Town Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. You guys set?

Okay. Okay. Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming out in the chilly weather. Not so bad, but we can expect a lot worse over the weekend. Oh, good. Uh, I called this meeting of the Plymouth Town Council regular meeting, February 3rd, 80 Main Street, Plymouth Town Hall, community room into order. Uh, fire exit notifications. If you exit through the back of the building, go to your left, you'll go out two doors, and that will take you right directly out into the parking lot area. If you go right, you'll have to exit through the doors and go through the police department exit. We will now rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Uh this evening we have a uh guest invocator. Uh, Councilwoman Sue Bolyard will present tonight's invocation. Oh, heavenly father, we thank you for food and remember the hungry. We thank you for help and remember the sick. We thank you for friends and remember the friendless. We thank you for freedom and remember the enslaved. May these remembrance remembrances stir us to service and your gifts to us may be used for others. May God bless Plymouth, Connecticut, and may God bless the United States of America.

Thank you very much. And uh if any other council folks would like to um do the invocation, future meetings, just let me know. And thank you, Councilwoman Boyard. Item five is accept the meeting minutes from January 6. This would be the regular council meeting. Do I have a motion to accept the minutes from January 6th, 2026? Please go ahead motion. Ron motion Ron had a motion. Second by Ray and uh we have an amendment also.

Okay. That would be clever. Uh so uh there's a motion on the floor uh with an amendment. Uh there's no objection to that. I'll go ahead and take a vote for unless there's further discussion. Uh all those in favor of accepting the uh minutes as amended say I. Anyone opposed. Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you. Item six. This is for uh a motion will be in order to accept the meeting minutes from January 22nd. This was the special meeting. Is there a motion to accept the minutes for that meeting? Joe Green made the motion. Second.

Second. Mr. Engel. Thank you. Any discussion, corrections, amendments? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. Anyone opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much, folks. Item seven, public comments on agenda items. Would anyone like to address the council and the public on a agenda item? Anyone from the public? Anyone from the public? Agenda item.

Uh, it doesn't sound it. testing. There you go. Thank you.

Melanie Church, 328 Main Street, Terryville. Um, the reason I'm coming forward is today we have capitals coming. I I did not go through them all, but I went through a majority at the end to hear what people were looking for. What I'm begging you to do is look at these diligently. and and you're going to have to prioritize. We don't have unfortunately our revenues are not there and we haven't been getting our revenues. Instead, we give them back to to the departments and it's getting to be more and more departments taking them. So, we have no money and that's a sad point. And I also want you still to consider with each one of these offers, it's a one-time thing, not every mo every year they're coming back for more and more and more. First thing that should be a priority in this town are the roads. We the taxpayers can't even drive down half these roads. So where's our priority? you know, and hopefully we can turn around and turn that around because the taxpayers pay the bills here. And most of the people that work here, some live here, but like the police department, there's only two. And yet, we're giving them all this money. And we don't have money to do our roads. We don't even have money to be fair with with employees. And so this one's running and doing this job and that job. You all need to look at all of this and look at it honestly because who you're working for is

actually the taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional comments on agenda items? Any comments on agenda items? Seeing none, we'll move to the next item. Thank you. This is the mayor's report. Um, I'll ask for forgiveness in advance. It's a little lengthy, but uh here we go. Um, in your packet tonight, council members, um there's a thank you letter to the town hall staff from Larry Chicarella, who is the director of the Plymouth Food Pantry. Uh the food pantry provides uh in this letter its goals along with a brief summary of their activities, programs, and service statistics. I want to thank the food pantry and its staff and all their volunteers for what they do for Plymouth. Um I added that to the manage report in your packet. You wouldn't have that particular item at the top. Um I want to address some weather related topics. Uh certainly we've all been reminded that in fact we do live in New England and the recent uh large storm has brought to light many issues. Uh first I want to thank the town crew and all the additional staff in our vendors who got us through the storm and are continuing the cleanup. There's a total of a crew of 11 at some point 12 persons operating the plows, the lifts and all the support that's necessary. Uh they worked 32 hours in a 48 hour time frame from Sunday morning until Monday evening. An additional 10-hour shift was worked on the following Tuesday. We used 200 tons of salt. Uh we don't have the exact amount of sand because at times we use the sand salt mixture and we also made several tons available to the town residents

which if those of you have gone up to there know that uh under the tarp on the left hand side of the garage we have excuse me salt for uh residents. So I I don't have an exact amount of the salt I'm sorry the sand. However uh cleanup is still ongoing as it is in many towns across the state. Fortunately, we avoided a storm this past weekend. It certainly would have caused a lot of trouble. As I mentioned, several issues surfaced because of the large amount of snow that I'd like to address this evening. Primarily, the snow removal for sidewalks and fire hydrants, which I uh made some comments about on our Facebook page. The town does have an existing ordinance that requires property owners to clear sidewalks on their property. That said, we must be reasonable and we all have a responsibility to work together to ensure everyone's safety. Over the past several years, the town crew has had the capacity and equipment to assist with sidewalk clearing. Very small storms enabled us to do that. In this storm, we that simply could not be supported like the residents have been used to. Several residents called and voiced concern about this. When possible, the town crew provided support. In several cases, public works and the mayor's office and/or the mayor's office was contacted by concerned residents who simply could not physically remove the snow around the sidewalks or the hydrants for a variety of reasons. We are grateful for that level of communication and it helped us to prioritize the snow removal and we worked with the uh fire department to let them know that there were certain hydrants that we couldn't get to or that residents couldn't get to. Again, safety is our priority. Several concerns were also raised about whether or not some fire hydrants function at

all. Although we do not have an ordinance regarding fire hydrants, I think it's reasonable to ask residents to assist with clearing or like I said to notify us of locations of hydrants that cannot be cleared. So, we can we can assist with that. I have contacted Connecticut Water Company regarding hydrant uh hydrant maintenance. If residents believe that a hydrant is not functioning, please contact public works and the mayor's office and we will have Connecticut Water verify that that hydrant is on the grid and it's will have it removed if it's inoperable. All hydrants are flushed and serviced yearly and based on our current information and my conversation with Connecticut Water, all hydrants should be functional. That said, we will make sure that they are. And like I said, if they're not, they'll get removed. Also, we are working on an adopt a hydrant program to assist the fire department. We'll have more information on that soon on our website. I want to provide an update on the proposed solar project at 270 Preston Road. The state of Connecticut Sighting Council has granted Plymouth a public hearing regarding this proposal on March 31st. There are two parts to the hearing process. At 2 PM there's an evidentiary session when the applicant will prevent present information and any persons that are authorized through the sighting council to as interveners can also prevent evidence. It is our intention. We're working on that to petition the council so the town of Plymouth can be recognized as an intervenor and we can present present our evidence with regard to this project. The second part is at 6:30 p.m. where public comment will be heard. These meetings will all be conducted via Zoom conference. There are very specific rules and procedures on how meetings are

conducted. The town will be posting all the information regarding the hearing on the town's website. We will be posting all the information uh in print and we'll have the have the various uh websites and everything that you can link to in order to to connect with the meeting. We're also making space available. We plan to use the community room or the assembly room so we can so residents could come if they wanted to and we could petition and they can speak to the sighting council via Zoom through uh here at the town hall. Uh, I do want to say I'll go back and repeat there are very specific rules and procedures. If you want to participate in public comment, you must register prior to the meeting and all those rules and regulations are in the documentation on the website and again it'll be posted on our town's website as well. The sighting council's website is sighting.conselct.gov. That is sighting.ct.gov. You want to look for petition number 1696 and all those details can be found there that I just described. Another update. The town's communication commission and fire department been working with Norcom Industries to upgrade our communications towers. This effort has been ongoing for many months and is needed to eliminate the radio dead spots in various sections of the town as well as modernize the equipment. And believe it or not, that's supposed to start tomorrow. We'll see how the weather goes, but according to the information we have, the towers uh should the construction of the new equipment should begin tomorrow. I'll certainly keep everybody updated if there's any change to that schedule. Regarding public comments received at our January meeting, I want to say that the budget development process is underway and all

departments are evaluating their needs. This includes police department revenues, expenses, patrol and support autos operated by the police department and their long-term capital needs. We are working with our assessor's office to evaluate the impact of the re-evaluation and all tax abatement agreements. As we will go as we go forward, we'll work with the economic development commission carefully to weigh the impact of tax abatement agreements on future revenues. Abatement agreements that are already in place cannot be modified. Charges and fees assess that delinquent taxpayers and and because of late collections are being investigated to ensure that town practices are within reason and a best practice across the state. We recently launched the mayor's Facebook page and we will continue to respond to suggestions made by the public to improve our communication. We appreciate your feedback regarding the mayor's citizens advisory board which I spoke about last meeting. We are looking to cap the board to nine members presently and we have nine people that have contacted the mayor's office. We're going to confirm with those individuals that they are still committed to participate and we plan to start those meetings in March. If there's vacancies, I'll continue to inform the public to fill in any vacancies that might be available. I hope to have those meetings go on a monthly basis based on how those meetings go and and scheduling. I do plan on initiating a second advisory com uh council that or or board that would consist of business owners to focus more on economic issues that are facing the town. Uh a lot of folks have reached out to our office about that. I hope to also get that launched as soon as possible. Our website revision is ongoing. Uh still some technical things that we're working through. We did have a uh department head meeting uh where our

tech advisory folks uh discuss the revisions of the website and all of our department heads are reviewing their own departments, what they want in the website and how they want the information presented and that's going to be part of our website revitalization plan. I hope to have an update on the target completion at our March meeting. Probably it's going to be at least another 60 days before we're ready to launch. and I'm giving our tech as much leeway as I can. Uh, but it's it's I'm sure it'll work out fine. Uh, in the meantime, we will continue to post vital information on the town website and the mayor's Facebook page. As always, do not hesitate to call my office with questions or concerns. Many residents have reached out and will continue to respond as rapidly as possible and have hold appointments with individuals if they request one. That's my mayor's report. Again, thank you. That was a long one. Okay. Again, thank you. We're going to move to item nine, the town council lays on reports. I started to my left last time. We'll start with Mr. Angel if you don't mind. We'll start with you on the right hand side. Any layers on reports, sir?

Okay. I'm going to start with the uh finance report as leaison on the meeting of the 25th. Uh They we covered the some credits that one the first one was tabled. It was uh or compensation uh for workers compensation item that was tabled at that time. There were some questions about the budget allocation. Uh the second one was a uh generator repair which was which had passed. Uh they've also uh handed out a uh a new budget expenditure report which um I find quite interesting and uh it it's if you get a chance take a look at the next meeting when they go under there it's a it's a nice little nice little report. Um so what else have I got here? uh audit update. The uh on the 20 as of the 24th, the update was uh proc the fiscal year 24 audit was processed to OPM. I don't know if it was submitted yet as of then they they had not submitted the report the order had but it's my understanding it was pushed through.

Uh yes, that was confirmed. on OPM has the financial statements for that close starting on the 25. That's correct.

That's my finance report. Um and inland wetlands meets uh several times a month. Um on 118 121 uh there's a uh public hearing scheduled for a strobe road uh parcel that didn't want to walk on and then uh on the other public hearing that's scheduled is for green line home builders for uh one unit building on South Street. I go through there's much much more in terms of detail but it's too much detail to be here for three hours. So after that I'll let it go.

Thank you Mr. Eagle Ron. Um I really don't have much here. Uh you touched on the solar farm which is very important. And the other thing that we heard was and I don't know how true it is. Marcus could not give us any information on that the Walgreens plaza might have a renter. I don't have any information on that. And uh the new uh Richard's Corp on North Haron uh they put an application in to put up a new building on their property there. That's about all I have today. Thank you, Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Boyer.

I'm going to have to live this. I l did a nice report and left it at home. That's always good. Um, I missed uh this month's police board. Um, Dave and I were off on a vacation, much needed vacation, so I missed that, but I did talk to the chief. We kind of caught up a little bit. Um, I also went to the fire uh commission. Those guys are amazing. They're putting their budget together. Can you hear me? They're putting their budget together and it's just they all they have it down. So, it's really good the way they work like that. Um, let's see. I wasn't able to go to human resources because I had another meeting that conflicted. So, I'll make sure I get to them this month and but I did talk to the person that's here in charge. So, um and then the Vietn not the Vietnam, I'm sorry, the Veterans Council that we're working on. Um we just have to do some protocols and run it through a few people and that should be up and running the whole thing instead of just part of it probably in the next month I would think. So, that's it.

Thank you, TJ. Okay, we had a couple meetings this month. Uh, water pollution control was canceled due to the snowstorm. So, that'll be meeting again next month. Uh, public works, we had a very in-depth meeting. We talked a lot of a lot of stuff. Uh, we had a new public works director, Joseph Neski, there. Uh, so he's starting to learn a lot of the ropes of the job and what's going on there. Um there's some discussions that are going to be taking place over the next couple months about the the fleet and whether it's best to buy fleet instead of leasing it like they're currently leasing. So there's going to be some decisions being made there if the lease program is working better than buying or if it's going to be better to buy the trucks outright. Um they're also talking about increasing the material that they sell out of the Corey up at the up by the fairgrounds from $2 a yard to $7 a yard. So we should have something on that to vote on for next month. Uh the parks and reccks cre commission we met on that. They have uh basketball is going on right now and they're working on some summer activities. Uh they're trying to figure out the summer camp right now, but uh there's some stuff in limos that they're trying to find out about. Uh so they will be attending the next board of education meeting on February 11th when they're going to present the Boys and Girls Club uh information to see if it's going to be feasible to run a town program for uh summer camp or not this year. So there'll be more on summer camp probably the end of uh February, beginning of March.

And that's it.

Thank you. Thank you everybody. We appreciate that. uh the you are our window into the various boards and commissions and that's much appreciated. I do want to add also that uh regarding cap I'm sorry not capital improvements we've got capital improvements here tonight so I got it on my mind uh economic development commission is scheduled to meet uh next week. So, uh, I met with Vance Taylor and I've also spoken individually to most members of the, uh, economic development commission, uh, as well as I spoke to attorney Hamzy who also happens to be the chair of the, um, our downtown revitalization commission. So, uh, we can expect a lot more information coming up with respect to downtown development, revitalization, economic development. One of the big things from economic development is we're kind of going to need to repurpose that organization a little bit because the original charge was based upon the industrial park and with the industrial park being filled uh the goals of economic development have changed a little bit. So we're going to be having a formative meeting uh electing a new chairman uh with that commission. Uh and again we expect to have more coming from economic development and I'll if any of the council members are interested in being lays on there that's wonderful. If not I'll just continue to be layers on of that committee for now till we get it rolling get it get it cooking again. Uh we still have plenty of commercial space in the community. Uh and so we need to work together to identify developers. Um make sure we're offering real estate at a competitive level and not giving away too much money from the forms of tax and payment. So we have a lot of work to do as far as economic development is concerned. Thought I'd throw that up to

you so you know what's going on with that commission. Thank you. Let's move to item 10. Uh, I would entertain a motion for the refund of overpayment property taxes to Wesley and Jacqueline Donnu in the amount of 29236. Uh, we have two for Richard's Corporation, one in the amount of $638.81, and the second for Richard's Corporation is $75210. Is there a motion for the refunding of property taxes? So,

TJ, thank you. Second, Joe. Any questions? Any comments? Hearing none, we'll do a voice vote. All those in favor of the motion say I.

Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Light list today. That's good. All right. Um I want to just give a quick introduction. Uh our capital improvements committee is here tonight. They are going to present and inform us about the work that they've been doing over the past months. They're going to talk a little bit about their process and they've got a formal presentation that will be available on the screen. I would invite any council members if you'd like to just go down and join the audience or you could refer to your handout that was provided to you. Uh but in order for our audience at home that's might be watching on television, we're going to do a little bit of a technical move here. It's going to just take us a minute to get set up. Uh bear with us. We're not going to go off air, but we're going to set up and then I'll turn the floor over to you, uh Chairman Castle, as soon as we're ready. Okay. So, everybody relax for a minute while we set up. Thank you.

There's still Okay. Uh again, uh let me introduce George Castle. He is the chairman of our capital improvements committee. It's all your George. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor and town council. My name is George Castle and I'm the chairman of this committee. The capital improvements committee is here to present the results and prioritize recognitions for each of the town's department capital requests. We interviewed 11 departments, including the board of education, but I'd be remissed if I couldn't at least right now recognize my staff who helped make this happen. A great team. Jim Pineski since Mike Mafia is a new new one to the board. And then we have uh I don't know if you guys have ever heard of her but the board of finance lays on Vicky Gary who has been outstanding as a lay on to us from the board of finance. and that our secretary can't wait to continue getting all our foods and stuff together doing our minutes. The cap capital the town's capital plan is a six-year outlook of capital projects. The first year is the current fiscal year with five subsequent years. The capital improvements committee has read these years capital requests along with funding funded requests of prior years to ensure the requests presented are consistent with the five-year outlook. These ranked requests we now present to the mayor and board of finance for their consideration. The boards of education and finance and mayor review and consider uh rehment and uh recommendations by the by the

committee determining what to incorporate into the budget. The board of finance could then determine the the viability of the various needs of the funded. Um okay. So, I just want you to know that the ranking, the way it was done, it's kind of unique. We went out to many states and cities, not only in our state, uh, to see how they ran theirs. And we kind of used that to massage it to come up with what is unique for our town. And Jim, we'll be going through that with you. And, uh, we put a lot of time and effort into it. We don't have a lot of time for it starts with this in October, November, December and there's time we have a meeting almost every week. So with that uh I'd like to explain to you how we do our uh calculating.

Thank you George.

I don't think I need this but we'll see. Uh last year for those of you who are new to the board, um we revised, as George mentioned, we revised the way in which we do the ranking scoring of the different uh requests that come to us from all the different departments. As George alluded to, we looked at a lot of the towns and cities in the state of Connecticut who had their ranking systems posted online. We also looked at uh other cities across the country similarly who had their ranking systems posted online and we came up with one that we thought would work best for um for Plymouth Terryville. I don't know. I don't know what you have in your out out um handouts, but um we also came up with a request form and that request form goes out to all the managers in the departments and it lists on there the criteria that we're going to be ranking their requests on. that gives them the opportunity to give us the information that we need, the information we're looking for in order to do a um intelligent hopefully uh score of their requests and a comparison between uh their request within one department and the requests uh through all the departments. Quickly in our evaluation um we use a scoring sheet based on the information we get off of those applications. There are three primary criteria. First one is capital requirements and that reads is a capital request

needed to meet the legal compliance, safety or regulatory mandates and in that you know that one question there we have a ranking scale between one and nine. The second one is strategic alignment and that one asks to what extent is a capital request aligned with the town's overall strategies. Again, we have a ranking scale of that from one to nine. Third is the value to citizens. How much value will the outcome of this capital request bring to our citizens? And again, there's a one to nine ranking on that. That's the first section. And we take the three scores that we get for that section, divide it by three to come up with an average number. Then we go down to the other ranking criteria. Public health and safety. Does a request address a hazard to public or health or safety? And over if you have this on the right hand side, you'll see a ranking score. A score of one is well a score of 1.5 is an additional scoring. A score of a 1.25 is an additional score. So we go down question by question. Employee health and safety. Does a request address the hazard to employees health or safety? Again with regulatory mandates is a request required by legislation or action of other governmental jurisdictions. That could be federal, could be local, it could be state. Available of funding and this is one we kind of are focusing on this year. Uh a lot of the requests that we get do not

have in my opinion firm dollar amounts attached to their requests. We're asking that each applicant or each person that submits to us a request that they look around and see whether or not there are any grants, endowments, low interest loans, anything, any other way of funding that request other than the taxpayers's dollar. Does it generate revenue? Does a request directly benefit the town's economic base by increasing the grand list and/or property values uh enterprise funded future operating and or capital cost? Does request reduce, stabilize or increase operating costs, age or conditioning of um condition of existing? Does a request replace or repair an existing facility or capital item that has experienced frequent problems or is a currently obsolete facility, capital equipment item or prolong the function of life of an asset by 5 years or more. Couple more public benefit. Does a request change an existing standard of service? Does it prevent reduction in service or stabilize the service level? or does it improve the service level, sustainability or conservation? Public demand. Does the request provide new programs having social, cultural, historic, environmental, economic, or aesthetic value that the public is asking for synergy. And this is a big one that we're focusing on this year again also where every dollar is is valuable and important to us. Does a request work well with other projects? For example,

paving more than one location for a cost savings. And the last one is strategic goal. Does a request support the strategic goals of the town and conform with the plan of conservation and development? Um, I'm going to step back now. Vinnie's got some things he wants to add to this. and um I'll turn it over to Jenny then unless you have any questions in the meantime. Okay.

Thank you, Jim. Benjamin Franklin's a has an attribute and he said if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We're all here to make sure that the town succeeds. And so now we have these items that the capital improvements uh committee has ranked. Uh George described the deliberations that will continue. But what we're trying to get to with all this is a plan, capital improvement plan, and that's what's under development right now. Uh the first thing is we would like to implement as it was stated before by the public implement each project in accordance with established priorities. So that's why these things were ranked make sure uh things are in in order. You can't have everything all at once. Uh and that's why it's a six this year and a six-year outly as funding becomes available. The go the goal here is to have uh similar shovel ready projects on the shelf prepared for a quick launch. Uh, so Jim talked about the synergy and what what we're trying to get to is taking a look at this big sheet of project sets here and look for things that could could be combined. Look for similar projects of similar scope and work uh and optimize economies of scale in plan and specification development, equipment mobilization and material cost. Um then interdep departmental meetings

with architect engineer recommend for recommended for maximum communication and coordination and town customer info. that town customer is the head of that department. Uh perform routine inspections. Uh when a future need is identified, the project should be studied and solution engineered with specifications for the work to be completed or a product to be requested for purchase. So some of the things we spotted were and these are projects that we recommend to combine the the large ones uh road and pavement and if we look at that there's three opportunities uh for that uh civil uh so you could send those to us. So, the Department of uh Administrative Services has these contracts that apparently they've been used uh to get a civil or geotechnical engineer or if there's in-house capability for that, that's great, too. But in year one, you do the engineering and design for the roads that are pri prioritized per previous studies. And uh this should this should include school driveways and parking lots. Those are big ticket items if you have machinery out there already. Doesn't it make sense to have the engineer look at that too? It's a similar type of thing and they could in a in a close vicinity maybe they could take care of that stuff too. That requires cooperation uh among departments. Another one that could be combined are there's a a variety of roof repairs and building upgrades. There's about six

opportunities in the budget for similar work that could be combined and prepare the engineering and design uh scopes of work for roofs, windows, interior upgrades uh requested by these various departments. Another opportunity would be for HVAC, uh, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. There's at least two opportunities for that. It depends what stage the project is in. Really, what you're talking about is project management. And the other thing that Jim mentioned that we noticed the pursuing of grants, endowments, and funding opportunities. And there's a alphabet soup of state of Connecticut uh fund sources. Low sip, lots, steep. Okay, it could go on for a while, but for example, water pollution control. If you do a quick internet search or AI search, you'll find at least three opportunities for uh and I'm not saying some of the departments are doing it, some are not even aware, but there's funding opportunities for volunteer fire departments. There's at least five opportunities out there. Ambulance has seven and they they're the ones that were going after it. uh school repair grants, DAS, OGA, OPM, DRIP, SIG. There's all these things out there. They already wrote these justifications for the budget. Why not send those out to these to these folks and shake the tree,

maybe an apple will fall. Uh so along with the these big ones that I mentioned, you have other supply and service projects. If they don't get funded, that's okay. I still encourage them to develop plans, specs, and scopes. And uh eventually that priority will get to that to them. But sure, all documentation is prepared for when uh funding does become available. Like said, um there's a lot of grants and money from the state early bird gets a worm. If you're shoved away, you have to get money in grants. Um, there's one other thing that we want to get into. We have a template that shows how we do our scoring. You all have a copy of it up here.

It's quick, but it just shows how we score. And when you score, we don't once we've gone and we interview, we go home individually score. We don't do it for each other. Pretty interesting. Oh, can you hear me? I got to do it over again.

Okay. Um our method when we scoring after we've gone through and interviewed what they want uh we take go home what's fresh in our minds we don't score together we score individually when we come back in the next week then we tally it together and it's remarkable that we all come out pretty close the same so Oh not that No, the one it shows staff perfect.

Mr. Castle, I just want to interject to let folks know that the the materials that you've provided to us, we will make available so people can download them and look at them. You know, once we get to that point in the budget process, we'll make this available to folks. So, don't be alarmed at home if you can't see this. It's there's a lot of information here, but we will make sure it's available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. The uh the process goes pretty much. I don't think it's changed and as we go and present it to the mayor and and then he present it goes what he wants to do. He knows what funding he has goes to board of finance and they say, "Yes, we agree with it or maybe we want to take it out when they put put something in." And then he comes back to the council and make the final decision. Is that correct? Correct. You got it, Mr. Castle. All right. Great.

That Okay. So, what we're looking at here

is a ranking sheet that we've completed. Uh the department should be the board of education. Let's see. Is it all It's all board of education. Each one of these columns 1 2 3 through 11 represents a request that we were that they submitted to us. Uh the next line total estimated cost is on that line going across and then follow down below. This is um this is an early sheet because it does not have all of our scores on there. All right, there should be four scores underneath each one of these. And at this point, it was probably work in process because only uh Vince and myself had ranked those requests. So, as you'll see, say in column one for this particular request having to do with the Fisher School replacement or repair, I don't remember which it was. There's a score of 82. There's a score of 100. There would be when we were done there would have been four scores here and we would have averaged them. Uh and then the subtotal the ranking score is down here on the bottom line. We don't carry it out this far. We're not trying to display the uh written pi. So this score would have been 60.66 compared to 56.66 51 and so on. So each one of these would have had a a score that was uh determined by the forbis on the board on the commission. Couple of other other thing you have any questions about that. This is part of the person but it's not the final.

All right. Couple of other things I wanted to say following up on what many just reported. We did have one exemplary um request this year came from the um from the library and it was a request for HVAC air handling system and that request included information on a 0% interest loan from Eversource and a statement that they're working with an engineering firm to prepare detailed plans and specifications for a replacement system. So that's exactly the kind of information that we're looking for uh and the you know the kind of information that uh Vinnie just spoke of with looking ahead looking for other ways of of funding these requests besides a taxpayer and of doing engineering study so you know what you're shopping for getting the three bids and doing it in a well-informed manner so we come up with the best uh dare I say deal the best deal that uh we can uh have there was one other thing that I wanted to refer you to um and this is personal as a member of this capital improvement but it's my personal observation I feel that there is a need for an overall facilities manager and there was a ordinance developed in 1989 that reads the director of public works shall cause to be promagated specific ifications and engineering standards for the construction of highways, sidewalks, drains, and of all public improvements within the town. So, I know the board of education is responsible for the maintenance and in uh for their buildings that they oversee. Personally, I still think it would be beneficial for every department in town

to utilize the public works director in preparing specifications and getting engineering studies uh done. Uh that's all I have. Is there any questions? Thanks. I think some of the people will be interested more in uh what the uh board has picked for the ambulance. Their two top scores was uh new ambulance to replace uh 11-2 and then the power loader structure. uh board of education number one priority was the Haras Fischer window replacement and the uh Harrias Fisher roof for economic development was the downtown revitalization but that is year two of three plan of development was the next one. The fire department was replacement of engine 4 and headquarter upgrades for station one. IT technology was um the annual computer replacement and the town modernization uh backup year two of two library has two it's the HVAC replacement system two out of the third year library computer and technology upgrades parks and wreck uh number one was the core drill study for Lake Winfield and the dog park on Main Street. Um the police department, surprisingly the police vehicle replacement program

and the uh body cameras, WPCA, uh the first one was the generator replacement and the second one was the service building repair. public works was the town nature roads and the roadway deicing storage edition. For the assessor, it's the revaluation. It's year one of three and that's um $50,000 each. Uh these are only the very top ones. There are more listed, but this this is to let you know as town council that there's more that has to be done in a lot of these buildings. If you take a look at your sheet, there is definitely a lot that has to get done, especially to the schools, WPCA, and public works. Thank you. Now this is up on the story sheet the composite of all of it how we rated it. It's available online to everyone to look at. So it shows on there our touring and shows our ranking. You all have

we have it. Yep. Any questions? Any questions for our capital improvements committee? I Mr. Go ahead. I noticed going through some of this u they didn't request a roof on the high school that's approaching 20 years old which qualifies for about a 60% one school most of all three of the schools are on here for roof but I don't see the high school very surprised on top of that I'm surprised they put windows in for Fiser because about 15 18 years ago when I was board chair would put all the windows in. So, I'm trying to

I I I don't know. I'm just I'm just I'm asking question. Those windows are not locking properly. Okay. Can we replace the locks? I I maybe you're thinking that that's going to come up next year. Showing your hand, Mr. Engel.

Any other question? Well, I'm a school business manager. Nobody doesn't know. I'm a school business manager, so I know where these grants come from. I know the percentages that you get for reimbursement. I know who should be applying for some of these grants, but they can't get the grants until they get a commitment from us, the town. That's part of the problem. So, you're kind of in a catch 22. Incidentally, um, as the mayor is might want might change it, but right now are the requirements anything over 5,000 is capital. Any other questions from the council? We can leave the screen here all night. This is good for me.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, yeah, we're all set. Um, hearing no more questions. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Green has a question. Go ahead. You can still move that bud. Thank you. Why do some of the line items do not have amounts to them?

Because it's not put in by the mayor. Those are from last year. They don't follow too because the these are new ones that the mayor will be filling in. We're only going by this year. But under the line item of amount requested for instance uh fire department headquarters um station one there's no amount. So did the did the particular department not submit an amount or

I know you had made that comment uh Jim that this might not this sheet we have may not be the completed sheet. I I don't know. I'm just speculating. that one you have. Yeah. And and the amount requested column uh that she we're looking at there are some with the amounts of some amount of Okay. They gave us an estimated cost of $1,600,000, but it wasn't for that one building. It was a request they submitted was for station one and building three updates and that

yeah 1,600,000 figure was for all of the items they were requesting. We didn't have a breakdown.

They gave us a package. They're down here. received why we don't have a break on those numbers. Description of expense. Repair old, outdated, crumbling exterior of station one, including windows, gutters, roof, or driveway. Bring station one up to code regarding handicap accessibility. Update kitchen, bathrooms, radio room, and even a rear garage door or another drive bay on the rear room. Station three need cable lens replacement due to rot and road damage. Exterior facade upgrade upgrade bathrooms kitchen radio and AC unit repair parking lot. All for $1,600,000. So we did not have that broken down. They were the one of the first to come before us. Um, and as the time they just gave it to,

but we rated them all individually. They did break down all priority. They just didn't make it. Yeah, I I would make the comment that um I've seen this spreadsheet. It's pretty extensive and when uh we work with the finance department put together the final budget

we'll have all the excuse me uh we will definitely have all these amounts in there available. I mean this I think it's also important to note that this is the purpose of this presentation tonight was to explain the efforts that your committee has gone through. There's still three phases left of this um whole exercise. Uh the budget will come to my office. I'll work with finance and then we'll have uh you know we'll have the completed sheets with the amounts with the recommendations of what's going to come forward. That'll go that'll be a part of my presentation to the board of finance and then they'll also meet I believe they'll schedule to meet with capital improvements to go over the details too because the board of finance has the uh task of to your point earlier Mr. castle. They could repprioritize these based on uh you know, you're presenting your information based on scoring. There might be other priorities uh that surface during the budget process where they would change some of these and the final budget would you know is still a ways away from coming before the tri board meeting. Uh but uh we could take a look at that. Mr. Green, I I know there's several values here and I'm not sure whether it's just because of the way this printed out versus because it's pretty extensive. I've seen the spreadsheet and you need two screens to look at it.

Yeah, that's right. I'm not sure if that helps, but I it's a great question. I mean, some of some of them have value, some of them do not. Thank you very much. And if you have any more questions, anyone else? Sorry, Joe. Anything else? You're good. Thanks. My left side, TJ, Sue, you're all set. Good to go. Just to quickly, so you're looking at about 3.6 6 mil 5 cap. Is that what we're looking at? Somewhere in that range. I just just curious because because we are missing numbers there. I just We're not sure what the

I I have not looked at this in that level of detail. Ry, I I I can't I don't I can't answer it. No, no problem. No, everything over there, right? Okay. Thank you. Nice job.

Uh yes, thank you, Capital Improvements Committee. I think uh your points are well taken. Uh and if the general public can take anything out of this, uh we continue as a community to do best we can to prioritize keeping the lights on, moving the town forward, keeping our buildings and our roads as operable as as we can within our means. So that's the goal. Again, thank you all for your efforts and thanks for coming before us tonight. Uh this is not the again the last not the last time we'll hear about capital improvements. Uh the budget process will begin my my recommended but my recommended budget is due to the board of finance next week and the board of finance will start their processes beginning with their February meeting and they've got an aggressive schedule with their meeting I believe twice a week once uh we get into the last week of February. So February, March um and to meet all the deadlines that's required by charter for us to put forward uh the budget. So a lot more to come. There'll be more discussions in this meeting and other future meetings. Uh so again, thank you uh committee for all your work. I see you quite regularly in the mayor's conference room beating up these spreadsheets. Thank you. Okay, that concludes item number 11. We'll move to item number 12, which is public comment on non-aggenda items. If anyone has uh wants to address the council on any topic, this is your opportunity to do so. Public comment Melanie Church, 328 Main Street. Listening to all this, I'm going to make a big suggestion. Get a time study done. not going to employees and say, "Tell us what you want.

Get a time study done." Any business that was using this amount of money would have a time study and this town does not. And it's not a wish list. And again, you have to consider the the people. Also, I would like to see put together um oh the uh to look at having a town manager. It was promised and not to sit around and wait for two years. So, we're waiting for four years and running like this. This is not organized at all. And I feel for you because I don't even think you're impressed because you don't know which way to turn. And I think the most direct and honest way of doing this, let's go ahead and and get this together because it's going to take 18 months for them to complete their task, which gives us time to have an election on this. And the mayor said he was for it. He wanted the let the people decide. So I think it's time we look at a lot of things because this this to me is everybody thinks they got power. Read the charter. Read what it says about board of finance. Board of finance recommends. They don't have any power. They can only recommend and it's 3%. Maybe people don't want that either put in there. Maybe they want to go back and vote on everything,

you know, and we should have a right and each of you should think about it and bring it forward. But I think a time study should be done and and that's one thing that I see. Not asking people, oh, what do you want? I could want the world. That isn't making this town efficient, but a time study would. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional Hang on, please. Mr. Castle, any additional comments on any topic from the general public? I'm not seeing any, Mr. Castle.

Just one other thing I want everybody to know that uh the capital committee does not have money. Um, we come through basically by what they're people are requesting and we go for private advisor. A lot of it comes through safety issues. But we go and and look at that. If the if we see how much money is involved, if we don't base our decision on that because that's up to the mayor and the finance. So, it's not larger to say, "Oh, the money's going here. Let's go. We have nothing to do with that.

Thank you for your comments. I'm going to one last call. Any additional public comments? I am not seeing any additional public comments. I'm going to move to item 12, which is any comments from our C town council members. I'll start with my left-hand side. TJ, any additional comments? I got nothing planned. Mrs. Boyd, any additional comments? None. Mr. Green.

Um, I just want to thank the capital improvements committee for their work on this. I I was on that committee for 12 years, 14 years at one time and I understand that the work that it entails to go through and interview each department head to get a obviously a list produced, prioritized and all that. And I think it's important that we have a capital plan for the future. So we know what we have to spend uh on items and obviously they're going to go up, but at least we know what we we are going to have to to deal with. Um we can't go into it blind. So I thank you for for providing the report to us. Thank you.

No comment. Thank you. Anything right?

Again, thank you. I again being in the public sector myself as an employee um I know what goes in to these into into these budgets. A matter of fact I'm working on another one for another district. There's many many hours that goes in and you did a very good job by the way. Um so I if I sounded like a grumpy old man I apologize. That's not that's not my uh not my forte. I'm just I'm a numbers Yeah. I'm a numbers guy. and I started seeing stuff and I know gez 20 years ago we did this this and this and I don't see it in there now. That's the only reason why I am. So again, if I sounded that way, it's not in any way any shape throwing the stone at the job you did. Excellent work. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you everybody. Uh I just want to say again uh appreciate everybody coming out. It's always good to have a lot of folks here. It's very important. Public engagement is absolutely necessary for our success. I will uh entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. Motion Mr. Green, second Mr. Tishan. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of adjournment say I. Any opposition? None. Have a good night everybody. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you at home for watching. Have a good night.