Remarks by Nancy Smith
126 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 6
I spoke with Ebony earlier, and she's going to make these changes. Page 8, number 15, our finance. Which meeting? The regular meeting. Regular. I believe.
Okay. It was auto-correct took over, and our finance director was listed as Chris Death, and we should use his last name. instead of that. And then page 10, number 19, the HR director should have a last name and a first name and those have been taken care of.
Who's going to mind the IT? Hey there. Have a stand.
Thank you. I didn't know we were going to have a repeat of last month, but happy to start with that. Today is October 19, 2026. It is the 45th anniversary to the day of my first day of work. in Maine. I moved here at the age of 19, and that was my first day as a forest technician for international paper in Lincoln. I love that this meeting happens to land on that anniversary. It makes it special. I'm proud of the work I've done. You hear me talk about it, forestry, farming, the legislature, running a nonprofit, and now serving in council. I'm proud of all of the work that I've done. including…
I think just to highlight the point, this is not new borrowing. The project number is 2024.17. This has been in the works for a couple of years. We're just making sure that we are following the process the way that's outlined. So I'm happy to support the pending motion. Again. Thank you.
I move to approve the business license renewals as presented with appreciation to the businesses. Seconded.
Could I, with permission, go back to the previous and just make a comment on the previous item where Councillor O'Halloran asked why the interest rate isn't here. I feel like it's sitting there without an answer and I want to just give my perspective to it. This is something that came forward in 2024. That information was discussed there. I think it's incredibly difficult for staff to try to guess ahead of time what questions we might have and what level of detail we're looking for. So I think it wasn't an oversight or a lack of transparency, simply the difficulty of trying to measure what…
Thank you. I don't see this as either or. I think this is a very definitive component of the charter that needs to be fixed. That doesn't mean we shouldn't also look at other issues and move forward. We are talking about November 2027 for this. This is not coming up in a couple of weeks. So I would be supportive of moving this piece forward to know that it is advancing as well as perhaps the charter commission to look at other components. But I think this one is, The clarification that comes with this is going to be really important. So I would support this motion, but also look at forming a…
Thank you. Tina, what are you seeing so far this year where people are beginning to turn on their furnaces?
Thank you. I have a question when it's time for the motion. The motion refers to the new amended 2024 version. Is that correct, or should it say 2026?
It says the new amended version of the ordinance, yes.
So the motion says that, number 15, and the agenda says 2026. as my fellow councilor just noted. So just to be sure that we're doing the right one.
Just a question if it needs, again, if it needs to be an amended motion to cover the youth representative, I see the councilor in there.
Is that appropriate? Just to make sure we've got it right and don't have to come back.
Perfect, thank you. I would make the motion then. Move to adopt the City of Ellsworth TIF policy and TIF committee guidelines as presented, appointing the four proposed ex-officio members of the TIF committee and authorize staff to solicit letters of interest from Ellsworth residents for the three remaining public seats for subsequent appointment by the City Council.
I want to see if I understand an irony here. that we got better prices on some of our road work because Maine DOT reduced the size of their work plan earlier this year, giving us a great advantage because it freed up contractor capacity.
But this was one of the projects that they delayed.
All right, thank you for the clarification. I appreciate it.
Thank you, I just, I want to be clear that I'm tracking correctly. On page 72, tonight, there were two motions, and we're talking about both of those right now.
I just want to be sure that I'm following you correctly. And the other thing I just want to raise is when we're talking about retail caregiver store license, this relates to cannabis, even though cannabis isn't in the language here. But that is what we're referring to. Thank you. Appreciate the clarification.
Councillor White. I thought Steve was raising his hand to make a motion.
Simply to say that we've been through this before with other fees. It makes sense to bring them up, whether it makes sense to begin to cover the cost of actually doing the work. In reading through this documentation, It still isn't break-even, it still doesn't cover it all, but we're getting closer. I think that's an appropriate move as we're looking for what are appropriate costs to be covered by general property taxes and which really should be fee-for-service. So I think these moves are important and worthwhile as we move forward.
I guess staying in the detail with the police department, siding with everyone else on the frustration that we need to do that level of investment, but here we are, as we say. I thought what Tabby had suggested is... Could the back part of the police station stay as gravel and just treat it more frequently as gravel? Is that not what you would?
And we agreed it would be cheaper, but we're still talking paving the back. So I'm unclear where we landed there.
I was going to say, I don't fancy myself an expert on this. I'm willing to defer, but it is our job to ask, would it be cost effective to just keep the back? As gravel what I'm hearing is it probably wouldn't be because over the course of the 17 years We would be doing that often enough that it wouldn't work But I do to see I see a distinction between the back lot In the front lot where the where whatever public goes into the police station goes in from the front I assume and that there's a higher level of responsibility to make sure that that is safe and suitable.