Bangor committee reviews airport growth, EV fleet plans, and chicken regulations

[0:05] Joseph Leonard: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to another regularly scheduled meeting of the Business Economic Development Committee meeting. I am the chair, Councillor Leonard. Committee members are Councillors Fish, Maller, Balloon, and Arson. We are also joined by Counselors Paz, Beck, Walker, and Dean, and we are also joined by Community Economic Director Anne Greig, and hopefully third time's the charm, we're going to have a presentation from the University of Maine Orono students on their assigned economic development projects. Anne, I'll let you take an order for your students. [0:49] Carollynn Lear: Yeah, actually, Big Eta, Hernandez-Smith, the Economic Development Officer, has been working with these folks from University of Maine, and she's going to lead the discussion. [1:00] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): Good evening, everyone. So I am very honored, excited, privileged to share with you our experience with our second Economic Development Internship Program. So as you know, last year was our first, but an economic development program that included both Huston students and UMaine students. This year we hosted three UMaine students and I wanted, we talked a lot about workforce development and the intention to really understand our future leaders and what it is that they want and desire. So in the, in this program, there's three pillars. First pillar is to be able to give them a municipal government experience. One that's not about just administrative, but really about real-time projects that we're working on. Two is to be creative in the fact that we're an economic development team of two people. And so in order to move our work forward, because our work is multifaceted, it's important to get to be creative and extend our team. And we do that with our interns. And then three, as I had mentioned before, really understanding as we are, you know, gone are the days where folks are in positions for 30 and 40 years, we need to have a plan of succession. And so in that it's important to understand the needs and desires of our future leaders and see how we can accommodate and really meet in the middle to have kind of a recruitment pipeline of folks who want to work for municipal government. government. With that said, I first want to introduce Veronica Belogna, who I want to officially introduce, I believe, who is our economic development specialist. Veronica will say a few words about the program and her experience with it, and then we'll actually have our interns present. [2:52] Isabella (Intern): Hello, so I joined the city almost three months ago, and I will say having the interns and their resources available to me as I really started to get this role has been invaluable because as she said we're a two-person team. It really is a lot of work for everyone administratively, you know, knowledge transfer, everything to get someone else up to speed on to everything we're doing here. I'm very excited to go through the presentation. It has really smoothed my transition over to city hall and I hope you enjoy it and so I want to introduce [3:26] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): so we had three interns this year from the Humane School of Policy and International Relations. Ella Prescott, who can't be with us today, she had a family emergency. We have Isabella with us as well as Ashley, who is joining us from Portland I believe, and so they're going to present kind of what they worked on and we'll have discussion and you guys can definitely ask questions but this is definitely an engagement with our leaders. All right well once we're going to [3:59] Isabella (Intern): get a presentation up there I'll begin but hi everyone my name is Isabella. I was very privileged to work as an intern of Bagheera and the economic development team this past summer and there was an eight-week program that I learned a lot from and I think developmentally it taught me a lot both about like professionalism but also about Bengal which I think is what we're all here today for and so I don't know if we're going to put it up I hope but do we have to if not I can just riff [4:25] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): I will just go I mean I [4:38] Isabella (Intern): can do whatever we need to do. I came with my little script so I can I can do whatever we need. So it was the three of us, it was L Prescott, it was Ashley and it was myself and we worked together with me for eight to ten weeks depending on kind of what projects we were on and we all worked independently on other projects but also collaborated on a lot of this work and progressed both as young professionals but also as Bangor kind of community members which we'll get into. All right so team big plus W that stands for Vote, Build, Inspire, Grow. With a little bit of whimsy, we'll get to the whimsy later. That's the exciting part, but for now we're kind of just the orientation of this project is we're going to start with the projects we worked on, what we brought to Bangor, what we brought to you guys as the like in the developmental team, how we progressed as individuals, professionals, and students, and finally kind of our takeaways and what we think we can offer you. Just intern advice might not be worth much, but hopefully our insights provide at least a little bit of where we are perspective wise. We could go to the next slide. So Bangor, the Bangor Central Kitchen, the BCK, was one of our main projects that we helped to be with internally, and our goals surrounding the Bangor Central Kitchen to understand and help develop the project. This was, this included like developing operator pain structure, reaching out to external groups, kind of getting a better feel on what this project meant and what we could do for it. I personally helped kind of build and construct the RFP for the Central Kitchen and it's like very based kind of foundation, which was an exciting piece of work. I had never worked with that kind of legal writing before, so it was a little challenging and step by step be helped with a lot of guidance, but I really enjoyed digging into the details of that project, building it, editing it. Was a little bit of my work baby, you know, some first project I worked on where I was really like this and I was so happy to be a part of it. [6:35] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): yes go for it so with the bingo central kitchen what isabella is just from here let me first copy that any materials that were developed from our interns are not yet official these are documents that we're internally reviewing and trying to understand when it is appropriate to make them official so they will definitely what is the bella was referring to regarding the rfp is that as you know the central kitchen is a project and we're currently in negotiation approved by the vet committee however what she's talking about is the operator RFP. As we know, we're building a building, but that building needs an operator, and so that RFP is currently drafted. [7:18] Isabella (Intern): For an operator and all of this work was needed by the materials we had previously, and as she says, no, this is official yet. I just happened to work in the internals and was very privileged to do so. Beyond the collaborative research I did with L Prescott, who reached out to a bunch of external resources and really kind of got a better understanding of how an operator should run this project, I also kind of just dove into those nitty-gritty legal aspects, and I learned a lot about technical writing in the process. That's kind of a professional development experience, which I do think it is important to talk about what I took away and how you all contributed to, meaning to or not, and I appreciate it. And now we're going to go to our next slide where I think Adra will take us through what she worked on in Foreign Trade Zone 58. Yes, okay, I hope [8:02] Ashley Wilson (Intern): everyone can hear me okay. My name is Ashley Wilson, so I thought I'd just reintroduce myself since I will kind of be talking for the next few minutes at you guys. So first I'm going to be kicking off with the work and the tasks that I completed with Foreign Trade Zone 58, and for those of you who might be slightly unfamiliar with that, it is a five-county federally designated zone which gives operators sort of cost advantages to import and export goods. And this includes the ability to also defer custom duties. It has quite a few different multifaceted things to it, but that was something I found to be interesting. So within that, I kind of took the existing documents and many of which were outdated, and my job was kind of to modernize them to be able to use them to their full potential. And considering the fact that the zone hasn't really been active for a little bit of time now, I found it, and as a team, we found it imperative that the FTZ-58, along with its new marketing that you can find on LinkedIn, there was documentation to be able to reflect that. So kind of on the slide, you can see here, I included some snippets or just general screenshots of the different documents that I completed. So I completed the zone schedule, which I updated from 2014, which was pretty cool, and the associated operator agreement. And then something that was kind of outside that I created on my own was a one-page brief, which kind of makes the zone and the things about it a little bit more accessible and understandable to those who are encountering it for the first time. And that last piece there was the concurrence letter, which kind of streamlines and shortens the amount of time needed to request a designation location for FTC-58. So I found this to be pretty interesting to be able to draft, analyze, and kind of take a federally public-facing document while remaining compliant with the regulations and being able to kind of put my own spin on it and do what I could do with that. And given all the work that I was able to complete, being able to then synthesize that into a one-pager refresher doc, I think was pretty cool, just to be able to prioritize actual language that people would need for the day-to-day processes with FTC 58. So that's all I have with that. So if we could move on to the next slide, that'd be great. And this is the Tax Increment Financing and Credit Enhancement Agreement. agreement. So these two tools, I won't lie to you, they were pretty intimidating when I was first getting to know them, but I have a similar style here with the screenshots of the deliverables that I was able to create with this. I think it would be a little bit much for me to deep dive into what specifically these tools are, but if Pegida sees it fit, I can totally do that. So for this, I kind of did a similar thing with FTZ58, where I took those policy and processes these documents and I helped modernize them and make them a bit more accessible and with that I kind of went about it in two different directions and it was documents to help applicants and then documents to be able to help the reviewers and staff so again while remaining in line with those policy regulations I also just like wanted to try my hand at a redraft of the tiffin cea policy document which was pretty cool I mean I've noted that like what was really important to me this summer was making things a bit more digestible for a general audience so I think I was able to capture that with the draft I created so for those applicant things I created I did another cheat sheet which was again another synthesization of the super long policy doc and application and I kind of created that to be like a second time over because again this is a super long and intensive process. So if there's something where you can kind of see those checklists and what you need, I thought that would definitely help with the intimidation factor of something like this. In a slightly different fashion, the reviewer guide, it's a bit longer, but I went, I wanted to take a bit more time to look at the math that was into it, the workflow and the decision framework, and try to put that all in one place for someone who's looking at an application like this. So again, a similar takeaway. I think these were quite a few complicated documents that I was taking a look at, and I was trying to make it workable for a non-expert audience, which was me at the beginning of the summer. And again, putting this all in one place and comforting applicants because we're trying to increase the amount of people interested in something like this, so making it more digestible. I think it's pretty cool. So I keep saying everything's pretty cool. So if we can move on to the next slide there, and this [12:38] Isabella (Intern): will be the last. You're gonna build on what you said, Ashley, with you. Something that we really wanted to emphasize with our internship was easing the process of transition, not just between like interns, but also printing hires and the process that it takes, because starting fresh with every new document and or starting fresh as you enter into workspace can be very intimidating. So creating those shortcuts when you can, not just for ease, but for efficiency. These are places where instead of starting from scratch, you have something to build off of, whether it be a checklist like what Ashley built or what we're going to talk here in internal development. This was something we really wanted to do both for Vegeta, but also for like this internal synthesis, because having those guides allows you to catch people up to what you're doing without having to sit down and have a lot of meetings and questions because all your answers are right there. And so with that, we're going to go into the next kind of big projects that we went into and I'll actually, I'm sorry for interrupting you. I'll let you take it. [13:33] Ashley Wilson (Intern): No, not at all. It gave me a little break from all the talking I was doing. So moving into internal development, as you can see, this is kind of split up into two different things because I'll take that first half and then I'll move it back to Isabella. So the project dashboard, we ended up using Asana, which is an online platform for this. And the goal of the platform or the dashboard was to kind of be an inspirational and organizational tool that reflected similarly to an economic development organization. So with Bangor's team being only two people, it's definitely a bit more difficult to have the bandwidth of an economic development team that's, you know, in bigger and larger cities. So on this dashboard, it was kind of meant to be a place to track and coordinate the work that was currently happening, but also kind of create this sort of drawing board aspect so you can reach these new spheres of influence on a more manageable scale. So myself, with the help of Begita, we created eight different buckets for programming that kind of gives like a common language for what can be slash what should be done to reach their goals of, say, higher output of programs, participating in more conferences, and promoting what the team is up to. So the main goal was ensuring that this kind of what Isabella had kind of touched on but this can be something that is used beyond the term of this summer internship. This can be something that's used by the team if there are other interns in the future. It's meant to be a living and breathing document that can be used for the long term with a strong foundation starting this summer. So I'll hand it back to you. [15:08] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): An update for you and I'm going to hand those to Veronica. So since you've left, we have actually discovered a new tool. So we took your structure and all of the buckets in the buckets, but it was important, right, as an economic developer, it's important that we manage ourselves and operate as an economic development organization, right, ensuring that we touch on all the facets of what we're supposed to do. So those are the buckets including business attraction, business attention, retention, workforce development, foreign trade zone, redevelopment, all those things to ensure in the view we're doing the work that we're supposed to be doing and to be able to organize that work. I'll hand it over to Veronica for the update on Asana. [15:53] Isabella (Intern): So the update with Asana is that we're using Microsoft Factory instead, which actually we use all of the framework exactly as you put it up for the record, but sort of taking the time and doing deeper research of what resources are already available to us. Because our subscription platforms, of course, we can use, but if we look inwardly, we obviously, the city of Bangor uses Microsoft Suite, and I figured that if we have something similar already available to us that's already compliant and works seamlessly with tools we use, such as Excel and Outlook, it was a much more streamlined decision for us. And we needed to use a planner that Ashley set up for us every single day, and it's been a great tool to sort of ease our communication as we go in and out of the office to different events. [Susan Deane: And yeah. Yeah.] That's wonderful. I think Ashley touched on a very important thing that we as interns really wanted to bring to this table. And it was that we didn't just want to walk in and walk out having contributed nothing. I mean, obviously we were interns, we were going to be put to work, we were going to do something, but we wanted to do something that would be built on. And so in that kind of thinking about that long-term workplace development, the team and I decided that a very valuable initiative to take, this was not kind of immediately thought of, this was when we developed later, was an onboarding guide. This would be a transitional piece of information internally that would provide the public resources you need, it would compile the conferences you might want to go to, background information you may want to have, definitions, context, these things that you usually have to scrape by and ask questions for those first one to two, five weeks of being somewhere, all in a document that you could go through, scroll, control F, find the thing you need to look for, and there's the information about it. quick summaries of our current projects who needed to talk to you regarding those projects this these are helpful tools that are used in all sorts of different sectors to ease that transition into a position a new internship and can be used by future interns employees etc and it was important for me as I establishes to make it something very digestible that being said it was several pages but I also think that's very worthwhile file to collect all this information in one little place it's nice That's easy, efficient, and that's really it was a fun project to work on it, and I hope that it's going to be very helpful, and it continues to be live, right, so this is. [18:14] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): Specific to everything related to economic development, who are partners? If we're, we are editing a lease, who needs to review that? At least all, you know, things internally, because a lot of times we have to wait for those relationships. But having a group of, having a place where you know where your partners are, you know, workflow, you know, process, can really help expedite your [18:41] Isabella (Intern): onboarding. So I think with that we can move on to city properties and leases. Now this was something that unfortunately Elle worked on in detail, so she's not here. I'm going to present it for you. Sorry, Elle, I'm gonna do my best. So working with city partners, a large aspect of this work revolves around the management of city properties to include banner properties, partners that work with the city had space changes, gate extensions, and pricing alteration that reflected through multiple amendments and new lease drafts. So the focus of this area for her included of making these amendments, then also creating a plug-and-play sort of document, something where as different addendums or changes made once more, someone could come in without significant background knowledge and work with it again without taking that basis of having to build from the ground up. You have a document, you have the things highlighted, you know you need to change, initiating better workflow, better workflow and efficiency, which is, thank you Al, she worked very [19:38] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): hard on that. Yeah, and just to say, of course, right, like these are internal documents with our customers, so if you can imagine the full breadth of economic development, it takes a long time to look at a lease and revise and edit and think through it. So to have that extra help of having an intern look at it first, then send it to us, give us recommendations, let's discuss this, not only are we giving them the experience, right, it's like proper editing and format and negotiation, it's a real live lease, so that we ultimately follow through. So I can't tell you how much hours it's saved, right? So for an intern to look at that, give us recommendations, and then us send it in our normal workflow to our legal department gave a tremendous amount of time with something very administrative, and it was important, right, like that the experience that we gave our interns was both administrative, let's not lie, right, economic development can be very attractive in terms of big projects, but it's not only that, is a significant part of administration, and we want to be able to give a realistic [20:52] Isabella (Intern): experience and with that we kind of very briefly wrap up all the work we did in those eight weeks because we want to get you through the success plus one. We're going to go to what's probably one of my favorite sections, the takeaways. If we go, if we could go to the next slide. [21:04] Ashley Wilson (Intern): So actually you want to pick us up, yes. So while I numbered them to four, I feel like kind of the overall impact and takeaway is invaluable. I made it very clear entering this internship that I was transitioning away from being a student and I was kind of looking for that first experience beyond that and being able to shift my thinking as a real working professional, which I think was given to me and then some. So just kind of to start off like policy writing, a lot of these documents I've always thought of in a more academic lens, so being able to take them and know that it would be potentially seen in a public eye beyond something, you know, beyond me and a teacher, it definitely, I, it was a bit more difficult than I'd anticipated, but it was definitely a great learning curve. So economic development literacy, so a lot of these things I came into this internship not knowing, all of which were invaluable as someone interested in entering this field in the long term. I think being able to learn them fresh out of school, I think puts me at an advantage and having worked so in depth with these documents, it was really important to me. So similarly to policy writing, I put federal regulations, again FTZ 58, I'm looking at a lot of things that are meant to be compliant with things that are beyond the scope of these documents that I was looking at. So just making sure that I'm learning to navigate these things and not delete anything I'm not supposed to gave me a real confident boost to know that I was able to work on something like this and be able to put my best foot forward and create something pretty cool. So lastly, EDO thinking, which is something we had touched on a little bit with the asana dashboard, which is now transitioned, just kind of thinking on like how I was provided with a framework, like yes, the Bangor team is only two people, but they're so, like, there's so much that can be done with something just regarding economic development, which Bagheeda touched on, being able to think about this and think of it more as a discipline and not just kind of a set of tasks that I'm ticking through is something that I'll be able to take with me beyond the experience, no matter where I go. So yeah, those are my takeaways. So Isabella, I know you're next. My success story? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, after this internship, I'm on my second day of my new job. I'm working with Partners for World Health down in Portland, which is a medical supply redistribution. And funny enough, I talked about my internship of experience quite a bit in my interviews. I feel like truly I had some palpable skills that I was able to take with me, and here I am on the other side of it, and I found a pretty cool opportunity thanks to the work that I was able to do with Begida and Veronica and the team, so [24:14] Isabella (Intern): Congratulations. Thank you. Well, we'll go to the next slide, and y'all don't know a lot about me other than my name, but I am still a current student at the University of Maine. I'm pursuing a dual masters in economic and global policy, and so as you can guess, this internship was very exciting for me. I got to apply both of my passions in a very tangible way, the writing, the onboarding, the communication, the collaboration. But one thing I wanted to talk about, because we've kind of gone with that nitty gritty of what I took away, like professional development wise, another thing this internship did for me was it really connected me to the community. I am now a regular at Patty Murphy's, which I feel like everyone knows, but I don't, I don't live in Bangor, but I will drive every week to get that fix. I just, I had them on that camera today, but these are places that I went to not just because I worked in Bangor, but because we were so integrated in the community. I had so much investment in wanting to see this community succeed and learn about local businesses and talking to people and communicating with people, and it made this place such a vibrant community for me. I've been going to school here for two years now. I've lived 20 minutes down the road. I had never gone to Chimera Coffee until I started. It's a shame, it's a right shame. But I was very, grateful to this entire experience because I like to think of myself as a very community driven person, and being able to work with community, being able to invest in its development gave me a lot of inspiration and kind of made it clear to me that municipal work and municipal responsibilities were something that I would be very open to doing. It's another reason I took the center because economic development, that's like my, that's my bread and butter, so getting the opportunity to Do this to meet community leaders, to work with them, to brainstorm. The amount of brainstorming I did in just little rooms with really cool people, I think that alone was worth the experience, on top of everything else. And so I can, you know, professional writing, economic application, the municipality experience, but that community outreach bit is invaluable. And I will recommend to anyone who really wants to get to know the community to invest in its development, to learn where people care and what those people are doing. So then you kind of get fired up with them and you wanna do what they're doing, or at the very least go and see what they're doing. It's like, wow, this is really cool. Not very professional, but you know. That was, I think the happiest moment and the most passionate moment for me in this experience. So we'll go on, because I will just talk to you about it for far too long, but we'll go to dear Elle, who also wrote some very sweet, and if I can get to the right page, I think [26:51] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): we have about three more minutes. [26:53] Isabella (Intern): Well, I'm going to make this very short, but Elle would like to say that she gained very, valuable insight into municipal operations and the priorities involved in being on an economic value team, how to work in a rural setting of Bangor, Maine. She had the chance to navigate relationships with community stakeholders, partners, and learn how to mediate between internal and external timelines. Overall, she gained powerful and applicable skills through her next professional role and appreciated the opportunity to give back to the community that she grew up. This was a very personal experience for her and she's been very happy to be a part and kind of with me, contribute to its development. And she would love to say more on the subject, unfortunately she can't be here, but we will move on because we do wanna get to the exciting part. So we as very young professionals want to offer, perhaps not professional insight but rather just what we experience and what we would like to see going forward. We think Bangor rebranding it as a very vibrant hub as a place not just to come visit and be but also to work and stay is the main goal of this entire room. Everyone would like to see people come here stay be a part of this very vibrant beautiful diverse community. Actually also please feel free to jump in at any point, I'm just gonna keep Yapping, but one of the ways that we kind of propose you do this is by, I mean, not you, but with us, initiating very tangible places for young professionals such as myself to enter and grow. It is a very tangible problem in all across Maine that I work with both as a researcher for economic development, also in this internship, the struggle to keep young people present. And I don't say that as a young person who wants a job, I say that as, in order to ensure a community's long-lasting resource, you need to create spaces where people can grow up in those communities and then feel they can stay. And not just stay and stagnate, but stay. And because we're running out of time, we are just going to skip to the next part and talk about kind of the fun part of this, which is Gen Z retention, which is going to, oh no, Ashley cuts out the whimsy. But what this slide says is Gen Z retention giving work a little bit of an escape. And this is I think every generation has something that they can bring to the table, every generation has different insights, perspectives, values, setbacks, all of it, but one thing I think Gen Z kind of very much succeeds in is the balance of work life. Sometimes that's for better, sometimes that's worse, but one thing we talked about a lot was bringing the presence of whimsy into a professional environment. It is important to have those moments of strict, stern. But it's also important to have those moments where you all can get together after that serious meeting and laugh a little bit. Because you need to. Because if you're working in community development, if you want to contribute to community, if you want to see it succeed, you have to be able to build that community in the workplace. You have to be able to build that community where you work, how you work, with the people you work with. And just, you can read through all these little recommendations later, but I think at its very core this comes to being passionate about your work, being passionate with the people you work with who share that passion, and being willing to treat each other as people. We can treat each other as co-workers. I can come over and be like, hi Vegeta, lovely to see you, good luck with that, or we can have a nice conversation, person to person, human to human, because we're all just people, we're all just working. And we all have the same goals sometimes, but we all want to see Bangor succeed, and we all want to see ourselves succeed. And finding a way to work all of that into one very healthy communicative setting is crucial. And I think building those pipelines and creating those spaces for young professionals who you can then teach, train, build into whatever, wherever you need them, is critical. And you take nothing else away from this presentation, I guess all you need to take away is bring a little bit of woozy into your workplace. Be a little silly sometimes. You're allowed that. You should do that. I think that's, yes, thank you [30:55] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): so much. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you, L. Thank you, Isabella. You guys have heard it from the horse's mouth. I think it's important that we listen because we're only moving forward. Time waits for no one. I do want to say that we've worked really hard to build our relationships with our universities. Just so happened that Huston, we didn't receive Huston interns, but we do have a significant, a significant relationship with UMaine. I personally was there welcoming 300 students last week and talked about the importance of first impressions and branding because we were invited by the Dean of the Business School, right? And so we have a great relationship with the School of Policy and International Relations. And I'm gonna take a moment to introduce you to our new director of the School of Policy in International Relations, Alexander Hamilton. And as you can see, the momentum continues, right? So these guys did phenomenal work, but we can't stop there. The momentum continues. So I'd also like to introduce you to Anna Wallace, who's gonna be our new fall economic development so that we continue the work, continue moving forward, continue doing all the things that we've mentioned. [32:08] Joseph Leonard: Any questions? Any questions? Any questions from the council? Oh, I'll go first. I'll go first. I very much appreciate the use of Winsy, by the way. I have the very same opinions. I've had enough Gen Z coworkers. This is how I know I have a Gen Z coworker. When they sign up on email, I usually just say, "Best, Joe Leonard." I've had some people say, "Yolo," some people say, "Bottoms up," and you know what, I'm not offended by that. I think that's fun. But you brought up a lot of really good points, is that we have a responsibility to create a path forward for the next generation coming here. We talked to the council multiple times about how we're going to bring about our Gen Z workforce, talking about whether it's attracting them via certain housings or certain projects or certain type of working relationships. But I really did appreciate just how, from a professional writing perspective, how succinct you were able to bring all this information to us. You really encapsulated William Shakespeare's "Brevity's assault with," so thank you very much. You're my best. [33:41] Speaker G (unidentified): I have several questions. Okay, please. Yes, sure. So it's the first question. First of all, great presentation, thank you very much. It was mentioned that, you know, none of this is official. Do what does the process look like exactly to turn it from, you know, this brainchild or brainstorm to something that's actually working in the city's official policy? Sure. So it's about priority, right? [34:05] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): As you know, we're very busy with certain projects at this time, so we are soon going to be looking into growing up our trade zone. Last year I had mentioned that we had our first operator opening over 30 years, so in that project we're now looking at these documents and saying, okay, what is it that we want to use? Is this an internal document? Because some documents are meant to be just internal, right, for someone to easily understand a complex project. Others could be a little more public based, so that's what it is. It's about priority and it's about internally reviewing. So as an economic develop development division, I'm internally reviewing and then giving it to the director of community economic development. Do you think we should move forward with this, ultimately bringing into the vet committee and then ultimately the council? [34:54] Speaker G (unidentified): Okay. Well, speaking of documents, you mentioned the cheat sheet for President Hansen and TIF and for applicants, which I think is great. I'm just curious, during the process of doing that, was there any feedback from either potential applicants or former applicants or someone like what to go into that document? Yeah. I mean, the document exists, [35:14] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): right? So it's on our website as a policy. It was a little test, right? So Ashley was assigned this project and was like okay actually read that policy and tell us what it means she's like i don't it's very confusing right there's different parts and it doesn't flow well okay so give us what you think it should be and also with the cheat sheet because something like a tiff as we all know in the cpa could be very complex so those who doesn't who don't work with it every day if [35:43] Ashley Wilson (Intern): you want to acknowledge that ashley does ever handle yeah i mean bagheeda basically like said my point i think i kind of touched on it a little bit but i was that outside perspective of someone who wasn't familiar with the processes no i am not a tiff or cea applicant unfortunately but i think that outside perspective just generally is just as important if you're looking as an audience member just for someone who might not know the lingo or anything like that [36:14] Speaker G (unidentified): Well, and follow up with a cheat sheet. I definitely, for the next set of interns, I'd love to see a cheat sheet for council on this topic. I think that would be helpful. I think that would be a helpful tool, especially for new councilors coming in. You know, what's a TIF? What's a CA? How does this all work? The project dashboard caught my attention because, you know, one of the things with, you know, economic development is telling the story to the city, you know, to the residents of what it does, and I'm wondering, is there any part of the project dashboard that's currently public facing? So the project dashboard that we're using [36:49] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): now is not meant to be cover facing, right? It's meant to be to get out of this mode of being reactive, because there's so much coming at us and being more proactive, like what is our part, what are our priorities, what is it that we want to do, what are we going to do for a given day, and who takes on the role. However, what we're planning to do is taking pieces of it and putting it on our economic development webpage at the, on the city's website, as well as having lunch and learn sessions with you. This is what we're working on. It may not be so decision-driven, but more of a sharing of the work that we do, and perhaps sharing our best practices and the discovery of best [37:26] Speaker G (unidentified): practices on the onboarding. One of the things I guess I'm here to describe is either institutional memory, which is something I think that we need more of, you know, ways to capture that knowledge. So I'm wondering, is this eventually something that can also kind of trickle out into other departments? You know, almost like we tested here, and could other departments make use of what you're building with that? And you're talking about the dashboard? Yeah, so I [37:55] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): don't want to confuse it, right? So it's not necessarily an HR onboarding, because the HR team does a great job at that. It's more specific to a role, right? These are our partners, this is how we work, this is our process, these, you know, everything from, you know, administrative behind the computer responsibilities to events that we should be at and how do we present ourselves in the community. So yeah, I mean, depending on the role, I think it can definitely, but I think it's important and it saves time right, like efficiency, like time is so important to be able to give a person something that they can agree to understand what it is their role is [38:33] Speaker G (unidentified): beyond the job description. Sure. Well, what I like, what I heard was it's a resource where you can hit CLS and say, oh, actually I need this information, and it takes you right to that public document. [38:42] Isabella (Intern): If I could, I would recommend that other people look into building that, because I do think it is a very helpful thing. I have worked elsewhere before here, but it is very helpful to get almost like a packet of information, and then you as the new hire can go and you can educate yourself on what you need to know without having to consistently pepper your new boss or your new superior with questions like, hey, how do I do this really basic thing? Because that can be both demoralizing for you as the newcomer, but also a time queaser for whoever you're here to help or work under. And while maybe, well, I don't think we will necessarily be responsible for that, I would highly encourage others to institute that, because institutional memory is just an efficiency builder. [39:25] Susan Deane: It is just a helpful tool to have. Okay, two more questions, I promise I'm not too much. The next [39:30] Speaker G (unidentified): question was about, you know, we talked about the professional development retention and Gen Z retention, which was great tips. Is that also going to be kind of another internal document that's to be reviewed and see about way to implement them, like best practices or anything? Yeah, I mean [39:45] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): Ann and I, we meet regularly on a weekly basis. We've talked about what it is to recruit younger people and what it is, what it is that they are desiring. But it's two-way, and I made sure that I really drove this home. It's two-way, right? Like we can't, I'm talking about my generation, right? Came from a place where we couldn't necessarily decide everything that we were going to do or we're going to work with. I think that there's, there's wisdom from both, right? That we need to meet in the middle and that's why one of the, I wanted to bring in the reality of like there's an administrative task, like it's all not fun and you know sexy around here, it's like administrative. So say all that to say yes, we are discussing internally because it's so important to successfully and so important to allow our young people to experience a life in the day of municipal government. A lot of times they have no idea until they actually get into it, and a lot of, I mean stigmas associated with it. We want to eliminate [40:47] Speaker G (unidentified): those things. Well all of you deserve to be congratulated, you know, programming and this presentation, I appreciate all of it, and it does sound like the partnership is continued into the next year. Will be more interns, more projects. We'll have another presentation to look forward to next year. [41:03] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): Yes. And I'm going to let Veronica close now. [41:07] Joseph Leonard: I do have one more. [41:08] Daniel Carson: I don't have a question, but I just wanted to congratulate all of you and thank you for this presentation. I think it's absolutely remarkable. And I'm so impressed at the onset of your presentation, you said, you know, we really wanted not just to do our work but to leave something lasting, right, to really make a difference, and all of the things that you have in here are really going to make a difference. And I think in ways maybe that you haven't even necessarily you know thought about yet as a counselor, you know, I'm off to here and one of the people who passed her the Gita about things like leases and details. And so all of these updates really just have so many applications. And it's just remarkable, you know, with the foreign trade zone work, I'm thinking about that as a, as an economic opportunity and attractive opportunity to the city of Bangor. And so I just want to appreciate absolutely all of that and the lasting impact that all of you will have made. And so I look forward to bright futures and plenty of whimsy if we can get some around here and congratulate you for joining us here in the fall. And actually, if I heard correctly, you said this was your second day at your new role. And so I congratulate you for that as well. And thank you all. Thank you. [42:39] Carolyn Fish: I'd like to thank you too. This is incredible work that you've done. And I already thinking about how these dashboards and simplifying some of our forms to make it easier for not just the consumer out there that's trying to find out what a TIF is and how it works and the CEA. But I think also for counselors, every three years there's new counselors coming in. And even for those in our last year, when for instance, the committee that's meeting now, if there's a project, it goes in different phases. And sometimes we have to look through our email or we don't have a dashboard board where some of the you know the internal documents that could be shared if we had those in one file folder where we could review ourselves and be more prepared and more productive when we have our committee meetings that would be so helpful and I just see this dashboard and this template of my creative ideas you've done be not only useful for economic development but maybe with code because you work with code And planning and I can see this could be very efficient and helpful for these departments that have to collaborate work together to be more efficient of time so thank you and best of luck and I love your enthusiasm and keep that going [43:59] Joseph Leonard: And thank you I'm gonna skip councilman then council carson is one more I'll be very quick [44:07] Susan Deane: Thank you great job and from someone who has worked in communications for more than 30 years you both have excellent presentation skills so that's gonna work well for you so congratulations on all your hard work I won't repeat what everyone else has [44:23] Joseph Leonard: Already said but I agree with all of that I also I'm sorry and I forgot I want [44:32] Daniel Carson: To thank you know in our economic development team for all of the work they can do around this well for leveraging our anchor institutions and [44:41] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): So, it takes a little bit of time right so like these interns ships are very structured. I'm not going to put someone in a seat and be like, Okay, go ahead and write like I take the time to really structure what their projects are to a finite detail week one through eight so that they are empowered with the work that they need to do and they understand they understand what they're with their tasks and responsibilities are so it takes a little time upfront for a phenomenal finish unless [45:14] Joseph Leonard: Anything else I'll let you [45:16] Isabella (Intern): Take it away. So to close out, I will say I've done multiple internships when I was an undergrad, somewhere profit, somewhere strange, private companies that are a little too small to hire me, and my first job at a college was actually important for America and to transition here, and having a, I would say, slightly more robust onboarding guide and onboarding resources has really been a great way to first of all start, and also for all my experiences know what I do like and what I don't like, so all That's to say it was a wonderful presentation. Congratulations to you guys. Thank you guys. Thank you all for, look phenomenal. Thank you to your audience. Yeah, I know it can be a little yappy up here. [46:00] Unidentified speaker (Economic Development Officer): Thank you. Well [46:08] Joseph Leonard: We put that up for such a long time. It's so good that we finally actually got that rolling around. It was well worth the wait. Next up we have Bangor International National Airport report, and if it was a major, would you like to come forward? Perfect. Good [46:50] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): Evening, Mr. Salvejo, airport director. It's been a while since I've come mindset committee to talk a little bit about what's happening at the airport report. So I will spend some time going into a little bit more details of each of the sections, but the big picture, the airport is busy, extremely busy, and I think the statistics that you see there on for the July report kind of speaks for themselves when we look at what the FAA is reporting for activity on fiscal and calendar year 2025. 2025 is a record year for the airport. The numbers are, it's the busiest year that we have on record, and that it's a reflection of all the work that has been happening across the airport. So to add that into context of what we're seeing so far to date, and actually before I move on, 2026 was a year that the airport was shut down approximately a month because of the runway project, and so even with that, with that significant amount of closure, we still broke a record, right? And so when we look at what the airport is seeing so far into year 2026, 18 growth from that, so a lot of people coming through the airport, in research that we've done, what we observe is that obviously during the Summer months, which is our peak period. Interesting statistic is that three out of every four arriving passengers are renting a car in Bangor, meaning that there's a lot of tourism that's coming through the airport. And on any given Saturday during the summer, we're seeing upwards of 3,000 passengers coming in, which is up to three times what we normally see during the winter months. So a significant amount of people coming through the airport to visit our community, in addition to what we're seeing. Right now, one of the things that we are starting to look at is what is this trends that we're seeing from 2025, 2026 mean for 2027 summer season, and what we're hearing from our airline partners is we should expect the growth to continue. And so ahead of that type of growth, what I've tasked my staff is to think about what are adjustments and shifts that we need to make in terms of our operation, in terms of fitting or staff in a way that makes sense for this type of week, because in reality it's it's a it's a shift in our operation that the airport has not handled in the past, and it's going to take a little bit of fine-tuning to try to match that level of activity that we see on especially on the weekends. Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest days at the airport. So, any questions so far on big picture trend numbers before I move on to the next item? [50:12] Joseph Leonard: Ted, one, if you don't mind. It's very situational, and it's totally okay if you don't have an answer to this, but it has to do with the upcoming season. I 'm sure everyone's well aware we have an El Nino coming up, and that is going to affect the weather across the entire western hemisphere, and that does mean that this region of the continent is going to have less snow. There's going to be, we're going to have a much warmer winter, and I'm just curious what that projection likely is going to be, especially considering if we're going to have more rainfall, less snowfall, how that's going to impact the [50:59] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): runway as well. So operationally speaking, the airport prepares for winter operations on a regular basis. Prior to the winter season, we are federally required to have a winter operations plan in place, and so we review that, and obviously we work very closely with FAA, air traffic controllers, with or National Weather Service partners to monitor those things. But in reality, the capacity of the airport to handle operations in any weather given conditions is pretty strong and robust, so I don't foresee that being any operational impact. Obviously weather both in the summer with thunderstorms in the winter with snowstorms has the potential to impact flight disruptions, but that's not different than any other operation would be impacted. That was my only [51:52] Carolyn Fish: question was anyone has anything. I guess I know with the fuel charges and airline fees these days are you know pretty expensive. I know myself recently looking kind of a sticker shock, but it didn't stop us from taking our annual vacation. And I'm kind of surprised that with the tariffs and everything that we're, you know, our every month that I think that grew up from last year and you're saying, especially over the weekend and car rentals being up. So as the tourists have increased and staying and renting cars, do you have a theory on what that is? Where they're flying into Bangor, where are they going? Boeing and what do you think the uptick is, especially with the fees of airline tickets these days? [52:41] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): Yeah, I think so from a big industry standpoint, obviously a lot of the geopolitical dynamics that are happening has an impact on the industry as a whole. I think for our airport, we're very lucky of the kind of growth that we continue to see, despite the trends and different dynamics that are happening across the geopolitical environment. I think it's important to think about all of the flights that commercial flights that come into Bangor are coming from domestically. And so there's people coming from across the country wanting to spend their summers up here in Maine. And so what we do know is that the growth that we're seeing is pretty similar to what our partners in Portland are seeing, very similar growth. So I think that on the international side, the biggest factor for us is obviously that about 40% of our passengers are Canadian, typically heading down to Florida. and so we monitored that dynamic to see what the what potential impacts might happen in our in our market. But what we're seeing is a moderate to small impact on our operation. Yeah okay so the next item that I included in the airport directors report has to do with an emergency runway closure that you might have heard throughout the or social media channels or website and general community communications. So the airport a couple of weeks ago started serving a condition on the runway surface that indicated what is commonly known in the industry as an alkali silica reaction which is a chemical reaction in which the concrete sort of starts disintegrating this is a in a runway like ours that has a sub base of concrete and an overlay of asphalt tends to be a common thing particularly northern climates where there's a lot of freezing temperatures and then the contraction that happens once the temperature changes and so the airport took immediate action to do temporary repairs but in coordination with the FAA and with our consultants, what it was determined is that it needed to be a major repair. And so given the work that we recently did with the runway project and conversations with the FAA, we were able to sort of loop this work into it, into the original funding sources that we have had. But for us as a, as an airport report, it was an unbudgeted expense that we're going to have to deal with. And so we're working with the FA right now to fine-tune the math of exactly what that the cost is going to be for us to do it. But given the fact that we were still wrapping up portions of the runway project, we were able to work with the same contractor and move this repair along as a change order to the current contract, as approved by the FAA. And so in reality, as with many other federal funded projects, the vast majority of the funds are likely to come from the FAA, a portion of it from the state, and then or local match, or whatever is either not eligible or is, or, matching fund for that, or engineers are giving us, or an estimate of this portion to be in the 750 and fifty thousand dollars for this repair. And so again, we're still working on finalizing this. It's been a very rapidly developing situation that we've had to sort of jump in, and because of the impact that it has to or airline partners, we did move forward with at least settling on a date to conduct that repair and kind of working around the administrative portion of it to make it happen. So no [56:57] Joseph Leonard: questions at all. So [57:03] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): I wanted to spend some time as well talking about some of the projects that we've been working on in the background, because I think that since the last time we talked, I provided an update. One of the things that you might have seen in the news is just the number of diversions, medical emergencies, and different international and high profile type of operations that have come our way. And one of the things that we found is that our passenger boarding bridge at gate 11, which had been deactivated for About five years came online about two months ago, and within three days of that jet bridge being back in service, it was the jet bridge that was being used for a lot of this extra activity that we were, whether we're dealing particularly on the international side of the airport. And so again, a testament to the kind of high level of activity that we see at the airport and how some of this infrastructure that we've been building, it's been helping to better address some of the activity that we see at the airport. The next project that it's been a while since we talked about it is the connector project,, which is at the very tail end of construction. The project is expected to be fully completed mid-October. And so that project, as we've talked numerous times, is going to add an extra hold room in our Gate 6 area and build a bridge that will connect both our domestic and international terminals so that we're able to better take advantage of the four gates that are in the international side. And again, this is a project that started prior to my tenure and we're finally seeing it through here at the tail end of this construction project. A couple of months ago we did, we brought in a grant application for our taxiway alpha project, alpha and mike, and that project is up and running and it's been probably one of the fastest projects that I've seen move along, a very close working relationship with the contractor. And there's been several phases and sub phases that they're working through this project. Every single one of those phases has been on schedule or ahead of schedule and that's a really good place for us to be because then we're able to move along and accommodate whatever comes next for our partners when we're able to stick to those deadlines that we have for them. And lastly, if you keep track of the projects that are out to bid right now, the TSA checkpoint expansion project is out to bid at this time, and this is a close to $20 million project that will triple the size of the checkpoint at the airport and add the third screening lane and add enough space and capacity in terms of utilities so that when the growth passes a threshold we're able to add the fourth screening line at the at the checkpoint. So again, just preparing the airport for it, that the growth that we really are seeing in the near to midterm outreach. So questions so far on projects or construction updates? Just a comment. [1:00:28] Joseph Leonard: It, I expect to get through TSA in 30 seconds now. All right, well again, it's the type of [1:00:36] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): The type of passenger volumes that we see right now are, it's it's taking a toll on our infrastructure, right? And so again, going back to the same situation as with the jet bridge, this type of upgrades that we're seeing and we're working on are we're planned a few years back. And so at some point we do need to address it, figure out, okay, is this going to be enough to address the demand that we see in the next five, ten years, and how do we plan for that? So [1:01:07] Joseph Leonard: And I think that's a really smart approach, and we're only going to grow. We're increasingly becoming a more recognized airport, and I think it's smart of us to recognize that girl comes [1:01:20] Daniel Carson: to Carson yeah so Council Leonard I usually get through there in about 30 seconds it's been my routine experience but it do i remember that with the with the expansion and that reconstruction that 's also going to bring those businesses that are now outside of tsa into that space so that more people can access them no it's so that no the tsa checkpoint [1:01:48] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): for an expansion is limit, the project is limited only to the screening area of the checkpoint. However, once we've completed that step, what I perceive as part of the three to five year construction projects will be the development of additional concessions in the post security area. And so we do have, I've actually worked with our team on developing what the RFP would look like for that project and working with concessions to add, in theory, it would probably likely be to a restaurant and a coffee stand. hand. The part of the challenge is that the security checkpoint expansion is going to require some storage facilities. And so that space is going to help that purpose. And once the TSA checkpoint is completed, then we would be able to expand on the concessions development. And that's what I foresee us as far as addressing concession. [1:02:59] Speaker G (unidentified): And council back, it's a comment. Oh, we're glad to hear things are moving forward, taxiway much [1:03:08] Joseph Leonard: any other comments? Do you have anything you want to say, Georgia? No, nice work, perfect. [1:03:16] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): So the next thing is a revision to the GE lease that we have brought up to you probably about an hour. So it looks like on the side they went back and reassessed some of the their needs and how long they were going to need this temporary lots. They decided that it was not necessary to get it for the two years that they had initially thought that their project was going to want faster. And so because that was a change in the terms that the Council had approved, we needed to bring it back for your review and approval. And if the committee is satisfactory with the new proposed terms, which is a slight, the rates were slightly increased for a shorter term. And so if that's a, staff recommendation is to approve this, and if that's the case, it would go to council next week to get the other revised terms approved. So are you looking for a vote on [1:04:21] Joseph Leonard: that or, yeah, oh, that doesn't need a, okay, I guess we'll do questions first and then, okay. [1:04:28] Daniel Carson: Oh, okay, but I would move that the bed committee recommend this lease change to the [1:04:38] Joseph Leonard: full city council for approval. Second, the motion being second, any other thoughts or discussion on [Susan Deane: this, unless] there's anything, we'll do a full call vote. Councillor Fish, yes. Councillor Mallar, yes. Councillor Faloon, yes. Councillor Carson, yes. And I will be a yes. 50. Perfect. And the last thing [1:05:03] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): that I have as part of my report is the recommendation from staff to accept an appropriate create an FAA grant. So this is to fund the construction that's already underway as part of the TaxAway Alpha, TaxAway Mike project. As you might recall from previous reports that I've done, the FAA usually work a little bit different when it comes to grant, meaning that oftentimes you start a project and then you get the grant once you're under construction because of the way appropriations are set up at the federal level. And so this is a, the committee of the council had approved the airport to apply for the full funding of the project at 14.6, I think I don't have the number for the full amount of the of the construction project. The fa decided to split it into two grants, and so this, the acceptance and appropriation request and staff recommendation is for the first grant, which would be step one, and in the next few days prior to the end of the federal fiscal year, we expect to get a second grant from the FAA that we would come back in a few weeks to get the recommendation to accept an appropriate fund to continue to finish that project. [1:06:30] Joseph Leonard: Just to clarify, that specific grant, that was from the Federal Aviation Administration Grant Board, I think this is the number 146,652, or am I mistaken? [1:06:47] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): It's 5.5 million from the NAACP, 146,000 from Maine DOT, and then the local match is 577 000. [1:07:03] Joseph Leonard: Any questions or comments on this? But not, I would hear a motion need to go [1:07:13] Daniel Carson: to the full council. Yes, right, yeah, yes, I would move SAP recommendation to accept an appropriate. [1:07:24] Joseph Leonard: We have a motion and a second. Unless there is any questions, we'll just do a roll call vote. Counselor? Yes, that'll be a guest if I keep forgetting. Normally there's no doubt anyway. It doesn't hurt. Okay, is there anything else you need from us? [1:07:49] Unidentified speaker (Airport Director): At this time, no, unless you have any questions for me, anything that you would like to discuss airport related. Otherwise, things are busy at the airport. Well, unless I [1:08:03] Joseph Leonard: not see any hands and I have to guess, we'll get out of your hair. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, next on the agenda, we're going to be discussing electric vehicles and heat pumps to see a follow-up discussion, and we have my announcer Colette who's joining us at the table. [1:08:22] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Yes, so Counselor Fish had some follow-up questions after our initial report on the fleet electrification plan, energy audits, about both of those items, and so I did put her questions there in bold and our responses to those. I'm just going to go through a few bullet points instead of all of them, just on the first one as far as battery longevity. So modern EV batteries today are made to go at least 150 to 200,000 miles, which is similar to a gas-powered car, and typical manufacturer warranties cover those for at least 8 to 10 years, 100,000 to 150,000 miles, and also guarantee them to be a certain battery capacity of 70 percent. So the estimates I got, one of the quotes I included was that, you know, modern battery technology, oftentimes the battery can outlast the car itself, the body of the car. So and most of the replacements that do happen are either very old batteries or due to then as far as the cost of insurance, it is true that insurance can be a little bit more expensive for an ED due to a variety of factors, but the total cost of ownership that was included in that electrification report included the cost of insurance, and even with that slightly higher cost, because fuel and maintenance is so much lower, the total cost of ownership is still lower over the lifetime of the car for most of those cars. As far as the fuel source of the energy grid, so the emissions estimates that were included in that report were based on average US grid emissions, but Maine's grid is actually much cleaner. than the US grid, over 54 of our grids based on renewable energy. So the emissions estimates that were in that report would actually probably be a lot better than in reality. And also the other, you know, stipulation is that if you add solar to a site, a rooftop solar system, that can reduce your emissions and your cost of fueling. And then just to address range, that wasn't asked about. Range does is reduced with an EV in the winter time, but it's actually reduced by a similar amount for a gas-powered car. A lot of people don't know that. There are a lot of behavioral changes that you can make with an EV to help with that range issue. A lot of that range loss is due to having to heat the car in the winter time, but if users warm up the car before, while they're charging, before they drive it, that can help a lot. Using heated seats and heated steering wheels, those come oftentimes with a lot of EVs. Trying to use those to the maximum extent possible instead of heating system helps a lot. Making sure that the EV has a heat pump system because those are a lot more efficient than a resistive heating system. Making sure users use regenerative braking. That's one of the biggest benefits to an EV is regenerative braking. So when you let off that accelerator, that energy goes back into the battery. It really increases your range a lot. Just making sure that users and drivers are using a lot of those different things can increase the range a lot. And the other thing to consider too is that with EVs, when you drive on the highway, the range can decrease a lot more quickly, but with the way the city employees would be using them, for the most part it would be in-city driving, which would not decrease your range by nearly as much as highway driving. And so I just wanted to point that out too. As far as heat pumps, I know that there are a couple points that people have found that it's more expensive than it was to use oil or gas, and there are some caveats with that. Some questions I would want to ask those people is, have you insulated first? Did you do air sealing? Because that's always step number one to make your home where you're building more efficient. Definitely if you don't do those and you have a drafty building, heating is going to be expensive, period. The other thing too that a lot of people don't think about is cooling. So when you look at the cost of cooling and heating over the whole year, it can sometimes be that the heat pumps still end up coming out better because a lot of people use window units, which are a lot less efficient than a heat pump and are going to be more expensive up to cool. And a lot of people are using window units currently in the city. And let's see, also the other thing is with heat pumps you have, like with EVs, the added benefit that if you do add rooftop solar to the site, that can obviously reduce your cost of heating and cooling a lot more as well. You don't have that option if you do use gas or oil for the heating system. Just going back to my previous point, though, obviously, like, every building is going to be different. And existing systems are going to be different, existing costs, and that would all need to be evaluated on the case by case basis. And then also some things that can impact, you know, how efficient that heat pump is, and how well it's working. And the cost of using that heat pump is just how people use it much like an eevee so if they're turning it on and off during the winter they're changing the temperature all the time they're not cleaning the filters stuff like that can all impact how efficient that system is so those are just some of the main highlights that i wanted to touch on [1:13:48] Susan Deane: and happy to answer any other questions. Any questions? Council question, I wanted to thank [1:13:54] Carolyn Fish: you. When I wrote the questions, I just thought an email would be sufficient, so I really appreciate you coming in and sharing the responses to those questions, and you answered them very thoroughly. [1:14:05] Joseph Leonard: Thank you very much. Any other thoughts or questions on this matter? I just wanted to echo [1:14:12] Daniel Carson: a thank you because I think I was one of the people that had questions the last time too. [1:14:19] Joseph Leonard: I actually just wanted to commend just us having this conversation overall because I think this opens up a much larger dialogue about the topic of energy itself in the city, to kind of bring this into a more broader perspective. Projections really look like we're going to have a strenuous upcoming couple of years regarding energy consumption with costs going up. I mean, it's very likely CMP is going to get away. I know that's not officially in yet, but it wouldn't shock me. And it's not going to shock me if there's going to be more electrical utility costs going up as well through the state as well. And with our international issue that we're having with Canada, that puts our reliance on energy as a city, I think, to the forefront of what we want to have as a conversation regarding how do we as a municipality look at energy and its utilization for our services. As a, as a major issue or an opportunity for us to grow and what I actually want to have in the future is a discussion about whether or not we as a city want to expand our usage of solar technologies to make us a more independent city, having our own partial, if not hopefully fully energy source that we can get. I know that's really high up there in terms of like a large vision, but I do feel very strongly we need to, as a city, look at these upcoming issues as an opportunity for us. Having an ability as a city to say that we can eat a lot of these increasing energy costs, that 's a way that we can advertise as a way for people wanting to come to live in Bangor. So, I don't know, I know you're both probably not prepared to have this discussion, but I would very much encourage this committee and this council to have robust discussions about the expansion of maybe potentially even our own solar farms or having solar on top of our buildings or solar on top of our parking lots. For me at this point, I look at it as preparing for eventual issues that are going to come down the road regarding energy related problems. So I don't know if that's something that either of you want to discuss right now, because I know this isn't directly related to electrical vehicles and heat pumps, but it is related in a way. I do look at this as not just a energy issue but also a security issue as well for the city. [1:17:34] Carollynn Lear: I think Anya can continue to work on this area and bring back some more information. [1:17:39] Joseph Leonard: In the future. Yeah, okay, I would very much appreciate that. And if you have anything that you'd like to add right now and I know that was a lot of this director. No, I mean you. [1:17:50] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Remember when I brought the, solar report to you, solar feasibility study that our intern Amelia did, and definitely we have potential. And based on the feedback I received then, you know, I'm, I'm on the lookout for grant opportunities that will help us install those, you know, and. [1:18:06] Joseph Leonard: Help that payback period be shorter, so Council Carson, you had a hand up. Well, just a comment to [1:18:13] Daniel Carson: the point that you just made, but more broadly, I think, you know, whether it's discussing energy, discussing, you know, economic development, we have a lot of vision around here. I want to talk about housing, we wanna bring businesses, we wanna do things for city with aging infrastructure in a lot of regards. And so I think something that we have pieces of information here and there, but I think something that I would like to see the infrastructure committee take up is actually bringing together information for the council to understand where we need to be doing upgrades in our infrastructure. So that as we have vision for the future and things that we'd like to do, that we really understand the sort of nitty-gritty work of that base building and infrastructure that we might need to do to be able to accomplish all of all of these wonderful things. 100 [1:19:04] Carolyn Fish: Councilman, I know if we're going to go down this road, I might as well throw this far out. My elderly aunt that I've been helping take care of for the last few years, and at her property in the little town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, that town owns its own electric company. And my aunt's utility bill was phenomenal. I mean, just so low. And this quiet little town after, I don't know how they did it, but after they acquired ownership of their own electric company, it grew faster than they were prepared for because it was an attraction for young families and seniors because we all know what our electric bills are. And when I first was helping her pay her bills and i thought there was a mistake so i don't know what middle borough did but every time i get my light bill i'd like to know more about what they did [1:20:01] Joseph Leonard: Well, and to that point, actually, this could be a potential entry for the city as well if it's energy that we can potentially sell, like there are companies that literally actually make their for-profit businesses based on that type of model. Oh, now it's Carson. [1:20:18] Daniel Carson: Well, just to Councillor Fish's point, I many years ago lived in Cleveland, Ohio, when the City of Cleveland still owned a public power company, and I was able to experience that difference. It didn't stay that way for very long, and so I was also able to experience the significant change that happened when that transferred over. But yeah, I think that's [1:20:43] Joseph Leonard: I'd love to go down that path. Any other thoughts on this general topic or on electrical vehicles or heat pumps? Not seeing any. Well, thank you so much for this update and I am so looking forward to future discussions on energy and solar in the future. Cool and you're here for the next one to next to you, okay, so potential chicken regulations follow up on you. [1:21:20] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Take it away, please. Yeah, I don't know if you want me to hash out the original memo with those regulations. Okay, so we had come to you previously kind of asking if you wanted to basically set a lot size minimum to have chickens period. Period it seemed like the feeling that was that we didn't want to do that and maybe we look into the city of Auburn's regulations in particular something we might want to adopt and you all had asked us to also you know ask how they came up with those along with the city of Portland. City of Portland didn't get back to us but Auburn did say that and just to reiterate they basically say you can have six hens on a lot of half acre or less if you go over that you can have up to 12 per acre prorated on your actual losses so they said they got that number basically from a lot of public outreach but also looking at what other towns across the east coast had done and that seemed like a pretty common number but doing a little more research some other places have also limited to three or four hens on a lot or when a lot is less than an acre so we're kind of proposing to take the middle ground and recommend that we do up to four chickens on a half acre lot or 0.49 acres or less and then doing the up to 12 minutes per acre per rated base lot size that was the main change in what we proposed there would also be the setbacks of 20 for the coop to be 20 feet from the lot line and 35 feet from the dwelling on adjacent property a minimum square footage per chicken inside the coop and outside the coop and then they also would have to they'd have to get a certificate of occupancy to have the coop just to make sure that code and animal control make sure they meet all the regulations but a lot of the regulations would be in the animal chapter 65 which would say you know regulates more than just chickens it regulates other types of animals as well but basically those regulations would say you know the chicken coop has to be built with hardware cloth with quarter inch opening or less to help prevent rats which and also needs to be buried around the coop roosters would be prohibited except for rna the rural zone and then feed and grain has to be stored in rodent-proof containers and things like that. Odor is not detectable at the property line, just to help prevent some of those nuisance issues. And speaking of the newest issues, one more follow-up item that we did was the question had come up, you know, how enforceable is the rodent issue if somebody notices an increased presence of rats on their property because after their neighbor got chickens, and code said, you know, it would be pretty hard to prove that increased presence of rats is due to the chickens. But we do think that having these additional provisions in here about, you know, burying the hardware cloth, you know, storing your grain and your feed in a certain way would help prevent that issue. But, you know, that's just something I'm going to put out there for consideration, and I'm happy to answer any questions or comments on [1:24:44] Daniel Carson: this. Counselor Carson. Yeah, I'm just wondering on that. I appreciate that question was carried forward. I appreciate the feedback. I'm wondering if that question could be explored a little bit further. I think if we have regulations that say that you have to have feed in this or these kinds of things, I would consider that those things, if they're broken or people aren't following them, that those would constitute evidence related to rodents. If there are rodents on the property and you don't have your feed stored the right way, that would be to me, that would be evidence, and I would like to, if that's, if that is true or could be true, I would like to see maybe some more thought given to how that could be worked in. I just, I, you know, we have an increase in rat population across the city. That's not new. It's maybe kind of exciting, but I, and I've noticed that with particular properties where, like, it's just very clear as to why the rodents Are increasing right when you see garbage stacked so the top of a property, that's why rodents are there, food waste or things like that. So I would like to see there's like a little bit more thought that we could give to that, because I would hate to see people start to keep chickens in zones all across the city and then we have a rat population that explodes to like a crisis level that we really can't manage. I can certainly ask code if [1:26:24] Unidentified speaker (Staff): there's anything else we can put in here. Certainly if somebody hasn't built their coop to these specs and you know they're not storing their feed and stuff appropriately, that's definitely enforceable, but I'll see what else can come up. [1:26:39] Speaker G (unidentified): Sure, what can the public expect as far as the enforcement process? You know they go to the parking line and it smells like manure or whatever and they complain, or they notice that you know the manure being stored long or anything else, what does that timeline look like from the time they launch the complaint, how much time is there for the homeowner remedy that [1:27:03] Unidentified speaker (Staff): what can the neighbors expect reinforcement? I can't speak to timelines, I think it depends on what else code is dealing with at that point in time. If they have a huge emergency they have to deal with, it might be a little bit longer, but I think they would deal with it any other way that they deal with a code violation. If somebody reports or complains about an issue, they go out and inspect it. If there was an odor at the property line, I imagine code would stand at the property and see if there's an odor. I don't know, I don't know if Ann you have any other [1:27:34] Carollynn Lear: feedback. Yeah, I mean I think we'll have to get more information from code on that, like how did they do that, because I mean that's always an issue anytime you have a farm, people move in next door, they call and to complain, so I'll talk to code a little bit on that. I'll let you follow [1:27:54] Speaker G (unidentified): up, it is follow-up too, and then so you know as we're collecting the feedback on this, eventually this is heading towards a public hearing of the planning board. Yeah, so our proposed process was [1:28:05] Unidentified speaker (Staff): wrapping this into the land development code update. We just want to know the approach to use in the code update, so once we have the draft code for the whole city available then [1:28:14] Joseph Leonard: that's going to have multiple public hearings. Thank you Dr. Carson, did you give a hand up? [1:28:20] Daniel Carson: I didn't, completely forgot. I don't think it's going to stay, so I'll take it on spec. [1:28:25] Susan Deane: Okay, I'll move on to Councilor Deane. I still have concerns about the chickens themselves. So if someone is not following the specifications, chickens are not being well taken care of, what would the provision be? Where would they go? You know, is there, is there anything being thought about if we needed to the chickens, without the chickens? I would hate to have this become an issue where these chickens had to be euthanized, someone wasn't caring for them [1:28:53] Unidentified speaker (Staff): properly, you mean caring for them like giving them food and water, those things. So if they're not [1:28:58] Susan Deane: being cared for properly, I think last time you said that they would have regular inspections and if it was determined that they weren't being cared for properly and we need to remove them, just like with any other pet, where do they go? I mean, these are chickens down this isn't someone that goes to a humane society. I may be jumping the gun, but I could see that this could become a problem down the road if someone had all the intentions but maybe didn't, couldn't follow through. [1:29:26] Unidentified speaker (Staff): I don't know how we can regulate something like that. Like we do have the regulation for they have to provide the minimum four square feet per chicken inside the coop and 10 square feet outside to make sure they have enough space. We can definitely talk with COATH more to see if [1:29:45] Susan Deane: there's any other provisions we could put in there for that. Especially in the winter, it sounds like a great idea. I grew up on a little farm and it's not fun in the winter. The water freezes, you're cleaning out a lot of, you know, things that you don't want to be dealing with. So people may have great intentions about getting the chickens, but down there they don't want the chickens. So I just think there should be some kind of a plan if those chickens do need to be removed before it becomes a problem. [1:30:17] Daniel Carson: Dr. Carson. This actually would not have anything to do with this particular piece around the land development code. But as I'm now thinking about this, right, this adding another layer of I think probably significant amount of work for code. code. Right? Just another thing for that has to be inspected, people have to get out to right, there's going to be reporting. I'm imagining that this increases the workload significantly. So this is more of a, I'm directing towards us as the council, but I think as these changes are coming, for us to hear from code about how we as the council maybe think about better supporting that area of the city with the increased responsibilities that are going to come with these changes, and I think some future, you know, state changes that get mandated down [1:31:08] Speaker G (unidentified): too. Dr. Yeah, no, you just made me think of it. So I know that years ago there was some real excitement about this possibility of doing that, you know, and so there's people out there who really want to do this and are knowledgeable about it. Is it possible to help court enforcement to deputize some folks to help with doing the inspections who know what needs to be done, who are experts in it? Is that possible just for this purpose, to get some volunteers to kind of help keep things on the up and up? Is that something we have? Not sure. [1:31:42] Susan Deane: Not an answer I know off the top of my head. I'd have to look into it. That's a good question. [1:31:55] Joseph Leonard: I guess at some point in the future, yeah, look into it, look into it. Well, and the only reason I bring that up is that it has other implications for other departments as well, so food for thoughts, a really good question. Any other thoughts or questions on this matter? Not seeing, seen any. Oh, did you have another one? No? Okay. Unless, yeah, we'll keep working on [1:32:27] Carollynn Lear: it and come back. Okay, perfect. Thank you. [1:32:31] Joseph Leonard: So our next item is an executive session regarding consultations with legal counsel. And I would be looking for a motion. [1:32:44] Daniel Carson: So it's one MRSA say section 4056 e, consultation with legal counsel. I move that we enter executive sanctions. [1:32:53] Joseph Leonard: You have a motion, we have a second. Because it's executive session, we're all in the roll call vote. Councillor Carpent, yes. Councillor Balloon. Councillor Mallar, yeah. Councillor Fish, yes. That will be yes. You're an executive session, yes. Okay, we are back from executive session, and we are looking to, I believe, provide staff with some feedback regarding the executive session. Would anyone like to start us off? Well, I guess I can. So our moratorium on data centers is coming up in October. And so I'll just pose the question to this committee, when that time does come, do we want to right now continue that moratorium so that we can give staff more time to develop potential regulations that would be applicable to the needs and desires of citizens out there? There. [1:57:03] Speaker G (unidentified): Yes, council. I just wanted to get a clarification because if the memo was, I'm not, I'm not on the committee, but I'm looking at was saying, hey, times of the essence of this needs to move forward to council rather quickly because October will be here before we know. [1:57:19] Carolyn Fish: I think, also, you know, what are the legal risks? I am in favor of extending the moratorium, but I want to weigh that with the legal risk of challenges to do the moratorium. So I would like to see us diligently working towards some strict ordinances that would discourage, greatly discourage data centers, but at the same time keeping us within, you know, limiting legal risk for the city as well. [1:57:51] Joseph Leonard: Council person here. [1:57:53] Daniel Carson: How are you able to provide an estimate with maybe how much time you might continue to need to develop this regulatory framework i [1:58:06] Unidentified speaker (Staff): feel like and our consultants will be helping us a lot i feel like we could potentially do that in the next six months i will say that we would want to do public outreach on the potential regulations you know to get people's feedback on that and so that can add some time but you know as you know we are also in the middle of updating our land development code generally which is taking a long time so it's hard to say but i do i do we can strive to bring you a set of regulations within the next few months and then hopefully have that adopted or an extension would expire in march [1:58:48] Daniel Carson: so yes i just i wanted to think i just wanted to try to gauge how long we thought and i appreciate that there's a lot of stuff going on in that area so i would i would be in favor of extending a moratorium and to the end of building our very great work is that a motion i will move chairman or that this committee recommends that we move forward with extending what brings to council the recommendation that we move forward with extending our data center moratorium for the next six months to allow staff to continue to build the regulatory framework [1:59:30] Joseph Leonard: second your motion every second is there any doubt i'll see any doubt so that will move on and unless you have any other further guidance for us that will i guess bring it to the end of the agenda actually unless there's anything that anyone must bring up on this committee we will adjourn stay tuned we have