Kennebec County Commissioners Approve Generator Warranty, VOCA Grant

[0:02] Speaker A (unidentified): You all set? Taking his son. [0:18] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Just a minute. There's a whole lot of vacancies. [0:24] Speaker C (unidentified): They're gonna take care of you. Oh yeah. [0:33] Speaker D (unidentified): His assessment of time is,, is,, is,, is,, [0:40] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): is,, is,, is,. Let's go. Yeah. Good afternoon. Please join us in pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the pride of the United States of America and to the republic for which stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Do we have a motion on the minutes? [1:39] Speaker A (unidentified): Madam Chair, I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes except for in the case of the first line in probate, where the last identification of 22 will be erased. We have a second? Second. [1:57] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Chris Braun, Human Resource Director. Good morning. Good morning. [2:13] HR/Workforce Development Director: Good to see you, Vess. Good to see you. All right. So for Workforce Development, we had 37 students take advantage to date attending 24 unique classes. Our refund requested total for 2026 is about ten thousand dollars. We've received about seven thousand. And for 2025 classes, we received about 14. So we're actually a little bit behind from last year. The jail currently has two vacancies with a class beginning 10-19. The SO has one deputy opening, and we're interviewing with EMA this week on their open position. We currently have two employees out on military leave, six employees out on some sort of extended medical leave, and we have about four planned for future dates. [3:10] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): So around 12 people out. [3:15] HR/Workforce Development Director: We are set and ready for the Kennebec County Wellness Fair that is planned for October 22nd. We hope that you all can join us. It will be outside if weather permits, but it looks like it's going to be that. The group has done an amazing job. I'm blown away, so looking forward to that. We've been doing some auditing and cleanup in the system to ensure sure terminated employees payroll and HR files are accurately archived. So we've been spending a little time doing that. And as we enter into the fourth quarter of 2026, we have sent out reminders to all employees who have not completed their required annual training. And most of my time has been spent dealing with several personnel related items and guiding department heads through coaching and counseling opportunities. So I will be leaving today at one to pick up family for our daughter's wedding this weekend, so I'll be off the rest of the week and the next weekend will be. [4:09] Speaker A (unidentified): That many any questions there's still an informational edition here. I would just like is there any reason why you think you haven't received more than seven thousand dollars those out of the 20,000 we're looking for. Is this? [4:30] HR/Workforce Development Director: No, we've only requested 9,500 and we've received seven total. So 7,100. So really that 2,400, I mean, that's pretty standard. I mean, there's a time from the time the class is originally requested, that refund is requested to the time it takes to get there. So I have no concerns or anything of that. We're behind from last year, but simply because we used more of the money last year so maybe [5:03] Speaker A (unidentified): What do you mean you use more you were capped last year with how much money you could use or well we're capped every year but with [5:12] HR/Workforce Development Director: And that's per person so yeah not everybody takes advantage of it fortunately but when they When we do, what I'm saying is simply that we had about $14,000 requested and received last year, and this year, you know, this is on a calendar year, so we're three-quarters of the way through the year, and we've only used, you know, we've only gotten that. [5:40] Speaker A (unidentified): I have a question because I'm on the Central Maine Workforce Board and we're meeting this week. Let's put it that way. I think it's Thursday. And that's because Monday we met as a state workforce board. And you could see the influence of change already taking place where they're looking at a lot of things they used to fund and they're really condensing it. And I'm not sure what the final result is going to be. But the point is that everybody's doing the same thing so I will look and I will just kind of listen intently when they're talking about the prisons and the inmates and stuff I always didn't do that right but thank you [6:26] Speaker D (unidentified): Thank you Tom [6:31] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Dore treasurer Scott Adkins finance director I'm coming, Commissioners. [6:48] Speaker A (unidentified): Good afternoon. The [6:55] Treasurer/Finance Director: General fund cash for today's balance is $13,735,559. That's an increase of $6,056,420 from the last meeting. The receipt of the municipal tax payments is on the back of the sheet and we're about 50% collections at this point is the balance of the insured cash sweep account 1.32 is invested in the Intrafine Money Market account at KSB. We have two CDARs accounts, 2,501,858 in a 13-week term that matures 12-24. Merry Christmas. And $5,052,817, and that's in a 26-week term, and that matures in February 25th of 27. Investment cash of $2,221,951 is invested in the Kennebec Savings Bank Managed Investment Account. The balance there has decreased $24,016 as of the 9-15 report. Warrants for signatures. Warrant number 12 is a payroll warrant, and that was $731,040. dollars. Warrant number 13, payroll, that was $701,437. Warrant number 14 is a regular warrant and that was $334,154. Warrant number 14-D, that's the ACH checks, and that was $634,221. Then there was the special run for the ARPA, warrant 15, $610,469. Warrant 27 is the restitution, and that was $10,418, and Warrant 27, civil refunds, was $1,342. dollars the total aperture expenditures for this term was 610 469 and that went to the volunteers of america that was warrant 15. opera funds remaining and committed is 533 589 And the municipal tax payments, $11,411,220 collected. Uncollected is $11,054,987. So [10:45] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): we're doing quite well. What's the date that we start giving interest? [10:51] Speaker G (unidentified): On November 1st. November 1st. Yeah. so we should have should anticipate them starting to roll in as you see what you know we're pretty much a little bit over the crest of the 50 mark from me oh sorry any questions further questions no okay for me real quick is that going back to the cds went back and sort of and analyzed so this is the additional interest above and beyond the new the new interest that we are going with the CDAR method was just shy of a little over 14,500. And that was, remember, if you remember, we did the first one in February. So really looking forward to that number being a little bit larger. I think it's a wise approach for the commission and for the finance, the treasurer department to do this. If we're going to have balances on hand, that we should be good stewards of those and secondly as you've probably heard before and are aware i attended with the administrator of the conference for the county commissioners golf was awesome and went to gfoa and i just kept thinking how closely related that it seemed it was very it was set up very similar to naco on a much smaller scale but that is definitely something I would definitely be interested in attending going forward. That was a really great conference. Did it stand for? So this one was the NESGFOA, which is the New England State's Government Finance Officers Association. So the short version is Government Finance Officers. The state has its own charter as well, but this was pretty much the New England. So really great people, really great events, very informative. We got scared to death in cybersecurity. But you know, other than that, everything was, everything was great. So again, I thank you for the support in attending those. So that's all I have. Any questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. [12:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Sheriff Mason. [13:03] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): And company. Good. [13:11] Speaker C (unidentified): Afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. I don't have a lot to pass on. I just wanted to update you a little bit on our movement towards changing dispatch. I wrote up a business plan at the recommendation, missing county administrator. Never done one, but I wrote it up, and I sent it back to him to ask him to critique it, 's good, bad, and different about it. He gave me other recommendations. I met with Scott Adkins yesterday, myself and the chief, who gave us further other information that we're going to need. I'm really hoping to wrap up everything before the end of October or right at the end of October. Then we're going to get together and have a meeting with the towns or municipalities involved to give them information of the plan of what we are going to do. Okay, so. [14:14] Speaker D (unidentified): You gave your plan to Scott? I did. So when you get your final plan, you, that's when you give it to us. Absolutely. And Scott, did you have any comments on his plan or? [14:28] Speaker H (unidentified): I sent a response to the sheriff and also Scott Atkins, my observation of it. But what I think, and we're willing to help with this, is probably a three- or five-year financial projection on what we think this is going to cost going out, just so that, you know, there are no surprises. We'll get year two or year three. And we can estimate that, and it's not going to be perfect, but it should be ballpark. [15:01] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, I think you were in the other room, but I mentioned that with your recommendations yesterday, we met with Scott and he pointed things out. Oh man. Yeah, we'll work together. Oh yeah, great. So we're still looking for that one final deputy to slide into the slot, and we have one young man at the academy chugging through. What is he, week six, chief? Seven? [15:31] Speaker D (unidentified): Seven. I'm not sure. So two of them going to the military right now. Yes, they're, they're. [15:38] Speaker C (unidentified): They're gone. They're probably already where they're supposed to end up. [15:51] Speaker A (unidentified): can i just ask a couple quick questions so in switching to prosuit okay well all of the towns have to occur [16:04] Speaker C (unidentified): that's a that's a totally different subject but that is records management system we're talking about dispatch services okay so they're they're two separate things the pro suite that is a budgetary matter which commissioners the commission had authorized the first yearly early payment it was like 56 or 59 and then that'll give us in time for the next four years to budget properly during our budget process so it'll it'll it'll spread out to everybody not just the 20 towns affected by the dispatch service, so [16:58] Speaker A (unidentified): but looking at the minutes, it talks about the fact that I need a new record management system, which I agree that the current one is obsolete, but I thought the current one was a key factor in why we couldn't stay with [17:19] Speaker C (unidentified): the state police it is and if we got pro suite that would just the records management and dispatch module are intertwined they're all one piece so i thought when the state says we're not going to dispatch for you because you're switching to something different that's what they mean is they don't want to accept or teach this new program to their dispatchers now the cost of pro suite the records management part the county is looking to purchase ahead of time before this dispatch stuff occurs only because we can utilize it in the jail and implement other programs that we've already purchased for the jail, like Guardian RFID. But it does shut us off from the state, it does, only because they won't allow us to join their system, which is Spillman. We cannot join, and they won't accept our new one. So we're basically, our hands are tied, we have to do something. They don't want to do two different CADs. So now they have to, if they get a call and it's a Kennebec, they put up the CAD for Kennebec, up state police call comes in, they put the CAD down, they put up Kennebec's, they don't want to have to keep doing that back and forth thing. [18:41] Speaker A (unidentified): And I understand, you know, I'm, I'm just trying to take in, get most complete understanding that I can, because there are questions out there, and there is a history that I don't understand in between sheriff's department here and the town over here and the state police over here, and evidently we did this before in that, and I'm not sure I got the right wording, but it sounded to me like we changed before, which has made it more difficult for us to continue to live with the state police. Why are we not going with Stillman? They won't allow us. [19:22] Speaker C (unidentified): To join Spillman, they will not, so they will not allow us on this. I think that's an important part for you. Well, but I gotta add, if we were allowed to go on Spillman, which we're not, we would be required by Maine OIT, I think I got that acronym right, yeah, to buy the specific computer equipment that they recommend. That means all new desktops, new whatever the laptops are in the car, it has to be. We're talking huge money. It ended up being a situation, understand, and I'm really, it's, it doesn't help us at all getting dictated like this, okay, to come up with saying, look, so [20:19] Speaker A (unidentified): much more expensive, difficult for us to take him by Spellman, which we can't get, like what kind of [20:26] Speaker C (unidentified): box in what we are here, and we've mentioned that this is what they want us to do, but then they're not even interested in having us there anymore. I hope to be invited to the meeting of the [20:41] Speaker A (unidentified): municipalities of the town, since some of my district will be there. Sure, well, I certainly [20:47] Speaker C (unidentified): hope so, and being able to have the interoperability with most of the other law enforcement entities within the county is a huge thing, so we can talk and communicate right now except for Winthrop and Monmouth, who on their own island, but it is what it is, that's fine. Now the only other thing I wanted [21:06] Speaker A (unidentified): to bring up is more or less of just bringing it up, is there a possibility that at some point we're going to have to do more with EMA to integrate all of this? And I say this because they just went through some training, the issue dealing with fires and stuff. I mean, what I'm seeing and hearing anyway is that there's a lot more things that's going to be put as priorities with the EMAs in this county and every county, and that some of the federal stuff is kind of being passed down, which means the state's got to come up with some money to do it, I think. I'm just saying, I would just look long-term and say, in those discussions, I mean, do we want them on a separate operation or do we want them integrated? [21:56] Speaker C (unidentified): I don't really understand how it is EMAs, how our records management system molds in with ema and fires because we're in charge of scene security and that kind of stuff for a fire and we have the fire marshal's office that does investigations for these so that 's that's that's really only our responsibility is secure scene security on events but towns are responsible communication [22:30] Speaker A (unidentified): Communication in these emergency situations, it's quickly coming over, pushed as far as it can be towards the counties doing this. And I'm just looking long term and saying, how do we take and get ready for this even though we're doing something different? But to come back to this group and say, now I need a few million dollars more for to take care of the county games. [22:57] Speaker C (unidentified): I think what you're talking about is going back 20 years, like it used to be when Kennebec dispatched for the sheriff's office and all the fire and EMS in the county. And that worked great, but it doesn't happen anymore. So now we have to fix what's in front of us. And this is the best, this is the most efficient use of funds that we have is to have Augusta do this because if we wanted to have our own back, well, they don't like the cost now. Then really not going to like that cost because we're talking millions of dollars and we're not going to take that avenue I'm [23:35] Speaker A (unidentified): not sure we have a choice or something at this point I don't see that we do yeah just want you thinking long-term big picture [23:45] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah but this plan we're five years out already Lieutenant Hatch is here we didn't have it on the agenda for earlier but we I don't know if Caitlyn is able to find it back in April I had sent the commissioner something about the 2024 JAG and 2024 JAG grants that a man managed by Augusta PD and I could have sworn that we had it [24:12] Speaker G (unidentified): approved at a meeting in April and May she didn't she was able to find oh she was able to find them but not the signed one for the actual purchase portion the agreement was a county agreed to buy, to purchase this, but not the specific item that we were purchasing. [24:36] Speaker C (unidentified): So are we looking to have the commission vote on whether we can accept the funds to purchase this specific pepper ball? [24:43] Speaker G (unidentified): They signed to accept the funds, and then I think it actually laid out pepper ball for the 24 gram. I think it did. [24:53] Speaker H (unidentified): Does it accept up along to the grain? Yes. It does. [24:56] Speaker C (unidentified): I think we're all set there. We're all good. [25:01] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): It's just a difference in the amount, I think. Yeah, I think that was because they were going to do it as opposed to you. [25:08] Speaker C (unidentified): Yep, I think we're all set. And Lieutenant has information to pass on about what's coming into our county. LT, have a seat. [25:16] Speaker G (unidentified): And on the 20th, we will be working with the main historical society to bring up the Dunn side broadside, which is the one of the first signings of the or copy of the first signing of the Declaration of Independence that's going to each of the counties or being taken being toured around each of the counties. It's coming to Kennebec County on the 20th of what month? Of this month. We'll we'll be helping transport it or escorting them transporting it up from Lewiston on the 20th to the main store or to Main Storable on the 20th, and then we will it'll be on display on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd. It'll be able to be on display at the library [26:10] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): So it's not coming to the county office? Nope, it's going to the library. [26:15] Speaker G (unidentified): The state library has a state library. Yeah, the state library has it there. It'll arrive in the morning or we'll be escorting up the morning of the 20th. They'll be putting it in place and stuff during the during the day, and then the capital security and their individual security company as well will be watching it overnight that night, and then it'll go on or open to display on the noontime on the 21st, and it'll be there that Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday. [27:16] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Okay, any questions? No thank you. No thank you. [27:22] Speaker C (unidentified): Thank you. Hello. [27:26] Jail Administrator: There's 138 inside the jail today, and we have five borders from other county. The only thing that I have for you in your packet is a generator extended warranty. It's for five years of coverage for a total cost of six thousand six hundred and ten dollars. Our generator, if you remember, was installed. We had a new one put in December of 2021. About $185,000 at that time to install it. It has 188 hours on it, but our initial warranty has expired, and we have had some significant issues with it. We just had it down for about a month while we worked on pulling it apart due to an oil leak. And that's where this extended warranty has kind of come from is if we've already had some issues with 188 hours, which is nothing, so I think it would be worth paying that extra six thousand dollars to extend that warranty another five years for any future issues we may have at all. We haven't got a bill from them yet, but we they were going to split it with us. Originally they were going to go 50 with us, but once they were able to identify the problem a little bit further, it seems like this was a Factory defect in the in the generator which caused the issue, so we kind of pushed back and said, you know, with a factory defect, why should we have to pay anything? On top of that, we had to have a standby generator hooked up for about a month, which is very expensive to have, which they originally wanted to charge us for, but the original repairs were only supposed to take a day, and once they got here and realized that it was a bigger issue, it took a month. So we said, well, again, we're planning on paying for that regardless of all of that, and what's coming for a bill or not coming for a bill moving forward, we're not protected should any of this stuff happen over the next again five years. So that's where this is coming from. Peter did review it as well, and I think it's a good idea to spend the money now and potentially save us on again almost two hundred thousand dollar machine that we put in. Do you have it back from [29:32] Speaker D (unidentified): Peter? Yeah, you do. Okay, yeah. Do you make a, I'll make a motion to prove that correctional facilities generate a five-year warranty, extended warranty. Second. Should [29:50] Speaker A (unidentified): I just add, I thought I was the chair of the song on behalf of the commission. Thank you very much. [29:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Thank you. All in favor? Hi. Thank you. I appreciate it. That's all I have unless Cindy has any questions of me. I think that does it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any [30:09] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): further questions from the board? I don't think so. We still have one item that's been penned [30:17] Speaker D (unidentified): in a while. Okay, go ahead. The vehicle policy. Okay, that has been on there quite a long time. It has [30:23] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): been. I think there was one particular section that seemed to be causing a little problem. Well, [30:32] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, yeah, it was kind of at the beginning where, you know, it was going to be that the maintenance supervisor and our county administrator were going to be like in charge of the program. And I can't speak for Dan because I don't see him, but I don't think he's interested in taking that on because he's already got enough to do. And Galen Estes, my sergeant, has been doing this for a very long time and does a really great job at keeping the inventory of the vehicles, getting them registered. I don't understand why there is a need to pick something that's not broken, as far as this vehicle policy. You know, we have policies throughout and in our contract about vehicle use. use. [31:22] Speaker D (unidentified): Do we have, Ken, do we have those WEX cards that's assigned to each vehicle so we know exactly how each vehicle, how much gas they're using and who's using it? I don't know if they're [31:35] Speaker C (unidentified): Assigned to the vehicle or to the people. [31:47] Speaker H (unidentified): One car has 20,000 miles, and then they hop into another car that has 70,000 miles. That's the mileage they're keying in. So you can't really see in a particular vehicle how often it's getting filled at what mileage intervals because it's all going on different cards, which makes it very difficult to the data is meaningless. I would [32:12] Speaker D (unidentified): think now that we're doing our own maintenance or most of our own maintenance that would also be important information to track each vehicle and i agree with that because we have had times [32:24] Speaker C (unidentified): when somebody had left their card in their wallet at their house or something like that, and somebody else has had to use their card, and actually brought up a question with the mileage, and we came we found out the reason for it. So you know that could be a very easy fix. We can check with Tom, my office manager. I'm not sure who really oversees that. Is that at the commission level? Yes, [33:05] Speaker G (unidentified): that's hard. And that's 99% of the time they're using it for that vehicle. The only time they use it for something else is if they're driving a spare vehicle because theirs is down getting the oil change or a repair or something like that. The vast majority of those mileage is in there for that vehicle. There are some occasional times where I had to use a spare vehicle for a couple of days or this vehicle's down for a couple of weeks [33:31] Speaker D (unidentified): they may be using another card. I just I'm just saying it gives us a clearer picture of each [33:36] Speaker C (unidentified): vehicle. I will I will certainly ask, and we'll figure out a way to do that. Okay, if that's okay [33:49] Speaker H (unidentified): thank you. And you can still tell who is using the vehicle by the pin number. That's really who [33:56] Speaker C (unidentified): identifies, right, who's who's driving this car now. Yeah, and I'm okay with that. We'll work on that moving forward. Scott, I don't know how you know are we going to do with like the last five or six of the bin the car? You don't have to do anything, you just need to leave the card [34:17] Speaker H (unidentified): in the vehicle and it will take care of itself. Okay, I mean mine always the way Tom's got it set up, but you know really you could use the last four of the bin or less six of the bin, whatever [34:29] Speaker C (unidentified): you want to do, that makes it easy. I just wanted some plus second. Yeah, and if you know that's [34:35] Speaker H (unidentified): what we have to do that wouldn't yeah, because the data we get from blacks now is you can't really [34:42] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Tell anything from it. So if that is taken care of by the card being in the vehicle, how are you with the other part that the cars are under not under finance and administrator but are under the sheriff's department? Pretty [35:12] Speaker C (unidentified): good. He's got a whole file because they send the titles right to us and he puts them in a folder in a locked in a locked cabinet. [35:22] Speaker H (unidentified): It's the oddball vehicles, like the RAV4 or MD3. I don't know where Dan's titles are. [35:30] Speaker C (unidentified): See, that was purchased by us. That was done by your thing. I [35:39] Speaker H (unidentified): think there should be really a central repository for every vehicle that we can. [35:46] Speaker C (unidentified): And if you want to change locations or where you want to keep those titles that's fine yeah we just need to know and have access yeah because we have like four cars our old cars leaving today all [36:03] Speaker D (unidentified): right you guys figure it out we will thank you so we will have that by the next meeting Scott yeah this is okay this is easy all right okay thank you very [36:17] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Thank you very much. Thank you, Sheriff. Corey, jail administrator Corey, wasn't his shade. Hello,. [36:34] Speaker J (unidentified): The VWA position has been filled. Thankfully, that was the other two were running that for months and months. So it is filled with somebody who was in the position for years. So she hit the ground running and all is well with that. Up. Jury selection is this Thursday and Friday. So get here early for your parking spots because they're all going to be filled. Our CGIS audit is underway. We've been working with Peter to work on that MOU with MSP and the Department of Public Safety to make sure that the wording is correct so that we can upload that and finish that audit. Court admin week is coming up where the court shuts down they're not open until noon from 10 19 to 10 23 and they have alerted us that all the judges have some meeting to attend on Wednesday so instead of in custody's Monday Wednesday Friday now we have to do in custody's Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday so we're preparing for that because that means that our prosecutors are logging on from the conference because they'll They'll be at the prosecutor's conference from the 20th through the 22nd. So they'll have to do in custodies from there Tuesday and Thursday. We've made it work in the past. We usually just had that one day Wednesday to have to figure it out. But most of our stuff is online anyway. So we're able to get it done. We have one ADA retiring at the end of this month after 28 years. And I'll be sending an invite. We'll just have a little office gathering for her. and then there's two adas leaving somerset so we have one person that was one of our law student interns past the bar and has been hired to fill one of those positions but we still have two positions open so if you know any attorneys that want to come be a prosecutor please tell them to apply tracy resigned yeah retiring yep october 30th and the vocal grant will be in the package scott atkins has been very helpful he has experience with the voca grant in other districts other counties so he's been working with Amy Twichell to make sure that is in compliance, because that is now a 75,000 grant that helps pay for salaries. [38:57] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): that's it and you're okay with the grant the vocal gram yep everything on the numbers [39:03] Speaker G (unidentified): side, the procedure rules and the in-house processes and all the expectations from it. You know, that's, I don't have much experience other than listen to a complaint about, you know, how much. And it does seem rather, it is rather, it's redundant pages. Yeah, but you know, there is somewhere down the stream there is a efficient use for it or a good use. So yeah. [39:25] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Yeah, okay. And Scott, you're okay with changing it over from the D8 to the signature of the [39:33] Speaker D (unidentified): commission, the VOCA grant? Yeah, I'm not good with any D8 because it's right around, but [39:44] Speaker H (unidentified): they've been doing this for years. There's a lot of language in there that I don't know how anybody on the planet would buy with. So it does present a risk if, in fact, there is a detailed audit that comes in. But the amount is small. The chances of the audit are very slim. So, yeah, I think it's a lot of work for the amount of money, but that's just my opinion. [40:10] Speaker J (unidentified): Yeah, it is. And Amy, our lead VWA, does a good job. And like I said, she's been working with Scott, who has offered help. And we've had it since before I started there. So it's been great in 2013. So the year before I went over, they've been doing it. And Megan's just been signing. But now we're transferring it over for you to sign. [40:34] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): We'd be responsible anyway, right, in the long run? Yes. So, okay. No, I did ask to make sure that you were involved in this, too. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. So can we have a motion? [40:49] Speaker D (unidentified): We need on this, do we need a motion for this? [40:54] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): To sign it? No. [41:01] Speaker J (unidentified): I mean, we can do it later, but [41:02] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): oh yeah, that we definitely need to sign today. You just, you wanted it signed by the first, you said, because that's what they were supposed to decide. Yeah, they know that the commissioner's meeting [41:14] Speaker J (unidentified): was today, though, right? So they were waiting. Okay. [41:22] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Perfect, okay, thank you, thank you. Did you reach phone call? No, not yet. Okay, do we have deeds magic? This is just like magic, he appears. [41:42] Speaker K (unidentified): He's actually in the hallway talking to the treasurer. [41:47] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Welcome Matthew, how's it going? All right, I think what, there's a lot of signs out there. [41:53] Speaker K (unidentified): Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that there's going to be a lot of things blown around on the road, so the wind's pretty bad out there right now. I almost blew away walking across the street. [42:04] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Oh, yeah. You can see the trees are moving. [42:06] Speaker K (unidentified): I don't have too much rapport. I'm going to bring the numbers of the next meeting. I was a little bit close to this one and the last one. I mean, time-wise, I had to make sure everything's put together, but we were considering it to look good. Market seems to have started to downturn a little bit. That's kind of a little bit of concern obviously for our income, but we'll see more of that officially once I've like the next meeting I'll present the actual numbers there. We're just seeing starting to slow down, we're seeing less documents being processed and coming through. We lag a little bit behind obviously because the banks process about a month, you know, it takes about 30 days to close on average, so by the time they close they come to our they're like third, so if we slow it down in September, it starts to slow down in us in October. We're still working with the Just Appraised contract. Peter got back some edits. We're just going through those and going back and forth. Both of them are on vacation this week, so the guys that we deal with. So there's no emails coming across them this week. So hopefully we'll get that all hashed out and figure it out in the next month or so. [43:12] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): You're comfortable with it so far though? [43:14] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things that Peter has concerns about and things that the company have concerns about, and we just got to try to find a middle ground on it. This is the way it works, they have partnered with our company though Numo also, which is used to be GovOS, which is now Numo, so which was prior to me deciding to work with them, so it's like an interesting thing. So they are, well, that was after I met them and thought that they would deliver a very good product for us, so they are now. Working with our company, so that's good. We'll see if we can come to a, you know, a deal. I'm looking the surcharge funds we bought our new scanners and that equipment. It's been great. It had just a little issue with a driver on they want them which they didn't say they originally needed, but then I needed the driver to run the software. Sometimes they saw it's not their fault. Sometimes these software companies they have special, they any special drivers, so they had to reorder some equipment and then I'm looking at having shelves built for the books that Bev had redone where we spent like three hundred forty thousand dollars. We have on these junky metal shelves and the shelves since it's like a metal shelf whenever they get pulled off it's starting to like hurt the like the leather bound books stuff like that. So I'm looking at getting like felt tops stuff like that put on so that way it won't hurt the books. We spent 340 000 restoring them, we can spend like you know some money out of the surcharge fund to build like custom shelving to actually hold them or order proper shelving and so kind of it was kind of like this cheap industrial shelving that we ordered. So just looking at that. Other than that I mean we're moving into holiday fall mode. So any questions? No thank you. I'm probably going to decorate the lawn for Halloween. The sheriff's put up his skeletons so I'm told [45:09] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Oh yes thank you thank you. Okay I wondered he seemed to be coming right forward [45:26] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay you want to make a motion? Make a motion that we authorize the chairman to sign on behalf of the commissioners the VOCA grant for the district attorney's office. Second [45:43] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Welcome [45:51] Treasurer/Finance Director: Deborah welcome. Thank you. Afternoon. A few things we helped the EMA get their website online, ema.kennebec.gov if anyone wants to look at it. I'm still working on jail desktop upgrades. I'm coming along very well with those. Still some upkeep general fixing some of the billing stuff with the T-Mobile account now that all the accounts are merged back together. Just cleaning up some of the billing, upgrading some of the devices places. It's a lot of work managing a phone account. I got the state network OIT coming here to update the state side of the network for the NCIC stuff, which is the DMV stuff for the law enforcement side, coming Thursday. Then we got the Vine and Guardian automatic exporting function set up for the jail for the little bit amount that the legacy software that we have now can support. Once they go to buying, and I'm not buying a Guardian, they can get more information exporting capabilities with the updated software, but right now they're limited. So other now that's all I got. So any questions? No thank you. Any [47:06] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): questions? Thank you. Thank you very much. And Dan is probate. I think Rhonda had some items she wanted to talk about. Is she in the hall? Maybe me? No, she's not? Oh, okay. It takes us. Scott, do you want to have the folks speak before? Okay. Welcome. Hi. [47:55] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: I'm Mike Greenough. I'm Tanya's chair. [47:59] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: President of the Kennebec Valley Tourism Council. We wanted to come here and just kind of introduce ourselves and maybe let you get to know us a little better. I'm going to hand it over to you. I think you have, did you get the [Mike Greenough: handout? Okay.] Are we allowed to give them additional? [48:17] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Oh, sure. I'll do that. I'll do that. Sorry. It's not going well. So, the Tourism Council, [48:29] Speaker D (unidentified): this is our signature piece, right? [48:32] Speaker A (unidentified): You'll see a lot of stuff about our own area. It's a pretty good magazine. [48:37] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: We went through how many of those last year to 20. We put 20,000 each year. And this year, I think we store, a lot of our stuff at the main tourism association right here in Palo Alto, and we have 37 left. So, and this is supposed to last us for the entire year. [49:03] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: So yeah, we wanted to come in and do sort of a re-intro, right, let you know what the Tourism Council is up to and how when we're supported right financially what we do with those funds. Primary Cliffs Notes version is we leverage the funding that we have that we receive from the state, private partners, etc., in an effort to boost business, bring people into the region, and hopefully retain some of them in the area. So it's a, it's a lot of work, it's fun work, we have a very dynamic board I would say in All the years I've been chair and on your, on your committee, we have a really dynamic board that runs from Jack, from Gardner to Jackman. And so you'll see, like on our board of directors, we'll have Main Street Gardner, right? And then we'll have the Kennebec Valley Chamber, Augusta Base Chamber, Hallowell Base Chamber, KDD's on the board. I'm with the Mid-Main Chamber, and our president is also on the board as the treasurer. So and it goes all the way up through the River Valley to the top, and the idea is to get representation from everybody, right? Because if you think about the region we live in, it's very dynamic, right? But in Kennebec County, that's where the majority of the action happens, right? We market, of course, rafting and all of that, but really the events like Ironman that we support, you know, things like that through these grants will take the funding, compound it, and have a real impact with bringing people into the region. So that's, that's sort of our, one of our focal points. Yeah, kind of our [50:55] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: nutshell. And you know, there's a lot of the ways, you know, basically our motivation is to get visitors here, right? Because the number one industry in Maine is tourism. You know, we support so many jobs in the industry, we support so many workforce, and that all obviously helps us, right? Lowers our taxes because of the more money that we bring in. So, we're just kind of one of the entities, you know, we work with the Maine Office of Tourism. We're just one of the entities that help do that, I guess. [51:29] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Is that the building that's located in Hallowell? [51:32] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: That's Maine Tourism Association, which is completely separate. We work with Maine Tourism Association, which is part of DECD. [51:42] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Okay. Yeah, it can be confusing. [51:46] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: They're the ones that gives our region a grant, and they give grants to eight regions. So there's eight other regions like me. Yeah. So there's a Visit Portland. There's a Visit Midcoast and Islands. There's a Visit of Highland, Aroostook. So, like he said, ours is Jackman to Gardner that we're marketing to our visitors. [52:12] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Yeah. You know, and I did want to mention a part of our world is the event world, right? People attraction. But the other part is, you know, external. So we have a new marketing firm that we that we signed on with last year. We have seen incredible increases in the amount of that we've had, not just in the nation, but worldwide. So it's really been pretty great. Like the last 18 months, we've seen a big shift in the amount of people that were getting to come and we're finding the right people. So these people want to go somewhere. Our job is to sort of persuade them to come to our region, you know, and help spend some of their money here and keep our businesses thriving. And that's been working really well as but one of the ways we do that is through the events like the iron man's and all of that. [53:06] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: So I know it's it's it's been a few years but the county commissioners have supported us in the past. I think for the last 2 years we got kind of knocked off the docket as part of the program's grant. [53:21] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Did you send a request in? You did say correctly. [53:24] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Yeah. That's why we went to that. [53:27] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: The last couple of years was nine thousand. But that nine thousand, we reinvest and into these grants that we talk about, you know, supporting the Ironman or the Brewfest or the Swine and Stein, they have to put their own cash match in. So your nine grand is like another $4,500. [53:50] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Right. We're not necessarily a charity. Everybody has to have skin in the game if you want to play. To pay to play. Yeah. But it's important. I think we all agree, our board all agrees, it's really important that we do focus a little bit on some of our rural communities. You know, we're not Acadia, anywhere in our zone, right? We're not Acadia. But Office of Tourism wants to see if we can start to find some separation and get people to not necessarily go to those heavily populated tourist destinations and spread out through the [54:20] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: region we might not be acadia but did you know we have the only inland lighthouse in the state of [54:26] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: maine yeah so we there yeah there's more to maine than the beaches right the oldest yacht club that'll go in the next newsletter where's the oldest is the Yacht Club. [54:47] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Where is it, Mr. Treasurer? [54:49] Treasurer/Finance Director: Oh, it's at Cobbesee Yacht Club. [54:51] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Oh, Cobbesee. Well, that is where [54:53] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: the White House is. [54:55] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: See that social media. [54:57] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: I was happy to hear that the Sheriff talked about the Declaration of Independence coming, because that would certainly be something that, you know, we as a region would be promoting and helping visitors come to Florida. [55:12] Speaker H (unidentified): Yes, Scott. You know, state of Maine, for instance. Anybody want to venture a guess? I'll say right there. Sixteen and a half billion. [55:27] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Billion, yeah, the whole state. [55:29] Speaker H (unidentified): So, you know, it pays to advertise. And I think you guys all got this from me when I was out in Pennsylvania. And I happened to look in the visitor rack, and I saw your publication. And it's a very well-done publication. Location the other thing too is and you know and you guys have heard me say this before Daniel here Bees and Bees is placed in industry main he's busy every week every week it's stuff like this that he puts in his place for people to see and draws them to main and the other thing too being from away I'm from far away to me it's to me it's stuff like this that you know draws them back as I say you know we haven't been to Maine in a while let's go snowmobile let's go skiing and you know tell you Right George so you know there's a lot to do here hiking it's but you gotta let them know [56:44] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Yeah, no doubt. We work pretty closely with the Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Outdoor Recreation Office to make sure that we're in tandem, right, so that we're all kind of trending in the right direction and using the same marketing tactics and everything else. And I think that really works. And then what you were saying about, I call them boomerangs. So, you know, we educate, we educate Mainers. They go through their life and then they leave because, you know, maybe it's cooler in Boston. And then as soon as it's time for kids and stuff, they boomerang back. Back and so we try to keep all of the things that are happening in front of their face because that's the low-lying fruit right we need to get younger we need to attract these younger families and we do it through outdoor rec a lot yeah and this is just this is just one piece of our [57:35] Kennebec Valley Tourism Council President: Marketing tool if you will we have many more so [57:40] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Just wanted to come in say thank you thank you [57:42] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): For your time, well, you need to be aware of when our budget time comes and to send a request into to the commissioners or whatever it is with an explanation, and then the commissioners vote on things to go to pass on to the budget committee. So then you have the budget committee and you can go to that and speak if, well, is that the process? Sure, that's the process once. [58:09] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: It gets the budget, we would go back speaking from the budget, okay. [58:31] Speaker H (unidentified): When does that process? So send your stuff to me in the beginning of December, and then the budget process will probably begin end of January, beginning of February. We'll have a, if you look at our website, we'll have a calendar out there. [58:48] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): There'll be budget meetings in Augusta and one in Waterville. And it's a good idea for you to attend because the people in that area will be interested. [58:59] Mike Greenough, Tourism Council chair: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we have great like support through the communities and whatnot, so people rally, thanks. [59:06] Speaker D (unidentified): Thank you for coming. Yeah, thanks, we appreciate the time. Yeah, thanks coming, probably. [59:26] Speaker H (unidentified): Be quick for several reasons, first reason being today's Cindy at my 42nd anniversary. Well, congratulations. Thank you, thank you. Yes, she's put up with me for 42 years. Wow. She deserves a medal. She does. Thanks for the affirmation. Appreciate that. So, as Scott had mentioned, we were at the New England State's Government Finance Offers Association convention in Providence, Rhode Island. Excellent conference. As I may have mentioned to a few of you, a big focus on AI and cybersecurity because that's really where things are, exposure exists today. And they also had some things on, you know, your well-being and taking care of yourself and stuff like that. So it was overall a very good conference. And then the week before we had MCCA and that was better attended. And I think everybody enjoyed that conference as well. Peter was there talking about leadership, and I thought that was a pretty good presentation that he gave. So the VOA covenant is done. Yes. For now. The groundbreaking happened, and Patsy was there, and I saw your picture with Janet. So that was nice. [1:00:53] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): You didn't see my picture with the helmet on? [1:00:55] Speaker H (unidentified): No, that I didn't see. Yeah, so I think we're going to probably put some of those out on the website. And then, too, Kate and I have been talking about the other projects. Maybe we just need to ride around, take some pictures so that we can update the website of all the good things that Kennebec County has done for the county through the ARPA funding. funding. So as Matthew had talked about the just appraised, I think the issue is on probably the certificate of insurance and the exposure. You know, I think they've got some industry standard that we feel might not be high enough. So that discussion is going on with Peter and their attorneys. So we've been reviewing a couple of the DA contracts with Shea and Peter and just talking those through what needs to be done. And then two, Malcolm had sent the, it's called the Cowbell Cyber Insurance Policy. So we get a survey every year about our cybersecurity insurance and it asks various questions. I send it to Devin. He fills out his part. I fill out the rest. And then we send it off to Malcolm. I really had a laugh this year. It says, were there any changes in anything at the county? And the only thing that changed was the budget number. Well, then, so I said, no, because the budget's the budget. And what does that have to do with cybersecurity? I don't know. It must have something to do with it. But anyway, I had to fill out the whole 10-page application instead of the one- or two-page application. So that's done. So I did talk to Devin as a result of the conference about multi-factor authentication for some of our systems. So Scott is looking into Edmonds. The other sort of outlier is IMC, which is that central square that they were talking about. Basically, what that does is it sends you a text to basically give you a PIN number so that you can get in. That's the multi-factor authentication. Somebody just can't log in with an ID and password. So we're trying to protect our systems and lock them down. So Scott's working with Edmunds on that one. So I really had a pleasant visit on Friday. It was a shock to me. Corey brought him over, and it was Rich Werple, the retired jail administrator. Rich is a great guy, and we had a nice visit, and it really made my day to see him again. We text every once in a while, and he's doing well, so it was great to see him. So, let's see. Oh, I'm probably going to take maybe a week off at the end of the month. You know, somebody and I want to do some traveling, maybe go back to New York, so I'll let you know the exact dates once we're supposed to go to Arkansas, but that got canned, so we're going to probably just go and visit some friends in New York. Other than that, oh, Victor Esposito came down from the Cooperative Extension and I put him in touch with Dan because they want to help with our gardens in the spring and do some plantings out there to sort of spruce the place up a little bit, so I thought that was great for them to volunteer to help with that. So they want to make it so it's low maintenance but you get the garden effect, so I thought that was nice that they're planning on doing that. Other than that, 's all I have. We can go back to old business. I know you had some questions on the records management and that's taken care of though. It sounds it. Yeah, I don't know, I haven't seen anything, so I don't [1:04:53] Speaker D (unidentified): know. He's working with you, right? Isn't records management I'm talking about, probate? [1:05:00] Speaker H (unidentified): Probate. Oh, okay, yeah, sorry about that. Okay, I didn't clarify. I ran into the vendor at the MCCA conference and I, he sort of asked me about it and I said I didn't really know that either, there would be an RFP or multiple bids on the project, so that's, I guess, still sitting with Rhonda. The staffing issues I think has been resolved, I think she's filled the position. Yep, thank you. Figures, Chris leaves when I get up here, see how it is. Well, you're taking a beating today. Yeah, right, I'm telling you. And do you want to hold the abatements for last? Yeah. Okay. So, we already addressed the generator warranty. That should have never happened, in my opinion, that seal leak. I remember when I first started here, that's when they brought that thing in. So, it's only four or five years old. 188 hours? Yeah, that shouldn't have happened. Our friends from the tourism council just gave you what they're up to, which I thought was nice to hear. We took care of the district attorney's contracts. We have, there's one other out there that we're going back and forth with them on because there were some language changes to it that Peter recommended. Okay, so I'll talk about this. Number four is about emergency access and egress from the courthouse. So this is not a new issue. I've been talking to Dan about this for a while. So I had Caitlin call some vendors that do the aluminum ramps and things like that. I think two are coming tomorrow. Yeah. So, you know, I think at some point we probably need a full assessment countywide. These buildings are old. They're not designed for this stuff. And you sort of put these patches on, but maybe get, you know, somebody who specializes in ADA compliance come and do a review on all the buildings is probably something we should consider. Because even at the sheriff's office on the, where you drive in along the side to get into the building, there's a little step. So you can come in the front door, but the problem is, when you have an emergency, is you need multiple exit points and the way these buildings are designed we just don't have that so get somebody to come in and look at that professionally i think would probably be a good idea so we got two things we have the abatement appeal request and then there's a motion to approve the agreement to resolve the disputed litigation okay i'll make that motion right yeah [1:07:57] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): He's going to make a motion right now. [1:08:00] Speaker H (unidentified): That's the one you signed last two Fridays ago. [1:08:04] Speaker A (unidentified): Can I just come back and we'll stop it? Yeah, sure. Oh, yeah,. He would make a motion. [1:08:12] Speaker D (unidentified): Yes, let's make that motion and we'll go back. I'll do it. Okay. So I'll make a motion to approve the agreement to resolve the dispute of litigation. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Inadvertently. [1:08:25] Speaker A (unidentified): Aye. Aye,, aye. Aye,, aye. just a couple of things sure one had a little experience with this but very hope you also look at wooden ramps as well as there is a big difference especially if you're older and stuff like that being secure coming down the steps the second thing is that the other question came up is that we have a lot of older people coming into that facility and some of them that reaction is not to hurry right along but actually it makes it physically and mentally more difficult for them because of the circumstance i think that some proposal to have things like some kind of wheelchair or things like that might be available it could be hanging on the walls and take them down and put people into anything i'm just saying i think we have to look inside and outside as far as what we do so my [1:09:34] Speaker H (unidentified): My only observation, I'm not disagreeing with you, but what concerns me about that is as far as, okay, let's start with the ramps, wood versus aluminum. I, the thing that concerns me about wood is when you use pressure treated, it splinters over time, people get splinters in their hands, things like that, and it can become very slippery. The aluminum ramps are actually built grooves and stuff in it for traction, they, it's not just you lay a ramp down like on a U-Haul truck, it'll have railings and all that kind of stuff. I think, so we'll, we'll leave that to the experts. I mean, I, know enough to be dangerous and that's about it. And then two, I think the longevity on an aluminum one's probably a little bit better than on the wooden ones, but I'm not an expert. So now as far as having a wheelchair available, that's all well and good. But my concern would be if somebody sits in it, something happens to that wheelchair, it folds up or they get their finger stuck in something or something like that, then it becomes a liability for us. You know, I think, you know, I guess the question in my mind is, when is it incumbent upon the public to actually take care of themselves? We can't meet every single situation that may walk through that front door because they're varied, everybody's got different affirmaties and different conditions and different limitations. How do you accomplish, how do you really come up under that? There is the elevator on Winthrop Street that's available for them to use. My concern is that's only on one end of the building, okay, you know, the probate side, it's, it's, you know. You know, Patsy and I were talking earlier, if there's a fire in the middle, that becomes a problem. So I think the ramp solution at least gets people out. And then, too, you know, when somebody is in a wheelchair, do other people chip in and grab the handles and grab the wheels and carry the person out? Okay, because we can't beat every single situation, I don't think. We can try our best and that's why I recommend an ADA maybe certified inspector come in and make recommendations just like we did with the security when we had that building looked at. So you know, but if you guys decide you want a wheelchair in there, we'll put a wheelchair in there, but I just, I'm concerned about if something should happen like they go down the end of the hall next, you know, they're going down the stairs in it, you know, that type of thing. So we just got to be careful, I don't know. The legality, because everybody sues for any reason anymore. So just something to think about. Not saying no, I'm saying just think about it. So, that's all I have to say on that, unless you've got more questions. You're actually answering my question. [1:12:44] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay, we're doing the best we know about, so the alien inspector factor certainly fulfills that. Yeah. I think we tried to talk about that. Yep. [1:12:58] Speaker H (unidentified): Oh, I agree. We certainly don't want anybody getting hurt there. One of the other issues, and Dan and I have talked about this since I've been here, is fixing that walkway walking in. Because the sandstone, you know, and from the salt and everything, because you don't want people slipping, it eats that stuff away. We're talking about big money, I think, to fix that problem, unless we just go over it with something. And I'm curious to see how this, if we put a ramp solution in, how that would bypass maybe that problem. And then we can address the remaining problem. So it's not like we're not thinking about it. It's money. I mean, if you think about it, up until the end of fiscal year 25, we didn't really have a heck of a lot of money to be throwing around at all these projects. But you know, things have been better in fiscal year 25. We'll see in 26, but I think we're looking pretty good there. So where we have these funds now, we can start addressing these issues. Okay, anything else, Joe, on that? Are you good? [1:14:09] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Yes, it's a treasure. [1:14:42] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, we've used them in the past, yep. So the remaining two items, you made the motion, so we're good with that, and there's only one left, and it's the abatements. All right, thank you, so. [1:15:00] Speaker D (unidentified): Do you want to, yeah, okay, so Joe, I will, the process is we're going to talk about the abatement, there's three of them, we'll talk about them, and if, and Patsy wasn't here when the town presented, so I don't think she can participate or vote. She can participate. So let's start with the abatement request for Elizabeth Urquhart, who lost her homestead exemption, and the town said the reason she was, because when they hired the appraisal company to go out to do their re-evaluation, the guy said it didn't look like there's people living there. That's, and then they, and then the town also denied it because they said it wasn't timely. Well, I think number one, it was timely, and number two, after hearing what the town had to say, I don't think there was any reason to do away with their abatement or exemption. Sorry. [1:16:21] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay, I feel having viewed it personally, I'm going, this is definitely the news. Yeah, well kept up, and you know, it's actually, it's, you have to know how to make the turn, that's all. Almost right across from Jack's traps on the office, little sideway, take a quick left, and I look right, she's right there, and she did a nice job of landscaping, so you don't really see the house from the road. You have to kind of wing, it's kind of like a little curve, you know, in the sun, there it is, but I almost have to laugh. To listen to them say you didn't look at it, you didn't see it, I started, because they took the other one. The gentleman is complaining about the fact that he bought it for 9,000 and now it's worth hundreds of thousands. Okay, that one I can't believe, is this ever worth that? I don't understand why they're coming up with these things. All right, well, let's go, so that. [1:17:22] Speaker D (unidentified): That's that one, let's go to the second one, which is Edmund Garnier, which is the trailer. Yes, no, what we're gonna do is we're gonna, if Joe and I have a consensus, we're gonna have Peter write it up, and then we'll vote on it at the next meeting. The issue with the trailer, he appealed, and what he said was that he only paid a certain, he paid didn't pay much money for court. Unfortunately, in that case, he didn't present any evidence to establish what the value was other than common sense evidence. But I don't think that meets the burden the law court put on us. So although he may have a point, there's no appraisal, there's no other evidence other than what the assessor did, and she actually dropped it by a couple thousand dollars, and so I, you know, I don't see how I could, I would have to vote to deny this appeal, only because the, there's not sufficient evidence to overturn the town, so. [1:18:39] Speaker A (unidentified): No, this is that, this is the one piece of, well the first one doesn't have an order in front of the people, this has water in front of it, about a thousand feet to the woods on the other side of the road. [1:18:54] Speaker D (unidentified): This is the trailer. [1:18:57] Speaker A (unidentified): I'm saying if you look at it, what is the worth of this property compared to anybody else, and then apparently in this discussion I heard that others, well I actually talked to my neighbor said yeah, all of a sudden, you know, my house is worth 400,000 dollars, but he's on at least the side of where the water is, and I asked if he went to it, he said no, and I go okay, let's go, what is happening, how are you doing these people. [1:19:28] Speaker D (unidentified): I did a rebound, yeah, that's what, no, that's what happened, it was a rebound, but this is not a new. [1:19:37] Speaker A (unidentified): Case, by the way, the one that we're talking about now, guy with the trailer, right? This is the one of the trailer. I was surprised he was actually living there, and then we have to set her telling us how nice it is inside. I've never been inside. I'm just surprised to me like it was just a storage area for him and his various vehicles and the vocals and stuff, but [Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge: I do] think the legitimacy is that he's admitted he said they really haven't done anything to it, but [1:20:11] Speaker D (unidentified): I bought it. Yeah, he got you right, and so she went in there and reduced it from 25.9 to 23.2, so that was her reduction, and unfortunately there's no other evidence other than him saying that, right, that contradicts it. I know him. Yeah. Okay. Correct. So I don't see how we can come back next year. Okay. All right. Now, the last one was in the name of Shaw, Mrs. Shaw. Now, we have, there was a lot of evidence presented on that with comparisons with photos. Those. And they had the land at $353,900 and the building at $189,000. And then they gave a partial abatement. And the biggest value here is the land at $353,900. The Shaw's spent a lot of time in talking about the fact that the, you know, that it's not good frontage, it's on posts, needs to be jacked, it's not winterized, and they just didn't feel that it was the, that was the value it should have been assigned to that property. What [1:22:11] Speaker A (unidentified): we have in a packet comps one, two, and three, right, the one's preparing it to his jaws, yeah, right, notice that Bobby Charles's mother is in there, oh, look at it, her name is Doris Ann Over, she is, she was a teacher, a lot of what it is, I was kind of interested if you put on my advantage. We had to divide by four anyway. Is [1:22:46] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): it much value to it? [1:22:50] Speaker A (unidentified): Well, yes, because this is a different story. I've been talking about this first one on Pine Drive, Marmot. This is a terrible road getting into. It's an elevated road. The cliff is down, a very steep embankment. I walked down there, and then the son talked about the fact that he had a rope pulleys to take him tied to his vehicle so he could get it back up out of it. I had noticed all of that stuff, but I went to another one, and the next one had the same type of contraption. If you go to the Maple Ridge one here, no, it's flat, and the assessor even admitted and she took these pictures and because I thought this up about but this is not a level piece of property she said no but from this direction well then yes you could back yourself up kind of against a tree you know leveling out but it's just a different side of the lake one side is pretty flat this side is pretty young although there are some houses that are now in there where tremendous work has been put into it including putting in septic systems and what [1:24:07] Speaker D (unidentified): and what else so our options you find that evaluation is either irrational unreasonable or substantially overvalued so any if we did reduce it 'd have to be based on one of those three which I think the way you're talking is it would have to be possibly the substantially overvalued definitely you've got to have a polly difficult I would think [1:24:41] Speaker A (unidentified): but I'm afraid that doing this in winter now we're going to see some stuff the same right [1:24:55] Speaker D (unidentified): yeah because this one was at five fifty five fifty yeah somewhere around there And [1:25:04] Speaker A (unidentified): by the way, it was $399,000, that's what it sold for, but it was actually appraised for, I'm not sure. [1:25:23] Speaker D (unidentified): So, Joe, your thoughts? [1:25:25] Speaker A (unidentified): Well, my thoughts are that I think it's definitely full of value. I'm not sure about their rationale for it. I'm more concerned that this is another case of, I don't necessarily know, but something they hold, it doesn't stay very fast. I can't believe they spent the time to actually get a better understanding, but we do know that they don't go into places where other people here come in and talk about the same thing. They've seen that I don't have any well water, I don't flush toilets. I think I brought the question up about what did they have for a sanitary system? okay because I kind of suspected that there's no way that they haven't reached me and then he says yes we have one here comes with the history of the whole thing it's not very big but he said they were in the process of trying to get something to the rest of them so all the pop-ups you could tell because you can see the pipes and then stick it underneath the road and nothing else so [1:26:39] Speaker D (unidentified): so what are you thinking Joe do you have a number in mind and I guess the question is we need to talk about is it building or land you think is overvalued [1:26:53] Speaker A (unidentified): I think number one definitely the building is overvalued by [1:26:57] Speaker D (unidentified): several all right so they have the building at 189 000. [1:27:05] Speaker A (unidentified): Everything's evaluated and the land is obviously valuable in the sense that it's on the lake, it's on the lake, it's got a lot of covenants that protect it from being on the lake and being used and that type of thing, but it's still not see a picture of a person in a cottage. I don't think you'd ever use their picture as an example. [1:27:31] Speaker D (unidentified): And that'll accept the fact that it's of lesser quality, so let's say substantial value of the building by 50 grand, by 50,000, okay, and I think the lands will value by at least that much. [Speaker A (unidentified): Not all and.] Why do you think the land is, Joe? Well, I think two things, number one is that. [1:27:58] Speaker A (unidentified): not to get into the road you have to commit from a very high position on the lane and get down a very steep bank so that 's one consideration also consideration i saw the guy next door he was there and he said i watched him run up his road and it's a blind thing when you look at the child here you know you're looking at the sky i don't know who's coming right or left so i was saying my wife would like this she didn't like this and so here's here's this even worse this doesn't go straight up it Does go like this, but the roads come in this way and the roads come that way, and so we still got that problem. You know how sometimes even on the golf courses they put these great big shining reflective things, if your chairs and recommend a little too, but they're also at the so, and then he's kind of punched, it's kind of funny, but now down and come to a flat space, it does have a building here like a little garage. [1:29:18] Speaker D (unidentified): And would you also say based on the comparables that they provided supports that too? I think it. [1:29:29] Speaker A (unidentified): Definitely supports, hey. [1:29:37] Speaker H (unidentified): Joe. [1:29:40] Speaker D (unidentified): I agree with you, so we will get that written up and then we'll the world's magic and then we'll talk about it at the next meeting. I mean, we'll vote on it at the next meeting, okay, yeah, that's all back up, especially if we're going to be doing more of these because we haven't had to do any in a long time. Both need one for property and then we want. [1:30:15] Speaker H (unidentified): For poverty, yes, okay, all. [1:30:25] Speaker D (unidentified): Right, that's all I am, that's it, you're all done, yeah, that's it then. [1:30:31] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Any public comments? The public doesn't want to speak? Oh yes, what's happening with the people. [1:30:39] Speaker A (unidentified): Upstairs, is there something this week? It wasn't last night, but tomorrow night is their board. [1:30:46] Speaker H (unidentified): Board meeting, which they've invited you folks to, and it's zoom too, and it and it can be vertical, so right at that point, you know, so you can see, you know, what they're up to, right, things like that, so. [1:31:01] Speaker A (unidentified): Is it six o'clock, six o'clock tomorrow night? Pretty sure. Yeah, I've got a seven o'clock thing I have to do, so I gotta leave by six thirty. I can't, you know, if you zoom in for half an hour, my cat doesn't have to. Oh yes, I'll be watching it too as you're driving along. [1:31:24] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): Okay, well we did everything except really Rhonda's. She had some requests that would have been nice to hear from her on today, but maybe she'll be here next time. Anything [1:31:47] Speaker A (unidentified): else from anybody? I want to share this with you in case you want to hear about it. This is what I, only made one copy, I'm sorry, I just found it. Maine today, they've cut back on candidates, programs and stuff. So this is what I said, opponent didn't get contacted, a lot of opponents didn't get contacted. In fact, I filled it out before October 1st, found out about this morning. [1:32:16] Speaker D (unidentified): And what was it in? What's it, what [1:32:20] Speaker A (unidentified): did they call it, stuff? And I assume that when they main trust or something, right? And they just gave me a thing of answering questions and things I'm supposed to do, and they're the only ones, that's the only ones really. Yeah, I just to let you know what I'm thinking about. [1:32:53] Chair/Presiding Officer (leads pledge, calls on Chris Braun): All in favor, main matters, total's god. Yeah, hey, would you make a copy? Okay, Caitlin, would you make three copies?