City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to City of Keen in Focus. Thanks so much for listening. Hello and welcome back to our next episode of City of Keen in Focus. My name is Asa Kramer and I am joined today by Elizabeth Furland, our city manager. Good morning, Elizabeth. Good morning, Asa. Happy spring, like officially. I know. I know. I always get so excited when the street sweepers come out. Oh yeah.

Because it, you know, they do such a great job of cleaning everything up and it feels like, you know, we're moving into spring and eventually into summer and so just a nice change of season. So last night, back to business. Uh last night it was a pretty good meeting. We had a good turnout for the CIP public hearing, which really was a big part of the meeting. And it's always a lot of fun when the mayor does recognitions and we get to see Yeah. It's so great. We get to see a lot of kids from the high school. They were recognized for their achievements in different winter sports. And so that was great.

There was a huge variety of winter sports. I was surprised. There was bowling, there was wrestling. It was just really across the board which was really cool to see that they get that experience.

Yeah, that was great. So for the public hearing really the talk of the town has been the bathroom in the capital plan for a number of years we've had a public bathroom to be located somewhere on Gilbo a and you know sort of the history behind this bathroom. We have had different bathrooms on Gilbo a over the years. When the transportation center was open, I think there was a bathroom there. And then when that closed, we used portaotties for a number of years. And then just because of the damage we were seeing, actually the portaotty companies stopped letting us use their portaotties there. Andy Bohannan, deputy city manager at the time, he was the parks and wreck director. And I said, you know, Andy, we got to get a portaotty down there. And he's like, ah geez, Elizabeth, I don't know. Oh, you know, we've had some difficult experiences and I said, "Well, let's give it another shot." And so he called them and they literally took the oldest porta potty that was in the back of the lot and said, "Okay, you can try this." And they put it down there and I don't think it was very long. It was maybe a couple weeks and it got tipped over even though it was chained. Yeah. So, we've had a lot of experience with bathrooms and I think that that's why we are at the point we are at right now. In terms of the council has expressed an interest in having a bathroom. There's been a lot of public comment over the years about having a bathroom and really having one that's accessible at hours that city hall and the library aren't open because during the day just walking down here I saw lots of people coming in to use the bathroom and so I think they are well used at city hall during the day during the week when we're open and obviously also at the library. There's a lot of traffic at the library for the bathrooms, but it's those hours that were closed. I think there's interest in

doing something a little different. So, having a bathroom in a building is probably not the fix because even a building at the transportation center, it's going to be closed. They're not going to be 24/7 bathrooms. And so, if that's truly the purpose and the goal, you need a solution for that. And so the public works department did quite a bit of homework on you know what sort of options are available and the Portland Lou was one of the options and it was mentioned last night it's a bit cheaper than the option that they are putting forward but the challenge with the Portland L is it's not heated. Oh sure okay.

So it's open to the air in the winter time. I think that would be really difficult. And so, you know, if the goal is to have 247 bathrooms year round, we need something that's heated, right? And that might be a great option for like Texas, but here that's hard.

It's hard. Yeah. So, the bathroom that is in the capital plan right now is a heated bathroom and it does have a lot of functionality to it, self-cleaning, and it's made of very hearty materials so that it's more difficult to be damaged or misused. And that's really how we got here with this bathroom. And it all goes back to what is the purpose? What is the goal? If the goal is now changed, if we're happy with a bathroom that is just during operating hours or maybe adding a Saturday hours, we might be able to do something different. If we just want a bathroom that we use in the warmer months, we could probably do the Portland low. So, it goes back to what does the community want? What does the council want? And then putting forward a proposal that meets their objective.

And I thought the public came prepared with a lot of really great questions and points last night about the bathroom. Lots to consider

right now. The council will consider this again after it goes to FOP. So the public portion of the conversation related to the CIP is done, but the FOP committee will take a vote on what they will move forward to the full city council to consider at their next council meeting. I think in addition to the bathroom, there will be conversation about just road repairs and construction overall. The first year of the capital plan is really allocated to the downtown project and you know we only have so much capacity to do projects and financial capacity and so the road construction for new road. This is not just maintenance. This is full depth reconstruction of roadway that is being allocated right now towards the downtown project as is other parts of the plan for water and sewer. their portion of the funding for the work that's being done under the ground. And so in the capital plan, there is a pretty good chart that breaks it all down. Public works included all the different funding sources and you can see that and the capital plan should be on the website hopefully later today.

Hopefully today. Yep.

So that people can really dig into it and look at all the projects. And one of the things I'm always reminding the council of is that this is a planning document. The capital plan looks at projects over the next seven years and it uses information that we know right now, but things change. Grants become available, something happens and something else might become a bigger priority in the next year. So, it really is just a financial planning tool and it doesn't obligate the city to do any of the projects, but it allows for public input so that we know what are the projects that are most important to the community. How do they feel about the bathroom? How do they feel about other projects that may be a few years down the road or new projects that are being added? Because as we get closer to the year that a project is implemented, that's when it gets more important. So the first year of the capital plan will be used in the operating budget. And so you know while at the council level we're talking about capital projects at the department level I'm talking about budgets right now. And so we're kind of going through both processes at the same time. And when we get to finalizing an operating budget that will go forward to the city council in May. It will include a recommendation for the capital projects that are in that first year of the capital plan. So if you look at the capital plan online, it's that fiscal 27 year. That's going to be the most pressing um because that's what we will be using as part of the operating budget. So how does a project get into the capital plan? The fiscal policies that the council adopts tells us what's included. And right now they say a project over $50,000 with a useful life of 5 years or more should be in the capital plan. Really that's to try to avoid surprises and try to plan as far

ahead as possible. But we also have programs in the capital plan and those are things like the radios that the emergency services use. So both police and fire that's a constant replacement. They are on a cycle. So that's a program that's in there and we have several new programs that will be coming in and what usually happens is something that's in the operating budget that is continual like that will get moved over as a program into the capital plan. So we start really with the appendix and the appendix of the capital plan is where the things that are beyond seven years but we know that it has to be moved into the capital plan at some point. So we'll start to talk about it in the appendix and then the project will gradually move up in the funding years and the plan is to set aside money over that period of time and what's called a capital reserve. And a capital reserve is like a savings account for a project. And so if you can set aside funds over the seven years or more, then when it becomes time to implement the project, you have some of those funds available to you to offset the bottom line impact for the project. Because the goal is to use that capital plan as a financial tool that allows us to set aside money and try to keep a somewhat level impact on the budget year after year, a level investment into our infrastructure. And so we have a little cheat code at the bottom of one of our worksheets that tells us year after year how many new funds are required to implement the plan. And so our goal is to try to keep that fairly close. And there are times it will go up a little or come back down a little, but when it comes back down a little, then we know if there's additional capacity to move things around. And because the plan is really a living document and every year we're

getting new information, things continue to change. It continues to be updated. Yeah, I think that's a great description of how it works because it's complicated and I think a lot of people if you're not in it every single day, it can be a little overwhelming. So, I think that's a really really good way to break it down. The goal is to try to get as much information out to the public as possible and be able to answer the questions that they have and to engage people. There's a lot of moving parts this year in the budget process because of the revaluation, because of the work that we're doing, the escalation of costs that we're seeing, the downshifting from the state of New Hampshire, which, you know, downshifting just means that the state may have been giving us a revenue at one time and they just keep taking that revenue away or putting additional costs on towns and cities that is impacting our tax rate. Our senator, Senator Donovan Fenton, has asked to do a town hall on just that topic on downshifting.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So, we had our first sort of pre-planning meeting. And right now, the plan is for myself, the county manager, and the superintendent to be on a panel and talk about what we've seen in terms of downshifting over the years and how that's impacting our local tax rates. And one of the things that I'm really concerned about is you know over the years the state really has they taken away most of what they can to be honest from municipalities and we've held on to you know meals and rooms even though the formulas have changed but they've eliminated some other things that I sincerely doubt will ever come back and we've taken some big hits over the years as a result of that in the municipal rate but I'm concerned about school funding right now. If you look, it's not just here. It's everywhere in the state of New Hampshire. And the debate continues and it's been continuing for decades actually since the first Claremont lawsuit about what's the appropriate level of funding for education from the state and how do we do that? The challenge has become the funding formula relies on enrollment. Well, enrollment is declining. And I think last night someone even said that the average age of people in New Hampshire and the number of children that families are having is just the number of children are are declining and people are older. And so it's reducing the revenue that we're getting from the state and we're beginning with a revenue number that's not even close to an adequate education funding amount. So you begin with this very small number and then you deal with the declining enrollment and you still have to provide education and programs and pay for buildings and you know you need the infrastructure in the school systems and funding the school systems is one of the most important things a community can do because you're building your future workforce, you're building your future

community and so you know you can't really cheap out on that. And unfortunately, I don't think the state has really fixed the problem. And they just keep pushing it down to the local level. And that creates inequities across communities in the state of New Hampshire where some communities are funding their education more than others. And these kids that are going through the school, they're the ones that are suffering for the communities that aren't. I mean, we're really fortunate here in the city of Keen. The public has supported the school system. The public has supported the municipality. The public supports public safety. And so we've been well supported in this community, but I see my peers in other communities that really are facing some big challenges. And I don't know how that's going to end. And so I think the conversation that we have with Donovan Fenton, this town hall meeting and talking about some of these challenges that we're facing that are really beyond our control should be pretty educational. and the New Hampshire Municipal Association, which also talks about this often and every year, the executive director, Margaret Burns, is also going to be joining us at that town hall meeting. And so, I don't have all the details yet. We haven't finalized everything, but we're in the early stages of putting that together. And also, every year, the city of Keen hosts a legislative meeting, and that date has been set for April 6th at Delegation Hall. So, there was a conflict at the library and so we've asked the county to use their space and they have graciously agreed and so we will be at delegation hall on April 6 at 6:00 p.m. should last from about 6:00 to 9. We're working with NHMA Margaret Burns on what bills are most important to us in this region to cover and discuss because this is the time that bills cross over. So, they cross over from the House to the Senate, the Senate to the House. And so now we know which

bills have survived because there's a lot of bills that don't make it out of either the House or the Senate and it doesn't make sense to have a legislative meeting until we've kind of gone through that process. And so now that we know the bills that are crossing over, we're going to try and focus the conversation on the ones that are most important to us. Usually we have great turnout. We invite all the other towns around us and we usually see select board members, planning board members, town administrators, and of course our legislators. So, it's usually a well attended meeting. So, last night, one of the things that the council did was approve the donation of a lot of furniture. So, I just have to brag about our departments for a moment and how creative they are. So last night the council accepted a donation of about $100,000 worth of office equipment and this happened as a result of work through the purchasing department and there was a business that was going out of business. I think it was in Bedford and they were donating the equipment to other nonprofits, schools, government entities. Our purchasing office jumped right on that. And one of the projects that we have in the capital plan is to put up new partitions on the third floor for the finance department. And guess what we got?

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, we got partitions. And so that is just amazing. You know, we also got desks and filing cabinets and things of that nature, but we got these partitions that we were looking to put in place upstairs. And so really excited about that. that allowed us to reduce the cost of the work that's being done. And this happens all the time. That was one example last night, but I was reviewing the fleet budget this week and we were talking about Facebook Marketplace of all things and how sometimes we find used equipment on there that meets our needs. And so, you know, we're really always on the lookout for a deal and when we can do it, we definitely take advantage of it.

It's so clever and so fortuitous. I love that approach.

You know, speaking a little bit more about Fleet and the great work that they do for all of the vehicles that the city has from firet trucks to cars to police cruisers. They have a very extensive plan and they do, you know, their own version of a CIP, right? They have all of the vehicles in. We have a schedule for each vehicle, but they don't just replace them based on a number. So say there is a schedule for 5 years and that vehicle is up for replacement in the fifth year. We don't just replace it in the fifth year. We set aside funds for it. But if that vehicle can go another year, that vehicle goes another year. We've stretched out the replacement schedule. I can't even tell you how many times on vehicles because of that. Number one, they take great care of them. They do all the preventative maintenance. And then number two, they're always looking at it and saying, "Okay, there's some minor repairs, but this still makes sense for us to keep it." It's when we start to get to the major repairs that we say, "Okay, it doesn't make sense anymore." We do that costbenefit analysis and then we replace the vehicle. So, kudos to them as well. We were just talking about this this week when we were looking at the fleet fund. But, we got a really creative team here that does look to save money and stretch the dollar and make the assets last. and the work that they do across the city to maintain the assets that we do have really is a testament to the people in the department because they're lasting. The infrastructure that we have is lasting longer and longer. Last night there was an ordinance for first reading that was referred to committee and that is an ordinance related to emergency management. It's chapter 30 and that was referred to April 9th. The work that Court Blumquist is doing for us on emergency management has been great. He helped us update our hazard mitigation plan for the city. He's working right now with all of the departments on continuation of operations in all sorts

of scenarios. But there's been some real examples of people losing access to their data or losing access to their building. And it can be for a variety of things. It doesn't have to be a flood or a major event. These things happen. And the goal of these continuation of operation plans is to look at, okay, what do we do and what services need to continue? If you do have a major event or if it's a small event, how can we shift? And so he's working on those continuation of operation plans. He's been meeting with a department or two every week. He's only here for, you know, 10 to 14 hours a week. So, it's a slow process, but he's made some good progress. And updating the emergency management section of chapter 30 is also another thing that was on his list. And so, we'll move through that process to get that updated. One of those things that he did accomplish early on was moving our EOC from the basement. So, EOCC is emergency operations center. It had been in the basement of city hall. I've been in there multiple times when we've had reasons to open that EOC and it was jam-packed with stuff. I've been in there in the middle of summer when there's no AC, there's no HVAC. I mean, it was a rough spot. When you have a big event, you have all these other agencies there, state police, you know, county, you may have a room full, you don't have access to a printer. I mean, there just was all sorts of challenges. And so we've moved that up to the second floor and we're using the training room which I think makes a whole lot of sense because we already have equipment there for we have a printer right next door. We have a copier. We have all the computers there. We have big screens for virtual meetings. We have a lot more space for other agencies if they do need to come into our EOC. So that was one of

court's first projects and that is complete. And he's also looking at, you know, potential of some grants for generators. You know, we always need to think about having backup power in our primary facilities. And so, he's working on that and he's working on these continuation of operation plans. So, you'll see him on April 9th. So, I think that really covers the things I wanted to cover from last night and hopefully helps to explain a little bit of the CIP process and how we put that all together. I think next time I have an idea. Oh, yeah. And hopefully it's the next time. It might be the one after that, but I'd love to get our IT director on here. Oh, that's a great idea. I love that.

Yeah. So, I was just meeting with him, Andrew Mueller, about his budget. So, we were going through his budget and at the end, you know, he was talking to me about security and all of that. And I said, you know what, this is really interesting stuff. I think that people would be interested to know the great work that the IT department is doing. We don't talk about the IT department a lot, but without them, we would not be operating. So, they're doing some really good work to keep us safe and to keep things moving forward. And if you think about our critical infrastructure, water and sewer, you know, that's a vulnerability for us. And making sure that we are doing all we can to keep those critical operations going is really important. So, I have twisted his arm and so we just need to find a date that works for him and get him on here.

Great. I love that idea. Yeah, our IT team is awesome. As you say, they are very much behind the scenes, but they do magic. It is incredible what they do and they are just the funniest, nicest, smartest people. It's a great team.

Yeah. and Rick in the IT department has been working behind the scenes on this open gov transition which we also need to talk about because we're about to roll that out. There's a ton of work that's been going on and that I think is going to be a huge benefit to the public and to the city because we're going to be able to go across departments in one platform for community development, for code enforcement, for fire inspections, for planning, just really have this one-stop location for people to access things and track things. You know, I sometimes get questions about a property. And right now, we do have a way for people to if there's a complaint about a condition at a property, maybe it's garbage, maybe there's uh too many cars that are unregistered, it could be a variety of things, if they put in a complaint or a concern in the current system, they can track that and it's good, but this is going to be better. So, I'm really excited to have them on as well to talk about Open Gov and what it will do for us and what it will hopefully do for the users, which is the public and the contractors and some good stuff. But Rick from it is really making it happen in the background.

That's awesome. Yeah, I think that's going to be a great change. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about today? The CIP is huge. So, yeah, I think that's it.

All right. Well, super. As I do every single episode, I'm going to encourage people to go to keenh.gov/job and check out the open positions there. We have some summer jobs at parks and wreck. We have an internship opportunity at the water and wastewater treatment plant. We have some motor equipment operator positions available. There are some highway positions, some fleet services, like Elizabeth was talking about before. Our fleet services team is awesome. So yeah, there's there's all sorts of opportunities available. Pretty soon here, middle of March, the youth services department is going to be posting their application for our summer youth program. And what that is, that's a program available to 14 and 15 year olds in Keen and the surrounding area where they can come work for the city for I think it's about 6 weeks in summer across a variety of positions. There are office jobs available. There's parks and wreck jobs. There's some public works jobs. And it just allows for teenagers to start to get some work experience and to build their resume a little bit and learn some workplace skills. So, that's a great opportunity for the kiddos. That application is going to be open middle of March and it stays open till the beginning of April and that will be at keenh.gov/job as well.

I'm always trying to recruit for a future city manager. Oh, yeah. So, I will tell you that all, you know, I love the youth program. We always have someone come up to the third floor and work with myself and the mayor and I bring them to some meetings. So, I try to make it interesting so they're not just doing admin stuff, but you know, I can't get people to really go for the city manager job. They're really interested in the mayor's job and they want to be a future mayor, but not so much city manager. I'm still trying. We've had great success at just having students work in our departments and then come back and actually work for us later on in life, which is amazing.

That's great. I love that. All right, if that is it, I think we will wrap up for today. Happy spring, everyone, and we will see you next time. Thanks for listening to City of Keen and Focus. We'll see you next time.