Searsport Select Board Approves Audit Pre-Work, Board of Appeals Appointments

[6:01] Selectboard member: I do remember a pretty healthy discussion back in 2020, but without it being signed, I have some doubts whether we formally adopted it. And I don't mean to cut anyone out, but it's... [6:29] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: We started it in 2020. [6:31] Selectboard member: There were different rules in 2020 because of COVID. But then in fact in the back of the in the back of my book I have the rules for the proven voting, but after that in 2021 the legislature passed legislation that allowed that to become a permanent part of municipal government. I presented that in 2022 and again I just to reaffirm because I don't want to vote to go south. We have some important things to vote on tonight. I went to find it, and I find an unsigned copy, and I couldn't find it in my notes or the minutes when we actually adopted it. It does require public hearing now, and... [7:17] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Which we have to announce one meeting in a minute. One meeting in a minute. What is your advice for tonight? [7:28] Selectboard member: Can you hear me, sir? We do have a quorum, so yeah. Would it be okay if we didn't vote tonight, just to be safe? Policy as it's written right now, permitted. Will it be presented in the next meeting? Yes. Okay. And does that cover voting by over any other form other than that phone? It does. The conditions are you can't do anything by text or by email or by any other chat functions. It's got to be, phone is the least friendly one, but you can do it by video chat and others. Okay. Great. I look forward to voting on it. [8:35] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Yeah, because we need to be able to, somebody could get on your phone and text something. Okay, I think we're ready to move on. Announcements, James? [8:52] Selectboard member: I have two announcements. First, Linden Leaf Day for the fall will be October 25th and November 1st. We voted earlier this year to designate it last weekend in October 1st and November, and I want to get that out there. You go post it on the website also it is early voting time. Anyone interested in voting can come to the town office and sign the form, get a ballot and vote, or request a ballot, take it home and do an absentee and bring it back. That's open right now for [9:29] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: acceptance of the minutes for September 15th is there. [9:35] Selectboard member: I make a motion that we accept the minutes of September 15th, 2026, as presented. [9:41] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? All in favor. Okay, it's 3-0. Okay, acceptance of tonight's agenda. The agenda is there or what? There is a lot of value. [10:11] Selectboard member: yes i have one item and that is to do some sidewalk adjustments or repairs to route one in the area of 101 east main street and i'll explain when we get there okay [10:25] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Do I have a motion with the addition of they'll go into a public hearing on the general assistance ordinance and maximums. I'll be here if anyone needs to see them. The time is 6.06 and a second. All in favor? Aye. We are now in a public hearing. If anybody would like to speak on general assistance, the general assistance ordinance or the maximums, please step up to the microphone and state your name. And, James, you said the ordinance basically hasn't changed, right? [11:46] Selectboard member: There basically is no change, you know, minor things within the ordinance itself. But the overall maximums, of course, with the economy are up. Overall maximum from last year to this year is up over $100 pretty much across the board. Food maximums are adjusted. Housing maximums are up. Electricity is basically unchanged, which is kind of surprising to me, and the personal care and supplies are unchanged, and funeral expenses are unchanged. That was last year's, I made copies for you, October 26th, and September 27th is behind. [12:50] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: So it's October 1st, 2026 to September 30th, 2027. We have the comparisons here. Was there anybody here to speak on that decision? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. And I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. And that will be 4-0. This is a decision from the public hearing. Is there a motion to accept the changes to the maximum [13:40] Selectboard member: sum of number [14:01] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: nine public comments? If anybody would like to say anything on the public comment, please step up to the mic and stand. I don't see anybody jumping to get up, so we're going to go into old business. Authorization to engage Barry Dunn for pre-audits. James. [14:29] Selectboard member: Yeah, this is table from the last meeting in order to get some more members. We were short last meeting. We received an estimate from Barry Dunn of a not-to-exceed price to do the pre-offer, and it's up to $100,000. I have reached out to a couple of additional firms this week that I had not reached out to before. We're over 23 now. No one is taking on new clients. Barry Dunn is pretty confident that if we do the leg work with them, that they will find an audit firm to sign us off. It probably will not be in the state of Maine, is what we were told. And their billing timeline would be such that it wouldn't be paid all in this year, so it would go over next year. And I do remember several years ago when we started our audit service with William Brewer, those first couple of years were difficult and more expensive because we didn't have everything they wanted the way they wanted it, and some of the things had to be produced. This is worst case scenario at their up to amount, because if we didn't have schedules, if we didn't have Excel spreadsheets on everything, they would be producing all of that. So I'm pretty confident we're not going to spend all of that money. But I'm not trying to sway the board. It is a lot of money, but we can't stand still. And with all the firms that I've reached out to, we are going to be standing still for a long time if we don't do something. [16:16] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: In my opinion, our feet are to the fire because this is required by the state of the agent. It seems to be a very limited pool of companies that are doing this kind of work. [16:29] Selectboard member: The problem is, I hate to apologize $100,000. They're saying that it shouldn't be that much. We can't afford to continue to engage with them what sort of proposals we would receive in other years yet. I really don't. I do know, because I did interview with them to find out what they would do and what it would do for us. Because there are other towns and other organizations that are doing pre-audits as well. In fact, the county is trying to engage with a company to do it, but I live in learning our systems. I don't know. And the hourly rates that they included, do we have a feel for how competitive those are to any other firms? From my understanding, it can be. If [17:46] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: this is done over more than one year... [17:55] Selectboard member: That was my question directly to them is, you know, going to a special town meeting to ask for additional funds from surplus is not something we normally do. We did budget, we do budget around $30,000 for audit services and professional fees that aren't used at this point. And dragging out, not the work, but the pay for the work is something that we're willing to work with us on. I wouldn't say until, like, what the running tally is as we... Yes, yeah, I talked about that. I wanted to know before it got out of control. Yeah, so we could have... So while it was out of control, pull the plug on to put it back in. [18:42] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: I don't want to see a little surprise at the end. [18:44] Selectboard member: Well, that's why they do the absolute maximum. If we had nothing, we had no work done ahead of time, that would be the total cost. But we are way ahead of that game. All our journals are in place. But that's what promised. We are. And I know from past experience that we do more than most. So why can't they put the price down? I can't convince them of that. They didn't come here and see what we do. [19:21] Speaker F (unidentified): They won't do that. [19:23] Selectboard member: Yeah, they won't do that. That's the problem. We do the $100,000. We could do most of the work and we can still take that $100,000. All the work has been done. We have everything done. It's ready to go. We need to export it to them. They need to review it and audit it. You see my point. I absolutely do. I'm not comfortable with it, but I don't know what else we can do. [20:15] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Do we have a deadline for the state of Maine? [20:17] Selectboard member: We are not really in a deadline. Some of the grants that we recently received, they're already required us to send in auditing information. We're still able to apply for grants because generally the window is five years. So they're getting a 2003 audit, but it's, you know, we have a lot of, we probably have in the neighborhood almost $400,000 in grants, both federal and state, that need to have audited results reported out. [21:00] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: So the window will close on us if we do not? [21:02] Selectboard member: Probably if we didn't have so much in grants, we could get away with a financial statement and not a full audit. Some towns actually have done that. But with the kind of money that we have in the bank from the success in getting grants is really putting us in a position where we have to do something. The other problem is that they're not saying we're going to – they're not going to do it. We might spend all that money and not get money. I agree. It's packaging up the audit for somebody to be ready to sign off on. The only thing they could tell me is they have been successful with other communities in getting them signed off in the state of Maine. But qualify that with it may not be the main firm that actually signs off on your audit. [22:03] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: And would that be an additional cost? [22:06] Selectboard member: I'm pretty sure it would be. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The number doesn't matter. It's just like I say all the legwork is done by then and then the additional is signed off. Okay I reluctantly. [22:44] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Make a motion that would be done for the pre-orders with funding up to $100,000 I. [23:07] Selectboard member: Think the fact that this is going to catch up against all of our grants and funding going forward. It's something we really need to get done. [23:23] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Okay, any further discussion? All in favor? Our vote will be 3-0. Moving on to new business. Appointments to boards and committees. We have two of these here to look at tonight. Anybody like to speak? Michael [24:16] Selectboard member: Hannon is here. He's a new resident to town. We had a nice meeting earlier this week and talked about participating and helping us. He's got a good background in helping municipalities. And the other candidate, I don't believe he's here, but we also spoke. So she is an architect in Belfast and was originally looking to be on the planning board, but that position is full. And I talked to both of these candidates about the Board of Appeals and the importance. Not a lot of meetings over the past 20 years, but it's so important when somebody needs a variance. And right now we have a couple of variances sitting on my desk waiting. Banks are waiting to see if the town will, what we would decide to do in these situations. So, kind of holding up a lot of progress by not having a full board. And my recommendation is to appoint both of these individuals tonight, and we'll have meetings before the end of this month to clear up some of the back work that's been waiting. [25:29] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: How many members do we presently have on the Board of Appeals? [25:33] Selectboard member: We have three, but it's nearly impossible to get all three together. [25:38] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Right, so this would make a full board of five. Correct. With no alternates on board. At this point, yeah. Okay, but we could still get a four, huh? Yep. Okay, is there anybody wanting to speak on this? [25:52] Speaker F (unidentified): Okay. Yeah, step right up. [25:56] Selectboard member: Come on, introduce yourself. Sure. [26:20] Public commenter: Right over next to Edwards Brothers. I'm from the New England area. I was out in Las Vegas for a job. I was working a corporate job out there. I don't ever live in Las Vegas. I go there to visit and have fun, but don't like there. It's a horrible place to live. And I'm just happy to be back in this area. But in New England and in Florida and Las Vegas, I have some experience dealing with towns in the municipality. Mostly I'm mostly in Cape Cod because I lived there for a while. So I dealt with the local town that I lived in and participated in a lot of committees and things there, just trying to improve the betterment of the town. My background corporate-wise is insurance, so I'm that boring guy that knows everything possible you need to know about insurance, commercial and otherwise. So if there's ever a town claim, I'm sure I can certainly help with that. But for the meantime, I'm just here to help support the town. So I met with James recently and heard about the opportunities for the community, so I'm happy to help anybody I can. [27:20] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Well, on behalf of the select board, I'd like to welcome you to Sears Court. If you were on Cape Cod, I'm sure you're already familiar with the New England type of town government. Yeah. And it's great to have some new blood. Perfect. Okay, [27:42] Selectboard member: do I... We need to make a motion about waiving the town. [27:48] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: We were going to waive it because we have an emergency situation, we've got a backup application and I don't think it's fair to the applicant to have to wait extra time. [28:01] Selectboard member: You can make that within the motion. You can make that within the motion. Okay. I'll offer a motion that we waive the normal two-meeting schedule of appointments for making two appointments for both applicants to serve on the Board of Appeals. And [28:30] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: a second from Doug. Any discussion in favor of appointing the two listed applicants? Right. We have a demand. That would be 4-0. [28:45] Selectboard member: Yeah, so my goal is to first say, Alexander, I'm going to not mispronounce your last name. Okay, spell it. Yeah. V-E-V-A-E-R-T. I [29:03] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: apologize for not saying it, but I was afraid I would be the one to do it. And I didn't want to do that. Spell it again. Yeah. [Speaker F (unidentified): P-A-G-A-N. D-E-E.] P-A-G-A-N. [Selectboard member: P-A-G-A-N.] I'm assuming the other name is a middle name, but I'm not sure. That takes care of that. Moving right along, we're going to now discuss cemetery repairs, and we do have some paperwork here. [29:41] Selectboard member: I know that the Main [29:44] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Cemetery Association had done some training in one of the cemeteries. Do you want to discuss this? [29:51] Selectboard member: Yeah, Jean Carpenter here can speak well to what the proposal is. The Maine Old Cemetery Association did a training session here a few weekends ago, thanks to Jeanine's efforts. And the classroom portion was held right here, and then the hands-on portion was held at Village Cemetery, where they did some awesome work. But identify that there's some, well, there's a large amount of work yet to be done. And so where do you start? And I think the proposal will be to start with some of the town's forefathers, founding families who are buried in Village Cemetery. And I'll let Janine talk about it, but we have plenty of funds. We have funds in the cemetery reserve to accomplish all of what we want to do to get this off the ground. [30:53] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Janine, would you step up and speak to us? [31:01] Selectboard member: As Janine has pointed out, the Manual Cemetery Association was here a couple of weeks ago and did the workshop. Searsport also hosted their spring meeting here on May 30th at the Congregational Church, which was really well attended, 70 people in attendance. And there were close to 30 in the one a couple of weeks ago. So we chose to have a workshop portion of the day in Village after looking at all of the cemeteries because the Village Cemetery has a tough typography. It goes uphill and downhill, and the dirt and everything else is not always stable. So in that process, we were able to speak with a number of trained people. One who works as a vice president of the Main Old Cemetery Association. The other runs a cemetery repair business all over New England. It's very well known, speaking names, Joe Fermini. I have it spelled. Anyway, in that process, we were just looking at the stones up there, and the concern is many of the oldest stones are at the top of the hill, and the hill goes like this, and over time, Earth moves. And in the movement of the Earth, a number of the stones have fallen. In the falling, they've cracked. Stones, when they were built, multi-tiered stones, were put together with iron rods, which with oxidation creates sulfur. The sulfur causes the rods to expand. The rods expand and the stones crack. So what we're looking to do is hire somebody who's an expert in the field to do the work to repair the stones, to keep the stones, so that because if much more damage occurs, the stones will be lost. They will be lost. And so now we have to talk about what the stones are. They're stones that are just, they're called tablets. They're literally straight stones that go in the earth. There's no metal in them. It's just a metal. They're actually designed to fall. You know, they can go in as earth moves, they fall over. So when you're repairing stone like that, it's a relatively simple process. I was trained via the Mayo Cemetery Association in multi-day training a number of years ago and have replaced lots of tablets. The issue with tablets is just how much they weigh and how much muscle you have to have to do it. So then you get to the more complicated repairs, and that's the 1 to 10 range of repairs, years, where it's multi-tiered stone, has the metal rods, is on a hill, and there's just been a lot of weather. So in the pictures on page two, you're looking at the Carver stones. That's John Carver, the person who built ships. That's his stone on the left and his wife's stone on the right. And there you see where the bottom of the stone is blown out. That's because of the iron rods. And it's also cracked for the same reason, although it is still standing, it will fall. The second stone on the right is this white. It's going to fall because it's leaning at an angle that much more, and it's going to go over. Because it has rods, it will break when it goes over. Those are marble stones. Yeah, marble. Those are marble stones. So those are repairs. So what goes into that? I'm just going to talk about just the top two pictures. Those stones would be taken apart, they'd be repaired, their iron would be drilled out, new stainless steel rods would be put in, the base would be reset, or if the bases were not resettable, they would be recast, and the stones would be placed, mortared back in place, and that's a significant history of those stones standing right there. You know, that's a shipyard at the foot of Leech Street, at the foot of Ellen Street. So what's really kind of interesting about all of this is, you know, we know where the shipyards are, we know where they lived, and this is where they're buried, so it's a complete picture that needs to be maintained. The second stone, the second set of stones, is the Black family. Henry Black. This is one of the oldest stones in the cemetery. The one that has the peak top is, he died in 1836. Those three stones are slate, the fourth one is marble. Those are tablets. So, chances are, and we don't know without probing, they don't have traces, which would mean we just have to dig them out, Make the hole, always using plastic instruments by the way, make the hole such that we can put it in the required distance down. It's a two-thirds, one-third proportion. Set it in with P-gravel, make sure it's leveled, and set them up again. And then while they're down, these stones need to be cleaned also. So while they're down, they need to be cleaned and then they need to be set up again. Always, the notion is you do no harm. So there are stones that can be straightened, but if the angle isn't so great that they are in break territory, they would be lower on the list of repair here. The stones I'm showing you, obviously, the treat stones and the Dunbar stones, they're down. So what we're looking to do is have Judson Starr, who runs a business out of Kennebunkport, I always have to look at the name of it, maintain the memory. He was trained by Joe Farahini, who runs Gravestone Matters. He's been working all over New England, all over Maine and also in New England, he charges $900 a day which includes all materials and he has the tripods, the lifts, he just comes in any additional help he can get during the day, so for instance if I was to go in and help dig up a tablet, which I can do that would be more stones finished within the week. So everybody always says, well how many stones can you get fixed? I can't tell you that because you don't know what you're getting into until you get into it. You might go down and think you have a tablet that has no base and you do the probing and you do the digging and it has a base and so that base needs to be lifted. did. But I can tell you that when we were in the workshop, it was a beautiful little stone. It couldn't be read. The angle of it was like this, with the name to the ground. It was a smaller stone, a child's stone, but even with a teaching point, it was righted in under an hour and a half, under an hour and a half. So my estimate would be that if we can get some, and there are other avenues besides myself to get additional help, but we would leave the work that we are not trained to do to Judson. A reference for him is the Haldale Cemetery in Montville, which was vandalized. I'm not sure if you've heard about that. There were about 50 stones that somebody went through and just knocked over and broke. He's the person doing repairs in that. He's not the only person. Actually, a group of MOCA people, myself included, went in for a couple of days and did what we could do, but he's doing everything, chains and all of that. So there are lots of other references, but he's a really good resource. He's seen the cemetery. He's the one who led, well, he co-led the workshop that was here a couple weeks ago. And he's good to work with. He's reliable. He does good work. So I really hope that you'll consider having him come here for five days to get, I would say, somewhere in the neighborhood. good, I'm putting myself on the line here, but, you know, at least ten stones, at least ten stones. That's the best I can do. And what we've done is we've prioritized the oldest stones, the stones that connect the physical town with where they're buried in, and then we'll go on from there. This came after looking at all of the cemeteries, and I just want to say this because they're all important, but the other cemeteries have had, actually MOCA's done a lot of work in Elmwood, and we've done work in, thank you, I always forget, I don't know why I can't call that name, Gordon, and, you know, we'll continue to do the work that we're able to do without the expertise of somebody with a tripod, yes, including all materials. [41:27] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: He's seeking volunteers then that would assist, or would that just get in the way? [41:32] Selectboard member: No. He is, no, he has often worked with local people. So I'm not putting anybody on the hook here, but if there was somebody from the town that could go in and help lift and dig, there are a couple of other local organizations that I have not contacted yet, but I will. And then there are, there's the flash mob that comes together that has done the work in Elmwood and Grove and other places, Gordon. We repair, write in and repair three or four stones, not just tablets, but stones in Village already. So the work is scoped out ahead of time and that there's somebody who knows what they're doing at each point so that no harm is done, it can be, the Lord can be expedited, and he's looking forward to it. [42:38] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: So I have one question. I assume all this is from natural birth shifting and all this is, none of this is from vandalism, right? [42:47] Selectboard member: Correct. That I know. That's good to hear. Yes. I would like to comment that five days at $900 a day, I just bought my marker, and it's being sent tomorrow. There is no way you could replace these for that amount of money. I mean, it would cost far more than $4,500 to replace them. Thank you for being on that point, because it's not just, if you have, and you know,, a lot of stones that have gone over and have not been repaired have had to have replacement markers put up. And replacement markers just do not have the quality of a hand-carved, beautiful, old and new stone. They're just works of art. The iconography on them cannot be reproduced other than hand-carving. And there just aren't that many hand-carvers anymore. So there's just a feel when you go into an old cemetery that it is almost a living place. And what's really interesting about Searsport Cemetery, and I'm sure it's true in many old towns, there are five cemeteries. Am I right in that number? Which are the seven? Boatage, Elmwood, Gordon, Village, Evergreen, North Searsport, Merrithew, yes. But Mount Hope is private? No, it's town. It's just administered by a private. [44:28] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Okay. We all had associations at one point. Okay. [44:32] Selectboard member: All cemeteries had associations at one point that took care of them, but slowly over the years they've been turned over. And the last one, if we turn to the town, I believe it was in 1985 by, and it was the Gordon Cemetery Association, and Mount Hope still stays in that association pattern, but there is some talk about the town eventually doing that. I'm going to add to that and say there are also a number of burying grounds on private lands around here. For instance, we just found a revolutionary patriot in one on Nichols Road. It's in the woods. The stone is pretty deteriorated. It cannot really be repaired, but it is now being protected. And that's, by the way, a law that they have to be protected if it's a patriot stone. But what I wanted to say is, and thank you for mentioning all of those, Village, if you walk around Village, you're basically walking among the stones of the people that lived in the village. When you're walking in Gordon, most of those people lived on the west side. When you're walking in Bowditch and Elmwood, Nichols, is a little bit more diverse. But there are people that lived in those areas, so those neighborhoods kind of ended up being buried in the same areas, which is something worth keeping. And I think historically, the whole notion of having to teach history, well, cemeteries is one way to do it. So, thank you for considering it. [46:15] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Thank you for having the funding [46:27] Selectboard member: to cover this. Yeah, the perpetual care, the general care funds in Billard Cemetery are adequate to fund it. Yeah, you have it. [Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Just the distribution.] That's just the distribution account, but the total perpetual care that we have currently for all cemeteries is $56,612. The maintenance account is $99,571. The general care account is on page 2, but that's in excess of both the folks. There's plenty of funding to do this. [47:09] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Proposing to the historic district commission and put out some type of visit those. So do I hear a motion on this? [47:34] Selectboard member: I make a motion we authorize up to $4,500 out of the cemetery funds. Which one? The trust funds. The trust funds to make new payers in educating [48:26] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Us. Okay, now we're going to move on to the Mosman Park-Hamilton Wharf seawall updates. [48:36] Selectboard member: Two of our four FEMA projects are basically complete. The Hamilton Wharf and Mosman Park seawalls had a deadline of September 25, 2026. We're still waiting for the staircase to be completed and some plantings. The Park Association wanted some specific plantings for the bank, and those aren't available at the local nurseries and have to be ordered. Because the project was passed this September 25th deadline, I am not ordering the additional supplies at this point. The completed project showed us having a surplus of funds, and I was informed by FEMA that we can apply for a separate grant to continue the work with these funds. That's why the ordering can wait. Directly after the storms of 2023 and 2024, repairs were made to the staircase at Moslem Park. They were quick. It didn't come before the board, but it is the board's responsibility. The Park Association paid for those repairs directly. We did receive funding from FEMA storms, and I'm requesting that we reimburse the association the total amount of $1,808.02 and it should be allocated from the FEMA fundings that we have already received. [50:00] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Appropriate the 1800, 1808, 02. 1808, 02, the FEMA funds. Do I hear a second? Second. I have a motion and a second from Linda. On any discussion? [50:26] Selectboard member: You don't leave any action to the grant application for a big extension? When we get there, basically my question to them was do I have to write back a check? And they said, well, we'd like to see towns continue. There's a whole application process that's treated like a new project, but as I explained to them, we have a lot more to do in that specific area. We don't have another project lined up other than Cottage Street but they were they were pretty happy and thought pretty confidently that we would be getting the funds to continue [51:02] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Okay, any other comments or questions? Seeing none, all in favor, four zero. Move into the 11th hour, so we need some sidewalks. [51:21] Selectboard member: So when state came through and did their engineer the undergrads they we have a location 101 East Main Street. Even during construction, that driveway flooded out, and the contractor actually paid, because in part, it wasn't exactly the state's fault. But in the end, the sidewalk that is there could be raised and eliminate a water problem for two properties. We talked to some people about it, we talked to some paving companies and if we bring the sidewalk up three inches, when they drive into their driveways they'll have to go up the three inches and behind go down. But it would eliminate the water from coming into those two households and it would cost in the neighborhood $3,500. And I think it would be good to, it would be a safety issue as far as the winter comes. I'm told that some of the water lingers on the sidewalk and becomes icy too, but I haven't seen that anecdotally, but I think it's a good project to do and we do have over $25,000 in our sidewalk repair account and we would be asking to take it from it. What [52:51] Speaker F (unidentified): did you say, up to $3,500? Well, [52:58] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: $3,500 to be signed with repairs and repositioning. So moved. Second. I have a motion from Doug and a second from Linda in discussion. Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. I have a vote of 4-0 to approve that funding. [53:20] Selectboard member: Correspondence. I have several items in the correspondence. So first being a new address for Pike Avenue, something we just heard about. Michael Cannon and his wife Jill hasn't had an address in a long time. It now is 7 Pike Avenue. Penobscot Energy and Perk letting us know that they are continuing to bypass. They're not in operation yet. Also got a letter from the Department of Environmental Protection. We have a preliminary draft permit license for our new wastewater treatment plant. I didn't include the whole thing because it's pretty thick, several pages, and it's preliminary. Once it's ready, I'll have something downstairs for people to look at. Next is the billing report for the ambulance. We've collected $156,690 so far. September was a very robust month, making up for the shortfalls of the two months prior, $39,421.31 for February. There's a meeting coming up, Knopscott Estuary Mercury Remediation Trust, Wednesday, October 21st, 2026, at the Alamo Theater, 85 Main Street, Bucksport, Maine. They're going to give some updates on what they're doing. It's a drop-in with a community meeting at 6, but a drop-in from 2 to 5. All are invited. The next several items, I don't even know how many, but there's a lot of them, are from Safety Works. We had Safety Works, the Department of Labor, come and do some inspections for us, and these several letters are telling us that they're very pleased that we've taken the remedial action to the things that we found at Royal, and we're 100% okay and safe. Next item is from Epic, and this is just giving us an update on where the perp plant is in its cleanup and hopefully being able to come back online fairly soon. And finally, the meeting notices for October is last night. Do [55:57] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: I have a motion on Treasurer's War? I'll present it. Second. All [56:16] Selectboard member: in favor? We'll take a motion. We accept it. We report as presented. Second. [56:37] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Second motion. We did that, so I remember it's a report. I just [56:55] Selectboard member: want to say that we have now entered into budget season for the whole county, and being your rep, I will tell you it's not going to be an easy job. There are a lot of things out there that we can't change the light bulbs, we can't change the bicycle, but we are going to work very hard to try to keep the budget we did in this year, we'll just do the best we can. The other thing, it's women's fall weekend this weekend, so come along, celebrate and enjoy the fun and enjoy this wonderful time here and be safe I don't really I'd just like to thank all the volunteers and folks that have made the last couple weekends really vibrant in town between women's fall and the Sardine Fest and the Motsman Park event. It's really nice to be able to walk to a number of activities and have traffic come to almost a standstill as it's creeping through town. I guess I heard it's nice to see, so thanks for all putting a ton of effort. Thank you, and I would [58:07] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: like to say the sardine test, I was amazed at how many people were out there and how far that traffic was backed up, so that was great, and I hope well anybody attends the swinging fall this weekend and that the letter cooperates with us for that to be successful. James, do we have any flyers telling about the events or anything like that? [58:33] Selectboard member: I think there are some downstairs, but I couldn't tell you directly. [58:39] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: That's all I have. So now it's your chance for public comment. If anybody would like to step up to the mic and say anything, this is your chance. I've [59:00] Speaker F (unidentified): got a couple of things, one of them probably a little more important than the rest. As Linda said, light bills and heating oil is expensive this year. As we're coming into the winter, I would encourage people to make sure that they have all their heating appliances serviced and up to snuff and their chimneys clean and that sort of stuff. You know, as much as we would, as a fire department, would love to come out and meet people, that's really not the circumstances we want to meet people under. My other two things is, I understand Millard Cemetery does have a lot of very old stones in it from people who, you know, were in town. Evergreen Cemetery has a lot of master mariners that are buried in there, ship captains. Herbert Black is buried up there, who built the house of my family, and I believe his brother William Black is still buried up there too, who built the other black farm that is no longer around. So as we're thinking about fixing these places, we have other cemeteries in town that are also in extremely bad shape. I mean, Evergreen still has remnants of whatever equipment or things laying around that the last agency was in there fixing. I mean, it looks like somebody just went in and threw a bunch of shoeboxes through the boxes. It's really a shame. I feel that if I don't stand up here and speak for that in a town, nobody does. My next thing is the remote voting. As Planning Board Chair and Chair of the Budget Advisory Committee, it's my opinion, and also as a citizen of the country, that voting over the phone, I don't believe is right. If we want to do it by Zoom so that the people that are watching this at home can physically see that it's Mark calling from home or Linda calling from home, I think that has a little more credibility and makes people feel a little bit better. because maybe not a lot of people can, you know, Steve's voice over the phone or anybody else's for that matter. So it's just my two cents on that. So I think it's just a transparency thing, you know, making sure that people understand and can see, you know, and I would expect the same for the planning board and budget advisory and, you know, any other place where people are voting on things that matter to the entire town. [1:01:48] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Well, I thank you for that input. I mean, I was doing it from home during the COVID situation, but you could see me when I was on Zoom. [1:01:58] Speaker F (unidentified): Right. And I think that'll lend a little more credibility to the people that are, you know, watching from home. Janine [1:02:22] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: Lavely. I'm wearing my Mossman Park Trustees hat. I'm also the treasurer. And I've been, I emailed and asked for the finances from, I've been, I'm the person who was, I'm the point person for the Board of Trustees on the seawall repair. here. And I've been, like I always do, following the money. That FEMA award was broken down between the wharf and the park. And so I know how much money is there for the park project. I'd like to know if we're going to be in the loop on what was actually spent and what is left, and I have concerns about writing a separate grant that we can do anything we want with. Is the money part of the park award, or is the new grant with Creative Writing going to be both the park and the wharf? And will then that money go to the wharf and not the park? [1:03:34] Selectboard member: Yeah, we don't have a need to do any more on the seawall at the wharf. We were looking I personally am looking at bringing a grant to continue the work at the Mosman Park. Although we're not legally responsible for that portion, as we're not the owners, but I think it's important that the town continue to do work on that. [1:03:54] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: Right. So as the owners, we'd like to have a seat at the table with anything that's done going forward. We'd like to see better communication with what's being done, money, better accountability with the money. And again, my question is, will we see the settlement of FEMA funds to date, and will they be separated out between Park and Wharf? And do you have a general ballpark figure of what's left of paid, Sean? [1:04:26] Selectboard member: I don't see it here, but I will include the final report to FEMA to the Park Association. [1:04:32] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: Okay. And then will we be included with any grant proposals that are going to be written? It seems like a big gray area with a grant proposal that's going to be written to capture the rest of the FEMA funds, which are dedicated for the park, if you don't own and don't have the responsibility to do that right here. I just want to make sure the park is kept in the loop this time on what's happening. Absolutely. Okay. And I was interested or not interested, kind of shocked to hear that our plants aren't going to be ordered? [1:05:14] Selectboard member: They're not ordered at this point. They will be ordered. [1:05:17] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: Will we be able to plant them before our goal is before winter because we have an obligation with the FEMA award to plant that bank. [1:05:26] Selectboard member: Right. And I still have to find the right rose. Sorry, there's a thousand, there's thousands of plants available, and what I thought was the right rose happens not to be a rose, so we're going to work on that. [1:05:47] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: And it's not on the list of [1:05:48] Selectboard member: and it's not on the list of the sustainable grant thing, so we're working on it. [1:05:56] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: Would it be helpful if the Grounds Committee did the research and just handed you the name of the rose, and if we could find some place to order it, would that be helpful? [1:06:05] Selectboard member: Absolutely doable. I would invite that all day. Awesome. [1:06:10] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: Great, thank you. The planting time must be long. [1:06:18] Selectboard member: Actually, until the ground freezes, we were just down at Plants Unlimited. We were talking about plantings, and as long as you can get a shovel in the ground, they're confident that their plants would be okay. One of the guys actually on the ground doing the work down there said he's planted this late in December and had success. But I'd like this time of year, it's still good for a little while. I'm hoping we can beat it. [1:06:48] Lavely, Mossman Park Trustees treasurer: The grass has been a huge success. Absolutely. [1:06:51] Selectboard chair/presiding officer: If I were one of those, it would be guaranteed to die. Anyone else before we close the public comment? Seeing none, it's now time to go into executive session. I want to thank everyone who attended the meeting tonight. I'll second it. All in favor?