Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[9:36] Clint: IoT and BACs want that larger project too, so now they're working with us on the smaller ones and we're piecing it together. And so she's about to take over. The ground rule I want to set is that she's got a presentation up there. That slide shows Route 2 improvements and a photo of the road. The last slide on there is the exact same thing there. She's got a lot to cover and Route 2 is an exciting topic where we can have a lot of fun tangents. Let's get through what she's got to present. I think it's five to ten minutes of information and then we can get through the Q&As, if that works for everybody. I promised I won't ask questions and I've been, I'll ask.
[10:16] Council Chair: Everybody to kind of follow Clint's rule and my lead, so I, and if I can, I want tangents, I just
[10:22] Clint: want to finish. She's got a lot of good information to share tonight and I thought we'd start just
[10:25] Council Chair: later, but questions later, but we're not going to be prepared to go particularly far down any, you know, pedestrian bridges across rivers and stuff like that. I know we're working on it, but
[10:38] EJ Roach: soccer game i'll try not to go down thank you as well so this was a fun update to put together for you guys because being so new in the role i got to learn a lot too and i got to talk with a lot of different people at maine d.o.t previous staff members some people at backs and try to incorp try to get all this data for you guys to present it one way it is going to be more like 15 minutes sorry clint but so we'll move we'll move right along i want to start on the background of route 2 in the planning study and talk about that a little bit and talk about our current strategy forward clint just gave a nice kind of overview of what that looks like i want to reiterate that again and then talk about the current structure or the current condition of route 2 and then a couple projects that we have moving forward and then some future directions so, as you well know, we have a route to planning study, and this was kicked off in 2022 by the town by main dot and by backs and they worked with tobacco to complete this and the idea was to take some previous studies that they had already done, do some new data and some new investigations and merge them into a holistic corridor project. Project. And so it took them a couple years to do that. The council does have a resolve on this planning study. It was accepted in October of 2024, and the final report was in January of 2025. So I do have that linked here for those online who want to take a look at that a little deeper. As Clint said, the town was working towards finishing this as a single project, but the funding is no longer, will no longer available. So, that's okay, we're going to pivot. The current strategy is to phase this out into different sections, so we're actually in a very good position where we can take pages of these, of this planning study, and depending on what funding comes available. And as long as it fits kind of the scope of that, we can kind of plug and play and reach out for these different funding opportunities, so we're actually in a pretty good position for that. This does require a lot of coordination with multiple different entities. As you guys know route to is a very utility dense area so you have a lot of underground utilities as well as overhead utilities. and you also have, you know, if you're going to open up a piece of road, you want to make sure other departments know so that they're doing work at the same time as when you're doing it. So you're not constantly having interruptions. So a lot of coordination needs to happen for this kind of phased approach. And what I've kind of been saying to wrap my head around it a little bit too is multiple pieces need to align in specific timeframes in an ever-changing political climate that holds different funding opportunities. That's really what it comes down to. But I'm pretty persistent, so we'll keep plugging away at it. I do want to spend a little time talking about the current state of Route 2. So when I look at this picture, what do I see? I see a curb that needs to be replaced. If the curb isn't replaced, this can lead to erosion and improper drainage and then further deterioration. I see cracks that can cause underlying – that could be caused by underlying issues, things that are going on underneath the ground or stress that's on top of the ground and leading to further deterioration when water gets into those cracks. Rudding might be pretty obvious to some. It is basically when vehicles in the high traffic that we have on Route 2, when it keeps driving over the same path, it'll compact and other layers of Route 2 will start being exposed as it gets compact. This could be a safety hazard for steering capability. And lastly, as we all know, the sidewalks, sidewalk repair needs to happen. And this can be caused by any underlying stress underneath the sidewalks as well. Further deterioration can happen from stormwater and washing it away. And of course, this causes pedestrian safety issues. So these are just some of the things that we see from above the surface, let alone some of the things maybe we don't think about underneath the surface. So, very briefly, and like I said before, Route 2 is one of the most utility dense. It also has some of the oldest infrastructure in Orono because of that. And so, we do want to take into consideration the repairs that need to be done underneath the ground there. So, this schematic is essentially showing that if you have any kind of broken stormwater infrastructure, just for an example, if you have any erosion that's happening, it can start to eat away and deteriorate at the road causing sinkholes and causing further deterioration. And typically how most you miss municipalities are you complete retroactive maintenance versus proactive maintenance because of budget restraints, that this is a very typical thing. But I think we have a really unique opportunity with upgrading Route 2 as a whole and looking at some of these things to be proactive and making sure that any of the improvements that we want to do with bike lanes or sidewalks get improved and are going to last a really long time because we've considered the underground infrastructure as well. So this is, for those who remember, this is outside Marsh Island Brewing on Route 2 where a water line started to leak, it started to erode, more water was coming out faster and faster, and started bubbling up through the road until it caused a significant hole. So these are things that do happen, and with aging infrastructure they happen more often than not. This is another example, a resident called and said that they had about a golf ball size sinkhole on a sidewalk, and by the time we got there it was about the size of a softball. Once the crew started excavating, they found out it was actually the trench was quite a few yards long. And so just an example of the extent of the damage. That you see on the surface is not always viewable. This was a storm water culvert that had collapsed underneath, and it showed a sinkhole at the top. So small surface issues can actually indicate larger underground failure. This is where it starts to get a little interesting. So this is on Main Street. This is on Route 2. This is a cracked stormwater clay pipe. And you can see clay wasn't installed after 1960s, so it's pretty old. And just to kind of compare it with this picture, you can see that the pipe doesn't continue in this picture. This is also off of root two. So what this is looking at is the scope is inside the pipe. So if we picture we have a section of pipe here, which the scope is in, a second section here, and then a third section, you can see the third section across and the second section has fall fallen down. So what's happening is you have water that's coming off of the pipe swirling around and creating essentially a sinkhole, and that those are tree roots at the top coming through. So our storm water condition isn't excellent. And my last example is this old brick catch basin. They used to make catch basins out of bricks and mortar. And so the scope is, or the camera is down in the bottom of this, looking up into daylight where the catch basin drain is. And you can see the mortar starting to come loose. Some of the bricks are starting to fall through versus the newer catch basins that are a full cement cylinder. But we do have at least six different topics or projects that we wanna talk about that we have been in communication with the main DOT, with BACS, and with other departments that I'm definitely excited to share with you guys about. So a brief timeline and why these things are in this order is because next year we're gonna be completing sanitary sewer improvements starting in 2027. So this is the blue area of the map. That's where it will be replaced. And the sanitary sewer is right in the middle of the road, right under the median lines. So they'll be trenching that open and repairing those starting next year. We're also in talks with main dot about having them consider a project which will be the rock wall realignment. I'll get into that a little bit more, but we just submitted that to them, so that's kind of why it's second on the list there, to get that moving along. I'm gonna merge stormwater and sidewalk repair plan because I think they go hand in hand in multiple reasons, and I'll get into that a little bit, and then the downtown CDS improvements should be completed in 2029, so we're going to talk about that first. And lastly, have heavy treatment, which is an over, which is pavement from Maine DOT, should be happening in 2020, 30, or 2031. So we want to make sure we get all these stuff done before they come in and they pave, or that's the way my brain likes to work. So let's start with these three. I'm going to start with the CDS funded downtown project. So this is well on its way. This is the project that is furthest along in the in the completion process. So Main D.O.T. put in and received funding for this project in 2024. This allows for a portion of that route to planning study to be completed, which is great news. The location is from Goodridge Drive to the Brandon Silk Memorial Bridge, and specifically it talks more about this in pages 35 to 37 of the route to planning study if you're interested. I do want to give you the at least the scope of what we're considering right now. So we have already been working with Sebago and Maine DOT on looking at these draft plans and have been in great communication with our partners to keep to keep this moving forward. The scope for this project is they're going to upgrade stormwater improvements in the entire area, which is great news because it's some of the oldest that we have in Orono. They're going to consider and do signal improvements. So this means one, a technology upgrade, which will be smart cameras that can adapt signals to traffic in real time, and also making sure to consider timing. So we want to be very cognizant of balancing and maximizing traffic being able to go through while also limiting the weight for pedestrians. So we're very conscientious about that. We're also going to take into account lane switches to help traffic get through in certain times of the day and also implement bike lanes and do sidewalk improvements. So it's quite a large scope in that area. We're excited about it and the anticipated timeline for that. Like I said, we have been in talks with Maine DOT about this and we should get a preliminary design report this fall. As soon as that happens, they're going to send out a date for a public input opportunity, which will be an online format only, but we'll make sure to share that out to you guys when we receive that. And then it should, it will take 12 to 15 months to get to that final design point after that. And in spring 2028, we'll advertise for construction and hopefully to be completed by mid 2029. This is a schematic that Maine DOT has on their website. I put the link up there for those who want to look at it after, or if it's a little fuzzy online. But the red arrow is showing in the process where we are with the CDS project. So we're about halfway through and making good progress to keeping it on task. So second, I want to talk about the rock we rock realignment project. And like I said, we're kind of in the first stages of this. Essentially, if you think about it this way, we plucked that out of the Route 2 planning phase and we sent it back to Main D.O.T. and we said, hey, can you consider this into your endear work plan? We'd like to get this shuffled in as soon as possible. The reason being is because this is a constricting point on Route 2 and you can, you can slightly see it in the map up here, but there is a bend in Route 2 when you get there and what happens is the rock wall constricts everything into a, into a narrow area. And when you talk about a holistic design, we want to try to open that up a little bit and allow for the same amount of travel lanes to come out, bike lanes and sidewalks to go all the way through that corridor. So we submitted this for preliminary engineering with the help of backs. We did hear back that Main DOT is not adding anything to their work plan in spring of 2027 so we should hear back of where we fall into line after that. But this is for more information on this is page 34 of the Route 2 planning study. And again, if you're looking at the schematic of what this means for Main DOT, we would kind of be placing it in that preliminary engineering phase right back there. So a few steps behind where we're at with CDS right now. So this might look familiar to you. This was presented to the council in July of 2024 in a public meeting and this talks a little bit about that realignment. So if you look at the red lines, that's going to be the right-of-way and essentially the idea is to take the median yellow line and shift it, well on this it would be north on this oriented picture, but shift it up a little bit so that it's right in the middle of the right of way. And what that does is it allows for on the right hand side of this picture, it allows for the poles to scoot a little bit away from that rock wall and give yourself enough space to have a sidewalk an Espionage a bike lane and then your same amount of travel lanes there, and that's the idea with that realignment or that shift. But of course, everything that shifts up top needs things need to shift underneath as well, so they're going to be redoing stormwater in that area as well if we get selected to move forward into preliminary engineering. This is just a little bit of a close-up. So lastly, in 2030 or 2031, this area of Main Street and College Avenue is a candidate for heavy treatment, which means that Main D.O.T. will come in and mill and fill and then create an overlay, so have nice new pavement over the top. The nice thing about being a candidate is that we can, while working with Backs, we can kind of talk with Main DOT and say, hey, would you consider this in your scope of repaving? Will you also consider, you know, upgrades to crosswalks or bike lanes or lane shifts? And we can kind of make some of those suggestions and see what sticks. So since we have a route to planning study, we have a lot of that stuff already, and we can kind of throw that in there. But the idea is that we want to get all those infrastructure improvements completed before this paving project happens, and we are actively working on a plan for stormwater improvements and sidewalk improvements. You know, it's without a doubt, you look at the sidewalks and they're so well used and is should be a priority for upgrades. So we're trying to figure out the stormwater is older than the 1960s, like I said before, it's in cracked and poor core condition. Most of our stormwater on Route 2 is directly under sidewalks. So the benefit of that is that when you open it up, it's right there. It's easy, accessible to get to. You can repave and you have a pretty good set sidewalk for years because of that. We would like to consider that when we open up, replace the stormwater when we do open up the sidewalks. We don't want to be opening it up multiple times or if there does create a sinkhole then opening up brand new sidewalk essentially, so we're actively working on a on a plan for that. The orange parts are where storm water is, and then of course all the sidewalk that needs to be considered in that area. As a recent development this morning, I talked with Bax about an urban partnership initiative, which is a 50 paid grant for sidewalk improvements. So we are moving right along. And I will keep you updated on that.
[27:10] Council Chair: Can you just repeat that?
[27:13] EJ Roach: Sure. So the Urban Partnership Initiative is with Main DOT, and you can submit active transport projects to BACKS. BACKS will prioritize those projects and then submit them to Main DOT. Because our sidewalks are in a street, Complete Streets corridor or a prioritization area, we could score pretty high. But that means that we need to get our CCTV assessments in stormwater and get that kind of underway as well. But that would be a 50% match. So we would like to align all of these projects before that heavy treatment happens. And as you can see, there's a lot of different moving pieces, a lot of different schematics on just this one portion of Route Two, but we are actively having conversations with Main DOT and pushing forward with these. So this is the picture you saw in the beginning, but I just want to end with this. The Route 2 planning study has given us a, given the town a road map. Our focus now is leveraging funding opportunities and coordinating infrastructure investments so that we can make smart phased improvements that address both the roadway and the aging utilities beneath it.
[28:37] Council Chair: Very open to discussion here. Okay, let's see what we got. What do we have? Any questions or suggestions, things we want to follow up on? Matt.
[28:51] Speaker D (unidentified): i just want to say thank you for bringing this to the attention it was one of the things that i was excited to see that you're doing and letting the community know where we are at this route to plan you know despite being thrown sideways so i really appreciate this update and then i hope people we can drive people to this us when they ask us what's going on yep i
[29:14] Speaker E (unidentified): just say I think something else that I see in this photo beyond the road is the utility pole in the middle of the sidewalk, which is something that just like boggles my mind and boil over a little bit every time I see one, that it's just like, well, we can put this wherever we want. But I think it looks like some of these projects have plans that are going to accommodate and create some space that sort of utility work can make a lot more sense in the future and maintain the accessibility through town for everybody, which I appreciate. All
[29:49] Council Chair: right, last chance. Is anyone from the public have any questions? So not last chance, meaning we're done, meaning last chance for everybody else. Now it's my turn, right? So in terms of policy direction from us, this is fantastic. It's phenomenal. phenomenal this is incredibly humbling work right in terms of just all the various pieces that come together and you know you 're out to the community with conversations about what we could do and you invite people to be part of a planning process and then you know for things beyond your control at the local level go away and the funds that you'd hope to be you know it was a 10 to 1 match or whatever it was right I mean it was the best it was the easiest investment or decision we were going to ever make in terms of infrastructure investment, and then the money's longer there. And you know, so I think this is, but it's so humbling because you think, all right, we want to get this done, we want to get this done, and it takes a long time. And it's so smart, seems so savvy to me that this is, or no, sort of taking control of this process to the extent that we can, being ready to the extent we need to be when there are funds available, and thinking about it in a really strategic and sequenced way so we can act when opportunities present themselves. So I appreciate it, and I just, I wanted to know one on the, on the sidewalk piece, and this is the piece that I think a lot of people, you know, I've been telling people for a couple years, well, you know, it's the sidewalks you're gonna get done with the part of the big project, so we're just gonna sit tight, we're not, we're taking our eggs out of that basket. So what is the, what are your thoughts about in our capital, and this is a bigger question, but in terms of the capital planning that we do every year, what are your thoughts about sidewalk repairs and just keeping us, holding us, you know, you did one of your pictures, I almost wipe out on my bike every time, there's a little, there's two little potholes the sidewalk and two little potholes, so what's the plan in the near term to kind of keep things as, like you did on Main Street, you cemented over the cracks in the, you know, in front of the flower, the plant store and stuff like that. What, so what are your thoughts on just kind of triaging emergency stuff so we can keep people moving until we get to the bigger thing? And then the policy question, Clint, I think as much for you is, what do you want from us for policy direction and sequencing in terms of the next 12 months?
[32:15] EJ Roach: Yeah, I think those are active conversations that Adam and I are having. You know, we've talked about multiple different possibilities. Is it doing just kind of an overlay until we get some money to do a full reconstruction of them? And making them smooth, the curbs then will still unlikely not be fixed, you know, so there's one route. Could you do this UPI where you're getting 50 match and depending on if you do it in house, you could do it in a couple years, you could do all of them, or do you do, does council put it, you know, do we, does the town put in some and we do kind of a full reconstruction in one year? I mean, that's, those are just options that we're still trying to figure out so we can present the
[32:59] Council Chair: options to you. Do you think you'll be able to present something to us as we do our capital planning, our next capital plan, like having thoughts in place whether it's, that's maybe
[33:12] Clint: okay, that's probably the fairest answer I can give you. This is tough, you know, it's, we get a few months till that comes around, but we're working with entities that have all the roads in the state of Maine to work with, you know, and then some entities are getting money to all the states in the country with money for roads, so we got to kind of work within that. I think the biggest thing is yes, I need some policy decisions with the capital program if we're going to hire, prioritize the town's contributions and the model we're in is more expensive than the 10 that we were going to do, so this means reworking how we do the entire town's capital needs because it's a finite amount of money. We've been working from roughly one and a half million a year is what we've been spending. So if Route 2 is going to be a larger percentage of that, and again, we still have TIF funds, downtown funding for certain projects that we can put towards it, but it's going to change how we do it. We're going to probably have a little bit less money for some of the other streets, and they're in good shape, and we're going to present some of that information to you where our streets are at. That doesn't mean they're perfect, and that doesn't mean that anybody in town can't come in here and say their street needs to be fixed. We've, yes, there are streets that need to be fixed. We're trying to figure out how many can we fit in and what does that mean for a list for the council to see. So I think that's where we're at. I think when the policy when that comes forward in the capital plan you'll see some of that information and if you endorse it means okay this is the plan and again as I've told you every year that plan changes we do it every year the reason being is if something happens we can't foresee right we've got to adapt roads do fall apart very quickly and that means an emergency project and that may mean delaying another other projects. So we'll, we'll deal with those. But I think that's the biggest policy is, that this is going to be a more expensive local cost to Orono because of the way we're breaking them into multiple pieces. I think that's where you wanted us to go. We can't just sit here waiting, hoping that a large project comes back where it's a 10% match. That said, I had led in with this. When it comes, we will be applying. First thing, front of line, ready to go. We're kind of, my words I'll own it I can't tell you it's listening to all the people involved MDOT and backs we're in line we're further along than a lot of other people the problem is the line is frozen right now so we got to wait and see where that puts us there are projects that were fully ready to go and their funding's been put on hold so they're in this we're next literally there's one or two towns in the state of Maine that are definitely next because they're fully ready to build we're right there behind that so we're hopeful that means we can be but what other projects pop up between now and then I mean other communities are working on what they want so then we got to see where our turn is compared to them but that's where we're at yeah
[35:55] Council Chair: It's hard to imagine we'd be able to do much with sidewalks next summer while we're tearing up the road to do the pipe right what's that look all about did you go say something so the camera
[36:07] EJ Roach: can get you so I can you know what does it mean I think there are a lot of options that we've been talking about and really good ones and I once we figure out budget I'm excited to present those to
[36:18] Clint: you and that's and when she figures out like how long we're going to wait on upi what's the match on the sidewalk we'll have a better figure we'll also be able to tell you i mean wouldn't take long for staff to figure out what's the cost to put a simple overlay on our sidewalks and you can look at that understanding that if this comes implemented exactly as shared you know by 2030 we'd be ripping some of them up yeah because we want to fix them long term right so i'm
[36:45] Council Chair: excited about your, you know, I like your creative, I like the creativity, and we want to, you know, so it's exciting. And I think this is a really smart way to present it to the public in terms of a conversation. So thank you for all the work on it. Thank you to the team, and I really do appreciate how you share credit with everybody. I think that's wonderful. Thank you. All right, next up
[37:08] Clint: public works staffing vacancies. So yeah, that's on me. Just wanted to update since this was here tonight. I have met with staff, we've had some long-term vacancies, staffs are going to be posting pretty soon for these positions. One of the primary areas though that we are looking at is that we have the facilities department where they're looking at how to come forward with that. We have contracted services in there right now, but one of the primary things is they are going to be looking to pursue an administrative assistant for that department rather than the model, but that doesn't mean a new position to the list as we are today. Megan, when she assumed the role, we shifted around a little bit, but we lost a full time senior administrative position. They're using those funds to reallocate. If the council wants a more formal presentation, this is kind of my opportunity to tell you how we're approaching the vacancies. The goal is to net no new monies that will be balanced for future budget years, but again with some of the demands we have, bigger buildings, you know, we're adding a police station, we're going to be adding on library facilities, is going to need more for cleaning. We are looking very closely at that to say that we can get out the other side with no additional costs three years from now when they're done. We're working very hard to find out if we can do it without out adding staff, but that does not, I'm not going to say we figured it out yet because we haven't. If we had figured it out, I'd be presenting, it's all set. We don't know how to do it yet.
[38:38] Council Chair: So I know you're going to say something silly to me. Oh, that's just the full. Yeah, so yeah, but if
[38:42] Clint: you have questions about this, is why we want to get in front of you. Yeah, I look at Jacob, what
[38:48] Council Chair: I'm thinking about telling a joke, and I think no, this is not going to. All right, God, Jacob, anyway.
[38:54] Speaker F (unidentified): Anyway, so how seriously are you looking at contracted services? So I'm thinking, you know, cleaning and things of that nature and the cost, effectiveness of that.
[39:08] Clint: So we've been using contracted services for off and on a year and a half, and we've been fully vested with them for at least a year. So but that is not, that's on an interim agreement month to month with a notice requirement. Environment we have a proposal for long term and I think kind of the team's decision and this is a over summarizing I apologize but I think where we're at is we want to look at it very closely for this year's budget process that's coming out reserving the opportunity if we get a better idea or figure out how we want to do it we'll probably present in advance of that because we've got a solution but that's where we're at right now and I say 50 I mean we're staying with contracted service right Now for cleaning we're because that's what works because if we add staff that's permanent contracted services we can get out of for now so that's where we're staying for the foreseeable future. I don't know if that's two months or six months, but that's where we're staying for now with a permanent plan by the next budget. Okay.
[40:12] Council Chair: Anything else on that? Thank you for the update. Next up is ALPR technology, Flock cameras. We talked about this at a council meeting, last council meeting, and we've got a memo in here.
[40:27] Clint: Yeah, that's on. Yeah, so this one's falling to me. Staff weighed in. I did share some of this with them. I did a little bit of research on my own because it was at the policy level where I wasn't 100% certain what the goals or expectations of the council were. I kind of took it on myself for a policy moment. If it does, there are staff more closely. I mean, police department obviously would be a great group to have involved. Ordinance review committee might be involved, community development committee might be involved, town clerk's office because the relationships with ordinances might be, you know, I can see a lot of different places where it comes in. I guess I just wanted to make sure the council had a very good update in the community of advanced license plate, our automated license plate recognition. Block is the brand name of a company that's become the brand name of the industry, so to speak, but it is a technology that's used. We do not have it deployed by the town at all, at any level. Does that mean a private organization or entity has it here? I don't think they do, but to say 100 certainty, private companies can do what they want on their land, so that would be the gap. I can say many of the websites of these companies have their locations posted, so you know where they put it, because it's one of their sales pieces. I didn't find anything in Orno when I looked at a couple of them, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist anywhere. I'm not certain of it, but I know the town owns none, nor do we have any plans to
Public Comment
[41:53] Council Chair: implement any. Okay, any questions, clarifying questions, or discussion topics? Yeah, let's do, I guess let's do them both, I guess, since it's not, this isn't usually, okay, usually we have an action item. I go clarifying questions for council first, then open it up for public comment, and then detailed discussion, but since it's not a action item, let's just dive in. I know others brought it forward, is something they wanted to see us pursue. How do you, happy to, I gave suggestions
[42:28] Clint: at the end there's some policy ways you could go you tell us which way you want to go with this from this meeting today we'll keep moving it forward i would say you're it's going to be november i mean we're working on it but to really get into it 's going to be into november before we can get into unless there was this and again if council's got a simpler approach they would like to approach to follow we're we're interested to hear that as well does anyone think option a
[42:50] Council Chair: take no action is the right approach? No, okay, so move on to that one. I
[42:57] Speaker F (unidentified): kind of, I'd like option A because we're not using it, and option A says if the town decides to use it, then we'll have the bigger discussion. It seems like a given, all that's on everybody's plate right now, especially budget season coming up. Yep, yeah, the others wanted some more energy and potential
[43:19] Speaker E (unidentified): Leadership on it, right? So I think regardless of the choice that we pick, and I didn't, I know a lot of the options that were kind of put out there, we're talking about council review. Just some clarity for me, or what clarity would look like for me, is that official or that knowledge that if this were to come up at any point now or down the road, that there would be that whatever we put in place now would require not only like a council decision but public notice and public input. And if that's captured in option one in a way that is going to be consistent beyond the whim of this council sitting here today, then I'm okay with option one. But I think that would be the outcome that I'd like to see. And that sounded a little like option two, but... Yeah. No, I think it does.
[44:14] Council Chair: But I think it's a lot less work than option C, right? Which kind of gets to, I think, Jacob's surprisingly good point in his comments. Sorry. I'm sorry. I want to get it all in now. Yep.
[44:29] Councilor Rob: Rob, you were? Yeah, I mean, I was curious to hear since John was the one who initially raised this, where he was going to land on these options. I think I'm also interested in B or potentially C. C would be for the purpose of making some stronger binding decision on future councils to have to really go through a process that's pretty publicly available for deciding to put something like this in place. But I would at least be interested in seeing us come through with some sort of resolve or something in our policies that would restrict the use of this technology, which I think is doing a lot of harm all over the country. Yeah,
[45:20] Speaker H (unidentified): I wasn't here at the last discussion, but I feel pretty strongly about this issue. And I think there are a good number of communities in our state who have already taken this action to try them out and then some banned them afterwards after looking at the effects. So I actually think there are ordinances written that would be fairly easy to model an ordinance after. So I'm actually interested in an actual ordinance about this because I think to John's point, if you want to ensure that there has to be public discussion about something, the only way to really ensure that is an ordinance. If we make a policy that doesn't bind a future Council to have to hold a public discussion about it, an ordinance does so. In my opinion, this technology right now is very damaging to communities, and I'd personally like to see an ordinance. I won't be here, so but I, that's my opinion.
[46:12] Speaker D (unidentified): I think as part of like an option B that it would be looked on as, should we make an ordinance and then we can go into option C if they look at it and discuss it to some point. And that's kind of how I feel like it, unless we want to have hash it out as a full council.
[46:35] Council Chair: Is there a, like Rob and Andrea, this isn't a fair question without Shelly in the room, but is there an ordinance where it would fit where we sequence it? What we could do is option B slash C, right, where we do say we're not going to do it, you know, it can't move forward, but then when we get to the appropriate ordinance and the ordinance review, we would consider whether it makes sense to add a flock, you know, a prohibition in ordinance when we get to that point. So we don't have to, there's a whole point of the ordinance review committee, right, is to have a five-year check-in. We'll ask staff to give us recommendations at that point, and it's very much staff-led, but we'll ask staff as part of that point in the process when we get to the right result, we get to the right ordinance, and I don't want to say it's, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's not parks and rec, but it's
[47:29] Councilor Rob: probably, I think there's a couple different areas where, I mean, just on a preliminary glance, it could potentially fit, whether it's under law enforcement or traffic and vehicles, I'm not sure, but I think to Sarah's point, I don't think this would actually, I mean, especially if council to be proactive in taking on sort of some initial drafting instead of putting this on staff, I don't think this would strikes me as something that's potentially a ton of work, at least in putting together an initial draft of what an ordinance would look like and figuring out where it might go, but of course staff would be invaluable in whatever role. I guess I just, I think I would like to think that we could get this through without a ton of work, especially if most of council is generally on board and in this direction. Yeah, I think in the interest of that
[48:22] Speaker E (unidentified): work something that, and I'm sorry I forgot his name, are you main rep Aaron? Yeah, Aaron came up to me after the meeting last week and let me know as someone who also sits in on the old town meetings that old town is also considering a resolution or ordinance in a very similar vein, and that there might be some more regional or kind of localized collaboration in that space, potentially. And I think, yeah, Rob, to your point, we're not the first ones that this exists. I think the resources are out there, hopefully, to create this if it's something that's helpful.
[49:03] Council Chair: Clint, if there's council energy and, you know, a couple of councillors, I mean, we don't have to refer stuff to a committee to move it forward, right? We could bring someone to have to bring forward something. Something we'd have to have a presentation on it and a public, you know, we have to call public
[49:17] Clint: hearing for an ordinance, but we don't have to, you know, I'd want one or two staff people involved heavily so that we make sure that any things that are brought through recommend a small working like
[49:28] Council Chair: You know, for next meeting we'll put it on the agenda and we could, if Council, could direct a member of Council or two, like a little ad hoc committee that would work on it. Let's get some interesting, you know, I mean, I have interest in it, but yep, Jacob, so just a quick search
[49:46] Speaker F (unidentified): I mean, the state of Maine already has definitions for this system, so it seems to me in going with what people say is it could be actually pretty easy to draft an order and saying we're not going to do this. If we decide to do it, then it needs to be go through the process
[50:00] Council Chair: But we still need to have a public process that leads to a legitimate outcome and a decision and
[50:05] Councilor Rob: a chance for people to be heard. So yeah, I mean, if a couple of us are willing, I mean, I'd certainly be willing to take part in drafting something and then of course have staff do some heavily heavy vetting and review or however Glenn you think might be the most appropriate way for staff
[50:20] Clint: to be involved and I think town's attorney, I mean, I mean, if you, if you can keep this to really focus and be clear with us, we can kick this to the town's attorney and say, you know, these are the two and I agree there's a couple ordinances that make the most sense, have them recommend which ordinance it should go into and then, you know, it's this is what the law says and Main statute we or no does not want to allow this. If at any point it's being considered, it requires a public hearing, yep, and at least 60 days advance whatever you put in there for rules and we would follow that 's okay probably the easiest way through so why don't we john you and rob would that is
[50:52] Council Chair: that okay to kind of be, Clint, get us to figure out what the town attorney and which staff would be appropriate and then kind of we'll order it at the next meeting, is that okay? Sure, sounds good.
[51:01] Councilor Rob: Look forward to working with you, John. Chief Mayor holds off, all right.
[51:05] Council Chair: It he gets the best jobs, he gets to escort in the visiting football teams, and he gets to, you know, jump on the committees. So thanks Dan, and thank you. So that's so we'll have an order in front of us at the next meeting for that. Does that make sense? Yep, good, all right, thank you. Now we're going to move to public hearings, and I'm sorry to those who are here for the public hearing that we didn't get to it faster, but we'll do a public hearing A to consider a victuals license for the Sip Lab LLC at 15 Mill Street. Good
[51:44] EJ Roach, Planning and Economic Development Manager and Code Officer: evening, EJ Roach, planning and economic development manager and code officer. Again, I've been called to the bullpen, or from the bullpen, to step in for our varsity code person. Just wanted to let the community know that they, 15 Mill Street and Sip Lab, has received all inspections and has received a certificate of occupancy as of October 1st, and staff recommends that they are approved. Okay, any clarifying
[52:14] Council Chair: questions? Any idea on opening that never? You don't know that, right? There, I don't know, that's a
[52:21] EJ Roach, Planning and Economic Development Manager and Code Officer: question for perhaps our guests in the audience who might know. Okay, we'd love to hear from, if you
[52:25] Council Chair: want to come up, but you don't have to. So I think this is pretty straightforward for us, but yeah, if you, if you want to come up, we'd love to hear from you at the microphone. If you just introduce, reduce yourself, and we won't ask any hardcore, that's the hardest question you're going to get.
[52:37] Joyce Ling, owner of Zip Lab LLC: All right, oh the green is on, so we're good. So good evening, my name is Joyce Ling and I'm the owner of the Zip Lab LLC at 15 Mill Street, and thank you for considering ours, we told Taurus license application. We are exciting to open ZipLab and become part of the Orono community. I'm happy to answer any question you may have.
[53:12] Council Chair: Oh, welcome to Orono. Any questions for anybody? And then maybe when you think you'll be open? When open, right? Yeah, when open, yeah. Oh, okay.
[53:21] Joyce Ling, owner of Zip Lab LLC: Hopefully as soon as possible, we're ready.
[53:24] Council Chair: So long. I'll be by tomorrow morning. I'll be first in line tomorrow morning. Yeah, that's awesome, all right, anybody else? Yeah, all right, well thank you very much, thank you everybody, we're happy you're here. Any members of the public want to be here in this public hearing? Okay, touch you up, I get the only time I get to the gavel, public hearing is closed, thank you, and we do, we act on this later, okay, great, thank you. Now we'll do acknowledgments by councilmembers. We just did one a week ago. So Rob, can we start on your end? So John has plenty of time.
[54:04] Councilor Rob: I guess just shouting out all the great work that we were just sort of given a presentation on by Public Works. Our staff is continually doing so much impressive work all the time, so I'm grateful for them.
[54:20] Speaker K (unidentified): Andrea? I just want to thank Scott Sinclair in the Webster Park neighborhood. Scott, with his own funds, purchased some slow speed reminders encouraging people to slow down for children and pets, and he distributed those to everybody in the neighborhood. Those are fantastic. Sarah?
[54:42] Speaker H (unidentified): I don't think I have anything at this time. Thank you. Matt? I just, the river walk looks really nice
[54:49] Speaker D (unidentified): right now with the invasive species gone between the bridge and Brownies Landing.
[54:55] Speaker E (unidentified): Spectacular. Thank you. Okay, Jacob? Agreed, nothing new. Anytime I get the opportunity to do business down in the town office, it's a great one, and I got to pick up some ballots today, so acknowledging that our, the town office staff are going into a busy season of folks voting in person and picking up absentee ballots and preparing for the big day. So I wanted to thank them for that. It only took me three minutes, happened right before I ran up here,
[55:27] Council Chair: so it's a quick and easy process, so I wanted to thank, I intended the dark, I don't know if it was dark, what was the actual title of the Dark Night Skies under the glow presentation at the library on Thursday? It was fantastic, sort of a, it's the concept of how communities can work on their lighting to better be better fit with nature and mental health and all the things, and learned a lot about, I was sitting with Tom Perry as a former who used to sit in this chair as well, and we both learned something about Ornel's ordinances in terms of lighting, which I thought was interesting, and the concept of slight pressure consistently applied as a way to get change in a community when you want to achieve something. So I thought that was great. I appreciate everyone who brought that presentation to town and all the members of public who attended. Next up, our action items, and we will move first with action item order 262118, order approving a Victoria's license for Sip Lab LLC, 15 Mill. Street opening tomorrow at 9 a.m. Okay. Any, I'm kidding about the 9 a.m. Any questions from, this is an action item, so where we just had a public hearing. I'd open it up to see if there's any questions or comments from council members or members of the public. Seeing none, all those in favor. That's unanimous. Thanks so much. Thank you for being here tonight. Order 26219, an order assigned in the community development committee to review traffic calming measures implemented on Forest Avenue and to consider the impact on EMS services. Can I have a motion? Some second. Moved and seconded. So this is a referral order. I put the form in based on the conversations we've had the last couple meetings, and we agreed that works. We agreed that there's no policy decision in that the council is prepared to make at this time in terms of the existing traffic calming, but we do think that there is a need for a conversation about, you know, how we could, how we could potentially do better to both calm traffic and also potentially minimize or try to address the response times out Forest Avenue to, you know, our constituents who live out there. So that's what this is, and this will be, I think it's a February, I'm not, March report back. So we would go to community development and we would do our work. Any questions? Council Marks again, I wasn't here. I'm sorry that I wasn't
[58:00] Speaker H (unidentified): able to be here last week, and I'm really glad this is being referred. I think it's really important. I had emailed you and the town manager, and I just wasn't here, and I don't know if it was part of our discussion. I just want to say out loud that I think it's important that the way we can track what difference the speed bumps are making is actually mostly mathematical. It's a mile distance exactly from the center of town to the freeway on Forest Ave, and it's going to be pretty much impossible for the fire department to give us comparable data unless they've had calls prior to the speed bumps and after the speed bumps to the exact same location, which would be pretty unlikely for the most part, I would think. So I think it's important that it is a fairly simple mathematical calculation to do about how fast one can get from the center of town to the highway going at 45 miles an hour versus how fast one can get from point A to point B going at 25 miles an hour. Maybe this was all discussed Last time, but I just want to be sure that we don't burden staff with asking for data that's impossible to produce and simply run the math what they could provide for us is, you know, how fast they were able to go when there were no speed bumps that I don't know, but thanks. Okay, any other questions or comments on this one? I guess I'll
[59:20] Councilor Rob: I'll just second what Sarah said, that sounds like a really common sense framework to be thinking around as you all do that work, but I am in support of us doing this. Thank you. Yeah, I was
[59:32] Council Chair: kind of hoping to get a couple more rides on fire trucks, but if not, you know, we'll get it figured out, you know, in keeping with what kind of information we need to get everybody agreed with what, you know, what's accurate information moving forward. So okay, anything else? Any comments from the public? Okay, all those in favor of order 26219, that's unanimous. Thank you. Order 26220, order assigned the ordinance review committee to analyze municipal authority as it pertains to limits on vaping tobacco products targeting youth and recommend a process and language. So again, this is comes forward, you know, from your request to our agendas, that's what your voice matters means, right? So this is based on the conversation we had, I think it was two weeks ago, we touched on it again last week briefly and agree, and the consensus of the council was refer to ordinance review and not necessarily propose, it's not a done deal, right? This is they're going to report that committee will report back to what authority does ordinal have in place to limit products, develop language for potential legal review and council consideration, and also recommend a public process for gathering information and decision making. So it's not, I don't think it's, we're not asking the three people who serve on the ordinance review committee, as you know, we're good counselors and all that, but we're not asking them to push like push this as a, I don't know if that's the right term or not, but
[1:00:58] Councilor Rob: to advocate for an action, it is to kind of give us a background. I am happy to discuss this. So moved. Shoot, sorry. Hey, and we need a sec. I'll second it. That was Andrea second. All right, Andrea, so embarrassed, but I'll just say, well, I definitely, I think there are serious concerns that have been raised for a long time now around various vaping tobacco products. The concern that I've actually been hearing is less about tobacco products and more in particular about the relatively unregulated sale of Kratom, which, you know, I looked into it a little bit more. I've heard from a couple people, including people who work at some of the gas stations, that this is something being sold. It's a something like an opioid, opiate. I mean, I don't know anything, so I'm not going to pretend to be a an expert on this, but I think the concern that I have been hearing, what I was interested in having a discussion about, was what exactly is the town's ability or role in regulating the sale of something that seems relatively untested is and is potentially harmful. Yeah, John, yep, yeah, and I think a
[1:02:14] Speaker E (unidentified): question that I would have about that is just saying like, what is that? I think something that has kept it from being regulated is that it is a manufactured lab, grown essentially, and that a major barrier to regulation has been the fact that when it becomes regulated, it changes just enough to no longer be regulated. And, just kind of looking, I think if, that is the angle that, this committee work takes, where
[1:02:45] Councilor Rob: does our approach differ? I appreciate that perspective. Like I said, I don't know really anything about this, and I do remember when cannabis was still illegal across the state how often the new sort of synthetic cannabis kept propping up, popping up all over the place. So, you know, sometimes the regulation, well, you already said it better than I can, so I'll just say yes, I recognize that issue. I'm curious to just know sort of what levers we have to pull, or what our role, what do we think our role is on that? I'm happy to discuss the tobacco echo vaping products too, but that was a slightly different issue than what I was coming at it from,
[1:03:24] Council Chair: and Andrew, you emailed us about something like this too, right? Yes, it's was concerned with
[1:03:31] Speaker K (unidentified): some of the employees in town that work at the local gas stations, and that it does have opioid tendencies in it, and just a, I know that Massachusetts just banned the sale of them, and just a quick Google search that shows that there are 11 states that have banned the sale of
[1:03:48] Council Chair: those. So hearing the two of the three members of the esteemed ordinance review committee have some thoughts on this, and I certainly would, as the third less esteemed member of that committee, would, does it make sense for us to amend this referral form to include maybe read conduct an assessment of municipal authority as it pertains to limits on potentially dangerous products targeting youth? So we've got the room to do that product you're talking about and or, and I'm open to other suggestions that Wasn't that, wasn't a motion?
[1:04:21] Speaker H (unidentified): That was a question. Are they all vaping products though? Is the kratom also a vaping product or not?
[1:04:26] Councilor Rob: I have no idea.
[1:04:32] Speaker K (unidentified): Not an official answer, but I think it is. It does come in the vaping form.
[1:04:39] Councilor Rob: I don't know if anybody, does anyone want to come forward and admit they're taking a, yeah.
[1:04:44] Council Chair: Okay, if you really have an answer, come on in. Yeah, so I'm sorry, I don't know if you have an answer. I was gonna, I was gonna quip about someone joking about using a dangerous product, but of course then, you know, so I do not, I am not admitted to using
[1:04:58] Brent Ellis, resident: dangerous products, but yes, my name is Brent Ellis, I'm a city in the town of Warren domain, I also work at the university and been a resident here for 11 years. I want to commend, thank you all for taking this forward and looking at it. I do a fair amount of work with kids and what I'm concerned about is the stuff being available to our youth, so I appreciate you taking this under, taking it under consideration. Certainly the vape products kind of what brought my attention to it, but also I think to your point, it was John that brought it forth or Robert, there's other things that are out there and if the, if the committee is willing to review additional items
[1:05:37] Council Chair: I would certainly support that. Okay, any questions for Brett, Brent, Brett? Thank you for your email by the way. Thank you sir. Thank you, my pleasure. From our inboxes to our podium, that's, that's kind of what we're trying to do here, but thank you. So do we need to change the referral? Do we feel like we need to change referral or do you think vaping is not, I'm Sarah's shaking
[1:06:01] Speaker H (unidentified): her nodding her head, so like, well at the very least you need to take out the word tobacco. I was just trying to get clear on whether if we said something like vaping products including but not necessarily limited to tobacco and kratom would cover it, but if we're concerned that it's also not vaping products, we need broader language than
[1:06:18] Councilor Rob: that could say kratom if that's, if that's the particular thing concerned, I
[1:06:25] Speaker H (unidentified): mean I don't want to give us too, so it would say then as it pertains to limits on vaping products including but not limited to tobacco and kratom, sure.
[1:06:38] Councilor Rob: Sure, sounds good to me.
[1:06:41] Speaker H (unidentified): And do you want to add in any other products targeting youth? I mean, I, that's fine. Yeah.
[1:06:48] Councilor Rob: I also want to recognize that I don't know what this work is going to look like when it gets to committee. And I'm sure, like, this is going to be some sort of ask for staff. So I'm trying to figure out sort of what our scope is and what we're trying to achieve here.
[1:07:02] Council Chair: I think we're going to need more than December of 2027 if we're doing...
[1:07:06] Speaker D (unidentified): Sure. Sure, yeah, all
[1:07:10] Council Chair: right, so can we take Sarah's suggestion as a motion? Did you get it? Okay, so Sarah moved it, Jacob seconded. Any discussion about the amendment? Okay, all those in favor of the amendment? Okay, that's a approved unanimously. And in terms of the actual referral form, I think we're good to go. We can, we'll amend that based on the council discussion tonight. But do we also want to change the December of 2027 report back date? And I'm looking at the two other members of the committee.
[1:07:48] Councilor Rob: Yeah, well, I guess we can at least report back to see sort of about when we've put it on the schedule or how, what kind of plan the committee has for discussing it. Okay, I mean, that can still
[1:07:59] Council Chair: be the update. Okay, report back. All right, so we can keep that, we'll just keep that as it is, but we'll go back and we'll change the referral. Will you remind me? Okay, all right, any more questions or suggestions on the underlying ordinance or order that has been amended? Okay, all those in favor as amended, that's unanimous. And we're moving on. Thank you so much. We're done with action. We're done with action items, right? And now we're on a council committee reports. I remind everybody that we had a meeting last week where we had a lot of committee reports. So let's do community development. Nothing, no update at this time. Finance and operations, nominations, evaluations. A reminder
[1:08:39] Speaker H (unidentified): to council that the 360 review survey about council itself is live for another two weeks, and we need to fill it out on ourselves, and any members of the community, please fill it out. Tell us what we're doing well, tell us what we're not doing well, we want to hear all of the above. Any suggestions you have for improvement, we'd like to hear them. Thank you. Okay, DEIB, Matt.
[1:09:03] Speaker E (unidentified): Nothing at this time. Heart of Oral Main Committee, no updates from last week. Okay, up liaisons or
[1:09:10] Councilor Rob: boards, committees, anybody have anything? I'll just say the ordinance review committee also has no
[1:09:14] Council Chair: updates. I'm like a big picture guy, right? We got a forest through the trees, and but thank you. I could
[1:09:23] Councilor Rob: I could have said nothing. I'm just, I know, I like it because we can laugh together, we can listen to
[1:09:29] Council Chair: Each other, right? Or that's right. Tell myself when people tell me I'm too corny. All right, what's that from? Your email to our podium? Yep. Council chair updates. I think I'll, I'm gonna reserve my time till I'm done here. From the town manager, town manager report. Yeah, I'll try to do my best.
[1:09:50] Clint: Here, I mean, his staff will tell you I'm a spirited communicator, so maybe a little bit of fun here would be appropriate. I promise to keep this to less than 45 minutes on behalf of all staff and the wonderful work we do. No, just kidding. The follow up on the town office elevator, I got no report. I told you last week I was and do it. There has been some information brought to me, the council, and this is kind of like a future agenda item. The short of this is the elevator's been out of service for quite some time. There are events where we do this, our agendas for the council meetings as well as planning board call out that if people have ADA accessible needs. I have talked to staff, we're going to post a little bit more, but any large-scale events, so like it did come up, what are we doing for candidates night? That's on Wednesday. On Wednesday, that is a non-town operated function with volunteers that come together to do it, and we only provide the space because it's political activity. But so there's parking for that night. You can't get to the elevator, there's a problem with getting around the building, so we have been on case-by-case basis allowing some parking in the driveway to the public safety building. It is not a parking area. There was some conversation about it. We're doing everything we can to accommodate the needs of the community without permanently changing that driveway into something that it wasn't originally intended. If there is a broader conversation around this that the community is asking, I've had zero input on this with what the staff has done, but if there is more, we, I'm willing to hear it. I don't think there is a absence of it. I think some people wish there was better accessibility for parking to this building. I have heard that in general, but not limited to any one category. Let me know. I just want to give you the update. We are aware. We should have an answer in the next week or two about whether the last attempt to fix it's going to work, and if that doesn't Work we probably are going to have to come with a better longer term staff recommendation because we do not have the funds to fix the elevator. Counselor Marks, I see you looking. If you look at last week's report, the elevator's been out of service for a while. So that's one of the things I'm trying to do. But as it's come forward, if you want us to do more, we can do more. This is where we're at for right now. Yeah, go ahead, Sarah.
[1:11:53] Speaker H (unidentified): No, I just had a question, which is for Candidates Night and this Wednesday, if someone knows ahead of time that they're going to need accessible parking, you're recommending that they do what, contact staff or simply show up and there'll be signage out here? I hope there's signage because someone could show up who doesn't contact ahead of time. So I hope there is some signage saying accessible parking will be here so we've notified that and
[1:12:18] Clint: yes there will be signage as to where they can park in the driveway but absent those nights on the meetings of a regular like tonight at a council meeting the expectations somebody had ADA accessibility needs to contact us. We will be promoting more that people there has been awareness the elevator is out of service. I think we're just going to do a more broad announcement and more social media posts that you know our apologies for the elevator being out of service if you need access for an event just to contact the town office. Thank you. All right, I
[1:12:47] Speaker K (unidentified): appreciate that. Oh, go ahead. Sure, has there been any thought or ideas about looking into changing one side of the steps to a ramp that would allow people to move from the parking lot
[1:13:00] Clint: to the front of the building? Interesting concept. I actually went out and because with some of the questions I went out measured it to see if there was enough space and they're actually just on a lay person's conversational there actually is. You'd have to redo the whole area, you actually have to go all the way to the door of the town office right up to the street, but there actually is adequate distance for a sloped ramp through there. It would have some impacts to the building, but yeah, if that's if there was more there we could bring that forward as a my thoughts were if this does have some momentum we'd have to do a capital improvement project around making that a ramp rather than a sidewalk with stairs. Yeah, so
[1:13:38] Council Chair: My, I appreciate the work you're doing in the, in the bind you're in, given the technology that we have in place and the equipment we have in place. The longer term, people need to have a, I hate that deal at the thrift store, right? We haven't been able to get that fixed, and I get it, and it frustrates me, and like, but I also get the cost. This space is different. This is where we govern, and people need to be able to access it for our council meetings. They need to be able to access it for when they vote. The early voting is going to be covered, the candidates, that's going to be covered. We'll try and make accommodations for people if they contact us ahead of time, but that's, and I don't know what the ADA standards are in terms of what, where we meet those standards, but I think, or no standards would be, or expectations, or my expectation would be we get it figured out as part, if it's a capital project that we have to, you know, put into the plan and get a figure, and could be months. I mean, it could take a while, but we got to get it figured out. I know you're working hard at it. I know the team is, but you know, people need, people who have disabilities need to be, if this is where we're going to meet, because we'll go, you know, if this is where the council is going to meet, people need to be able to get here in person, so hard stop. But eventually when we get it, you know, sorry, no, I just, I wanted to make that speech, right? But I mean, at the same time, you know, we got to get it fixed, and you know, that's kind of this, so we'll be, we'll be asking, you know, and I get it, and we'll be supporting you, because, but that's kind of the standard of success that I think about in terms of where, what a world needs
[1:15:11] Clint: to do. So the path we're on though to figure out if it's fixable and what that timeline is, just continually going, but that's okay, still, yeah, I didn't, okay, yeah, I don't think you're
[1:15:20] Council Chair: wrong at all, and I think it's, you know, but yeah, no, I do, I maybe I was leaning into it a little more than I needed to, but thank you Sarah. Yeah, and again, I mean, I won't be
[1:15:31] Speaker H (unidentified): Here so my opinion doesn't really matter, but I appreciated what Andrea had to say, and that you'd already gone out and taken a look at it, and have thought, okay, this might be possible as a capital improvement project. And I guess if I were here, I would be saying I'd like to see a cost for that 's brought forward to us in the next year's budget, because I think having a belt and suspenders is a better model. So when the elevator's working, that's great, but when it's not working, it would be terrific if there's still a way. So I would at least like to know how much
[1:15:58] Council Chair: that would cost. Okay, and we hope you come back a lot. I bet, I bet we're going to give you reason to, so we all know how. Yeah, we all know you could be back here in a blink. So yep, town manager report also. So you did share with the, thank you as always for the good neighbor report you gave me. I mean, every Monday we check in on that, and we had several incidents this weekend, end of complaints, but we were able to visit with some people and had some improvement right on the spot, and then a couple we're going to get some follow-up on one and probably a violation on one.
[1:16:32] Clint: Is that right, nine, with one getting a hard follow-up, meaning your activity was so close that it probably should have, but it won't be this time, but it will be next time, and a second getting a violation in a large complex, which is the first one we've ever had to do, but it was a repeat issue that we've just got to notify officially that 's too big. Yeah, for
[1:16:55] Council Chair: even a large complex, and still know in the entire history of the program, still no second violations.
[1:17:02] Clint: One time, one second violation. That's right, one second violation last, it was one. Yeah, one time
[1:17:06] Speaker H (unidentified): we had a double violation. Yep, excellent. Yep, Sarah. Yeah,, and I can hold this to future agenda items if that feels more appropriate, but I think it tags on to what you just brought up. So I will say that there was an extremely loud concert going on in the Webster side neighborhood on Saturday. It turned out to be a concert, I believe, in somebody's backyard. I was one of the people who called in. It was very loud, the loudest event that I've ever heard in my yard in my 17 years of living in Orono, and My concern as a future item of concern is that, by the way, some of the music was great, so whatever this band is, they're fabulous, and I understand why they wanted, you know, to get their name out there, and it was really loud, and it went for at least six, if not seven and a half hours, it depends how you count, because there was some warming up to begin with, so to me that was way too much noise for way too long in our neighborhood, and when I called I was told by the officer at the time that there was nothing they could do since it was not yet 10 p.m except politely ask them to turn the volume down and that there were no consequences that they could impose i don't believe that 's correct from looking at our ordinances myself so you know that may be an internal training issue or perhaps i'm misunderstanding ordinances i know some of you who are on the good neighbor committee know much more about those particular ordinances than i do but my question is if it is really true that we cannot follow our disorderly property processes on anything that happens, it's not after 10 p.m., that I really think our ordinances need to get looked at again, because there is a level of noise and a duration of noise which is unacceptable whether it's 1 p.m. or 10 a.m. or 4 p.m. And so I guess I just want to say that out loud, that I'm not clear. I took a look at the ordinances. I didn't see anything that said that there was only applied after 10 p.m. Maybe Dan or staff can answer that. But if there's not something that can be enforced, you know, during daytime hours, then I would like to ask that get kicked back to a committee to take a look at whether it's good neighbor or audience review or wherever else it needs to go, because that was too much for too long, although it was spectacular sometimes, and we're, you know,
[1:19:26] Council Chair: I think we're still, there is not something in the ordinance, I mean it can be disorderly, can be disorderly whenever disorderly happens, and we do ask, and I think we give a lot of grace to both the people we respond to and frankly the respondents to have to make some judgment calls in the moment, so I think that as we do, as we learn more, and I do think that as Clint shared with me earlier today, this is sort of the, this was new, grant, you know, usually it's, usually it's later in the day, right, I think That's probably fair to say, and this gives us a new opportunity to maybe consider how we respond to those incidents that are happening. Something happens during the day that we really ought to be, you know, shutting down, or because it's just too much, you know, it's daylight, but it's still too much. So can I ask that we either get an update from
[1:20:13] Speaker H (unidentified): staff at the next meeting about what ordinances can be enforced in that moment and which parts of our ordinances are not able to be enforced. They can all be enforced at that moment, so there's no
[1:20:23] Council Chair: there's no time for the 20, the 10 o'clock thing was quiet hours, was the idea that okay, that would be a message that we'd share with people about, and that's no longer part of the ordinance. But it is, there's nothing, and that was a doubling of the fine in the old in the ordinance that has since been removed thanks to the work we did with our the student reps that were part of the good neighbor committee. So but it is not, there's nothing in the ordinance that has anything to do with time of day. If it's disorderly, it's disorderly, but frankly judgment is, you know, yeah, something that happens at two o'clock in the afternoon might be a problem, it might be more of a problem at midnight, but this event was loud, it was just very long, also like loud.
[1:21:03] Speaker H (unidentified): Loud for an hour is different than loud for seven hours, you know, so.
[1:21:06] Clint: Clint, what do you think? Yeah, no, I agree with it and supportive. I mean, this is where you got to learn that we can't foresee every example. I would say in the politest way I can, we don't want to get involved with two neighbors that are complaining about each other being loud, because then we're into this lose-lose battle. So we're not going to direct police in a way that's hard or certain, but we can use this training experience to say, hey. Yeah.
[1:21:29] Council Chair: And someone's calling from Peter Street correct about something that's happening on Park Street.
[1:21:33] Clint: That would be kind of, and again, and I think this is where, and maybe some mortgage changes come from staff or recommendation that we think could make this clearer for us, yeah. But I, yeah, without question, I mean, it is the one that is getting the sternest of, you probably should get violated, but yeah, you're, we're not going to do it in this one case. That was what the decision the chief and I made prior to this meeting, that one was not going to get a fine, it was going to get the sternest of notices. Possible, which is basically we should find you and that's like I said in that learning process it is and that's the difficulty of you know where is what is or what isn't the issue with we can do I mean we have a lot of different ordinances on it we're trying to make sure this works for the community as well so that's where we are I think our learned lesson is that this probably would be in the future with the same protocol that we use shut it down this is your notice we'll be back in an hour And if they don't shut it down that's when they get their summons which is typically the way we've been handling some of the events here in town to make sure they're orderly but yeah okay and if you need somebody to tabletop
[1:22:35] Council Chair: It with you I bet resident kind of citizen marks will be happy to help you with that in the future
[1:22:39] Clint: We started we just had a meeting at five o'clock that interrupted us finishing the conversation
[1:22:43] Speaker H (unidentified): But no I'm glad it came up so thank you yeah is there a process where people can apply for some event that they're having that's going to be too loud so that people know ahead of time and staff can inform the community when someone calls in like it's an hour duration or it will end or is
[1:22:57] Clint: There any process for that we'll take a peek at the mass gatherings we have some rules around that but I'll make sure that yeah there are but I don't know if it's spot on so we got to think because we talked about this at the ordinance at the committee review of is there a process where we could know you know person could come in and get permission and let me do a quick review in
[1:23:13] Council Chair: Honor of Sarah's last meeting can you bring it in for the last next meeting it's okay if it happens
[1:23:17] Speaker H (unidentified): After it's good too I just want to say I think there's like two issues there's one about enforcing so that maybe it doesn't disturb people for too long but I think there is the other one just about when someone calls in I think it kind of goes against the signs all over town that say call with your noise complaints when what you get told is oh but there's nothing we can do about noise so just maybe some internal training on that also because I happen to know enough to think well yeah there Probably is but other people might not so I think it's important that the messaging out when the calls come in is a little different too thanks yeah I work with the staff on the
[1:23:47] Clint: The October 19th meeting, just another nice time to remind you a third time, I will not be here for the October 19th meeting. That's for the one I'm at the training. And thank you. Okay, anything else?
[1:23:59] Council Chair: For we did no public, you're all set Clint, thank you. Yep, public petitions, we don't have any. 12 future Jenna items, Sarah already got hers in. Anybody else have one? Okay, public comment, anybody else want to jump in? I'm just gonna hold it open for the next 10 minutes. No? All right, no public comment and we don't have the executive session, so I'll take a motion. Usually we do this in private, right? I'll take a motion to adjourn. All in favor? And by private I mean after an executive session.