Hampden council adopts new rules, approves transfer station electrical work

[0:13] Matthew LaChance: Good to go. Good evening, and welcome to the Hamden Town Council meeting of August 17th, 2026. At this time, I would like to call this meeting to order and invite you to stand if you are able and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [John Swalec: Yeah at] This time I will accept a motion to approve the agenda. Do I have a second? If there are no corrections, adjustments, or questions, I will ask for a roll call vote. Please [1:01] Eric Jarvi: Approve. Aye. [1:06] Matthew LaChance: Aye. Motion passes seven zero. With the approval of the agenda, I will accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? Is there any counselor who wishes to pull an item from the consent agenda for further discussion? None. If there are no corrections, adjustments, or questions, I will ask for a roll call vote. Please approve. Aye. Motion passes seven zero. Next item on tonight's agenda is public comment. This portion of the meeting is designated for members of the public who wish to address Council regarding matters that are not included in tonight's agenda. Linda [1:55] Town Manager: Balcourt [2:10] Public commenter: From Hamden. I watched the Town Council meeting on July 20th where Councilor Jarvi mentioned in his closing comments that he felt that Chief Bailey should be invited to one of the Council meetings to speak to the Council and to the residents of Hamden as to what our reaction or policy would be if ICE agents should show up in the Hamden, in Hamden and the challenges that we face as a small community. I do not feel that as a resident this is necessary. I do not feel that I need to be reassured as to how Chief Bailey and or his police department would handle this. I have full confidence that they could handle this in a very professional way as I have never seen anything but that from any of these officers. I feel that it is or is overreaching for anyone to question how they may react in any situation as we have an excellent police force. I feel that we have it to trust, have to have trust in our police department to do the [3:16] Matthew LaChance: Right thing. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Ron, is the light on that microphone? It's not. I thought you got it. 's on now. Yeah. Thank you. So was that picked up or should I, if you feel like, oh, I was getting myself. Yep, that'd be great. Thank you. I just wanted to [4:17] Public commenter: Expand on what Linda just said is I didn't see the request from Counselor Jarvie as a the disparagement of the police department, only just a request to have a discussion about it. And I would fully support having that discussion. [Speaker G (unidentified): So, yeah.] Two things I wanted to mention tonight. I'll try to be brief. It was a red letter day today. I came into the town office and when I got home, my tax bill was in my mailbox. Of course, I wasn't surprised because I knew exactly what it was going to be because I had talked to Rick a couple days earlier, and we had settled on the 14.8 mill rate and all. So I had already kind of penciled in what it was going to be. And so I've distributed for your perusal a spreadsheet. This is the same sheet I handed out a couple months ago when we started this budget process, fearful of the reval and what that would do. And I want to say it's good news, and I want to express my sincere appreciation to the Council for the work they've done and Paula for the very deep work she's done and trying to keep this budget this year in the town to a reasonable level reasonable increase given what we all know about the economy and price of heating fuel and everything else and also to us to reach out to the school board and give them the kudos they deserve too and I passed this out because in the kind of the center right there you see this year we had a school local revenue increase of 1.3%, which I thought was excellent, a town increase of 3.2%, which I thought was excellent, and unfortunately a county increase of 16%, although it's a small fraction of the overall charge, it's still a significant increase, and that ends up being a weighted average of about 3.4%, which I thought was good for the times we're in terms of a percentage increase i've been told the town-wide valuation went up 26 average across the Board so 26 percent on a valuation increase a 3.4 percent budget increase if you were going to stay revenue neutral that would have yielded a mill rate of about 14.5 and I know there's extenuating circumstances about loss of state revenue for both the school and the town and other balances of payments and so we landed at fourteen point eight and I think that's very close to what I would have hoped for and you know am I happy about a 31% increase in my personal taxes this year after at 25% not Particularly, but given the understanding of how these things change, I think it was, I think we've got to a point that everybody should be congratulated for the work they put into it. So a couple of key takeaways from this though, and this is why I pass this out, town versus school. In the olden days it was very easy to dump on the school district and say, well, that two-thirds of your tax bill, and you know, six, seven years ago that was, that was true. If you look in that table there, now we're closer to a 50 split. So the town budget has come up quite a bit, 154 percent in six years, and I've talked to Paul about this, and I understand the deferred projects and the deferred stuff that had happened in previous years, and so I get that. But make no mistake, at this point the town and the school budgets are basically the two equal lion's share in, you know, the 9 or 10 percent for the county. So the school or the town budget does have a significant impact on the mill rate at this point, over and above what the school does. The other thing I would say is that with the increase in valuations, the mill rate becomes critical. You know, we've done very well this year for the school and with the town in keeping budgets relatively flat. In future years, if we have project demands or emergencies or whatever in the town or the school budget goes up, with that high valuation that we now see up on everybody, small changes in the mill rate can have a big dollar impact on people's taxes. So yeah, there's, there's work to be done in future years to sort of keep things in line. The third thing I would say is county assessment. I know, and I've talked with individuals here, I know many of you feel the same way. It's a small fraction of our overall tax bill, but let's look at what we're doing here. As our valuation goes up, we pay a higher and higher percentage share of the county budget, and we provide all our own services. We have a police department, we have a fire department, you know, we have all these people that we employ, which drives our budget, but here we're paying one money to the county, so I don't know what the solution is to that. It's kind of aggravating to see county, and this is true of, I think, every county in Maine at this point, to see, like, a lot of mismanagement at those levels and big cost increases, and now here we have to pay an ever larger fraction of an ever larger county budget. So while it's a small percentage in my tax bill, it's still kind of annoying to me as a principal. And then finally on that, residential development. You know, in this town particularly, we're very hot on development, it seems. And from what I can tell, as your town valuation goes up because you have more houses, I'm not talking about industrial and commercial, but more residential houses,, and your valuation goes up, the state sticks it to you, start losing state funding, your school starts losing state funding, I wonder just at what point residential funding or residential development doesn't pay for the added cost that it brings to all of us. So I'll close out on that with, again, thank you very much for all the hard work that people have done to really watch every penny and I've been here through that process this spring and summer and I appreciate the hard work. The second thing I'm gonna read because I want to stay on track I don't want to ramble which I'm prone to doing so I'm gonna read just a one-page thing here. It's likely no secret that the neighborhood of which I'm a part, Summer Street, just went through two planning board meetings on July 8th and August 12th that I would characterize as unsatisfying frustrating and opaque and as a result I filed a FOA request of the town to supply some information regarding some timing of information that people had or didn't have and how that played out we spent and by we I mean the neighborhood, myself, even the developer, and town staff, we spent two months and we had two hours of public comments from a neighborhood crowd of over 30 people at each of two meetings and four letters back and forth between myself, representing our community group, and town staff discussing a developer's proposal for a major subdivision road and our numerous concerns about how that road, we felt, did not meet town ordinance requirements only to be told at the 12th hour at that last meeting that the road didn't even matter and wasn't needed anyway. And then we had a three to two planning board vote, since two members were not present, to grant full approval to that project rather than table it until such time as the additional new information that was presented that night could be evaluated. And this was a request of, by two of the board members made this request as well as the audience. Two of the board members felt that they would like to have time to evaluate the new information that was presented. At the end, we could not even determine what project had been approved since the major element of the design presented by the developer apparently turned out not to even be necessary for the project and I guess it could be dropped from the project. Even the developer had been making changes to their application for the two-month period before that in an effort to try to meet the ordinance requirements that this road was going to require. I will say that I speak for 100% of the 30 plus Summer Street residents in attendance and the many others who could not be there due to prior commitments such as vacations in July and August, that we felt sandbagged, and we felt that our concerns were disregarded, and I want to be clear, the planning board was very gracious in allowing us to speak. We took over two hours in each meeting, two hours of their time at each of the two meetings, to present our concerns, technical as well as emotional and quality of life, everything, but a lot of technical concerns, and they granted us the time. But in the end, I feel that our concerns were either passed over, that the process was already in motion, and I think everybody in the room felt the same way. At the conclusion of the meeting, after the public had mostly left the room, the code enforcement officer, Miles Block, said to the board, and this is on the tape, in this direct quote, I have nothing to say other than the preface coming up, Amy and I have spoken and we are going to have amendments to zoning and subdivision because as you guys know our ordinance is a mess and needs a complete rewrite but we do not have the staff and ability to do that anytime soon so we keep finding a missed Word here and there that changes a lot of things, unquote. And I would say that needed changes involve more than a missed word, but that's a question of degree. As a result, a very large number of your residents, your voters, came away feeling that the process outcome was predetermined and every accommodation was being given to the developer, the detriment of the residents. We have a whole bunch of questions as to the timing and sequence of information that was available to or should have been available to the town staff and made public. So I'm hopeful that my FOA request will shed some light on the planning process here. So thank you very much. I appreciate the ability to present that to you and I'm sure you'll hear more about it. Thank [15:14] Matthew LaChance: you Ron. Much appreciated. Really appreciate your words and your attitude to it displayed tonight. Appreciate that. [Public commenter: Is there] any other public comment tonight? Okay, seeing none, up next is the policy agenda with no news presentations and awards and no public hearings listed tonight. Under nominations appointments and elections, we have a public announcement that nomination papers are now available at the town office for the November 3rd 2026 municipal election. All four of the district seats for town councilor three-year terms are up this year, as well as one seat on the RSU 22 board of directors for a three-year term and also two three-year term seats for trustee of the Hamden Water District. As a reminder, all nomination papers must be returned to the town clerk by the close of business on September 3rd 2026. We'll now move on to agenda item F, committee reports. Vice Chair Cormier, do you have any workshop reports tonight? [16:29] Town Clerk: I do. I have last week's agenda which I'll read from. We had, we're talking about this tonight, council review a recommendation to repeal and replace the town council rules and procedure. Information regarding the verification of legal arguments for sign placement and removal referred to from the July 13th, 2028 council workshop. New business, we had a condition of a sidewalk, a web drive. We're gonna revisit that, I think, soon. Legal opinion regarding councilor attendance and comment at planning board meetings, including the planning board decision process. It was for informational purposes only. Tax mill rate calculation and changes to veterans exemptions information. Information only, Council discussion to permit the Director of Public Works to waive the bid process and single source electrical upgrades needed for the new compactors of the transfer station by working directly with Hamden Electrical. We'll be discussing that tonight as well and voting on it. Thank you. Thank you. [17:52] Matthew LaChance: Mr. Vice Chair, John, did you have any environmental committee reports tonight? Has there not been one? No, okay, thank you. Having no unfinished business listed did tonight, will now move into new business. First item of new business tonight is Council consideration of a proposed amendment to the Town Council rules of procedure. This was referred from the August 10th workshop. Information on this can be found on pages 49 through 62 in tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to bring this to the floor, Mr. Chairman, I move repeal of the [18:28] Dennis Marble: Council rules of procedure originally adopted on January 22nd, 2020 and the subsequent and then the consideration and adoption of the revised rules of procedure as written and presented on August 10th, 2026 and in [18:42] Matthew LaChance: our current Council packet. Okay, with a motion and a second, is there any public comment on this agenda item? [19:01] Public commenter: We had discussed or we talked about on public comments under section 3.1 about sending in emails to get answers. It says specific questions while encouraged to be asked at the meetings, but they're going to turn around and then we're going to have to ask with meetings then we're going to have to email the individuals to get a response. But by doing so, we're not really being transparent to people to get a response of what the outcome is not. I mean, they won't know this is going to be answered to the individual receiving it. So I had mentioned that possibly having it brought to the Council meeting and then put in the minutes and then eventually when everything came about and they had a response, maybe they could bring that to one of the meetings. That way we'd have people out there in the audience that are either watching or in the public would know what we're talking about and then get a response. By doing this, it doesn't really encourage people to participate. It isn't transparent. It's all done. I mean, if that's the case, why attend if I'm going to be sending you an email and then not being able to get an answer? But that's just a concern I have. I just don't think it's transparent enough and it doesn't encourage enough participation by the public. [20:26] Matthew LaChance: Thank you. She was referring to section 3 1 D 4. Okay, any other public comment? Seeing none, we'll move into council discussion, Mr. Carvey. [21:01] Dennis Marble: Mr. Chair, as maker of the motion, thank you for granting me first opportunity to speak to it. I rise in support of the motion on the floor. I was in consultation with staff, was the one who really suggested that the best approach to this, given the magnitude of changes in the new rules of procedure, required a repeal of the original procedures adopted in six years ago and consideration of the new document in total. We certainly had significant discussion on many points that tried to fine-tune. The first thing I would say in essence for discussion tonight, and I would ask the, ask council to not spend time on grammatical or punctuation changes. I think it, we can certainly leave that up to staff to make those kind of changes. Under Robert's rules, that's not something that I think requires amendments to this procedure. But I think if council does have significant procedural kinds of changes, that is something that could be considered under an amendment. Number two, you will notice that I went to great lengths to try to address the idea of free speech, and I went back into legal documentation. There is now a subsequent footnote number two 2, which actually tries to address the concept of free speech while giving the council chair and ultimately council still the opportunity to potentially address disruptions to the meeting. And that's, I think, what's key. And there is a number of things that could end up in disruptive behavior, but it certainly gets away from our concerns about the language that we thought was in violation of the amendment. Relative to, I did listen to counselors. Although I was not in favor of it, I did change to five minutes for public comments. I thought that was a reasonable request relative to the concern tonight about transparency. Several council members addressed the issue of transparency, and I think transparency is important, but I would remind the public and I remind all counselors that anybody has an, is entitled to put something on the agenda with appropriate notice, and I would make the argument that quite Frankly, if there is a question that quite frankly does require significant public transparency, and come and comment after it's been proposed and after we have all the facts, I would encourage either the council member who has received those questions or the member of the public to in fact exercise their right to put it on a subsequent agenda. That's defined, the mechanism is defined, and so there is a mechanism to allow for that transparency moving forward. The reason I still feel that specific questions should not be addressed at a meeting is we oftentimes don't have the necessary facts and data that are needed to actually constructively approach that. And I would remind the public, I know counselors know this, but quite frankly we receive packets 96 hours before the meeting to allow review of the subs of the important data before we deliberate. And to, I think, be presented at a with a question and expect immediate response from the public is denying council that opportunity to have sufficient information in front of them to successfully debate the issue. And for those reasons I would argue that we should support the adoption as written. I made the motion as written to allow for, to encourage counselors who have substantive changes to propose amendments. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councillor Jeremy. Any [25:04] Matthew LaChance: Any questions or comments from Mr. Barba? [25:08] Speaker J (unidentified): I may not speak as clearly informally and I have no notes, but I will be supporting this motion. Two areas of concern I'll just share. One is strictly for commentary and the other is a question of my fellow councilors. One of the concerns I have under public comment, quite frankly, is, oh, I just said quite frankly, gets into the area of mutual respect, the quorum, the difference between spirited debate and attacks on people. And I'm just going to say I will support this as written, but there are tendencies and movements to some extent locally but actually nationally that show a general distrust of government, including at the local level, and an organized attempt to weaken it. And so I have never shied from an argument or from admitting when I'm wrong or from telling someone else when I think they're wrong that 's how I lived my life this is a little different when people members of the public who have said before sometimes it's hard to come to that microphone and talk and i get that sometimes it's hard for counselors up here to feel comfortable and normal and so when the public's going to comment if we basically just say five minutes and try to be decent about it I'm okay but I want to just sort of put on everybody's radar that free speech comes with responsibilities. And we've, we've been very fortunate in the last few months here, and I'm looking at certain people in the audience right now, with the respect and consideration and thoughtfulness the people who have come from this town to speak here have displayed. And I expect more of that will continue. But there are a few who have a different agenda, and I can only hope that they can remember when they're going to speak, or when they're thinking about this council that they're going to speak to the whole community, that we are in fact in this together, no matter what differences we may have. The other one that, this is a little thorny, and I don't have an answer for it, I'm looking for the rest of you, is chair, counselor Jarvie just explained that anybody can put an item on an agenda, and I believe that's what it says. But if you bear with me just for a minute, hypothetically, if I'm running a meeting and I want that meeting to be productive for the common good, and someone wants to put an agenda, an item on the agenda, which is either unbelievably frivolous or predictably going to take three hours to solve, or is antagonistic to the point of being clearly derogatory, as someone running a meeting, I feel some responsibility for how that meeting goes. And so I think, and I don't have the words for it, but the chair or vice chair running a council meeting or a workshop has both a responsibility and I think an obligation to filter and construct that agenda in a way that stays appropriate and productive. I don't think, I don't really think it's our intention, it's not mine until I'm convinced otherwise, to let anybody put anything on any agenda. I don't think that serves public purpose, but I'll just voice that as an opinion for now, mr. charity, yes [29:12] Eric Jarvi: To address Counselor Marbles' statement, you know, if during a meeting a counselor or wanted to amend our agenda, it would require approval of the rest of council. And I'm wondering if maybe a similar attack could be taken with proposed agenda items, that we'd accept proposed agenda items if the majority of council approves it. Just an idea, Mr. [29:51] Dennis Marble: Chairman, I think the concerns about use of the agenda well-founded. There's a mechanism in Roberts Rules that recognizes without a motion nothing can move forward, number one. So quite frankly, if council felt that a proposed agenda item was out of order, frivolous, derogatory, inflammatory, or anything else, without a motion it won't even proceed. That's in our rules of procedure that requires a motion for discussion, number two. The chair or vice chair, whoever's running the meeting, again under Robert's rules and again under our rules, proposed rules or procedure, has an authority to find a motion out of order if it's, if, and so if in fact that motion is decided to be out of order, it would be killed by a decision of the chair, with one exception, the chair cannot abuse that privilege. And, in fact, council can appeal the decision of the chair to, in fact, prevent the chair from allowing business to be discussed that they don't necessarily agree with. So I would argue, because, in fact, our rules of procedure do allow for Robert's rules when the procedure is not explicitly grounded in our rules of procedure, to take those actions and, in fact, govern what is to discuss by rules of motion and, in fact, then determining whether in fact the motion is ultimately in order. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. [31:24] Eric Jarvi: Councillor Jarvi, yes, question for Councillor Jarvi, does a item on an agenda require a motion to be brought forward under [31:38] Dennis Marble: the proposed rules of procedure there cannot be no discussion at a council meeting without a motion on the floor that's doesn't pertain to a workshop but under the proposed rules of procedure there has to be a motion on the floor for any discussion to take place for any agenda item on any unfinished our new business item that doesn't pertain to comments and those things yes okay and if I may just to add [32:06] Matthew LaChance: A point of clarification when it comes to creating the agenda. If somebody, if a resident of the town, John Doe, came in and requested that a discussion over Jane Doe's color of her fence was requested to be put on the agenda, place it on the agenda whether or not it moved forward. From to the counselor Jarvis point, without a motion it dies there, but it would at least get placed on the agenda for consideration by counsel. Thank [Eric Jarvi: you. I] I appreciate Counselor Jarvis revisiting section 5 and adding in that second footnote to ensure that the language of section 5 doesn't specifically outline a means or a mandate that would be in violation of someone's freedom of speech. Do still have a pause of what defines courtesy and respect. That is the question. As I, as I stated earlier, we witnessed a great example of courtesy and respect by our public speakers tonight, but where is that line? Where is that defined line? I don't know. I just would hate to see the town of Hamden on the losing end of a lawsuit. Let's, I'll just express my concerns there. I'll leave it at that. Council Marble, I [34:22] Speaker J (unidentified): believe, Counselor, that in general, we all know courtesy and respect when we see it. Yes. And people who are not displaying such know they're not. Yes. This is not a double-blind experiment. And I've been sued multiple times in my life professionally. And there's always a risk, especially in this day and age. But I want to be very careful that we don't let the idea of fear of a certain threat, be it a lawsuit or something else verbal, be our number one guide. We should be doing what we think we should do as best we can together as one group and let the chips fall after that. So I respect you're having a concern. It's not [35:18] Eric Jarvi: one I share. Thank you. Council Jacobus. Yes, at our, at our last meeting the question of defamation came up and you were questioning, I guess, my interpretation, maybe Eric's interpretation of what defamation was, and I'd like to come back and say that I think you were right, but I, but I still would hope that we could conduct our meetings and hear public testimony with some guidelines of decorum that may be outside the strict definition of defamation. And when appropriate I'd like to yield to the floor to hear what Linda has to say too. Okay, thank you, Linda. Would you like, you [36:10] Matthew LaChance: you would you like to come to the podium? Yes, I [36:22] Public commenter: Think last week when I brought the council about the rules and about this particular one about the public comment, I brought a feeling that I thought would be helpful, and I thought I brought a solution. I was trying to put that out to someone, and at no time did I ask for an immediate response last week or tonight. I just said if it was mentioned in the meeting, it was put in the minutes and brought back when they had ample time to review it and give us a response. There was no time immediate and as far as attacking anyone, I don't attack people, but I've seen you, all of you have disagreements on how you feel about things. So if I feel differently about what you're saying or he's saying or she's saying, I should be able to voice that without saying that I'm attacking someone or my agenda is not the agenda that you're, you share. I just don't agree, and I'm not on the council, I'm in the public. I'm trying to get an understanding of how it works, and it shouldn't be talked to or reflected upon that I'm doing something negative because I'm questioning that. I think that's how the whole country was [37:40] Matthew LaChance: was created. Absolutely, thank you Linda. I think it's got light coming in from the window. You're good, yep. Thank you Linda, come so Jeremy. Mr. Chairman, I will point [38:02] Dennis Marble: out for the benefit of counselors in the public that the legal opinion holds that courts have held that the First Amendment requires a person's speech to a city council meeting must actually disrupt the meeting. Disruption, I think, is the key. It must be disruptive to the meeting, and that's what constitutes consideration of potentially removing them from the dais or potentially even closing the meeting. And it goes on to talk about profane language and all those kinds, but disruption is the key. More importantly, and I think council has to recognize it, This, for the first time, gives councillors a definitive mechanism to, in fact, govern our own. Because we all know there's been instances where council has, in fact, probably been more guilty than any member of the public in violating and causing disruption to council meetings, and this provides for that mechanism. yes so I would suggest that yes well things like disorderly and disruptive disorderly and profanity and those kinds of things may be open to interpretation the threshold is it disruptive to the normal process of the meeting and I and I that's very clearly outlined in the footnote relative to this particular [39:21] Matthew LaChance: Issue, thank you. Yes, thank you. And for clarification, the footnotes are going to stay in the rules of procedure as written. Yes, as written. Okay, yep, good. [39:36] Dennis Marble: Thank you. I mean, that's why I specifically made the motion as written, so all footnotes which are supporting that particular piece [39:45] Matthew LaChance: will be in the included. Yep, great, thank you. [39:51] Speaker K (unidentified): I think there are changes that are consequential in this new rules of procedure. Thank you. [40:21] Matthew LaChance: Just to be clear, I do also rise in support of it at of this motion as written, and also express my appreciation for the work that Councillor Jarvi has put into this, very much so. Do I have any objections from council to allow Mr. Haidu a moment to speak? Ron, would you mind? You got it. Didn't it, didn't take it. Is there, you go, there you go. Thank you. I would like to highlight an example that I [41:09] Public commenter: witnessed here just a couple of meetings ago in this decorum versus First Amendment tug of war that I think violated two aspects. I saw a public speaker launch a direct personal attack on Councillor Cubberley at a meeting, which I think was both disruptive to the meeting as well as violating another tenet of, I think, Section 5, which is that public comment should be directed to the council chair for precisely the reasons you say, which is directing comments to an individual counselor and expecting an immediate response. They do not speak for the board and they probably don't even speak for themselves on the issue with because not knowing all the other aspects of it. So I think there is a lot of room to say we need this is a civics, civic setting and we need to maintain a level of decorum that should be expected, especially in coarsening times such as we're experiencing. So I encourage moderation between First Amendment and the quorum issues. [42:21] Matthew LaChance: Thank you, Mr. Hajdu. Much appreciated, valuable input. Any further comments or questions of council before going to a vote? Seeing none, roll call vote please, John. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes 7-0. The next item of new business tonight is a vote for council authorization to permit the director of Public Works to waive the bid process and single source electrical upgrades needed for the new compactors at the transfer station by working directly with Hamden Electric. This was requested by director of Public Works John Clements, referred from the August 10th workshop. Information on this can be found on pages 63 through 66 in tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to Authorize second with a motion. A second. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Seeing none, do we have any questions or comments from the council? [43:29] Eric Jarvi: Councillor Jacobus. Yes, so more or less a question. You know, I'm familiar with the state of Maine's bidding process. In the state of Maine's bidding process, they call it a sole source request, a sole source bid, and it has certain criteria that have to be met in order to qualify as a sole source bid. Does the town have a similar procedure, or do you just go strictly to a no, you know, they what were we calling a no bid processor or no, you know, so we don't have to have to take a bid? I think I'll let Paula answer that. [44:12] Town Manager: Yeah, so we don't have anything specifically delineated within the bid policy for sole sourcing or single sourcing, other than reference to the fact that on request by the town manager, the council can waive the bid process in situations where there may only be one vendor that provides the product, or it's an emergency situation, time, you know, time-sensitive situation, those types of things. So there is a mechanism within the policy to allow to [44:50] Eric Jarvi: waive the bid process, and it always goes before council then, rather than let's say your decision. [44:55] Town Manager: When this comes up, right, I'm I'm I 'm supposed to write the reasoning why, which in my memo, which would be the reasoning why I'm asking for the waiver, right, single source. Yeah, I [45:10] Eric Jarvi: I certainly understand the reason for the single source, and I guess my only concern is that, you know, if there is, let's say, a new vendor or somebody else that's trying to improve their business, that they don't have the chance, and you know, to bid to this, and with that sole source process that I was referring to, again, it has very specific criteria that have to be met to qualify, and I was just trying to see, you know, you know, what's what's fair to the general public first, what's it what makes sense, because I've certainly been in your situation, you know, who you want, it's a good product, you know, what a waste time, you want to go forward with it, but at the same time there may be somebody else out there too that, you know, you know, that could use the work. Thank [46:14] Matthew LaChance: You, Councillor Mark, you have, I'm all set, thank you, all set, all set. I would like to rise in support of this authorization. Whereas typically I am against waiving the bid process, because as you just stated, I do like to give people the opportunity to put in a bid, to put their best foot forward. As we've seen recently with some low bidders and the work that has gone on, we've had to backtrack and has ended up costing us more money in the long run. I feel strongly that Hamden Electric with their intimate knowledge of the location, the facility, what work needed to be done, what work they've done to get it to the point that it's at right now in preparation for this next move moving forward, that they gave us a fair price. That's just my two cents on it. I'm [47:34] Dennis Marble: so Jeremy, Mr. Chairman, I to rise in support of the motion. I think it's appropriate at this point, but to what the discussion that's been brought up, I would certainly moving forward encourage staff to fundamentally change waiving the bid process to creating a sole source, which would then give us, you know, the background and essentially have supporting with the way other things are handled around the state. And because I think quite frankly with if language it says sole source, I think would correct some of the issues that are impaired in the language to simply waive the bid process, so I would encourage that moving forward. Thank you. [48:16] Matthew LaChance: Mr. Chair, yes, thank you, Mr. Jarvie, that's a great, that's a great point, Mr. [48:22] Speaker G (unidentified): Clements, one thing I want to bring up with this too, this is a reminder, this is a very low labor job. This is mostly all material and we're doing all the labor of the digging and restoration of the trench, so really they'll be laying the conduit, pulling wires and terminating a new compactor. So in terms of writing a bid procedure and bidding this, I don't think you would have seen hardly any change in numbers because this isn't a labor-intensive job, it's material. And on top of that, this request actually started holy, when would that have been, November of last year. We awarded the job, Hammond Electric was awarded the job through our general contractor for the building, and even prior to that I worked with Chris at Hamden Electric to budget for the three-phase upgrade, you know, he wrote the budget for this, we carried his number, he helped me with education, he came out there and spent time with me, walked the site, you know, explained to us what we needed to do to do it the right way, both for The building and for the transformer and then on top of that I mean Chris donates his time both spring and fall to put up and remove banners. He always gives us fair pricing. He's like Rick what more so Rick has the feeling that if works can be done in this town he's going to do it because he pays a lot of taxes here. He does a lot of work in this town and he uses a lot of our roads. So Chris kind of has the same feeling for the municipal side that he's going to price it to get the job he wants to work for the town. So if it makes you feel any better we could not award this. I can write a bid package we can award it in a month. I think we'll find the same results, but we will not have new compactors installed this fall. And that's really what this vote comes down to. So if we do not go with them on this project we won't do the compactors until the spring and the reason this schedule has delayed. I think everybody is aware of [50:18] Eric Jarvi: Councilor Jacobus. Yes, and I would agree or maybe we should say rise in support with what with Councillor Jarvi and what he said, for many of the reasons that you just gave, I think you could craft a sole source bid to include those reasons for why you want to go with this contractor. Sometimes it takes a little bit of creative thinking about how you're going to put that together, but I believe that you could do that and it would just be a little bit cleaner process and probably more transparent for the rest of the public if we did it that way. [50:57] Speaker G (unidentified): So I guess where I didn't finish my thought with that is I actually don't know if I like the idea of that because I may follow that process fine and everybody else may not, but you may end up with a department head that might not follow that process correctly, right? And I think we need to begin bidding out correctly when we can, and if we sole source, right, then I'll never bid power job again, right? But we need to make sure we're keeping these people honest. So I guess that's just where I would go with that. This looks weird to the public I guess because of the way that it's wrote but if they followed all the meetings I think they would understand whereas I think if we which I could be wrong this is my only opinion but if we wrote a sole source contract I think that could probably be scrutinized more so you know [51:48] Eric Jarvi: In my experience, when I used to write sole source bids, and I've done a lot of them, I'd always have, you know, the state auditors looking at that request, and if they didn't like it, they would reject it. And I would assume that the town manager would take that role if she looked at all the other department heads and evaluated their sole source bet bids based on a set of criteria, you know, that should all be fair. So John. [52:26] John Swalec: I don't this is the right time to bring this up, but should we be putting this on a workshop, just as your microphone, oh sorry, should we be putting this on a workshop, the part of changing the process or making available an additional process to go from waiving bids to a sole source contract, is that something we should be considering? Paula. [52:54] Town Manager: I believe, I do believe that there is some room for both. I think that there's room for, you know, maintaining a bid process, but also to allow for the situations such as we find ourselves in right now where we may need or want to single source a vendor. Yes, sorry. [53:32] John Swalec: To go sideways there a little bit, John, so. [53:36] Matthew LaChance: Great discussion. Thank You councillors. Any further questions or comments from council? Roll call vote. John, approve, aye, nay, aye. Motion passes 6-1. Next item of new business tonight is a vote for council authorization to permit the director of Public Works to pay Hamden Electric an amount not to exceed thirty one thousand four hundred and seventy three dollars from solid waste reserve account 3-7-7-0-0 for the electrical upgrades needed for the new compactors at the transfer station. This has been. Requested by director of public works John Clements. This was also referred from the August 10th workshop. Information on this vote can be found on pages 67 and 68 in tonight's packet. Do I have a motion to authorize? Second. With a motion and a second, is there any public comment on this agenda item? Seeing none, do we have any questions or comments from the council? Jarvie, mr. Chairman, for the benefit of the public. [54:47] Dennis Marble: That designated reserve account that's in effect in this motion currently has a balance of two hundred sixty six thousand nine hundred seventy five. [54:54] Matthew LaChance: Dollars. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Seeing none, roll call vote please. John, approved, aye, nay, aye. Motion passes 6-1. Next item on tonight's agenda is the managers report. Paula, I'd. [55:23] Town Manager: First, like to report that the tax-acquired property that we discussed at a recent council meeting has been listed with our agent, which contract you just awarded, excuse me. We hope to see some movement on it soon, and I will keep you apprised of that. I would also like to let you know that the Legislative Policy Committee, to which you just nominated me, held their election. There were four interested manager candidates, Andrew Hart of Carmel, Ben Bredmore of Holden, Eric Glidden of Brewer, and myself. Andrew and Ben were the selected candidates. However, Andrew from Carmel has been in touch with both me and MMA requesting that I be his alternate, so I will automatically receive all legislative information and will be attending the first meeting on September 10th since Andrew cannot make that meeting. I appreciate not just his request but the collaboration that I think he and I will be able to work together on for this area. To update you on some of the capital projects, bid documents on the Manning Mill bridge are being finalized, and we hope to put the bid out in October for a spring summer 2027 construction. We are in the process of correcting the ini issues at Elm Street West with structure replacement and repair. We also have a bid opening for the Sow Dabs Cook pump station on Thursday of this week. Design of the structures themselves for the Marina Road crossing are in process, with some preliminary work possibly being done late summer early fall, with a goal for a spring and summer of 2027 construction. Stony Brook will follow, but there are some changes to be made in the original scope, which would be going from the designed pump station to sewer lines tying into the existing lines. We also have a meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss re-energizing the pump station at Bouchard Drive and to discuss the SCADA system upgrades. Now that we have the old fire station back under the town's control, which took place on July 1st, to remind everyone that the school's lease ended at the end of June. Now that we have the old fire station backed back under the town's control, we will likely add a transmitter or whatever the correct terminology is called to the communications tower there. They are rather than following Bangor and updating to a digital SCADA. I would also like to invite council to a ceremony on August 28th between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., at which time the University of Maine will be at our marina to officially launch a 30-foot vessel that can top 40 knots. This vessel was 3D printed at the Advanced Structures and Composite Center at the University of Maine in Orono. It is the same technology that was used in the Grist Mill Bridge. Some of you may be aware of that or may remember that, but it is the same technology. In attendance will be up to 100 guests, including members of Maine's federal delegation,, Senators King and Collins, who were instrumental in getting funding for our flagship university for their composite program. So from the town of Hamden, we are certainly looking forward to hosting this event, and I'd like to invite you formally on behalf of the university to attend. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers who worked diligently on the 2026 Children's Day event, although committee members ended up making the unfortunate decision to cancel the parade, the day was still considered a success. And finally, it is with regret that I am reporting that on August 3rd, I accepted Tammy's official resignation for retirement, effective in February of 2027. The very next day, I accepted Victor's retirement resignation effective at the end of this month. I expect to begin a search for Tammy's replacement sometime in between October and November of this year, and we'll begin a search for Victor's replacement within the next few weeks. And that's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Thank [59:54] Matthew LaChance: You Paula. That's unfortunate to lose two extremely qualified and professional employees of the town such a short span of time. Next item on tonight's agenda is counselors comments. John, good [1:00:23] John Swalec: night Hamden. Enjoy the rest of summer. Good [1:00:33] Eric Jarvi: night Hamden. I just wanted to say for the folks on Summer Street that I attended the public meeting and heard their frustration, and trying to think of ways that we can make this process a little bit smoother and maybe more representative. As [1:01:06] Speaker J (unidentified): Was mentioned earlier tonight this is an election year for this town with four open seats and I think it's an opportunity to reinforce what is currently a good representative process and I mean that both in terms of council and the public. We have a recent history, at least, of frankly not enough people running for office. And I know everyone's busy, and I know they have other obligations, and I know sometimes these meetings feel long, and sometimes the prep work on the weekend feels long. But it's valuable work, and so if there's anyone out there who feels reasonably grounded, cares about representative democracy, and mostly cares about this community, please consider running. Any questions as to the details I'm sure you can get good answers here in the town office and I just hearing the news that our town manager shared I'm sorry for the extra workload and if you need to come back to us and say you know I didn't get to this item on the workshop because I was busy trying to hire a couple key people I think we'll all understand that. Good night. Good [1:02:23] Speaker K (unidentified): night. Mr. [1:02:27] Dennis Marble: Chairman, for the benefit of the public, I think too often sometimes we overlook some of the things that are in the packet. And I want to tell the public in particular, there are two significant communications that might be worth you referring to. Item D, my report with my meeting with the Maine Board of Pharmacy, and item E, the letter from the Maine delegation. Federal legislation significantly altered public health care's reimbursement to local EMS systems. That impacted 100 communities in Maine alone, and not even talking about the rest of the country. And I have been working with our EMS to try to get answers to their questions about how is it this change to the controlled substance act is going to impact our local EMS I can tell you right now there's going to be significant financial consequences under its current writing I want to thank personally representative Kim Hagen who has spearheaded our local legislative efforts to try to address this and I want to thank the entire main congressional delegation for their letter which is also in your communication to try to address this. Sadly there is no immediate solution to this and I am left with the conclusion that this arriving at a solution is going to be a long drawn-out process but I will continue to champion it on not only behalf of Camden but the rest of the EMS services around our state. Thank you Mr. Chairman thank [1:04:15] Matthew LaChance: You councillor Jarvie, appreciate all your work in that arena doesn't go unnoticed. I guess at this time it's with a heavy heart that I've made the decision to not seek re-election this year. After countless hours of prayer and careful consideration, I'll be taking the next two terms to focus on my family and my business while my children finish out their schooling at Hamden Academy. At this point, I maintain the intention of running for a seat on council in the future when it lines up with the lifestyle of my family and my work. As you all know, my love for Hamden is unmatched and it would be selfish of me to occupy a seat and not have the ability to fulfill the duties of the role without the time and attention that this position requires of an elected representative. I've learned a lot while on council and grown in my knowledge of the workings of council. I respect and appreciate everyone sitting up here and I'm going to miss serving the people of community alongside you all. I thank you at this time. I'll accept a motion to adjourn this council meeting. Second. [1:05:34] Speaker J (unidentified): Roll call vote. Approve. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. [1:05:42] Matthew LaChance: Meeting adjourned. Good night, Hamden.