Town Council - Regular Meeting

an open session. All in favor? Aye. Motion to approve the utility and access easement between Space Town LLC and the town of Middletown and authorize the town administrator to execute the easement on behalf of the town.

All in favor?

Aye. Motion to approve the salary and ratify the appointment of Liz Rogers as the Deputy Finance Director.

Second.

motion to second all in favor aye motion to approve the salary and ratify the appointment of carmella gear as a health services coordinator all in favor aye motion to seal the executive session minutes pursuant to section 42467 of rhode island general law second all in favor aye okay

just had to clean up some executive session stuff let's get going on the regular meeting um which would be the town updates which we can do it's been advertised to immediately follow immediately following executive session so number two is the town administrator provide an update on town projects school building project library project motion begin the town project school building project and library building project updates all in favor aye

Ed, how are we doing? How are you doing? We're doing great. Excellent. Thank you. What do you have for us? So library construction has started moving very rapidly. Most of the interior framing is done. We've pulled the fiber optic cable from inside the building. We have it across the road. That's going to wake its way to town hall, which will tie the library into the existing system. All the floor cutting has been completed. The trenches have been filled. Sprinkler work has started this week. Electrical rough-in is underway. The furniture bids, we opened them on July 29th. They came back very favorably. So we're in good shape when it comes to that. We're just revising a few numbers. Hopefully that'll be in front of you maybe next meeting to approve that. But that's all in good shape. Again, the... project is probably has a five month timeline so we are in that timeline the budget we are still in budget with the basis of design and what i mean by that is the plans that we submitted to always to get approved We're in budget for that. But as you know, we've been receiving grants and funding and donations and everything, which has increased the budget with no increase to the allocations or the request from the city. I mean, the tongue is that kind of makes sense. So the budget's gone up, but it's been balanced by the donations and everything. So we're still in very good shape with that. And that's where we are in the library.

So are the donations, would it be fair to say that those donations allow us to do some things we didn't plan on doing?

Absolutely. So one of the main things was we had, you probably, if you remember, I was in front of you during the CIP things and I was outlining the replacement of the rooftop units for the CIP. Well, we have funding for that. That'll be removed from the CIP. The other thing is the front entrance was something that most of us wanted to do the funding wasn't there was a nice to have so we have the funding for that we're revisiting that and we're going back and we're doubling up on the sound mitigation and um uh sound system in the building which is another good thing and there's some other little things floating around but yeah and the sound mitigation doubling up on it is because of some of the a lot of the roofing is going to be open it is um so we want There was an original design that had the sound medication based on the original rooftop units. We were told that if we replace them with new ones, that could go away. But what we found out was we replaced the design and we're replacing those units, but we still need that. And we're probably going to also install a sound masking system, which helps. nullify avoid out some unwanted noises that may be happening in the library so what we're trying to make sure is that other than people coming in and saying hey i want to donate my money and it needs to be for the children's space and i want to do that we're trying to make sure that when these large donations come in they're being applied to things that will enhance the services of the library so not i want my needs or nice you know and they're gonna enhance the building so it's been a back and forth in that but i think we're in a good place

Well, we're balancing the necessaries versus the nice-to-haves.

Yeah, we want to make sure that when we're getting this money, it's going to make an impact on the building. Right. We want to make sure that we're enhancing services and we're adding things that will enable us to provide better services or expand the services.

When you look at the building, you look at the entrance, the entrance has always kind of been a sticking point for me because when you look at the entrance, it looks nice, but it's not practical enough for, um, I think me personally, I think it should have a double door. I'm sure whatever they come back with, um,

They are it could it could definitely be a little bit more inviting than what it is it's off to an angle it's not a direct shot so that was one of the things that was like a priority, obviously the rooftop units was number one or the front entrance was second and then on from there okay. Okay on new high school middle school excavation installation and back filling of the new water main is progressing in the north driveway. The finished masonry is progressing around building a you can start, you can start to get a good look of what the outside of the building is going to look like the color block some of the custom cup block is all going up. Roofing work is now on building C fireproofing continues in the stairwells. Exterior framing is finishing up on buildings a B and D. Most of the sheathing is done other than maybe around the gym area. Fire protection is progressing in all buildings. Most of the dock work is up. Most of the refrigerant lines are up. A lot of the condensing units have been replaced on the roof. We're still waiting for the rooftop units, the air exchange units to be put up there. The electrical is starting for the disconnects for those units. And everything's kind of progressing rapidly right now. So you probably might be close to 200 people on the job every day right now. So that's moving along we're just finishing up the furniture bid some fine touches. Hopefully that goes out in some early September again that's in a great position. So we're good to go we're also having constant conversations with the school department with the superintendent about gearing up for moving, and how that's going to take place. a draft moving plan that we're circulating now with the superintendent and the staff we'll address the staff on opening day and then we'll continually work with the teachers and everything throughout the year addressing concerns and making that happen okay and again on time on budget excellent The Valley School Elementary roof, the roof over the mechanical wing is almost complete. You'll see they're starting the roof on the cafeteria and the gymnasium. Painting of both the calf and the gym is in progress. Door replacement on the upper wing is still in progress. Electrical rough is continuing in the nurse's room, bathrooms, and some of the specialty rooms. They were also working on the fire alarm system. The sprinkler mains and the secondary lines have all been completed in the gym. The sprinkler mains probably 80% done in the main building. You're going to walk in there now and see the sprinkler mains from the ceiling, which wasn't there before. So it's kind of like the first look. It's a little bit of a different look on that. So you're going to start seeing all that. Work is continuing on the elevator shaft. Plumbing line for the new bathrooms are being installed. And furniture bid is scheduled to go out early September along with the playground. So we're in good shape on that too. And again, on time, on budget.

So Ed, with the Valley Elementary, so what do we have? What do you have, three weeks to wrap things up before school or two weeks?

Yeah, so we've done a really good job yeah we're gonna we're gonna so the the two elementary schools have already been cleaned right now we're in gaudet god hey at all our summer programming we'll need 10 days to clean that then the entire staff will go to the high school and clean it the last week or two before school gets out so believe it or not we're in unbelievable shape of getting that ready Bentley understands that. We're going to allow them as much time as possible to finish up what they're doing before we get them out of there. It's just beneficial for everybody. But we are extremely confident, no matter what that day is, we're going to be able to go and turn that building around quick.

But from a safety perspective, things will be in order and wrapped up?

Absolutely. Yeah, they feel they're a week ahead of where they thought they would be. So they may be pulling out. I'm saying that cautiously. They may be pulling out a little earlier than that.

Anybody have any questions?

Keep it going. Thank you.

Okay. Let's move on to number three, memorandum of town administrator in reference to owner change order 007 dash Middletown Middle High School project. The council action tonight has received the change order. motion to receive said memorandum. Okay. Motion is second to receive, uh, Sean.

Oh, so this was a little bit of a snafu with the project team.

We had a number of change orders that came through. One of them was change order seven. Because of the summer meeting schedule and the need to get the work done, this change order was approved. Our normal process is something over $100,000. It goes through myself, Billy. John Pimentel, Actually, you know, over a hundred thousand dollars. It needs to come to you. Unfortunately, we couldn't do that in this case, because this is the work that's necessary to pull the utilities through what was formerly the drive-ins driveway. We got the approval from Dem a little bit late, but we needed to not stop work because we need to pull the utilities up the driveway to the new building in order to have it fully encapsulated and basically be able to heat it this fall. That's where the timeline was. So we executed this out of the normal authorization period. I sent you an email, but it's on the docket just so that the public's aware of it and that you receive it. And there's an official record. So again, it's the timing from Dem and that wetlands application. And John Potter, The main thing I think we're working for and I don't know if ED ED can answer better questions about it, but we need to be able to heat that building, you know come this fall, so that. John Potter, We can complete the work over the over the winter.

John Potter, Any counsels have any questions. comments. Okay, so we have a motion to second to receive all in favor. Aye. Number four, a memorandum of finance directed through town ministry and registered library renovation project donation slash grants. Motion to receive said memorandum. Second. Motion to second to receive all in favor. Aye. Aye. Sean.

or mark rather sorry the excellent finance director excellent finance director good evening mr president members of the council i'm pleased to bring forward uh 4 000 of contributions and donations for the library construction project at the july 15th meeting of the library building committee the committee voted to recommend to the town council to accept these donations 3000 from the john Clark trust in 1000 from other donations the john Clark trust is restricted to the children's learning and play area. And the fourth 1000 is for general purpose. So we are recommending. That the Council approved the enclosed resolution accepting the donation from the Friends of the Middletown Library as part of the library construction project.

Okay, any questions of Mark. Okay. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Moving to number five, the resolution of the council in reference to town council hereby accepts the donation of $4,000 from the friends of the Middletown public library, the funds to be designated and applied in accordance with our donor intent 3000 for the children's learning and play area 1000 for general project purposes. And the finance director is authorized to hereby allocate and expend said funds in accordance with all town purchasing policies and procedures motion to pass that resolution.

Second.

Motion to second to pass. Is there any further discussion? hearing none all in favor aye okay let's move on to presentations um number six submission from gregory hewitt citizens memorial committee reference to town middletown memorial and recognition of distinguished veterans and citizens policy council action tonight is the approved proposed policy motion begins said presentation a motion a second to begin all in favor aye good evening mr hewitt

Mayor Mrakas, Good evening Gregory hewitt 25 all this way i'm here to brief you on the memorial committee's efforts to update the town's memorial policy committee has worked extremely hard on this policy for over the last two years and his chair, I would like to publicly acknowledge their hard work.

Please.

The goal of the committee was to simplify the application process. The new policy outlines a step-by-step guide to each type of memorial, tree memorials, bench memorials, and provides guidance for authorized locations for the placement of memorials. Hi, please.

I'll give you the nod, Nate.

Repeat what I just said? Oh. Next slide.

Yeah, they're not the official clickers, Greg.

In addition to the changes I've already mentioned the incorporation of the distinguished citizen and distinguished veteran program into this policy is the most significant change. Committee was asked to incorporate this program into the memorial policy by the town administrator. All of the steps in the approval process were unchanged, the new policy provides greater clarity to each step in the process current policy is three pages long the proposed policy is 14 pages and a lot of that's attachments.

Please.

The committee developed the criteria for the distinguished veteran nomination with veteran input. And please note on this slide, the second bullet should end after have benefited the residents of Middletown and the end of that sentence, beginning with veteran recommendation should be a separate bullet. It was a typo.

Next slide, please.

Committee also developed the criteria for the distinguished citizens nomination. Next slide, please. nomination process will be initiated by the town clerk the nomination timeline process is set up so that distinguished citizen would be recognized near the 4th of july and a distinguished veteran during uh near veterans day the proposed policy assures the capture of historical information by establishing an electronic version of the honor roll selectees to the display on the town's home page and provides guidance for the public display of all honor role selectees at a location deemed appropriate by the town that concludes my presentation um any questions you have okay thank you greg uh peter just a couple housekeeping things i just noticed um

uh on page three phase two and page three phase three and and you allude to it in further different names it should be the tree commission not tree committee that area um and i'm just by ignorance but currently the policy the open year round? Or is it just set the times you never change?

Whenever the town gets a feasibility application, Tom Clark lets us know, and we have the committee meets. I'm sorry, Greg said, whenever the town clerk gets a feasibility application, Tom Clark lets us know, and then we have a committee meeting.

That's the way it's currently done.

And you know, it'll be the same way.

Okay, so it is allowed year round or specific times?

Are you talking about the application for memorials? Application. That's year-round.

And the other question I had, and maybe I'm reading too much into it, it seemed like there could be competitiveness between nominations if you have more than one.

You could have more than one.

There's a scoring system though, right? What's that? The scoring system will determine.

I get that, but I'm just like, what's the premise for that?

So, based on this policy Tom clerk would send out notification and a set the timeline, so that you can meet those timelines that I mentioned, and then people would send applications in nomination packages in and then be reviewed by the committee.

But i'm just saying you could have multiple people that meet the minimum criteria, but not all of them could be wouldn't be approved.

No, the way the policy reads, we don't have to approve any of them. And the ones that committee would only do one per year.

I was just wondering the reason for that limiting factor in there. It's like if you had a memorial, like you had a park bench in one of the parks, and then you had another memorial, a park bench in another park. How are they competing?

So there's two parts to this. The distinguished veteran and distinguished citizen is one portion, and that's through the nomination process. The feasibility application is for benches, trees, anything like that.

I was just trying to understand it better.

Yeah, two different. It used to be just the the distinguished citizen and distinguished veterans were not part of this program. That's what we got goes in.

I think that's all I had. Thank you. Councils have any other questions.

So nice job by you and your team. It was interesting looking at, you know, you got to get at least 20 points, be able to nominated or to make the make the cut so to speak and it's nice how they lay it out for each of the five categories so i think it's not it's i think the bar is set high which i think is a good thing um and um you know i give you guys kudos for that because uh when i read through it overall it's just a just a just a nice revised policy um and it makes sense not that the other one didn't but this one's a little bit more in depth um and how you broke it down like that so i think it's really really

We tried to make it easier for the residents to understand what the process was.

All right. Good. Any other questions or comments? Nice job, Greg.

Thank you.

Okay.

Motion to approve said memorial in recognition of distinguished veterans and citizens policy.

Second.

We have a motion and a second to receive.

Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? aye anybody opposed thank you thank you again okay let's move on to the regular meeting um uh before we do that though we're gonna have a moment of silence we've uh we've lost four members of our community um recently uh we lost um Betty Mello, who is the family of the wife of Bobby Mello, the mother of a lot of the Mello family, John and his siblings, who's our solicitor, our solicitor, our engineer. And We also lost Roland Chase. Roland was an assistant town solicitor at one point and had a lot to do with a lot of zoning and planning over the years for the town. When I first started as a counselor, Roland was involved. and then we lost alicia hicks who was her maiden name is augustus one of the augustus family um at least there's a long time um employee of the school department and live right up here on the clinic ave uh grew up on by berkeley school berkeley court um and also um bob henley's dad recently passed away so public works rex's dad so we just want to take a moment of silence for those folks and it would certainly be appreciated

Okay, thank you.

Okay, let's move to the public forum number seven pursuant to rules of the count to rule twenty-five of the Council. So this is an address. It's on one subject only said subject of substantive town business need to discuss during the regular meeting or related to personnel or job performance. Citizens may be may speak no longer than five minutes and must submit a public participation form to the Council clerk prior to the start of the meeting. Any any items discussed during the session will not be voted upon. Okay, so we do have one, Kim.

Kim Blass.

Good evening, Council. I have two things tonight. First, wanted to know if anybody can tell me about the sinkhole on Green End Avenue. I don't have the dates, but since they paved this road, there has been three sinkholes. At 630 in the morning, the hole was big enough that my husband had to stop short and go around in the other lane to avoid damaging our car. When he returned at five o'clock, it was just paved over. Since then, there have been two other times this occurred. same time and fix the same day. I just wanted to know what's going on with this spot and is green and avenues safe for our residents.

Okay, so this is the 1st, I'm hearing of any sinkhole. It's good that the public works. I'm sure that's who responded in a pretty quick fashion. It sounds like him. That's all I really know. Based upon what you what you're saying tonight.

I don't know if Sean has any, I don't know about a sinkhole.

So, where is it located on a green and when you go up green and have a new, when you go up the hill just before you turn on, but which he'll like, it goes across half the town West. I'm sorry. Coming from Valley Road and you're going up the hill on green.

So if you take a left on a green and head towards 7-Eleven?

No, no, no.

Or you're going the other way around the pond?

Yes, right by the pond.

Oh, where it splits, you go to the left. Okay.

Go up. and you're going up the hill and you're going just before you hit the curb, right there, there has been a sinkhole three times. And my husband said, it's just not a little sinkhole. I mean, it was a big sinkhole where he stopped and had to go around. And he said, if he didn't stop, he would have went into it. So I'm just wondering, I know they had the damage with the water. I know the water came down the hill I know we had the big rainstorm um but they did he came home at five o'clock and he thought you know they would have dug it up again or done something they just paved it over so it's happened twice again and I'm just wondering what's going on in that spot or do they know what's going on in that spot because they just paved it over so I don't know what's underneath there well they probably just filled it with patch would be my guess Well, I'm sure they did. Is it safe? Is it going to sink again?

I'm not sure any of us know that. For us, we're hearing of it tonight.

I don't know.

So we'll find out about it, Kim.

If somebody can get back with me, I would appreciate that.

That's a sure to do.

um number two um item number 14 tonight on a affordable housing committee we can't talk about any items okay no i know and i i know it's uh will be addressed tonight but i just have a short comment on it we can't talk about it if it's on the docket oh i can't say you can come back up again oh i can't yes i'm not in 14 but not during the public forum that's fine thank you very much okay

Okay. Do we have anyone else? No. Okay.

Nobody on zoom.

Thank you, Wendy. Okay. Let's move on to consent. Is there any, uh, any councils want to remove any items?

14. She wants to speak. We got to bring a 14. Yeah.

All right. Let's do that.

Are you going to speak to her number of people? All right.

So 14 is off the consent calendar. Okay. Tom. That it, but hang on. Sorry, Peter, anybody else? Barbara no. Okay, thank you.

All right. Can I just ask 1 question? Like, all the other ones here. That are kind of about the committees and stuff.

We are just receiving just receiving those tonight. They'll be on the September docket.

Yes. Right? So the council had asked Wendy and I to go through all of the committees and that's what's encompassed in the memos that are submitted. You're receiving them tonight on the consent calendar to schedule them for discussion on. John Potter, September 21 and the purpose of that was so that the Community, the Council, the committee's had a chance to review the memo so that you could have a comprehensive discussion on the 21st. John Potter, We just didn't want to run into you know I didn't have a chance to review it, we just saw this everyone will have a month to consider it so that's why they're on consent and. John Potter, that's when we would be prepared to to discuss those with you so.

Okay. Motion to approve the consent calendar with the exception of item 14. Second.

We have a motion to second approve minus item 14. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Number 14 is memorandum of town administrator, reference to affordable housing committee, the council action to receive and discuss at the regular meeting of the council on September 21st, 2026.

Motion to receive said memorandum and continue said item for discussion at the September 21st, 2026 regular meeting.

Second. Okay, we have motion to second. We do have some folks who would like to speak on this. Kim, if you want to come back up and if I knew you were going to be next, I would have just asked you to stay there, but get a little exercise in, you know, what are you going to do?

um let's see um i just wanted to make a short comment um i agree with mr brown in renaming to the middletown housing committee when i joined this committee in 2021 it was called senior affordable housing and family affordable housing Please keep in mind that our committee and what Mr. Brown is recommending is what the Affordable Housing Committee has worked on since I was elected in 2021. And we will continue to work on all of these recommendations in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Kim. OK, Mr. Frank.

Lawrence Frank at O'Donnell Road. A while ago, Frank Spinella, the Affordable Housing Committee consultant, said this about our committee. You having this committee is actually working because you're seeing now affordable housing proposals coming from the private sector. You are spurring that housing by just having discussions. The fact they're coming to you where there were no proposals for any development months ago. According to the town website, the charge to the Affordable Housing Committee is this. The Middletown Affordable Housing Committee is a volunteer group tasked with finding ways to help living in the community more financially viable for younger people, elderly, and families.

That's a total of only 29 words, but it's pretty comprehensive.

This evening, you are presented with a proposal, a new charge to the AHC. It runs over 200 words. Town Administrator Sean Brown's proposal was created without, without any conversations or consultations with the AHC. Mr. Brown's proposal was put on tonight's docket without informing the AHC that it would be offered. As for the proposal itself, much of what is being proposed is already part of the AHC's current activity. We have been and will continue to look at a wide range of ideas, address multiple issues relating to housing at all income levels, and will unceasingly advocate for housing policies that address a diverse population that will make up Middletown's future. There's one item in the proposal that is of concern item five states the ahc quote will provide recommendations to the town council when requested. Why should Mr. Brown want to prevent the AHC from addressing any issue that relates to housing? Why should the AHC need permission from Mr. Brown to address issues that will affect Middletown's future? Item five of this proposal should be removed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Frank.

Okay, Mr. President, can I? Yeah, and I all of these recommendations which are related to every committee in the town were submitted again so that yourself and the committees had a chance to look at these, and there could be discussion between now and the second meeting in September. So there is no um agenda item on my own behalf to do anything that that doesn't involve input from the committees or not so again bringing these forward as as the council asked the clerk and myself to review them uh as far as the comment in number five and i i just don't i can't find the page i think that's a comment that i've included a number of the committees and that simply is not to make the committee accountable to me to direct their work it's it's to identify that those are These are committees that are advisory to the town council, and they're a little bit different than committees like the planning board or the citizen, the conservation committee, which has authority under state statute. These are committees that you form and historically how they conducted themselves as they are advisory to the town council without going through them in detail. I think in several cases where we've made changes or proposed changes that that that advisory piece has been inserted there and there's language similar to article five but i i don't want the tenor of mr frank to suggest that um i seek to control the committee that's that's not what i want to do i have no desire to the committee's um on work on items i i think even i think of my last interaction with his the housing committee um my responsibility is to make sure the committee conducts itself properly, but not to interfere in the decisions that they're making. So I think that's all I wanted to say. Okay.

Thank you. Mark.

Mark Donohue, 600 Green End Avenue. You already heard from Mr. Frank and Ms. Blass, two of my colleagues on the Affordable Housing Committee. So I think, as I said, at first when I saw this, and now that I understand, this is just accepting it, and then we'll have a, we've got, obviously we've got a meeting later this week. We might want to change our agenda and put this on our agenda, discuss the items so we can give you some good feedback. But that was my biggest concern. I'm also a member of the Beach Commission, so that had significant changes on it. None of us knew any of this was coming. I do remember the meeting where it came up. There was discussion about how many committees we have. Do we have too many? Who should represent? So I understand the genesis of it and it makes sense. And but I just was I was worried that there wasn't going to be input from the volunteer committees that are out there. And I see that's not the case. So that's all I

have not at all so we got about a month and a half to you probably have another meeting again you probably have two affordable housing based on the your the history of schedules history of schedules that you keep the beginning of the month so the time to do that and you know you see anything you don't like to come back and we figure it out as a team we'll we'll resolve it okay great thank you all right okay so we have a motion a second to receive all in favor all right hi okay let's move on to Number 28. I like that jump. Okay. So license permits application for a special event permit for the Neil Sharma and Badha Patel for the Sharma Patel wedding. Barat private wedding procession to be held at Newport Beach House. The wedding guests will process. from the from the main parking lot onto the roadway and enter into the opposite parking lot continuing into the rear of the building on Saturday, September 12 2026 at 530pm most of the grant said special event permit second. so in all of my time on the council i'm not sure this is pretty cool i'm sure it's a cultural thing which is which is neat um and wendy they've met all the the the police requirements i'm sure that because sometimes depending upon if it's a nice night because they're still right after labor day it's a week after labor day sometimes the traffic there can be a little bit heavy I'm sure the details I saw and as far as police detail and whatever. Excellent. That would be pretty cool.

All right. Excellent.

No, that's part of the consent calendar. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So we have a motion, a second to grant. Is there any further discussion? hearing that all in favor, I anybody opposed, thank you number 29 application for special event permit for city bruisey water brothers pro three surfing competition be held at second beach surface and I need the Saturday October 3 2026 or Sunday October 4 2026 the dates based on surf condition request for wave window for Saturday October 17 2026 or Sunday October 18 2026. motion to grant said special event permit second i like the language the wave window i need some surf there obviously so that's pretty cool so we have a motion to second a grant is there any conversation hearing that all in favor aye anybody opposed thank you number 30 application of ivan quinones dba backyard butchers alvin texas for a peta's license for the 2026 2027 licensing year motion to grant said license second The motion to second the grant. So my question is, is this like I see, you know, sometimes these trucks pull up and they're selling, you know, hey, you can get four ribeyes for $15 or $20. Is that what this is? That's what this is. So do you know where they're going to be or they have to be in a certain area?

well rk associates has given them permission to go there so they have to give us a that's here have to give us a letter from them so that's in the plaza where um the sushi places and mcdonald's here right next door and okay have to give us a copy of what they park there without showing us that they have that permission did we have that first before we issue absolutely okay so that's contingent on that yes that's not what the motion says I know but you sure okay all right just checking it's for really for every license okay make sure that they have a copy of all their truck information

Okay, there's not often we get requests from Alvin Texas okay excellent okay.

Yes, so you bring up a good point like is this door this, this is only one location and he's not doing door to door solicitation. used to scare us kids when they come to the door and say, do you want to buy some steaks.

Thank you, he cannot do that okay.

All right, so we have a motion to second a grant is there any further discussion. and none all in favor aye anybody opposed town council business number 31 memorandum of myself in reference to regionalization motion to receive said memorandum of motion second receive all in favor aye okay so i put this on because um we had some discussion in executive in the past about whether there's any uh a will to move forward at this point in time given circumstances that have evolved Um, over the past six or eight months with the city of Newport. So, and I'm not slamming Newport things change. Um, and so I think that, uh, the council had, I just want to talk about it publicly and not leave everybody hanging out there on this subject. um I was pretty passionate about it I still am it's just I think the timing of it at this point in time based on discussion with counselors um is that uh there's not a will to move forward um pretty large debt down there um some uncertainty down there at this point in time so just a timing issue maybe in the future another Council might want to tackle this uh but I did want to make sure that it was public and that we talked about it. And so I don't know if any of the counselors have any other comments or questions, Charlie.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Mr. President. First, I just want to state publicly that I was cleared from the Rhode Island Ethics, so I can speak on this. There was some acquisitions out there. And so if you want to look at its ethics advisory opinion, 2026-16, it's allowed me to speak here tonight. um with that i you know i i feel the same way as many of our other counselors here like right now things have changed a lot i i still think we should have discussions with newport i about how we work together it got brought up in a lot of our regionalization meetings in the past like there's other methods to do this and and i hope our school committee can do that with the newport school committee you know i i think there's a way we can help each other as being good neighbors would I you know I've stated many times I want the voters to decide this um but we've also stuck up for this town too I think this council when it's come to Newport wanting to push this they really wanted to push this get us on the ballot and and we I I you know my colleagues up here we we pushed back and said we're not ready so I think that's what how I feel I'm always open to having discussions you run into people all the time in Newport who grew up together And I think eventually it's going to happen. I'd rather control it. So thank you.

yeah and i think uh just to piggyback that a little bit i think it's important that at this point in time given the circumstances that look we're opening up a new school let's get our schools opened up um let's start our new cte programs uh that our superintendents uh has initiated and is putting in place um and again who knows down the road um you know maybe maybe things improve in newport uh financially and academically and then we start having discussions but you know because you got to look for you got to look the whole idea was to look at you know down the road in the future when you're making general general um Generalization decisions. That's not the word. But anyway, so the point is, is that, you know, you got to continue to have a seat at the table at some point in time. And you always want to make sure you have a good relationship, whether things work out or they don't. And because things may change. I personally think our enrollment is probably going to go up with this new school. We had somebody in front of us tonight telling us that they may move to Middletown and they want their child to go to this school and they don't live in this town. So we'll see what happens. But I think the right thing at this point in time is to get our schools open. We're having fantastic results. And I was talking to somebody the other day from the school side, and those results, we may end up with two four-star schools. Who knows? So as we continue to improve... Um, again, to me, it's just a timing issue, but I just wanted to make sure that it was brought to public and, and that we had the discussion. Okay. Having said that, is there any further discussion or conversation, Tom?

I have no interest at this time in pursuing regionalization with Newport.

Okay. okay we're good okay so we are not moving forward i did have a discussion i did call the mayor a couple of weeks ago and um after our our meeting in july and um we had i had a conversation with him letting him know that at that point in time there's this point time there's no uh no desire to to move this this topic forward maybe down the road um who knows um but um just want to get out in the public so thank you for hearing us and thank you for understanding hopefully so Okay let's move on to number 32, which is the resolution of the Council in reference to establishing the school zones safety special revenue fund motion to pass that resolution going.

At our last council meeting, there was a proposal that the council approved to set aside dollars to add to a special revenue fund from the penalties for speeding through the school zones. So there's two items on the docket tonight that the finance director and I worked on. One is the establishment of the fund. um that would would hold those uh those proceeds and it details how those dollars would be spent um and then the second item is a resolution that would actually set aside the dollars uh as they come in so those are the the two resolutions that are before you this evening yeah so this we have this resolution the next 133 um one of the things came out of this whole school zone um speeding fines were

Maybe you guys should take the money and either put it into safety or put it into roads, and that's what we're doing. We're going to put it into school safety so that we can improve. We have flashing lights coming that just recently got approved, I believe.

From the state yes, so the state traffic commission approved the lights on Valley road. So, and talking with the public director last week, we should be receiving the equipment this week. So they will. If everything goes along to plan, they will be well installed before the school year starts.

So do we send out, so with school starting in, when does school start? Is it the end of August or end of August? So is there any way we can notify the residents that, hey, this school camera is going to be in effect again? I know there's four signs each way and you can't miss them. I know that there's a flashing light there.

We sent out a lot of social media about this and we'll continue to do that when the lights go live. Okay.

I just want to make sure residents understand that, you know, you have to go, the reason why that all the tickets say 31, cause that's when it triggers the ticket, anything over, over, or when you hit 31 miles per hour, you'll get a ticket. Um, You know, so, so if it's 20, they're giving you 10 miles an hour over to say, okay, you can go 30. I'm not saying to go 30, I'm saying to go the speed limit, but we all do it. Sometimes you're looking down and next thing you know, you're, you're doing 28 or 30 or 35 and you're like, oh, let's slow down. So I just want to make sure that, you know, that, that, that message gets out there because. You know, it's a short summer season and it seems like they just turned off, but in three weeks they're going to turn on again. And I want to make sure that residents aware of that. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. President. The yellow flashing lights, do we have the ability to turn them on during the whole period now? Correct. Until 6 p.m., right? I think people should know that. That was another thing people were...

Yes, so it will be through 6 p.m., and then the other... John Potter, approval that the Council approved, which should be implemented before the school year will be able to control all of those lights. John Potter, Essentially, from public works we won't be relying right now there was there was a hodgepodge of systems so different people had to do different things in order to update the time and things like that so. John Potter, Now that will be modernized and you'll be able to do that from a central server so that. every set of lights is operating in accordance with what the law and what drivers are expecting. And then also at St. George's, that light will change from a speed feedback sign to a school zone sign. So that's the other change that will take place.

Okay. Okay.

Any further conversation?

motion a second to pass the resolution establishing the school zone safety special special revenue fund all in favor aye anybody opposed thank you number 33 resolution of the council dedicating a portion of the school zone speed camera program revenues to the school zone safety special revenue fund for fiscal year 2027 motion to pass said resolution second motion a second to pass and sean how much is that for we know

No. Well, it's $20 per ticket. Right. So it's $20 per ticket. And then I hope it's zero. I hope everyone. I do too. So that's where I'm at with that. Okay.

I just wanted to make sure folks knew that of that amount of the ticket, $20 will go to this dedicated to the school zone speed camera revenue. Correct. School zone safety, special revenue funds.

So, okay. Any further conversation?

Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Okay, number 34, town administrative portion of the docket. Number 34 is memorandum of town engineer through town administrator in reference to FLAP grant design and construction funding.

Motion to receive said memorandum.

I have a motion and a second to receive. All in favor? Aye. And we'll move right into the resolution. Number 35 is continued from July 6th, 2026 regular meeting. Resolution of the council in reference to the council accepts a grant awarded from the Federal Lands Access Program, FLAP. That's what FLAP stands for. For the amount of up to $250,000.00. for the raising of the road on third beach road bordering the statues point wildlife refuge the town allocates up to seventy thousand five hundred dollars in zero cents from the parks and recreation fund which is the beach capital replenishment as part of the match requirement for the flap grant and authorizes the town administrator to execute said agreement on behalf of the town once the agreement becomes available motion to pass that resolution okay let's talk about this so last time i we talked about it we just wanted to make sure and identify which piece of land uh road uh you're talking about and that we actually own that piece of land that piece of road that section of road and why we're doing this you want to start sure uh so we went back and took a look at the record so there's a there's a plan here and and john mellow can uh

Correct me if i'm incorrect here that's basically I think it's the larger circle essentially showing the area of the road that would be. raised the town. owned the road up to basically where the old navy beach was just to the really the south of where the culvert. Is located and then, when the third beach property was purchased by the bird sanctuary 2003. The records indicated the town had contributed looks like about $300,000 towards the purchase of that property and in exchange got certain rights, including use of the beach. and an agreement that the rest of that roadway would be conveyed to the town. So this is an agreement that was recorded. I did take a look at it. It doesn't look like other than the agreement being recorded, there was an actual deed to the road. So Sean and I are going to be following up with the bird sanctuary because I would prefer to see it transferred by formal deed rather than by the recording of the agreement. But essentially the roadway is ours. And since that period of time, the town has been treating it at all. We've been maintaining it and everything that we would with the rest of our public roads. So we are improving essentially our own road here.

So, so what section, I just want to make sure everybody's clear on what section it is.

So it's from clarify exactly what, yeah.

yeah normal bird sanctuary driveway and just north of the town beach park just south of the town beach parking lot so it's about 1200 feet in that section across from the town beach.

So does that so like where where people these beach or where Tom Haggerty owns is it.

South of that. so it's just south of that yeah to the town parking lot the residents possibly past the town parking lot to the new three-way intersection okay yeah and what's the what's the purpose of raising that road so it's a resiliency Grant is to raise the road so they would flood at a lesser frequency than it floods now during you know storm events and I believe we're raising the parking lot too right

John Potter, But we'll raise the interest in the parking lot yeah the park last days, where it is, but if you recall, and I think it might have been 2018 or so we raise the roadway between. John Potter, That can be true purgatory road and where the new intersection is right because once again that section of road was was. couple of yeah it doesn't anymore right out, so this is to sort of continue that loop, so that you've got access because, once again that roadways the only access, you have to satchel was point to third beach.

Only secondary access to the second beat so being able to maintain that this project will take over right where that project ended and run all the way to the north, to the end of say our property so who's going to do this work that's called the bid. So Crossman is going to do the design if this moves forward, and then we'll go out to bid. Yeah, we estimate, you know, between 220 and 250,000 for construction.

So that's what this grant is for?

That's what the grant is for. And the 70 roughly covers the permitting, engineering and survey.

Okay. So if we didn't have this grant, then we probably wouldn't raise this road. Is that fair to say?

so you know the opportunity came along and the fed said you know we we have this grant program for property that's adjacent to federal lands are you interested and we said why not let's raise the road to match the grade and the other part of the road and keep it from flooding at a you know it's such a high frequency yeah well raising the road would have caused flooding into the town resident parking lot the gravel parking lot so instead of the whole area flooding the road will be the last area to flood i guess you know

Passable.

It'll be more passable, you know, it'll be passable at a higher frequency than it is now during high storm events.

So the town portion will be passable, but to the north of that won't be passable.

Don't forget, the farther north you go, the higher the elevation.

Well, no, no, not only where Peabody's is, is a low point.

I was going to ask. The low point is kind of where the culvert is. So we're definitely going to raise the road about a foot where the culvert is.

I'm not the engineer. That's okay.

No, I was just asking the same thing. The puddle that's right outside of Hagerty's that always forms right there. That kind of sounds like where it

yeah we're going to start just past that yeah we we really yeah there's a manhole there there's a an electrical manhole there so we're going to start just on the south side of that manhole does anybody approach that that's kind of a a conceptual plan we could change We just a little bit yeah we can move it a little bit, but we wanted to come up with some some design or some concept, so that you could approve it and we could. apply for the grant now that we have the grant we can go into design and maybe do survey and maybe we can move the limit a little bit and go to that as anybody approach, Mr Haggerty to see if he'd be interested in.

In his portion and the whole thing's done that's a good idea, I mean that's what I would do sure we haven't yet.

what are we waiting for well the okay from you so we can move forward with a design my okay to go you don't need our own but anyway okay i think we should charlie john in that map there is the green line is that federal land is that designated federal land yeah so is this is this road doesn't it go through that as well no it doesn't it butts it okay yeah Because when Sandy wiped out that lower road, that was federal land. They had the guard out there, I remember, not letting anybody in there. So they took care of all that, right?

They did, yeah. And so now we're going to do the other side. We'll raise the grade so it doesn't flood as often.

Thank you. Is the council okay with asking Mr. Haggerty if he'd be interested in that way? The whole thing is potentially, I mean, all he can say is no, right? Or he might say yes.

He might want to do his section as well. That's a good idea.

You know, while they're mobilized there, who's ever going to do it. You're going to get a, but he's going to get a better price anyway.

Yep. That's right.

So you don't think so?

Prevailing wage.

Oh yeah.

Yep. But we can ask, I mean, you can ask, it can't hurt to ask.

Yeah.

And then when it, when the project happens, he can't say you never asked me. We will in fact have asked him.

It must've been read my mind. So, okay. Uh, any further discussion? hearing that all in favor aye anybody opposed thank you john okay memorandum number 36 of the memorandum of finance director uh through the town administrator reps to paving and utility repairs motion to receive said memorandum We have a motion and a second to receive. All in favor? Aye. And we'll move into the resolution number 37, resolution of the council and reps of the bid for paving utility work is hereby awarded to D'Amber Construction Company Incorporated. Funding is from the CIP Special Revenue Fund Paving and Drainage. 1,300,000 in municipal road and bridge revolving fund grant, $107,875. And the finance director is authorized to execute said agreement on behalf of the town.

Motion to pass said resolution. Second. So a motion, a second to pass.

We need some discussion on this and some explanation of exactly what we're talking about. So this one, we've been waiting for a long time.

John Potter, yeah, so I think the one mostly we've been waiting for is mitchell's lane, it has been a red road for a long period of time. John Potter, Annually, I tell you that we're postponing work on it, because we want the golf course to be completed before. The golf course being the largest earth project I think that's been done in the town of Middletown. That work has been completed. Mitchell's Lane is one of the worst roads, if not the worst road in the town of Middletown right now. So it's time to pave it. The Public Works Department have done the required work to make sure we understand what's underneath the road to make the improvements. And that's where that recommendation comes from. I'm going to skip over the details. John can cover those. The other road that's been on the red road list which had is needs to be addressed, which is also heavily traveled as Jepson Lane. So that's the the second all road that's that's part of this bid package. I'll let John talk a little bit about the details. The project itself comes from the town's capital improvement of program special revenue fund 1.3 million dollars. And then we also did receive a grant from the state of $108,000 that would additionally allow us to complete the project. So with that, I'll let John talk.

So we're going to go from East Main Road all the way to Wyatt Road, 7,205 feet or so. We're going to cold plane the road and repave it. With the exception of about 500 feet by the healing co-op, we're going to rip out the whole road, put some underdrain in, build a new road base, and then repave it and grade it to the side and restore the swale so that that road is kind of above the water table and never gets wet feet. And then we have a culvert that goes across the road just to the to the south of the healing co-op. We're going to put a second pipe there at a at a higher elevation, so that any water that gets in that swale will get out into the wetlands and keep that road dry going forward. So that's pretty much Mitchell's Lane, Jepson, all the way from Oliphant all the way to the town line. And what we're going to do with the last 350 feet or so is just mill the two inches off that road because it's pretty new. And then we're going to repave that part with just a top coat. That's pretty much that on Jepson.

I just have a question where the on Mitchell's Lane where the gutters are right up against the edge of the road. What do you do about that?

So we haven't designed you know that part of the drainage yet we're pretty sure we're going to do that with with. You know, with this with the culverts and the swells pretty much going to stay the way it is net lower section. we're going to try to. I really don't have an answer for that we're gonna we're going to keep it where it's at we don't have much room between the edge of the pavement the town line right so we're just going to try to keep that the way it is and widen the road base just a little bit there. And we're going to you know use crushed stone to get the road, the road dry across to the to the wetlands.

So when we when we do our design right we're going to hire hire somebody like crossman engineering or something like that.

Yeah.

And then how do we keep them accountable for their design, especially when it comes to water?

So Crossman will be on site, you know, the whole time the road's being rebuilt. And so will the town public works and myself. And there are things we're going to have to figure out as we go. Yeah. You know, once we dig up that section of road, we're going to go there and say, OK, this is what we expected or it is. Let's do this. Let's modify it this way. So that's that's how that's going to be approached. Yeah. Just it's a very wet area of road, and we can't we're trying to raise the road, but we've got driveways that we you know we can't raise the road too much because of the driveways. We will raise the road about 3 or 4 inches from, say, East Main down to the first 1,000 feet or so, because all the driveways are higher and run down to the road. So we can raise the road there and get the road a little bit higher, a little bit further separation to the water table. But in that low area we're pretty much set with driveways.

uh so so we're limited but we're gonna figure it out as we go i guarantee it'll be a better road when we're done oh yeah yeah so i'm sure it will but the longevity of the road i think is what the concern of everyone is john And again, we're not the engineer you are. Um, so we respect that, but, um, by the healing co-op and by the, um, the town on land in that corner, um, the lower Tibbets, I think it's called. Right. Um, it's pretty wet there. Right. And I'm not sure where that water could go. We ever think about maybe in the town property.

building some type of larger retention pond because that water is going to run off because it's going to go on the wetlands it's got nowhere else to go so we have a pipe that goes across the road from west to east uh near the to the south of the hill and co-op we're going to add a second pipe and all that water that's coming out from under that road along that's the swale on the side of the road will get that way and so we're going to increase the capacity of that pipe under the road And that should dry out the road even more and we'll raise it just a little bit, but the four or five inches of stone under the road base. And the geotextile fabric and the filter fabric will separate the road base from the stone, so now we're going to have a drainage layer under the road, and that will significantly dry out that road profile okay.

Just a different issue. So the on the tidbit side, you have wetlands. So disturbing the wetlands, you just can't put a pond in there and add to the wetlands. So there's a significant process you have to go through. But the other issue is with the conservation easements. There are restrictions on our ability to build a retention pond on those properties since they're, they're protected. So we have limitations in that regard, too. But I think what john, you know, has described, we have The one pipe that goes under the neat the road right now it does it does bring the water from the tibet side grabs. I guess, in theory, some of the water from the area and it gets it to the wetland that exists over the sort of runs cross country towards. where Newport National used to have their golf trailer, bar, restaurant things. So I think we're looking at improving that, improving the flow outside of the pipe. But then, as John said, if we got a high water level, having that second pipe to move the water. So I think with some tweaks, we'll get there.

I think it's the worst thing that nobody wants is that you know we put all that effort in and money into it, and then, you know, in 15 years we're replacing it, you know, or deteriorates because it didn't work.

So I think by putting the drainage layer under the road we're going to suck all the water from under the road base. So that really shouldn't happen for another 30 or 40 years. You know that that will significantly dry out the road base. Now, so we'll dry out the road base and we're going to add another pipe so we have a place for it to go. So that will significantly improve the situation.

Awesome.

Okay.

Well, I'm glad it's finally getting done. I know, Sean, you're right. We did defer that because of the golf course with all the heavy equipment coming in and out of there. We didn't want to do the new road three years ago because we felt that with the construction of that side of the... golf course that it would damage the road so it's been painful um anybody that travels that road um you know knows it so but again it's probably the worst road in town i'm glad we're doing jepson as well the funding didn't allow us to do beacon terrace

So I think it would have gone over our limit if we did beacon terrace. But Bob is looking to see if the state has a little bit more money because the price was good on beacon terrace. And if we can fit that in, you know, we can issue a change order. We'd have to come before the council and say, hey, we have the money now. Can we can we award this change order to Denver? That would be good if we get that road done as well. That road is going to be a complete replacement. You know, 15 inches excavated out, 12 inches of new base and four inches of asphalt.

that'll be a brand new road system and some drainage a little bit of drainage roads that make me nervous and like green and avenue because that's a long road and that's going to be a lot of money and that's coming up i'm sure within the next five to ten years or less parts of that what is our strategy with um you know if there's a certain it's a good section of it you know can we go to just doing sections maybe um You got that?

Yeah, yeah. And this is actually, I've had conversations with Bob about this, about elephant lane. Like, I think, I like this approach where do the whole road. Do it all one thing, because when you get in, and I'm not the expert on this, but I can tell you from experience, like, those sections where it's patched like that on elephant, it just, I don't know, it creates, to me, I see it creating more issues later on.

So Tom O'Loughlin came up with this plan. If you had a good road or a decent road and it had some bad sections, the idea was to replace the bad sections, maybe 100 to 200 feet. And that kind of added another 10 or 15 years to the life of the whole road. So that's a good idea. But if you have patch after patch after patch throughout the whole road, then I agree.

I'm just saying, because I know that we kind of took that approach in the past because, look, You know, the $1.3, $1.4 million in change here tonight, you know, 20 years ago, you could probably do three or four more roads. Today, you can't. So we have to kind of think differently of what we can do, what's nice to do versus what's necessary to do. And if we can, you know, get another 10 or 15 years out of a road, um maybe we do that i don't know but i i i agree with i prefer to have it all done but dollars those dollars just don't spread that far anymore so you got to kind of think outside the box a little bit maybe get creative and you know well the good news is after this project it'll be another 30 or 40 years before we have this conversation again on these two roads we won't be here to have that conversation okay well maybe we maybe shealy will but that's about it um okay uh john thank you okay and this is good news so okay any further conversation hearing none we have a motion a second to pass said resolution all in favor aye i looked up and you were looking at me and i thought maybe i was forgetting something okay let's move on number 38 memorandum finance direct through town administrator in reference to town hall and fire station slash public works electronic access control system motion to receive said memorandum a motion a second to receive all in favor aye and if you would please let's move to 39 the resolution on this we'll have discussion resolution of the council reference to the purchase installation of electronic access control system at town hall and The Fire and Public Works Complex is hereby awarded to National Security Fire Alarm Systems of East Providence, Rhode Island. Funding for this purchase and installation will be from the CIP Special Revenue Fund and the Finance Director is authorized hereby to execute said purchase on behalf of the town. Motion to pass that resolution. Second. We have a motion, a second to pass. Mr. Collins, you could explain what's going on here and the big picture of things.

Okay, so this is a new card access system for the fire department public works complex and town hall. This will all be in line with the same system being installed in the new school in the valley elementary in the forest. So what it does, it provides our. 1st providers 1 card access to all the buildings. So we're standardizing the systems across the town. Um, obviously the. 170 million dollar school kind of drives the bus with that so whatever systems in there we're incorporating everywhere else, the good thing about this system is in in. In a situation like the police department they're very comfortable with their card access and everything like that we can just go grab those fobs we don't need to change anything there. So good system is not just going into revamping everything it's looking at what works for us, making sure we incorporate that in and that's what we're doing. So the police department never needs to change, we can grab all their fobs and incorporate into the system.

Okay. So it's 32,000 for the town hall. Yep. And 32,600 and 85,800 for the fire station public works, which is a total of 118. Right. Where's the 183 coming from? 185 is the budget in the cip so that's what's budgeted yeah so we're favorable okay just wanted to make sure that we were clear and that the uh okay because the resolution does say 118 but when i saw 185 yep um it threw me off a little bit i just wanted to make sure we were clearing that so thank you for clearing that up anybody have any questions or comments I think it's pretty good how you're tying everything in with the same system, it makes total sense for access for fire police, they can all is not different systems and have to worry about it phone calls on have to be made to get in, you can just present the badge or whatever it is the card system and be able to access any type of emergency, which is important.

And again, we're just not making changes just to make changes. The police department likes their system. They're very comfortable with it. They just operated it. So we needed to find a system that can incorporate that in there. This works out great. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, Ed. Any further conversation on the resolution? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Thank you. Number 40 is Memorandum of Finance Director through Town Administrator in reference to Contract Award for Pest Control Services. This is a three-year contract. Motion to receive said memorandum. Second. We have a motion to second and receive. We'll move to 41, Resolution of the Council in reference to Oh, did I say all in favor? I didn't all in favor. I apologize folks getting a little ahead of myself. Number forty one is resolution of the council in reference to the contract. The pest control services is hereby awarded to Waltham past services of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. uh funding from the general fund thirty four thousand six hundred dollars for the three-year contract and the sewer fund uh twenty thousand one hundred sixty dollars and the finance director is hereby authorized to execute said contract on behalf of the town motion to pass said resolution second the motion is second to pass

So in the whole realm of shared facilities, we went out collectively with a public bid and combined in both schools in town and that you have the town section in front of you. There was also a school section in front of that. Look, over the we received two qualified bidders. They were within a thousand dollars of each another over a three year period. So that's a good that's a good sign. And we we feel we have a very reputable company to take that over. um just the number for the town might might seem like a lot but there's 26 locations because we have all the pump stations and everything like that so it's a good number any questions about the pest control contract is this new well it's we have we have different vendors and

John Potter, We don't have a program waiting so that's that's what it's pulled together is he's. John Potter, Again, you know it's public works is taking care of pump stations and we had someone here at town hall and the school department sort of on an emergency basis got somebody so. John Potter, This this pull all of that together into a single vendor single contract with with annual maintenance requirements. It was all over the place.

I don't mean in a bad way, but it was just all over the place. So we grabbed it all. Now the good point is there's one phone call to make if anything's going wrong with PES, right? That's from the chair that I'm sitting in now or whoever's going to sit in there. It's very easy that when you have these systems in place, it's one phone call. We're dealing with one person regardless of what building something's going wrong with.

Right. Was there any type of savings realized bringing it all like under one or no?

You know what, it's tough to tell because I think as Sean stated, everything was kind of sitting separately. The school really had nothing actively in place. It was kind of an emergency basis, which is another problem with Department of Health going in there and everything. So there was nothing to base it on. Even when the bidders came in, they wanted the history of the past bids. There was no history of past bids. It was just pretty much, there was no bid before. It was just if something happens, call somebody, they can get there. And it was kind of scattered as to what people were doing. so unless there's an issue we don't call them or they're not we're not every every you see those plastic traps well we we would hope we would be a little bit more proactive that in high um high areas where we have problems you might see those we have the contract is based on a monthly visit to all the municipality buildings anything after that or extra if it's bees or ants or birds or anything is an extra charge the school runs a little different because in um august september october that's when the department of health comes on we need them there every other week so it's on a frequency thing but for the most part it's every month they go there you need to be proactive if we're just going to kind of if it's going to be approached when you know when there's a problem then you're going to see a lot of those bait traps everywhere that's probably not a good thing to look at if we can stay on top of things on a monthly basis hopefully we'll eliminate that you won't even see the mitigation we're doing for pest control yeah and in my mind automatically went to those because you see them in different vendors different places you go to shops here and there but but i didn't think about bees and birds and there's a bunch of different things that happen from from my opinion when you go there and you see all those plastic traps it's a bad look yeah i agree so if we do a better job of being more proactive on things we can hopefully eliminate all those things right right okay any other conversation thank you okay so we have a motion a second to pass that resolution all in favor

all right anybody opposed okay let's move on to number 42 which is the memorandum of the fire chief and through the town administrator reference to purchase of the purvis station alerting system motion to receive said memorandum A motion to second to receive all in favor. I, and we'll, if you would please, we'll move to the resolution for discussion. Number 43 is the resolution of the council in reference to the purchase of the purpose. Station alerting system is hereby awarded to purpose systems funding from the rescue wagon special revenue fund. And the finance director is authorized hereby to execute said purchase on behalf of the town motion to pass that resolution. I have a motion to second to pass. If McCall.

So, the purpose station alerting system is basically takes the place of. The notification of the firefighters in the station or outside the station in the event there's an emergency when the station was built in 2015, the system that was put in. was adequate, but the people that put it in are no longer around anymore. There's no replaceable part for it or anything like that. And we've seen a decrease or actually increase in response times just because of the early notification. So when we changed over to our new computer-aided dispatch records management system last year with the state, we started looking at notification as well. So this new system, Purvis is a local company out of Middletown. They're over here in the industrial park. They do all of FDNY stations, a lot of metro areas. So they've been in the business for a while. Basically, what they're going to do is or decrease our response times. I want to say it a little differently, but they're going to decrease our response time. Basically, it's an automated system. So as soon as 911 gets a call up in situate, that call gets transferred down to us. Right now, the dispatcher has to pick up the phone, get all the information, figure that all out, and then notify the department. With this new system, as soon as the call comes in from 911, that information gets pushed into the CAT. It automatically puts out a tone and an alert of EMS call, a fire call, where it is and what the nature is. It's all automated. Then the dispatcher can then come in and fill in the extra information while we're already in route. So that's going to save us about two minutes of time of call to time of dispatch. And then the road time to get to the scene and everything else will be decreased. What this will also allow us to do is to have access to control the lighting indication. So after hours right now, the lights are either on or off. So getting woken up at 2 in the morning and walking into a hallway of bright lights, it adds a little bit more to it. With this, it ramps up the lighting. It ramps up the tones. It makes it a little bit easier on the guys having to be woken up in the middle of the night and everything else. So there's some benefits with that. There's better control with the system, better for notification. You can hear the system better. That's kind of the brief overview of the system as a whole.

So Rob, as technology continues to evolve, what is the life expectancy of a system like this?

Obviously, as technology evolves, but it's 15 to 20 years, there'll be some add-ons to it that may have to come on or as more options come up or something like that, that may be it. But this system really looks to replace what we have existing right now into the future. One of the bigger things in going to the mobile data terminals in the truck. So having the computers in the trucks now, this information can get put right onto the cat. They can see hydrant locations. They can see in real time, you know, aerial views of the property for going for a fire. It's a medical call. And we can actually now use GPS for the 911 call takers and actually see an exact location. So somebody out on Hanging Rock, the Chasm, something like that, we can actually now see with 911 where they really are. This system combined with the MDTs together will give us that information in the field. That's wild.

That's awesome. Think about two minutes on a minute, 30 seconds could save, never mind two minutes, could save how many lives potentially that or prevent further damage to somebody, whatever they're going through at the time. Having said that, so this system, does it allow you to, you talked about add-ons. So when you look at a system, it has other features that can be added down the road. Is that what this does?

Yeah. So right now, you know, the system that's there is it's a it's a pretty neat system. I don't know what the future holds for the system in two years, what they're going to add to it. But I'm sure like with technology, as you progress, there's going to be new things that come out. But where it sits right now. Unless something drastically new comes out, I wouldn't see a huge difference with anything else. Being able to just pinpoint a caller is going to be a game changer for us.

Is this part of the system like if we're sitting in an affordable housing committee meeting or a beach committee meeting in the fire station, you hear that dispatch go out?

Yep.

You know, whatever it is they say, you know, 51-year-old man having a heart attack or whatever. Yeah. That's that system.

That's that system. Exactly. So one of the bigger things like you're in the station, you can kind of hear there's sometimes there's differences in the tones and things like that. That's what we're experiencing right now. It's ramping up. We're not getting all the information right away. We have to repeat it. So that's some of the issues that we're dealing with. This looks to alleviate a lot of those.

So right from situated downloads that you guys are on your way, the dispatcher can fill in the blanks later.

Yeah. So real quick, a 911 call. When you call 911, it goes to Sitchwick, goes to the state police barracks. They triage that call and they figure out who it needs to go to. So there's a delay in that. It's not long, but 30 seconds to a minute. Then that call gets transferred down to us. Our dispatcher now has to take all that information from the 911 caller. and redo all of that information, get it into the CAD, push it out. So there is some time. In fires, every 30 seconds, it's doubling. In EMS, every minute is critical. So yeah, two minutes doesn't sound like a lot, but it's going to make a big difference at the end of the day. And that's what this system is going to allow us to do. So as soon as they put it into their CAD and they realize this is a Middletown call, it gets dumped into our CAD, and the station alerting automatically converts that to audio and pushes it out for us.

awesome the other thing which is important is especially at night time if depending on the call you're not waking up the entire station so when you're in that community room that tone is throughout the entire station the new system would direct the tone to where it needs to be rather than throughout the entire area. So it will allow firefighters to get more rest and that's healthier and it makes them.

I was just going to say that it's a health and safety issue as well because the tones ramp up because they have found that there's a lot of long-term illnesses caused by that with firefighters working, being woken up rapidly like that.

other stuff on top of it's cool if it cuts down dispatch which is going to come down response time and the the part with that and like sean was saying is when we built the station we looked at individual dorms because we're looking at firefight arrest cycles and everything else the firefighters are working 24-hour shifts sometimes longer they need the rest This system allows them to go into their bunk. They can put what apparatus they're assigned to. They have put it in. If another apparatus is assigned to that call, they don't get that notification. The nice part with it and the safety thing that I looked at is every 24 hours, that cycle, just that system reverts back to an all call. So if you forget to do anything or whatever, that system automatically resorts and you're going to get notified about it. So you'll make the adjustment if you don't want to get notified about it.

Sounds like they're getting soft, Rob.

It's a single bunk room and everybody being together. Yeah, it's gotten a little different, but you know, it's the health and safety thing is the biggest thing. And we want to be able to provide the service, get the guys out the door quicker. This is what is going to allow us to do that.

It's a, it's a health and safety improvement for the firefighters being woken up at that, Peter, what you just spoke to. And it's also a benefit to whoever you're responding to or whatever you're responding to.

Yes.

That's awesome. So Sean, was this part, this was part of the budget, right?

It was part of last year's budget, so it will be continued over. So, yes, this has been planned. Um. Rob's been working with, uh, Ed Collins, um, had numerous meetings on it, uh, because you'll see, like, the next. So part of the station, um. Yeah, it keeps the system. Yeah, these things are all sort of being coordinated together. So the key access system, the purpose system, and then your, your next item is the, uh. John Potter, digitizer this is a total uplift of of how the fire station operates in the dispatch Center.

John Potter, Thank you.

John Potter, For this, too, is the reason we're building in with that is the door notification and things like that we don't want to. John Potter, put the card access it and then have to put doorbells in because there's notification that somebody's at a door and things like that so it's all kind of working together that's awesome okay.

John Potter, For the questions okay.

so let's move on uh to uh we have a motion a second to pass uh said resolution for the purpose system any further discussion hearing that all in favor aye anybody opposed thank you number 44 is a memorandum of the fire chief through the town administrator reference to request Good question. I think it's supposed to request to replace existing digitized AES system equipment rather. Motion to receive said memorandum. Second. A motion to second to receive. All in favor? Aye. Let's move to the resolution. We'll have a discussion. Number 45, resolution of the council in reference to the purchase of the digitized aes fire alarm system awarded to rb allen um company funding from the rescue wagon special revenue fund and the finance director is authorized hereby to execute said agreement said purchase on behalf of the town motion to pass that resolution second okay discussion chief

So the digitized AES radio box system is basically every business that's required to be monitored by state fire code puts in this radio box. That radio box is what sends the signal to the fire department that says, hey, the fire alarm is going off. This equipment obviously is we need to replace it. It's a life safety thing. We're a couple cycles behind on replacement. I think we're using Windows Vista and some other things that we shouldn't be using with this, but we're kind of on borrowed time with this system. What this does is it brings the system up to the current standards that we need to have. It takes the equipment that's currently sitting in dispatch. It can move it into a closet that is kind of out of dispatch. It's in a more protected area, and then it allows us to put computer monitors and dispatch So they can address the alarms as they come in. They can do everything else. But if there's a problem, we can move dispatch to another. We can move it down to the police department if we needed to. We can move it anywhere else. They can open up the computer and be up and running in no time. The what the system does is like I said it receives the box or the alarm signal into the fire department it deciphers it they figure out what the zone is so if it's a sprinkler flow if it's a fire alarm whatever it may be. They can decipher that they figure out what apparatus need to get sent and then they send the trucks out to the to the alarm.

So the current one, the 3505, has been outdated for 10 years?

Longer than that. We've been a few cycles behind replacement. Three cycles behind? About three cycles behind. Talking with RB Allen, when they've come out, they can't get replacement parts for this anymore. They were able to kind of find other systems as they were being removed. They're running out of options with that, so we're kind of at a point where we have to upgrade the system. We got... about 25 years, I think, out of this system before the upgrade. So kind of expecting the same thing about probably 15 to 20 years out of this.

Yeah. So is it correct me if I'm wrong, but it didn't the council previous councils create an ordinance years back as to like St. George's, for example. We're getting so many false alarms from there that we create an ordinance where after so many false alarms, you have to pay whoever it is, whether it's St. George's or not. That's what this system is about. Is that the system?

That's what that system monitors at the end of the day. It's not what the system is about. So basically, every year, if you have a radio box, you pay a subscription fee for us to monitor that radio box. So that covers the cost of repair and maintenance and things like that for the system. So that's really where that driving force from the enforcement of false alarms and things like that is really kind of just to.

get people to maintain their systems so we're not having to go every day and reset it for them okay um but the fee schedule for that for us to monitor it is built into that we should just increase too so we we collect about sixty thousand dollars a year from businesses and and others uh to monitor their long to this system so again as rob said we this current system is 20 to 25 years old so it you know from an amortization standpoint it it balances out it's just it's just time to replace it Okay.

All right. Any further questions? Thank you, Chief. Okay, so we have a motion to second to pass that resolution. Is there any further discussion? I just have one question. This is obviously budgeted. Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure because once the budget passes, whether it's carried over from the previous year or not, the capital stuff, whatever fund that comes out of this one happens to be this rescue wagon special revenue fund. These are planned. They're not just... hey we're going to have a new council in three months let's get all the stuff in that we can now that's i'm sure that goes through people's minds and that's not what this is about these are planned um capital improvements having said that we have a motion a second uh all in favor aye anybody opposed number 46 memorandum of the fine of the town administrator arrested purchase of demonstration for demonstration rescue wagon

Motion to receive said memorandum of a motion is 2nd to receive all in favor.

I, and let's move to the resolution, which is number 47 resolution resolution of the council and reference to the purchase of a Ford F. Uh, 550 diesel 4 by 4 type 1 ambulance was associated equipment. is hereby awarded to new england fire equipment and apparatus corporation funding for this vehicle is from a five-year lease purchase and the debt service payments will be funded from the rescue wagon special revenue fund and the finance director is authorized hereby to execute said purchase on behalf of the town motion to pass that resolution second okay so discussion tonight's uh chief mccall in the fire department night so wasn't planning on spending august uh but you mind talking about how many rescue wagons we have and what this is going to do Because it's important that there's a little history here.

Yeah. So, again, Middletown Fire Department staffs two ALS rescues, advanced life support rescues, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That was an increase that happened back in 2019, where we added the second rescue to kind of fill the need of the increase in call volume and everything else. So right now, Middletown, we run two engine companies, two rescue companies, and we cross-staff two other apparatus. The rescue wagons account for about 3,600 calls, 3,200 calls a year, I believe, out of our 4,400 calls that we do. EMS is about 75% to 80% of what a typical fire department does. What we've seen over the past... five or six years is an increase in call volume on the EMS side, which put an un kind of new burden on those two trucks. They're running constantly. And we have the ability to have a reserve, which is a 2010 Chevy, which was part of a upgrade we did in 2009 that we're running as a reserve. Currently that reserve truck is running as a frontline truck and has been running now for a little while, which has led me to be where I am at today. So that's kind of the brief overview of the Middletown Rescue Wagon as a whole. This is the new system that we just put in for the CAD, by the way. So I'm getting alerted that there's a call for this technology. So what we found right now is one of the rescues we have is not reliable. We can't keep it in service. It's been having electrical issues. Right now it's been out of service now for three weeks. We sent it out again to have it gone through. Ford can't tell us what's wrong with it. Greenwood can't tell us what's wrong with it. We just keep going through this cycle of having to repair it. So that's kind of where we're at. We don't have a reserve ambulance in service right now. So we have to borrow if we need another one.

Okay. Typically, it takes how long to get a rescue wagon? Because that's important to know why this is we're moving on this now.

Yeah. So right now, the timeframe is about two to three years to get a rescue from start to finish. So finding a vendor starting the process. Right now, you know, they're saying 28 months is is what we should be expecting if we had to order something.

And this is yeah, I'm sorry chief when it says demonstration ambulance. Does that mean it's on the lot or something? Like, what does that mean?

So, what a lot of companies do the vendors that come out and they purchase these ambulances ahead of time. They have them brought into their company from the vendor that they're purchasing from and they show them off. So, in Rhode Island. They'll drive it around. This is what we can offer you. These are the options. And after a month or two goes by, they'll sell it off. This one just came in to be shown as a demonstration and they're willing to sell it. So that's where we ended up where we got. floor model what's that it's the floor model i'm going to be honest with you i i see this as the future with ambulances yeah i really think uh when you're getting into specking and everything else there's very limited specking you can do on these trucks now um i think you're going to start to see people just going to the lot and buying them yeah

I think the big thing, and this is what we finally accomplished with the pumpers, we have the two primary pumpers and we have the two spares. So when something's out, we're able to put the secondary engine in service. There's no disruption. We're not out begging for vehicles from Newport, Jamestown, Horsesmith, Tiverton. But we haven't made the same switch with the rescue wagons. We've operated really when I thought about it. So as long as I've been here with two primary rescues, one backup. Thinking about it further, rescue wagons have been problematic. We had bought two rescue wagons about 10, 15 years ago. The turbos failed at them at the same time. We had to sort of do an emergency purchase to replace those. But we haven't really, from a risk management standpoint, especially based on whatever, 80%, 90% of our business is running those rescue wagons, has made sure we have two primary vehicles, two backup vehicles. what the chief and i discussed is i think we we were thinking we would be able to limp along and get to february when the new rescues are coming in and we are now at a point where we are we are borrowing a rescue wagon all the time um which is you know we have a responsibility to provide our own rescue wagons it's also unfair to the other communities because now we've put them at risk because they don't have their spare um what we're able to do is if we we can purchase this vehicle is you know the two primary vehicles we'll have a vehicle in service that's reliable so that's that's what we don't have and that that can happen immediately because it is a floor model uh the second thing is we'll have the two rescues come in in february which will become the primary vehicles this will become a secondary vehicle and what what the plan would be is to take the better of the two vehicles that we have right now either get it refurbished or buy a new chassis and have the back put on the new chassis. So then we would have basically two really new trucks and secondary vehicles, two new vehicles on the front. And then with our book of business, we basically have the proper fleet, the proper risk management to provide life safety services. Um, I think this council, what it's learned is we can't. Because of the lead times on these vehicles, we have to order them sooner to make sure we have dependable vehicles in the fleet. Um, but I think part of tonight's discussion not only is addressing the need for something reliable today, but also. Upgrading the fleet so again, we have those 2 primary vehicles, 2 secondary vehicles.

to provide uh life safety services to the residents and uh this purchase is a good way to get us there um you know as we move through the upcoming months and again I wait for the uh the two new vehicles to come in I looked at uh refurb remount things like that the problem is I can't lay up a truck for another six to eight months to get it perved and put back in service so that's some of the issues that we're facing uh Like Sean was saying, the end goal would be get the two new trucks in, move the other truck to reserve, send this other truck out to get refurbed properly, have it done, and then brought back. I think is the end result.

Bob, I think this is a great opportunity. And the reason I'm curious, I mean, the price tag is nuts. Now I think about, you know, spec and rescues before and the costs have just been exploding, right? So think about you said 28 months, if you were to order plus the spec time and everything else, what would that cost by the time you actually received it? So even though it seems like it's a lot of money, it's actually the smarter fiscal move. So

John Potter, or question jolly the two new rescue wagons we're leasing them correct are we leasing them.

John Potter, yeah so there it's a lease purchase agreement, so we leased a you know as a dollar buyout at the end.

John Potter, Will that help us like if something goes wrong with a like. John Potter, covered under some kind of lease warranty or something like that, or it doesn't work, the same way as like when you lease a car.

It doesn't work the same way. We do have warranties and things like that that are associated from the vendor that assembles these vehicles. But the lease financing is more So when we put the capital improvement program together, we look at what the needs are for the five-year period. And for like the rescue wagon where we're getting more than five years of life out of it, then we're using the lease purchase just to manage cash basically. We can do that with a municipal borrowing instead of a commercial borrowing. So that's how we do that. So for instance, one of the things that we look at long-term you know the the elephant the fire department is a is a ladder truck uh we're going to come up on 15 20 years here shortly ladder trucks two and a half 2.7 million dollars so so we're we're trying to accumulate you know what i mean we're we're constantly this is probably the one department where where we've gotten really good at it with this and the police cars is John Potter, You know police cars we buy outright because they don't have a lot of life, but for the apparatus. John Potter, At the fire department is planning out that cash flow and just unfortunately have to finance them. John Potter, At times to match the cash flow that we get from the proceeds from the rescue wagon fund.

John Potter, So. What's the warranty on this thing? Is there a warranty? So I'm sure it's not the same warranty from a new one, right? Because it's a demonstration.

It's pretty... Pretty spot on new warranty. I can verify all that stuff because it's kind of we've been even working today trying to get all the stuff together. But it's basically a brand new truck. So the warranty that the vendor from who manufactured the truck is going to be there. The Ford warranty from the Ford manufacturers there. So all the normal warranties are still there. Wow, okay. Like I said, this truck has just been, the mileage on it is very low. There's really no mileage on it. Warwick Fire did the same thing. Providence Fire has done the same thing. So as these trucks come in, they're just buying them. So it seems to be the way it's going.

So the information we have in our docket says once the agreement's approval or agreement is 11, will it potentially have been 60 days?

Probably sooner than that. So all they have to do is just leather the truck itself and install the striker power load lift. Once that's done, we can take the truck.

And it has everything you need.

Yes, everything. I went through the compartments with the spec that we just did. Compartments are actually pretty close to what we spec. There's a few little differences here and there, but I did go through and make sure that the equipment we carry would go onto this truck with no issues. All that matches up.

So you've seen the vehicle?

The video?

The vehicle.

Oh, yeah. I haven't personally seen it, but they showed me the video and the pictures of it and then gave me the spec drawings for it.

Okay. All right, good.

okay so don't bring up that ladder truck please it makes me nervous a lot of truck makes me nervous too so but we have a plan i think that's that's the main thing and i i think it just it's a good demonstration that we we plan these things out so they're not emergencies i understand i i go back to the beginning when we didn't have a rescue wagon fund and oh i know we had no fire trucks that were less than 20 years old that's you know and i hate to say it because the rescue wagon association that the firefighters still run um you know they the i don't think the town remembers just how lucky we were that they were raising money but you know it became more and more difficult and yeah but uh yeah when i got here in 2000 i don't think we had a a pumper that was we had one pumper that was you know could pass the inspection uh so They do a good job over there. They do a good job maintaining the vehicles. And I think we've learned a lot in what we spec, what we need. And I think it's evidence that the two new pumpers that we have, you know, knock on wood, have been extraordinary. They are workhorses and they're, you know, servicing the community well. I think this is an opportunity to right size the fleet. I think that's the big thing. I think as, you know, if I was the chief, I'd want the two primary and the two backup. We have the space at the fire department when we made sure there was enough space for extra vehicles. know this is a way to keep responding and uh you know getting people to the hospital as quick as we can we you know that's another piece that the rescue wagons just don't go to newport anymore because um i'm required by charter to be notified if a fire apparatus goes out of town and you know i go to charlton they go three-man transport charlton it's i get that text two or three days a week you know it's i mean a day it's a couple times you know it's it's a daily occurrence um and then with uh you know with the urgent care centers kids that are at the uh The pediatrics, they're going to Hasbro. It's a constant. There's a lot of wear and tear on these vehicles.

And having a reliable reserve when it does go to Charlton, if we have the staff and we can put a second rescue back in service. So that's another benefit that we have.

And now we have the manpower and womanpower to be able to do that.

The firefighter power to accomplish those missions.

Thank you for correcting me. I caught myself when I tried to correct it the right way, but I failed, so thank you.

I was very gender-heavy.

Thank you, sir. Yes. I appreciate it, Chief. So, Sean, this special revenue fund, is that where, you know, the insurance money comes in? Correct. Correct. yep the proceeds from the rescue wagon can you explain that i want to make sure residents are aware of that and kind of what that generates so um a long long time ago after

A couple of years of talking to the Council, we. Establish a fund where the proceeds from the rescue wagons come into a special revenue fund similar to what you did for the school zone finds this evening and the money accumulates there and it's restricted. It was originally restricted just for fire department apparatus. under Chief Martin at the time. We expanded that to include police cars. And so basically we are able to maintain our public safety fleet, including the ladder truck, through the fees that are generated from the rescue wagon fees that are paid by Medicare and insurance companies when someone utilizes the rescue wagon. at times people have said well that you know cost me money residents and there's no out of pocket cost for residents so if if your your blue cross doesn't pay for your ride to the hospital we don't send you a bill and say you need to pay non-residents would receive a bill um but basically um it's built into your insurance premium whether you use it or not it's it's a it's something that you pay for uh basically sharon uh at the fire department manages that that and the firefighters the firefighters when you are in the rescue wagon will fill out reports those go to sharon they go to a medical billing company and then um you know, we process those payments as they come in. Mark and the finance office will review the revenue stream annually and adjust the rates to reflect changes in what communities are reimbursed for for the different kind of runs, whether it's a basic run, an advanced run, advanced run with special, whether you were, you know, an intubation or other kind of specialty drugs that might be administered. But I think to the best of my knowledge, I think we might be the only community in the State that restricts those dollars so that when equipment has to be replaced, it's not on the tax rate. It's paid for by the fees that are generated from the work that's done.

That was my point of having you explain that, because that's important. A lot of those fees cover the capital costs, and that was by design. You know, when Sean came to us, and I don't know, it was probably 15 years ago. I forget what council it was. But when he said to us, hey, look, they're paying those fees anyway, and we're not receiving the benefit. I don't know if it was the insurance company was at the time. Hey, and we made sure that the residents, if they did get a bill and they were transported, it said, this is not a bill. so that they weren't you know some of those bills were seven eight hundred bucks back then never mind what they are now so that money goes into that special revenue fund for capital uh replacement of vehicles to help offset those costs which is which is important so um So look, at the end of the day, we've made the council and the town has made significant investments in our fire department. It starts with our team, your team, which is critical. You're going to have the manpower. You came a few years back and said, we need this to be able to use as much mutual aid and our response time to our residents and even non-residents could be much better. And it is. You can't do it without great people and a great team led by you. So we thank you for that. But also you have to have the equipment to be able to do the job. You can have the best team in the world, which I think you do. However, you also have to have best equipment. My first two years on the council in 1998, I didn't know anything. I thought I did. Going through budgets and there was a lineup. I'll never forget this. This is the truth. It was $15,000 for training for firefighters. and i was bitching up and down about why we needed that and i was against it and so uh the rest of the council basically told me to shut up and it was approved which which i seen that afterwards why mr tatty who lived on the corner of east west main road and colony drive where the cases live now he had um he used to come and complain all the time And he was up at where you're standing one day. And I sat right where Charlie sits on the end seat, my first two years, 98 to 2000. And Mr. Taddy's going up and down and whatever he was talking about the time. And I was going through my papers, trying to keep up with them. And I was going like this. I heard a thump. Mr. Taddy hit the ground. It was turned in purple. That fire department was here because of that training and that line item budget he received. They saved his life. at that point in time i realized you never mess around with fire and police or or protective services um or emergency services so i think to your point you know you're looking at a lot of money spent tonight on digitized systems and equipment or whatever you have to have those i learned that lesson uh taught myself the hard way from what I experienced, but I'll tell you what, it saved a life. That particular train, that 15,000, nevermind these systems today, it's a lot more expensive, but I figured I'd just share that story because it's important when you learn lessons and those things stick in the back of your mind down the road, that when you see something come up, if it's reasonable, it makes sense, that's what you do because you're protecting 17,000 people nevermind the non-residents and the visitors that we have. So that's important. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thank you for what you do. Sorry for the long discussion, but let's move on the resolution. So we have a motion and a second to approve said resolution. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Good luck with that. thank you and all all the firefighters thank you so thank you well we thank them let's move to i believe we're on 48 and look that takes a little bit of time those discussions but they're worthwhile explaining them you know so having said that number 48 is the memorandum of the finance director through the town administrator in reference to the munis human resources implementation change order request motion to receive said memorandum motion is second to receive all in favor aye let's move to the resolution we'll have discussion number 49 resolution of the council in reference to the town has successfully implemented the general ledger phase of munis implementation and has commenced the implementation of the human resources and payroll modules The payroll module self employee self service portals are now scheduled to go live on January 1 2027 it has been determined. I lost my, that an additional 25 consulting days are required to finalize the payroll and employee portal configuration for both the town and the school department. Funding for this change order will be funded from the private, public, private venture special revenue fund, or what we refer to the PPV fund, and the finance director is authorized hereby to execute said change order on behalf of the town.

Motion to pass that resolution. Second.

Okay. Mark, if you could explain what's going on here.

The HR implementation has been taking a little longer than expected, I believe the original timeline and the time budget was incorrect. We were dealing with town in school we implementing for over 600 employees, we have. Five unions with the town we have non classifieds. We have individual contracts, the school has three unions, many individual contracts for clerks in admin. We've been doing two to three days. Every other week, and each day is eight hours, we haven't lost a step where for the town side we're doing running parallel payrolls right now. We're still correcting items. The school will be doing parallel payrolls in August. So they're very close to running these, but it takes time. We've been doing pay parallels on the town side for three months.

What does parallels mean?

System that you process payroll with you do your normal payroll. Cause that's where it goes. You take that information and you put it into the new system. And you see if that's processing it the same way. Then you fix the items that need to be corrected so parallels are very important that helps you know if the system is being set up correctly. It's very important that we set it up correctly and not rush the implementation. We were debating whether or not to try to go live earlier, but I consulted with Newport, who implemented this system as well, and they highly said, you do it at the beginning of the year. It just makes everything easier. You don't have to get all the information that you process payroll during the calendar year. into the new system. All the rounding that needs to take place they spent a lot of time correcting importing of payroll current payroll information. But this, I believe the original budget did not give us enough hours it's a lot of work. So I do request that you approve this change your order. And, as you said, it is funded for would be funded from the private of adventure special revenue fund like the entire project was okay.

Any counsels have any questions. So when would this from a timeline marks and maybe I missed it. From a timeline. When would this be the addition, what would the additional 25 days get you and when would it be implemented.

So we are going to implement January 1 so that includes additional that is okay, that is correct okay so it's about three two to three days every other week, so it does get us to the implementation and how does this improve the payroll system. well right now um we use that's what's important no it's very important and i'm glad you brought that up um there's a lot of improvements that are going to happen right now when someone requests time off it's done by paper at least for town hall employees the fire department has their own system police have their own system and the school has their own system Police, fire, and school will still be using their systems. We'll be taking that information and importing it into this system to help process payroll. On the town side, people will be able to request the time off within the system. People will be able to see what their leave balances are where right now they they can't see it when we process payroll on their check stub. we're going to actually show them what the total cost is for that employee right now they don't know. What the town pays for the health insurance what the town pays for any other benefits that the pension benefits that they get so it's really going to be very transparent and really show the employees what they really are worth.

So it's kind of like at my job, we have a system called Workday. And, you know, you can pull your, you know, you log in and, you know, you go through 18 modules of security and then you get to your profile where you can see what you... What your current benefits are, what your contribution is, what the company's contribution is, you know, with this current pay period for the year to date, all the information's right there. All benefits stuff, you want to change it, you can go in and change it.

Yep, self-serving.

You know, if you say you want to up your 401k contribution, I don't know, we do, maybe private companies do a little bit different than municipalities, but they have that ability to do that. Hey, I want to take it from 4% to 5%. You know, I just got an increase or something changed in your life where you're able to do that, that kind of stuff. Obviously, healthy things only typically done during open enrollment unless there's a change of life.

Health insurance.

Yeah, right, right, right. Event, change of life event.

Yeah, yep.

the just a couple other items so the one of the big things is the town and school will be on the same system so generating reports and data related to town and school employees can be done a thousand times easier the other thing is from a budgeting standpoint the town we use external sheets to budget payroll but we'll be able to do that through the payroll system we'll basically be able to build budgets do one-off analysis without having to use a spreadsheet or some other separate database so that will be probably one of the biggest time savers for mark and the finance office is being able to to generate those those payroll estimates uh from munis within this module uh compared to what we've done for the past 27 years so okay awesome okay mark thank you is there any further discussion

Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? And before we adjourn, Kim, the word I was trying to get out to you earlier was generational. Generational decisions. And I kept coming up with generalization.

I don't know why, but that's where my mind was. Tom? Motion adjourned.

I have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Have a good night, everyone.