Mount Desert Board Backs Town Hall Renovation, Weighs Dumpster Removal

[0:00] Select Board Chair: I would like to call the speech please. The public please will comment until the select board chair opens the agenda items public comment. When addressing the board please state your full name both in person and on zoom and it is suggested that you enter your full name as your id on zoom. Approval of minutes from the September 8th meeting approval any discussion all in favor because I wasn't there are you on John McCauley does he want to vote he's muted [0:44] John: John you're muted yeah [0:55] Select Board Chair: I approved appointments and resignations, none presented. Consent agenda, none presented. Select board reports. [1:14] Select Board member: I have a couple things to bring up that I've heard from residents about. Is this an okay time? Well, one was just, I sat in on my first LUSO committee meeting last week. Martha was there as well. And just a heads up, there's a lot coming down the pike from that related to state legislation that has to be enacted in the coming year and it has a lot of implications and overlap with some of the other issues we're discussing such as tiffs both areas and comprehensive plans so I just encourage folks to attend those meetings if they can and keep synced up among different committees I mean Noel's doing a great job in a consulting role and Gail of course is very on top of this but it's a small committee there aren't many people in the chairs so just a heads up that this is going to be some significant work I think between now and town meeting [2:19] Martha: Martha do you have anything no I think you covered it there's a lot going on yeah [2:28] Select Board member: The second issue which may come up at this meeting or future meetings appropriate I've had a number of residents express to me ongoing interest in recycling not as an alternative to the municipal waste hub but as an option alongside it or to complement it I think it's just in some people's bones and I think people want to do the right thing particularly if there's any, you know, upside to the town over the long run. So when we discuss at this meeting or future meeting, you know, the dumpsters at Sergeant Drive, I want that to be in the context of our discussion. And I also would love to hear from Brian, when appropriate, data from the Invisible Waste Hub. We went there, we saw it work. I was impressed, but I'd like to know more about the amount we're bringing up, the amount that's being recycled, and how we can improve upon, you know, what's going on there. [3:37] Speaker E (unidentified): And I'll jump in for Brian, just on the topics you were talking about, which is cardboard and possibly finding a way to separate out clean cardboard, because right now cardboard is mixed in with other stuff, and that's not ideal. But in order to make that work out okay, we need to find a way to compact down that cardboard. And essentially what I've learned over time from this is that, you know, a truck full of cardboard alone is problematic. A lot of air. It's a lot of air, so you're driving an awful lot of air up there. But there are, there are machines out there that can take that cardboard and really literally squish it down to a much smaller amount, so that you get the actual weight on the truck. And I know that's something Brian's knows a little bit about and [4:25] John: something we can certainly come back to. Okay, is that a problem with the machine [4:30] Select Board member: with the machine up there? No, the issue is once it's mixed with everything else, it's dirty. It has juice on it, and it's not clean anywhere. So it's not a problem for the machine there, but the product has much less of a market. [4:46] John: Oh, no kidding. They can actually market it? Yes. Really? Yes. [4:53] Select Board member: Mixed in with all the trash. That is not a lot, but fun. [5:00] Speaker E (unidentified): But it becomes a lot less sensible if you don't find a way to squeeze down that card right. Exactly. So that's, that's John, do you have [5:11] John McCauley: a comment? Yeah, I think that there was a discussion about really having a requirement for a clean a packer truck that just handles cardboard. It can't be used for anything else. It has to be used for, it would be used for dry cardboard. And I seem to recall Brian saying that we had one on that was as clean as a Packer truck could be. [5:40] Select Board member: And I don't want to get ahead of the solution. I just would like data, information, and have town or whatever explore it, again, alongside Waste Hub, not instead of, obviously. [5:53] Speaker G (unidentified): Right. So when we went to visit, there was a conversation about clean cardboard. And clean cardboard wouldn't count towards our tonnage. Right, if we can deliver clean cardboard to them, there's no fee. It's just a matter of collecting it and getting it there. 's potentially also other places it can go. I don't know what that would mean for our master waste agreement, but we could potentially sell it ourselves. It might be even a little more beneficial monetary side if we sold it directly versus if we want to, because I've not sold it or wherever. So that got me thinking about the fact that we do have three trucks. We are running two at a Time during the summers, and there's a third one I don't know the details of it, but the town used to collect cardboard from businesses because the third truck has traditionally been called the cardboard truck, and it has done routes to pick up cardboard. Again, it's a matter of how much do you need to put together in order to make this usable. You wouldn't send a packer truck because that's not compressed enough. You're not delivering enough. But a compactor is a potential way to put it. And we have a swap loader because you all could prove getting the swap loader, which could pick up a compactor and take it. So I do want to look into it as a potential option as to how we would maybe pull that cardboard out of the waste stream without it getting mixed with other stuff where it then gets contaminated. Could we do it in it in a clean cardboard option, I don't know, cost effective, yeah, is it cost effective, what are we looking at in terms of how we would have to rotate, what staff would be used, and I don't, I don't know that yet, but I'm, I am interested in pursuing that at a conceptual level if it proves to be potential savings for the town, a useful way to make reuse of some of that cardboard, we could dig in further, get more details, and yeah, I was intending to go into that and try and bring that. [7:52] Select Board member: And Brian, before you came in, all I'm saying, I'm not trying to come up with a solution, all I'm saying is I'm hearing from residents who are interested in some options alongside what we're doing with municipal waste hubs because they want to recycle, if it makes sense. [8:09] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah. Just thinking back to the master waste agreement that we have and whether or not we would be charged the innovative resources, they wouldn't put that in the digester if they got it as clean cardboard, so it wouldn't be changing their correct significantly. If we brought it up as clean cardboard, we would not pay the tipping fees on it, wouldn't go through them off through EMR, we wouldn't pay tipping fees there, and we wouldn't pay the floor fees up there, so if that can offset the time and effort that it takes to put it together, then yeah, it's a possibility. [8:44] Phil Lichtenstein: Phil, all right, Phil Lichtenstein, chair of the sustainability committee. We've been looking at this for well before the waste up ever became the waste of the most detrimental thing is our location being able to it's not the tipping fees. When we originally did the original agreement with the MRC, they offered us a reduced tonnage for all our recyclables, and that was at about instead of it's like ten dollars less, but the thing that comes up the most complicated thing is the print and the man hours. To go to orients and you're looking at about an hour and 20 minutes plus fuel, and there's at that point the value versus what's attainable doesn't make sense. My pro recycling when it works, I think it's complicated, and Brian, I think let him study it and get back to you all. I think that's a really good thing. You also need to have a baler. That's the way commercial cardboard is collected by Harvard, if I'm not mistaken, when they did their own recycling program, they bailed every day, and that's how. It's sold commercially. [9:53] John: You said the regular garbage truck won't pack it, how you not to make it. [10:02] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, you know, compactors a couple few tens of thousands of dollars, but it is something that goes on to it's like a roll-off sized container, so that is something that can be moved with the swamp loader truck that we have. It would be a matter of looking onto it. Now what does that mean for our operations too, we can't really have it not being on the road plowing snow. It is a plot from two, so it, I mean, it's a bit to figure out, but I am interested in taking a look at it, and I don't know if there's a. Difference between what was originally looked at through the sustainability committee, if you're talking about package or fourth of stuff going up versus a compactor, and if that makes the fundamental economics of it different or not, or not enough. [10:52] Phil Lichtenstein: We had the original roll-offs there, that's there. I think whenever it was a ten dollars reduction the ton, that's good. We always intended to get rid of our recycling, yes, we got some money back on it, and for what we were always told from everyone, and now we stop is the front end of the building is all set to reset recyclables, and you, I don't know, there's, they've not really set up this one to be able to get any revenue stream, it's, it goes to all end products from the last I was. [11:27] Speaker G (unidentified): Understanding, you said it was roll-offs for the cardboard and the not just Ross but for all the recycle. We had the big red bins, right, the highway thrush, right? Was the math previously based on just [11:38] Phil Lichtenstein: loosely packed cardboard? Yes. Okay, that's not it. Like with our Harvard does, they had a baler, they compact it, then it's bailed, and then it gets shipped off because that's where it goes back to [11:54] John: the paper manufacturer or cardboard manufacturer. You'd have five times the weight if you compact it. Yeah. [12:01] Select Board member: So, Brian, thank you for looking into it. As you have time, more discussion in the future. I'm just relaying what I'm hearing from some neighbors. [12:09] Select Board Chair: And as you visited up there, I mean, it makes sense. Is there any other recyclable material other than cardboard that it makes sense to look into? Or is cardboard really the big one? [12:22] Speaker E (unidentified): I'll jump. I think cardboard's the one where dirty versus clean makes a huge difference. The reality is it doesn't matter how dirty the aluminum is, it's all going to get melted down. Same with the plastics and other stuff. But with the cardboard, the market appears to be for it to be clean and not contaminated with the other stuff, or as they called it, the juice. Sorry. Yeah, so that seems to be the big one. [12:49] Select Board Chair: Good, thanks Brian. Any other unfinished business? Is this one we should talk about? Oh, sorry, select board reports. Any other select board reports? Any unfinished business? Right, new business. Consider approval for utility location permit for phase three of the Ripples Hill development. Pretty good memo from Brian explaining that move [13:38] Select Board member: approval just to put it on the floor for [13:40] Speaker G (unidentified): discussion. Any discussion? Any [13:49] Select Board member: issues with neighbors or anything like that? [13:53] Speaker G (unidentified): So it's all in the right of way. Yep, when this happens to be a segment of the connection is being done for communications and electricity that wasn't part of the sewer design, and it's in the town's right-of-way. It's just a little, a little segment of it to get it back to where there's a transformer, and the rest of it is all being constructed in the what's currently IHD line. We haven't taken that over yet. [14:21] John: Was there a problem with this or this is just a informal? [14:26] Speaker G (unidentified): It's just a segment of it that they need an extra permit just to do it because it's on town land. Everything else, oh I also use it for a permit, it's just because this is owned by the town, it's a right-of-way. Yeah, as far as the utility permit because it's parallel with the risk. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. [14:50] Select Board Chair: Aye. John? Yep, aye. Informational, presentation on potential town hall renovations. [15:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Give me a moment here. Great, I'm sliding the button that I need to use in order to make this into a presentation. One sec here. Here we go. So, hi, I'm gonna talk a little bit about tonight and do an informational discussion on something that isn't going to be anyone's favorite, but it's sort of one of those necessary evils that I think we really need to talk through a little bit. And you know, as a precursor to this, I think when I first came here, you know, I've gotten to that age myself where I remember before this place was done, and so in my mind's eye I'm like, this is a new building, except then I realized, no, this is a 50 year old building. I'm just old. And so over the years we've done a number of renovations to this building. Of course there was the original structure, there was the addition that created the current fire station and the offices that we've got now. Just recently, of course, we did the major expansion to the fire station area. And along the way, over the years at this town hall, we've been doing a lot of sort of bits and pieces and gradual changes here and there. The problem with that has been that one area that's really showing its age and showing a lot of different problems is really the main employee area of these meeting rooms, the lobby, and the town hall area. And it's sort of reached a point by now where it's really not working for anyone. It's not working very well for the public, and it's not working very well for the employees. And so I think we've really hit the point, especially for one particular reason, we're really got to talk about this. So I'll just sort of walk through the issues that we've gotten right now in this area. First and foremost, and I think any resident who's come in here to pay anything has experienced this one, the lobby itself is postage stamp sized. You get more than two or three people and they start having to spill out into the vestibule, and it just doesn't feel welcoming. It's so small. Again, the second you get more than a couple of people, you start to run into troubles. So that's just something that both practically and also just from the feel of it. I'd really love it if we had a lobby that felt at least a little bit more inviting, but also people not spilling out the door. Next one is a big one, and I'm going to even come back to this in the next slide, and that's the security. And this is a hard one right here, because I've also had many, people say to me over time, you know, gosh, I wish the glass would come down. I gosh, I wish we could go back to the wide open lobby. I can't, we just can't. And I'll come back to that again. We've got to go in a different direction. And this isn't isn't me coming from Portland and being like, we need to have Portland here. It's much more a function of, as much as we think we're immune from these things here in this town hall, we're not. So I'll come back to that in a sec. Desk shortage. For those of us, for those of you on zoom, you aren't necessarily going to see this, but I don't think I can come up with a better example of the issue of the desk storage than the extra desk that we have right over there that is a person who is currently sitting in the meeting room itself. We've also got a lot of issues out in the main meeting area, but clearly having a person have their desk in the town meeting room is not great. Right. We're not ADA compliant right now. It's okay-ish getting into the meeting room, but it's really problematic if anyone within a wheelchair tries to come into the lobby. It's a struggle. And it's not just a matter of us not having the proper buttons, but it's really, truly difficult. And so that long-term, that's something we really need to get fixed and create some proper vestibules for the ADA compliance. The storage needs are not great. We can definitely improve that a little bit. The HVAC system is really just a giant collection of mini splits all over the place with controllers that tend to fight with each other. If Kyle wants it hot in his office and I want it cold, he and I are just basically competing [19:38] Speaker G (unidentified): meeting with each other as to the, yeah, you win. My office controls all the other units. [19:46] Speaker E (unidentified): And then the meeting room layouts aren't great. This room's okay, it works out okay. The one that's a problem is the meeting room in the back area that we also tend to use for executive sessions. It's not great sized, but it also has the disadvantage of being way, back in the room. And so that's not ideal either. So there's a whole host of issues that we've got going on. And well, before I jump into that, but mostly I want to come back to something. And that's the inadequate security piece of it. And this is just a tough one, but we need to both make the lobby area of this town hall better, but then we also need to enclose it better. We need to actually have true security between the outer areas of this town hall and the employees. And as much as people may think and might try to say, OK, we're in the town of Mount Desert. We're separate from these things. We're immune from these things. The universe has been sort of screaming at us a little bit, really, in the past year on this particular front. We've had at least one individual not in a particularly good mental state come crashing through the sliding door because they think they knew who I was. This person had never actually met me. We had another person who had a very frustrating exchange and walked out the door by telling people as he walked out the door they will regret this now it turns out I think he mostly probably meant legally but when somebody angrily walks out the door telling us we're going to regret it 's not a great feel but then there's one more that really I think really screamed it and I don't think a lot of people know about this one and so this is going to be a little bit more something people might not have heard about, but this March we had an individual drive up to Mount Desert Island from another state, drive into the parking lot in the evening outside of the fire department, and overnight after dark in that parking lot that person committed suicide. We discovered them in the morning, and when the police looked through the car, as Dave Kearns put it, there are more firearms in that vehicle than in the police department. So that happened. That occurred this March here in our parking lot. So when we talk about these kind of things and we talk about the next slide, which is also not going to be one people love to see, we're talking about mass shootings, we're talking about mass shooting events, we're talking about the need for these. And I come back to my experience at the county of Cumberland, where I think in my first half dozen years there, we maybe did one active shooter training the whole time. By the time I left, we were doing two a year and we were getting evacuated about twice a year. One may make the comment, town amount deserts, 25, 30 years behind time. So therefore, what are we worried about? Well, OK, take a look at that chart and go back 25, 30 years and look what comes next. So on this particular front, I don't love the fact that we're going to have to batten down the town hall more, but we have to do so. That is just the reality we're living in today. So that's the downer part. But I think that's really something that we've got to really ramp up there in terms of where we prioritize things. So along these lines, this next thing started really before I arrived here. here. Prior management worked with a company called DGC Architects to come up with some just very conceptual plans for how the Tolland Hall might get reconfigured to address this sort of cornucopia of various problems that we've got going. And this was, again, just a sort of a small conceptual set of drawings, not a large amount, just really, what can you do, you know, more than back of the napkin, but just generally giving us a concept of it and they came back with some really interesting ideas and it was really fantastic to sort of see the drawings for the first time and realize oh okay this is also the same company that did the fire department has also been part of other town hill town hall renovations in the past so they know this building through and through so this first slide that i've got up right now is the existing town hall plan you see the meeting room at the bottom and then the employee area up top Of course, not showing on there is the makeshift office right there in the corner of the meeting room. But, you know, we get it. Next slide. And I'll bounce back and forth between these a little bit. The proposed town hall plan. And this is something that at first glance, you may look at it and go, oh, it doesn't look too different. And that's kind of what I like about this plan. They're not this isn't anything too crazy. It's still going to add up to big bucks because everything costs big bucks these days. But basically, what they discovered is if they make a few tweaks to this town hall, we can accomplish a whole bunch of stuff. And really, what it comes down to is three key additions that they would make to the town hall that have got circled on this slide. The first one, and really in many ways the most important one, is they will sandwich a conference room between our current meeting room and the break room over there, basically right behind the wall that we're looking at over there. What that would accomplish is a couple of things. One, it would make that the room for executive session right next to the meeting room, would create that other meeting room out here, and then it would also free up space back in the employee area. So it would really accomplish a whole bunch of needs. The next thing that they would have us do, so that's the first thing up, is just adding that conference room between the buildings, and you can sort of see the before up top, after below. And I think in many ways that'll be the trickiest part of this whole thing because the roof angles will be kind of a mess, but they think they can make it go. There's definitely foundation there. The next thing up is that they would add two vestibules. The vestibule up top is what you see outside of the lobby right now, and it's actually sort of got a roof over it, but it's just open air. All they'd really do is enclose that and create proper doors for that, which could also then be made into ADA accessible doors. So pretty straightforward method there, really using a footprint that already exists and just enclosing it. Vestibule tool will be a little bit bigger deal because that will go outside of the meeting room right here and sort of stick out and poke out a little bit further. So essentially that little hallway doorway area that you see there plus these closets And they go away and become part of the meeting room, and then that vestibule out there goes there. One of the things that's nice about doing it that way is a much more straightforward in and out of the room, makes it much easier to create ADA accessibility, and also frees up some stuff. So I think in many ways, if we come back to it, I think the thing that I really thought was very intriguing about this plan of attack was it's really those three things are the key to us being able to accomplish a whole bunch of other stuff. First off, when we do this, by adding on that vestibule, we can expand the lobby a little bit. And right now, when you look at those square footage, yes, you've got an entry area of 105 square feet. You've got a vestibule recalling 75, but that's not really usable because it's all blocked up and everything. The lobby wouldn't be a lot bigger, be a little more than twice as big as it is now. But a little bit may go a long way here, because we don't often find ourselves with the half dozen people waiting in line. It's just the far more common is the three to four people and then we're backed up, and so really just a little bit would really help a ton. And then of course the other thing that sounds like a little thing but it's a really big deal is we would make the that basically the glass in area behind the winters more formal, make it wall to ceiling, and create a door that could be a key card door going into the employee area, and of course we'd have all the employees behind there. So really would pick off a whole bunch of stuff when we did that. The employee area is the least fleshed out of all of this, so we won't really go into that too much. The only thing I'll point out here is that by doing this, an area that is currently a storage room and the area that is currently the conference room could be added as offices, enabling us to get everyone down there. So, it really, that particular plan of attack really does manage to fix all of those things that we talked through. And I'll go back to the initial slide there when we talk about our things. Gets us the bigger lobby. Gets us better security. Gets the desks all down where they need to be. Gets us some ADA compliance. Fixes up the storage. We don't really add much, which is too bad. Not shown on there is possibly improving the HVAC, and of course we get the weaning worms in there. So basically for adding these three vestibules and then doing a little bit of juggling, we actually kind of fix everything. And so I think, you know, one of the things that I kind of like about this plan, no, it's not some giant, oh, are we doing everything? It's actually a relatively minimal way to do it. And is it maybe, yes, to a certain extent, another Band-Aid, but it seems like a particularly well-placed Band-Aid, if you want to call it that, to really fix a lot of these things. Next thing, and this is the question I think people will ask almost immediately as we talk through all of this, is why wouldn't we try to colonize some of the areas that are currently occupied by fire, and in particular police? The upstairs area of the town hall that is currently fire would probably be the area that we would be most likely to try to use. There is a meeting room up there that we use as sort of a backup. Part of the problem there is that it is very disconnected. It might as well be, and in many ways it actually is a town hall, and it is used for the 24-hour shift firefighters. fighters. So I think trying to sort of stick the square peg in the round hole by getting people up there would be difficult and awkward. The downstairs area is just kind of a non-starter. It's very much a true fire station down there filled with equipment and used for those things. The more interesting one, of course, is police because, of course, we're talking about the merger with police right now. But I do want to come back to something that you've heard us all say before. This true merger with the police isn't going to change anything operationally. We're all going to continue to operate the same way. Now, that being said, next to the little dispatch area in police, there's a room that doesn't really get quite as much use as it used to. If we were to completely reconfigure that, maybe we could add an office down there, although that single person would still be sort of downstairs in police so it's not it's not great it doesn't really solve all that much and then there's another key piece to this and this is a conversation I had with Chris Wharf one time who's the deputy chief for a police department and he mentioned to me that officers who typically work in shifts in Bar Harbor when they get assigned an overtime shift. Here, one of the reasons they like doing it is they really like the downstairs locker room and facility and office areas and they feel like it's really good and they really like doing that. I don't want to change that. I want them to continue to feel like this is a great place to come. The last thing I would want to do as we move forward is create any disincentive there whatsoever. One thing we will be doing is IT equipment and servers will be moved down in there, so we will create a true server room down there, and that's good because right now our servers are literally in the mail room and copy room. And keep in mind, servers are supposed to be dust free, and you know, nothing like photocopier in the mail room to generate tons and tons of dust. So those are the pieces, but that's that's one of the things we certainly looked at this, but they didn't really create great solutions that brings us to next steps. And that's why this is just informational tonight, because we've got a few things to talk through on this front before we continue on. The interesting part of all of this is that when we initially contracted with GGC, this was done before my time, and it was, I believe, an $8,000 contract for them to do these conceptual drawings. Like I said, they spat back the drawings. And in part because they knew the town hall so well is why these drawings were a pretty solid stab at this, really quite good in fact, and I was really pleased with it. The problem is that the next step from them is going to be, or from anyone that we would contract to do this, will be of a dollar value that typically would cause us to go out for RFP. And so we've got a thing that I'd like to hear the Select Board's thoughts on, because we could go in either of the two directions. We can justify this as sole source under the basically by stating that they would be the best to do this, simply because they have the prior knowledge of this building, they have the prior plans, therefore because they have that knowledge base that other groups don't, we should sole all sourced this. Now, that being said, though, one could consider the argument that, well, who knows that a different firm couldn't eventually catch up to them. I'll be honest, I think if we did an RFP on this, I would wonder about other architecture firms jumping in on this, because they know they were kind of at a bit of a disadvantage having somebody else already have done this. But that's really one of the first things, and I'd love to hear the opinion on this,. How people feel about us presenting either an RFP at the next meeting versus going sole source and doing and presenting a contract with DGC. I'd love to hear Select Board's thought on this, because this one, this one strikes me as a tricky one. If anyone has thoughts there, now is a great time to let us know. [35:04] John: It would make sense to go with somebody that's already done the garbage ones. That would seem like who would not want to do that and we've already we've already worked with them and had [35:17] Select Board Chair: good luck certainly happy with their work and they know the building like I think that's key if somebody brand new comes in it's like recreating the wheel they'd have started all over I feel like this that knowledge base is saving money in the long run they've already done it and been paid and the drawings to me look realistic like it's minimal but you could have gone a whole different route and somebody else might come in and suggest going a whole different route I think what you've created here is gonna save money in the long run because it's not huge stuff that gives you what [35:56] Speaker E (unidentified): you want I like what you do your choice of words there though realistic that's that was sort of my favorite thing like oh this isn't they're not giving us a talisman hall here they're giving us something a realistic way to get this but yes Arthur I agree I think we should stick with them [36:13] John McCauley: Okay John McCauley yes I concur okay is that something that we can just do or does it [36:23] Speaker E (unidentified): have to go to a time meeting vote no it's definitely up to you it's just it's sometimes these are difficult more difficult than other times that's all I think one could play dapple's advocate and make a case the other direction too and what I'm going to do [36:39] Select Board member: well I would say as the new person here I always want to be able to say to a taxpayer we did our due diligence and so my first question is what would the RFP before would it say this is the plan we want to build and we're asking you to do architectural drawings for it or would the request be give us your ideas on how we could do better or what's the what [37:10] Speaker E (unidentified): would be the scope of work the scope of work it would be give us your ideas if there's a different way that somebody proposes it okay so yes it would be that it would not be limiting them to do exactly what DGC did, I don't think would be a good way to go about it. I think at that point in time, we'd definitely be starting to, well, oddly enough, if we said that, we'd be basically justifying sole source in some ways. Do exactly what they said, but we're going to make it open. And so I think if we were to go true RFP, we would be sort of casting it open to give us your, and we all see these, I think, when architecture firms come in, you typically do get quite a spread sometimes in terms of where it can go. And so that really is what it comes down to is that starting from, like you said, starting from scratch versus the architecture firm that knows this building through and through, because they've done a bunch of these. And to me, that's really key of it. And John's in there. [38:16] John: It seems like that would be the due diligence too because they it's already been drawn and paid for. [38:23] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah I mean granted this one's going to be an order of magnitude more expensive because this is going to be expected this is the true construction drawings right. [38:31] John: It's going to be a lot we've already got money in it though yeah there is money on it and [38:36] Speaker E (unidentified): Definitely we would I think the argument that you could save money because they've already got a skirt on this yeah I think that's a legit argument but of course I'm biased because I'm really I really like the plans that I came up with so I know I'm biased I'm being trying to be [38:50] John McCauley: Transparent about that John so is there going to be any would there be any difference to the timeline and if so is time of the essence if we want to get it onto the town [39:06] Speaker E (unidentified): Meeting for the spring yes okay yeah [39:11] Select Board member: That's a that's a benefit of not putting it out for public RFP. And if the staff likes the conceptual drawings that were given, that's another reason. If you had some questions or thought some things could be looked into further, then I think it benefits from other firms bringing it, but it doesn't sound like the case. [39:39] Speaker E (unidentified): One of my favorite things that I think it was Nancy Parsons who said about where she's like, well, actually not that all that interesting [39:44] Select Board member: Interesting in terms of drawings I was like and this was begun years ago [39:57] Select Board Chair: Yeah it really started out as security I think more than anything okay and then as you bring in a new employee that doesn't have a adequate office and you bring in an HR person that doesn't have any confidence yet you know like she's got to go to a different room I and I just I don't know I feel like security is unfortunately it's a time I want just like at school we're doing the same types of things at the schools and time is of the essence before something happens [40:31] Select Board member: So we would have the ability to fund the next round of drawings from existing reserve funds [40:39] Speaker E (unidentified): We have a town hall reserve that will have the money available for it. [40:42] Select Board member: So then prepare to tee up a funding request in the spring. [40:49] Speaker E (unidentified): Correct. And that would enable us to get much, closer to the number we've got right now. Because, and I've got this up here, they've done a back of the napkin estimate between $600,000 and $800,000 on that. But it doesn't include furniture. Furniture and when I say back of the napkin it's literally them taking the square footage and multiplying at times an amount so there's not any kind of the real cost estimates that we need before we would actually get this on the warrant. We need to get a lot closer before we put that out there and so that would be that next step there. And of course the hard part of all this usually is in order to do this you know it could conceivably get voted down at the town meeting but sooner or later we're going to have to do something at this town hall. We cannot continue and I can't imagine a more obvious indicator that we have to do that than what [41:51] Select Board member: occurred out in that parking lot in March. So do you foresee other on issue building projects on [42:01] Speaker E (unidentified): the spring warrant? Yes the one that's the big one coming up on the spring warrant is going to be the renovation of kind of make sure I don't use the wrong one it's D Street and Summit Road. Yes so we've got a big project that's that's one that's been in the pipeline for a long time and again anyone listening it'll be like yeah it's on the road finally. So but that's a big one because there's Brian can get into that as we go so that'll already be out there. Yes and a few other things we're sort of working on that we'll come back to those. Yeah what is [42:40] John: when you talk about security and full length glass. So what will be, like right now you've got the glass with the open that somebody could theoretically stick a gun in, is it going to be closed and so when you pass stuff in they have to open it up, you know what I mean? [43:03] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, pretty similar to what it is right now, where you've got the, you can go underneath. You don't have to, that can still exist. It's really what you need to do. Do. The reality of these is that when you set up something like this and when you create what we're calling security, we're looking to buy 30 seconds to a minute. Yeah, right. That's all we're looking to do. Where it will not hold up for any length of time, but if you've got that 30 seconds to a minute, that's what you're looking for here. Because people will talk about bulletproof class, for example. Well, that doesn't, it has to be bullet resistant. And unfortunately, this is again, having been through quite a few active shooter trainings by now, these are the things you start to really learn about and have to think about a little bit more, is you've really got to get just what you really need to get is just that extra 30 seconds. And again, right now person can just walk right through that door. There's absolutely nothing other than a sign saying don't go through this door, but it's not going to do much. [44:13] Select Board Chair: But a locked door goes a long way too. Yes, and right now like anybody can pretty much blow in back there and go yell at whoever they want, which did occur this winter. So and even [44:26] John McCauley: that's uncomfortable. Yeah, you have John. So have you given any thought to putting in a second egress at the back of the offices? I mean, it's kind of a rabbit warren in there and everyone is kind of shoehorned into the back and it seems to me almost as it might present a [44:50] Speaker E (unidentified): hazard. Yeah, we may have to do something where there's just an emergency way out there rather than a true staircase out there because you've got a lot of garage bays directly below that. But I think that's something we'll certainly look at because right now that exit out that way would be through using the elevator, which might not get everyone. Although it's also worth remembering, we're not actually dealing with a ton of employees here. I think it's 11 or 12 employees, assuming every single one of them is in the building at the same time. And in particular, when you think about Kim and Seth who are out in the field constantly, you know, it's rarely that many of them. So we'd be talking on a typical day, maybe eight or nine to ten that we got to get out of there fast. But yes, I think John you're absolutely correct. That's going to have to be a component that we just haven't quite gotten to yet, some form of an emergency exit other than the elevator itself. Also as well [45:44] John: office all the way in the back that there's no like a fire escape there. [45:49] Speaker E (unidentified): There is not no, it's the elevator itself is considered the fire escape. And typically, and if you think in terms of a fire, there's multiple exits. It's really when you think in terms of, okay, if somebody's in the lobby now, how do you get out? Yeah, but also let's think of it this way, the police station is right below. If we can buy even a minute or two, that enables them time to respond as well. And again, this is when you talk about these things, every second matters. Simply that ability for the folks there to get out of harm's way for even a brief period of time. But when dealing with these kind of things, yeah, it's tough stuff. It's tough stuff, I guess. [46:37] Martha: Police area really comfy. [46:41] Speaker E (unidentified): That was really interesting when Chris said that to me. I was like, okay, we'll nod to that one. They like the lockers, we're keeping the lockers. [46:50] Select Board Chair: Great, other comments on that? [46:54] Speaker I (unidentified): Well, I would just say from an election standpoint, that new layout is infinitely better. I have personally witnessed a lot of ADA problems. People coming in through a wheelchair, you gotta come in, you gotta turn, you gotta turn. And it's very difficult, [47:14] Select Board Chair: even having two people try to push a chair through those turns. Plus from a security standpoint, you have no idea what's coming through that door until they're already in here and it's too late. Yeah, really see good points. Great, thank you Alex and Claire. So we will bring them security on here too, or just at least have cameras or something. Yeah, certainly part of the camera upgrade will be part of this. That's, that's another key thing we've got to do in this town [47:44] Speaker E (unidentified): hall in particular, the cameras that face the public, so that if somebody does something, we can ID them better. And certainly that's been an experience, and that's, that's paid huge dividends in my prior position. When we had a person come through that a good camera right on where they were, there really helped us identify a threat very quickly. So it's a super important thing. Typically speaking, the meeting room doors are locked most of the time. It's really we [48:17] Select Board Chair: unblock them say for this. Yeah, but like she said, even sitting here tonight, like until they walk through those doors, you have no idea who's walking in there. So I love the idea opening that up and having an outside vestibule like, and plus the double, I mean the way the doors [48:35] Speaker I (unidentified): Are now you can't get out unless the other doors already open, and I have a lot of problems on elections, especially when it's cold and we try not to keep doors open. It's very difficult for people to exit those doors, but so the flow would be much better with the new excellent. I think this is a good [49:01] Martha: Good solution to several problems, and I think I'm glad we're moving forward. Yeah. [49:10] Speaker E (unidentified): Wish the price tag wasn't what it was, but I think this is as minimal as we can get to get where we need to go. [49:17] Select Board Chair: And I think everything is just going to theoretically, maybe not, but go up as you. Put it off or put it off, so that includes furniture too, like, realistically. [49:27] Speaker E (unidentified): So, yes, next meeting we'll be putting forth an authorization to enter into a contract with DGC then, and they'll work on the drawings through the winter, and the goal will be to have this listed as a warrant article with us having much better numbers, and then we would work through the construction hopefully in the winter of 27-28, and we'd obviously do this as much during the winter months as possible. We'll have to get a little tricky. We'll have to probably have a period where employees are out here, a period where this isn't available, and we'd have to use other meeting areas. But one of the nice things within this town, of course, is we have multiple locations that we can draw from that aren't ideal long-term, but we can certainly make do, especially when it comes to the meeting rooms. So I think we should be able to work through this pretty well. And thank you all. Thank you. [50:24] Select Board Chair: Continued discussion regarding the use, need and potential removal of the dumpsters from the town garage. [50:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Stop sharing Brian. [51:03] Speaker G (unidentified): This is pretty short, but I do want to continue having this conversation with you. Continue to talk about the things that I've heard. Hopefully, here's some of the things that you've heard. Continue to think about operationally what things look like up there and potentially come up with some solutions there. So the dumpsters that are up at the Town of Mirage, we have three of them that sit there right now, and they've been designated, as far as I understand, this has been for household waste home, right? That's what our signage is. These are for people that have missed trash day for whatever reason, that they're gonna be gone ahead of trash day, and they're going to drop off a few bags of their household trash in lieu of taking it to EMR or leaving it out where bears might get it or raccoons or whatever, that work as a pen and wire. But right now, we're looking at, the condition is that we have 24-hour unrestricted access at that location, which even without the dumpsters, a 24-hour unrestricted access to a public works site is not a great idea. But put the dumpsters there, and it becomes sort of a any hours go-to for getting rid of any and all manner of things. That was sort of the thing that triggered Maine and ISPOL to kind of flag it as a potential liability risk for the town. We have health and safety risks for residents if they're there at whatever hours, if it's dark out and we don't have adequate lighting, or even if it's during the daytime and they're intermixed with all of the other activities that are happening at that same location. There's no monitoring of anything that's happening, so we don't know what has been in place there and what it could potentially mean for someone else coming in later, sharps, broken glass, open metal, whatever it is they're bringing in their personal vehicles in amongst a place that has very large trucks moving around, so their personal property, there's a liability on that as well. We have people that come in scavenging materials at all hours of the night as well, they'll be found in the dumpsters pulling stuff out, throwing it to the side, making a mess as they go, it's the 24 hour access. And those kinds of activity that I think is really what's like that burning and that's a full one, that liability that we have at that location. We have also our crew that's there, and there's a risk to their commercial driver license. If you back up and you have a CDL, it's your fault. [53:27] John: That's it. If you back up. [53:28] Speaker G (unidentified): If you back up and hit someone with a CDL, it's your fault. There's, it's pretty clear. They have backup alarms. People don't pay attention. So there's just this constant dynamic of them having to ensure that they're being the extra careful one in the circumstance. And that is on them to take care of it. So they're taking on that extra risk and liability and the extra responsibility. We spend a lot of time up there cleaning it up. I'm going to show some examples of what we're looking at during the busy summer season. Season we're emptying it three times a day, three dumpsters three times a day. They're six yard dumpsters each. Pick them up in the morning, pick them up in the middle of the day at lunch, go and have your lunch, pick them up the end of the day. That isn't all getting transported to EMR every time, so there's not an extra run. Just those will fit in a truck and we can just leave it sit overnight and then make a run down to the transfer station later. But it's, if it's not a lot to pick up, it's a half an hour to dump three dumpsters. If it's a lot to pick up, it's more than that, it's 45 minutes, it's an hour, depends on how much is, how much is there. And there's no oversight of the materials that are put in place, so it is again supposed to be just the extra bag of household trash that came out of your kitchen can, but it is all manner of things that are going into those stemsters. I have some examples here, I think my pictures are mixed. That's kind of any normal morning, doesn't matter what I mean. That's, that's a quiet season normal morning. That's often the case of what's there. That's a half an hour cleanup more or less because it's mostly just tipping the canes. That's summer season more so. That's not just the Sunday, the Monday, that's a Tuesday, Wednesday, say Thursday. Turnovers don't happen on Saturdays only anymore, turnovers are all the time. It's, that's kind of any day of the week during the summer. Another example of the same sort of thing. [55:40] Select Board Chair: And that's potentially three times a day in the summer. Well that's the, that's the big one. [55:46] Speaker G (unidentified): Morning. Okay, you probably wouldn't see that level at lunch, but the dumpsters will be overflowing at [55:52] Select Board Chair: lunch. But that's like five dumpsters right, that's probably five dumpsters worth of trash. [55:59] John: Trash. And what happens Monday morning when you're not collecting like Sunday? Yeah, we're not in on [56:06] Select Board Chair: Sunday. Monday mornings are, that's right by there on Sunday. I've done that off and on all summer just to get an idea of this. And yeah, and this is again we'll go back to this is supposed to [56:18] Speaker G (unidentified): be the occasional bag of household trash, that's what these dumpsters are for. So this should be just where people got missed on the routes. Well we've learned that people [56:31] Select Board member: aren't always on the routes and they're down long roads, and so some people are using this as their entire waste disposal because, yeah, not to dispute what it is, but you understand, and I've had some conversations with [56:47] Speaker G (unidentified): Some folks, and I'll just reiterate that I really want to hear as much as I can and from anyone that you're hearing from. And I appreciate you all are probably spending a lot of time listening to people, and I very much appreciate you're spending that time listening. And I think it's important for you to hear these things, but it's incredibly important for me to hear it too. So once you've heard from them, by all means, please encourage them to say, Brian really needs to hear this too. Will you please also let him know? And I can give you packs of cards if you want and send them with you and they can call, you know call the number leave a message send an email however they want to do it but i definitely want to hear these things we've had a variety of people where we've talked to them about exactly that issue there's one here in town where she was going to that location on a regular basis because she felt it was her only option when this came forward that we were looking at maybe changing up there she came to me and said I live here what can we do because I use that and we just simply arranged a spot for her to bring it that's closer to her house where she can just drive the can over and we just change the route slightly so we can do a lot of those there are other circumstances where I've talked to people and they're on the road and there's six houses on it and there's no way to get a trash truck down there so we can't make accommodations for everybody but i can't make accommodations for anyone that i don't hear from so please by all means let me know and we can we can we can do a lot of things to try and to try and pick it up on the route the other part of it is the you know kind of the unmanaged what is showing up there this is not an uncommon occurrence this is not coming out of somebody's kitchen trash can. [58:36] Select Board Chair: And there's also TVs I've seen up there several times. In Vaughn Taylor's? [58:45] Speaker G (unidentified): Next to it is the box, but I think that was...anyways. [58:48] Select Board member: What is the TV box? [58:52] Speaker G (unidentified): So, we don't have oversight up there. They're gone. They're out. out there aren't crew at that location the only two that are typically there for any length of time during the day are the mechanics this is not their job to look over their shoulder to watch what's going into those boosters they need to pay attention to what they're doing so it's it's completely unmanaged at this point and there's no capacity to change that with what's that we [59:20] John: Have because they're up doing their job well. It's like if you had a good camera you could find out who put that there and go get them. Say yeah who's gonna police that. Like that's I've had this conversation. Please you would you would wait until you okay I wouldn't look at it every day all day but okay that showed up find out you know when it happened find out when you know review the tape. [59:43] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah just check the tape and we do have a camera system and it does record and it's triggered by motion and so is it good enough to it's not yet and I have a quote on upgrading that camera system. [59:55] John: To improve see a number plate or we. [1:00:00] Speaker G (unidentified): Can see better for sure the issue is that now you're dedicating time on staff to go review all that stuff too so and you gotta follow up enforcement and you have to follow up and then you have to put that time on the police to go then follow up and do that so enforcement yes we do need to do enforcement on things like this but it's not a silver bullet to be able to do that it is a component of what we do need to do but it's. [1:00:27] Select Board Chair: you know it's not and if we gated something off and had specific hours but still kept the dumpsters there but then people are going to leave i feel like they're just going to leave it on the outside of the gate yeah you'll see that 's what you'll see [1:00:45] John: Of you know and a lot of people will do it I think just but I'll show you yeah now even. [1:00:52] Speaker G (unidentified): yeah as it is right now with three dumpsters and the volume and the way that we don't have anything going on over and above that just dumpster sitting there 's some public use we don't in my opinion that don't technically qualify as a transportation because the volume they're low enough that there's not anything really going on in terms of managing it or what it and you add management to it if you're staffing it if you're putting a sticker if you're gating it if you're setting hours now you're Tacking on pieces that would legitimately be called the transfer station so you're sort of backing yourself into a corner with it in my opinion getting closer and closer to that idea of it being and that would then be a licensed facility and now you've made a hurdle that you're going to have to try and link that hurdle so all of those kinds of constraints like locking it and having it just be only staff in there is very different than locking it opening it up and allowing and making that public. It's it's a different a different kind of thing and you can't just do that can you don't what's that. [1:01:59] John: You can't just make a transfer station, can you? Doesn't it, don't you have to go through? [1:02:05] Speaker G (unidentified): You have to be licensed, and that license requires offsets from property boundaries, and you can get some waivers, but you also have to work with the landowners that are adjacent to you. The boundaries are different, whether it's a road or someone's private property. You have to have control systems in place. You're going to have to decide what you are and aren't going to accept, how you're going to sort it. Where are you going to store it? How are you going to move it? How are you going to containerize it? big deal it 's very unlikely that you could figure a way of making that space work as a transfer station out in the grass past those dumpsters where you're looking right now if you were looking through the ping pong table wasn't in the way you're looking at our septic field that space is not available so that's the whole interior space so it's it killed me when [1:02:53] Speaker E (unidentified): he told me that, I thought we had a space. No, that's the leach field. Yeah, I think John had his hand up. [1:02:59] John McCauley: Friend with John? Yes. So I seem to recall maybe 15 years ago this was a hot topic, and I think it was right after Jim Willis joined the, signed on as chief, and we went around this and we looked into it, and we were out of compliance then, and the state was in our case, because it is not a transfer station, it can't be a transfer station, and I think that if you, if you venture opinions, you're going to get yourself into hot water. You know, it seems to me that it's a fairly cut and dried case of this cannot be a transfer station we are out of compliance and it's going to bite us in our insurance and with the state you know i think that 's what we need to really focus on here i don't think we have much you a choice Trina [1:03:59] Public commenter: I don't know what it's not, but and I understand that you can't enclose the dumpsters themselves as their own little island, but why can't you put a gate to the town garage on both sides so that people can't even go up in there? 's no reason for a normal human being to go up in there unless they're going to work or they're dumping trash up, and if you're going to work then you would know how to open the gates, but if you're dumping trash off and the gates close, and I'm just like an arm gate, not a fence gate, but something that's would prevent people from actually entering onto the property. Can you do that? 's what you were talking about. [1:04:46] John: Brian at one point getting it off so there's no access so between are you talking about basically [1:04:53] Speaker E (unidentified): basically limiting it after hours then okay yeah so then it would be open during the gate would be [1:04:59] Speaker G (unidentified): up during the hours that staff are there or whatever other hours you chose if you chose to [1:05:06] Public commenter: have that you know I know that yesterday I ran into I didn't run into but I encountered a pack or truck leaving the town garage area around four o'clock in the afternoon so I mean that space is used a lot. So, yes, I guess I am saying the gate would go up during the workday, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, or whatever it is. [1:05:31] Speaker G (unidentified): So, we have, we didn't have what was called the Garbage Hotline, and it was a terrible landline that didn't work very well. And you could leave a message, but it was always garbled and it was hard to understand. We don't have that anymore. What did you call it? Garbage Hotline. Garbage Hotline. The garbage hotline now is just calling my office and April answers the phone and if someone has missed their trash date, which is again, I'm going to go back to this. This is for people who have had their trash missed, if they could do that in time or they're going to be gone or whatever it is. If it's during office, our regular day, they don't have to bring it to us. They'll just call and we'll go get it, but we do it all the time. We're constantly picking up. we can accommodate when trash has been missed dessert service is off the charts yeah that is pretty good we have trucks running around all the time and we are very able and willing to grab something that has been messed if we missed it because we just didn't see it or if it just was a little bit short 99 of the time we are picking it up that day within a few hours and not that day it's the next so the need to be there during our business hours we can make it up you don't have to come I [1:06:50] Select Board Chair: think that at the end of the day it's about town amount desert residents doing the right thing and non town amount desert residents doing the right thing and not bringing but look down at the marina I mean that's supposed to be boat trash and how many times do I drive down there and i'm like that's household trash that's someone's tv that's but it also seems like there's a lot of cardboard up there like this whole cardboard thing maybe that is a teeny little solution like that takes up a lot of Space just that box with that. Hopefully there's no TV in there, but that someone didn't take the time to break down. Well, think about UPS comes to town. [1:07:38] Public commenter: Every single day and every single thing in that UPS truck, nine out of ten things are in a box. If you look in the back of that box, it is packed jet-full. So yes, there's a lot of cardboard coming into this community. So I mean, I don't know as [1:07:54] Select Board Chair: we think. I get everybody's point, but that's a lot of it. Yeah, so and maybe [1:08:03] Speaker E (unidentified): just because we're, yeah, either one of them, just maybe as something of a sort of a coda for all this, for folks listening in on this, for folks talking about this. From my perspective, and I'm pretty sure I speak for the select board on this one as well, to the residents of this town, we've heard you. We've heard it. We've heard it a lot. We've heard it constantly. We know you folks really,, really,, really, don't want these dumpsters to go. But look at that slide. That is what we're dealing with here, folks. And so this is the struggle. This is you've got the mattresses, you've got those. We get that there's a lot of need for us, but there is sort of that no single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood problem we've got going on right there. But this is what we're up against, folks. That's just my thoughts there. [1:08:55] Martha: Agree. I said one point we talked or you talked. I sent some people to you who live on the long road with lots of people and they don't have space for and we talked about helping them to come up with a solution, possibly a joint-owned receptacle at the head of their Drive. It could be closed, keep out the bears, that would be closer than driving up to the town garage. What's the status of that? I know several [1:09:34] Speaker G (unidentified): people from that road and I want to about that potential and I've also had our superintendent go and take a look at that road and assess it for whether or not a trash truck can go down at least some distance down there and as it stands right now there's not a good way to get a trash truck into that road. So it really would be a matter of constructing some sort of gravel pad adjacent to the edge of that road and we could try to work with those homeowners still to do that and try and accommodate them having their own dumpster and it could be a small one it could be as small as a two yard dumpster that's sitting there that should be able to take care of or board but should be able to take care of it 's just a matter of it's going to take a little bit of money and effort on their part in order to make a space for it and if they're willing to do that then i'm certainly happy to work with them to try to do that other alternatives that we have thought about too is for circumstances that's One, so that road isn't accessible and it would take work to make it accessible. There is a road in Mount Desert that doesn't and that doesn't originate in Mount Desert. So there's a road that comes off of Indian Point Road that comes far enough out of our harbor, it actually ends up in Mount Desert, and there are several parcels on the end of it that are Mount Desert residents, but we don't pick up their trash or come anywhere near it. So what do we do there? Right, so that's potentially where we might Be thinking about some other space for very particular cases where there is a dumpster that has a code access or some sort of restricted access specifically for the few cases that we can't [1:11:18] Select Board Chair: Creatively solve. But I feel like you're, this is what you're saying, communicate with me. Yeah, communicate with me what your needs and thoughts are and see what we can do to accommodate. So I think that's a message to, I mean, you've been saying it all along, which is great, but I [1:11:37] Speaker G (unidentified): I have one person who has a seasonal place during the regular season, or twice a week, trash. They're here often enough that they can put it out, it works. The day of, they get it picked up, they put their cans back, everything is fine. But then they start coming up in the spring and the fall. So now there's not twice a week trash, and they're only here over the weekend, and their pick-up day is a Wednesday. So they don't want to leave their trash out. And I said, build a box, put it in the box and put the lid down. we'll just come and get it 'll and we'll put the can back in the box and they were so thankful for that as a solution it was really something like but i gotta i gotta hear it yeah you could just call the garbage line which is my number [1:12:24] Select Board member: But I there's many scenarios, yes, right. We've heard from the person who's down the road, they don't own the land at the end of the road where the wooden box would be, and the land owner that does own it says hell no, you can't build anything on my land. So I mean there's many different scenarios, and I appreciate, I mean, you're not done with your presentation, you have more [1:12:51] Speaker G (unidentified): stuff to come, so right, yes. So that was sort of just the visuals of the volume, and this is a little bit about the statistics of the volume. So we spend about 400, we have budgeted rate this for this year is 480 000 for tipping fees, that's both tipping fees, the EMR and up at the Innovative Resources. I try to pull data, so I made use of the three trucks. I took one truck and I said don't do anything but the dumpsters in the garage with this truck and keep all the slips when you go through EMR. Take your other two trucks and do your regular runs but don't pick up the dumpsters at the garage. So we're separating out, one truck is doing one aspect of it and the other two trucks are doing the other. And so the truck that was just the garage, just town garage, those three dumpsters was 20.8 tons, but like 20.8 tons, you know, one week period at a third of our, yeah. And then the other two trucks were picking up about 40.7 tons. So yeah, we're about a third or 35% of the material that is going through EMR transfer station that is attributable to our weight slips from the Packer trucks. That doesn't count for anybody bringing it themselves or bulky waste. Just what being picked up by the Packer trucks, 35% from those three dumpster. [1:14:19] Select Board member: Not the ones at Barclays, at Northeast Harbor, not the ones at the marinas. [1:14:24] Speaker I (unidentified): Just the garage. Wow. Sounds like an abuse. Yes, it does. [1:14:29] Speaker E (unidentified): And I think in many ways that's both the problem and it also probably for all of us that the amount of people screaming from the rooftops about that, it's a much higher number passing through there than I think any of us could have imagined prior to him doing that, which is what makes this that much more difficult. [1:14:48] Select Board Chair: Do you think trash from the campground comes there at all? People leaving the campground that because there's not the Montessori campground? [1:14:58] Public commenter: The difference is the biggest dumpster. [1:15:00] Speaker G (unidentified): Well, they have dumpsters there and we'll empty their dumpsters. We just empty dumpsters for businesses all over town. So I'm assuming they have dumpsters. [1:15:08] Select Board Chair: I don't see it. When I drive by there, I don't, I just, it must be down way below. I just think that's a lot of people. And I was up there a couple times, well, few, several times this summer. And three times I was there was, people that were leaving the campground and just leaving, they left their trash there. And I mean, yes, it's the town of Monteserve, but they're not theoretically town of Monteserve residents. So I was just I don't know. I'm just curious because. [1:15:33] Speaker G (unidentified): There definitely is an aspect of out of town use happening at those dumpsters. Now, I don't have any real data on what that number is. All I have is anecdotal. Right. And the pessimistic ones that the garage that want to chime in about what they think it is, they're going to say it's 50 percent. Like half of what's going through there is out of town is out of town. Yeah, those the it's maybe more real. I don't know exactly what it is. That just don't have the data. But even if it's, you know, 20 of what's in there, so for every five percent of that 35, the one-third that's going through there, for every five percent of that is going of that one-third, that's eight thousand dollars, right? So it's ten percent, it's sixteen. If it's twenty percent, it's thirty two thousand dollars a year we're spending. On trash. Yeah, that's not originating here. And I think I want to clarify something here real quick about EMR and the use at EMR, because that's something that I have heard from people is they think they need to pay for their bags that come out of their kitchen when they go to EMR, and they do not. You don't have to go over the scale if you just have household trash that comes out of your kitchen and bag it up. You just go to the bar, right, and you bypass the scale and you go in and there's a dumpster. At that transfer station that is designated Mount Desert, and you can put your household waste into that dumpster. There's also bulky waste, which is the one that everybody thinks of at the EMR at the transfer station, which is up to 2 000 pounds per parcel that can be brought there, and that includes green waste, leaves, electronic waste, construction debris, construction debris, metal recycling, and your regular household waste if you decided you wanted to just pay for that too. But you don't have to. It's just coming out of. [1:17:29] Select Board Chair: Here. And then you've got the weekend thing at the high school that you and that doesn't cost us anything, and you've got April vacation that we can put our mattresses and our thing that comes. [1:17:37] Speaker G (unidentified): Out we have the bulky cleanup, we have shredding day, we have multiple ways in which we're trying to collect all of this stuff for folks, okay. But I just want to make sure that everybody understands that EMR, your bags out of your kitchen, you don't work through the scale. Just take that in and put it in the dumpster. [1:17:55] Select Board member: And is it possible to get data from EMR that tells us how much the town of Mount Desert dumpsters are, what the tonnage is there? Maybe. Yeah. I mean, it's just another... They just have to figure out how they would [1:18:12] Speaker G (unidentified): weigh it separately, which they should be able to. I don't know. I don't know. a matter of them going over their own scale just with a vehicle with that dumpster you know [1:18:21] Select Board member: just curious yeah probably pretty underutilized by our residents brian [1:18:30] John: back to the other thing about places you can't get to i thought we talked once about just having a smaller truck like a pickup going to pick up just a few houses and take it down and you know like the one time it's had a possibility to throw it in the back and then [1:18:47] Speaker G (unidentified): so it's something that we could explore and then it's a matter of staff as well and when that fits in the schedule and how we would make that work operationally whether or not there's a reasonable way to do that would accommodate some of that so the one that I talked to but we don't have a solution yet we can't put a full-size truck do we have an alternate truck potentially I don't [1:19:08] Martha: i don't know how many how just off the top of your head how many cases like that are there actually in this town of people that cannot the big truck can't get to their trash how many [1:19:24] Speaker G (unidentified): i don't really know i think there's a little private roads where there's one or two residences that they can just bring it to the street because on any of those private roads it's even the ones that have six houses on it if they bring it all the way up to the most the road that we do travel and just leave it there we'll pick it up there but if you're talking about six houses it's a lot of cans yeah if it's three houses it's not so bad the neighborhood that i lived in previously we had nine houses and no dumpster and we all just brought our cans down there and it was just picked up on the side of the road. It was not a it was a private road till like before I started here but while I was still living there and then once it became private I mean theoretically he could have been running up there too but we decided we didn't want to abuse that road that much big heavy trucks going up and down that one I think is going to have to have another solution too. There's nine more houses going in there you want 18 house holds trash cans down at the end probably not so we'll figure out I think I have a pretty good spot for a dumpster there but we'll figure something out. I think there's a lot that we can't go down I think the number that we can't go down where there's actually enough houses where some other solution is needed is pretty low. I think a lot of these private roads there's just a couple just a couple of three houses and those cans could just go out to the street and we'll pick them up that's the thing about this yeah so the it's a lot going through there I don't know what of that third total MSW is coming from other towns we could potentially by doing some management eliminate because of the amount of time that they spend there and how many trucks we have out on the road and the amount of time that they're out doing their routes we feel very confident that if you took all 35 and put it out into the very locations on our routes and there was no availability of a dumpster at that town garage other than our own use at that facility we can accommodate picking it all up on the round we can fit it will work and we'll have time for it [1:21:46] Speaker E (unidentified): household travel trash household trash okay [1:21:53] Speaker G (unidentified): So yes these are just some of the considerations is, you know, we've talked a little bit about the restricted access already, gating it off, whether you put staff in there or not, who's an authorized user, who isn't an authorized user. And I think I just want to kind of come back to this idea that, as I've always understood it and it seems like that's the understanding with all of you as well, is that this is for residents whose day was missed or their trash was missed or they can't make that day and there's just these one-off occasional things where they need to get rid of their household trash. It's not for commercial purposes so any commercial entity that has trash can either have a dumpster or they can go to the transfer station it's not a matter of commercial operations [1:22:40] John: Using this facility, right, the bottom line though is whether people want it or not, is becoming an insurance issue. And so whether you like it or not, it has to go to me. Well, [1:22:57] Speaker E (unidentified): it has to be, it could not be managed. Yeah, it could be a while. I think that was a good warning shot, but I wouldn't necessarily call this that, to be to be all adults me to be all and all is if we go back to that photo, yeah, that's the piece where we really gotta, we can't can't keep going like this. And keep in mind if somebody, the next thing somebody, well, take it away more often. Brian's already told you three, that's what's happening, three times a day, health and safety [1:23:25] Select Board Chair: issue. Well, that is the other piece, like protecting the people that work there and the traffic in and out and the people that are coming with their trash [1:23:34] Martha: and it's big trucks back and it's a mess up there. Yeah, well, the other, go ahead, [1:23:40] Phil Lichtenstein: Phil. I don't want to speak to Brian, it's completely done. I'd like to, as the sustainability of, we've been trying to reduce our solid waste on this to begin in with for the last 25 years, but I want Brian to complete his presentation to you all before I [1:23:59] Select Board member: speak about that. I was just going to comment on your point, Brian, that the understanding is it's when they've missed the route, the occasional, that is not how people interpret it. They interpret it 's there for them, and people don't want trash sitting at their house, me included, an extra day. So, like, there's many large residences and large staffs in Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor that say, get this off the property today. We're not going to wait till Monday or Thursday. And I can attest to myself, if I have a bag of stinky trash and I don't want to wait for pickup, I'll run it down there. So I think it's available. Of course. Yes,, yes. Yes. But I think that in addition to missing the route, people just have come to appreciate being able to get the trash off their property other than just once a week or twice a week. That's just that's just human nature. And we're not going to change that. So that's become part of the amenity of having these dumpsters also at Bartlett and Seal Harbor and the marina. People want their trash off their property, and it's no knock on the on the pickup or the logistics, for some of it 's just get it get it gone now, drive it down. So I just want to say that your expectation that this only is used or was intended for when you miss your router, people [1:25:29] John: have taken great liberties with that, but me included, all those dumpsters are abused too [1:25:36] Select Board member: Yes, I know, I'm just saying the problem is harder to reel back in than we think, because people's minds aren't where you're very practical mind of what this meant to be. Thank [1:25:52] Select Board Chair: you, Phil. Do you have a final comment? Well, the final comment is the sustainability committee has been working [1:25:57] Phil Lichtenstein: for about 25 years to try to reduce our solid waste. That's how our recycling program began at originally. We've looked at pay as you throw, that means you buy a bag somewhere like the town of Ellsworth, the brewer does, for a dollar, to make people think about maybe backyard composting, maybe driving the EMR if they got that stinky trash on Tuesday. The real problem that I've seen is when you have an open thing like we've had also is what about the person who decided to demo the bedroom or the kitchen over the weekend and didn't want the dump at three o'clock on Saturday? Well, we'll just go down to the highway garage and I hear what, you know, a lot of your comments are absolutely correct. They wanted off the property, but EMR is there, you know, six days a week, and we used to go like, you know, we had to stop years ago, we had to stop the garbage man from going in the houses and getting the trash on the inside, they were going in the kitchen. So we can only do so much, and this is a problem worldwide and the more availability unmanned is just a problem, but we also need to think about how to reduce our tonnage and because we pay for this all and it's, it's complicated. It is the service that we want, we pick up businesses or, you know, you're going to do trash, you want to do it right, and I think Brian and his crew do the best the possibilities because of the logistics of the town. We've hired in third-party contractors to try to do recycling, the curbside, and they couldn't get it done in a day, it was multiple days, then it became, it's the same thing, it came so expensive and they couldn't do it. That's when we started having people come to the highway crops. So we're also a part of the sustainability committee was possibly part of the problem having the recycling center there and it became a social thing, people felt they were doing the good thing, and we outgrew recycling. Sorry, I trained so many people to recycle, but recycling has never became what it really needs to do. One, we don't have the volume and two we live too far away for being able to get to the places where it's finally collected that's the real you know problem the frustration part is we are almost 70 miles from orington right a little less maybe 62. Anyhow, it's quite expensive, the fuel and the time to take a driver, what was three hours to go there between the highway garage and there to deal with the recycling. So we just also never had the volume to make it work. I could go on and on, but I'm going to stop there and just really commend Brian for really giving you all a [1:28:46] Public commenter: good presentation. And Brian, do you have a idea of how many homes in the town of Mount Dessert have got to pick up their trash homes? [1:28:59] Speaker G (unidentified): No, and I've struggled to think of even more than one business that I know of, one business that has gots picking it up. There are, you'll see gots dumpsters around town, but that doesn't mean they're picking them up, because I work with this. I 've had [1:29:16] Public commenter: families and I've said to them, we're going to get goss to pick up your trash because they can't coordinate themselves to get to the end of the driveway at seven o'clock in the morning. They're just, it's not a part of their mindset. So I have them, goss comes twice a week to the house, gets the trash from their little dumpster boxes and takes it away, and there's many families I know that do that. So I mean, this could be so much worse because those families would end up going to the town garage, but I do wonder how many families god's is servicing. I don't know, but if you have [1:29:52] Speaker G (unidentified): any examples and you want to share it with me, I would be willing to talk to you about that and find out where those are and see if there are any other solutions. Here's my address, one two three [1:30:00] Public commenter: Main Street. What days will you be in Northeast Harbor and they tell you, and it's ten dollars a bag. No, it's ten dollars a week. I'm so sorry, it's ten dollars a pickup and then to come to your house to pick up your trash, and if you have more than x amount of bags they charge you for that by the back. It's really cheap. I know we can't promote a private enterprise, but which you just [1:30:24] John: did. I think this is a godsend, I love it. Brian, another thing that people got to bear in mind is even the dump, the actual dump is gated off, has hours that you can't get in. When we were kids they, you could go down there any time and that we spoiled it for ourselves, but they, I mean that will, that would, it's just a reminder that you've got to lock it up, people take advantage. [1:31:06] Martha: All right, anything else? I have one question, have you talked to people in other towns that have this? I mean, everybody has too much trash. What do other towns do, they have dumpsters? [1:31:22] Speaker G (unidentified): We are such an anomaly. There are so few times they even pick up. So and if they do, they're charging individually. So if you go to Ellsworth, that's the closest one I can think of that actually picks up trash, and that's paper. Take it is to throw the open dumpsters. I'm not aware of any. And when the main municipal person came, he said I don't know, I don't see these anymore. Interesting. But there's not, we're such an old [1:31:54] Select Board Chair: old-fashioned. All right, moving on warrants to be approved and signed. Town invoices AP 2719 for three hundred forty three thousand three hundred twenty eight dollars and ninety cents and DD two seven zero eight four thousand seven hundred fifty seven dollars and eighty one cents for a total of three hundred forty eight thousand eighty six dollars and seventy one cents. The approval and signature. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Authorized warrants to be signed ap2717 in the amount of nine thousand one hundred sixty nine dollars and forty four cents. DD two seven zero seven in the amount of sixty one thousand six hundred ten dollars and ninety eight cents and ap two seven one eight four thousand ninety six dollars and ninety nine cents for, oops sorry, including town payroll pr two seven zero seven in the amount of two hundred and twenty one thousand eight hundred sixty one dollars and ten cents for a total of $296,738.51. [Public commenter: All right.] All in favor? Aye. Able to- Oh no, abstain, sorry. Thank you, one abstention. Warrants, school invoices, none. None. School payroll, PR06, in the amount of $105,088.93 and zero town voids for a total of $105,088.93. Move approval. Second. For acknowledgement. All in favor? Aye. Thank you, John. I'll take a move to adjourn. Yes. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, John. Feel better? Oh, I hope so.