Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

All right. It is now. No, just by calling to order the board of selectment meeting for Monday, March 9th. Um there anyone here from the public who wishes to speak to something not on the agenda? Seeing none, we're going to move on. We don't have any public hearings, so we're going to invite town moderator Peter Imy to review the warrant articles and maybe have a brief discussion about tomorrow so we have enough bodies on the ground. What town meeting number is this for you?

Yep. Uh I was elected the first time in 98. So this is 28 years. Okay. Wow. Should we start from the top that the most important thing people need to know right now is that elections are being held at Bo Memorial School 7 a.m. to 700 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, March 10th. Just to get that out there right from the top. Tomorrow, Bo Memorial School. It's a change of venue. in case anybody's watching the first minute like just get that out of the way. Okay. All right. Over to you.

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me here, uh, folks. Uh, turned out to be a busy night that we were up at the school setting up this afternoon and I'm in the middle of a church committee and then I broke from it to come here and then I'll zoom back into them when I'm done. So, whatever. I guess busy people stay busy, right? Um, as always, I touch base with you folks ahead of time to to see what's coming down the pike, to see what I need to know about to prepare for town meeting. I've looked over the warrant article um articles uh from talking to Dave. Uh I understand that uh ballot uh number three we're treating as if it's a bond vote um where it'll be a secret ballot and we'll keep the um ballots open for an hour. Um so I will plan to handle that voting that way. Um and I understand that's on recommendation of council and certainly do that. Um, one of the first things I do when I look at the the warrant is, you know, I look at the recommendations uh uh to see which ones might be hot buttons. And when I see 50805080, I say, "Okay, this is going to be a good meeting." I hope anyway, at least uh the folks who helped put things together agreed on on what we were going to do. Um, are there I've heard there might be some rumblings about number nine. Is that

7 7 8 9 7 8 and 9 to guess and they're all somewhat okay there will be slightly different comments about each but there's the unifying between them as well. Yeah, seven and eight. Do I have the numbers right? we've had the last two years. Those aren't um right. And so though there are some folks that object to them, the vast majority of town has already seen them and voted on them twice and they have a unanimous vote from a recommendation from the select board and a 7 to one vote from the budget committee. So yeah, nine I think you're probably right that nine is the one that might have the most comments.

Okay. Um, I'll be presenting that one and so we'll just try to lay out why we're suggesting we do that, but that one might take a little longer. Okay. Um, also there is a petition article at the end. And uh, just so I know who to look for, who's the primary petitioner, who should I be looking for to speak on that? Yeah, I don't know if we had a They all kind of came in. It looks like it was a form and they all came in together. I don't even know who presented them to us.

There were a number of people that had signed it. Is that what it was? Okay. Is do we? So, we don't know who is presenting that. No, we'll figure it out or not. We have to read it into the record and say it's a citizen born article. Yeah. helps me to know who to look for. But I check with the clerk and see if she if nothing else, I'll use the first name on the list and I'll go from there. And if they say that person's not speaking, I'm sure they'll tell me who will. Yeah.

Okay. Uh anything else? I think just uh to let you folks know, as I said this afternoon, we were setting up up in Memorial School. Um setup went really well. It looks, you know, is nice. We've got things laid out and um I don't think it's any surprise to you folks, but maybe in in the spirit of of Angela's prior comments, you know, we we are using three new technologies, you know, in this election tomorrow. Um we'll be using the poll pads to check people in uh which will be u based on the comments from the towns who have used them already. They absolutely love them. Um this allows voters to go to any open line. Um they can have their information pulled right off their driver's license if they'd like. Um then they're they're checked in and and and it's a very smooth process. At the other end of the or those who may need um assistance with handicap voting, the state has a whole new system that is provided to us that we'll be using this year. They call it the omni ballot system which we've tested and seems to be a bit better than the one we had beforehand. So that's that's positive. And then finally, our our tabulator, which is a lot of people call it the ballot machine, but you know, it's the place where you put your ballots at the end of voting. Uh we have a new one of that. Um I think most everybody now knows that the one we had we had before I started. So and you know it's probably going on 30 or you know 35 years which when it comes to technology that's you know that's ancient technology. But you know the company is no longer servicing that. So the state is migrating everybody to uh two systems. We got the voting work system. Um we've been trained on it. Uh and um it's looks like it's going to be a wonderful addition to the process. Uh,

I'm particularly excited because there are a whole number of fun I hate using jargony words, but I'll call them functionalities, things it can do that are going to make my life a lot easier at the end of the night with tabulating votes and collecting votes and and adjudicating right in votes and things like that. So, I'm very excited about it. It'll be new. Um, I think it's great. We're trying it out at a town meeting. It's going to be a little bit slower. give us a chance to figure things out before we get into the busy primary season, September and then November election.

Are you expecting that you might have some relief from having to visit the ballot box to unjam the tabulator machine now that we have a new one? That that is what all the marketing says. I know we I know all of us standing at the the the ballot box are like, "Peter, can you please fix this. No, this this new machine. So, hopefully this makes it easier on you.

It's it's supposed to be much more amendable to stacking the ballots down. And you know, one of the primary things it does, the old machine had to, you know, um flip the ballots back and forth depending on not whether or not there was a write in in it. So, you really, you know, you had the box, but there were two compartments in it and it really limited capacity. With this new machine, the the the machine actually takes a digital picture of every single ballot. And at the end of the night, um what I review when I'm looking at writeins is I'm looking at the digital picture of the ballot. And so the machine itself doesn't have to separate ballots. So when you see that big box, just everything goes down in the same place. So yeah,

it should be so much. remember the night of the presidential election, we had to go through every single ballot in town. Oh my gosh, we were there for so long. I think I I am certain that there will be hiccups. You know, we're going to forget something. We're going to do something slightly wrong, but we're going to learn and we're and uh each time we do it, we're going to be better at it. And then it's going to be a great system once we get it fully implemented. Will the Secretary of State have the election line open to call if there's any issues so if anything comes up, it's just a quick phone call and usually things can be figured out pretty quickly, right? As we all adjust to the new technology.

That's right. And and both the the poll pads and the tabulator are provided by two different providers, but both of them have election day hotlines and that, you know, we have those numbers so we can call them if anything comes. That's great. I've seen the pull pads in action in a Manchester election and I will tell you firsthand how smoothly that process went when there were like line there were no lines

because it was just so fast to check people in. So that's great. I know I know in the past like in presidential elections we've had those long lines for certain last names, right? there would be a traffic jam if you had a last name with a T or something, you know, but this should make it so much easier. So, for our participation besides Suckling and Colby tomorrow, um do you do we want to just divvy it up? I don't think we need to all four of us be there all day unless we we've always tried to have a majority, which is in my experience really hard to do when one of us or multiple of us can't

be there. Uh, I think I could commit to a half day and if we could all commit to a half day, I'm only five miles away. If something happened and we needed a third vote, I'd commit. Same. Right. And so, uh, I'd like to do the second half of the day if possible. I'll do the first time. One to seven. Yeah. And I'll do seven to one and then come around. I can do. Okay. Which which one do you want to go to? Yeah. I'll just be around. No, we want to have but we want to have two of us there at all times. So, got it. I won't be able to make it first thing in the morning, but I'll come after my doctor.

I'm like middle of the day to even like I can be there a lot. I'll like being there. So, I'm going to try and be there a lot. Did you ask anyone to cover at all? No. Okay. But we should We'll call Jack if we need help. I don't think Harry's home. Well, he can't be in there. He's on the ballot. He's on Jack. Yeah, that's right. But I can't imagine it took you guys were out last election. Yeah. Thinking who picked up the sock besides the three of us sitting there. It was I had a more flexible schedule last election. I'll have my morning. All right. But I can do that. You do anything else?

Uh nope. And and just you know on this point um I'll I said it before I'll say it again. There are moderators who share the fact that their selectmen don't even come to elections. don't support the moderators process. And so every time I hear stories like that, I realize how lucky I am that Bo supports what we do in the elections and you folks take your job seriously. So I was under pressure. I never thought I was assuming we had to be there. It's been over 10 years that we have to be. Well, believe it or not, I mean, it is in the state constitution. The select board is supposed to elections, but there are towns where they can't be bothered. It's it's appalling.

Well, that's you know, how many times do we say a year that we have awesome volunteers from all over this town? This time it just happens to be us. That's right. All the volunteers that will be there tomorrow. It's a deep roster of people spend that day in exchange for a couple of donuts and sandwiches. And and given given the what I expect to be the light turnout, I think covering it with just a couple of you at a time is going to be perfectly fine. we've got enough staffing. You know, come September and November, I may be saying, you know, let's let's go full team to to get the work done, but it should be fine. I don't anticipate being on those bounds. No,

if you are, it would be news to all of us. Probably news to you, too. Um, I have a really important question. Do we have stickers? the I voted stickers because I feel like people show up to vote so they can get their stickers and I can't tell you for certain. Medulla is usually very good about ordering them ahead of time and so I'm I'm expecting we'll have them. There's no reason that should change, but I can't tell you for it might be a mutiny if there's no stickers. So I don't know. No, you're you're right. People really do like their stickers. Do we have an estimate from the secretary of state on what they anticipate for voters here in B?

Uh, no. With with town elections, they don't do the estimate. How many ballots did they give us? Uh, we actually set the number. I think we ordered 1500 of each, but I'm expecting Yeah. Um, yeah. You know, Madrill and I looked over the LA history the last several years to try to kind of generate a number. And even in the low years, we often have 1,200 voters. And so we figured let's make sure we been increasing every year or you know the last several years at least. So weather going to be as good as today. Better. Even better. No such thing as better than Yeah. Yeah. Bring your beach chair and your your Hawaiian shirt.

Maybe we should hold the election outdoors when it's sunny like this. Just kidding. Just kidding. I think we need to we should show videos of the two elections we had about 10 years ago. Yeah. The blizzards. Blizzards. Yes. I set up there was a blizzard. Yeah. And we were at the school. Yeah. It's going to be a good setup. Are you going to be tracking um like people who come and register to vote and their documentation and whether they have it all? Are you going to be tracking those figures?

I don't do that. I mean, the supervisor is a checklist register of the voters. So, you know, they certainly once they finish their at the end of the day or the following couple days, you can find out exactly how many people registered to vote. I'm more concerned about the new registration process um and all the documentation that people have to bring with them. I didn't know if we were going to be tracking that. Um I'm not aware that that we were, but I can put a word in to the supervisors tomorrow just ask them to kind of if nothing else informally keep track of how things are going.

Be great. There's been a lot of towns that have started to do that to keep track of how many are being turned away or being asked to bring documentation back because they're no longer allowed to sign in affidavit. So, be good to know. Yeah, it would be good. New rules. Sure. See if we need to increase our communication before the presidential primary. Y, no problem. All right. Thanks, Peter. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. I feel like I wasn't called to count ballots this year. I must be off that list. You were weren't called to count ballot. Um, yeah. Well, one of the things you mean I bundles?

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe somehow I forgot you. It was not intentional. Nothing personal. No, it's all right. Consider yourself. I probably not that good counter. I don't. All right. I've probably been fired. Worst things have happened. I'll make a motion to the consent agenda. I guess thank you Peter for coming. I already said I already said that. I said that already. Yeah. Thanks, Peter. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Thank you. All right. Is that your motion? I'll second. Why is it done? I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda say I. I. I. I have five nothing. Town manager report.

Yes. Uh, unfortunately I received the notice that from Rick Wolt that he will be retiring. No. The end of next month. We object. Holy smokes. I knew we knew we knew it was coming, but yeah, he Yes, but he's worked very hard all his life. He is a mechanical genius.

Sherry's staying. His wife will still be with us. So Sherry will still be with us at celebrating children and uh parks interact. Um, let's see. The snow-wise, equipment wise, uh, you know, as Tim always gets very concerned, that's good because he cares what we do. You know, he had some concern there, one of the last ones, and he texted me and I said, h, you know, and uh, he said, "Yeah, it was kind of tough being three down." And I was like, "Wow." And they still did what they did. Yeah. And they did a great job. They But they were Yeah. It's been a tough week.

They were beat. Yeah. They they I think they're about done in done with snow plowing. I don't think uh I think they've gotten their their fill. Um see, I was going to bring you up to speed on the the town uh the prep for um voting, but we have that and we were all hands on deck hauling stuff around and I know Chris Andrews and Emily had a big trailer full of chairs and stuff. They just kept bringing it back and forth. I saw the front loader coming around. Oh, yeah. Yeah. With I saw with all the stuff. Yes. That's great.

Yeah. We do whatever way we can. And And that's all I have for now. All right. Moving on to I'm sorry. How is he doing with his budget and salt? He He's there. He's there. Yeah. He's We won't have the extra I don't believe for buying Yeah. buying early this year. Right. Right. Okay. A lot of salt. Yeah. A lot of crazy freezing rain freezing. Well, if there's a year where you would run out and do course, this is the

If you're if you're And last time I talked to him, the the shed was full, but we're running out of money. It's like that's how it's supposed to work in a year where you have the most snow ever. Long time. Yeah. Um, we have to separate the minutes since make a motion to approve the February 10th 2026. Second. Any further discussion? Specialer. Discussion. Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. Eyes have five nothing on the February 10th meeting. Somebody not here for the 17th. Motion to approve the February 17th meeting.

Second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I. I. I. That's four nothing with Elena sitting out. Um that was that was the previous one that I I left out. Right. You good? Yeah. But you can you're still good to vote on this. All right. Next is the acceptance of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services hazardous waste grant. David, do you want to just give us a brief on that?

Um, yes. This our committee works very hard. Sherry Cheney rides her on this. Um, and it's our usual amount that we get that you know offsets a very small portion of the household hazardous waste collection. Um, however, we'll take it. So, we're at uh our grant is $2,02. All right. Need a motion to accept that? I'll make a motion to accept the uh New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services uh household hazardous waste grant in the amount of $2,02. Second. Oh, you need to add authorize the town manager. And authorize the town manager. Second. Sign. To sign. Second. Have a motion. A second. Also a second. All those in favor say I. I.

I. Eyes have it. Five nothing. Uh review revise the town meeting PowerPoint. Cheryl, do you Yeah, come on up. Cheryl, you tell us what you've been doing these books. You've been very busy. Cheryl has been doing amazing work. Oh, absolutely.

So, um, we sent out the PowerPoint, uh, with the notes on the bottom of it. We just wanted to make sure that the notes were clear. If you wanted additional notes or wanted you to gather any other information, I could do that tomorrow. Um, and we can get the point over to the school for Wednesday. Uh in the blue binders, um if you could please bring them to with you to town meeting or if you would like I can Yes, please. I could take those for you if that's if that's easier. But it's just Warren article by Warren article um information questions you may be asked. Uh so you'll have information to answer those um in addition to the bullet points in the notes section on development. Um, do we have a print out of the PowerPoint or that should be

in the agenda? Yes. Oh, you know I got I got folders on the B wreck center. Um, article 9. Can we or do we have a picture of the building we are talking about because a lot of people get confused. Okay. um at town meeting between the community building and the Borre building. So I just want to make sure when we're talking about anything with the community building that we show a picture of that building and the recreation center a picture of that. That would be my preference if that's I really like that idea.

That's a great that's a great point. We can absolutely get a picture of it and we will add that on to slide 10 which is article nine. Yep, that works. Absolutely. So many moving parts. Any other changes people want? And you do have information that Cheryl updated uh which Oh, or on the rec revolving fund. This is this is our up-to-date numbers. Can you sort of say where in uh under the RRF info tab? Is that the for tab? Yes. What are you talking about? I don't have that.

What's the tab? You mean you know what? There's a tab that came off. Angela. Oh, that's why. Oh, I found the tab in the other room. I You're saying the last page for them is article 7 to N.

Yeah. And this shows you, we went over them again and fine-tuned this. And this gives you an idea of, you know, what the balances are, what the balances are projected. Um, again, 25, 26, 26, 27 are just pure projections. Um, they get adjusted, you know, as we go through each time period. I know there's a you'll see that our balance has dropped down, but it's based on uh the 150,000 that we've been putting in and then the 175,000 addition. But what we project to end up with after 26 27 is 392,000 which we've seen as to be to be very adequate an adequate amount. I know was a concern with the other capital expenditures that we may have in the future,

but that's all right. We're sitting we're sitting good. That is consistent with what our understanding was when we requested close. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Any other edits people want? Thank you. Thanks. This has been great. Love this. I know. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I will also have my binders of information as well. So is it would how big of a role would you like to play in town meeting on Wednesday? I'm happy to sit there and support. Make sure you have a microphone.

Having rew having rewatched last year's meeting, I don't know who we talked to about this, but having a microphone right in front of where Chief Mill because last year there was a bit of confusion. People hang our mics. If we could if they have the capacity at the high school to have a microphone for for town staff that are not sitting on the the deas that would be very helpful. Can we get that message to them? That's a good idea, too. Thanks, Cheryl. You're very welcome. I just like it when I make up things and you just give me the head nod that I'm making up the right thing. He says it with such confidence, though. Is that what you would like? I

No, it's really helpful because you you reassuring. you're sitting there going through all the things you remember like we've done this but we did our version of the budget then I did it through the budget committee and so sometimes mix them it's like well that's the wrong one it's like super or when you're like yes I'm happy to but it does help if you're just confident we done we have board committee reports anyone would like to report on a board

u I am the representative to the tiff committ attended some meeting coming up soon. There's going to be a recommendation from the Dow Road um development there that's been going on for six years uh for us to release TIFF funds from from that 3A tiff for the intersection. Uh the recommendation is going to be that the tiff um the tiff fund pay 510,000 of a $600,000 estimated cost. Um I understand that uh after a meeting with the heritage commission. Um we had met initially to discuss uh some congressional direct spending um funds that may have been available. Um after our discussion and the tight turnaround um to apply those to their projects uh at Bo Meeting House, uh the commission decided to wait until the next round of congressional direct spending um to do an application because they only had it would have given us uh including Cheryl um only about a week and a half. So, we're going to they're going to uh wait for that. Um, but it they did make a motion and it was unanimous that they will be uh I just lost my train of thought. They moving to amend

they will be moving to amend the budget to include the painting and repair work over at the Bo Meeting House. Uh, so I just wanted to put that on your radar for um for Wednesday. There might be a motion to increase the budget. Okay. So, they want to ask the taxpayers to spend money. Okay. Yes. Sure. Understand?

Uh I was just trying to think. We had BDC last Wednesday. I don't think there's anything anything substantial valid ballot truck center is making good progress on their construction. Um I think that was really the kind of the biggest one. playing board has finished its busy season and it's down to one meeting a month as planned which is Wow. Um now for now it comes back. Yeah. Um anything for me? Nope. All right. Bottom lines. Sluckman Nicolopoulos

school. But we're going back and I'll see you then. Von's at Bo Memorial School, 7 a.m. to 700 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, March 10th. Town meeting is at Bo High School. Believe 6:30 is the start time. Doors will open before that. Come in, get comfy, get ready to vote. looking forward to seeing everyone. Flanigan. Everybody repeats this make my day.

Um I just I'm looking forward to this week and thank you to all the department heads and Cheryl and David for and Tanya for really getting this. This is so you've made it easy on us to provide all this stuff and in all these tabs. This is really great. So thank you. It's it's wonderful. You guys have worked tirelessly. I know Cheryl, you've been here late nights working. So, thank you.

Yeah, I would say that town meeting is perhaps the most important part of the step, but is far from the first step in the process that started long ago and involves a lot of people. So, thank you. And the final word, although you're running out of pose, I think it would be appropriate that the final bottom line is yours since you are on the ballot tomorrow. I just would like to remind everybody to uh during town meeting, during elections, um during school district meeting to remember that we are sitting down next to our neighbors. We're sitting next to people who are friends. We are talking about things that are important to neighbors and friends and just urge people to stay respectful and ask questions. Um looking for honest answers to those questions. And I I hope we have a full house.

You're here. All right. Do you have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. We arejourned.