China Select Board names park trails, weighs TIF consultant and EMS concerns

[0:38] Speaker A (unidentified): It's longer to get the equipment over there. I don't know where I don't know where it's excavated. Well, no, I know where it's over. Yeah. Yeah. Are [0:50] Speaker B (unidentified): we live? Well, I'm trying to. I'm just waiting to see if Pauline works. [0:54] Speaker C (unidentified): You want me to keep talking? I thought you were. [0:59] Speaker B (unidentified): I cannot hear anything. All right. No, maybe I should turn it up. [1:04] Speaker D (unidentified): think that's probably the way that happened. Yeah. Okay. Well, [1:09] Speaker B (unidentified): oh, there we go. All right. All right. Well, it's slow. It's [1:15] Speaker E (unidentified): not completely behind. Are we ready? All right. Let's open up [1:20] Speaker F (unidentified): the public hearing for the general assistance. But again, we can't start with the political. the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You [1:45] Speaker A (unidentified): mean to get you out of war? [1:46] Speaker F (unidentified): No, that's fine. We just won't need to do that again. I have it. All right. So I want to open up a public hearing for the 2026-27 General Assistance. And I'll allow everybody, anybody that wants to speak, three minutes. If you do, state your name and where you live. Anybody here that wants to discuss or comment on... [2:15] Speaker G (unidentified): Just ask me a question that I don't know the answer to, so I guess I better ask you. It says overall maximum purchase in household one, $1,190. Over what period of time is that? A month. It might be good to say something with a separate letter. [2:35] Speaker B (unidentified): this is a sheet provided by the state so this is their this is a summary of everything [2:46] Speaker F (unidentified): correct to answer your questions [2:58] Speaker G (unidentified): how different is it from what we had now [3:05] Speaker C (unidentified): i would have to [3:06] Speaker B (unidentified): talk about every specific one and i don't have flagships right in front of me but i could i need to fly up a little yeah like incrementally whether it's four percent six percent i don't Who says this? The state. If the town wanted to do higher than that, we would have to go through a bunch of hoops. [3:26] Speaker F (unidentified): These are the state required minimums. Correct. [3:31] Speaker B (unidentified): Maximum, I'm sorry. Right. It's called General Assistance Maximum Reference Sheet for Kennebec County. So these are county-specific. Portland is totally different, Cumberland County, than a rustic, you know, Kennebec. Mm-hmm. Right. Thank you. [3:56] Speaker H (unidentified): What is the criteria for revealing or to get this assistance? [4:03] Speaker B (unidentified): So you would have to fill out a general assistance application and then it would get reviewed to see whether it falls into what category it falls into. An application can take an hour to two hours just to process just the initial step to see. Repeat applicants have to provide extra for documentation. First-time applicants are like less, but first-time applicant, just because they come here doesn't mean they're first. If they've gotten assistance another community, came here, it's still a repeat application at that point. So and is the state fund this the state [4:44] Speaker H (unidentified): reimburses the town seventy percent, seven percent. Was that in those? Because I don't remember membership in that. What? Which part? [4:54] Speaker B (unidentified): That. The reimbursement? Right? That's, no. That's just in the state statute. [5:03] Speaker D (unidentified): Is there anybody else? Nobody's on. With [5:07] Speaker F (unidentified): that, I'm going to close the public hearing for the general assistance. And we're going to open the public hearing on the municipal ballot for November 3rd, 2026. Like I said, anybody that would like to speak, please raise your hand and wait to be called on and state your name. you live and you have three minutes any mary [5:35] Speaker G (unidentified): just said to me the solid waste ordinance was online [5:39] Speaker F (unidentified): but i haven't worked at it okay so you have three minutes to look at it if you'd like no [5:46] Speaker B (unidentified): it might be solving three minutes what's changed oh it is a total rewrite why because there are lot of things that needed to be updated and structurally taking out certain things did not make sense for the flow of the ordinance and so what's better about it allows for better administration it oh you give me a second it is set up structurally with an appendix so you can find things so they're labeled by section and also talks about the opportunity we often have people over there that are trying to dispose of things that either we can't accept or dropping things off illegally and it talks about how to better handle those things related to the older ordinance. Talks about the prohibited. Actually tackled in this one some of the newer electronic waste that has not been discussed before or certainly was not thought of in our prior ordinance. I think we already had load inspections, but it does talk more about being able to inspect loads because, oh, did you know people hide things underneath what's on top so and then we later find them in back which are usually tvs computer monitors and things that don't qualify to go in demo and debris so i mean it didn't change a lot a lot it just structurally changed but those are all available online here in the office [7:43] Speaker G (unidentified): In terms of keeping your citizenry informed, it seems like that, I don't know, do you write up? And I missed it, you know, some formative explanation or something, so that I would, if I went to the road, I would have no idea what was happening. Not yet, because I know nobody would remember it by November 5th. It's just weird having, I mean, because I don't know, have you read the whole word and so you were on top of all everything that's shifting in it? [8:35] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm really obligated to read the whole thing, right? I had to vote to do to put it on the ballot, so once we read it. [8:50] Speaker G (unidentified): Thank you, I mean if they help you. [8:53] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, anything else, anybody else, any of the items on the public hearing for the municipal ballot. I'm going to call the order of the select board meeting. We'll have a roll call, please. [9:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Select board member Edwin Daly. Select board member Blaine Casey. Select board chair Brent Chesley. Select board member Natasha Littlefield. Select board member Thomas Rump. [9:38] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, moving to the approval of the September 8 2026 and the September 21st 2026 minutes, we'll [9:48] Speaker E (unidentified): do them both together. There's a motion on that. I'll make a motion to approve both of those minutes. I'll second it. Okay, any discussion on these minutes? Of course there's some edits I [9:58] Speaker H (unidentified): saw your email. Yes, yeah, I've completed that, I sent it back out, right, yeah, okay. [10:03] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay, I didn't see this one yet. Do you have anything else? [10:07] Speaker F (unidentified): Seeing none, I'll go over and vote all in favor. I'll give 5-0. Yeah, payroll warrant number 14 in the amount of $41,358.54. [10:20] Speaker H (unidentified): I'll make a motion to raise the payroll warrant number 14 in the amount of $41,358.54. [10:28] Speaker C (unidentified): One second, huh? [10:29] Speaker F (unidentified): Any discussion on the payroll? Nope. All in favor? Yay. Payable warrant number 15, the amount of [10:48] Speaker I (unidentified): I'll make a motion we approve [Speaker B (unidentified): payroll, payable warrant] number 15 for [10:57] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay. I'll second it. I'm going to have to abstain from it. All right. All right. [11:05] Speaker F (unidentified): Any discussion on this? No. Any discussion, questions, comments? No. Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor? We've got three. All opposed? And then abstaining? We've got two. All right. This business. There's the park trail naming. So we've got some proposed names for some trails. You need to vote, you'll prove those. I did have one question for Jen. So you have Trail 1, [11:48] Speaker J (unidentified): Trail 2, and then [11:51] Speaker F (unidentified): below that you have two other trail names. Those are totally separate? [11:57] Speaker B (unidentified): Those are separate. For one of the new trails that we had built, we ended up dividing it because it was pretty steep. We made it an upper ridge trail and a lower ridge trail, but we had put it out for like the community to name, all right, and so those are the names they proposed. [12:15] Speaker F (unidentified): All right, okay, I was just, I thought so, I just wanted to clarify, it was a little unclear. All right, let's have a trail one, pick a motion for either one of these, or what, I'll make a motion. [12:34] Speaker I (unidentified): That we named Trail 1 the Nelson-Bingley Trail. [12:39] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay. Do I have a second? I'll second that. Okay. All right. Any discussion on the name of Trail 1? If there's none, I'll call for 5-0. Okay. Trail 2. I guess we'll do the same process. [12:59] Speaker D (unidentified): Anybody have something in mind? [13:03] Speaker F (unidentified): Do you have preferences? [13:08] Speaker A (unidentified): You have either or, but did you have preferences on? [13:13] Speaker B (unidentified): The committee's choice was the first one listed, but the second one wasn't altered. [13:18] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay. Yeah. [13:23] Speaker H (unidentified): How did we come up with the Chamberlain name? [13:26] Speaker B (unidentified): The Chamberlains were a family that lived in that area. And the Chamberlain cellar hole is the one that's located in the picnic area. That one of the Boy Scouts as a [Speaker G (unidentified): Eagle Scout project,] this has got to be like 10 years ago now, it cleaned the cellar out, put up a fence around it, and then put up a nice display that talks about, has a drawing of what the house probably would have looked like and why they were built the way they were and that sort of thing. [13:56] Speaker F (unidentified): And that trail passes by that cellar hole, is it? [14:01] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, well, no. But it's a significant family in the park, and so, you know, that's already, I mean, it's the Chamberlain Cellar Hole, and that was just one of the names that had been suggested for the Ridge Trail, but didn't get enough votes for that, so we thought, well, we'll bring it in, since it is a significant family in that area. [14:26] Speaker H (unidentified): Area. I make a motion to because of that the chain of the trail. [14:34] Speaker E (unidentified): And the other discussion. I think it I think it [14:42] Speaker I (unidentified): give a little bit more personal feel that there's a part way. [14:47] Speaker F (unidentified): I don't disagree and I thought I mean it is there's the park so there's a black way to get a little confusing, I guess. Yeah. So any other discussion? Motion? Yeah, 5-0. So it's Chamberlain Trenton. All right. So these other two. [15:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Those are the names that were, they made a suggestion of probably 15 names, and then we had people vote on it. There was a QR code in one of the community, because of the China of connected, that people could log in and then vote on these things, and the two top vote getters for those two names, and so we're proposing that those be accepted for the upper and the lower. [15:39] Speaker G (unidentified): Ridge trail, what we've been calling upper and lower ridge trail. Yeah, okay, all right, anybody? [15:47] Speaker I (unidentified): I'll make a motion that we accept their suggestion of those two names. [15:52] Speaker H (unidentified): Okay, I'll second that. [15:54] Speaker F (unidentified): All right, any discussion? All in favor? Yeah. Now you can get your apps made. Yay. Moving on with unfinished business. New website. So we got some information from Ms. Catalyst. [16:16] Speaker B (unidentified): The question basically that remained or was outstanding from the prior meeting was whether it was pay-up-front or pay-yearly. Those [16:30] Speaker F (unidentified): are set prices for those. Yeah. [16:32] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, that's better than paying for all the years up front. [16:37] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, I agree with that. For the website, you want to... [16:51] Speaker I (unidentified): This is the website that you are in favor of. [16:56] Speaker B (unidentified): This is the one that we've had in the past, and you've had it in the past. Right, exactly. [17:01] Speaker F (unidentified): We did have another proposal from somebody new, but maybe not quite as favorable. [17:17] Speaker C (unidentified): All I could find was [17:20] Speaker B (unidentified): $465. Is that what he said? That we were paying some yearly amount for something, but it's nothing but [17:31] Speaker H (unidentified): But then this was 2000 a year. Correct. The [17:41] Speaker I (unidentified): only question I got is, this that much more superior to the one we have now? [17:48] Speaker B (unidentified): By far. By far. I could do any of the changes needed at my house. I could do them on my phone, as opposed to you need to stand on one leg and click on the button. [18:01] Speaker I (unidentified): I know the one we have now is not really easy. [18:05] Speaker E (unidentified): Right, that would be, it's not even as a user, I mean administrative, I just tried to get some [18:12] Speaker B (unidentified): information offering while I was waiting for the meeting to start, and I'm like, I have to go there, [18:16] Speaker E (unidentified): and I'm now, and it wouldn't work for me, so I just have that. I'll make the motion we adopt this [18:25] Speaker A (unidentified): catalyst for their new as our new website to these dollar amounts. Any more discussion, [18:35] Speaker F (unidentified): comments, questions? Five [18:40] Speaker D (unidentified): zero anyway. [18:43] Speaker F (unidentified): Now in the new business, we've got Sheldon Good Eye wants to have a conversation about municipal buildings. Sheldon, close yours? Yeah, that's fine, as [19:01] Speaker D (unidentified): Chairman of the municipal committee. I really enjoyed that song. As a committee, it didn't really work very well. There was a lot of times I'd call a phone meeting, and I'd be the only one showing up. So a committee didn't work that good. But that's why I turned in my resignation. There was a couple of unfinished things that I'm really interested in, and I'm going to talk to you about one of them and I gave Becky a five-year plan for a new municipal building. I gave her two examples, a 36 by 200 or a 60 by 120, which is 7,200 square feet. I used a figure of $300 square foot, came to $2,160,000. Five-year plan will give us time to locate a proper place for it, and give us time to do phosphorus and runoff control, give us time to collect funds from all sources, from the town of China, from donations and grants. What we need is an honest rendition of what the building looked like and our proposed those costs. The building should be located on a slope so that we could use a daylight basement. One foundation, one roof, two levels. And a good example I gave for them was the Masonic building up the China Village. That kind of building worked really well. So I would like to work on this. He would put a curve and I'd give along really good. He'd have a way of pulling a balloon out of my hand and putting it on paper. And I've built a nice building, but it's in here. And it's workable and I don't know about affordable. So I'm asking for a job. You don't have to make a decision tonight. I don't know what you're going to call me, but I'd like to work on this. So that's my movie for the night. I need a job and I'm kind of a cheap guy too because I work for nothing. Well I can get a lot of information and get it back to the town manager and you will be able to power your other committee so give it to her and your other committee. [21:52] Speaker I (unidentified): When you say a 5-year plan, you're looking to maybe get an idea, get the idea in motion and with being able to make this a reality in 5 years, I get it, I get it, I've seen it. The question is, you know, we've built through all this and in 5 years you don't have your recommended amount of money, and what are we going to do then? [22:21] Speaker D (unidentified): Yep. You can't really do a heck of a lot until you get a plan. And I said five years because time enough to get all these things done. The other problem is it's going to take five years to get a five year plan. I am. I am going to be here in 10 minutes. [22:48] Speaker E (unidentified): You don't know that. So [22:56] Speaker D (unidentified): I'd like to have the authority to work with Keith, bring information into Coneckey, and she can do. Okay. [23:08] Speaker G (unidentified): That's it. All right, thank you. Can you flip-flop? [23:18] Speaker I (unidentified): I think I told Reagan. [23:20] Speaker B (unidentified): Probably won't go on until 6.30. Okay. [23:25] Speaker F (unidentified): Let's move down to a discussion with Chris Mitchell from Delta Ambulance. I see him in the back. He wanted to have a discussion with us tonight. Yeah. [23:37] Speaker J (unidentified): I'll try to keep a brief into the point. I've got to fast-forward I think everyone has right now. I'm not going to reread it. We've got a lot of the highlights, but so Dell Daymills has been a regional EMS provider for the last 50 years or so. By regional, I mean we cover multiple towns with the same fleet. Now we run about seven trucks during the day. At one point, there was a lot more than that, but we lost a lot of our own wind flow. We've always maintained a regional presence, so the advantage to that is we can capture more call volume. We can spread the cost out across more towns from our customers it's a more cost effective solution the background of why I'm here tonight is back in 2022 we had a blue ribbon commission that did a study on EMS from the state what they found was that under no circumstances did an EMS agency that provided animal coverage make them to meet they can't sustain itself the reason behind it is because the cost to run the service outweigh what they can generate in the calls you know when you consider Payroll is the biggest cost. You're paying at least, you know, for one truck, you're paying two people 24-7, 365 days a year on holidays and weekends and nights. Then you add in your fuel costs, your insurance, your wear and tear of the vehicle, not to mention the upfront purchase of all of the vehicles, the equipment. Equipment, a paramedic ambulance can run up to $900,000 to $1 million a year in some areas. You put that same truck in a low-collar line area, it's never going to generate enough to offset its own costs. So what the study found, the commission found, was even under the most ideal settings, services required some form of financial assistance to break even. I mean, they're in the form of grants, subsidies, service fees, what have you, but it always needs some health and status quo. In 2023, there was another Blue Ribbon Commission. So piggybacking on what they found with cost and revenues, they looked at regional services. They didn't look specifically at Delta, but they looked at services like Delta. They looked at Medicare out of Mexico that covers multiple towns, I think 14 towns if I'm not mistaken. Might be 11, but they cover multiple towns. A similar model will be used. They looked at, I believe it was North Star and there was one other than a Canada call. But all the examples were agencies that had either absorbed other entities in the area, or they partnered up with other agencies around them to provide one service for a big area. So large call volume helps offset the costs. Because even in a town with 50 calls a year, say, you know, if a town of Somerville wanted to start their own annuals, we do about 50 calls a year, their cost to run one annual is going to be the same as it costs cost us to run land goals, but they're making a lot less money with it. So that gap is bigger. So in the 23 commission results, when they were looking at those services, they said that was a good way to start moving towards solving the problem of rising costs and lacking insurance reimbursement. As the costs have climbed up pretty steeply in the past few years, insurance reimbursements have not risen further. So it's become more of a problem as the years have gone on. So that's why I'm here tonight. The regional model versus the local model. Obviously, I represent Delta Ambulance. I have a stake in this, but this is not a Delta specific problem. It's not a Delta specific discussion. This is a regional issue. It's going to affect the remaining towns. So right now, the towns of Fairfield and Benton, they haven't separated, but they intend to separate as early as January of 2027. So the town Fairfield currently operates a rescue service, it's a fire rescue service, so all the providers do EMS and fire. They intend, like I said, as early as January to start their own service and break away from Delta, which would leave the same infrastructure supporting 11 towns instead of the current 13. Now this has happened before, when Waterville and Winslow left, our fleet got smaller and we reduced costs appropriately as we could to call Boeing, but it's not a one-for-one reduction. reduction. And when Fairfield and Benton break off, if they break off, it's the same sort of situation. It's not a one-for-one reduction. The equivalency that we're looking at in those two towns separated, it's between the service fees that we gather from Fairfield and Benton and the call revenue that we combine from those two towns, it's about $1.2 million a year. That's what those towns are worth financially. The equivalent annuals to that, you could say that it's one ambulance, but it's it's a little bit more than that. It's about two angles is on paper. So what we're looking at is either we need to reduce the fleet size again, which is going to reduce capacity for the remaining customers that we have, which includes the town, the remaining 11 towns, but also includes the hospital, because all the area citizens also rely on us for facility transfers, you know, for dialysis and appointments and to get to places like Portland and Boston for care that they can't receive around here. We do all that too, for most of it. So any reduction in fleet size reduces all that capacity. And unfortunately, to keep the same fleet size means the cost increase, which we're obviously trying to avoid. So our concern is we need to find a balance. It's either gonna be a reduction, a scale reduction in services, or it's gonna be a rate increase or some form where we're gonna find an additional revenue stream that's really hard to do. We can't go out and solicit for more nine to one calls. It doesn't work that way. So essentially working off the same call volume that we have right now,, minus the calls from Fairfield and Benton when they leave. So my ask here is, in addition to getting just basic information, I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth. I'm not necessarily even trying to steer anyone's opinion on this, but it is a complicated issue. I put together just some general pointers that are sort of specific to the Delta-Fairfield-Benton situation, but the concept is the same, when the regional approach versus the local approach and how one uses scale of economies or economies of scale to be more efficient and deliver the same level of service to a busy town as it does to a not so busy town, which otherwise that not so busy town may not be able to get that because they can't afford it. So the regional approach really does it's the best approach for the bigger area. So my ask here is just to be informed forms, when Fairfield goes to apply for a transport license, which they have to do in August in order to take over the service, the transport license in and of itself, I know China is looking at that also, that's not really the issue here. The issue is what the intent behind it is, and the intent behind it is to separate away from the current regional model and go out on their own. When they put the application into MediaMaster, the 30-day public comment window opens up, and what I'm asking is for people to just express their opinions. If you're for the idea, if you're against the idea, if you just have general comments, that would be the time to voice those directly to ManiaMS on the back of the information package. I put in ManiaMS' address, I put in your fax and your email, and then underneath I just put in what to include with your comment, and again, this isn't steering opinions, this is just kind of the bullet points that you want to address if you're going to submit a comment to ManiaMS. Because this is important. As much as this impacts Delta, take Delta's name out of it, still impacts the region that we serve. This isn't really, like I said before, this isn't a Delta-specific issue. This is going to be a regional issue, and like we've seen the effects from two big towns breaking up before, we're going to see that again if this moves forward. So when that public comment period opens up, that will be the time to speak up and talk to me and us and let them know, like I said, if you're for it, if you're against it, if you just have concerns, that would be the right time to say something. I'm obviously available for questions. I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail on this just in the interest of time, but I am available for questions. Our books are open. I can go through call logs. I can go through everything, kind of try to provide a clearer picture from our point of view of what we're looking at. Actually, one final point that I will touch on. And how the separation affects the communities. When it gets down to the higher costs, obviously, and fewer resources, that resource, like I said, is less service to the town. It's less mutual aid capacity, and it's also more aligned on mutual aid for us. Right now, we have a buffer that's kind of built in. If anyone has followed our Facebook page, last Thursday, it was an extreme example. I'll admit that. But it's an example of something that happens commonly, just maybe not quite to that degree. We had five calls going on at the same time in the town of Fairfield, three calls, excuse me, three calls going on at the same time in a 30-minute window in the town of Fairfield that occupied five ambulances. We were still able to keep our Augusta area covered. We still had both trucks available down there, I believe, and we still had an extra truck or two up in Waterville. So it didn't squeeze us too hard, but that buffer is possible because we have this regional presence. We have that volume right there. And if we have to use mutual aid, as we were discussing a couple days ago, anytime a call is given to mutual aid, it results in a delay. Anytime a call changes hands, so if we're given the call and we don't have an ambulance, we have to turn around and find someone else that does it, and every time we make those phone calls and it passes around, it's more of a delay. And it works the same way for us. If another service calls us for mutual aid, that's a delay for their customer also. So you're never going to eliminate the need for mutual aid. The system will never support enough ambulances to completely negate the need for mutual aid. What we can do is we can try to maintain the existing buffer, which works pretty well on a normal day. And in this particular case, it worked flawlessly. It worked exactly the way it was supposed to. We had enough ambulances to cover everything, and we had a reserve. I won't say that's going to be a loss, but it's definitely a risk if these two towns do go away from us. So that's the implication of the region, that's what's going to happen regardless of whether or not it's Delta or, you know, a different name of a company, but that's, that's the regional entity versus the local entity. And I just wanted to try to get some of this information out there and a lot of questions and, like I said, on my contact team, I think I forgot to put my contact team information on here, but I can, I can provide it to anyone who wants it, you might. [33:52] Speaker F (unidentified): I know it might be bad, but I appreciate. [33:57] Speaker H (unidentified): Your time. So do you have a place in Waterville now? [34:03] Speaker J (unidentified): Yes. The main station is on Cheyenne, Waterville. [34:06] Speaker H (unidentified): And that service is what kind of service? [34:08] Speaker J (unidentified): Well, it used to serve Waterville itself. Now it serves, and it used to serve Waterville-Landland. So now it serves Fairfield, Benton, Oakland, Smithfield, parts of Sydney, parts of Basselboro. If you don't know where the lines road in Sydney is, just draw a line straight across. Pretty much anything north of that line is Waterville. Anything south of that line, roughly, is the Augusta station. I agree. The units move a lot between the two stations, so there is some overlap there, but that generally not works. Go ahead, Chris. So I'm assuming from the numbers, if there are two of them, then we have to drop out of the unit? [34:48] Speaker I (unidentified): Or do we drop it in? [34:50] Speaker J (unidentified): It's still something that we're working on, but, yeah, roughly, I mean, this equates to at least one ambulance, if not two. Or, you know, some combination. It's we say a 24 7 paramedic ambulance is roughly one million dollars a year to run, but that's when you include payroll labor and support costs and everything, but and you said they were 1.2 million, it's about 1.2, yeah, so it's a little bit more, but not quite two, so you know, if we can get away with doing one or none, that's what we're going to do. We're going to try to maintain the same fleet presence because that's what's best for the area, but we may not be able to do that because again last week we showed the value of that, yeah. Yeah. And we may not be able to do that in a few days. [35:32] Speaker I (unidentified): But the alternative to that is everybody that's remaining. I mean, that's the true reality of it. [35:38] Speaker J (unidentified): That's the true reality of it, right. So, you know, it may turn out to be a blend of something, but I'm hopeful that we can find a way to make this work and not change the rates. I know Becky and I were talking about that a couple days ago. Our goal is to not change the rates anymore because short of this new situation, well, it's not a new situation, but short of this happening, our budget was stabilized. West. We weren't looking at a rate increase for next year. So this is what's putting everything kind of back on the fence. So we're still trying to work to not do that, and my goal is absolutely not to raise the rate again. And until you hear from me, just assume that 's the case. [36:11] Speaker F (unidentified): But like I said, it's [36:13] Speaker J (unidentified): either a reduction in services and resources, or we have [36:17] Speaker F (unidentified): to raise the price to keep it. [36:19] Speaker G (unidentified): Who knows Skowhegan? [36:22] Speaker J (unidentified): Skowhegan is covered by Reddington Paraguay. [36:26] Speaker G (unidentified): It's almost like instead of being Augusta-Waterville, it becomes Sydney and some arc down the west and some arc down the east and the upper piece with them. In terms of just thinking about everybody, I always think of Augusta-Waterville, you're talking about Augusta-Waterville, if you lose Waterville-Augusta-Fairfield-Benz, it changes how the efficiency of where it's off is much bigger. [36:58] Speaker J (unidentified): It does. No, and that's a good point. So for the longest, you know, for a very long time, it was a water bill-based company. We covered all the towns in the area. Obviously, since we lost Mark Dolan's low, it hasn't been called into question. Maybe it's not the best spot. The problem is, of course, with the river. So, you know, our Augusta station is located on Coney Road, and our water bill station is located on Chase Avenue. And they're both kind of that top and bottom where you can get across the river, so it's not a bad spot from that standpoint. But yes, I agree, it's it's something that we've looked at in the past and we still continue to look at it. But if we were to, if we were to get away from that station, we'd have to relocate to one place or places and we'd have to start all over again. So and then there's money involved in that too. So right now we're trying, we're trying to keep expenses in the room right now. We [37:48] Speaker F (unidentified): all feel the pain. I don't know. The best solution is not easy. [38:00] Speaker J (unidentified): I'm over the town looking at it too. I'm not trying to discourage them. My goal here is just to make sure that people understand the complexity and kind of what the ripple effects could be. Fairfield has not issued this. There will be a notice in the paper. It's probably we go students probably either KJ or the long stand will have to be in the most widely circulated paper in the area that they cover, so they'll issue a public notice when their application goes in, and that would be the time to submit those comments if anyone's inclined. Wouldn't [38:35] Speaker F (unidentified): want us, I guess I wouldn't want to see Philip Benton leave, but on the other hand, I wouldn't want to advocate for not giving them a transport license either, right? [38:45] Speaker E (unidentified): It's a catch-22 for me, I guess, but I mean, that's, I'm just curious like how many calls [38:51] Speaker C (unidentified): if they do go out on their own that you wouldn't be getting. Your example was, you know, three of your five ambulances were in one of the towns that are [39:02] Speaker J (unidentified): Yeah, it was five ambulances total. [39:04] Speaker C (unidentified): Total, right, but three of the five were in Bearfield. [39:07] Speaker J (unidentified): We generally do about 1,600 responses per year, and I think about 800 or so of those calls actually wound up getting a bill. There's a lot of cancellations. A lot of canceled calls, a lot of transport refusals, but roughly half the world to respond to any woman transporter bill. So like I said, that's an extreme example. Normally we don't have, but it's not uncommon at all to have overlapping calls in our busier towns, not just, you know, Oakland, China's had overlapping calls before, just, you know, higher populations, that becomes [39:36] Speaker A (unidentified): more likely, right? Yeah. [39:40] Speaker E (unidentified): This is a national, I'm sure it is. Yeah, it has been. [39:48] Speaker J (unidentified): And there's a new commission that just started last week that's in for regional approach again. [39:52] Speaker F (unidentified): Oh, another commission that'll do. Yeah, but I didn't say this is what it is. I don't know what it is. [39:58] Speaker J (unidentified): I mean, there has also been good. What happens because of those results, I don't know. I think it was important to look at it because prior to those studies, no one really knew. No one cared, you know. And, you know, it was people like me that were out here talking about it. And not just me, but it hadn't been analyzed or studied on a state level before. So it's kind of, you know, one service's word against the rest. It gave a little bit more credibility to the Army, I think. [40:29] Speaker F (unidentified): Anybody got any other questions? [40:31] Speaker A (unidentified): Fairfield and Benton bought the ambulances to do this? [40:34] Speaker J (unidentified): They had intended to buy both, and then they intended to buy the backup, and I believe they were donated both. So they have two? I don't know if they have a second one yet, but I think they were given money to get one. But I know they already have one on out of the donation. [40:50] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay, so you'd still be doing mutual aid up there, right? [40:55] Speaker J (unidentified): Yes, whatever that's my concern, though, is without those, our mutual aid capacity is probably going to be reduced. So, you know, on a day like last Thursday, I don't know if we would have the same number of trucks to throw at them. They would have only been able to hand them two. Two, and you had five up there. Yeah, and with the dual-role department, where they were doing fire and AMS, there was actually a call, just the three calls I remember, it was the second or third one of them required fire apparatus and Fairfield was entirely committed to the first call. They had no one for the second or third call. That's just kind of the drawback operation from the dual role department. Fairfield wouldn't be unique in that, but that was like I said, it's an extreme example of what could happen. You can only one Staff one or the other, it's really hard to do role right. [41:38] Speaker G (unidentified): Thanks. [41:45] Speaker A (unidentified): For that, Chris, appreciate your time. [41:48] Speaker J (unidentified): Please reach out if you have any questions. Very. [41:56] Speaker F (unidentified): So let's get back on the agenda and talk about a consultant for a TIF program. Do you want to take the lead on it? I'll let you. So we had a TIF meeting last week, and there is some committee would like to do a rewrite on our TIP program. And there's some new statutes that allow for things that weren't allowed before. And I guess long story short, the committee would like to hire a consultant to help direct us on what is allowed to be included in the TIP program and to help rewrite our TIF program if I got that correct Chris or Chris is the chairman of [42:59] Speaker B (unidentified): the TIF committee so and in a conversation with attorney meter it's also still services that she does provide for like a TIF rewrite so Reagan who is here today you know, in some of the conversations I've had since, Raygood would kind of act like, potentially act like for the CSAC, somebody to help herd cats together and figure out what we want out of the program. But for me, it would also take away the responsibility of having to know, you know, what businesses, what can we do to bring more business to town and those type of things as well. Well, so, and Amanda and Reagan know each other, so they could work out things. [43:49] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, so the committee talked about getting some recommendations for some consultants that do this, you know, help committees with their program, and one of the big, one of the people that is really involved in this is LaRochelle Consulting, and Reagan and LaRochelle at the end of the night. I don't know if anybody's got any questions or if she can give us a little [44:16] Speaker E (unidentified): discussion on what she does. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. Say what you do. Sure. Yes. So hi, [44:24] Speaker K (unidentified): everyone. My name is Reggie LaRochelle of LaRochelle Consulting, and I am primarily an act increment financing consultant. So I work with municipalities and developers who are interested in pursuing TIFs in certain areas for certain projects. I've been doing this for about 15 years. I worked first with E-Body Consulting Group, which is now no longer, but have continued this on my own. So, and I'll be honest, what I enjoy most doing is working with municipalities and educating them about the TIF tool and helping select boards, staff, really understand the benefits of TIF for municipalities. Most recently, I think I talked to, I may have sent this to Becky, we corresponded on email, but most recently I was hired in Ellsworth. They had these TIF districts that they had for several years. years their top their city manager left their economic development director left their finance director left and so they were hiring a whole bunch of new people who didn't really understand tip and so i went in and i do i had mentioned to becky because i wasn't it's i realized that the tip committee for something more specific i told her that some of the services that I provide are educating, you know, if there are new select board members or city counselors who come on after an election, doing A TIF 101 for the municipality and for people, even the public likes to kind of learn about what this tool is and how it's most effectively used. I do, and for Ellsworth, I did an analysis of their four TIF districts, you know, and they hadn't done an amendment for several years. So a lot of the laws have changed. Chris said that some of the more recently in the past couple of years, there have been some bigger changes to the TIF statute because smaller municipalities like China have these TIFs and they don't they don't have economic development departments, which is what a lot of the big cities spend their TIF revenue on. on so like what do you spend it on so the legislature has really tried to expand the use for TIF revenue and as we talk about it most importantly TIF revenue is best used to pay for things that you would have to raise general fund money for and that's what you really want to try and do is swap out you know having to raise money from taxes and instead use your tip revenue because when you use tip revenue you're essentially using discounted money and we can talk about all that a little more but that's the ultimate goal is how much of your general fund budget can you use tip revenue on and that's that's kind of the analysis i would be doing i don't know the intricacies of your budget but that would be what i would want to work with Becky on in the TIF committee just to make sure that you're spending your TIF revenue as much as you can on those types of items. So that's what I do. I've worked most recently in Ellsworth, Lewiston, Hallowell, Monmouth. And I do both the MTIFs or the economic development TIFs and the affordable housing TIFs. So I don't know what you have here. I'm assuming it's an economic development tip but that's it and herding cats is not a horrible description [48:14] Speaker C (unidentified): what i've had to do in some towns so yeah and for us it started i mean i was a town clerk [48:23] Speaker B (unidentified): when it started and you know it just was like a foreign language so it's all been we're all trying to learn and i think we could do so much more with it i think we could better understand it you know it wouldn't be like it's you know learning Spanish or French or anything it just is it's a little bit scary sometimes and somebody that has that experience and that's I mean I just know I don't have enough time to do the right things with it so [48:52] Speaker E (unidentified): I think it's a great idea I don't know I mean how do we move forward from here do we get a proposal for helping us. [49:05] Speaker I (unidentified): I think it's a real good idea because I know how much help Paul was in the CSAC and it cost us some money but we wouldn't have got anywhere near where we got without him. And the tip is a different language. I mean, a lot of it I've been only in two years, I still don't know anything. [49:25] Speaker J (unidentified): Well, knowing what the statutes [49:30] Speaker F (unidentified): are once you're out and it's like and it's changed quite a bit and i know in our last rewrite one of my goals was to really try to get as much of the general fund that was allowed into the tiff i don't know if we've fully succeeded or not that's would be nice to have some help to continue with that and the other thing is you know some of the emergency services stuff that now is allowed could be very beneficial [49:59] Speaker E (unidentified): I think that would be a big thing [50:00] Speaker G (unidentified): public safety stuff [50:04] Speaker K (unidentified): that expanded in the statute and so again getting to know how much money your tip revenues China gets each year the best case scenario if you're not saving it for any kind of paving or infrastructure is to try and take all of that tip revenue to and offset your budget with it every year so you almost have like an in and out that would be the idea it doesn't always happen but if that's your goal then you know you're just kind of offsetting that those tax that tax for it every year so that's That's the best case scenario, but it's also ideal, so we work towards that. But I mean, my hand, or even I've not looked, I don't even look at ours at all. I think Becky and I talked on Thursday, yeah, and I was like, oh, she, yeah, so yeah. And again, I'm not far, I'm in Augusta, so it's not a fun trip, yeah. [51:08] Speaker B (unidentified): Narrative documents are, we don't know what that's, one thing we do try to do, have everything accessible and available. But I just think that, you know, I, and I don't know what's, how broad the committee will need assistance in, so that might play into what a proposal might be. Still, that's [51:28] Speaker F (unidentified): right not really knowing i guess we need to we need to start with something i guess we need to get started but just starting but just everybody on the board here knows too the different program does have one allotment of money every year for program expenses that a consultant them would come out of that so it'd be the tiff would pay that was my next question [51:55] Speaker E (unidentified): i knew make sure you guys were all around that too yeah this wouldn't come out of the general budget this would come directly out of tip and our next tiff committee meeting The meeting is the 26th of October, so three weeks from today. [52:23] Speaker B (unidentified): And the next select board is two weeks, so. [52:26] Speaker F (unidentified): So I don't know. I mean, I guess we just have an open checkbook, so we need to have some sort of a proposal. I don't know if you guys want to talk it over. [52:40] Speaker J (unidentified): Sure. Come up with something that may be a work in progress, the proposal. [52:43] Speaker F (unidentified): I don't want to be jaded once we figure out what our real needs are with the committee. Okay. [52:52] Speaker G (unidentified): Go ahead, Joy. I'm on the committee too. And being my honor, it did not fall under our tip in terms of libraries and the whole good stuff. And I don't know if it makes sense or not, if it's possible or not, but I wanted to at least have that out there that and what got me going was the one of the scowhegan news article this winter that indicated that they could support the library in under their tip something about it and but they then i was trying to read the scouting tip so here we go needing coaching desperately it's terribly different than our situation because they've got a development district in town. And that is it. I mean, cities are different. So trying to understand whether ours has been very much toward developing things like trails. And we've done beautifully on that. And I support that too. But I support our services and I don't support the library in trying to figure out where that could fit. [54:10] Speaker K (unidentified): I don't know. Does the town own the library building? I don't see that. Well, we can certainly look at it. It's helpful to have that, you know, again, keep that stuff on the radar. And, you know, that's the one that people get creative with, you know, their municipal expenditures all the time. So it's also a matter of checking in with the Department of Economic and community development and saying like what if people use tip revenue for libraries on you know that means she's really getting that type of discourse but if the town owned it that was one of the newer allowable expenses with capital improvements on municipal buildings that are related to economic development which they deemed libraries to be so that 's that's big for some communities to be able to spend money on you know improving their buildings and keeping [55:03] Speaker G (unidentified): I mean, the interesting thing about China that probably is true of a whole lot of towns is that the fire departments are separate, the emergency services are separate, and they're not all town things, so just how do you address that, because they're all supporting the culture and the lifestyle of the people, right? All right. [55:31] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah. So if you can, Becky, get us a start with a proposal. [55:37] Speaker E (unidentified): We know we're headed. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Reagan. Thank you. Yeah. [55:46] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah. Next on the list is a policy for naming buildings, trails, etc. So I don't know if everybody's had a chance to look at the policy that's been proposed. [56:05] Speaker E (unidentified): You want to make a motion to accept that? [56:07] Speaker A (unidentified): I'll make a motion we accept the public policy for naming buildings, trails, etc. [56:16] Speaker H (unidentified): I'll talk to that. [56:19] Speaker F (unidentified): Any discussion, any questions? I've got somebody in the audience who would like to speak on it. [56:25] Speaker B (unidentified): The bill, it talked about naming criteria, and it talks about deceased person or group. I mean does it have to be a deceased person can it honor a non-deceased person or something like for example we just named it the nelson family trap you know and are we somehow there [56:44] Speaker C (unidentified): Well I mean I think it would be incorporated under the second bullet the town's history [57:01] Speaker B (unidentified): Three, including long standing, family ownership and community use. Okay, right. Yeah, I didn't necessarily have to be there. And then it talks about naming procedures. And it says that if they, if the proposal honors one or more deceased persons, it must describe their contributions to the talent include written documentation which will be verified in that. I mean just kind of like how is that being done? We'll see when we get our first application. Okay, I mean obviously this is a work in progress, right? And I realize it's just a draft, but just some of the questions that as we reviewed it because we're a place that's going to be doing a lot of naming. So yeah, as we develop more trails or you know structures or whatever, you know, that we just want to make sure it's something that we're able to work with fairly [58:08] Speaker F (unidentified): closely. Well, I don't think the intend is to make it that well picked up, right? But I would hope not right now and discuss an award that cnn I'll call for my own payment of all of them Minstrel officers notice their posting of public hearing. So all of this got posted by Julie. [58:40] Speaker B (unidentified): Julie posted this on September 28th for the public hearing. [58:46] Speaker F (unidentified): Do we need to approve this posting? [58:51] Speaker B (unidentified): Yes, I have a motion on the agenda. Okay. [58:54] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah. We have an expected motion, okay. [58:57] Speaker I (unidentified): Should I read that? Somebody want to read that? I'll read that. I know the whole thing we're going to improve the signing of the new rule of the return from the book. [59:08] Speaker F (unidentified): That's a little bit of a second. In the discussion of the Boston. All right all of their. Yeah, it was the rule of the general assistance ordinance that we just had a public hearing on the [59:28] Speaker D (unidentified): emotional I'm over the slack or proven and I'm going to say [59:32] Speaker A (unidentified): 2027 General Assistance Maximum Appendices A-H as presented effective October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027 in accordance with the main General Assistance Ordinance. [59:46] Speaker I (unidentified): I'll second that motion. Okay. [59:48] Speaker F (unidentified): Any further discussion on the General Assistance Ordinance? All right. All in favor? Second. Aye. Okay. And then we have a liquor license application from Nash's Cafe. [1:00:04] Speaker B (unidentified): And this is just a repeat license. The application was filled out complete, timely, and kindly, slightly ahead of time. So that's appreciated. [1:00:16] Speaker I (unidentified): So I'll make a motion to approve the Nash's Cafe liquor license application. [1:00:23] Speaker H (unidentified): I'll second that. Okay. It's been so China. It's what? It's been so China. Yeah, I know what you're saying. [1:00:29] Speaker E (unidentified): You never met there. You just hung it up. Ah, any discussion? I have a reputation. [1:00:35] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, it's not good either. Any discussion on that just got me a little bit. No. All right. All right. Four, zero, and one and six. So public comment. Do you have any public comment? [1:01:00] Speaker E (unidentified): Good. All right. Department updates. [1:01:12] Speaker B (unidentified): During the month of September, the clerks department welcomed Katina Cassidy as a deputy clerk. With the addition of the new deputy, the clerks department has reached full staff just in time for election season. With prior experience working in a municipal office and having previously worked with the BMV, Katina has already proven herself to be a great addition to the team. With taxes due September 29th, most of our time is taken up by processing tax payments in person, by mail, online, through the town website, and assisting people with questions about their taxes. While we've been busy processing tax payments, we've also been preparing for the election. The notice of public hearing was posted Monday, September 28th. We have received all of our ballots, state and local. Absentee voting will begin again, Monday, October 5th. It sure did, they were flooded in here with the absentee voters, and as a side note, she got all of the requests out for the absentee ballots that were ongoing or we'd already received and just waited for the ballots coming in. So that was a huge undertaking, she's been working specifically on that since last Wednesday. So she notes dog was for 2027 or on October 15th. Public services, whoops, I'm Sean, we loaned and ceded the new vault area at the town office. They enlarged the area for the skating rink at the corner log. We've been continuing to cut brush in problem areas around town. Finally paving, fix a few problem areas in town as well as completed some paving for us at the town office. Pike has begun paving our roads and is expected to be complete within the week, we've started shouldering the roads and shimming driveways. We've installed several new signs with a new post driver, and it is working extremely well. We are planning on removing the docks on October 19th. Next is code enforcement. It has been a very busy year for septic systems. We've approved a total of 39 new and replacement septic systems so far. That doesn't count the couple he did today and the end of last week. We also have approved 26 dwelling units this year. Total building permits are 19 behind where we were last year, but we've done 20 more plumbing permits than we had at this point last year. Overall, development does not seem to be slowing down for any reason, and we seem to be in a great spot. Not only are people still doing projects, but they're also maintaining and rehabilitating properties. Properties. So building permits 16, plumbing permits 20 for the month. And for the transfer station, in September, they shipped out two boxes of battery, five demo cans to Waste Management, nine municipal solid waste cans to Municipal Waste Hub, three metal cans to Ames, one box of light bulbs, a tire can, which was 3.25 tons, paint gear, picked up four paint bins, shipped a load of OCC to Casella, which weighed 21 tons, drained 29 Freon units, painted the gas line going for the generator. Jackie and Tom were assigned the task of clearing the drain under the main hopper, an annual job that we certainly don't look forward to doing. I was over there just after they had, and they just told me it was really delightful and I probably should come join them next year. I said, sure, why not? Jason built a cage for dumping recyclables into the base. Jason is from Public Works, and he's very crafty, saw a need, and made this dumping cage, and it saves them time and energy. Overall, September Timber included several material shipments, free-on recovery, facility maintenance, and improvements to the recycling and bailing operations. [1:05:21] Speaker J (unidentified): Nice job. Yeah, select one of my comments. [1:05:26] Speaker F (unidentified): Anybody got anything to add? Go ahead, though. [1:05:29] Speaker A (unidentified): I'm going to... Jackie's got this on my agenda, so I'm not going to... But I want to reiterate, we got trunk or treat on October 31st. We need trunks. Four Seasons and the town office is doing it right here, they're also doing scarecrows hopefully you saw the posts about it but just wanted to bring it up that we need some trunks for the kiddos to come enjoy and get some candies I actually didn't see it what scarecrows what is that from two to four you make a scarecrow and drop it off and we're going to have people voting on the best scarecrow in town so the whole lawn or whatever wherever we do it there's going to be a bunch of scarecrows so You make your scarecrow and bring it and it's going to get judged or just show up or just show up and then it's strong [1:06:20] Speaker E (unidentified): You can just stand there for a couple minutes hopefully all right any other [1:06:28] Speaker H (unidentified): I'm glad we can have fun with it. [1:06:32] Speaker F (unidentified): Manager communication. [1:06:34] Speaker B (unidentified): Oh, look, upcoming meetings. October 19th, November 2nd, and November 16th. [1:06:44] Speaker H (unidentified): How did that look? Oh, let me see. [1:06:46] Speaker B (unidentified): So the day before the election. Holiday closures, October 12th, Indigenous Peoples Day. All departments are closed. The Trunk or Treat, I'll give you the hours, it's 5 to 7 p.m. And you know, even if somebody can't come and they wanted to buy a bunch of Sam's Club candy, we could potentially set up some sort of area that would be for people in proxy. So consider that. Also this is Socktober honoring the legacy, see Remy Pettengill. So we are collecting socks. I have a little poster here on the door on the way out. And we have the collection box. Natasha also has a collection box. Nash's Bar Harbor Bank and Trust. But Remy always wore the crazy socks. So collecting those as well as any other sock that people want to donate that's clean, that's not new, we're not doing that, it's gonna be new. I like that. [1:07:53] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, I thought that after it was like, yeah, the best, yeah, okay, all right, I think we want to do it here. I'll make motion to adjourn. [1:08:06] Speaker F (unidentified): That's all about it.