Harpswell Select Board Accepts Grants, Advances Aquaculture Seed Ordinance

[0:01] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): All right, you got a double thumbs up. Thanks, Matt. [0:06] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): All right, welcome to the Harpswell Select Board meeting of October 8, 2026. We'll start with Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge [0:15] Speaker C (unidentified): of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of the [0:19] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): Republic for which it stands, [0:21] Speaker C (unidentified): one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [0:32] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): Adoption of the agenda. Anything to add? No. Take away? Public comment? [0:40] Katie Neal, Parks & Recreation Community Services: Oh, parks and rec. Hi, Katie Neal, Parks Rec Community Services. Just wanted to remind folks that at the last meeting, we opened up our heating assistance program early this year. So we are accepting applications to receive help with oil, propane, kerosene, and wood. And then we expect to receive our emergency totes of wood from the wood bank mid-month. So it's an anonymous program. We've already spent over $3,000 since it opened because prices are so high right now, so feel free to reach out. Thank you. Thanks. [1:29] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): Nothing else, select voter announcements. Nope, I get a couple of things. This has been previously reported, the town was victim of cyber security fraud scheme back involving misdirected municipal payment. We want to provide the community with a brief update, the vendor associated with the dispute has issued a notice of lien claim related to its work and taking steps to attempt to enforce that claim in court, although the town has not yet been served with a complaint. This is a standard legal mechanism vendors use to preserve their rights and comply with statutory filing deadlines. It does not reflect in the determination of fault or the resolution of the matter. matter. The town continues to work diligently to address the cyber security incident and protect the interests of the town and its residents. We will provide further updates as the situation develops and circumstances permit. We thank the community for its patience. Another note, I just found out today that Burr Taylor died. I sat on a bunch of committees with him and he made committees interesting. He was almost every [2:41] Speaker C (unidentified): committee, I know he was. Yeah, he once told me, Dave, you do too much. I said, look [2:45] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): who's talking. Yeah, I was not two or three committees with him and yeah, it's always interesting. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that. Oh yeah, no kidding. [2:54] Speaker C (unidentified): You know, all right, town administrators report. Chairman. Good evening everyone, a [3:01] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): Couple weeks ago, Don Miskell was here, and he said that was really he was reporting that he had finished his stewardship position at Mitchell Field, and he handed me a donation form. And he essentially is donating to the town tools, gloves, glasses, wood, paint, nails, screws, toilet paper, et cetera, that he had been using at Mitchell Field. So I think not only did we want to acknowledge all of the incredible volunteerism that he has provided in that capacity at Mitchell Field, but to recognize that he is also donating these items to the town. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and make sure you were aware of it. Do we have to vote to it? I think yeah, that would be good if you wanted to. I move that we [Speaker C (unidentified): Accept those gifts.] Driving over in the morning, you know, I have seen him over there, but he has removed any signage on his vehicle. He's just doing it as a regular volunteer through the recreation department. [4:04] Speaker C (unidentified): Just out of habit he drives over there. Yeah, wean himself off it. Yeah, another announcement I'd [4:11] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): Like to make is the town clerk indicated that to date 887 absentee ballots have been requested, and of those ballots 425 have been returned, and some of that is in office voting. So she wanted to make sure people knew that these absentee ballots are available. They can vote during regular business hours, and she's also going to be open on Saturday, October 24th, from 10 to 1 for anyone that needs to vote on a Saturday. So trying to make sure that people have accessibility, and you know they can stop in Anytime we're open, and they can take an absentee ballot home if they'd like, or the they can vote in office, that's an option too. We the town are continuing to play a role in medication collection. It's a national event, and we coordinate with the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department. So that is going to be on Saturday, October 24th, from 10 to 2 here at the town office. We do annually or actually twice a year collect a lot of medications that people are no longer using. They might be in your medicine Cabinet, it can include veterinary medications as well, so we really encourage people to come drop them off here. They will be incinerated, they will be taken care of by the Sheriff's Department, or actually I think it's a DEA program to get rid of these drugs. So we want to encourage people to participate, and it's always an event where we do receive a lot of medications given our elderly population. I want to make sure the select board is aware that the workshop we talked about setting up with the Energy and Technology Committee. We had talked about trying to do it this Thursday, but that didn't work out, so we are rescheduling that for Thursday, October 24th at five o'clock. And I think that committee wants to talk to the full board about some of the solar issues they're investigating and where they might wanna go with that information. So, pardon? Oh, did I say Saturday? I meant to say Thursday. Oh, sorry, no, it's Thursday. [Speaker C (unidentified): No,, no,, no,.] It's two weeks from today, 22nd. Thank You Terry. Okay, I think that might be it. Oh no, I have one other item. I wanted to recognize our harbormaster and marine resources coordinator Darcy Kutcher. We just learned today that Noah has invited her to attend a symposium in Iowa and it would be coming up very soon. They have offered to cover the expenses of the accommodations and the registration for that event, so maybe Darcy if you'd like to just explain a little bit more about Why you've been invited the topic you'll be talking about and I think people would be interested to know [7:12] Darcy Kutcher, Harbormaster: Darcy Kutcher, harbormaster. Back in the day when I worked full-time as a marine scientist, I, this is a semi, it happens every two years, a large national symposium of everyone that works on harmful algal blooms, and I used to interact with a lot of these people back then and attend and stayed in touch with them and brought them back in to help us work on our problem here in Harpswell. So they are still working on a lot of the some of the data that we've sent them, some of the samples that we've sent Out and they were very interested to have me attend the symposium to kind of reconnect in person, establish a few other things we could work on in this scape of the problem that we have here. So I was like, well, I'm poor, and we'll pay for you. So they offered to cover the cost of having me come as a as a manager of harmful algal bloom. So it's it moves around the country for whatever reason. This year it's in Iowa. Usually someplace a little nicer, but no, Iowa people are not gonna be having to hear. [8:11] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): No, I meant coastal. They look at a map and say, yeah, where can we get the [8:20] Darcy Kutcher, Harbormaster: furthest from the ocean or yeah, reasonable accommodations possibly. I am [8:25] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): not sure, but it's the middle of the country, so maybe that's why it was a [8:29] Darcy Kutcher, Harbormaster: convenient. Well, it's in actually about two weeks, so it's coming right up. They just offered today, and I actually had a bunch of airline miles that were expiring, so I said, well, I'll throw that in there, and so we're good, no cost to the town, and I'll make us look good. I know, what about meals and that stuff? It's all covered at the conference, everything. I'll be fed, I'll be well [9:02] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): cared for. Wow, congratulations on that, and that concludes my report. All right, [9:20] Speaker C (unidentified): consent agenda. I will move the consent agenda, which is the approval of the minutes, a committee appointment, treasurer's report, and authorization of the warrants. [9:33] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): I will second this one. I don't see any discussion. All in favor? All right. Accept community resiliency partnership community action grant. Holy moly. Is that what Margaret's up there for? Oh. [9:48] Select Board member (introducing grant item): Well, Margaret did join us, but I know Marianne came for this topic as well, so. [9:53] Katie Neal, Parks & Recreation Community Services: Oh, go on up there, Marianne. She is blacked out. [9:56] Select Board member (introducing grant item): She is blacked out. So I'll just introduce it. Margaret, the town planner, did mention it at the last meeting that the town was granted this award. Mary Ann worked very, Mary Ann, Margaret and others worked very hard on this grant, and you were provided with a copy of the final grant that was approved in with your award letter, and Mary Ann's here to speak more. [10:20] Mary Ann Neif, Resiliency and Sustainability Committee: Hello, I'm Mary Ann Neif, and I work with the Resiliency and Sustainability Committee. We did put the grant through. This particular board is kind of cool, actually, because we have done work in the town with grant money. We put in new lighting, and we made other changes to the town office. This takes care of some weatherization for the town office. It includes storm windows, includes weatherization of a lot of the windows, taking care of some of the doors that aren't working right. It was in the amount of about seventy four thousand dollars, and it's all going to be going to things that the town office is going to have done, and it'll be under, you know, usually the tim anyhow. I'm hesitating a little bit. The codes office, it'll be under [11:33] Speaker C (unidentified): them, and they're very familiar with it. There's some spirit money put up too for as a match. [11:40] Mary Ann Neif, Resiliency and Sustainability Committee: Right, yes, that match, yes. So it allowed us to have the funds to help make the project complete. [11:50] Speaker C (unidentified): So it's really good, make this building really efficient. It's gonna be so efficient. It's pretty warm in here today. I move that we accept this grant. It's [12:06] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): kind of silly not to, but any more discussion on this? All in favor. We get two minutes before now, we can start early. At this point we'll open up a public hearing regarding general assistance ordinance and maxims, and maybe Katie Neal [12:27] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): who's our parks rec and community services director, would give an overview of the general assistance program. This is an ordinance that municipal officials or officers, I should say, can adopt. It does not have to go to town meeting. We have an existing ordinance, but we were presented with an updated version, and we recommend that the town adopted, and then each year we're provided with these maximum amounts that we can help in different areas of need. Yes, so [12:58] Katie Neal, Parks & Recreation Community Services: there's not substantial language change from the ordinance from last year to this year, but we regularly need to adopt the updated ordinance language that we're using. So that's the first area business that Christy mentioned, and then the appendix that go along with the ordinance talk about the various maximum amounts that we can provide in support of folks needing assistance. So that can help with utilities, it can help with food, it can help sometimes with mileage for going to work, rental costs, things like that, and folks are able to come down or set an appointment with me to fill out the paperwork, and it is not a town funded, well, we pay for part of it, but it is a state program. So the application process does look a little bit more inclusive or complex. Come, thank you. There's more questions. It's six pages long as compared to our heating assistance program, so you have to jump through a little bit more hoops, but we have more ways that we can help. That's [14:19] Select Board member (introducing grant item): All I have to say about that. Do you want to, I'm sorry, did you mention which appendices you're recommending adoption of? Yes, everyone except for, I think [14:31] Katie Neal, Parks & Recreation Community Services: it's appendix C, which is the housing maximum, which gives us a little bit more flexibility to [14:38] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): provide extra support. I think we skipped that. And just to follow up on what Katie said, it is the Department of Health and Human Services program under the state of Maine. So every municipality in Maine is required to offer this program. We have certain hours that we're available to take applications and we can also react to emergencies. While we do put the money up front, we're reimbursed, I believe it's 70% by the state and they generally will audit the program at least once every couple of years. So Katie's done a really nice job with the program. She's excellent with the clients that she talks to. And a big part of the program is really helping to connect people to resources that are available above and beyond general assistance. So I think Katie does a nice job trying to do that. [15:27] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): I don't see any more discussion, so at this point we'll close the public hearing. [15:32] Speaker C (unidentified): And I will move that we adopt the General Assistance Ordinance and we adopt all of the appendices except for C. I will second. All in favor? [15:47] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): All right, consider home rule authority regarding seed for aquaculture. [15:52] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): I can take a lead on this one since it's my thing. As of right now, and you guys are clearly all aware of the algae bloom that happened. And when aquaculture leases, they have to purchase their seed, whether it's for kelp, oysters, clams, lambs, whatever it may be, from one of the state-certified seed nurseries. There's a bunch in-state, but there's also a bunch out-of-state. And the best analogy I can use to describe this, it blows my mind when they import from out-of-state, they test for pathogens that would be harmful to humans. One of those pathogens that is not harmful to humans that they don't test for is the algae bloom that we just experienced. So that is a great way that this type of algae is potentially transferred from one area and where all these out-of-state farms are located is in Virginia and Maryland. And that is one of the areas where this algae bloom has taken hold and is quite prevalent. So what I'm asking us to look into at this point is creating some type of ordinance that makes it so any aquaculture lease operating within our town waters would have to source their seed from one of the in-state hatcheries we have, and one of those hatcheries is right here in town down at Mitchell Field, so it's also supporting a local fishing business. And it's like firewood, the state doesn't allow you to bring firewood in from out of state, and it's mind-blowing to me that they would allow I can't bring in certain lobster bait from out of state. It's, and I think this is, I think there's a bigger problem that needs to be addressed on a legislative level, but I think this is a quick fix for us to get by until that can happen, and I think it's a discussion that [17:39] Speaker C (unidentified): would be worth having. I don't have a problem with it. Yeah, okay, next steps. Yeah, well, I wanted to see [17:46] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): first if you guys had an appeal to it, and then I was going to either bring it to like the fisheries committee or the harbor and waterfront committee. Well, or both. Or both. They both meet on the same day, so I can bring it to both easily, and maybe they can work on drafting some language, and we can present it to MMA to come up with type of ordinance, and then hold the public hearing, and maybe get it to either town meeting or next June resource committee too. Yeah, you definitely [18:16] Speaker C (unidentified): have my nod. So yeah, I just wanted to, I didn't want to waste the time of the committees, you know, [18:21] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): if that was something that you guys had no interest in. But I think this is, and Darcy can speak to it as well, I think this is a small step we can take that could help potentially curb a future bloom in the future, and it really doesn't hamper any of the aquaculture operations that we have operating within town waters here. Most of the ones we have are on the smaller scale. I think the biggest one we have is one around me five ten acres within Garb's old waters, so they wouldn't be written the amount of seed they would require. Any of these hatcheries in the state could fulfill. [18:54] Speaker C (unidentified): Phil. So there's two species of oyster, right? There's two. Yeah, American and European. And so do these guys here [19:02] Darcy Kutcher, Harbormaster: do both? Nobody grows European oyster seed because it's too difficult. [19:06] Speaker C (unidentified): It's just Americans that grow. Okay. Keep it American, my colleague. [19:10] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): Well, they grow natural anyway. They both do. [19:14] Darcy Kutcher, Harbormaster: And I was just going to throw in as part of the process, now that we did the FOIA request and we have all the email addresses of every aquaculturist in town, I can easily send out an email and let them know like, here's what the town is thinking. Does anybody have any concerns? And that way we kind of really involve everybody. I don't see that this is gonna cause anyone any problems for all the reasons Matt said, and I think it's a nice start to kind of, there's so many things we cannot control when something large like this harmful algal bloom comes. But if we start managing the small stuff, it's a good step. [19:45] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): It'll be fascinating to explore if we have the legal authority to do it. [19:49] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): I mean it will be great. I don't mean do I want this to become a legal battle? Yeah, right, I don't think it will be. Yeah, I've talked to the state a little bit about it. I think there's yeah some agreeance there that this would just be a quick win. It's something that will be at the exam to the legislator process because that's the only way to change something like that. And that's not gonna happen until we have a new legislator in January. So, I mean we could have that ball rolling. [20:15] Darcy Kutcher, Harbormaster: And we may already have voluntary compliance anyway, but yeah, you know it's true. [20:19] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): Know I think that's a great way, it's I hadn't thought of what Darcy mentioned with the list, you know I'm more than willing if we send out a mass email, we're already at voluntary compliance or if we're not, they'd be more than willing to come into it, so I think it's just more of an it's part regulation but more education than anything, I think yeah outreach, let's go ahead on it, go for. [20:43] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): It all right, request for bids for winter sand, sure. [20:52] Select Board member (introducing grant item): So this is before the board annually as we start approaching unbelievably the need for winter supplies. We currently the current price that we're at for the 2526 season is 2350 and we typically send out every this time of year. We've already expended 800 already received within 2026 846 yards and we're just asking permission to send this back out to the local contractors to see what price we will get this year. Yep, I move that we send. [21:34] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): Out an RFP for sand, a little second, all in favor, public. Comment, not seeing any other business. [21:46] Select Board member (introducing grant item): Did you have any the plan are asked if a workshop could be scheduled with the select board and the housing committee as they're starting to work on ordinance changes and also, a goal of the select board was to reduce the size of some subdivision lots, and they're having a lot of questions about different things as they move through this process, and it would be very helpful at this time to have a workshop with the select board to make sure everybody's on the same page and going the right way. [22:23] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): Would that be better with a planning board than it would be the housing committee? [22:26] Select Board member (introducing grant item): The housing committee is proposing the changes that would then eventually it [22:32] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): will work its way to the planning board but I think they're having some discussions now where they'd like to get more input and feedback from the select board and I don't know if Margaret is still with us or not but she indicated it would be helpful to this process if the selector could participate at this time with the housing committee yep we're looking for my only problem is [22:56] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): I'm pretty jammed up for the rest of October yeah I was going to suggest maybe four [23:03] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): o'clock on that did we say it was October 22nd because today we talked about changing that building I'm doing that's good I can make that work you know this is all kind of up in the [23:17] Select Board member (introducing grant item): air but so buildings at three what happened to fire and rescue they talked about going to one [23:21] Select Board member (Don Miskell report): o'clock they're jumping all over the place they're driving me nuts so I can that would probably help [23:28] Select Board member (aquaculture seed ordinance lead): keep things as long as you guys are amendable if I'm like maybe five minutes late to a workshop but I can make it happen at four yeah then we'd go four or five six right yeah right yeah four or [23:43] Select Board member (introducing grant item): five seconds get it all done and Kevin will be one three four five and six right can't wait [23:51] Speaker C (unidentified): You gotta move a card in here yeah I was just gonna say you might as well rent a room upstairs [23:54] Select Board member (introducing grant item): that day. We do have a car. [23:58] Select Board Chair (presiding officer): All right. We've had enough fun. At this point, we're adjourned.