Augusta council hears landfill diversion plan, rebranding update

[2:50] Mark O'Brien: Good evening, everyone. This is an informational meeting of the Augusta City Council, today being September 24th, 2026. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence. And [3:09] Joshua Lilley: to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All [3:29] Mark O'Brien: right, we're all here who are going to be here tonight. So let's get started. Let me run down tonight's agenda for everybody. Part A of our informational agenda is for persons wishing to address the City Council who have submitted a formal request to do so. We don't have any of those tonight. Part B is the open comment period for any persons wishing to address the City Council. And Part C are items for discussion submitted by City Councilors or the City Manager. And we have four items tonight on that list. First, landfill diversion agreement with Municipal Waste Solutions. Secondly, is a rebranding committee update. Third is this topic of rezoning of a portion of the Kennebec Savings Bank property. Fourth and finally, discussion the Civic Center wall repair update and identification of potential funding source. So with that, we're going to move directly to Part B, open comment period for any persons wishing to address the City Council, and if we do, we ask them to join us at the front, speak right into the microphone, and we'll have about five [4:43] Doug Papa: minutes. Good evening, Mr. Papa. Hey, yeah, it's Doug Papa. Yeah, and you have to see my address. Well, are you from Augusta? Yes, I am from. Okay, that's good enough. Okay, so I don't have to worry about the stock, isn't nothing like that, right? Okay, cool. So I get like five minutes, right? Okay, here goes. The Bread of Life Soup Kitchen, you got like a breakfast and a lunch going on, and I'm pretty sure that it's like at least five days per week. I know there's a church that may serve a free breakfast on Saturdays, and other churches may take turns serving dinner on Saturdays. I'm not quite sure what takes place on Sundays. If the operation that we have on Spruce Street does anything or not. However, we got to think about the homeless here, because if they obtain a job that starts in the morning, and ends in the late afternoon, and they can't get into a shelter due to space limitations, how are they going to eat that day? I mean, a number of businesses, what they do is they pay their workers every two weeks, plus there's the old we hold back the first paycheck deal. So if we're willing to pay for a transit bus service to help the homeless get a job, that's awesome. However, maybe it would be better if they had an opportunity to eat at night and maybe take some canned food home with like a P-38 military can opener that fits on your keychain or some fruits and vegetables with them so they can have a breakfast and lunch before and during work. Because even if they don't have a job, that means as soon as their lunch at the soup kitchen is done, they have to walk an hour and a half minimum to the Augusta Career Center to look for a job and walk an hour and a half back, burn up the calories, only to be hungry until they eat breakfast the next day. Even if they get a gig at, like, we'll say a McWeng King hamburger joint that provides a free meal valued at $10, it still won't stop them from going to Sleep Hungry. And I understand there are food banks, but, again, if they have to work during the times of operation of those food banks, they still can't utilize that. I'm not even sure if the soup kitchen is even open on Sundays again. So some businesses do operate on those days, and we need to consider that as well. And basically what I'm saying is this, military warfare is equal to economic takeover. And basically, we need to consider the logistics of how the homeless will be able to eat as they transition into the labor force. us. Just like you have to feed the troops much and you have to think about feeding the homeless, working until they get that first paycheck, which could take up to a month to receive. Are there any questions, comments, or concerns at this point? [Mark O'Brien: Any feedback, questions?] I see none. Okay, well, thank you very much and I hope you folks have a great day. Thank you. Same to you. Thank you. Thanks. Are [7:48] Mark O'Brien: there other persons present who would wish to participate in the open comment period? All right. Seeing none, let's move directly to Part C then. Again, C1 is a landfill diversion agreement with the Municipal Waste Solutions City Manager. [8:04] Jared J. Mills: Thank you, Your Honor. I'll have Mike Carroll from Municipal Waste Solutions come up to the table with Leslie and John, our Public Works Director and Landfill Director. As you all know, we've been, they've been, and we've been discussing, they've been working really hard, we've been discussing an alternative to rubbish going into our landfill as it's been filling up, as we all know, trying to look at alternative solutions. There's been a lot of work behind the scenes, and this is our opportunity tonight to let everybody know who's here and all of our viewers that this is our, the plan that I'm recommending moving forward and that we've been discussing an agreement with Municipal Waste Solutions. There will be a presentation from Mike a little bit after, but I think it probably would be best perhaps if we watch Mike on TV present. He has a YouTube video that talks about the operations at Municipal Waste Solutions in Hamden, which is where we would be diverting our household rubbish to. And then we can get into the particulars of the agreement after that. So, Matt, if you could start the video and we'll take a look at this. [9:17] Michael Carroll: I think over the years, recycling has been a little confusing, and this facility is a game changer. Municipal Waste Hub is made up of 115 main municipalities. We are in a private-public partnership with Innovative Resource Recovery and the ownership of Municipal Waste Solutions, which is the facility that processes all the municipality's waste. The front end is known as a MRF. A MRF is a material recovery facility that is designed for all the waste to pass through first and then it will go to the back end, which is a digester. MRFs are all over the world and digesters are all over the world. What we have done is we put them both on one site. So now we can pull all the recyclables out of the waste and then we can take everything else and we can move it over to a digester and make natural gas. Currently, Municipal Waste Solutions is processing anywhere from 400 to 500 tons a day, and that's averaging anywhere from 30 to 40 trucks coming in a day. Our facility is required to meet a 50% diversion for all the waste that we bring in. Everything that comes in is scaled in, and everything that goes out is scaled out. That is how we record to the state that we're meeting our 50%. So everything that comes into the facility hits our tipping floor, it goes through shredders, and then it goes through a series of conveyor belts. Optical sorters read the material to create the recycling commodities, that's your plastics, your cardboard, your paper. Then there's also magnets throughout the conveyor belt that will remove the metal. One of the main reasons this site was chosen is it was built right on the natural gas pipeline with the intentions that when we did start making natural gas, we could sell it right back into the communities. So think of all the paper products that don't go into your recycle bin, like that paper plate or that dirty pizza box. Normally that stuff would end up going into a landfill. Now that stuff will be going along with the organics into a digester and making natural gas. And then we'll have a glass and grit material left over. Well, that will be used in our landfills as daily cover for drainage. This facility is really the future. These are proven technologies that have worked successfully. Moving forward, we're going to be able to produce some of the highest recycling rates we've ever seen. Your average recycling at home you reduce by eight to ten percent. We are going to reduce waste by over 50 percent. Reduce, reuse and recycle, that is something that we try to teach and educate all our members. Reduce your waste, we reuse here with our glass and grit, and we recycle. Municipal waste hub is more than just an outlet for your trash, it's an environmentally and economically sound solution for our membership. Thank [12:08] Jared J. Mills: you Matt. So as we all know, the council and the folks that have been working on this, we started this about a year ago with an RFP that was sent out looking for partners, if you will, for our landfill that's been filling up, to see what the next steps might be. And we get some responses back, but I will say the municipal waste hub was the one that intrigued us the most because of the recycling component. They were the only one that really had this component to it. So as you all know in our discussions and our talks with municipal waste hub as things move forward, this is kind of what we've honed in on. I can say that Leslie, John and I have taken the trip that does exist, that does work. And it's impressive on video and even more impressive in person to see that operation working. So I'm just kind of teeing this up for Mike, Leslie and John. This is the overall for everybody who's watching at home is to what we've been up to. And certainly during the budget cycle with recycling. I know that taking a recycling bin out from public works was a difficult decision to make to save money. However, as you can see with this option that I'm going to recommend moving to, will be recycling even more than ever as a city. So [13:34] Michael Carroll: I'll pass that on to Mike for these on. Yes, you just have to, so thank you. So my name is Michael Carroll. I'm the CEO for Municipal Waste Hub. My history is, before working in the municipal business, I was in the private sector for almost 30 years as working in waste as a hauler or overseeing landfills or wastewater treatment facility. We are in a private public partnership, so we actually own a minority owner of this facility, which means we have a seat at the table, so we get to see everything that happens with it. The facility is permitted for 180,000 tons to process. We are currently just over 100,000. What's great about this facility is your average recycling that folks do is, and recycling is great, we're big believers in it, is that product goes in that blue bin, that plastic bottle, that piece of paper, that piece of cardboard. That is very clean recycling that needs to be recycled into those same materials again. When you take that out of your waste stream, that's about 10%, and that's for the people that are recycling. The amazing thing about this facility is it pulls all that stuff out with optical sorters and screening. And it's not who's recycling in your in your community anymore. It's everybody's recycling. And how we achieve that rate is we're going through all that waste with that equipment. But then we're also making the natural gas with the organics. And when they talk about pulp fiber, that's anything with paper. So the tissue you blew your nose in, the paper plate, that's all pulp fiber. So that's being mixed with the organics and going to be made into natural gas. We are very excited about this partnership because one of the things when I started with Municipal Waste Hub, we were formerly known as the Municipal Review Committee. We've existed for over 30 years helping out municipalities is we've always done municipal solid waste, but now we're looking at a hub and spoke model. model. And this is why this is such an important partnership is Hamden would be the hub to process all this waste. But we're looking at spokes to bring waste to for more opportunities to get the waste to Hamden. A lot of our members are really under the gun with transportation costs. So one of the first things we did is we added transportation. We have 15 tractor trailers and 20 trailers for those trucks to haul, so we can bring the waste to the hub. we recently within the last year municipal waste hub owns the jay landfill site so we were able to purchase that site from the andrew scoggins mill that will be another one of our spokes we will use that for c d disposal and we will try to permit that as a transfer station also to give that area an opportunity to consolidate the waste to get it up to hand in but we also want to look at stuff like mattress recycling tire recycling our communities don't have the footprint print to pile up truckloads of this stuff. So by having spokes where they can bring this material and we can consolidate it and truck it, and the nice thing is the synergy that we're looking at, because we have a residual at this facility that, and our residual is everything that's left over that we couldn't recycle, and we have a contract with Crossroads, and by using our own trucks we will bring that residual down to Crossroads, and then we will circle back to Augusta to pick up the waste to go back to Hamden for processing. I know I've thrown a lot at you. We've been working on this a long time. I usually have this big dog and pony show PowerPoint, but the video pretty much speaks for itself, and we just, we just did that video within the last six weeks, so that's the actual facility live up and going. So happy to answer any questions you might have, if I may. [17:20] Jared J. Mills: Your honor, Leslie or John, if you want to talk about what that would look like at our facility as opposed to our operations now, a little bit about how it will look when rubbish comes in, or Mike, to, or John? Yeah. [17:35] Mike Carroll: Okay, so the initial concept would be to put a larger hoop structure building at the facility. So the commercial traffic primarily would go to that structure, and that's where it will be transferred out. The residential side of the facility would go to the current residential recycling area, and that Z wall we call it would have places for demolition and trash. Trash. So that would reduce the amount of residential traffic into the landfill. And it also separates the commercial traffic from the residential traffic. So that's improves our safety and our efficiency there at our facility. And as Mike talked about it, now all of our residents will be recycling. And in addition to that, any of the commercial waste that's coming in would also have recycling options, so that corrugated cardboard, the additional Amazon, that's all fiber, that'll be going for recycling to help our recycling rate as a community in the [18:53] Michael Carroll: Region our proposal was based on when we started this and we did the walk through. Three things that stuck out to us that were mentioned were safety, keeping the commercial and the residential separate, landfill capacity. That's why we suggested you keep the C&D in employment and by doing your own C&D at your landfill you'll need, you'll still need your employees to do so. What we presented we felt covered those major concerns that were presented to us when we did the walk through with the other folks and that's how we built off our proposal. So C&D is, sorry I do that all the time, construction demolition debris, right. So you should have by just taking that in your landfill will stay permitted for everything that does and it should have a lifetime. I don't need exact for the volumes that you take in it will, it's expanded its life quite a bit [19:51] Mark O'Brien: and john when you say everybody will be recycling that's because when people put out their trash on friday for example they don't need to separate it 's all going to be correct single sort and that so just by throwing out your trash you're going to be recycling is that 's right that is [20:12] Mike Carroll: correct. So for the city of Augusta recyclables and trash will all go to the curb. The city will collect that through the current existing service, bring that to the Hatchill facility, transfer it through the transfer station and then that will go to Hamden for recycling. And so now everyone will have, they'll be recycling at the curb without the solar [20:38] Mark O'Brien: that's right I think you've kind of described it but I don't think you know people who live in Augusta have never experienced a transfer station and what that means so could you just explain again or briefly what that what a transfer station means for gusta so it's similar [20:56] Mike Carroll: to what we've operated on the residential side where our recycled material and there's a small area there for trash, small loads come in, are consolidated and then it goes out in a larger load. In this case, it will go out in the larger trailer trucks from our facility. [21:17] Michael Carroll: Instead of burying your trash now, it will go to a facility to be sorted. And that will be the big difference. And 50% of the material will be extracted from that trash and recycled. [21:32] Leslie Jones: Go ahead, Leslie. Leslie Jones, Public Works Director. So the state also has a hierarchy for waste management, and reduce, reuse, recycle is all on the top, and land incineration and then landfill is at the bottom. So us continuing to landfill rubbish is on the bottom of the list. So the DEP is pretty excited about this also, and also as Mike talked to earlier about those the spoken wheel, you know, will become a part of one of those smaller hubs that will feed into them. So we serve, so we'll service ourselves and also that the communities we currently service which are smaller and just to put it in perspective we pick up about 5,000 tons curbside so we currently recycle we were recycling about 200 tons of Augusta waste out of that 5,000 by going to this system will bump up to probably over 1,500 so it'll it 's it's leaps and bounds above what we were doing with the expensive eco [22:34] Mark O'Brien: main system, and one other point before I open it up for other questions, in that what does it do with respect to the life of our landfill? It extends it like [22:46] Leslie Jones: both they touched on a little bit, because we're not putting that material in the landfill, we'll be able to choose the landfill for stuff that's more difficult to dispose of, and if we didn't do something like this or [22:59] Mark O'Brien: or some other solution, how much life do you think we would have in the landfill? We're pretty much [23:06] Leslie Jones: done right now. So we are still potentially looking at what to do with the vertical increase and whether to build a section of it so that we have more capacity for construction demolition [23:17] Mark O'Brien: debris, but that will be in our pocket, the vertical, the possibility of a vertical increase. So let me open up questions. First councilor Judkins and then councilor Senkiewicz this. [23:28] Eric Lind: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This all sounds pretty good. I'm excited about it. I've actually been struggling with the knowledge that our landfill was passing its useful life here for a few years. And I think a big question that probably people are sitting at home saying, yeah, this sounds great, but what's the cost to the taxpayer? So I would preface that, I mean, I want to know what it's going to cost, what the fees are going to be, or how that's going to affect what we already do. But I do want to say that the vertical landfill, the vertical expansion, all the numbers that I've heard is we're going to be faced a very significant cost no matter what we're there, it's going to happen. So even though this may sound like this is going to cost us a little bit of money, the alternative is that it was going to cost us a lot of money So if someone could tell the taxpayers out there that are listening to what this is going to cost them. [24:29] Jared J. Mills: That'd be great. Yeah, I can jump in with that. John's the spreadsheet numbers crunching person, and the next step will be to get this approval to sign this contract where we can look at what we're taking in, work on some longer term contracts with some folks that the neighboring towns and long the commercial haulers. So you're absolutely right, looking at what we're facing is with a vertical increase, the cost of that, what, why we started this process with an RFP looking for a partner was around 15 to 20 million dollars for a vertical increase. Okay, so and we still we have approval to do that, but obviously we're not in a position nor do we want to fund a vertical increase on our own. So the next best thing to do would be to partner with the folks at municipal waste hub to get us that time to be diverting, extend the length of the landfill, to your question about cost, our tipping fees, what we pay now. Augusta has traditionally not paid a lot for rubbish, land filling rubbish, because we own our own landfill, so we keep our tipping fees very low and others are very high in order to fund the landfill. Our tipping fees are going to go up now, so we're looking at a model half a year this year. There's going to be an increase once we've crunched and finalized the numbers, but that means all of the other folks using that cost is going to go up to share as well. So we've made our partners aware, the contributing towns, we're going to have meetings with them coming up to be basically solidify what those costs are going to be. But you're absolutely right, Councillor Jenkins, that cost is going to go up, but obviously we're going to try to mitigate that as much for the Augusta the taxpayer through everybody else that uses the landfill as well, and this process [26:41] Eric Lind: will kind of push that 15 to 20 million dollar investment we're going to have to make down the road a bit, not just saying that at some point we might decide to do something like that. [26:54] Jared J. Mills: But for right now, that's not going to be a worry that we have, correct? And Mike can attest to this, we the nation Maine has a landfill trash crisis. It's coming, the cost to landfill. There are many towns and municipalities in the state that send their trash out of state, and that's just the fact of life. What we have in our pocket, I believe, is a landfill with an approved vertical increase. So at some point I have to believe that's going to be worth something, but I don't believe at this time it would be prudent to be funding that all on our own, if you will. So that's the thought process, as you said, is to work with the folks at municipal waste hub to extend that, and then we've even talked about phasing in the increase, so not doing it all at once, but maybe, I believe there's four cells, maybe doing one or two cells first as we go along. And then eventually, you just don't know where this is going to end up, because that's the reality, right? Mike is where Maine's running out of space. There's not a lot of landfills left. [28:06] Michael Carroll: So two important points I'd just like to make to that is there's also a golden nugget that none of us are aware what that's going to be. THE MAIN PASSED A LAW CALLED EPR, EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY, WHICH YOU PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN ANY KIND OF REBATE FROM THE STATE BEING A LANDFILL. WHAT THIS IS, THIS IS A LAW THAT ALL ANYBODY WHO SELLS PRODUCTS INTO MAIN HAS TO PUT MONEY INTO A KITTY SIMILAR TO PAINT AND OTHER CHARGES LIKE THE BOTTLE BILL, STUFF LIKE THAT. AND WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IS OUR FACILITY IS APPROVED AS AN EPR FACILITY, WHICH MEANS we're going to give you back the number that we did for recycling. We have to provide you with the number for recycling that we do, and then you're going to be able to take a percentage of that number and apply for your epr rebate. So you will be getting a rebate as those start kicking out the rfp for the vendor to run this program. They do something very similar in colorado is out is out now or i believe it just got recalled but it's going back out. So that is going to be a benefit you do receive now that you will be able to put those funds towards whatever, and at the end of the day i talk to a lot of municipalities, you guys are so much further ahead because you kind of have a plan b, you're gonna have the best of both worlds. Landfilling is not great, it has its home for certain things, i always believe like medical waste or construction debris and that type of thing, but you have a plan b by keeping that Landfill active and that permit active, you always have that to go back to if you had to. [29:41] Jared J. Mills: And Mike made me think of something else. We also have a generator that we're working with a company right now to get up and going, and that's going to produce a revenue stream hopefully at some point as well. So again, not knowing the future, operating in the here and now, to Councillor Judkins' point, to get us where we need to be and to check the box of recycling, because we know that's important to our community. We've heard that time and time again. You've all seen the emails, I've seen the emails, and this is more than we have ever done in the city for recycling. So I think, as you as you said, the cost is going up either way, but this way is mitigating that cost until we can, you know, move forward with any type of increase in that type of thing. Councillor Sinkowitz. [30:36] Courtney Gary-Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mike. It's good to meet you. After all the back and forths of the paperwork and hearing things, it's good to put a face to the name. I am very excited to be at this stage. I know some of my fellow councillors have been talking about this for longer than I've sat on the council, the entirety of the time. When I first ran for the council, at doors people would ask, what are you, why do you care, what are you running for? And I said housing, schools, and trash. Those are the things that I care about to make sure that we take care of in our community. If I had a top three, and I have always been a proponent of trying to hold on to Hatch Hill as much as we can. Some of the options that we've had to take into account have ranged widely in terms of going full vertical increase, we keep doing what we're doing, and that expense, as Counselor Judkins mentioned, would be very high, to giving up ownership of the Hatch Hill entirely, and none of those were options that were viable for us. It almost feels unbelievable to me that we have found this option. This is so positive for Augusta in so many ways, and I credit our staff for doing very thorough work to get us here, and I appreciate your entities for giving us this opportunity, because our people care about recycling. We have, as city manager mentioned, we have heard What it means to people to lose an option for recycling and having this, and I want to speak to some of our residents in this way. Having this option that makes it a default, right? Everyone in the city of Augusta will be recycling because it will come out of our trash. So for residents like myself who have separated, sorted, and recycled, give up your, save your complex a little bit, like give that part up. You, it's okay to put it in your trash bag. I'm gonna have to teach myself as well. It doesn't have to be hard. It's actually, this is easier for people, and it's more effective. So delighted about that. And the cost efficacy, we looked at a lot of numbers for a long time, and this is going to raise costs, but not nearly as much as doing what we were doing with poorer outcomes if we were going to keep doing what we were doing. Some of the things you mentioned in your video mentioned, I really wanted to pull out for people, that this is a triple benefit. This is higher rates of recycling, it's in line natural gas collection without having to do something extra, which we have been trying to do at Hatch Hill for a long time, and it's not having to outsource the grit, right? We have had to pay for grit for a long time that in and of itself environmentally has its own negatives, but this is another positive in that column. So there's a triple benefit to doing this in terms of environmental impact and cost impact. I wanted to highlight that you're operational right now, correct? Yes, because we have entertained ideas from places that had a lot of promises is, but this is operational now, it's ready to go. And the amount that's recycled, does that take into consideration the digester or is that extraction only? So no, that's not the digester [34:11] Michael Carroll: yet. So I want to clarify operational. So we just got the Murph up and going in April, and the Murph's fully running. So with what we've run through the Murph as of today, running from April to, well, I started with May 1st, because the middle of April to August, when the volumes came in, we've hit 25% diversion. We're not making gas yet. That's phase two. But we're making, so all the equipment's in place, that's pulling what I call the digester feed out. So the digester feed is your pulp and your organics, but it's also the glass and grit, because the glass and grit is the residual from the digester, which then will go be used as daily cover or drainage. So we're at 25 now, and that's just with the commodities and what, and we're allowed to take 50 of that and of the daily cover and apply it towards that recycling rate. So I don't want to, I think we're going to be way over 50. What we're really trying to do is we also have equipment extracting the film, is your plastic bags, anything that comes wrapped in film, plastic bags, all that wrap. There's a ton of film. If you watched our residual leave, which I showed the folks that toured, you would think it's all film, and we're actually extracting that film, but there's no home for it, so it's going in residual. We're talking to companies about making a pellet to use for like park benches, piping, whatever can be made out of it, and we actually have a couple of people interested in bringing, because they'd have to bring their model into to our facility. And if we can find a home for the film, I think we'll exceed well over 50%. So between the, to answer your question, between the gas and we'll say the glass and the grit, that's in the high 20s, low 30s, just those two things alone. The commodities would be the rest [36:02] Courtney Gary-Allen: of it. Yeah. I think that's really incredible to think about, especially having the tonnage information that Leslie gave us of the 200 versus the 5,000 tons that we were 200 recycled, Gold 5000 landfill, hearing that these various ways of either recycling or reusing these materials will have a great impact for not just the city of Augusta, which is what we're really focused on tonight, but landfill capacity across our state, because the news articles have been a little slower this year, but last year I think anyone who opened up a newspaper paper on any random week would probably see something about the state of landfills and trash in the state of Maine and the region. And having something that reduces the amounts of tonnage that we have to find a home for is the direction that we need to head in. And so hearing the recycling components, the grit, and then also anything left over goes into the digester to be reduced further means that we are working toward that larger goal of having less to have to figure out where to put it. I am very happy to be here. My last question, one of the things that I think residents have been concerned about and were it was a part of our conversation was where Hatch Hill fits into this, and at this stage of the game to be very clear for our residents, Hatch Hill will not be receiving anything back from municipal waste solutions at this point in time right so the only things going into Hatch Hill will be that construction and demolition debris yes anything that we have that [37:42] Michael Carroll: leaves the facility is already tied up in contracts we can't even entertain that so no we're our trucks will be coming here empty so people I know [37:52] Courtney Gary-Allen: there's a lot of threads that get linked here so things like PFAS sludge things like that. We are not receiving that at Hatch Hill at this time. At this time, the only things coming into our landfill would be that construction and demo debris. [38:07] Michael Carroll: Actually, if I could add, we want to be full circle. That's what Municipal Waste Hub's all about. As part of buying the Androscogging landfill site, we ended up getting the water treatment facility too. So there is a massive water treatment facility we're very excited about. out we don't know why but we're very excited because we want to be part of the PFAS solution and part of so we've just focused on getting the C&D the construction demo disposal site up and going and we've received our third party permit for that and now we'll focus on the wastewater treatment facility that's that we also own that's on that site. Great thank you all for this is [38:45] Courtney Gary-Allen: a huge weight lifted to be at this stage to be moving forward on this when the dates that were brought to us at different points in time were before my kids entered high school that's a pretty significant timeline for a landfill and to be at a solution now and not have our backs against the wall for the vertical increase is a huge win for the citizens of augusta thank you [39:12] Joshua Lilley: Council Lillie. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First question I have is for Mike. Where does the rest of the non-recyclable material go? We have a contract with Crossroads. Where is that? I'm sorry, that's in Norwich Walk. Okay. Is that a landfill? Yes. Okay. Waste management owns that landfill. It's operated and owned by waste management. Perfect. And then the last thing I just want to Make it make sure that we understand this for our residents Nothing changes from trash being picked up normal schedules, and then Hatch Hill operates the same as always operated Just the material that's going in will be Either transferred out or stays there [39:53] Michael Carroll: The trash will now be dumped into a facility and reloaded to come to Hampton perfect. Thank you guys [39:59] Mark O'Brien: But there's still be follow-up on concert Lily at Hatch Hill. They'll still be receiving brush and recycle and hazard, you know, hazardous waste that will just be relocating. [40:16] Leslie Jones: The piles we'll still be doing the universal waste and the batteries and bulbs and well universal waste is mostly all those flat screens now that everybody has the brush, the wood, the metal, the Freon items. Yeah, am I forgetting anything that's [40:37] Kevin Judkins: Councilman, thank you Mr. Mayor. So I just kind of want to put a little bit of clarification on one thing. The city manager mentioned tipping fees. The reason we charge the city, we charge ourselves tipping fees, to put in context with people that are listening, is correct me if I'm wrong, Hatch Hill is an enterprise fund. It kind of runs like a business, so it charges every person coming in and we're one of those people coming in, so that's why we charge ourselves tipping fees. It's kind of an accounting thing. I just want people to understand that, just big picture. I just want to elevate a little bit. Nine years, I mean, Leslie, you remember when we did away with the trucks that were pulling recycling, people were upset about that. And then every time we discussed Hatch Hill, I kind of left with a little pit in my stomach because it was going to be extremely expensive and every option we looked at was extremely expensive. So now this comes along reasonably priced compared to the other options we looked at this is a fair deal and we know there's a strong desire in this community to recycle the only question i have is there any i know there were numbers about recycling what do we recycle now for percentage if you were to guess of our trash [41:53] Mike Carroll: As Leslie mentioned, it's around 200, 225 tons a year that go through the single stream collection that was the public works silver bullet and the receptacle at Hatch Hill. This is for the city itself, right? Not so out of about 54 to of 5700 tons it was collected through the curbside program. So percentage-wise, how could you, so I'm [42:21] Kevin Judkins: not going to try to do that math. I don't know if you can, but so it 's not very good overall. [42:29] Leslie Jones: Lower than 10, would you say? Lower than 10. Yeah, I think Hatchel itself is about nine percent when you take, so we're gonna go from nine to fifty. Yeah, nine to thirty to fifty, nine to thirty to. [42:41] Kevin Judkins: 50, that's phenomenal. Yeah, I just, so this is good all the way around. Thank you, and thank you for the C and D explanation. And I have an app for that, so I'm trying to do it real quick. It's fine. I think the message is there that it's a substantial increase in recycling, so this is good. I want to thank the staff for the work. This has been nine years I've been listening, and I'm coming to the end of my term, and now we've kind of got a little bit of a solution that's going to serve us very well, so I just appreciate the staff and all the work they did. Thank you. And the unofficial number is 3.7, so 3.7, 3.7 to 30 to 50, and I can get rid of the green buckets I've had for 15 years and free up space in my garage, haul my trash to the curb, and it's going to go that way, and I can go to Hatch Hill, and there's really no change at Hatch Hill. So no complaints from the city councilor. [43:37] Mark O'Brien: So the increase in recycling comes at more convenience for the taxpayer as well. Councilor Jenkins. [43:45] Eric Lind: So walk me through people that sat in that line for half the day on Saturday, moms and pops and folks bringing stuff out. How is that going to work now? Will they still drive up the mountain, dump it at the top, now we're where they will they be going, how will that operate? Well, for Augusta [44:09] Mike Carroll: residents, they'll have the curbside, so they won't necessarily be a need to bring a straight recycling to Hatchville, because I mean just recycling your no [44:18] Eric Lind: other trash, if you clean out your garage or whatever you've got a trailer [44:21] Mike Carroll: truckload, if it's a household type trash, they'll come to the scale house, get away weight, come off the scale and go up to the left, and there'll be receptacle cans up there for that waste, and then they'll exit the facility. There won't, residentials won't need to go into the landfill or the hoop or the temporary [44:43] Leslie Jones: transfer station, that the temporary big building, it's about 10,000 square feet, so did we decide it was like 80 by a hundred or something like that, a little more, that will just be for the commercial rubbish trucks and anything that can end dump itself. Anything that has to be hand unloaded, regardless of what it is, will go up to what we call the recycling area, which will now become the residential area. [45:08] Eric Lind: But folks doing yard cleanup or garage clean out or basement cleans out of whatever they're doing at their homes here in Augusta will still be able to go access the landfill with that debris? [45:18] Mike Carroll: They'll access the facility. Okay. Residential waste will go up there, and then there'll also be the residential demo. The intent is to have that in that recycling area as well. And then Hatch Hill staff will transfer it into the landfill from that point. [45:39] Jared J. Mills: So no more driving on top of the mountain. [45:42] Eric Lind: That's a good thing. A little scary up there. [45:45] Mark O'Brien: That's a mission. you 10 [45:49] Stephanie Sienkiewicz: 000 square foot building that will have to be erected and you're paying for that yes [46:00] Leslie Jones: thank you it's a temporary facility it's it's concrete blocks with it with a big canvas i assume [46:06] Michael Carroll: yeah it's if you've ever been down by the portland old port they're these big canvas domes they've been it's just like that they call them hoop structures they're designed for high winds and [46:17] Leslie Jones: everything else they have several of them down there so we'll be going to the planning board for that shortly so that'll be a public process if approved by the council oh yes counselor single [46:33] Courtney Gary-Allen: and the dep thank you mr mayor for residents listening at home this will take some time to go into effect so we as of now we are doing our curbside pickup of trash individuals who recycle on their own bring their recycling to Hatch Hill and there will be a like communications and marketing director Haley Galvin will give us plenty of heads up of when to make the shift in our practices and I imagine there's a lot of really fun graphics that we can make about recycling going into the bag instead of being sorted but that shift we will communicate to residents when we get to that point right yes we're looking at [47:19] Leslie Jones: probably a timeline of about three months after council approves us so once [47:23] Courtney Gary-Allen: council approves we'll get the marketing out there until then people who want to recycle can continue to do so at Hatch Hill and then once we make the switch over I imagine that it will be required to be bagged like our like our rubbish now curbside and no sorting just throw it all in your bags and leave your bags out by the curb we [47:47] Leslie Jones: may keep the cardboard stream a little if somebody's got clean cardboard we may keep that separate that's kind of up in the air [47:54] Courtney Gary-Allen: right now so if you think still fake yeah you figured out but that will be a message that we send out to residents at this point no one needs to change what they're doing but know that it's coming per council approval I'm [48:12] Mark O'Brien: Very enthusiastic. It's hard to get excited about trash, but well, not to us, but it's been said a couple of times around the table. The community has been really upset with the loss of just the opportunity to recycle at public works, some cases very nasty, and those people who threaten to leave and move away, I hope they decide to stay now because of it. So, and I'm also excited we can finally talk about it because we've been discussing it amongst ourselves and with staff for a while, but haven't really reached the point where we could be open about these plans. So they finally come to the point where we can talk about openly, and I hope, I hope people receive it as enthusiastically as I think the council has. And I want to give a lot of credit to Leslie and John, because I'll admit it's way, it's way beyond my capability to understand and process. So I'm glad we have these experts on hand to do it with us and for us and make these wise connections and recommendations, and I appreciate we have a partner and prospect. So with that, I presume that we're going to have asked for an order on an upcoming business meeting, mayor and council. Very good, next Thursday. [49:38] Michael Carroll: Thank you, and thank you Mayor O'Brien, Mayor O'Brien, and the staff. And I just want to let you know that this whole process, your staff and engineers have worked great with our staff, communication, our engineers, it's just been a, it's really been a seamless process, everybody working together in our regular meetings. So it's been a real joy to work with your team. So [50:00] Mark O'Brien: and I don't want to, I don't overlook our corporation council too and our legal team who have brought their expertise to bear on this too and work through this. So thanks to them as well. Thank you everybody. Thank you. All right, the next topic on our agenda tonight is an update from our rebranding committee, and I'd like to turn it over to Council Morris Polly. Thank you very much. [50:32] Annalee Morris-Polley: Mayor, so the rebrand committee has for the most part come to a conclusion on a brand that we want to bring forward for some feedback. First, I want to recognize the members of the rebrand committee. We have worked really quite hard, actually. I think it was more of a difficult task than we anticipated. I think when you're looking at narrowing down a specific symbol or specific color to a, or colors to a city, it's, you know, it can be a little daunting, and especially looking at brands and colors that will stand the test of time for a while here. So we met quite a few times on the committee. We had Sarah Squires, who was a community member, and she has extensive work history with supporting individuals with disability. And again, I want to remind us that one of the bigger reasons for doing this rebrand really had to do with bringing us into ADA compliance and making sure that individuals can visually see our brand and our color and understand what we're looking at here. So she brought a lot of expertise. We also had Shelly Levertier, another community member, who also has a lot of work history in marketing and advertising and event planning. We had city staff Corey Bollier in technology, Catherine Ramirez from Economic Development, and Haley, who kind of took the lead on all of this, and I'll let her do a little more of the detail conversation here. But we started this back in May when we went through the RFP process and picked Portland Design, and they have been a really good business to work with. They've listened to our feedback, and we have had multiple feedback. back but we have we do feel that we have a well-defined easy to recognize landmarks that are important to Augusta and color that stands out and can meld with other colors so that we can kind of play around with the brand a little bit. So in your packet I will let Haley kind of go into the specifics of the process and the next steps and how each one of these specific designs with the brand can be used and then really talk about our next steps in regards to feedback from both the council and then of course feedback from our citizens as well. So I'll turn this over to [53:02] Haley Govan: Haley and let her explain the details. Thank you. Hi, Haley Govan, Director of Communications and Marketing. I think you summarized it pretty well. I'll just quickly walk you through the process. So We started off by doing a brand questionnaire with our committee, as well as a number of internal staff that I kept pulling in, as well as some very helpful council members who always got to have things shown from my desk and anecdotal feedback was helpful as well. Some consistent themes throughout was that we needed, obviously, an ADA compliant brand and logo. We wanted something that was consistent, that could be identified throughout all departments, had a level of readability and functionality across digital and physical media. It was a balance of contemporary and traditional, as well as something that was welcoming and community oriented. Those are some, if we did a word cloud for example, those were large things that came about when we did that questionnaire. A lot of landmark structures came about, whether that was Coney, Flat Iron, the dome, Old Fort. Western, we did have to balance the fact that we do have a number of logos throughout the city, so you'll see that reflected with the color palette as well as the design. We didn't want to duplicate a lot of different things or step on anybody's toes like Old Fort Western. We didn't want to make that like the primary focal point when they have one that we will have to work with in conjunction with. So we actually went through 19 rounds of revisions. I'm not sure the committee even knows that number. Until right now. We originally thought we were gonna go in a different direction, but we changed things up. We had a special guest, the mayor, sit on the committee and he gave us some feedback. I think when you get so narrowly focused in something, you get a little cloudy, so that was very helpful. And then we had the city manager join as well, so he came around. He wasn't as helpful. The mayor was. It was all the mayor. That's true. That is true. So it is a balance that tried to reflect the colors of our. trail systems the river while tying in a variety of things so mine 's a lot bigger I accidentally printed it on the biggest paper I guess I could find so the first page you'll see this is a proposed design I don't have it up there I apologize to the public I will share it later today later this evening but this is a proposed classic primary logo it's horizontal it's typically how people see that and then the next page you see it in a variety of ways so you see a circular version which was Requested by our parks and rec team so they can have that in the corner of signage, as well as have a variety of stacked, and then they created an expanded brand illustration that can be used on merchandise, postcards, social media backgrounds, and that idea came from Loretta Lath, our executive assistant in the city manager's office. So when I say that a lot of hands touched this project, it did. As you'll see the primary focus, we had the Coney Flatiron, the Municipal City Center City Hall, and then. The State Dome, as well as the Memorial Bridge. You'll see some of the colors. The green, that is color matched to the color that the Memorial Bridge is, as well as the old federal building roof. So we did try to have consistent lines and tie in some really nice historic colors to try to talk about that brand and do that. The next page you'll see is it's called a secondary logo. It's basically the vertical version of a logo that you often see on maybe a brochure or a mailer. I know we're big fans of mailers here, so that's a way that we can do that. And then they threw in a simple brand marker, which is the, a lot of people like to use that on baseball hats or bumper stickers, just a nice way to get an eye catching A for the city of Augusta. And then we have a variety of departmental logos, but that's getting into the nitty-gritty. And then this is the color palette that was decided upon. It leans heavily towards the blues and greens, which allows us to have a lot of variety with color contrast. And then we tried to tie in some sort of burgundy red plum color to honor the coney tradition, but when you have that bright red it really messes the color contrast of things. So that was kind of our homage to tying in coney. Go Rams, good luck on Friday. And then the other pages are not super applicable, but if you wanted to get into the nitty-gritty, it's how color contrasts are utilized with different backgrounds, and that's all in connection to ADA. Obviously opening it up to questions, and I just wanted to say thank you to the committee. It was a lot of work. I don't think everyone understood how many meetings it would take, and we had lots of lively discussions, so it ended up being a lot more of a robust and larger time commitment. So thank you to people who took time away from their kids baseball games and college classes to sit with us and talk about this. I'm happy to answer anything and go in more depth, but I think I really said it all. [58:50] Mark O'Brien: Haley, do you want to mention too about a re-revamp of our website and how this works in conjunction with that? Absolutely, so we are switching our website [59:02] Haley Govan: Vendor, we are ready to go pretty much any time. I wanted to wait until tax bills were due and surpassed. The website doesn't go down, but Google and how we direct it to people, it takes about 24 hours to update. So I didn't want to do it at a time where we were gonna have heavy website traffic. So our new website vendor is Civic Plus. They assisted us to ensure that our branding colors as well as our overall design was ADA compliance with the new changes that go into effect in 2027, some in 2028, some of the aspects of the website we had and designed four years ago are no longer best practices or at the certain level that municipal requires. So that will be anytime soon. Technically the tentative date is October 28th. I anticipate it being a little earlier than that because we are moving and grooving and we're ready to go. So you will see these colors utilized on the website. It's a much more eye friendly, just from a pretty standpoint, we really like that plum in that bright blue color, but it also is a lot friendlier for screen readers as well as low visibility folks in our population who are very helpful and very vocal. I get lots of calls and suggestions, and that's also been very helpful with this product process, to be able to bounce off residents who maybe didn't want to sit on a very active committee but we're open to sharing feedback. [1:00:46] Robert Eric Austin: Councilor Austin. Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you Haley and to the committee. This is really some nice work. I just have a question about one of the configurations that you mentioned in your memo, and I think you talked about most of them, but there's one here described as wordmark, and we didn't talk about that tonight, and I just was hoping you could talk a little bit more about what that means and why that's a configuration that would be included. [1:01:12] Haley Govan: Yeah, so a wordmark is a very easily readable ADA compliant version of the logo. There are some platforms or programs that have a very difficult time describing images, especially when they are as intricate as the logo that we ended up in. So a stack wordmark is, for example, for folks is City of Augusta, Maine. We specifically wanted to make sure that Maine was included in all of our logo designs because we are often confused or people, yes, we want to make sure we were Augusta Maine. So these versions, they can be incorporated on the bottom of a memo, on the top of an AR report, and it also saves cost in printing. Obviously printing large-scale and even small-scale logos at times can be very expensive, especially with a variety of colors. So having, it's called dual color word stacks, it just gives you some opportunity to save some money, also save space, and then it also helped with our departmental logos. So on this page you'll see that we have 32 iterations of this, where it says City of Augusta, Maine, and then it says Finance. It'll say Council and Mayor, and just for consistency's sake and ease of readability, the WordStack is recommended for our ADA-compliant things. So it's just another option that you can utilize in different ways, and yeah, I didn't touch upon that, so thank you for [1:02:55] Kevin Judkins: bringing that up. Yeah, thanks so much for clarifying, councilman. The survey that's going out to the public, can you just maybe get into the details about that? Because I'm a little concerned, I've always been concerned about people that are on social media and may not be wired into our messaging system. How do you plan to reach, say, our seniors as an example? Absolutely, so we will [1:03:21] Haley Govan: We'll have physical versions of the copy at our high points throughout the city. I have talked to some folks at the library regarding that, and they can always assist folks either on the computers or with physical formats, versions of the survey. And I'm hoping that the Kennebec Journal will be sure to cover this initiative, and so we can reach folks that way. And I also have it shared, and hopefully we will get some media pickup, that folks can come, and I've created it, and we did this with the transportation survey as well, that folks can come right to me and take it in person. We can walk through it, I can write down verbatim whatever they want, and if we have events like Marianne sat at, I don't remember what conference it was at, but she sat there. It was an older demographic, and she sat and she walked through the survey a few times. So we're going to be trying to implement it on a variety of things. But that is all we have right now. It is difficult because it's typically something that this is heavily digital. That's a really large reason behind the initiative in general. But physical media is important, too, and getting out to all residents. [1:04:41] Kevin Judkins: I know what worked during the budget was when finally, you know, WCSH picked it up, WGME. There's still a segment of our population that watches the news. I don't know if we could do a press release or contact them and say, hey, this is really big, and be nice if you just would highlight it a little bit. [1:04:59] Haley Govan: I do have a press release drafted. I obviously wasn't going to implement it or deploy it until I got the feedback from the council. Council. Obviously, I hope the feedback is positive, but if it weren't to be positive, I wanted to make sure I allowed time to adjust things. But there is a press release drafted and ready to be implemented alongside the survey. And I will say our media partners at WGME, Channel 6, Channel 7, Channel 13, they are very communicative, and they've all been And following this closely, I have a lot of people waiting for results. That would be great. So I anticipate it will be covered, and I hope so. The committee has done a lot of work, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves. Councilor Jenkins. [1:05:49] Eric Lind: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So first off, huge applause for all the hard work you all have done on this. I think it's a great product, and I kind of know how long y'all have been working on it. It's been quite a climb, the hill. Again, I think the results show that it's just very well done. It's nice. One question I have is, will this now be like one of these logos will be consistent throughout all the letterheads? Like, I know for the longest time, and it's kind of bothered me a little bit, that there'd be different font style and a different logo if you've got a public works or then you've got the police department. And, you know, then, you know, they all look so different. And I just would think that under the city that they would have one logo, one font style all set up. Is this part of what this is or am I off base on that? [1:06:47] Haley Govan: No, you're absolutely correct. So the second phase, once the logo feedback from the council as well as the public comes and we finalize the logo, the next step is they will provide us a branding package that will have a memo, a PowerPoint presentation, some social media information or templates, some brochure options that will be consistent throughout. out and there will be a cutoff date that our leader over here will let folks know, hey, by December 1st we need to transition. The next quarterly report will be on in this template, and then it will be consistent throughout, and that does include font styles, because that was honestly one of the biggest issues with our ADA compliances, the nuance in different types of font, different font sizes, so that will be consistent throughout the city, which I think will be beneficial from a branding perspective. And just my eyes seeing different, five different fonts and quarterly reports, can it's not as easy to read for everybody, so i would say don't don't [1:07:54] Eric Lind: feel too bad about the plum as the throw out to coney. On a recent painting project, it was kind of discovered there are about 20 different colors of red that are considered coney red, so that's [1:08:08] Courtney Gary-Allen: as good a pick as any. Answer, Sinkowitz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to the committee, and thank you, Haley, for bringing this and the work that's been done. I think our, we joked a lot at the beginning of this process how much this was needed in the cities, and so it's great to see it come to this point. I am wondering, I guess first is a question. So this, the survey is going to go out to the public, and it will be open for how long? It'll be open till mid-October. Mid-October. And what is the level of feedback that you're looking for from the public now? What, kind of things are you going to be asking for from them? So there is a variety of questions. Some [1:08:56] Haley Govan: Some are feelings-based, so it's a scale. Do you think this represents Augusta well? Kind of. Not at all. Then we have some narrative-based ones. If there is something missing, what do you think is missing? So we have a variety of feedback and levels that people can partake in. And then when they submit their final thing, they will get a message that thanks them and then provides them my direct contact information. So if they wanted to have a larger discussion that wasn't addressed in the five questions that we provided, then we can. I think it allows for people, obviously, I'm sure we're going to get a variety of feedback. Change is difficult for everyone, myself included. I'm a traditionalist at heart, so I have a hard time letting go of things. things but like for example at the very last iteration of this we realized that there was no clock on the coney flat iron so there may be something that is a glaring thing that we missed that somebody would be able to suggest and that's i think one of the biggest reasons obviously we want to hear from citizens but oftentimes it's somebody that realizes something that we didn't consider and it would be a great addition so we just wanted to make sure the public had [1:10:15] Courtney Gary-Allen: had some say there yeah and what i know when council allocated funding for this there's a certain amount of like revisions and processes that we have allocated for what say we get feedback we get feedback from the public that is clear in one direction that one specific thing needs to be changed what is the leeway there what path forward from that would happen depending on how large the thing that needed to be changed is i suppose so there's a few scenarios [1:10:53] Haley Govan: small revisions are there's we have another round of small revisions that would be considered like a clock on the flat iron that would be considered removal of a tree if we are recreating the logo if we decide that hey you know we don't want to do any landscape we want to label it as a franco-american flag which was an option at on one round that would be considered basically starting from scratch and that would be either a whole new rfp process or that would be an extension of the current contract and that is 125 an hour so dependent on how large of a change it would be dependent on whatever that quote would be we'd have to go to them and say hey if we wanted to do this what does this look like so it's it's a it's definitely a [1:11:46] Courtney Gary-Allen: case-by-case basis okay that's good to know and the public will have those two or three weeks to get the information into the survey and then the plan is to come back and discuss [1:11:57] Haley Govan: i believe so and i don't i don't know what the final i don't know if you guys are going to do a [1:12:04] Jared J. Mills: ceremonial vote or my thought process if i may your honor is if there's any significant changes that will bring your attention obviously back to another informational meeting and then have some sort of a business meeting presentation or something to update the public that this is going to be the final but we don't need to i don't believe we need a council order or anything specific because you've already provided the order for the process [1:12:34] Haley Govan: and funding so and because it's not the seal we don't have to change like the city charge or anything if we redesigned the seal or got very deep in that would be something that the council would have to do an order for and i think like a charter commission because it 's explicitly [1:12:49] Courtney Gary-Allen: detailed in that way. That's not something that we're looking to get into here. One of my questions being, not a graphic designer, with the amount of colors that are available to us, is there ever a point where you have too many and you lose brand recognition, or is there kind of a [1:13:10] Haley Govan: sweet spot to hit here? So some brands have up to 20 colors. We had a solid 12. You'll see we have a primary six and a secondary six, which are used for accent colors. You would, you'll see a lot of the secondary colors implemented throughout the website. So yes, there can obviously be lots. I would say the reason we expanded the palette and went with this many is the size of the city and the certain requirements. For example, you'll see the color fern and the color limestone. We kept those colors because our historic preservation district uses those colors throughout their signage, as well as our parks and rec teams. So if we didn't include them in the palette itself, they will have been used regardless. So at least if we had them in the color palette, we can hold people accountable, as a negative way to say it, but it allows for consistency. So this will be the hex color green that we will use on those things. So it will be subtle ways that they're all complementing each other throughout the city, but you'll see a lot of these top six through throughout a lot with accents of the other six. So I'm not concerned about that, especially because four of them are whitish beiges that are mostly like birch is the color of our envelopes, but we needed to have something identified so that when Loretta orders bulk amounts that we had it [1:14:44] Courtney Gary-Allen: consistent. That makes sense to me. I know one of the hopes long term is consistent signage across the city, and so if we stay within the primary colors, then that should be able to still be recognizable for people. I just absolutely love the incorporation of the bridge and the trees into the logo. I think that is very recognizably Augusta, along with the architecture, and speaks to things about this city that people can identify very quickly. I think the Flatiron, the dome, all these markers of Augusta are really important to have and this the expanded brand illustration I just I've loved it since the first time I saw it I thought it was really beautiful. One thing when I was looking at my packet this week I was at the library and someone had an offhand comment that the sky looks stormy, and I didn't know if that had been played around with in committee and what I'm sure they're contrasting, all the things I don't know about. But that's one piece of data that I have coming into the conversation. [1:15:54] Haley Govan: So it was originally white, and the committee felt that it was not popping enough. So we have tried a variety of colors in the back. And this is the one that was settled upon. We have also heard that it may look like it's night, so we've had a very large discussion about the sky, way more than I ever thought we would. It's had lots of different iterations, but from this aspect this is balancing the contrast. So if we were to change that, we would be changing probably three to four different shades of the palette throughout this, which can't always work. We learned that when we really wanted plum. [1:16:40] Courtney Gary-Allen: Did anybody try white clouds or whatever? I assume they're clouds in the sky, little markers. [1:16:47] Haley Govan: Yes, potentially in one of the 19 iterations, I honestly don't know anymore. Yeah, I those were. [1:16:54] Courtney Gary-Allen: The two things that this individual had talked about was seeing how those might play out in terms of that storminess that they felt in the image. The only other thing that, being a municipal official, I'm gonna bring up is that the dome is in the middle. I don't know if there's a way to have City Hall in the middle. I don't know what that means, but I don't represent the state, I represent City Hall, right? And that would be something that if it's possible I would love to see municipal stuff in the. Center of the arc, but I do love having the dome, I love having Lady Wisdom in there, so those would be my small critiques of the image. But I think this is beautiful work. The color palette's gorgeous, it is a range of things that will hold up better outside than some of our original colors, and having kind of just tailed down from a committee that had a lot of input, I can empathize and appreciate the work that's gone into it. Thank you. [1:18:07] Kevin Judkins: Councilman, so I'm just going to say I like the dome in the middle, and the reason I do is there are places in the city three, four miles away that you can see that dome. It stands out. I grew up in the shadow of that dome. It's kind of who we are. I do want to point out one thing: Council Secret said we have three bridges, but people refer to the bridge, so that was cool too. So it's nice to see Memorial Bridge. I think the dome is a feature that you just see it all over, and if you remember, we had a governor that shut the light off, and people were upset about that. So the light's on, and it's there. So I appreciate the work, and let's hope the survey reaches is all kinds of different people. Thank you. Council Mission, I think that a lot, a great deal of work [1:18:58] Stephanie Sienkiewicz: has gone into this by the committee. You know, I echo what everybody else has said, and I think there's been a lot of planning, and personally I would not change a thing, and especially the I love the plum. I love the plum for whatever reason. Oh, yeah, all my political signs are all plum. But no, I love it. And, you know, I really appreciate. I think this is, you know, I think this is going to make a distinct difference. And I can't imagine too much feedback that would want to change this. So thank you again. [1:19:42] Mark O'Brien: The end maybe another reaction. Okay, well I want to, I want to single out Haley and Council Morris Paulie. I as I recall when we set up this committee to begin with, you didn't even realize that you were going to be heading up this committee, but you graciously accepted the responsibility and have come through in a very strong way for us and with us, and Haley her expertise and her shepherding along the process, too, has been much appreciated. You had something you were going to add? [1:20:24] Jared J. Mills: Well, yeah, and the timing might be a little off, but I have to defend the committee on this one. They did look at City Hall being in the middle with the dome and the other buildings and the flat iron on the side, and City Hall is not recognizable in the middle. They had to do a side profile, City Hall. Hall so perhaps you could show her maybe the old version of what that might look like, but you did vet that in the in the 19 different versions, so but it would be good for you to [1:20:56] Haley Govan: have a look at that one too. It was very beautiful. [1:21:01] Mark O'Brien: Yeah, they were, they were the perspectives, right? The perspectives to those two side buildings changed when you took City Hall out of the center, and it made it more, a little more recognizable, I think. That was part of, and there was a lot of discussion about the sky. There used to be a moon or a Sun in the sky too, and that gets simplified. And so I sense a fairly positive reaction from the council. And of course, you can always add more comments tonight or as the process goes forward over the next couple of weeks. You wanna reiterate what those next steps are going forward, please? [1:21:43] Haley Govan: Absolutely, so tomorrow I will be launching, actually probably tonight, I have a problem, tonight, the survey will go live. That'll be pushed across our social media and our website, as well as the press release that will be published about it. Hopefully we get great coverage. If anybody's watching, you know how to contact me, I'd love to talk about it, and that'll be open till mid-October. I am going to compile that feedback and create a report. I will highlight, categorize, group it, and share it with the committee as well as you all, and hopefully it's positive and there are not any major changes, and then we can finalize this in October and work on our branding package, and then hopefully implement that in early, I'd say December. I don't like to give timelines, but I would say by December would be a good timeline to have that implemented throughout the M departments. [1:22:49] Mark O'Brien: Anything else at this juncture? Okay. [1:22:53] Doug Papa: Thank you, thanks to the committee all. [1:23:07] Mark O'Brien: Right, the, next item on our agenda is discussion of a rezoning of a portion of Kennebec Savings Bank property. This is in connection with their anticipated construction project on Western Avenue and Chapel Street. Mr. City Manager, thank your honor. [1:23:26] Jared J. Mills: I'll turn this right over to Matt Nazar, who's our expert in all things rezoning and things like that. [1:23:33] Matt Nazar: Thank you, Mr. Manager. Matt Nazar, director of development services for the city. The Kennepic Savings Bank, as I'm sure you've all heard, is in the process of constructing a new headquarters office building on their existing site. Part of that site layout and site modification includes new parking lot layout, and that involves the parcel in question today, the rezoning that is proposed and was proposed by Kennebec Savings Bank, because the existing zoning of RB2 does not allow the parking that is required at this location of the site will enable them to design the site in order to maximize and the efficiency of circulation on site and allow them to lay out the site as they would think best fit to the site in the community. Currently there are what were two parcels that used to used to be homes at a point in the past that are zoned rb2. The they took this to the planning board for a rezoning. This is not a contract rezoning, this is a straight general rezoning, so it'll be rezoned from rb2 to the business professional district so bp, which is the same zoning district that their main office building is in, and would allow them to do their existing main office building is in and would allow them to do the design as they desire. So it's pretty straightforward, two small parcels on the kennebec savings property to bring the zoning together to enable them to design the site the way they're proposing. Questions [1:25:23] Eric Lind: counselor has this had a pass through the planning board? Yeah, yes, on my apologies, yes it did, and a [1:25:29] Matt Nazar: unanimous recommendation for the planning board. Okay, thank you, and i appreciate that work. Thank [1:25:32] Courtney Gary-Allen: you counselor sinkowitz. Thank you mr mayor, thank you matt, and thank you to the planning board, they are always just so thorough. Reading your memo, the decision between bp or kbd2 and the reasons why they chose bp align very well with the uses there, not allowing uses like auto repair, construction services, hotels, restaurants make sense for that chunk. So just thank you, and thank you to the Planning Board, happy to move that along. Any [1:26:05] Mark O'Brien: other questions comments? Let's move this to a business agenda as well. Thank You mayor and council, I think that's all. Right, so the next and final topic for tonight is a discussion about the civic center wall repair and a potential [1:26:30] Jared J. Mills: funding source therefore. Mr manager. Thank your honor, we'll keep matt up here to talk about anything that's in the report. As you all recall that we had a wall last year, earlier this year rather, yeah in early 26 during basketball tournaments in one of the bathrooms at the civic center collapse. We employed a structural engineer to come in and go through all of our walls, obviously that was a defect in the in the building of this civic center originally, so they went through everything and we've finally gotten the report back on a fix to this. We didn't know at the time what the cost would be, what the what the, you know, ramifications would be. But obviously knowing that those what walls need to be fixed and how they will fix them. So the report you have with you in your packets and essentially what we have is a company that can come in and the easiest way to fix the walls. If you can imagine because obviously it's the it's the locker rooms are the significantly impacted Locations those are closed right now not being used So essentially what they'll do is they'll fabricate brackets at the top of the walls And connect them to the roof to keep them from going back and forth which Essentially should have been the way it was constructed in the first place Obviously, a 50-year-old building, codes were different back then. So we have a company that has given us an estimate. As you see in the memo I indicated in the report, it's upwards between $200,000 and $300,000. Obviously, a lot more money than we had hoped it wouldn't be that expensive to fix. We hoped it would be a more of an inexpensive fix that we could absorb that in the cost of in the budget of the Civic Center. There's a timeliness factor this that obviously the options are essentially just continuing to keep those locker rooms closed because we can't use them until those walls are fixed. or we have identified through our finance department and Matt a essentially leftover money from the parking garage that has been it was allocated to the parking garage when it was constructed and that money is essentially sitting there and can be repurposed two ways are completely up to you but obviously, that's in line with the amount of what we could use to fix those walls now and get us rolling for basketball season, for UMA, for high school basketball season and that type of thing. The other alternative would be that money would be allocated and lapsed into the general fund and go towards, you know, our fund balance as well. So we will do one of two things tonight that you direct. But essentially, the decision in front of you is if you want to, if we want to fix the walls in the locker rooms to get basketball season on track, then this is an option that we've identified that won't come out of, you know, any new monies or a budget that we don't have, essentially. Or we can wait and put it into a CIP and have a longer plan, which would keep the locker rooms closed. So that's really the options we have in front of you, and Matt, if I've missed anything on that, I probably spoke a little bit too much and took away some of what you were going to say, but I'd open it up for the mayor to discuss. [1:30:32] Matt Nazar: costs. I will add just a little bit to that. The price that you have in front of you for the work to be done from PCS contracting is a price not to exceed. So it's $286,030. The reason it's a price not to exceed and it's not an exact price is because there are a lot of these, the tops of these walls that are behind ceilings right now. You can't see them. So we don't know exactly what it needs to be done and how much work needs to be done. So the contractor, as the contractor moves through the building, they'll be able to determine whether or not all of these fixes need to be done. We're hoping that it comes in at a lower price. But that is a price not to exceed. And this does take care of all of the walls in the building that are identified on the plans that were provided in your packet. So everything that is highlighted in red and yellow would be taken care of inside the building with bracing at the top of those walls to prevent lateral movement at the top where they're not connected to the upper deck. This will connect them to the upper deck so they don't move back and forth and can't be pushed over. So it does take care of the locker rooms, but it's everything in the Civic Center for that price. [1:31:50] Stephanie Sienkiewicz: Consumption. Well, I'll speak very briefly. This is a no-brainer. They just put a new basketball floor down there. Be a shame not to be able to use it and we've identified monies that will not affect the budget. I would get this done sooner than later. I don't even see any negotiating to this really. I mean, a beautiful new basketball floor and needs to be done, so I would prefer that we did it sooner than later because basketball season's in a couple weeks. Others, council Sinkowitz, thank [1:32:27] Courtney Gary-Allen: you, Mr. Mayor. First, Matt, one of the things that you mentioned was that some of the walls, they've all been identified as potential, right? We are not going to find more, correct? But some of them might be, there's two that already have the steel joins, correct? So we're crossing our fingers. [1:32:49] Matt Nazar: we might find more of them there might be there might be more or when they open the walls up they may find that those that some of these walls actually do go all the way up to the upper deck and have that bracing already without having to add angle bracing with metal okay so it depends on what they find when they open some of the ceilings up that makes sense the [1:33:09] Courtney Gary-Allen: i 'm actually kind of floored that we can get this done for this cost because one of those images has a lot of walls highlighted that was a little intimidating to see so it's good to know this covers all of it the other question that I had can we phase this in a way that prioritizes the basketball affected areas yes [1:33:34] Matt Nazar: And we've also had some conversation with our structural engineer, and they're comfortable with temporary bracing if necessary. Okay, in order to move is in [1:33:43] Courtney Gary-Allen: order to move more quickly, so we can make sure that happens. What does the process look like? What it, they'll need to take down some ceilings. Yes, it's taking down some ceilings and [1:33:53] Matt Nazar: then it is mechanically attaching angle bracing, you know, properly sized and structurally determined to the right size angle bracing to the upper deck above the, above the ceilings. The original design was to do welding, which would have actually been a lot more expensive, and it was our contractor, PCS, who came in and made the suggestion that it be a mechanical attachment, so screws or bolts and that sort of thing. And our structural engineer said, that's fine. We're good with that. So our contractor actually made a suggestion that significantly reduced the price, so very pleased with that. [1:34:30] Courtney Gary-Allen: Yeah, big thank you to them. That sounds great. And I think the last question I have is more for city manager, where do we know what factors led to the $200,000 surplus for the garage? Was it different? Maybe this is a Matt question. Yeah. [1:34:48] Jared J. Mills: No, it's interesting because, you know, through our reconciliations with the CIPs and all the work by Ingrid and Bill Post, it was identified. We were meeting on this very topic, and we knew where some of the monies were, where we were going to bring council orders forward to, you know, basically clean up these leftover monies. [1:35:14] Matt Nazar: Because the parking garage was 2004, and the bond ended in 2024, or 2023 to 2023. It was a 20-year bond. So the bonds paid off. Right. [1:35:26] Jared J. Mills: Right. And so it was and it was so long ago. And that's that's been our challenge. We had money sitting for all this time. So essentially, we were talking about it and it was part of what we were planning to do. And it was I think it was Matt who said, well, we don't need it for the parking garage. You know, that's either going to go back into the general fund or this is a potential and the numbers lined up. So I don't have a great answer for you know that's how we came to it but it's something that's been there before I mean I think I was a police officer at the time but certainly not [1:36:03] Matt Nazar: in this role knowing how that how that wasn't yeah and I don't have any I don't have I was around after the after it was constructed but obviously during the time it was all being paid off I have no insight as to what the finances and how things were paid off each year and why we [1:36:20] Courtney Gary-Allen: ended up with this extra I don't I don't know well we can thank someone for having it set aside for us now and always a thank you to finances director Ingrid Nivison because I know that she's been doing a ton of work to reconcile these things for us and make it so that going forward we have a better idea of where things are I 'm very much in agreement to use these monies for this purpose what is our plan to fund the gap that may occur when I was reading this I was thinking is it appropriate for a civic center CIP can they absorb it into their operating budget or would this come from our general fund yeah so in the walls you'll see red yellow and [1:37:04] Jared J. Mills: priority so I'm comfortable that we have enough to get the basketball and that's that's really the priority right now is the locker rooms and basketball back online. And hopefully, fingers crossed, it comes in lower and we can do it all for that or less. But if not, there will be some further planning that we have time for coming up with the funding, whether it's through regular budget or CIP or what have you. So I believe that the $200,000 is enough to get the locker rooms online, which is really the haste with this to move this forward. [1:37:39] Courtney Gary-Allen: Order. Great. One of the things, many of these, well, for individuals who utilize the Civic Center, many of these walls are this way, but they do not cause any sort of concern for us because the use of those rooms is different than a locker room. And so the chance of any of these things happening again is significantly lower in those areas. Correct? Absolutely. Okay, just to put it out there, we're not de-prioritizing our conference attendees. It's just, and the nature of the [1:38:10] Matt Nazar: construction is different as well. And you've got, there's, there's a lot, much, our structural engineer was not uncomfortable with us continuing to operate based on what they saw and how they felt about the risk and the fact that it did not pose some. So they do feel this fix is necessary, but they don't feel that there's any risk to the building being used in the meantime. Great, thank you very much. [1:38:38] Annalee Morris-Polley: I'm so much, Polly. Just a quick question. When they're doing these braces and tearing out these ceilings, I'm assuming that we're also gonna get some cosmetic [1:38:47] Matt Nazar: benefit from this project. They're certainly going to be have to put back what they end up tearing out, and it may involve, this also includes, you know, there's the possibility that they find plumbing in the way or wiring in the way that they end up having to move. So this takes into account those sorts of things. I'm not sure there'll be a lot of cosmetic beyond perhaps putting back some ceilings and making sure [1:39:11] Annalee Morris-Polley: that they go back and look appropriate. Just a hope. And then I also just want to make a comment that I believe we got sent today from Maine Biz that the Civic Center is the second most visited center in Maine. And so with that being said, I'm guessing that a lot of the sports events that we do contribute to that, which also contributes to a lot of the economic drive that we have here in Augusta in that area. So I would say yes to this project based on all of those things. So thank you. [1:39:45] Eric Lind: Councilor Judkins. The last thing we need is any more disruption of services out at the Civic Center. I think having the funds available, not affecting the budget, it's a no-brainer. Let's just get it done. [1:40:01] Mark O'Brien: Any objection around the table? Okay. [1:40:04] Jared J. Mills: Do you need an order or I do next business meeting we'll have an order to reallocate the funding from the parking garage to there. So thank you, Mayor and Council. Yeah, so that [1:40:17] Mark O'Brien: that exhausts our list of topics that we've set forth tonight. Are there any announcements or [1:40:23] Kevin Judkins: Statements, Council. Lend, I just want to thank the city manager. There are copies of a op-ed you all have tonight, and the subject is Maine needs to be standing ready for the next big storm. September is National Preparedness Month. It's a nice article co-authored by a friend of mine, Pete Rogers. Just read three or four bullets. The one that I particularly liked was May needs to be standing ready for the next big storm. Mainers know how to endure hard weather and begin again after it passes. Toughness works best, however, when paired with preparedness, so that is critical. And then the last statement on that article is the next storm will not wait for us to get ready. We should not wait for it. So I was talking to the city manager about this, and then we got an email from him where he participated in a study, and I think when I read this paragraph, I know Council Junkins is going to listen to this. The title of this study is funding and financing Community resilience in Maine challenges tools and use opportunities for greater access prepared by, it's a contractor, but this was prepared for the Maine governor's office of policy innovation and future, and on page five under funding and financing Community resilience in Maine, and this is where it hits home for Augusta, particularly in county seats and service center municipalities at a location of multiple non-taxing entities, e.g. hospitals, educational facilities, and non-profit organizations, taxpayers bear the cost of lost tax revenue although community members in those towns gain the benefit of proximity to the services that are non-taxed entities provide. Property tax payments that those community members pay subsidize the services for neighboring communities. So where that comes into play for us, where that hits home I feel, is our county payment. County is the first step in the emergency management chain. Canada county emergency management's there, they service the entire county, and we're paying quite a bit in that, so this is being recognized in the study. It's went to the governor's office, and there's further bullets that continually reinforce the cost of all of this. So my suggestion is after the election we're going to have a new resident in Augusta, we'll have a new constituent in the Blaine House. I wouldn't mind inviting that new constituent to the council. We can talk to them about what it feels like to be a service community, maybe talk to this study. I know the city manager participated in it, he could maybe speak to That, yeah, certainly that was the hope is to get [1:42:58] Jared J. Mills: Augusta's message out in the in the survey because they ask a lot about what our challenges are, and obviously, we have big, challenges with a river that divides us. So I provided through and through staff. It was sent to them to add input, the fire chief, economic development. I mean, one of the projects, you know, what we hope for is some funding out of this type of survey as well. The resiliency project that we have through congressionally directed funding is one that would be in line with that to prepare and harden our infrastructures and stuff like that. So we never pass up an opportunity to tell those who are asking what we need and preparing and to go along with it. I mean, we have a storm coming this weekend. Right. And, you know, that's another thing that, you know, I want to get the message out to folks that we've already mobilized. You know our team through the fire department police department it's hopefully not going to be as impactful as some other areas but if it is that way then we are already preparing to councilman's point you know this op-ed is for everybody to be doing that but certainly your services and the municipality are working with that too so thank you I could just add to [1:44:15] Kevin Judkins: That storm that's an example of what we got to deal with climate change so normally this would just be a storm we had a drought and so the water is going to run off we wouldn't normally have that happen it's going to cause erosion small flooding and it's the second summer we had a drought you know and you look what happened in Canada with the fires they've had so just I would just I'm leaving the council this has been my world for a long time and I just would emphasize I know some of us have Taken FEMA training it's required we don't have a huge role during you know an emergency other to be supportive of the staff but the work comes ahead of time with the relationships and training all of that in the middle of a crisis it's not the time to figure out what to do you know you should have a little bit of training ahead of time our chief is all over it you know I know chief Groder is on it and he's been on it for a long time he's well trained and well versed we're lucky to have our City manager who was an incident commander during the, you know, the pandemic, so he understands it. But just think about it during the budget, it's not something that normally comes up, but it's not going to get any easier. I think it's going to get weirder and worse, and we've been doing really well, but again, this storm, this weekend's another example. It would just be a normal rainstorm, but it's going to shed, it's going to be strange, and we're just going to be seeing it more and more, just, you know, We're resilient, we're tough in Maine, but we just got to be ready. So thanks, Mr. Mayor, and for the time, and thanks, Jared, for your work, I appreciate it. [1:45:39] Eric Lind: Of course, others, Counselor Jenkins. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to give a big community thank you to Zach Gagnon and the Picture Perfect Professional Painters. He had an idea on Sunday afternoon that the entrance to Fuller Field was looking a little shabby, and it was, and thought that he could do some freshening up for us. He contacted me, I contacted a city manager who was He was working on Sunday afternoon. We convened Monday morning. He met with the folks that all discussed the scope of work, started at noontime on Monday, and by the end of the afternoon on Tuesday, the ticket booths, the snack shack, the bathhouse, all painted, the exterior and the interior of the bathhouse. and the whole front facade the full of field you know thing that goes over the front there and it looks amazing he did it just an incredible job he talked Sherwin-Williams into donating the paint he donated the labor of all of his crew and it's just it's all in time for our homecoming and just a huge thank you did They did a great community service and much appreciated, and it looks great. [1:47:04] Courtney Gary-Allen: Yep. Consul Sikwitz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to highlight again that Lithgow is having their plant swap this weekend. You can drop off your plants. Well, you can drop them off tomorrow as well, but you can bring them to the swap, 9 a.m. on Saturday. Saturday, and it's house plants, bulbs, perennials, from 9 until 11:30, and all of the proceeds, if you donate, go to the Friends of Lithgow to help fund the museum passes, the programming that they do, but you can also just come and swap and get ready for the chill season to come in, so get some house plants to bring the green in. I also wanted to highlight a celebration that'll be going on, And tomorrow morning, one of our elementary schools, Lincoln Elementary, was successful in applying for a grant From Burlington Coat Factory. And this is one of those feel-good stories all around. So Burlington Coat Factory has recently come into our community, wanted to make an impact here, and made this relationship with Lincoln Elementary, the elementary school that's closest to them, to supply $5,000 worth of supplies to one of our elementary schools in the city. So there's going to be a celebration tomorrow around 845 to really highlight the work of our staff and the work of a business in our community that is coming in and wanting to do some good. And the last thing is that next week is one of the big events for the library for the fall is the Capitol Read with Monica Wood. There's a lot of work that goes into this every year. Our library hosts the Capitol Read where everybody in the city can read the same book and come meet the author at the end of the month. She'll be at UMA Wednesday September 30th at 5 30 p.m. You do need a ticket and I can't, I didn't look up whether or not there are any still available, but it's a free event. So lots of great things going on in addition to all of our fall sports that are happening all around us. The last thing I wanted to highlight is our rec staff did an incredible job over a couple weeks of our software being out. This is, I think, a record year for rec signups. We maxed out multiple grade levels of our soccer signups and I think it might have been two weeks that their software was out and they managed everything with grace and controlled chaos. Some of those signups go as young as pre-k for soccer and the kids were there. They were having a great time. Games happened, people got to the correct fields, and that was a lot to manage without the software that we needed. So glad my rec got their things figured out, but really grateful to our staff for making that still work for the kids. [1:50:02] Jared J. Mills: Others, real quick, we, you'll see this document that I handed out and you're probably wondering what that is. Our gentleman who was at the last council meeting talking about the capital city effects, the mayor asked him to write things down. You have what he highlighted. Staff got this as well today. So we'll be working on that with Corporation Council and bring something back to you. But at least you'll be able to see what he had indicated in his comments last week. So thank you. [1:50:31] Eric Lind: And this is on the shooting range? [1:50:32] Jared J. Mills: Yes. I'm sorry, the shooting. Capital City, the gentleman who came in. If [1:50:39] Mark O'Brien: There's nothing else, we are adjourned. Thank you.