Bangor Finance Committee approves sewer project, robot sidewalk survey

[0:34] Susan Deane: we are live good evening and welcome to the regularly scheduled finance committee meeting it is june 1st 2026 at 5 15 p.m happy june to everyone i am susan dean the chair of finance we are joined around the table by counselor beck counselor falloon counselor maller should be joining us via zoom counselor carson is out this evening would you like to sit in for council carson we'll have council walker on the committee we're also joined by council leonard counselor fish and our finance director Stephanie Kimball. We have three things on the agenda: an executive session, bids and purchasing, and the assessor update. Would I entertain a motion to [1:22] Wayne Mallar: go into executive session? Go [1:25] Michael Beck: into a bigger session under one MRS A 4056A, personnel matter. [1:34] Susan Deane: We have a motion, we have a second. Roll call vote. Council Walker? Yes. Council Falloon? Yes. Council Beck? Yes. And the councilor is not silent. We will be back in a moment after these executive sessions. We are back from executive session and we are back in our regular finance committee agenda. We will begin with bids and purchases. First up is a Cumberland Street sewer separation. Be joined by Jefferson Davis, city engineer. Yeah, [22:51] Lisa Goodwin: go ahead. What we have in front of you is [22:55] Carollynn Lear: is Cumberland Street Sewer Separation Project. It is a project that is listed in our long-term control plan, which is part of our 2015 consent decree with the EPA. The project includes installation of approximately 900 linear feet of new sanitary sewer main and 1,000 linear feet of new storm drain, along with associated manholes, holes, catch basins, curbing, and pavement restoration. This project is a sewer separation project, so currently Cumberland Street, the storm drains tie into the sewer, so this project will create a new or improve the sewer main itself because it's aging, but also separate a new storm drain. Again, as I mentioned earlier, this is part of the long-term control plan in part B, and it requires that this project is completed by 2026. We had funding originally planned to support construction FY25. That funding was not obtained, so I am here asking to reallocate some local funding to cover this project. We originally were going to go with a Main DOT minutes will partnership initiative loan for 50 local matching. One of those projects was for the Ohio Street sidewalk project and the Cumberland Street stormwater pavement. The Ohio Street sidewalk project was budgeted to be 1 million 250,000 with a local share of 625,000 which was Approved in F-26 and the Cumberland Street stormwater pavement portion was budgeted to be 700 000 with a local share of 350 000 and again that was part of the FY 26 budget. The Ohio Street project actually got funded through another grant project a new it's a UPI grant through the state which is fairly new so that money that local share of 625 is just sitting there we're in views so that's why that would be a good use of that fund. So again, we are trying to reallocate $625,000 from Ohio Street and $350,000 from Cumberland Street, which totals $975,000. And we have $495,000 for previous funding for this project, so that gets us the money we need to cover this project that's due in 2026. Six we had a bid go out and received one local bid Blue Silver for a total bid of two million eight hundred and three thousand six hundred eighteen dollars. I should back up and tell you that this project was bid out as a team project with the water district which we've done you know I've been to the city since 2016 I think this is the sixth project we've done to team with them we do that to help share some of the local costs of pavement restoration mobilization of the contractor and those you know traffic control all those lump sum beds we kind of team together and helps the local share we still pay for the portion of the sewer that we put in storm drain and all that so our local our share of that which you have a schedule of shared costs that I provided that is one million three hundred nine thousand four hundred thirty two dollars and twenty five cents and if we if the reallocation is approved we have enough to cover that and we have a little bit left over for construction contingency and inspection so that's I'm asking for the reallocation plus the award right would that be [26:58] Susan Deane: two separate motions no okay we have any questions regarding this real location Council Leonard [27:08] Angela Walker: I just want to thank the city engineer for his for sorry Jeff but thank you so much for taking this on and I know this is a huge household that you had to deal with but we're going to get through this it's going to be okay and I just want to thank you for really doing your due diligence to make sure that we avoid this pitfall so not just not just engineering oh yeah yes and Amanda as well as well and I'm sorry but I didn't get tacos [27:45] Susan Deane: Any other questions, concerns? I entertain a motion for the reallocation of funds and we bid to go to Lou Silver for this work. So moved. We have a second. We will take a roll call vote. Yes,, and I will be yes. Thank you very [28:13] Lisa Goodwin: very much. Next up, [28:19] Susan Deane: we have the mobile air start unit at the airport. [28:25] Joseph Leonard: Okay, the airport recently bid the replacement of an air start unit. Free beds came in ranging from 279,989 to 324,335. Staff is recommending awarding the bid to TLD America. They offer an extended warranty for the piece of equipment. Also they offer the proper 270 pound per minute which was stated as the minimum needs for the airport and the low bidder only had 250 pound per unit per minute unit, excuse me. The airport budgeted 330,000 in fiscal year 26 for the replacement. The replaced unit will be sold at auction, so staff recommends purchasing this unit from TLD America for 305,280. [29:10] Susan Deane: Do you have any questions regarding this bid, concerns? Did we entertain a motion for the total air start unit for 305,180. I would move the staff [Lisa Goodwin: recommendation. Second.] We have a motion, we have a second, roll call vote. Council Walker? Yes. Councilor Faloon? Yes. Councilor Beck? Yes. Councilor Malheur? Yes. And I will be yes. So it's staff recommendation. Okay. Next up, we have a waive of the bid process for the ADA sidewalk self-evaluation. [29:56] Joseph Leonard: Yes. The City of Bangor is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to conduct a self-evaluation to inventory and evaluate the public buildings, parks, bus stops, sidewalks, et cetera, and to develop an ADA transition plan. This will identify obstacles limiting accessibility activities and services to individuals with disabilities, describe the methods that will be used to remove the obstacles and specify the schedule for taking steps to achieve the compliance with the ADA. In order to have the final product for the transition plan, the coordination team has developed phases to evaluate the city's assets. This includes legal engineering planning,, parks and rec. So the first step was to conduct a self-evaluation of the city's assets. The team determined it would be most appropriate to focus on evaluating the sidewalks for ADA compliance. After discussing the methods that can be accomplished and budgetary constraints, they met with Daxbot, which is a company based in Oregon to build specialized robots to evaluate ADA compliance of the sidewalks and curb ramps. The full sidewalk assessment and data collection will take approximately two to three weeks. They will produce a summary report of their findings and metrics collected by the robots within four to five weeks. They will then create a priority list within the city's transition plan for the sidewalks, curb ramps, and crosswalk, which will be shared with engineering and public works so that we can plan out future road and sidewalk projects. They're requesting approval to waive the bid process and authorize sole source procurement to hire Daxbot to do this needs assessment of the 150 miles of city sidewalks. I [31:44] Susan Deane: have a question, Stephanie. Yes. These robots, obviously, were designed to determine if we are compliant as far as the ADA. Are they also going to check for any issues that need to be fixed that don't have to do with compliance? Are they going to notice cracks and things like that or is it just appliance nature jefferson do you know that just [32:09] Carollynn Lear: appliance nature that's what we do have if people want we do have a video that we can share kind of what it looks like sure i also have assistant city solicitor grace and one of my engineers hannah whoever they work on this be hard so if i can't answer something they probably can ready short video about that you know it's pretty much a self-contained robot that is remotely controlled though this company when they deploy all these there is somebody actively monitoring everything and the robot it goes and collects the data and then gives people reporting as you see photos and then we take that and we put that into our transition plan which helps us one tells us what's not compliant and two helps us so we can get a price to get the city in compliance so it you know it's it helps us with capital planning so there's not a lot of these companies out here i think that's why we're asking for a sole source we've had quite a few meetings with them we feel really confident that this will work in This area again, this is going to be for our sidewalk nodes between the curb ramps, also the curb ramps itself. And then there, this company also has a marketing team that, you know, will help us market this so people just so people will know what's going on when they see this little robot. I think that the Dax Bot itself will have a city logo on it. I think we'll have QR code where you, we can scan and see what it's doing. And again, it'll be monitored. So if I'm missing anything or [34:38] Wayne Mallar: you have a couple questions. I'm not on this committee. But so will it be long distance remote? Or will there be someone readily nearby? [34:50] Carollynn Lear: So we think there is something to be read nearby, there is a deployed out of a trailer, and there's somebody monitoring in that trailer. So if there are issues, somebody kicks it over [35:00] Wayne Mallar: or something like that they can get here. It's just thinking of potential liability for, you know, anyone on the street that, you know, if there's any negative interaction, I just didn't know how that would be handled. And I know that this is going to take care of the sidewalks, but was, is this a requirement by the ADA? It's come up now. Is this the first time or is this is periodically? And I'm just kind of surprised we're just sort of having an assessment now in that it's more or less been corrected. This question is it takes care of the sidewalks, but it sounds like there's other obligations we have under this, such as access to city buildings, parks, bus stops. What are we going to do about it? How do we address the [35:52] Carollynn Lear: The other, so this is, this is not a one step thing we're going to done. This is a multi faceted program that we're going to have to do to create this transition plan. So we're breaking it up into phases. The most time consuming is going, you know, buildings like this, is a day where myself or some of my crew can grow and evaluate the highway, and they need to build in the sidewalk nodes, the many, miles of sidewalks. We just don't have the manpower to do that. So this is a way to get that quickly. And we can have it at our hand, at our fingertips to go forward with this transition plan. But yes, we are actively working on plans for everything else, but this is kind of phase one for that. The DOT just completed their transition plan,. So we're, we're kind of, we have that framework to kind of copy off of. And we've actually been working with their ADA compliance officers to help us with this too. So they're pretty excited that we are trying to go in this direction. [36:57] Susan Faloon: I'm assuming this is significantly less expensive to do this assessment, the robot that it is to manually go out [37:04] Carollynn Lear: to do it yes yeah and that's when i mean we knew you know the sadie transition plan is something that we've been working on for a while now but it's just the manpower to get out there and do it you know i think i started this a few years ago you know when john terry was the city engineer i had time to go out and you know measure programs and that sort of stuff but it's just you can do a little bit and then it goes away for a year because you just don't have time to do it so but this is this is really a good way to get this chunk done out of the way and we can get that first phase and again the rest of the city is easier to do you know facilities are much easier to do than the long nodes of sidewalks you [37:50] Wayne Mallar: had a question yes i did i'm curious what's the compliance date that we're looking to have everything done by we don't have an actual [38:02] Carollynn Lear: deadline it's just something that needs to be done so we're trying to get it done [38:07] Wayne Mallar: as quickly as possible yeah the next second question would be obviously you must have been out in the on the web or somewhere looking to see if this is the only company that [38:20] Carollynn Lear: uses robots to do it or yes we have spent quite a bit of time making sure seeing if there are other companies available and we have exhausted that effort we think that this is the [38:32] Wayne Mallar: only one to be able to do this type of work so would we have been better off in the long run to have put an rfp out and had the information come back or do you feel that doing it yourself was easier i'm just curious because i don't like suspending the bid process i think it brings up other questions so you've already done the leg work so the question i had was would we be better off to put out an RFP and let them do the legwork and give us the information and then make a determination? [39:04] Carollynn Lear: I don't know if I can answer that because we could have got nobody. I mean, how far do RFPs go out? I mean, we had to go, I mean, this isn't in the state, this is out of state. I mean, where do we put the information out? You might've never seen anything. That's a hard question to answer. Just because it's on our website doesn't mean these companies see it. [39:27] Michael Beck: Dr. Beck? Sure. And I would concur that, you know, this is the only company I could find online. [39:32] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): I'm curious myself. I couldn't find anything. [39:35] Michael Beck: Closest thing I could find is a company out there that we would have to supply the manpower, but we have to use phones and the lidar. And it doesn't collect nearly as much information as what these robots do. And it's also a safety component as well. You've got robots out there, you know, measuring the curves and doing stuff. Stuff and God forbid one of them gets hit by a car, I mean I'd rather be a robot than a person, but also if I understand this correctly, not only are we getting the manpower in this case robot power to go up these measurements, but they're also putting the database together all of this collected information, and to have both of those pieces done for what comes out to be 666 bucks a mile, you know that's actually a good deal because we have to do this and we were legally obligated to do this and Whether it's we pay manpower four times as much to do it or we have robots, either way we have to do it. I guess the question I had is because the video I saw online was a like a minute and a half or two minute version, and in there you know the people were met, you know, monitoring it and everything, but it was interesting to see people interact with the robot, like there was a scene of a little kid who waved at the robot and robot does a little head side to side, and then there's a whole bunch of News articles out there to other communities who've done in California and Texas and all of it, and it just seemed like what a positive image as well. I got free pull, I say free because we had a papers, but publicity isn't the purpose of this, is a bonus. I can't find anything not to do this, again we're legally obligated, it's cheaper than trying to have you know people want to do it, which means you're going to get less data, less accurate data, and you still have to go through all that paperwork Compile into something useful, I mean this is the total package, it's the future, and for 666 bucks a mile it does seem like a good deal. Do you have any other questions? [41:51] Susan Deane: We have a second, do a roll call vote from the walker. Yes, counselor Balloon. Yes, Dr. Beck. Yes, come from out. Yes, and I will be yes. We have our blessing to wave the big process [42:06] Lisa Goodwin: Us and keep going with the robot, thank you very much. Cool, we'll update you when you know we can [42:14] Carollynn Lear: Schedule and some of the marketing stuff comes about, if are they going to demo first before we [42:21] Lisa Goodwin: Go or oh [42:24] Susan Deane: Sorry, get it under the table, sorry [42:37] Unidentified speaker (Civil Engineer): I'm the civil engineers engineering department so yeah we talked to the back spot rep and he said that the publicity campaign for this can be whatever we want it to be it can be public facing it can be just like a kickoff at city hall so we're they're really flexible for whatever we want it to be i [43:05] Michael Beck: would just say yeah definitely anything we could do to educate the public that they're we're seeing these robots around about and yeah again yeah it sounds like there's gonna be some real positive imaging that you can model this for the city of ottawa for the [43:18] Lisa Goodwin: hard work they've done. You can do a little interaction with some of the school kids or [43:24] Carollynn Lear: something. Yeah, I think we'll work with David Warren. Yeah, great thoughts. I was [43:35] Angela Walker: going to say, really quickly, hopefully we can get the sequel to Wally take place in banking. It looks like it [43:42] Carollynn Lear: it doesn't abide the whole brand. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. [43:50] Susan Deane: Next on the agenda, we have the assessor update on the 2026 six evaluation. I believe we have Filter that will do joining us, city assessor guru, [44:06] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): city assessor. So you have my memo before you. Memo really follows zoom meeting I had with Charity Appraisal last week, and I just wanted to bring it to you before the expected to June meeting that we have planned for the budget meeting. I did want to let you know that the residential properties, single family, multi-residents, vacant land, and mobile homes, I've been able to review their preliminary values for those classes of property, and for each one they have met our metric of approximately 97 percent of market value, and they have met the standards that we have set in the RFP five and between a COD, which is a quality rating between five and ten. They have mostly met those, so that's about 8,500 properties in the city, so those are looking very good. So my concern with that group would be field reviews. So a field review when somebody goes out, has the property card, and makes a, as a final look at the property and property data. Now they've told me that the work is done. But I can't go into all of the accounts and see the notation in the system. So they said they would be working on that. So we will, when Ken Rogers, the president, our project managers before Ascension 10, that will be an important question that we had, has all the data been entered? Because we want, we know there's the sales are going to be scrutinized used for the analysis, but we want to make sure that every property another set of eyes because they had four to five data collectors, and we want it to be consistent and make sure that we picked up on everything. So that'll be important on the 10th on the commercial industrial and special use properties. So that's about 2,500 properties, and but it represents 50 of the assessment. They will no way make the June deadline on that. Class of property I can go into the accounts and I can see that unless they've got a lot of data entry today, it still so June 10th will be important for that update from ART. And on page two we've got the original timeline in the middle of the page, but the important thing for us is so built into this timeline gives me a two-week review period. Now, there's less of a review that's necessary for residential, but the commercial industrial, especially if they had wide variation in the value for April. 1st, 2026 versus last year's assessed values. And that really, that time period can't be compressed, and everything after that really can't be compressed any more than it is. So again, Mr. Rogers will be able to answer the question of the delivery to me for formal review. Can. [48:08] Susan Deane: I ask what is your latest possible date that you could receive health information and still make it in time for? [48:19] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): So if we add at least two weeks in July, 24th is their original due date. So I think that will be extended by at least it's going to get us maybe into the middle August, but we can't really compress the impact notices going up to the property owners, their opportunity to afford informal hearings with care to sit down if they have any questions on the hearing review finality by GRT, and then the project completion to me. I. [49:10] Carollynn Lear: Think this is this was already tight, but. [49:14] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): it's made tighter by their delay in starting the commercial property we started it in earnest in November, December. That's a short period of time to do 2500 commercial properties in the city, but there was nothing I could say to move them along any furthest. And June 10th will be important. We're still working on transfer Patriot Software to TRIO. So there we have a we have a perversion contract with them, so it should be it should be this way that we'll be able to test that. So I think some important things are because the commercial values are coming later, so fortunate and I'm you know I'm sorry to say that the downtown on the bus tiff district values And those values for the Bangor Center Development District are obviously going to be delayed. Even last week, when I was arguing for December commercial work to be done, they informed me last week that our high-valued Main Street properties might be last to be done. that. So I feel uncomfortable that you folks have to go into making decisions on the estimates. So I've provided, I think, reasonable estimates to our finance director and city manager on the total value that's been built into the budget book. And I've given an approximate estimation for the Bangor Center Development District as well, but I just can't say where will KRT arrive at for values. Silbering assessment of where we are today, but that's as accurate as I can be and I would just need you folks to be ready for June 10th because I will be ready to say it's really up to you to explain and potentially give us some updated estimated values because only he would know how comfortable it would be for him to give estimates on the commercial side and residential presidential side so I wish I could do that presented to you but that's kind of where we are right now and I did watch another meeting so I just wanted to be clear that so the values for tax purposes this year will be April 1st 2026 and they should be the values developed by a care team [53:04] Lisa Goodwin: thank you for remembering yes do [53:10] Wayne Mallar: you have a question yes i know this is going to be tough but just in your opinion or what your assumption might be with no guarantees it sounds like the residential even though they are about 85 percent done it looks like that they came out about 95 to 97 with the formulas and the sales so you are pretty accurate to where they are in check you now with the commercial it might be a little different because if i remember last year the year before we changed the downtown district a little bit so i don't know if that will impact it do you feel that you 're still comfortable that you're in the 90 or above with your estimate as a result of the formulas you've been applying since you know to keep things a [54:01] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): little bit up to market value so I think for the estimate for the finance director yeah I think it's the most reasonable estimate at this point and it could come in higher right [54:13] Wayne Mallar: I know there's no guarantee until they come in yeah and so when I worked very closely making [54:19] Joseph Leonard: making up the tax rate calculation, that sheet that's within the budget book, and get the closest numbers that we thought were possible. And real quick. [54:30] Unidentified speaker (Civil Engineer): Now I wanna make sure that we all understand what would happen if it did come in higher. And I think that's something that the public would be interested in. If the values come in higher, that does not mean that we will collect more money. That means that the mill rate will go down based on the budget that you just want to make sure that's clear because I think that's a place where misunderstanding happens and then there can be a bit of panic from the public we [55:04] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): don't see that explanation and I will either be before you or with a memo to say I've done my review I feel very confident that the values are reasonable because once they're committed they're my values I have to defend them so I will let you know as soon as possible yeah so there are a couple of questions that were mentioned [55:35] Michael Beck: that we should be asking on the 10th could we receive an email ahead of that 10th meeting just going okay here's some questions that this council would we should probably ask [55:46] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): to get the answers to the signature yes we will I will forward that email to everybody let's see these are the pertinent questions both feet to the fire I do [56:01] Susan Deane: have a question we obviously you would like the actual numbers to come in exactly where you have estimated them to be but if not is it better to come in higher so that our bill rate will go down and that would just suggest that [56:19] Lisa Goodwin: that the equitable total value should be higher and if our city is valued more we are deserving [56:27] Susan Deane: of more funding certain things as well correct I mean if you have a city that is continually improving I mean it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have values increase I don't think so I think [56:42] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): That's because that would, we just want more equity with the property values, right? You want the assessed values to be very close to market value, yeah. And we want the precision to be better. For example, there was one neighborhood I looked at, the value we had was a little hundred above a hundred percent market value, so that one would come down. But it's, it's quality rating, the accuracy went from 15 to 7. That's like twice as accurate, and that means for that neighborhood. Some properties that it's almost too great. So the seven is within our target of five to 10. It's a much more equitable tax bill for that neighborhood. [57:44] Susan Deane: But we should tell people not to panic until we're fully through this, I would say. [57:50] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): Right, and you know, obviously the impact notices were, we caught originally on June 22nd. [Lisa Goodwin: Because I] think, I think I'd want to be convinced that both presidential and commercial are both done, as opposed to saying one's done a little, not commercial, what's that, especially [58:21] Joseph Leonard: commercial, yeah, any [58:25] Susan Deane: other questions for our assessor? Yes. [58:33] Susan Faloon: Just, all right, just to clarify, so we probably won't then get impact notices till August? No, if it were [58:44] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): extended two weeks, then it would basically be the first week of July. [58:49] Susan Faloon: July, okay. And if those question, if so, we wouldn't want those to go out for residential because we won't know what the, well, no, we still don't know what the mill rate is, that won't impact the impact notices. So what's the, what's the main reason, can you explain that, the main reason why you wouldn't want the residential impact notices to go out until [59:13] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): the commercial have been completed? Well, they've given themselves a week, a week to do it, to send them out, because as soon as individuals get them, and then they're, because they're going to want to stagger the 11,000 impact notices over that week, so that they don't get too many calls right away on Monday to say I want to set up an informal hearing interview either in person or on the phone all at once. So they might, maybe that's why they take a week to send them out. [59:51] Susan Faloon: Right, but you know what I was asking was like, why, like if you have the residential ones completed and maybe I misunderstood, you're, you're going to hold off on sending those impact notices until the commercial ones are ready, is that right? I think that would be another question [1:00:07] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): for June 10th. We're getting, we can inquire, can he, can they send KRT send a group out before, okay, if they feel comfortable with the residential, yeah, that's a good question, yeah. [1:00:23] Susan Deane: All right, thank you. Maybe we could just clarify what was, what were you saying about not, something about you didn't want the residential to be done before the commercial was done? What exactly was [1:00:36] Joseph Leonard: that? Just the final values they were supposed to do commercial first, correct? So I think, I think [1:00:42] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): what I was trying to say was when my clock starts on my review, I hope that it's when they have everything done. Okay, I already started on residential, yes, but ideally it's still too weak to review 2500 commercial industrial properties because it's less, the value is less of a statistical change. So when we go to Bangor Gardens where there are 300 identical homes, two different sizes, that analysis is pretty quick. When you have every property on Main Street that's different than every other property on Main Street, it's, it's a different process and it's harder to, it takes more time to. Any [1:01:42] Susan Deane: other questions? We can't speed it along, so [1:01:46] Unidentified speaker (City Assessor): we'll hope for the best and I'll take the questions for June 10th as soon as possible and give me any additional questions that you think are relevant. Thank you, thank you, thank you. [1:02:02] Joseph Leonard: do we have any updates from you Stephanie I just wanted to I mean a lot of it has already been mentioned but budget meetings are ongoing as you know we have one more for which is wastewater and tiff coming up this week and then we have the initial budget resolves and then the two meetings for the further discussions another packet will be coming out with some updates we didn't want to make a whole new book so the pages that are affected by the changes I'm also scheduling a meeting with financial personnel across the city and department heads regarding timeliness and planning for new financial procedures for the new fiscal year, primarily month end procedures, and just getting their feedback of what the timeliness can be. And they've been here a lot longer than I have, obviously, so they could give me a lot of feedback, I'm sure. And then the deliverables on a monthly basis. And a lot of information is going to come from that meeting. And then I'll have individual department meetings after that because they have their own specific processes and kind of go from [1:03:17] Lisa Goodwin: there. Okay. [1:03:20] Susan Deane: Anyone have any questions for finance director? I believe then we will adjourn at six.