Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

Okay, so I will call this meeting to order at 5.31 p.m. on June 1st, 2026. This is a regular Board of Selectmen meeting. At the table, we have Selectman Jim Lampos, First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker, and Selectman John Misham is absent today. Okay, information items, communication and correspondence. I don't have anything to report. Jim, do you?

I have nothing.

Time is quiet. Okay. Public comment. Is there anyone here who would like to offer public comment? Okay.

Nope.

Public comment. Is there anyone online that would like to offer public comment? Mr. Miller is on and also we see 5081058. Are either of you would like to offer public comment today? If so, you can unmute yourself. Okay, I do not see anyone raising their hand. So I think we're good. Jim, we'd like to move on to approval of the minutes. So the regular Board of Selectmen meeting from May 18th. Did you see any changes?

I did not.

I did not either. Would you like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of May 18th.

I will second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, call for a vote. All those in favor of approving the regular Board of Selectmen meeting minutes from May 18th, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion passes. Okay, so we're moving on to our discussion and possible approval of the human resources section of policy book. I'm going to say now, Jim, that I think we're going to not prove. We're just going to discuss if you have any questions because that way if John wants to say anything.

I would definitely like to hear John's comment.

Basically, Elena presented this to us. She was our intern. She met with various departments and talked about what they had for policies because there were policies that some departments had in folders or a small book. And we just felt it was very important to update all of our policies and put them in one book. So this is a draft form. We're still working on it. We'll make sure it goes through legal again. Some of them have, but we're going to just double check one more time really quickly. But basically, what I'd like to start with was the human resources section. So Jim, did you see anything concerning through it? I've read through it three times.

Under number eight. What page? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I actually don't have the document. I'm sorry.

I know you sent it. I did send it, and I'm sorry. I'll print it for you guys so we'll both have it. Number eight. Okay, commercial use of text?

Under harassment. I think the first section of human resources policy is harassment.

Out of office.

Then we go to equal opportunities, non-disclosure, social media, social media, procedure, disclaimers.

I think it's been diversified. I think it's the last section. Anti-harassment and anti-discrimination in the workplace.

Yeah, I think mine just did it alphabetically. Okay. Under 8E, there appears to be a stray number before the last sentence. Roman numerals XVI16.

Let me show you what I have under number 8.

Right here. That appears to be extraneous. Okay.

Okay.

And on my copy, there was a random number one here, but I don't see it on your copy.

Okay. So we'll double check that. Did you see anything else?

On that section, in that section of the book?

Under out of office. Yes. Yep. We need to update for summer hours.

Or do you want to do that? We could put in that we have them, but it's not a given that we'll do it every year. So I don't know if we want to. So I'll just put a notation, summer hours. And we can discuss that because it could change.

And then for non-disclosure. Right now is an opt in policy. And I'm wondering if that should just be our general policy. I mean, I was, you know, obviously everything we do subject to public inspection and scrutiny, but there was someone who's not an officeholder during a controversy whose home address was published. And I'm a fairly public figure and everyone lives where I live, but I don't think this person considers himself a public figure. So I'm wondering if that should be our default where we don't reveal social security numbers and addresses and phone numbers unless... Well, we don't.

So what happens with the agreement and probably what Elena should have done is put the copy of the agreement in here, but basically it gives you the chance to opt out. So you check off what you would approve being shared and whatnot. But let me check what they get for the form, because she should have put that in here as an appendix and she did not.

Because right now it seems like privacy is an opt-in rather than just standard operating procedure.

Okay. Did you have any questions on social media?

No, that was very helpful. In general, I think the book is very helpful. I do too. A lot of stuff I didn't know or it wasn't clear. I was kind of guessing that. So it's good to have a manual where you can just refer to it. Like when does stuff have to go out to bid and stuff like that.

True. And I know the board of finance is working on their policies. I sent a copy of them to the, the board of finance to just review, but I know that they're looking to add a few more for that section. So if you don't see anything else under human resources, we could move on to the board of selectmen section, which is the select women's office or select person's office, which is in here. And then this was a little confusing to me because it looks like she did a couple of things and she

What was it that she added? The hybrid, I did tag the hybrid access.

Yeah, actually, I have that written down as a question. I mean, I think it's a terrific policy to have that every meeting should be available online for people to participate in. Right now, I know that there's, you know, constraints. I mean, there's just some people who just aren't trained in it. Some people who are kind of tech phobic who are chairs, you know, of committees.

Um, and we have left it sort of to say that it's up to the chair.

Right.

Um, in the social, in that manner to actually have access to our meetings online. Some of our chairs are a little hesitant to do online. They're not, they don't really like the camera focused on them. Um, but what some have done is started to go to recording so you can listen to it, but you cannot, there's no visual, just auditory only. And the only problem with that is that people don't always know who's talking. And it's great if you say this is, you know, Martha Shoemaker, and then they're aware of what's happening.

So, you know, I think also particularly since our town, um, has not only a big seasonal population, but just it's a lot of people, this is their second home. So they primarily reside somewhere else, but they have interest in town business. And so they may be in, who knows, Chicago, and they would like to comment on something that some committee is doing. They could write a letter, but if they could participate in real time, it would be helpful for people. Also for our senior population who has to plan sometimes travel and things like that. So I think it's a worthy goal. It's just when is it going to go into effect? How do we train all of our chairs? To make them feel comfortable. To make them feel comfortable. I'd be fine with making it mandatory for everybody. I don't know how to run this thing. We would all just have to have the training. Yes. I'm in favor of the policy in general.

Okay. I might just cut out.

The one thing I saw on my page 53 is that it talks about remote access via Zoom, Teams, or WebEx. And I know we don't use WebEx anymore, so I did cross that one out. But that's what was here when I first was elected. So I think We're good. And we'll have another discussion with John. So basically I've sent out sections of this to each department or chair and said, would you just please review this before the meeting?

I just have one more. This is more of a philosophical question that I'm just going to leave open for people to discuss, but it's going to get brought up and it's section on DEI. I think any section on DEI, Yeah, and I'm not, I don't think anyone who reads it could possibly object to anything in it. It's all reasonable, and I think all reasonable people would agree with it, but obviously that's become a very, very loaded term. And, you know, to the point where we've had, you know, Navajo code talkers and Tuskegee Airmen and even references to the Enola Gay,

wiped from the record um on a quote-unquote dei purge so so i will tell you that that went through legal but it was that was reviewed by legal but i will guarantee you it was almost a year ago right so so the question is you know maybe things have changed and we need the wording needs to be tweaked yeah i mean it's if people want to stand up for that term and just say you know

the federal government can do what they want, but we stand by these principles that, you know, that's one point of view. Another point of view could be why jeopardize a good policy by using what's now a toxic buzzword. Right. So I'm not going to give an opinion on that. I don't know that I have an opinion on that, but It's going to get brought up because it's now part of the quote-unquote culture war. So I'd like to flag it. Someone's going to flag it without death.

I've commented on the top of that page so I can hang it up.

It is under HR. There has to be something soon, but we'll see what happens. Okay. Old business, project updates. I knew I had written my notes. Our solar project is out to bid. We had a walk site visit. There were two people at the site visit that day. The project is due, bids are due next week. I think it's June 10th, because I left my notes in my room. I'm pretty sure it's June 10th. that we will open the bids or proposals, I should say. Proposals, they're not bids. They're proposals. And then all of those will be scanned and sent over to CSW and please sustainably advisors and they will review them. And then they will get back to us in 48 to 72 hours to give us their recommendations. And then we'll have to meet and prepare. So I will send them as if you'd like to read. I'll see how many pages there are and see if you have to send one at a time if they're lengthy. But that is where we are with that. As far as the white sand gazebo, I know the last pour was last week. They cured it over the weekend. And I'm hoping that some timber was developed delivered today and they're going to begin on the roof. So that's that. Anything else that you can think of that you have questions about?

No. Okay. We cleared the hurdle at resiliency through the EPA.

Great.

So we're going to begin our process now officially as soon as we get all the I's dotted and the T's crossed to start gathering information from all of our boards and commissions for any research they have. to do with resiliency in town so we're not duplicating efforts and we can coordinate everyone's knowledge to a common database and move forward.

Okay. I know that we had some opportunities for grants. There's only one that I can think of right now as far as for our resiliency, and that was a possible one. Well, we have money set aside for in the budget, next year's budget to review the work that was done by DEEP down at the White Sand area where the marshland exits out. DEEP had originally put in that drain and we've had multiple conversations with, what is it called now? Shoreline, used to be DACA, now it's Shoreline. engineering, regarding that, and with the property owner where the piece and he would, of course, like it shifted. So but we haven't had any flooding since deep corrected it. So at least it's not a rush, if we're going to do something more permanent, like this loose way. And the only thing that I can tell you as far as The sewer project I did have, Foss and O'Neill was kind enough to meet with me after this site walk where they went through sort of step by step. But they did sort of give me a quick update on some things, basically everything that they said at this site walkthroughs from the four beaches. But one of the things was that I did question was where is the water? They're going to be pumping the water at the end of pond. out of that area so that they could, and it goes into a filtration system. And then from that filtration system, it would be sent somewhere else. And I said, where is the contractor going to be sending it? I said, they cannot send it into Swanbrook or to the retention pond because it will not be able to handle that volume of water. It was not meant for that. And so I explained that, The retention pond is basically like six feet across by maybe 12 feet length and about a two and a half to three foot depth, depending on any given day. So they made note of it and said that they would make that understood. So I don't know, but they do have to come up with some type of a disposal from all that water.

There's a lot.

Yes.

They're building the house down there. Some sort of 24 hours a day.

Right. It's a lot. Is there anything else under Selectman's general discussion that you'd like to discuss?

Not at this time.

Okay. I don't have anything. So I need a motion to adjourn at 549.

I will make a motion to adjourn.

Thank you. I'll second. All those in favor of adjourning at 549, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Meeting is adjourned.