then put the sound but we needed um we need to pick a number off the sound 22

and it we can't change the vendor. So we're happy with that vendor. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, that from a vendor perspective, I think we're good. But I think it's more like 22. I don't think it's I don't think it's the 30 cuz I think in the 30 there was extra wires to run. There was a bunch of stuff to put a TV over there. So, that way the audience had labor. Yeah. So, I need I don't need it for tonight, but I will need an updated quote to actually set. I know. I got I already sent I sent them an email a while ago. I haven't finished squeezing them anyway. So, We have a total we So you said 22 even.

Um let me change this and I can tell you and reprint it. Um 165. I don't know if anybody wants to write me down. I'll print it. But we need we need to we need to read each line, right? Oh, so I should print it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, we need to read each. Yeah. Ah, okay.

So, it'll be Where is it? master plan work in the in the middle. Yeah, it's going to be dark. What's up, I have some really spooky pictures of it down in there. There's a glow that comes out of one of the vents. You want me to go get it? Is that your version of breadcrumb? I never use it.

Oh, I I got to reprint this. I printed it to the wrong Good thing it couldn't get in. He's going to kill me. I printed it upstairs. I I'll go get it. I'll go get it for No, I'll put it down. There we go. No, I printed it downstairs. Good. I Oh, I thought I read James the printer.

Okay. I'll make a motion to move the following incumbrances in the 2025 budget. Uh, account 0114191730 in the amount of 5,618. Account 014902730 in the amount of $12,000. Account 4200-410 in the amount of 1,165. Account 4324-810 in the amount of 3,100. Account 4194-342 in the amount of 22,000. Account 4194342 in the amount of 22,000. and account 01490 sorry 4909-890 in the amount of 9,98740.

I'll second. Okay. Have a motion by Sean, second by John uh to approve the 20 approve the 2025. Yeah. for a total of $165,87040. Which one? Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed pictures of people's socks. At

least that's all at least that's all that's there. So, um, in your info folders, there are a variety of pictures from some of our holiday events. That's how they reported that they participated.

I I will tell you, I got to go around be the judge. They did it was it was interesting. Um, at sewer, right, going into the lab, there was a naughty and nice list on the bottom, and on the nice list was the water department. On the naughty list was highway. Um the two winners were the police department and and uh department was land use

and land use uh they did a great job on on that door. You know, they had they had almost like a family picture on it and set it up like right and set it up like a little fireplace. The police department had a lot of kids a lot of uh letters from uh kids to Santa, you know, in and among the decorations and stuff like that. That's just it was cool. Anyways, yeah. So, I thought you'd appreciate seeing some of those big some of those pictures. Under discussion items, there's a picture of a blue spruce. Yeah. Um Okay. So, just so you know, that's a treat. Thanks. I recognize it. It's actually I I know I'm trying.

Yeah. Okay. So, moving on to discussion items. I'll start with the blue spruce if you want because I don't think I made it on the list. So, there is a picture of a blue spruce. I received a text today asking if the town would be interested in the blue spruce. They um where it's located in front of that building. It has to be removed. It has they they are removing it. Yes. But and they hated to see it just get cut down. Let me get to the text.

Wow. Um it said he he said, "Does the town want another tree donated? I have this beautiful blue spruce that we are going to dig up this spring. I just don't want to cut it down. It's absolutely gorgeous." He said, "It's too big where it is now. The camper planted it years ago, claiming it would not grow this big. Um and he said he he would just need a little bit of help from the town crew to remove it from here if that works." So, I said I'd bring it to you and let you ask if you It is a beautiful tree, but I asked if you had um any thoughts for it. You have to hire a clamshell, right, to go in and dig it out.

Yeah, it's close to the building and there's a gas line right there. I I really I don't think the town wants any. That's And then where do you put it, right? Be part of it. Okay. Greatly appreciate. It was very much appreciated that they thought of us. So, make somebody a nice Christmas tree. I know. Tell them to wait and cut it down later and we can put it up somewhere for a Christmas tree. There you go.

Um, uh, number one, um, not I think they're all in there now, but um, we've gotten about, um, I said eight. We just received a new one. We have nine applicants so far. I responded to all of the applicants for the HR welfare position um and let them know we would not be doing interviews until January. I just don't think it's going to happen before the end of the year. Um and I asked, do any of the board members wish to serve on the interview committee? Pretty sure. Yeah. Listen, I'm happy to do it.

I know. I'll do it. I I'm just uh wanted to make sure everybody else is. It's time. I think an interview in HR is perfect for you. You don't want to talk to my HR department. We didn't even have one till like a year ago that you love me. I was going to say, did they have it because [Music] we literally didn't. A lot of companies didn't. All right. So Rob, I'm I'm not going to probably schedule it until after the first week at minimum of January. So

yeah, the only thing I would ask is that um I most days I would have to be out of here by 3:00. So yeah, um where with the exception Thursday would mean we didn't do it actually for me.

We would redo a preliminary review um first. We may not interview all nine candidates so far or if we get more we usually um interview a first batch and then go from there. So, um, number two, there there are items. Did I not think it's on the fridge or upstairs? There are items in your folders. Um, under number two, we've been awarded a grant. And Jeff wanted you to know he applied for the grant using AI. Um, it's a public water systemled service line inventory grant. So, we have to do this anyway. So it this is something we have to do and um it's part of that lead line service. Um we talked about it in the past couple years. We found out that we have 990 unknown service lines in Bristol. So we actually have to go out and find out what they are. Um because if there is a lead line there, there's a whole other step that has to be taken care of. So, um, the when Jeff applied for this, we still we knew we were going to have to do it. And it's perfect because we were awarded a $60,000 grant. In the the cost estimate was $106,000, which includes records review, visual inspection, pothole, excavation equipment, either purchase or lease, data entry, quality control, and reporting.

Nice. If the board agrees to accept the grant, I need a motion to accept the grant and approve the TA to sign. How much was the grant for? 60,000. So even though the the cost estimate we submitted was 106, this 60,000 would already have to do the work. So right, I don't see the figure on the and we have two years. What is this under? It's under discussion items. TA2. TA2. I just don't see the figure on. So, which number do we have to we just have to accept the 60 or we got to approve the two? If you look at

the grant agreement, sorry. Um, the grant agreement says Yeah. grant limitation. The grant limitation is 60. Oh, okay. Yep. Y um but if you wanted to see what Jeff had submitted for that is I have to look at the pictures. It is the town of Bristol large public water system le service that it's that one.

I'll make a motion to approve or to accept the grant from New Hampshire dees in the amount of $60,000 for general provisions. uh and authorize the town administrator to sign off. I'll second. We have a motion by Scott, second by John to accept the grant as talked about. Uh any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor?

Opposed? Um, skipping TA3 under TA4. I'm gonna um I've met with the Morings Division. What? Morning's division. Is that what they're the Department of Safety? Oh, okay. Who you think I meant? I don't know. It just sound like we had a much larger uh uh Yeah. bureaucracy in Bristol than

Not us, bud. Um so uh at one point I believe Bristol had to apply. Um so these are down by Avery Krauss that this concern this has come up. Um there are four groups that apply for moorings and there are 21 moorings. But because Bristol owns the property, the moorings division is now saying we have to apply every year to renew these, which means we have to gather the doc all of the applications from these groups and submit them all at once. Um, we get issued the licenses for the moorings and then um and then we have to issue them to the groups. Don't know who's going to do this yet because we don't know what how extensive this will be. Um but

so we can get rid of all the boys in front of them. We can't. We can't. They said if somebody viol So I've learned a couple of things. Um so we can charge a fee.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly where I'm going. So, we can charge a fee, but the fee he said would have to be it's up to the town to collect um it says and we have to collect registrations and and their payment to the state and then the decals that we'll get. Um we can charge a fee, but it has to be based off of um for instance expenses um that we have to put into. So, uh, we have to pay to put the mooring lights put in and brought back out every year. So, we could base it off of that. We can base it off of administrative. So, right,

if we took those numbers, we'd divide it by 21 moorings. They would each have to pay that fee to the town because the town is the land owner. We own the process for getting the moorings. But the moorings don't really belong to us. No, they belong to these folks. If the town said we don't want to go do that process now what happens I don't think we have a choice in doing that process we have orders for some of those moorings are court ordered because because of previous arrangements and settlements interesting

not all I don't know if all of them are but some of those moings are court ordered we have a moing and a dock down there so Right. So like anybody else, right? You can't rent the moing. No, that's exactly like it might be in my head that we can't just put an exorbitant number out there. Well, no, I'm not related to I'm just going to start putting my boat on one of those more. Why? Well, I asked I'm not suggesting that that we do it that way. Although, I mean, that's not a bad idea. But

I did ask him how two things. I asked him. I said, I'm under the um I said I thought I'm under the impression you can't rent out your mooring. And I know there are people that are renting them out. If we find out they are, their decals can be pulled. I don't know how that affects the court order, but you pull their So So, um, if these moorings are in the town of Bristol's name and one of those moorings breaks and a boat goes down over the hydro dam, who's responsible? Question. I think the moorings are still issued. They're so town of Bristol P files the application but they're individual individual

decals that are still issued to these people for their mor but we're the Hold on. So the but we're still responsible for gathering the uh your which your insurance and your registration information and all that other administrative fee. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean they said that we could charge one. Well no they pay the state too. So they they pay the state a fee. So we have to collect that fee for the state and then whatever fee we're going to be pay we're we could charge we have to pay collect. So how do we all right so okay I'm sorry I talked to them how do we set the date when the fee is going to be paid like in my head I'm going some people because no matter what the fee is they don't want to pay it until like 30 seconds where they have to I don't blame them.

Well so here's a um one thing he says we got 21 that we're responsible for. There's got to be a reasonable one thing that he said was that the town could pay the fee and then we collect the decals, but we don't release them until we get the fee from the from the boat. The No, but okay. So, now let's play that out for a second. Somebody intended to rent it. They know they're not supposed to. They know that we're going to give them grief because they're renting their whatever, right? I just report to the but then the town is floating

the marine patrol and they would probably go out and the boat would be ticketed or whatever. That's what they said. They would enforce it with if there's no decal put on the mooring they will go out and the um I'm still I guess I'm still struggling with the town as the responsible party for 21 moings. Yeah. And not making a profit off,000 bucks. I thought it was 10. Oh, I said 10,000. Okay. Um, I can gather and let you know how much. So, I understand you said there's a the the state has a fee to put the the uh blinky lights out

and it's not the state. We have to hire a contractor. We have to we it's part of our contract. So, we have to pay for that. But then we also need to charge administrative fee on top of that for collecting and monies and stick,000 bucks which if you do thousand divided by 21 I think Rob said no no no times a thousand.

Yeah I don't think that's going to work Rob. Well, but but so so you know this is where on you know listen I know I know what Rob's doing but we way underestimate what it takes. Okay. So right now you got the five of us having this long conversation. We're going to have let let's you know let's say it's let's assign it to the town clerk tax collector's office, right? Because they got to collect stuff anyways. They're going to have to there's a whole process and then somebody probably in highway is going to have to arrange to have the dock guy down there. Like there's going to be a lot of manh hours to go through and make sure we don't deal with the dock. No,

no, we hire we contracted it. We would, but somebody still somebody still has to the swim lines and the docks. We put the swim lines out and the mooring lights. That's it. And then the morning lights are going to have to come down. But the moring lights got to go in and out. We do that now. So, we there is a rate for that and I have that in the contract and we put the swim lines out. Um, we don't only thing we do at the dock is measure it and make sure it's so many feet away from the swim line cuz that's the the sign on the end of that dock where it says don't use. Feel free to use it as a Bristol res.

I mean, look cuz the town's deal. So, next time somebody yells at me for dropping somebody off of that dock. Gotcha. The whole the whole point is more of the we have to make sure we capture all of the energy that goes into it just because we have a moring upstairs still by the way. No one ever cleaned. Yeah. This is convoluted as hell. It's got to be at least 100 bucks a morning fee to for us to deal with that. Yeah, I would say so. At least thousand bucks. 10,000 Okay, let's have a round. Can you see them past the electrical?

All right, it's a quarter night. Everybody's getting punchy. Keep going. Listen to that one. Rock it. All right. Um um TA5 in your folders there's a PSV interest. We started talking about this a while ago. Um, and so I had Ruby review the work that was previously done by the former finance officer. She's included a document in the folder, I think that says PSB breakdown. She pulled some reports to show her work. When she calculated her number, she was off by about a,000 from the former. Can you talk about PSB interest?

Yeah. So, she was off by a,000 from the former finance officer. She feels that could have been an interest amount that she might have had a different number than the other finance officer. She recommends the board use the number submitted previously which is it's not 683 at six I have to go back to the email. It's 68,000 but I'll get you the correct number. Don't look at my report. Okay.

Apparently I All right. So, I didn't give you the right number. I need a if you could do a motion um to approve the transfer of that dollar amount from the general fund to the public safety building fund. This will clear up the interest issue that we need to we needed to correct and I wanted to do it before the end of the year.

68,382.33.

Yep. Is that the number? It's Yep. It's 68,383.33 from general to the public safety building fund. Yeah. All right. I'll make a motion to transfer $68,382.33 from the general operating account to the public safety building. We have a motion by Leu, second by Miller to transfer $68,382.33 to the public safety building fund from the general fund. Any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor? I I

opposed. Um we will just confirm with the auditors how um how we booked this transfer but we will make sure to complete it before the end of the year and that will clean up this issue. So and I can get you an updated number the public safety building fund. Yep. What is going to become of that? That's going to be probably a once I get you an updated number. Um, it's not enough for what we thought we could use it for. Um, because we talked about paving. It's not enough for that. I have to have a different discussion with you in non-public. Okay.

Um, but we there's two we have options. So, we can use it as long as we're using it towards the public safety building project. Um, or we can use it towards the bond payment um, if that's something we want to do. But we have to put a warrant article in. So we we should um decide we want to do that to close this account. But I need to get you an updated number because

one of the accounts was closed um and I'm the I've asked the treasurer for an updated number from the the TD Bank escrow where this money was moved. Can it can that be like the amount in that fund be used as a partial payment towards a project towards the bond? So let's say hypothetically say hypothetically there's $75,000 in there and paving is going to cost 100. Can we put a warrant article in next year saying we're going to for $100,000 with x amount to be paid from the public safety building for the remaining funds in the public safety building? Yes. And then the remaining funds to be raised by taxation or whatever. Yeah. Okay.

We can you off all the way? No. Why can't we just take the remaining 25,000 of the paper money? You could I'm just giving you a hypothetical also. Yeah. So to use that money in that we're going to have fun. It's going to have to be a war. Y yeah. Um, but we could do that because you know you're that's that money is coming from that fund. It'll close the fund out. Um, and you can use it. Can we do it this year? Too late. I think we can because we haven't even voted on awards yet. We just need to get an updated number. We need to make sure the transfer happens before the end of the year. So, get that done

and then you have an updated number and there's there's still other money when we just have to get a quote from somebody. There's still other money in that account, too. So, it's going to be higher than No, not a lot. Not a lot, but there's some. So, that's not the exact figure is what I'm saying. No, that's not the exact figure. I think it's probably going to be closer to 70. Yeah. Um, but I need to confirm that.

Okay. Well, let's uh talk to the two chiefs and see, you know, I include them in it obviously to make sure that's what we should be doing, which I guess that's the only thing that makes sense cuz we discussed it before and we'll get a quote on it and bingo bango and some pavement. Yep. It gets that one big issue taken care of. So, yep. Um, well, all righty then.

Number six, um, I the Breezeline F franchise kind of has fallen off my radar. Um, I've talked to Breezeline. I asked them if they could extend it till January, end of January because I figured we could look at it. Um, they actually came back and said it's the current franchise agreement stays in place. What's his name? He asked me if there was a problem and I said no. Time just got away from us. Um, so and I've asked him some questions about things that I was thinking about could we do. So I have answers on those.

So I didn't real I thought we still had more time. How much? So we're already out. Yeah. Well um it says um he goes under FCC rules the current agreement continues in effect until a new agreement is reached. He goes any particular reason they want to wait? and I said, "No, time just got away from us. We just need a little bit longer." So, um, okay. So, maybe we can talk about that separately because I think we need to understand what they're potent what they're thinking about from an investment library that they're trying to do in town, if anything, right?

I mean, there's been a lot of people that still are on their services and then sort of what what are they going to do for the residents to try to keep them? Um I asked him some questions already of can services we provide to the municipal buildings at no charge. Yeah. Um because we've noticed that he's the buildings that had it no longer do. Yeah. Um he said courtesy accounts have changed since the FCC third order came out in 2019. In that order, SEC declared that any discounted courtesy service that is provided by a cable operator as part of the franchise agreement would allow the cable operator to recoup the marginal cost of those services. Yeah. From the residents,

right? No, he's talking about us. So, no complimentary services are being offered anymore. Okay. And then I asked, is there an estimate on the franchise agreement payments? and he said franchise fees calculations are dependent on the number of residents subscribing subscribing to the cable services internet services are not cable services correct so there's no franchise fee on those services typically franchise fees have gone down over the last several years which they have we've seen that the checks we're getting from them makes sense due to increased comp competition and cord cutting utilizing the array of streaming oper options available to residents y

and then the Another question I've asked so far, can local news channels be returned to the area? Because that's one of the biggest problems. It's not, but that's not a them issue. And they said we can only carry services that are considered by Neielson to be within the DMA of the station. Yep. So, so we have to address that actually with others that pick. We've we've talked about taking up that fight before. Um, and it's not that's not just with cable. That's where Yep. So, so those are all I've asked him so far, but if there's specific questions, can you email them to me? Because the agreement is like I've got some information from the attorney, too, but the agreement is like 50 to 60 pages long.

No, no, yeah. No. So, well, if you remember, I think we had asked the attorney about having somebody that specializes in these agreements. We did not decide that as a group. No, but I thought we were trying to get him to help us understand what that was going to cost us to have somebody that actually specializes in he's um he feels he's he actually I think we had a conference call with him. He feels he is qualified because he negotiates because and I thought I'll go find my notes. I'll go find my notes but I'll I'll send you my I'll send you the questions and I'll find my notes. Okay, perfect. Okay. And then I'll schedule it for a meeting in January.

Yeah. Um, holiday lunchon is tomorrow for any of you who can make it that just to announce for the public, the non-emergency department will be closed from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Um, and they'll be at the public we will be at the public safety building. Um, and then just to announce for the public the holiday closures, I've posted them online. Um

I can't believe it's the 19th tomorrow. I know. I know. It was like the 12. No kidding. So um tomorrow I'm like way behind.

We're again we're closed 11 to 1, but um this building will be closed from 1 to 2:30. Um they we do an annual um swap for the admin in this build admin staff in this building. So we'll be doing that. Um, December 24th, all non-emergency departments will be closing at noon in observance of the Christmas holiday. December 25th, all non-emergency departments will be closed again for that day. December 26th, this building, the Barbara View Town Office Building, will be closed for the day and will reopen on Monday, December 29th. And then January 1st, all non-emergency departments will be closed in observance of the New Year's holiday. And um and that's all I hope that's all she wrote.

Okay, I'm a little buzzy. So, select board. I'm Sean Scott. Uh budget committee met on Tuesday and the budget committee voted to raise a few of the lines. One being the children's librarian line. FICA and Medicare to go with it and cleaning cleaning cleaning services. I was trying to remember if they change slightly.

Did they change another budget? I thought there was Who else was there? I I know I was there, but I mean, who else was I know we're all like um Let me look at So, I think there were a couple a couple other chains there. Yeah. Nothing too dramatic. I think the biggest change was the the library was the library that line item. Um I didn't tell you because who else was there? Cemeteries that was the same. Yep. Um check. And how much did that go up again? 10,000. Nine change. Yeah. Who else was I going to their agenda?

Library cemetery. Um, it was mainly me. Oh, went through a bunch of the went through a bunch of the executive stuff. Oh, back tax collector, but he didn't they didn't change hers. Um, legal personnel, general government. Was there something we lowered? We lowered some to share, didn't we? She's there was a concern that we the beaches we didn't we had a project we did to replace the swim lines this year and instead of lowering we put the signs in.

But um I think that I don't Yeah, maybe we didn't change anything else. Maybe it was just them. There's a lot of discussion. Um, I did change um I followed up with them by the way and said the budget committee. Okay, I guess you got it. You had an email. I checked. Um, I said I there were some questions that came out um pre one question previously and then there was a question the the Tuesday night. I'm like I don't have an answer for them right now. But um I I found out what the percentage was for New Hampshire retirement that comes out of the employee.

Um that's stuff by statute. We don't control that. So I sent that to them. Um and then I sent what else did I send since you have the email in front of you. Um and updated economic development name changed to economic committees on the budget line. So it's the budget section says economic development um committee and uh doesn't make sense to say that. So I changed the budget section to say economic committees and then um economic development I updated to economic opportunity committee and then flags and then flags um then when there was money spent so

memberships we didn't change those but we discussed them. I I thought there was questions cuz some of them increased but we ended up not changing. I don't believe maybe I was talking I was talking Tuesday. I really fing Tuesday. There was a big discussion around uh since the school was late. Oh right.

There was a big discussion around since the school was late. Uh there was at least one member who wanted to charge the school the interest amount that we're going to pay for for borrowing and and I as a member of the public reminded them that uh I can appreciate the concept but Christina just got done telling you that we haven't paid them our bill for the last two months uh which is a little over a million dollars. So nor can we legally do that anyway. Right. Right. And well, New Hampton's the other one. They owed them three months, which is just over $1 million, too.

Um, I did recalculate the school payment based on the new and we should drop from approx. We right now we have an approximate number. It wasn't a right number. So, we've been paying 550 since July, but we should drop to 517 if I calculated it right. So, I was going to reach out to the school because I don't want to pay these two bills at the 550. Just just pay them at 500. I mean, literally just go, you know what? We know we're behind. I can't I have to pay what the bill says. So, I can't adjust the bill. Um I have to pay what the bill what the bill says.

Well, at least they're not trying to be landlords anymore. Yes, I did confirm that. I think I shared that, too. So, though. So, they did He did back away from it. Yeah. Basically, uh his comment, superintendent's comment was basically saying that based on the court of public opinion, we heard you loud and clear. We heard you loud and clear. We're probably not going to hit the 60% it requires to pass. John, what do you got? I'm good. I've caused enough trouble tonight.

Uh historic district commission, we met last week. Um discussion was mostly centered around the property at the corner in the square um next to what would be a cavis block, the old pet store. Um Jeff Goodram is the owner of the building. He came in and is doing a significant amount of renovations to the property. Um he's got a lot of interest uh in the property. He said he's got about I think he said seven or eight people interested. Um in the process of the renovation he covered the old puberty hard before my time.

Really? Yeah. In 90 98 we town 95 we I started coming through town. Yeah. So pretty cool to see that once again. Um it's way better than the Grace electronic sign. Yeah. Yes. So, it's not going to stay there most likely. Um, but he's talking with the commission about uh possibly putting it up higher cuz that block's not actually named like Rollins block and Cavis block. Um, so he's trying to come up with a solution to um highlight it. Highlight it. Something like that. Uh, it's a huge site. Yeah.

Uh, it's all like carved wooden letters. It's it's really cool. Aren't there two? There's two. Is there two? Cuz I thought I noticed that. So, one of the comments was named one for Homestead cuz they've got like the old everyone sign shop.

Um, but there is a possibility that will also end up on the that the PE PBS hardware will end up somewhere on the exterior of the building. Um, and then he's also uh replacing all that storefront glass and everything and doors and so he's working with Granite State Glass and and um I think he said Granite State Glass or some other distributor and uh he's going to um come to the historic district commission with a plan so that plan can get approved and then we can get that stuff in order and and hopefully get somebody in there within the next few months. So, that's awesome.

Yep. But trying to stay with the theme of um I know the France Ceramics redid their storefront. So, he was kind of trying to stay with that same thing of keeping that black Yeah. trim look and um painting those windows up top and everything. Then we just got to figure out the other building on the end on the Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what I told them. I said if you could one across the street that'd be great. Um it's that building is still under problems. Yeah.

Yeah. Um yep. Uh other than that, uh Sans Village this weekend was great. Thanks to TTC for everything they do with that. Everybody volunteer and uh we did a great job with that as usual. So other than that, I don't have anything else I can say in public. Yeah, we have a small nonpublic. Yep. Uh so, uh public comments. Kate, you got anything for us?

All right. Um yeah, I would entertain the motion to go back into nonpublic session pursuant to New Hampshire RSA 91 a semicolon 3 chapter 2. Some moved. I know back. I had a motion by leg, second by San uh to go back into non-public session. I have a roll call vote. Sean I Scott I. Rob I. John. I. We back in public.