City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to tonight's City Council meeting for Monday, July 13th, our only meeting in July. I would first await a motion to leave the non-public session and to seal the minutes of that non-public session. So moved. All in favor? Second. Aye.

Aye.

Wait, was there not a second before that? There were two. Oh, there were two first.

There were two so moves.

So we got the Assistant Mayor and then Council Member Ross second again. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Caitlin, will you please take the roll?

Mayor McAkron?

Here.

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

Here.

Councilor Moreau? Here. Councilor Flynn? Here. Councilor Hopkins? Here. And absent, Councilor Blaylock and Councilor Bagley.

Caitlin, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

we have the june 22nd uh meeting minutes up for acceptance your honor i move to accept and approve the meeting the minutes of the june 22nd 2026 city council meeting second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed next we have uh recognitions of parks and recreation months On behalf of the city of Portsmouth I am pleased to recognize July as Parks and Recreation Month since 1985 communities across the nation have set aside this month to celebrate the parks trails and recreation programs that build stronger healthier communities and This year's national theme, The Power Of, celebrates how parks and recreation connect us, foster play, build community, reconnect us with nature, and support health and well-being. From the rail trail and the skateboard park to the South Mill Playground recreation area and the walking trails around both Pierce Island and Community Campus, it is easy to get outside and enjoy parks and recreation in Portsmouth. This spring, the Rec Department launched an interactive parks and fields map, which residents can find on the city's website. This year's theme carries particular meaning. After June's storm caused significant damage to Haven Park, our public works crews worked quickly to clear debris and restore safe access. Our urban forestry staff are now considering the best way to replant and renew the park for years to come. It is a reminder of how much care and effort goes into the parks we all enjoy. I want to thank everyone who cares for our parks and leads our recreation programs, especially the recreation board and staff. Your work helps make Portsmouth a more connective, active, and welcoming city. I encourage all residents to get outside this July, visit a park or join a program, especially one you haven't tried yet, and celebrate all that parks and recreation bring to our community. And on a personal note, I started on the rec board my first term as a council. The care and dedication that the folks bring in to that, it's It's hard to put into words how much that makes our community stronger. And then certainly you don't notice it as you grow up, the work that goes into making recreation a part of your life. You certainly notice it when you have a couple of kids that are taking part. And just the staff and all the work on the rec board that goes into making sure that uh kids of all ages and backgrounds have the opportunity to be outside uh to learn what it is to to uh to be on a team or simply to enjoy nature um young and old with the senior center it is it's truly remarkable and i see that we have both tim bailey representing our recreation staff here uh this evening uh one of the best and rich duddy uh the chair of the rec board uh being able to to be here uh tonight i want to thank you guys both personally not even just for for being here uh tonight uh for this um for this recognition but uh every day on behalf of portsmouth making it a little bit better uh for not only you know our citizens today but you know making the investments and the planning for our citizens of the future so thank you both very very much And with that, public comment. So we have first up Beth Margison on notice.

says right here please state your name and address my name is beth margeson i live at 24 marcy street i do want to echo the mayor's comments on parks and recreation they're so important to a city and as i was at the pierce island pool on saturday just what a great jewel that is what an important asset that is as well as everything else the city does for its residents including its youngest and oldest residents so um think back three weeks ago um it was june 22nd there was a work session on the mechanic street pumping station i had seen the notice in the city council packet fossy had sent out something two weeks before two days before and then you could You could click on the link at the bottom, but nothing was posted until I think about an hour before the work session. Last time I checked, I had not seen anything at all. I did not come to the session. It was sort of noticed as alternately the Mechanic Street pumping station replacement or also upgrades. I'm sure Peter knows the... There was some... fixes that were started to mechanic used to mechanic street pumping station like in mid-june i kind of thought it was related to that i actually didn't know exactly what happened until like a couple of days later and then when i saw the um the article in the paper and i was very surprised because that it is a very very very extensive project um i was surprised that the park the prescott park trust um may be considered for eminent domain and the ramifications of that. It has a reverter clause in it that if the parkland ceases to be used as a park, it could go back to the heirs, the Prescott sisters heirs. They go pretty far to find collateral heirs. You know, the city, Pierce Island is also a trust, but it does not have that reverter clause, which allowed the city to put the wastewater treatment plan there. I'm going to urge the city to please be more complete in its notice of actions that are before the City Council. I recognize that there's gonna be a public process for this, but there really wasn't much notice to the public to actually see exactly the extent of what was being discussed that night. So I just ask for better notice and more timely updates of putting materials onto the City Council website. so that people have an opportunity. I did actually watch the presentation. I was surprised by the amount of people that was there. So perhaps this is me being out to lunch, but it's just something that I am asking for the future, especially when this is a very significant project. I completely support wastewater infrastructure improvements. It's absolutely essential. Um, and I also am concerned about the ramifications of using eminent domain, even on a parcel of that park. Um, what that means for the rest of the park. Thank you.

Thank you, Beth. Uh, next is Roy Halsall on stop signs.

Evening Roy Halsall middle way on where I live. I'm talking about Hodgson Way and Gate Street. There's three stop signs there, one on Gate Street, two on Hodgson's Way. The one that comes from Route 1, it's on the wrong side of the street. The one coming from downtown, out to route one it's too high and i almost got hit not too long ago and i brought this up to the for the board one other time the people go too fast on that road the stop signs aren't effective they don't stop for them and there's going to be an accident there pretty soon all right that's that now i want to talk to you about the budget when they figure out the budget do they ever think about the overall cost that is going to affect all of the people of portsmouth the taxpayers because it seems like they do a lot of zoning changes and allowing the build the construction people and the contractors and move them for them but do they do this for the private builders the homeowners and you should think about the taxes not the effects of all of the people not because it doesn't affect big business in the contractors that's all thank you thank you roy next up is eric anderson

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. I'll be quick. Eric Anderson, 38, Georgia's Terrace Portsmouth. Under items for city... city managers items which require action uh item d it's with regards to the bonding resolutions that um for public hearings but um just curiously there appears a bonding um item for um six hundred thousand dollars for fire apparatus Now, it's not well explained. If I could get an answer on that so I can prepare better for the public hearings, it just seems to be synonymous with the fact that a $600,000 figure was referenced for the fire boat. And I don't know if this is just another way to introduce the fire boat in a different manner. But if there could be some explanation to that, think it would help the council understand it it would help others prepare for the public hearing um and any comments that might come forward for that thank you thank you eric uh your honor we have one person

good evening mayor uh city council's uh tyler garza 62 mckinley i i wrote you all in about this as well but just to put it on the verbal record there's an informational item regarding complete streets policy in your packet the report states that any determination not to meet complete streets principles outside of routine maintenance must be reviewed and confirmed by city council Since staff's position is that the policy has been adhered to, I'm hoping that staff can identify how many such determinations have been brought to City Council for confirmation since the policy was enacted. And for projects that departed from the design guidelines cross-sections, such as Van Buren Avenue in my neighborhood, was that departure brought to Council for confirmation? And if not, on what basis was confirmation not required? Thank you so much.

Seeing no one else signed up in the room for public comment, we will... Councillor Cook.

Your Honor, I'd like to suspend the rules and bring up items 17C and 17D, school care litigation and Banfield litigation. Second.

All in favor? Aye. City Manager.

Thank you, Your Honor. City Attorney Susan Morrill would like to bring to the attention of the general public two matters that have been before this council and the legal department. And I believe the first one is school care, correct?

Sure. So I wanted to make the public aware of the fact that the city has filed a lawsuit against school care, the risk pool company that provides health insurance for our school employees. We filed last week requesting a couple of... request for relief one of which was a preliminary injunction against school care to ensure that even though we have not paid the assessment that they issued last fall of 1.57 million dollars We wanted a court order to enjoin them from withholding payment of our claims while this litigation was pending. And we also wanted to, rather than pay the full amount to school care, consistent with our vote, the City Council's vote in earlier this year, I think it was in April, that we would pay it under protest we asked the court to allow us to put that money into escrow account rather than paying directly to school care and let it sit in escrow pending the resolution of the lawsuit so we filed that lawsuit early last week and we came to an agreement with the attorneys for school care and the court has now granted our request for a preliminary injunction and has directed school care that even though we have not paid that assessment they must continue to honor our contract and they must continue to pay all claims for all of our school employees through the length of this litigation another component of that is that our litigation our lawsuit will be stayed meaning we won't progress through discovery or any court hearings while the Dover lawsuit that is a mirror of this is pending in Stratford County Superior Court and so essentially that lawsuit will go to conclusion prior to our litigating Any of our claims in Rockingham County Superior Court and the court agreed to the stay as well as the injunction So those are the the highlights of that litigation that was filed Any questions of the council? Thank you So the other matter is the Banfield Road litigation I think it was 2023 they filed lawsuit against the city seeking damages for environmental claims for the property at 375 Banfield Road claiming that in the late 60s and 70s that the city had dumped toxic materials on their property causing environmental damages that were present today. uh we've gone through a number of um litigation processes including a motion to dismiss that was partially granted and then some discovery with depositions and now we had filed a motion for summary judgment prior to the hearing on the motion for summary judgment the plaintiff agreed to resolve this matter and dismiss all claims against the city and that has occurred now and the court has approved that agreement and so the case has been dismissed with prejudice with no cost to the city there is no agreement um in this lawsuit in regards to this lawsuit that has anything to do with the rezoning request that is coming forward from the owners of that property so just so that the record is clear there is no agreement by the city in regards to that zoning request so it just says straight up the case has been dismissed no further action for the same cause no damages

um to be paid by the city any questions of the council thank you city attorney morel your honor oh so just to to drive home that point uh it can we correctly state that if the zoning board or a planning board uh turned down the zoning request or recommended against it, there's no exposure on the city's part. In other words, if they acted in their quasi-judicial capacity and did their job and said, nope, we don't recommend this,

Correct. There is no effect on this lawsuit. The lawsuit is over and done with and dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot come back. And there are no terms in the settlement agreement that relate to the rezoning request.

Thank you. Councilor Tabor. No other questions? Again, thank you, City Attorney. I appreciate both of those outcomes and the work that went into them. On to public hearings and vote on ordinance and our resolutions. We are public hearing and second reading of ordinance amending Chapter 7, vehicles, traffic, and parking, Article 1, parking meters, Section 7.102, parking meter rates relative to fees.

your honor we have parking staff available to answer questions but i want to say the council may want to move something from within shall we make the motion then um well we have to have a public hearing public hearing okay open up the public hearing on

the updates to or amending ordinance amending chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking article 1 parking meter section 7.102 seeing no one rise no one on zoom closing the public hearing additional council questions or deliberations it's a good time for a motion

okay your honor i would move the past second reading and schedule a third and final reading on august 3rd 2026 on the amendment to chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking article 1 parking meters section 7.102 parking meter rates as presented second any further discussion counselor

um i'll just to reiterate and make sure that everyone the public understands this is just taking fees that are in the ordinance out and now making it so it'll be part of fee study committee to set parking rates that's all this change does correct yes this as we do with the garages this goes to the same process to do as the garages

yes and under that section of our ordinances not just the fee study committee but the council can at any time set a fee any further discussion all in favor aye any opposed your honor i'd like to suspend the rules and bring forward third and final reading second all in favor aye any opposed

make a motion that we pass third and final reading of as presented second any further discussion all in favor aye i'd also like to uh request a motion that we bring forward a public hearing to enact the fees as recommended by staff at our next city council meeting do need a second second just thought i'd put that out and if anyone remembers in our packet um our parking staff actually did do an analysis of our um rates as they were changing in our parking garages and as they were changing um uh for the new wrap program so we are um it was suggested that we move forward and i believe it's a dollar increase um across the board both for the first three hours and the remaining hours so um we just as a council since we've changed the rules we don't actually have to send it back to fee study committee we can at any time during the year hold the public hearing and change those fees so that's why i made that motion uh counselor cook

and i just want to reiterate that those are changes for um non-residents residents still receive their parking discount correct yes sorry i did miss that part we are not changing anything for residents yes and i think if we don't make that change we'd have a situation where it would be cheaper to park on the street than in the garage correct at five hours or four hours yep

Any further discussion on the request of first reading?

I don't think we have to do three readings. I think we just have to have a public hearing. Oh, a public hearing, sorry. Right. That was how I requested it.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? On to the first reading of Ordinance Amending Chapter 6, Licenses and Encumbrances, Article 1, Encumbrance, Permits, and Licenses for the Use of Public Property Relative to Section 6.111.

Move to pass first reading and schedule public hearing and second reading at the August 3rd 2026 City Council meeting regarding an ordinance amending chapter 6 licenses and encumbrances article on encumbrance permits and licenses for use of public property section six point one one one fees as presented a second that Any discussion on favor aye any opposed aye

Finally, first reading regarding ordinance amendment to Chapter 12, City of Portsmouth Building Code, Section 1201 through 1209, by deleting or replacing the entire chapter.

Your Honor, I move to pass first reading of the amendment to Chapter 12, City of Portsmouth Building Code, Sections 1201 through 1209, and schedule a public hearing and second reading at the August 3, 2026, City Council meeting. Second.

Any discussion? Councillor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. So I had a question about Section 1208, which is the Green Building Code, which is just an incentive code, so it's not actually a required building code. I noticed that it was struck from and from the current building code even though it's just aspirational code and i'm wanting to know if there was a legal reason why that was also struck even though it's it isn't required

um what i can tell you is that the state legislature has been busy with the building code and the fire codes and preempting the field essentially so any amendments that are different in any way from the state code have to be approved through the state board so i think our first pass on this was to simply bring us into alignment with the state building code and other additions or amendments could be considered later but they'll have to go through a lengthy process of approval through the board the state board of review any amendments that are different from the state building code council cook

Thank your honor, so this section was not actually required code at all. It was just a holdover area to Provide us with the opportunity to provide aspirational opportunities for builders later to apply to apply green building standards and therefore get things like reductions in their cost for Doing so reductions in their building fee cost so

i'm wondering where can we put it that is not in the building code then because i don't see how it conflicts with abiding by the state building code requirements it may be that it came out because we were trying to make a clean sweep without considering that in particular but we can certainly look at that section and see where it could be replaced thank you

Your Honor, if I could, I would add that if this ordinance were to pass tonight and we have second reading at the August 3rd council meeting, the inspections group and the legal staff are in communication with the State Building Code Board of Review. They will put our draft ordinance on their agenda for August 12th so we can move things along in an expeditious fashion, and then we could take up third reading on August 17th. So we would have a building code in place, and then we would simultaneously look to find out how to reinclude that section.

Thank you Any further discussion Answer point yeah, that's what I was just curious about too is that it's it seems like even though We're just changing the ordinance a lot of these changes have been made at the state level already so when a resident comes to Look at you know get the we this was a very explicit detailed document now if someone's doing a project is there something that the city the planning and sustainability is

department has got available to residents so it's somewhere on the website or transparent where this and this could be added to it 12 1208 the I'm not sure I understand the question it's exactly but the state building code is available on their web on the state building code website I assume it's probably also on our inspections that's really what the question was okay that's great

any further discussion all in favor aye any opposed on to the city manager's actions item or items which require actions

thank you your honor I have four tonight the first one is a request for first reading at the August 3rd City Council meeting for the annual omnibus ordinance which amends chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking and as you will recall we do this every year and we take the changes that have been made throughout the 12-month period through the parking and traffic safety committee and bring them to fruition typically it happens in the summertime as cadence and the current ordinance authorized the parking and traffic safety committee to recommend temporary parking and traffic regulations to the council and for its approval in the form of the monthly meeting minutes so the ones that we are bringing forth for first reading next meeting would relate and are in the packet there are several of them so looking to move to schedule first reading on august 3rd your honor i move to schedule first reading of the annual omnibus ordinance amending chapter 7 vehicles traffic and parking

Article 3, Traffic Ordinance, Section 7.326, Limited Parking, 15 Minutes, Section 7.330A, No Parking, and Article 6, Loading Zones, Section 7.601, Limited Hours Loading Zones, at the August 3, 2026 City Council Meeting.

Second.

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

Thank you. Speaking of parking and traffic safety, we have next up an item that was pulled out from a previous set of minutes so that we could share with the council and approve as a separate matter. And my colleague, Eric Eby, will come on up and give a brief presentation as to the understanding and discretion of Fleet Street from the area of Congress to Hanover. Welcome, Eric.

Does everybody have hard copies of the presentation?

Okay.

You can follow along. I did cut this down to seven slides. I'll try to get through this quickly. For anybody who's not aware, I'm Eric Eby, Traffic Engineer for the City. And this project is the Fleet Street Reconstruction, Section 1. And you've seen the construction out there on Congress Street, which is part of it, this past winter. It's on hold right now for the summer, but we want to pick it up and finish it in the fall. And part of that is Fleet Street between Congress and Hanover. So with the street being completely torn up to separate sewer and replace utilities, this is a chance for us to make improvements to the streetscape, the travel lanes, sidewalks, trees, parking. So we've – this is going back as far as – oh, next slide, please. So this is a slide showing the area. And we're looking at just the section between Congress and Hanover tonight. We're trying to get some final recommendation, approval on the traffic flow on that section, Fleet Street Section 1. And the next slide. So this has gone back several years where we brought in, we did a web survey to get public feedback as well as business owners' feedback on what they would like to see on this section of Fleet Street. And the results of that survey, which was conducted in January, November 21, January 22, was that people would like to see a one-way flow on Fleet Street going from Congress to Hanover because what one-way flow will allow us to do is to widen the sidewalks, get better street amenities, the trees, benches. We would also still be able to keep parking, but it would also allow for emergency services to get from Court Street Fire Station up to Hanover Street across town, even if we maintain the one-way flow from Congress to Hanover. It came before the Parking Traffic Safety Committee at their meeting in January of 2023, and we presented several recommendations to them with different alternatives. One was keeping it as is, the two-way flow and the existing narrow sidewalks. The other one was one-way flow to Hanover, but getting rid of on-street parking, which would allow for even wider sidewalks. And the third option was to keep the on-street parking, but still widen sidewalks where possible. And at that 20 January 2023 meeting the committee put any decision on hold We came back to them again in May of this year looking for a final recommendation because we're into construction now We need to make a final decision So at that time in May the committee did vote to recommend the one-way flow with on street parking from Congress Street to Hanover Street and they have some diagram showing what that would look like on the next slide and This is a cross-section of Fleet Street looking from Hanover towards Congress Street. On the left is the narrow sidewalk, which would stay pretty much the same. We'd get maybe a foot or two extra width on that. That's the ghillie side of the street. Then you would have one vehicle lane, 18 feet wide. That's the minimum width that the fire department would like to see for safety for getting their equipment in there. then adjacent to that would be the existing parking spaces which are eight feet wide and then the widened sidewalk on that side of the Wilder and that's down if you're looking further up towards Congress Street where the sidewalk widens out you wouldn't have parking but you would have a wider sidewalk at that point Now, the next slide is a plan view, and this shows Congress Street to the right, Hanover Street to the left, and one-way flow going from Congress to the left to Hanover Street. And this option, which was developed several years ago before Gillies was proposed to be redeveloped and close off their parking lot, this kept the parking on the existing side of the street where it is today, widened sidewalks where possible. And so it's an improvement. It shortens the crosswalk distance that Congress and Fleet keeps the parking. And since that time, we've heard from members of the Bike Advocacy Group and the new Bike Ped Committee, and they're very interested in having a counterflow bicycle lane that would still allow bicycles to go from Hanover to Congress Street. And we have the width. It would be a matter of restriping this roadway to provide both the one-way travel lane for vehicles and then the opposite flow for bike lanes. But if we do that bike lane, we would also recommend shifting the parking to the other side of the street. That would keep – so the bicycles would only have to deal with oncoming traffic and not cars cutting over the bike lane into the parking area. Also, shifting the parking to the other side of the road will allow for parallel parking to be done on the right-hand side of the road, which is typically easier because it's more common practice for drivers to be parallel parking on the right-hand side. In this configuration, they would have to be on the left-hand side. And if the parking was shifted to the other side of the street, it also makes right turns in and out of the Hanover Garage easier because you would have better alignment, better turning radius to get to that gate inside the Hanover Garage, better alignment there. And it would also allow for better turns for larger vehicles coming off Congress Street, a right turn onto Fleet Street, a better turning radius at that point. We could enlarge the sidewalk on that north side where we get a little bit more sun and make it a little bit more presentable, you know, enjoyable for the pedestrians. And we would be able to keep the same number of parking spaces now that Gillies would be having a sidewalk in front of their site. So we have, going from eight existing spaces, this plan shows seven, but we would continue to keep seven or eight spaces on the other side of the street. And as part of this plan, we are upgrading the traffic signal at Congress and Fleet. The new signal is able to accommodate the bike lane if we go that route. They have a special bicycle head on the signal. And the rest would be done in striping. So we're not looking for approval on the bike lane tonight, but that is an option that could be done without any major modifications to this design. So thank you. so where the project stands now the PTS committee recommended that option for one-way flow from Congress to Hanover at their May meeting we're here tonight for final decision from City Council so that we can make the final construction measures this fall uh the current project is on hold until after labor day and so that we can get out there leave the summer to the heavy traffic and pedestrians and then we can get back at it this fall we've replaced the signal we're in the process of doing that the base is in there the the rest of the equipment will be coming in but that's not if we stay two-way or go one way that it doesn't affect the signal just the amount of heads are on it and uh looking to find that up this fall and uh I think I take any questions about looking at it all done and get then section 2 would be the other section of Fleet Street so whatever decision is made on this section of Fleet Street does not affect this section between Court Street and Congress Street that would remain two-way at this time in the future we could address that and look at one-way flow on that section as well there were alternatives presented for that section but no decision on that part is needed because we're not under construction on that part yet So that is the slides. Any questions? I'd be glad to answer.

so you said you're going to move the parking to the north side of the street are you also changing which sidewalk gets widened as well or are you not changing because i know you're putting parking in the wider sidewalk on the same side so i wonder if that's staying going to stay that is the thought if the parking shifts that north side then that north side sidewalk could widen out some and if uh if it stays on the original plan then that sidewalk has shown the wider one next to the franklin block would be built councilman you also have i believe a loading zone that's in there would that loading zone move across the street as well the one that's up next to the franklin block yep

yes that's not really a loading zone it's a striped area on the plan yes well it's used as a loading zone but it's really not wide enough it's just a little bit of extra space today but that loading zone would not be there in the future i think they would use parking spaces further up keep them out of because if you're going to be loading there you're going to be blocking the entire street with the narrowing counselor cook

Thank your honor, how would shifting the parking impact the tree cover?

One of the things I really liked about this plan was the addition of trees on the street Yeah, I don't think it would shift I don't know if you might have any answer on that Dave Defoe sis construction project manager could maybe speak to these construction items a little bit more than I can but because that there is some utilities that are involved and the width of the sidewalk will determine how many trees we can put out there and

Good evening members of the Council. Largely. um the shifting of the parking is not going to affect whether we can put trees in or not in reality there's probably only a couple of spots on fleet street that could actually accept a tree or not depending because of the utility infrastructure that's going in under the ground to support the underground power which is part of the project that and the literal size of the spot that a tree is needed So that we can actually have a tree that survives in a downtown environment needs to be of a certain size so depending upon how the final configuration is Generally speaking though almost certainly the spots that are going to be able to have trees will be either Right at the Congress Street end or right at the Hanover Street end or both, but probably not in the middle Does that make sense? Thank you

Council Cook and just to follow on is there is there a preference on the other side of fleet about two-way one-way I know you said that that can be determined later but kind of impacts I feel like impacts the decision-making if you're gonna end up splitting it so it's one way each way or if it's going to be one way all the way across or if you're going to have two-way traffic still and because it impacts traffic flow is my this is really my kind of question impacts the way that we address congress street

There wasn't really clear consensus on the other side of Congress street for whether 1 way or 2 way was really. Desired 1 of the 1 of the kind of the feel of fleet street. Is the side from Congress to Hanover's narrower. So in particular on this block and this block only it really is do we want parking spaces or do we want a one-way street? We can't have a two-way street and parking. cannot have the sidewalks being the width that they are they're not compliant this the moment that we touch the sidewalks and and do anything with them we have to make them compliant and we either are going to lose the two-way or going to lose the parking that's really the choice on the other side we don't have that issue per se the street is wide enough to support parking in two-way if we wanted to widen the sidewalks then we would have to do make a choice but those sidewalks are compliant with or can be made compliant with without impacting the two-way one-way decision thank you cancer table I'm all for

putting the pedestrian sidewalks as the top priority versus two lanes. It's a pedestrian downtown and it should be a pedestrian friendly downtown. If we put the bike lane in, could we still widen the sidewalk on Gillies or would we have to widen it less? Those are really narrow.

The bike lane will not, we can create compliant sidewalks on both sides of the street, which is meets our, our modern. DPW standard of, we like to get about 7 feet of sidewalk on each side. We can build both of those on both sides. And still have the bike lane, it barely fits. But it does fit.

Thanks if I could just clarify that. This will require an ordinance change. to be enacted so if the council were supportive of this initiative we would come back august third with first reading to amend chapter seven to allow for this change just to make that clear

We would have an ordinance change to change the two-way street?

To the way that Eric and Dave are recommending. So we would have a public hearing. We would have the opportunity to hear from folks.

Okay. Because that was one of my, I guess, concerns, just looking back through the timeline of this web survey in 2021 and 2022. It was quite a while ago. And I would say that nobody... outside of this room and it's sparsely populated at this moment because it's beautiful out or at least I think it is still is going to remember that we made this vote so if we we have a public hearing on this to change it that would be helpful I guess a couple of questions on when we touch a sidewalk what What authority, I guess is, and I'm not disagreeing with it at this moment, but what authority makes us change the sidewalk to compliance? Is that our own rules that we have? Can we walk through what's the governing authority that makes us change a sidewalk once we?

There's rules generated by the Americans with Disability Act. got it that you can have you can have narrow sections of sidewalk for limited amounts of time as linearly usually driving down the sidewalk but for a sidewalk to be considered compliant it has to be maintainable so right now we're using you know snow blowers and other equipment to keep the sidewalk clear So there's the width issue Mostly there's also great issues that have to do with Like up by Newbury's building that the Newbury buildings high so there's a bunch of adjustments that need to be made But mostly it's a DA issues.

Okay, very helpful second question on the the bike lane when we're thinking about moving that there's no way that it fits with the uh... i guess like the parking is as it's configured now is in front of the stores the idea putting it on the other side of the street while there is a office building uh there and you know more development coming but it seems like it would be easier to keep the parking there's no way to keep the bike lane in the in the area from uh you said from a space or like a uh what's the concern there that they cars will be pulling in

Yeah, the concern is if you have parked cars on one side and vehicles moving in the travel lane, the bicycle will be going between both of those. It can be done. It's just not ideal because you have the vehicles who are traveling and then looking to go into a parking spot. Now they're crossing over that bike lane to get into the parallel parking spot. Whereas if the parallel park was on the other side, they're not conflicted with the bicycle lane at all. They're just pulling into their parking space and bicycles are traveling unobstructed, not having to worry about car doors opening or vehicles coming across the bike lane to get into a parking space. But it can be done either way.

So I'm trying to conceptualize this. So could the – I mean, it's a bike. So is it possible just to have the bike on the other side of the cars? there like instead like having like parking cars and then the bike lane on the opposite side of the the traffic is that legal to do to avoid that problem you want you want to keep the bikes on the right hand side of the road do we have to i guess is the question yes because then when you get down to congress you'd have to flip over to the other side of the intersection so yeah you want to keep the bikes on normal side of the road on the right hand side yeah okay

and well if i could just add one thing the question about the bike lane fitting so the proposal is a 18 foot wide lane and if it was a bike lane that would be a 12 foot lane and a six foot bike lane so it's the same width overall just restriped differently okay counselor hopkins um i just wanted to say that this is probably you know being on the bike ped committee and parking dropping safety this is like my third or fourth time hearing this and i can

Say that I am in full support of it. I would love the bike lane addition the contraflow bike lane addition in a safe manner, you know on the opposite side of the street from parking and this has gone through a lot of Smart people and it's gone through a lot of advocates as well and You know when you when I think about Fleet Street, I think there's like they're like two different streets The ones that go to Hanover and then it really is more of a two-way flow you were on congress taking a left going down you know towards court street it's just a different animal and i agree with councillor tabor that you know this is a pedestrian core and if we want to encourage more multimodal transit i would strongly encourage the bike lane be included in this design and i'm thankful to the the city engineers who have left the space left the door open so to speak for that so i think this is a great design and i would

Would I do every time I've heard it I support it so I do again Cancer Hopkins counselor I was just reminded of another question listening to counselor Hopkins if Bicyclists are going towards Congress Street, and they want to go straight down Fleet Street There won't be a signal there anymore for them to do that right or how do we how does that work?

There would be a bicycle signal head. We'll have a bicycle on the signal head so they know it's just for them.

Okay. Thank you.

So the motion we have here is to pass this. So what should the motion be if it's to schedule first reading?

I just want to point out about changing in the ordinance to be a one-way street it would also require that it specifically calls out that bikes are allowed to go opposite traffic because bicycles are considered part of the traffic so they would be have to be in the ordinance as well to to allow them to go the opposite way

Do you want two separate motions, perhaps the one that's recommended in your agenda, and then you can make a second motion to bring forward for first reading the appropriate ordinance change.

So, well, I guess, is it, do we need, I guess, like from the. the wouldn't it changing the ordinance wouldn't that be the change yes so could we just schedule the public hearing on that like do we have to do we have to approve the parking and traffic uh like what is approving the parking and traffic safety committee recommendation to change traffic flow if we then don't change the audience like wouldn't it just be cleaner to have the schedule the public hearing to change the that's the act of

Yeah, I think you're right. Yes. Second, so the motion would be to have a first reading of an ordinance change that reflects the change to a one-way street with bicycles, with a bicycle, with what?

I guess I have a question because I think perhaps the recommendation, you know, accepting the recommendation is that this was pulled out from the parking traffic and safety minutes. And so it wasn't auto-approved with last month's, or whenever Parking Traffic and Safety came forward, we pulled out these items to have discussion. So I think if we're looking to tidy things up, it does have its own little moment of, yes, we approve it because it was approved. It could have just been blanket approved in the prior PTS minutes.

Acceptance of minutes, right.

Yeah, so we accepted the minutes that this used to live in, but we said, hold on, we want to report back before we accept this. So that might tidy up the PTS minute acceptance, and then the ordinance might be a different thing?

Well, we don't have to. We approve the action minutes in the omnibus to do the thing that we're, like, to be able to put them into effect so that they happen faster versus, you know, from a safety perspective. This I don't know. we're not going I guess like we're not going like something could come up in the public hearing and we decide that there's more information from other experts that come in and speak the public hearing that weren't engaged before and we would vote it down you know if again the hypothetical and so I don't know in terms of approving the like the we could have we could approve it but it's not going to go into effect until the

ordinance change here yeah sure that's right counselor oh there's two on the side um i was just saying your honor that it my understanding is from what counselor harper's saying this isn't in the omnibus it was in action sheets of a of a of a meeting that we pulled out so i think about it what about per the recommendation of parking and traffic safety someone would move to schedule sounds great yeah that's what i was just gonna say sorry it's okay teamwork

I'd await that motion for the recommendation of the parking and traffic safety committee schedule first reading to change Fleet Street to one way inclusive of counter counter traffic bicycle lane second well that's a motion that was already on the table yes so moved and second okay okay so All right. Thank you, Eric and Dave. We got there. And we will have all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? So August 3rd, first reading, August 17th, or that's second reading, still on track for the fall construction. Right? Am I getting?

Sounds good.

All right.

sorry we're on item c the third of four items your honor back in may uh 2026 the planning board voted to grant double mc llc site plan approval for the reuse and expansion of the existing structure at 134 pleasant street along with the construction of a new structure for residential and commercial uses with associated site improvements the planning board also granted a conditional use permit for a proposed drain line to cross the city-owned paradave parking lot in order to connect to existing city drainage infrastructure within Parrot Ave. This drain line was located across the Parrot Ave parking lot at the recommendation of the Department of Public Works as the most efficient way to tie drainage from this project into city infrastructure. No drainage infrastructure currently exists within the adjacent portion of Pleasant Street. Therefore, in order for the property owner to construct this new drainage within the parking lot, a license from the city is required. The planning board further recommended that the council agree to grant this license only if the property owner is obliged to repair, remove, alter, or relocate the drainage infrastructure at its sole expense upon request of the city. The enclosed license has been reviewed by the legal department and is attached here

and we need your approval we want to move yep i want to move to authorize the city manager to execute a drain line license granting double mc llc a license to construct and maintain drainage infrastructure within the parrot avenue parking lot substantially in the form of the drain line license contained in the agenda packet second

Any discussion? Councillor Moreau.

I'd just like to point out that I did ask them regarding during construction, putting this in. For one, this is actually going to help and save us money because they're actually doing the sewer separation project by doing this because they're also creating the separate sewer line and drainage line but they will have they think they can have very minimal effect on parking spots because they will be able to do it in a matter of a couple of days and it will be segregated to exactly where that drain line is going in all right uh council cook and concert um do we know when construction is anticipated we do not

no i shook my head no sorry i didn't verbalize it no we do not it could be a couple of years um this is one of those highly prized pieces of municipal property in the center of town if we were ever to need a building on that for some purpose is it still practical to have a sewer underneath it

I think that's why we have the provision that if we need it to be removed, they will do it at their expense.

Okay.

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

Last item under my name, your honor is request to hold public hearings at the August 3rd, 2026 council meeting for projects identified to begin in FY 27, which need bonding authority and resolutions. And we break those out into five separate resolutions. One totaling 6.5 million for school projects, specifically one totaling 6.4, 8, 5 million for various city projects. One standalone resolution for the proposed fire boat for $600,000. $4.9 million for water uses and $3.1 million for sewer uses. And at the time of the public hearing, Nathan and all relevant staff will be on hand to answer questions as these were presented as part of the most recent CIP process.

Your Honor, I move to authorize the City Manager to bring back for public hearings in adoption the various proposed CIP projects to be bonded as presented for the August 3rd, 2026 City Council meeting. Second.

Any discussion? Just a reminder, again, we have the CIP that we adopt, the budget that we adopt, the bonding authorization that we have, and that's this part of the process. Thank you, City Manager, for clearly pointing out what each authorization is for. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I had a question on the consent agenda, but I can take it up during my presentation. I'm going to refer back to the encumbrances report under an item under my name. So I will await the adoption of the consent agenda.

Move to adopt the consent agenda as presented.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Presentations and written communications.

Move to accept and place on file. Second. Second. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We have two appointments to be considered, but there's not an issue. But I didn't receive, in the formal way, a resignation letter from Paul Mantle from the VBA, so I'm going to wait. He sent me an email, and I forwarded that email on to the city clerk. or to my email my official email which I will get to the city clerk but the and so we will wait on the appointment to be considered of Jack Holzman to be considered until there's a space that is vacant on that the next so apologies for that there's it also like you to consider or please consider the reappointment of stephen buzzell to the cemetery committee former head of the library great ports with the resident and then the appointments to be voted the appointment of gary dozier to the police commission effective august 1st 2026 until the next municipal election of november 2027. your honor i move to appoint gary dozier to the police commission as presented you're in a second any discussion Councillor Cook?

Your Honor, I just wanted to thank Gary Dozier for his willingness to serve. It's always great to hear that somebody's willing to step up when we have a vacancy, and I know that serving on the Police Commission is a lot of work, so I truly appreciate him giving up his time.

Agreed. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Gary. on to the council add a request for a report back on sidewalk encumbrance permits and I'm just getting back to the missed it here the report that we just active encumbrance permits that we just accepted I'm trying to get a sense of how a as it currently stands after they go 90 days that's when it is required of council approval this comes from a specific incident where a Business owner reached out to me in terms of the sidewalk being blocked As a city we often will stop construction during the busier summer months because of the impacts to you know businesses and tourists and want to just uh better understand the report if there's possibilities uh to have uh shorter uh windows of time before the city council would approve uh one uh two if there is timelines that we can impose um or um you know cost structures that could be uh uh I guess escalated if it's if it's needed work in July, but it's gonna block the access to a number of storefronts You know, is it possible to have you know differing and I'm I see I don't see is here and she's the expert when it comes to you know figuring out what's allowable there but really just trying to allow our businesses and the businesses that are pulling at our businesses too and they need to do the work so how do we balance uh some of the interest so i would really like a report back on the feasibility of timing when council is involved and when a permit is reissued you know uh you know for 30-day increments you know and we're at 90 days before it gets to the council if that's a really accurate estimate and then how do we incentivize scaffolding going up rather than you know just blocking it with a lift in the middle of the sidewalk and so that's what the report back hopefully that we could request on and if there was a motion to support that just a motion to uh support a report back on uh city encumbrances sidewalk encumbrance permits in the city of portsmouth uh so moved second counselor cook

Thank you, Your Honor. When we changed the encumbrance ordinance, one of the things that we wanted to make sure we did is we had the report back in the council packet. And we're trying that out now because this is a new process for us. And the goal was then to have, you know, the ability to pull one out if there was a problem. If we received reporting there was a problem or if somebody came to public comment and complained about an encumbrance, that we could pull it out and discuss it as a council. That said, I don't know how well that practice is working. That is a discussion, I think, for the council. So I think it's always helpful to have more information and have a report back so that we can continue this conversation because this is a new process for us this year.

knowing that you had that interest i did talk with jane a little earlier today and we discussed you know sidewalk encumbrances downtown and these scissor lifts that apparently are being used to do some work on buildings but my understanding is that dpw currently when they do the permits they require a flagger and a detour for pedestrian traffic and um and that generally those scissor lifts are used um when the material that has to be hoisted whether it's roofing material or or windows or something is particularly heavy and that's when they have to use that but generally it's for a short period of time but we can give you a much more in-depth report back

certainly and i think that again one business is doing it another business is being affected by it you know i just would like you know if there's alternatives to the scissor lift um there might not be um but you know if you if you've rented the scissor lift and you have it there and you're doing it for the heavy thing it might just be easier to do a bunch of stuff with it that you could otherwise do another way and so you know being able to you know have the correct costing associated that recognizes the cost of the city but also the cost to the other business owners that are operating uh next door yep counselor cook

I think this is a really valuable discussion to have, and the reason I say this is that you could get construction workers often work starting at 7 AM so you could have time limits. You know we could have all kinds of discussions about what would be appropriate. Maybe you only use a several scissor lift from 7 AM to 10 AM till the majority of businesses open downtown so that you don't impact your neighboring business and then you can move it off site or into a parking spot that you've requested a permit to encumber so we can. we should have this discussion because we don't want businesses to be negatively impacted by construction work agreed all in favor aye any opposed um

i put this next one on because i thought i was getting really ahead of the game but then there's an informational item about the fact that we're starting the cip so we have a constant budget in the city of portsmouth and while there's certainly a finite amount of time that we discuss it in terms of approving it we are always discussing the budget one of the things that i would like to discuss as a part of the cip is understanding rolling stock as we've grown as you know cars have changed there's certainly the improvements that are made and the large capital equipment that we have. But to be able to understand, you know, has anything changed in terms of the number of, you know, workers per truck? Has anything changed in terms of the ability to take home vehicles? Just understanding the rolling stock as it relates to the CIP and have this as a separate conversation as a part of the CIP. discussion with the report back on the current practices if they could be updated and if we were to update them what they would they change to as a part of next year's cip so if there is a a motion uh to for a report back i would await a motion for report back on rolling stock your honor i propose a report back on rolling stock as you've described second Any further discussion?

All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? And then finally, I guess I picked July to have all these things under my name. But the reestablishment of veteran organization committee was lucky enough to attend a an event where it was discussed the effort to end veteran homelessness in the Seacoast, following a pattern that has been used in other parts of the state. There's a lot of interested parties that are working towards doing that. One of the harder challenges is just making sure that we have aligned the And understand all the veterans that that live and may need care within the city of Portsmouth. So the goal of the veterans Organization committee would be to establish it and would open up for applications as a blue ribbon committee in the next for the next meeting but to establish that going forward to be a committee that would deal and focus especially after the 4th of July and the focus on the fundraising for the veterans to be able to have a point committee to be able to take up that effort I'd make a motion to establish a mayor's blue ribbon committee on veterans

Second. Is it a blue ribbon committee before?

I believe it was a blue ribbon.

Okay. Can we establish it in the form that it was?

Yeah, just a reestablishment of the committee in the form that it was.

We'll take that amendment. So we're not hamstrung.

Okay, we'll amend it to that.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. And based on the makeup of the previous organization, we'll put applications on the city website for review. Excellent. And I see we're on to the city council members. Councillor Tabor.

yes and assistant mayor kelly can help add the color commentary but the headline is that the housing committee has completed a working draft action plan as the council motion in march set out that was a tight deadline but we've met it um the committee met thursday had some light revisions but the housing committee felt solid enough to vote on a motion by councillor murrow to send the housing action plan to the council for feedback once those final changes are made so Because of the packet deadline we couldn't get you any Drafts, but I would think we should get that to the council by August Come tomorrow

Just to add to that, we also thought it might be a good idea to send it to the planning board and get their feedback on it as well as they are part of the master plan. And some of these might actually fall under the umbrella of the master plan. So we want to make sure that we keep them in the loop and get their feedback as well.

yes and the assistant mayor is concerned that we align with the master plan and the planning board is officially by statute in charge of the master plan a couple other things in the meantime the working draft is on the city website it consists of a narrative and an implementation matrix We had a lot of action items, 130 action items to start with, compiled from the various studies in the past and last term's committee work, the places to live study circles, and Progress Portsmouth made a useful compendium of all that existing work to give us a quick start. we went down to 19 items and don't let that process fool you that helped us focus on the major impact areas so smaller in number but greater in impact and the committee put those in priority order using the know-how a lot of our committee members have great land use and development and zoning experience some of these we can do in a few months some will roll out over one to two years but some of the typical areas that you'll see we want to implement rsa 79e housing opportunity zones We want to overhaul our zoning to remove a lot of the no longer functional dimensional standards, loosen the restrictions on multi-unit conversions, fix our workforce housing ordinance, which doesn't have the right economic incentives, expand multifamily and cottage cluster zoning. Those are a few of those. and as council morose says we want to refer this to the planning board so we can get their input we want to give it to the council for review and input and the motion we passed back in march requires two public hearings so um assistant mayor kelly and i talked about that we're not sure august is a good month for public hearings most people are not here much better when school's back in session so i i think we would recommend to the council that we do those public hearings in september so that's the the status uh the work's done and stay tuned for a look at the resulting product excellent

uh assistant mayor any i think you've covered it quite well excellent um counselor cook uh thank you your honor um i have two items for the council this evening the first one is around the von maul design i would like to move to schedule a city council work session on the von maul design before the august 3rd 2026 city council meeting if i get a second i'll explain my reasoning second So next week on the 22nd, there is a presentation on Vaughn Mall being presented at the public library in the evening. The city has been working for some time to develop a plan for how we will kind of renew Vaughn Mall after all of the sewer work that had to be done and the sewer separation work and all the utilities work that had to be done underground. So the city has done a fantastic job with that. But this process is coming forward really quickly because we have to put out an RFP very soon to make sure we get bidding to start the process to do this, to do the Vaughn Mall redesign by spring. And you can ask, why is that process so urgent? Well, we want to make sure that we get out of the way of the businesses on Val Mall as soon as possible so that they can continue their regular operations. So we don't want to be there for a long period of time doing this work. However, what I found, because it is summer, not a lot of people will be at that meeting next wednesday night me saying this tonight hopefully encourages some people to show up to that meeting next wednesday night to learn about the planning for von maul but i'm asking for a work session before the council meeting because i think that is often the best time to get more eyes on what is happening in the city Because I don't want there to be questions down the road, what are you doing with Mon Mall? Because right now in the city, when we had this discussion around Prescott Park several months ago, we have a plan in place for how we're going to implement changes to Prescott Park, and we had to make some modifications to change that. Well, Vaughn Mall actually has a plan in place that's been in place for many years. There was a Blue Ribbon Committee that operated for several years to come up with those plans. Frankly, there are actually two plans for Vaughn Mall that the city has in place, and neither of those plans is the current plan. we're operating under so we don't want there to be a lot of confusion in the public i think as council i don't definitely want confusion about what is going to happen at von maul given all the planning that has been done over the many years i think we want it to be really clear for the public what process we're moving forward with at this stage any discussion

Do we have anything else scheduled for August 3rd work session?

We do not.

And this would be the same presentation that is being delivered at the library?

That is correct.

Okay. So it's not additional other than staff coming in. have some reservation in terms of putting on the design hats of the council every time I've done that I've come up short of that and want to be able to trust the staff I guess I'd weigh that against the large amount of just lack of um lack of awareness until something actually happens of no fault of city staff but simply the fact that people are busy and don't really think to ask or check in what we're doing one thing that would be really helpful though is have the Has there been any effort made, certainly appreciate everybody's opinion from a public standpoint, but the businesses that are on Vaughan Street, has there been any effort made to notify them of the library meeting thus far?

Dave may want to speak to that. Oh, Dave, yeah. He talks to everybody. I do know that folks, the affected businesses attended the last public input session, but I know Dave can add much more than I know.

Good evening, Dave the hostess public works. Specifically, not yet. What we typically do, what we did for the public input session when we had that last year, and we will do this again. We typically bring one of our portable message boards out and broadcast it at the end of Congress Street. So there's no way you can be in the Vaughn Mall and not see the sign. and also i have every intention on walking to the individual shops and reminding people that there's a public meeting next wednesday it's um you know largely uh to present the design that we came up with using the data that we acquired from the public input session which happened last year okay um one last comment if i may dave and sean clancy met with members of the public art review committee in the vaughn mall last week to go over the the current plans as well yeah we had about a one hour maybe 45 minute meeting with uh park on site and uh just kind of went over the broad strokes uh counselor cook was there as well of uh what our intentions are which are really generally speaking to create a canvas uh to redo the vaughn mall to get the to get the heartscape complete and then create a canvas that um largely we see as a you know an area that we can have public art whether and some of those pieces can be permanent art some of it can be temporary art that you know artists can apply to put their art in the Vaughan Mall to make use of that space. Principally, we're designing it as a connector, of course, because it is, between the Archway and the Music Hall and Port Walk Place. So we've done our best to design something that's quite brightly lit and available for use that's going to be very adjustable in the future. One of my conditions to the landscape architect was create a space that one of my new sayings is the only thing constant in Portsmouth is change. So because the Vaughan Mall changes, really daily, depending upon who's using what space for what, we want to create a space that's available for all uses. So the design that you would see at the work session is really a design that showcases that many different things are possible and will be possible.

What Dave is also saying is that it needs to be something that operates and is maintainable for the long haul by staff.

Yes. Thank you, Dave.

Thank you. I have no doubt that what the city is planning is reasonable, thoughtful, I've been through several of these discussions and I've been at all the work sessions so far. So I just want to make sure that we don't hit a point where the public is not aware of what is coming down the road. And so if you would prefer us not to have a second work session, I'd be happy to put the item under my name and request a report back instead. at the council meeting just to make sure that the public is fully aware that they go back and watch a recorded session on the 22nd so that we don't end up with questions. The reason I brought this forward is I had two people approach me and ask specifically what's happening with Vaughn Mall, design professionals, and said, who's designing it? What's going on? don't we know anything about it and they had missed all of the meetings so far so i i just don't want to end up in a situation that down the road there are questions about how we went through this process that we didn't discuss it at the council before there were actions taken

um thank you counselor cook for the uh um the flexibility could it just be a um would we just want to have it as a presentation that would be fine we just have it as a if we do the same presentation um maybe uh condensing we can ask questions on that um and allow and the presentation will be in the packet in advance so People will be able to speak at public comment ahead of that if they didn't get a chance to come to the work session. Okay, that works out well.

I would be perfectly fine with that. I just want to make sure the public's aware. That's my concern. So I will modify my motion to request a report back at the next city council meeting.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Councillor Cook. Another item under your name.

yes your honor i am bringing forward a proposal to ask the planning board to consider the establishment of a heritage commission and i'll make the motion first and i'll explain it some more i move to request the planning board review the potential establishment of a heritage commission and report back to the city council by september 28th 2026. second for discussion um i'm raising this now because there was last month we had a joint planning board and historic district commission work session and we discussed this item that came up and also updates that are coming up to the historic district commission's guidelines as well as upcoming recommendations or any changes to the middle street historic district so we had several things on our plate to discuss and heritage commission was one of the items that was raised and i think it's something that we should ask the planning board to explore whether or not it would be appropriate for the city of portsmouth The reason I say that is that we have what a Heritage Commission really does with these changes that we're going to see happen with the Historic District Commission guidelines that are coming up. There'll be updates to those coming. There'll also be changes to the Middle Street Historic District potentially because that goes back to the Planning Board. The Heritage Commission is responsible for education. That is a primary function of a Heritage Commission education around historic preservation had education around cultural resources that are a priority within a community and I think that it would be appropriate at this stage with changes coming and also with the master planning process coming to Do some education in the community around the important heritage that we have within our community There have also been some very significant um questions that have been raised by residents in the last year around heritage properties that are going away for example a historic barn on austin street that really upset the neighborhood that is slated for demolition without a secondary demolition review process that just had to go through zoning for changes and that's it um and so there are concerns that we might be losing heritage buildings within the community that are not within the historic district but that are very valuable cultural resources and a heritage commission could help make recommendations around the heritage of the community i was thinking about what historical resources do we have in our community that are outside the historic district that we don't want to be we don't want to have them within historic district review we don't want to have them within strict guidelines for preservation, but we don't want to lose those resources. Think about there are two impressive historic homes at the end of Islington as it approaches Route 33 going out of town. If someone were to purchase one of those homes and choose to tear it down, and build and its associated barn because they wanted to build a new modern home how would the community react to the loss of that historic resource that has been there for many many generations federal period homes that are not protected while we don't want to have governance over what they do as far as replacement of windows or anything that you would review within the historic district you may want to have a demolition review process for historic properties that are considered significant and and there are several that are not within the historic district so a heritage commission would would help provide that additional review process if this council will remember we revised the administrative ordinance several years ago and the demolition committee was removed from that ordinance so we technically do not have a demolition committee within the city of portsmouth however we do have a demolition ordinance that revert refers to review by the demolition committee without the demolition committee we don't have a process for review beyond are land use boards so a heritage commission could also take up demolition review of significant properties so one of the reasons that i brought this up is not just historic preservation and heritage which you all know i care about but what i care about the most in this community is preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing lot of our historic resources especially in the urban core area of the city are divided up into apartment dwellings and those apartments we call them naturally occurring affordable housing because they're older buildings that have been divided or older houses in most cases divided up into apartments three to five apartment units that could at any time be lost in our community we saw the potential of that recently on hill street of losing some naturally occurring affordable apartments because of a desire to build probably condominiums in that site we're also seeing that throughout the urban core with houses sold torn down you lose five units and you have you end up with a single family 2.5 million dollar home instead of five apartments that are reasonably affordable for residents who are renting within the community so i don't like seeing the loss of that type of naturally occurring affordable housing and those homes also contributed to the character of those neighborhoods We're also seeing in Little Harbor significant numbers of teardowns and rebuilding of homes, homes that fit within the neighborhood character, like a bungalow being torn down and then a three-story home being built instead, against the neighbor's wishes but following the zoning code. So I think we have to... have the opportunity to at least have this discussion at the city level and a heritage commission would give us that opportunity so i would like just the planning board to look at it i'm not asking the council to approve a heritage commission i'm not asking the council to vote for this i'm asking to refer this to the planning board and let them consider the opportunities and make a recommendation back to the council in september thank you counselor cook any discussion

I guess a couple of questions that I have, because I remember the demolition ordinance that we have. There's only one way that, so is there a question? Oh, the second, yeah, was the system error. The only buildings that we can prevent demolition with the heritage well any anywhere from being demolished are in the HDC and a Heritage Commission would really kind of go back to the same process that we had before where there's a demolition review committee that acts to delay the process while other alternatives can be can be sought out so you know I think we removed it only because we felt at the time that it was giving the impression that there was there was you know something that was going to be done and really the way that we would prevent demolitions in the in the city would be to expand the hdc to everywhere in the city and then we could stop hd any demolitions and the trade-off for many homeowners is probably not going to be worth it nor for the city but i'm happy to see what the planning board says because heritage commissions can also go out and get grants they can do other things outside of the demolition but i do worry that we would just just think we have to be careful that it's a it's not to enable a prevention of demolition but to re-enable the ability to seek out other alternatives in the case of the barn you know to be sold to be moved I think those options were on the table the neighbors decided not to buy the barn but that's where this would be useful to hear back from the Planning Board but again outside of that the grants etc could be you know something that would be useful but from a strictly demolition I remember it because I remember with st. Pat's and I remember Peter Laughlin you know allowing the process to go forward because it didn't really have anything you know there was nothing that was going to come of it so Just want to make sure that this is, you know, we're thoughtful about that and the confusion that it can create when we do. And to have the language in there that this would be a 60 to 90 day stay on any demolition while things are thoughtful. Councilor Cook and then Councilor Tabor and Councilor Warren.

Thank you, Your Honor. Yes, that absolutely is. is important for people to understand that it's just a delay process. But I think of important heritage like the Cary Cottage that was saved by a delay process. And so that's what I'm thinking is that it would be important for, and sometimes it's important for neighbors to know that having that delay may provide some other opportunity.

So I'm just not clear on what the powers and duties of this committee would be. It sounds like you're proposing something that would function like the demolition committee used to. And we know that the most the demolition committee could do outside the HTC was a 90 day delay. Um, so what is the rest of the program of work for this commission, which would be permanent, right?

So I I'm asking the planning board to determine that first and foremost, um, I'm wanting a planning board recommendation back on heritage commission. A lot of the work that a heritage commission does is around education and process. The historic district commission does not have the time or the resources, frankly, to do the education around the importance of preservation within our community. And so that's really that would really be more the focus of a heritage commission and to. do things like apply for grants and go through the process of finding resources in our community to help homeowners even who are faced with preservation needs and to business owners to anyone who is dealing with preservation in the community to help provide those resources. I would like for them to consider the function of demolition review as part of their function. for heritage properties but that would be a recommendation coming back from the planning board at least that's what i would hope um that's what i'm i'm proposing but the planning board really will make the determination of what the recommendation will be back to the council council morrow um just to add my two senses the

only chair of the demolition review committee when it actually existed and chaired when we were able to save the Cary cottage, not that we as a city did it, but we brought awareness. So I sort of see the role of a heritage commission more in the education and actually surveying and looking at what are truly heritage properties that are historic resources for the city and having, if you have a list of those properties and the reasons why you already have that information in a file somewhere versus just, you know, a scattered not sure. And so every time a property comes up, somebody's got to do research and figure out if it has historic value or whatnot. They also have the ability, like a conservation commission, to go out and get grants and to possibly buy a gift and do different things with actual property, something a land use board can't do. So it has a completely different function. I don't see it strictly as demolition avoidance. I see it more as truly preservation of true historic resources like the Cary Cottage as being something I think everyone can agree it was great that it i mean it took private developers to step in and do it but it did happen so i see it as really trying to fine-tune where are those still you know vulnerable properties that something could happen to that maybe we need somebody to track and and and have those bits of information about to educate the public about

And there's other parts of the town or the city that are historic. I think Atlantic Heights is pretty historic now. And so to be able to catalog some of those things outside, again, accepting gifts, I believe, as well. And so we'd like to hear what the planning board says. I don't think that this would – I think it's a little – not simply in the demolition and whether or not that that's – will be a part of it but i will support this going forward because of you know demolition you know certainly bring awareness but some of the other functions that it could provide uh the city uh and those homeowners outside of the city core that already have the htc and maybe know who knows maybe uh people would rather have an uh a heritage you know commission uh you know versus expanding hdc or even shrinking the hdc down to the scope of that so if we have a heritage commission it's possible that we have another way to preserve our local uh historic buildings so the motion on the floor is to send it to the planning board for a report back all in favor aye any opposed All right, Councilor Tabor.

Yes, this is a recommendation to take no action. The Energy Advisory Committee met prompted by Councilor Bagley's question at the last meeting. Have you thought about the next refresh for people who moved and should they be opted in to community power? and as i put in the packet we had a discussion about we could pass ask the council to pause refreshes for people when they would have to pay higher rates than eversource at what threshold should be 10 15 5 but then the discussion uh ended up favoring just allowing the refresh to go forward. The fundamental issue is if we pause these refreshes, we end up with two tiers of ratepayers. And no clear way that those ratepayers, those consumers get put back into the program. Part of that recommendation that we allow this next refresh to happen, it's 1,172 people, probably mostly apartments. And the rate differential right now is only 6%. It's it's a difference of six dollars a month if you're an apartment dweller, I would think it'd be considerably less Because you're not running a whole house and we also wanted to make sure that cpcnh unlike the last time we had a refresh made clear what the rate comparison was because the whole nature of community choice aggregation is the community has it become creates a default supplier but there's choice There's a consumer choice at any time to exit. So we felt that if CPC&H stated clearly the rate comparison and how to opt out, that that was the way to move ahead. And they've agreed to do that in writing. So that's our recommendation, which is essentially if we didn't want to do that, somebody would have to put forward a motion to pause the refresh.

So I guess the – understand the concern around having two tiers. That would only exist if – forever, if rates were consistently higher forever.

Presumably, you know, they become competitive again as they were in the past, and that problem is solved.

But – The hard part for me in not pausing the refreshes – when we're at 6.7% higher than Eversource, is that it passed the Council because it was also a financial, reasonable thing to do for the Council to make a decision to give a competition towards Eversource that was not there. And there were certainly options for Green Power and climate stewardship, but a big part of the reason why it passed in Portsmouth and in many places is that it was seen as an economically wise decision. And I still believe it's an economically wise decision because it's put pressure on Eversource to change how they've gone to market. And as we had Mr. Kreese here discuss, it was the largest, you know, kind of buying power consolidation that we've had in the state ever since deregulation happens now if we move away from that and as a Belief that we say we're not we're going to refresh regardless of cost to the right there I think that erodes our original mission and reason why this just passed and that is you know it's if we act as a city and we act as a group of cities throughout the state we are going to have collective buying power that is that allows us to enjoy lower rates and for those to make the decision to make a more climate conscious decision to up into those higher tiers. And if we don't have any threshold whatsoever being 0%, 5%, 10%, it seems as though we are moving away from that mission and we jeopardize the larger community power when we have discussions and folks to point to council that is looking at a 6% or 6.7% increase and says that's not big enough to do anything for these new thousand people. And that worries me long term about the the strength of this, because they will come into the community power in the future, but at a time when community power is once again more cost effective for those. And I didn't watch the entire meeting, but I didn't see that in the discussion that come up as much. There was some frustration around when we could do this and the opt-ins. But we're able to opt-in people or not opt-in people, and that's it. And I just feel like it drifts a little away from our mission of being a good financial or a fiduciary for, you know, the ports and taxpayers, even as an expanded role?

Well, you know, it was much easier when we were saving our residents a lot of money. The regulatory environments changed. The Community Power Coalition had a tough winter in 2025 and needs to rebuild their reserve so temporarily they've had to add two cents to their rate long term that's a benefit I think I would argue it's a benefit to the customers because they will retire a line of credit they won't have to pay interest they'll have more ability to buy aggressively and hedge So I think I understand your concern and it's been a You know, this program started off great, but it's not as much fun to advocate for right now. I do think, to your point, if we didn't opt these people in, these 1,172 people, and Community Power Coalition next rate period becomes lower than Eversource, it's likely that those people wouldn't have a lot of awareness of that until somehow they realize, why wasn't I included in community power to get the better rate?

but they would be in the future. If they were, because the rates are published in advance of the rates going into effect, they would be opt-in on, the refresh would happen ahead of that next rate period as the refresh is happening now. Is that not the case?

If we, let's see, if we'd adopt a policy

say we adopt the policy that as long as community power is more expensive than Eversource, we will not automatically refresh participants into the program. That would, ergo if it's not, if it's less expensive, community power is less expensive. Say right now community power would come in at 13.49, 13.949 versus 14.949 and it was below Eversource. by Council policy, those 1,000 ratepayers would be opted into the next refresh?

They should be. You know, we've never encountered this situation. How long would it take? How smoothly would it go? Would they capture all those names? But yes, you're right. That's how it should work.

But I'm guessing, so maybe educate me.

Yeah, no, I was incorrect about the risk if CPSNH was more favorable. They would be optimal.

right so if we had a policy if we had a policy that says as long as community power is more expensive we're we won't uh refresh it would also send a um a goal to cp you know uh community power of new hampshire that we prioritize you know the decisions that they're going to make to be you know first and foremost focused on delivering a an effective and at least cost neutral opportunity to consolidate repairs if every community had that you know it might push their decisions in the board levels to make decisions versus other projects or in terms of focusing on you know financial viability first And then, two, we would have not had the situation where, because we didn't discuss it in December when the rate was 30 percent higher versus 6.7 percent higher, we would have had a safeguard mechanism. The idea that we have to discuss this every time, I think this would just go away and we wouldn't have it as an informational item. We would simply just have the council policy that states this is where we are and, you then it's back to the process of CPNH doing what they are trying to do.

we could adopt a policy tonight if there were a motion i feel i should stand with the committee's recommendation and but we would have to do it tonight for this refresh correct yeah counselor cook um thank you your honor i just i have a question um are the refresh dates set um that it has to be march and september no and this has been a concern that we talked about in the energy committee and relayed to cpcnh typically in community choice aggregations around the country it's every month so we're not clear on why these have been so few and far between but i think it would be much smoother if it were monthly

I was told by Jackson Kaspari that they're working on that So if we were to changes is there a way to move the timeline or is does that CPC and H's timeline that they will do it in March and September and the reason I'm asking this is that if community power beats their rate in the next cycle and and we don't refresh until March, we have a lot of customers that will miss several months of a better rate. At least that's my understanding.

Yeah, right. And the best answer I can give you is we don't know when the 2027 refreshes would happen. Hopefully more frequently than they do now.

um thank you your honor i'm sorry i keep speaking up um as a former member of the energy advisory committee um i you know i don't remember community power ever doing refreshes until this year um that was it was kind of like they were getting established and and then getting to a place where we're starting to go oh hey we've had a lot of drop-offs because of people moving or new people moving into the community And so this is kind of a new reality, I feel like, the Energy Advisory Committee is dealing with and that CPC&H is dealing with. So I think everybody is still kind of learning what is the best policy, what is the best process moving forward. but my understanding is it's a six percent higher rate this term but it's really um a portion of a cent higher is that correct yes okay so it's a portion of a cent higher um what exactly are the rates compared um eversource and for the public's awareness eversource and community power right now for the basic rate

Eversource will be at 14.009 cents and Community Power will be at 14.959, I believe. 949. 949. So slightly less than a penny. Okay. 70% of that difference is rebuilding the CPC and HS Reserve. So once that's done, you would not see that recur. And that's progressing well.

I mean, it's an easy way to – because I think 14.49 sense versus you know it's it seems small 6.7 which is is the supply side of the um the half of your energy bill uh that goes towards that i think that i um you know we had mr crease here twice um he stated very clearly as the consumer advocate new hampshire that he would not refresh you know customers in you know uh when it was a higher rate um that that's not something that you know he would have done i feel like it's a It's a – I understand the – why CPNH wants to – or CPCNH wants to be able to refresh customers in, because it allows for them to improve their economics. But it's also something that I think that if you are aware of the program, and we've discussed the program a lot, you always have the ability to opt out of the program. where i think uh there was some educations where people moved um realized that they didn't you know it doesn't follow them it follows the address um you know i i don't see you know for what we're gaining here in new customers i don't see it i see it as more detriment to the program you know more broadly than to focus on you know we are going you know and if anybody's upset about paying you know the the two tiers they can opt out tomorrow. And so there's a mechanism for being able to do that. But what is great about CPCNH is that it allows us to have, you know, every source focuses on transmission. That's the business that they're in. The supply side of this allows us to go out and aggregate power and purchasing power more than has ever happened in New Hampshire, which is a great asset for us and has delivered lower rates across New Hampshire, including Eversource competing in a way that they had not competed in the past. And so that's a great system to keep, but I worry that if we opt in people when arbitrarily 6.7%... I mean, we would have argued we wouldn't have opted in when it's 30% over if they had come to the council in the time. So the question is, where is the dividing line? And I think the easiest one is to say, you know, If it's more expensive, we don't do the refresh, and if it's not, then we do. That seems like it's an easy way to be able to grab everybody that we can and forces CPC and H2 to make decisions. The idea that the refresh can only happen in September when the rate period is in August doesn't make a lot of sense and kind of aligns to the fact that that that probably works out in their favor to be able to um to to keep as many people as as possible and so i would rather see us have a system that puts a line in the sand and says hey we're we're not adding people when it's more expensive and if you would like to be one of those people you have the option you know on the website to go opt out of this So I guess I'm really waiting for a motion to have a City Council policy that states if the rates are higher, if CPC-NH rates are higher, we do not have a refresh of users in the City of Portsmouth. if I could speak to that motion I would want we would have to have it we'd have to have the motion I'll make the motion for did you do you need a second or do you know I just need a motion in a second I will I'll make the motion I'll second that's a point I'm sorry

would you know in in reading through this this blurb from the energy advisory committee um it looks like some people did favor holding back when the rates were five to ten percent higher i think um my question to your motion would be you know can we put a number on this instead of just a broad when it's higher and when it's lower you know to kind of narrow that in because um I don't know, I think a number would be a cleaner move forward of when it's X amount higher versus just abroad.

It certainly could be amended. I wouldn't support that amendment only because the number that I've picked or I would like to see is zero because that's a number that's very defensible. It's hard for me to say to somebody that just moved here or is refreshed in that we accept 5% as an increase versus... 0% I think that it gets into the it gets it's a lot harder to defend where we're lying you know putting the the sand there I mean I think 5% would be better than where we are now which is no policy but it seems a lot easier and knowing that it's going to CPC and H is going to have lower rates in the future or they will cease to exist as a as an entity in the state of New Hampshire that's offering this because people aren't going to forever subsidize something that's not going to be more cost-effective for them that you know has the benefit of allowing people that want to make a greener choice to make that greener choice councilman row

This is more of a question, and I don't know if anyone can answer this, but if you aren't refreshed in...

This is my motion, sorry.

It's actually the assistant mayor's motion.

Yeah, that was the assistant mayor's motion. It was your chat. In any event, if somebody is not refreshed into the program, do they have an option to opt into it prior to that?

Yes.

Well, then it's a no-brainer for me.

Oh, Council Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. I just think it's important to say, first and foremost, I don't think it's reasonable to have anybody opted into something that is going to cost them more money that they didn't anticipate it was going to cost them more money. At the same time, I think the consumer advocate was really, really clear about the advantages of community power, and there are more advantages than just rates. Um, while rates were the initial reason, um, that it was so attractive to join community power. And if everyone will remember community power came in more than 6 cents lower than Eversource at the time, it was pretty significant savings for our community, um, at the time and was for more than a few rate cycles. Um, the other advantage of community power is that it allows us leverage um to take action at a state level and influence changes around energy policy and right now the public utilities commission has put its thumb on the scale in favor of eversource in many cases and unitil as well which is another one of the major providers in the state providing them special opportunities to compete in ways that they did not have before a community power was created so community power when it was created eversource was not allowed to buy on the smart market eversource and you're still neither of them were they had to go out to the market at one time and purchase power and then their rates came in higher and the puc then allowed them to change their model temporarily because of high rates, which is beneficial to consumers across the state that were stuck with Eversource and Unitil. But at the same time, it creates a little bit of unfair competition because they also allow them to then hedge their losses for a longer term. than they should be allowed to. So that's why their rates are artificially low this time, because they were able to take the losses that they suffered over the last winter and spread them out over a year. Whereas entities like Community Power are trying to recoup those losses in the best interests of their consumers, Eversource doesn't have to think about that. And Eversource tried. in many cases, also to take their losses and to administer those over your service costs instead of doing it over their, on the supply side. So in essence, leveraging it over all customers across the board, whether or not they were Eversource customers for supply side. So the PUC oftentimes lets, these big players kind of have unfair advantage when it comes to competition in this market and the only check on that is really programs like community power so that's the advantage is that we are community operated we have representation on the board we have representation across the state for all the communities that are part of community power and even counties and so I think there are other advantages to community power and we are forced into this situation now that we have to weaken community power a little the very entity that we are a part of by not allowing a refresh of 1172 customers and if other communities are doing this across the state that is slowly weakening their power across the state when that's an entity that we belong to so i think there this is a really hard decision for a differential that's this small i think it's reasonable to say we will only refresh when the rates are five percent or so higher because if we're not doing that on a regular basis and the rate is one percent higher and it's the difference of 0.01 cent on a rate, we are just weakening our own power within the state to make change to energy rates. And let me remind you that we are in the highest rate zone in the entire country in New England because of the way that our energy is regulated here.

Thank you. Any more questions?

Assistant Mayor?

Yes.

based on what Councillor Hopkins has said and Councillor Cook has said, I would propose an amendment to the motion we now have that we not refresh when the difference with Eversource is 10% higher.

Is there a second? Oh, well, doesn't that motion?

No, there's a second to his amendment.

It's an amendment. Okay.

The second that.

Can I speak to that? Yeah. So I also firmly believe in CPCNH. And the reason I have requested the motion in the first place or the policy in the first place was to protect it in the minds of rate payers in the city of Port St. I think that while it is, I would say, I take a little exception just in terms of the characterization of , not from a, more from just the facts, it weakens at this rate period. It would not weaken it in a future rate period. Those would all be refreshed onto it in the next rate period because the refresh would you know arguably lower if it consistently comes in higher that weakness is is you know the our policy is a is not the problem it's simply a symptom of the problem and cpcnh will not continue to exist if it's not doing it the first fundamental job of that's aggregating buying power so that people that are not in a position to be able to make a more green choice are you know, able to have at least as cost-effective energy as possible. And so I don't see this as a long-term threat to the stability of CPCNH, unless CPCNH is tragically flawed, and then that's the threat to CPCNH, is that they will not, if they never come below Eversource, they will never refresh more users into it. and they will continue to be higher. At 1,000 users out of the aggregate that we have in Portsmouth, I don't see that as being significant enough to run the risk of harming them now, but I do think that if we have a policy that says we're acceptable of 10% increases in that, that's going to be a difficult sell because then it paints this not as an economic ability to counter the monopoly that Eversource was. It paints us as we're subsidizing the opportunity for green energy choices to be made by those that can afford to make the green energy choices, and it runs counter to what we do a lot in Portsmouth, and that's trying to make it an affordable place to live for everybody, not just the folks that can make the decisions to choose greener energy.

I would also mention that we, you know, as part of the sustainability committee, the climate action plan is also something that we are supposed to be upholding in the city of Portsmouth, and so by supporting green energy, I do think that is a wise decision. I think 10%, if I were going to, you know, it says the committee did not arrive at a consensus number If I were pushed to pick a number tonight, I would say 5% or less. I would not choose the higher end of the range that was suggested by the committee, and that would effectively negate the refresh this time since it's at 6%. Because while I do, it is, it's a tricky balance, and it is a hard time, to your point, Councillor Tabor, to advocate for something that is more expensive but does have a broader range of good outside of rates. As we look towards climate action and sustainable energy, I think community power is definitely the stronger one to go with there. So I just wanted to add that we are looking at the climate action plan as well as something that the city has adopted and is working towards. So I would... I would support a numeric percentage, lower than 10%, but 10% I think is too high in this era of affordability crises. Thank you.

Assistant Mayor? Yes. The reason I went to 10% is right now cpcnh has been adding to their rate to build their reserve that's a temporary situation and but it puts them at a competitive disadvantage at the same time as counselor cook says we have the puc mandating that Eversource buy power in a way that they are consistently under-collecting and running a deficit on their power supply. So we have this temporary imbalance. I would argue that if we're committed to CPC&H, and that's our policy direction, we set a 10% differential, recognizing that we can always come back once the reserves are rebuilt, perhaps if there's changes in the PUC's approach, and do what the mayor suggests, and not refresh if there's any difference in price.

any more discussion we're going to vote on the amendment first yes roll call for the can we can we restate the amendment is it 10 percent now yeah can we restate the motion with the amendment yeah oh we're going to vote on the amendment just the amendment then the underlying yes

Okay. Do you want to call the roll? Sure.

Assistant Mayor Kelly?

Start with me. Oh.

I got the gavel. Oh, because you got the gavel. Okay. Mayor McCachran?

No.

Assistant Mayor Kelly? Where do I go backwards? It's fine. Assistant Mayor goes last. Yeah. Okay. Assistant Mayor goes last. Councilor Cook? No. Councilor Tabor?

Yes.

Councilor Moreau? No.

No.

Councilor Flynn? No. Councilor Hopkins? No. Assistant Mayor Kelly?

No.

So we go back to the original motion?

Yes.

So the original motion is to no refresh if the cost exceeds Eversource. Is that the?

The rates are higher, do not have a refresh. Correct. Okay.

Can we then make an amendment? Yes. Go ahead.

I'd like to offer an amendment of 5%. Is there a second?

I'll second. Do Robert's Rules, and I don't know this, if we had discussed that originally, is that allowed to be taken up at a different percentage since we had discussed 10% and then 5%? Or can we come to a number, an infinite amount of times to... I wouldn't do that.

I think that you're okay in the same meeting discussing it within the same discussion. I think you're thinking about a motion to reconsider in the next meeting that would be prohibited.

Okay.

any discussion okay we'll call the roll mayor mccachren no councillor cook yes councillor tabor yes councillor moreau no councillor flynn yes councillor hopkins yes assistant mayor kelly no that passes four to three four to three

I know you get one more. We got one more vote on the ordinance as amended.

Or the motion.

Yeah, I guess the policy. It's a policy. I get the motion as amended.

Okay. Mayor McCachran.

Yes.

Councillor Cook. Yes. Councillor Tabor.

No.

Councillor Moreau. Yes. Councillor Flynn. Yes. can we go to the bathroom what's this can we have a short bathroom oh sure yeah uh move to adjourn five minutes

welcome back uh we have um an item under counselor bagley's name uh requested the city manager work with the planning and sustainability department inspection department and the chairs the zoning board adjustment planning board historic district commission developed one-page plain language guides for resident and property owners approaching a city land use board or the permitting process for the first time in the report the council with a draft I'd wait a motion to request the report.

So moved.

Second.

Any discussion? I think having anything easy and tangible that can go out to the public. I will say as someone who just went through working with all of these departments for my new building, it is actually a very seamless process. You can come in, meet with them, especially during the open door weekly sessions in the department. But again, I think having a tangible document that even says that, that says these three days a week, their doors are open for two hours every morning, I think is really great. So I support this and I look forward to seeing what the staff puts out for us.

Councillor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. As a new member of Land Use Board, the Historic District Commission, I have to say that I think I hear a lot of fear in the community about the process and what you have to do to go through the process and how hard it is. But what I see in practice is that if you come in and you talk to the staff, they're incredibly helpful and they help you guide you through the process and most applications are approved. So I think it's just about giving our residents a map of the process and helping them understand that it's really not as complicated as sometimes you hear.

i think shanti and peter have done a great job in terms of the inspection department and the planning department making it so that they get folks to yes especially homeowners shanti bringing back office hours after covid it's been a big help to those folks going through the process but again if it's the first time going through the process you're not going to really know uh where to start um and so this is a great opportunity to i think highlight a lot of things that have happened over the last uh four or five years in those respective departments to make it easier for homeowners to do something yes um i'd just like to add that i think one of the this is coming out of it and also request that somebody felt very unsure about how to go and speak in front of a land use board

So I think it might be nice if there was an aspect to this that wasn't just about from the applicant's point of view, but also from a butter's point of view.

You got in a butter water. Here's what you can do. That's super helpful, I think. because it seems very it's very formal when you get in a butter service like and you don't always have to do something you know you just say oh i try to predict what's inside of them when they come okay that's you know that's that's that's different you know but that's also great we'd be happy we are already on the case we'll be happy to share that at the next meeting

all in favor aye any opposed uh counselor hopkins all right the moment you've all been waiting for uh the 90-day working group on child care has um come to a close and i'm going to present the report to you tonight um and presented for their i have a little slideshow it should be on your slideshow that's how old i am slide deck give me one second i'll be right there um and while we're pulling that up i just want to a shout out to everyone who spent so much time and effort we had 23 really smart people in the room and i'd like to publicly acknowledge my gratitude to them um of course the city manager karen Sean Clancy assistant city manager for economic and community development Kim McNamara health director cities of Portsmouth Bill McQuillan fire chief Portsmouth Fire Department Chad Putney acting fire chief Portsmouth Fire Department Shaunti wolf chief building inspector city of Portsmouth Peter Brits director of planning and sustainability Peter Sith assistant planning director Jody Carnes welfare director Todd Henley recreation director Bryn Sullivan assistant recreation director Zach McLaughlin, Superintendent of Schools. Melissa Caldwell, Executive Director of Seacoast Community School. Stacey Neville, VP of Operations at the Granite YMCA. Annalisa LeBlanc, Executive Director, YMCA of the Seacoast. Ben Van Camp, President, Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth. Emma Boniche, the Director of MC3. Marianne Tompkins and her sister Allie Tompkins they own lily pad clinical change and advocacy Christina D'Alessandro early childhood and family supports at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Michelle Vigekowski thank you Santee from Little Harbor school Marty ill who is from early care and Early Care and Education Consultant, formerly Deputy Director, Division of Economic Stability in the New Hampshire DHHS, and Cindy Bishop-Alex, the Families First Health and Support Center. So these great minds met, and we tackled a large, multifaceted, complex problem. And we came up with five asks. But first, I'd like to kind of walk you through the problem, some solutions, and where we'd like to see movement forward. So next slide, please. When we talk about childcare, the math is just broken. This is a structural market failure. It's not mismanagement. So everyone is telling the truth. Labor is the product, so childcare operators cannot cut that cost. It is 65% to 76% of their operating costs. However, these staff earn low wages, $16 to $20 an hour, which is well below what MIT's affordable living wage study came out in February, stating that $25 an hour is a living wage for a single adult and $46.61 if you have one child. For reference, there is downtown restaurant that decided to abide by these new costs new um standard of living wage guidelines and they pay 27 an hour and 27 an hour to work at a restaurant versus 16 to 20 an hour to care for our children um families however are already maxed out they cannot absorb the cost of this uh when we surveyed our seacoast families 53 percent of people pay two thousand dollars a month or more just for child care um if we were to try and close the wage gap that would add another almost 400 a month and that's just not something that people can absorb So there just really isn't a tuition number that pays Educators a living wage and remains affordable for Seacoast families next slide, please this is just a snapshot of published rates for Infant care toddler care and preschool you'll note that infant care is the highest rates and these are the hardest rooms to keep open because of the high staffing rate sheet ratios that are state mandated at three to one and That's why cost is the highest there. So for a year of just one infant going to full-time childcare, it costs $19,000 to $24,000 a year. And the Seacoast seems to run about 13% to 43% above the New Hampshire statewide average. And just for comparison, you know, UNH in-state tuition is $16,000 a year. If we took that out by week, that would be $308 a week. I saw that. It's tuition without room and board, just base tuition. I wanted to put the UNH numbers up here because we have this belief in our society that, yes, we would love for our kids to go to college, but it's not really reasonable to expect a family to fully fund their child's college education that's a rarity we see we hear that we say oh wow you must be really rich to afford to send your child to college and that's true but here we are sixteen thousand a year to send your one student to school or almost you know twenty to twenty five thousand just to get your child into daycare so that you can go to work pay your mortgage pay your rent buy groceries So there's no FAFSA for childcare. There's no scholarships for these kind of things. And yet, families have been quietly absorbing this cost without any recognition of the true expense. Next slide, please. So who could actually afford this? So when we look at the federal affordability standard of childcare, it says that childcare should cost no more than 7% of your household income. So to afford childcare on the Seacoast for one infant, you would need to make $280,000 to $355,000 a year. If you had two kids, you have to make over $600,000 a year. Portsmouth median household income is $85,000 a year. This is a staggering difference. And it's something that, you know, even we say, oh, well, maybe that's just the poor. But no, I pulled out some high-level degrees here where an LPN or a social worker sending their kid to daycare is 35%, 40%. Registered nurse, same thing. 25 to 28% firefighter, teacher. Even when you come up into doctorate level degrees, we're still in the 20 to 30% of household income range. So it's not affordable for any families who are making less than these amounts here. And then the heartbreaking one for me was that an early childhood educator, an ECE educator, sending their own child to childcare would be about 60% of their income. so the people that are caring for our youngest vulnerable impressionable children cannot even afford now a lot of places offer reduced tuition for employees and whatnot but just i think as a basic dignity the people that work in child care should be able to afford child care next slide please so people will say well we do have state scholarship here in New Hampshire and we do and it is underutilized because it is convoluted and underfunded and the values that it reflects are not anywhere near what the current market values are today so only 8% of eligible New Hampshire children actually use the scholarship So that's issue number one. It's not very accessible or well understood. And we looked at this for 90 days, and I still don't really understand how this works because it's, I think, where the money goes and who gets paid. But the reimbursement, it comes up short every time. So the providers either absorb this $31 to $132 a week or they back bill the family for that. So the family that makes their wages qualify for the scholarship, which I think it's 85% of the median income. So when people make about 85K or less, they can qualify for a scholarship. And it's likely that they're going to be back billed for the amount that the state isn't covering. So when you look at all of this, a center that accepts the scholarship and has an opening, today there is one. There's one on the Seacoast that accepts the child care scholarship and has openings. Wait lists are the other problem that I didn't pull out into the slides, but the Seacoast Community School has a wait list of around 400 families. So there's just no movement. And these are the two biggest things that that we hear, it's not affordable, and even if I could afford it, there's not a spot. And the data shows that again and again. The other thing, too, here is that searching for child care can become a full-time job because of this. You're trying to puzzle it together. Is it going to be close to home? Is it going to be close to work? Do they have an opening? Can I meet those days? Can my family help? you know, parse and piece this together. And this is all the mental load on top of just trying to go to work and maybe build your career and maybe, you know, get a leg up and you still have to manage and juggle all of these things. So it's really another layer of invisible labor that families have to go through again, just to show up to work. Next slide, please. so we did some surveys uh flash vote was had some really interesting data the 80 here indicated that the people that filled out flash vote did not have a need for child care however 68 support the city taking a more active role in child care so people are starting to see the impact that this is having as on our community as a whole however as to be expected residents are drawing one clear line we don't want taxes to support or subsidize child care costs we also conducted a an informal survey and we had about 195 responses and this poll quote really stopped me in my tracks when When I read it, we almost moved to Maine just to access free public pre-K. So it's really that serious. Because if you could live in Kittery and go to free public pre-K and keep your job in Portsmouth, that's a pretty big incentive. Parents report leaving jobs, cutting hours, turning down promotions. And another stat to pull out here is that you know earlier I said 53% are paying 2,000 or more 28% of those people are paying 2,500 or more I just grouped we grouped that into the 2,000 or more but 28 28 percent of families are paying more than 2,500 a month which is market affordable housing so I'll just toss out a little math here of housing and childcare can equal 50 to 60 percent of your income and that's it so again we're really it's a pickle uh next slide please um i got to speak with lots of um really well-versed folks on this topic um at united way united way of southern maine and united way in new hampshire each put out independent surveys back in 2023 I won't read you the stats there because it's just all reinforcing the same thing people need childcare to go to work it's not affordable and You know people miss work because of disruptions and employers are saying this affects recruitment and retention And each unavailable childcare slot and is about $44,000 to $66,000 in lost wages, productivity, and tax revenue, just in New Hampshire. And New Hampshire has about 9,000 slots missing. So again, this is a large economic impact moving forward. Next slide, please. Childcare's public health policy. This came from a really eye-opening conversation with Elisa Zerba and pointed to some studies out there that show that there is a 13% per year estimated annual ROI on investment in quality early childhood programs. This was shocking to me. And a couple of slides from now will point to a program that has used this. There are larger cities in our country. Denver comes to mind, I think San Antonio. But they have taken this data from the Heckman study and implemented it, and they are seeing this 13% a year. So it really, the data that is published, and that's all in the report if you want to dig into it, has been enacted in Denver for decades now, and people have finally signed it into law because it does work. It's also a major factor of intergenerational poverty. So again, if we can stabilize families with children between the ages of zero and five, they generally stay stable. If they're destabilized within this time frame, they generally don't recover. And so that, to me, just it was shocking to see because, well, we're already paying for this on the back end. If you destabilize a family, they can no longer make it to work. the economy suffers but then also we're looking at they're going to use all of the services out there welfare public health different departments like that so we're already paying for it there's also a strong correlation with folks who make it to a third grade reading level or not if you are at your third grade reading level in third grade you are 60 four percent more likely to graduate college and if you graduate college you're much less likely to go into the prison system so again far-reaching effects from this specific point in time in a family's family's growth So whenever I initially was thinking like, oh, well, the city shouldn't need to do anything about this, because even in my mind, it's still somewhat of a private matter. But looking into this, digging into this, it is not. It is not just a private matter. This is infrastructure. This is economic stability. And this is public health policy. And those are all things that our government absolutely should be involved in at the state level, I very much believe, at the federal level. And I'm really looking forward to see what we can do at the local level as well. Next slide, please. So this is just a little snapshot of things that are working elsewhere. And as we looked through all of these different things, nothing translates wholesale to the seacoast because we have a very unique set of circumstances with what the state allows and doesn't allow and what have you. But each of these offer a path forward um the center up in gorham new hampshire is a great example of braided funding the denver preschool program while we couldn't fund it like denver does the distribution design is really interesting and then in vermont this is i think act 76 was like a decade in the making but it's they just saw more programs opened than closed for the first time in six years so there There are steps being taken, and I think we can build something meaningful for our community as well. Next slide here. So the things that could be possible here without new taxes, we can look into the CDFA tax credit, federal 45F credit, and the newly signed into law New Hampshire Bill 1433. All of these would support child care and infrastructure. And it, I wanted to highlight this because, you know, in New Hampshire, we see the word funding. We think that means taxes and early taxes, property tax, and nobody wants that to go up. Um, but there are different funding mechanisms that can make a difference. Next slide, please. So my biggest ask to council and staff and anyone who is listening in at 9 53 PM. Keep child care on your list. When something comes across your desk, when an opportunity comes along, think about, is there a child care angle on this? Because there very well might be. Child care is not just mom wants a babysitter. It is, again, infrastructure, public health. So when these types of things come across your desk, please think of child care. Think of the children. Next slide, please. I also have five asks for the council directly. And these are them free pre-inspections and again, this is kind of to the point of what we just spoke about they already happen, but can we call them out and advertise them Plain language zoning child care appropriate parking standards And naming child care in the FY 20 CDBG process and welcoming the new laws that our governor just signed in that support child care that include tax credits for businesses that open and create child care. Next slide. So that's all I'm asking tonight. Read the report. Share the report. act on the five items and just keep childcare in the frame. It's not something that we created and we certainly can't solve it alone, but I will always be grateful that Portsmouth allowed me to convene this table of minds, did the work and helped produce this report so that we can anchor some regional change and let this model spread out and hopefully take a hit at this unimaginable crisis. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Councillor Hopkins, great work. I am looking forward to kindergarten starting for my youngest. That means that we made it out of a significant amount of money.

Yep. Go on vacation with that money.

But certainly be able to, you know, what we can do in the city and then looking at where we can help incentivize as a part of the zoning, you know, the laws, the master plan, I think that would be to understand any changes that we can make there that enable this parking but also to incentivize you know potentially if there's buildings that are going up you know corporate facilities if there's incentives we can give to childcare facilities that are open to the public that can serve those areas as well but labor is a huge cost not easily

Overcome one of the primary stickers is that You know for right now Seacoast Community School has several rooms that are dark because they cannot Hire staff. Nobody is entering this early childhood educator pipeline because it doesn't pay It really does just come down to wages. And if people do get because you could get trained for free in New Hampshire, basically through scholarships and what have you. And there's a wonderful pipeline from the Little Clippers and Portsmouth High School and other trade programs that you can go right into a community college and get your degree and make 16 an hour. Nobody's nobody's chomping at that. Nobody's doing that. And that is the other big complex problem here. It's not just. you know, that it costs so much and centers have trouble with, you know, balancing their budgets and stuff, but they can't find workers. They can't find workers because this field doesn't pay. And so that's a whole other problem that, you know, we need to throw dollars at. But there are rooms right now that are closed because of lack of staff. So anything we can do to make that easier.

Counselor, or Assistant Mayor.

Thank you. Counselor Hopkins, great report. Kudos to you, the committee members, the staff members, the community members. Really, really great report and really good synopsis in your slides to really pull out that data that people really need to hit home with. And again, I agree with the mayor that the action items that you have pulled out here are good and attainable items, especially mentioning the CBG grants. and mentioning the parking and looking at some real ways that when these facilities are being built, that ways that we can really help expedite and save costs in any way we can. So I really just want to give kudos for your first big,

i just want to say the same thing i i really appreciate all the people on the staff of the city that were at the table talking about this and that just synthesizes i encourage people in the community if anyone's listening to go and do the agenda for tonight and read the full report i think there are two you know for 30 years working for companies in portsmouth um a software company and then i worked in publishing for a number of years this was always a conversation and they could never make it happen when 35 to 40 of the people working at those companies were working moms you know so i think it's great and i think that two things stood out to me um I think there's a real power in having businesses at that table to see how we can lean into that. And then also just naming it with the CDBG grants. Like this is, we're losing young people, young families, clearly, and this is adding to that. So how can we lean in? So well done. This is an exemplary kind of synthesization of information. Seriously, it's a mentor text for me.

thank you do you want to make the motion yeah we could await the motion oh counselor tabor

i just was going to say in my six and a half years on the council this is the most thorough and clear report stating a problem and solutions that i've seen to come out of a committee and it's great work and i did go through the cdbg grants for the last couple of years and i totally support naming child care and seeing if we can

Do less of some of these infrastructure things and and apply some some of those grants Do we want to take up the So I will move to adopt the five City Council recommendations from the child care task force report as presented second any further discussion

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Great job again.

Thanks, thanks, thanks.

On to approval of grants and donations. Senior Activity Center donation. An amount of $500.

Your Honor, I move to accept a $500 donation made to the Senior Activity Center towards our Senior Luncheon Fund from Fort Smith Resident and Senior Activity Center. Member Karen Parnas?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Karen. Next is New Hampshire Settlement Funds for PFAS Drinking Water Treatment.

Your Honor, I move to accept a $3,062,540 in New Hampshire PFAS Settlement Funds allocated by New Hampshire DES to the City of Portsmouth Water Works System as presented. I second that.

Pretty significant deal.

You love it. You want them separately, right? We do. Just checking.

Any discussion? And this money is accounted for and it will offset eventually future sewer rate. Water. Water.

I just want to say thank you to the staff that worked on getting these grants. These are really significant grants.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

will continue and move to accept a one million five hundred sixty three thousand five hundred twenty seven dollars in new hampshire ppas settlement funds allocated by new hampshire ds des to the city for the peace trade port system as presented second second any discussion doing a great job to the staff and look forward to seeing these in the debt schedule at some point in the future on the water insert

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? City Manager's informational items.

Thank you, Your Honor. We have four that remain. The first one is a report back on the establishment of a... implementation tool to accompany the policy 25 2025-02 which established the city's arts and cultural banner program what we have proposed for you is a pilot to try and understand the need and the interest in getting involved with something like this we want to make it clear that this will be a city program and that these banners will not constitute question don't want to call into question that these are anything other than government speech so as to not create a public forum area so what we're trying to do is gauge interest and we will propose two display periods starting for 2027 these are an area known as exhibit a or downtown and the idea would be that we would accept applications from entities from January 1 to February 15 for banners to run April through June, and then a similar time frame, April 1 to May 15, for banners to run July through September. What we're avoiding is bad weather months. And again, at the end of 2027, we will share back with the council the relative success or interest level in the banner policy.

uh counselor cook um thank you for all the work that went into examining this banner policy and the arts and cultural commission reviewed it with the staff thank you to the staff for presenting to the arts and cultural commission as well and there are several organizations that have already expressed some interest so i'm excited to see how this rolls out great

Thank you. The second item relates to a report back on the city's complete street policy and the information's in your packet and what I think we would just reiterate and drive home is that the design guidelines as part of the complete streets policy are intended as a reference for how to accommodate all users on city streets and we have been adhering to this and the spirit of this policy for nine years now and we continue to do so and we're happy to discuss projects that you speak to complete streets adherence the next thing I'd like to bring up having discussed school care and the Banfield litigation resolution would be just a friendly reminder believe it or not the mayor was kind enough to hype this earlier we're back in CIP mode again and our portal for citizen requests is now open on the finance page and specifically on the cip page of the finance and the city website so members of the public as well as boards commissions committees have the ability to apply online up to and through friday september 18th and we will be to the council at the end of august at the august 17th meeting to do our cip kickoff conversation and the last thing i'd like to bring up is an exciting establishment of something that this sister city committee was searching to do so thanks to My colleague, Christine Fries, who staffs the committee on behalf of the city. She's on Zoom right now. Thank you, Christine, for hanging in there. And Councillor Blaylock, who serves as the council rep on the sister cities committee. They worked with our finance and legal departments, and we've established the creation of a special revenue fund, which then can be used for specific purchases. with what we have attached in your packet is a template to allow for folks to decide how they'd like to allocate funds if they've got a specific sister or friendship city they'd like to honor or for general use by the committee. And I would be remiss if I did not mention that the committee fully intends to add this as a button on the donation page of the city website. And most importantly, Mary Carey Foley will be the first donor in honor of her mom the late mother eileen foley who is a true champion of the sister cities initiative so thank you to mary carrie foley love that thank you anything under miscellaneous i had to wait a motion to adjourn second all in favor aye portsmouth