Select Board - Regular Meeting

So on the side, you can't see, which is fine.

It is pretty stark. I understand.

Good evening, everybody. Are we all set?

Oh, I think I had it at... Can you all hear me out there?

No.

No, it's not going anywhere.

This one's working.

Yeah?

One o'clock.

Can you hear me now? No.

I don't think I have... Do you mind? Oh, yes, you can. Hello?

Hello?

Brian's not working.

Brian's isn't working, and that's a good thing. Okay.

Good evening, everybody. I'm welcoming you to the September 2nd, 2026 Select Board Meeting. Before we get into business, I'd like to welcome anybody who'd like to join us in a Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Hello? 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.

Thank you, everyone. Mr. Buccio, do we have a requirement for a non-public session tonight?

We do, under 91A, semicolon, 3. Subsection 2, and it will be I, consideration of matters and preparation of emergency functions.

Okay, thank you very much.

I have one also. 91A, colon 3, C, Roman numeral 2A, lowercase a, employment.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, let's go to consideration of minutes. These are the minutes of August 19th. A couple of things for our recording person, just a couple of corrections that I found. Jeff O'Connell, we need to get the spelling of his name correct. I believe it's G-E-O double F, and it's one N or two Ns. Okay, so it's G-E-O double F, O'Connell two Ns. Since I started, let me finish. My name is O-B-R-I-E-N. A couple of places it was A-N, specifically on 202 and 231. Madeline Long, I want to make sure we get Madeline's name spelled correctly. And I believe it's M-A-D-E-L-I-N. Not sure, but we need to double check the spelling of her name. That's on line 310. And the last one I have, just for me personally, is on line 653, 652, 653. Bobbie Budman was making a comment about a budget committee discussion, and she attributed to me that I should be reporting to the select board. And I believe, Brian, she was attributing those comments to you. So I'm moving that. She said Mr. Deshaies should be reporting to the select board, since you're the lead select person. Okay, with that, anyone else have changes?

Yes, I have line 634. It says, 633 and 34, it says Brian Deshaies said he attended a heritage commission meeting. They are presenting the idea to have a heritage tour on prom night. I don't know where that came from because it just says a heritage tour period. So you can get rid of on prom night because I have no idea where that came from.

Okay. Anything else? John, Linda, Dave. Here.

I'll make a motion to accept the minutes as amended.

Second.

I have a motion to second. All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

Okay, we're good on that. Next item on the agenda please is public input, three minutes. Who would like to join for public input? Timothy, please sign in.

I will do that. Timothy Goodwin, Wolfboro Community Television. although we're not anymore. I just wanted to let you know we are rebranding as Wolfboro Area Community Media, which covers more of what we're doing, not just broadcasting on cable TV, but we broadcast online. We're working, and you'll see new logo and things like that very soon if you haven't already. And we're working toward a website update. Also, you'll see before Christmas, hopefully, an app that you can put on your phone and on demand that's a little bit more channel specific for what you'd like to see when you go to our website. You'll see on demand options for community media. And maybe Linda will hold up a logo a little later for you to see.

Okay, thank you, Timothy. Are you all set?

I am all set.

Anyone else? Public comment? Three minutes. Good evening, sir.

Hi, how are you?

A little closer to the microphone, if you wouldn't mind.

Good evening. My name is David Shannon. My wife and I live on Sewell Road in Wolfboro, and we are here tonight representing residents, property owners, and regular users of Sewell Road to submit a signed petition with 75 signatures requesting measures to improve safety on the road. Sewell is one of Wolfboro's scenic and historic roads. It is not just a thoroughfare for vehicles, but is used by walkers, joggers, families with young children and strollers, cyclists, and local track teams. The road and the properties along it are in residential districts. However, Sewell Road also carries significant commercial traffic with a diverse mix of vehicles. This includes large trucks making deliveries, boat trailers going between the marina and offsite storage, as well as other vehicles servicing properties along the road. Traffic monitoring shows that daily traffic volumes have exceeded 1,000 vehicles per day. The monitoring data also shows that speeding is a significant concern, and many homeowners have placed please slow down signs along the road to encourage drivers to slow down. The many blind curves, hills, and driveways, as well as tree cover with changing light conditions can make it more difficult to see approaching vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists. This volume of traffic combined with frequent pedestrian and recreational use, changing visibility, and large vehicles on a narrow residential roadway make vehicle speeds an important safety issue. The people who signed this petition believe the current speed limit is too high and that lowering the speed limit from 30 to 25 miles per hour would encourage safer sharing of the roadway. We are asking the town to take three straightforward steps. One, lower the speed limit. Reduce the current 30 mile per hour speed limit to 25 miles per hour on the sections of Sewell Road currently posted at 30 miles per hour. Two, enhance signage and pavement markings. Install clear 25 mile per hour signs and appropriate markings reminding motorists to watch for and share the road with pedestrians, cyclists and others. Three, targeted enforcement. Encourage the Wolfboro Police Department to conduct targeted speed enforcement, particularly during periods of peak traffic and pedestrian activity. As we went door to door collecting signatures, I was struck how many people expressed concern about pedestrian safety and vehicle speeds before even reading the petition. They are genuinely worried that serious accidents could happen. There are two sections on Sewell Road currently posted at 30 miles per hour, one from Pleasant Street to Frost Camp Road, the other from the other end of Sewell Point to Forest Road. Reducing the speed limit by five miles per hour on these sections adds only seconds to a driver's trip. This change and increased enforcement along the road are reasonable first steps towards making Sewell Road safer for everyone who uses it. This petition is about one goal, preventing a serious accident before it happens.

I'm assuming we're going to get a copy of it.

So you don't want us to have a copy?

My name is Doug Breskin. I'm a resident of Wolfboro. I understand that later in the agenda you'll be considering putting the Thomas Danbo troll statue on town property, and I'd like to encourage you to deny allowing it to be put on town property. Over the past few years, we've had a lot of controversy and discussion on the Libby Museum and the burden that that's put on the town. And I think that the troll may, if it's put on town property, be a continuing or additional burden and a liability for the town, given the possibility of vandalism or damage, regardless of what agreement may come with the people that are trying to put it there. So I would encourage you not to support that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Greskin. Anyone else? You don't hear me. This microphone, Timothy, this microphone is still on. Excuse our technical difficulties. Go ahead.

Good evening. Sebastian Chordonato. I have an announcement. I would like to announce the formation of a new 501c3, the name of which is the Friends of the Old Firehouse Wolfboro Community Center, of which I happen to be the chairman of. It's a 501c3 nonprofit charity, and we were approved by the IRS in that status. And our mission is to provide support for the Old Firehouse Community Center. In particular, we want to engage in renovation, maintenance, community use, and support of the Old Firehouse at Wolfboro Community Center, located on Lehner Street. And I'm going to be writing you a letter to officially announce that. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Okay. Anyone else? Seeing none. I'm going to close the public input time. Let's move to public hearings, everyone.

So, Paul, I'd like to make a motion because there is a visitor here from Denmark who is the wife of the artist. She's Mrs. Dambo. And she came all the way here up to Wolfboro to discuss the potential for a troll location in town, and I would like to make a motion to move them up to the next spot so she can get back home to her two small young children.

And the next spot being where, Brian?

Right now.

I have a motion to relocate.

I'll second it.

From the old business, Section 8, first item, up to the first item right now. I have a motion and a second. Board members? All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. Aye. I'm voting. Okay, good. You're up. Thank you for doing that, Brian.

Okay, do I have to sign? Yes, you do. It's my first time.

I'm Catherine Dragonfly, and this is Alexa, Polish name Dambo. And I'm Polish also, so.

Hi, everybody. My name is Alexa. I'm Mrs. Dambo in the troll world, though. I'm originally from New Hampshire, actually. I grew up in Rye, New Hampshire. And so as I met Thomas nine years ago, let's see, two twin boys and 165 trolls later, I've always dreamed about bringing a troll back to my home state. So thank you for the opportunity for having us here. Yeah. My husband was here back in the spring I believe to scout locations and stuff and I think what people love about what we do is the happiness, the joy and the economic drivers that when we come to a town to bring if we use local volunteers for community to bring people together there's a significant impact for the economy when we bring a sculpture and I think whenever we open an exhibition we would feel really grateful that it's the joy and the the money that comes to a town because when we build the sculpture that people do come and they get really happy and they enjoy it and the community is usually pretty happy too. The local ice cream shops see significant impact, the bakeries, the hotels, Everything really gets good numbers. And I think that when we built the sculpture last year in the suburbs in Milwaukee, I think in the first month they got a $4 million increase in economic measurement in the first month. And then when we built sculptures at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden back in 2001, it was right after COVID. there was no J-1 visas yet for international employment. And what the Coastal Maine Botanic Gardens did, because of how hard it was on their employees for the upkeep and sales, they went back and retroactively paid every employee three more dollars an hour for the hard work that they did all summer because of the amount of money they made from our exhibitions. And so that's what we've been finding over the years, that People really love what we do and it makes people happy and we feel really grateful that we get to travel the world doing this and building art and it's all made out of recycled materials. Not all, about 95% because we have screws and things. But it's a real blessing that this is what we get to do with our lives and so thank you for having us. I don't know how this works, if you ask me questions or anything, but happy to do that.

We looked at several areas today. One of the ones that we liked the best was Foss Field, but that was not one that appealed to the D'Ambos because it's so open. They like them a little more hid, like when we were talking about the wastewater treatment facility. Brian sent us up to some conservation area that the town owns, and Alexa went down and talked to Thomas on the property and They liked that. I didn't really love that one. It was a little harder to get to. The other spots that we've looked at were easier. But we continue to look at opportunities. make this all happen as soon as possible so I can do the fundraising this fall. We're looking at an installation date of 2027, a year from now. We want to do a soft opening in the fall because at the beginning there's such a tremendous amount of people that come. We want it to be in the fall and into the winter months. We don't want to compete with the summer. And then the following summer we'll have all the kinks worked out. Peg, my co-chair Peg Mangiello is here on the phone with us. We tried to get her to zoom in, but that didn't work. So she's on another trip going cross country to see 24 more trolls. She saw six in Tupper Lake yesterday. She's traveled. Yep.

Let's not do that. Let's not do that. Why don't you speak for her? Paul says no. Why don't you speak for her? Thank you.

But she was very excited. She was on, you know, the moon last night when I talked to her after seeing all the magic in Tupper Lake. Very, very rural town way out wherever. And they're finding a tremendous draw. The guy from Soul Road, I think I cannot say this enough. This will cost the town nothing. This is a gift to the town. All we are asking is to use physical land. We are assuming all the costs. We are assuming all the legal issues. We are going to have insurance. We are going to be a 501 . We are a 501. This will cost the town nothing, and it will bring a tremendous amount of new and different visitors to town. The kind of visitors we like that come in the winter, that spend their money in the quiet hotels and restaurants, it's not just going to be a summer thing. This is a year-round. People love to go see trolls. Like I said, Peg went to Australia to see a troll. So there are people that follow these on the map, and Maine Botanical Garden has six, Rhode Island has five or six, and we want to be the middle. We want to be right in between them. People are already posting on the Internet asking where and how to get to certain trolls in New England. So we're trying to position ourselves very clearly in between that... Yeah, that highway.

Okay, thanks, Kathy.

I was just going to say that with the sculptures that are in Tupper Lake right now, because I do our press PR and project management for some projects.

A little closer.

Oh, excuse me. So I do our press PR and some project management for our team at Thomas Dambo, and they've seen people at Tupper Lake, which is in the Adirondacks, Two hours from Buffalo Airport. People from every single state in Puerto Rico have come there to see the installation, and their attendance has gone up really high. Also, there's a group called Dambo Troll Hunters with about 260,000 people. It's just a community where they talk about how they can find trolls and where they can stay, where they should eat when they go see a troll. It's a really beautiful community that they just help each other troll hunt. Yeah, we feel grateful.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah. Do you guys have any questions?

Well, I just want to ask the board. We were going to be zooming in on, I don't mean zooming in with your colleague, we were going to be narrowing the site down to Foss Field, but that's now, from your perspective, off the table. So what next, board members?

I mean... They need to find and settle in on a site before we can take any action.

And that's what we've done. We've tried and tried eight times now, and we keep tripping up for one reason or another. As you know, Linda, you've seen it for the last two years we've been looking. Does anybody have any recommendations?

Hang on a second.

We have several private property owners that want it, including myself.

Yeah.

However, the benefit to the town would be much greater if we were to put it on town property where everybody could be. It will cost the town nothing. We've got it all set up, the maintenance, the money. Everything is set up. We just need the land.

I would say trust the artist.

Hang on a second, Brian. Mr. Thurston.

So thank you for coming and giving that explanation. I was doing a little research, and... One of the things that I've been thinking about is cost neutral to the town as far as maintenance of bathrooms and parking areas. When I did a little research, it says map out at least 500 nearby weekend parking spaces using existing infrastructure. And it does talk about creating bathrooms that are fee-based and parking areas that are fee-based so that it doesn't have a cost on the taxpayers to take care of these places. Because that's kind of what I'm, I mean, our parks and rec is already over the barrel trying to take care of stuff. And those are the things that I think about as far as I was thinking of a business model for the troll, actually. That's what I was researching, business model for a troll. And what the troll would do for the community is great also, but the influx of what you just described, 250,000 visitors, it's... No, no, no, no. We're not having a debate. You're just making a point. I know, I know. Keep going. Keep going. I'm just saying you want a lot of people. That's what you're saying. You're saying it's going to attract a lot.

Not 250,000. No way do I want that many. Maybe over 10 years. It's misinformation, John.

Okay, let's stop. Let's just stop. At the present time, we don't have a site. We need to find a site. Until we find a site, We really should just have this thing tabled unless somebody wants to make one final comment. Brian, do you want to say anything?

Can I ask what research it is you're doing?

Hang on a second, please. Anybody want to make a final comment? You done, John?

Can I answer her? Yeah, go ahead. I was researching business model for a troll and that's what it was coming up because I read about other areas of all across the country on how many visitors were coming to see them. I'm trying to research and I mean, a lot of communities, you know, they have communities that have accepted them, and they have communities that have actually taken them down and said that it was too much for their community. So I'm looking at all of it, but I want a good business model that the taxpayers don't have to incur the cost to take care of the maintenance costs.

the bathrooms and the parking Kathy what you heard ahead of this is a an issue that is brought up by a colleague it says it may sound like a great idea it probably is a great idea we don't have a site and he's going to want to get answers to questions about what's going to be the push up on municipal services I think those are fair questions with that I'll entertain a motion to table until such time as a site is selected anybody want to give me a motion on that

Brian said don't move it.

I'll second it. He moved it. Dave moved it. You seconded it. Any more conversation?

The only thing I'd like to do is I'd like to thank Alexa for coming all the way up here from Rye and all the way to the U.S. from Denmark to visit us. And I think that that goodwill goes a long way.

Good job. All those in favor of the tabling, aye. Aye. Thank you again for doing that. Okay. And thank you, Brian, for allowing this to take place. Next item on our agenda, back to where we started, is the Wolfboro Select Board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026, on or about 6 p.m. at the Town Hall, 84 South Main Street, to receive public comment on the changing of the street name Square Hill to Square Hill Road in accordance with RSA 231, 133, as requested with applications for voluntary change of address forms received to the Department of Public Works from the following addresses on Square Hill. 78 Square Hill, 85 Square Hill, 115 Square Hill, 118 Square Hill. And that's it. I avoided giving the tax map and lot. It'll be in the minutes. Does anybody want to speak to this? Seeing none, board members. Linda?

Yeah, I don't have any issue with it. I did go on our GIS maps. These four houses are the only four houses on the road, so I see no problem adding the word road to the end of the address. Mr. Duchesne?

I was trying to see if my mic's working. Oh, there it is.

All right, we're done. Can I get a motion, please?

So I'd move to have the name change for Square Hill to Square Hill Road in accordance with RSA 231, 133, as requested by the applicants for a voluntary change of address forms received through the Department of Public Works from the following addresses, 78 Square Hill, 85 Square Hill, 115 Square Hill, and 118 Square Hill Road.

I have a motion.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Just a question for the Chief. Everything's good with E911 on this?

Tom Zotti. To the best of my knowledge, that's already been run through. 9-1-1. Minimal impact on us. Okay.

I want to make sure. Okay. Thank you, sir. Okay. Any other comments, questions, difficulties? All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. We're good. Anonymous. Next is the receipt of unanticipated funds. The town of Wolf World to hold a public hearing on Wednesday, September 7th, 6 p.m. for the acceptance of unanticipated funds. in the amount less than $10,000 in accordance with RSA 31-95B-3A for donations received for the repairs, upgrades of the old Firehouse Community Center from the following individuals. Karen Haskell, $1,000. Thank you, Karen. Karen Page, $25. Thank you, Karen. Christopher and Lisa Lawler. Thank you, Christopher and Lisa, $500. Cash donations collected by Jordy Hussinson at Lake Winnie Day, $50. Any questions about this, board members? Can I get a motion, please?

I'll move to accept the donations taken in to date for the Old Firehouse Community Center. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any conversation? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Good. Alcohol permit. Select board to hold a public hearing on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026, on or about 6 p.m. at the Wolfborough Town Hall. Great room. 84 South Main Street, Wolfboro, to consider the application for the issuance of an alcohol beverages permit to the Wolfboro Historical Society for their summer lecture series on September 7th at the Clark House Complex from 7 to 9. I understand this is a recurring annual event. We've done this before. This is one of these things it's okay to say maybe we've done it before. Any questions about this?

No, but I have a statement. You have a statement. Mrs. Shannon called me, and she said that she regretted not being able to attend tonight, but she was going to try to attend remotely. I don't know how that's working out, but she wanted to thank us all for our consideration.

Okay, thank you for that, Brian. Anybody else? And a motion, please.

I'll make a motion that we issue an alcohol beverage permit to the Wolfboro Historical Society for their lecture series on September 7th, 2026 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Second.

Motion and a second. Conversation? All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. Aye. We're good. Next is a temporary event permit. Consider a temporary event permit for the Historical Society to host the summer lecture series Brewing in New Hampshire. An informal history of beer in the Granite State on September 7th from 7 to 9 at the Clark Museum. So we preceded this with the alcohol permit. Now we're going to have to give them the special event permit. Any objection to issuing a special event permit, board members? Motion, please.

Move to approve. Second.

Move to second. Anybody want to talk about it? All those in favor, aye, please.

Aye.

Okay, next item up on the board behind me is the bulk vote. We only have one item on the bulk vote this week, which is the weekly manifest for August 7th, 14th. There it is. Okay, any comments, questions about the bulk vote?

Move to approve bulk vote, item A. Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second. Conversation? All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. Aye. Okay, the next thing we're going to do is we're going to enter a Libby Trustees meeting.

I'll make a motion we go into a Libby Trustees meeting.

I have a motion to come into a Libby Trustees meeting. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second. All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. All right, here's how we're going to do this. It's going to come in two parts. We're going to discuss in Part 1 of the Libby Trustees meeting what we heard in the prior two public hearings. We will then come out of the Libby Trustees meeting, and we will take our vote as members of the select board as to what we think is the right thing to do, okay? And I'd like to just ask, and I wanna, first of all, I wanna thank the people who came for the past, it was four weeks, right? Two and two, four weeks, and contributed information to us. We know that this, there was some controversy around the RSA that we use, 41, 14, that it didn't fit, and we agreed with that, but it gave us the ability to conduct public hearings. And there's nothing wrong with getting public hearings. We got good input. So I'm going to ask the board members only if they want to do it to tell you what they heard from you. So does anybody want to start? What did you hear, board members?

Linda? Yeah, I'll start. I heard from the friends of the Libby Museum on August 5th when they invited Aaron Sturges of Preservation Timber Framing, who had done work on the Libby Museum. He provided us his opinion that the museum building could be saved and rebuilt. and the Friends wanted the Board of Selectmen to be removed as trustees. At the August 19, 2026 meeting, the President of the Libby Museum Preservation Alliance stated that the LMPS will proceed to the Carroll County Court upon petition to have the Select Board removed as trustees. The LNPS had their structural engineer state that it would take them 18 months and maybe another six months to decide how to proceed with the building, either to take it down and build a replica or renovate it. All the input from the citizens was to keep the museum building standing. The Select Board now has the input from two sources, the voters, who failed to appropriate any money to fix the building, and the citizens who opposed the demolition, which shows that the Libby Museum is a treasured asset of the Wolfboro area. With these two different points of view, I believe the Select Board has excellent data to go to the CTU to request a meeting, maybe in Concord, between the Friends of the Libby Museum, the Libby Museum Preservation Society, and the Select Board to address designing a plan for the Select Board to to be removed as the trustees of the Libby Museum. It is time for us to work together. That's what I heard.

Anybody else? John?

I would echo what Linda said and I was writing down go to the CTU and request a meeting. I've spoke twice about this. Everybody knows my viewpoint. We're not the stewards of the Libby Museum as we should be and there's somebody out there that wants to take care of it better than we do, and let's give it to them and let them decide if they want to do whatever they want to do with the building.

Mr. Senecal. I'm sorry, are you done? Mr. Senecal.

Yeah, I don't think it's been any secret that we don't want to be trustees of the Libby anymore. I don't think we've done a good job with it. So I'm in favor of moving forward with the group that has presented itself.

Mr. Deshaies.

So five years ago, I brought Mr. Donovan to the museum because I knew that the select board shouldn't be trustees of the museum. That same year, I brought virtually to our meeting a gentleman who was the director of the Peabody Museum in Yale. And he taught us the same thing. For two years, I've been asking for an appraisal of the collection. We're finally getting that done. We're getting the collection pulled out. For two years, I've been asking for us to ask the voters one last time if they would do a rebuild of the building. That hasn't happened. What I'm going to hang my hat on is that there was a vote by probably 200 citizens in this room, not the last meeting, but the meeting before the first public hearing, and every hand went up that said, do not tear down the building. So that's where I am, and I think that we should, oh, and by the way, for two years I've been asking for this board to sit down with the CTU and ask for guidance from the CTU on what our direction should be. So I know it's a lot of revisiting history, but I believe that the museum should go to someone who can maintain it and manage it. They have to meet the criteria of the CTU. They have to have it given to them in court. So we can't just hand the keys over to somebody. There's the process, and we need to just follow it.

All set? Thank you, Brian. I did this when I announced the town manager the other day. I said, if you look back six months, what did we have? No town manager, no town planner, and we made progress. If you look back six months, we were just on the bubble of getting Article 25 approved by the voters. Here's what I heard. I heard Jeff, if I could use your first name, I heard Jeff tell us, Don't do something that you can't undo. He's right. I mean, don't take it down because you can't put it back up. If you take it down, you thought it was a mistake. But as I sit here, I said that introduces some risk because we have an obligation until you take the building, we have an obligation to keep the building standing. It introduces risk. We have to figure out what happens if. I heard Sebastian tell us that, you know, in his professional opinion, it may or may not be, you know, a replica or something else. And I'll be very frank with you, Sebastian. I was saying to myself, you might be right, because that's what we've been saying. But is that really the issue here? And I know that's, I put that issue, we all put that issue to you folks saying, tell us about the building. Tell us about the building. Which kind of drew tight focus on that question. I heard the non-Friends of the Libby people and the non-Libby preservation people come to the microphone and tell us stories about what they remember about the Libby. So, I believe that we're no longer talking about saving the Libby. We're talking about reopening the Libby under new stewardship. We'll take a vote here in a minute in a different session, but something is going to happen here which is going to put emphasis on these two organizations as being the holders of the future of the Libby. And our job is to facilitate how that happens. So that's my perspective on it. We do have some things we're going to have to sort out in terms of having money in the bank and doing things, but we can deal with that in a bit. So that's my perspective. Anybody else before we move out on this Libby meeting? Honestly, go ahead, Linda.

Yeah, we had, I think we were going to give an update on... I was going to do it. Okay, I thought you were moving us out, so go ahead.

I was going to give an update on the removal of the collection and where we are. I'll be very frank with you. Amy is struggling with getting someone to come and give us a quotation on the removing of the taxidermy. She's struggling. She's got a quote to have the hard goods removed, but removing of the taxidermy is a problem. The valuation is still ongoing, and that's due in October, Brian?

Yep, it's due in October, and they say that they're still on, the current pricing model was $9,000 to $10,000. They're examining all 3,000 pieces of artifacts and doing an insurance replacement value, which is the most accurate value for all of the individual items.

And we're going to have to revisit in my opinion, the question of technical term, deaccessioning some of these collectible items. We are receiving requests from people who have provided to the Libby collectibles. They're saying some of them want it back. So we may have to cross over that Rubicon, and we may have to talk to the Charitable Trust as to how we do that, because people are saying, I want my stuff back. and they donated it to us either on loan or on permanent loan, but they want it back. Brian?

The estimated cost to move all of the hard goods, to move everything that isn't taxidermy, it's W.C. Huff Storage in Barrington, New Hampshire, and their estimate right now is $12,500.

And then there's going to be annual, and I'm just reacting to what you all were saying, I don't know whether you've got hard dates, but That's $12,000 to take it out the door. And then how much is it going to cost per month, per diem, per annum to do that? So we got some unknown numbers that are flying around. And I don't have, and it's just because Amy was working on other things, I don't have the exact amount of money that's left in the cash capital reserve. But it is not a big number. It's about $110,000 plus whatever we could get out of the Shroth Fund. We're going to have to deal with that tough nut. So that's the update on what's going on. We'll owe you more on that. Any objection to moving out of Libby Trustees? Can I get a motion to do that?

I make a motion that we leave the Libby Trustees meeting.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Anybody? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Next item on the agenda is the vote. Board members, what do you want to do? Linda. Linda.

I would propose a motion and then we discuss. Does that make sense? Yep. I move to not demolish the Libby Museum building based on the public input at the Select Board meeting on August 5th, 2026 and August 19th, 2026, and to send a letter requesting a meeting with the charitable unit of the Attorney General's Office with the Friends of the Libby Museum, the Libby Museum Preservation Society, in order to lay out a path forward to remove the Board of Selectmen as the Libby Museum Trustees.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Conversation? Mr. Thurston.

Should we add to that to have a new successor of trustees?

That's not part of what the intention of the original meetings were. They were just to raise the building.

Hang on a second, John. I wasn't clear on your question.

So Linda said she wanted to remove us as the trustees, but somebody needs to be the trustees.

Well, we're going to be there with two entities. And I'm assuming that the Libby Museum Preservation Society, since it's a 501c3, will want to take that path. But I think what we want to do is what are the steps for us to get out. That's why I worded it in that manner.

Brian? Hang on. Did you get your question answered?

Kind of, but I'm still looking for the wording to hand over to a successor trustees.

So you want me to say and hand over to a successor trustees? I have no problem.

I'll accept the modification of the motion.

So I would take out everything to do with the trustees because what we did was we had specifically had meetings to raise the building. The meetings were about the building. The meetings were not about the potential new trustee. or if we were going to stay trustees. Those were discussions that happened during the time, but that's not what the meeting and it was about. It was about are we going to raise the building or not raise the building?

I'll do it. I'll do it in two motions. My first one, I move to not demolish the Libby Museum building based on the public input at the select board meeting on August 5th, 2026 and August 19th, 2026.

Period. Okay, so first I will have to withdraw my second. Correct. And you'll have to withdraw your first motion.

So we're going to assume that that earlier motion's been withdrawn by both parties. Is your second now coming up?

I'll second Linda's motion.

I have a motion and a second from Linda and John. Conversation? Vote. Roll call, please. Mr. Senecal?

Yes.

Mr. Deshaies?

Yes.

Mr. Thurston?

Yes.

Ms. Murray? Yes. Mr. O'Brien, yes. OK. The second motion, Linda?

Yeah. I move to send a letter requesting a meeting with the charitable unit of the Attorney General's office with the Friends of the Libby Museum, the Libby Museum Preservation Society, in order to lay out a path forward to remove the Board of Selectmen as a Libby trustees and hand the trustees over to another entity.

I'll second that.

I have a motion and a second. Conversation? Anybody? So this basically says we are going to request the CTU to sit down with ourselves, the preservation team, as well as the Friends of the Libby, and chart a path to move you guys into the successor role and to move us folks out of the way. We want to facilitate that.

Okay.

Any other conversation? Roll call vote. Mr. Thurston.

Yes.

Ms. Murray. Yes. Mr. DeShays.

Yes.

Mr. Senecal.

Yes.

Mr. O'Brien, yes. It's unanimous both to avoid the demolition and to move forward with it.

Now, Linda, do you have a time frame for the meeting with the CTU?

We send a letter asking when they can meet. I'm not going to put a time frame on it. I want to know when they can meet.

If anyone doesn't have an objection, as the chair of this group, I will draft a letter, get it to you folks, and we'll get it out of here ASAP.

Thank you.

You're welcome. All right. The future belongs to you folks. Thank you. And we need to help. That's good. So, you know, don't get all grumbly at us. If we come back, please don't get all, you know, throwing stuff at us. If we come back and we need some cash capital in the event of building, if Sebastian's right and the building gets a little, you know, or whatever, we can't just let it fall down. So we'll talk about that at a later time. Okay. Thank you, everybody. And thank you for your patience with all of this. Worked out well. Next is a discussion, Wolf Grove Commerce lease renewal for 2027. Linda. Yeah.

I wanted this on the agenda because Dave Senecal and I are to sit down with the chamber to discuss the new lease. And I believe the board needs to provide us some direction as to what they want. Does the board want to rent the entire railroad station building minus the bathroom? Continue to rent sections of the building. Let the chamber sublet sections in the summer. What is the board's commitment to the town information booth? And these are some questions that came up on my mind. Barry has given us a floor plan and the percentage of space, and I'm hoping we get some direction from the board on how you'd like us to move forward. And, Barry, you may have some more information.

Yeah, I could briefly speak to this. Light up your mic. Brian had a question as you're doing that. Am I going?

Can everybody see that okay?

Let's dim the lights. Okay.

Yeah, good evening. I was tasked with looking at the lease agreement. It was a five-year lease agreement. It's technically up at the end of this year. I do know the Chamber works on a budget that I think ends in September, if that's correct, Mary. I looked at the information that was in the prior lease, and some things were a bit off. They took all the measurements based on the exterior space of the building, which would not typically be how you would rent interior space. It's more usable space. So some of the square footages differed a bit in this, and this is what I came up with. In green, you'll see what the chamber's portion of the lease area is 839 square feet approximately 54% of the building with that I also recognize that in that 424 square foot entrance foyer that the town operates an information booth and we also have a split time employee that works for the town if I'm correct with that So there are a few variables. The area in the middle was listed at over 700 square feet that's shown in the light blue or white in the screen. That basically was the allowable space that the chamber could sublet to potential retail space. The jet ski rental and alley caps is in there now. What you see on the right is the municipal restrooms. what you're taking out of the equation. So I tried to correct those square footages as they exist today. And then with that, are there any questions on that plan first before I? With that, I kind of looked at my upper chart here represents what the existing lease that's been in place since 2021 represents from a financial standpoint. The lease, I found it a bit convoluted. There was a price based on the fixed lease. You can see it's the second column there, monthly lease payment. But then also, they paid the proportionate percent of taxes represented in the building. What you see in the far right there, the lower two numbers, 454 and 426, that in essence represents what their lease payments are to the town of Wolfboro.

One of the things that's a bit concerning is that... Barry, wasn't there also a shared cost in water?

So it's shared cost for utilities, water, sewer, electric.

Is that in the 454 number?

It's not. It's not. It's not in that. I kind of looked at that as the cost of doing business to be in your building, especially at that rate. So I backed it out so you could see what that represents in a price per square foot at 53 cents in 2025 a square foot. In 2026, it was 50 cents a square foot. obviously well below the market that you would get for office space. Now, I recognize the chamber obviously provides a community service, so there's a value to that. And so what I wanted to do is show you some different scenarios. If the price was raised per square foot, from $1, $1.50, $2, $2.50. And that's what the other four charts recommend.

So how do you know it's well below the market value?

So I have called around to various commercial leasers in town. Office space is generally in the $10 to $15 per square foot. But then you kind of look at it like a minimum. If somebody's renting a 10 by 10, a 10 by 15 space, it's tough to put a per square foot. They don't a lot of times do a flat rate on a situation like that where it's a single office space. And that's generally going to be in the $1,200 to $1,500 flat rate per month fee. So that's how I looked at it. Even at 250 a square foot, you can see it represents quite a hike in the existing cost of doing business. If it was my recommendation, I would get away from the percentage of the real estate tax on the building, do it as a straight lease, So that, because it has been a bit of an accounting nightmare, I will tell you, in determining, okay, it's 52% of the building for the tax portion, breaking that down, and then making sure that finds its way into the railroad building account. So I'm not sure why it was done that way. You folks may have some history on that. I think at this time I'm just presenting information to you folks to to sort of absorb, think about, look back. Do we continue to allow the chamber to sublease the middle section, which would be the 504 square feet, or do we take that on internally as a way to offset some cost? So I would entertain question from you folks if you have any.

So you haven't given us the breakdown of the 504. You've just given us the breakdown of the 627.

I have not, but it would be at the same rate if you were to do that. I was more or less looking at it from the chamber-only perspective. And if you notice, I lowered the square footage of usable space for the chamber from the 861 they're currently being built up at the top down to 627, recognizing that the information booth and the foyer area, really half of that space probably should be funded by the town because it's our employee that's using at least half of that space in there.

And to add to that, Barry, I will say that we have EV chargers behind the freight museum, and I get contacts all the time from the chamber, from people going into the chamber and saying, hey, where are the EV chargers? How do I use the EV chargers? I can't get it to turn on, so on and so on. So they are going to our... employee there who is providing a service for those people plus other people just visiting the town and wondering where they should go for lunch, dinner, and to stay.

So can we look at the middle section, the 504 square feet as a market rate item and then look at the chamber rate as a discounted, you discounted it down to $2.50 a square foot, and if we do the market rate, you got it at $10 a square foot.

It would certainly be one way to make up the difference with the whole building, if that was, I mean, you are, in essence, renting it, leasing it to a retail business, not a chamber. You know what I mean? So they're using it to make money. So, I mean, that's an option.

I just was going to go back to John. Are you talking about renting it for the full year or for a summer rental that's going on right now?

Well, I think you would put it out there to a realtor and say... Does anybody want to rent this for as long as they can rent it in a time span of April to December? Something like when things get warm enough, the building is warm enough, and I don't know what the heat situation is with that.

It's currently rented from May to September. They have that option. It's in their lease. Because I don't think it's the best of heat and cooling in there. Just looking at it, it seems a bit substandard.

So do we pay the heat?

We pay a portion of the heat. So in other words, it's 52% of the building that the chamber runs. They pay 52% of the heat. The town owns the municipal bathrooms, which is 13%. We pay 13% of the heat. And they don't open the middle section in the winter, and I think it's because it's not the best view around habitable space.

It's still heating, which falls on us.

Yeah, so I think we're probably picking a tab.

So, I mean, if somebody wanted to do something towards Christmas and then kind of shut things down, it's already still heated. I mean, I'm looking at, you know, I understand that the chamber should... get a fair shake and they do stuff for the community and for the rest of the businesses. I think if there's a commodity, it's the middle section.

Mr. Deshaies? No, not right now. Okay. Anybody else? So let me ask the question, does the information center that function, does it stay or not? That's kind of the binary you had, right? In or out?

Yeah. I just want to know where the board wants us to keep it. I believe it should be there. I have some questions on the 2027 budget on how it's listed, but I'll deal with that when we get to the budget because I don't think it's listed correctly. I think that's all paid by the town. So my feeling is, yes, I think it's important. I think Brian just gave a reason why we keep our information booth there. We used to have a house up at Pickering Corner. We got rid of the house and put it down here where it was more centrally located. And I think it's important for the town to have an information booth.

So my question would be, do we lease the whole building to the chamber and allow them to sublease, or do we lease out individual sections?

Well, that's the present method. But I have a question. I just want to clear it, if I could, Brian. And we'll get back to you. So the information booth, in or out, I say keep it. The question is the function it provides and how it provides the function. But is that a place where people should go and get information about what's going on in town? Yes. Would it make sense for us to say it's no longer viable? No. My personal opinion. Anybody disagree with that? So we can clear that? You okay with it?

I say keep it.

You're a keeper. Yep, it's a keeper. Dave's a keeper. So that's in. All right. And the question is, you know, how does that fit? The next question now, which is, and John was saying, carve out the 504, if that's the right number, square feet. And there's another conversation here that says, put it all to the chamber. and let them sublease it. That's really the question. By the way, the 210 square feet for the municipal bathrooms, that's on us, right?

Yep.

We own that, all right? And we probably have to do something to tidy those things up because they may need some refreshing. But the next question is, do we carve it up or not? Linda? Linda?

I think we also have some, if we raise the rent, I think we have some maintenance and quality issues in that building in terms of windows and storm windows and doors, whether they have storms on them and painting, et cetera. So I think that that will need to be part of when we look at raising the rent.

Right, yeah. John, so I've been in other businesses downtown. Some of the buildings are old and some of the windows have cracked, stuff on the edges. And I mean, what I'd like to do is I'd like just to put it out for a bid and say to a realtor and say, do you have anybody and what's the market rate for this 504 square foot?

As is.

As is.

Okay. Okay.

I just want to back up to Linda's observation about the building. Again, let's logically walk this through. This is supposed to be, I hate to be cliche, this is supposed to be the place where people get off a bus, get off the boat, they want to know what's going on, and the screens are ripped, the paint is chalky, and the latticework on the building... You can't explain why it doesn't fit. I agree that whether we, however we determine what we're going to do, the bloody place is going to get buffed up a little bit because it's, my personal opinion is, it's not what we're supposed to portray to the people. It looks dumb. Pardon me for saying that. And by the way, I'm giving you, because you and Barry are supposed to work on this building maintenance thing. You guys got signed up for this. Now the question is, For John's question, do we go to a realtor, set of realtors, and say, here's the condominium. Here it is. Here's the 504 square feet. What can you do? Dave, I'm going to put you on the spot because you're going to be negotiating some of this.

Well, that's what I was going to say. I think Linda and I are supposed to look at this and bring it back to you people.

But you're looking for some guidance.

It seems like we're discussing it tonight to make a decision. I don't think that's fair.

I think we were getting some ideas. There's no point for us to try to negotiate with the chamber if we were going to pull the information booth. There was some of that. And I heard that there were people who wanted, as John said, the whole thing.

Yeah, Dave, I don't think we're trying to stuff the ballot box here. I think what we're trying to do is just create a set of boundaries here. If we were to say it's off the table, we shouldn't do it, then it's off the table.

So I will say that we've given some input and now it's up to Linda and Dave to take this and take care of it the way that they want to or the way that they should based on what our input was as a board and they can come back to us with what they consider the best laid plan.

So to that point, I think The message to Linda and Dave is we need to do some maintenance on our building. So our maintenance should be paid for by rent on the building. And therefore, it will be neutral to the taxpayers or at least shave off a little of the edge. And therefore, it pays to take care of its own building.

And that's correct, but I also look at it on the other side. If you're going to rent a building to somebody and you want to get a decent rent for it, the building better be in good shape. You're not going to rent something that's falling apart for a high dollar value.

So the question is not whether the building should or should not be buffed up. The question is, how do you get it paid for? And we'll let you guys sort that. Linda?

Yeah, I hear we should talk to them about renting the whole part of it, that we're going to keep the information booth. That's important information for Dave and I to have as we sit down and talk to the chamber and see where they're at. So thank you for giving us that information to sit down with us.

Anything on the term of the lease? Right now, the lease is a three-year?

No, five. Five, currently, yeah.

Just for background, we penned this lease right in the middle of COVID. There might have been some screwiness going on there, too. So is it a five-year lease, more than five? Let these guys figure it out. Chambers should weigh in. Yep. And so should the businesses who are there because of business stability. One of the things I think I saw on social media was a concern about, you know, If you make this thing too short, I can't run a business because I don't know whether next year I'm on the street. So we need to think about stability of the businesses.

And up to five years doesn't have to go out to a Warren article. That's correct. More than five years, we would have to have it go out to a Warren article.

You have to go. Yep. So we'll let you guys figure that out?

Mm-hmm.

Anything else you need, Linda? Nope. Anything else you need?

What we needed.

Nope. Okay. Cast off. Anything, Mary, would you... I'm not putting you on the spot. Anything you want to weigh in on, Mary? Mary's good. Okay, thank you. All right, we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda. This is the select board meeting minute attachment process. That's that little basket that's over there. Okay? That's the process over there. We've had a lot of people come up to us and want to leave announcements, but they're not relevant to what we're doing as board. And that... We'll take those. We're not going to attach them to the minutes. But if somebody comes up and says, I have this 50-person petition, we're going to attach those to the minutes, and that's the little basket in which we'll take things. So I just want to make it that simple so that if it's relevant to the topic that's at hand on our agenda and somebody wants to give us a collateral that backs up what we're doing, unless the board objects, I'll quickly say, you want to put that in the minutes, and we'll put it on the minutes. If somebody wants to come up and give us a flyer about something that is off topic, we'll gratefully appreciate taking it, but it's not going on the minutes. Any objection to that? John.

So we have our own thought process, but the people out there, they have their own thought process too. And they're coming and saying something to us. They're giving us their time and their feedback. And when they give us something, We should recognize that it's important to them and it should make its way into the minutes.

Board members? Linda? Yeah. The discussion will be in the minutes. Whether the document needs to be attached to the minutes is the issue. Because I feel it is important and we should make sure that in the minutes what they say is there. But sometimes they give us extra information and I think I'm comfortable that we decide per time. And the chair asked whether we want to attach them to the minutes or not. So we do it by consensus. Either we do or we don't.

John? So what's the drawback of putting stuff in the minutes that somebody gives us that they want in the minutes? What's the drawback of us not putting it in the minutes?

It's our meeting. It's our agenda. It is a record of what we are doing to conduct business for the town. If something is not relevant to that meeting and that agenda, unless this board says put it in the minutes, it stays in that basket as information.

But it's public input. We have that on the agenda. We have on the agenda public input. So when people give us public input, It's on the agenda, so we should put it in the minutes.

We will record what they said during public input. If someone wants to give us a piece of paper that is contemporaneous to what they've talked about, and this board wants to put it into the minutes, I'll entertain the motion. If somebody comes up in public input, as they've done tonight, and said, I have a 50-person petition, we're putting it in the minutes. Seventy-five. Sold, all right? What we're trying to do here, John, is we want to make sure that the minutes reflect the business that we have put on our agenda. That's all I want to do. That's all I want to do.

I'm going to make one more comment, and that will be it. So when we have somebody that comes to us and says they research Cary Beach, they have a an obligation to inform us, but we have an obligation for that person to have their stuff be put in the minutes so the rest of the public can go online and see those minutes.

And they can come and make an appointment to disclose that to us. They can go right up to the microphone and request a meeting. We don't turn people down for that if they want five or ten minutes to tell us what's going on. That conversation is going in the minutes.

So I would say, John, I agree with you 100%. 90%, because what can happen is someone comes up to us with something that's nonsensical, that doesn't even affect or include town business. That would be the only time that I think this board would say that doesn't go in the minutes, it doesn't make sense. Anything that pertains to town business, when was the last time, we don't generally not include minutes, in our minutes things that come to us if they were complaining to us about a planning board issue we can listen to them we would record it but we might say take that document and please bring it to the planning board take that document please bring it to the police commission because those are not our issues we hear you we understand but putting it in our minutes is not going to get it to where it needs to go it's going to it needs to go where it needs to go

I'm going to, I think we might, go ahead, Lynn.

I just think we should do it based on each item. We either vote to put it in or we do it by consensus. And then there's no big issue. It's just a policy. We decided to decide all the different options that could come our way.

I'm comfortable with that.

You know, and I think the majority of it we're going to speak to will get attached, but I think there are some that may not. And that will be our decision at the time.

So I'm comfortable with that. I'm not going to do the 90-10, 95, but I'm comfortable with anybody who wants to tell us what's going on in their lives as it relates to what we're doing, have at us. If somebody has something that they want to pertinently talk about, which is a finding or a fact or something, please just book time. Amy will book time. And then they're on the record, both of us, and whatever they want to deliver, boom, it goes on the table. That gives everybody an opportunity to be open and transparent. We'll take it one at a time. All right, let's take them one at a time.

That also makes it so that the select board is prepared to answer questions when we get people that come up and say, well, look at this, this, this. Well, we don't know this. We're just learning it now. We've just heard it now for the first time. We need time to go back and do our research and talk to the experts and prepare ourselves for meetings so that we can answer intelligently and do what? Come to a resolution. come to an outcome instead of just pontificating and kicking things down the road. It's better if everybody's prepared. Enough.

I'm going to move on to the next item. So we're going to do this case by case. The next item is Employee Day, September 23rd of 2026. Mr. Muccio, would you like to speak to this?

Yes, I can. Traditionally, we have a day each fall in September where we honor and town employees for the day I think this year it's sort of a half day meet for a cookout around 11 o'clock yeah and that's about it we've sort of maybe downsized the whole thing recently we found some folks were maybe enjoying and taking the day the full day off as part of this thing really wasn't the intent it was really a a day to get together and hang out together as employees. So September 23rd is the date.

And I'll be burning hamburgers.

We're going to have our select board there on the grill.

Yeah, I'm burning hamburgers, I promise.

And the ambulance service will be standing by. And that would be helpful, probably.

Where is it?

Where is it? Brian, where is it this year?

You're putting me on the spot. I believe it's at Abenaki is what I was told.

It is Abenaki. Yeah, it's at Abenaki.

That's what I was told. And then today I heard it was going to be at Albany Beach.

Yeah, I think student body right over here put a bid in to maybe do it at a beach. But I think it's with Amy and the team, right?

Let's get to where it's going to be down.

The question on the table is, does anybody have an objection to telling our employees you know what, thanks for what you do. Come on out and play some games. I mean, some people go and play golf. They invited me to go last year. It's the last time I'll ever be invited to play golf with them because it was really a brutal day for me. Does anybody have any objection to this? Should we just proceed? Can I get a motion?

I'll make a motion that we have Employee Appreciation Day September 23, 2006. from noon until the end of the day. I'll second that.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. We got ayes. We're good. All right, next item on the agenda was to be the troll. We're going to table that until a location is found. Second item on the agenda is recently we received a petition, didn't have as many signatures as yours did, on Cary Beach. Christine Collins has provided an update. You want to speak to it, Linda?

Yes, she provided an update. She sent a letter to the state, and this is their response. Manual removal of debris from the swimming area. The state advised that New Hampshire DES wetlands permit is not required for certain limited hand raking and manual debris removal activities. So... They can do the raking. I'm not going to read the whole thing, that they're able to take out tree branches to rake in the little ways in the water. They're not to disturb vegetation roots, and they shouldn't rake an area larger than 900 square feet.

Yeah, they basically, the best time to rake it would be in the next month when the water is down, because they say to only rake above the waterline.

No, I think they said it was already in.

Not supposed to go in the water.

Not supposed to go in the water.

Not supposed to go in the water. But that was part one. There was a couple of others, right? It was the swim buoys.

Well, that's the other. We still need to follow through with the swim buoys moving out further, and we also wanted to look at a no anchoring or rafting area in Winter Harbor, put in a certain number of feet. That still needs to... We still need to work on that.

And just to fill in an empty space here, two of our elected colleagues, McDonald and Budman, are, I guess, pushing the state to provide us with what the steps are to petition to have those done. I think the concern we have is the quantity of boats that are on Cary Beach and the prevailing winds. take whatever you decide you want to deposit in the water and puts it right on Cary Beach. Brian? Oh, I thought you were going to say something. So, you know, if you sit on Cary Beach, the winds are coming right at you. And if you've got 30 boats sitting out there, whether they're glued together or not glued together, they get too close to the swim buoys, that's dangerous. And the other is, you know, and whatever happens after you do, that just comes right into the water and not good.

Well, the whole thing is we're trying to move boats out further and then move the swim lines out a little bit further. That's what we're trying to accomplish.

I hate to say it, but it's hard. I mean, to get the state to do this is, I'm going to be unfair to the state, but it's like trying to ask Moses to do an environmental impact statement on parting the Red Sea. So I guess it's... Hang on. He's up. You're up.

So I talked to the representative from the state, as I said, I was going to, who's the... down at the docks down there, getting in his boat, and he told me about the 150-foot allowance from the beach where the buoy can be, but he seemed to think that the beach outer limit was already at about 150 feet, so that's the limit, 150 feet out. That's how far you can have the restriction, and after that... You can have two boats rafting together, that's it. If there's three boats, then they can find them. But other than that, it's only 150 feet out, and that's the limit.

We're going to continue to push it, because 10 years ago, 5 years ago, I forget, but some time ago, there were 13 New Hampshire boats folks out there protecting our water bodies from people running around and doing bad stuff. Now there are 13 of these people for the entire state of New Hampshire. So there's been a compression in terms of the resources available. And for them to go around and try to figure out whether there's two or three boats on Cary Beach when they're trying to catch speeders and all, it's difficult. I just think we continue to prosecute the question with those folks. I appreciate you doing that, though, John. And we've got to do it out here, too. Go ahead.

Yeah, I would like us to send this memo to Ginger Hopkins, who brought in the petition so they have a clear understanding of what they can do. And as I read it, they are able to rake a certain area within the lake itself.

Any objection? She's here. I know. Any objection to officially just transmitting it over? No.

I think she should get a copy so she can send it out to anybody else she may want.

No objection.

Hi. Hi.

Come on up here and do it, because we don't get that many thanks. We don't get you on TV. We're mostly being told we're drooling fools, so get up here and tell us. Oh, no. Your name, please.

Citizens did some work, came to the select board, made a request, and you acted on it, and we appreciate it. And my little granddaughter appreciates it, so thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

I still think that Linda's idea of the no rafting is something that we should definitely be furthering the discussion about. That's big.

Yeah. Bobby and John McDonald are doing something around this. They owe us an answer. Okay. Thank you for the compliment. I personally appreciate it. After some of the emails I get. Okay, any other business we need to take care of?

Yes, I have other business.

Oh, my God.

So under other business, I'd like to make a motion to allow a large percentage donor the naming rights for the community center project if such a donor should come forward.

I'll second.

Discussion?

We've done this for all our other projects, for the town hall, for the library, for the friends of POP.

The lobby at the POP, right? Yep. For the whole POP building.

That makes sense.

Okay. Any other comments, questions? All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Very good. Any other business? Okay, town manager's report, please.

Okay, I'm on speaker. Cool. Assessing service will be going out to bid here shortly next week, and RFP will be listed. Our current assessor's contract ends at the end of this year. I recognize there are limited service providers out there, but we'll be rattling the streets here to see if we can get some bidders on that. We will be meeting with department heads to review presented budgets here in the next two weeks before it makes its way to you folks. So Adam and I will be busy with that. And lastly, I would like to thank Brenda Lapointe for 45 years of service to the town of Wolfboro. Very nice party hosted here on Saturday. I've worked with her for 35 years of that, and it's been wonderful. Congratulations, Brenda.

Appreciate it.

Always has a good word to say about anything.

Everything.

Anything. Everything. Thank you for correcting me. Okay. Committee reports. Mr. Senecal.

Some of us went to the... Get together for Brenda. I happen to go there. Had a conservation commission meeting. And we've been dealing with and have finished up on recruitment at this time.

Amen. Mr. Deshaies.

All right, everybody get some popcorn. I had a DOT pre-hearing, so we discussed how the project is going to be presented in the next week or two here in Wolfboro. We had a couple of town manager recruitment meetings. I went to Brenda's Back Bay Boathouse celebration dinner Friday night and to her Saturday retirement party. I've had two meetings of the community center subcommittee, and things are going along exceedingly well. We had two troll committee meetings, and it's a struggle, but I have confidence that we will find the right location. We had a department head meeting, and then we had the following meeting to introduce the new town manager. And we're going to be having a meeting Hot Dog Day down at the town docks to introduce the town manager, the new finance director, the new rink director, and the new planning director. And that's what day is that?

The 18th.

The 18th, September 18th. I got that right. At 1 o'clock, correct?

2.

Yeah, 1 o'clock? 2. 2? 2. 2 o'clock. 2 o'clock. Okay, so that being all said, I have to now say thank you to some people. We had Lake Winnipesaukee Day on Friday, August 14th from 5 to 10 p.m. We had sponsors this year, New Hampshire Distributors. Maxfield Real Estate, Lucas Roasting Company, Wicked Loon, Locatopia, Downtown Grill, Cafe, Bayberry Juice Bar, all as one donor, PSI Plastics, Taylor Community, Eastern Propane, Brewster Academy, Constantino Real Estate, PZ Park, Paul Zimmerman, and Julie Jordan, those were all $1,000 donors this year, except New Hampshire Distributors, they were $2,000, and I thank them all from the bottom of my heart. We also had other donors, Goodhue Boat Company, Leone, McDonald & Roberts, Avery Insurance, and Front Force Cellars Winery and Vineyard. We had, from the town, the American Legion, the Rotary, the Lions, the Wolfboro Police, Wolfboro Fire and Rescue, the Kingswood Youth Center, the Friends of Pop Whalen, Alley Caps, the Wolfboro Public Library, and the Wolfboro Historical Society all played a part in the event and were there. We had the Mount Washington cruise ship and the Winnie Bell that came and were floating events for people. We had food options at the dock. We had Peaks Food Truck, 603 Good Eats Pizza. He made 125 pizzas in... in five hours, a pizza every three minutes. We had Hot Dog Bob, the Lions Club had hamburgers and sausages, Seacoast Pretzel, Lively Lemonade, and Front Four Cellars Winery and Vineyard did slushies and dirty sodas. We had, for entertainment, the Wolfboro One Wheel Wonders did a show for us with the unicycles. We had Expression Dance Academy. And we had a new group that approached us, Wicked Witches of the Lakes Region as a flash mob. And it was really fascinating. We had our old stalwart pinnacle laser light productions with five hours of music and a one hour laser light show. For the youngsters, we had the Soul Blossom Body Arts and Face Painting and Xander's Arts and Crafts. We had Have a Cartoon You Live Caricatures. And people loved getting their faces drawn with a big face and little bodies. We had Carnival Games by Studios to Go. Three carnival games. We're going to expand that next year. The Kingswood Youth Center also had novelty toys and basketball shooting. And we had Bricks on the Lake with their Lego toys. Then at the Town Dock, we had the Dockside Grill and Dairy Bar, the Wicked Loon Local Topia Restaurant, Downtown Grill, Bayberry Juice Bar, and Marker 21. We had some nonprofit organizations, the End of 68 Hours of Hunger, Lakes Region Humane Society, Granite V&A, Wolfboro NEMBA, the Wright Museum of World War II, the New Hampshire Boat Museum, Lakes Region Model Railroad, the Libby Museum Preservation Society, the Wolfboro Waters Association, the Wentworth Watershed Association, Lake Winnipesaukee Alliance, the Lakes Region Conservation Trust, and New Hampshire Lakes. I thank everybody, including Linda, who always helps clear out the parking lot with me and that's a lot of work. Lucy Van Cleave, my partner in crime from the EDC, who, her and I work really hard. Cindy Fornia helps Linda with the parking lot and making sure everything is getting set up in the beginning. And Justin Brown takes and he's in charge of the One Wheel Wonders and on the EDC and helps with some of the advertising. We did advertise on two radio stations through the Chamber of Commerce, through the town website, through the Parks and Rec website, and I put it out to 83 other individuals and organizations throughout the state. So I want to thank everybody and see you again next year.

Thank you, Brian. Linda? Linda?

Yeah, I attended a meeting to announce James Wheeler as the town manager to the department heads. I attended a community TV governance committee meeting, and we're working on the bylaws. And Timothy told you about the new name, Wolfboro Area Community Media, but that's their new logo, and expect to see that out. I attended a meeting with Brian and Jordy to talk about the community center, and I was unable to attend the events for Brenda because my daughter was getting married. That's all I have. Mr. Thurston.

So I had a planning board meeting that I attended last night, and I had a meeting with Jeffrey the planner yesterday.

Hold on.

Why am I holding on? I might have missed one. And now you're done. Come on. One thing that I know Brian mentioned earlier, the next day after Lake Winnipesaukee Day, you couldn't find a bubble gum wrapper on the street. He couldn't.

And I did miss one. Town employees, most important. The people that support us and make this town what it is. We had the electric department that disables the lights for the light show and reconnects them the following day. We had a boat, they relocated their boat so that the Winnie... Not the Winnie Belle, the... From the Millie B. So that the Millie B could give shortened rides to tourists and they said that they had a great evening. Public Works hauls up the battery powered generator, no diesel, battery powered generator, up for the event and then brings it back down so that it can be picked up and delivered by the company. Public Works blocked off the parking access and took care of blocking off the docking area for the Winnie Belle and did extended hours bringing boats in and out as dock hands, making it so that as many people could come enjoy the event as possible. The police provided details to keep everybody safe, and I was told there was not one issue. Again this year, not one issue that the police had to get involved in. Public Works worked with the contractor to keep things clean and neat. Not a barrel had something falling out of it. And Amy Capomuccio, Our illustrious town manager's executive assistant worked tirelessly to make sure that the donations were in, that they were kept in the proper locations, helped contact the vendors and double-checked to make sure everything was being scheduled appropriately. Really works hard for this event, and she deserves all our thanks.

OK, thanks. Thank you. I participated in the announcement of our new town manager. I think he's going to be great. I attended planning board as I normally do and it was great to see John back at the planning board. We're two meetings into our capital improvements conversation for the year. A lot of work has to get done on that side because this is where where the department leaders come in and they talk about what they need over the next three years, but then they try to project that out into the future. So there's some big-time stuff that has to get dealt with. I've been with the police commission. I did attend Friday evening Brenda's going-away party over at the Back Bay Boathouse. I did not attend the Saturday event. And I think, again, I think what we've been working on is good stuff. We're starting to put stuff in the rearview mirror. Good stuff. More to work on, but it's always good to have some accomplishments. So with that, questions from the press, Barry?

Nobody's out there.

Okay. Public input, three minutes. Welcome back.

Thank you, sir. I'm Bill Trevor, a Wolfboro resident. I had three comments just on the procedures tonight. In the basket, my concern was that the petition for the change in speed on Sewell Road was read into the minutes right here. Anything that would have been added to that, we wouldn't have heard about, and that's what's in front of the board to consider. So putting something in the basket that might have had something that we did not consider or you did not consider shouldn't be part of that. So again, when you do choose each time to decide whether you're going to put it into the basket or not, you want to know everything that's in there. Noted. Because one day you may have to defend it. Noted. So that's really a critical issue, as much as you want to get some of the public information out to the public. On that particular, another comment I had, just an observation, when you make a motion, and in the motions you made for the Libby, in the Libby Trust tonight, both of which I support, the first one was very clear. The second one, Linda read the motion, there was some discussion, and then Paul, who wants to assure that the public fully understands what the motion is, restated it a number of times, And that confused me. I heard the original language of emotion. I heard Paul's explanation, well-intended. And I've heard it from all of you, except perhaps Dave, who's the quiet, the quietest for sure. I'd ask that after the comments are done, or any comments are made, that the motion be read and then voted upon without further comment. Noted. It's clearer that way, just as an observation. My third observation with regard to comments that John had brought up about the rents in the Chamber of Commerce, how much money did the Chamber of Commerce sublet the property to these past couple of years? What did they get? It probably was more than they were paying. but you don't know how much it was. That should be taken into consideration when you want to find out what the fair market value is of that 504 square foot building that is going to be out and be leased. And more critically, if it's being sublet and you don't know the terms of the sublease, even how much they're being sublet for, you're responsible for it through the Chamber of Commerce. No lease or sublease that's been done by the Chamber of Commerce should not be allowed unless the town has observed it, knows it, and has approved it. Because you may need to enforce it at some point against, I don't know, the jet skis that are renting it or anyone else as a tenant. So A, find out how much you're getting. It will give you a good idea of what it can rent for. John's point is exactly on. Let's find out what the fair market value is. And then if you want to blend in the reduction of what you're going to have the Chamber of Commerce pay, by letting them keep the profit over the sublease, that's fine. That's a different decision. But the critical point was to know what's in the sublease before it's allowed and approved. Those are my three observations for tonight. Thanks.

Thanks, Bill. Appreciate that. Anybody else?

Catherine Dragonfly, back again. I took Alexa, after we left here, I took Alexa down to Front Bay Park, and I am back to ask what we think about Front Bay Park.

Was it a... She liked it.

This is public input time. I know. This is public input time.

I'm asking what you need to discuss that, to consider it. I've asked eight different times. John brings misinformation to the board. I need to know. It's been two years, Paul, eight different locations we've explored. Is there a reason we should or should not explore Front Bay Park?

We tabled the motion.

I'm aware.

If there's another site to be looked at, I believe you have a sponsor. Work with the sponsor and come on back and we'll vet it. That's about as far as I think we can go right now.

Okay.

Thank you. Anybody else? Three minutes?

Okay.

Thank you.

I'll make a motion that we go into non-public session. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye, please. Aye. Okay. We're in non-public. Bill, thank you for those.

That was good. Appreciate it.