City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Knights City Council meeting for Monday, June 22nd. I would just ask Can we page you mind bringing up the That's perfect I And as we do, Sally, can you please take the role?

Sure. Mayor McEachern.

Here.

Assistant Mayor Kelly. Here. Councilor Cook. Here. Councilor Tabor.

Here.

Councilor Blaylock.

Present.

Councilor Bagley. Here. Councilor Moreau. Here. Councilor Flynn. Here. And Councilor Hopkins. Here.

Excellent. I would ask that the girls tennis and girls lacrosse teams lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. did a great job on that um next up is the acceptance of minutes minutes and actions of january 30th 2026 february 2nd 2026 and june 8th 2026 city council meetings your honor i moved to accept and approve the minutes of the january 20th 2026 february 2nd 2026 and june 8th 2026 city council meeting second any discussion All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We first have a proclamation on American Postal Service Day in Portsmouth. Whereas the year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, commemorating the founding of our nation and the enduring principles of liberty, democracy, and opportunity, and whereas this year offers an opportunity to celebrate 250 years of service by the United States Postal Service and its predecessor organizations, including the much longer history of the Portsmouth Post Office, together they have connected the American people, facilitated commerce, supported civic engagement, and served as a trusted presence in our communities, and whereas since those earliest days, Post Office employees have played a vital role in connecting us through the communications and delivery service we all depend upon, and whereas the people of the United States Postal Service in Portsmouth steadfastly serve our residents and businesses through their commitment to universal service and community engagement, And whereas the 250th anniversary of the Declaration and of the Postal Service provide an opportunity to reflect on our shared history, celebrate the mutual contributions our citizens, including Postal Service employees, and recognize institutions that have strengthened our nation and local communities. Now, therefore, I, Daniel McCachran, Mayor of the City of Portsmouth, on behalf of the members of the City Council and the citizens of Portsmouth, do hereby proclaim July 3rd, 31st that is a typo and we're gonna have to get that cuz there's no July 31st 2026 as America 250th and 250 years of America Postal Service Day in Portsmouth and encourage all residents to participate in activities and celebrate our nation's 250th anniversary of and recognize the Postal Service's long-standing commitment to serving our nation and our community, given with my hand and the seal of the City of Portsmouth on this 22nd day of June 2026. And I believe we have Ed Rowe, the Assistant Manager of the Portsmouth Postal Center, to accept this on behalf of the Postal Service.

I was confused by that.

We have a few recognitions this evening. First, it's with a heavy heart that we recognize Stephanie Secord moving on in one role, not all. But as many of you know, Stephanie Secord has worn many hats in and for this great city. She joined the city seven years ago as a public information officer, a role which took on significant meaning when COVID hit. She literally became, for many, the voice of the city and the manager of an important city newsletter which shared timely health and public safety updates along with some beautiful poetry along the way. She has also served as my liaison to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. As of July 1st, Stephanie will continue to serve as the liaison to the shipyard. with this specific role to serve as the chair of the Portsmouth host community welcoming committee for the recently arrived USS New Mexico. We'll provide research, design, and production coordination for our historical marker and public art signage programs, and we'll now support seven different city boards, commissions, committees, including the Bicycle and Pedestrian Blue Ribbon Committee, Cable and Broadband, Internet Commission, Cemetery Committee, Conservation Commission, Energy Advisory Committee, Housing Blue Ribbon Committee, and Safe Water Advisory Group. With that many committees, I was surprised that you were ever doing anything else. But in addition, Stephanie is finalizing the details on a new opportunity with a non-profit organization close to home, which will allow her to utilize her talents in coordinated education and events for citizen diplomacy programming. stephanie personifies what it means to love the city and possesses a seemingly endless supply of historical knowledge about portsmouth the region and the state thank you stephanie for your unwavering dedication to the city and to the noble calling of public service and sharing your love of all things historic we look forward to continuing our work with you and slightly off script um as i always do with stephanie but the amount of information that this woman possesses the curiosity to get more information there's not too many people that i have had the pleasure with working with that you can trust that are going to put their best effort all the time forward to make sure that that there's there's really no stone left unturned when we're we're trying to represent the city so thank you stephanie for all that you have done all that you will continue to do uh you will be missed in in in many capacities but i'm happy to know that you will still be at city hall so thank you very much A couple of champions in the house tonight. I will say, as somebody that's lost a whole lot more than I've won, you learn a lot just being on a team. But it's great when you do get the chance to win because you tend to hang out and remember the times that you went through it. You'll stick around and be in communication just for the rest of your lives, talking about the time that you were able to pull it off. It's just in my experience, the one or couple times that I've won in my life. You tend to reminisce a little bit more, and it's a good chance to kind of remember the work and dedication. No less effort goes into it when you don't become victorious, but it's a special thing. We're all incredibly proud of you. So some specifics for those that didn't follow along the seasons as much. For girls' tennis. Having lost to heavyweight Sohegan 5-4 in last year's championship, the Clipper girls tennis team, with an unprecedented seven seniors, has its sights set on a return to the title game this year. But in only the second match of the season, the Clippers lost to Sohegan again, 5-4, and noted that work needed to be done in order to succeed. All 14 girls committed themselves to training hard and improving each day. Beating 10 out of 11 teams 9-0, the Clippers worked their way to a second seed and got what they asked for, a rematch in the state championship for Sohegan. There were many tight battles, a spectacular tiebreak, high-quality doubles play, which resulted in a 5-4 victory, earning the Clipper girls tennis team their first title since their back-to-back wins in 2018 and 2019. Congratulations to 2026 NIAA Division II girls tennis state champions. Now, I'm going to read every one of these names. I've asked for some pronunciation ahead of time. And just because I have a very difficult to pronounce name doesn't give me special powers to pronounce everybody else's. But the pain is real if I don't get it completely right. So I just want to say that in advance. Avery Porter. Elise White, Anna Cyphers, Aoife Ryan, Elish Honda, Harper Husky, Sid Rowell, Kirthi Subramanian, Lena Vadasic, Sid Berg, okay, I got a couple wrong there, Aya Tras, Emmy Salyon, Maddie Salyon, Maya Steinberg, assistant coach Claudia Stevens, and head coach Wendy Poder. And so we have this big, giant table here. So if I could just ask everybody maybe to, can we get a picture in front of it? Monty, are you going to be able to do that, or should we have them all come up here?

We can come up there.

All right. Come on up, guys.

Excuse the rest.

in the middle all right we're going to stand up too because it's okay we can't run people over

You'll never have a better picture.

And I would say to just quickly the

it was a tough phone call that we had um when we had uh when we brought pickleball and pokeball kind of came onto the scene in portsmouth um and i appreciate um uh wendy that uh you uh believed us at our word that we were gonna get um the courts into a place where they um are uh doing the job and it's great to see that they are doing the job and that seems like a distant memory except for anybody in the south end who listens to pick a ball at 10 o'clock at night so I appreciate the time that it took there but the confidence in the city that we're gonna do right by that and the courts look great so they are all right so girls lacrosse Before I, it was great to see you guys in action. So my daughter played lacrosse for the first time this year and found the powerhouse that is Seacoast Lacrosse and get to go and watch some of the games and clap you guys out for your senior night. Truly impressive what you guys have accomplished for three years running now. And it's just a testament to the work that you certainly put in this season. But getting to watch it just a little bit in the organization at the younger levels, this is really a culmination of all the work that you guys have put in and your families have put in. up until this point. So it is a huge honor to be able to recognize you guys becoming the 2026 NHAAA Division I state champions for the three-peat this year in 2026. So there's always pressure when you're great to continue to be great. So after going undefeated all season and being the top seed going into the playoffs, they found themselves, or you found themselves, back in the state championship. In the state championship, the girls found themselves down early but rallied back in a 10-6 victory over Souhegan. So I want to give congratulations to Ava Barrows, Sage Bousier, Addie DeLisa, Leslie is it a while all right I have a new appreciation getting to do this for my third grade teacher Maddie Houghton Lily Patterson Lily Remsen Ginger Vinciguerra, Georgia Bovair, Izzy Getman, Emery Louwton, Reagan Louwton, Liv Russo, Haley Stahlkamp, Elliot Blankensop, Ava Burnell, Tessa Bresson-Nah, Bressahan, Ellie, Patrick, Braley, Vischer, Molly, Malinowski, managers, Neely, Kulian, and Lori Kelly, assistant coaches, Aaron Chase and Chris Jay, and head coach, JoJo Kerrigan. Once again, guys, just an amazing job. We're so very proud. We're going to take the picture downtime because that didn't work as well.

Three? You have to do that. I don't know how to do that. Three, one, two, three! Congratulations, girls. Go Sniffers.

Oh, really? Yeah. They could coach us, right? It's super confusing to me. You must be a good coach. That's hilarious. That's funny.

Sukhas, will you say a few words on this amazing two teams?

All right, good evening, everyone. And thank you so much for all of your support over the years for our teams. These are two incredible teams that competed this year. But besides their athletic efforts, really, they're some of the greatest kids. They're so nice and good people. So I'm going to miss all the seniors that are out here, but they really are good kids and perfect people that are in our high school right now. So if we can get a round of applause for that, for them being a... Amen. And just to say, and our coaches, too. I love our coaches. We're so lucky. I say this all the time, how blessed we are with coaches. And these guys, they put in so much time and so much effort and passion and care for the kids that it's really cool to work with them. They make my job really easy. I do want to give a shout-out to the police department because they are incredibly supportive. I call them right after they win, and these guys are so happy. They're like, what? You guys won? All right. we usually meet at the liquor store in the traffic circle and then we decorate the bus give the kids some t-shirts and then they give us an escort through downtown and I think I mean just the looks on the girls faces in the bus you know as they're driving through downtown everybody's screaming it's it's worth everything it's so much fun but the police really do a great job getting us through downtown and then back to the high school they got the sirens on I'm sure some of you have heard them uh come through but uh we apologize for waking anybody up but they really it really is a cool uh cool thing that we have in the city so uh thanks to everyone excellent

I'm guessing that I don't know if there is much more on the agenda that you all want to stay for. So if that's not the case, I would just ask that we stand, clap you guys out, and you guys can go out and continue this celebration.

Yeah.

So we have one more recognition. And that's to thank the Wilcox industry and the key auto group of Portsmouth for the 250th anniversary Independence Day celebration. I know that I'm not sure that we got more emails. maybe uh maybe um but when there was a chance that uh it wasn't gonna happen um from a funding standpoint so just so incredibly grateful that we're able to to have this and that it's going to be better um really than ever before so on behalf of the city of portsmouth I want to extend our sincere thanks to Wilcox Industry and Key Auto Group of Portsmouth for the generous support of this year's Independence Day celebration. Your commitment helps make possible the fireworks, the laser show, and the live entertainment at Leary Field. Portsmouth's deep colonial and revolutionary era Roots make this celebration a meaningful opportunity to reflect on the city's place in our nation's founding story. The event is dedicated to honoring veterans and begins at Leary Field at 1.30 p.m. on July 3rd with live entertainment right up into the fireworks begin at 9.15. As we celebrate the 4th of July, we're also marking the lead up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Throughout the year, there are many opportunities to take part in the commemorations across Portsmouth and the region, from historic tours and community gatherings to cultural events and exhibits, I encourage everyone to explore, participate, reflect on this important milestone in our nation's history. More information about this and other events around the 250th anniversary can be found on the city websites. And thank you again to Wilcox Industry, Jim Tietzel, Chiata Group, Anthony DiArenzo. I hope everyone enjoys the festivities and has a safe and happy Independence Day. So thank you, guys. And there's going to probably be other communities that do it on the 4th. I've always had the pleasure of explaining that July 3rd is when we really, you know, send off all the fireworks. Now to volunteer committee reports. Public Art Review Committee, Cod and the Mortal Sea Sculpture Repair and Reinforcement.

Your Honor, I move to release $3,000 from the Public Art Trust Fund for the repair and reinforcements for the Cod and the Mortal Sea Sculpture in Bohinko Park. second and let me just um update you briefly on the need for this release of funds this sculpture has quickly become a favorite of many people in the community because because you see it when you're coming in the corridor to the city however there's quite a bit of wind at that site and so the artist is going to update the wiring so that it's more rigid so it protects the fish from banging into each other on the site so it's more just an update to the infrastructure to protect them excellent and that was a second by favor all right any discussion

all in favor aye any opposed all right public comment thank you again for Paige for bringing this up we will start with Dee Fort on cemetery committee it is you can pull it down a little bit if you want

I'll hold it. I'm Dee Forte, resident of 372 Court Street, and I'm also the chair of our Historic Cemetery Committee. And I just wanted to bring awareness to something that we're working on to honor our revolutionary soldiers that for the 250th anniversary of our country, we are going to be placing markers We have like over 40 revolutionary soldiers that are laid to rest in Portsmouth cemeteries. Most are in Norris Cemetery on Maplewood, but there are other cemeteries as well that we're going to be laying these markers or placing these markers this week. They'll be about four feet tall, and they'll have like a red, white, and blue ribbon on them, something like an older 250-year-old flag. The markers themselves will be temporary just for this summer, but we're also going to have a sign at the entrance of each of the cemeteries that says what these markers are for, and it will also have a QR code. to a city website page that has the bio like a quick bios of each of the soldiers and also we'll be adding like a google map that will have the precise location within the cemetery of where these soldiers are laid to rest and so that the markers themselves are are temporary but the um information on the website will will be permanent and uh i want to thank you know we i say we and really a lot of the work has been done by stephanie secord so i totally um appreciate your comments earlier mr mayor and um also corinne hallowell from parks and greenery has been a huge help as well So that's it.

Thank you, Dee. Look forward to seeing them. Next up, Peter Huda on audit oversight. Oh, it was a question. Why has Portsmouth come full circle on audit oversight?

I was waiting for that, Mr. Mayor.

Sorry. I thought it was a weird residence there.

Peter Huda, Portsmouth. Portsmouth has come full circle on audit oversight. Portsmouth has come full circle on audit oversight and not in a good way. Section 7.4, the city charter requires an independent audit conducted by certified public accountants selected by and reporting to the city council. The charter does not merely require an audit report every year, it requires an independent audit process. In 2021, the city adopted a GFOA-based audit committee ordinance specifically to help the council fulfill that responsibility. It established a committee that included financially qualified residents, independent of management and the auditing firm. Its purpose was straightforward, provide the council with independent financial expertise, professional skepticism and oversight that the elected officials themselves may not possess and don't this year. Unfortunately, that independence was later weakened. In 2022, the ordinance was revised again. Council representation was increased, the chair was required to be a counselor, and several of the committee original responsibilities were reduced. The result would surprise no one. When the independence is reduced, oversight is reduced. When expertise is removed, accountability suffers. And when those charges occur gradually, the decline often goes unnoticed until a meeting like July 9th puts it on full display. At that meeting, the only remaining resident member with significant financial expertise publicly asked, why am I here? Frankly, Portsmouth residents should be asking the same question. The committee was being asked to recommend an audit engagement to the city council, yet there was no proposal available to the public review and little discussion of the scope of work, deliverables, assumptions, exclusions, audit procedures, and internal control review. I would ask every counselor up there, Would you approve a legal engagement, engineering contract, consulting proposal, or major vendor agreement by focusing primarily on cost while showing little interest in what services would actually be provided? Would you allow your business, your employer, or your clients to operate that way? If not, why is that standard acceptable when taxpayer dollars are involved? The audit committee was created to provide independent scrutiny, not a rubber stamp recommendation and pass it on to the council. I was equally concerned by the comments suggesting that the city's ERP implementation would somehow resolve internal control concerns. That's a dangerous assumption. Software does not create internal controls. Management creates internal controls. An ERP system can support controls, but it cannot replace oversight, segregation of duties, accountability, and management reviewer governance. During my career, I participated in multiple accounting system conversions, including the consolidation of four separate systems into one and a full division conversion into SAP. In every one of those projects, experienced auditors were involved early because management understood. Mayor, can I finish, please? Yep, you can.

Is it another?

Yep, two minutes.

Two minutes, okay. Can we get it into 45 seconds?

This is the main point here. In every one of those projects, experienced auditors were involved early because management understood the simple fact that processes automated by good software are still bad processes. The greatest value auditors provide during ERP implementation is identifying weaknesses before they become embedded in a new system. Portsmouth is at that stage right now. If control weaknesses, governance gaps, or reporting deficiencies exist today, they will not magically disappear when the ERP system goes live. They will simply be carried forward and become harder or more expensive to correct. That is why an audit engagement matters. Therefore, I urge the Council to send this recommendation back to the Audit Committee. Require the Committee to conduct a full-level review of the charter intended and the Council deserves. Require a meaningful evaluation of the scope, deliverables, risks, internal controls, and the ERP implications before the recommendation comes back to the Council again. The issue is whether Portsmouth still has an independent audit process, because if the only remaining financial expert on the committee is publicly asking, why am I here, then this council should be asking itself a far more important question. Who is actually providing independent oversight of Portsmouth's finances? And if the answer no longer is the audit committee, then the council has the responsibility to fix it. Thank you.

Thank you, Petra. Next up, Esther Kennedy on Portsmouth.

Esther Kennedy, 41, Pickering Ave. First, I want to thank Dee Fortier and all the work she's been doing on the cemetery committee. She gave a lot of credit to other people, but I know she's done a lot of work in particular in looking at celebration of the 250th. I also want to give a little credit to the fact that the meeting that seemed to be a little bit better, a little bit more information, still a way to go, but we're getting there. I WAS A LITTLE TAKEN BACK THAT WE HAD A VOTE ON THE $3,000 BECAUSE I REALLY HAD A COMMENT ON IT BEFORE THE PUBLIC COMMENT. I WOULD REALLY LIKE US TO CONSIDER, FIRST OF ALL, FISH FLYING AROUND MAKES SENSE WITH THE AMOUNT OF WIND WE HAVE DOWN THERE ON THE WATERFRONT. AND MAYBE WE NEED TO LOOK AT A NEW LOOK INSTEAD OF THE FISH FLYING. SO JUST A THOUGHT AS YOU'RE SPENDING $3,000. My last comment and the most important one in my mind is oh Actually one more before The guys from the New Mexico have been coming down kayaking and they're really nice So Stephanie good luck and hopefully the city does a nice job for them. They have a lot to offer my last comment is I was approached by a teacher who just took a job in the area in Port Smith and making roughly around $60,000. The question is, where can I live in Port Smith for $60,000? The other question is, in six years, what has this council done to create housing for someone for $60,000? And the way I look at it is very little to nothing. So I would just ask you as you're thinking about housing and looking at the future and looking at the building, what can we create for people that are actually, and we can call it workforce housing, we can call it affordable housing, but we can call it market rate housing, but really none of those terms allow someone that's making $60,000 to live in our city. So I would hope that you would consider that since you all have run on the fact that you're going to create housing and yet we have not seen hardly anything. And the only little thing we did see is because Peter and I took him to court and spoke and got the looking at it again so that we do have housing. So I would just ask you to look at that. It was really sad to say this council hasn't created anything. Thank you.

Thank you, Esther. Next up, Paige Trace on the topic of Portsmouth.

Paige Trace, Portsmouth. Tonight I'm going to speak about something a little bit different. I'm thrilled to hear that you're going to, hopefully, Please approve Deputy Chief of Police Maloney's employment agreement. The city and you, the council, need Deputy Chief of Police Maloney. I've never seen anyone in the last 10 years or so work harder and more honorably In a time when we are all about either getting rid of police or doing something to police that's negative, you're now finally approving the employment agreement of a great officer who simply puts his head down, and he's worked for us as counselors, past counselors, he's worked for the city, and he never complains. He just does what he has to do. So I say thank you for being smart enough, please, dear God, to approve his employment contract, and I'm thrilled to hear that he's gonna give the city of Portsmouth a little bit more time. Thank you. Thank you, Paige.

Seeing a hand on Zoom of Tyler Garzo. Tyler, can you hear us?

I can. Zoom has been unmuted. You have a letter from me tonight in the packet regarding complete streets policy. I'd ask the council not simply to place it on file, but to direct a response to the question it raises about whether DPW is required to follow council's ratified policies. Thank you.

Howard, can you repeat that? Sorry, what was the last part that you said?

Specifically, I've asked the council not simply to place my letter on file, but to direct a response to the question it raises about whether DPW is required to follow council's ratified policies.

Okay. Thank you, Howard. seeing no one else on zoom and no one else uh rise uh we have the is anybody else rising nope um we are on to the uh public hearing and vote on ordens and resolution well actually you know what's up i'm just going to suspend the rules and bring something forward is it the contract uh it's i will do that first and then i'll do the police station update second

okay oh yeah okay why don't we um yeah we'll do the uh uh let's uh deputy chief is here so let's uh do that first uh yarn i would suspend the rules and bring forward item 11 city manager's item which require action uh item a approval of deputy chief police chief maloney's employment agreement second all in favor aye aye

all right now we'll have a weight of motion to uh approve the agreement so we can discuss the honor i'd move to approve the agreement as presented second any discussion

Council Bullock. Thank you, Your Honor. As some of our residents have stated already, I think we're very lucky to have Deputy Chief Maloney as part of our police department. I also have the pleasure of coaching against Deputy Chief Maloney, but I think that just shows how part of the community he really is. We always talk about community policing and stuff, but when you see his kids participating in local sports and student government day and they're actually part of the community, I think that is priceless. I think we're very lucky to have him and I'll be happy to support this contract.

Any other comments? i agree with paige more than she realizes i agree with her own things um uh when we're not disagreeing um but uh we certainly are in violent agreement on on this um uh deputy chief uh maloney is a uh he's a great police officer because he's a great man um and he is uh he's certainly uh portsmouth through and through um so look forward to supporting this contract and I want to thank him again for the advice when I was in a ride-along police officer night or the, what is the?

National night out.

National night out. Two roses and a thorn and two truths and a lie were things that he said that he did with his kids that I got my daughter to start talking to me. She really liked two truths and a lie. But just you serve the city well. I'm happy that you're going to be serving it for a little bit longer. You make us all proud and look forward to seeing you continue on in this as long as you can. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Deputy chief your honor. I'd like to suspend the rules again and bring forward item 15 city council members item a counselors cook Tabor and Bagley municipal building blue ribbon committee update report back second All in favor aye any opposed aye We've been working hard at this for, I guess, close to a year now, or I guess since January, so not close to a year, but it feels like it. The first real financial report back was this past week, and there's some skeptics on the committee, including myself, but I would say it's fair to say that the proposed plan that was presented with financials was extremely well received. It's a very detailed plan. It's a phased approach. It's got nine phases. The first five phases is essentially the vast majority of the police station upgrades and repairs that need to happen. And the grand total of that is 42,215,000. There are nine phases total that would continue on with all of the renovations to City Hall that need to happen. And the grand total of that would be $58,634,000. These are really big numbers. However, it's important to realize that it would be phased in over a number of years and bonded. So it would be like an eight year cycle where we're adding more and more bonds. Some of our large bonds, such as the middle school, would roll off. So the effect on taxes would not be as big as one might at first see. But it really, there was a lot of collaboration, a lot of effort. The school department, looks like they're going to be willing to relocate some of their staff, which fills up space that we need in this building so that we can have a much more cost-effective and functional police layout. The police have moved their dispatch over to Fire Station 2 for probably the foreseeable future to accommodate all of these different upgrades. It's going to require a lot of staff to move out to DPW for different periods of time. But this is a really well thought-out plan. It's not finished, so certainly welcome to more public input. And the financials are really robust. I believe it's a 6.7 annual increase, adjusting for inflation on construction costs. The relocation costs are incorporated into this. They've really done exhaustive financials with a couple of firms that have a good reputation of getting the numbers right. So these are real numbers that we're working with now. And if you run it, you look at that percentage as a percentage of the total city budget this is definitely something that we can afford to do we're not going to be straining city financial resources to do this the decision whether or not we should do it I think is a community discussion we should have but it's not such a large number that it would put an undue burden financially for the city or put our triple bond rating at risk or put us in a position where if we had to have unexpected expenditures sort of like we had this past year with new franklin school we'd be able to account for those things so i i speaking as somebody that went into this with a healthy bit of skepticism i think the the people on the committee and the architects and the design build and the the city staff and the police department have done an excellent job and it looks very promising from my perspective thank you councillor bagley

i just want to add the the planning process has has brought us to a position where we're looking at a joint a point point of service in the front of the building that is going to provide better access to the public for critical functions here at city hall so that would be moving the critical functions that we usually see on the second floor to the front of the building it's much easier access for residents And at the same time, that frees up space for the police department, which would need to move into the space on the third floor. And then that dislocates people from the third floor, which dislocates people from the second floor. There's a whole process that happens to make this plan work. and it's over many years and that is part of the staggered funding of the project but it's also part of getting it right here at city hall and making sure that we get the police what they need but also get the public what they need in this facility so i think it's very important at this stage that we go back and we discuss this maybe at a higher level at the council level and bring these plans forward Because we want to make sure that we're progressing in the right direction and that this is a plan that the council would consider before we do Considerable amount more work on the plan. And so I think that that's that's really important at this stage It gets a cook cancer Tabor

um thanks your honor um as somebody who's been part of four or five years of looking for a new police station solution as you recall we thought we might have to move to a new site and a cost came in at 72 million dollars which was a non-starter then we had 42 million dollars for a big new wing on City Hall which I think the Portsmouth Herald's massing picture pretty much made it dead on arrival and and then we took up the 2014 plans to renovate city hall and renovate the police station so we had three questions will it all fit will it be functional and will it be affordable we looked at the complete space needs for the police now and in the future detailed work on that and yes it will fit with some small additions and without a giant wing will it be functional yes you've seen the illustration of the new sally port We can bring prisoners in in a secure and safe way. The interview areas, booking, DUI testing are all in a secure place. There are greatly improved work areas for patrol, for detectives, and the evidence rooms are really much better. will it be affordable um yes as counselor bagley points out the um police renovation itself is only 30 million dollars that far exceeds the expectations i think any of us had and that frees up money to create the single port of sir point of service for the public uh which is really nice it's spacious it has all the departments people need and easy access and then we go on to have the rest of the renovation in the subsequent phases so essentially we're getting for 44 million the new police station and the single point of service and for another 14 million we're getting a city hall renovation that will improve all the work areas more conference rooms better layouts better adjacencies so it was really pretty exciting after some of us have tried to solve this problem for a long time and the police chief and his department have been very patient but i think we're now getting somewhere that's exciting counselor cook

So as a result of this progress we've made, I would like to propose that we have the council hold a work session at our next meeting. So I would move for the council to hold a work session at our July meeting on the police station facility updates.

Second. Just on the timing of that, is there a...

what's july is typically when there's less people that come to city council meetings so is there a timeline that this would be impacting yes the committee meets again on july 29th and we need to have updates for the architects in the planning group by that date that's why we're suggesting in the july meeting to have a work session discussion and this is really to bring the council up to date on the current planning of the committee and to get feedback from the council to make sure that we're moving in the right direction we do take public comment i should be really clear at all the municipal building committee meetings and we would welcome public comment at those meetings as well just as we would at a work session so we're always open to getting more public feedback and the plan would be to get more public feedback down the road but we don't want to proceed if this is not a plan that the council would consider.

Councilor Bagley.

Thank you, Arnon. I actually had the same concern. We talked about it at the meeting. You know, maybe August is better because not as many people are on vacation. But if you think about it, a lot of people are on vacation in August, too. And we would like to get council buy-in sooner rather than later. And once council has kind of a meeting, then it'll probably be on the front page of the Herald again, and we'll kind of stimulate some more conversations in the community. I think it's still a ways off before we have a finalized plan and budget. So... I don't see any harm in getting the ball rolling early because there'll probably be another bite at this apple.

Excellent. Well, so motions on the floor. Councilor Blaylock?

Just for the record, I will not be here in the July meeting. I've been asked to coach the 11-year-old Portsmouth All-Star team.

All right.

Your Honor, if I might, the team would share that based on the comments heard at the last Blue Ribbon Committee meeting, They will be working on a refined version. It will not be ready for the July 13th meeting. It would be available for August, but that being said, please do what you think is right schedule-wise.

But we need our feedback before the July 29th meeting.

so the revisions they're making at this stage are not major revisions the plan is generally in place as it is and they are making some revisions but they are not significant you're still going to see kind of the shape of the building and where the additions would be even though they're minor additions i think it's important for the council to look at those and make sure that that's going in the right direction i think that's the critical piece is making sure the council is on board with that and budget okay look forward to uh counselor tabor is there oh i just wanted to hear uh maybe from staff what they would recommend uh july meeting or august third meeting

We're going to be very diplomatic and say whatever works best for the council.

Okay. Yeah. I would say that if we are – if you said not to have Councillor Blaylock there, but congrats on the opportunity. I think the – being able to have some feedback on this, we can't take action on this, but it would be good to have – feedback going into the July 29th meeting before the August 3rd meeting. And if so required, we could schedule another work session for the 3rd of August, given the fact this is the largest capital program project that we'll have. So it's probably, we could have two work sessions on this and be okay if needed. an hour each and give the opportunity to split the baby just up to so but we can decide that at the after the work session that is currently for next or on the table for or for vote for the next meeting so any more discussion all in favor aye any opposed thank you again to the committee for the work that's gone into it and for just the effort that has gone in and all all it's going to be a lot of work to do but appreciate that we've been able to get the money down get the masking down and hopefully still hit the mark Next up to City Manager's items, which, no, public hearing and vote on ordinance and resolution. First reading regarding ordinance amendments to Chapter 7, Vehicles, Traffic, and Parking, Article 1, Parking Meter, Section 7.102, Parking Meter Rates Relative to Fees.

Your Honor, I move to pass first reading and schedule a public hearing and second reading for July 13, 2026 on the amendments to Chapter 7, vehicles, traffic, and parking, Article 1, parking meters, Section 7.102, parking meter rates as presented.

Second. Any further discussion?

Just to remind the public, this is not a major change. We're basically trying to change our ordinance so that the fees associated with on-street parking will actually become part of fee study committee versus being in the ordinance. And that's really the only change we're truly making.

not to the actual rate but it is a reasonable change that you know will allow us to uh to look at it more regularly all in favor aye any opposed uh next up city manager's items which require action thank you your honor we've dispatched with item a so we'll move on to b which is a request from our legal department to extend a one-year lease extension to the players ring

as you will recall we've amended the lease with the players ring over the last several years to create short-term extensions as we're trying to understand and navigate the scheduling of phase 1a of the prescott park master plan now that it is including the real the temporary relocation the permanent relocation within the the area to move it out of harm's way uh part of what is is holding us up is understanding exactly the timing of the work that the players ring would do to the building and how we incorporate that into the relocation schedule but what we can say about the players ring is they have been excellent stewards of the building and excellent tenants of the city we use them as a as a model tenant if you will they're wonderful to work with just since we've been to you last with an extension they've applied for and received grant funding to pay for their latest project which is to install custom-fit storm windows that will conserve the building's character-defining window architectural element. And as is the case with many of the leases with tenants and city facilities, what they do is expend capital improvements in what would be owed annually in property taxes. So we have one more one-year extension in front of you. At some point, we will both be excited to bring forth a longer-term lease. But at this point, we're going to keep moving forward with one-year extensions.

Your Honor, I move to authorize the City Manager to negotiate and enter into lease Amendment 5 of the Player's Ring in a form similar to attached. Second. And I'll just state that I've, like the City Manager said, the fact that they've been excellent tenants, model tenants. I've been to a couple of their performances. They put on great shows. But, yeah, happy to support this.

Thank you, Councillor Boyle. Councillor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to thank the city manager and the staff for the flexibility in this contract, especially around any assurances that the Players Ring would need for applications for grants or other programs. It's wonderful to hear that they're such fantastic tenants, but also they provide a wonderful service for our community in extending community theater to the masses.

agreed all in favor aye any opposed thank you item c there's a there's a long narrative in in the packet what i will share as by way of summary is that what we presented to you tonight is a minor update of existing city council policy relative to vending and what this will allow is for folks in this season to understand where they can vend in the city and where staff can be flexible with identifying identifying the most appropriate vending spaces that are appropriate for the changing conditions that you see in downtown, most notably with the construction and other things we need to work around. So what we've done recently is updated our city website. We've identified, for the public's understanding, three sites that could be used for vending, and those include right in front of where the holiday tree goes in Market Square, right outside the parking garage on Hanover Street where people like me park their moped, but we won't be able to. And most notably, now that it's cleaned up for this season, is Vaughn Mall. So the idea is we now have three places that we can identify and share with the public. Now we can get into the process of accepting applications. And we will keep refining the policy. And Suzanne Woodland and staff would remind me that we are going to make additional fixes, if you will, to a very outdated set of policies relative to hawkers, peddlers, vending, that kind of thing. So this is the first in a series of cleanups.

URI move to adopt the amendments to policy 2009-04 as presented.

Second.

Any further discussion or discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Similarly, Jane Farini has been kind enough to be working on the following, which is a request for first reading regarding ordinance amendment to Chapter 6, licenses and encumbrances, Article 1 encumbrance premises. licenses for use of public property relative to fees and as you've seen recently we have through the budget adopted new fees for encumbrance permits and licenses through the latest fee schedule which was part of the budget resolution back last meeting and the fy 27 fee schedule increased the charge per square foot for encumbering city property which had long been five cents a square foot to 10 cents a square foot and increasing fees for encumbrance permit from 50 to $150 with a new $300 fee for encumbrance extensions. So the attached amendment to the ordinance is a housekeeping measure that adds as a reference to this fee adoption process, which you've already gone through. a way to do that and to remove it from ordinance if you will going forward so this particular sentence and these particular items were not initially included in the original encumbrance cleanup that we've done there will be more to do and what this does is now align this this act that you would take would now align with the fees incorporated in the budget and moving forward as has been the case with other fees to be assessed they become the jurisdiction of the fee committee and out of ordinance so that they are more easily identified and amended.

I move to schedule the first reading of the amendment to Chapter 6, Licenses and Encumbrances, Article 1, Encumbrance Permits and Licenses for Use of Public Property by adding Section 6.111, Fees, at the July 13, 2026 City Council meeting.

Second.

Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you. And lastly tonight for me is a request for release of funds for the NEBI sculpture contract. And as is the case with items that are referred to or recommended by PARC, You will see requests from park or, and sometimes feedback from the trustees of the trust funds. So back a year ago, July of 2025, the council voted to support the creation of a sculpture known as Nebby in the same way we. We acted for the endeavor sculpture as part of the 400th. So now the, uh, the folks involved could go seek fundraising to pay for engineering and to pay for the work to be done. The trustees of trust funds are seeking clarity at this time that they are allowed to disperse funds under the artist contract, which is in your packet, was recently executed, and will be paid if the council so authorizes the trustees tonight at this meeting.

Your honor I move to authorize the trustees of trust funds to disperse funds under the contract as the city manager directs the trustees For the remaining phases of the work of thirty thousand dollars twenty thousand dollars and seven thousand five hundred dollars.

I second that Any further discussion All in favor aye any opposed. Thank you City manager next up is the consent agenda your honor.

I move to adopt the consent agenda as presented I Second is counselor Bagley I just want to highlight it's one of my favorite things to come up on the agenda every year is the Portsmouth 31 31st Halloween parade community event request They've already started fundraising They're halfway to Halloween fundraiser which kicks off the season for them just a few weeks ago, but it's He does a lot of work for the parade, but it's still a community run and paid for event by a bunch of

bit crazy volunteers and a lot of local fundraising and it's become a great event here in portsmouth certainly has all in favor aye any opposed uh next up presentations and written communications first up tyler garza regarding complete street policy your honor i move to refer to the city manager for a report back second any discussion counselor cook

Thank you, Your Honor. I appreciated hearing from Tyler this evening in public comment, and hopefully we can answer his concerns, the city manager can answer his concerns.

Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Next up, email correspondence.

Your Honor, I move to accept and place on file. Second.

Second. all in favor aye any opposed all right on to the council agendas uh first up um we have the establishment of the city manager evaluation committee which we will do in june or otherwise as feasible in the contract there's a couple of things so uh councillor fillen and councillor hopkins uh you have to be on the council for a year in order to be on this so uh don't get to be chosen uh last year we had councillor bagley blaylock and the assistant mayor kelly on this committee so this year we will have councillor tabor councillor cook and councillor moreau meeting to set up the evaluation committee share that with the broader council and report back thank you, uh, for the service and, uh, appreciate, um, that the city manager, uh, requested this clause in her contract, uh, so that, um, we could, uh, give, uh, this type of feedback. Next, uh, appointment to be considered, um, the appointment of Gary Dozier to the police commission until the next municipal election of November, 2027 to replace commissioner Jay Lieberman, who has sent notice of his intent to resign the position effective July 31st 2026 see the attached letter in the packet this appointment is made pursuant to the city charter amended e which was amended in 2019 to bring into compliance with state law and provides that the city council selects the candidate to fill a vacancy of the police commission. And so while I would ask you to consider it, I will give slightly a little more color on this. If you recall, we had a very long process for the police commission before. We also can't have a regular meeting of the police commission without the three members. And so with the fact that we had the charter change or the the change to align to the state law. It was my belief that the easiest pathway and best pathway is to listen to the people. Mr. Dozier was the next highest vote getter that accepted the position to serve and thus it is out really of our hands because he put his name on or at least in my opinion put his name on the ballot willing to serve and was voted for uh by a number um of portsmouth residents so appreciate mr dozier's uh commitment uh to serve i think he'll be a great member uh and he will be um confirmed at the next council meeting if there are any questions uh please reach out uh to myself to mr uh mr dozier or other members of the police commission again that will be for the next councilman um appointments uh to be voted uh appointment of uh karen uh denicola to the cemetery committee appointment of jim wilson from alternate to regular member to the cable and broadband internet commission uh the reappointment of ash tree uh to the cable and broadband internet commission and the reappointment of jeff abrams to the cable and broadband internet commission i'd wait a motion to appoint the following as presented move to a point the following is presented second any discussion any questions appreciate uh the willingness uh to serve um and both uh cemetery committee and the cable and broadband uh internet commission uh those were uh ones that got a um uh certainly were grew uh grew in their uh responsibilities the cemetery committee uh to reestablish that well as the cable and broadband Internet Commission that really kind of look to see how can they be more of service so appreciate all the work that's going on and thank you to those that are stepping up to serve Portsmouth all in favor aye any opposed on to the City Council members we have the counselor we did that one counselor cook

Thank You John er You will see in your packet an item on pre-approved adu plans and I'll make the motion and explain it a little bit further I move to request that the Planning and Sustainability Department in collaboration with the Housing Committee and Planning Board Review already pre-approved adu plans used by other communities To determine whether the city of Portsmouth can adopt any existing plans to be approved for use in the city of Portsmouth second and i'm bringing this forward because i know the housing committee has done a lot of work on adus and trying to increase adoption of adus we're in that stage now that they're wrapping up the and i i suspect we will receive a report back shortly on planning for next steps from the housing committee over the next few years on housing action plan and i just wanted to make sure that we don't miss a step here with pre-approved plans for adus i understand that the housing committee has discussed pre-approved plans in the past but cost is always a consideration when you are thinking about ways to design a potential adu that can be adopted across the city you know what are the costs for the city to hire an architect to develop plans to be used down the road and we have many other communities that are setting this example for us so it seems reasonable to look at already existing plans to see if there's anything that we can just adopt and speak with other communities have those conversations of what would what would we need to do to adopt one of your plans as a pre-approved plan in the city of portsmouth that we could allow our residents to to use to develop an adu to cut their own costs and so

thank you councillor cook councillor morrell um could we also wrap in the legal department as one of the departments to look at that because i guess one of my very first initial thoughts is uh using any other community i mean those those are private property that that community's been allowed to use but i'd like to know the legal ramifications of us making that consideration as well

Councilor Cook, I absolutely have no problem with that. That's why I'm suggesting that we have conversations with those communities as well. What triggered me thinking about this was the state of Massachusetts came up with pre approved plans and published them on a website and said anyone these are available to anyone in the state of Massachusetts. and so i thought well if they're making them available to all residents of the state of massachusetts maybe we can have a conversation with them and say hey can we use one of these plans for a nominal fee can we enter into a contract with you to use one of these plans or the same with other examples because this is being done across the country it's been i gave a few examples of mariposa county california eugene oregon but i also know that they've been done in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, and many other places. So there are a lot of options.

Councillor Tabor.

yes i think i enjoyed looking at the examples and there's some really attractive designs in the material you put in the packet you said this should be for people not subject to historic district review it might be good to make the implicit explicit about that

I think it's to answer that I think it's really critical that people understand that the reason that this is being suggested is that it's to cut people's cost down so when that they're hiring they don't have to hire an architect necessarily to come up with a plan so the ideal is somebody who has property and has space already that falls within the existing guidelines and but they just don't have an architect or a plan in place. And so they can use an existing design and they can just go through the permitting process. now this would not necessarily exclude someone who's in the historic district it would just mean that they would also have to go through that review process because they're in the historic district and it wouldn't exclude someone who needs a variance but it would mean that they have to go through the board of adjustment to get a variance so it's it's really though providing that opportunity for everyone and then those who don't need a variance or don't need historic district review could just request a permit which would really reduce costs

yeah i think it's outside the historic district this speeds the whole process it's very efficient if we have standard designs that are pre-approved i think we just have to be careful about pre-approval in the historic district councillor bagley thank you and i think this is this is a great initiative um

I was speaking with a developer recently who mentioned that land use board meetings typically run in the neighborhood of about $25,000 between the architects and the engineers and the preparing of everything. And his thought was, you know, what you really should do is make more things available by right to homeowners. He was excluding himself from that. He said, don't make it easier on us. Find a way to make it easy on the people that have one plot of land and want to make some changes. The more things we can let our residents do by right, the easier it is going to be for people to stay in their homes. I would just add one name that might be of interest is Cole Peterson. He's out of Portland, Oregon. He's been kind of the... the guru of ADUs for the last 20 years or so. So in addition to reaching out to these communities, he's kind of like the godfather of ADUs or something like that. So he would be somebody at least worth having a conversation with.

Excellent.

Councillor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. And I intentionally did not put a timeline on this because I know that the Housing Committee is working currently on their Housing Action Plan. So I'm just asking for this to be included in that process and that Planning and Sustainability and the Legal Department look at this in conjunction with the Housing Committee and the Planning Board.

all right well um appreciate the effort uh that uh has gone into this and i know the housing committee had looked at his previously um state laws have changed um since that look uh the first time in terms of adus making it you know potentially easier uh to build adus within the state uh would love to be able if there is a reason why we have to pay for plans to put on a website this is something that the state of New Hampshire could easily kind of move in the direction of you know offering for the entire state things that should be approvable based on you know their zoning so we love for for grants or things like that to be uncovered but you know even if it is even if it's just, you know, a company that wants to build ADUs or ADUs in the box, you know, that come, that are much easier to kind of prefab to have, using those terms now, Council Monroe, but to be able to, like, you know, work and create some partnership to make it easier to make that decision and not have to go to, planning boards or uh you know zoning boards to be able to get the permission to say hey this is what i got to build that'd be a great idea um and make it a lot easier and i'm sure that if we could get that we'd see a lot more and people to understand the true cost of what that would be and not some kind of this is the cost of construction plus whatever we have to do in the planning board so i appreciate the effort i look forward to hearing the report back when it when it comes back all in favor aye any opposed Councilor Tabor.

Thanks, Your Honor. I'll put the motion before us. I'd move the Council approve the communication plan recommended by the Energy Advisory Committee to increase transparency and awareness of the best electric rates for residents.

Second.

And the plan is outlined in your packets. I think we've had robust discussion about community power, first in our work session and then our second visit from the consumer advocate. The biggest single conclusion from all those discussions is that we need to get the word out that you can opt out and go back to Eversource whenever those rates are lower. So we at the Energy Advisory Committee discussed this. Monty and Stephanie Secord drafted a plan to step up communication, especially around the rate announcement times in July and January. We also, as the outline says, want to inform residents of the bigger picture, the non-rate benefits of green options, the combined buying power of the coalition, the legislative engagement in Concord that it gives us. And you know the mailing that we did to the 2500 refreshed customers underscores our commitment to make customers aware of their options and counselor bagley has been vigilant about that too which is really i think in the long run helped us so we want to as we did with the mailing to the refreshed customers go as far as we can to make people aware of their rate options And that's what the plan you have before you tries to do. I will update with a few headlines. The next rate period is coming up. Eversource has requested a 14.009 cent rate up from their current 11 cents or so. the puc is hearing testimony about that this week there's a lot of people who believe eversource is not recovering their losses fast enough in this great proposal so the community power rate will probably be set at the end of the week as after the puc finalizes the eversource hearing and we'll see what it is but i think all indications are that it's getting more competitive and people are getting closer in their rates so we'll see what happens so that that's the uh purpose for the motion and the plan is outlined in cancer but happy to answer questions

Councilor Bagley.

Thank you, Your Honor. When there was 3,000 people getting refreshed a couple months ago, there was a postcard sent to them. Looking at the Community Power Dashboard, it shows 733 people to be refreshed. Are we planning to send them a postcard like we did with the previous 3,000?

We haven't discussed that. We should discuss it. We'll discuss it at the July meeting, which is next week.

Excellent.

So I'm looking through the communication action plans. So June would be requesting whether or not we're doing a So it's going to – once the rates are set, we'll send out the information on the – oh, here it is. So I'm just going to sample a communications action plan. So it would be – it would be the rates how to opt out based on uh the the price differential um there will also be another question that you will ask on whether or not counselor bagley's point if this will be if we'll be sending another mailer to those that are getting a refresh um and then there will be um a uh an op-ed um and then july and august um you know more um I guess, energy efficiencies, but it's really – is it fair to say that the mailers are going to be going out every rate period as a part of this?

If you look at – City Manager, if we can go to the tactics, we weren't planning to use mailings because they're a dollar apiece. um and if we wanted to inform the whole city that would be including the small business customers twelve thousand dollars um so is that the every door card that's a that's a dollar piece Well, we can't use every home because there's people who don't have community power. There's people who have third-party providers. So you need a house-by-house list. You need an address-specific list.

Is there a way, though, that we could just say if you are on community power, this is something that you – I guess that's a – Like, what's the downside of somebody that doesn't have it and they go to sign up and, you know, I mean, I guess somebody that's already opted out is going to be kind of a high, like they will, they're a high information voter, so to speak. And so they're going to know that they've, opted out and for the example that we gave you know or that somebody gave when they moved and they were they were put back in um you know is it possible i guess what's the cost in terms of being able to notify uh those using the every door direct mail

If we did EDDM, every door direct mail, the cost does come down. The question would be, are we going to confuse people who are not on community power? And your thesis is, no, they're high information folks. We wouldn't confuse them.

If they've already gone through the process of opting out, I think they would

would think that they would know right right i think what what stephanie and monty came up with was that we should use the website the city newsletter social media channel 22 everything but direct mail and we still would get full coverage without the the high cost but if the council wants to use direct mail we can we can go that way well i just

I'm sorry, I just had a quick question. Would there be a way to monitor that? You know, we could compare how the response with the mailers and then compare response without mailers and, you know, kind of have an AB test run of how we can reach these folks. I mean, instead of looking at trying to solve it, could we just, you know, test it and see?

And also, I like that idea, testing. It's tougher on the EDDM because you've got to do all of them to get the cost lower. Sort of all or nothing. But we're trying to create a habit where right now nobody Up and before community power, and we heard this from Don Kreese again, there was not really a place where people compared rates outside of those that were very high information and focused on this and directly priced their own energy. What I certainly love about the Energy Advisory Committee is a lot of work goes into community power, but it is itself like an energy advisory community to the city of Portsmouth that could be with community power it could be in another place but it has a responsibility to do the best by Portsmouth and right now the best is that community power but I think what the goal should be would be creating high information you know folks throughout the city of Portsmouth and it might be more intensive in at the beginning to get people to be aware of this you know before it could taper off to be something that's less um aggressive in terms of mailers when people are like oh that's right it's registering now that i see it on the the city website this is something that affects me and not some other you know people that are focused on community power counselor cook

Thank you your honor Direct mail in any form is going to be fairly expensive and I like the current communication plan that says Postcard mailings for refresh list. I think that is important to consider But I don't know that direct mail is the best way to necessarily reach every household some people have moved to a more digital format in general and don't always check their mail and their regular mail at least. So maybe we could look at alternative ways to reach people. I noticed that there's something that is not listed here and as the city moves more towards entirely electronic billing for individuals maybe there's an opportunity in our billing system to have a pop-up that says just a heads up you know when you go in to pay your water bill that there are new rates for community power so maybe that that's an opportunity in July or there's an opportunity to reach everyone who's enrolled in the direct billing system through the city of portsmouth the water sewer billing system online maybe there's another way to reach them in the same way we send them notices about their billing and and that might be more effective um frankly than a postcard in the mail and a lot less a lot more cost effective so i think there are ways to save money here maybe and reach the same individuals counselor cook counselor bagley thanks your honor um

I'm always going to be supportive of what Nashua did and Don Reese recommended, which is we don't refresh new residents unless community power is competitive with Eversource rates, because I feel like that's unfair to new people that move to town and are paying a high premium for electricity and are probably unaware of it. I might be more supportive of not making that change if we take the next, say, three rate cycles. This one upcoming six months from now, six months from then. We do an every door direct mailer, which, if you've ever costed it out for running for office, is like $5,500 with printing costs. So you're looking at a $15,000 to $20,000 cost. But we don't just make it, here are the rates for Eversource, Community Power, and Freedom Energy. We make it, here are some cool things about the Energy Advisory Committee that we're doing for you. I think right now there's the air conditioning trade in for $50 or $100, things like that. So I think the highlight could be here are the rates, and it's looking like community power will be a lot more competitive, only about a cent off this time around is what I'm hearing, but I guess we won't know for another day or two.

We won't know until Friday.

But it could be about the rates, which gets people comfortable with picking what's the best option for them. But it can also be about a few other things that the Energy Committee is trying to push. And I think if we did that two or three postcards over the course of a year and a half, that gets most of the community aware of what choosing your energy supply is. And it's no longer this intimidating, confusing thing. I got a postcard in the mail this week from a company where I got a $100 gift card if I signed it up for 100% renewable green energy for two years. And the rate for 100% renewable green energy was cheaper than the community power rate for 35%. so I'd normally I would just throw that in the trash but because of the discussions that we've been having for the past two years I actually opened up I read it I understood what they were trying to pitch me didn't feel like a scam it kind of still felt like a scam but I knew it wasn't a scam like so I think there's an education component here to these postcards that we could do irrespective of of how much the rates are different that we should at least consider and maybe that's something the energy committee can talk about so it's not just about the rates it's messages and the people that are most concerned about reading are the ones not on Facebook or You know online or coming down to City Hall all the time is the people with really busy lives with small kids Lower income people people that just are not tuned in to what we're doing as a municipality But if they see something on there on their counter with their mail, I think it will make a difference with those people. I

Well, let me just make the argument for a variety of media and not direct mail. You know, that busy person often takes that direct mail package and throws it in the trash. The typical response rate for taking an action in direct mail when we were in that business at my previous company was three to seven percent. And repetition is really important. and finally there are small business customers who are on community power and I'm not and they would not be part of EDDM they would be part of the residential mailing so we would miss a significant number of customers i mean we have ten thousand households this uh... community power enrollment is twelve thousand you know i can't i'm talking and thinking at the same time here which is always dangerous but that would indicate about two thousand small businesses would be missed and it's expensive

city attorney what's the legality around the reverse 9-1-1 and if we were because we're now acting as an everybody has to be opt-out is there any way to use communication channels to alert people like we do for tornadoes or other events in the city that because of the structure and RSAs around community power would allow us to proactively reach out because we are an opt-out versus an opt-in town

well that would require me to do a little research but i would my first reaction would be you're not going to be able to use emergency channels for this type of communication would have to be for a community emergency as this currently is but i'd have to look at that okay

Thank you Mayor. I think the communication tactics is a pretty comprehensive list. I think Councillor Cook's idea is another layer we can add to it to avoid additional cost to send out a mailer because I think behaviorally there's a behavior there that's pretty standard. I also think that You've done such a great service, Councillor Bagley, bringing to the attention. The prices go up. There's a problem. It gets people's attention that normally wouldn't have gotten their attention. So if they were making progress, I think the plan is good. I was impressed that it was so thorough. And again, the tactics, the communication tactics.

I'll just offer a slight rebuttal to that. I have a lot of friends in the city that I've talked to in the last couple weeks about community power. They have no idea what I'm talking about. It's not getting through to a great deal of our residents what community power even is and that they can save money on energy. There's a lot of people that are totally unaware of what we're doing with community power that live here. And I stand by that.

Yeah, I think we all agree on that.

that's building the awareness and our job is to get them the best rate okay so motions on the floor this is something that again this is a would love to be able to the every door direct mail I think if the rates are similar it's going to be thrown in the trash you know like pretty i i would imagine that so i did like counselor bagley's idea of you know focusing the effort on awareness of the energy advisory committee what it does you know and what its purpose is in the city of portsmouth but it might be you know a bridge too far at the moment to expend city funds talking about something that we're doing um in a positive way i would like to imagine you know or understand other ways that this can be tied into bills that we currently have that people do open i know that there's rsas around that but if it could be something that we offer when you know as a resident you know something along with car registrations or something where we can offer more information that when people are thinking about, you know, the couple of times a year that most people think about government, not us, we're Martians, but like the regular people, if they can, when they're in the mindset to do this, be like, oh, these are other ways that it can save or other ways, you know, you know rebates they can get or choices that I have would love to see that in terms of the clerk's office the you know the motor vehicle registration office include those as areas where we can make people aware again not just rates that got a lot of people aware but like on the other things that are available to them but I'll support this as it stands at the moment if there is, you know, certainly reserve the right to further discuss if the rates are going to be drastically different. standpoint of opting people in versus not we should have some mechanism of terms of like a percent wise you know that we have a policy that says if the rates are outside of x percent you know close to each other then we should not you know refresh people in to uh the program uh you know and and and come up with a policy based on what that percentage is um and then you know we'll let that be something that we agree on as a council that goes back and uh governs what uh what the response is on the uh the energy advisory committee but with that we can is that counselor tabor any no i that's i think you've made your position clear and we've talked about the different channels um and let's let's vote on the plan as it is all in favor aye any opposed all right um counselor moreau uh yes uh the audit committee did meet on uh

june 9th even though i voted no um i was voted in his chair i did vote against myself it didn't do me any good i tried really hard um but i i'll i'll start with the motion then we can talk a little more about it i'll move to authorize the city manager to execute a contract with cla for an additional three years second And then if I might, so we got together last October 14th in 2025 to actually talk about whether or not we would like to engage our current audit firm, CLEA. I keep wanting to say, sorry, I take continuing legal education, so CLE just rolls off my tongue. CLA firm for another period of time. we voted unanimously back in October to move forward and to get a quote from them and so that was the point for our recent audit meeting on June 9th was to actually look at the renewals and none of the terms of our contract that we currently have with them have changed we just got updated pricing and that's what's actually in your packet is what they sent us back which is the pricing so the terms of our original contract that we had with them three years ago remain the same. We have not changed any bit of that. We just have the pricing to continue on. And not only did they give us pricing for three years, they gave us for three individual year options as well. The committee did discuss this, and I'm sure the other committee members from our meeting might want to weigh in. But we talked a lot about with us moving to this new software system for the finance Uh, finances of the city, it seemed to make sense to have an auditor who understood the old system, be part of us transitioning into the new system to make sure that nothing gets missed and that everything is appropriately accounted for. Um, so it seemed to be very logical and the pricing was fairly reasonable. Uh, and therefore we voted to move forward and to recommend to the city council, the three year, at least the three year, um, fixed fee extension. I'll let others talk.

Councilor Bagley. Thanks, Your Honor. Yeah, so as was mentioned earlier, there was two of us that were new to the audit committee. This is the same firm that the previous incarnation of the audit committee originally recommended. There can be some confusion, but in the charter of the city, it talks very specifically about the audit. which is done by the auditors who we would enter into a contract tonight. That was the will of the council. The audit committee's job is to evaluate the contract proposal from the auditors and recommend or not recommend it to the council, and to look at the audit and make sure there's no red flags. And I'll use this as an example because we're all well aware of it. When SchoolCare released their audit from last year, this February, their auditors, who they hired and paid, had issued a Question of whether or not school care would be an ongoing concern in a year. That's about as red flag as it gets in the audit. Our job as an audit committee, as I see it, is if there are red flags in the audit, then we ask the follow-up questions. Our job is certainly not to become CPAs and auditors and think that we can execute the audit ourselves. Our job is to recommend experts to look at the city books and file a report that us regular people can read and understand and if there's anything of concern bring to the attention of the public there is nothing of concern in any of the audits i've ever seen since i've been on the council in fact i think they've been very good this is a financially responsible contract and with the massive overhaul of our city financial systems it would be a little bit crazy to bring a new auditor in which would have to learn the systems that are about to become obsolete as well as the new systems that we're transferring to so i think a three-year contract is highly advisable any other questions counselor cook

Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to note that I appreciated the smaller escalation rate in the fees for fiscal years 26, 27, and 28, that they managed to keep their increases at less than 3.5% each year.

thank you to the work of the audit committee and i think counselor bagley uh summarized some of those distinctions well um it is definitely when you hear audit you are thinking that um the uh the role as to question spending um you know that's our role as a council uh to question the spending um the budget um you know the audit is to make sure that the funds are going where they say they're going to go and they're being used in the ways that they are and there's not structural things when the cities and the controls that exist there and I would agree as we're moving on to a new system it does make sense to continue on I'm trying to remember how long we had the previous auditor on before we made the change but was it 20 years? Something like 20 years. And so we created, we formed the Audit Committee to have this process. It's a good process. We have outside experts that are arm's length from the city that are looking at the books and making sure that the audited financials are, The money is what we say it is. And so that's important. I'd love there to be more feedback and budget discussions with folks and have that budget process. And I like that we've increased or we started the capital improvement plan fast or earlier in the year so we can talk about the budget all year long. in a good way um but that's you know the audit committee is to choose an auditor uh that does the the work and so um having the ability to to choose uh that otter is the job of the audit committee and so thank you that was fun i did forget to mention that we've actually already scheduled our next meeting

which is december 16th at 4 pm and we did that specifically so that we could review the audit findings for the fiscal year ending very soon before the end of the year and before the full audit report would come back to council in january excellent all in favor aye any opposed all right um counselor hopkins

Your Honor, I move to accept the action sheet in minutes of the June 4th, 2026 Parking, Traffic, and Safety Committee meeting. Second.

Any discussion? Councilor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. I look forward to seeing the report from the next meeting, I believe probably in July, on the Complete Streets discussion after our discussion here tonight. Mm-hmm.

Excellent. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. No grants or donations this evening. City management's informational items.

I've got three short ones, Your Honor. The first one is, believe it or not, we're talking about the next capital improvement plan process and cycle. This would be for FY28. We're not even FY27 yet, but my colleagues say it would be smart for me to remind both residents and members of boards commissions and committees that the deadline for submissions for the next cip are going to be here before you know it and the date we are proposing is friday september 18th so for committees commissions boards that may take some time off on the summer it would be it would behoove the process to to keep that deadline in mind and we will bring as we do a kickoff in august to the council meeting to remind you of the next cycle Next up would be a development Authority board meeting update. We did not meet in May and There were not real things of note in March or April. So I'm sorry, right So we did meet in June highlights include that the division of ports and harbors which includes in Portsmouth the Market Street marine terminal the Portsmouth fish pier And activities at both those locations. They are part of the CIP that's upcoming for FY 26 to 32 and And members of the Peace Development Authority went to Concord last week to lobby for funding. So funding for the CIP for DPH is very dependent on the state's support for that. In Gulf news, rounds were up in April and May, even with a late start and with some lousy weather in May. And believe it or not, the air traffic control tower replacement that is going on at the Portsmouth airport right now has made the current tower closed and all activity is being supported by Boston right now. So that started this past Friday, June 19th. And it will be supported for 45 days through Boston with no incidents expected. They do this on a regular basis for backup anyway. In other news about the airport, the first of the 12 KC-46s are back from theater, which means that 11 are still out seeing action. And the first American cruise line vessel was here this past weekend with limited information about whether people spent money and wandered around, but they picked a beautiful weekend and lots of activities to be here. and the last thing under my name would be a report back from a budget item that questioned whether the trustees of trust funds could support the artist live work studio study and the short answer is yes they could there's a memo in your packet that discusses the things they'd like to see in terms of terms and conditions of the trust and when the city enters into a legal document with the

the contracted consultant which we intend to fulfill so it will be covered by funds in the below market rate housing trust council cook thank you your honor um i just had one quick question about this my understanding from reading this memo back is that this will still come back to the council when the contract is agreed for disbursement that is correct okay

any other any items under miscellaneous thank you i just want to acknowledge the storm last week and the work of the gpw to this ongoing effort it was it's heartbreaking to drive around town um and see it but i know that i'm working really hard i really appreciate it get people safe likewise anything else under this linus

Wait a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Good night, Portsmouth.