Camden Select Board tables charter review, Axon camera deal, sets special town meeting

[0:00] Select Board Chair: Town of Camden Select Board meeting for October 6th, 2026. First off, do we have any recommended changes to the agenda tonight that we should vote on? [0:18] Select Board member: Do you want to table the charter revision process since the memo from Bill was on the packet? [0:23] Select Board Chair: Yeah, I think that would be the right thing to do, to give people time to see that information before having a discussion about it, and make it part of the packet for the next meeting. I think that would be best. So the item 6a, the charter revision process, will go ahead and handle that in a subsequent meeting, because of there was information that didn't make it into the packet that we had hoped that would, but unfortunately it didn't, so it would not be fair to have that discussion tonight without allowing people to have the conversations to see the information about how that process works, so that will get tabled until the next meeting. The next item is public comment on non-agenda items. Please remember to state your name and where you're from. [1:23] Karen Grove: Karen Grove. I'm from Camden. Now that you've tabled the discussion on the charter process, I just wanted to give the select board a little background on this. I was on the charter commission that completed the current charter. It took us two years because it hadn't been touched in 40 years. And that meant that it was really, difficult. Of the group that was initially put on, two of them walked away because it took too long. They didn't want to be part of it any longer. We started in 2019, finished in 2021. And one of the more critical things that we went through was any time that we wanted to make a legal change, we had to go to the town attorney, who in turn went to MMA, because we are run by Maine state law. We cannot bypass that. We can't just say this is how we feel about it. So there's a lot going on with it. At least two of the people that you see that signed the last charter were on this, online, they did Zoom meetings because they couldn't physically attend, and that worked out just fine, okay? I just wanted to let you know about that because it shouldn't take two years to do this again. The only reason it did take it that long was because it was 40 years behind the eight ball, okay? Is there any other questions that you had on how, what transpired, and how it happened? I think it would be relevant probably for you to be here. [3:15] Select Board Chair: During the next meeting, when there'll be a bigger discussion about that, I'm sorry that we are delaying that discussion, but the benefit will also be to see the packet that Bill put forward to us. That will be part of the packet for the next agenda, and it will. [3:32] Karen Grove: Yeah, well, I just want to let you know exactly what happened in the room and the process that it took. And because it was so old, that's why it took so long. So anybody who's signing up for this time, don't worry about it taking two years because it shouldn't. [3:48] Select Board member: Chris, I would also like to point out that there is a distinction. The charter says that we must have a charter review committee every five years. That's not the same as a charter commission. A charter review committee is just to perhaps recommend amendments, which is an easier process than a total charter commission. As Karen pointed out, it could take two years for a total charter commission. But the total charter commission is not necessarily warranted at this point. I'll repeat that again next week. That would be great. [4:26] Karen Grove: I don't see that there's much difference between a review committee and a charter commission. If the review committee sees that there's any changes that are being made, they bring it forward for a vote anyway, exactly the same way the charter committee did. We didn't make the decisions on our own. It had to go to the voters. Yes, please. [4:54] Molly Mulhern: Good evening. Good evening. My name is Molly Mulhern. I live on Mechanic Street in Camden. The last time I came before you in the summer when you were discussing Camden priorities for the year. At that time, our grassroots group, Camden Can, suggested, among other things, that the town reinstate the effective and productive energy committee that was disbanded during COVID. I'm here, I'm here tonight to tell you about another opportunity called the Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project, shorthand ETIP. Camden and Rockport have an opportunity to apply for a federal grant offering technical assistance to shape a strategic energy plan. The plan could help both communities with energy affordability and energy resilience at a time when fossil fuel costs and electricity rates are rising rapidly. If funded, the planning work would begin in March 2027 and run through the balance of With support from the Island Institute, Camden and Rockport plan to collaborate on a grant application due mid-November for a federal ETIP grant to receive data analysis and recommendations from staff at the Federal Department of Energy labs. Labs. Their analysis would look at electricity use by sector in both communities and help outline ways to reduce costs and provide continued power in the face of increasingly frequent and severe outages. Other mid-coast communities, including Wiscasset, Belfast, and Islesboro, are currently enrolled in ETIP and report that it has been highly beneficial in advancing local planning and resilience work. Camden and Rockport's planning directors, Jeremy and Shenley both support participation in the program. A two town working group is forming to prepare the application, gather relevant electricity data from CMP and work with staff at the national labs through the project. The bulk of the work involved in the grant project will be done by this group with minimal time commitments required from municipal staff. Recently, emergency preparedness work being done through a community resilience partnership grant has identified lack of backup power as a vulnerability in both Camden and Rockport. With inadequate options to power warming and cooling centers and shelters in the event of an extended outage. The e-tip grant could analyze possible municipal sites for hubs with solar and power solar power and battery storage and could examine potential cost savings and increased resilience from widespread adoption of plug-in solar and batteries. The technical assistance provided by the Department of Energy would be supplemented by a 20,000 grant to support energy work in the two communities. The e-tip program does not require a local match and this is a document that what of the information I just gave you so we've spoken to Shenley and Jeremy about it we know that it's something that you folks want to have part knowledge of and we are available for questions or comments or creation as we go forward. So great, thank you. Are [8:26] Select Board Chair: there any other comments on non-agenda items? No? Okay. Seeing none, move on to item two, approval of the board minutes from September 22nd. [8:48] Select Board member: Could move to approve. Second. [8:52] Select Board Chair: Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? None. Five-zero. Good, thank you. You the next item is the consent agenda the approval of renewal victor licenses for Birchwood Camden House of Pizza Grand Harbor Inn Sea Dog Brew Pub [9:17] Select Board member: and Snow Dogs I just want to point out the some of the addresses are wrong on our sheet I'm and I don't want to assume that the addresses are correct on the applications but probably they got their addresses right unless the Camden House of Pizza is moving then they are on Mechanic Street and not on the Public Landing and Camden Harbor Camden Harbor Inn is on it's on Public Landing rather than on Belmont Ave I think the address is 14 Bayview Landing for the Grand Harbor Hotel Tell thanks was this on their applications or where we didn't get their applications all we see is the summary in the okay this is page six of the packet it's this okay thank you yeah thanks it's the document that we would sign what [10:17] Select Board Chair: would be the harm if we sign this next meeting instead of tonight because of the address issues is that something that would hold you up [10:24] Select Board member: from approving the we can approve it we can just sign it in the office this week yeah I can ask Janice to fix this and we can I'll let you guys know when it's ready if you guys want to make the motion yeah that's fine you could just cross it off tonight as far as I'm concerned but write it in an ink on the piece of paper every yeah you should have is that something yeah so it's something in your packet to sign so if you have whatever you whatever you guys wanted to I can make it official and you can come in and sign it this week yeah at least three of you we're approving tonight yeah but good catch thank you Ken great moving [11:06] Select Board Chair: on public hearing for liquor licenses application of the Snow Dogs at 20 Barnstown Road for renewal of on-premises beer and wine license and special amusement permit. Is there anybody here who would like to speak to that application? Seeing nobody, are there any concerns from the members of the Select Board concerning this application? [11:44] Select Board member: Move to approve the application for Snow Dogs. [11:47] Select Board Chair: Second. All those in favor? Great. Five, zero. Nobody opposed, right? Town Manager report I'll [12:05] Select Board member: Try and be quick, it's not that long, okay. Reminder from the town clerk's office, we are officially open for absentee voting in the town office on month as of this past Monday. In person absentee voting and ballot pickup continues through Thursday, October 29th. We have a voting booth set up in the lobby and the absentee ballot box that's been installed outside on the Elm Street door, outside of the Elm Street door, to drop off your completed take-home ballot after hours. The town office will be closed on Thursday, October 8th, when our staff will be attending the Maine Municipal Annual Convention in Augusta. The Camden Opera House was recently featured in the New York Times alongside some of the best known centenarian theaters. The author of the article wrote that Maine's long surviving opera houses are a testament to the resilience of Mainers and were often built with purpose as a center of community life. A gift link to the story in the New York Times is in the September 29th newsletter that was emailed out and also posted on the town's website. The newsletter was posted online, the most recent newsletter was posted online and emailed to subscribers last week, and it also includes a fun story about the time in 1956 when actress and singer May West almost wasn't allowed to perform in Camden despite her six-day engagement being a sellout event. I'm not sure why she was not. Now I'm intrigued. The police, the Camden Police Department last week hired Arthur Smith as a patrol sergeant. Arthur was most recently a captain at Knox County Sheriff's Office after having begun his career in law enforcement here in Camden in 2004 as a reserve officer. So we welcome Arthur back to Camden. Due to ongoing budget concerns, the planning and development office has opted not to fill the open planner position that was held by Shenley, who now is the planner in Rockport. Instead, the town will contract for planning services from the Midcoast Council of Governments, which will provide significant cost savings. Future planning services are anticipated to assist in updating the zoning code with new state mandating mandated rules, which requires that drafting and public hearings are finalized in time for the town meeting in June of 27. A brief update on the paid parking revenue. Since July, we have taken in $69,365 in parking meter revenue. The public landing alone since July 1st has taken in $32,887. We have received parking citation revenue, which is parking tickets basically. Since July 1st, we've taken in $18,116. The monthly fees that we pay for parking meter software and updates and whatnot that total since July first we've spent sixteen thousand seven hundred and thirty four dollars and the current downtown parking meter fund balance is negative two hundred forty eight thousand eight hundred and eighty five dollars. The paid parking the metered parking will end on October 31st at which time parking enforcement will continue through the winter and the free all-day parking will begin down at the pub at the public landing. In the public works department work continues on Chestnut Hill storm water prior to paving it. They're just about finished with the chamber building and I have we've been in contact with Nancy Hughes and she's provided us with some information about what we could possibly collect for a monthly rental so that will become hopefully next your next meeting the board oh sorry. They're continuing to work on the turnarounds by Rossin Avenue Bridge continuing to perform vehicle inspections with the goal to complete them before the winter season starts. All of the winter sand has been put inside the sand salt shed for winter use. Public works crew is traveling around to cold patch the necessary areas and trim any overhanging branches and in time for the snow to fly but they did some stormwater ditching work on a Highland Avenue and Rockport Rock Brook Drive. The Seabright dam spillway resurfacing is complete and now we are working on the berm on the opposite side of the river that was identified as needing more shot creek. And we are working on replacing the flashboards. And also a huge thank you to the town of Rockport Public Works for grading the shoulder of Simonton Road from the Camden Rockport town lineup to John Street for us. And town manager interview update. Out of 23 application resumes received for the town manager position, the select board interviewed five candidates over the span of two evenings last week. They have since narrowed it down to two candidates based on their in-depth discussions following the interviews. Next week the department heads will have the opportunity to meet with each candidate in a roundtable format to give their feedback to the select board before the select board will conduct a second in-person interview with each with each candidate it before potentially selecting the new Camden town manager. So hopefully within hopefully by the end of October I don't know. Hopefully that's all I have. Thank you Jody. [18:12] Select Board Chair: Moving on to discussion items. Again we're skipping the charter revision process for now but we wanted to have a discussion about fiscal year 2028 budget process discussion and the intent is to talk about the timeline of meetings workshops between the select board and the budget committee and such. [18:35] Select Board member: Yep so I met with Sarah Scrivenich yesterday right seems like yeah it was yesterday, Sarah was the former, chair of the budget committee, for last year. And we talked about what we see as, coming down the road, you know, in the next few months and, obviously out through until the budget committee starts their work in the month of, or the end of February, beginning of March. So I'm just going to turn it over to Sarah. [19:06] Speaker H (unidentified): Sweet. Nice to see everybody. And I promised Jodi, I would be brief. So it's it looks like multiple pages just a single one with outdated reading glasses so I just wanted to and I appreciate you including me in the conversation what I want to do is just take one minute because again as you know coming out of budget and then the ballot and then summer I'm not saying we get budget amnesia I know you guys are living and breathing it but I feel like there's a lot to be learned just from like reflecting and recapping me kind of from last season the things that we Learned so I just want to take just a minute to just you know highlight a couple of things that you know were real successes so you know last year the select board unanimously voted to adopt 100% of the Budget Committee's FY 26 22nd 27 recommended budget that in turn was put forward to on the ballot and after 66 of the Camden residents voted in favor that was the budget formally adopted I'm offering this recap because it's not because we all came to the table with the same perspectives and wants and inquiries, but because there we have been adding things to the process and trying to engage in a much more eventful budget process, so some of the things that again we brought in last year and will continue, we, you know, we were obviously the select board members last year, I think even more so than we had changed things in the past, the select board members were actively and appropriately engaged in participating in the budget process, which was of incredible value last year. We piloted and this year we will adopt the addition of the municast model and the fiscal briefing that came along with it, and again Jody and I have talked about it, she's going to continue to work with Matt. We called it a pilot because again you don't put anything out until you know it actually adds value, and we felt it did. What was the name of the model again, the muni cast? Yeah, that model coupled with that physical briefing offered our committee, you know, and the select board a much more in-depth analysis and it also helped inform and enrich the dialogue and deliberations that, and there were many, it was not a passive year, so again it was, I think last year in particular was an opportunity for us to kind of bring those deliberations to a conclusion that everyone ultimately agreed with, and again we emerge with greater insights and recommendations. So we, you have seen draft recommendations, I know there was a push to, not a push, I should say, I, it was important for me to connect with Jody given the changes that have occurred, we have a new town manager that's going to be coming up on board, so she and I have met to kind of go over some of those recommendations. We will move them from draft to more formal, and I can again, I promise I'm going to not dive into them here, including you know being able to do a five-year forecast, having some more standardization around tiff and how those things are reported, so we have some very concrete things that as Jody and I have spoken about that she is going to be looking at actively between now and when we assemble on how those things can be adopted and how the department heads could be thinking about them in terms of timeline. One of the recommendations that I, we had spoken about was a mid-year check-in, you could take my glasses off for this, so once we get the new budget from next year, again there's so much work to be done that we, I feel like we often lose sight of what happened last year and where do we stand, so we were talking about and we have Some new committee members that again need every opportunity to learn about the departments and what have you, so we talked about putting on the calendar for late December, yeah, approximately, to have kind of a mid-year check-in, some looking, having a chance for us to, you know, see where we are to date, what are some of the bigger capital Improvement projects, how are things gone, where do things stand, and just have a chance to have that deeper dive and learn kind of more from last year before we jump into FY 2728 and kind of see where how things are trending, where there are challenges, and obviously that mid-year check-in hopefully with a new town manager that will also help aid some of the onboarding and necessary learning that's going to come with anybody stepping into this position. I know I'm almost ready to pause and then you guys can go on. Obviously there's, you know, there's two critical budgets that the department heads are responsible for. They have their operational budget, they have their capital expense budget, and right now in case you know just a reminder, we have just completed the Q1, we've completed Q1 of our fiscal year 26-27. So in terms of the amount of data, in terms of the amount of information that we would have to offer any kind of insight, we are just in the beginning of that process. So the department heads and Jody, I'll turn it back over to you to talk about need time beyond Q1 to develop and look at operationally and such to kind of actually give a thoughtful and put a thoughtful a budget forward to the town itself. So mid-year my recommendation would be we have a mid-year check-in and then we gathered in late February so we kind of front-loaded a little bit before March to give us a chance to kind of acclimate what do we do, what's the guidelines, ask some questions so we can be ready to go in March. That was almost succinct, not 100 percent. Did I miss anything? You did very well. Oh thank you, thank you. So again I just wanted to kind of put that forward and obviously just [25:22] Select Board Chair: just my question is can you put your mic on please the [25:27] Select Board member: fir the first question I have is when does it have to be done to be able to be on the budget if we're not really starting until March with meetings like when does it have to be done to be able to be on the ballot in June? Mid to late April I believe. Okay so you're only still talking about doing this for like six weeks sort of something like that? Well we start the process December 1st Okay the back office work starts December 1st. It would be a new feature for us to have the budget committee do a check-in with myself the newtown manager and the department heads to sort of see where we are mid-year, talk about possible capital projects coming up, but we still only have six months worth of data at that point. And we have found that the process has been working this way for longer than I've been here. And this is the timeframe gives us enough time to present a draft budget in time for all of the required. [26:29] Speaker H (unidentified): And Bobby, can I just add one thing? Cause we made a shift and maybe it was just last year. It used to be and again there's a lot of time and effort where the departments would do full presentations on who they are, what they're about, which again there's so much value in that. What we also found though is that by the time we got through that, the amount of time we needed and had to actually focus on the numbers and focus on the budget was a little bit diminished. So we shifted, you know, and we've tried different ways of, you know, meeting earlier in February or have, and maybe we can talk about including in that December meeting some of that history so that when it comes time when we're handed that binder we really are laser focused on looking at, understanding and scrutinizing what's in front of us versus having one half of the meeting be background and then the rest of it being on the numbers. It was just a shift of like we want to [27:24] Select Board Chair: maximize on that time. Yeah, and would the select board be invited to that meeting in December too? I hope so. I would imagine you mentioned department heads and budget committee, you're invited. Yeah. [27:39] Speaker H (unidentified): I'm going to go back to bullet one which was what I found very useful and effective in reaching the goal that we did, which was 100 adoption, was because of the engagement of the select board through the process. So again I always prioritize budget committee gets priority to have the inquiries and select board again has a chance to add to it, not run it. That said, by the time we got to the point of voting we had already had all the lengthy discussions that we were going to have, and so it wasn't a big learning curve by the time you saw the budget. So the more involvement, the more the select board comes along the process with us, then the better off [28:24] Select Board Chair: I think the pro the process is okay with the thought of being unpopular with what I'm going to say next. Two years ago, two years ago, okay, two years ago, select board members could only attend but could not speak. Yes, I remember. And last year, then the intent was the select board members could be present but try not to influence. And so as a result, we were hamstrung a little bit. Just so you know, the full deal is we could answer questions for clarifying nature of what did this select board discuss last week but we couldn't then say therefore as a result i want everyone to wear a green sweater like karen we couldn't we couldn't influence we were given direction at the time yeah so just so you know our involvement given direction by whom with the select board last year that we couldn't we 've got to give you the respect to let the committee run it well and so we didn't provide maybe as much question that it but if you're saying that the budget committee would welcome us to have the questions and discussions, then that's great. [29:40] Speaker H (unidentified): I just don't want to, well, so since I, since I was the one that established the guidelines, I think it's worth reiterating that the guidelines for the select board was not to not influence, it was to not monopolize the conversation, so the prioritization, because you gave Chris like we can go back, you gave some really great recommendations when we were looking at how we might save some fiscal dollars. And I think, again, if I'm a data person, I'm not gonna do it, but the guidelines has nothing to do with influence. It had everything to do with prioritizing the time and attention that the budget committee needed to make those decisions. There was no, I don't think influence was ever anything that was mentioned. [30:23] Select Board member: So, I mean. That was not my understanding of our role in the process last year at all. So previous years, it had been a very hard line. I felt like after we had our joint workshop, it was very much a, please feel free to chime in, but not run the show. [30:40] Speaker H (unidentified): I'd say the non-influence was when it was, you can watch, but not ask. And then we were faced with, well, now that all this is... Because there's value, and Karen, you were my N of one on my board, and I know Karen will correct me if she disagrees with me, but we want input and insights because there are things that you have knowledge about and direct understanding about that will be helpful for us that we're not sitting here wondering, well, if we knew that before it would be helpful. So I don't see any instance of where there was a pushback on any kind of influence. It was just that if Karen had her hand raised and you had your hand raised, Karen was my priority, and I thought [31:22] Select Board member: thought the proof of that was that when we had the final draft budget presented to us as the board, yeah, it was a fairly quick, yeah, because it wasn't, it wasn't the first time that the board members had been sitting ahead on their hands for two months, and now finally we get to ask all these questions. Those questions have been asked, so when we got it was a pretty, yeah, I thought that worked really well. Yeah, I mean, I think that the public doesn't, since the meetings are open, been, if all of that deliberation has happened already, we don't need to do it again here. But to ask the questions in that format, I don't see them as being unduly influencing your process in any way. [32:04] Speaker H (unidentified): We're all influenced by the conversation. We show up with the intention of being open-minded, listening to what's being asked, recognizing what is within our limits of inquiry and pushback, and then making an informed decision. That is the goal. So I'm gonna have Karen, cause I, you know. [32:28] Karen Grove: Having been around this whole thing for years and years and years, back way back when I was first on the budget committee, which was probably 20 some years ago, and everything was held upstairs on votes, there would be two different budgets, one for the select board and one for the budget committee. Sometimes they agreed, very often they did not, which was difficult for the voters to understand which way to go. So there were a lot of questions about that. Doing it the way we're doing it now with having you all invest your ideas or comments into it, actually melded the budget into just one suggestion on the ballot. There was only one place to vote, you didn't vote for this one or that one, so I think having you all in there has [33:24] Speaker H (unidentified): made a big difference to make things easier yeah and karen is my biggest advocate for making sure that the select board does not overstep am i carrying saying that okay and i just have one just one last quick thing is that again last year's the first year that i recall and i have not been involved as long as karen has over the years we give you the budget and at that point if there is something that you feel strongly about that you in turn did not relay during our budget committee you every other budget i've overseen and been part of there's been modifications so we have budget committee and then select board makes changes and those numbers change last year that did not occur in a single line item everything was adopted nothing changed which again i'm not bad i'm like i love you know hitting 100 mark i'm not saying that has to happen again but i think that's very indicative of the process so good well we look forward to contributing this year that would be great i mean are there more questions or things that [34:26] Select Board member: you feel like we're lacking in terms of yeah i have a couple things nothing major but i think that we were talking about setting priorities tonight and many of the priorities we were going to bring up had to do with the budget so i think we can check off much of our priority setting as far as the budget so i'm glad we're meeting in december or early december i would want to put on that agenda some goal setting. That is I'd like to go into the budget process having set targets or at least discuss the targets. We should also somehow have a conversation with the schools. I don't know when that happens, but the schools take up this much of our budget and the town takes up this much of our budget. So I think it's worth having that discussion with the school superintendent or the school board And we were warned several times that this coming year, the budget would be hammered by the bond issue. And so a bond preview about where we stand on that bond, I understand it may not be as bad as we thought, but it would be good to start off with a preview about how big a nut [35:46] Speaker H (unidentified): We have to cover. Yeah. Yeah. And can I think, and that's where, when I mentioned the model and the fiscal briefing on my hope from what I saw last year and that the work that will happen leading up to that, whether that's December or it leads into, you know, prior to when we get together of, well, there, might, that there'll be some analysis and, you know, better input to make, you know, decisions about targets and goal settings and, things like that. Yeah. Thank you. [36:13] Select Board member: Thank you. So I am hearing that you're inviting more select board participation during the budget committee process. Because I agree with Chris, we were constrained not to participate fully in the budget committees. We tried to limit ourselves to questions and answers to questions rather than participating in the discussion. So I'm glad to hear or maybe you can clarify are you welcoming full select board participation [36:43] Speaker H (unidentified): I am I am welcoming the select board actively and appropriately participating but prioritizing the time and allocation to the to the budget committee having the majority of the communication if they do if nobody is raising their hand if nobody if we if we have discussed ourselves right you know into silence again I'll put it this way if there was never a meeting where I held select board input to the end right we are a fluid interactive you know I you know balancing out a number of factors and So again it yeah it was not there was the limitation was simply based on which again I don't view a single instance maybe you have them and just didn't share them if that if you want to meet me offline and tell me what those were I'm happy to hear it but it is it is an opportunity for budget committee primarily and select board in addition and I think last year worked well and again I think if it was really if it were something that there was you were in disagreement with my assumption would be That would come up them when it was insulated to the select board after we passed it over actually at the time [38:02] Select Board Chair: We were dissuaded during the select board discussion because we were then told during the select board to hold it hold off for so please we were we were noted by someone on the select board at the time sorry you had your chance to ask during the budget committee so we didn't have an opportunity for those of us in the minority at the time again to make so hey we're just looking forward I want to make sure that we're right and we're enthusiastic about this year's process and it's wonderful that Yeah, our participation, yeah, without taking over the meeting, is welcome. And now we also know better that is our time to ask questions in a little bit of deliberate and any and even [38:48] Speaker H (unidentified): Better I say this is the Budget Committee in your cup. You guys are copy on everything. If there are certain things in certain areas that you are particularly interested in learning more about, send them to me ahead of time. We'll circulate them and we can again look at them and again there's there I have so if there are things that are really you know you really want to make sure are answered if we don't get to at the meeting we circulate that in between meetings and we get feedback so there when We are in session it is like a never-ending flow of in session during our meetings and then communication that we're having between select board and the budget committee to follow up on things that are not covered. So I'm all in and I'm still prioritizing the budget committee. [39:29] Select Board member: Could I just for the, maybe for that December meeting, I mean, obviously energy costs are gonna be a huge factor, but that piece of like, where are we gonna end this year different than our budget and how is that going to impact? Because this winter is gonna cost us way more than we ever could have imagined. Thank you, Washington. Yeah. And how does that ripple affect what, how I think that's gonna be a huge impact. Yeah. [40:01] Speaker H (unidentified): So I'll connect, Jodi and I will continue to connect and kind of give more, put more meat around or tofu, whatever around the, what we'll go into. I don't know. I go into the December meeting and then I'm sure that we'll ask for feedback and I'm going to reach out to the budget committee inclusive of everyone that's on it now and we'll go from there and I would go ahead I would just [40:26] Select Board member: Like to say Karen this is twice in this meeting that your deep historical experience in town Your dedication to participating in this town constructively is phenomenal and exemplary. And I'm so grateful because between cemetery, budget, charter, you've stepped up in so many ways and it really adds that historical reference point is really important to us as we deliberate about things going forward. So you are appreciated. [41:04] Karen Grove: Thank you very much. I did miss one thing when I gave my presentation about the Charter. I would highly recommend going to what you said, that you put one or two people from the prior Charter Committee on the new one because of historic reference is so important. And the amount of time and effort that was put into that was just huge. It was enormous. us so it would cut down the time a lot if you had yeah people that's perfect thank you sarah before [41:37] Select Board Chair: you go do you do we have a chance or understanding of what date we want to select in december to have [41:44] Select Board member: that i will meeting with all those people i'll have to come back with some with some dates i don't have one okay in mind right now no very good okay thank you thank you very much we look forward to it [42:01] Select Board Chair: moving on to action items number seven approval of personal property tax abatements [42:15] Select Board member: we have it looks like four personal property tax accounts that have gone uncollected either because the assessed person has passed away or we have just exhausted all of our options of collecting and through for all four let's see it's one two three yeah it's it told us of just under $400 of uncollected personal property if we were to it personal property tax lien it what you don't you really don't lean personal property tax delinquent accounts that is handled through small claims court and it would cost us more to try and recover that money so that's when we would charge this to the overlay that is appropriated every year through the tax assessment so jimmy our jimmy hunt is our tax collector and she's asking that the board abate these accounts for us and it looks like most of these are like six seven years back so not anything today [43:36] Select Board Chair: second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor any opposed seeing none great next set meeting date and time for special town [43:57] Select Board member: meeting and approval of warrant articles so we're asking the select board to call a or to approve the special town meeting and a special team town meeting warrant to we need we need a change of wording outside of the normal warrant article that has passed every single year at town meeting which I actually have it here in our in our town report it's it's article 17 and it says shall the town vote to authorize a select board and treasurer on behalf of the town to apply for and accept grants gifts Real estate and other funds, including trust funds, and may be given or left to the town, and that is, since I've been in municipal government, has covered the ability for us to apply for grants, but we have an exception to the rule, and Jeff is here to present that. [44:58] Select Board Chair: Okay, so again, what you just read is what our normal, yes, and that's, we did that in a warrant probably in June, right, every June, every June, all right, so what's new, so in June [45:16] Speaker J (unidentified): we submitted our application to Land and Water Conservation Fund. The evidence required that warrant, that warrant item be included in the documentation provided by LWCF. There was sample language used for that particular warrant item. And what we have since discovered from Bureau of Parks and Land is that, and the director who's responsible for the grant administration, that they need to see language specifically that they've provided to us in their sample and have that be Custom customized for to meet our requirements, so that everything that we say in there that we're putting to the voters is in fact accurate for the town of Camden. So I Submitted the language that you have here listed in your packet in article 2 to Doug, who's the director, to look at it, his response to me was, this is perfect. Good luck with the vote. So if, you know, if you are willing to authorize this special town meeting using this language, there's nothing that is changing other than we have to submit the specific language as a requirement. We have a deadline to get this in by October 30th in order to be still considered for the Land and Water Conservation Fund grant. So just to make sure I hit this point, there's no taxpayer money that we're using to apply for this. LWCF requires a 50% match. And we are using primarily another state grant, should we get that grant, as match for the LWCF grant, which is a federal grant. There is, as is listed in the article itself, there is some money, and this is typical when we apply for grants, that is allocated based on salaries, so my salary or trail crew salary for the work that, you know, Jeremy will do from a planning and development perspective, so that is included, that has been included, and but there's no incremental taxpayer money outside of, you know, the in kind from salaries that we are requesting, so nothing new with this and [48:02] Select Board Chair: again just if you could briefly educate us on the intent [48:08] Speaker J (unidentified): With the grant. Sure. So the primary intent of this grant, and I'm gonna, I'll do my best to make this brief. We applied for three separate grants, one with the main destination planning and development grants. Unfortunately, we did not get that grant. That grant was intended to be used as match for LWCF as well. Well. That was also a state funded grant. Fortunately, we didn't get that one. The second grant we applied for is through that $30 million trail fund bond that was approved by tax holders in the state, I think three years ago now. So MTP main trails program grants, we applied for one last year were unsuccessful. We applied for it again this year, a grant totaling $250,000. If we were to get that grant of $250,000 plus the LWCF grant of an excess of $250,000 because of the matching, primarily what those funds would be used for would be to implement Phase 1 of the Outdoor Sports Institute Master Plan that was developed for the multi-use and mountain biking trails at the Snow Bowl. It would specifically be used to build the beginner and intermediate trails that we so desperately need that's lacking at the Snow Bowl. So acquiring all of these funds would likely allow us to complete all of that work, a hundred percent of that work. Work. If we were to have received the MDPD funds, so there was another 150 some odd thousand that we would have been able to use for match, that money would have gone towards the completion of the trails in addition to that paving the Camden Snow Bowl parking lot. In all reality, unless we can figure out another matching source, that likely would not happen with the LWCF funds we frankly would not have enough money to do both and from my perspective and I'd certainly welcome your input the priority is accessibility at the Snowball beginner intermediate trails and you know making all of that happen [50:34] Select Board member: Super so oh man so if we don't if you don't get the state grant then the federal grant is a moot point they won't grant it without that match [50:51] Speaker J (unidentified): Is that correct it's likely they won't if unless we they accept the in-kind match of you know perhaps we can get ninety thousand dollars of the original three hundred and sixty thousand you're asking for that would be something if the grant is accepted but we don't get the other grants but were awarded that one that the discussions we would have with Doug do [51:16] Select Board member: You have any understanding as to why the you were not successful with previous iterations of the [51:23] Speaker J (unidentified): Grant so the MTPD grant, Jeremy and I met with representative from the state who is the grant administrator, and unfortunately it was very similar to what we got from last year's MTP grant. We were this close. There were significantly more applicants than there were money that they had to dole out. They found, I think it's the critical feedback they provided is they thought our timeframe was perhaps too aggressive with accomplishing everything we wanted to accomplish. I respect their opinion. I don't agree with their opinion. Let me say [52:06] Select Board member: why is that their problem so you were do you feel like you were able to tweak the application [52:13] Speaker J (unidentified): accordingly in order to satisfy them yeah so the one we applied for last year that didn't and didn't get that we applied for this year is the main trails program grant and really the only feedback we got last round was they were overwhelmed with the number of applicants and that they were trying to be very thoughtful about where in the state money went to make sure it was really spread around the state and you may already be aware of this but Rockland was awarded 250 000 to build mountain bike trails at Benner Hill and I have to believe that the proximity of that trail build probably had some impact on our ability to secure those funds I am a big fan of hope, and I'm also a little bit of an optimist when it comes to this stuff, but my preliminary conversations with people that are familiar with the grants, I'm very encouraged by what I'm hearing about the possibility of us receiving that and trying not to count my chickens before they hatch, but I'm optimistic that it's going to be a reality for us this year. [53:23] Select Board member: and what is the cost to stand up with this special town meeting minimal because it's going it's not going to be a ballot it's it's a show of hands it could be our next oh I see it's bringing our it's bringing our town clerk in here okay and also electing a moderator it or which won't cost us anything great yeah okay it's an actual helmet like yeah no appreciate it yeah I have a question if you don't get the match like if I'm hoping that you do have you like Coastal Mountain Land Trust I know I mean obviously I live right there so I see the mountain bikers all the time the kids team is out there every night when I'm coming home and I love it but if you don't get the match is there money with Coastal Mountain Land Trust or private donation that could be the match potentially yeah I've you know without [54:23] Speaker J (unidentified): Putting any naming names at this point, I don't think that would be appropriate, right? Lots of considerations for other matching sources out there if it comes down to it. So yeah, absolutely, I think it's a great question, great point, and yes we are, I'm looking into that. [54:41] Select Board member: Well, I hope you get that, and then thank you if you can get some more match to it too, yeah, for [54:45] Select Board Chair: sure that'd be great. So the setting of the date and time is this special town meeting that can occur actually during the next select board meeting, correct? He's raising his hand about something, yeah, oh yeah, but anyway, process-wise it's something that can occur at the [55:06] Select Board member: next select board meeting. Yeah, we could, we could schedule it for 6 p.m. Okay, and then you would have your regular meeting at 6 30. Great, yeah, and then people will get plenty of notice for that. Yeah, you need to give at least seven days notice, so that's two weeks, right? Yeah. Jeremy, sorry, you do, you do have to approve the warrant language tonight, yes, okay, that and then set the date and time for the meetings as you suggest, six o'clock before your select board meeting is probably the right way to do it. Yep, I did notice in the draft of the warrant and it references in the first under greetings it says article one through four, yeah, it should be one through two or two, so yes, thank you with that. Sure, there was some boilerplate stuff [55:57] Speaker J (unidentified): that just got probably yeah but the rest of it all looks the template or the suggested language head and we originally had three additional articles to the article one that was laid out here and working with bill kelly we were able to eliminate the other two articles [56:16] Select Board member: so otherwise it looks fine to me, and I would make a motion to approve the warrant and set a meeting date of October 20th at 6 p.m. for a special town meeting. Before we second that, [56:28] Select Board Chair: can I ask one more question, or you can second and then first, were you done Chris? Oh yeah, okay, yes, [56:34] Select Board member: okay, so I'm just, I'm reading it and is this going to be added to our warrants going moving forward, this wording? No, it's just specific to this one, it's a one-time thing. Okay, just curious. [56:49] Select Board Chair: A second? Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the articles? Any opposed? Seeing none, thank you. Approve, five zero. Thank you very much, Jeff. Thanks, Jeff. And did we schedule, well, my motion had the date. Yeah, right, thank you. But that good point, and that's the, before the next board meetings at 6 p.m. October 20, October 20. Great. Next on the agenda is the approval to adopt the Town of Camden Municipal Emergency Medical Services Transport Plan. You give us a little bit on this, or will the chief speak? I'm happy to hand this over to the chief. [57:43] Select Board member: While he's walking up, that this is this is a something that every municipality that offers an emergency medical service, they have to file this with the State of Maine. [57:57] Select Board Chair: Thank you for including the PowerPoint in with our packet. You're welcome. This [58:06] Speaker K (unidentified): is a very straightforward task from the legislature to the municipal officials. I'm just gonna read directly from the Department of Public Safety's operational bulletin. This operational bulletin outlines the state level submission process established by Maine EMS for collecting municipal emergency medical services plans as required under Title 30A, Chapter 154, Section 372. the statute requires that as of january 11 2026 the municipal officers of every main municipality adopt and post a plan specifying how transporting emergency medical services will be delivered within their borders and submit those plans to the department of public safety main ems and the main ems commission for the purpose of collecting data adoption of the plan the municipal officers of a municipality shall adopt a plan stipulating the method by which transporting emergency medical services will be delivered within the municipality. The municipal officers may, as necessary, amend the plan adopted pursuant to this subsection. So what you have is a document that says that Northeast Mobile Health is the town's ambulance transporting provider, and it is provided under Model B, which Maine EMS defines as Model B administrative description, the municipality does not operate its own service but as a formal contract into a local agreement or memorandum of understanding with a private ambulance service a non-profit regional provider or a neighboring municipal service. This model typically involves a per capita fee or annual stipend paid by the town. So this is a task from the legislature to the municipal officials, just simply identifying who the town's ambulance transport provider is, Northeast Mobile Health, and that we are operating under plan B of five plans. [1:00:08] Select Board Chair: So this document doesn't represent a change. It just represents a statement to the state of what we have been doing and what we're doing now. Correct. [1:00:22] Speaker K (unidentified): Correct, yeah, it's to let the state know how it's doing, and so that the town also has a requirement to the public to let the public know how those two things are happening. [1:00:32] Select Board Chair: Do you know anything about why as a why was this as of January 2026 was there was there something before or is this a new sort of a lot that there was no requirement before? Right, I see. [1:00:47] Speaker K (unidentified): It's part of the main blue ribbon commission on EMS. EMS is a huge topic in the gubernatorial race. There were some events that happened in 2024 in municipalities that didn't have an identified transporting agency. This is sort of a way for the state to have the towns identify who's who's providing their service. Yep, any [1:01:24] Select Board Chair: questions from the select board on what this is about or anything? I don't think so, no, it's pretty straightforward. Make a motion to adopt the policy transport plan. Second. All those in favor of the transport plan? Any opposed? Seeing none, item passes five zero. Thank you, thank you. And next is the approval of contract for purchase of body cameras, car videos, tasers, and training package [1:02:08] Select Board member: from Axon. So we have Chief Weaver here who has brought forth a package deal which is to replace or yeah, pretty much replace failing equipment that has either been handed down or lended to the town or whatnot. So go for it. So this was a package that I put together [1:02:38] Police Chief: as a sergeant last budget cycle and handed to the interim chief at the time and was told that this would be something that would be left for the new chief to come in. So basically our camera systems, our in-car cameras, are at least 10 years old and no longer under warranty or even recognized by the manufacturer anymore. The actual manufacturer then has now sold to a different company. Also, our tasers are so old that they're basically obsolete. Delete. And then the body cam system that we are using now, these are basically bought off of Amazon that the sheriff's department had for their corrections officers at the time. And when Sheriff Pulkey was our interim chief, where we didn't have any body cameras at the time, it was gracious enough to basically hand them down to us. But again, they are bought off of Amazon, on, they're cheap knockoffs. They don't last a shift with the batteries dying, so officers are coming back, plugging them in, and going back out without body cameras. This is a can that's been kicked down the road for quite some time that we've been requesting for years. That isn't, you know, a luxury want for us, it's a need basically in today's society. Not only do the cameras protect officers, but it protects the citizens, and also in the line of work that we do, it protects the towns from frivolous lawsuits. Luckily enough, and we had just gotten these from the sheriff's department when Sergeant Butler was accused of some misconduct during an arrest, and reviewing the camera footage cleared him instantly. So, you know, just something that every department has, and it's something that we definitely need. We've worked out a detail with Axon where basically our first payment this year is $3,500 right now to get the program started, and then each initial payment will come out August 1st in the next five years. That covers the cameras that we get now, and at the end of that five years, it renews and we get brand-new camera systems. That's extended warranties, all the training, all of the secure cloud storage that we need for all of this data. Also additional training, as you'll see in the package, is a VR upgrade to our training package where now instead of, you know, calling all the officers in on their time off to do training, our instructors can do training in the department on site at the beginning of shift for roll call. So these officers are going to get, you know, more training than they would previously, and it's not going to cost the town overtime for us to schedule, you know, training for everyone on an off time or a department meeting. [1:05:37] Select Board member: And those trainings are on this equipment specifically? Yes, specifically on this, and it's [1:05:41] Police Chief: Basically, the way this VR headset and everything is set up is it's not only taser training, but there's also scenarios in there that are going to put officers in all kinds of different mental health crisis situations, you know, shoot or don't shoot situations. It's training that is going to not just be for taser, it's going to be for everything that we do. [1:06:05] Select Board member: Well, I just think we have to take note of, we had an email today by from somebody about this, and I think we have to talk about that a little bit. It came from the same person, I think I can say it, when she's, she sent it publicly, from Jessica Ives, and she is the one that came in about the parking meters and all of the extra information that they're gathering and how they're selling it and that Axon. So I'm just curious if you've looked at any other corporations or any other places to do this through. Because according and she's, she checks into this stuff, according to her this is gonna be very like sold information and it is used for a lot of other things by Axon whose parent company and I just read it, Palantir. So I'm just curious if you've looked into that side of things at all. They are separate companies, that's not that's. Who they sell it to, no, they are, Palantir is a technology company, they do some partnering but. [1:07:14] Police Chief: They are separate companies. So basically, especially when it comes to the in-car cameras, there's two different systems that you can get. You can get the system that has plate readers and all of that technology, which is not what we're getting. Okay, specifically said that we're not getting any sort of plate reader, any sort of data collection technology in any of our programs. Okay, so there's, I think there's two different setups that you can get. Okay, she mentioned. [1:07:36] Select Board Chair: It, she mentioned a couple of specifics, one was like face recognition technology, yeah and. [1:07:43] Police Chief: You're saying there's, there's, there's different levels that you can buy, and knowing everything that was going on with Flock cameras and everything, I specifically requested not to have that equipment. Okay, but the one thing that else will help us is that the Axon body cameras, what they also do is you can, we got in our package is it translates 50 different languages. So if we run into a scenario where there's someone that doesn't speak English, you can activate your camera and it'll, we don't even. Have to tell it what language is, it'll pick up what they're speaking and it'll relay it and transfer it back and forth to us. But yeah, there's different packages and like I said, so we did not get the package that has any sort of data collection or you know, plate readers or [1:08:28] Select Board member: anything like that. 's fantastic, but we are still collecting that data and storing it through their cloud service. It's a secure cloud service for Axon. I would, I somewhere in this PowerPoint is a statement about there is a written policy about privacy. And so like without seeing some of those contracts, I'm not and I would want to know what Axon, I do have some concerns about what Axon is doing with this data and how, what firewall, like they're storing all of this video whether it has face recognition or not, they're still holding all that data and I would like more information about how that is being held before and kind of similarly like privacy. Yeah, it's on one of your slides, this is follows a written public policy limits in medical settings. There's also some stuff about editing and redacting capabilities [1:09:30] Police Chief: that I would like some more. Right, so that's basically on our end for all the, so right, but we get a foyer request that he wants this video, you know, basically we bring everything to Bill and go through what has to be edited and redacted and go off of his recommendations on what's edited and [1:09:47] Select Board member: redacted. Yeah, I also had a little bit, I mean I think this is to Bobby's question, like basically there's one company now in the country that they're the shop in town and the biggest thing [1:09:58] Police Chief: for us is that you know if we're going to use Axon for our teasers then obviously but like [1:10:07] Select Board member: anything else, Flock is not doing this anymore, there's not, no, so you also, it also has something that says 35 savings because of the great deal that they're giving us, but I don't know what those numbers are based on because I don't know what a taser from any other company would cost. [1:10:24] Police Chief: Right, and that's not, basically has the market pretty much cornered on the, yeah, so they're telling us conducted electric weapon, less lethal, but yeah, and it's like an insurance company, the more, the more products you buy from them, the bigger the package deal that they give you savings on, whether it's actually, yeah. [1:10:43] Select Board member: I don't know, I have more questions than, I also don't like the data that they give us is comparing out something based in Las Vegas, which doesn't help me. Yeah. You know, [1:10:56] Police Chief: The studies that they conduct are obviously studied in larger municipalities than Camden, Maine. It's just also, we're getting to the point now where we have one cruiser that has no camera in it. We have one cruiser that the camera system doesn't download the video that it records. And we have one, you know, basically one camera system back where, you know, I get this can has been kicked down the road for quite some time and trying to get it taken care of as soon as possible before we get into a situation where. [1:11:23] Select Board member: We don't have video of an incident, right? I am all in favor of recording body cams and dash cams. I think that in a heated situation the likelihood of miscommunication is incredibly high. So if we have some assurance that, I mean, the horses left the barn as far as our data protection, the notion that any of us have, you know, our idea of privacy is pretty delusional at this point anyway. But I'm curious about the which I am not endorsing our data being out there, so I'm, I'm somewhat reassured and Because you are who you are and I trust you implicitly, I will. Well, I'm gonna take you at your word. I am curious about the use of tasers and the extent to which that is a tool that has been used and that you, know, I understand it's part of a package to get a better deal if we buy the whole package, but can you tell me more about that? I mean, it doesn't, it seems like that's a level of escalation and enforcement that I haven't been aware of, so we've run taser products since [1:12:54] Police Chief: 2011, I believe, is when I first became a taser instructor, when we first got taser conducted electricity weapons. We probably had a dozen deployments in the first year. Again, once people saw what was going on, deployment stopped, basically presenting a taser, stopped any sort of, but we still have incidents where you go, you know, to a disorderly subject, and if you're going to go hands-on, you know, that obviously is a very stressful and dangerous situation, and, you know, someone more than likely Is going to get hurt. Conducted energy weapons, basically stop that for the most part when they're used correctly. All of our officers are trained well on them. I can tell you that, you know, when they first came out everyone says basically you're getting hit with 50,000 volts and that's what is basically held inside the weapon, but it's high voltage, low amperage. So far when we've done training like we asked for volunteers just because it helps officers see how people react when they're, when they're You know, hit with a taser. We've had several firefighters that have volunteered. I've been, not I've been, I've done it, right? I've experienced, you know, taser hits multiple times, just because, again, a lot of people don't want to volunteer, and it's something that, you know, our officers need to see, and they also need to learn how to, you know, remove darts, go through the whole process. So I can tell you that it does stop someone who is actively resisting, but it's also, you know, both. Yeah, you know, and I can tell you that it's a very effective tool that the, you know, there's plenty of studies out there that, you know, pretty much every department in the country is carrying a taser, less lethal weapon now, and not having it really restricts your options on whether you are going to use physical force, use a baton, a striking tool, which causes a lot more damage. Basically, if used correctly and used in the right way, most times a taser will stop someone's behavior very quickly, and it also gives what we call a window of opportunity, because it creates five seconds each, you know, tasered hit is five seconds, and it gives officers time to use that five seconds where the person's incapacitated, but it's not, I mean, I would love to set up a demonstration for you guys sometimes. I mean, I tell people all the time, I've been, in order to carry pepper spray, we have to be pepper sprayed. I would be tased any day of the week rather than pepper spray, because after the five seconds you can just get up and walk away. It's, it's that pepper spray is different how it happens, you know, once you pepper spray lasts for [1:16:02] Select Board Chair: about an hour, yeah, and not more. In a way it seems to me that the taser has replaced, because I don't see you carrying a billy club. I do, there it is. Okay, well, it's a smaller version, yeah, expandable batons, but not the traditional wooden truncheon billy club that usually was carried before. The taser has replaced that, and the effective range of the taser, 45 feet now with the newest [1:16:32] Police Chief: tasers that we got, these are 25 feet, and again, these are so outdated that, you know, there's been multiple taser upgrades since then, and now the newest version is the taser 10, which, so speaking to taser about, you know, again, this is a five-year contract, you know, what are we, what's going to happen in five years, are they going to come out with something new, and basically, you know, you can never believe everything, but you know, basically they've got to the taser 10 where this is the best, and we don't Know how we can make it any better, and then again after this five-year contract, we've had these for 10 years. As long as Taser 10 is still being warrantied and updated and produced by the manufacturer, we're still going to be able to get supplies for it. I can tell you, I mean, in all my years of law enforcement experience, a taser is an extremely useful tool for us to stop combative, disorderly people when they don't want to comply. And it's, as a less lethal tool, it is one of the, you know. [1:17:41] Select Board member: Just curious how often have we had to use, have you had to use it, Camden, recently? Luckily we don't [1:17:49] Police Chief: really have to use it much anymore. The display of it is kind of, we've used it within the past two years. We've had at least two deployments that I can think of. One was right on Main Street, middle of the night, operator decided they didn't want to stop for the officer, got out of the car, was being very disorderly and threatening the use of force and balling up their fists and getting a fighting stance, and the officers deployed a taser into the person in custody. [1:18:17] Select Board member: So after five years, thank you, after five years you anticipated lower cost because [1:18:23] Police Chief: we probably don't need to purchase them. We won't need to purchase the full taser set up again. Yeah, again, we've had these for at least 10 years. I don't have, you know, the paperwork that goes back that far because I wasn't in charge of purchasing them, but I know from my memory that we've had these tasers. We started out with the Taser X26, which at the time was the, you know, you know, his greatest thing, and then we went to the Taser X2, which this one carries two cartridges, so a cartridge is a cartridge fires two darts connected to wires, that's how the electricity is traveled, and so if you missed with the first one or if you have to deploy, you now have two shots with this one, which is now outdated. The new Taser 10 has 10 darts, but they're no longer conducted or attached by wires. Each little dart has its own battery set up because everything's become so much smaller. Can I have another question? Yeah, I want to return to the privacy [1:19:21] Select Board member: question. How does the, what's the, what's the process, your, the body cams, do they have to come [1:19:29] Police Chief: back to the office to be downloaded, or is it? So yeah, when they come back to the station and their docked, they're downloaded at the station. Yeah, and are they stored locally, or are they put on [1:19:38] Select Board member: the cloud or to some server at the company's headquarters? So yeah, this goes to a secure [1:19:45] Police Chief: cloud storage which is what basically everyone's operating off of now so do they have access and do they read do they view do they re review they axon doesn't review anything they just store it everything is reviewed on our end so like we 're the only ones that are going to review it send it to the da's office axon so by sending it there we're not posting it in any way no it's secure you know storage they there's still obviously privacy and security issues that are there [1:20:17] Select Board Chair: So like everything is secure. So in the, with the cloud-based storage, have we looked at their security operational controls document, this particular company? It's like we looked at it with the parking, because in the, in their SOC report, that's report, right, it is in there, would show what's, what's effectively happening at the cloud storage that might be of interest. We [1:20:51] Select Board member: actually have a representative from Axon on Zoom. Okay, great, if you have [1:20:55] Select Board Chair: and right, because what we'd be interested in is getting a copy then of the, of their sock report, whether it's a sock, then I'd be interested in which type it is, type one or type two, and in there you, it should speak to the concerns that people are having about backups being encrypted and who has access to that, as well as if they're non-reputable, which means unable to change, when they're in the cloud storage. Those are a couple of things you look for with data backup cloud storage. So is the person online able to speak to that, or is it more of the sales representation [1:21:36] Police Chief: that we have? David should be able to speak to that. Hello, I'm David, I'm the Axon rep, let [1:21:44] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): me know if you can hear me. All right, loud and clear, we can hear you. Perfect. So yes, to add to your question, kind of two main compliance pathways that we have right now for our data storage is CJIS compliance and SOC 2 compliance for security. And to directly address some of your questions, we do not have anything to do with your data. All data is essentially stored in a localized environment, entirely exclusive to the police department. It is theoretically possible to optionally share your data with us for like training purposes, for example, if we do like a sales demo and you would share your video with us, optionally they could use that video in the demo, but that's pretty much the extent of the usage of our videos and you would [1:22:39] Select Board Chair: Not ever take that without any permissions. If I can go on for a couple of minutes, and so, you know, David, not only am I the chair of the Camden Select Board, but my actual job that I do is on my technology security audit for auditor for financial institutions. One of our things that we look into is part third party and fourth party controls. So I've got a little bit of familiarity with the topic, and going back to your SOC 2, when was that last done and who performed it? [1:23:22] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): I believe the current audit was done October 1st, 2025 through September 30th, 2026, and we are currently working through our latest report as well. [1:23:36] Select Board Chair: I mean that just was last week or so. Absolutely. And who, what accounting firm is doing your sock work? I believe the company, the auditor is Qualifier Certification Incorporated. Are we able as the town of Camden, can we get a copy of that last sock too that you mentioned, which it seems like that wouldn't be, it would not be accurate that your testing would go until September 30th given that this is only October something, but I would be interested, can the town get a copy of this SOC 2 Type 2 report? Yeah, absolutely, I'll definitely be sure to send. That you're right, okay, what can you confirm concerning the encryption status and which level of encryption is in use and how is the data stored in a way that it cannot be altered? [1:24:45] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): The main encryption methods we use are encryption in transit and encryption at rest. So encryption in transit, we use TLS 1.2 with AES. That's not a buzzword, so I apologize for everyone else. [1:24:59] Select Board Chair: That's the data that I'm looking for. Keep going. [1:25:03] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): I believe also RSA 3072 bit key exchange and for encryption at rest we do use AES. [1:25:13] Select Board Chair: 256 bit encryption as well. Okay, thank you. When do you think we could receive the sock 2 Type 2? [1:25:25] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): I do need time to check in with my legal team to see where they're at with this, I believe, I believe you can also request your own copy from our Axon Trust Center. The copy there may be a little bit outdated, maybe by a few months or so, but I sent the link in the chat as well that you could review. [1:25:44] Select Board Chair: No, it would be fair to at least see if it's the one year ending 2025, that would be an acceptable amount given the time it takes usually to put those together but where i'm going with this is that if we could somewhat conditionally approve the purchase of this provided that i get a copy of the security and controls report from the organization the thing that i look for are there any material exceptions in regarding to data storage data privacy issues and if there are anything is it 's Sometimes there are things noted, like there was with the meters. It was noted that some people hadn't taken their information security education during that year. That was noted in the report. That I could certainly review that for us. That's what I do to certified in, and if you're comfortable with that, I can at least provide my unofficial opinion on the compliance status given their sock report, yes. [1:27:08] Select Board member: If we can make Our approval conditional, I would do that, yes. I would like to see a little some of the other policy, like I would like to see what privacy policy that written privacy policy. I would also like to know a little bit more about their internal controls that aren't on the technical side, just knowing that Axon does have contracts with other law enforcement agencies like ICE, and it's nice. I have no qualms about our department having this information, but it's in a cloud database that we don't control, That is used by a huge company that I don't have a lot of faith in. And I would like to see a bit more, and I may be the minority vote on this, because I agree, the equipment is important for us to have for you guys. I 100% support, as you said, I mean, I think cameras support are good for both sides of any incident. But and I also recognize that there's not really another vendor that we can necessarily go to for that equipment except Amazon knockoffs made in China, but I'm not comfortable with, and I have I just totally value all of your knowledge on that side of things, but I would like to see a bit more on the privacy protection then [1:28:40] Select Board Chair: Okay, that's fine. And David, you should be able to provide the privacy policy documents. [1:28:45] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): Yeah, absolutely. I'll share that with you. And to answer, like a little bit abridged, we do not share any information with any federal agencies. So any data that is stored in Camden at evidence.com, it will be fully owned by Camden and only Camden. No one else can access it, and I believe there are no exceptions to this. I'll definitely double-check to be sure, but I'll also share any of our paperwork on that as well for you to [1:29:20] Select Board Chair: review. Yeah, I would be wondering what would prevent whoever is the administrator, and who would be the administrator of Camden evidence com. Maybe that is all to address in general about the websites that you help manage, to know who those administrators are, to Chris's point, because those admins potentially could have access to the data if it's not permissioned effectively. Absolutely. So the administrators for the [1:29:54] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): the website will be assigned by the police chief or whoever is the main point of contact for this project. Only the chief and any of his assigned admins can use or manage the portal. Obviously, regular patrol officers can also use it, but they do not have the elevated restrictions or, sorry, permissions needed to do basically do anything but review and submit their body camera footage. [1:30:24] Select Board Chair: Okay, so when can you get our town manager or the chief your current privacy policy, your sock 2 type 2, and any other external audits regarding privacy, safety, and operations? [1:30:49] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): At the latest, I believe tomorrow, I should have everything ready to go and sent over [1:30:55] Select Board Chair: to you. Okay. Because typically it would be akin to your third party vendor due diligence package, if you needed to summarize it in one thing of what would you be giving a company. And so that could also mean your information security policy too. two but sock two type two privacy policy that would suffice. Perfect. [1:31:29] Vendor representative (camera/data storage): So I'll have everything ready and sent out to you. I do also want to share that we do have a public website called trust.axon.com. I believe you can access a lot of the information from there, but I might be able to get some more recent information directly from our internal trust team. [1:31:48] Select Board Chair: Yeah, I would prefer you get the best that you can get from your vendor due diligence or your third party risk management coordinator that you probably have. Absolutely. Happy to help. Thank you, David, I really appreciate it. No problem at all. [1:32:07] Select Board member: Thank you, Chris. That was very helpful. [1:32:11] Select Board Chair: Okay, good. Good, so thank you, Chris, though, for mentioning your concerns with that, and that does go along with as well what was discussed earlier by one of our citizens in an email, and she'd ask good questions, I thought. So it is the right thing to do. We wanted the same thing on the meters, you know, to get the same sort of thing. And thank you for trusting me in my review of those things. It is what I do every day, or at least every week. So anyway, tabling this until we get the [1:32:46] Select Board member: certification. I would prefer to table it until we've had a chance to. What harm will there be [1:32:53] Select Board Chair: in waiting until the next meeting? No, [1:32:57] Police Chief: I mean, we're just basically, yeah, 100, I mean, I want you guys to feel comfortable, I want the citizens to feel comfortable, but every, again, yeah, I knew going into this that obviously the concerns are out there with Flock cameras and data collection and everything else. And that's why I spoke specifically that, you know, we don't want that type of- [1:33:16] Select Board Chair: I'm glad that you added that. Was important. [1:33:18] Police Chief: And so, I mean, if we have to wait until the next meeting, then all that's doing is just delaying two weeks, and we just push it two weeks. It's not, you know. [1:33:26] Select Board Chair: And just so people know, it's common that some of the details in a SOC 2 Type 2 are held confidential. Yeah. But I'll summarize that, which I can, again, focusing on any exceptions and making sure it's a complete and accurate report without a quantifiable opinion, because it should be an accounting firm that provides that. [1:33:48] Police Chief: I would rather wait and make people as comfortable as possible than just try to push it through. Great. [1:33:55] Select Board member: Thank you, guys. Do you have a question? [1:33:59] Select Board Chair: Come on up to the thing. Yep. [1:34:05] Ray Andreessen: Hi. Ray Andreessen, Cove Road. And my wife and I came here concerned about this issue because we also received a copy of the letter that you mentioned from Jessica. And I was prepared to read that if you weren't going to be discussing it all, but I think you really addressed a lot of the concerns that she had. I applaud all of you for that because I think there's a growing feeling among a lot of people in this town, this country, and everything about our privacy being taken away. And what I would suggest is once this is straightened out, you have all the information, is that you have the communications manager for the town publish something on your website about all of the preventions or safety measures in this, because they're going to start seeing, oh, you've got new cameras and everything, and my face is going to be appearing. I think the issue with ice is one of them that people have, so but I applaud you for your real discrimination and looking at this and making sure that our privacy is protected. Thank you. Great. [1:35:13] Select Board Chair: Thank you so. [1:35:19] Select Board member: i would move that we table this action item until you re until we receive the [1:35:25] Select Board Chair: documentation that we discussed second all those in favor and tabling good motions approved 5-0 to table it until we have further information on the security and status of axon and the data so thank you okay moving on to our last action item this will is intended to be a discussion With the end in mind being to determine the priorities that we agree on, basically it's the next seven, eight months. But of course, priorities that we make now can have longer term effects than just the short term effects of the next seven months, of course. and you know to chris's point we kind of had a little bit of a homework assignment with during and this is educating the public in a way that we had discussed in a in a workshop a little over a month ago our priorities that each of us had and those were also noted in the communication by the communications director, again, about a month or so ago, the items that we're looking at and how I collated the items were really from that communication that went out about the priorities. And so if we could, again, go through, by now the select board members have each seen what the priorities list that we collectively came up with and somewhat to who brought it to our attention at this point it would be good if we said hey these are my top three or so priorities with things to get done you know crystal had a good point saying we want to make sure we're looking at you know things are efficiencies to help you know drive things forward and be supportive of the town chrisso can i pick on you first by saying are you prepared with or should i just say who is prepared to speak to the their priorities so I'll take a volunteer. Why it's important to do this is because of, you know, we've just had a meeting with Lincolnville and we heard about priorities that they have and are concerned about and working with us. We're working to set up a meeting with Rockport and Hope to talk about their priorities. And so where the Venn diagram centers on, these are the priorities of the collective towns. those are worth discussing where those meet. And so to that end, that's why we wanna make sure that we know, hey, collectively as a board, these are our priorities. Would anyone like to begin? Chris, your mic. You always come to me. Yeah, well, you were interested, but your mic though. So I know you have an outside voice, but. [1:39:21] Select Board member: Yeah, I mean, I'm going to go back to taking action. I mean, we're working on some of the zoning for armoring, but continuing to really get on the harbor resiliency infrastructure components. You know, if you look at Rockport, granted, theirs is a much simpler project, but they've already put putting it out to bid and they're going forward with a big chunk of the project they've got grants and so starting to pull together some of the business and property owners in the inner harbor who are impacted and seeing what we can coordinate i think is it's [1:40:05] Select Board Chair: really important how does how does that look different compared to what we're doing now with the things that we have in motion? [1:40:13] Select Board member: There's not a lot that's in motion right now. I mean, there's the, you know, what's happening at Harbor Park and some of what's happening, what will happen at Harbor Park will have impact on that. But in terms of the public landing, the sewer infrastructure of Bayview street, all of those things, which are highly flood threatened. And we see that impact. Impact I think that needs to be you know that's town and business infrastructure that can't just keep getting flooded yeah yep and then I would and this may come through charter I meant but you know we've talked a lot and we hear a lot of comment about some form of probably not a voting town meeting, but some form of annual town meeting where we all come together again and bringing something like that back. But also, as I've mentioned before, trying to find ways for some of our voting processes to go more through the select board and less, particularly it's always the zoning amendments and things like that, probably don't need to go to a full town vote. [1:41:34] Select Board Chair: So yeah so those are things of i don't know say the word wrong but charter commission or charter [1:41:41] Select Board member: It may be charter, it, you know, it's, but it could, but some of that comes from us to say that, you know, we think that this is right, these are things that would make our processes more efficient, but engage more, engage people more. I'm just curious why, yeah, why you would say town meeting without a vote, because I think that putting things like the budget and those types of items to a vote at town meeting disenfranchises well over half, if not two three quarters of the town. So would you be interested in doing a town meeting like before the vote so that people could come and know clearly what they're voting on and ask questions about what they're voting on. I mean, I've never one time known the budget in this town of Camden to not get passed when there were times when I thought it shouldn't. So I'm just curious if you would want that like before or after the vote, because if it was before and we could actually educate folks. Yeah, I mean, it could be- [1:42:46] Speaker H (unidentified): And let them ask questions. [1:42:47] Select Board member: Yeah, it could be at any moment, but it's a moment of saying, even like inviting people to, as we've done to this priority session of saying, you know, we hear from a very small minority of people who show up at meetings, and so to have, and I, there's a part of me that loves the direct democracy of a town meeting, of, and you know, I've seen like a backhoe get pulled out of a budget because five people in the room said, well, I saw how those guys operate the bucket back, oh, and we don't, right, but we know in this, in this world that to say, okay, well, you're gonna have to come to the opera house from seven to nine on a Monday night is just, you 're gonna get a hundred people showing up for that, and we shouldn't have things approved or turned down by a very small minority doing something that is in the same time frame, so yes, doing it before so people where there is some information given, and I mean, I just, this is one of the things that I have heard time and time again from a broad variety of people of, we want to have something where we come together, and I point to the, there was an informational session that was held prior to the vote on dam removal that was held at the middle school, and it was one of the best public forums I've attended in a really long time, of any community, was in a circle, it wasn't people up at a podium talking down to the audience, it was a true conversation, and I think if we can do some things like that where people are just asking questions and getting, you know And having some, and there was similar to what the library did, you know, there was information presented as you walked in, there was time before the discussion to read through the information and discuss it, and then a question. I think if we could do something like that, it could be. So I have another, I just have another question sort of the same, but on the same lines, because I'm kind of digging this. What if it was even before the warrants were done, so and the budget was like cast in stone, and before we were putting stuff on the, you know, on the ballots, so that if there were real questions or real concerns that we were listening to it before that happened, so that we could actually make changes to those things before it went to vote? That's an interesting idea. It might be tough [1:45:24] Select Board Chair: to do, but we might, we might be able to. One meeting time between meetings? Well, when that's going on. [1:45:33] Select Board member: I was just going to say, a lot of that, like one of the areas that dovetails with that is around this, the zoning changes that wind up on the warrant, also most of which are utterly opaque take to the majority of people, and yet it takes up all the time when you're in there voting. And if there were a way to do that same sort of bring people up to speed, because people don't pay attention to those unless they're directly impacted, they've all, I mean, as far as changes is, there's a public hearing structure around the language, and you know, once they've been vetted by the planning board, because they have a public hearing, right? I'm actually thinking way more about budget than I am about those zoning. Yeah, although those zoning changes are impactful, and it does bog people down. I mean, I think it alienates people from the process, because they're like, I don't know what any of that is, I'm not even gonna go, you know, the story. And I think I mentioned this at our last session of a friend's daughter who went, who was 18 this year, and was really excited to vote for the first time, and she came out in tears, because she's like, they were like 30 pages of ballots, and I didn't know, and I thought I did educate myself. And so if you can pull some of that, I mean, I think on the budget, I think the majority of people trust the process of department heads, budget committee, and select board. So there aren't huge questions on that unless there is some really big ticket item. And that usually gets hammered out. Usually gets its own warrant article. Will get its own warrant article, but it also usually gets hammered out in the, you know, we have that two month period where there is a lot of public comment. So I wouldn't try and back it up too far back. I would try and- I get the opposite from that for my people. Just, I mean, I'm just saying I'm getting the [1:47:41] Select Board Chair: opposite of that on budget from my folks. But you mentioned first, to stay on the first piece, you had, you had two items. One is the article pieces, the miscellaneous articles, and the other piece being the budget discussion, and potentially those are two. Well, for me it's not just budget, for [1:48:02] Select Board member: for me it is, it's a little bit like what we're doing tonight. It's about, it's having a forum where people can come forward and say, I really think that, you know, a group like Camden can, who is really focused on energy programs, and they're saying, why aren't we doing more about this? And it's, it also sort of addresses the piece of people come to our meetings, they have for non-agenda items, they say something, and they don't get, we're not allowed to respond. They don't, sometimes we take it on board and we say, okay, we're gonna, yeah, address that. But this would be more of an opportunity to have that conversation and to actually get some, you know, have some question and answers, have it, but have it moderated. Didn't have it, you know, you're reading my notes, that's what I wrote that down. Well, like the town, you know, I'm in the town meeting that you had a moderator who, when somebody started getting aggressive, you had somebody who was a moderator who said, all right, let's, or we're, we're [1:49:05] Select Board Chair: going to move it on. Yeah, I think there are probably two pieces of this. One is, if we wanted to have a discussion with and invite people about the budget in a before the warrant thing, that's something, a discussion is something that we can certainly do just because we want to do it. A second part with how to approve the long warrants via special town meeting where people are in attendance, would that maybe need a charter change to enact that part? There's that question, [1:49:44] Select Board member: question. Yeah, I mean, I think that to pull some things and some of it may be, and you know, this is a bill question probably, but some of it, there's some things that are state law under a town select board meeting of what has to go to. Yep. But maybe there's a way that we can streamline. [1:50:03] Select Board Chair: The process, I don't know, yeah, with the way that it was done, Ken and I attended the Lincolnville meeting, and it was actually moderated by Jay, who are working right now with MMA, and we had a discussion with Dave after the meeting to say, so how do you decide what things go on the ballot, right, and what things are here, and there was discussion about whether it be how impactful or what it would mean, or if there's further discussion, sometimes you want more people to be able to vote, sometimes it's one of those innocuous can the town accept gifts type things that just like show a hands by the 40 people in the room, but I think that was built into the charter, and I think that's an important efficiency. Go ahead, sorry, my caution around that [1:50:56] Select Board member: and it's all about procedure and adherence to statute. What we've seen with some recent issues in town is that there's a very, there can be a very vocal minority, and that was what the in-person town meeting process was devolving into to was having 40, 50, 60 people determining the fiscal outcome for the year. And so I would, as Chris says, disenfranchising people by changing up the process when it's been demonstrated that people do turn out to vote the paper ballot, and you know, I just know that you have the potential for a vocal minority to make a determination for a lot of people in town who would otherwise have voted differently, so you know, I'm in favor of more, whether it's clarifying language, simplifying language, some way of allowing people to feel like they can really read or an article and understand it, yeah, without having to go to the town office the day before and read the whole big thing, you know, that was one of the priorities that I put in here, it's just it's it's laborious, yeah, can [1:53:00] Select Board Chair: we can we break your thing into the two elements then, sure, that I mean because what I envision when [1:53:07] Select Board member: I say tell me, I mean an informational session, no decisions are being made in that evening, name right, that 's what I think we can do it is a and then you know just an and you know a lot of towns around in this area who are smaller than Camden who have a simpler budget do kind of a hybrid, but if there's some more items those go and maybe the flip side is here that we kind of like we're having a town meeting in our next select board meeting, right, we say okay well we're gonna these amendment these zoning amendments are going to be decided at an in-person town meeting which is essentially a select board meeting if we can see if we can [1:53:47] Select Board Chair: get that and if we can't do it now because of the way our chart and if it's a charter yeah [1:53:51] Select Board member: But to try and, yes, and because that also speeds up, yes, it also speeds up the process of amendment because the way we have certain things that happen now in our zoning, we, it's almost, it's not quite permanent, it's not quite spot zoning, but there are certain projects that come in and need a zoning amendment, and that can take eight to nine months depending on the time frame, and that project developer may walk away because, and the prime example that was a timing frame, so if there's ways that we can. Expedite that process that we would still have a hearing, it would be decided, but we could make that decision and not have to wait right nine. [1:54:39] Select Board Chair: Months, or at least do what we did with, Jeff's right deal, right, so you can say okay, we're. [1:54:46] Select Board member: Gonna have, we're gonna have a special town meeting at the next, at the next select board meeting, and it's in the law, but like move some of those things onto that agenda because, you know, if we were a full town council, we would have approval process for that, and this is why, like, Rockland developer comes in and wants to do a project, they need an amendment, the city council can just say in that meeting we're good, and it gets done, great, so. I think definitely some form of a town meeting over that way, for a moment, I'll be back, keep on going, I just think that some sort of a town meeting is definitely warranted because of all the people that want it, yeah, you know what I mean, I just think, I think some form of trying to get everybody that wants to get together, and again, trying to bring the town back together instead of having it so divided, is, yeah. Just huge for me, yeah, I know, and I think it's, it's exactly that, it is, it's also a really good way for us to share that information in a way that isn't online, that isn't a mail piece, that is just, and I go back to that session that the, a discussion Murk acted at the middle school was truly one of the best public forums I've been to because it was all opinions were heard. [1:56:11] Select Board Chair: Everybody listened, great, so, and I do see we have a couple of chat pieces in there, I'm not sure. [1:56:19] Select Board member: What I think, that was, that was the guy from, Mr., yeah, Dave Z, yeah, okay, that's been there. [1:56:28] Select Board Chair: Good, I just wanted to make sure if it was somebody else, so okay, thank you, Chris, yeah, want to have someone else have a chance too, yeah, all right, Susan, what were you thinking, no. [1:56:43] Select Board member: I think I jumped in on Chris a little bit, and that sort of covered what my, I think some of the. The ones in here are mine, not yours, but. Oh, that's okay. So we had some of the same. We had the same. [1:56:57] Select Board Chair: That's why there's probably a two there, right? Anyway, that's okay. [1:57:02] Select Board member: Yeah, I mean, I don't take exception too much in here. I'm not gonna elaborate on anything. [1:57:10] Select Board Chair: But is there anything that we've either talked about in our last few meetings or something that you feel that we're not addressing that we need to make sure we list as one of our priorities? [1:57:28] Select Board member: I mean, I think that we're gonna have a really interesting and consequential opportunity for reflection with the selecting a new manager and prioritizing with that person. You know, it was interesting when all of the candidates articulated their understanding about how our form of government works and that we are the policy setting body. And to that end, that's, you know, it's almost redundant that we're doing this right now. Yes, but it does give us a bit of a frame going into that conversation so that we know how to characterize what we feel is important. I mean, I think that we have extraordinary department heads. We have extraordinary fiscal oversight. To the extent that budget is a challenge, it's because everything is expensive. And I have faith in the people who are doing their jobs in this town that they are really acutely aware of that and that they are using taxpayer money to do their job. So to that end, and I think that what we heard from the manager candidates, that they already know that we have extraordinary people working in this town. I'm not a fan of micromanaging or jumping into how people are doing their jobs unless we hear otherwise. Wise to the extent that we are, you know, keeping things open and efficient. I did put on here improving select board understanding of town operations. I know that in past years we've had a briefing at the beginning of our term with Bill and with the manager in order to, for everyone to be up to speed as well as possible. We didn't have that this year. You didn't have it as a group. We didn't have it as a group, which I don't know why that didn't happen. It should happen as a group because we all things change and I wasn't aware that it was happening not as a group but [2:00:18] Select Board Chair: you know, probably because the first time that I was on it just was me. Well, for whatever [2:00:25] Select Board member: whatever reason, you know, there are things about procedure that are legally binding and [2:00:32] Select Board Chair: And important and so on. Do you think we'd have an opportunity to do that maybe together with the new town manager? Would that be a good opportunity? Absolutely, I mean I'm I'm yeah for [2:00:44] Select Board member: sure probably be a good time for all five of you and the new town manager to sort of that's the first right would be the first yeah solidifying your and sort of doing the walkthrough of the departments. I would love to do that and our departments loved doing that for you guys so I would absolutely bringing that back would be a great yeah tool for the select board to get an idea of where yeah and I think you know what has been most interesting to me about being on the board this time around has been understanding how the departments work at somewhat greater depth and the going out to visit and seeing how the work is actually getting done is fascinating and it really enables me to talk in a much more informed way to citizens and so I think that you know our tour of the public safety building was incredible. Our tour of the wastewater treatment, incredible. It's just like, so field trips are just really, I would encourage us to do more of that. Because- I've got one coming up, because always. [2:02:01] Select Board Chair: Those would be outside of our standard select board meetings typically. [2:02:05] Select Board member: Yeah, I just think that for our edification, and then when you go into the budget process, and then when you are addressing specifics that come up we have a context that's much more informed that's kind of one of those things that I could start well the Newtown manager could start working on is we have some time before we really start having to get down to the nitty-gritty of getting you guys out to a department maybe once a week or something the five of you yeah just orientations yeah and just saying for me either first thing in the morning or later in the day is but if I can go to work late or come get out a little early is best for me yeah for sure yep so that would definitely be super on the top of my list good thank you Chris I'm looking thank you for putting this master list together, Chris. He's got five pages plus in small type. In the smallest font that he could find. That's why I took my glasses off. But I was going to say that of these, we've already started a number of these, the top issues. So I will underscore a few issues that I've flagged here. We've already started, of course, the town manager process. Process we're heading into a conclusion on that. We talked about the charter review committee this evening already. Let's [2:03:47] Ray Andreessen: see, you're [2:03:51] Select Board Chair: going to bring up if you're going down that and be going down that trail. We've got other things like while you're looking, Advanced Green burial work, I mean, that's, yep, that's going on, right? Start, starting the budget process earlier. We at least had a brief tonight on how we could get that a little early. It's not a huge amount earlier, but at least it's a good discussion in December. Yeah, is better than what we had last year. [2:04:15] Select Board member: Yeah, many of my items were flagged because of the budget funding and the school budget. Try [2:04:25] Select Board Chair: to do something with that. I don't know if we can, but well, back several years ago, [2:04:30] Select Board member: during the budget process, because obviously the school's on a little bit different schedule with their budget, but we did have the superintendent of MSAD 28 and the Fivetown CSD come here and present their budget. And that hasn't happened for a couple of years. And I was just at a workshop with her, with our Newtown superintendent, and she was very, she came over to me to chat and she was like, how do I best meet the board? There we go. And I sort of said, you know, it might be better with some one-on-ones, but certainly coming in. Presenting the budget. She was very eager to come. Yeah, say, you know, we have this brand new superintendent which is very dynamic, and so I think she'd be very happy to, and then also maybe inviting the county to come in, the county administrator or whoever we don't have that will be, but yeah, that would be something. [2:05:21] Select Board Chair: If you could just take a note, Jody, that's a quick one. If we could just take a note whether it's October or November, I don't, what I don't know the school's budget cycle well. [2:05:31] Select Board member: I mean, they won't have, they have their referendum vote, I want to say it's in March, because their process is a little different, but that sort of their budget will already be sort of set in stone by then. By October, November this year, no, next, beginning of next year, like February, March, so I guess I need to find out when they are working on their budget and [2:06:00] Select Board Chair: And whatnot, but maybe, you know, give again getting our sense of the budget, getting the sense from us on how much that is and the increases and general feelings and support. Yep, and meeting that person, yep, it gives us something to talk about, right? So if you could try to find, you know, it's a matter of adding her to one of our agendas, probably an initial [2:06:28] Select Board member: meet and greet kind of thing. Yeah, and yeah, and then she here is it she can perhaps bring along their schedule for the coming year of when their budget is developed. We have a lot of items [2:06:45] Select Board Chair: in here and it's why partially it's long because there are a lot of budget related items, but we can address those budget related items it seems during the budget process that yeah, we've got some items, so go ahead count them. Thanks, oh [2:07:05] Select Board member: I have noted to engage, you know, explore regionalization and shared services. I think we're taking that up on a department by department basis, but that is a priority for the current select board. [2:07:25] Select Board Chair: Yeah, and we're we're that's one of those in process ones with Lincolnville, Rockport, Hope. [2:07:34] Select Board member: Right, okay, plan for future use of the Elm Street School. I think that could be a long, that could be a long discussion, so the earlier we get started I think the better the outcome will be. We need to continue our oversight of the Gunny Cook River and project because that's a 5.9 million dollar project that we really gotta keep our eyes on, keep our eyes on the ball there. [2:08:02] Select Board Chair: That's that's currently ongoing too where we have Jody and yep Jeremy as the designated project managers for that, and as well as specific tracking that Jody has put together for invoicing so that it's available for an audit, so that's that's going on, but it's also recognizing that 's a the overall watershed piece with our neighboring town, right, Lincolnville first one to mention it, but Hope will too probably. A couple more things, [2:08:38] Select Board member: revitalizing the town committee structure. We've already brought up revitalizing the energy committee, but that's as a general priority, we should keep our eye on that. How do we do something [2:08:52] Select Board Chair: something like that, revitalizing committees. I mean there's there's the energy committee that Molly mentioned tonight, there used to be a damn committee, there used to be a personnel committee, personnel committee that got removed by the charter I think, yeah, so that's that would take a charter change, that would be part of the, hey Jeremy, so I'm good there was [2:09:19] Select Board member: There was also the Camden Economic and Community Development Advisory Committee, that's critical on the TIF side of things. The last work they did was when they looked at the tannery. So that's one that was in existence. There was the Parks and Recreation Committee, that was in existence. in existence which what I'm just telling you some other committees that were in existence [2:09:48] Select Board Chair: recently yeah how yeah that thank you Jeremy how would that fit with the one of those you said the Parks and Rec committee like with the with the tannery plan I mean that would be something [2:10:07] Select Board member: i think what's happened what's happened chris i think work has become so site specific that committee like generally committee work in the past has been more much more broad-based yep and now things have been more project specific like what should happen with the tannery rather than you know you have more professional folks like managing parks and rec department right so committees more recently were transitioned to they should only be implemented when there's a project moving forward or a need for them i will say i think especially on the energy side and likely on the cdac side which is supposed to handle tiff's tiff work i think it's important you know to have sometimes have that certainly on the energy side i think that can be more broad-based energy and sustainability or resilience because i think a lot of those things are fall in the same category so you can have that kind of committee and then at least to have these committees available when the need arises i mean i've heard ken said say tiff and i think sarah said tiff earlier that work is supposed if you look at the tiff documents is supposed to happen in a committee setting so that would be like cdac would be involved in that go ahead can i ask you a quick question it's a tiff related question that's why i'm stopping you i'm sorry but with tiff i was in a meeting with bill where he said he's not a particular fan of tiff and i'm just curious like i have understood some of my own things learned that not all of the TIFF things, like there's a document where we list what we're going to use it for, but then we're using it for other things. Like, is there really a need for TIFF? That's my question, I guess. That's a very good question. And I'm just going to be honest. And Jodi and I have been having these questions too, these discussions really with each other, because I think it's, you know, someone needs to do it on the town side right now when, and since we haven't had a town manager since June. So Jody and I have kind of dove into this. And I do think that in the next, I'm hoping in the next month we'll have something laid out or at least a presentation for you folks by someone who's an expert in the field. There are pros and there are some cons to TIFs for sure. And TIFs are fairly complicated, but they're not at the same time. So I think it's important for everyone to, you know, here get the right and the same information so everyone is operating from the same perspective on what TIFFs are for and why they use them. We don't have like a housing TIFF. I will say like a lot of developers have reached out in the past about, you know, can you do a tiff because it's all about scoring points when developers are getting incentives from the state and subsidies from the state to build projects which is that's how these middle lower in you know income housing projects the need is there working class even they only happen through these programs and they get points and if they're getting a tiff for maybe some infrastructure work to bring sidewalks or some sewer line or something to a project to kind of fill the gap on a project's financing that's what tiff funds can be used for we don't have that set up right now for something like that so i think it's worthwhile to look at moving forward for sure do we need the tiffs number one and number two if we're we're gonna keep them and use them, should we look at tweaking them to actually make them facilitate projects and needs that the town has? Cause you can legitimately pay for, like this TIF pays for my salary and that's a total legitimate purposeful, what's written into the TIF program, it pays for part of me. That is totally legit expense. And that's something that you would assume you would continue because if the program continues, cause that's a way to pay for things. things so also in that is like we need improvements at the at the public landing restroom facility right like significant improvements there well jody and i were talking to jeff about that recently and that's in the tiff document is funding you can pay for public restrooms at the landing which benefit the whole community and you know and everyone out of tiff funds so agreed but aren't tif funds just taxes they are yeah no question no question they are tax dollars so when the tiff gets adopted and i'm i'm a simpleton when it comes to tips i'm not an expert by at any stretch of the imagination so when the tiff gets documented and the increase in value so the tax on that increase in value from the time that tip was created all that increase in value the tax that is collected after that value that increase right after that date goes into our tifa funds so yes they're absolutely tax dollars they're just tax dollars that can be allocated to certain projects so you in essence so the community knows that they're going to get done projects that are needed and staff people that are needed or restrooms that are needed, economic development that needed or housing that's needed, and it doesn't have to rely on the general fund taxes. So it's actually, you know, the community comes came together and decided these were going to be used for the for this purpose, and that's totally legitimate and a need and value. So when you're doing the budget, creating the budget, you can say okay this can come from this document because town voters approved for this and this is where we want funding to come from or we want to be committed to doing certain things so you use the chip funds to pay for that and it's not just the general fund if that makes sense there's a different it's same money right it's tax dollars no question but it's it's almost as if there's like multiple reviews or approvals by town by voters for the guiding document of the tiff if that makes sense because that gets approved at town meeting. When was the last time we did one, do you know? What's that? It was we have a 17 40 year tiff is it 30 years yeah and then extended it out to 20 40. 20 40. yeah and there's a downtown city 2010 is when we did it well when camden did it but the tiff document the tiff plan both well just the downtown one we have a tiff downtown and a highway tiff right and nobody ever talks about the highway tiff because honestly it didn't make any money [2:17:13] Select Board Chair: How does a TIF bake, Bunny? [2:17:15] Select Board member: Can I just say that if we're going to do a TIF workshop? That's true. That's a good point. That's a good point, Chris. If we're going to do that, I think that taking a good chunk of time to really dive into this would be great. Right. Yeah. But we're so far off our priority list now. So Bobby, to answer your question, Joni and I are working on this and we've been communicating with an expert in the field that we're going to add free charge right now. We're gonna come up with a plan and share it with you folks and we'll present it. And we may even have that person in and chat with you too. Okay, great. That'd be great. Yeah. And sorry to get so off track. That's okay. No, it's important. The last budget works last year too. Just to, on the committee questions, circle back to that for a second. With people being so busy and I think there's like meeting fatigue around just going to meetings and I like it that you know like with the tannery there's a group of people who are action specific action oriented and they're getting some stuff done and I think that is really incumbent upon the structure itself to be you know like the harbor committee they can just go on and on and on and on and on about the same things over and over and over again without there being an action and it's just you know if you're retired and you can spend that kind of time god bless you but most people want to come out and so I think for us if there's leadership around a specific thing and then gather together some people who want to work on that specific thing you know much like the green burial folks they're dedicated they are going through a checklist and they're getting stuff done and Molly they're getting stuff done just we just need to be mindful of the fact that people don't want to just be going to meetings and I think that's how some of this has sort of died on the vine because it's just like nobody's showing up because there's nothing to do [2:19:41] Select Board Chair: That's okay that's right you asked the question thanks yeah got a couple more things Chris I'd like to if we can end at nine but let's we'll see [2:19:53] Select Board member: We'll see, keep on going. Thank you, thank you. I will now, I have very little more to say. We should do a review of the select board bylaws. We have not done that in memory, and I think that we, the select board, should have a chance to review grant applications because town policy gets expressed or set in the grant applications. And I, and I don't want to make it onerous, but I think we should have a discussion on that. Okay. That's it, you're going to bring up historic resources. Yes, okay, so thank you. So I'm sure you guys probably know Chris better than I do, but he's here from the historical preservation committee, and they're gonna hopefully be on the November 10th. I have switched that, and they would like to have an ordinance be put into effect for on the June ballot. So they're coming to talk to us November 10th as a discussion hopefully, and then I'm going to their meeting on the 19th. That's why they didn't want to come on the 20th because their meetings are back to back, and they didn't wanted to make sure they're prepared to talk to us. Next for me is budget, and definitely under Bobby. Can I interrupt you really quick? Just so I know we can get it on to this next select board meeting, can you email me that because I already did to Chris. Okay, November 10. Thank you, it's not the next one, forget it. We talked [2:21:24] Select Board Chair: about that briefly last Wednesday, just so you know. Okay, and I said that we're dealing with one and then we've got two others. Okay, perfect, and that was yes, thank you for the list, perfect. [2:21:37] Select Board member: And I'm just gonna touch this really quick, but the whole TIFF thing and having Bill say that he doesn't find them particularly useful. And then figuring that out in the budget is hugely important to me as well as like, I mean, Dave gave me the best, he sent over the job description for the damn agent. It was amazing. So the only one I got out of the ones that I asked for. So there are things there that I worry about with the stipends, and just because I have so many people talking to me about them, like what, how are they given, how are they, you know, all the things. So that, and then I have a note for myself to reach out to the superintendent, but I also think our emergency medical service needs a look at. I know Matt said in Lincolnville that they were going to be changing somehow the contract. I don't know what that means or if it's been done or if it hasn't. I just Think that getting Knox, and when I say Knox, I'm talking about Knox Communications, our own fire chief, the head of the paramedics, that I, is that Matt? I don't even know. But getting them in and making sure that we are being fully covered the way we're supposed to be, because it sounded like in Lincolnville we weren't, and seeing what's really going on with that, because emergency medical is super important, and I have had at least two dozen people reach out to me about it, and I've sat every single weekend with one or two or three people almost three hours long. So I just, I'm trying to bring things to get to the table that are what I'm hearing is important to folks. Yep, and doing what you're doing with [2:23:31] Select Board Chair: and anyone is always welcome, not just Bobby. Ken and I intentionally meet with the town manager and Bill on the Tuesday, on the Wednesday before, so that there's time to get things into the agenda. And if you've got things that are burning that we haven't addressed, it was nice that Bobby gave me a list, and it wasn't like put all these in one meeting, because that might not be efficient. And all my things were for discussion, but the items she listed, hey, this would be a good sequence. I mean, that's, I welcome that. It helps to build the agenda and make it, make it [2:24:11] Select Board member: relevant. So, and I have another thing, just one last thing, because it's happened twice now. When action items show up and we haven't heard anything about it, there's been no discussion about it, but then we're going to be expected to take action on it that night. Yep, I don't love that. I know. So are you like more, I would rather have something discussed. So I'm going to go back to, what was it, a couple weeks ago, the Mount Batty Street, like that never should have been on there as a, as an action item, and Dave said that too. He's like, I just wanted to talk about it, you know what I mean? And I just, and had it not been on there as an action item, we wouldn't have had, we probably would have had some of the same people, but it would have been a discussion, and it wouldn't have been panic stricken, we're doing this. So, and the, yeah, during those talks need to, you guys need to redesign the sort of, yeah, it's a little, yeah, the agenda a little more [2:25:08] Select Board Chair: The agenda, yeah, because we try to get those things in that need to, for whatever thing is time based, something or other, and we know we cannot deliberate together outside of the meeting because that's not appropriate, and so sometimes we have to be careful about deliberating over email, but that's also why, you know, it's one of the things that I asked Jody, hey, if we've got a presentation that's going to be put up on the screen, you know, it needs to be part of the packet so that we can see it and Janice is doing a good job of getting our packets together on the Friday, which is, which is great, that's what we want to happen, I know it's not a lot of time, so sometimes it's going to have to happen, but we'll try not to, right, and sometimes if we've, like we've had it like the action item tonight, right, it's like, hey, we want more data, we can always move an action item and not do it in a discussion, I agree, it should have been, if we had discussed [2:26:09] Select Board member: it then we could have asked for it absolutely but we've learned from that and going forward of setting agendas we can say because I think we all agree that something like that 's a meaty hefty issue yeah you can't make a decision the first time we hear about it no and that was why all three of my things were not action item things, they're things that I want brought up for discussion, okay, good, and you know last year we talked about even taking that second meeting of the month and making it more workshop and more sort of like, so that's a perfect example of like, we're going to take the second hour of our meeting and talk about tech [2:26:48] Select Board Chair: but what was nice is tonight we got through so many things pretty quickly that it left time even for this discussion, yeah, which I think is great to have, so that was the last time, I, yeah, I'm [2:27:07] Select Board member: i'm happy with that for now yeah super just sort of as a sidebar i've mentioned before that as much as we love hearing from jody like we have the written manager 's report we don't need to have that read out no but highlights could be yeah i'd like to make sure we highlight the good [2:27:25] Select Board Chair: Things that are going on or that people need to know about, whatever that is, you know, just in terms of use of time. And I get it, but not always, people don't always read, but there are things that need to be highlighted and should be highlighted. I will work on that. I'll work on bullet points. Thanks. I just, I'm trying to give you less. No, I appreciate that. All right, so super. I mean, you, everyone has hit on the items that I had on my list too, except for something we talked about before, which is after the vote on parking is when I'll be working with the chief, like I did with the former chief, on the ordinance, traffic ordinance thing, because it's the parking thing is tied into the traffic ordinance. There were other updates that Randy and I were working on. Unfortunately, I did have a data loss event from that, but we'll move forward. So thank you for all these items. Are good items, and I think that we are, we're working on these, and there are probably some easy ways to get some momentum them on some of the, some of the items as well, so that's great. The Jeremy, what I was going on with the tannery plan, that's just something, you know, personally, if I had an item, I'd like to just make sure we're getting, we're getting done and good traction on it's that, and we can't forget about the Curtis Lighthouse. Somehow did I say it right? Yeah, Michael won't let us forget about it. So, well, thank you for that discussion. Anything else concerning priorities? [2:29:11] Select Board member: That was a good. Okay, good. I make a motion to adjourn. Well, how about this? [2:29:15] Select Board Chair: Let's hit number eight first, number eight first, which you're close though. Number eight is select board members reports. So this is all up to us how long we go here. [2:29:25] Select Board member: I do just have a couple of things. Things the cam can and the program that Molly presented was talking about held a emergency preparedness Summit about 10, almost two weeks ago, that I attended. There about 50 organizations came together representing various communities, a lot of really good stuff, that was great information of who's doing what, but one of the highlights that came out is a lot of concern about energy usage this winter and people heating with fuel costs being what they are, that you know there is a heating warming shelter in Rockland but a lot of concern about fire safety with folks using you know people are gonna be using their wood stoves and fireplaces that they haven't touched in 10 years and like this is my initial public call to get your chimney swept and make sure that your all of that is in really good shape and the fact that we're going to be needing to help out a lot our neighbors keeping warm this winter the other thing i wanted to say was i don't know if anybody's driven down the other end of park street lately but our town works department did a phenomenal job and you know most towns after water sewers get fixed they just come in and they put a little pavement over the where they dug it up and i mean that just is a beautiful looking street so good job then susan nothing formal to report although i was out for a walk on vinyl haven and on sunday and bumped into adam lockman who's the mayor of Rockland and i had been down the south end of Rockland and noticed the incredible work that's going on in their harbor park right next to the public landing and chatted with him a little bit about that and they're doing a whole resiliency plan and i think it that could also be a valuable field trip for us to go on they've accessed a lot of federal funds they have the whole cruise ship impact going on their issues are different their form of government is different but there was an invitation extended it also for us if we wanted to go down on as a group or individually to see what is going on in Rocklin because they're getting some cool stuff done good yeah thank you bobby just that dave's feeling better and you put your thing on just that dave's feeling better and has put out a thing we're gonna do midco solid waste tour again so that's coming up not like the week of the 20th [2:32:22] Select Board Chair: sometime okay great time ken yeah what yeah this is can you let us finish our select board reports first all right i'm finished okay great ken and i did have a good meeting with dave saint laurent last week to go over items with him that you know ideas that he would have before our meeting with Rockport. And that was good. And it actually, it may, he may have mentioned some good areas that we can start with, you know, field trips for our understanding with his operations, that would be good and supportive of what he has going on. And to the chimney thing, yes. The chimney thing is important. I got my chimney inspection done today and I'll be getting some stainless steel liner coming to my chimney soon because of an issue that I found when I was sweeping my chimney. But anyway, that was, if you've got something quick, because we're about to adjourn. Thank you. What is, what is the [2:33:30] Select Board member: nature of your talking resources? Right. Yeah, but are we going to be talking about this [2:33:37] Select Board Chair: Sorry, but are we going to be talking about this at our meeting? Yeah. What is the nature of the [2:33:41] Chris Frieden: the discussion? I just had a quick question about procedural question about the presentation on the 11th, Chris Frieden, historic resources committee. Is there, go ahead, I'm sorry, I wanted to know is the, is initially we had talked about having a workshop with the historic committee and now we're presenting to you on the 11th and I just wonder procedurally in a Q A format can the select board actually ask questions and is there a give and take and going back and forth in a [2:34:13] Select Board Chair: presentation to you? What would be, what would be best if, why don't you work with the town manager on the Wednesday, on the Tuesday before the Tuesday, so what would that make it, the fourth, the fourth of November, right, third and November, we're not here, that's [2:34:36] Select Board member: election day. Yeah, but I think, I think the question is if it's, if it's an agenda item, that's what I'm saying. Yes, there is give and take, there is conversation, and then just one other just [2:34:49] Chris Frieden: little announcement today at the, in the library there's an installation of an exhibit of deconstruction and reuse by one of our members and I just wanted to alert you guys to that. But as [2:35:01] Select Board Chair: as far as the agenda, what would be best, I know that I will have a meeting at 12 30 on the 4th of the town office, maybe if you came in at 12 15 and we could maybe go over that so as we formulate the agenda you'd know how to fit it all right. 12 15 on the force, yeah, if you want to reach out [2:35:18] Select Board member: before that to me, I think we've exchanged emails before, just to solidify that. Sorry about the [2:35:26] Select Board Chair: YOU HAD A MOTION EARLIER. SECOND. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? AWESOME.