Bangor Finance Committee approves digital sign, sewer vehicle, and airport contract

[0:14] Susan Deane: We're live. Good evening and welcome to the regularly scheduled finance committee meeting. Today is Monday, May 4th, 2026, and it's 5:38 p.m. One finance committee. I am your chair, Counselor Dean. We also have Counselor Beck, Counselor Carson, Counselor Falloon, and joining us via Zoom is Counselor Maller. Also at the table are Counselor Fish, Counselor Chair Hawes, City Manager Carollynn Lear, again for our finance director Stephanie Kimball, and we also have Counselor Walker. Counselor Leonard. Is that everyone? We will start with some bids and purchases. All right, so first on the list is a bid for a new digital sign in front of the public works building. The recommendation is to go with the low bidder. I'm actually going to invite Dave up because I think Dave would love to talk about why he's excited about replacing the sun. I'll graduate here, Dave. Hello [1:38] Carollynn Lear: everybody. I'm excited about replacing science. One of my initial charges when I got hired in position was to better communicate all of our activities with the residents of Bangor. By placing this sign out there, we'll be able to accomplish that. Tens of thousands of cars pass my facility every month, which is ten times more than we have on our notification website where we send out notifications of different activities in the city. I think that my department does from construction activities, paving activities, to road closures, to snow events that are happening in the city, and parking bans that are put into place, and all the other departments can send me messages they want to put on there to a good city hall, and we can put any kind of message on there. Thank [2:32] Susan Deane: you for clarifying the number of cars that go by. I did wonder what I saw this. How much, how many, how many people will see this? Yes, quite a few, right, you. [2:46] Michael Beck: Which of the fonts did you guys decide on for the ABCD? The decision hasn't been made yet. [2:53] Carollynn Lear: I got a call from compliance today that this doesn't meet our code, so there's some discussion going on about that, but we'll use Citi's font or suggestions from the sign company. They have a lot of experience. If you visit their website, they make signs all over the United States. There's all kinds of variations we can do with it. The center part of that obviously a two-sided sign, and I control that from my desktop, any message we want to put on there, graphics and that type of thing. So no Comic Sans if you don't want it, or if you do, we can put it on there, any kind of script you want. So it makes it really easy to read while you're driving by it. No, it'll be very readable, and you know, at the direction of the city obviously. There's a template for fonts, colors, all that good stuff, so. [3:47] Michael Beck: And then just a follow-up, this is just a general comment actually for the city manager, is I'd be very curious to see how this turns out, because I'm thinking about one for City Hall. That'd be kind of a great thing to see with all the information we need to put out from here. [4:00] Susan Deane: Agreed, and we had actually talked about when Dave approached me with this, we want to do something more citywide, and we'll use this as a pilot. It and then talk about that, because I think snow bands, road closures, all those types of things, public meetings that you want to notice, potentially an opportunity to communicate more [4:22] Carollynn Lear: and the cool thing about the sign is that if we put them all at all the departments across city or City Hall, the message can be unified, so what's on one is on all signs at the same time, so the message from whoever desk takes control of it, multiple people could have control over the [4:37] Susan Deane: message that we're trying to put out. And this is 24 7, it's on all night, or does it go off? 24 7, it's [4:45] Carollynn Lear: got some self-dimming features that follow code, so it goes down to like, it's at 100 during the day, it's down at 10 at night, so it's not over bright, it's not up lighting, so it's going to meet all those requirements for that. Yes. [5:04] Michael Beck: And does, do you know if they have any kind of a warranty for us during the time period? I'm assuming they do. I haven't really spoken to them [5:13] Carollynn Lear: that hard on it. I don't remember what I wrote in there for warranty. You know, I requested that they give me some training, so they've already sent me a link into the site where we can format the message and put it on there. I'm assuming there's going to be some kind of a warranty, maybe even, I don't know if it could probably be a pretty lengthy one on the LED portion of it, because they could go out. Yeah, concerns. [5:40] Susan Deane: We have no objection. I think we can go with our staff recommendation to go with Golden Rule Signs for thirty one thousand seventy one. [5:50] Michael Beck: Dollars, thank you. There's a question, since we got Councilor Mallory, is he on the committee with us? Yes, he didn't raise his hand. No, I know, but because it's not new, we have to do [6:01] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): roll call this one. We actually don't need them. Oh, okay, well then there you go, it's under [6:05] Susan Deane: the threshold, there you go. Okay, thank you, thank you. Next up is a utility vehicle for the sewer department. Yes, so this is an RFP was issued for a replacement from the sewer department utility vehicle. Eight bids were received and we are asking to go with the low bid. This amount is budgeted, pretty vanilla, any [6:45] Michael Beck: questions? Yes, sponsor back. Well first a comment, I noticed this is the first time I noticed the new is the proposal responsive line. Yeah, they're very helpful and I appreciate that. The other question, it says here there's no past experience with the vendor. Was there any kind of like a check on references or something like that to get comfortable with it? I [7:07] Susan Deane: could like that, right? Thank you, thank you. Lead Director Mike Warren. Yes, we [7:14] Daniel Carson: we're going to call them after we get approval, but also this is actually when they when we order from them it comes directly from Minnesota, so the this will come from Polaris direct. Okay, just like the last one we purchased, it came right from the factory. Gotcha, so they're [7:33] Michael Beck: just like the middleman, so we're not a whole lot can go wrong there. Well yes, that's the [7:38] Susan Deane: whole right. Okay, any other questions, any concerns? We have no concerns, then we will go with staff recommendation to go with Java Brothers Management LLC 36 200. Next up we have the Birch Stream Watershed basically. So an RFP was issued to update the First Stream Watershed Plan. It was posted for about a month. It only received one response from a local vendor and this is a vendor that we've used in the past. So staff is looking for approval to use this better. I'm sure Jeff could answer any questions [8:41] Michael Beck: the plan that they're updating, when was that one from? And then the follow-up question of that is how often are we required to update this? Yep [9:01] Unidentified staff member (likely Director of Engineering): Davis, Director of Engineering. So this is the permanent requirement for our MS4 stormwater permits, so DP requires this. So the last update was in 2015 and this will be the new update. DP is involved in this process as well, they have to approve this final plan. Oh [9:32] Susan Deane: sorry, I'm sorry, I was just going to say a motion, a second. We will need a roll call vote because we have out so Mallard on Zoom. Do I call them? I think okay, Council Mallard you're [Unidentified staff member (likely Director of Engineering): muted. Yes] Yes, also Carson, yes, so that, yes, and I'm, yes, we will go with the staff recommendation for the river stream watershed lease plan. Thank [10:17] Unidentified staff member (likely Director of Engineering): you. Yeah, you want me to keep this here? [10:23] Susan Deane: Yes, so airport staff is looking for approval to award a contract to Gordon Contracting LLC of Same for that. Two bids were received and Gordon was the low bidder. That particular vendor has done report projects in the past, so staff is looking for an award to that, to that vendor, and this one requires from here and we'll obviously go counsel at that level of spin. We may have some questions on this. Anyone like to pose a question, any [11:17] Michael Beck: concerns, counselor? Back just to look at the math, so the local shares looks like it's around 337, 338,000. Two and a half percent is that of the, of the 13 million? [11:33] Susan Deane: I think Jose is actually online, he's traveling, but he's prepared to answer your question. [11:48] Unidentified staff member (likely Airport Director): Hey Jose, hi, can you guys hear me? Did you hear counselor Beck's question? I did not hear the question, could you repeat that for me? I was just looking for confirmation of what the local share is in the three hundred thousand dollar range, is that right? Yes, so the project is an, it's an FAA funded project, so Lee Bartlett is the engineer in the room and he will, he can confirm the exact number. I believe the FAA's match is either 90 or 95 percent, so yes, that about 300,, 400,000 sounds about right. Yes. [12:38] Susan Deane: Council Fish is the, grant has it been approved? Do you know where we are in the grant process for [12:54] Unidentified staff member (likely Airport Director): the award of the grant? Yes, the question, so this is a project that is, it was bid in three different components to it. The airport has secure funding for the first portion, which is I believe close to six million dollars. The other two are pending on FAA allocations of resources within the region. So we will not get confirmation on the remaining of the funds until later this year. And so the way we normally do for this type of projects is that we build a caveat into the agreement that moving forward with the project is contingent on the FAA securing the funds. We've been working very close with them over the last couple of months, particularly as the grant application deadline approach. And so once they have a better sense of what the discretionary allocations might be, we'll have a better number. [14:05] Susan Deane: Okay, thank you very much. That's what I was looking for, that contingency and you answered that, thank you. Absolutely, any other questions for Jose, any concerns, I [14:21] Unidentified staff member (likely Airport Director): Entertain a motion. I would like to just provide some additional information on this project if you may allow me. Of course, thank you. Yeah, the project, as you could see from the bid tab, there were two bidders that submitted a proposal for this project. The airport is recommending the lowest bidder, but I, for a full disclosure and awareness of the of the committee and of the council, we did receive a protest letter from not the lowest bidder but the other bidder on the on this on the selection, the airport and the engineering team and the legal team coordinated and discussed them the merits and the validity of the protest, and after the FAA reviewed the documentation that was submitted to the city, they determined that it the protest did not meet, it wasn't about the substance of the procurement process, but rather of the protester's belief on the contractor's ability to deliver on the project, so it deferred back to city procurement process, and so again in close coordination with Stephanie with the legal department and with their engineering team, we believe that there is no concerns on moving forward with the recommendation to the to award the contract to Gordon. Thank [16:11] Susan Deane: you for that information, Jose. Don't have any questions on that. We entertain a motion. Move staff recommendation to council. Second. We have a motion, we have a second. It we will go to a roll call vote. Councillor Mallar? Yes. Councillor Faloon? Yes. Councillor Carson? Yes. Councillor Beck? Yes. And I will be a yes. Five yeses. We'll move that to council. Next up we have a re-evaluation update. Yes, we have our and Phil Drew is in here, so we're to meet somebody new today and give the update. Should I say it? Okay, all right, Brandon Palacios. [17:00] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): Crazier. It's to make Brandon. It's free here, so be kind to me, but a quick update on the citywide rebound. Currently KRT has completed 35 of all residential properties for both interior and exterior, with an additional 5,541 properties that they've only gotten exterior information from. Phil, add a little note in there for you that by the IAAO standards, 35 is typically average on what you would get for being able to get both interior and exterior data, just because people are at work or they just don't want to let us in. So we also sent out a second attempt letter and they are currently processing those that went out to all the properties that did not have interior data. It's asking them to call and to schedule a time for them so that way it's not something that they just show up to your door. They are working through those right now, and then we also had in our contract a third attempt that they were supposed to go on site. However, we've pivoted that and we've sent out a questionnaire, which is going to be that those last two pages on there which I'll go over in a moment but the questionnaire we believe that this is going to give us the ability to get honest feedback from everyone to get information for those that either can't let us in won't let us in or don't want to talk to us so the intention is there to kind of bridge that gap and hopefully get some more data out of it because some is better than none. This, the questionnaire asked, pretty much goes over the entire property. It gives us what they currently have, it explains why we're asking them. It asks dwelling units conditions. And then on the second page of that, it actually gives descriptions on how we would relate to condition and condition styles and things like that. Any questions about residential? Yes. [18:59] Daniel Carson: Yes. Is there a different weighting applied to the surveys that are received back? Because there's not an inspection that can verify the accuracy of those? [19:15] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): That's a good question. I will have to talk with Phil about that. In regard to commercial properties, they have visited it at 1029 and they're about to about the same amount as where they are for first attempts these commercial properties were all also emailed or mailed income and expense questionnaires so that we could utilize the income and expense income approach for evaluation asides as well those were all mailed on the week of April 24th I'm sorry April 27th and then we sent out an additional interior request letter as well and then at Phil had a nice little thing in there why we actually asked for income data which is really interesting but it does help us to ensure equity public outreach and information we are holding a meeting at I apologize I forgot with the peaks auditorium the peaks auditorium Bangor High that'll be at 5 30 to 8 and open to the public on June 16th for any questions that may be in regards to the citywide rebound and it's just going to be an open floor so that KRT will be there so and then like I said on those last two Pages, it's just an example of the questionnaire that was mailed out again. The intention is to gather as much up-to-date data as possible so that we can ensure that everyone one has been tapped adequately. Are [20:52] Susan Deane: we going to meet our deadline? They say so. He says yes. I don't think we'll know until that deadline comes or very close. So what happens when people have continuously ignored all attempts and don't [21:14] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): don't respond at all? You guess that what we make an estimate? Yes ma'am, we estimate based off of what we can observe, and they unfortunately aren't able to abate that or to question that because they did not allow us to actually do the inspection. If they did change their mind later on down the road and they want us to come, then we can certainly come out and reevaluate and do it then. But that would be for the farm this year. [21:45] Michael Beck: The meeting is going to be at Peaks Auditorium. Is that going to be recorded at all, like put on YouTube and the city's website for people to see if they can't make it? [21:53] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): Great question. I will also find that out too. What [22:04] Susan Deane: can people do if they have not received a mailing or if they have lost a mailing? Do they [22:08] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): contact the assessor's office? They are welcome to contact us. We constantly get people that have gotten the piece of mail and they threw it away and they're like, hey, I got it, but I don't know who to reach out to. We can give them the number. We can bridge that gap with them. [22:27] Susan Deane: So hopefully we'll meet the deadline and this will again encourage some people to fill out the paperwork for us. Okay, nice. [22:42] Daniel Carson: Mark this comment. I'll thank you for your work and I hope that we [22:45] Unidentified staff member (likely City Manager or Deputy): I know I appreciate it. I'm excited for some public speaking. [22:49] Susan Deane: You did a great job. Thank you. Thank you. That is the last thing we have. Any others? We do not. So we are adjourned with finances.