Kittery Council appoints Board of Appeals member, approves holiday events

[0:02] Chair Spiller: I call this October 14, 2026 meeting of the Kittery Town Council to order. Kittery is located on land of Pinnacook and Abenaki peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy who have ongoing cultural and spiritual connections to this land. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude the land and the peoples who have stewarded it through the generations and recognize Kittery's ongoing responsibility to maintain and protect these homelands for our future generations to come. We, the Kittery Town Council, duly assembled, being ever mindful of the frailties of human judgment, seek guidance and direction as we enter upon our duties this evening. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I [0:51] Councilor Bragg: pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America [0:55] Larry Layton: and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [1:07] Chair Spiller: Roll call, please. Tantberg. Councilor Bragg. Present. Councilor Mason. Here. Councilor Clark. Here. Councilor Stevens. Here. Councilor Greenwood. Here. Vice Chair McGuire. Here. Chair Spiller. Here. Year. Agenda amendment and adoption. Any changes to the agenda? There being none, all in favor of adopting as presented? Aye. [1:34] Town Manager: Town manager's report. All right. So it is that time of year when floats are coming out. So they'll be coming out of the water for the season on Tuesday, October 27th. So the parking lot in Pepperell Cove will be closed from 9 p.m. on the 26th until all the floats have been pulled on the 27th. There will still be a single float out there used for boats staying in the water later than the float out, and that'll stay out until November 15th. If anyone has questions, they can reach out to the harbormaster on it. It's also election season. The November election is Tuesday, November 3rd. There are absentee ballots available at the town hall, and voter registration night is Thursday October 29th from 6 to 7 p.m. here at Town Hall and candidates night is next Monday at 6 p.m. Here in Chambers an update on the speed sign at Meeting House Village the sign is back down again after another battery malfunction so we're working with the manufacturer on the warranty and hopefully we'll be able to replace that one more time I think it's the second or third time it's been down so hopefully we'll get that back together for those who are interested in serving the Kittery the town of Kittery is seeking people to join different boards including the board of appeals has some Vacancies as well as others, you can visit our website to see all the board vacancies. There's also a community event coming up on infill housing. It's in partnership with the Southern Maine Planning and Development Council, and they're hosting this community conversation and event about infill housing. There will be games and other activities to get people to understand a little bit more about what's infill and how it could be used here in Kittery. That events Wednesday, November 4th, from 5 to 6:30. And then following tonight's meeting, I will be heading off to the International City County Town Managers Association conference, and we'll be engaging in a bunch of sessions there and hopefully bringing back some of that information. I'll also be asking council to appoint Beth Lalamond, our finance director, as acting town manager, since I will be on the other coast, and so she'll be here in my absence. A few other updates on dates. Halloween after dark is October 23rd from 5:30 to 8 at the KCC. Trick-or-treat is October 30th from 5 to 8 p.m. The freebie barn is closing just for the season on November 1st, still no longer be open after the October 31st state, and then the veterans harvest luncheon is on November 5th from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. One final thing that's not on here is last week also was harbor master appreciation day, and so that was celebrated on October 8th as we end that season for the floats and everything else. I thought we should at least say a shout out to our harbor master and their team for all they do for us, so thank you. Thank you. Any [4:44] Councilor Bragg: questions for the town manager? Chair? Yes, vice chair. Just, I know there's a lot of interest in the upcoming election, and there's always some questions around ballots and what to do with them, so I guess a couple comments and questions. I do believe on election day ballots have to be, if you've got an absentee ballot that you got in the mail or you picked up a town hall, they have to be returned in person at the KCC. No, they can be returned here at town hall. They have to be returned here at the drop box. Okay, so the drop box I guess is available through 8 p.m. 8 p.m. on [5:20] Chair Spiller: election night, although I would not want you to wait till 8 p.m., but okay. I was [5:26] Councilor Bragg: for whatever reason I thought in previous years it got cold, it was a couple of years before it [5:31] Chair Spiller: was like that, and we found out that we shouldn't have been doing that. Okay, so you can, you can bring [5:36] Councilor Bragg: Your ballot to the drop box at town hall up to 8 p.m. on election night, although you folks would very reasonably prefer it be done sooner than that. Yes, please. And I believe Maine has same day registration, so if somebody hasn't registered, they can come during office hours here, register, and get a ballot at that time that they could take with them in return, or fill it out there, or what have you. So, okay, cool, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you very much. [6:07] Chair Spiller: In addition to the speed monitor by Meeting Hess Village, there is one out that's out on Rogers Road closer to the foreside. It's been out for a long time. [6:18] Town Manager: Yes, our police chief was monitoring all of them, so we can get them updated in the near future. [6:24] Councilor Clark: Okay, chair. Yes, just one more question about the signs, the speed signs. Yeah, the first time the speed sign went up for Meeting House, it was before the entry, and now it's after the entry, and [6:41] Town Manager: I don't know if there was a reason for that. Yes, there was. So the sign is bright and also makes a little bit of noise, and so there was some complaints about the location and the proximity from a neighbor, so we moved it slightly, and now it's that battery problem again. Nothing [7:03] Chair Spiller: else, okay. Our next item is interviews for the Board of Appeals and the Planning Board, and I'm happy to say this evening we do have an interview for the Board of Appeals. Kittytown Council moves to interview Lawrence Layton to the Board of Appeals for a three-year term to expire on 12 31 2029. Mr. Layton, if you would come to the podium, identify yourself, and briefly explain to us why you want to be on the Board of Appeals. Thank [7:36] Larry Layton: you, madam chair, members of the town council, a town manager. My name is Larry Layton. I live at [street] in Kittery Point. My husband and I moved to Kittery Point in 2020. That was just as the pandemic was getting ramped up. We were full-time residents of Nashville, New Hampshire for many years, and we had a home in Cape Netic. As we were approaching retirement, we wanted to find a quieter location to settle, staying with a seaside type of community, and we were very fortunate to find our home on Garish Island, and we love it there. Great community to be in, and we are very happy to be in Kittery and the community here overall. For background, I got my Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. From there I went to a small defense contractor in Massachusetts who many people worked for, was there for almost 39 years when I retired in 2021. I grew in my responsibilities from an individual contributor to group leader, section manager, project leader, and eventually an engineering manager. And when I retired, I had a team of about 60 engineers and an annual budget of 30 million dollars. So it was a very challenging but also very rewarding career. In retirement, much to many people's surprise, I enjoy leisure. I do volunteer work. I volunteer with AARP as a tax aid. That keeps me very busy from November getting recertified with the IRS through beginning of April, seeing clients and helping them with tax returns. But I would like to get involved with some other areas. I have cycle time available. I went to the talk that Amy gave at the Kittery Community Center back in September, heard the plea, and she mentioned it again this evening, about need for the community to be involved with many boards and committees that are lacking help. And I noticed the board of appeals in particular had only four members, sometimes wasn't able to meet quorum to have conduct business, and I thought that was interesting to me, an area where I think I could contribute, and would like to put my name forward for that. So with that, I'd like to entertain any [10:21] Chair Spiller: questions you may have. Okay, thank you. And we have a standard set of questions that we ask everyone interview for these positions. From understanding that you haven't been on the board, you've perhaps watched some of the meetings online, read through some of the minutes, what's your understanding of what the Board of Appeals does? [10:47] Larry Layton: So the Board of Appeals addresses any number of items that our planning board or code enforcement may make a decision that a landowner doesn't agree with and wants to come forward with an appeal. And there's criteria for which that can be assessed. There are variances that might be requested that may seem ordinary, but because they are not in compliance, whether it's set back requirements or land coverage, that there's an exception is required to town code, so that needs to go through the Board of Appeals. There may be somebody has wants to put in a an access ramp for their home and it might encroach on some setbacks, so that doesn't require, doesn't meet current code, so that might be something that would come through the board of appeals as Well I have not attended any Board of Appeals meetings. I did look at the online videos for the meetings that were conducted this year, looked at the information packets that were provided in advance of the meetings, and you know, so I have a flavor of those things. Great. [12:11] Chair Spiller: Thank you. And the main Municipal Association does offer periodic trainings on Boards of Appeal and Planning Boards. They're excellent training, so that assuming you're appointed, you'll be encouraged to attend one of those. It sounds as though you do have the time. [12:27] Larry Layton: To serve on this board? I do, you know, from as I said, from November until April it's a, it's a busy time for me, but the tax work with clients is usually three days a week, so I have other days available, and I can always be available in an evening for a meeting as well. I have time to review packages in advance. Any questions for [12:51] Chair Spiller: Mr. Layton? If not, you can take a seat and we will entertain a nomination for your appointment. Thank you. Thank you for being willing to do this and coming this evening. Pleasure. Of the council, some, the language is, you know, I move to appoint [13:09] Town Manager: Larry Layton to, I move to appoint Larry Layton to the Board of Appeals for a [13:15] Councilor Stevens: three-year term to expire 12-31-29. Second. Moved by Councillor Greenwood, [13:21] Chair Spiller: seconded by Councillor Bragg. Any discussion? There being none, could we have a roll call please? Councillor Clark? Yes. Councillor Mason? Yes. Councillor Stevens? Yes. Councillor Bragg? Yes. Councillor Greenwood? Yes. Vice Chair McGuire? Yes. Chair Spiller? Yes. Motion passes, seven in the affirmative and none in the negative. You need to be sworn in by the Town Clerk. Once you do that, you are officially on the board, and they'll be very excited to have you. Yes, thank you very much, and we're excited too. Yeah, thank you. We know we have no public hearings. The next item is discussion by members of the public, three minutes per person. People come to the podium, identify yourselves, and speak. Anyone wishing to speak? Is there anyone watching? No. Okay, we, if you wish to speak, you have to come to the podium. Okay. Just [14:40] Kathy Cowler: Let me know it's my first time doing this, so my name is Kathy Cowler and I live on [address] in Kittery, and I had sent a an email concerning the possibility of doing hazardous material collections on behalf of the town members, because I've been noticing since I moved here that Portsmouth, I think, does twice, it does them twice a year. That's a big city, I get that, but then I saw that York has done them a couple of times, and then when I saw Elliott doing one last year, I said, well shoot, I think we're a wee bit bigger than Elliott, we certainly could be able to do something like this. And in asking the good folks, the wonderful folks at our town transfer station, they said that you could go to a place in Portland, and then there's another place that you could go to, but that's like open like two hours on Friday, the third Friday of the month. I'm teasing a little bit about that one, but it was totally inconvenient. So I know, I mean, for myself, I've kept like cans of insecticide that I think are expired, but I don't know what to do with them, and I think they're hazardous, but I don't know if people know even, and that's just me, because, but anyway, someone may just be throwing that away in the garbage. Now I have seen lists of hazardous materials, because I think Portsmouth did it earlier, did it, and that is a hazardous material, so I think that we have a lot of stuff that's hazardous that's being given to, that's being dumped in the general waste. Don't know for sure, but I don't know what to do with my pile, and I'm not, you know, I guess I'll eventually go to a Portland if I have to, but anyway, that was just a suggestion. Okay, thank you, and no one [16:58] Chair Spiller: else in the audience, no one watching, no. Okay, and periodically we do get the request to have a hazardous waste collection day. We used to do that. My understanding recently is that the public works people have to be licensed to handle those wastes, and at this point no one is licensed to do that, but I will ask to turn to the town manager and ask her if she could check with the superintendent of the director of public works and see what, if there is an opportunity to do that. Yeah, thank you. An item that I skipped over was the minutes, acceptance of minutes from previous meeting. We have minutes for the May 11th 2026 meeting. Anyone have any changes to those minutes? There being none, all in favor of approving as presented, thank you. Sorry for doing that. New business, community, town council moves to approve a signage request from st. Raphael's for a holiday bazaar on November 7th, 2026, and the local they've provided locations and the dates for the signs. Pleasure the council on this item. [18:20] Councilor Bragg: Move to approve the signage request for the dates and location specified. Second. [18:25] Chair Spiller: Moved by the vice chair, second by Councillor Clark. Could we have a roll call, please? Councillor Mason? Yes. Councillor Barak? Yes. Councillor Greenwood? Yes. Councillor Stephens? Yes. Councillor Clark? Yes. Vice chair McGuire? Yes. Chair Spiller? Yes. Motion passes, 7 in the affirmative, none in the negative. The Kiddery Town Council moves to approve a request from the Kiwanis Club of Seacoast to hold the holiday parade on Saturday, December 5th, 2026, at 3 p.m., with a rain date of Sunday, December 6th, 2026. Pleasure the council on this item. Move to approve the request for the parade. Second. Move by Councillor Clark, second by Vice Chair McGuire. Any discussion? Other than Councillor, Vice Chair McGuire and I are looking forward to it, and perhaps others, the loneliness of the chair and vice chair walking in the holiday parade. Oh, I will be the chair then, so hmm. If there's no further discussion, roll call, please. Counselor Greenville? Clerk? Yes. Counselor Clark? Yes. Counselor Mason? Yes. Counselor Stevens? Yes. Counselor Brack? Yes. Vice Chair McGuire? Yes. Chair Spiller? Yes. Motion passes, having the affirmative, none of the negative. The Kittery Town Council moves to appoint Elizabeth Lelemond as acting town manager from October 15th, 2026, to October 25th. Before we have a motion, I will check with the town manager to make sure that she is checked with. Yes, okay. Pleasure the council on this item. Move to a point [20:14] Councilor Bragg: Elizabeth Lelemund as acting town manager, the 15th through the 25th of [20:18] Chair Spiller: this. Move by the vice chair, second by Councillor Bragg. Any discussion? There being none, roll call, please, Town Clerk. Councillor Stevens? Yes. Councillor Bragg? Yes. Councillor Clark? Yes. Councillor Greenwood? Yes. Councillor Mason? Yes. Vice Chair McGuire? Yes. Chair Spiller? Yes. Motion passes, five in the affirmative, none in the negative. Councillor issues or comments, let's start with Councillor Greenwood. [20:45] Town Manager: I have no issues or comments tonight. Thank you. [20:51] Councilor Stevens: Councillor Stevens, yeah, just a couple of things. One is that I was able to vote today, and I want to just tell people once again just how easy and convenient it is. If you are not available or not sure if you'll be available on Election Day, November 3rd, you can go right into the town offices and request your ballot and sit there and fill it out and hand it back in. And it took me a total of 15 minutes door-to-door, and that included waiting for three people in line to conduct other business. So very efficient and wonderful, and I'm just very grateful for that opportunity. And the other thing is I just wanted to second what the town manager said about Harbormaster Appreciation Day, and our harbormaster John Brosnahan is just does such a wonderful job, and he's delightful and patient and is a wonderful representative for the town of Kittering, so are his deputy harbormasters, but he really just does such an excellent job. And as I say, every day is Harbormaster Appreciation Day in the Stevens household. Yeah, he's great. So thank you. [22:05] Councilor Clark: Councilor Clark. I'd like to thank Kathy for coming in. I really like her idea. Wasn't in my mind ever, but I think we should have a day to collect that stuff, even if we just contract somebody just once a year to come and get it 's a great idea, so thank you for coming in and sharing that with us [22:29] Councilor Bragg: Councillor Bragg, I would only like to toss out there that the Kittery recycling is open more days a week than the Elliott one is, so that may be one of the reasons that they have more time or the trained individuals to be able to participate in that sort of project. So I just want to say give a kudos to our RDPW because they are open five days a week as opposed to Elliott [22:59] Chair Spiller: Council Mason, nothing tonight, thank you. Nothing tonight. Well, I've got several issues here. Forget about me. Oh. [23:10] Councilor Bragg: No, it's okay, it's okay. Vice Chair McGuire, please. Yes, I'd like to thank Mr. Layton for signing up to be on the Board of Appeals. As you said, the town is always in need of folks that are willing to volunteer some time to help, and we are lucky in Kittery to have a lot of really talented folks that serve on the various boards and committees, but we always need more, it seems. And so we really appreciate your willingness to step up. I'd also like to thank Kathy for coming in, coming in, doing public Speaking at a podium, if you've not done it before, is not easy and can be intimidating. So we thank you for that and taking the trouble to come to a council meeting and make your opinion known. We all really appreciate it. I will echo what Councillor Stephens said in terms of the ease of voting. You know, I know there are some folks, one could argue reasonably, are concerned as to whether how smoothly things might go this year. We've got a great town clerk and a great Secretary of State that, you know, has really worked to make voting go smoothly in the state of Maine and in the town of Kittery, and we should expect that to be the case. But for folks that want to make sure that they get their ballot in ahead of time, being able to drop into the town offices and either take it with them, take it home and drop it off later, or do as Counselor Stevens did and literally just fill it out and hand it off, it's super convenient. I'm grateful to live in a state that makes it very easy to vote, because it's not the case everywhere, so we should be very grateful for that. I would, since DPW has come up already tonight, I would like to talk a little bit about them. There was some commentary today about paving and paving assessment online, and for good or for bad, I have learned a lot about paving in the town of Kittery in the last five years that I have been on the comprehensive, no, I'm sorry, the capital improvement committee. So what I learned my very first year is the town has a very well thought out and well designed, sort of engineered approach to looking at how we do paving in the town. Every year an assessment of paving conditions are done, and there is both a long-term budget plan for which parts of the town will get kind of full repaving and which stuff gets patched and fixed. And it was explained to me by our very well regarded head of public works that, you know, the cost of doing certain types of repairs, you can wind up spending good money after bad, and so there is a lot of time put in on the part of DPW to make sure that the money that's being spent to care for the roads in town is done in like a very defensible and systematic way, to put money in the right places to deal with the worst things, but being mindful of like, you know, not wasting money to do some little short term thing. It is a, it's, it's a very difficult thing for them to do, because the state is always kind of mucking around with schedules about when they want to do things. There's some federal parts of it, there's a lot Of negotiation with the state DOT, so I would just say I think almost universally people within town really appreciate the DPW. They will be getting here in not too long to where there starts to be snow applying again, and everybody always talks about how they really appreciate that, and I know I do. So when it comes to paving, I would just say it's a more complicated thing than might be apparent. Everybody within the town works very hard to use those dollars for paving as effectively as they can, and the dollars just aren't stretching as far. So every, you know, everything related to roads and paving and sidewalks has just gotten so much more expensive in the past since COVID basically, and now we're in this continued inflationary period. So I think you can rest assured that the folks at DPW are doing a really good job on that, and all of that stuff is online in the capital improvement plan. You can go on the town's website, it's like the fourth or fifth page in the packet that has a map of the town and has all the budget for the paving projects and how well they're planned. So I just want to bring that to folks [27:23] Chair Spiller: us attention. Thank you. Thank you guys. Chair, and I'll add to your praise for the paving plan. I was happy to see that they're doing subsurface assessment of our roads, and so you can, you can put asphalt on top of existing roads, and if there's a culvert and there isn't proper soil support underneath that, it in a year or two it's just going to, you're going to start seeing cracks. And so there are a number of places around town, Kittery Point, where you see that happening. It would be good to have a sense of what the structure is like and what we need to do. [27:58] Councilor Bragg: And you can't probably do that with your eyes. You need some of the technology. [28:01] Chair Spiller: Not unless you're an exceptional person. Yeah. And probably the harbormaster could do that because he truly is a terrific guy and deserves all the nice things people have been saying about him. I did want to report that the vice chair, the town manager, and I met with the superintendent of the water department as well as two of the water department trustees, and we had, I think, a very productive conversation about the water situation, how they are addressing that, about our relationship with the Navy, that there was assurance that our access to water is not going to be compromised by the Navy taking our water. They're going to work to supply to meet our needs and the Navy Yard's needs. We do have some long-term issues that we need to be looking at. People have talked about desalination plants, that the Navy should build a desalination plant. Land, but those facilities require a great deal of land, and there really isn't enough land around here to do that. The other option is just to wait for it to start raining again, and it will start raining again, but we don't know when, and I think Vice Chair McGuire mentioned the unpredictability of our current weather situation. So another option is to bring to run a water line down from the Saco River, which would be very expensive, but that's a partnership that we could form with the Navy Yard, and so that seems like a promising option, and we need to press to see to look at the feasibility of that. I think they left with a much better idea of how our planning department works. Remember, a plan, a development plan can't be approved without the water district signing off on it, so we're not over here wildly planning development without their input, but the last year and a half has, we've had exceptional lack of rain, and we just don't know when that's going to change, if it's going to change. So what else? I want to thank the master gardeners and the work they've done at the Children's Library, Children's Garden at the library. Last week they worked with half a dozen ship people from the Navy Yard, submariners, and spread I think 25 pounds of compost on the garden. 25 bags, 25 bags, and each bag is three to five pounds. Anyway, yeah, so that was a very productive morning that they spent together. The climate committee wants to encourage people to go to the infill event on November 4th at 5 p.m. Members of the climate action committee and the housing committee are going to be the games masters at that event, so it should be a good old-fashioned fun and educational, we hope, to at the KCC. Yeah, and then I want to remind people we're so lucky to have Mainspring, the coordinated support services. We're very lucky to have Footprints. The shelves at Footprints, prints are pretty bare, and there are boxes out in the lobby here for donations. There are boxes at the library as well, so particularly as the holiday season approaches, if people could feel a little bit more generous, and when you go shopping, get one for them and one for yourself. We have no executive session. Our final item is adjournment. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved by the vice Chair? Second. Seconded by Councillor Bragg. All in favour? Aye. Aye. We're adjourned. Thank you all. I [32:36] Councilor Bragg: never met nobody like you. Had friends and I've had buddies. It's true, but they don't turn my tummy the way you do. I never met nobody like you. You're [33:04] Chair Spiller: never not on my mind. Oh my.