Town Council - Regular Meeting

This is the Londonderry Town Council meeting from Monday, August 17, 2026.

Everyone please rise for the pledge.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Councilor Bouchard has a proclamation for Londonderry Trailways.

Can we have the legendary trailways folks come up here, please, and stand up? Oh, yeah, please. And I think it would be good for the work that they've done that we all stand while you read this. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I think that's all we have here. Oh, no, John's here. I don't know what's going on.

This is Resolution 2026-13, a resolution relative to recognizing London Dairy Trailways for outstanding service to the community. Whereas London Dairy Trailways was established in 2000 as an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to developing safe walking and bicycling routes, in Londonderry connecting neighborhoods, schools, businesses, conservation lands, and community destinations for people of all ages and abilities. And, whereas for more than 25 years, Londonderry Trailways has expanded public access to outdoor recreation, an alternative alternative transportation by building and caring for conservation area trails, neighborhood connections, and the Londonderry Rail Trail. And whereas the organization work includes trails at Kendall Pond, Adams Pond, Moose Hill Orchards, and the Musquash Conservation Area, as well as the school pathway, the Kings to Laffa Connection, the Laffa Loop Trail, and ongoing maintenance by dedicated volunteer trail stewards. And whereas Londonderry Trailways has helped complete 4.5 miles of the town's six-mile rail trail corridor, transforming a former rail line into a highly used community asset and an essential link to the future Granite State Rail Trail and the broader Southern New Hampshire Regional Trail Network. And whereas through sustained partnership with the town residents, the Conservation Commission, businesses, and charitable foundations, Londonderry Trailways has leveraged substantial support to take the lead in raising the funds necessary to create and maintain these resources for the entire community. And whereas these achievements have been made possible by the leadership of Board President Bob Rameau, Vice President Sandra LeGue, Treasurer Rich Engler, Jr., Secretary Mike Baylor, and members at large Josh Cooke, John Daley, M.D., and Paul Margulione, together with the enduring service of longtime volunteers Dawn Thompson, Mike Eaton, Jamie Staton, Colm Creed, and Megan Ramal. And whereas the volunteers of London Dairy Trailways have strengthened community connections, encouraged healthy outdoor activity, improved access to public lands, and created lasting public infrastructure without paid staff, exemplifying civic leadership, steward, and service. Now, therefore, be it resolved, the Town Council of the Town of Londonderry, that Londonderry Trailways, its Board of Directors, its longtime volunteers, and all who have contributed their time, expertise, and resources are hereby recognized and sincerely thanked for more than 25 years of exceptional service and for creating a safer, healthier, more connected, and more welcoming Londonderry for present and future generations. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was lengthy.

All right, up next, Patrick Cheatham had a few words. Thank you, sir.

Hopefully I don't unplug myself. Chairman Dunn, thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Members of the council, Mr. Town Manager, and my fellow residents here in town, for the record, my name is Patrick Cheatham. I'm a police officer and a captain with our police department, where I've proudly served for the last 24 years and 12 days. The anniversary was a couple weeks ago. I just wanted to offer a few observations I made about Old Home Day. Having participated in 23 of the last 24 Old Home Days since my employment back in 2002, I know at the beginning of the year there was some consternation and there were people that were concerned we weren't going to have an old home day this year that was consistent with what we've come to expect in years past. When I first became a police officer, again, 2002, I only recall, and Dan, remind me, I only remember fireworks on a Friday night, a charity softball game between police and fire, which back then the firemen always whipped our behinds, but not anymore. And I'm here to help you, support you and your other stuff too, but I'm just saying we won this year, like the last five years. And then there was the Lundgren 5K on a Saturday morning, followed by a parade and then a festival. And that was all I remember of Old Home Day. And now we have Old Home Days, right? We call it Old Home Day, but it's really four or five days of events because we've – added things over the course of the last 24 years to recognize different groups. So we don't have to all fit it in into one afternoon because that'd be too much for anyone to bear. And going back to some former comments about, you know, some citizens were concerned we weren't going to have that old home day like we've had in the past. I'm here to say I think this was one of the best old home days I've experienced in my career, perhaps second only to our 125th anniversary because we had significantly more funds and we had to roll over money from COVID because we couldn't have old home day, right? We couldn't congregate. But if you were the average parade-goer or participant or observer in any of the events, you would not see anything but smiles, laughs, and happiness at every single one. They don't get to see the red flags that happen, the fires that get put out, the emails, the phone calls. And while we had a committee that work was divided amongst, there's one person who made sure that that committee followed through on everything. No detail was overlooked. Having seen the, you know, received the text messages and the phone calls, I thought it was just very, very important to recognize our very own Kirsten, Kirsten, sorry, Hildenen, because she is an unsung hero, not only in the town of Londonderry, but also for everything that she did for Old Home Day. You know... And a week ago on Monday, I called Tristan. I said, I cleared my schedule for this entire week. I can be a runner. I can do whatever you need. The only thing she asked me to do was get her a nice coffee. That's the only thing she asked me to do, and I happily got her a nice coffee. And I threw a couple wrenches in her planning as well with some safety equipment, and Tristan really rolled with the punches. So I just wanted to report back. As someone who helped minimally in the organization, the setup of things, but as a person who attended every event with my children, we had a wonderful time, and that doesn't happen often. by mistake, right? It doesn't happen overnight. It's months and months of planning. It's support from our town leadership financially and metaphorically as well. And Old Home Days is everything that is great about Londonderry. It's our time to shine. We don't do one day because we have too much to do. We can't get it done in one day. Most towns do one day. And when people come to see what we do here in Londonderry when it comes to Old Home Day, I'm very proud to have attended as many as I've been fortunate to and to see the smiles and the laughter. And that's what it's all about. I have now a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old. And to be able to experience that with them, our police department is a young police department, much like the fire department. We have a younger generation of officers. I'm perhaps not that demographic anymore as I, you know, at 45 years young. But to see so many families, police, fire, DPW included, you know, attending these events, you know, on duty, on shift with our families. That's what London Dairy is about. It's about family. It's about community. It's about participation. So, Chairman Dunn, thank you very much for the time you gave me. I apologize if I spoke longer than I should. But I had one heck of a time last week. My kids had one heck of a time. And I'll tell you, they slept exceptionally well Friday night after the fireworks. And my daughter Hannah said to me on Saturday at like 3 in the afternoon, Daddy, can we just have a chill night tonight? So needless to say, thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Cherson, for all that you do. And especially Rick Pierce, the president of the committee. I thought he did an exceptionally good job. And the last thing I'll say is Steve and Julie Lee, who run the concert in the Commons for the last 24 years. Again, I'm not here to promote myself, but as our community engagement officer, I was able to attend nine of the 11 concerts this year. I haven't been able to do that in the past. Nine out of 11 were outside, and I think we probably had, we estimate, about 500 people in attendance, probably more, and many of you were there yourselves. You saw firsthand in our last event during Old Home Day was probably more than 1,000 people.

1,362.

1,362. No safety issues, no disorderly conducts, no intoxicated, not that alcohol is served, but we're not checking cups either. And people use the crosswalks. The alert team also deserves recognition. Without those folks, again, another group that we are very proud to have here in our community. So at the risk of rambling on any more. Thank you very much, and hats off to everyone that helped, and of course, thank you for the weather, because that is a big determinant of how much fun we can have as well. So thank you for your volunteerism. Your faces were present at nearly all the events in some capacity, and for that, I say, as a resident and as a police officer, thank you.

Thank you, sir. With those nice... With those kind words, I will open public comment. Good evening.

Hello. I'm Jane Cooper, 73 Winterwood Drive, Londonderry, New Hampshire. I only have two things. First, after that wonderful, wonderful speech, I have to say all of my neighbors perhaps behave better than some of you do here, maybe. The other thing is the money that you're spending on lawyers, that's my money. And I have no idea what you're spending it on. I know you're looking for right of requests, however you pay that. And my guess is if you need lawyers, something you're trying to figure out how not to have to do. And whatever else investigations you're doing, it's our money. And we have no idea what you're doing. And so anyway, I'm not very happy about that. The second thing is, I'm from New York, so I went to kindergarten, and I'm not sure if any of you were brought up in New Hampshire, but if you were, you missed something that you might have learned in kindergarten. So I'm giving you a refresher course.

Thank you. Well, thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

What do you think?

Martha Smith, 38 Chester Drive. I want to just echo what Patrick said. And my favorite event this year at Old Home Days, I think it was the first time that they ever did it, was those cars. those cars that were lined up on Pillsbury Road down by the church and the historical society. I just loved seeing all those people that restored those cars, drove those cars. I asked a million of them for rides. It was really a fun, fun event. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you.

To be clear on that one, because Martha called it out, I want to have to acknowledge Kaylee Esposito, Brian Carpone, and Darcy LaFabe. The three of them handled that from soup to nuts, and they did a phenomenal job.

Good evening, Richard.

Good evening, Richard Polonsky, 89 Hall Road. Back at the 720 meeting. I came up here and spoke about quite a few things and asked questions that I wanted to get answers for. And at the end they said I probably wouldn't get any answers. And lo and behold, no answers. Big shock. So I'm gonna reiterate these again. And if I have to at the next meeting, I'm gonna come in with a stack of 91 As, if that's the only way to get it done. As we know, the LEA contract was changed last year on the second day of the contract by the town manager who says per the Charter, he can do that. I don't think that's true. That was a Warren article item. And my understanding from when I've talked to the state is Warren articles can only be changed by another Warren article. I asked when the town, uh, the new fire chief was going to make a commitment to moving to this town. Are we looking at two months, six months, a year, five years, the vehicle use was another problem. We're wearing out a vehicle, the expenses of the vehicle, the liability of the vehicle. The $131,000 in salary adjustments that were done. What was it in December? I think. And I asked about in February, I asked what line items those came from and how much came out of each line item. Haven't got an answer. The veterans credit, as we know, still hasn't been answered who decided to put the kibosh on that. And it seems like we're from what I found out in the last couple of days, it looks like we're trying to draw this out because the paper that came from the town's attorney. is looking for a trial date of August, 2027. So we're gonna draw this out another year. Is that the game we're playing? We're now in year two of the LEA contract started 1st of July. So what I wanna know is, were there any compensation changes to the fire chief's contract because of the July 1, 2026 going into the second year, such as a COLA or a pay increase, because there is an increase in that line. So these are very simple things to answer, but there is no transparency as I was told there was going to be. It hasn't happened and I want answers. These are answers that every resident in this town has the right to have. Yet they're not getting, they're real simple. So if I have to come in here with a stack of 91As, we'll get you five days to answer the 91As, at least acknowledge them. That's what I'll do. Is that what I need to do? All we do is hear bitching and moaning about 91As. Well, this is why you get so many 91As. Simple questions don't get answered.

excuse me I just would like mr. Blinsky to repeat I didn't get it all and I want to make sure I got it right the Leah contract change no no you said we were going to trial I didn't say we were going to trial I said there was a paper that might have got filed today a legal paper

from uh attorney i didn't see this no that's that's fine i that is looking for there's a bunch of stuff on it arbitration different stuff but the trial date they're looking for is i think it was august 8th but it was august of 2027. and it's for the veterans it's for the veterans the one that's been going on yeah so a little concerning not picking on you deb a little concerned and you're not aware of this well this is the first i'm hearing okay no i'm not picking it's not uncommon richard no i know So we need to start getting some answers. This stuff is not hard. It really isn't. So, you know, people can say, tell me right now, I'm not going to give you answers, and I'll just write up all the 91As and hand them in. I'll hand them in at this meeting. I don't want verbal answers from anybody. I want written at this point, because with a verbal answer, that leaves plausible denial. Not what I said. You didn't understand what I said. I want it in writing. And one last thing, at least until the end of the meeting, you're talking about the agreement between Litchfield and Londonderry for the fire department. In theory, I don't have a problem with it. My problem is I've seen numbers that don't add up. And what type of an exit strategy is there for these extra employees This should go down the drain for whatever reason either side we can get stuck The one day your taxpayer is going to be get stuck paying for all these extra employees are being put on for this So if you're going to okay this I really hope you have numbers at work a minimum of a three-year projection on this Hopefully five years as to the revenues and such, as best as you can get it, because it won't be an exact science, and an exit strategy on if this doesn't work for whatever reason either side. Because when we had the safer grant with three firefighters being paid, and that should have gone on the ballot whether we're going to keep those three people, it was just rolled into the default budget. Not what you're supposed to do. All right? So they were put in the budget, and nobody knew the whys. I'm not saying we should have got rid of them, but it should have been on. Do the people want to continue at the town's expense, the taxpayer expense for these firefighters? And I'm not going to argue how many we need and how many we don't need, because I'm not in that business. They know what they need. But it seems like we never have exit strategies. We don't cross our T's and dot our I's, and it's a mess. I don't know who's negotiating this stuff. Okay, but they really need to learn how to negotiate a contract. Thank you, Richard.

Good evening, sir. Hi, John Farrell for Hancock Drive. So I've been contacted by many people about this ambulance thing for Litchfield. And in concept, I think we should absolutely help other communities. BUT AT THE LAST MEETING, MS. PAUL TRIED TO ASK A WHOLE BUNCH OF QUESTIONS. AND HAD SOMEBODY ANSWERED HER QUESTIONS, I WOULDN'T BE STANDING HERE TONIGHT. SHE TRIED TO GET ANSWERS AND SHE WASN'T GETTING ANSWERS. SO I'M GOING TO LEND SOME CLARIFICATION HERE BECAUSE HAD THAT BEEN A FOLLOW-THROUGH WHEN THE PRESENTATION WAS DONE, I DON'T THINK ANY OF THESE DISCUSSIONS WOULD BE TAKING PLACE. FOR ME, IT'S SIMPLE. LONDON AREA IS 42 SQUARE MILES. BOSTON IS 48 SQUARE MILES. Disney World is 43 to 44 square miles. Litchfield is 15 square miles. If you increase the coverage, we're looking at 57 square miles of coverage. Hudson is 29.3 square miles. You're dramatically increasing the service area and the call volume. One person who I have a lot of respect for confirmed that if we needed to go from the Auburn Road Londonderry line to the far end of Litchfield, Great scenario, best scenario possible. Maybe it's at midnight, 15 to 17 minutes. That's a long time. My opinion as a 15-year town councilor, they need seven full-time firefighters at $150,000 each. They're up to about four towns for dispatch. They need 1.5 dispatchers. That's $175,000. This would ensure that there would be no decrease in services for the town of Lend-A-Day. Full labor costs, about $1.25 million. Pretty likely at some point, you're going to need an ambulance and maybe half of a pyrometric fly car to cover this huge area. Think about 57 square miles. Think about how big Disney World is. It's larger than that. In order to continue the excellent service levels provided today, in my opinion, the minimum goal would be $1.7 million a year. And if the town of Litchfield wanted to do this on their own, they'd be looking at probably closer to $3.2 million a year. Really curious about why Hudson is just saying whatever they're saying they're not interested in anymore, whatever that may be. The current proposal, in my view, is not going to make service better. It needs to be properly funded. All for it if we spend the money and we do the right thing. The average response time in town I got from talking to a lot of the different people who were in the command staff is about six to seven minutes. Many of you may or may not know this, but we had put defibrillators into all the different vehicles in town because for the best results with the defibrillator, you need to be hit in four minutes. It's simple. Pay your fair share. Keep the service level as it stands today. The next statement I'm going to make came in as among about a dozen different texts that I received. This one was sent by a person I have a great deal of respect for and has over 20 years in the fire service. Found it really interesting. It said, if adding a handful of firefighters to our own department is considered significant enough to go through the entire budget season and ultimately be decided by the voters, Why would entering into a long-term public safety relationship with another community require less scrutiny? If staffing creates a lasting financial obligation, doesn't regionalize, and also creates lasting operational, financial, legal, and political obligations, if we would believe that the voters would have a voice when we add personnel, what is the principle that says they should have less of a voice when we begin sharing personnel, resources, command responsibilities, Responsive capability, public safety infrastructure with another town. What makes this decision smaller? If five people on the council commit the town to a significant regional public safety model without a town-wide vote, why have we historically asked thousands of voters for permission to add firefighters to our own department? Those two standards seem difficult to reconcile for me. It's from a person who sent that to me, not my words. Much more to share I can share would be needed, and I would need an hour to go through all the different texts that we went through. What's the emergency? This came up at the last town council meeting. This appears to have been done in a vacuum and only presented to the council at the last meeting for the first time. These are serious matters. Yes, we should fund the prior department correctly. Yes, I'm in favor of helping other communities. They need to pay their fair share. And the service in Londonderry cannot stand any type of decrease because in speaking with the different people in leadership in the fire department, the comment is always, we're really busy now. Please do your due diligence. Don't do this in a vacuum. Support our fire department, but we need to fund it correctly. Thank you.

Anyone else have a comment?

Patrick Cheatham, 79 Stonehenge Road. Clearly no one here can not see me as a police officer, as a captain, but my support of looking further into the Litchfield contract are solely my views and my opinions. They do not represent the police department, Chief Bernard, or anyone from the town of Lingeray. They're solely my own. And I just wanted to say, having served as a police officer in Litchfield some 25 years ago, I was actually sworn in on 9-11 itself with then Lieutenant Sean Mulholland from the Allentown Police Department. I believe your swearing date was a week or two before or after mine. But Sean and I were one of three officers hired in Litchfield back then. So I've actually served in that community. And I would argue that for the most part, other than maybe population growing and a few other businesses, the community itself is primarily the same. So I think my knowledge back then and my relationships with the town of Litchfield, which I've maintained, still hold true today. Doug Nichols, I've known for 25 years. You were the only full-time firefighter back then, and you've been chief now for a very long time. And I think it's important that if you're going to engage a business with a community, you know with whom you are dealing. John Burnell, who serves on the council, helped us with our IT here at the police department and in town some seven years ago and helped us find Tom Roy, Although Tom was providing services as a private contractor, we ultimately hired him as RIT manager at the police department. So again, someone else who has intimate knowledge of the workings of the town of Londonderry and the Londonderry Police Department, and I would argue the town of Whitfield and its fire department. And I think it's a source of pride that they're coming to us asking for our assistance. You know, Londonderry Police, we say it all the time, is a destination law enforcement agency. Nearly two-thirds of our full-time staff come from other police departments. Speaking with my brothers and sisters over at the fire department, one-day fire is also seen as a destination fire station. And while I can't speak to the numbers, I know you guys have information maybe that I haven't had a chance to look at, I just ask that you give the concept the attention that is due. Not that you're not, I'm not implying anything otherwise, but I think the idea has tremendous merit. And it has to be a good deal. Mr. Farrell is absolutely correct. It has to be a good deal. And I need to fact check myself. I sent a few text messages, but I left my phone at my seat. You know, we've contracted or we've provided law enforcement services from the Manchester Boston Regional Airport for the last 20 years and six months. Some of the very same questions that people on the council have asked and in the audience, what are we going to do if we lose the contract? Every employee that we hired said, your employment is conditional upon this contract. Should we lose it, your job could be in jeopardy. We never wanted that to happen. We could absorb a few officers if we had some openings, but we would never have been able to absorb 25. And we weren't on the hook for that. That was a condition that we made upon their employment. And people, through attrition and retirement and things like that, you gain seniority. And I'm happy to say of those 25 officers, I think there's probably still 10 or 12 that are still employed by our police department. I would imagine, I can't speak for Chief Young or anyone else from the fire department on both sides, but those are things that could be worked out. And while we don't ever wanna have to lay someone off, that's bad for business, that's bad reputation for the town, I don't know that things are going to change in the next three to five years in our surrounding communities where, you know, if you come with training as a Londonderry firefighter after five years, that person can get hired anywhere, just like a police officer in Londonderry, I believe. So while it is a concern and it's a valid question, I would imagine that no one would be on the hook. for maintaining personnel. And I'll close with this. The town manager commissioned us to study an emergency communications center about 18 months ago or so. And in that, I was the team lead for the police department. I worked with Phil LeBlanc, Fred Heinrich, and others. And I got an in-depth study of how Lundary Fire provides dispatch services for the towns of Pelham and Hampstead. And I spoke to those folks. I toured different regional dispatch centers. And I found that while as public safety professionals, we're not in the business of generating revenue, right? It's a foreign concept. Yes, we write tickets. The money goes to the state. It doesn't come to the town. The fire department found out that, you know what, they can provide dispatch services to other communities that don't even border us, and they do it exceptionally well, and they bring in revenue that can then be used to buy equipment, provide training services, or things like that. And I think the Litchfield model is very similar to that. And again, we have a history in our community. 20 years of policing services, contracted services. It's an in-depth contract. I mean, dozens of pages long. I've read it. And we have the ability to work through the nitty gritty. And of course, that's your responsibility, right? Making sure it's not conceptually it's a good idea, but making sure it's financially a good idea. And I hope that there's time to work before Litchfield, you know, their contract severs with Hudson. But if things need to be worked out, I wish we just give attention to those matters, and if it doesn't work for the town, it doesn't work for the town, right? We always want to help others. We can't do it at the expense of our taxpayers, right? And I do firmly believe that. But I just wanted to share my brief experience as a police officer in Litchfield. I still talk to the folks over there. I have a tremendous respect for Chief Nichols, John Burnell, and also members of our fire department leadership team. And I'm happy to answer questions offline as well. No doubt no contract is perfect and perhaps there are things that need to be tweaked But I'm just hoping that in the next few months that the opportunity presents itself without running out of time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate Evening

Chris Schofield, 86 High Range Road. A couple things with the three-year contract. The town of Litchfield has been with the town of Hudson for 38 years, so I don't think this is going to be a change of scenery overnight. And while we were sitting here, the town of Litchfield went for a medical, and they sent a Hudson ambulance from one end of town, basically the Dracutown line, to the Manchester town line. It's a 27-minute response. So the 15-, 16-minute response from Auburn Road, you're still getting service at 11 minutes quicker. But I'm here to ask you guys for support in the ambulance contract, not only as a member of the fire department, but as a citizen, a father, and someone who lives with the consequences of the decision the five of you guys make. The town paid for an MRI report, a pretty substantial amount of money. In that report, it was identified that we're understaffed. Now we have an opportunity to address the staffing need for both firefighter staffing and dispatch while generating revenue for the town. So what are we hesitating? Why are we hesitating? The citizens spoke at the polls. We trust the five of you to look at the facts, put politics and personalities aside, and make the decisions best for the community. I watch these meetings every other week and watch roadblocks. I see a place in front of opportunities to move this town forward. We elected the five of you guys to lead, not to allow outside influence, politics, or personal agendas to prevent progress. If this opportunity were sitting in front of Hudson, they would pounce on it. They would recognize the chance to add staffing, improve public safety, strengthen emergency response, and generate revenue without simply asking the taxpayers for more. Councilor Dunn, you're running for state rep, and what's the slogan on your sign right now? Let's get it done? So let's get this done. Why are we hesitating? We have an opportunity to develop a great marriage here, to generate revenue for the town, to add increases to our staffing that we've already identified. What was the cost for that report? It had to have been $60,000. So we spent $60,000 for an outside review to tell us what we can accomplish with taking on a little bit of extra work for our guys, but adding that ambulance to this community. The ambulance is going to be servicing this community far more than it's going to be servicing the town of Litchfield. We can't commission a report that tells us that we're understaffed, acknowledge the finding, and then hesitate when we have the opportunity to fix it. This isn't about politics or personality. It's about staffing, public safety, our firefighters, our dispatchers, our families, and the citizens who trusted the five of you. My kids deserve better, our firefighters deserve better, and the citizens of this town deserve better. Please support the Litchfield Ambulance Contract, honor the trust and the voters placed in you. This is an amazing opportunity to improve staffing while also helping our neighbors and helping ourselves. It's time to leave. Let's get this done. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else have a comment? Good evening.

Good evening, everyone. Sherry Farrell, your town clerk, and I promise this will be a two-minute elevator type of speech. So some really nice news. We donated from our rabies clinic to the Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire, and we received a really nice letter back thanking us and explaining how the money is going to go to shelter many animals. So That was the first thing. Second thing, our absentee ballots are in. They've been in for a couple weeks now. So if you could help us spread the word that residents can come in. They can even by email requests with an application, an absentee ballot. The key now, though, is they do need to show a driver's license or some type of identification to get that absentee ballot. And it's been working well. Our residents have been great about it. I think they really appreciate it. So if you can help us with that, going along with the idea of driver's licenses, if we can help spread the word that every motor vehicle transaction that we do in our office, you have to show an ID. And it's not our rule, it's a state RSA that we must follow. And recently we've had a couple little disgruntled people about that. because they didn't have their license on them. And we have to send, no matter who it is, if it's all of you that I know well, we still have to send you back for that license. So no exception, and it is a law. And then we had a phenomenal Old Home Days, and Patrick, you said it incredibly, and it was just amazing. And thank you to everyone, all of you who participated, and it's just an exceptional job. Alert, fire, police, can't say enough. But it's kind of like, wow, now it's done. I can't wait until next year. This coming weekend, we have something else very special happening in town on the Common again, and that's our Blues Festival. So Dennis Martin has been sponsoring, putting this together for 12 years. It's the 12th anniversary. It's on our Common, 12. It starts at noon, and it goes until 4 o'clock. And it's a great event. Kids are welcome. There can be dancing, just like at concerts on the Common. And it raises money that goes directly to our veterans. So I think that's my, oh, one last thing. The Senior Expo is October 3rd. We had some great participation on Old Home Day with a table that Tristan had to find for us, which we really appreciate. A little mishap there on my part, but Kirsten pulled it together. We had a great spot and lots of interest. So if you can help us, October 3rd, it'll be right at our high school gymnasium, and I know you'll all probably be there to support us too. But that's it from the town clerk's two-minute elevator speech. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else have a comment?

Good evening, sir. Good evening. Jason Carrasquillo, 12 Ashley Drive. I just want to address the topic that's going to be addressed later about the cul-de-sac on Ashley Drive. We spoke about it on July 6th. I just want to say that the neighbors and I have reviewed the new easement proposal that I think you guys are going to address. And it's basically the same proposal. The same exact policy that they have right now is they said no motorized vehicles for kids, no bicycles, no scooters, no skateboards, etc. I believe that we all agreed last time that we said we want them to rewrite the easement the proposal and include that in the proposal. We did not see that in the proposal. We please. like you to address that. Also, the house is now up for sale, and it's under contract, so there's going to be a new owner taking over the house, and we'd like you to not make the decision tonight, but make the decision when the new owner comes in, and they can address it with you guys, especially since the town agreed that they're not going to be plowing in the wintertime of the circle, so that might be something that the new owners might want to look into first.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. Anybody else have a comment? Seeing none, I will close with a comment. I've got a few town council issues to address here before we move on with the agenda. First, I need to address an issue with the legal bill that was printed in the London Dairy Times. On August 12th, the London Dairy Times published an article concerning the bill for legal services received by the town of London Dairy. This bill was in possession of the town manager, two town employees, and the town council. The bill was privileged, and on August 7th, 2026, the town asserted that the document was exempt from disclosure under 91A in response to several right to know requests. The London Dairy Times is owned by Councilor Deb Paul, providing a legal bill to the press under these circumstances as a violation of the duty of loyalty to the town and 91A, and could place other privileged documents in jeopardy of disclosure. The Town Council has approved the investigations and the protocol concerning how best to address these investigations. Leaking privileged documents is not an appropriate response, and we want to remind all Town Councillors and the employees that their duty is to comply with the law. As we have repeatedly stated, when the investigation is complete, it will be presented to the full Town Council.

Excuse me, Ron.

Yep.

Excuse me. I'd like to make a statement. And I'm glad you said that because this leads into what I'm going to say to you. Ron, I want to schedule a meeting next week with Sheen, Gordon, including all of the counselors to get the full status and update and get the information that both you and Sean have been being provided with. I am requesting this meeting to be held virtually so there is no There's no cost in the traveling for the attorneys to come here. So I want it virtually. I want it here. And I'd like everybody on the board to be here. I want this meeting because I want to clarify. I want clarity on the scope of the investigation, whether the town councillors are being investigated or not, When did the investigation processes start? When are you expecting them to end? I also want to know the approximately, you know, about the cost when all said and done, when it's going to be completed. Did you think about putting a cap on it? I believe I said it at one of our meetings. We're not going to go over X amount of dollars to be smart for the taxpayers. I also wanted a timeline as to how much longer these investigations will go on. Ron, you said previously that the subcommittee would not cost any more money. It wouldn't cost us anything to have this subcommittee. Yet we now have a bill exceeding $21,000 for one attorney. But if you read the bill, there are three attorneys' names on there, the one that we just paid and two others, which we all still have to pay and have not received those bills yet. And that, mind you, that over 21,000 was for approximately 49 hours worth of work. The full council has not been informed about all of these Zoom meetings and phone calls that you guys are having. The discussions that you and Sean are having with the attorneys are entirely just with you two, as far as I can tell. The entire council should be made aware of what is going on. Not only you two, we should all know. You don't know how I'm going to vote. Maybe I'd vote differently if I had all the information, but I don't, which is unfair. This is town business. Town business should be done and conducted publicly. The council should be approving these votes. Yeah, you guys have the control with three votes, but all councilors should be asked to be voting on, should we have a Zoom meeting discussing this? Should we be calling the attorneys on this? Should we be doing that? Just so we know, it's an equal playing field. I will remind you, we are all equal on this board, yet it does not feel that way. So that being said, again, I want to have a meeting next week with all town councillors and I want it to be kind of public because it's the public information. This has gone on for too long, Ron. Too long. And how long is it going to last? I mean, is there going to be another 48 hours? I mean, all these investigations, I don't know what we're investigating. I don't know who we're investigating. I do know that we're not investigating Ted, who had the only complaint so far that I know of, besides what you just said tonight, the only complaint that was not anonymous, that actually was a violation, and yet we're not talking about it or doing anything about it. All the other complaints were anonymous and had really no validity. So I really think this is really shameful, and you have to stand up and make a decision. Thank you.

All right, up next. Chairman Dunn, I'm going to comment on what you just commented. Oh, please. So just one, I will not carry out illegal orders, okay? That right-to-know request was not a leak. It's a legitimate right-to-know request, and I answered that, and I followed the law, and I will continue to do that. You're spending public funds. You don't get to hide that, sir. So that information has been released. There was no privileged information in that bill at all. So I will continue to do that every single time. If you think otherwise, sir, I direct you, you should take action against me. Otherwise, I will continue to do that every single time. I will not allow you to cover these things up, sir. So let's be clear about that. As long as I am in this position, and until you can remove me, I will continue to do that. So I hope I'm clear about that to you.

Are you saying for the record you released the information?

Yes, I did.

The emails are quite clear. Absolutely.

Mr.

Chair. I've still got more to go.

I'm not done. Okay, go ahead. Next I want to address the legal protocol. The town manager requested a legal protocol for authorization of legal services rendered to the town of Londonderry. On July 21st, 2026, that protocol was issued by legal counsel and remains privileged document at this time. However, we can say that the town charter vests the authority to engage the direct legal counsel with the town council and therefore the engagement of legal counsel must be approved and directed by the town council. The town council may also initiate and direct investigations and may also establish subcommittees. The full town council has voted to engage legal counsel. The town council has created a subcommittee for the purpose of communicating with direct legal counsel. When the review is complete and the subcommittee will report to the full town council who will determine what and if any measures should be taken with the investigation.

So you don't have a timeline or a cost? You don't care how much you spend? I care. 100,000, you're good? 200,000, you're good?

I'm a taxpayer also, so I do care. But, you know, I put a cap on it.

Why don't you put a cap on it? Put them attorneys to the fire.

The next thing I'd like to address is that there's been a lot of discussion around the legal bills as it just was here. The last legal bill we received was for a month and a half. The June 2026 portion was $5,000. $209, and the July portion was $16,379. You had said something about there's no additional costs, so that is the bill.

Well, it is, because they're talking to Liz Bailey, and we haven't seen any... That is correct.

We have them.

While we're spending time, that $21,000, those lawyers are costing us even more money talking to those other lawyers. It's just like... Having the veterans thing re-looked at, we got a finding, and now you have it re-looked at by another lawyer to cost more money.

Some of the costs in that bill were 91A requests for around 2,300. Transition costs were around 2,300. Council town manager issues requests were around 6,000. And the investigation right now is around 6,000. I would also like to discuss. A memo that went out on July 30th, 2026 with the entire town council. This memo went was a directive that went with budget rescissions in the form of a memorandum to Dave Wally, director of public works. The memo stated that the legal expenses incurred during fiscal year 2027 would substantially exceed the amount included in the adopted operating budget and therefore immediate expenditure controls are necessary. The directive issued by the town manager, I believe, is unnecessary and, in my opinion, needs to be discussed by the entire council and rescinded. First, legal expenses incurred in fiscal year 2026 were largely incurred at the direction of the town manager and not the town council. In order for the To control the expenses and legal protocol has been issued to make it clear the time is does not have the legal authority. To directly counsel right of that authority is vested in the town council and the town council will excise that authority in fiscal year 2027 with an eye on controlling costs and streamlining you work on behalf of the town. Second the town council has created a special subcommittee to interact with legal counsel in part to create more efficient process and report back to the full Council when the investigation is complete. Third, the town manager relies in part on RSA 37 colon 6 for his authority to issue the directive. RSA 37 colon 6 clearly states several times that the town manager is subject to control supervision and direction of the town council. I would ask that we as a town council discuss this memorandum and consider withdrawing this directive and asking the town manager to withdraw this directive that he issued.

Well, it's his responsibility to manage the budget. And if he sees expenditures that are being overly expended out there, he needs to do something so at the end... We're not caught with our pants down, I guess, is what they say. And we end up saying, hey, we're going to lay off a bunch of people. We're going to lay off a bunch of firefighters. We're going to shut down an ambulance because, oops, here we are. We've spent too much in legal. Ron, I'll tell you, I asked at the last meeting, I asked specifically about these investigations, how much money are we going to spend Do you know? All right? And you've said it yourself that your subcommittee is not going to expend any money, but you are. And when you have a bill over $21,000, you're expending funds that this community could be using for our fire, our ambulance, our police officers, our DPW. All right? So... I get no answer from you, all right, about what's going on. I asked you the last meeting. Are any counselors being investigated? I can't answer that, okay? Like everything else, I can't answer. I guarantee you what you read, the town of Londonderry paid an attorney to write this, all right? And he paid good money.

$500 an hour.

At least. So I don't know when this is all going to stop, but I got an email today from somebody in Londonderry, and I'm going to share it with you because I don't mind sharing stuff. He says, Dan, I'm not an attorney, but I do understand privilege. The privilege is held by the client. The client can waive the privilege So who is the client? I think the board hired the attorney. Then they, the board, can waive this privilege and answer some of these questions. He's right. This individual is right. And I hear this a lot. So I don't understand why we can't answer simple questions. How long is this going to take? I mean, Did we give a blank check? I'll tell you. If I was an attorney, I'd be looking at this going, pot of gold, pot of gold. I am going to work this, and I'm going to ching, ching, ching all my hours up. And that's what's happening.

Yes, sir. Go ahead. Dan, I believe you're a police officer, correct?

No, I'm not. I'm retired.

No, you were.

Yeah.

What did you collect a pension for? You understand how investigations work.

I certainly do.

Do you ever just disclose to anyone you were investigating every single aspect of, every single piece of thing you could give them?

I did tell them they were under investigation. I didn't hide it from them. I don't understand why you hide it from them. You let them know you're under investigation for X, Y, and Z.

We don't even know.

We don't even know.

We don't know how many investigations there are, what the investigations are, who they entail, what's being... We have no clue. And Sean, let me... Is it one investigation? Seven investigations? Is it me? Is it Mulholland? Is it Ted? Is it Dan? We have no idea what you guys are doing. And we're a body. To me, what you guys are doing is great misuse of your power. It's disgusting. It's misuse of the two of you. The two of you. It's a misuse of your power. And you're acting privileged because you're the chair and vice chair and that nobody else has to know anything and that you two know better and you two know what is best for me. And yes, there are people out in this audience that are going to throw out there on Facebook, they won by a great amount. Well, I bet you there's a lot of people out there not very happy with the vote that they gave you. And both of you, all three of you really, are up for election. So remember that when you go to the voting polls.

Sean, I want to respond one more thing to you. As a police officer, when I conducted investigations, and you can smirk all you want, but when I conducted an investigation and I completed that investigation, I told them what the results were. I didn't say... I can't divulge it, all right? When I did an investigation, I told them what they were being investigated for, and I told them what the results were, whether they were founded, unfounded, but they knew. I didn't say, I can't tell you, all right? Which doesn't make any sense. So, Ron, as far as this whole thing with what the town manager is doing as far as trying to curtail the budget for the spending, I agree. He has to do something. Because if he doesn't, later on, when we need to cut money or we're going to go over budget, you're going to blame him. You didn't do your job. You didn't do your job. He's doing his job.

I'm struggling now. Richard brought up the fact that there's a paper out there that I'm a one aware of.

Neither am I.

That we're having a trial date for this veterans thing. Is that something we're investigating because we had a finding and now they're saying the finding isn't right? Because when did we agree to do that? That's a violation. That's negligence. On your part. Obviously, you don't care.

No, I do care.

Obviously. I mean, is it going to be that, like, I got to take out a lawyer and go after you personally for misusing your authority? Which I will do if I have to. Because this is enough. Enough is enough. You say you want to do the right thing? You want everybody to sing Kumbaya and have a good time at Old Home Day? Mm-hmm. Yeah, me too. But why don't you try doing something positive instead of all this negative? Why don't you try uniting instead of dividing? Why don't you try to be unprivileged and be one of the people? How would you feel if you were sitting out there and not up here and not knowing what was going on and how your money was being spent? Would you like it? You would not.

The other thing, Ron, is that we have the investigation where we have an attorney investigating stuff probably for six months now, I think, and we have not seen a bill. I can just imagine what that bill's going to be. I mean, how can you? I hire attorneys, and they send me bills as we go along. They don't keep it for six months, seven months, eight months and say, here you go, here's your bill. I can't wait to see that bill. I mean, if we think $21,000 is ridiculous, six months?

And what budget is it going to fall under, Ron? This year or next year? And then how are you going to adjust for it?

So you have to make adjustments. I think what he's making for adjustments needs to be done. Unless you have other ideas where he can make the adjustments.

I think that we'll be able to keep the budget in line. I disagree.

Not at the rate that you're spending on legal fees.

Any conversation if you want to take it outside, please.

So I went over the legal bills. We are already in line with what we were doing last year. We are not outside of what we were doing last year for legal bills. We are not outside of it whatsoever.

Do you know how much Varentis is going to be?

I do not know that right now.

Six months.

It has not been six months, and you know that.

Yeah.

And frankly, trying to waive privilege, all five of us would have to agree on that, not a single counselor. The attorneys work for all five of us, not for one of us.

Have you talked to him, Ted?

You cannot just do that. You can't do that.

I won't say this to you, Ted, okay? It's easy for you to say that. You haven't been investigated, all right? I have been. I know. You know what the results are. Very frustrating that they don't come out because now you have people going, oh, must be this, must be that, all right? So maybe if you end up getting investigated, they withhold that. You'll know what it's like. They withhold the result.

They won't investigate, Ted. I asked that question. Where is the investigation on Ted? The manager called for it. It was not anonymous, and it was a violation of the charter, and yet nothing is being done. Sorry, Ted, you're a golden boy. You're not touchable. You've talked to these lawyers. I've seen nothing.

I have not talked to these lawyers.

And you know what's going on then. I have not. You've been talking to Ron and Sean. Ted, I have not. Have you seen the trial document?

I have not. I don't even know what this is.

So then why aren't you backing us, questioning them? Why are you just sitting there not asking them what's going on?

Because I'm listening to you scream at them instead of letting the chairman speak.

He did speak.

You're not letting him speak. All you're doing is yelling at him. He did speak.

He did speak. He's done speaking. I'm talking to you, Ted. You're not even letting him respond. You have never in the last six meetings, Ted, you have never questioned the investigation.

You need to let someone respond.

And I'm trying to ask you a question, and you're not responding. You're just saying, he never responded. Respond. You're being under fire.

You don't like it.

That's childish. You need to let the chairman respond.

Guys, stop. You asked a question. I want an answer. I will get you an answer to your question.

Is Sean getting a text message about it from somebody in the audience already?

I don't know why he would.

I know why he would.

But I will get you an answer.

When?

So, Mr. Chair, is it possible to have that meeting?

I just said I would get you guys an answer. It is possible. I have to. I can't commit to anything until I check his schedule. I mean, good choice.

You both had your opportunity to well speak your opinions on the subject. You know, people keep saying they don't like how these meetings are going. I've watched both of you two carry on in a completely unprofessional manner over and over and over again. In the end of the day, you have a right to say your piece, but you don't have a right to just keep going into infinity. Let the rest of us talk. We'll make a decision on what we're going to do, and we move forward. That's how these things work.

But, Sean, the rest of us don't talk. They don't talk. The only people talking are you two.

It's not what I'm hearing right here in the room. So Deb, to answer your question, I believe that we'll... Well, I know.

You're the voice of reason and caring and compassion. You're honesty. Truthful.

Deb, I ask the question because I believe that we can control the bill and there's no need for this dramatic.

And how are you going to control the bill? Please explain it to me. I mean, you can't just say that and then not explain it.

Okay. Stop the back and forth. This is between Ron and I. So, Deb. This is between the entire council.

I'd like to know how we're going to control the bill. That's a reasonable question.

I read my statement. How we're going to control the bill is we're going to control it as a council, and that's how we're going to do it.

But how as a council? I don't know when you're making those Zoom phone calls or you're having meetings with these. I don't know. So how are we going to control it as a council, as one? There's a hold.

MR CHAIR ARE YOU PROPOSING CERTAIN CUTS SOMEWHERE OR ARE YOU SAYING WE'RE NOT GOING TO CUT ANYTHING WE'RE NOT GOING TO REDUCE ANYTHING AND JUST SO I'M SAYING THAT I THINK RIGHT NOW I THINK THAT WE CAN GET THE REGAL BILLS UNDER CONTROL AND THAT THERE'S NO NEED FOR FOR THE MEMO THAT WENT OUT MR CHAIR TED DID YOU COMPLETE WHAT YOU HAD TO SAY I MEAN WHAT I WAS ALSO TRYING TO SAY IS THAT I HAD GONE THROUGH THE WHOLE ANALYSIS

People keep saying that the council had spent about $280,000 last year. That is not true. I went over all our names whenever we were mentioned in the legal bills. It only contributed about 9% of that whole entire bill. So for people keep saying that we spent all this money, we spent this money. No, we did not spend that money. There were meetings or calls that we had or meetings that needed to happen. and it only contributed 9% of that total bill.

So I'm going to, you want to say something? Yeah, I want to say something. I think we've heard from everybody but me.

I would say it's absolutely premature to start doing rescissions when the fiscal year started July 1st. I think that that's extremely premature. Looking at the rescissions, they were designed to be the most painful, I believe, that you could be painful for without relieving staff. I think that they're at this point, they're not appropriate. And I do believe we can control the legal budget. because it is on our heads and we should be we can control it and i don't think there should be it day one you don't start with decisions so so with that i'll make a motion that we we do what you suggested and rescind that memo okay i have a motion from sean i will second that a second from ted any further discussion yes mr dunn you're not part of the discussion oh yes i am the charter says i get to speak

You get to be recognized. And I'm asking you to speak.

Okay. Go ahead.

So I asked you folks about that. I said this is going to be a problem. I forecasted that. It's best to make those rescissions now than to make them later because they do result in layoffs later. We can project that we've already spent 10% with one bill. We've spent 10% of our legal budget for the whole year with one bill. We have not received the Sheen and Finney bill for July yet. We haven't received the Veruntas bill, which dates all the way back to at least April. We don't know how many thousands of that. I've asked you how much that's going to be so I could do that and you've given me no answers as to what those projected costs are. So without knowing any of those things I have to make decisions now. And what I told you with the paving it's not the most painful decision. We have money from previous years we're still using on paving. If I rescind that money until the end of the year, I can enter into those contracts at the end of the year, and we'll be able to spend that money if we have it. If we have a situation like we have with the library occur again, we're going to be in trouble towards the end of the year. That's fiscal management, and I am responsible by the Charter to do that. You can make whatever motions and votes you wish to do. But I have the responsibility to do that, and I am going to carry that out. Whether you say it's okay or not, I still have to make sure that budget stays within its confines. That is in the charter. It is my responsibility, and my responsibility solely. It doesn't talk about what you're supposed to do. So I'm going to do what I need to do. And if we have money at the end of the year, I'll be able to enter into those paving contracts, and that stuff will get done next summer. So to me, that is very responsible. Instead of laying people off or running the risk of doing that later on in the year.

Well, let's not scare people. We're not going to lay anybody off. Mr. Chair, I have a question for you.

Can I finish what I was saying?

Go ahead.

Well, it kind of goes into what you're saying.

I believe we had a presentation at the end of the year that we had – quite a surplus going into the end of the year. And that was even with the supposed legal bills going as high as they were over budget. So I'm a little confused and concerned upon why we're already being so drastically cutting with our budget when last year's legal bills were over the budgeted line and that, you know, it seems like we're still going to be okay for this coming year when last year we still had a surplus.

Okay. Do you want to finish?

So if I could finish that? Yes, please. So we budgeted, we actually didn't even budget for it. We were paying $290 an hour for legal. That's what we were paying. And we went over with that. Now we're paying $500 an hour to one attorney, $450 to another, and then $375 an hour, which none of that was budgeted for. None of that. We are going to go way over budget, even if we don't even maintain the same level of hours that we used in the past. And you're using a lot more. So that's just math when it comes down to it at the end of the day. We're spending a lot more because we're paying a lot more for those rates. Now you've got attorneys talking to other attorneys. I've lost track of how many attorneys this town now contracts with. But you've got one attorney, and we saw it in that bill, talking to the other attorney, directing them what to do. Who's talking to another attorney? They're handling right-to-know requests, which we normally handle. And I don't know what I pay you an hour if it's $50 an hour, whatever. It's not $500 an hour. It's not $500? It's not $500 an hour to respond to a right-to-know request because you've got attorneys doing that. So we are going to go way over, especially on the track that we are on right now. It's prudent to take action now to reduce that risk. I don't want to lay people off at the end of the year and cut services.

But we don't want to scare you. No one's getting laid off. I hope not. So don't say that because we don't do that.

Oh, I am saying that because that's the reality. If you don't manage your finances now and you wait until the end of the year.

All right. As a motion on the table, I'm going to call the vote.

This is just, Ted had said you had all these, you figured out all these documents and you had all this information.

I went through all the legal bills.

Did you share that? I'd like to see how you calculated it and how you got there because you did all the work, so I'd like to see it.

Yeah, same here.

And one thing, just throwing it out there, just food for thought, is it possible to set a cap? We will not exceed X. When we hit this much spending, we stop. So in other words, we say we're not going to spend more than, I don't know, $100,000, whatever, on investigations. And then once you hit that number, you stop so you don't exceed. That to me would be a prudent thing to do. I don't know. You can go on with your motion now.

I'm going to have a motion in a second. I'm going to call the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Opposed.

Chair will say affirmative. Deb and Dan opposed. Motion carries 3-2.

For the record, I will not rescind the memo. Just figure it out.

Up next, we have board appointments and reappointments. We have planning board nominee Brian Battaglia to the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission. Any... Did you want to say anything? Anybody have any discussion? Anything we... I'll accept the motion to approve his appointment. So moved. A motion from Sean. Second. Second from Ted. Any other further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So it's the affirmative, 5-0. Up next, we have public hearing. Receive public input, discuss and approve amendment for the fire department rules and regulations. Ms. Hilden.

Yes, so this is an amendment to the current fire department rules and regulations made at the request of the fire department to allow them to expand the types of devices that they permit to communicate with their system in order to gain revenue through the fire department. detection and alarm system. They're just simply asking to add those words stating that they will accept use of a cellular or internet communicating device in order to contract to obtain the contracts with these Businesses and establishments in town that are required to have these systems this prevents them from going to private businesses and allows for a better service for them and a It's less expensive for these businesses and it gives us an important part of our revenue stream Any questions for the council?

I'll accept the motion on public hearing. So moved. Second. Motion from Dan, second from Ted. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So the affirmative 4-0. Anybody from the public wish to speak on the fire department rules and regulations? Come on up.

Kevin Foley, 69 Stonehenge Road. I just want to make sure those boxes are non-proprietary. They can be used by any company can provide them not a specific company directed by the fire department.

Would you like me to answer that. Well yeah please. Yeah. Oh good. Brian can answer better than I can. We talked about it.

Thank you sir.

Good evening council. Brian Johnson division chief for fire prevention. Unfortunately at this time, what we have added is we have receivers at our fire station. Right now we're allowed to, our receivers will take Kingfisher or digitized radio boxes. We have updated our software. at the direction of the fire chief to now include certain cellular boxes. The only box right now that is made that we can receive is a Kingfisher box. So it is proprietary right now. If somebody else comes out with a box that we can receive, we're fine with that. The reasoning we're doing this is these signals come directly to us. They're not going to a private alarm company. It cuts down on response time. It gives us more control on making sure these boxes are functioning. Every day, these boxes test with us. If they do not test, I deal with the company on the other end, make sure that those boxes are repaired. We do have dialers in town that go to private alarm companies. I have no idea if those boxes work or not. The private alarm companies are supposed to maintain them, but we have zero control. With these here, it's adding new technology because the radio boxes are 50-year-old technology. So we're allowing cellular technology that will come directly to us. For instance, we had a fire alarm activation at Klubberlube at the north end of town. They have radio box with us. They also have a private alarm company. The private alarm company goes to their facilities manager. We received the radio box. We dispatched the apparatus. Our fire truck was pulling into their driveway when their facilities manager got the phone call from their alarm company reporting a fire alarm activation. we're trying to eliminate that delay we want to get our apparatus there as quickly and safely as possible this gives us another means to receive those signals from new fire alarms i actually have i know you have a letter in your packet from a apartment complex in town that is looking into these i also have a letter from john adams at the airport He is the building superintendent for Manchester Boston Regional Airport in full support of this because of some of the issues we're having with some of these radio boxes. So this here gives us new technology, better technology at a fraction of the cost to the subscriber. And also, I don't know if you're familiar, our radio boxes, if you look around town, this building has one, the library has one. They all got a big lightning rod antenna on top. The new cellular ones, it's a little small antenna inside, so we're getting rid of that lightning rod. We've worked out a deal with King Fisher that they are covering the cellular bill, so the subscriber gets no cellular bill. An average radio box costs about $10,000. They have it in the letter from John Adams. He just replaced one. $10,000 before installation and labor. The new boxes cost about $1,500. The letter that you have, I believe, Sanborn Road, they paid $9,000 to replace a circuit board. They could replace the entire outfit for $1,500. It's a better service for us. It's a better service for the subscriber. It gives us more control over the fire alarms in town. They can still go to an AES radio box, which does go to a private alarm company, but you have that delay in service.

Thank you, sir. Any questions? Mr. Chair.

Yeah, go ahead.

Do those for, for example, for an apartment building, do the smoke detectors connect to that system and go directly to you guys?

Yeah, what it is, like the building here, you have a fire alarm panel. When the fire alarm goes off, it sets off the horn strobes, whether it be a pole station, smoke detector, sprinkler head goes off, the fire alarm goes off. There's a transmitter here in the building that sends a radio signal to our receiver next door, and it sets off a receiver in our dispatch center. They dispatch the apparatus. This will do the same exact thing.

A little faster.

It's just... faster and more reliable. Some of the businesses we have up at the airport that have had these radio boxes for 20 years have not had an issue. Now we're putting four-story apartment buildings between them and us. We're blocking that signal. The only way the radio box works is line of sight. So if they can't see our antenna here, the radio boxes have issue. That's where 30 Sanborn Road, 1 Airport Road, I have a list of other people that are interested in this. They're having issues with these, so we're looking at getting something more reliable and cost effective getting us with new technology. But yeah, as soon as the alarm goes off here, like when we test these alarms, I'll have my dispatch center on the phone. When you pull that pull station on my phone, you'll hear it go off instantly in our dispatch center. There is no delay.

Is there a particular cell phone carrier that they work off of?

They work off top four major carriers, whichever signal is largest. It's constantly checking for the signal.

Wonderful.

And whichever four that it's connected to the strongest, it connects to. But every 30 minutes, it's checking for which signal is strongest.

Oh, good.

And then we also have, that's why we have the internet. It's also going to be plugged into the internet. So if something happens to cellular signal, it has internet backup. So you actually have five different paths for that fire alarm to get into us.

That's good to hear considering there's certain parts of town where cell service may not be good for one carrier compared to another carrier. So it's good to hear that you'll always have that signal.

These are things that we've worked out with Kingfisher, and these are deals that they have with the top four carriers. And like I said, they're going to foot the bill, but they worked out all the logistics with the top four cellular carriers. And then you'll just need an Internet connection as well for the system.

And I think this will be good to hear for the business community that we're trying to find ways to save them money as well.

Correct. If it's okay, I'd like to give you the letter from the airport. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Any other questions?

Any other questions? Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you.

Anybody else in the audience wish to comment?

Seeing none, I'll accept the motion to close the public comment.

So motion.

Motion from Dan, second from Sean. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show us the affirmative, 5-0. What do we want to do?

Mr. Chair, I move that the Londonderry Town Council hereby approves Ordinance 2026-13, amending the Londonderry Fire Department rules and regulations as indicated. I have a motion from Dan.

Second. Second from Sean. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show us the affirmative, 5-0. Up next, receive public input, discuss and approve the renovations to the General Assistance Guidelines. Ms. Hilden.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This item is simply to update the town's general assistance guidelines to include the changes that were made in the 2026 legislative session by House Bill 348, mostly pertaining to which municipality assumes financial responsibility for people who apply for general assistance in that community when it comes to determining residency for anything beyond temporary emergency assistance.

Any questions from the council? I'll accept the motion to open the public hearing. So moved. Motion from Ted, second from Sean. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show of hands for the affirmative. Any from the public wish to comment? Seeing that, I will accept a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Motion from Sean. Second. Second from Ted. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show of hands for the affirmative.

Back to us. What do we want to do? So I move that the Londonderry Town Council hereby adopts the revised down of Londonderry General Assistance Guidelines as presented.

I have a motion from Sean. Second. Second from Dan.

Any further discussion?

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show of hands for the affirmative. 5-0. Up next, receive public input and discuss proposed changes to Pettengill Road TIF district. Mr. Mulholland.

Yes, so we're proposing to add four properties, four a carat away, 148 Harvey Road, 10 Navigator Road, and 11 Navigator Road. The TIF district has to be continuous, contiguous. They all have to be attaching to one another, simple way to say it. The key part of this is adding 10 Navigator Road. 10 Navigator Road is owned by the Londonderry Housing and Redevelopment Authority. We would like to be able to use TIF funds to be able to make improvements to that building. It's an older building. It was obviously back to the World War II days when they built the Air Force Base there. That is presently leased out to Enterprise Mobility, and as you know, we are the largest rental fleet in the state. through the rental cars that are here, and this will allow them to actually bring more cars in. The building needs improvements for windows and things like that. They pay taxes on that building, even though it's a government-owned building. So the improvements we make to that will increase the value of that property, which will increase the property taxes they'll have to pay. And they have to guarantee additional revenue by bringing additional vehicles in to bring in motor vehicle revenue, which will go to our general fund to offset property taxes. So we've been working with LHRA on this. Dan Root, if you want to come up as well. And I've outlined the amount of money, obviously, the town would be able to bring back in for those improvements that are made to do that. And it's seven years, the year seven is our break even time. As you can see, we're looking at a total of $70 million in revenues that offset property taxes. And we have, again, the largest rental fleet in the state. So that's what was being proposed here to be able to do that.

Does the council have any questions? And we currently own the building.

I wasn't necessarily for this until I heard all the details. And after understanding the benefit to the community and the taxpayers, I changed my tune. So I have nothing else to say.

Okay. I will set the motion public hearing some ocean Sean second second Ted all the fair say aye aye any opposed to the affirmative and for the public wish to discuss the Pettengill road TIF district. Seeing that I will set the motion to close public hearing. Well some Sean second second from Ted all the favor say aye aye aye any opposed shows the affirmative 5, 0, we want to do.

We don't have to take any action. This just moves on.

Yeah, we can't because it requires 15 days.

That's right. September 14th. We'll be taking this up on September 14th.

But are there any issues? Are there any concerns? Yeah, is there anything else you need for information?

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. All right. New business. We have a presentation from London Dairy Trailways regarding rail trail projects. Sandy and Bob. Good evening.

And now for something completely different. There's no action that we're asking from the council tonight. We were just doing this as a courtesy so that you knew what was going on. We'll make it as brief as possible.

Yeah, so we were established in 2000. We're a 501c3 non-profit. There's seven of us on the board and our mission is to really make Londonderry more walkable, bikeable, safer, connect neighborhoods, schools, and just, you know, make it more pedestrian friendly.

One of the reasons we're doing just this little bit of background is there's a lot of new people in town who may not be aware of who we are. So I think everything that was read in that lovely proclamation, thank you for that recognition, is what's in the opening slides. So we just wanted you to know the depth. There's been many different board of directors over the 25 years. This is the current members, the kind of backgrounds that people have. And we really wanted to mention the dedicated long-term volunteers that you see at the bottom of the slide who are in every week doing something somewhere. And beyond those, there's many other volunteers that come once in a while that are too numerous to count and many, many people making donations, many, many citizens, hundreds of citizens making donations over the years.

Yeah, so basically most people know us for the rail trail. That's the most obvious trail that we have in town, but we also engage in other trail activities. We've done some really nice projects with neighborhood connections. Right behind here is the Kings to Laffa and also the Laffa Loop Trail. That's the newest trail. The first big one was the school pathway back in 2006 that we did.

And this is about making the town more walkable. These are examples of making the town more walkable. So looking forward in the future, when you have especially highly densely populated parts of town where development is happening, you want to be able to make sure people can walk to a store and don't have to get in their car to go two-tenths of a mile. And Gilchrist Road south of 102 comes to mind as an area that's very densely populated, and it would have been nice to have if people could have just walked up to Hannaford's or walked up to home Depot or Staples without having to get in a car safely, without a place to walk, people won't do it on a busy road. They just, it's a natural, you know, so keep in mind, we'll come to you more often about trying to work on making things walkable.

Yeah. And then, um, also we just do, uh, we've worked on trails through the woods. Um, a lot of people know the Adams pond trail, um, And then years ago, we did a lot of work in the musk wash in the Kendall Pond Conservation Area.

Yeah, and the reason those last two are grayed out, when the Conservation Commission, you know, different people come on boards over the years, they're running that show themselves. That is much less us and much more the Conservation Commission. And when they call or they text us and they ask for help, we gather up some. So we don't want to overly take credit. We were in Kendall Pond and musk wash all the time working. 20 years ago and 15 years ago, but they're running that show well without us. They have a great group of volunteers of their own.

Yeah, so just a couple photos of some of the volunteers and projects up top. That's actually work on the Lafalupe Trail that was completed a couple of years ago. Down to the right, that's the Adams Pond Trail. That's always in need of maintenance. And then And the pictures on the left, that's the rail trail. And you can see we've even invested in new equipment where you see someone on a lawnmower there that looks pretty good.

And across the top, as Bob said, that's the Laugh-A-Loop trail being built. And there's board of directors out there directing traffic. But I wanted to mention on the upper left, that's Shady Hill. Shady Hill volunteered their time, their personnel, materials to that. So we engage with really wonderful local businesses. On the lower left, you see the Rotary, the Londonderry Rotary, coming out to do some maintenance on the rail trail. So it really is a lot of different people over any course of the year. And then you can see a random tree down across the rail trail. This kind of thing happens all the time. the in the storms and so we have a couple of different ways to mobilize if it's really big even Bob won't tackle it we call DPW and they come out and help us out we try to handle things safely on our own but when it gets to be up to a certain level which we don't have to do very often right that's right yeah so now we're gonna do a deep dive into the rail trail and I just put a quote here about parks and playgrounds are the soul of a town these things really matter to people and People want safe recreation, and we have so many wonderful volunteer groups like LAFA, like the folks who redid the basketball court, like the soccer fields. These things really matter to people, and a way to walk and recreate when you're not with a ball-oriented sport is a different alternative. It hits a different population than people who play organized sports, and they're all really important.

So really, we embarked on the rail trail in 2010. We paved our first mile in 2013. By 2019, we had four and a half miles. Way more progress than any other town in the state of New Hampshire. A lot of progress has been made. Between Wyndham, Derry, and Salem, there's nine and a half miles. So you see that little red piece between Derry and Londonderry, that's about a mile. Once that's finished, we're gonna have about 15 miles of continuous rail trail in the state of New Hampshire. And that will definitely be a big tipping point for us.

Yeah. Jerson, is there a pointer on this? probably doesn't work on the screen no that's okay never mind I don't think it'll work from and just to follow up that red piece in the center between the 4.5 in Londonderry and the 9.5 south of us that red piece is what we're going to zero in on talk about that phase thank you thank you for pointing that's phase seven in Londonderry and when you cross over the town line into Derry that's Derry's last piece, and that's where the infamous tunnel is going. Everybody asks us, where's the tunnel going? Where is it in the big picture? And so right over the Londonderry line, that's the piece where exit 4A comes in and where the tunnel, as far as we know, will be going in. And what you might not be aware of is this whole stretch from the Massachusetts border in Salem up to Manchester and beyond, all the way up into Boscawen and all the way up to Lebanon is going to be called the Granite State Rail Trail. And we are a key link smack in the middle of that. So it's important that we push on and make progress. So in the next slide, we're going to take just the northern, just the Londonderry part and dive in and just show you we have two pieces left to do. Phase seven to the south connecting with Derry and phase six to the north connecting connecting with Manchester up really close to the airport and we numbered these I think in 2013 or some long time ago and so we numbered them and we did them in order one two three four five now we're going to do seven and six will end up being last because we couldn't tell that long ago which one was going to go next and So these are some before photos. This is what it looks like when we begin a phase. The top two photos shows you examples of we're looking right down where the trail is going to go. You can see they're impassable. They're overgrown. Some of them look better than this, but most of the segments that we take on look like this. And the dirty people across the bottom is how many trucks did you I didn't show up that day.

Last last last fall we we did 5 truckloads of trash out of the section between the stumble in and the dairy border. And it's just every segment we've we've picked up trash and we we we turn lemons into lemonade basically.

They're really significant rehabilitation projects, and it's a dirty job the first time you get out there and take over a segment. And this is what the typical after photo. If you haven't been out there, I really, really encourage you to take a walk. I'm sure most of you probably have, but go out there and feel a little bit of a sense of peace, a little bit of a sense of connection to your community. Watch the faces of the other people smiling. that's my favorite thing to do when I'm on there is to look at the faces of what other people are doing when they're out there. And that's what this town is really about. That kind of connection. This is just a quick, we won't bore you, but Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission puts out a free counter.

Yeah, so they basically provide reports to us on a monthly basis. They put counters at different places along our rail trail and other rail trails. And as you can see, the popularity of people using the rail trail keeps increasing. People use the rail trail all 12 months of the year, seven days a week. It's just unbelievable. And you can look at the numbers and we're over 200 people a day are using our rail trail.

And we really thank the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission for their support because this kind of data helps us when we write grants. When we write grants asking for businesses to engage with us, they want to understand the utilization. And so this kind of data helps us generate funds. And so we're here to basically this one last slide to tell you about phase seven, the piece between where it ends today near Derry and going actually to the Derry town line. Over on the circle on the right shows you the funding sources. So there's a federal grant that was actually written by the town, by our dear Chirsten over there. She wrote that grant and it came in for 422,000 for phase seven. and Londonderry Trailways made a commitment to fundraise $113,000, and there was a warrant article that was passed by the citizens for $105,000. So for a $105,000 investment by the citizens of Londonderry, you get... 422 plus another 113 so it's that's the way we like to do things we like to take a hundred thousand and multiply it into six hundred thousand and we really want to recognize and thank the New Balance Foundation that is the charitable arm of the company New Balance who's building a factory in North Londonderry as you all know but just for those at home who might not know and they have a competitive grant process we've been working with them for a year They came and did a site visit. There is a lot of paperwork you have to fill out. It's by invitation only. And we were just so happy and thrilled when we were chosen to receive a $50,000 grant, which is part of what we put in the orange, our Trailways Commitment of 113.

Yeah, I think what's also important is to recognize so many local businesses have contributed. People individually have contributed. There's no donation that's too small. We have ongoing donations of just $10 a month. Every little bit helps not only for the development of the trails, but also the maintenance. You know, we keep our trail really nice, really clean, really safe. So I can't thank everyone enough for the contributions they've made to keep the ball moving forward, so to speak.

And then just at the bottom, you can see what's been accomplished lately because sometimes it feels like we hit certain things that take long. And, you know, we did actually hire our own design engineer and got some pre-work done in 2025. There's a prefab bridge that's over Beaver Brook on Phase 7, also completed in 2025. And now the big steps are starting to happen. And this is where we really partner with the town. along with key people that are project managers from the town side, because in order to accept a federal grant, the town has to be part of the table. They're not going to give us $422,000. They're going to give it to the town. So CMA engineers, very experienced in rail trails, have been hired earlier this year. They're surveying right now. There's flags out there. They're generating final design, et cetera, et cetera. So the ball is rolling on Phase 7.

yeah so um everyone's like everyone says when is it going to get done our our best estimate right now is 2028 to get um our connection to dairy hopefully they can do the same in 2028 as well that's all i can say on that the federal process is heavy

The federal process has a lot of steps, extra steps you have to take versus when we do the projects without federal money. And so steps mean time. So 2028, we expect to be done. We're hearing that Dairy is thinking the same thing, 2028. They're working on it. Yeah, no promises. Anyways, that's it. Thank you.

Any questions?

I have a few questions. Go ahead. For the connection to Derry where you cross 28 over to Seasons Lane, will you guys be having a crossing signal like what you have in the north end of town?

Yeah, that's exactly what we're going to do. It's called a pedestrian hybrid beacon, and actually we've already done pre-engineering on it, and we've gotten state approval from the DOT on that.

Wonderful. Good. And then what do you guys do with all the... railroad tracks and all the steel that's left behind. Is that technically ownership of the railways, ownership of the town? Who owns that steel still?

So the only area where there were rail steel left over was... in the Cohass section, which is in North Londonderry. And that was owned by the state of New Hampshire, and they were in an agreement with another company to do a salvage on that years ago. But it still hasn't happened. You'll see a few pieces there. It's going to just stay there.

But they salvaged it, and that's the state's call.

And you haven't found any down in the Phase 7 area?

Nope.

And then I guess what are we looking at for phase six and what kind of timing are we looking at for that?

You got that one.

So this is the most, phase six up near the airport is the most complicated section because it involves several federal agencies. So TSA has a say because it's security. FAA has a say because it's an airport. And the city, the Manchester airport itself has, they all have an important role to play. So that's a lot of agencies and that's a lot of time.

Does the route go technically outside of the airport fencing or just along the outside of the fence, but it's still their property.

Yeah. It's still under their jurisdiction might be the more accurate way to say it. They have a lot yet to say. So it's going to take a little, it's going to take a little bit longer. It's probably going to get broken into two pieces where you go from where it ends today up to the aviation museum will be a I like a section. And then from the Aviation Museum up to the Manchester town line will be another section. And getting to the Aviation Museum is what we really want to do because that's safe parking. They're very excited about the rail trail coming to them. And they have said where they want to share their parking lot. They're really wonderful to work with. So we want to provide safe parking on that end.

And if I heard you correctly, our route connects up going northwest, and does it technically go into Goffstown in that direction? and up towards Lebanon that way? Or how does it get up to...

So when you go from the Aviation Museum, you go up Navigator Road, and then that will be the Londonderry-Manchester line, right?

Right, but I guess I meant, you guys had said earlier, it goes through other towns throughout the rest of the state.

Yeah, so it goes up through Manchester. You can currently ride... ride it all the way to Queen City AB I think it is yeah yeah and then it there Manchester is going to go straight up to Concord and then it veers off the Northern Rail Trail already exists so where it's not done is northern Manchester into Concord okay there's grassroots groups and actual towns and cities working on it it's it's called the Northern Rail Trail from Bosco in up to Lebanon and it already exists

Wonderful. I've been on another trail in Goffstown, and that one is not as nice as our trails, as well as the trails through Derry and Wyndham. Certainly our trails are by far nicer, so well done. That's all I had.

After he's done.

All set. Sean, go ahead.

I'd just like to say it reminded me of when you showed the pictures of the rail trail. The water part is my favorite part up by the airport, seeing all the turtles and things like that. But the question I have is the inner neighborhood trails. When you mentioned them and you mentioned it'd be nice if people could walk up to a Hannaford or Home Depot and things like that. Are there any plans to expand that? Because I mean, what we have now is great, but I like how that it keeps people off the road, gives them a safe, beautiful place to walk, get in between places. I think the work you've done so far is really great on that. I think that doesn't get enough publicity versus the, I mean, the rail trail is big and beautiful and that is the feature thing, but. Is there plans to expand that or to do something? And if there isn't, maybe think about that?

Years ago, we used to be, I'm a little embarrassed. I don't remember what it's called. What is it called when you're a committee that gives input to new design? What is it called?

Thank you.

my husband used to be on the planning board design review. So trailways used to be officially on the design review process where when a development was coming into town, we gave input and we came and spoke to the planning board. We didn't get anywhere. And we kind of, Often we just put our effort and our time and our talent on where we can make headway And when we can't make headway we go see ya and we go do what we where we can make headway So I think you bring up a good point Sean I think we should probably re-engage in that process in the design review process because it really should be on in my opinion on a developer to add either through impact fees or through actual specific requests to their development, in my opinion.

Now that you say that, that does outline the challenge on expanding that. Okay, now I fully understand. Thank you. Deb.

Sandy, thank you. I've always been a big cheerleader, as you know. Been there cleaning tires on that... What was that? Remember we had all those tires? We had two containers full of tires. And I like what you're bringing forward. It's aligning with what the Green Team is doing along with Beautify Londonderry, conservation, recreation, and I... I might as well include you. It's August 6th. We're having a meeting here at 7 o'clock. And basically bringing up something that was on my goals, which was pocket parks, nature parks, connectability. And I know when people think pocket parks, they're thinking playgrounds. That's not what it is. It's a connectivity between neighborhoods that land that the town owns that could be used to gather or to do whatever. So I would hope that the trailways would want to come in with our bigger group and look at this. We've got the town manager had the GIS guy give us a map so we know exactly kind of what we're looking at and where we want to go and where the low fruit is first and the easier fruit. And one of them is from the LAFA, right, going behind here behind the grange across the street behind the church by the meeting house ending up down towards max as a nice snowshoes uh... nice rail trail you know walking trail connecting those two areas so people can can walk that park at the municipal sit park at the library take that walk and not have to worry about taking their lives in their hands on Mammoth Road. Also, it saves the taxpayers money because we don't have to put in sidewalks, maintain them, have the liability of it, and things like that.

Nothing wrong with sidewalks, though. No, no. In densely populated areas. We're just not there yet. In densely populated areas, that's where they belong. But send us the invitation.

I just added you to my list of people.

One more question. Ted, go ahead. For your counter that had been done by the Southern New Hampshire Commission, how did they perform that with pedestrian walkers and bikers and rollerbladers and different locations that people may actually access?

They have an electronic machine that they set up, and I know they explained it to me once, and I can't explain it to you again, but I know they have a way of not having duplicates. They're pretty savvy with the machines.

Some people may park by the bus station. Some people may park

You have to go past the counter to be counted.

In other words, usage could be even higher. Usage could be even higher because they put it, let's say, near Verani Way, and if you're only walking between North School and Coca-Cola, then you're not getting counted. You have to pass in front of it. I thought it counted every...

They do move it around, though.

Southern New Hampshire Planning has invited us to come to one of their meetings coming up

September 23rd, we're going to be doing a tour of the rail trail to all of the commission members all over the state because it's their 60th anniversary for the planning commission.

They've asked us to do a walking tour, Bob's going to do it, of a section of the rail trail and talk about it from a planning perspective. Yeah. Yeah. But we'll get ourselves a little more educated on the counting part and let you know how that works. Dan?

I just want to say thank you for all the hard work you guys put into this because maintaining those trails is a lot of work. I've used the Northern Rail Trail and Londonderry Rail Trail. You can see it's cut back, it's maintained, and that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of volunteers. And I just want to say thank you for everything you guys do. It's hard to, it's a lot of work just to get it ready, but to continue maintaining it is the key. And you guys do a great job with that. Thank you. Thank you.

You know, the town manager asked me, like, what do you guys do about maintenance when we first had a meeting many months ago? And I said, so far, the maintenance of the rail trail has been within the scope that we can handle. But, you know, we can foresee that things are going to happen where we're going to need a little bit more expertise than Bob has. And, you know, it's really nice to know that we're going to have you know, engineers or DPW if something comes up. You know, we'll always be fundraising, we'll always be trying to, you know, make it happen, but sometimes we need to rely on the expertise that only town staff can bring that we don't have on our board.

Well, and certainly potentially Phase 6.

Yeah, and a real big thanks to Dave Wally and John Trottier. I mean, those two guys work with me really closely on maintenance and the development of the trail, and there's other many, many other town members like Kirsten and

people in the planning department but it is really a team effort yeah 100 any other questions um i was just going through and making sure um in the 10-year highway plan the rail trail part from londonderry to dairy i know there's a lot of changes in that plan but it was still included in there so that's good to know we're getting state funds for that too anything else well i want to thank you both what you do much appreciated thank you Thank you.

Before you go any further, I just want to say something. I want to apologize to everybody for losing my cool. It's just, it gets very frustrating when you don't get answers and you don't understand why things are happening. And it was unprofessional to yell and just be a jerk. But it is so frustrating. And I sometimes, I'm a very passionate person, and I just cannot control my frustration. And so for that, I do apologize to the audience.

Up next, discuss and schedule a public hearing for September 14th regarding the application of Purpose Energy. Mr. Mulholland.

Yes. So we have an application from Purpose Energy as indicated in the packet there in regards to the commercial industrial tax credit. This is a two-part process or at least two-part process. Here is to have a presentation by the applicant and what they're requesting in terms of that exemption. And then there's a public hearing which we have with the council scheduled for September 14th of this year to take public input and then act on it at that particular time.

Welcome, sir. Hi, Sean O'Neill, head up development for Purpose Energy. Apologize for adding to the proliferation of Sean's in the room. So just in another in the future hearing, I can give you a kind of our slick PowerPoint and give you a little sense of visuals of what we're doing. But let me explain, first of all, the Southern New Hampshire Green Energy Campus program. is going to be over off of north north wentworth at the the terminus of north wentworth over by stonyfield and behind calpine hopefully most londonderry residents won't know it's there except the ones who want to get rid of organic waste which is what we're going to be processing there so the facility is going to be Two components. One is a depackaging facility, meaning a facility that takes grocery waste that has gone by or it's expired, etc., which is currently going, a lot of it goes to landfills. And it's taking up New Hampshire landfill space. If you follow the news, your landfills are running out of space. They're incredibly taxed. I think they have five years left. There's expansions going on, but there's a huge taxpayer cost and environmental cost associated with new landfills. We'll be taking that waste, taking it out of its packages, turning it into a slurry that goes into anaerobic digesters. What's an anaerobic digester? Sounds complicated. It's just a big stomach. It works just like your stomach. It digests the food just like your stomach. It makes gas just like your stomach. And we turn that gas into renewable natural gas, and we put it into your gas line. So this facility is going to, of every 100 tons that comes in, less than a ton will go out. So this is going to be converting that material into clean water. Fertilizer solids, which are basically the spent bugs that ate the food, and biogas that we put into your gas line. We have to clean it up to the standard of Liberty's gas line. So we work with Liberty and inject into the gas line. And molecularly, this gas is exactly the same as the gas that's already there. It's methane. So that's the core of the project. It doesn't pencil yet. which is part of I'm trying to put the pieces together of which the abatement is a component. It's a pretty critical component to making this work. These are incredibly expensive, and they're hard to put together. Purpose Energy has built three of these projects in Vermont. We just opened one in Ohio that we built for Dan and Yogurt Processes, their waste. We built one for Cabot Cheese in Vermont and for Ben & Jerry's. So we work with food waste. It's what we do. What are the benefits to the town? I can think of at least six major ones. 25 to 30 jobs, which are going to be generally high skilled. These are high tech operations, all the pieces of them. Taxes that will ramp up after the abatement, right? Your abatements are, you know, you have a reduced level and they ramp up. So you'll eventually get full taxes. I think a reduction in cost to all the people of New Hampshire because they're all affected by what's happening with landfills and the impact of the new ones. We will be an asset to that industrial part of Londonderry because lots of companies struggle with how to treat their wastewater. The city of Manchester is clamping down on the nitrogen and phosphorus that goes into that plant. More and more companies are going to need wastewater treatment. And so if you want an additional food plant or more jobs that come with that in that area, folks would look at a digester plant and go, oh, we want to be there. So we're an asset to the industrial growth. A private wastewater plant, a lot of towns would love to have that because I think of it as public infrastructure but private cost. And then we'll be adding enough gas to serve the gas needs of about 5,000 New Hampshire homes. So it's a non-trivial amount of gas in an area that's sometimes gas-constrained. Then lastly, and Sean and I are working on a plan for this, we've had the utility committee, Martha Smith and others have visited our digesters in Vermont and are excited, I think, about this project. And one of the things we've agreed with them is that we'll have a receptacle to take local organic waste. We have to put in some rules to make sure it stays organic. We can't take general trash. But we'll take organic waste from this community that would otherwise go to landfills and we'll we'll build the space for it. We'll manage it. We'll haul it off and process it. And we think that will be another asset to the town. I would add that there's sort of no comparable tax burden that you might get from other applicants for this in the sense that. We don't have kids there. They're going to need to be educated. We don't need a lot of emergency services for residents, right? We're pretty much a net add to your roles. When Sean and I were discussing this, he goes, you're just gravy because you're not taking other resources from us. But the way your abatement is structured, the way a lot of towns do, which is it starts, you know, I think it's 50% or something, and then it ramps up. That's what we need to make our project pencil. It's really hard to make these work. So with that, and again, I can give you a full dog and pony presentation of what it's going to look like, but I've tried to summarize what we're doing and the benefits. Any questions?

Oh, yeah.

Go ahead, Deb. Two pages. Go. I'm sorry.

And it might be redundant, but I feel I have to do my due diligence. Please do. So which tier did you want? Would you prefer?

Well, we want the highest tier, right? The deepest subsidy. So I think that's one, right?

Okay, so what specific new businesses are expected to come to Londonderry because of your facility? Like what kind of businesses do you think may come I mean, because we can't predict the future, but which ones could possibly come because you're coming here?

So the original impetus for this site was Stonyfield because… They're already here. I know. They're already here. And there may be a future in which we're taking their wastewater. It was one of the original plans, but that's why we're in that site. So we have had other… companies like the Cabot's of the world cheese companies. You know, we still have some dairy in New England that that have actually sought spots in industrial parks near us. So I can't I can't tell you like, oh, we're talking to so and so about locating there. But no, no, it's a good question. And I'm not offended at all. And you keep them coming.

Because I just think that that's important. I mean, I'm not against this. I think it's a wonderful thing. I'm all for it. I just want to protect and make sure everything is copasetic.

I'll add that there's a, and I can't name them, but there's a meat processing company in New Hampshire that's looking for our support because they may need us for, and they're not going to locate in Londonderry, but they need us. To process their waste so that they can stay in New Hampshire.

Right. So it would be good if you could kind of – you don't have to tell the names of them, but say there's a potential of getting X amount, two or three businesses because you're here to add to that area that's empty up there that we'd love to fill.

Exactly. I mean, I wish – we're not in the recruitment effort, but I will tell you the kind – No, it's a very good one. And I'll try to put together, I mean, the best thing I could do is give you a list of our clients and the types of folks that work with us, and that will give you an idea.

Deb, I will say one of the biggest users of these types of plants are actually breweries. And I believe you guys actually built a big one up in Burlington, Vermont to work with Magic Hat. And so all the breweries that are in the area right now, instead of just send their waste off of who knows where, could then be trucking it potentially to your site, potentially, if you can make deals with those facilities.

Yeah, and there's a real retention piece to that. I appreciate you bringing that up because we help keep waste costs down for people because... Sometimes they're trucking it out of state, they're trucking it long distances, and they have to pay what they call a tipping fee. Their tipping fee is much higher. They can come locally to us cheap.

Okay.

So we help preserve those jobs if those companies are marginal.

So I'd like a little bit more detail on the jobs. Gotcha. You said 25 to 30 new jobs. Yes. Now, these are brand-new jobs, not people moving from someplace else. So I'd like to know the exact type of – so out of those 25 jobs, the types, the salaries – so in other words – 5% is upper management, the rest are workers. The 5% at upper management, they're making 90, 100,000. The lower end is 20, 30,000. I have no idea what people make in that industry.

Right.

But it would be good to have a concept to see if that we even can have, if you're saying 20 people you need of lower workers, it might be difficult to find because we're finding that across the board. I go to a lot of the chamber meetings and the less paying jobs.

Hard to fill.

Very hard to fill. And that could be a huge problem. Yes. So that's something that I would like to know more about. Do you want me to just kind of go through this?

Yeah, and I would like to provide a supplement to this because I may not have everything right to hand.

That's fine. It's a process, right? Yeah. What is the expected full asset value after completion and how confident are you guys in the $22 million evaluation estimate?

I'm so bad at understanding how assessments are done because they vary by state. I deal with them in lots of states, but each state treats real property and personal property differently. So I worked with an assessor who's out of Concord who helped me understand a little bit how it would be done. I can tell you we spend more than that, but we're not necessarily assessed on property. the cost to move dirt around um or to you know not every piece of it is is right no i understand but but i'm hopeful put it this way i'm hopeful it stays that low i'm worried the assessment comes in higher and i gotta pay more taxes no that's a good thing i have no doubt that we'll reach the level that's on there okay um

Well, you already said how I wanted some details on how residents would be able to drop off food waste. All of that food waste won't be outside. It would be going inside, correct? You're not going to have a little yelp in it up and put it in because I'm thinking rats.

No. So we'll have a caged enclosure because, I don't know, I live out in the middle of nowhere and I got raccoons and everything getting in the stuff.

When there's a lot of people, you don't want rats?

No. So this will be in a contained space and a bin that gets emptied every day. So it's not going to be sitting out there.

Okay. And will there be some sort of funding for this? Like... Are you going to maintain it is what I'm trying to say. Is it just going to be put there and forgotten about? Because everything starts off pretty, you know that.

So we are going to have, and Sean has helped me think through a little bit, he suggests the town can help us with some enforcement on anti-dumping, right? The town already has the necessary, I think, laws and fines in place for that we will need we'll probably have a camera up we need to make sure people aren't just bringing general trash there and we can't promise like if the system if we have a collective action problem the system breaks down we may not be able to keep it going but our commitment is as long as we get a clean waste stream we will run that at our cost um because it doesn't make money for us it you know the waste We have to charge to take the waste that we process. We'll take the towns for free. We'll run it, manage it as a piece of public benefit. So it doesn't need a funding stream. It needs us to make a commitment.

Right, and it's a good relationship, good partner. So then the next question is, what odor control, spill prevention, and wastewater management systems will be installed, and what will their failure rates be?

So everything comes in enclosed. When it goes on to the tipping floor where it gets depackaged, that's enclosed. So a door shuts and everything's inside. All the wastewater processing is inside enclosed tanks. And the biosolids that come out are also closed. enclosed. And when they leave the site, they're enclosed.

So do you guys have emergency processes? If something, like an accident, you never know what's going to happen.

Boy, I could show you the book we had to file for our solid waste permit. We have a whole plan of for all that stuff and containment emergency response stuff yeah um and i just add one more thing the utility committee went to um our vermont plant and they can tell you i mean it doesn't smell and so for me yeah i applaud you you have a great vermont plant i'm not worried about vermont i'm worried about london i just mean they went as an example right so they saw that it didn't smell

It may not happen there, it could happen here. So how many trucks per day will enter and exit the site and what routes will they be taking and at what times of day? Days of the week, I should have added that.

As part of this, we had to do a full traffic study. And so that's all filed with town planning. I can't give you the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I'm going to give you my best guess. And I can give you the traffic study too. It's somewhere in the 30 range. It would make no sense for them to come the way no one wants to come, which is right up Harvey. They've got to come down from the airport area. So they're going to come off Pettingill. And relative to the high traffic you've got from FedEx and the other stuff, we're just a very tiny drop in the bucket. So the key way that traffic is evaluated is according to what they call LOS, right, level of service. You probably know this from other people who presented to you. I think we don't change, and there's one intersection where we change the LOS from, and the LOS is done as A, B, or C, just like your report card. We change one LOS based on our work, and I think it's because it adds one second to the time traffic stops, and that was enough to shift the LOS. But the big message here is we have marginal to no impact on traffic.

Okay, well, I already did that one. I'm so sorry. All right. I was just looking for some more financial models, but that, you said, will be coming, so I'm not going to panic about that. What is the annual estimate insurance billing revenue Londonderry would receive?

I don't know what insurance billing revenue is.

Okay. How will the town, these are questions by the way, people, residents, they all come from like different people. that have asked me to ask you. I love it.

So I'm just doing my job. This is excellent. I expect this kind of thing.

Okay. How will the town verify ongoing public benefit for future expansion periods? So I guess that's part of the thing you need to do is show ongoing benefits to the community. So are you going to donate to like the rail trail or something or the green team or help my farmer's market? I don't know.

Well, we'll take the farmer's market waste. There you go. You know, all the things that I've listed, those six things, can all be quantified.

Okay.

So if you want us to report on them, we can.

All right. If the facility is damaged, how quickly can operations be restored before things start really stinking?

this is what they ask me i'm sorry it's fine don't um so damage you know it's hard to imagine what would damage a tank but what can happen to digesters it's actually never happened to ours but they can do what's called pickle they get over overly acidified and they go down um we've literally never had that happen in 15 years of magic hat's never been down the magic hat plant um but um You have to drain the tank. That's all fully enclosed. You have trucks come and they drain it. We just can't bring any waste in. So the general public wouldn't notice if our plant was down. We just have to drain it and reactivate it.

Okay. What is the projected – I don't know if this is for you or Sean or the finance guy. What is the projected annual tax payment once the exemptions end? if you should get one of the I mean, this is what they asked me.

No, that's obviously, again, a good question. But we won't know that it'll depend on the tax rate at that particular time. And what the actual assessed value of the structure is at that time, and make any additions to it, increase in value of commercial industrial property, which you know, is not as much as residential properties. It'll all depend on that particular time.

It's, it's, I need to look at the schedule, but it's over a couple 100 grand, unfortunately.

No, fortunately. That means you're doing good. What guarantees that the existence of your company will remain in Londonderry after the tax relief period?

Oh, my goodness. We will have sunk so much money. No, it's a good question, but we will have planted so much money in Londonderry, and we will have contracts that obligate us to operate or we're in big trouble. So we will make commitments to people who are part of the waste system system People you don't want to cross. So we will have to be here.

All right. And so then I feel like I'm on a dating game. Can you confirm that construction has not begun, has begun, no, no construction has begun per RSA 72 colon 83?

No construction has begun.

Okay. I got two. I'm sorry.

Don't apologize. This is like you're being a good city council person.

I'm trying. Which companies will send waste to the facility and what volumes are expected? We already answered that. What permits are needed from NHDES and what is the status of each of them?

Okay. So that's a really good question. So we need an alteration of terrain permit. We got it. We need a solid waste permit. That's the biggest one. It took us months and months and months, but it should come out any day. We need an air quality permit. We got that. And DES requires all the other permits. So we got our wetlands permit. We have a modest impact on wetlands that we've mitigated. And I can give you a longer report on all those permits.

So those were the questions I had received from individuals that asked me to ask you, even though I know there's a public hearing.

No, but I'd like to give you my card and make sure that I send you, and maybe I'll just send you all the follow-up.

Okay, you can always get me through Sean. Great, okay.

Any other questions? Dan.

Just listening to your presentation, you say everything's enclosed, except when you're looking at receiving the organics in a drop-off container. Is that going to be enclosed?

It'll look like a steel container that you typically see where you dump your trash. It'll be enclosed. It'll have a lid. We need people to be able to get in and out of it. It's a benefit. This is not part of our normal operation. It's a benefit.

We're trying to provide And we'll have to do our best to keep keep firming out of it and by emptying it a lot So we got this from our town manager today a proposal that you're working on with him. Yes and Says purpose energy and its partner recycle works will commit to managing that drop-off container and so long as it receives only organic and not general trash. My concern is what happens if people put general trash in there? Is that going to be a burden on the Londonderry taxpayer or not, that we're going to have to clean that up?

So what I'm suggesting is it happens a couple times, we'll manage it. Sean has suggested we might be able to get help with city enforcement because you have the ability to sort of track a license plate or whatever take we'll have a camera and and find somebody and we're hoping that that that helps and you know signs will say you're on candid camera or whatever they need to say um so that people know they're on notice um if it becomes a the the short answer to your question is it's a burden for us and if it just keeps happening to such a point that there's 90% solid waste, non-organic waste, and we have to separate it and everything. We can't commit to managing a facility that isn't for organic waste. So we're going to do our level best and all commercial best efforts to manage an organic facility. waste facility and work with the town to enforce that. If it becomes a giant trash dump, we might not be able to sustain that bargain.

I just bring that up because I know we have a facility down on West Road and we have attendants down there all the time and people put stuff where they're not supposed to. We had a container just for metal and people were putting stuff in there that they shouldn't and now we have to have all the metal outside and has to be gone through so that's time consuming and i and i don't want the town of londonderry absorbing any of the costs here no and i know you said that i appreciate that We need the council to formally establish a fine structure. I don't know if I'm looking into establishing a fine structure for this, but those are my concerns.

I assume you have fines for dumping, an anti-dumping fine. It is a state statute, actually. It covers illegal dumping. Yeah. So that's, they won't, they specify what's allowed to be there and people with things that are not supposed to be into illegal dumping. It's going to be on their private property anyway, so.

Right.

we can enforce that statute which has been in effect for a long time thank you that's it any other questions all right so we will schedule this for a public hearing on September 14th thank you sir thank you all for your service thank you Up next, discuss and approve the transfer of funds from Recreation Department Capital Reserve Fund to the General Fund. Mr. Salides.

Good evening. We've had some problems with the West Road irrigation. Everything is good except what's not good, and that's some of the pipe that needs to be replaced. The foot valve needs to be replaced. A new system so the foot valve can be changed. without having two old guys go out in a little rowboat and try to lift up this big thing and change it without getting drenched unfortunately it's fairly expensive the bigger problem would happen if if we didn't fix this and we had a really hot spell we would lose the fields so this is why we're it's being asked for this is beyond the capabilities of um this is Kevin Foley who's on the rec commission who's like the smartest guy I know and always helps us um Sid and I have always had this relationship of doing things together we get to the point we don't know what to do and the next step of what we do is we call kevin well thank you kevin kevin has saved the town a lot of money over the years so we're asking for this money out of the capital reserve we will we not we recreation is asking um it's cost is a little over 22 000 and after this is spent we'll have a little more than 34 000 in the capital reserve kevin can answer all the difficult questions that i can't any questions i got a statement though what's our location that this is going again i couldn't hear you what's the location where it's going again oh at the pump house at west road beat uh There's a little down by the watering hole by Field 3. If you go down to Field 3, instead of going up to the field, you go down to the left. That's where the – do we call it a pond now?

Yeah, it's a pond. It used to be Continental's Pond for washing gravel before they donated that property to us. So we draw water out of the pond, which is – It's, let's see, kind of pain in the neck. Very hard to draw water into a pump. The school runs into the same problems we're having. Being the system's 25 years old now, we're having a lot of problems. And not only do we have to fix this problem, we need to make it easier for the next generation people to work on it. Right now, we're literally going out in a boat, trying to reach over and pick up this 100-pound line with a So we have to do the check bells occasionally. 25 years, we've done it like six times, but twice in the last... Well, we did it in the fall instead of the spring. Just did it again. So we've got to make that easier to do. And we provide our own water. The school district has to buy water from Pinnachuck. So the fact that we're spending $25,000 really doesn't... cost that much when you look at buying water so this is really some repairs to make it much easier to do and then there's a discharge line that's steel that goes out to the fields and that's rotted as well and we've already had to replace that at the field six pump house so just trying to look to get everything working and make it easier for the next uh people to work on yeah i'm all set i'm just going to move that uh

I'll make a motion.

I'm fine with the motion I just want to say these guys don't come to us often and when they do it's very small amounts because they are the most efficient and effective department that the town has and they give a lot of pleasure to a lot of people they do a lot of positive things in this town and they don't get recognized for it as a committee and I think that this is just something we just a no brainer to do because again they are the most efficient people you ever want to meet Sorry.

I'll move that the London Dairy Town Council hereby authorizes the withdrawal request and directs the town treasurer to disperse up to $22,125.97 from the Recreational Department Capital Reserve Fund to pay for repairs related to the West Road Fields pump house system.

I have a motion from Dan. Second.

Second from Deb. Discussion further?

Yes, discussion.

Will this have any interference with the fields and all the sports and activities that are on them? What kind of timing are we looking at?

No. No, the pump house is away. It doesn't affect the fields at all. The only time the fields are affected is when something breaks on the fields. This is well away from the fields. The damage will come as if we can't get water on the fields, then it becomes...

The grass won't be good.

Yeah, it's not a good place for little kids to be running around.

Right. I just want to make sure if any of the pipes had to go out to the fields from what the work's happening.

It should be. Maybe after our generation is gone, things may break. But right now, not in the wood.

When are you looking to have the work be done?

It can actually come out Thursday if this gets approved tonight.

Okay. I will say I'm really impressed with the pricing for this. I was expecting all this work to be way more money. So I think it's got quite a deal here.

Your requests are always great, so I'm happy to approve. Any further discussion?

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Share with us the affirmative. Thank you both for all your help. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Up next, discuss and approve the transfer of funds from the fire equipment cap reserve fund for defibrillators. Is this? Who's taking this one? Is this? CHIEF, WELCOME. PHIL, WELCOME. THANK YOU. OKAY.

SO GOOD EVENING, JIM YONG, YOUR FIRE CHIEF. The background on this is, if we remember back, there was funding placed into the fire equipment capital reserve fund for the purpose of purchasing the new Zoll cardiac monitors slash defibrillators. We were very fortunate to negotiate a five-year lease program with 0% financing over the entirety of the five-year lease. So this is requesting that funding be taken from that capital reserve fund for which it was designated for to make the first of five payments for that purchase.

Any questions?

No.

Want a motion? Yeah, go ahead, Dan.

I move that the Londonderry Town Council hereby authorizes the withdrawal request and directs the town treasurer to disperse up to $112,475.93 from the Fire Department Capital Reserve Fund for the first payment to Zoll Medical Corporation for the replacement of the Zoll Cardiac Monitor defibrillation.

Motion from Dan, second from Sean. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So it's the affirmative, 3-0. Thank you both.

Thank you.

Old business. Next, discuss the easement for cul-de-sac at Ashley Drive. Mr. Mulholland.

Yes. So we received a new draft agreement, easement I should say, from Mr. Haywood from 11 Ashley Drive. And as you indicated, we had that discussion about bicycles and other types of pedestrian type vehicles that could be used in there. And they do not want that to occur there. So that's what they proposed. That's what you have in front of you at this particular time. And it's up to you to take action if you wish with that proposed easement. You have a number of options. One of those is to do, you still have that layout petition in front of you, request to do that. You could accept that easement or I suppose you could take no action at all on that if you chose to. Those are the options as I see them that are in front of you.

We also heard from a resident tonight that asked us to hold off that the property was under contract and asked us to hold off on the decision until the new property owner.

Mr. Chair, I mean, I look at and you're gonna have a new property owner, they might have different ideas what they want.

Attorney Johnson's here also.

Sure. Well, absolutely. Over here. Good evening, sir.

Yeah. Hi, Matt Johnson, legal counsel for the Haywoods. Yeah. With regard to the sale of the property, I think that's very speculative right now. The property could sell in a week. It might not sell for months. the Haywoods might decide not to sell. I don't think it would make sense to hold this whole thing up on the potential of maybe a sale and maybe a different owner. I don't think it really matters who the owner is. There's an existing easement as the property stands right now. What we're seeking to do with the proposed easement is clarify the terms because of what the limited easement as noted on the plan of record says. So we're trying to clarify that so the town and the owner of the property where the easement lies understand that there's an understanding with actual details of rights and obligations of the parties, which seems to be what was likely intended 40 or 50 years ago when the easement was actually granted. There just wasn't the paperwork recorded at the registry. So we're trying to do that now, and I don't think it matters who the owner is, and I don't think it makes sense to wait to see if maybe there's another owner along the way. The easement runs with the property, so it will stay intact no matter who the owner is, unless and until Ashley Drive is extended.

Any questions? Thank you, Sir. Back to us.

Well, I mean, it's eliminating bicycles, Mr.

Chair, which I'm I'm in favor of holding off.

So I'm in favor of that.

I'm good with that.

If I could address the bicycle issue.

Sure. I'll let you say a piece of this. Yeah, please. Yeah.

And I know that in your in your packet of materials, you have a copy of the plan. I wasn't at the last meeting, but it wasn't clear based on the conversation. I did view the meeting afterwards online. And it didn't seem clear to me if all of the town council members were aware of the actual layout of this cul-de-sac.

I think we were aware. Yeah.

I think we were aware. We're all aware. I'll speak for I think they were aware. Okay. Can everyone agree we were aware? Yeah. I think we were aware.

Okay. That it's not a typical circle. It's more like a driveway that goes across the Hayward's private property. Certainly if you're riding a bicycle on a road, or a skateboard, you could turn around in the roadway. You don't have to traverse across someone's property simply to turn around. So the language that was in the proposed easement, although it eliminates recreational use as I defined it, it eliminates that without permission of the owner, whether that's the Haywards or anybody else. Just for clarification.

Anything else want to bring it back to the council in this. The motion of something to hold on to what do you want to do we do need a motion or if we're going to hold off, I don't think we need a yeah, we don't need on if you're going to hold on it's just what do we want to do we want to do. I I'm I'm good with holding off. Yeah, I want to speak for you do you know, I mean I said that how you feel. I'm fine.

What?

How was your opinion? Do you want to hold off? Yeah, sure. Okay. Sean? Yeah. Okay. So all four of us, there's a consensus that we would like to hold off. Thank you. Can I get some clarification?

Has that continued for a certain amount of time? What do you mean hold off?

No, we're going to hold off for now.

We don't have an easement.

Existing easement. Yeah.

So it just stays as is.

Up next, discuss and authorize the inter-municipal agreement with the town of Litchfield for emergency medical and fire dispatch. Chief Young.

Hello again.

Yes, hello again. So thank you for the opportunity to come back a couple weeks later and revisit this topic. What I would like to do tonight with authorization is to go through the PowerPoint presentation again to address the key points and reinforce the topics that we discussed last time.

Okay.

So just a brief recap on how things progressed. Back in April, we were approached by Litchfield to discuss the possibility of entering into an inter-municipal agreement to provide both ambulance services as well as dispatch services to their town. During May, I drafted a formal inter-municipal agreement proposal, a draft proposal, and provided that to Litchfield. Additional meetings with representatives from both towns, being our town manager, myself, and the town administrator from Litchfield, and Chief Nickel from Litchfield, met to have further discussions and sort of what that may look like from both sides. In July, the Board of Selectmen in Litchfield, in public session, authorized moving forward with our proposal by unanimous vote of 5-0. And then in later July, an updated draft regarding the terms and conditions was provided to Litchfield for further consideration, revision, et cetera. And we've arrived at a final draft at this point. That final draft has been provided in your packet. It was provided a couple weeks ago. Hopefully you've all had the opportunity to review that. So to recap the advantages of this enhanced partnership, and it truly is a partnership between the two towns with benefits for both sides. We've had a longstanding relationship with Litchfield through mutual aid for many, many years. In fact, back in the 1980s, we did provide their dispatch services. And I'm convinced from my perspective, had we operated an ambulance at that time, we would be providing Litchfield ambulance service right now. At the time, we did not operate an ambulance, so they decided to consolidate both services over to Hudson, who did run an ambulance at that time. We have served as their backup communications center for over 20 years, so much of the infrastructure within dispatch that we would need to utilize to be able to provide their dispatch services is already there. That's another key point. I think it's also very interesting to think back in this timeframe in the 1980s and 90s and into I believe even the early 2000s, our town of Londonderry did not have an ambulance and our neighbors were kind enough, our neighbors in Derry were kind enough to provide that ambulance service to us. And I think our citizens were very pleased that they didn't ask us to pay a million dollars plus to provide that service. They helped us out as good neighbors until we were able to take on that service ourselves. That is what we're trying to do here is be good neighbors, provide a service to another community that also has major benefits for us providing that service. It's time to pay that forward because for many years we were in the same situation. The increased staffing will enhance the available resources for both towns. Without getting too much into the weeds, Litchfield has a unique service deployment model for a fire department that does not run a transporting ambulance service. They run a paramedic level first response system, which is going to work really nicely with our system. There's further opportunities to join up with training opportunities. to regionalize other services, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, down the road. It's a great partnership. It has all kinds of potential. I'm excited about it. And I think it will only become stronger as we move forward.

On that note, earlier it was brought up the response times to Litchfield. And I think it's worth clarifying that response times to Litchfield is not from when we get dispatched and there's an emergency responder on scene to provide aid. Like the chief said, The town of Litchfield is providing aid with their paramedic on their fire truck, their paramedics on their fire truck. They're sending first responders getting there in a timely manner to start triage. And we are then coming over and finishing the piece of emergency management. So I don't want it to seem like it was proposed earlier that someone from Litchfield calls 911 and no one's getting there for 17 minutes to help. That's not the case at all. That would be irresponsible. That's not the case at all. And that's not how it's going to work. And Chief Nichols here, if you'd like to ask him questions about how his department operates when it comes to emergency calls, how fast they get where they get in their community. But it's worth mentioning that because, again, that that was said earlier and made it seem as though this would provide emergency relief in an 18 minute period to someone. And that's not the case.

Well, we will be able to demonstrate that we can increase our department staffing by four firefighter EMTs and an additional telecommunications operator, and those folks will remain available to the Londonderry residents and serve the Londonderry residents 83% of the time statistically. This will enhance the safety and well-being of our staff as well as the citizens and visitors to each of our communities. So within the communications division, the proposed three-year agreement would begin on January 1st of 2027. It would add one full-time telecommunications operator to our staff. In year one, the revenue that was within the IMA is $47,580, and it increases by 7.5% in year two, and then another 7.5% in year three to the figures you see there. That assessment model is comparable to the communities of Pelham and Hampstead, which we already serve. The biggest difference here is we are proposing that with the new revenue source, we actually add staffing this time. In the past, we took on additional responsibilities to bring in more revenue to the town, but we didn't give our folks more staffing to help out. We just asked more of them. And that is something I want to get away from.

And I think it's worth noting with the dispatch position that it's not 83% of the time It would be 100% of the time when there's two dispatchers working. Because right now, we have two dispatchers Monday through Friday from 8 to 4. This would allow us to have two dispatchers for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. That's just an added bonus to London. That's an added benefit to Londonderry. It's not going to detract by bringing on Litchfield the coverage for the town of Londonderry. As it stands right now, we have one dispatcher dispatching three towns. By having two... Not only does it benefit Litchfield, but it benefits Londonderry because they're not leaving the dispatch center and just going to Litchfield. They're able to handle multiples. And to put that in perspective, there's one dispatch center in the state of New Hampshire that has three full-time dispatchers, and that's Nashua. Beyond that, Concord, Keene, who dispatch for 10, 12 communities, have two dispatchers working all the time. by looking at what dispatch provides. This is is a net positive for the town of London area all the time.

And building off of that we do increase the workload for the TCOs. It is minimum for the return on the investment. Combining fire and EMS calls in the town of Litchfield will increase the call volume of the calls that come in, approximately 900 calls per year, which averages out to 2.47 calls per day annually. Within the operations division, again, it would be a three-year intermunicipal agreement that would begin at the same time on January 1st of 2027. The revenue coming in combined with the IMA Assessment model and the patient revenue, which we'll discuss in just a little bit, would add four full-time firefighter EMTs. We hope to see AEMTs or paramedics apply. We're willing to accept any position that is willing to apply because it will staff additional ambulances. We just don't know what the candidate pool will look like at this time. The assessment revenue in year one originally was proposed at $200,000. So I want to be very clear about that. It was requested to negotiate that down to 175,000 in year one at the request of Litchfield. That took a full analysis to look at that and make sure that it worked for our municipality, which it did. It transfers the $25,000 from year one to year three. It is still the same amount of funding over the three-year agreement. As many of us are aware, Litchfield has a tax cap. They have limitations they have to work within. And this is what worked for both communities is to reduce year one by $25,000 and transfer that $25,000 into year three where they have more time to plan for those incremental increases over time. The assessment model, how it was calculated, it's comparable, although stronger, than the surrounding communities. The examples would be the current Hudson contract, where they provide the service to Litchfield at this time, and also Dairy, who serves both the communities of Auburn and Chester. It was based off the average of those agreements with a significant escalator, a 50% escalator on top of that, to make sure that we're accounting for all of our costs within our town. It increases the workload for our operations staff by approximately 620 emergency responses annually, and that averages out to be about 1.7 responses per day. The patient insurance reimbursement, which comes from the insurance companies, when we transport a patient, we bill the insurance and they reimburse us, that would provide the largest source of revenue for this proposed project. We do take into account approximately a 10% no transport rate or percentage. Because not everybody that calls an ambulance we respond to and assess or treat is actually transported. And we need to transport to be able to get revenue for that service. So we do deduct approximately 10% of the call volume to compensate for those non-transports which will not receive reimbursement. And it's very important to note that the calculations we have here are based on historical billing rates, which are very low. A lot of work has been done, credit to the Fire Department administration and Deputy Chief LeBlanc, in securing all of the ambulance contracts in line with the revised RSAs, the current RSAs that allow us to bill at 3.25 times the Medicare rates. is in plain language is more money in reimbursements for the town of londonderry we only have six months of data right now because those were implemented january 1st they're already showing the results we expect the performance to improve even more so by averaging out between historical billing rates and what hudson reported as actual collections in in year 2025 That is where we come up with the combined ambulance reimbursements and the assessment funding to total $605,309. Chief, one quick question.

Sure. Your 10% of response is not resulting in transport. Is that someone who has a medical need that your firefighter EMTs are able to get back to a healthy point that we do not need to transport them? At times.

One example would be a car accident. Somebody may witness a car accident. They call 911, we respond. They make the determination, the patient, as long as they're of sound judgment, they can make the determination they do not want to be transported to the hospital.

They would have a family member drive them somewhere if need be?

Potentially, or they may not seek treatment at all. If they're over the age of 18 and can make that informed decision themselves, there are by right can do that or say if someone gets cut on their property you're able to address that situation but they don't need to be absolutely transported there's times where we may assess they're not transported we may provide some minor treatment in the field and they don't feel they need to be transported it's a whole process it has to be informed consent a refusal form signed by the patient or their guardian if they're a minor. There's a whole process, but going through that, yes, we have to provide that service as a cost associated with it, but there's no return by way of insurance reimbursement because we didn't physically transfer.

No, that's good for us and for everyone at home.

Thank you. And it's worth noting the paramedics, AEMTs and EMTs of Litchfield, many times in this situation will be able to handle this before we're probably even on scene. So we would get turned around. They would tell us over the radio. And this happens actually fairly frequently at the airport because the airport has a fire department there who is primarily for the airport. But when there are medical calls in the terminal, the parking garage, anywhere that's on Londonderry property, they will send a truck over with EMS personnel, and a lot of times they will end up canceling us before we get anywhere near the airport because those people don't need to go to the hospital. I see like the sick person calls in for the airport. Correct. And so it's just worth noting that we won't be driving all the way to Litchfield to then turn around and drive back for no reason. Litchfield, again, has competent personnel who have the authority to make those decisions prior to our arrival and will probably do so in a lot of these cases. That's good to hear. Thank you.

As soon as they make that determination and they cancel us because they are in charge of their own service area, they make that determination. Our ambulance is then immediately available and in service for another response that may be within Litchfield, likely within our town. So the year one cost to provide services, the firefighter paramedic wages total $276,581. It is important to note that we base this off of a step four firefighter paramedic. That is a paramedic that would be coming in with a lot of previous experience and come in higher on the pay scale. In all likelihood, are we going to see that? Probably not. So this is estimating high. You'll see that the hiring costs, the method was to calculate that high and then have the revenue estimated low so that we are going to actually overperform what we're presenting to you tonight. The four firefighter paramedic benefits, we're demonstrating we can cover both their salaries and wages and their benefits within this assessment model. It's calculated to be at $216,392. That accounts for all health and dental based on an average of all the plans that are offered, a single plus one, as well as the family plans. That also covers their retirement contributions and FICA, all of the associated additional costs that go into hiring a person to serve this role. The TCO wages for the one additional TCO added to the staff would be $59,571. Again, that's somebody coming in with experience higher up on the wage scale. It also includes, we took the full health family plan, the full cost of a family plan, because this is one person we want to overestimate what it's going to cost, if anything, to hire somebody. So this is a family health plan, dental insurance, FICA, retirement, again, all included here. And the benefits for that position total $51,601 estimated. So the total cost estimated to add these five people, all salaries, wages, Benefits included is $604,146. Subtract that from the total new revenue projected of $605,309, it results in a small net gain. Some folks in my discussions have said that's a very small margin of error where it's just about level funding itself and there's not a lot of cushion there. It's intended to do that. We want to demonstrate we're covering our costs. We're not in the business of making a profit. We're a municipality, not a private for-profit company. And again, I want to reinforce the fact that we are estimating hiring costs to be higher than we anticipate and revenue to be lower. And we do think this is going to overperform, and that margin of error will be much greater than what you see on the screen here. We were sort of establishing the floor, and it's only going to go up from here.

Chief, were these numbers also taking into account overtime and sick time?

Overtime and sick time is going to be addressed through the overperforming assessment model. There will be some minimal overtime, sick time, vacation time, especially early on will be very low because you're talking about new employees who have to gain some seniority before they're entitled to those increased vacation, personal days, et cetera.

Right. But I see, you know, one person who's out all of a sudden that $1,100 goes away. Could you just explain the $1,100 in net gain? If someone's out, you have to then pull someone in from for overtime.

Right.

And that'll probably almost negate that $1,100.

And that is the reason why we are going to see the escalations each year within the assessment model. Seven and a half percent is a substantial increase to continue to build off of that. Insurance reimbursement rates will also climb marginally as set by federal standards, Medicaid year over year. the potential for additional revenue will continue to increase. We will be able to cover overtime cost, training costs, all of those additional things. We will work within the budget that we're allocated, and we're not asking for that budget to increase.

Another item here was equipment per firefighter included into these costs as well.

The way that we address that, it's not only the funding coming in, it is also the timing of the funding. And if you just entertain me for a minute, I'll explain. It's another positive and unique thing where our fiscal year runs from July to June, where Litchfield operates on a calendar year budget. So in year one, we're going to see a full assessment paid in January. That's revenue coming in in our fiscal year 27, which has to be used in 27, not carry on to another year. Therefore, we're only having six months of an impact on that assessment fee. There's six months additional funding there, if you will, to cover all those one-time costs like equipping firefighters, et cetera, and their one-time cost. It's startup cost. It doesn't recur year after year. In year two, the payment would come in and cover the full fiscal year moving on down the line.

And I think when it comes to equipment, we have to understand, too, that the equipment is to outfit those firefighters. But should this contract and I know this has come up after three years go away, that equipment is still ours. And that equipment still be used for the members that are currently hired for Londonderry Fire for Londonderry. Also, that equipment doesn't go away. It doesn't lose its usefulness. We're not just going to throw it away because, you know, say the contract doesn't go through. I think the other thing to note with this, and I'm going to say this because two weeks ago, and you weren't here, Ted, we talked about me being the hiring officer. If I could hire four firefighter paramedics with five years of experience, I would be ecstatic, right? But the reality is that if you look back at the people I've hired over the last five, six, seven, ten years, that's not what we're getting coming through the door. So that, though rightfully presented because we want to give you the highest possible cost, the reality is this. We're probably not going to see anywhere close to that because that's not what the fire service is showing in any department when it comes to hiring.

I have one last question here on costs. I don't know if you have another slide here on maintenance of the vehicle or not, or if you've taken it into account.

maintenance and wear and tear of further miles on our vehicles traveling into hooks it i'm sorry litchfield my apologies we certainly did take that into consideration it's important from my perspective not to ask litchfield to fund a full ambulance we're not asking for new trucks we're going to utilize the equipment we already have in a greater capacity there will be increased wear and tear and fuel consumption and things like that because of the increased call volume A separate part from patient reimbursement, there's also a mileage reimbursement through the insurance companies when you provide transport. The more calls you do, the more mileage you're able to bill for, and that's what covers your overhead cost of fuel, wear and tear, maintenance, even long-term capital replacement. All of those are calculated in at the federal level to come up with what they believe is a reimbursable cost to the cost of doing business. So by doing more calls and adding up the miles, it is important to note it is only per loaded mile. And what I mean by that is you can't bill from the time you leave the station until you get on scene. A patient has to be in the truck. That is what is considered reimbursable mileage. But every mile we transport from the scene to a receiving facility, a hospital, is billable under the insurance company.

Similar to how you do your taxes when it comes to business miles, right?

Is it a individual that's still with us or an individual or does it matter?

Is your question if the person is deceased? Yes. It's trying to be nice. If the person is deceased, they still bill the insurance company if they carry insurance, yes. Unfortunately, that is part of our business. It does happen. But it is still reimbursable if the patient is deceased. It does not mean that we cannot collect on that.

And the miles as well?

The mileage as well, yes.

Okay.

Any other questions before I move on to the next slide?

We're good.

As far as deployment of the new staffing, there are options available and we will continuously evaluate how we can best provide the most efficient care. Some of that will be discussions with the local labor union and how we can deploy that staffing model within the current collective bargaining agreement. Those are important. We're willing to work collaboratively with one another to figure out the best way to make that happen. regardless of the decision that's made and how we deploy the new staffing, we will be able to staff additional ambulances more frequently. That is the end goal here. You'll notice in 2025 calendar year, we calculated or ran our stats and 52.84% of our calls are overlapping. That means what one call is occurring, another one is occurring. That is a significant amount. And right now, If we lose a call to mutual aid or a mutual aid entity comes over and transports a patient, they get all of the insurance reimbursement, we get none. We are only able to collect revenue if we're physically transporting patients. And that is what this entire assessment is aimed to do, is increase the amount of time that additional ambulance are staffed for both our community and the community of Litchfield that we are willing to take on that increased call volume and demand for. Any other questions on that as far as?

Are we expected to be bringing on another ambulance as well?

A physical ambulance? Yes. No, we're not. right now we currently have four ambulances in our fleet we have a brand new one we took delivery of recently we have one that we expect to take delivery of at the end of this month which was a remount of the box on a new chassis are you speaking about that yeah and then we have two more that were just authorized recently by the town council that we're putting on order that will replace two current ones at that time we'll have a fleet in approximately two years we'll have a fleet of four very new, very modern, up-to-date ambulances. And we plan to retain one ambulance of the older models that's in the best condition as a mechanical reserve. So when we do have an ambulance that goes out for service or maybe gone for an extended period of time, we have another one to replace it. And that way we can maintain a full fleet of four ambulances as often as we possibly can.

You're not anticipating to move up to five?

It would be five, but we're retaining one. We're going to have four.

I guess I meant staffing of five.

Staffing, no, no. Okay. The four would be staffed by a combination of increased staffing and the cross-staffing model we currently use. And the fifth one would be purely a mechanical spare. It would be there to place into service if one goes out for mechanical repair.

Has there been an analysis done about what we can do with staffing a fifth ambulance? Yes.

Staffing a fifth ambulance.

And the revenue sources from that and being able to help more people in town?

We have not extended out that far because we're just trying to make incremental progress towards our end goals and to run five ambulances is quite... Yeah, that would require staffing increases to 16.

Right, I just wasn't sure of what we were looking at for staffing, if it could actually be done with five ambulances or not.

It certainly could be with the appropriate amount of funding and staffing to be able to accomplish.

Now, what it is worth noting, though, by adding a fifth mechanical reserve, one, if there's callback, right, and we put page up for callback, people come in, there's an ambulance that in theory could be utilized. Now, the other piece of this is With our ambulance aging, we have had times where we've had multiple ambulances out of service. And when you have multiple ambulances out of service and you only have four in a fleet, now you only have two gaining revenue. If you have five in a fleet and two go out, you have three gaining revenue. So by adding that, you are able to capture more revenue should things go out of service. So the physical piece, even though it's not fully staffed all the time, still allows for more revenue gain when things mechanically break. And as you know, that happens even with new ambulances and technology being what happens with vehicles.

And as long as, I guess, that fifth one could still be operable and drivable and not just being taken apart for parts. Correct.

Any other questions before we move forward?

I actually had one question going back to what you guys were talking about earlier about Um, the other towns that we service and with our, uh, uh, the calls that come in, how often are they experiencing simultaneous calls from the other towns along with Lundary right now? So the call from Pelham and Hampstead and as well with Lundary right now, how, how often are we getting simultaneous calls from, you know, two other towns, three other towns all at the same time? with only having such a limited workforce right now.

So Ted, if I understand your question, you're asking about the other contract communities that we currently work with?

Yes.

So the two communities that we currently contract with would be Hampstead and Pelham, both of which are dispatch-only services. Correct.

So how often are we getting dispatch calls? that are simultaneous from those communities as well.

So our simultaneous call volume that we talk about, that she put up that statistic 52.8% of the time is for just the Londonderry Fire Department where we have multiple calls.

And that's most of the time what we usually get our factoids about is just Londonderry, but wondering about our workload that we're experiencing from the other communities as well.

That's a great question. When you look at a dispatch center versus when we present our simultaneous call volume for Londonderry, our simultaneous call volume in Londonderry equates to resources being used, an ambulance, a fire truck, a paramedic fly car that are going to a scene that are then tied up for a period of time. That time percentage is what we present as our simultaneous call volume. When we look at what a dispatcher is, we look at, um, their utilization. So it's not actually what the percentage of time that there's calls on the board, because in reality there's calls on the board where the dispatcher is not necessarily actively engaged in the incident. They have to obviously take the call. They have to process the information, put it into the computer, dispatch out the units. Then they wait for the units to get on scene. And then there's a downtime. There's a period of downtime where the units are unseen. and there may be other calls that they're taking to dispatch out other communities. Correct. I don't have that specific number off the top of my head.

Right. I'm just worried, are we not servicing our contract communities enough if we're getting simultaneous calls for them at the same time that another call is coming in?

It's a great question. It's a great point. What I would emphasize is that the communities that we currently contract with for dispatch services are wildly satisfied with the amazing work that our men and women in our fire alarm office do and we routinely receive accolades from both communities regarding how well our dispatchers perform. At the end of the day, they do a great job in there and it's a very Immediate job where they have a very short period of time to process and get a call out and they do a fantastic job with it and I think that adding the Litchfield's Call volume to their call volume in addition to as the chief spoke about adding another dispatcher is going to actually help That utilization time come down because right now they're doing three communities. We didn't add an additional staffer to Complete what we did with those contract communities with this with this proposal the fire chiefs recommending we bring on an additional staff person right will actually lower their utilization but still gain revenue from it.

I do remember from the reports that are.

staff in the dispatch center were certainly getting quite overworked as it was so yeah they're definitely they do a fantastic job they're definitely busy um but certainly there are ebbs and flows as the days go on of course it's hard to predict when emergency calls are going to happen but it could be a taxing position be able to sit there all day and be able to take these calls and adding one dispatcher is is is multiplies higher than adding

You know, a firefighter on an ambulance from a standpoint, again, like like Bruce said, the downtime by having two people, you can have two people, one dispatching for two communities, one dispatching for two communities. That's better than what we're currently doing right now, where you have one dispatching for three. So by adding one, you're actually lessening. the load for the dispatch center.

And also different towns require different levels of service from our dispatchers. So depending on the town and depending on the structure of how they want their call dispatched and what information they want and how they want it tracked, depends on, you know, the amount of work that the dispatcher has. But, you know, we're very confident that the level of service that Litchfield is looking for as it relates to their dispatch process is very much in line with how we're already doing it for Londonderry as well as Pelham and Hampstead. So it's actually going to help our dispatchers because they're going to be monitoring the same resource. It's a Londonderry ambulance that they were already monitoring before. They're just going to send it over to Litchfield now.

No, I take it right now Litchfield doesn't have any dispatchers, is that correct?

Correct.

And so a call would come in, it would go into our dispatch center, and then it would get relayed out to their fire station and to their radios.

Yeah, so how it works right now, because they're contracted with the town of Hudson, is somebody calls 911 in the town of Litchfield, it goes to Concord, they process the call, determine what it is, then they drop it to the... When I say drop it, they transfer it to Hudson Fire Dispatch for medical and for fires. Their telecommunications operator will answer the call, get the information, put the information in the computer. Then they send it out as a page over the radio, through cell phones, et cetera, say that there's a call. And then they keep track of where the apparatus goes, what their response times are, stuff like that. by taking over this contract with Litchfield for us, all that happens is on January 1st, they're going to take the calls that go from New Hampshire 911 to Hudson, and they switch them over to Blundonderry. And it's a very seamless process. We'll do all the work in the background where we um you know gis all their addresses we'll have all their streets in our database all their hydrants everything all that gets done behind the scenes so that on day one the dispatchers can type in the address and hit dispatch and everything they need comes up and and ironically a number of years ago um

Past town administrations and fire department administrations looked at taking over Candia, and they invested a fair amount of money into the radio infrastructure for Candia. We've been able to now utilize that radio infrastructure that's been paid for already by the taxpayers in the town a number of years ago for a contract that never went into effect. To use towards Litchfield. So we're not we've there's very minimal to no up lift. And Candy would be a lot further away. And Candy was a lot further away. And I can tell you that the contract was far less advantageous. Well, it wasn't advantageous at all for the town of Londonderry. It was just another dispatch service for no reason. No additional personnel. But point being is we've already spent the money on that infrastructure a long time ago for and it's done nothing. So now it'll be able to be utilized for for Litchfield.

And I think it's also important to note that as the chief indicated, we're already Litchfield's backup communication center. So in the event that Hudson's dispatch center goes down, we're considered their secondary PSAP. So as soon as they can't get ahold of Hudson, it comes over to us anyways. So we already have all of those processes and policies and such built in. We already have that working relationship with Litchfield. It's as simple as our dispatcher just going over their radio and giving them the information that we get. So- It's a very seamless transition as it relates to that portion of it.

Anything else? Continue on, sir.

Thank you. So the path forward, after a full assessment and looking at things from all different angles, we've determined that our department is capable and willing to undertake this increased service demand. And the reason we're willing to do that is the return on the investment is greater than the sacrifice of increasing the demand on our services. The demand is very modest. The return is substantial to increase the safety of the citizens as well as the members of the department by adding additional staff. Litchfield will receive an outstanding quality service through a sustainable assessment model. Their costs are more predictable, and we've made sure to account for our costs to make sure that what they're contributing in the assessments combined with ambulance reimbursements will cover the cost of providing this service. Our town will receive the increased staff that's fully funded by new sources of revenue and accounts for all of their wages and salaries and benefits as we demonstrated. And a large majority of the time, their services will be committed to our community. Statistically, 20 hours out of every day, they will be serving the community of Londonderry. And Litchfield, when they have calls, will provide the service when it's available. And again, that has no impact to the tax rate. We are doing this all through new sources of revenue. That's the proposal, without increasing the tax rate to the citizens. That's an unusual opportunity and an opportunity that I hope you strongly consider. Before I try to address any more questions that you may have, I just wanted to make a few more points, if you'd be willing to allow me to do that. Absolutely. Thank you. I just want to reiterate again, this was a very long process. A lot of thought went into this. I wasn't the only one that participated in this. I thank everyone on the department that contributed their thoughts, ideas, historical perspective, and when we looked at this in the past, long before I arrived here in this town. So I appreciate all of that, and I appreciate the ability to look at it from all aspects and make sure that we were presenting something that works not just for Litchfield, but also for our community as well. Now, Litchfield is not asking us to retain an ambulance and keep it in service for them all day long, every day. If that was the request, I would be much more open to talking about more money, covering overhead costs, etc., etc., all the things that go along with running an ambulance service. I would support that fully. We already... foot the bill for all of that whether we take on another community or only provide service to londonderry we have the ambulances we have the licenses we have the insurance we have all of that right now we're not asking to increase any of that we bear all of that cost what we want to do is take what we are already paying for and utilize it in a greater extent which will result in more revenue coming into our department for a minimal increase in service demand that's the entire goal The other goal, of course, is to add staffing to be able to account for that increased service demand, which historically we haven't done. We've taken on more responsibility and just asked our folks to do more with the same. That's what I would like to get away from, and that's why you have this proposal to bring more staffing in to address that increase in service demand. But actually, it's going to benefit our community even more than the community who's providing that source of new revenue. So it's very much a positive thing for our town. As department heads, we've been tasked, myself and other department heads in this town, by the council, by the town manager, to investigate alternatives to get to end goals. Look at alternative sources of revenue was a big one. Think outside the box. We've heard that repeatedly. Be creative. That's exactly what we have done here. We have tried to look at things from a different perspective and figure out there is an end goal. It's difficult to get to by asking only the taxpayers to fund our objectives. How can we have skin in the game and really contribute to that end goal? And that's what we're providing you tonight is a proposal with new revenue and a path forward to get closer to our end goals. The reports, the data, the general consensus of my many conversations with the town council citizens. don't think i've met a person yet that said that the fire department doesn't need more staffing i think we all agree on that all the reports say at the conversations it's reiterated there the problem is we've identified that deficiency deficiency but there's no plan on how to address that deficiency that's what i'm hoping you trust me at the department administration and all members of our department to do is do that work behind the scenes do our research do our homework i hope we've demonstrated that to you and we've brought a real plan before you tonight as a proposal and a path to move forward. As far as vetting this plan and taking everything into consideration, in my opinion, there's no better way to do that than to live and experience that. And I have done that for the past 28 years. in my career in the fire service. For 18 years of that, I was an employee under a system that contracted to four other communities in addition to the one I worked in. We assessed the other towns. It was a 100 square mile radius that we covered in five total towns. So I'm elated that we're only looking at two-thirds the size of that land mass and only two communities to take into consideration. I don't view that as a challenge. And we have way more resources in this department than I did in my previous department. So there's much more opportunities to be able to provide that service. I've lived this. I have a lot of experience with it. And I can confidently say I would not bring this proposal before you tonight and ask for your authorization to allow us to implement it if I didn't strongly believe in what we were telling you we can do with it. And the final thing that I wanted to bring up is many times when we talk about providing ambulance service, it's all about the revenue. And I understand that. We have to look at it like a business in many aspects. What gets lost is it's a public service for the better good of the communities. I don't want to lose sight of that. That's what it's all about, is getting the highest level of pre-hospital care out to the citizens who need it. And we have the opportunity to do that for ourselves in a better capacity, and we have the opportunity to provide it to our neighbors through this responsible assessment model. We should not pass on this opportunity. Litchfield is willing to place their trust in us as a reputable organization who has a history of providing outstanding service. I am flattered, I hope you are too, that they look at us in such a light like that and that we're able to provide them service and they would trust that service for their community to come from us. And it would not be possible without the people and the professionals that work in our organization that are out there providing this care every single day. AT THIS TIME, FINISH MY PRESENTATION. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO ADDRESS ANY MORE QUESTIONS THAT YOU MAY HAVE. AND I WOULD JUST ONE MORE TIME LIKE TO THANK ALL MEMBERS OF THE DEPARTMENT FOR CONTRIBUTING TO GETTING THIS TO THE POINT WHERE WE CAN PRESENT IT TO YOU TONIGHT.

SEAN, YOU HAD A QUESTION. SO I JUST HAD A COUPLE RISKS LOOKING THROUGH THIS I'D JUST LIKE YOU TO ADDRESS FOR ME. SO THE MARGIN WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT IS RAISER THIN. THE DEPARTMENT'S OWN NUMBERS SHOW ABOUT $1,162 in net benefit in year one and over $600,000 of new costs, which is very minimal. Any hiccup in overtime benefits or collections wipes that out. I guess, what would you say to that?

I do believe I've already addressed that, where we specifically designed this to show worst-case scenario, for lack of a better term, or the floor to be expected. It will over perform what we're projecting here. The hiring costs again will be less than anticipated and the revenue will be more than anticipated. And that is how that margin of error will be greater. I intentionally presented that to show you a very small margin. That we're accounting for our costs, but we're not attempting to go make a profit off of our neighbor. This is about providing a service. When it all comes out in the wash, we will overperform from what we're presenting you tonight. And that's how we will account for that.

thin margin if you will the biggest cost is hiring and in this proposal we have the cost to hire a paramedic at step four which is the high the the higher end of their of their pay scale out of the last 20 people we hired we've not hired a paramedic at step four and i'm i would put my youngest son carter who's sitting in well hopefully he's in bed right now on the line that we're not going to hire four paramedics who have four years worth of of of service in new hampshire because that's the reality and that's not that they don't want to come here they're just not out there that's that's we've had to send our members to paramedic school hiring cost is the biggest cost he put it at the highest it could be and i can i would again bring my seven year old in here to tell you that we're probably not hiring four people at step four that are paramedics it's just not it's just the reality of the new hampshire fire service

Okay, so next, so most of the revenue depends on insurance collections, so about 60% of projected year one revenue, and that's the least predictable piece. Is there something to address that?

Going back again, it's about historical perspective. We have to look at trends in call volumes. They increase every year. They're not dropping. So we do expect the calls to be more than we even presented here. The more calls we do, the more insurance reimbursement we'll see from that. It's impossible to... predict with certain accuracy how many times cars are going to bump into each other and people are going to trip on the sidewalk. There's just no way to put an absolute numerical value on those things. So we look at historical trends. We see trends moving up with call volume. We see ambulance insurance rates and mileage reimbursements increasing. All of those things point towards the net positive, and we expect, again, as we move forward, the revenue will continue to increase and it will increase at a pace at or exceeding the town's cost as they escalate with increasing labor costs, et cetera, et cetera.

So in looking at historical trends, one of the big things that's been in this community when I've looked at the historical data is the amount collected versus what we have to end up writing off. And there's sometimes a risk of some of this revenue, especially this being a key piece of the revenue for this, of being written off. Did you look back at, and I'm not asking for this right now, but it'd be kind of neat to see that the past three years have just write off versus collected. But did you take a look at that data?

Absolutely. Every time that I ever proposed anything that is tied to ambulance reimbursement. It is about the historical data of what we actually collect, not what we bill, because there is a big discrepancy there. So the facts and figures that we have presented tonight are all based on the money that we've actually seen come in and trends related to that, not what we actually bill. If we could base that on what we actually bill, which is several million dollars every year, the numbers would look obviously much more favorable from my perspective. But I want you to get a realistic picture of what we're dealing with, not any false information based on those types of statistics.

And I can speak to this, Sean, and I can speak to this because the chief wasn't here when I had to go through the process of applying for and getting the contracts for the new ambulance billing as required by the state. They don't have them in front of me, and shame on me for not bringing them, but we presented them to you, and the dollars we bring in based on the new state's required billing is higher than the old system, right? But we only have six months' worth of data because that just started in January, so it's hard to use that projection. But just based on what they're requiring us to charge – We're going to be bringing in more money, right? And hopefully we'll have soon quality data as the year goes on to show what we've taken in from January under this new system. And thankfully, we were able, even though some of those contracts didn't get signed until post-January 1, they were backdated to January 1. So we didn't lose out on that from that point.

And I think it's also important to recognize that those historical data points that we're using are for London Dairy. And the payer population within Litchfield is different. London Dairy has an interstate which has cars going up and down it, which is a transient population. We have an airport. There's a much larger basis of transient population that may or may not have insurance, whereas Litchfield is a very nice bedroom community that has a different payer mix. So we anticipate that that payer mix will actually overperform in comparison to Londonderry's historicals.

Okay. When looking through these, there were two town fees plus the insurance estimate to get to the number of $584,000. The number actually, when I added it up, got to $584,000. It actually, it's cited in here as $605,309. Am I calculating that wrong?

No, and that was a question we already had, and I didn't mean to cause any type of confusion there. So if you just do the simple arithmetic of the numbers in the presentation, you'll come to that number. Yeah. The final estimate that we calculated, the 605 and change, was taking Hudson's actuals and then our actuals and finding the average between those two, accounting for that 10% adjustment for no transports, and we end up at that final number. So it's not simple arithmetic. There were other calculations involved with that. Hopefully that answers your question and explains that. But there was a formula behind how we arrived to that number. The numbers were not pulled out of thin air. Okay.

And so staffing of this is probably the biggest exposure to taxpayers. So we really had an overtime crisis in 2024. The end of that ended up being we don't have a fire chief. We didn't have a town manager. If these four new hires aren't trained and on the job by January 1st, this gap gets covered with overtime, which will increase what this is going to be. the same budget line that's already stretched is, you know, might get worse. Any thoughts on that potentially?

The budget line actually, Sean, thankfully to yourself and other members last year in...

Better than 2024.

Well, much better than 2024. The numbers we proposed to you last year were the real numbers for overtime. And it did well this year for us. And to be honest with you, it did well and it did what we thought it would do. So it was stretched. You're absolutely correct. And all the things you said are correct. But last year, through some contention, as you remember, we worked very hard to get an overtime dollar that was appropriate for the staffing. Right. And so the line isn't stretched. I think the line is appropriate. And I think the line, as the chief stated, based on the fact that that they operate in a calendar year and we operate in a fiscal year, so we're getting six months worth, can sustain the overtime that comes with the new hire starting, right? Until our fiscal year begins.

So on the back end of that, so the EMS, the termination is six months, but on the dispatch, it's 12. So if we would end this agreement, does that, that makes it a little bit less of a, like six months is a pretty slim runway. Is that because we're just going to internalize those with the increased need? How?

As far as the discrepancy between the two, I would like to negotiate a six month Clause in both contracts. That might have been just an oversight on my part, and I do apologize for that. We want the opportunity, if it's not working for either side, I don't expect it to be that way. But if it's evaluated and it's not working for either side, we need some notification and plan to move forward. And that's why we are requiring that either side gives a six-month notice of termination of the contract.

And that language is currently in their current contract. So that would not be new language to them that is different.

Well, another thing that's not in there is that the payments aren't guaranteed for all three years, which is troubling to me. The way I read the contract, am I reading that correctly?

They would be guaranteed for the three... It's a three-year agreement. There is the ability to withdraw on either side with six months' notice. And then we would expect that to be prorated for the six months within that current year. But the agreed-upon terms are guaranteed for the life of the agreement.

So worst-case scenario, though, they get an agreement, they decide, let's say day two, I doubt that's going to happen. But day two, they literally withdraw six months later, and now we've... Got all this spin-up with no penalty. That seems like a big risk to me, and a possibility when negotiating a contract, and I'd like to see some terms to make that risk a little lower. The comparable towns are cited. Do we have their actual rate schedules? And I only have three more after this. I'm sorry for the time. I just want to make sure we get this right.

The rate schedules or the assessment models, so... What they're charging the communities? Yeah. Yes. So we have both Derry's contract and Hudson's current contract with Litchfield in hand with those actual numbers, the current signed agreements. Yes.

And then when I'm thinking of dispatch priority, you know, it's going to have to stay based on need, not town. So once we take into account Litchfield, you know, And I know you've said this, but we have enough staff to take on which Litchfield's calls without quietly eroding. We're making sure that we have enough staff that we're going to comfortably do that. Because I guess that's one of my bigger concerns is just... Are you asking a dispatch, Sean, or total?

Total. Okay. Because you had mentioned you'd started with dispatch. I did. So dispatch is providing... let's work on our dispatchers by adding this because they'll be more people in there so you'll have four towns and you have two people for 12 hours a day. So yes, in the overnights, but typically the overnights tend to be less call volume. Again, I'm not, don't hang your hat on that because we know things happen at night. But when you have two people in there, let's just say for those 12 hours, they each take two towns. Right now, you have two people in there for eight hours taking those, and then that other person is now taking all three at once. So you're splitting it. So it actually benefits the dispatchers and the town because they're doing less work more of the time right if we look at it strictly on those numbers i'll let you speak to the the firefighting side of it could you just repeat your question yeah no problem um i just want to make sure that um

Our capacity stays that we're addressing the needs of Londonderry. I mean, we're taking on 13,000 people in Litchfield. We're taking on a bigger, we're already a large community with 42 square miles. I think with Litchfield, it goes to about 57. So my biggest concern of all this isn't even the ones and zeros. It's not, you know, we're going to make money on this or we're going to pay for extra firefighters. It's, are we going to be able to keep the capacity for this community in the way that it's been served, um, you know, consistently and very well for, you know, decades now, I want to make sure that that doesn't drop down. Cause for me, that's the most important part of this.

And that was absolutely taken into consideration. Not only does it, it does not decrease the benefits as it increases. So just plain, simple terms right now, we dedicate staffing to one ambulance around the clock. We have the paramedic fly car, which operates and helps assist with the cross staffing models in the outstations. By taking on this additional staffing or adding the staffing and taking on the increased service demand, We will actually be able to staff a second ambulance on a regular basis. But that second ambulance now is going to be dedicated to the town of London area for approximately 20 hours out of every day. So we end up in a better end situation than we currently are without taking on additional responsibilities and service demand. If we stay as we are right now with our current staffing model and don't add any, we remain at staffing one dedicated ambulance around the clock.

then um last question uh counselor favor also to add on to your your point there because i think it's a it's an excellent point um if if we were the town of londonderry and we were looking at a 400 plus call increase to our community we would be having a discussion about adding more manpower right because you all up there would would be talking about that as you know if we were looking at a very large apartment complex, or something that was going to bring in a significant amount of people into our town, and we were going to be estimating that our call volume was going to increase by 400. In this particular case, this is kind of the best of both worlds, because yes, we are saying our call volume is going to go up, but we're also saying that we already can bring in the revenue to offset those costs, so the cost of the taxpayer is going to be net zero, but the London Dairy taxpayer gets the benefit of if we have two London dairy calls and it's takes our first ambulance and our second ambulance and our, all of our fire trucks are out and we don't have the ability to staff and other ambulance, Litchfield's, the way the contract is written, Litchfield is allowing us to then call mutual aid to bring in and to backfill that contractual obligation. So I think your point is excellently stated. We're not asking to increase the service demand and to decrease the service to the town of Londonderry. We're asking to use this revenue to help us enhance to Lawn and Dairy while also providing to our neighbors.

That's precisely what I was thinking of because I know we hear often, and I don't agree with this math, but if we had a 100 unit apartment thing, we're going to have to build three fire stations to have four firefighters. We're adding 13,000 people. That's if we added a 13,000 unit apartment building in here, we'd have people screaming about the cost of what services are going to go up. So I'm trying to make sure that this balances out and really make sure.

Excellent thing that we've also, you have all recognized because we've gotten your support over the years from this, is a lot of high acuity patient care can occur on the side of the road, in somebody's residence, in a bathroom. Not to toot our own horn, but we're pretty good at what we do. And we bring the emergency room to your home, right? And so the same can be said for Litchfield. They're going to first response and provide that high level of paramedic level care while they... wait for an ambulance to come from Londonderry. And we applied that model with the paramedic fly car a few years ago where, hey, if all the ambulances are tied up, we can send this medic car and start care. I think John Farrell said it. You want to get somebody to a defibrillator within four minutes. Well, the way you do that is with quick response vehicles. And I think this plan also accounts for those two.

Our friends in the back room from Litchfield said their population is like 8,500, just so we're... Okay.

Well, I mean, I mean, you know, I mean, that's... I'm estimating.

I know, but...

This last question, and I appreciate my patience from my colleagues. So the legal review on this doesn't seem to be done because both agreements are still drafts. There's some duplicated section numbers. There's some mismatched addresses. You know, the notice period we talked about. I mean... How are we going to be able to see a final version of this document? That's a concern of mine.

So I'm going to answer that for you.

So we just had a discussion about our legal expenses. I wanted to make sure that we're going to move forward on this before I expended additional funds to do that. Thank you.

that's we're asking for the the authorization to allow us to move forward with entering into this agreement and executing that and i can assure you that further discussions need to be had not to change the content of it but to make sure that all the i's are dotted t's across etc there's a reason that says draft there is a little bit more work and cleaning up of those documents to do conceptually we've presented to you what we are intending to move forward with, and we will continue to work on finalizing the draft and making those changes to make sure everything's consistent in line with what we discussed.

Mr.