Bangor council, state legislators talk homelessness, housing and budget

[0:08] Susan Hawes: All right, you're alive. Good evening, welcome to the special city council workshop. We have our special guests this evening, the state legislators. We will have several topics as we move along, and this is really kind of giving sharing ideas, and we'll see where that takes us. This, but I think before we start, I'm going to ask like go around and say who the counselors are that's here, and then I'm going to ask the legislators to introduce themselves and your district. I won't get that right. We have four counselors in attendance. We have Councilor Carson, Councilor Faloon, Councilor Walker. We have Councilor Fish and Councilor Deane, Councillor Beck, Council Leonard, and Councillor Mallar, and Councillor Hawes, Council Chair. So we also have City Manager Carollynn Lear as well as at the table, and Senator Belcher, if you'd like to go. [1:14] Michael Beck: Sure, I just want to say thank you to everybody. This is an honor, obviously, love talking to the city council from whence I came. You guys obviously have much better digs than we have. So, I'm Joe Baldacci. I represent Senate District 9, which is the city of Bangor and the town of Hermann. I serve on three committees. I serve on health coverage, insurance, and financial services. I chair state and local government and inland fishing. So, a wide variety of topics that probably hit different people at different angles. I'm happy to talk to you about any of them. [1:55] Amy Roeder: I'm Representative Amy Rager. I represent House District 23, which is a portion of Bangor. We all have little pie pieces, so that's why I did this, I apologize. I am the chair of the labor committee and I sit on the state workforce board. Hi everyone, good evening and happy new year. My name is Umbre. [2:13] Ambureen Rana: Nana and I'm in my second term in the house. I represent House District 21, which is the part of Bangor. That is downtown Bangor as well as the west side of Bangor. And I won't choose sides. And I have served on the housing committee as well as the taxation committee. And now I'm really honored to serve on the Appropriations Committee. And I'm the northernmost member in the house on the Appropriations Committee. [2:47] John Faircloth: John Faircloth 24. So, sort of side tree streets, plus VZ and I'll say West Side, or no, basically, the district. I not as long as my friend Joe but serving as counselor, I think it was Joe who got the nice digs we were we were tucked up in a little corner room for all kinds of and meetings. I serve on Veterans and Legal Affairs and I'm a newbie to the legislature just elected February 25, 2025. [3:27] Susan Hawes: Okay. Welcome. Glad you could be here. It's nice that we did this so early in the year. We haven't always been that successful that quick to get you all together. So looking forward to the conversation. City Manager Carollynn Lear, I'm going to send it to you to get some background of why we are having this. Sure, we can kick it off. Yeah, so I think this is [3:54] Carolyn Fish: sort of a yearly exercise where we think the office would need to share with our legislators what council is going to prioritize in that upcoming year, and then also have the opportunity to hear from our legislators on what you hope to prioritize, in hopes that there's some alignment and some mutual benefit for our residents that we can pull us around. [4:20] Susan Hawes: Do you want me to dive right into our priorities then? I would, because we already know that. But Senator Balraci has to be back in his office by six, no later. Absolutely no later. [4:36] Michael Beck: Oh, my gosh. I served half years with the council chair, and she likes to give me a little digs every so often. She's taking former Councilor Blanchette's position in that regard, God rest her soul. Absolutely. Agreed. [4:53] Carolyn Fish: So, in early December, Council met to do a priority setting session. Council has not really finalized our priorities for the coming year, so I've marked these as tentative priorities. We engaged in a bit of a brainstorming session and discussion, and I would estimate that upwards words of 50 priorities were listed. So there's no shortage of really good work for us to tackle this year. But the top three are listed on your agenda in detail. Pretty universally voted the top priority in that session was establishing a comprehensive plan to address homelessness, and I think those discussions have started to march towards perhaps using an advisory committee model to explore that comprehensive plan, but I think there was pretty universal agreement that we need to do something a bit more thoughtful in relation to our response to addressing homelessness within the city, and then related and a close second was taking continuing to take I think a similar approach to addressing the city's housing needs. I think there's a lot being done, but because the need is so great rate relative to affordable housing, it will continue to undoubtedly be a priority. And then the third item on the list is probably a big goal for a single year, but to start thinking through how to thoughtfully address regional problems in a more regional and collaborative way. Way. I think that includes collaborating on the solutions, but also collaborating associated with those solutions so that we're all sort of marching towards the same goal together. Anything to add from upwards? I [7:22] Michael Beck: have a question. So where are we in terms of statistics in terms of the number of homeless people that we deal with on a regular basis in Bangor, and do we have statistics on, because some of them aren't going to be amenable to housing per se, so there's an issue about mental health services as well. Where are we in terms of our statistics in terms of how many, is the problem increasing, decreasing, same, and what is the size of the problem [7:56] Susan Hawes: ends up there. I, oh, I'm, I'm going to get through a meeting where we don't call [8:00] Carolyn Fish: our public health director, Jen Gunderman, to the table, but this is not going to do. She [8:08] Susan Hawes: knew it was coming. [8:11] Jen Gunderman: Oh my god, everyone, Jen Gunderman. That is a really hard question to answer, and I can answer it by telling you the two data sources. One of the data sources is what's called the HMIS, it's a database system where people are entered into once they're assessed by an outreach worker, by a case manager. And there's that database where it's used not just to give us a number, but also to help track progress for a person through the system. So there's that number, that number is an ever-changing number, and people come in and out of the system. The other piece of data that we use is what probably many of you heard of as a point-in-time count, and that is coming up in a couple of weeks where nationwide HUD gives a template late for counting the number of people who fit the definition of homelessness by HUD standards, and what that means is you are basically living on the streets or in an emergency shelter. Someone, for example, who's couch surfing, we would say is experiencing homelessness, but HUD would not count them as someone experiencing homelessness. It's in January, so doing that type of a survey in January in Maine is very different than doing that survey in Mississippi in January. So what we can say is both data systems are not perfect, but we use them to the best of our ability. If you were to ask me today, what's the number of people who are homeless, experiencing homelessness in Bangor in many different variations, many practitioners in the area use the number around them. That would be people who are living in shelter, that would be people who are, you know, experiencing domestic violence who might be sheltered through those programs, so we're looking at about that number. I think it would be hard to give you an exact number, I think. [10:22] Amy Roeder: As part of the comprehensive plan to address homelessness, would data collection, in order to improve upon the accuracy of those numbers, be part of it? [10:32] Jen Gunderman: Yes, you know, I don't want to sort of jump too far ahead, but you know, one of the roles of the homeless response coordinator that we have looking at data on a regular basis and how we can improve that data with our community partners is something that we in public health data is what you use for decision making, and so we want to see how we can use the system standard to get more accurate right numbers so. [10:58] Carolyn Fish: First of the 300, do we have a guesstimate of how many are Bengal residents or even our surrounding communities of which we are the service have it for, we don't have that. [11:12] Jen Gunderman: Number, if I'd be more than happy to come back at any time with them or a public employer and provide you know some more specific statistics if I had to kind of twist your arm which what would. [11:24] Carolyn Fish: Your best be, thank you well. [11:30] Amy Roeder: That sort of just to jump off, but is that data collected at any point? [11:35] Jen Gunderman: So in the HMIS system, a question is asked in terms of what was the zip code that you were living in within a certain time period, so that data is again the accuracy is so challenging in this population, so I would caution to ever use that data for it to be like a 100 accurate what percentage, but the best available data it's. [12:07] John Faircloth: Just to make sure I got 300 was the winter number. [12:10] Jen Gunderman: The yeah, 300 I think is like the number that has been used in the area in terms of combination of considering HMIS and the point in time, I don't have the point in time data from last year in front of me right now, could be more than happened that's. [12:29] Susan Hawes: What I think, could we assume that those. [12:31] Carolyn Fish: That are overnight warming shelters are not really couch surfing, they're probably on the streets, and that number would be more accurate as to who is actually on the streets, yes, going into that number. [12:41] Jen Gunderman: And to get going into the shelters to understand number of events filled at that time is a much more easier to understand at least the number of people who are seeking. What I can tell you is right now the warming centers we're seeing about 80 to 85 people a night, and the warming shelters in terms of Hope House and the Bengal area homeless shelter, those two shelters have been pretty much at capacity with a little bit of wiggle room at the Bengal area homeless shelter. I don't have the bed counts for those two places. [13:19] Michael Beck: Absolutely regarding the HMIS system, and this might be a generally question, but do we know how close they are to reaching all of the data [13:29] Jen Gunderman: that would be? It's a great question. I don't have all the sense that's been an ongoing question. What has happened at the CoC level, the consumer care is that the then main housing was running HMIS, that has now transitioned to a national vendor who deals with the HMIS system for many states, and so we're thinking about that and the digital problem just by making a change. [13:59] Wayne Mallar: Councilman, are we getting any support from the Main United Way in the 400,000 we gave them to bring together all the non-profits as far as the number of homeless are concerned? Are you ever [14:11] Jen Gunderman: having any contact with them? So in terms of the United Way, I know that they have built some space for co-mingling and co-locating. Their organization isn't built to be an active member [14:22] Wayne Mallar: providing direct services. That's not what they told us. They suggested we give them the money so they could coordinate for us and tell us who is doing what. So in effect what you're saying is we gave them four hundred thousand dollars, they bought a new facility, and they're not providing [14:39] Susan Hawes: providing us with any information? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that contract. [14:43] Wayne Mallar: And I'll ask the city manager. I'd like to know what's going on with it. [14:51] Carolyn Fish: Yes, I'm aware that you've just attended. I thought too early so. [14:58] Michael Beck: I would just throw this out there because all of us in the legislative delegation have been working very hard whenever the budgets that's come up and all the issues in terms of housing, and I know that a lot of work was done by Representative Raider and Represent Rana on the issues with Hope House and making sure they'll go funded, and we've worked together a number of issues. I think it's important if the city because we're going to be dealing with the supplemental budget and I understand that There's already going to be cuts in the house, the main state housing budget, in terms of what they're they're offering for assistance. I personally was supportive, very supportive of the rental subsidy program because it was a way to relieve some of the pressure, okay? But they offered that for a very short term. I think that's something that should be done more long term, but I just throw this out there. You guys to jump off comment, but I think that we need to have some sort of collaboration because we're going to have a supplemental budget come up and we need to make sure the governor's office and the both chambers are aware of your position as early as on I don't know are you are you in a coalition with Portland and Lewiston [16:16] Daniel Carson: You guys still have that mayor's coalition we do yes okay I can just add yeah since we're talking [16:22] Ambureen Rana: Talking about priorities I had a bill last this past session that we just worked in to expand the rental assistance program now the matter is just getting it funding so definitely would appreciate noting that down so we can have the city's support yeah and making sure that we can [16:40] Amy Roeder: Get that funded this year that's a very important program and in terms of what happened with Hope House we had a clear ask and we had a very persistent and annoying delegation and that's why we've got the money put into the budget for that the good thing about that is that it went into the budget it wasn't a bill that was one-time funding right and they're looking at ongoing funding for shelters now too which we are advocating for but all of the support that the council can bring if that is Something that the council determines as a priority would be very helpful because we can only be so annoying right I mean I think my capacity is infinite [17:18] Susan Hawes: One of the things I would ask of you we don't always know about bills that you are signing or sponsoring whether it's in your chambers or your chambers if we could find a better way to communicate that because I know when one I think it might have been you was here at public comment and stated why didn't you ask us we could have gotten you free this free that when we were talking about some of the issues with homelessness well probably because we didn't know that those programs were available So if we can find a better way to communicate more on a regular basis, I know we can't do this all the time because you have way more to do and come and amuse us, but it's important that we can get some sort of dialogue going and know what's coming up for bills that we would really like to get behind and give support where we can, so yes. [18:25] Daniel Carson: Yeah, I want to agree with our council chair, and I know this is a different agenda item, so not going to jump fully there, but I do think it's important that we find some way to maintain and continue, whether that's a committee that we form or whatever, because I think and you would, under some of you would understand at least, that our, the way that we operate is a little bit different from the state level to the city level. At the state level you need a plan that you can go be annoying about to get funding for. At the city level we almost need to know where our funding is coming from to build the right plan, and otherwise, you know, we're just chatting with each other. So I think that dialogue is going to be extremely important just because of the ways that we arrive at plans in these different levels, and we're all very able at being away as possible, well me too. [19:14] Amy Roeder: To that point I will say that even if there is not a plan, a clear ask is still a really good place to start, because then we can help maybe with the plan perhaps, but we'll, it'll give us a direction in terms of looking at state departments, state funding, all that kind of stuff. So in the past we've been asked about staying on top of all of the bills that came before all of the committees all of the time and telling Bangor counselors exactly which bills would affect them, which is not something we can do. However, if we hear which the priorities we're hearing right now, and very three very clear priorities, and that means that any time a bill is coming up that hits on one of those priorities, I know to like reach out and say what are your asks around this, what is, do you have any inkling of a plan where, what can we do to help make this happen, because I don't want to speak for everybody in the delegation, but it's my sense that we have the same priorities. [20:11] Susan Faloon: Thank you. A couple things, I think some of that can be on us too, and I know in some of my past jobs, when the list of bills came out, I would go through them. That was part of my job, and I would make a spreadsheet of all the things that I thought would be related to that line of work, and I would just keep an eye on them and when they were going to be heard. And so, like, I think these folks are busy. We can't expect to put all of that on them. I think we can do some of that ourselves, too, and we can be tracking them, or, you know, like, if you are aware of a bill, maybe you just say, hey, if you get a chance to flag it, then we can track it from there. I don't think that we should expect that, you know, our representatives and our senator are going to come to us all the time, and if it's okay, I have something else that I would like to share, too. And this is an idea for a bill, a concept for a bill that I actually discussed with some representatives when we met when I was campaigning. We don't necessarily have to go through it all tonight because I know we only have so much time, but what I have for an idea, because I think that at least probably most of us in Bangalore would agree that we could sure use some more help from the state with our unhoused situation, and so my thought is for a statewide homelessness reimbursement and accountability program for Maine. I've kind of modeled this and made some notes based on something that is in California with similar but not exactly the same, but they created a homeless housing assistance and prevention program. Theirs is a grant program. I don't think it should be a grant program because then, you know, chances are we, you know, might not get the grants that go to Portland. But this is my contract and I have copies for everyone, so just pass it around, and then, you know, I know that we talked about maybe having a legislative committee subcommittee of the council. We could vet this further. I'm, I'm happy to have additional conversations about this, but it's some concepts anyway to try to help get some additional help from the state level, help us with this situation, not just for Bangor but for other cities in the state that are sort of seeing the biggest problem with the unhoused issue, and happy to sort of [22:54] Michael Beck: Manage that on our own. The only thing I was going to say is that this year, there last year there was primarily a flood of bills, but this year there's just a bunch of carryovers, and we're not allowed to submit additional little things unless it's approved by the legislative leadership. So there are fewer actual bills, and I would probably encourage this council to focus on has made the supplemental budget, because we're gonna have to deal with a supplemental budget situation and getting in our in addition to the ideas you 're talking about counselor balloon I would encourage you guys to open up conversations with governor's office and her people I would do that immediately with the house of people because they've already sent notices about their scale back assistance available for people and that's concerning to me because i'm you know we had all supported a very ambitious housing program a couple years ago and also rental subsidies to help people get through the winters and i think all of us want to see that level of commitment continue, but I think I would encourage you not just about the bills this year, because there's not as many that are left. It's really a lot of it, the most important work would be done around the budget. So whatever you guys can do to hit people on budget issues with specific ideas, like we need more money, basically, okay, but I think I think that's where you could you could get more traction, that's all, and doing it with like Lewiston, Portland, maybe some of the other communities, but I would just have you focus more on that, because the individual, there are some important obviously individual bills, but they're not as many as that would be last year when the when we tried to deal with 80 or 90% of them. So question [24:49] Wayne Mallar: that's a mouth, Senator Hold out. Yes sir, your bill for the your bill for the warehouse and freezer plan BIA is that didn't the water says well was carried [25:07] Michael Beck: over, right? So the only thing I would say, and I would say this upfront, a lifelight is putting in a bill that I co-sponsored, but it's primarily sponsored by the Republican leadership to fund them at 11 million. I would love to see us try to combine, because that's not just Bangor, that's around the state, but it also would impact Bangor, which is good, and I would love to see trying to get those two bonds together, but it wasn't killed, it's carried over. So if you guys can provide some testimony, some pressure on the Appropriations Committee, which Representative Ryan is on. My pet idea, and I know it's like, is because Trey Stewart is sponsoring the Life Flight Bill, and I co-sponsored it and I spoke for it, that we could try to combine these things in a bipartisan manner to try to get them through because you have to get 2 3rds of the votes. Boats so but it's the warehouse thing has been something the bangers wanted for decades and it will make a huge difference economically to be able to store particularly agricultural products for shipping to various destinations because otherwise they're going to go out and what I learned is that a lot of them go out of Boston not even Portland some go out of Portland but a lot go out of Boston and I could bore you with details but I won't but seriously it would be a major difference so if you Guys can push the appropriations committee people and you know talk to them because the lifeline would off the lifeline bond would also be helpful to bank and among other communities but I would like to see because we're going to get two-thirds to try to combine these two bills and because I think it would be a win-win for our region overall but so if you guys can work on that I take my hat off so yeah okay but it's in the appropriations and it was carried over along with the lifeline Legislation okay [27:12] Carolyn Fish: That's official I agree with council following that I think you know when representative came in she said we're listening but you have to have a plan so I think after the last couple of years of research and countless calls I've made in the last six months to other cold climate communities with similar populations and what's worked what's not worked I've come to realize we do get a lot of money in fact with grants and other resources and I think I think we've kind of come to the conclusion Collectively that we have to better organize these funds have a strategic plan and ask ourselves look in the mirror and ask ourselves why are we not more effective and then once we come to some conclusions and some real strategic plans and where our strengths and weaknesses are then come forth with a request and I have some ideas on that I'll be coming forth soon but a warehouse idea being in real estate it's been at least 10 years that we've had a number of calls not just myself but in the Commercial real estate community for major warehouse, eight ten thousand square feet or more, huge requests, and it's pretty cost effective to be able to build those warehouses. So whatever we can do to help you, let me know. I'll definitely, we have, as you know, you remember Linda Gifford, we [28:40] Susan Hawes: have a strong grassroots. Yeah, oh yeah, oh no. Well, can I get your emails? Yes, you do. So whatever [28:47] Carolyn Fish: whatever we can do there, where we're on that subject. I know there's a couple of bills that I've been getting a lot of calls for that the greater Bangor community, especially small investors and small entrepreneurs, LD 847 and LD 1806, which is going to be requiring apartment owners to require them to take subsidized housing before they go out to the private sector. And or at least, at least this is, I've gotten at least 20 emails in the past couple of, so this might be a misconception, but they're kind of in panic mode that there's going to be some type of rent control and other regulated requirements of how they can, you know, choose to who they rent to. So I don't know how those are coming up, but I think they're coming up like right away. So could someone maybe address the, perfect segue, actually, thank you so much. [29:46] Ambureen Rana: I'll start by saying so much appreciation, Counselor Flinn, for the initiative that you're taking, and I think that this is a great example. Senator Baldach, you mentioned like let's focus on the budget and what's in front of us now, we're in a short session, it's going to go by really quickly, so of course come April as we wrap up the session and like throughout the summer, I think this is exactly what we should be doing is looking at legislation that we could be sponsoring for you in the coming session. Cloture is in December for the next session, and we'll be able to, you know, bring forward lots. So excited to hear your creative ideas, perfect segue into priorities. I'll also just start by saying that I understand that the council is a part of a lot of coalitions and associations in which you collaborate with other councils across the state. My encouragement to you is to not just follow what those folks are guiding you to do, but to also share your own, your own input, and to push like creative ideas like you're bringing up, Counselor Falloon, or for example with the rental assistance program, I think all of us around this room agreed that was a great program, so like let's push associations that we're a part of to like have broad statewide outreach for that. So there's a lot of, I know that everyone's been getting emails about both 847 and 1806. A lot of the times the outreach around those bills can be based off of misconceptions because they start as drafts and they evolve and they get amended. So it makes sense that there's misinformation out there because we haven't actually been able to do a lot of countering and educating, especially with the work sessions coming up tomorrow. I actually just got off the phone with the Secretary of State's office on 1806 and we're, I'm developing some amendments for that bill. So I'll start there because that's the bill that I'm sponsoring. 1806 is a rental registry and over the past couple of years, over the past couple of sessions, we've had lots of iterations of this bill. Representative Rader sponsored one when I was on the housing committee that we had come forward. This one is a totally different conception of this. So this rental registry bill actually is just going to be, if you are a business, we want to know if you're renting, we want to know if you are a housing business. So every business across the state has to register with the Secretary of State's office every single year to get their licensing in the corporations Bureau part of the Secretary of State's office. So as those businesses are renewing with the Secretary of State's office, there's just going to be a simple checkbox that lets us know, are you renting? So this isn't gonna affect small landlords, it's not going to affect our family members that are renting a room, it's not going to affect airbnbs or anything like that. I think that this is going to be super beneficial for the city of Bangor. I know that you guys have looked into rental registries in the past. We just, we just implemented a short-term rental registry program. I think that this will give us, I know that this will give us a sense of how many corporations and large businesses are building our housing stuff, and this is just step one to knowing what our housing stuff is looking like and who, whose hands it's in. So it won't affect those small landlords, it won't affect people that are living within the building that they're renting, unless of course they're registering as an LLC, in which case they're already registering as a business. It's already information that the state has. We just want to know if they're, if they're renting or not, if they are large landlords and [33:34] Amy Roeder: should, you know, that for clarification, what's the cutoff? I know you mentioned if they're in LLC. [33:40] Ambureen Rana: Good question, good question. So there are a lot of questions of is this going to affect like recovery housing for example. It does not because that's a non-profit and they're registering in that way, same way with halfway housing and things like that because they have [33:53] Amy Roeder: different codes that they register for the secretary of state with. So if I was a small landlord and I maybe had like two houses that I was renting but I had an LLC, you would register [34:04] Ambureen Rana: if you haven't, in which case you're already registering your business. So all of that information is already, you know, in the state's hands and the hope is that it won't have a fee, a fee increase because I know that one thing that we hear from businesses a lot throughout the state is how much bureaucracy there is and how like the increased fees are impact them. So the hope is to not have a fee at all or not have an increase in fee because you already pay a fee when you [34:32] Wayne Mallar: register your business. Do you have a question? I have a question. If I had an investment business and had two buildings, would I wouldn't have to register with you because that would be on the tax return but it wouldn't be, I wouldn't have to be a corporation to have, if you are [34:50] Ambureen Rana: registering as an LLC and you are renting housing, not as an LLC, as a private citizen, [34:55] Susan Hawes: as a private citizen, no, that would not be captured. Doesn't that give you a loophole [35:02] Ambureen Rana: there? So this is just one step to figuring out which large businesses are businesses that are renting housing. So it's a good flag, it's a good flag that they're, I mean also personally if someone has a house and they're not registering as an LLC and are renting, that's not something that we're capturing. So this really is targeted at large corporate landlords. [35:26] Michael Beck: Yeah, I did. So I had a question because I really liked the bill because the 2019 we did a housing work group that was the number one recommendation, dual long-term rental number one recommendation. We are trying to pilot program voluntary, there's no capable and so we need a way to entice people to actually register. One thing I saw and they guys read this wrong looking, there's another card out so for people who work to register on a municipal registry are also, so the way I see it this passes that's a boon to our program. Here is then, you know, we can get ours is still voluntary so people would then come in and register with the bank or registry, they [36:12] Ambureen Rana: wouldn't have to do this. That was the original concept of the bill is that if we didn't want [36:18] Michael Beck: to have to have people register twice. Yeah, so well, and then from a city standpoint, I like that because let's us said if there's penalties or not penalties, just we want you to come in and register so we know what our stock is. If they don't register with us, then they would have to register with the state, and I know the state has its own set of enforcement pieces of it, but that's such an important thing for us to get a handle on. That's a big piece of data is how many rental units are out there and I think this is a step in the right direction, LD847, an extremely [36:57] Ambureen Rana: extremely vital well I definitely encourage everyone to pay attention to it I think that again there are lots of misconceptions on it 's not forcing anyone to take rental assistance what it does is it closes this loophole that was created so that we cannot discriminate against people based off of the payment that they're giving so it explicitly makes it so that landlords can't discriminate against people that are using rental assistance and I think that this is so important for the city of Bangor because we, throughout the state, we invest so much in voucher programs, we invest so much in rental assistance. What is the point of doing that if they're gonna be denied, if people are gonna be denied housing due to their income status and how they're providing? The way that I look at it, I think the rental assistance programs have been so beneficial and so vital is because it's guaranteed income to a landlord. It is guaranteed, like that, it is not based off of whether or not someone's gonna lose their job. It is sustained and it is guaranteed. And I could go into, I'm not on the Judiciary Committee, I could go into the legal thing. I see a lawyer in the room right now. now. And of course, we have one across the table from us. I won't get into the deep about that loophole. But I can certainly provide information about it about precedents that was set on that basically allowed for housing discrimination. So this closes that. And I'll just I could go on and on and on about this bill. I have lots of information on it. But I'll just say, just to clarify, it does not force anyone to take any vouchers. It really just closes this loop so that there is no discrimination allowed. And I think that'll be extremely beneficial to the city. And this is one example of a bill that you'll see associations fighting against. But this is an opportunity to take a stand and share, if you agree, push back, because you have a say in those decision-making processes. [39:23] Susan Faloon: I just wanted to know what the LD was again on that one. [39:28] Ambureen Rana: And I'll say, I had a similar bill, I had a similar bill to this bill that unfortunately died on the Senate floor. So we're hoping that this is an opportunity tomorrow in the Judiciary Committee, because it does make sense for this to be handled in the judiciary committee. This will get over the finish line. Councilman, a question. [39:50] Wayne Mallar: How does this handle the person who has a valid voucher but has a real poor history of forest? Was it kicked out of the last round because they destroyed it? What did, what do you tell [40:02] Susan Hawes: the landlord about? Did you give him any sense of support if that happens again? So that is so [40:08] Ambureen Rana: So in our state, we don't have any laws that protect against discrimination based off of rental history. So landlords are able to make decisions about whether or not they accept a tenant based off of anything else. [40:22] Wayne Mallar: So if they refuse the tenant, it's not a problem? [40:24] Susan Hawes: If they refuse a tenant, it's not a problem? [40:29] Ambureen Rana: Them, it just can't be, if this law were to pass, it cannot be based solely off of what, [40:38] Susan Hawes: a rental payment that person is providing. So but if he's, if you have a court case against him [40:44] Wayne Mallar: for destroying three other apartments, you still can take him in. No, I think what you're saying, [40:50] Michael Beck: let me just, as I'm, I'm not the author, but that they, that they can't discriminate solely on the basis the form of payment is going to be public assistance. But you still have the absolute right to look at their rental histories. And based on the rental history, I just, I don't mean to do it, I was trying to simplify it for you, because I think that's the way I understood the bill. Right, I have to head up, and I appreciate it. No problem. With any other legal questions, [41:36] Ambureen Rana: this is all handled in court. So it would have to be, it wouldn't have to be handled in court, so someone would have to prove that they're being discriminated against solely off of the income that they're, or the rental payment that they're providing on the rent. So just like [41:54] John Faircloth: in the examples that Councillor Mallar gave, they're trashing up the place, that's totally [42:01] Wayne Mallar: Legit to consider that factor. Excuse me, you said if they're trashing the place, yeah, it's legitimate. [42:08] John Faircloth: That factor, it's unrelated to right. Okay, I just wanted it to be clarified. I was kind of in the [42:15] Wayne Mallar: the dark, which is not unusual. [42:17] Ambureen Rana: Because what's happening right now is that people are being denied housing simply based off of whether they're providing general assistance or a voucher or anything like that. [42:30] Wayne Mallar: Carol, I'd like to ask our director of if we're experiencing that in the housing market, people with vouchers not receiving rooms or what? [42:43] Carolyn Fish: I think, yes, as we've talked, I don't need to confirm with Jen. Absolutely, there are lots of people. I mean, when we were talking about the encampment at the railroad, most of those folks, I would say many of those folks had vouchers. And why couldn't they? I don't know that we have specific information about each individual online. [43:06] Amy Roeder: Want and it's a variety. I worked with a woman a few years ago who had a voucher and savings, but there was no housing stock that was wheelchair accessible, and so she wound up crashing on her friend's couch and living in a hotel for many months so [43:26] Michael Beck: I guess my question is depending on the voucher would the landlord then be required to sign a contract with HUD be able to go through inspections and things is that part of the problem with not wanting to take the voter [43:39] Ambureen Rana: So that is a carve out in these bills and I wouldn't call it a car boat, but that it is considered it is considered that it is as a business it is a burden to you to have to make a significant amount of improvements to your apartment and that is actually a valid reason to in court to deny. So if someone has to spend a ton of money that they do not have the money to spend to improve an apartment than they can actually. So there's so I'm really glad that you bring that up because that is probably an Argument that you'll hear against 847 around like being forced to take it out there. There is oh gosh I can't remember the law but it is a it is a burden to the business one [44:22] Wayne Mallar: More question I won't ask anymore does shelter care plus fall into this [44:27] Susan Hawes: Program or Shelton plus care if that is a voucher that's a good question yeah it is a voucher if [44:35] Ambureen Rana: That is a voucher then yeah any form of I do have my notes in front of me for this any HUD sponsored voucher I think that would count yes basically it's any it's not laid out specifically which vouchers it states that no matter what your form of payment is. So it covers all vouchers. Okay. [45:09] Susan Hawes: Any other questions for every general volume of fun? You have a general question, ask a general question of the group of [45:18] Wayne Mallar: the I'm just curious. How often and I don't know because I'm not down there. I don't know anything. But how often do you have to work across body lines to get something past a regular looked like because i looked at some of the voting and i didn't see that 's why i'm curious we [45:36] Amy Roeder: always reach across the aisle we always try to work across the aisle I am very proud of all of the times my committee has put a unanimous report out but the problem with my committee's unanimous reports is that they cost 1.4 billion dollars so we do we had an opportunity where it wasn't a unanimous bill that came out there was one member of my committee who voted no on it But because we had that no vote, it didn't go under the hammer and Representative Drinkwater from Milford and I both spoke on the bill. And it was something that the employees at Dorothea Dix in Riverside had been trying to get for 20 years, 20 years no funding at all, just died on appropriations table. Because we both spoke on it, I'd like to think that had some impact on the appropriations finally funding it. it. And we do attempt to work across all the time. People can still say no, but at least we're treating each other with respect and we're hearing each other out. [46:37] Ambureen Rana: I would just add to that. I encourage you on that point to look at the committee votes for the bills because you'll see I feel really excited and blessed that the harm reduction bills that I've sponsored always have bipartisan support in health and human services committee because people look at them and they're like this is practical this is using public health best practices and you would never expect that right but because we have this value also of treating our colleagues like they're humans and having deep conversations with them and not just assuming how they're going to stand on something, we often do some support. But what happens, unfortunately, though, is once it gets to the House floor, [47:29] Jen Gunderman: caucuses have a lot of sway. [47:32] Ambureen Rana: And our delegation, I feel like, tends to vote with their hearts. And we're kind of all over the place with our vote. We can be. But you'll see that oftentimes a caucus will stay in line and vote together. So that's probably why you're seeing such bipartisan, not bipartisan, but such partisan splits in the House votes, because that's a decision that's made behind closed doors. [48:03] Amy Roeder: And I would say that for HHS as a committee, they tend to put out unanimous reports. Courts. They're a committee that is very good at coming together on a sort of a middle path on the bills. My committee has been very divided for a very long time, which is why I get so excited when we can all come together on something and why we work really hard to try to get to a place of consensus. But the committees really vary in terms of whether or not they're going to put out unanimous bills. But that has been a priority set by the chairs in HHS for many years I [48:40] John Faircloth: think it also just depends on the type of topic the committee covers I'm on veterans legal affairs sometimes otherwise known as cannabis and alcohol but it sounds a lot classier say veterans but there's much more cross-pollination if you will on my committee I find between Democrats Republicans they don't divide quite that way I think you know Representative Rader was chair of Labor Committee. The reality is she does a great job, but it's also the philosophies of the two political parties are different on that issue pretty significantly generally. There are certain types of topics where that's why people tend toward Republican or tend toward Democrats, because they have a viewpoint on those kinds of issues. I think it also depends on the topic of the Committee of Jurisdiction. [49:38] Carolyn Fish: I think, you know, housing obviously is a big part of the issue we have with the unhoused, but I think it's a small part of it. I think mental health and substance use addiction is really the core issue, and as much as we focus on housing, I know Bangor only has a lot of housing this year, a lot of it for low income and for 55 and older and a lot in conjunction with HUD. And yet, and I also know from a lot of resources I've reached out to the unhoused that are on our streets, some of them, even they fall out of the system. And when Bangor has three or four methadone clinics and from my research, that's crazy, yes. I mean, people with 500,000 and more don't even have that need. So when people fall out of all of these organizations or non-profits, even for-profit, and they fall out of the system, they fall on our street, and then we as a city are trying to pick up the pieces. So I'd really like to see us working more with our hospitals, now Northern Light, but formerly Acadia. I'd like to see some legislation where Bangor or Penobscot County, no more mental illness, because the state of Maine's a big place. Why do we have to get them all? They're here. I know we can't back out of that one right now, but there's a lot of side effects for a lot of peripheral things going on that we as a city end up getting him and everyone's looking at us saying you've screwed it all up, it's all your problem. But when you look at all of the good intentions and good you know programs that are out there to try to take different segmented issues of the issues on the street, when these individuals fall out of these, whether it's a housing, a transitional housing, or an addiction transition they're in, we end up with them. And when Bangor's got that many methadone along with countless other programs, they fall out on our street. And to have two or 300 people, when the research says the normal amount of unhoused people for a population is 23 to 25 per 10,000, we should have 60 or 70 people on house so you know when you know when you mentioned well just don't look at your associations I think you're right. I think part of the problem is we're not looking close enough to just our Association because we've got our feet on the ground, we're the residents, we work with the non-profits, we work with our police department, we drive around and I read a letter from our former manager from 2017, we could write that same letter today. After spending eight to twelve million dollars in grant money, we're no further. So you know i don't have the answer, but i think we know what we're not doing right. And somehow collectively, and i know we all love bangor and we all have the same thing in mind that we want to improve with our own house, and we've got to kind of get our act together, but we do need help from the state and from our health department like the hospitals that are the experts in this. So i'd like to see some legislation, no more methadone clinics in penobsco county and needle exchange. You know they give out permits without even letting us know, and the next thing you know we've got business saying there's a needle exchange across the street. You know i think we should have a little more control over that. We've got enough issues that we're left picking up, you know we're trying to do our best, but we're [53:12] Amy Roeder: Overwhelmed, we need some help. Had a lovely meeting, Counselor Fish. I'm really grateful that you made time for me, and I would agree on the siloing in particular, and I love that one of the top three priorities is a strategic plan for homelessness, because every not-for-profit, every for-profit business out there, every everybody who even touches on the problem of homelessness business is doing it from their mission, from the viewpoint of their company. And until everybody is sitting around a table and a comprehensive plan is done, every organization is trying to solve their part of it when we are much stronger, when we have a comprehensive plan. So I very much agree on that point in particular and would love to see what we can do to help facilitate that. That, would love to see what we can do to help find funding to make that happen. I was called by someone who received a gentleman off the street who was discharged onto the street from hospital because they had no beds. Am I mad at the hospital? No, they were full. Am I mad at anyone for that? No, everybody was in a bind. Everybody was in this terrible situation because we didn't have a plan. And we didn't know exactly how to get that person through the system and to better health to the point of mental health care that is the key to so many things. It's not just homelessness we're talking about. I know that I might have a different opinion on gun violence than some folks in this room, but we all agree on the fact that mental health is a portion of that. We lack providers in this state. We have a lot of red tape nationwide in terms of mental health care providers. I have a friend who is an amazing social worker, moved to Kentucky, can't practice there unless she puts three more years of internship in. She's been practicing for decades. And that state just lost an incredible mental health practitioner because of all the red tape. We can move on that at the state level very easily and have. Unfortunately, at least in my first term, I remember there were mental health care bills totaling $16 million left on the appropriations table. Table. We, I think we put like 200 million into the rainy day fund that year. I am not over that. I will not be over that because that was $16 million. It would have made a big difference and grown mental health care infrastructure in the state. And those bills still keep coming to appropriations and dying for lack of the advocacy that I think y'all are talking about right now. So yes, I very much agree that strategic plan is fantastic, idea. I would love to help however I can. Okay. [56:12] Wayne Mallar: Yes. Because I'm always the negative person at the table. [56:17] Carolyn Fish: He is. It's not safe. [56:18] Wayne Mallar: I appreciate the fact that you all said you work across party body lines and I hope you all follow Margaret Chase Smith and Susan Collins in voting for every bill [56:33] Daniel Carson: do my best that's [56:41] Susan Hawes: it i was expecting a little no [56:47] Carolyn Fish: are we still on the top priorities okay i think we're still on [56:54] Amy Roeder: but we don't talk enough that's why [57:00] Ambureen Rana: yeah i can come back to it i just i was only i was just I don't know what the agenda looks like but please since I just went on and on about these two priorities that are coming up tomorrow I figured I'll I'll wrap it up with just a couple of more thoughts I mentioned harm reduction bills and counselor also mentioned the opioid crisis and how it's affecting Bangor. But I hope that we can continue to have conversations about how the state can support the city of Bangor in relationships with the CDC, especially moving forward as we continue to address the HIV outbreak. So just want to just state out loud, absolutely a resource for you here to support in that. It's work that I've been doing for many years. It's work that's really close to my heart. So please stay connected on that. I don't have any specific bills at the moment because all of them passed last year, thank goodness. One being though, is that on the governor's desk still, we have a syringe cleanup bill that the city did support court that has not made it over the finish line yet so i will flag that ld 1738 but we should know in a few days how that turns out given that the governor just has three days to handle bills that are on her desk and if they stay on her desk she will veto them but i don't i think that we have high hopes for that bill but i will keep you up to date on any bills regarding harm reduction and the opioid crisis and addressing the HIV outbreak, and that's also just something to be thinking about as we go into the summer and think about new bills that we want to bring forward. Speaking of bills on the governor's desk, you all may have heard that LD 1971, a bill that would address the relationship between law enforcement and ICE, that the governor has stated that she will allow that bill to go into law. So we're going to be keeping an eye on that to make sure that happens as you've seen over the last year countless times citizens of Bangor have come to talk to you about this issue. So you know it's something that our community cares deeply about. So I'll definitely keep you posted. I will keep you posted as that as that develops. But on that note, LD 1259 having 287g agreements is still an active bill and it's still in the judiciary committee. So I really hope to have the city's support on LD 1259 because that has a huge impact on the resources that the city uses are the city expense and I really believe that this bill actually protects our law enforcement from not being able from not being forced to do a job that they did not sign up for using city funds. So I really hope to have the city support on LD 1259 and of course you've seen a ban for 287 g agreements come up to the council and I know you've been waiting for state action on that. So I hope that I can get your support and you'll see a couple of other bills regarding ICE and immigration enforcement come up this session that are going to be vital you'll see one around ideing because we've seen over the past year especially ice agents have been covering their faces and not identifying themselves so you'll see that but you'll also see us trying to create protections in daycare facilities and hospitals and in schools to keep our community members safe so i'll keep you posted on that thank you okay we [1:01:07] Susan Hawes: have a couple like other thousand priorities yes and then we have probably the elephant in every room is budgetary challenges and opportunities if we can just even run through those topics [1:01:22] Carolyn Fish: Yeah, so I think item number two on our agenda was sort of our other council priorities, which are probably the things we would have chosen to work on if we didn't have such huge housing and crises in our city. Attracting and retaining businesses, property tax affordability and relief is something that I think the entire council has been keenly attended to. Increasing proactive city communication, which I think is ultimately a new task but something we intended to focus on, and then strategizing for the city's infrastructure maintenance and investment. We are a very old city and we have high infrastructure needs, we really do, and the more [1:02:12] Susan Hawes: everything we talk about is building new developments, building new business, but we have to remember what's under the ground, and that adds tremendous cost to projects because it's everything. And the more we have coming in that want to put up housing developments and 30 homes here and 20 homes here, I think we have to look at the infrastructure [1:02:38] Amy Roeder: And may I ask when developers are approaching the city for those housing developments, is there any consistency as to what is a challenge? As far as infrastructure or in general, like I would, I would assume infrastructure is a problem given the Grandview Avenue property, getting that infrastructure upgrade to attract the developer. And I know Representative Rana talked about regulatory red tape being something that none of us links, but beyond that are there specific things that developers have said I'd love to come to Bangor and do this except for x y and z? Yeah, I mean from an infrastructure [1:03:16] Carolyn Fish: perspective sewer capacity is a huge issue and I don't know and is there anything else that you would come up and Krieg is our director of economic development she has her thumb on the pulse of the things that are prohibitive in that space [1:03:35] Susan Hawes: Increase director of community and economic development, what we hear mostly is issues with sewer capacities in certain parts of the city that need some improvement to welcome development, you know, especially in the mall area. We've dedicated a lot of zoning allowances out there and the phrase if you zone in they will come actually does work, so we do have a lot of people that are waiting for some infrastructure to happen. I mean obviously traffic congestion is always an issue and you know having More public transportation for our workforce to be able to get to their jobs, to give some relief to that traffic congestion, is also a big, a big question that developers ask. What is the bus, you know, what is the best schedule in this area? [1:04:40] Carolyn Fish: Moving on to the budgetary challenges and opportunities, these are five bullets that I think probably every municipality would list when talking to their delegation. So I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you, but certainly the county budget and jail operations statewide look to be challenging this upcoming year and forward. Certainly us, along with every other municipality, has a strong interest in preserving and expanding revenue sharing, as well as the level of reimbursement for the various property tax exemptions that are offered at the local level. Yes, state legislation, we are always interested in robust general assistance reimbursement, including for administrative costs, and of course school funding and special education funding specifically are such huge components of the city's budget. Do you know how much special ed costs? Not specifically special ed, no, not on top. And I know a lot of these topics are being actively discussed via working groups and committees that are now wrapping up because the session is starting. So I imagine there will be a lot of activity in this space, and I know from, my perspective monitoring legislation, the easy task is the bill when it's proposed. The more difficult task is the later iterations and knowing when those are going to come up and seeing them in time to have a say. So I think those particularly in the appropriation space, if it's the notification that is most helpful, is hey, Case, there's going to be an amendment to this, you should be aware of that in case you have [1:06:42] Daniel Carson: thoughts on it. Also, Carson, I just want to propose a solution to that. It would be that, I mean, I don't know what, again, on that number six where we decide how we're going to keep communicating, but if it's a committee, it should be closed with keeping track of that. The chair of the committee could do that for me, because I'm volunteering some unknown chair. [1:07:12] Amy Roeder: If I may, you can sign up to get all of the emails from the Appropriations Committee that lists the daily schedule with all the bills that are coming up. It's fantastic. I haven't subscribed to that. So I would recommend perhaps the chair of each committee maybe find their committee of jurisdiction that corresponds to the state. [1:07:30] Ambureen Rana: Sign up, it doesn't include personal messages from me unfortunately, but that's an additional [1:07:35] Daniel Carson: subscription. Yeah, I was hoping you would suggest that though, because I was thinking in this new year something that I needed was more emails, but I really, I felt that they told me I can get more [1:07:49] Amy Roeder: Yeah, as many as you'd like, it sounds like you can. [1:07:53] Susan Faloon: Can I ask a question? Sure. Okay, so I had the pleasure, along with Counselor Haas, of being on that Penelope Scott County budget committee, so that was fun. And but are there any conversations at this point at the state level about, I mean, I know Penelope Scott County is not the only county dealing with the jail issue. I don't know, we may be the only county that has the issue of having to ship people out. So we've got sort of a double issue, but I mean, I know, I mean, okay, they cut a million dollars out of that budget and that was tough, because that budget was like, there's not a ton of wiggle room in county budgets, as you probably know. And so to cut a million dollars out of that was a lot, But there's still a huge chunk of that is going to the municipalities. Bangor picks up the biggest piece of that. And it's only going to keep getting worse. And it's going to happen in other counties. Washington County is in pretty rough shape, too. But are there any conversations about this and the jail cap? Because this is just such a huge issue that's falling on property tax. [1:09:08] Amy Roeder: ELIZABETH LITTLEFIELD TREMBLEY, I have another jail cap bill coming forward in this session. But Senator Baldacci was saying that Washington that was found before his committee, the state and local committees. So that would be the Committee of Jurisdiction to handle any of the bills that were specifically around county budgets. [1:09:23] Ambureen Rana: But you are seeing in the Appropriations Committee that we were handling what amount of money do we send to the jails. So I think it's a multifaceted approach. Like one thing that I will put out there is that right now in our jails, we are basically treating them like treatment centers. And I think that we need to step away from that model and start, I think that a proper investment in making sure that if we feel like we are not, if we're feeling like our county jails do not have enough money, we need to actually be thinking about what can we do to make sure people don't end up in jail and investing in treatment and social supports outside of the jail is my suggestion and like what I want to push for. [1:10:17] Susan Hawes: One thing about the county budget though, they did not cut $1 million. We had asked as a budget committee that they cut $1 million, nothing about revenue, and they came back, they cut $850,000, which is not. Yeah, you know, no, it's not peanuts. But it's not a million dollars. And then they talked about revenue. So it really, they really didn't follow the request of the Budget Committee. And we're not sure that what's going to come out of it is going to be any better than what it was, but just somewhere on the record with [1:11:00] Susan Faloon: That's a very good point, you're correct, other [1:11:06] Wayne Mallar: Well I'll just make a comment as far as the jail is concerned, I don't think any of us here, at least I don't, have an idea of how many prisoners there are in jail that are there for murder. We shouldn't be housing murder, but we have people that are like two and three years before they go to trial, so the state puts them in the county jails. That's not right, they need to be in a maximum security facility. What's, what's [1:11:32] Ambureen Rana: contributing to that too is our defense system. Yeah, definitely, again multi-faceted [1:11:41] Amy Roeder: approach, it doesn't help us. No, it doesn't help anybody, and that's something that I can't remember when it was first like flagged for us in the legislature, it was several years ago, and they've been taking little bites out of it as it goes forward, but it's not the big bite that we need in order to move people through the jail. We know that is a persistent problem, and one of the reasons that the jail is over-capacitated is because it's a trial. They gotta get to trial. Our constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial, [1:12:11] Wayne Mallar: and they're not able to. But three years is not a speedy trial. No, it is not. [1:12:17] Susan Hawes: Can you imagine later? Sure. [1:12:20] Carolyn Fish: Sure, so we only listed one specific item here related in general, that's the reimbursement municipalities and council hasn't been billed, but it's certainly something that aligns with the budgetary challenges and opportunities that we listed above, and with that I think if there are any other legislature priorities that you would like to share with us for [1:12:48] Amy Roeder: me it's just how do we work together on the housing crisis and the issue of homelessness, how can we best serve you as a council, you as citizens, because it's a pervasive problem that without a comprehensive solution and a long-term strategy, reactivity is the only option, and none of us as individuals or as organizations operate well when we're being reactive. So anything we can do in that realm, please,, please let us know. Happy to fight for funding for any studies that need to happen in advance of doing a long-term situation, whatever it is. I [1:13:37] Carolyn Fish: think the last item on the agenda was discussing whether there was an interest in ongoing check-in meetings in some form or fashion. I [1:13:48] Susan Hawes: have a sense that would be a welcome item. How we do that will obviously have to be driven by what your availability is. We probably have more availability than what they do. So if you had ideas of how many meetings you'd like to have, do you want to? [1:14:16] Amy Roeder: Well, just in general, it's more of a question. I remember there had been discussion a while ago about there being a specific legislative liaison committee on the council, which might make it a little bit more nimble in terms of finding those times that we can all be together because it's fewer people to pick around. [1:14:36] Susan Hawes: It is still in discussion. It certainly hasn't been tabled. It hasn't been brought right to the front, but it's still there and being discussed, so certainly that's something we can look at doing and then moving from there. But I think it would be beneficial to have other sessions like this. I definitely like the idea of all of being able to be together [1:15:02] Ambureen Rana: and I wonder if there could be an app to other municipalities to ask how they structured. I know that Portland does this often. I don't know, but I do know that, so it would be worth if there are connections there to ask how they structure it, since they are dealing with the same time constraints that we are. Mondays seem to be the most flexible for us. Yeah, I feel like committees are really, I don't know, Sean you told me. Yeah, I see all the committees have different [1:15:33] John Faircloth: schedules, so I don't think we're going to lock into everybody that's available. It will definitely [1:15:37] Ambureen Rana: get more intense as the session goes on. Well, we certainly can continue the discussion of the [1:15:44] Susan Hawes: legislative committee and then having somebody as a liaison that could coordinate with them. All right, well, I heard dismissed over here, and now this is little suggesting an agenda, power of suggestion. Well, thank you all. I mean, it's been, it's been beneficial. Yeah, so that's never really nothing to adjourn it, but we can say dismissed if you'd rather. We'll be again. For those of you that are watching, we do have government operations committee coming up right after this, so don't venture too far away.