Ogunquit board accepts town manager resignation, reviews campus costs

[0:05] Speaker A (unidentified): You need to just turn the, I have my agendas, we're live. [0:16] Bob Whitelaw: Are we on? Yeah, you are. Okay, welcome to the sub board meeting of, I'm the sub board meeting of October 6, 2026. I'm Bob Whitelaw, Chair. I'm Carol Aaron, Vice Chair. And on Zoom, we have Chris Nobly, member. Chris Nobly. Do I have a motion to go into executive session? So moved. Motion made by Ms. Aaron. [0:45] Scott Vogel: Mr. Chair, I think we have to state the reason. [0:47] Bob Whitelaw: Oh, I think you're right. The select board plans to go into executive session pursuant to main title 1MRSA405.6A to discuss a personnel matter and I have a motion from Ms. Aaron. Do I have a second? Mr. Noby, how do you vote? Yes. Ms. Aaron? Yes. Mr. Aulette? Yes. And I2mes, that's four zero. We are [1:21] Speaker D (unidentified): now in executive session. Ben or Eileen, can you dial up the Zoom participant a little bit more? Chris is pretty low. [1:50] Bob Whitelaw: Okay, we're live. Thank you. Welcome to the Algonquin Select Board meeting of October 6, 2026. I'm Bob Boyle, Chair. I'm Carol Aaron, Vice Chair. [2:03] Scott Vogel: Scott Vogel, Member. [2:05] Keith Willett: Keith Willett, Member. Chris Nobly, Member. [2:10] Bob Whitelaw: The Select Board was in executive session. I have a motion to come out of executive session made by Ms. Aaron and seconded by Mr. Vogel. Ms. Aaron, Karen, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Vogel? Yes. Mr. Ouellette? Yes. Mr. Nobly? Yes. And I tell him, yes, 5-0. We are out of executive session. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. [2:34] Keith Willett: Pledge of Allegiance. The United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [2:57] Bob Whitelaw: 2.0 is the town manager report. Matt Buttrick, town manager. [3:06] Speaker D (unidentified): Good morning, and welcome to October. It definitely feels like fall at the moment. Some leaves starting to change. It was a really nice day yesterday, a little bit windy, but... All right, stop. Sorry. It was really windy, though. [3:21] Bob Whitelaw: I made a mistake. Okay. We have to vote on your resignation. I apologize the agenda wasn't the way it was originally crafted and we have a request from the town manager to resign and do I have a motion for to accept a resignation of Matt Buttrick town manager? So moved. Motion made by Mr. Vogel, second by Ms. Aaron. Ms. Aaron, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Bogle, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Ouellette? I know you. Yes. And Mr. Nolwe? Yes. And I am a no. Okay, now you can continue. Sorry. [4:09] Speaker D (unidentified): Apologize. And it was windy yesterday. I had a field hockey game and not me, my daughter. And it was really cold. It was. Yeah. But it was fun. Fun. So as I shared with the Select Board on September 24th, I did submit my resignation as town manager. And per my contract, my last day of employment would be January 29th. I really very much appreciate the opportunity to serve the town of Agunquit at both in my former role as a police officer and in this role as a town manager. I have very much enjoyed the collaboration with our department heads, town staff, residents, and visitors alike. I really feel lucky to have the amazing staff that we have in the town of Agunquit, both the department heads and the staff that work with and under them. It's truly a dedicated group of caring individuals who are working here, and it's been an honor and a pleasure to work with them. Thanks. The rest of my update highlights some of the work of our boards and committees. Landing Board Workshop happened last week where they took up some proposals for a proposed growth area. And further developments on that and hearings will be continuing. And when that comes to fruition, it would be with public hearings and a town vote. So let's see, you, if you're on Facebook or you've walked by the fire department, you see that they're celebrating their 125th anniversary. They have, they've been doing some amazing historical posts about the history of the fire department fire company, including, pictures. So take a look at that. They are also on October 24th from nine to three at the fire station. They're having an open house with historic displays, activities for kids, fire safety exhibits. Everybody's welcome to come. And I think that would be a, that'd be a fun day. The Wells-Gunklet School District, we've been including the monthly updates from the Superintendent James Daly in our upcoming communications. And we're excited to announce that our school district was ranked by Nietzsche as the district first in York County, the number one school district in York County and eighth overall in the state of Maine, which I think is super impressive and a real credit to the superintendent and the staff at our school. The September 1st enrollment for the district was 1,434 and 51 of those students were from Agunquit, which is the highest I've seen. I've seen in quite some time. Let's see, and John, you here, John was in it. Chief Lasagna was, I want to congratulate Chief. He was elected as second vice president, the main chiefs of police association. This recognition is a reflection of the respect and admiration he's earned among his peers and his commitment to leadership and into furthering law enforcement and the town of Agunquit. We're lucky to have him, and congratulations, Chief, for another well-deserved accolade. [7:52] Speaker A (unidentified): That's all I have. Congratulations. Next [7:59] Bob Whitelaw: up is the finance report. Manny Cummings, treasurer [8:04] Speaker F (unidentified): Good morning. So I'll be brief on this because we'll talk with me a little bit later in the meeting on some other financial items, but I did want to just say for consideration of the board and the community, it is really difficult, and I think I've said it a couple times, but just sort of off the cuff, oh, it's only, you know, the fifth of the month or whatever have you, it is really difficult to give a report about information that I haven't yet been able to really review. So, you know, reporting on September, on October 6th, the packet is posted on October 2nd, doesn't really give a ton of time to review that information. So just for consideration, I may have to change what I'm reporting on or pick certain items just so that I'm meeting charter of requirements in the first of the month, but giving you information that I've actually had an opportunity to review. Having said that, October 15th is the due date for taxes. Those bills went out the week after the, well, the week, a few days after the board committed taxes, and your personal property taxes are due in full on October 15th. I know that the real estate taxes have two due dates, but your personal property has one due date. And so if you are planning to leave for the winter, maybe consider making that payment before you go, as well as considering whether or not there are transfer station items that need to be closed out so that you don't have to deal with that when you come clean out in the spring. The other few pieces that I was able to look at for expenses are that I am watching the departments who've added positions. So if you remember those articles, those dollars were approved to be added into that department's overall budget so that we don't have to track those separately. And looking at that, so your police department still has those funds available, which we anticipate is just because they are through the hiring process. You don't bring someone on immediately. And the fire department did get a better jump on that. So they're actually in line with their expenditures. And then there are no other departments that are jumping out to me. I have changed the way that I am looking at the percent spent. Again, that wasn't included. I didn't have the opportunity to do that for you. But moving forward, when we're looking at our percent spent, usually what I'll do is take a five-year average of the percent spent for that department so that I'm comparing apples to apples and not just saying in the first quarter, everyone will be 25% spent because that's not necessarily accurate. And then looking at the variance and the estimated dollar impact of that percent spent. So that's how I'm able to tell you your fire is actually in line with their percent spends and your police department still has that estimated dollar value available to them. So that is all for my finance report right now. [11:10] Bob Whitelaw: Any questions from the select board? Nope. [11:13] Peter Griswold: Anyone [11:16] Bob Whitelaw: from the public would like to come up and ask any questions either the town manager or the finance reporter? Seeing none, we'll move to the consent agenda. Is there any item on the consented agenda that a member wants removed? Mr. Oled, I'd like to remove the community center [11:33] Scott Vogel: items so that we can talk about it and so the public can hear about it. Okay, that'll be 4.6. [11:43] Bob Whitelaw: We'll move to four seven. No, four seven itself. I think I have a different agenda because did [11:50] Scott Vogel: you add something? Yeah, I'm looking at four six. That's not good. Four seven website under the [12:01] Bob Whitelaw: calendar. It's the Dunaway Community Center use is going to move to a new business where the town manager resignation was and couldn't be the packet, the agenda, the agenda on the front of the packet [12:20] Speaker D (unidentified): which is what I was reading, appears to be in the version of the agenda. The agenda that is the standalone agenda is the one you're working off of. So yeah, okay, we'll fix that in the back end. Thank [12:30] Bob Whitelaw: You so I've removed the Dunaway Community Center use, no matter the number. Any other item any member wants to so do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda except for the Dunaway Community Center use? So move. Motion made by Miss Aaron, second by Mr. Vogel. Ms. Aaron, how do you vote? Mr. Vogel, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. How do you vote? Yes. Mr. Nobly, how do you vote? Yes. My two mes. So if you are here for an approval of a liquor license or amusement license, you have been approved, so you need not stay. 5.0 Is a the public hearing and select board vote on the Warren articles for the special town meeting November 3rd 2026. This is to receive public input on the Warren articles for the special town meeting on November 3rd, 2026. This is a public hearing only. No vote is required. This public hearing is open at 915. Anyone from the public want to come up during this public hearing, please do so right now. And Ben, check if there are, or I don't know who's running the meeting, Ben or Eileen? Ben. Ben, please check if there's any hands raised. No hands. No, that's that's under consent. Okay, and seeing nobody coming up to talk about the Warren articles in the public hearing, this public hearing is closed at 9 16. 6.0 is presentations proclamations and resolutions. We're going to have a department update from the police department. So the chief John [14:37] Speaker D (unidentified): John, you can sit up here. You can sit up. Yeah, wherever. [14:48] Speaker H (unidentified): Good morning. Thank you for having me. As you're all aware, it's been a very, busy summer. I have a slideshow coming up from Ben. If you can do present mode, it should come up in a better format. Matt. As you've all heard the sirens and seen us around town for the summer, it's probably one of the busiest I've seen in 32 years that I've been down here working in this area. I'm very proud over all of our staff, especially with the staffing levels that we've had on how they handled our complaints and with professionalism and moved on. So next slide, Ben. The first slide shows our numbers and I'll compare it to last year if you can read that. The calls for service over six and a half thousand, six point six thousand. Last year was 7200 call for service, that's everything included. We broke that down to for our weekends, our busy days are on average we're 66 calls per day that we're handling, and that's police fire, that's combined, that we respond to, that can be anything from ordinance violation, criminal violations, to arrest. So very busy summer and I Want to add to that, since the paid family medical leave Act, we've had people out over the course of the summer. We had six people out, sometimes three to four at a time, and they've, they've earned that time, but it's just another challenge for the police department. And I know public safety and businesses around town had to deal with the same challenge, so staffing was an issue over the summer, but they did a great job with it. Priority calls for service for this year were 705 compared to 663 last year. Traffic stops 401 compared to 432, and then the offenses were 180 to 197 last year, and our crashes went up 74 from 52 last year. Despite the pressures, they did an amazing job trying to keep up with all the, all the calls and all the reports that are attached to that. As you know, it's not just showing up at the call, there's so much behind the scenes that they've done. So next slide, Ben, and I should just touch on that. Sharma and Greg did an amazing job. I know everybody here probably sees it and hears it every day, but they had up to 38 contacts per day, sometimes a lot more, of very upset people over parking tickets and ordinance violations around town. So they did an amazing job handling that. It's a very tough job. Sometimes our officers had to go down there and talk people out of the lobby because it was so out of control, but I just want to point that out. It's not just the officers on the road, L dealt with it with the visitor services, and then Sharma and Greg did an amazing job over the summer. Traffic and speed studies, I added this on there for the summer because it's a big complaint. We know it's coming, we do have our speed signs out on Stearns Road. As you can see, we do the average speeds out of 51,000 cars over the summer, 10.9 miles per hour is the average speed. And again, that is a little quick when people are walking and it's a narrow roadway, so we understand that. But I just want to give people that data. The same with Shore Road, over 104,000 cars, the average speed was 24 miles an hour. And this is up between Pine Hill North and Pine Hill South. Again, narrow roadway that you have to worry about. And then Berwick Road, Shore Road, Agamedicus Road, we have those boards out there. We're lucky that the state DOT put out the two speed signs on each end. So that's data collection is speed collection too, which we can have access to, which we do have access to, I should say. And I want to point out that doesn't take away from our direct active patrols from our officers. Our officers are still out there. I know I'm a pain to them, but I ask them to still hit those area. Visibility is key, that deterrent, that compliance issue. So they are still out there, as well as having these boards for that data collection for us. They've been doing a good job keeping up with that. Next slide. And I should say, stop me at any time if you see something up there for questions, and I'll gladly help you out. I just want to point out, I know Elle's going to do her own presentation, but they had an incredibly busy season. We planned on 15 to 16 CSOs. She had to work with 11. Did an amazing job, her and Ian as a co-supervisor, assistant supervisor. Very, busy season. The sessions were up, as she'll tell you. And with that, she also had the changeover for end-of-life meters. So she had to switch over, of course, in the perfect timing in the middle of summer to McKay Meters, which she did seamlessly. We added some new to try to help out with some of the issues down at the main beach, the moped and scooter parking area, which worked out very well this year. Very minimal complaints on that. And then also we upgraded radios. That was the big thing this year because we've tended to hand down our equipment from the police department, which this year with what we had, she was able to buy her own radios and actually get them the equipment they need to keep up before it's end of life. Again, all with 11 people, a little five under what we are anticipating. And she did an amazing job with it. Next slide, Don. With all the calls over the season, we've still kept up with our community engagement, the bicycle safety program, free bike lights. The police association worked with that, especially the business owners giving their donations. Very appreciative of that. To help out our pedestrians, a bicycle safety pedestrian committee working with them. Coffee with the Cop programs to keep that voice open to our community to find out what our real issues are. And then Special Olympics Torch Run, you all know that's important to me, and also Deputy Chief Wade. She attended a final leg for Represent Maine in Minneapolis. We also went up to Orono, Maine for the summer games, as well as our local Torch Run here, which we do every year. It's nice to see that engagement. And then for the first time ever, we did the National Night Out with Wells Agunquit together. We had over 200 people attend. It was really nice to have not just fire, I mean, not just police, but fire was there, also public works to see what they do, too. And we'll be doing that every year on the first Tuesday of August, a great event. It really came together well. Well, one of the things we've added with our detectives position, which I appreciate the position we got this year, last year, we got the detective slot, which Joe Labier has done an amazing job. He's now the chair of the Board of Caring Unlimited, which assists victims for domestic violence and sex assault incidents. And he's done an incredible job. He's actually jumped in the ocean a couple of times for them. He's run five case for them to raise money and raise awareness. this. So it's really good on that community engagement. I applaud our people for really pushing that. Next slide, Ben. And as you can see, just some of the pictures of the things we've done over the course of the season. The one in the middle, I love seeing these little girls every year. Whenever we do 4th of July, they're looking out for Tom Cummings and I, and they're always on the top deck of the norseman and it started with the tallest one and these are her little sisters so it's we always look for them on fourth of july they're the cutest things ever but they definitely make my day during the fourth of july and then some pictures of national night out for patrol on the beach are lucky enough to walk around with ian the guy in a blue shirt it's actually a dallas pz sergeant who knew a few people that i know from the na and the latr for special olympics those need to meet him and then the community engagements russ and i did a coffee with the chiefs so we're trying to expand that not just the police side for public safety side too just to just to get the message from us and just open eliza communication with our community next slide and then on our department overview of course we're thankful for the extra position this year. We have not been able to fill that extra one. We did fill, sadly, we had Sergeant Orlando leave the agency, but we're able to fill that right away with Ben Raleigh. He comes to us from St. Mary's County, Maryland. Incredible. He was a detective corporal down there, fit in very well, just got off his field training officer program. So you'll see him out on his own now. Great addition. And we've also added Nick Jenner for reserve program. We have another reserve, Marissa, that's in the training program now. And on top of that, I don't know if anybody's met Rick Wedge. He's been around for a few months, but the two nice additions to the PD, they've done a great job. So we're a complement of 13 full-time officers. Up to five part-time officers is my ideal. We're trying to get up to that. And then up to 15 CSOs under Al would be perfect. And I know it's a budget issue now, but we're still working towards that. And again, I don't want to downplay what Sharma and then Greg has done over the summer. They're really the heart of the agency down there for us and the point of contact for so many people. I do want to give a shout out with Sergeant Cummings leaving or Sergeant Orlando leaving. Sergeant Cummings has really stepped up. He's really been working a ton of hours trying to handle a lot of the extra duties that Orlando had done an amazing job. So we're, we're trying to get that position filled so we can get some help as a sergeant pretty soon. And with that, one of the guys I brought up the other day that at certain points throughout the summer, we had up to 150 hours of overtime and week one. Week periods that were sadly unfilled because we didn't have the staffing to do it. So they did an amazing job trying to do with what they can. And I will say, just pointing out with that, with minimum staffing, as you've probably all heard, we had two calls involving knives. We had a call just last week involving a loaded gun. And the officers were there by themselves. So they did an amazing job. Nobody was injured. But these are the calls that we're still dealing with in town by ourselves. And I know the support's there. It's just trying to get up to the staffing. And through the chief's conference last week, it's a common theme throughout the state, is with the paid family medical leave, more people are taking that time. They deserve it. But it's putting people at lower staffing levels because more people are using it. So it's just another challenge for us. Next slide, Ben. Sharma hit her 26 years of service. Awesome to see. Just shows her dedication and commitment. Hopefully she sticks around to 30 years, at least until I'm gone, because it's nice to have that backbone, bone, especially with her ties to the community. I mean, she's grown up here. She knows everyone and everybody knows her and they love her. So we're thankful for that. Next slide, Ben. Training highlights. Even with some of the shortfalls we've been able, because of scheduling, Zach Wilson attended FBI crisis negotiator training. And I just want to say with that, I've been through both the advanced and basic, the active listening skills, to be able to communicate with our community in any situation. That class is amazing. So he did a great job of that. I was actually called by the instructor to tell me how well he did. We're trying to better and make our department more professionalized. And Officer Massey went to methods of instruction so he can become a trainer so we can keep it in-house so we're not relying on other agencies. And he's now a certified OC, which is a defensive, basically defensive tactics spray instructor. And then Rick Wedge, he's our other officer we brought in January. He's done an amazing job. We're trying to get the waiver through the waiver process so he does not have to go to the academy. So we're working with the Academy to do that so he doesn't have to attend that in February. And Deputy Chief Wade went to a week-long polygraph conference and kept that up. She's even, I think she did one last week, but she's had quite a few since we started that enterprise account, to really pay for that training and pay for the upcoming equipment when we need it. But she's also done a woman in leadership talk down in Massachusetts and really kept up to show who we are. So we're not relying on other agencies for really some of our training. And we can lend that to other agencies. Next slide. Our goals and sort of getting beyond the summer, but continue with the leadership training. I want my strategic plan done, which we're still working on. Instructor development, like I talked about. The Emily accreditation, which actually lowers our insurance costs for the town. And then the fleet and staffing is always an issue. We have four cruisers right now that are really end of life that we're trying to limp along. And thank you to DPW and Jason for really working with us to keep those up and running. We're actually attending a recruitment drive on Thursday at Southern Maine Community College for next summer. So trying to work on that. Jay Coffey is doing a great job, and T.J. Wright are going to be attending that to try to fill in our gaps for next summer for our staffing. The next one, Ben. And then again, the sustained September operations, as you know, it's sometimes busier here in September than it is in July and August. So trying to keep that up with a limited staffing because a lot of our staffing went back to school, college that is. So trying to keep that tempo going. Intensified training, this is our training time. Of course, our budget, we're going to do the fleet and equipment review over the next couple months. And then seasonal staffing adjustments. Ella's done an amazing job, the sergeant and the DC web trying to keep up with that. So it's always a challenge this time of year. Next slide. And again, I, none of us, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a great staff and also the support of the board and the community. I'm lucky to be here just to see what they do, and I know I'm, I'm a resource to them. It's my job to try to voice that message up to the right people to get them what they need, and just thankful to be here. But I'll answer any questions. I know it's quick. I know you wanted to keep it in with a time, 10 minute time period, so answer any questions I [31:20] Bob Whitelaw: can thank you so certainly the police scanner has been busy this year this summer i have one and it almost non-stop sometimes and i do and it might be trite but those radios that you have for the visitor services people cso's makes a big difference i know in years past they've been less than good and i think what 's really important about that is they're willing to go and take charge of issues so it takes some time some burden off of the officers in the car so i hear it all the time you know CSO 50, I'm at the beach, I'll take care of that. I hear it all the time, and I think it's just simply because of communication is better. So that's, that's very good. Matt, we were going to have something around a grant. Are we going to do that? I don't [32:15] Speaker D (unidentified): See it. Again, my agenda must be. Sorry, Bob. That was a request to add it at the beginning of the meeting, to add to the agenda. So it was a request for the board to add that to the agenda. It was [32:26] Bob Whitelaw: the grant. When do you want to put, you want to put it on this agenda? I mean, it's important grant and it's free. It's free money. That would be new. We'll put that into new business. So [32:35] Speaker H (unidentified): Don't go anywhere, mention it now. I can talk about it now. Yeah, why not? Yeah, commissioners, last check brought it up at our last couple meetings with the chief. There's, there's 740,000 available through the state. Three agencies have applied over the last couple times they put it out, so that money is still there, and it's basically for weapon storage for red and yellow flag offenses, and it's more for safety, security of weapons when we go to those protection order or domestics where there's weapons of all, we might have to take firearms. The nice thing with this, we can, it's really open that we're going to try to, our vision for our PD is each one of these volts that has a, their vault safe box in the back of our cruiser is about fifty seven hundred dollars, almost $5,800 a piece. But with that, we can secure weapons in there sometimes, as you know, this is Maine, so you can walk away with 15 to 20 weapons from a household. So it's securing them properly in our cruisers while we do our investigation, and then also securing them properly in our PD. We're fortunate here that we have a brand new PD. We have a great evidence storage system here, but some agencies are actually rebuilding their evidence rooms around this grant. So the money is there, it's 100% funded by the state. It's just the paperwork for us to keep up with it. So that was brought up again this last weekend at our chief's meeting from the commissioner of public safety. And again, only three agencies are put in. So it's a pretty good chance that we could get some money to at least help. We have nine cruisers. So if we did that in each cruiser to keep them standardized, consistent, and also a good locking mechanism in the back of the, as a secondary safety mechanism for our cruisers and for the weapons, it would be a great opportunity for the town. [34:34] Speaker D (unidentified): And there's, as Sean said, 100% funding, no town match, just by policy, the Select Board has to approve applications for grants. So it's in the system and everyone's aware. So that's why we, and it's due the 28th, so to give them a little bit of time to prepare and apply, we were asking the Select Board if they could add that to the agenda for approval to apply. [34:53] Bob Whitelaw: Do we have to do it today or can we do it at the next meeting? Because it will be before the 28th. [35:00] Speaker D (unidentified): I mean, I assume you'll say yes either way. I mean, I don't want to do the work and then have something. [35:05] Bob Whitelaw: I just want to go through the proper channel and say if we can do it today, I'd do it today. [35:09] Speaker D (unidentified): You can add it to the agenda and do it today. [35:11] Bob Whitelaw: We're going to put that on new business for a vote and also take public comment on that. So we'll add it to new business. So you can't go anywhere. Where you got to hang around, I'll be here. Thank you, thank you. And let me ask the public if they'd like to ask you any questions. Okay, Ben, any hands raised? No hands. Okay, so your golf tournament is October 19th, right? The yes, Special Olympics. Yeah, Special Olympics golf tournament. So good, my team is gonna win. No, we stink, but we'll have fun. But it is, in case people are interested, it's a great event, and it really is helpful for kids in need. Matt, are there any questions that have not been answered? [36:10] Speaker D (unidentified): I think Mandy has a question. Mandy's got something. Okay, Mandy. [36:15] Speaker F (unidentified): So there were some questions that were brought up at the last meeting, and so I looked at those yesterday. There were some questions about articles, well,, a lot of the articles on the town meeting ballot in November. So with respect to Articles 4 and 5, the addition of the phrase, the intended additional use, it does not change how the reserve account may be established or used. The reserve accounts are established by the voters. They're governed by that reserve policy adopted by the board. Any expenditure from a reserve has to comply with that still. So it doesn't change anything there. The purpose of adding the intended use is to provide voters with the greater clarity regarding the purpose for which the funds are initially being placed in the reserve. That is because that's something that we've heard from the community with regard to reserves and the way that they're used. And so putting that right there with them in the voting booth was the intent, but it doesn't change the policy or how those reserves are used at all. With respect to the bonding questions, bond articles have always historically just described the authorized purpose broadly as the project. That's legal language. We haven't changed that. The standard legal language remains unchanged. Proceeds are associated with the project authorized by the voters. Those are never placed in a reserve. They can't be. And generally speaking, what happens is the town will go make the purchase, right? Often there will be a bid required, and we still have to comply with all of our purchasing policy requirements, so it'll go through that entire process. We will sign a declaration of intent to reimburse ourselves. We buy the item, and then we go out to bond for it after. So we don't go bond, put it in a reserve, and then do something like that's just not how bonding works. The disposition of retired equipment and any resulting proceeds is a matter within the board's authority. That is an article every year on the town meeting ballot that the select board has the authority to dispose of property and no decision regarding that has been made yet you all would obviously know that and then with respect to the difference between the outstanding bond amounts presented in june and november the change is a result of the town correcting presentation on that ballot to identify outstanding principle which was also added to be clear and that we sought legal guidance regarding that statutory requirements for those financial statements on those bonding articles. Council confirmed the statutory requirement is to identify outstanding bonds, not the total cost of those bonds. And if you look at the financial statement previously, it wasn't comparing apples to apples. So it's authorized and unissued bonds is principal only, to be issued as principal only, and outstanding bonds is principal only. If we were including the interest, which I had incorrectly done in the past, it mixes up the principal comparison that financial statement is intended to make under Title 30A, 57722A. So that's the disclosure of outstanding bonds, and separately estimated costs of those bonds via interest is included on each of those financial statements. So that was incorrect on my part, and we sought legal guidance to get that corrected. So that should answer all the questions. [39:35] Bob Whitelaw: Thank you. 7.2 is the Algonquin Heritage Museum. Matt, you want to give us an update on the bids and the donation profile, please? [39:47] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah. So the bids came back in for the Heritage Museum led, excuse me, led remediation. And the return, one return bid that we got, also one vendor showed up at the site walk, was significantly higher than the initial estimates. Reviewing that with Public Works looks like a significant portion of it is set up, pulling stuff out of the museum, storage, safe storage and whatnot. I am working with Tom to see what both their availability and bandwidth is, but we also have to ensure that if there is a lead dust or lead issue, that it's properly remediated as well. So we will be condensing the asks in the RFP, and we will have to re-post to the RFP. It was more than double. [40:49] Bob Whitelaw: So the bid was only for the lead remediation, none of the climate control? [40:55] Speaker D (unidentified): It was merely for the remediation of the lead. [40:59] Bob Whitelaw: Do you want to disclose what that bid was? [41:01] Speaker D (unidentified): It was $298,000. Was the one and because there's only one vendor there's no way that we would be comfortable making a recommendation to the board especially when it was so much higher than the than the budgetary quotes etc. So we definitely need to fine-tune the process and put it out to bid again and we will do that very shortly. Tom has not yet finished his analysis of what the public works could do versus what, versus what we would need a vendor to be able to do. But, you know, I'm confident that we'll be able to get, you know, lead remediation done for the amount that we have had donated is $150,000. I think we just need to be thoughtful and careful about what work we can do in-house as long as that is, we're able to do that safely and with proper, safety procedures. [42:01] Bob Whitelaw: Okay thank you I know we had an a donation commitment and there's some talk of that might be going up and maybe we'll be able to get this done but the key part to this is it's about three hundred thousand dollars just for the lead and doesn't include climate control doesn't [42:26] Speaker D (unidentified): include managing the collection or anything else like that and some of a significant amount of that cost is because of the historic and nature of some of the artifacts and stuff that need to be taken out insured or there's no lead dust etc and stored safely when they do the remediation. Now certainly we could store them safely it's just the questions that we're trying to get answered are what we just want to make sure that there's that there's no issue with staff if they wear PPE, et cetera. So it potentially has to be done by a professional-led remediator still. Those things that we're trying to iron out on the back end, but we'll have answers for you shortly. [43:04] Bob Whitelaw: Okay, any questions from the sub board? Anyone from the public want to come up and make a comment about the Heritage Museum? Ben, any hands raised? No hands. No hands. Yes. Okay. Okay. Note that Mr. Ouellette is stepping away for a moment. A 7.3 then is the municipal campus update. And I believe Mandy has a statement on that, or do you have the statement on that? Okay, Mandy, presentation. [43:39] Speaker F (unidentified): There's nothing that you wanna open with or, cause my, so I'm very excited for this. And I know people have been asking for a financial closeout. We've been waiting to have some final invoices, but I'm not sure because I will be speaking strictly on finances really if there's anything that you need to say before that just well yeah there's probably a lot that I need to say [44:05] Speaker D (unidentified): but just as just as a brief intro to this is this project was started I think it was I think it was the first thing I did is interim was organized they already approved improved facility and space needs committee first meeting and the chair is in the audience marianne rush who really through the entire process the volunteers on that committee did so much work really did the entire concept and bringing on the context architecture etc et cetera, to do the concept, really shepherded that entire process through with very little help from the town. They did such an amazing job, community engagement, really getting the tone and feeling of what the community wanted. And I have been working on trying to quantify the value of the time that was committed for not only the volunteers, but we also had, there was a professional who does this for a living, basically, Tony Deluzio, who was a volunteer on the committee. And I mean, good Lord, if we had to pay Tony. He did a really fantastic job, not only with the volunteer portion, but the panicked phone calls at nine at night when you get an email about something that just won't work. And he was incredibly helpful with that. I can't say enough good things about all the volunteers on that committee. And without the work of the residents of the town who volunteered on that, we wouldn't have it. So I am working on a, you know, Mandy likes numbers and I like pictures. So I am working on a PowerPoint presentation that includes some of the construction project some of our volunteer pictures as well as well as a couple of other things so i will roll that out shortly that's more that's more fun and sort of a look back and where we are and where we are now but the financial part the what did it cost and where did it go that 's what mandy's going to review right now but for my intro, thank you to, A, the residents who approved the project and the donors who donated significant amounts of money to enable this to come together and our volunteers. [46:42] Speaker F (unidentified): So thanks. This part's also fun, just for the record. And it's great actually. Because you're an accountant. Okay. It's also great, actually, Heath, that you're here because you were really pushing the Facilities and Space Needs Committee initially, and now you're here to see the closeout. So that's nice. So this is just my intro slide. The next one tells you what we're going to be talking about today, and I always try to organize the way that we're going to speak about things, so you'll see these sort of intro markers in between, but we're going to talk about the funding. And then we're going to talk about the bond financing. We talked a little bit about that and, you know, we've thrown some things around, but you might be able to see a little bit more understanding of why we're so excited about how we financed it. Then we'll talk about the total project costs, the composition. So the total project costs will be each component, the three things that the Select Board and the article approved us to do. And then the cost composition will be how did those break down between hard costs and soft costs for each of those components. And then we will talk about cost to sources. So how do they reconcile to the bond or to donor funds, that sort of thing. And then we'll talk about what we said we were going to do and how we're really proud that we were able to do that. So the, we'll start right in with funding. They always, they always figure out how to keep up with me. I don't want to hear myself on echo, thank you. Okay, like that. So what the voters approved, that is next, and it was a an 11.9 million dollar bond, and it was the three components, right. So if you go back to that 2023 article, it was a new town hall and police station, a community playground and basketball court, and renovations to the Dunaway Community Center. We had some early thoughts about how, we would get those things done. And remember, in a perfect world, we would have had, you know, a small amount approved for engineering and design before we put together the full amount for the full construction project. It's usually how these kinds of things work. But we, you know, it's not a perfect world as we all know. So we had that $11.9 million approved for all of the costs of the project, including the design and engineering. So what we had, like Matt spoke about, was very conceptual level estimates out of all of the hard work from the Facilities and Space Needs Committee. And that's how we came up with the $11.9 million. But that was very much in concept, and we were hoping that would pay off for us. Then we get to some payoffs which would be more than just the bond is our financing cost so there's 2.7 million in the 1.625 of what you're seeing in the 2.7 million which is like additional to the bond. So these next two slides are basically all of the money the taxpayers did not have to pay for this project, which is very exciting. So 1.625 of what's showing here is what we saved in debt service by going out to the public market. So I see this very much as cash. Some people will just see it as savings, tomato,. You are not paying 1.625 million dollars over the life of that debt service because we went to the public market instead of using the bond banks, very small choice, big payoff. Then we also received $87,000 in a bond premium. I will talk about those first two cards in the next couple of slides so that we can really break down what that means and what we're talking about there. In addition to that, we had $989,000, almost a million dollars in interest earned over the bond dollars that were invested. Now, I know earlier I said, generally speaking, when we do bonding, we bond the item and then we go, So, you know, generally speaking, we buy the item and then we go bond it. We don't get the bond first. That is generally speaking in a construction project. That's not how you're going to do it. You know, you're going to spend the entire bond in a construction project because you know, you're going to run into things that you didn't know, and you're going to have to maneuver your way through that project. So we got that bond in advance. Specifically, I set up with the bond council and our banking partners to make sure that we set the interest up at tick, which is your true interest cost, so that we could avoid arbitrage. We didn't want it to go too high. There's a whole law that you cannot borrow low and invest higher if you're a municipal on a tax exempt bond. So we set this up with the bank and our bond council to get as much interest as we possibly could avoiding, you know, walking into a red zone. And that resulted in $989,000 of interest that we then put back into this project. The next slide shows you additional taxpayer dollars that you did not have to fund, right? These are non-taxpayer dollars, $3.5 million. $3.4 is private funding secured in large part through the generous community and your town manager who worked his tail off when those conceptual estimates came in higher than we anticipated. $88,000 was from an efficiency main rebate. Again, we just reinvested that into the project, and then $50,000 solar grant paid for about almost exactly half of the solar array that is on that building. So the total non-taxpayer savings dollars reinvested into this project is $6.2 million that you did not have to pay, and you will never have to pay for this campus project, which to me is very fun and exciting. Exciting. The next thing we'll be talking about the bond financing. And so the first two cards on that other slide kind of gave you a hint at the 1.62 and as well as the bond premium. So basically, we're going to talk about here, why was it advantageous to use the bond bank? And I know when I had started talking about that. It was a little bit scary. I started talking about it while the Finance Facilities and Space Committee was working through their project. We had a lot of policies that we threw at the board that they were able to help us get through, including the unassigned fund balance, including the reserves policies, and all of those things that we worked up towards getting a rating to be able to go to the bond market. I know that there were some members of the community asking, why would you want to do that? Here is why. This is why. Because the bond the main municipal bond bank now I will tell you I like to think I'm smart and I love numbers but we did hire a financial advisor because that you know municipal world we are statutorily not allowed to invest in risky investments and so we just don't really play with the public market right so my bailiwick is protecting your dollars and so we kind of stay away from the public market. So we hired a financial advisor who was fabulous to work with and brought us through the public market. And at the same time, the main municipal bond bank was also going through their sale, which is how we would normally apply for things if it were a smaller dollar amount. And basically they go out to the public market on behalf of municipalities because they know that is not something that we generally do for ourselves. Our financial advisor was able to reach out to the bond bank and get their sale the way that theirs, because they sold at the same time, and then take our amortization schedule and our tick and compare that against what we would have got had we participated in the bond bank's sale. So they put this together for us, and they made it an apples-to-apples comparison. Harrison. We were very specific about, if you remember, it says that we sold 12.2 million. That's because there were other items that we were purchasing at the same time that were approved. There were some pieces of equipment. So we sold the bond higher. And of course, we're not paying for those pieces of equipment across the same amount of time that we're paying for this campus. So when he took those estimates, he compared our amortization schedules, understanding this truck will fall off after five years. This will do this. And he calculated the amount of interest that we would have gotten for the same exact sale under the bond bank. And we saved. This is how you can see our tick. Our true interest cost is 3.64 percent up against 4.5 percent on that main bond bank. There's your 1.62 million dollars in savings just by putting that work in up front, putting those policies in place, going out to the bond rating agency, and going out to the market ourselves. The next one talks about a bond premium. And I was trying to find a good way. Now, some of you, if you are in this type of investing, maybe will understand better. I'm trying to find a good way to reach the middle of the room on the explanation of a bond premium. And essentially, we sold our bond for $87,000, almost $88,000 more than face value. So we received $87,952 more than we requested from the market, and we do not have to pay that back. It was not added to our principal. It is not part of our debt service. us. That is because we are, people were competing over us. It's a very simple way to say it. So they were willing to pay more than face value for the bond just to receive the security and the payments that we are able to offer them because we are a safe bet, essentially. So what we did with that $87,000, it's not technically free money, even though it is, it isn't. You still have to use it, track it, and report it with your bond. And so this is how we use those dollars. We used it to cover the cost of going out to the public market. Even when you use the main municipal bond bank, you will incur costs from bond counsel. We just charge that to our legal line. It's usually a few thousand dollars, but it does cost us to go out to market. This way, we actually netted an increase of $6,000 towards the project. So we were able to cover the costs of going out to market, which is, as you can see, substantially more expensive than if we use the bond bank, but still net a return on those and put it back into the project. And then what we did with the interest earned on those proceeds, I know the other slide showed you $989,000 of interest. That is an accurate amount that includes the interest earned on those donated proceeds. What you're seeing on this slide is specifically just the interest earned on the bond monies, and because that is all I would use to pay, as you can see, that amount applied to that first debt service payment. So we use the interest that we gained to pay the first debt service payment instead of raising taxes for that. And we were still, at the end, able to return into the project $142,000 just by going to the market, investing the interest, paying the first debt service, and still giving some money back to the project. So this is really fun for me. I can't tell you enough. And then just on the next slide to show you the numbers refined and the promise held. So we on those conceptual level estimates, we had some discussions, and we had come out, I know the board had discussions about how we were going to allocate the bonding and what we were going to do for fundraising, but again, remember that's all in concept. We had no final engineering, no schematic, and thankfully Tony, we had Tony so early on. We thought, okay, we will put 2.3 million of the bond funding towards the Dunaway because that's what we thought we would need to do, that partial renovation we had discussed, and we would raise a million dollars for the site in the playground. And we had this grow OVS campaign that we thought we would, we would get the OVS schoolyard fundraised, but or once we started moving through some of our final and schematic designs. It became apparent those conceptual estimates were very conceptual, and we needed to pivot. And so that's when your town manager, who I will be very sad to see go, put his self to work and was able, you know, again, the community is incredibly generous, and I just am so grateful to be able to do this report. But he was able to secure 3.2 of the 3.4 million that's showing here and just two donations for the Dunaway Community Center. The rest of it was a lot of other members of the community who are also being very generous. And then the site and playground, we basically took what we were going to put towards the community center over to the site because those estimates were coming in higher. So that's how that's how projects sometimes go. So then talking about project costs and we'll talk about the way that those two things broke out a little bit letter later when we when we align our costs to sources, but the total final investment across all three components of the campus was fifteen million seven hundred and twenty six thousand two hundred and fifty two dollars. That's all three aspects, but we've already talked about the taxpayers are paying for the 11.9 bond and then so how do Those components break out where the money went. So you have 9.8 in the police station and town hall, Dunaway center received 3.7, site in the playground 2 million, and the demo I pulled that out separate because I honestly wasn't really sure which bucket to put it in. So it got its own. Doesn't really seem to relate to any of those in my mind. So the composition. So that's talking about the hard and the soft cost breakdown. And I feel like that's really important to consider when you're talking about a huge project like this, how much of it went to the actual construction and how much of it went to other things. And I will break these down further later as well. But at this face value, hard cost is going to be anything that we paid to our construction manager for actual construction. Soft costs here is design, engineering, furnishings, technology, other project support costs. So what was hard for me to wrap my brain around is when we say hard and soft, I'm thinking soft skills that you can't see and are not tangible. That's not necessarily the case, right? I mean, anything that is not a construction cost is considered a soft cost, but the chairs that you're sitting in are pretty sturdy. So, you know, I don't want anyone to see this soft cost number and think that is just, you know, surveys or there are still tangible items in there. They're just not part of what stood these components up. So construction versus design and overhead. So I did break that down a little bit more because I am who I am. And I wanted to really show you the hard costs versus the soft costs of each component. So your police station and town hall was 7.9 million in actual construction costs and 1.8 in soft costs. Most of the design is in your police station and town downhaul costs there. And so that's 81%. And all of the conversations that we had with all of the professionals here, your construction manager, Tony, your engineer, and any of the other contractors that were working the job, 80-20 is generally how they split estimates. And they said once you do the math from your actuals you'll find that is pretty accurate so we did it here and eight that was actually the lowest cost share and it was a police station and town hall and that makes sense because that's where most of the design had to occur but the dunaway community center 91 of that was hard costs the site in the playground well of course almost all of that is in our costs. And then the demolition and site prep, there is an 80-20 split as well. And that's because we had some abatement, asbestos abatements and things like that had to occur over at that old school building. So an 86-14 split overall, most of the dollars went into the actual construction and the tangible pieces. And then the next slide is breaking out that 2.2 in soft cost to show you the furniture and fixtures is actually $832,000 ish. And then the technology, right? So all of that wiring infrastructure, connectivity infrastructure, all of that room, that's another $200,000. So really design engineering and studies was only about 1.2, really only a little bit more than half of what is showing in that soft cost. Another million is actual tangible things that we're using all the time. And I would, you know, you could argue the design we're using all the time. So cost to sources, what I wanted to do here was show you how we reconcile to all of those different, you know, sources that we had talked about before. So obviously your bond proceeds are the largest source, that's $11.9 million. Private donations were 21%, which is still pretty big, $3.4 million. And then other funding. And other funding includes that encumbrance that we had talked about that we had for the HVAC, for the Dunaway, and then the reinvesting, the rebates, the net excess premium. And then it's also important to state here that it is the net interest that I'm including here as the cost to the project. So that $755,000 in interest that we use to pay towards that debt service, I'm not including here because I'm separating that as a cost of debt service, not as a cost of the constructing of the project. Project, so this is how your sources work, and then just to get back to, you know, what we said we were going to do and what we did. So we said we were going to demolish the OVS and construct a new building over there that looks substantively similar, that houses that history, preserves the community focus, and we did that. We said we were going to renovate the Dunaway Community Center into a functional community space, and we did that. There are items on your agenda today, and there have been at every meeting, how we can use this space better. And we said that we would relocate and enhance the playground and basketball courts, level those, and include inclusive pieces on that playground, and we've done that as well. So and then in the 2023 estimate we said four percent was the estimated rate. We came in at a 3.6 tick, so we worked hard for you, and I hope that you can see that. And then I guess the next thing I wanted to say was just thank you. I've, I think I've said this was so much fun. This is a lot of work over the last three years, and there are just so many good people that have touched this project, and I hope having this sit here in the middle of your community and understanding how the dollars work across them and understanding how the people behind it have done all that work, I hope that comes through when you're sitting in this room. [1:08:10] Bob Whitelaw: Thank you, Mandy. Any questions from Sloughwood members? There's a lot. Mr. [1:08:20] Keith Willett: Nobly? I would just say amazing and what proof of how teamwork and process pays out. And it's just, I so appreciate you putting this together, Mandy, because I think citizens who may not have really followed the process closely have a complete overview and understandable roadmap as to how this all came about. And it is just amazing. So thank you to you and Marianne and Tony and everybody who was involved. It's just phenomenal. [1:08:56] Bob Whitelaw: Thank you. Any one from the public would like to come up and make a comment? [1:09:10] Rebecca Fox: Hi, Rebecca Fox, 21 Marchinal Avenue, part-time resident and taxpayer. I just have a question about the Dunaway money. So the original allocation was $2.3 million. But then you got the large donations. And so that money went to the center here. Of the $2.3 million, I think you said $1 million went to the playground and the grounds because the cost was so much higher than expected. Is that right so far? I'll let you finish your question. Okay. So then that leaves 1.3 million of the original done away money where did that go ben could you pull up slide 11. [1:09:57] Speaker J (unidentified): okay so [1:10:18] Speaker F (unidentified): just to clarify when articles when voters approved article 59 it was for the project right not any specific allocation for any specific building or any of that so just like every bonding article is approved for the project estimates discussions had here at the board level town manager speaking with the community had said this is how we think we're going to allocate this we think we're going to put 2.3 million towards the dunaway and we think we're going to fundraise a million dollars for the site and the playground again those were based on concepts we didn't have any schematic any actual costing really available to us based on actual engineering and architecture and design as soon as we figured out that wasn't going to work the town manager worked very hard with the community to get a donation for more than we had allocated conceptually to the community done away center and allocate that entire two million to the site in the playground instead so we flopped it and increased them each by a million but there is no money i mean if we go back to and i'm sorry i glazed over this so let's go to slide 20 again because that brings me to funding sources. So this is how everything is played out against your sources for the project. And we do have a favorable balance on the Dunaway. And I apologize for glazing over this. $136,000 is left towards the Dunaway, which we will have to have a conversation about, you know, what does that look like and whatever future endeavors occur for the Dunaway center, but that is the only dollars remaining, so to speak. The full cost of the project has been incurred and expended as stated on that slide 11. So if there, you know, I think people get confused about how we, you know, the budget that we had anticipated versus the budget that we ended with, but the article 59 approved the total 11.9 for the project that was spent on the project, along with another roughly 6 million of non-taxpayer dollars. And this is how it shook out. [1:13:09] Barbara: I'm Barbara for our Ocean Heights. There's some, thank you for your work. And I appreciate all the hard work that went in. I'm not underestimating the committee I'm on, underestimating what you've done, Mandy, or Matt has done, but there's some real misunderstanding in this whole process. Some of us worked out a compromise and we worked very hard on that. Matt was part of that, Bob was part of that, and in that concept and what people went to the ballot box to vote on was 2.3 million out of that bond was going to go to the Dunaway. You talked about a concept. The total concept for this Dunaway was over $5 million. Three million came in a donation. I really believe, and I know, Matt, I asked you for some information. It didn't come through the way I had hoped, but I believe that 's not from you. I had hoped that the people that donated that $3 million, understanding that we were shot $3 million in this Dunaway, that money was to match the $2.5 million. So you have up on your screen that the Dunaway was renovated. It wasn't completely, the concept was a complete functional Dunaway. You have a whole downstairs that isn't done. You've got, I don't know what is still going on with the OPA. But my understanding is that this building was going to be completely functional at and the cost of 5.5 million would go into this building. I'm glad that the town hall is complete, I'm glad the playground is complete, but this is not complete. And I think I heard Bob say that if more money was going to have to come in here we'd have to come back to the taxpayers. I think that's unfair, I think it's very unfair. I think the rest of the money should be raised to get this building completely functional. And that's the difference, I think. And we can differ, and I'm okay with differing with our understanding. But some of us worked very hard on this compromise. I don't believe this would have passed if we hadn't come up with a compromise. [1:15:35] Speaker D (unidentified): Compromise. So I'm just going to respond real quick because I actually worked out the initial compromise with Peter. Peter and I worked it out, and then got it blessed by our respective boards, and we said we would spend at least 2.3 million on the Dunaway Center, and we started with 800,000. And in our initial sort of, we thought we could get air conditioning and furnace and other things. And that wasn't palatable to, quite frankly, the BRC, which is fine. So we worked with what number is, and the number that was agreed to by both parties was 2.3 million. And what was said was, we just want to make sure there's a real financial commitment to the Dunaway Center so that what happened to the old school doesn't happen to the Dunaway Center. So had the town voters approved the $875,000 the year before for final engineering and design, we would have had three separate buckets, we would have had definitive costs with escalators, and we would have been able to have a community conversation about what everyone wanted. It didn't pass. Then the voters told us we want the total number, we want a, we don't want to commit eight hundred thousand dollars because then we're committed to whatever the final number is, right, you're going to spend a million dollars, you're probably going to do the work after or some of the work, so they wanted to see the entire plan. So we went through the process and generated the entire concept plan. Also, during a period of historic inflation, costs run through the roof. And I don't know how many of you have done construction projects, but they're awful. They just don't go the way you think they're going to go. Issues come up, and particularly with renovations. So when we became aware that we couldn't, the $2.3 million wasn't going to be enough to even sustain or do the required code work to this building, if we expended $2.3 million, if we didn't fundraise and we expended $2.3 million, the building would have had to be closed until it could be funded and brought up to code, which I presented to the select board and community. And it was discussed in a meeting. And we discussed about a different plan at that time was if we don't raise any more money, we will do as much work in the Dunaway Center without triggering code compliance, which is a really crappy thing for a town manager to say, but that's the position we were in financially. So with the denunciations that came in, we were able to do all of the code compliance work, including the elevator. We were able to do new, the new roof, HVAC, new entrances, redesign the offices. Downstairs is not complete. It's open for storage. The hallway is complete, et cetera. There is a new furnace down there, but downstairs is completely part of the HVAC system. It's dry. It's watertight. And it is definitely future space should the town want to do something with it. And you're starting to see some of the challenges of doing something with it, so we are starting to roll out programming here without a parks and rec director and without a staff person over here to oversee it, and we can't just create positions. So I know, I know that spending 3.7 million dollars in the Dunaway Center is well above what we agreed to, and you know it too. There was never, ever the possibility once we started doing design that this building was going to be done. Never. It couldn't happen. It's absolutely true, Barbara. I'm sorry, but it doesn't fit your narrative. So this building could never be done for the amount of money that we had hoped it could be. Just like I thought $800,000 was way too much for site work. And we ended up spending $2 million. So listen, we did the best we could with what we had. Taxpayers are paying for under $12 million of a 15-something million dollar build out. And I am very happy and proud, glad to have been part of it. And I know that we upheld what we told the community that we would do. We upheld and exceeded what we promised to the community, so you can continue to change the narrative if you'd like. I'm proud of the building, I'm proud of the process, I'm proud of the volunteers committee, I'm proud of the staff, and if you sit through this presentation today and you're upset, you're never going to be happy, which I think is the case, Peter. [1:20:43] Bob Whitelaw: Peter, I just wanted to make one comment, and I want to thank Marianne for being here, because she was the leader of this. The basement of this building was a financial time bomb, and that goes to litigation, which we had to litigate issues which our personnel related. Had we not done what we did, we would be on the hook for a pile of money. Can't go too much detail into it, but that's the way the statutory rules are read. But even if you take away, if you disbelieve me, or I was in the room with Mr. Griswold, I thought we had a great conversation. If you disbelieve me, you can believe me in that the basement of this building was a ticking time bomb from a liability standpoint, and if for nothing, that alone should be reason enough to celebrate the savings that we have probably saved ourselves from. No, that's not right, the liabilities we have saved ourselves from, that's a fact. I don't know, I maybe I didn't do a good job, maybe I messed up, maybe you know a lot of people, I mean a lot of people criticize me, but the building downstairs did not further cost us in liability. That's that's just a that's a fact, that's a fact. So that's all I'm going to say about this issue. Peter, thank [1:22:39] Speaker D (unidentified): you. Peter Con Turnstreet, I didn't understand the answer to Rebecca's question. I'm sorry. Do you think you could just say 2.3 million, a million was this, 500 was that, whatever it is? [1:22:53] Speaker F (unidentified): Please. So the, let me gather my thoughts. So the public record sort of speaks for itself if anybody is interested in looking at the Finance and Space Needs Committee meetings and all of the board meetings that came out of the design working all the way up through. The conceptual estimates, I think we had some that were like up over $16 million, which is coincidentally or not coincidentally where we ended up landing, but those were concepts. And initially it was, I think, over five, almost six million for a fully renovated Dunaway Center. And in no point in time did anyone ever say that we were ever going to get that done. Never was that mentioned as a goal to have that done. What was mentioned for the Dunaway, to Matt's point, which I think he said quite well, was there was a conversation where initially the Dunaway really only had a very small amount of dollars allocated towards it, less than a million dollars, and that was just not palatable. And people said, no, we know that this is going to cost probably even more than what's in this concept, we need to know that you're not going to abandon this building like the school was abandoned. And so the discussion said, well, you know what, we will commit to a new roof because there were conversations about the snow load. We will commit to waterproofing. We will commit to removing all of the mold. We will commit to HVAC and we will commit to an ADA access. And so those were the specific points. And we estimated that would cost that we would put $2.3 million from the bond towards those items because those were the concept items at the time. And then estimates were coming in way higher, like Matt said. And again, the public record, we've had all of these discussions in public meetings. We could go back through and look at those. And it was determined that $2.3 million is not even going to get those items done. And so what are we going to do? Well, we're going to have to figure something out. And that's how we figured it out. We went, we got the 3.7 necessary to get those items done. With regard to the bond, I think I already have had that discussion, right? We thought 2.3 million from the bond was going to go to the Dunaway. Instead, 3.7 of donations went to the Dunaway and that 2 million that was supposed to go to the Dunaway went to the site. That is it. Period. If you look at the demolition in the site, that's like 200,000 ish. And, the playground itself was 2 million. So there's your 2.2, you know, it went to the site instead of the Dunaway because the Dunaway got a $3.7 million infusion instead of the 2.3 to get all of those items that we had discussed done. And we did. I don't think anything else [1:25:59] Speaker D (unidentified): you could add is going to make anyone in this side of the audience happy. And, you know, when people are going to change the narrative, I'm not calling you liars, but your perception is your reality, but your perception is wrong. And ours is on the public record, documented in meetings and information that's been put out. So again, and I will also say that Bob ran on doing these things. Heath ran on doing these things. And they did them. They did them and got them done. And, you know, I, Mandy reviewed her PowerPoint presentation with me. And, you know, my response was, this is great. Thank you. And it really sort of, the last three plus years of the construction project has really been arguing with contractors and designers and engineers in the back on the back end. And I think that seeing how the project financials bore out, seeing the facilities having the art displays that Eileen's been doing, having the receptions come through, starting to roll that out over here, really trying to create a community space when we don't have a school we that is in town, we don't have really I'm gonna have a gas station we say it all the time what is the heart of our community? We wanted this to become the heart of our community. And I think it is. And I think it only will continue to be more of that. And I'm proud of what we did. I also know that if the agreement had been reached with the Budget Review Committee at 3.7, you would have been elated at the time. So, again, yes, you absolutely would have because I was there. So again I don't know exactly what you're upset about. If you really want the downstairs done, we can certainly get estimates done for what the cost for the community. And then if you take the five something million dollars additional that was saved by going to the bond market, by donations, etc, if you, if you, if the taxpayers wanted to probably pay, hey, half of that, you could probably finish out the downstairs amazingly and still be in the plus about two and a half million or so. So if you want it, you can have it. It's just going to cost actual money. And,, and it, I think it would be great. I would recommend programming first and a parks and rec director to fill out the space, but, that's just me again. I'm proud of the board, I'm proud of the staff, I'm proud and thankful for our volunteers and our donors. [1:28:36] Bob Whitelaw: No you can clarify in public comment, in public comment, when we, no not now, in public comment, you sure can, you're welcome. Can I make a comment? Heath go first and then [1:28:54] Scott Vogel: you can go second. So I'm trying to understand and so point [1:29:04] Speaker D (unidentified): of order, could you ask the audience to stop talking probably? [1:29:09] Scott Vogel: Impossible. So yeah, so I'm trying to understand there are many years of trying to move something forward would have cost the town a lot less money had we done it the first few attempts. Anyhow, the voters approved $11,935,500 for the municipal campus project. That's what was put before the voters. That ultimately is what I believe the budget review committee voted on. I'm looking at the warrant article right now and what the select board voted on to put before the voters there was a agreement if I understand correctly that 2.3 million dollars of that would be dedicated to this building which we all know is at the end of the day wasn't enough at the end of the day 3.7 million got spent on this building so I'm not sure what the issue is more money if right if I understand the position is that the agreement behind the scenes to get the parties to finally come together towards moving this forward board was to spend at least 2.3 million on this project and three point on this building and 3.7 was spent at the end of the day and at the end of the day what the voters voted on was to spend 11,935,500 on the overall project and as Mandy explained earlier there was never what the voters approved wasn't two million for this building a million for that for the playground and you know another whatever for the for the police station another whatever for the town hall it was considered a project so and at the end of the day we spent over 15 million to get to where we're at today and we did that through grants and some amazing donations so I'm not sure I understand the concern at the end of the day [1:31:41] Peter Griswold: Carol I [1:31:44] Speaker A (unidentified): just it fascinates me to sit here and everyone just wants to beat on the money just think back everybody took tours through the police station where the where the policemen were wallowing in dust and whatever that other thing that you know mold and everyone geez it's too bad Ed, they have to live this way, blah,, blah. Sometimes it goes beyond just the dollars and cents. It's how we treat our employees. It's how we value the people. And carrying on about money that has been spent and in everyone's judgment done wisely, it to me is so nonproductive. I just can't sit here and just continue to listen to this. Mr. Chairman [1:32:37] Bob Whitelaw: Mr. Chair, yeah, just give me one minute. Chris, I'll go to you, and then I have an audience request. I was in the room with Mr. Griswold, and I want to thank him. He can remember what we talked about. We were there, and had he not stepped up to the plate, none of this would have happened. That's a fact. Now, if you don't like what I did or Matt did or Mandy did or the committee did, the space needs, whatever, that's fine. But I will tell you, Mr. Griswold and I shook hands in a room over there, which isn't there anymore. It's a brand new room, and agreed on this deal. When it turned out that we didn't have enough money, that gentleman there went and got it, period. That's the story. Okay, write whatever you want about me or him. But I remember, Mr. Griswold, you and I shook hands on this deal in that room. And that was the compromise that was made. Chris is next, and then you, sir, will be after Chris. Chris. [1:33:55] Keith Willett: And I'm just looking at this and reflecting on ultimately what do we have and what do we want to do with it. Go back to the comp plan survey, and when you look at the top three things that folks responded, and this is residents, the top three things we could do today. There's nothing in the building that prevents us from having group meetings, whether that be AA, educational activities, line dancing, right, Mahjong, educational activities. Again, I don't see anything that prevents us from moving forward with that as the building's constructed. And then the third most popular request was a winter farmers and seafood. And if you look at the requests of what people would like to do, what they hope was at the Dunaway, Most of them really are just give us space to operate in, which we have made now healthy, right, and accessible. The other things that might require investment, yeah, those are possibilities. But when you look at what we as a community said we want to use the building for, we're good to go. And when you look at what's lined up already, mahjong, line dancing, senior meals, we're already doing this. So let's work forward with this. Either one. [1:35:38] Marianne Rush: Marianne Rush, Shore Road, Aconquit resident. I found, because I keep everything, what we put out when we were asking for people's votes and support for this project. And what we said for the Dunaway Center, this was on the town website. This is what was handed out. This is what we spoke to at our meetings, and you spoke to at select board meetings. The Dunaway Center will undergo improvements to ensure a da compliance and adherence to the latest building and safety regulations. The renovations will include, The, I'm sorry, the rent. The upper level will have an expanded auditorium and stage available for community members and OPA, HVAC, office, storage, and new restrooms that can accommodate multiple users simultaneously. The Dunaway Center's roof, HVAC, and water intrusion protection will be upgraded. And then, sorry, second, renovated Dunaway Community Center. Renovate the existing Dunaway Center for full community use, including new roofs, roof supports, new HVAC, waterproofing, and improved community space. Budget, $2,300,000. So that was what was put forth to the public. That was what we spoke about at meetings. That's what was given out as public information. So just wanted to put out there the facts that were presented at the time. [1:37:23] Rick Dolliver: Rick Dolliver, 331 Shore Road. When this all started, I was at this table, and I find it amazing. Mr. Griswold, I would love for you to come up here and speak and not have people speak on your behalf. Chair Whitelaw called me after his meeting with you, and that was the dilly. It's so crystal clear. I remember that movie. Who was that? Jack Nicholson, Grave Danger. It was crystal clear. year. And I remember calling Matt saying, they're upset now because we've spent well in excess of three and a half million instead of 2.2 million. And it just shows me over and over. We didn't put up the red signs fighting the $15 million. You guys did. We didn't come up with the 800,000 or the $2.2 million originally that would have closed this building. You did. We don't go to Will's Copy Center and send out these flyers. You do. Your narrative constantly changes. We, the town of Agunquit, put the police station in the basement of this building for five years. That's what it said in the paperwork, for five years. I personally have fought for over 20 years for a new police station and new town office. My wife brought the plan to this town and wasted countless months of her life. And just remember, everything's on video. So when you say you wanted a community center, go back. I have all the meetings, every single one of them. You didn't, you stood here at this podium. We don't need a community center. We have the senior center in Wells, the Wells of Gunquit scene. We don't need it, so just please, I've said it for a long time, let's, we don't have to agree, but stop changing the narrative. I see it in town all the time now. I mean, we're on the national spotlight because people change the narrative. The truth is the [1:39:48] Speaker A (unidentified): The truth, Ben. [1:39:54] Bob Whitelaw: Any hands raised? No. [Speaker H (unidentified): Hands, we're] Not, public comment comes up. Barbara, come up here and say what you want to say. Excuse me, but the rule is the rule. I didn't make the damn rule. The rule is you come up, you talk, there's a response, but there is public comment coming up in 10.0, so I'm, but I'm going to grant you, Barbara, please, I'm granting you some time. You're welcome for the [1:40:26] Speaker D (unidentified): Record, you were a volunteer, you were an alternate on the budget review committee during this process. Peter Griswold was the chair, and as far as I know, he brought it back to his actual membership, so if just to set the record straight, you were, that was before you were elected to the BRC, that was before you were elected to the BRC, and you were an alternate in case someone didn't [1:40:46] Barbara: Participate. Yes, I was an alternate, and guess what, I'm the one that asked for the compromise, and Peter Griswold followed through, okay. So let me just say what the, let me, yes he did, because they felt if a man came forward it might, people might listen to him, but let me just say what I think is the misunderstanding here. I'm gonna go, I have other real things to do, I have actual things to do that don't involve listening to this. It has nothing to do with you, Matt, I know it has nothing [1:41:15] Speaker D (unidentified): Except it was, it was my life for the last five years, and good job. That's right, and this is your [1:41:22] Barbara: And this is, I mean, this is, oh, all right, can I just, I ask, I am, I want to clarify, and also I, period of time, please, you have, trying to, and he brought this up, and I just need to clarify. Here's what my understanding, and you don't have to agree with it at all. The compromise came in our discussion as a BRC because we saw the burden being put on the Dunaway to raise money to complete this. Only $800,000 was going to be. And so we said, can you raise, give us more money so the burden doesn't just fall on the Dunaway? Let's have an equal burden of how much has to be raised over there, how much has to be raised over here. And the compromise was 2.5 million that you would take out of that bond so that the burden was not as big to go from 2.5 now to five point something to complete this building. My, I will take this burden. We should have had this in writing, Bob, with you, that the town would raise the rest of that money so that 5.5 million would come into this building. That's what I'm arguing. You don't understand. That, but that's where I'm coming from and that's why I keep raising this. That's where that argument came from. The burden was on the Dunaway to raise all the money for this building other than $800,000. Thank you. No, not yet, Mr. Ouellette, I [1:43:11] Scott Vogel: think we're it [Speaker J (unidentified): there's] always a choice of do you continue to engage or not. It is the issue that the thinking is that the town should have spent two million of the bond on this building and then had the donation on top of that, which would have come to more than five million. Is that what you're, what you're trying to get at, get the money raised? It wasn't going to come. That is the issue. So, would have it been, so the answers for the public who may not hear is the answer is yes. That's the, what I'm now getting to, what I think is the frustration. So would the, would what would have happened if the donor would have said I'm donating it to the municipal campus or I'm donating the money over here, the holes, the holes, the hole would that have in essence been a better, what you want, would this suggest, because at the end [1:44:23] Bob Whitelaw: of the day, not at the end of your statement, please, and you have to listen. I'm sorry, right, he's asking me a question. I don't care, he can ask any question he wants. It's not a debate. Yeah, we've been doing this for six years. It's not a debate. It's make a statement and let's move on, or if you want to grant Barber time, I'm, I give up. You can do whatever you want, do whatever you. It's, it's not a debate. It's not a debate. I'm just, I know you made your statement and I appreciate your statement. You have your beliefs, I have mine. I was in the room with Mr. Griswold. That was me and him and Matt, that's it. I'm sorry, Mr. Oled, I intruded on your time. Please continue. It's not a debate. After the meeting, please. So [1:45:19] Scott Vogel: I think the answer is the hope would have been still keep two million in this building and take the donation on top of that two million dollars. That's or raise the money, the additional money. I don't know, I this all happened about the time that I was leaving the board, etc. But I think that at the end of the day people made the best decisions. The committee continued to meet and support the project through its completion. Meetings were public. Everyone did the best that they could and continued to as Hurdles came right, more money was needed. It's it's the reality of a large project in a time of particularly post-COVID expenses and where there's, you know, the systems of 10 years ago of pricing went out the door and any of us who have done construction projects over the last few years know that you think one thing because your brain is thinking 10 years ago and it's a completely different story. I think at the end of the day we have a better product than what two million dollars would have got us and I would like us to see focus on I believe what the taxpayers are now saying is let's focus on programming for this building and how can we come together on that front rather than fight on decisions that were made two years ago when a donor came forward and said, hey, I want to support this project and I want to ensure that the Dunaway Center isn't just brought up to the minimum basics, but I want it to be better than what we could have done. How can we get there as a community? How can we get beyond the infighting of, at the end of the day, we got three plus million dollars more to support this overall project and more money got spent in this building so can we move beyond and start focusing on an actual community center that can bring the community together thank you Ben [1:47:56] Bob Whitelaw: Any hands raised? Peter you want to come up? No hands. [1:48:00] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah thanks Ben, Peter. [1:48:11] Peter Griswold: Griswold 20 Briar Bank, full-time resident. Bob your memory is very good. We did stand in the room, Barbara did propose a compromise which I thought was a good one and we were asking for 2.3 million dollars. Is it a coincidence that the donor provided a $3 million donation when the difference between $2.3 million and the original estimate was $5.3 million. Is that a coincidence? If you ask Elaine Cooper, who spoke with the person one-on-one about what's the real need now? Now, the need was $3 million to bring the Dunn away from $2.3 to $5.3. Is that an issue that we adults should be arguing about? Only from the standpoint of what really happened. And what really happened was Elaine Cooper had that conversation. Conversation, that donor made a $3 million donation for the Dunaway. And we just found out that $2 million of that was spent on the playground. Does that matter? Well, for some of us it does. For the rest of you, 've heard enough. And I understand that. But I get disturbed when people try and bend what actually happened mr [1:50:14] Scott Vogel: chair at the risk of yes mr oled may i ask peter a question sure the hell peter are you saying that the donor donated three million within with a sometimes a donor may donate money and have put restrictions on that money they may say it needs to be matched by the town by $2 million. Are you saying that's what occurred? [1:50:40] Peter Griswold: The honest answer is I don't know, but the request was, well, what do you need money for? And Elaine Cooper said, we need $3 million for the Dunaway. I'm not privy. I don't believe Elaine Cooper is privy because it's none of our damn business. [1:51:00] Scott Vogel: So we're speculating then? [1:51:01] Peter Griswold: No, I'm saying that was the conversation that took place. Whether the donor specified in a letter how he or she wanted the money spent, I haven't seen that letter. I don't know, but it's a huge coincidence, and to say otherwise I think is minimizing what was presented. [1:51:31] Scott Vogel: I think it's so it is speculation and it's not based in fact as you're saying you don't have [1:51:40] Speaker F (unidentified): A copy of the letter you probably could get one. The, with all due respect, the donor wanted to be anonymous. The conversations happened with the town manager. They were run through legal, and there is an agreement that no one should be privy to. So I do find that a conversation happened with an anonymous donor to be interesting as well. So just to put facts out there, and then also Marianne did state exactly what was put to voters for this building, and that is all there was committed and we received More than that, is it with respect to moving programming forward? We do have 136,000 left over basically in the interest that was gained on the donations that were for this building. And if there is a director or a programmer in the board's conversations in the future that could potentially bring funds into this building, so if we're talking about how to get to completion, which we always knew we were going to have to talk about because we always knew we were never going to get there, that might be a good starting place. Thank you. [1:52:50] Bob Whitelaw: Peter, thank you. So from the outset, this donation was made anonymously. I directed our board not to disclose anything. I didn't see, it was the donation was done with their legal and our legal with the town manager. And to my knowledge, which might be limited, it was not contingent, donation. It was a donation for the project. It was not contingent. If Elaine Cooper has more information, so be it, but I never had a conversation with the donor nor their representatives ever. I have had discussions with their representatives recently around the Marginal Way, but I have never discussed any donation or contingency made on this project with said donors because they asked this to be anonymous. And that's all I've got to say on that. Ben, any hands raised? No hands. [1:54:09] Scott Vogel: Are you good? Okay. We'll move on. I think you have something in the office. Oh? Rick? No? [1:54:21] Bob Whitelaw: Okay. We're going to move to, I placed under new business, and Mandy, thank you for the great presentation. You know, it's not always easy, but it was a fantastic presentation. It was a great project. And, you know, what can I say? It was, a lot of people did a lot of work, I mean, on this. And it really, I think, turned out to be a fantastic community area, you know? I mean, you got an art show coming up. [1:54:57] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm there. And the art this week, it looks amazing. Oh, thank you. Mine too? [1:55:06] Bob Whitelaw: I moved the PD grant to 8.1 because the 8.1 was a town manager resignation, but he's already resigned. So, John, do you want to come up and just briefly say again, just brief, and then we'll, we will, we'll open it up to the public just so you're on the record in the proper location on the agenda. Thank you again, this [1:55:31] Speaker H (unidentified): Grant is a, it's a weapons storage grant based off the red and yellow flag law to protect citizens and also those involved. There's $740,000 of grant funding available through the state. That's 100% covered. The town does not have to put in for that. I'm glad you actually asked me back up because these units are $5,750 a piece for the storage units for each cruiser. There's nine cars we could fully, that could fully supply our fleet and they are transferable. So this will protect us and save money down the road with each build as we buy new cruisers, which with our fleet schedule, which should be one or two cars every year because we still have four cars that are end of life. So that could take up to six thousand dollars off that taxpayer funding if we do this. Again, it's 100% covered. It is due October 28th, so we need to get on that, which Deputy Chief Wade is already working on a draft, but I'm asking for that so we can put through [1:56:44] Bob Whitelaw: and get some free funding from the state. Okay, thank you. Any comment from the select board on this? Any comment from the audience? Benny, hands raised? No hands. Okay, do I have a motion then to direct the police chief to submit a grant recommendation for weapons vaults in police cars fully funded by a grant with no match? Motion made by Ms. Aaron, second [1:57:20] Scott Vogel: second for discussion. Mr. Oled, just out of principle, can we second for discussion? Sorry, being on the record, could we amend the motion to direct the town rather than the police chief? Because I think we want to be careful about not directing employees that report to the town manager. [1:57:45] Bob Whitelaw: Oh, it's a good point. Can you amend your motion to direct the town to make a grant as stated by me? [1:57:55] Speaker A (unidentified): Like to amend it to say, let me make the town apply for the grant, apply for the ground grant, [1:58:04] Bob Whitelaw: not individually by the police. Okay, I'll second that. Second, Mr. Roulette. Is Aaron, how do you vote? Mr. Bobo, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Ouellette, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Noble, how do you vote? Yes. And I2ME, yes, it's 5-0. The next one is hopefully simple. It won't be simple later on, but the Perkins Cove Bridge, where's Aaron? Is he here? Oh, there he is. Come up here and sit with us. Yeah, we got a seat. So I've been asked by the town manager to hold a workshop regarding the Perkins Cove Bridge in the winter and either keeping it raised all the time or keeping it raised during the week or something. But Aaron, tell us why we should have this workshop. [1:59:04] Speaker J (unidentified): Am I live? You can hear me? So the concept is, as we all know, the bridge has limited uses. I mean, in a sense, the way I see it, 's like a heartbeat. Every time it goes up and down, there's one less time it's going to go up and down until it's replaced. Now, with that said, since I've been here up until last winter, and I think a few years before that, it was always a shut for the winter and never used because there was never a vessel that needed it open during the winter. As of last February, one of our fishing vessels increased in size. So now it needs to be consistently open through the winter. There are heating elements in the tank to keep the fluid usable, but it was never really meant to be used all winter long. So once the fluid leaves the inner chambers and goes into the outer parts of the bridge in extreme cold weathers, I just fear that it puts unnecessarily stress on the actual system. It could have been one of the reasons why we had the breakdown we did in July, because it was the system that was outside of the bridge that had the biggest fault. It's speculative, but it's possible. So my biggest fear is that we use it throughout the winter. There's a good chance something catastrophic could potentially happen to it, which means it could be potentially down during the busier season. So the idea is to potentially lock it up come the cold months, say January, February, and leave it up until it warms up, probably sometime in March or April. Now, it's not a new concept. I think Harry Horning, two harbormasters ago, there were vessels that needed to get through it at that time, and he used to, what I'm told is that while his stint as harbormaster, or he would just open it up and leave it open all winter long. So it wouldn't be the first time it would happen. So that's my two cents. Obviously, it's a community decision of how you want to play this, but that's my recommendation. [2:01:05] Bob Whitelaw: Okay, so we're considering only today, no decision except to have a workshop so all can be heard. Anyone on the select board have any comment? Anybody in the public want to come up and comment simply on the workshop idea, not the bridge itself? Ben, any hands raised? No hands. So do I have a motion to direct the town manager to coordinate a public workshop on the request to secure the Perkins Cove bridge in its raised open position for the coming winter, allowing vessels to pass while closing the pedestrian crossing? The workshop should give the select board and community an opportunity to offer views, ask questions of the harbor master and representatives of police, fire, and public works. Motion made by Miss Aaron, second by Mr. Roulette, for discussion. [2:02:02] Scott Vogel: oh i almost caught you for my question before the motion but aaron is there a reason in your discussions at least we do have a harbor committee and i would be interested and their viewpoint on this, and certainly they could come to a public meeting. And certainly at the end of the day, it's the town's decision. I happen to be the liaison to that committee, and they haven't had a meeting yet since I've been elected. Has that been discussed, et cetera? Any information on that front? [2:02:36] Speaker J (unidentified): No, it hasn't been discussed. The way traditionally the Harbor Committee meeting works is just once a year. Tends to be in the middle of the winter when most of the people that are on the committee are free. So we haven't had one. It probably won't happen until sometime December, January. But we could certainly, I could try to call one together if it interests you. I know some people could probably make it. [2:03:06] Scott Vogel: At minimum, maybe at least invite them to public meetings so that they, and I can work with Matt on that. [2:03:13] Speaker J (unidentified): No, 100, and I, you know, I believe it's important to get it out there just for the residents that use it consistently too during the winter. I'd love for them to have two cents on this issue. [2:03:26] Scott Vogel: Point, because the committee is often made up of the users of the cove, not necessarily the users of the bridge, although I'm sure some of them do. Yeah, 100, so [2:03:41] Bob Whitelaw: we have a motion and we have a second. Miss Aaron, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. Ball, how do you vote? Yes. Mr. How do you vote? Yes. Mr. Nobly, how do you vote? Yes. Ni2mes 5-0. I'll have the town manager schedule that workshop soon before the cold weather comes. I appreciate it. 8.4 is an addition from the consent, Dunaway Center uses, Mr. Ouellette, you pulled that. You have the floor. [2:04:14] Scott Vogel: Just one was, one indicated that it was the town planning it. Sorry, let me get there on the agenda. Lost my spot. On the senior luncheon, that's clear. It's the town working with local restaurants to provide that. On the line dancing, it looks like, is this the town organizing this with this person who instructs these classes, et cetera? [2:04:53] Bob Whitelaw: I have the professional line dancer walking up as we speak. She's born and raised in Conway, Texas. [2:05:06] Speaker N (unidentified): It is the town. It was suggested by some of the people that go to the moderate exercise class they found somebody that would be doing could do a line dancing so we're incorporating that as part of a town function and yes the other one is definitely the senior luncheon is town function and I want to thank actually Mr. Vogel for agreeing to have crew do our first senior lunch in January so yes [2:05:32] Scott Vogel: Thank you so for the thank you Scott too so for the public the line dancing class would be free on Mondays between 8 30 and 9 and then the luncheon is being proposed to start in January and it would be the second Friday of each month from 11 30 to 1. That's correct and we have [2:05:56] Speaker N (unidentified): Businesses signed up for both January and February and if this goes approved we wanted to have some start for that so that's why we had gotten two businesses restaurants to sign up first and then if this gets approved then we'll sign up other restaurants for the remaining part of this of the year thank [2:06:14] Bob Whitelaw: you 're welcome so i guess i need a motion to approve these two so moved motion made by mr oled seconded miss aaron how do you vote yes mr boba how do you vote mr oled how do you vote yes mr nobly how do you vote yes and i too am a yes mr chair yeah i will [2:06:37] Scott Vogel: Say I love all of this coming to us and I would not want to not hear about it but I think working on a policy where the that the town can follow as far as approving town sanctioned events here in the building might make sense both so that the town can move forward quickly on matters that you know we meet twice a month etc and I'm not sure we have to be involved in every little detail so I don't know if you agree but no I agree with that I get that maybe we can draft a policy or maybe the town Manager can draft a policy on that okay thank you 9.0 [2:07:19] Bob Whitelaw: Is communications all the warrants have been signed 10.0 is public comments stuff board welcomes public comment we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes et cetera et cetera et cetera who wants to go first okay Pat good [2:07:46] Speaker A (unidentified): morning pat hussey ocean heights lane just yesterday i watched your last select board meeting and i was glad to see your interactions and discussion surrounding the actions honoring kirsten ross i certainly supported the chair's initial positive response and vote and shortly after your meeting i had received a 5 000 check dollar check made out in her honor to the bob win scholarship fund sponsored by the ira not the ira i wondered though why was an anonymous letter read it certainly has not been the practice of past agunquit select boards while you removed item two six from the consent agree agenda on this issue for the purpose of discussion by you and the general public why at this time was an anonymous letter read obviously someone took time to write a two-page letter cited ordinances made suggestions called for public input referred to the comp plan gave a history lesson from the 1920s mentioned the word transparency a few times requested a public debate by you as you did and asked one of the new Select Board members to read the anonymous letter while extolling his virtues. How eve, however, even with the call for public input, that person remained anonymous. Why not begin public input by identifying who you are and offering your concerns in person, as is the requirement of all of us who come to this podium to speak during public comment? And yes, be prepared to deal with the differences which exist in this community and questions which people may have, as we saw this morning. After all, the anonymous letter was not a whistleblower letter, nor was it exposing serious violations in the town where a person may fear reprisals. It was simply a letter with a point of view, and I have to say I found it curious that the Select Board member who constantly talks about openness and transparency read an anonymous letter instead of declining to do so in the interest of openness and transparency. If the person's name is not revealed, how can we assess his or her credibility? How do we know the person is a resident, a voter, or a taxpayer in this town? What is his or her address? You as a board and we in the public cannot see or evaluate if there are conflicts of interest or certain motives present. Is there an attempt to influence your select board decisions? What if a select board family member or friend wants a viewpoint expressed, but it's done under the guise of anonymity? Is that honest, open, and transparent? In the future, then, I just ask, what will you do? Will you abide by past actions and not read anonymous letters? Or will you make a decision to read anonymous letters? And if you do, will you decide that you will read all anonymous letters? I think it's fair to know how you will proceed in the days to come on this issue of anonymous letters. Thank you. Thank you. [2:11:42] Rebecca Fox: Rebecca Fox, 21 Avenue, Marginal Avenue taxpayer, part-time resident. I was also somewhat shocked that an anonymous letter was read into the public record at the last select board meeting. And I support what the previous speaker has asked for. A justification is needed if this action, selectively supporting statements by anonymous authors, will be allowed to continue. In addition, I want to focus on the fact that at least part of the reasoning behind Mr. Nobile agreeing to read the letter was that the author, identified as a she, had something to say but wanted to remain anonymous because of potential quote bullying and intimidation unquote. If so, then is this the reason why so few residents speak during public comment? Because of fear of reprisals from who and what? Topics are so inflammatory as to cause such trepidation. Should I be afraid of speaking here today after all? I've identified myself. I want to point out that at the recent community forum, attendees wore name tags, not for outing their identity, but rather to be friendly and possibly to talk to their neighbor by name. No one gave an address, but it was assumed everyone was a resident. There was no timekeeper, but speakers were asked to limit their comments so more could be heard from. People appeared to give their opinions freely without fear of reprisal, even when they disagreed with the speaker who spoke before them. It was obvious that more town residents than the few who speak up at select board meetings want to be heard. This was my original ending to this, which I will read. I suggest reviewing the atmosphere around public comment, particularly your reception of residents' comments, fostering a discussion and responding in a serious manner to questions asked might be a Better avenue to take than inviting a new flurry of anonymous letters. And I want to appreciate the fact that I've seen more discussion, agreement and non-agreement today than I've seen in a select board meeting for a long time, allowing answers to be given and back and forth communication. So I want to thank you for that and I hope it continues. [2:14:15] Rick Dolliver: Rick Dulliver, 331 Shore Road. I actually agree with the two of them. Anonymous letters, in my opinion, should not be read. They were never read. But, and this is a big but, ORA puts out a newsletter every month, and I've asked for many, years to sign it. So for a group that is coming to the podium and commanding and demanding transparency and openness, I would ask the same. If I have something to say, I say it, and I put my name to it. You all know it. I sign whatever I say. I can't say that about everybody in this room. Second, somebody brought up a point that somebody talked to a donor who is anonymous and this and that. I would remind this board, the people that were on the board when I was on the board, there was an email that some people saw from committee members to somebody thanking them for an anonymous donation that I'm not even sure they know who that is. And I brought it to the powers that be that 's just completely inappropriate. In the words of Bunky, committee members work at the pleasure of the board. And I and I felt and I still feel that is no committee members responsibility to be sending an email representing yourself as a committee member in this town. down, thanking somebody for an anonymous donation that you shouldn't even know about in the first place. And lastly, I want to start out by thanking Scott Vogel for a few days before our fundraising event. He sent me a text, I was 10 in bar, and he said, hey, listen, I want to join in on the festivities and I want to cut my hair. And he did. And I did. And lo and behold, I think 11 people either cut their hair or shaved their heads. I didn't know we could really get that many people in and around my building. I think there are over 500 people in and out of there. We're still tallying up. But I can say with confidence that for the Barbara Bush Pediatric Cancer Unit and the Maine Children's Cancer Program, a little old fundraiser in Agunquit, Maine, is definitely going to raise over $400,000. I thank everybody that donated. I thank the Perkins family for allowing people to park in their lots. I can't thank everybody because there's just too many of you, but that, to me, shows community. Community. Every day we get up and we're healthy and your kids and grandkids and nieces and nephews are healthy. I appreciate everybody that came out. I appreciate everybody that donated. I appreciate people that didn't donate. A lot of people came there for the free food. Fantastic. But it was just a great event. And I thank you. And I don't plan on doing it again. But who knows? I'm kind of crazy so we might thanks for what you do thank you thank you Ben [2:17:53] Bob Whitelaw: Oh whoa. [2:17:58] Speaker O (unidentified): Babe you have I'm here speaking of my role as the chair for the planning board a full planning board in the Gunkwood has five full members and two alternates right now we have four members and no alternates and we've had a couple meetings where we've had a quorum at risk. I'd like to put on an appeal to the town registered voters that we need at least one and hopefully three people to step forward and help us move forward. The day-to-day business, or I should say the week-to-week business of the planning board is pretty cut and dried. It's viewing applications from mostly businesses, but also homeowners in town to make revisions to their properties but there's another big issue that we're dealing with right now and that's updating amendments excuse me I'm updating and making amendments to the Agunqua zoning ordinance to help us comply with some rapidly changing state laws and to comply with the strategies and the comprehensive plan so it's actually an exciting time as we go through this so if anyone's interested in joining Please take out an application get it to Chris Murphy and hopefully we can get a full planning [2:19:14] Bob Whitelaw: Board going through 2027 and beyond thank you thank you Ben any hands raised [2:19:23] Speaker H (unidentified): Yes we have one hand it's Mary Buck good [2:19:32] Speaker A (unidentified): Morning. I'm assuming you can hear me. Yes. Thank you. I'd like to read an email. Actually, I'll be reading two short ones. This email was dated on September 16th, 2026. It was actually sent on September 18th, 2026. Dear Chair Robert Whitelaw and Vice Chair Carol Aaron, this is our request to be placed on the agenda of the October 6, 2026 Select Board meeting for consideration and approval as a town sanctioned group. On Wednesday evening, September 14, 2026, a community forum was held at the Dunaway Center welcoming all residents, taxpayers, voters, and business owners to, quote, come and talk about our town, unquote. Approximately 130 citizens attended. They shared their concerns and ideas about a variety of town issues in a lively, productive way. Participants expressed their enthusiasm on having follow-up meetings to continue the dialogue. The cost to rent the auditorium for this meeting was $100, plus the expense of having to buy an insurance policy. This is understandable for non-resident groups seeking to use the facility, a birthday party, a wedding, a memorial service, but it should not be applied to us, residents and taxpayers. Former Select Board member Rick Dolliver, who attended the forum, mentioned that if we contact the Select Board about becoming a town-approved group, we would not have to pay the fees again if that incurred. We hope you will approve our request. Thank you for your time. Members of the Agunquit Community Forum, I signed Barbara Ferraro, Rebecca Fox, and Marsha Northrup. We heard absolutely nothing. So on September 29th, a follow-up email was sent. Bob and Carol, good afternoon. I've been assuming you received our request sent on 9-18-26. Because I have not heard anything, can you clarify with me that you did receive the request? Thank you, Barbara. Neither email was answered by either Bob or Carol. The agenda comes out for this morning's meeting, and there are actually two items up for discussion listed under Dunaway Center, but not our request. So why? Why have you chosen not to respond to this email or to put it on the agenda? I want an answer to that question. [2:22:20] Bob Whitelaw: Okay, thank you. [2:22:35] Marcia Northrop: Marcia Northrop, Rob Fieldstone Lane. I don't quit for many years, residents routine routinely attended select board meetings in significant numbers and stood willingly in line to offer their opinions and ideas on topics the board was discussing. The lively back and forth conversation with the board was what was needed to reassure residents that they were welcome to contribute and were considered an important part in town decisions that were being made. Today meetings are sparsely attended and an apathy has set in. The community forum was an in an effort to reconnect and begin a dialogue again between all the factions in town, to try to recapture the communication and camaraderie that we once took for granted. Many people came to talk about Agunquit, and they were interested in continuing this discussion on a regular basis. You have to start somewhere. And this forum revealed that if given a chance to speak in a friendly environment, they have a lot of substance to add to the conversation. Why would you fail to sanction this endeavor? [2:24:08] Bob Whitelaw: Thank you. Ben, any hands raised? [2:24:14] Speaker H (unidentified): We have two hands. Mary Buck has raised her hand again. And then we have Susie Nobly. [2:24:22] Bob Whitelaw: No, Mary Buck had her chance. Now I didn't make the rules, that's the rules. Let's go to Nobly and then Barbara. Okay. [2:24:37] Suzy Nobly: Can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Great. Hi, Suzy Nobly, 48 Ocean. I do want to say I did attend the forum. I came at 5.04 and I didn't get any mailing for that. So it seems like a lot of people got mailings, but some addresses of residents did not get mailings, which I was not happy to see. And when I arrived, there were paper writings that were posted on the wall of all the concerns people brought up, and they were already voted on as well, which I thought was interesting because the meeting was supposed to start at five. And I came at 5.04 and I talked to other people who came at five or before, and they said they were posted already. But when I asked, I stood up and I asked, Barbara, what happened? Was there another meeting? She said, no, there's not a meeting. People started doing this at 5 p.m., which would clearly be impossible to post all those things and already vote on them. So come on, guys, let's be transparent. That's all I have to say. [2:26:04] Bob Whitelaw: Thank you, Barbara. No, I said thank you. And then I said, oh, I should have put a comment in there or something. [2:26:14] Barbara: It's OK, Bob. It's OK. We're all in this together. And a lot of misinformation just came through from the past speaker. Everybody got a mailing, but even the process was very clear, but I'm not even going to address that. I am gonna, I am wondering why Matt brought up the fact that I had been an alternate or a chair when I was asking a question about the campus, when I wasn't an alternate when that compromise happened, because you all refused to appoint an alternate that year. So I'm not sure why that came up, but I'm here. I want to thank you, Bob, for supporting Kirsten, who was a volunteer, let's remember, in this town, and spent a lot of hours with people and concerning about issues. I want to, I am happy that you're going to discuss how this process moves forward, but in that process, could you please address the room in this building that is named after a paid employee? And if a tree in the main building over there is being seen as an asset, why is in a room in this building seen as an asset? And I'm, I wonder why the two people that had a problem at the select board meeting about Kirsten, why they haven't brought up the issue of a name on a bit on a office that I'm not sure the select board ever approved. That I have attended many select board meetings and I have never heard a discussion on naming the I.T room after a person that worked there that was employed. So I just put that out. The other thing I want to mention, two issues. One is that I know King's rally is going to be on October 17th from 12 to 2 on Main Street in front of the post office. It's a national no-Kings rally. And then also the next community forum will be November 12th here in this building from 5 to 7. And I do hope that you will answer Mary's question, Bob. I would appreciate that. [2:28:39] Bob Whitelaw: Just so you know, I have craft. Well, I didn't craft. I asked Carol and Matt. I was indisposed around the time of that email, and I did receive it, and I asked them to craft some language around that, and that should be coming to you forthwith soon. I apologize that it didn't go out when I'd asked it to go out, but some things just happen. Sorry. Where am I? What am I? Who am I? Ben, are there any other hands raised? No hands. Okay. Okay. Anyone else want to come up? No? Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go first. Barbara, you asked about OPA. Janelle and Ben and I and some electricians are working on a plan to re-electrify the lighting system, and nothing was lost. It was all stored. It was actually stored by OPA. So they actually remember where some of the stuff was, but have found it. We did not buy sconces for these walls or use those sconces because they were out of code. They had no, what do you call that, the neutral there was, they weren't, they weren't, they're old, they weren't wired correctly. There's no ground, you know, there was no ground. But all the other lights will be, we will come back. There's some concern about the size of the stage. Well, in order to get the proper HVAC configuration to keep the mold away, some of the stage had to be used for that purpose. As far as anonymous letters, I want to remind everyone that the chair generally sets the agenda and manages the meetings. i don't normally stop people members from speaking i try not to stop other people from speaking unless they go off into a tangent that's not if you're doing a public hearing about the color of this desk and you go off and talk about the color of the wall you might get stopped but there is this you know i hate using constitutional things but you know someone wants to read something the members generally have that and if you disagree with it so be it but i'm gonna i'm gonna ponder that a little bit more over the next few weeks or days let's see what else did i have to say, Oh, you, 'll get, yeah, I'm, I'm going first cause it's a select board liaison and I just want to get it out of the way. I think, well, dollar were left and he did have a phenomenal event and $400,000 goes a long way. They actually, the last time he did it, was a lot of money and they listed some of the positions that are, they're able to hire. And you know, You know, when a child is facing a really difficult cancer predicament, they need help and support. And these are generally not kids who are going to get any better. And they had a family there, and it was very moving, very moving. And because of his efforts and the community's efforts,, they were able to hire people, professional psychologists, psychiatrists, to help families cope with the ultimate demise of their child, and it was a pretty moving thing. So I congratulate him, and I also congratulate Scott, because he does his thing, too, for the Inn at NIH, which I hope comes back soon. But he's... Are we allowed to talk about your little one yet? Sure. Scottie's going to have a baby. He's going to have a little girl, right? It'll be named Roberta. So, anyway, congratulations, Scottie. I hope we do Stashes to Lashes again. It's always a good one. [2:33:15] Speaker A (unidentified): Goes to the right place. Carol, your turn. Thank you. I do want to apologize for my lack of responding to emails. I lost my wallet. I lost my phone. I've had to haul and track down every one of my credit cards. Don't ever lose your phone and your identity. It takes forever to put it back together, so I have been very remiss on following up a lot of stuff, so I apologize. I will go back and look for the emails I've list, okay, Scotty. [2:33:54] Bob Whitelaw: Okay, I did, I'm sorry. [2:34:05] Scott Vogel: We have been talking about how to get the word out about all the opportunities in town to become involved, and I think we'll continue those discussions. I think it's important to remember that we spent a number of years on a comprehensive plan. Many of the people who worked on that are in this room and are watching, and countless meetings happened where public input was sought out, and additional events throughout the couple years of putting that, putting the plan together before it was voted on, included inviting the public to give input, and I happened to attend many of those and thought it was a great community, the community coming together was a great opportunity, and now that we have an approved plan, we are making every effort whether it's the town manager and the employees of the town, whether it's us, or whether it's the committees of the town, are all working to try to move forward on what the voters have said, hey, this is what we want the town to do moving forward. We also had great summary today, but we had our campus project which included many,, many, meetings, all where the public was always invited to give their input, and there were many sessions where the public was invited and actually different concepts were presented and the public weighed in on which concepts to do. Going back to that time, we were fighting over should the Dunaway Center remain as the town hall and police station, should the school be a community center, and vice versa, etc. We have our meetings which I'm proud to say when I became chair, prior to when I became chair the last time I served there pretty much was very little, there were a lot of agenda items where the public was not invited to speak, and when I became chair I was committed to as often as we could allowing the public to weigh in on Any decision we were gonna make, and I think that tradition has for the most part continued. This select boards has set its priorities, a lot of it based in what is in the comprehensive plan and or what members here feel like is priority or what were our priorities when we got elected and why people elected us to serve. We have over 10 committees that all meet on a monthly basis and the public is always invited to any of those meetings and I believe that any time a member of the public is at those meetings, they're invited to weigh in and give their input on any of those discussions. So I think that I don't think we have an issue of not having enough opportunities for people to weigh in. I will say I think at times it would be better and at times it would be nice if more people came to weigh in and I think we as a community need to do a better job of sharing with the public all of these opportunities that are before us whether it's if your interest is in the environment or the watershed we have a committee focus on that whether you're interested in sidewalks and bike lanes we have a committee for that whether you're interested in more opportunities for community events we have our Parks and Rec committee etc and I would ask that the board continued to try to work with the town manager on how to get that information out to the general public about all the opportunities that we currently offer and the people who regularly attend this meetings please do your part to also share all the opportunities thank you mr nobly i appreciate it [2:38:47] Keith Willett: Three quick things if i may first of all i want to again if people missed it now we will have at least at footbridge facilities, bathroom facilities during the shellfish season. And I think that's great for encouraging people who are out there in the middle of winter. But I think it's also something I'd like us to talk about at some point in the future, providing that sort of comfort for our visitors and our residents, especially where they're youth or elderly or people with health issues, I think there's enough care and revenue in this town to figure out some way to have facilities in the dead of winter for folks that come visit, because I see how busy that parking lot is, and I'm sure other folks do. Secondly, I want to say, for all the conversation about the finance and the mechanics and all the process that Mandy laid out in great detail, and Marianne, thanks for backing it up. You know, five years from now, certainly 10 years from now, nobody's going to remember this conversation. What they're going to know and experience is what we have, what we put in place today, which is generational. And so we have a building that is safe, that is healthy, that is accessible. And now it's on us to move forward with it. And, you know, I see the pieces coming together for that nicely. And last, I just want to wrap up and say, and I know we'll have opportunity in the future to thank Matt for his accomplishments. And I would just want to say it now that it's out in the public, we've had a town manager over five years who was focused and really had deep personal care for the people of the community, the visitors of the community, and determined to preserve the character of our town of Algonquin while recognizing that we're in a world that keeps changing. And so that is a tremendous legacy and a responsibility for us as a select board and a town to find the next manager who will keep moving that ahead. And again, I really appreciate Matt and certainly how he's boosted all the departments in the town and really, I think, our value as a community, both financially being rated as we are and also, I think, as a destination of desire. Thank you. [2:41:23] Bob Whitelaw: Thank you. 11.1 is an executive session. The select board plans to go into an executive session pursuant to Maine Law Title I MRSA 405.6A to discuss a personnel matter. DO I HAVE A MOTION TO GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION PURSUANT TO MAIN LAW TITLE I MRSA 405.6 A TO DISCUSS A PERSONAL MATTER SO MOVED SO MOVED MOTION MADE BY MS. AARON SECOND BY MR. VOGEL MR. NOBLEY HOW DO YOU VOTE YES MS. AARON YES MR. VOGEL YES MR. OLEG YES AND I TOO I ME I mean, yes, it's 5-0.