Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Is it It's four o'clock. Yes.

Hey, so we're calling the meeting to order at 4. Um, welcome. No introductions necessary. Next up is to review and approve the minutes of the January quarterly meeting. Um I made a few um edits that I didn't catch and so this is the most updated. They're tiny things but it's fixed. Yeah. Y thank you so much J for stepping up as well move to approve as edited. I'll second that.

Yeah. And for the just for the record for anyone watching the Zoom later, um when Jen sent the draft minutes, um we noticed just a couple we needed to clarify like people's last names and correct spelling of names and correct spelling of the um the group that joined us last time. I made all those changes and um and a clarification about an action step and under number two. So, um, does anyone need a minute to just look over the minutes? And what were the what were the changes because I read what was there? Yeah, small stuff. Um, somebody's last name.

We made it. So, um, an action step was the Harbor Committee was going to follow up with Alex instead of us as a committee. Um, I I didn't note you as co-chair and that changed. I think I did everything you mentioned. That is that's great. So, I have a question on guests. Do we um do we itemize them just if they're here or on Zoom or only if they speak or Yeah, I wasn't sure about that. Oh, what a good question. That is a good question. Like like we can't, you know, if there's if there's like a massive list of participants list everybody, but they did they did speak. Yeah. Um

I didn't know who the third person was and so I just said Harbor Committee, I think. Right. Do you know the f the third person was Jim Black. Jim Black. Okay. Yeah. And and um he didn't speak though, right? It was the other two. Story and um Allan, he did not speak. That's a whole other story. Yes. But um they were not here. I'll mention this later. Representing the Harvard Committee. Oh, they weren't members. Okay, got it. Should I? That's why I asked what's the what's the correct way to represent attendance in our official minutes? Do we need to put the guess at all? I don't know.

Actually, that's true because we, you know, at the top present and it's members of the committee who are in attendance. Think of it as like a select board meeting where you have a bunch of people in the audience. You don't Okay, then I'll make that change. One of them was an invited guest who gave a presentation, but that could just go that could go in the body. So, we could say um and then maybe we don't need to name the actual people under where it says public comment, it just says harbor committee members express concerns. Okay. Yeah,

good catch. Um and then Yep. Then you already named Danny as our special guest in number four. Yeah. Great catch. That was good.

Any other questions?

Alex, that will that will chime, won't it? If somebody is trying to join. Yeah. Okay. Okay, it'll make a noise. That's great. I don't want anyone to be excluded. Oh, you'll definitely get a note. Okay, that's great. At this point, my brain is kind of trained to just keep an eye on glance there every once in a while. So, you know.

Okay. So, should we vote on the minutes with those leaks made? I think you made a motion second. Okay. So, who should I send the most updated version of this to? Um, actually Claire. Okay.

Um, or you can send it to me and Megan and Claire and the committee. Send it to Yeah. Great. And more great questions. Um we do have some membership updates. Um so first up is um Nikki has stepped down um and and wanted us to share her message. Um Missy uh Nikki oh Nikki Moer. Oh okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Dear committee members, it's with gratitude that I've had this opportunity and regret that I feel the weight of my ineffectiveness and that I tender my resignation from the economic development committee effective immediately. I've very much enjoyed meeting and working with all of you. I am more of a direct action kind of girl and I'm always happy to support a good plan. So, please count on my energy when and where it can be activated to support our community. Wishing you all the best, Nikki. Um, so that's Mickey's update. Jamie, you are stepping down at the end of your term. Is that right? Um, finally. When does your term end?

I don't know. I'm seeing this for It may never end. Yeah, I was looking I was looking on the town website and I know that I've been on it longer than it says I have. So, um, yeah, I don't know about that. Do you know when you started, Jen? I could look back in my calendar and try it out. Yeah. Okay. Because we could um we could put in a request to Claire to update update that.

Um and and I think your term officially is listed as ending at the same time as ours at the end of this June. If any but I would encourage all members to look at what the website says and if you because Jen felt like her is not correctly represented. if anyone has. No, I don't think they updated unless we told them. Yeah. And I think before like the the um do you remember with some of the original members there were different lengths of Yes. Um so that was like confusing trying to figure out who was Yes. Originally before we voted to change the structure of the committee there were staggered terms like some people had one year terms some people had

two-year terms some people had threeear terms. So, I could see how that would be confusion on the listing the committee members on the website. Yeah. Um Matt obviously is not not well. Um and then Megan and and I are stepping down at the end of our terms. Um, so this will be like the last meeting that we lead content for.

Um, yeah. So, I'll be here at the July meeting to like kick things off and vote on the new chairs and get the new structure set up or whatnot. But, um,

yeah, we haven't had anyone um we haven't had anyone step up. Um, Megan and I got together some notes to figure out how to how to best share this, but we were we were thinking to echo what happened last time, the transition would happen at the start of the meeting. So, whoever the new leader is, should be prepared to lead that meeting after being being voted in. Um, we have extensive background materials that we're happy to share with whoever is is interested. We would encourage anyone interested to reach out. we are not aggressively recruiting. Um, if there are are no takers, we're not entirely clear what happens. I think it's possible that there may not be a July meeting. I'll just be super blunt and say there's a chance this committee could go unpaused. I don't know what the official strategy is for that. I'm not advocating for that. I'm just saying I'm not quite sure what happens if there isn't if there isn't leadership.

Yeah. Did I cover everything that we that we talked about? Yeah. Yeah, that would be what occurs. It goes on pause until it can reestablish the quorum and reestablish enough for it. Um, so yeah, the word needs to get out there to try to to scrge up people. Um, okay. Got it.

Yeah. and we are I think speaking for myself um not to include you unless you agree with what I say but um I feel like I would be very happy to engage with someone who is interested. I feel like the committee has has a lot of potential um but needs the right mix of people with time and energy and and vision and it's probably it's probably time for another discussion about purpose and focus of the committee.

Um we it's always awkward when the outgoing leader tries to initiate that because then you know it's their vision and then they walk away. So, we want the incoming people to um sort of have that ownership and leadership and but we have a ton of ideas and background and context and a whole calendar of like here's what needs to be done at what month in the year and we're very very very happy to share that with someone but we're not out there like shaking the bushes to find to find people. That makes sense.

Yeah. And I mean just speaking for myself too, you know, I found it very helpful um talking to to Dan, the former chair about, you know, what's involved and um all of those things. He he had been with the committee from the beginning, so there was some sort of background around what's been done before, what's been tried, what where has the committee been before. Um all of that might be useful context for for someone coming in who maybe hasn't been involved from the beginning. Um, so you know, Carrie and I can do our best to relay that. Um, we'll sort of play that that role. Um, absolutely. Yeah.

So, you're not just stepping down as co-chairs, you're stepping off committee. Yeah. I just want to make sure I got that right. Yep. Oh, can I in here? I I was going to bring this up in other new topics because the C of the CDC of which we are also

um um and Nikki's uh letter u really spoke to it. I mean this committee um is easy to be on because it doesn't do anything and um and so she's u doesn't want to just go to Ford meeting. We have interesting discussions uh but we only meet four times a year so it's not a time drag. On the other hand um it encourages people who want to do something to go somewhere else. and um the the CDC which um Steve you may and I I happen to be on it uh but um only by chance and um and and Carrie is on it but is is off it. Um, that's down to about one person and and so I will I was I I I was I'm only on that because of the rink and the rink is essentially done and I was going to get off it but that would leave Nancy O and nobody else.

Uh, and also we've gotten Abby Welch at the bank to be a treasurer and she's really wants to do stuff. So I I would stay on that just so that they would have a membership. But I do think that and I guess this is a more general problem uh townwide with committees, but these two committees are here. We are we're we're lingering. We we really don't have um a mission. Uh I think there's lots of uh stuff that we could do. I mean, this announcement yesterday about the uh the historical society and the island housing trust doing a joint project for a a museum and then workforce housing in town. It's just the kind of thing that we could somehow sort of get involved with. But uh but we but we don't we we will meet again in July and

and and discuss things and um so um I love discussing things but I at my stage of life I agree with Nikki. I'd rather be doing something than than just talking about it. And and the problem with doing stuff is that nobody has the time. So that's the conundrum as I as I see it for the town um is that these committees um either are not very ownorous or um or not very effective. Mhm.

I I think that's when Carrie and I met to talk about, you know, what we wanted to talk about today. That was a big piece of it is we really I think we've um done better at times than others, but in figuring out what role does the EDC fit with the CDC and people come to the EDC with with funding or money that they want us to help with, but we have to funnel them to the CDC and it becomes this sort of cumbersome thing. And then that leaves us with, well, what's our role? Right. You know, it's sort of this frustrating sort of middle person. Um, right. Yeah. We've had some great ideas,

right? Yeah. Jamie, I think you you hit the nail on the head in terms of expressing sort of the paradox or the conundrum of um serving on a committee that has a light sort of meeting schedule which equates with less time to actually do things. And I would add to that that um this being a public you know committee of that is under the the select board you know it's part of the town

places restrictions on how we can do things you know we it's it's some of the what we've done over the last few years has been I feel like um akin to like you know friends of the skating rink or um booster um like generating energy and support and like how about a tech hub and how about this and we we toss around these ideas. But if we were actually going to have an active role in doing that, we would need to be meeting regularly with clearly defined goals and all of those meetings need to be properly publicly noticed and minutes need to be. And so it's not just that um people don't have like the time to volunteer, but I think it's inserting the kind of work that we've been drifting towards into the operating structure of a of a municipal government is is um and we totally appreciate, you know, transparency and democracy, but but it also is it slows things down. So I think that's another just

Yeah. paradox. Yeah. The really interesting piece for me and again this is of course a new manager getting their feet wet is I I'm seeing I'm also of course sitting in on the comprehensive plan meetings which are turnurning onward and what's interesting about those is each time they define a goal there's a piece of it that is okay who's going to be in charge of making this goal happen and they keep landing on economic development committee but they're not really sure how and So like they keep trying to funnel stuff there, but it's not defined well enough either there. And so really

we got a real puzzle that we we got to get the fe pieces moved around better here because there's going to be a comprehensive plan coming out in 6 months or so or whenever it comes out hopefully sooner that's going to list a whole bunch of objectives to be managed by this committee but not really good sense of how. And so this all needs to get pushed into. And to be honest, some of those objectives are pretty tough stuff like economic development. Figure figure out how to make housing affordable in the town of Mount Dark. Yeah. Y'all got that right. Um so yeah. So it's a conundrum. Um

and I don't have the answer to this one yet, but there's clearly something that needs fixing in here. Um, just as an aside on that, uh, housing is the one thing that we were not supposed to be doing as the economic and I probably misspeak when I just said that. It was just as a but but it always it always comes back to that. So that's all we talk about, you know, but that was not supposed to be our mission, but obviously it needs to be. But yeah, it's just the problem that dwarfs all others so much in this town that it's impossible to get away from that at this point. So yeah,

I also think we have we're in such a unique position compared to maybe other types of municipalities that have um a very clear economic development agenda. We want to attract this type of company. We want to we want to shape we want to reshape the town in these specific ways.

We don't I don't feel like we have that. We we we're in a preservation mindset here. So there's that dynamic. There's also um the presence of groups like the chamber and 365 and other groups that take on the neighborhood house. Like there are other there there are many many forces at work that I think the work overlaps with areas that this committee would um you know sort of naturally be be drawn to. But I was just thinking, you know, there there was a parking meeting the other night. Like that's probably something economic development folks should be thinking about or looking at, you know, for that. Yeah. Right. So, so but we don't, you know, there's not really a clear plan

for like, okay, someone from economic development needs to go to these other committee meetings and sort of be a liazison and be thinking at strategic level about how all of these forces are are interacting. Yeah. I I didn't quite mean to go into all of this in the membership, but it is related to membership because who who we want to recruit for this committee is tied to what are we going to be doing on the committee.

And I appreciate that background on the the comp plan piece. I I was talking to um uh Suzanne last week who's leading, you know, helping lead the comp and she was saying the same thing. She's like, "Oh, you're on the economic development committee. We're going to have stuff for you." And I was like, "What exactly?" Well, yeah. The problem there, of course, is and part of this is with the comprehensive plan, it's a set of goals. It's not supposed to be a do it this way. It's the goal is to and some of those goals, you know, they're going to be tough stuff. I And I think speaking to it within the town of Mount Dessert, I think the best way I could describe Town of Mount Dessert's attitude towards economic development is mixed emotions, right? Like, so that's always going to be a struggle. um we want to promote economic development as long as we don't become as successful as Bar Harbor.

Okay. Specifically, and what do we do with that? So, yes, um there there's there's a need for a paradigm shift here. We just got to figure out what it is. And it may be in the name in the name. Economic development sets off bad lives and a lot of people here uh who don't want to see a lot of growth. So we've often joked we're really we should be called the sustainability Yeah. committee, but that already exists. So community development committee. Yeah. Yeah. But um village improvement. none of that already exists.

Right. Exactly. Right. That's another on the list of groups that you know whose perview sort of overlaps with with ours. And I think um you know we've been having Kathy and we'll get to her brief update on the comp plan in a little bit on the agenda. But you know to your point about not having clear goals or like a vision. What's really cool the timing of the comp plan is really good because that can help inform you know the town's vision for itself and what

that's interesting. Maybe the maybe the mission of the committee going forward is deeply informed by what is decided in the comp plan and then then members are recruited and maybe the meeting structure needs to be changed. Maybe yeah barriers need to be cleared so that people who

defines the mission. Do does the committee define it or does the town do the select define it? When Carrie and I joined, we had a visioning exercise where we wrote out like as a committee, we wrote out our sort of vision statement for the committee, but I'm not sure if that is formal or if that was just for ourselves to help guide us. Do you remember? I think we we voted to formally adopt it, but I don't think it appears anywhere in our like foundational document. It it probably just appears in some minutes somewhere.

Yeah. Um, yep. Yeah. But but probably I mean when a committee is born, you know, through the select board process, that's probably when our mission got got written. And I'm not sure if it would have been written by the founding members of the committee or by members of the select board. Yeah. I mean, the intent of any of these is to be sort of an arm of the select board. Um the tricky part though of course because any select board is also volunteers as well. So they've only got so many hours to really define that as well. Um which is where it lands on staff and that's what we've got to get tuned up here. Um

to get this and a number of the other communities sort of dialed in a little better. Some community committees it's easier than others. Warrant committee is say for example very straightforward what they're supposed to be doing. Um, but it gets it gets tougher with ones like this one. Yep. Yeah. So, all of that is a lot of information that informs thinking about membership. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I Yeah. Whenever we try and define what we do, we just come back on ourselves. And and now it turns out that we're really an arm of the town who should be telling us what it is that they need us to be.

Yes. And again, this is the new guy coming in and maybe saying it differently than in the past, but that's my take on it. um kind of a weight off a little bit of we have we have spent that's all we do here many a meeting discussing who we are what we do and you know what our goals are um and so it's um you know sometimes having the voice from above come in and say no here's here's useful this committee could be helpful in this way. Yeah. Yeah. And this has been a thought on my mind already but you yall have codified it for me. Uh comprehensive plan select board needs to get the marching orders straight then we go on from there. Yep. Great.

Well, this was very productive. Yeah. Great. Okay. Well, there is really no queer person who would take over right now. It was important. There's that, too. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say maybe that's okay until the um until the scope of work is more clearly defined. I mean, but I don't I don't know if it's a chicken and egg situation like like do we need to know that there's someone in the town who's capable of doing those things before those things get codified as um the scope of work? I would say we're it's going to work end up working the other way because if depending on what it is that we're meant asked to do, do we have the right people to do it and who is the right person to lead weed that

ideally that's yes. So I it's to me it sounds like this, you know, you know, I hate to keep putting it everything on this, you know, the comprehensive plan, but kind of where we are. Yeah, it sounds like I don't know. Go on pause until that plan comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we know that now, but we didn't know they were getting stuff for us to do. Yeah. Well, and again, this is literally from a meeting I was in a week ago. It sort of hit on me.

Boy, this keeps landing on. And again, this, you know, especially for these committees like this where they're meeting less frequently, I'm kind of a little further behind, right? For the stuff that I'm dealing with on a day in and day out basis, it's, hey, it's been 6 months, I got it. But for this one, I've only, I think, attended one other of these because I only was able to make the second half of very eventful meeting for you folks last time. Um, so yes. Wait, was that Yes. Okay. You weren't here yet on the Yeah, that was a couple meetings ago. Okay, great. Yeah, super productive.

So, dare I ask where we are on this? Am I hearing pause? Um,

I'd say pause because there is no way the we we're setting up a schedule right now for comprehensive plan to try to get across the finish line that goes a lot of meetings spring into summer. Um, but into summer being the operative term to get this finalized, but then summer will hit. Um, and it won't really be until fall that this thing starts to become a finished product to be start getting reviewed in public and then going through those. It's just it's a very slow process building a comprehensive plan because everything that you might think you can go through pretty quickly. you know, that one sentence takes a half hour to get that one sentence, every word of it exactly correct because you get kind of hit by the weight of like, oh, this is the governing principle. Um, and yeah, it's going in a very predictable direction, which is all things housing. Um, which has moved from, you know, 10 years ago it was number one and now it's numbers one through five. So, um,

there's no number two. There is no number two. it really it because everything comes back to it like it's impossible these days for any discussion to not come back to that. So um yeah so to me I think perhaps a p pause for the July meeting is almost certainly going to occur. Yeah, that's helpful. Yeah, that is helpful. And I don't know if that I don't even know if that's something that the committee itself would decide based on the conversation that we just like vote on or how about I make a recommendation to the select board for that. That'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. That would be really helpful. Do how do people feel about

Oh yeah, we just like please do that. Yeah, this is I mean as probably I guess I am the newest one here at this point. Yeah. I mean, I'm still sort of feeling like I was trying to figure out what what we do anyway. We all are. So, so which is why, you know, we had the I mean, I'd never heard the com the comment just made it about that we're we're supposed to stay away from housing. So, nor had I. That's at first I'd heard of that.

Um, but I I think again it's it's going to come down to what is the skill set they're going to need to produce what it is we're supposed to produce. And do I have that skill set? Um, so if I don't, I think I'm just going to put up my hand and say this, you got the wrong guy. But if I got if if I got the skill set or can develop the skill set, I'm happy to continue to do it. But you probably will to be honest.

We don't know. We don't know. Um, so, uh, yeah, I just that's that's that's it's always it's always best to know, you know, as we used to say in in when I I used to live in California, we'd always say, you know, it's it's it's one thing to say I'm going east, but what you pack is going to vary differently if you're going to Maine versus if you're going to Florida. So, so, so that that was that was always sort of our our, you know, sort of frame of reference. And, and that's just it. Are we going, you know, are we if we're sitting if we were sitting in San Francisco now, are we going to Maine, we going to Florida? And um great analogy. I think a lot of people have joined this committee because we're going east, right? Like we're of course we're on board with going. Yeah. But like what does that actually mean?

Any snowshoes or sunscreen? I mean um so yeah, these are these are I mean I think it's good to get that without you know before we spend spend a lot of cycles trying to trying to anticipate what it might be. Yeah. Um, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how much how how welldeveloped if this thing is developed enough to even get a sense of what we might see six months from now. I don't know if it's that I I don't know what state of gestation the the thing is in, but I mean, a good example is we spent the entire meeting and it was about two hours just talking through the goals for housing period without getting to the other stuff, but economic development landed on a few of those

and you can just kind of see it like it it'll keep coming back to that again. Um, uh, it'll be all about trying to, um, encourage a year- round workforce one way or the other and year- round business, which comes back to housing. Um, and to be honest with the comp plan, I'm going to try to push pretty hard for the comp plan to be all about that. Um, so really make that the front and center and not spend too much time elsewhere. But but how does the town government envision supporting housing?

Um that comes down to planning board, comes down to codes, comes down to possible incentives for it. It comes down, you know, a whole bunch of little things. Yeah. Okay. But it's just a bunch of little things because at the end of the day, the town has to maintain obviously some neutrality there. Um but there are a lot of things. um and making those become the front and center. And it is a shift. This is a town that, you know, for all of us from the 80s remember, this was a town that was aggressively working to try to limit population inflow as opposed to um the other way around. And so there's a pretty good job

perhaps a little too. Yeah. Well, I mean again that that's where the large lot sizes come in. that's where a lot of this and so making all those changes to recognize things have changed pretty drastically since then. Uh so you know like that's where we are is in the middle of that shift. Yeah. I think the question you just asked Steve is I often come back to that in terms of this committee like what is town government's role? Yeah. In thinking about economic development. Is it is it parking policies? Is it also zoning and the you know the the different ways that the town creates the environment in which commerce and business and growth and whatever in what however we define that

happening there and it obviously makes a huge difference if the town's saying you know we we're trying to grow the year- round population versus we're trying to whatever you know do something else. Um and and that's you know makes a huge difference and and that is something that's a direction seems to me the town should set. Um and so that that all makes sense and then you can people can sort of fall in line after that. So one of the thrusts of that ace was to explode the summer population which ended up buying up the houses that the winter population lived in. So caused their own problem

and then limiting therefore the winter population. None of it probably intentional but so I don't know if the if the planners are taking that kind of uh Whoops. Uh that kind of happened in 2020 as well. Overshot the mark. Yeah. Yeah. It very much.

So could I make a motion then that we um I'll just put the motion. You can u that we recommend to the select board that this committee go on pause until such time as the comprehensive plan is in a position to make clear what the need for this committee is if

I guess so I I don't know if that is again I don't know if that's in our purview to I mean I guess we can make a recommendation which is what you're proposing. Um, I'd also like to note that we, you know, we just barely have a quorum here. You know, there may be people who would like to weigh in on this this conversation who couldn't couldn't be here today. Um, just wanting to acknowledge there may be other voices, you know, who would like to weigh in. Well, certainly, I mean, as you say, we don't we don't we don't have to to vote on that motion today. We can leave that open and in the notes. Yeah. Yeah. and bring in people that that I mean we could have we could have a a quick zoom call and

I guess right and I guess it's pretty fundamental before we pause it I guess I'd want to understand the process for reviving it so that so that people you know or before we vote to make that recommend what would it take to revive it clear instructions put to sleep what's the alarm clock yeah and more I'm thinking about it does it even nearly need to go to sleep does it just say we're skipping the July like we won't be having the July meeting in October. I don't know the answers to this too much because I don't know exactly the formal structure of this one. I hadn't really thought about this and McKay question.

It might be probably it's actually for Dan. He thought I was done asking him questions. Okay, so the motion has been made but not seconded. Um, seconded. Okay, so now it's been seconded. So now we're having probably should have done first, but uh Okay. Yes. Um, and then there could be a mo a motion to or a vote to table that motion. So the motion will be in the minutes. Correct. Perfect. and that will go to all the members. Perfect. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's the way to do it is just to explain it but it's in the

so now it's out there is this is a very active discussion topic. Um what I do just something I do on a weekly basis is I sort of shoot off the events of the week to the select board. So I'll put this right in there as fascinating discussion with economic development committee about what comes next and that it is I concur with them that we need to have some formal pause be it formal or informal um to wait for the comprehensive plan to be able to get some clearer direction back going here. Um, and I think that's very reasonable set of expectations on this part of this group's part. Like, let's let's channel our energy better until we get a point to where we know we're really

we should be going here. Um, but the real reason we're not meeting in July is because we don't have anyone to run the meeting, right? Correct. There's that reality. If it's the real reason, a reason. I mean, I feel just like Nikki does. I like to make things happen and I do feel like we just talk a lot. Yeah. And I love the town and I want to help and it's sometimes that can be frustrating. So to me the two things are interconnected. Yeah. Yeah. The lack of people in July is occurring because of the lack of clarity and not just in July, right? Yeah. So to help Jen out with minute,

sorry, this is the the So there was a motion in a second and then you you referenced a a motion to table that, Alex. Yeah. Something to I'm happy to t I'm happy to be the behind the Yeah. motion to table it in the spirit of wanting others who aren't here to give them a chance to to weigh in. Yeah. Um but now it's out there, so which is good. But now but now it's in the in the record. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I was just going to say if you do, you know, when you do discuss it with the select board, I would be very curious um about Martha's comments in particular because she's, you know, usually um it's almost

and she's the official liaison between the select board and the and the committee. Um so what and if Martha's upset with me, I will be able to from a practical standpoint, what would happen next? Would a notice go out saying I mean if there's no July meeting at what point do we invite the other people in to weigh in on the idea of pausing a committee? Yeah. I think would have to be some sort of a supplemental meeting to discuss we could have the July meeting. Yeah. Specifically be to discuss that topic. Yeah. Yeah. And then the fact that you know I mean you I will probably not I'm away that week.

Yeah. I'll be here. So, I could still come in and run the meeting and then we just don't, you know, we just say the next chair will be voted on. Yeah. I mean, I would go for me, I would go so far as to say as I would consider staying on the committee depending on what the outcome of all of this conversation is. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to be clear, I I suggested tableabling it only for the purpose of including more voices in that in that decision. I I love that you made I love that you made the motion in a This is This is This is pretty fundamental and Yes. want you want to get everybody's in Yeah. Yeah. This is not one you want to do in a in a meeting where you just barely have a quorum, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. So, are we clear? We have what we need for the Okay. Thank you all. This is really helpful. Well, thank you. This has been We're not done totally with the meeting, but we're done with Well, I got a lot of stuff, so Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. This is great. Um, so you how much stuff do you have, Alex, for us? Oh, I talked fast. Okay. Do you have anything under new business or uh if I do we do we want to talk about the the I'm I'm not at this moment. I'm just trying to I don't have other other than that. No. Okay. Okay. Do you have anything under

I had the CDC but I IC said it which is so connected that's and there's nobody on that committee. I made note of that. Do you have anything under new business? I was just going to mention um that I had tried to get one of those winter gatherings to happen at the neighborhood house. We'll go to that. That's we have that as an update. Yeah. Yeah. That's Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm just trying to quite sure where sense of like um how much time I had like you should never say hey people we might get out early um because then there's a lot to talk about all of a sudden and I know Jamie has to go at 5 so it's a good conversation. Yeah. Um okay so maybe we should just move to the agenda in in order.

Yeah. And the updates I think we can go pretty quickly for the ones that we have. Yeah. um for folks and we'll get to your Yeah. skating rink.

Well, just just the um I I'll leave it to Alex to discuss the um the logistics of of the construction and so forth. I'll just say that we we have raised the money. We uh have not finished the Rockefeller challenge which is for u residents and young people. And I think it's important to show a sign of commitment from them and buy in, but it's not an easy group to raise money from. Uh, but we still have about 10,000 to go there, but essentially that's done. And

with regard to last month's Times meeting, I've met with a couple of members of the Harvard committee with whom I have a very good relationship, and we smoothed all of that over. So, um they um were not here representing the Harbor Committee. Um they were here as members of the Harbor Committee representing themselves. Um make sure I got them in the last minute. Great.

From my side on this, bunch of things. Um uh I'll start with simply the catbird seat of sitting in the manager's office watching the ice rink all winter long. How cool was that? So

that was awesome. I mean, you're literally hearing kids laughing, you know, as you're doing meetings outside your It's pretty cool. Um the I sat in on the most recent um Harbor Committee meeting uh on other topics and I agree with we're fine that that's not going to continue. Um, with regard to the actual logistics of the construction, that's an area where we're struggling a little bit because we have really landed on exactly how important it is that this pore of the concrete get done perfectly. So, we're working very carefully with the vendors for how this gets done. We've established a plan if this bleeds into summer um for it not to impact parking at all, although it will impact the tennis courts. Um, but right now the tennis courts are in bad enough shape that it doesn't really matter. They're barely playable as is. So, um, that's an ongoing thing. Brian HKle and I, it's practically a daily discussion with us to figure out how we, um, get this across the finish line there. But, we're very much into that logistical end of things. So, that's my skating rank end of things. But, yeah, town office staff, boy, we love the skate rank. It's

it's daily entertainment. Um, are there any statistics of how many days it was used or anything you want to have in the minutes?

Yeah, I I I can It was interesting because I would say, and I'm not exact on this, I would say around January 10th to 15th, it went into operation very late and then every single day for the next two months, it had skating on it uninterrupted. maybe a few snows storms in there that interrupted it, but even then the snow would stop and you it would get cleared and you'd have people out there and it was just an unusual winter in that way in that a very late start but then a really long run of good skating um from there. So

I um when I was wrapping up my work as treasurer of the CDC, I think I had asked for Yeah. Yeah. I can get you Jen updated. That'd be great. And so I have them somewhere in my email from February, I think. Yeah. I just thought it might be nice to have if anybody knows to hear that it was being used every day. I didn't realize that there was that much was every I never went by there when there wasn't people on it. I can't necessarily speak to weekends, but I would imagine those did better than the weekdays. Yeah, weekends as well. It was It was I mean I don't go by there every day, but I go by there pretty often and there's always people on there. It was great.

I hope the people who worked so hard to raise that money feel really proud. Yeah. Um Yeah. Just ask town hall staff who looked out the windows. That's that's anyone ask questions. just and anyone who ever says that thing wasn't getting used, I just ask anyone in the town hall who had a direct view all winter long. So, yeah. So, great. Great. Um, do you want me to quickly go through Cathy's workforce housing stuff? Yeah.

Um, Kathy couldn't be here today, but she just sent along a few thoughts. Um, so Nolan Way work is continuing there both inside and outside. Um, and she said they expect to finalize the sales this spring, hopefully by June, which would be really exciting. And as for Heel Way, no further appeal. Um, so she's able to proceed, uh, with developing that project. Um, cost of construction continues to climb, uh, you know, with everything else going on in the world, anticipating that costs are going to continue to rise. Um, so she's trying to to do the best that she can to find ways to to move forward um and keep them affordable for median income households. Awesome.

Yep. Did she find somebody for the second the smaller house? She says finalize the sales. So I'm I'm assuming yes. I think so. That's it right from Kathy, but yeah. Yep. Um, do you want to do winter gatherings update time?

I was just going to say quickly, Nikki and I tried to um do another gathering this winter and it was a bit complicated with the donor. Um, so it ended up happening through the neighborhood house, which I think they maybe didn't really want to do it, but I I'm glad they did. Um, and I hope maybe next year we get this all organized sooner and maybe the money could go into the CDC. Um, so we could take that burden off the neighborhood house. This a lot to do. And it it's just a nice thing to do. And I think it was pretty well attended. It there wasn't a lot of publicity until right beforehand. And I didn't go cuz I had a brand new puppy that I'd had for one day.

Brand new. Yeah. That's why I haven't heard from you. There we go. Um, but I'm glad it happened. However, it happened. I know you put a lot of thought into that. I Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think that feeds into the um the conversation about clarifying processes between this committee and the CDC because the

I think and you know this committee's function was to sort of float the idea and drum up enthusiasm and organize a volunteer squad but then in terms of connecting the donor with a way for the money to flow through that's more of the CDC domain which is a different group of people and I I did not do a good job of communicating with Jen in advance about um how that all worked. So part of that's on me too, but also the family had some requirements of how they needed to pay for it. That's that's true. Yeah. It probably wasn't going to happen, right? Yeah. And the CDC has no regular meetings. That's Yeah. Zero. Yeah. Which is so

So business could be conducted kind of by email if you needed to. Okay. Yeah. But I do think that the board would need to decide, make a formal vote that that they would be willing to receive that money and and pass it on to the neighborhood house. Thank you. Um visitor info on the town website. Oh, George um is going to talk to you about that and Okay, that was her update.

Got it. Um I I heard about this one. It looks to me like there's a section of the town website that used to have more links on it. It I think when the website got updated, it got propped somehow. So, we'll put it back up there. Um, it'll be very similar. A lot of other towns have something to that effect in there. We'll get that added back on. So, that's that's done. I'm not sure how I got wind of it, but I definitely did. So, good. Okay. Hot plan. We already talked about that.

So many meetings coming up. Um, I had put on the agenda town meeting 2026 thinking that Martha was going to be here because usually she says something like, "Hey, this this is a thing coming up at town meeting that would be of interest to the economic development committee." And I asked for that and didn't hear any particular suggestions from that. Does anyone know if there's any items at town meeting?

Um, I I think I'd probably say not too much the subdivision ordinance. um rewrite is in there, but it's not earthshattering. Um it's not No, there's not necessarily anything massive that's a change in there um that's popping into my head immediately other than please come, we need quorum. Please come, we need quum. The date uh May 5th. That's at the neighborhood house again. Yes, it's at the neighborhood house. I can't find any information on the town website about the date and location of the actual town. I'll get that corrected. Yeah. Okay. What time? Cinco.

Yeah. May 5th, 6 p.m. 6 p.m. Great. Yeah. Um, that's not being broadcast from the heavens right now. It needs to start peeing. So, yes. Um, it's it it's not going to have a tunnel on there by design. It's it's it's a new manager. new manager does not want to make the mistake of doing anything crazy and new in the first year. The really big mistake that a lot of new managers make I can write Alex plans to tiptoe. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect.

That is your friend in the most strategic effective way possible is literally the advice that from the cat bird seat at the county down and and we were a lot more involved with municipalities and so a lot of new managers would come on board and the county manager and I would try to help them along because both he and I came from uh towns as well and the advice we would always give is don't do anything crazy year one and they They go out there and they do something crazy year one and then a year later they're not the town manager anymore. Um it happened over and over and over again and yes trying not to do that. Hey we're into are we into new business? Yep.

Or continuing with new business. Feel like we covered a lot of that at the beginning. I just have a couple of things I'd love to add on if we Yes, please.

Um and these are more just updates to have pass on your ways. Yes, parking. I think you sat in on that one. Um, all winter long we've been hearing a lot of uh concerns, complaints about parking one way or the other from residents. So, uh, we formally kicked off sort of a listening session earlier this week. Um, the outset of it will be some form of a, um, temporary parking committee to try to codify some new recommendations. Um, I do think this is a really critical thing truly for economic development though because it is extremely important that we do not shoot ourselves in the foot as we go down this path and make ourselves a town that makes it difficult for people to visit. Um, and so that feedback and I've already heard from a few businesses along the way talking through this. So it will become a a key thing. major changes going into the summer will not occur. There's a few key areas of enforcement while we'll step up. Primarily cars blocking sidewalks. That's just going to become a it's a great way to get yourself in a lot of trouble moving forward this summer because that just creates unsafe um conditions for pedestrians. But in terms of the bigger ticket stuff, um resident parking, non-resident parking, that's the kind of stuff that this committee really needs to start tackling cuz it's it's time. this town's overdue to get serious about this kind of stuff. Um, and it it is that that back and forth where I I will quite literally hear we need to step up enforcement as long as we don't become Bar Harbor.

Those are two kind of the same things, but um so that's that's the discussion that's going to come up is is that piece of it. If anyone is interested in being on that group, please by all means let me know. Um, uh, the other thing I just wanted to mention, you all may have noticed this, and this from a more from a Northeast Harbor perspective, uh, Grey Cow, what we call a Greycow parking lot is all torn up. Um, it'll be in this very messy state for the next week or two. Then the first coat will go on. Um, it won't be finished until June, and you'll hear people saying that, but what that really means is the top coat in line won't occur until June. Um, so just if anyone asks about that, that's what's going on there. I wanted to get that out. Um, it'll be much nicer when done. I

was to say it's well overdue. I've heard some complaints already about Oh, yeah. my tax dollars support. Oh, yes. People saying that shouldn't have been done. So, yes. With all the roads we have around here, they choose to do this. Yes. Yes. I've heard that as well, which sort of blows me away, but okay. Some of the holes in that thing would swallow a car pretty quick. They had to do that, I think. But anyway, I'll join the parking committee as a main street business if you want me to. Lovely. You're right at the head of the street. So, it's really I have some thoughts things to say about it very quietly and sweetly, but

Well, no, because that's that's an interesting spot where it's it's where Harborside Harbor Drive turns into main if I'm being honest about how people handle the sidewalks right in front of my store. Must talk about Yeah. Alex, do you think business is well represented on that committee? like well it barely it's better represented as of 5 minutes ago or 30 seconds ago. Um this is all brand new. This truly there was a listening session.

I truly didn't know how many people were going to show up, how much people were going to talk about it which is why we put it out there. Um clearly it as I suspected is a topic that a lot of people are very interested in pursuing and getting more formal about this. It really comes down to we have the ability to change up how we enforce this at the drop of a hat. We simply tell a police chief to do so, but we want to do so in a manner where we're not turning around and to then telling him a week later, "Okay, forget about that."

And to be honest, that's occurred in the past. So, we don't want to give Dave any more whiplash on this. If we're going to start really formalizing these enforcement, um, let's make sure we do it right. Um, that's great. And there's some technology that we can add into this. There's some pretty interesting things that you can do on this front that weren't possible in the past. Um, so yeah, I just love that you volunteered as someone who's like deep, you're a deep stakeholder in that conversation and it it's great to know that the main street business will be part of that discussion from the economic development.

Yeah, I'm happy to do it. I got a family member I'm going to force into this too. So tip. No, that won't be a tip to tell. Um I know you have something to offer. Maybe that's irrelevant now. Some like general thoughts on like possible business for future meetings, but I feel like at this point we can just Yeah. table that. Um, I know I don't know if you wanted to mention your project. Do we How's our time? Um, we we have the room till almost 5:30, but I know Jamie has to leave a quorum. I don't know what time it is. It's 4:58.

Okay. I'll stay for you know.

So, so I had had brought up not sort of knowing where to go with something like this. So, I'm in in addition to this committee, I'm also on the board of the Norththeast Harbor Sandling School who has a housing problem like everybody else. Um, and that we and I have been on the committee from that group that has been trying to solve that problem. We were trying to get a bid in on the Jordan house before we got sniped. Um, and uh, somebody else bought it. Um, we were we were days away from getting our act together and and uh, that didn't we we missed out on that. But through a all sort through a very ciruitous route we it it came to our attention that the Masonicol would potentially in the right set of circumstances be available for us to buy. Um and so we started down this path of of of due diligence and um trying to figure out, you know, how good a shape is it in, you know, what might have to happen to make it legal to to to change the change it to, you know, residential, like you know, we were talking about putting apartments on the second and third floor basically. And um it got it's starting to get very complicated for a bunch of reasons that are sort of silly in my mind, but they're but they're real. I mean I but for example the fact that the post office is a tenant meant that we would be getting certain amount of revenue in a year. Well as our business is we are not in the business of providing housing. There's a limit to how much of that kind of revenue we could take and that probably would be over it. So that meant that we probably couldn't own it as Northeast Harbor Sandwich School. We might be able to own it as the Northeast Harbor fleet. Um so we started down we we started looking at down then then the problem became an internal problem the sample school has all the money. So how do we get the money out of that and over the fleet and that became a whole other issue but but uh right now it has been so so the question is can we mechanically own this um and do and do

this work um without without running a foul of some sort of tax situation. So that then it became okay what other are there other mechanisms around um we've had brief conversations with uh Island Housing Trust um and Jim Green who's now the I guess the board chairman of that has said you know hey you know that's not traditionally that's not the kind of thing we would have done because we're into building houses to sell to people um but we maybe need to look at look a little broader and so they are open to the suggestion um this has all happened and probably since you and I talked honestly Um, so that's that's a that's a very promising thing. I was wondering, again, not really understanding exactly what the CDC is and what it did, what is there anything the C CDC could do to help us, you know, bridge bridge that gap. Um, or do we need to create a net new uh, you know, 501c3 to and then have people take either take partnerships of it or or whatever. I mean, I don't I don't know the exact formula. Um, and then I guess I guess Kim Swan, who owns the building, got a little spooked by all the activity and asked us to back asked us to sort of stand down a little bit. So, which we have done. Um, meaning meaning we're not going to be piling in and out of the building all the time because we were in the building a bunch like there was a week there where we were in and out of building like every day. I mean, I had I took my I set my drone up because I want to see the roof and uh so I was like and actually I found a broken window up there which I told her about. Um but but anyway, it was so but she got a little spooked by the whole thing and and um asked us to to stand down in terms of going into the building. I said that's fine, but we're going to keep doing our due diligence. Um and which we which we still are because we still don't know we don't even know if it's a good idea at this point because we don't know how much we don't know what we're signing up for by by taking it on. Um, so I had brought that I I brought that to um to to Carrie and and um we were we were talking about it and so I didn't know if

there was a way that this group could help um or not. Just being a new guy, I'm just sort of play the new guy card and say is there is there any anybody, you know, any way we can that that that this organization can be of help to us because the idea is we would we would put there was enough room up there that we would put probably well more capacity than we would ever use. So what would be what would we do with the residual capacity? Well, the idea was since we're again we're a non you know nonprofit and trying to do something have it as essentially I don't want I don't like using the term it's got a pjorative tone to it but below market rate rental housing um for people that have you know businesses in the area and want to be able to hire people but have to be able to provide them housing. Um we've got actually this summer our guys are going to be at the um uh over the salt the old salt market um the with that the COA owns. We've talked to we talked to the COA and they have two they have two apartments there each one of which has five bedrooms and then a common kitchen and and I I haven't actually seen it. I'm going to see it on Friday. That's Yeah, I've heard they're nice and I want but I want to see how they're laid out because that we may want to do that do something like that up there assuming we get that far. Um so so uh and and their their you know their rent is very very reasonable. Um so so okay you know that's that gives us a model to perhaps try to try to duplicate and expand because obviously there's more capacity needed than that can provide. Um although apparently well that's a whole other conversation. They're they're um yeah that's a whole that's a different conversation. We we've had a lot of conversations with them as well. So, so um because what we don't want to do really u for a bunch of reasons is like there's the house on the that on Pine Street that just came on the market that basically needs to get knocked down. Well, there's a couple up there that basically need to get knocked down and and but we don't want to go in there and

take a take a a house away from the marketplace of people that you know that you know it's a house that that that a family should own as opposed to us who going to use it you know two three months a year. Um, so versus versus this if we if we structure it for sort of more transient situations, um, that would be, you know, that's that's serving a different need. Um, and it's really, you know, nobody's going to buy that to have their be their family house, right? Um, so it's really sort of I wouldn't say it's the only thing it's good for, but it's it's better for what we want to do with it than it would be for a family that would want to that would want to, you know, be there have their their, you know, um, a house that they own 12 months a year because there's odd issues, you know, there's no parking with the building and there's, you know, so there's there's issues beyond. Um, but but, uh, it's a it's it's it's interesting. Um, the other problem, the other problem that got us down the wrong foot is got us off on the wrong foot is that is that the the information came to us via um Erica Mitchell, who's friends at Kim's. I guess they went to high school together.

They worked together.

They worked together. Okay. I guess that's right. I guess that's right. Um, but I think they also went to school together years ago. But then at any rate and so she tossed it she Kim tossed out a number which which Erica provided to us which was basically an as is where is number like if somebody wanted to just come up and stroke a check and be done you know no brokers you know basically private transaction this is what the number would be now now she's given us that number and she's now she's sort of backing off and saying well if we're going to do this we really need to put on the market and go this and so the obviously the price is going to go up. So again, that that all affects whether whether or not it's realistic or not, but but it's a it's it's a really interesting space. There's a lot you could do with it with and and the the exterior walls are all very very solid and the spans the interior spans are not that big. So you really wouldn't have to do a lot of engineering to if you want to put apartments in there, you can put apartments in there with walls that are not bearing. So it's the you know, you could throw up walls in there very quickly. A lot of a lot of the issues that you normally run into with construction, you just wouldn't run into. Um, so it it is interesting from that standpoint. It's big. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been up there. It's big. Um, and there is some wacky stuff up there, but that's another story.

Um, it almost sounds like you're So, you're wearing not wearing your committee hat, but wearing your hat from the school. School. You're an employer. You know, you employ Yes. seasonal staff. You can't hire them if you don't have a place to put them. Absolutely. And you and several others are trying to come up with this creative solution, right? And the dimensions that I see that I think are relevant here are like okay what is the what is the potential municipal role in this like what are what are the levers that can be pulled to help even if it's not this building but to help the situation broadly what is the potential role for the community development corporation. Yes. Yeah.

And and then um you had a third one in there too. Um but there's a lot of different dimensions. This is I think this is an illustration of um you know an issue that that that the town faces that that a lot of different solutions could could be could I guess I guess the third dimension is like what you're trying to do is not just solve the a problem for your organization but you're thinking about it in terms of would this be a public good that would provide workforce housing for multiple organizations

because that's that's way bigger than we need. So what do we do with the rest of it? Well, the the incremental cost of adding that extra capacity to have people live there is not very big. And so we might as well buy we might as well we might as well build it for what the space will accommodate. and whatever's left over, you know, provide, you know, provide as as as you know, again, not to, you know, I hate saying below market rate because from my c from my from my California days, that had really negative conse, you know, connotations. Attainable is a word that gets thrown out.

Attainable. There you go. I like it. Um, but yeah. So, so and and and I know that, you know, my my my my wife and Tim Murphy have been conspiring on trying to figure out how we can keep a restaurant open in this town next winter. Um, and that's one of the things that they got to have. They got to have a place to live. Um, so the um the dates that the sailing school employees would be in there. Um, the the lease we're signing with COA goes from, I think, June 8th till August 31st. It's kind of perfect. Um, if you have empty apartments down the road for COA students and visiting professors, I would think that Well, that's why that's why they built the things over here. And

I know I'm just thinking like there's even more need if you've got those extra places. There's always people looking for that those that's that's my thinking. Yeah. Um, and and you know, parking the building doesn't have parking, but parking in the winter is not that big of a deal here. So, that's that's a more of a summer problem. Um, so I'm not super worried about that in the winter, but we do have we would have to come up with a solution for that in the summer. Although if they're working at the fleet, you know, get on your bike, you know, don't, you know, leave your car down there. Um, so, so, uh, anyway, it just, so I sort of brought it up as like, hey, there's, you know, in my mind, there's got to be a formula that works somehow, but I don't know. I haven't, you know, it's a Rubik's cube at this point. I'm still got the colors all mixed up.

So, three of us here had a conversation a couple of months ago about the CDC. Um, somebody came to us about setting up a revolving loan fund for just this kind of thing and it seemed like a great idea until we got into the nitty-gritty and then we had no money. Uh although there was money that would be available, the the uh the town was in a problematic position for this, we didn't have we the committee wasn't set up to do it, right?

Uh but there but there it was. So if if that's two times in two months, how often is that issue going to be coming up?

Right. Well, my I mean my assumption is that the CDC I mean it's not like CDC sitting on some big endowment, you know? It's like it raises money and then it disperses money. Yeah. So, so I Yeah, that's why I didn't I didn't necessarily think of it from that. So, the one thing the thing I thought about with the CDC is it would give us the opportunity to solicit from a greater audience. Um, and so because obviously, you know, the people, you know, speaking as a as a as a predominantly a summer person, um, you know, there's a whole lot of people been haven't had their hand out lately. um you know not just you know you know you got the fleet the tennis club you know pool and tennis club you got the golf club you've got the you got the MDI hospital you got um I mean it goes on and on the the camp beachcliffe um you know I mean it just it goes on and on that the the the needs are the needs are endless so um there's there's a feeling that going back to that trying to go back to that same well again might not be terribly wellreceived if we could go to a little bit broader audience um and and you know that might you know we might have a you the chance to do it. And and I don't think I mean we're probably talking about a million and a half to$2 million. We're not talking about $10 million here. So, um it's it's it seems attainable. Um but something like that, like a revolving like some sort of some sort of a credit thing where we could get some some bridge financing would probably be really helpful given the nature of the business of the way money flows in and out of the the the fleet. Um and and also there's a whole other there there's a bunch of other economic issues internal to the fleet that have to do with it that would so bridge financing would would be really helpful.

Um I did mention this. Yeah, I didn't name the organization but um to the new to the new treasurer. I think I CCD you Jamie is to introduce Abby to to say hey Abby as you're taking over as treasurer here are some potential things that might come to the CDC for some sort of funding role winter gatherings I I named so she's aware of that um I said what if an organization wants to do a real estate transaction that is about workforce housing and needs some sort of not exactly fiscal sponsor But, you know, some needs some sort of participation. And

so, it's this I'm not on the CDC board anymore. I I can't officially speak for them, but it would it would be that organization would need to be sure that it had capacity to right do the bookkeeping and um look at its bylaws and make sure that these projects were were in in line

in line with the mission and act and have like the either figure out paid staff or have the right volunteer staff with the right skills to actually actually handle those things. But this is this has already come up today in terms of clarifying sort of the the the the relationship between the EDC and the CDC. We we it is it its own separate 501c3, but it's sort of has the optics of being a town thing. You know, I don't know how is it a I'm not sure where that Well, the EDC is not a corporation, is it? No, a town committee. CDC is a CDC is a corporation. Yeah. There's a lot of confusion. I'm sure.

Yeah. The CDC was sort of formed by this committee. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. At the at the suggestion of some past economic development professionals, I think. And so it's very much feels like a wing of this committee even though it's um you know, it's technically its own organization. Well, yeah, it's a corporation. This is not a corporation. And I and I think what didn't help that confusion was all of the members of the CDC were members of the EDC. They were sort of one and the same. It was the exact same board and now the boards are separate are different. Yeah. You know, if you know anything about the history of the Northeast Fleet, Eclipse and Doc Corporation and the Northeast Star Sailing School, you'll you'll know that we're very familiar with bizarrely this dynamic is not

bizarrely complicated capital structures. Yeah. Three different types of organizations all sort of Yeah. mingling and not be stuff I didn't even know about. Yeah. It's funny that I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. Since your family was involved. Yeah. That's that's Kimble property we're sitting on. So I think the you just wanted to share this idea of

Yeah. And just say is there Yeah. Just sort of is there is there does anybody have any you know any thoughts about things that that that we might you know we might be able to do to sort of thread this needle. Um, and so, and I don't expect anybody to come up with, you know, but but if it's just it's it's something if you're thinking about it or something comes across your purview, I'd love to know about it to try to make the could try to make this happen because I think it would be great. It' obviously be great for us, but it'd be great for the town as well. Um, yeah. I mean, as you draw closer, obviously, I'll put on the town manager hat and try to work with the relevant parties for what things may or may not need to occur to help out on that front. Yeah. Um, well that's yeah that it's funny but that's down the road.

It is it well that that actually came up and and we sort of dug underneath it a little bit and and found out that was that was you know Kim Swan trying to put the brakes on. So she's like you got to go to the town. You got to go to town and talk about this and this and this and this. I was like think we do at this point. And so she was just trying to she's just trying to slow the thing down. So, we're trying to get we're trying to get a direct communication with her um to so we can you know she can understand we're not trying to you know do anything nefarious or pull the wool over her eyes or any of that kind of stuff. We're you know here this is the problem we're trying to solve. We think we could solve it with this and and uh and Eric has actually been really helpful because you know Eric is like there's you know that building just sitting there doing nothing. So hasn't it been on and off the market?

Yes. A bunch in the last few years. I know Kathy was looking at it. Nobody's nobody's ever seriously. I don't think I think I don't think I mean we sent a building inspector in. I don't think anybody's done that to this point. Um and and we're trying we're trying to send a guy in to talk about sprinklers. Um and we're trying to get talk send a guy in to talk about um aspesus abatement. There's a speestous in there. Asus and lead paint both. Um so well I Yeah, I mean it's just kind of cheap buildings. Yeah. It's 100 years old. I mean, you know, it's it's you know, you So anyway, so so that's I just wanted people to be aware that that's going on. And like I said, we're not not necessarily publicizing because I don't want to get sniped the way they got sniped on the last one, but

there's no way of thinking of it as a public private partnership. I mean, we're open to anything. Yeah. Um that's what I'm thinking. If somebody that would stay on the tax roles, right? Right. We I mean, we would get could rent this. I don't know. Yeah, we would get I mean I would think we would get some tax break for the part that we use to house staff because we're because we're a 501c3, but but that's going to be in the in terms of the entire building. It's going to that's going to be that's going to be 20%. Um so but and actually right now it's got a low tax base because it's the use is a is a is a fraternal organization. So the tax the net tax to the town would probably go up. Yeah.

If we did that. I mean, as you get into it, I been living through on that on a few other structures where you've got a bottom floor rented and the upper floor, right? It does get tricky. It's it's I'm sure better if there's nothing on the ground floor being rented to be honest. So, we can talk through it and I can give you the heads up on on the ins and outs there. Yeah, because the brokerage Lyman Morse office is there, too. Correct. So, and the post office is they've got a they've got their own furnace, they've got their own electrical meter, they've got I mean they're they're it's a triple net lease. They got very they pay their own everything. They pay their own insurance insurance. And it's it's it's a tricky piece of it. When we come back to the affordability piece, the town

as its nature takes an attitude of trying to capture all taxable value, it possibly can because that goes to the other taxpayers. But if that effort to capture all taxable value then runs contrary to workforce housing and stuff, how do we manage that? That's to me one of the big issues that this town needs to grapple with because there's no easy answer on that one. It's taxable value versus actual housing and the two are in opposition to each other.

Well, yeah. I Well, I'll just I'll I'll leave on this with this one short some thought. Anyway, I I I just for the hell of it, I put it into to FOD to AI to see, you know, how would you pay for this? and they bug came up with two uh programs uh one from HUD and one from someplace else that I have not had a chance to research yet. Thank you Jamie. Um of things that we could potentially apply for to get to get grant money to do to do that. Yeah.

So that's I mean I never even thought of that. So I was very proud of myself for thinking to put it in in the quad. See what they see what it see what it said. So, so because that, you know, again, all these things, you know, move, you know, they the these all move the needle, but but it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a tricky tricky thing to thread because I don't think I I'm concerned that either of the organ either the fleet or the sailing school can actually own it because of the because of the the the bad revenue component of it, right? Um so we may have to come up with either either partner with somebody Yeah. um or come up or create its own its own uh 501c3 for it. Thanks for bringing interesting.

So yeah, it's it's I mean it's it's it's actually been really interesting to well on a number of fronts. I think touring through that thing is Yeah. But there's a there's a coffin in the basement if anybody wants. My god, it's a we we stumbled across that. That was I think it's a I think it's a prop. I don't think it's an actual coffin, but it's I think it's doing lifting there. Yeah. No, we we now there's the lid's not on it, so there's nobody in there. But I mean, it's just some of the stuff. There's a huge safe on the third floor. Big big big this big safe. And there's a there's an old um tube stereo little thing with a turntable thing. I was like, "Wow, this there's like a lot of really cool stuff up there." But uh anyway, well, I'm mindful of the time.

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I'm I'm I board will be right behind us.

Two more super quick things. Just super quick. One is something that I learned about um after our January meeting. It's something that the Rue Institute, which is an affiliated with Northeastern University. They're down in Portland. In February, they did something called municipal innovation day. And it was like a one-day conference um bringing together municipal leaders, the regional councils of governments, you know, AVCOG, uh GP COG to um designed to inspire municipal leaders across Maine, surface shared challenges, explore emerging technologies and their governance implications, and support the development of practical regionally aligned solutions. So, I just wanted to put this on the radar for if they run it again. Um, that sounds like something cool to be involved with.

I will definitely get a little save. So, thank you.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Municipal Innovation Day. And then just one one more reminder about the STEM grants that are available to COA students who are working with a local nonprofit or business. um between $300 to $3,000 and funds can be used for um stipens, market research, um travel materials, and the next round of applications is the week of May 4th if anyone has any questions about that. Um I can forward the comm I think I did forwarded the committee that information, but I can resend it. Um, yeah, it's a great opportunity if you want a student to help with some sort of project that is broadly related to STEM. That was it for me in terms of updates and announcements.

Thanks. We we have a quorum to adjourn. Yeah, Megan Megan asked that and I thought I think we I mean what are we You know what happened? The second you lost your quorum, you ended the meeting, right? We figured it was something like that. Oh, thanks for pointing that out. Okay. Did not know that. But um those were just announcements. Yeah, it wasn't a thing. Yeah, we didn't make any decisions. Unofficial announcements. We didn't vote on anything. Yeah, we didn't really actually officially vote on anything except table of minutes.

I've got some homework to get back to everyone and some polling of the select board to do. Um and that's great. It really helps me a lot because as the new person coming in, I don't know either. So, yeah, a lot of that going around. Yeah. No, that really helpful. I'm in right up there with you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Puppy's name Sunny. He's so cute. What kind of dog? Doodle. Oh, we lost our very beloved doodle with to live sudden