Lewiston Planning Board elects officers, reviews FY27 capital plan

[0:00] Shanna Cox: That's what they brought. There's the, there's the. Good evening and welcome. My name is Shanna Cox, the chairperson of the Lewiston Planning Board. We're meeting this evening, January 12th, and I officially call this meeting to order. And before we begin with roll call, I'd like to acknowledge and thank the Complete Streets Committee for joining us and apologize for a little bit of routine business before we dive in. So bear with us and welcome. Make yourself comfortable. Can I have roll call, please? Yes. Zoe Lindstrom. Here. Michael Marcotte. Present. Lucy Bisson. Present. Shanna Cox. Here. Amy Smith. Here. Alexander Pine. Here. Panthea Burns. Here. And for city staff, we have Shelly Norton, Deputy Director. So we'll note that it's the beginning of the year. Zoe has been appointed officially to a full membership, so welcome. She's changed her seat. Penthea is also re-sworn in as an associate but has submitted for full because we now have a vacancy on the full board as well as the associate, and so we're excited for that. We anticipate that there will be two, this is to all of our viewers at home, we anticipate that there will be two associate slots open and we would love for you to submit an application. Support this great public service that we all do, but welcome. Officially we're going to start with election of officers, and just a quick note on this: full voting members are eligible to serve as officers. Anyone who is a voting member during the officer election item is eligible to vote in the election. What I would like to do is name that we are seeking nominations for the chairperson, vice chairperson, and secretary. What has worked well in the in the past is to announce the opening of nominations. For the given position, just to name that a person can nominate themselves, someone can nominate somebody else. We'll hear each nomination for each position, will vote each position separately. A member can decline the nomination should they. [2:16] Speaker C (unidentified): Choose. Questions about the process? I'll be voting this evening because we have an absence, is that. [2:24] Shanna Cox: Right? Okay, we will, we will vote and I, think for the purposes of tonight's evening, correct me if I'm wrong, you would be a full voting member. Yeah, so all in for everybody. Great. Yeah, thanks. Are there nominations for chairperson? [2:43] Speaker D (unidentified): I'd like to nominate you as chair again for this year. [2:49] Shanna Cox: Happily accept. Are there other nominations or self-nominations for chairperson? OK, can we call the roll? Sure. Zoe Lindstrom. Yes. Michael Marcotte. Shannon. Lucy Bisson, yes, for Shannon. Shanna Cox. Yes. Thank you. Amy Smith. Yes. Alexander pie. Yes for Shanna. Yes and Penthea burns. Yes. Okay. Thanks. We are accepting nominations. Thank you guys very much. It's my pleasure to serve another year. We are seeking nominations for vice chairperson and to name. Since this board last met, Mark Roy, who was a full member and our past vice chair, did resign from the board as well as that position. So it is currently. Are there nominations for vice chairperson? [3:39] Speaker E (unidentified): I nominate Lucy Besson. Are there any others? [3:44] Shanna Cox: Lucy, do you accept? Yes. Are there other nominations? Okay. All right. I would nominate Amy in part because it is my plan to nominate you for secretary, which you have slated at. I'd rather not be secretary. Okay, great. That's very helpful. Amy, would you like to go ahead? I didn't hear what Lucy said. She said no thank you to secretary. As I indicated, that would be my next nomination. Okay. Thanks. Amy, do you want to accept nomination for vice chair? Sure. Okay. May we do the election as Mike Marquette has, as we call the role, to say the name of your selection? Okay. Is that okay from a procedural point? Yep. Great. Will you call the role? Sure. Sure. Zoe Lindstrom. Amy Smith. Michael Marcotte. Lucy Bisson. Lucy Bisson. I'll vote for myself. Shanna. I'm trying to keep track. Do I need to do that or is Shelly keeping track for us? I don't know. I'm keeping track. Thank you. Shanna Cox. Lucy, if you're not going to serve as secretary. Okay. Amy Smith. Lucy. Alexander Pine. Lucy. Anthea Burns. Lucy. She made tracking much easier than I had anticipated. Congratulations, Lucy. We're seeking nominations for secretary. [5:10] Speaker D (unidentified): I'd like to nominate our other wonderful wordsmith, Zoe, for secretary. Do you accept? [5:19] Speaker F (unidentified): I did read through this last night, but could I get another rundown on what exactly my sort of role would be? [5:27] Shanna Cox: Yeah, absolutely. I'll take a first stab at it, and Shelly will fill in any gaps. You help call the roll both at the beginning and for each vote during any course. You are responsible for reviewing the minutes that Linda shares in advance, which you already do a good job, and I would say any other places that you would like to grammatically catch things. That's your kind of ongoing commitment, which, well, you would do no matter what anyway, but those are the key components. I think should I be absent and Lucy be absent, you would then share the meeting. Did I miss anything, Shelly? Okay. I will accept the nomination. Thanks. Is there any other nominations for secretary? Great. Can you call roll until we're done? Sure. Thanks. Zoe Lindstrom. Yes. Michael Marcotte. Zoe. Lucy Bisson. Zoe. Shanna Cox. Yes. Zoe. Amy Smith. Yes. For Zoe. Alexander Pine. yes for zoe and thea burns and yes for zoe okay congratulations thank you yeah so at this point those roles now take effect okay thank you and zoe i don't know if you have this little cheat sheet the cheat sheet and i think it's your is it the updated one that shows that 's great yeah Thank you so much. I think this was in the package. Yeah, it was in the package. It is also in the packet, but this is easier because sure, because it's out and lovely. You don't have to look for. It, but all right, agenda item number three, which is the review and adoption of 2026 policies and procedures and protocol. Questions on this agenda item? It's pretty standard. It's basically the same stuff just updated. Make a motion to accept them on the record for 26. I make a motion that we accept up the planning board handbook and policies and procedures and protocols. Thanks. Is there a second? Any discussion? Please, Zoe Lidstrom. Yes. [7:42] Speaker F (unidentified): Michael Marcotte, yes. Lucy Bisson, yes. Shanna Cox, yes. Amy Smith, yes. Alex Pine. [7:49] Shanna Cox: Yes. And Thea Burns, yes. You passes and placed on record. Are there any adjustments to the agenda this evening from anyone on the board or staff? No. Great. Any correspondence we need to place on record? We did hand out a memorandum from Public Works director Gagne this evening regarding the complete streets program and the fiscal year 27 LC IP. Thanks. Note and place on. Record. Any other correspondence? Great. I would note that there are no public hearings on the agenda this evening. We'll now move into agenda item number seven, our workshop with a complete streets committee. Thanks for your patience and welcome you guys. We really appreciate it. We were excited and member Pine had helped urge this board to connect with you. There are a number of times in just a little bit of framing in our work reviewing applications, looking at developments, and looking at developments. Adjacent to other developments that are not coming forward at the same time, but are in recent history in context of each other, that we recognize the desire to better understand some pedestrian movement, some priorities, and align our work with your committee and better understand your committee. Because it is very often that we are making comments, asking questions both of staff and of the applicants about how people will move through or around these properties. Sometimes it's housing, sometimes it's commercial, sometimes it's a little bit of mixed-use. And so we're excited to have an opportunity tonight to meet with you. By way of framing, was there anything any other board member wanted to name before we welcome, I think, our two chairs, co-chairs? Could we have them introduce themselves? Yes, absolutely. And you have gotten our names probably 12 times tonight. Great. Yeah, we'd love for you to introduce yourselves and welcome. Would you like to begin? Sure. [9:57] Paul Josephson: I'm Paul [9:58] Paul (Public Works Staff): Nehoff, project engineer for engineering, Public Works, and basically I staff the Complete Streets Committee. We host it half the year at Public Works, so basically I attend those and bring projects in front of them, ideas in front of them, and get feedback that we incorporate into our work. Welcome. [10:27] Shanna Cox: Yeah. Can you shuttle around your microphone a little bit and introduce yourself? [10:35] Jeremiah Bartlett: Sure. I'm Jeremiah Bartlett. Up until the end of December, I was the chair of the Complete Streets Committee. I go back to the beginning of the committee and also to the beginning of the bicycle pedestrian committee that predated that. So I'm sort of here to provide sort of any questions on the broad strokes of history, I guess. Yes. Great. You also have some professional experience in this area. Yes. I am also the head of transportation engineering for the city of Portland [11:07] Shanna Cox: Welcome and thank you. Maybe start at this end of the table and go down. Sure. So it's actually for the recording and a public access, and so I'm sorry, but do pass it [11:18] Brad Pinot: around. No worries. My name is Brad Pinot. I'm a transportation engineer at ATRC. I serve as kind [11:24] Speaker D (unidentified): of an advisor to the Complete Streets Committee. Could you spell out the acronym for people at home? [11:30] Brad Pinot: yeah it's the andrew scoggin transportation resource center we're the mpo the municipal planning organization that works in the lewiston auburn lisbon area you sound like you work in [11:39] Karen Blakelock: government. You got your acronyms down. Yeah, welcome. Hi, I'm Karen Blakelock. I'm a representative from Lewiston. Hello. [11:51] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm Catherine, I'm an Auburn resident, member of the committee. [11:55] Shanna Cox: You said it was Catherine Truett, yep, welcome. [12:00] Paul Josephson: Good evening, Paul Josephson, I'm an Auburn resident and I'm the public health representative on the committee. Thanks, Ted Walworth, Ted Walworth, Lewiston resident, very interested in bicycle pedestrian safety, is a long-standing member of the Bicycle Coalition of Maine and very interested in the Casco Bay loop project [12:24] Shanna Cox: in the future. Thanks, welcome to all of you, we really appreciate it. [12:30] Kevin Gagne: Yeah, no, it's fine, moving around, you're good. Evening, Kevin Gagne, I'm the public works director and we're trying to work with all the committee's to try to implement complete streets so Paul is one of our staff of attendance, some of them, and tried to bring things to complete streets committee as well as here because we want to engage and hear [12:48] Shanna Cox: what's going on to try to implement. Thank you, we have a lovely memo that Kevin wrote which is appreciated and I won't speak on behalf of the board but I will frame it a little for the board and this isn't like a Q and A but hopefully more of a dialogue I think is what we're aiming for but in terms of some of the points of interest that maybe we could talk about tonight we'd love to understand a little bit more maybe about the priorities that you have set and how you see those priorities kind of fitting into development and planning for development as one kind of piece of the puzzle and then I would be curious and this is where I'm definitely not speaking on behalf of the board I would be curious if as you have discussions if there is areas where you're still sitting with questions or you haven't necessarily formed a specific opinion or maybe there's difference in opinion either by communities or among the board that might be coming up for you as we sometimes see some points that are like unresolved or aren't necessarily fitting in clearly with a specific priority. And so areas where you have stuff figured out and maybe naming the questions you're sitting with would be some really welcome starting points for us. Is it okay to start there? Yeah, and you know, just an open floor. Sorry, that seems maybe less formal than you're prepared for and feel free to share what you prepared if you'd like. [14:18] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah, since we have such a nice memo from, I mean, we could start there, so in the [14:22] Kevin Gagne: Memo, I pretty much summarized where what our guidance is for Public Works engineering division, but also a part of that, if you look at the complete streets, if you look at our ordinance, if you look at our shared joint committee with Auburn, city of Auburn, our goal is to everyone in Lewiston, whether you live here, you work here, you're visiting, whatever, and wherever you need to go, so that encompasses all of our systems, so it's it's you know large trucks all the way through pedestrians, ADA, cycling, or bicycle use, so the reality is as well as that we're just trying to be opportunistic, look forward into our planning and partner with DOT, partner with private agencies, partner with committees, boards, neighborhood groups, whoever is willing to or wants to do something, we want to work with them and do that. I've got a stack here, a bunch of different plans, so these are our guidance documents, whether it's our own ordinances and our own complete streets guide that was done in 2016 that will be probably updated soon, or whether it's MD OT or any of our consultants that we hire, so these are kind of our guiding documents, and they've engaged with neighborhoods, they've engaged with part of those plan development, so we don't want to redo, we want to move ahead, so anytime Public Works is looking to fund something, we're putting in the CIP after it's approved and we receive see funding in the capital improvement plan or in the budget, because this is about maintenance of these systems as well, whether it's a DA and crosswalks and signaling, their large interconnections, that's coordinated out of ad cog and ATR see, those are things that City of Lewiston Public Works is maintaining right now. We're in the middle of winter, so we're trying to maintain crosswalks on Main Street that we're just done, and we have those operational challenges, so once we get into the budget, once we get approved, then we start having a project engagement in that neighborhood or working with a developer on timing of those things, so in the memo that's kind of what i was trying to highlight is what do we already have that's funded and getting ready to go to bid or start construction. If you look a bit further down, we've got things that kind of in the planning mode, in the queue mode, and then i think an agenda item later on is you know what do we have in this year's fy27 proposed lcip, so that's kind of a public works oversight. Anytime we can work with somebody, we wanna try to connect. We had a demonstration project on Canal Street that was part of a larger study, and most of it was about connection. And I think we do little neighborhood things pretty good. Overall, we're trying to connect those dots so that people that are trying to get somewhere can do it, can do it safely, and we're trying to engage that. [17:22] Speaker D (unidentified): Up. Thanks Alex. So one thing I remember from when we were talking about setting up this meeting, and I think Shelly you brought this up, is that there was some change in process recently with how some development projects are brought to complete streets, and maybe if we could sort of talk about that really quick, just so I better understand. One of the things I was hoping to get out of this meeting, you know, I think back to, I think probably the best example of this was we recently had a meeting, what was that, maybe a month ago, maybe a month ago, where we were approving some transportation changes for the new grocery store project at the Lewiston Mall. You're referencing item number seven [18:06] Shanna Cox: on the backstage. Yes, and I would add, and I literally just wrote this on mine, it references specifically the private development, but part of what lifted up this conversation is that it does not reference the development that lha is putting in directly across the street. That did not reference, and so the, that's, yes, I'll fill in any gaps that you leave behind, but I would just say even your memo helps get at that point. Oh [18:31] Speaker D (unidentified): definitely, and so, and so, you know, this was a great example of like, oh, you know, us as the planning board, like we've known about the lha project, we approved it originally, they had come back to us for some modifications, actually around, and yeah, phase two, and it was an extension, right, and they wanted to change some walkways and some pedestrian access. And so I think we were sort of able to piece it together that night with all the different agenda items and sort of asking staff to talk to folks. But it really centered around the intersection that both of these developments shared. And I think a lot of people on the board were able to identify that like, oh, this could be very meaningful for the residents who will live in the building, the people who will go shopping. Like, oh, duh, we need to connect this. And so I think understanding like how projects flow through our various committees formally right now would be really great, I think, for everyone to just sort of get that. And then maybe we can talk a little bit more about priorities, how we're thinking about things. Cause you know, what came to mind for me, for us to talk about tonight from a planning board perspective is we have these growth areas, we have other spots in town that we are really excited about seeing development at, and maybe just sort of naming those as a good way to get our relationship going. [19:51] Shanna Cox: Yeah, summarize that, yes, I ramble, I'm sorry. Can you share a little bit more about the recent process changes and how a development, whether it's a private development or improvements that the city is planning for LHA, which is a quasi public, I don't know what you'd call them, but noting that it's not on your list, I don't know what category that falls into you, but how do you engage with planned projects and do they come to you or do you ask about them and that's how they get brought to you, can you give us some process points, sure. I'd be happy to take that, thanks. Yeah, so in the last couple of years it came to planning staffs attention that the Complete Streets policy does direct that the complete streets committee would review projects with a traffic movement permit that are associated with development projects, and historically we haven't been doing that. So Paul and I started discussing how we were going to move forward with making that happen a bit more. I think it really started with the to Cedar Street, the Continental Mill project where there was a recognition that Complete Streets would have been better if they had been engaged early in the process. They were engaged in the process, so it was fine. But we recognized partway through that needed to happen. So now what typically happens is with a project that has a traffic movement permit or a TMP, the TMP does add a little extra time to the process. So usually what happens is the engineer doing the design for traffic will submit to staff a preliminary application, if you will. And at that point in time, we identify who the parties are that should be engaged in the process. And now Complete Streets is one of those parties that we've identified. So scoping meeting is scheduled, which determines what the actual study area will be and kind of what they'll need to look at for parameters. So we like to have all of the parties at the table who have an interest. So usually ATRC is there, DOT is typically there, police might be there, public works and engineering is certainly there, and then complete streets is invited to participate, and there may be other parties as well as the applicant, but those are kind of typical. Parties just at that. Is it the whole committee or does one or two people volunteer to join that? Meeting. Yeah, you're you're now stepping outside of the realm of what planning knows about, which is I notify Paul and it kind of goes from there. So I think there's a discussion behind the scenes between committee members possibly by email as to whether just the chair is going to participate or others are invited. So they can speak to how that happens and then people and then they either participate or they don't. That's kind of up to them. And then after the scoping meeting though there's other. opportunities for comments so once the project gets a little further along and the mitigation and recommendations are pulled together then they are also you know given an opportunity like all of those interested parties in providing comment and then the city as the one preparing the TMP or sometimes do T does they take into consideration the comments from the group when the final requirements are put together so that's a broad view how it happens and you see it when it's mostly done that Process. So that's that's how it's been going for the last few projects. Thanks Paul. Do you want to fill in the blanks on. What happens after the request is made? I could try to. Great, that's all we can do. I've only been. [23:56] Paul (Public Works Staff): Involved with the two traffic moving permits in front of the complete streets committee. So as soon as I find out about it I'll notify the chair and just give them a heads up that we're reviewing the project for a traffic moving permit and depending on timing try to get it on the next agenda just up for discussion. The East Avenue project we didn't really have a meeting scheduled so a lot of the comments we received are through email. So we haven't there's no as of yet there's no real finite. Process for that. Okay, I love that there's a. [24:38] Shanna Cox: Process, and that process creates opportunity for engagement. Yeah, that's great. Can I ask a clarifying question, and then I'd love to hear from committee members as well? It sounds like all of that process stems specifically from a traffic movement permit. And so in the case of a large-scale development that's, oh, I don't know, a whole bunch of housing for seniors who are not planning on having a whole lot of car trips, which is why it doesn't necessarily trigger a traffic movement permit, but has a great opportunity to tie in mobility and pedestrian opportunities, how do we flag that for the committee if the only trigger point is the TPM? And is that a point that you guys have discussed in terms of like, oh, we, I think about like the Greenway or a tie, like there will be almost no traffic with some of the biggest opportunities to connect some of the pedestrian to development or to commercial activity or to residential activity, and if the TPM is the only thing that starts the conversation, and I wonder if that's an opportunity that our two committees can discuss. Yeah, it's a good question, and Paul and I have talked about that. We had, we did flag 55 Middle Street for some comments from them even though it doesn't have a TMP threshold. So we have identified a few projects where we anticipate pedestrian improvements or a demand for pedestrians, so we have gone a little bit outside of that box of a TMP. But that is a good question and would be something for consideration for the Complete Streets policy to possibly expand on. That is certainly an option. And then whomever just raised their hand over here that was going to play that, Kathy. Thanks, Penthea, and then Kathy, you only, I try to keep it in order. [26:37] Speaker C (unidentified): Stand by. Let me just going outside the box a little bit further. I'm curious about where other stakeholders like local businesses are engaged in the discussion and process and visioning for the benefit that it provides to them, access provides to them. So I'm just wondering if they have a, somewhere are engaged in the process too. So [27:05] Shanna Cox: a question really around like when considering a specific project or some of these priorities, what's the stakeholder engagement process? I don't know if anyone wants to answer that before we Like Kathy ask her question. Yeah, I guess all I would say is what we're typically involved with is a project that's coming before the Planning Board, so usually where the public is going to engage it's at the Planning Board at a public hearing because there was a notice in the paper or there in a butter. There is though a process for public involvement with the traffic movement permit. We do have to post it, doesn't go, it does go in the paper, does it go in the paper Paul, it goes in the paper. Oh I think the applicant puts it in the paper. We post it on the bulletin board here. We have to wait something like 25 days before we can schedule the scoping meeting to give people an opportunity to express an interest in attending the scoping meeting. That was new to me. We did do that with our last project. I wasn't aware that had to happen with prior projects, so we are following that procedure now and you know with the project we did we didn't have anyone express interest but there is a there is a process that dot has put in place for people to be engaged if they want to be, if they aren't you know one of the parties that we've identified and again only when a traffic, only for a traffic moment. That's right, the entire construct is around automobile as a priority. I, Kathy has been patient and then Brad I did see you maybe gesture, okay you're welcome to go ahead. It's just Catherine [28:42] Speaker F (unidentified): thank you sorry but I just wanted to say like we've reviewed a lot more than two projects at our committee meetings, so I'm not sure when those projects come up but like when there's repaving or anything like that or like a mill and fill we'll see the plans for that and sometimes suggest like striping changes or we'll just be like this is great we really need to fix this road, it definitely needs to be repaved to maintain it and so we see a lot of those. I'm not sure how those get to our board but we definitely have seen more than [29:24] Shanna Cox: two projects and commented on it. That's like great and also a great question. [29:31] Kevin Gagne: That's gonna be from, all right I've been in the position for two years as director, prior to that I was on the traffic committee internal dealing with traffic issues. Paul has been with engineering for four years but his depth of knowledge and experiences is key and so we discussed with the city engineer Jeff Bowley who's not here tonight but and other engineers about different projects and the timing of, so the last two years we've been trying to figure out how do we engage with a complete Streets committee better more often in a timely fashion, so some of the things have been queued up and we didn't have that opportunity, but Paul, Jeff, and I are talking routinely about when, you know, when is it appropriate, when is it ready, because we do want to engage them earlier, but not so conceptual where it gets flipped around and changed and some of those things, so you know, 75, 80 percent complete is something that's reasonable that we look at and try to have that discussion and then bring it forward, so if it's not too big of a conception, but if it is just the concept plan, we bring that forward as well to say hey, we're working on this, what are some of the thoughts from the committee and others, so it's been elective, there's no requirement to or triggers necessarily, it's great, but we want more input, and this committee is focused on just like I was talking about it, and what our ordinances are trying to do is movement for all safely throughout the city and integrate that and cut down on injuries or deaths, yeah, thanks, sorry about your [31:11] Jeremiah Bartlett: name, and I'll get it right, I promise, Jeremiah, I'll speak from the ancient history topic, one of the things I think we're sort of hinting at here with this conversation with regards to development projects and in TMPs versus non TMPs is I think there's an identification of what is essentially a gap in the ordinance itself, and you know, the ordinance is about eight years old, it was a compromise, it was how do we get the second and fifth largest cities in the state to adhere to essentially the same ordinance, which has not been done since in Maine, so you know, cheers all around for that, but there were compromises made, and certainly as someone who had been on the committee since that inception, it does create this sort of situation where it's like, well, if there's something going to the planning board, which items are appropriate to be taken up by the complete streets committee, and sometimes it's been those only going by the letter of the law, TMP and nothing else, other times, well, this clearly has an implication for the transportation network, but it hasn't been consistent, so you're touching on a good question, ultimately if it's questions of the ordinance, as a question of should the ordinance be revisited, should there be conversations with your sister planning board across the river about those sorts of topics, so because [32:47] Shanna Cox: This is definitely a topic if I could just add to that because I think like what yes and I would say I would say even in the gap as you mean that you're kind of naming you know what does the ordinance require us to do how are we using maybe common sense and good intentions and opportunities I think you call the opportunistic which is like don't let a good opportunity pass you buy to identify additional conversations or reviews I would add like one more into the mix if we're identifying Potential gaps and like pilot ways to improve versus like ordinance language change and maybe how one could lead to another but the other piece that I think we take pretty seriously and has come up for us a number of times is the planning portion and so like in all of the examples that you've named both the way the ordinance is constructed and the gaps that we're talking about it is always responsive and to a specific application right and for us what we talk about and this really came up most Recently not only but most recently in the East Ave project as we literally had LHA we've already reviewed one application then we've given them a modification extension and then we've reviewed and approved their second phase application which is two different phases of significant housing being built directly across from the East Ave Lewiston mall and then we're also looking at you know to be named publicly at some other point development that's commercial in there and this board is Essentially finding ourselves asking for all of the changes that would lead to pedestrian connectivity between these two sides across the street from lisbon street and the new development that's happened there and our only opportunity to talk about pedestrian movement is to put it on the back of the most recent applicant which is the poor guys in the commercial space on East Ave and so that's like that's the problem that we found ourselves and if you go to the legacy Lewiston plan which is the Comp plan that we follow there's a beautiful redesign of that interchange of you know what used to be the movie theater and has now been redeveloped what used to be Martel and is being redeveloped into housing as the plan had hoped for and intended and to remove gray space and then this new development that's happening at the mall and so there's there is hopes from a city around the plans for that being more connected more mixed use there is the development that plan has actually created for Those opportunities to be realized and our opportunity as a city to be planful around the pedestrian opportunities and movement are similar to you constrained to one single application because it triggered a TPM and we feel like that's just like a gap, right? And so I would just, yes, and to name it, there's the like how do we, there's a lot of activity happening related to the Riverfront Island master plan. How do we get plan full about what the opportunities are so that if we see development applications coming in, we're not just looking at it through the siloed lens of that one application, but it's connectivity in relationship to potential development and recently reviewed development, Alex. Yeah, and to [35:55] Speaker D (unidentified): sort of extend upon that, we, you know, we're considering, you know, zoning, we're considering some of the design review elements for the city, right? And I think back to we had a really great discussion around storefronts on, I think it was on Lincoln Street, it was on the streets surrounding Lisbon Street, and I think the nature of how those streets are built, you know, what type of traffic's on them, what are they being designed for, really changes how we think about implementing design standards for places. So I almost wonder if, you know, that's sort of the two-way street, so to speak, is having, ha, not quitting my day job. But if we can think about also ways that, as we start to do sort of larger plan revisions, design review revisions, things like that, how do we get the information to say, okay, you know, this street will not be the way we're thinking about it now, it's sometime in the near future, or you know, there's a plan to make this street a different thing. I know we've, for example, talked a lot about where from where Lisbon Street becomes a two-way street again all the way up to East Ave. I've heard a lot of sort of rumblings around that changing in terms of, you know, not being a four-lane wide street anymore, maybe being narrower, maybe this, maybe that, and I think again this changes how we think about that as a part of the city and how we make our [37:23] Shanna Cox: Larger plans, I can offer one more specific example. We look at definitions and language as well as like specific applications, and in a recent review we kind of renamed and reinvigorated conversation around neighborhood retail and neighborhood restaurants, and our assumption in parking changes and reducing parking requirements for both of those activities is that people would be able to walk to them. And this conversation is making me realize you might not be knowing when to prioritize or what even to be looking at in those like fill-in-mill options in these zones that are designated for neighborhood retail or restaurant, and we could be being proactive and removing parking requirements and it turns out nobody can actually walk around in the same places. Is that somebody might be putting a neighborhood restaurant or retail as an example, and so is there opportunity I guess maybe the question that I'd ask is in the way in which you are guided and do your work which sounds very ordinance driven and specific to compliance relative to the ordinance what if any opportunity does this committee have to be planful around pedestrian ideals or goals even in your memo it's very like this geography specific and not conceptual to Greenway or increasing bike or walking safety near schools or right like it's not issue driven its location driven so what 's that look like for you guys and is that an opportunity or a gap to they want to answer if you're asking the committee answer until you have so answer [39:04] Kevin Gagne: And then we're gonna ask them to. So I will tell you that we have several different studies that I did list in the memo. They are pretty significant on each on their own, so all we saw is a very small part of the canal Street demonstration this last summer, very small part yeah. DOT is totally supportive as well as our other partners in looking at changing some very fundamental ways some of our streets are used, so before we you know it would be presumptive on me to say hey we're gonna do this and initially so we those studies are coming out and we're gonna be starting that public process to get that information out to all groups. So without that there's a lot of different things that come into public works, speed bumps is a big thing right now that we're trying to build into a budget speed analysis that we work with DOT on because some of those issues some of its surrounding enforcement, so it really depends on what the complaint is from coming into Public Works, a lot of what engineering Is doing as well as some of our staff are. Hey, we're seeing people trying to move through this space and we're adding to that list that, you know, what's the condition of the sidewalks, what the, so our primary routes are arterials and then school routes for sidewalks. So we have those well established, it's connecting the different neighborhoods. I think if you look at the recent sidewalks that we did off of Main Street, we're trying to stop doing a sidewalk on each side that's in really poor shape and reconstruct to have a sidewalk that has clear width that we can plow it in the winter. We don't have that capacity right now because it just staffing and equipment wise, but you know, getting rid of the obstructions and lots of utility poles, you know, you know, back retaining walls, there's other encroachments on the sidewalk with that don't make us easy to maintain. And we have people in sidewalk in the sidewalks that use wheelchairs, power wheelchairs and other issues and strollers, it is very frustrating for Public Works, for myself, Paul and I talk amongst others, you know, you, we did the best we could on that sidewalk to clear it, de-ice it, and we still have people walking in the street. And we really take safety seriously, we don't want to see somebody hit. Part of this is education, so it's part of the complete streets is building it and doing that, but part of the safe systems approach which we've incorporated is also something. So those are our guiding principles for Public Works on what we bring. Really appreciate Jeremiah and his leadership that he's had. This transition is going to be important, but we're trying to engage with them more and not give them the stuff that's an easy one [41:52] Shanna Cox: but keep them informed on what our plans are. Can I safely assume that when you just spoke about like engagement opportunities, you were talking about with Public Works and not the committee's engagement opportunities, like you weren't speaking from the perspective of the committee there? [42:05] Kevin Gagne: Correct. Okay, just checking. So they for Public Works when we're developing plans or that's [42:10] Shanna Cox: one group we're engaged, they're a stakeholder you engage, and it's not necessarily a conversation about how this committee engages. Correct, I am with you guys by request, I am on [42:21] Kevin Gagne: other committees, not on this one. Yeah, it's just I was just like making sure. [42:25] Shanna Cox: Who the we was and that I'd love to hear, I and I see you Alex out of the corner man, but I'd love to hear from you folks about like if those gaps resonate, would you like to be planned for you like, oh my god, the ordinance is enough, please don't put that on our plate. I'm not trying to stir the pot, we're just trying to understand and then align as best we can. I'll start with you Jeremiah, I mean, [42:49] Jeremiah Bartlett: I'll just note that, you know, an ordinance is obviously an important document. The ordinance is only going to be so prescriptive about things. There's still flexibility in the ordinance for the Complete Streets Committee to function in a way that is most comfortable for those who comprise it. And over the years, it's been a little bit of a Rorschach test as far as who's on it, as far as the things that it focuses on it also fluctuates pretty wildly depending upon the staff and the leadership tasked with the care and feeding of said committee by community you know what 's happening here tonight which i think is incredibly important and incredibly valuable is the idea of sort of fostering these connections you're talking about connections from a couple of perspectives right you're like you're talking about the transportation connections which are important because you can't just focus on one way to do things because that doesn't work in a city, but also you're talking about fostering the connections between these components within how the city functions and how information is communicated. You know, the Complete Streets Committee at the end of the day is a group of volunteers whose time and efforts are limited, so there's also a little bit of, you know, trying to make sure that things that are important to that committee are prioritized. And, you know, every so often the committee itself will meet and talk about what it would like to focus on specifically. So if that's exciting. Yeah. So, I mean, if the committee, you know, if after this next round of elections, the committee decides to be more planful, which isn't, I like that word, you know, then that's something that can be engaged. Some folks sometimes folks on the committee have been very a little more sort of nuts and bolts like bring things before us. We'll review them for me historically as I guess you'll call me a play engineer. I can kind of look at it either way. But a lot of people sort of have the areas that they, that they are focused on. So I think to some extent it may be a question of, you know, as this committee, which will be having elections, as I understand, hopefully this month, there may be some conversations to be yet determined. Hopefully they can speak to that, because those conversations are not me. I didn't a note of the past, yeah. So, you know, those are all important things. It's just a question of, you know, and Also from the Planning Board's perspective, or City Council's perspective, or city managers, you know, what are the things that the city is very interested in and would like ideally to seek or receive guidance or feedback from the Complete Streets Committee? Obviously, you know, in the purview of Planning Board, you're held to things about site plan review. City has delegated peer review for, you know, traffic movement permit projects, which again, that sort of goes back to one of the reasons that was sort Of put in the ordinance, but there is a gap, I think, if, you know, this Planning Board would like to have more consistency around how that process works, then that certainly makes sense. There is, there is the challenge with a project once it triggers that TMP, that they, I think you hinted at it, Shannon, like they get stuck with everything because they're the straw that broke the camel's back. All these other folks got in and kind of snuck in. Yeah, but that also may speak to some of your own requirements and some of your own abilities to seek outcomes through your site plan review. If maybe the gap isn't just on the part of the Complete Streets ordinance, maybe there's other gaps that needs to address, because it is difficult, and it's not just a Lewiston thing. I mean, this is a common challenge and a lot of communities, including the one I work for, that, you know, this or that project come in and they're kind of, you know, no one really pays attention to them, and then the one that has needs all the permits shows up and they get shellacked a little bit. And that's not really anyone's intention, but that's the realities. That's often how it plays out. Yeah, I [47:21] Shanna Cox: Love to like maybe go down the line and just hear thoughts or input for me to be. Do you want me to start at? The other end, Brad, are you asking for the mic? Yeah, I would just as you shuffle that around, I would say one of the things that I think led us to ask for this in the first place, which you are kind of hinting at, is I hear you saying complete streets would like to know what the priorities are that should guide the committee. And I think what some of us maybe think is, hey, you guys are the experts, what is complete streets priorities that we should be prioritizing in these conversations and in the review and where does, where does that line Kevin to code and planning and economic development and public works and like, I mean, I think just like, hey, our top three development and pedestrian goals are did, and then we can all work from it, and I don't know, check in once a year I, but I think that's some of what we were hoping you could be like, well [48:16] Brad Pinot: it's these guys. Yeah, but to speak to that a little bit, the complete street's committee as designed is reactive more than proactive, yeah, in that sense, you know, I've been on the committee for like two and a half years at this point, or not really on everything next to the committee if you don't have use at this point, and you know, we meet like four or five times a year and it's usually for two and a half hours each time, and the huge majority of that time is spent going over and analyzing projects that are that the two cities are undertaking or that are coming up in the two cities, and we provide input on those two projects. There isn't really any time dedicated to planning organization, it's a, and you know, some of us are experts, but most of us are volunteers, right, there same, so they're, you know, the complete streets committee will not be publishing like a document, yeah, that is like, these are our goals for the next five years or whatever, that's not really there, the committee's gig speaking a little to that gap between, you know, projects that require a traffic movement permit and ones that don't but have significant impacts on transportation, you know, like an elderly housing development where we know these people are going to be walking to stores and whatnot in the area, you know, I do think there's an opportunity to maybe do a better job of getting input in some of those projects. One thing that Kevin noted in the memo is ATRC we published in 2019 a bike and pedestrian plan of the MPO area, which is, you know, Lewis novelism and sabbatist, and it highlights where these identified gaps in this bike pet infrastructure is? And you know, one approach that you could take is if a project comes before the planning board, whether or not, and it's in a gap area, and it's in a gap area, whether or not it triggers a traffic movement permit, you know, part of that is like, a part of the problem is it doesn't require a traffic movement permit in part to like expedite the process for, it's simpler, and you don't want to put [50:31] Shanna Cox: too many hurdles. We really don't, by the way. Can I ask a silly technical question as you shuffle the mic down? Because I really do want to hear from everybody, and this is as much for Shelly and Kevin as anyone else. I think, I think I know the answer, but for the sake of fairness, let's just ask it. Is there a pedestrian version of the traffic movement permit? Is there a like, holy, there's gonna be a hundred bodies moving on the street every day, and that triggers a pedestrian movement permit, like there is no, right, like it's all constructed around automobiles, and I get it because cars do more damage when they hit something, but the people are the things that get hit, and so like I think there's space for it, but there's nothing technical, and what I'm hearing is the need for a technicality that can be referenced in an ordinance, triggered, put on someone's checklist, and like, yeah, that's, that's correct, there is no [51:24] Brad Pinot: pedestrian movement or not vehicle movement permit. There is, so in the process of creating and applying for the traffic movement permit, the, it's on the developer and their engineering team or whoever's doing the application to identify the number of trips associated with the development, and that is sort of the number, our trips, all kinds of trips, so the car trips are, is the number that determines whether the traffic movement permit is needed or if there's a threshold, if it's a certain kind of traffic movement permit, but within that application, they break down, there will be a percentage of internal trips and pedestrian bicycle trips and pass by trips, and there are different kinds of trips to these sites that aren't necessarily associated with a permit threshold, but will be in the narrative of the applications somewhere. [52:21] Shanna Cox: Somewhere, cool, that's really helpful. Was it Karen? Yes, you might get it right. I was also going to [52:28] Speaker D (unidentified): Say, you know, sometimes we see projects where the, you know, they're asking for a lower parking amount than required and things like that, and that sort of also feels like perhaps a waiver could be a trigger, parking waiver could be a trigger, or just, you know, housing development and there's less than one space per unit, that's a trigger. Love your solution mode. We'll hold it. Karen? Yeah, I'm [52:53] Karen Blakelock: not an expert. I'm just a resident that wants to live in a walkable, bikeable community and finds walking on Savannah Street terrifying. Yeah, and I live on [street], I know it's not great at all, and yeah, there is frequently people walking in the road and when there's, you know, it's very scary for them and for drivers. I think one of the most exciting things that, well, yeah, we're not very planned full, there you go, but it would be exciting to be, especially because I think most of us got involved with this committee because we do want to see bike lanes and connected sidewalks. One of the most exciting things that's happened, I've only been on the committee for a year, but we had a proposal to review a road that was getting replaced anyway and had the opportunity to put in sidewalks, and it was a community that was right next to a school, and we heard that proposal and I think the committee was unanimously like, amazing, great, like what an opportunity to put in sidewalks into this elementary school, and the people in that community showed up and were like, we don't want these, and so that was it, like no sidewalks. The road is getting replaced once every 50 years, 70 years, I don't know how many years, and like a huge missed opportunity for this elementary school to have sidewalks. And yeah, I think it was hard, not Lewiston. Yeah, but then I was talking to someone in the governor's office and they said that Maine has a law that every elementary, you can't get public school funding without a plan to have a walkable community, like, you know, have sidewalks put in the surrounding area, which was news to me, but I do think an opportunity to be more planful would be great, and that's, yes, [54:37] Shanna Cox: I guess that's all I've got. I love that. No, it's great. Thank you, Catherine. Yep, I'm very similar. [54:44] Speaker F (unidentified): To Karen, I'm a volunteer that just wanted to see more walkable space and safer streets. And also we do like, there is sort of a prioritization in my mind for pedestrians and cyclists because they have been to the wayside for a long time in development. But like we definitely do still consider cars. Like we recently had like a study about traffic on Sabata Street and they're getting started on that project proposal and it's a lot of it is about how to make it safer for the people who are driving so that they're they don't do mindless driving and they're they're not likely to cause crashes because obviously no one wants to die on their commute. So we also consider that, but like in my mind like we are kind of reactionary, but I think the times that I've been here I've been happy to speak on the plans and it's been exciting for me to see the plans like the humongous PDF files that I have to spend like an hour downloading. It's still pretty interesting to me, especially like the few times that we emailed comments I was trying to be very specific about like, well this crosswalk like is not really well designed, like it's not far enough back or something. Like I tried to be specific and so that's how I handle the my role in the committee. But I don't know, like we obviously can cannot be involved in every single project in the city no matter how controlling I [56:32] Shanna Cox: want to be and like in and how many cities and lots of sidewalks and streets I bet that's a big [56:37] Speaker F (unidentified): order. And then we also like we have the community input that like is in direct contradiction to our goals too. So like we have to be mindful of that too because even though we're a committee made up of residents, the residents of the actual street might completely disagree with us or just talk loudly enough, yeah, to change plans. So that's that's my kind of understanding of the committee and it can be more reactionary, but we only we only officially meet like four times a year so it's like I don't know how proactive we can be with goal setting and our ordinance does sort of have some language around a goal in the consideration of like a lot of road users. So that's that's where I'm at like with it. I don't know how beneficial it would be to be more specific or more planful even though it would be nice, like yeah, thanks. [57:43] Paul Josephson: Paul from Auburn. Since we have two Pauls, I think some of what I'll say is reiterating a little bit, but adding a few comments in. I would reiterate what Jeremiah said, that the chair and the committee have a lot of leeway as far as what's put on the agenda and what we're doing with a meeting time. I would say we've been pretty good about meeting more often than four times a year. It's kind of set up with four standing meetings, but other meetings are possible. We're here tonight. I think we met six or seven times last year. I'm the secretary, so I definitely have should know exactly, but somewhere recorded, and that's really all you have to do. And so we're certainly willing to meet more often, and if there are specific things for us to review that relate to, you know, the all modes of transport, and as far as the specifics, we do, we are able to have motions and vote to recommend certain projects as proposed or with modifications that the committee would recommend from the city. And so I think Karen brought up one of the instances where the committee's vote went against what the city eventually planned because of the public comment or desire. And so that does, like, there is a little bit of a trigger in the ordinance that then the chair had to attend the Auburn planning board, or maybe it wasn't the planning board, maybe it was the council meeting. And so just wanted to clarify that we do kind of vote to recommend or vote to recommend with some changes, and certainly are really benefit from Paul Brad and the Auburn representative Chris Bennett, who bring different projects before us and talk about what they've, what they've thought about for making some improvements for all modes of transport, and then look and getting our input, and then we can kind of proceed from there. It is, you know, an interesting ordinance where we're covering both cities, so a lot of get a little tricky. Thank you for having us. Yeah, Ted. Well, I don't bring any engineering expertise to this body. I love Jeremiah's term, plan-gineer, but as a retired surgeon who didn't like to do trauma, like to minimize trauma, needless to think of the CMMC situation right now, I'm looking at this through the perspective of safety, exercise, which is good for health, and I would also add that at our meetings the public is invited and involved neighborhoods. Dr. Ben Lounsbury is very concerned about bicycle safety in the in the three he wants more three foot margin signs put around in several places in the city, and that's so he's had some input there too. So you know, I just think it's a very interesting committee, and I don't bring any authority, but I hope my comments are appreciated. Thank you. I'm mindful of [1:01:11] Shanna Cox: time and the fact that we're tackling our next big agenda item, which is a full book big capital improvement season here, and they're planning for it. I want to thank you all and see if there's any brief parting comments. We'll talk about next steps maybe separately, but in terms of their valuable time, is there anything else from the planning board other than deep gratitude for taking across the thank you very much for coming, and this has been very informative for somebody like me who doesn't bike or walk much. This is very interesting, and thank you [1:01:43] Shanna Cox: very much. I think what I heard as a couple of takeaways, just kind of in a nice little tie a bone at summary, is though you only meet four times a year, you actually do meet more than that. You do have an appetite for maybe a planning discussion. You are also bound by life experiences and time because you are volunteers and you know just real people, which we appreciate because same up here. And so that maybe a like a once a year exchange of ideas and dialogue around what our planning priorities are, what your what your priorities are, what trends you're seeing, what gaps might exist, would be just a really great way for us to be in as much alignment as possible, and that could be a pretty informal way that doesn't trigger ordinance changes or anything wild and crazy, and that maybe there is some opportunity to look at trip counts that are not just automotive and don't just trigger traffic movement permits as a thing for us to explore about ways to be thinking about when to engage without overwhelming the committee, so I really appreciated that. those are some of the things that I heard today, and I'm sure it's not the last time that we'll be in communication with each other, but please see this as a two-way street. We regularly have public hearings, you saw me gavel through it today because we didn't have an agenda item, but at any point anyone on the committee is welcome to come to any of our public comment periods and offer some thoughts with your kind of larger lens of the bike pet committee without it being specific. You are a member of The public, you do have expertise and input, and we would welcome that as just kind of a low barrier way to engage about redoing all the systems, which is not necessarily our first goal. But thank you all very much, we really appreciate it. Jeremiah, congratulations on culminating your term as chair, it sounds like an eight year run. Yeah, thank you all very much. Thank you. Yeah, we're gonna take a quick bio break, let folks rearrange themselves, and we'll dive into the book when we get back. Do you need me to gavel out of that? Great, thank you guys. And then do you anticipate this memo guiding our next steps with the actual [1:04:25] Speaker C (unidentified): That's right. People come if they want to. And it's just a free-for-all. So if you ever want to come and get a tree, if I'm not around, just go and get one off the back. People leave me notes if I'm not around. Yeah, please do. That would be so good. We have two families that come every year. And then friends of mine, if they want to come, they're monstrously So people are cutting down a tree and taking maybe, you know, the top so much and putting it in their property. That's good, that's good. And how's Don's health? [1:05:14] Speaker D (unidentified): Thanks for answering my email about college. Yeah, I mean, you know, just sort of, I don't know, I haven't been out there reading my little measuring wheel, but anecdotally, it'll grow on a bicycle, and sort of, you know, having laid with sort of the, organically in my head, it's like, [1:05:33] Speaker C (unidentified): I mean, there's sections of, you know, [1:05:36] Paul Josephson: typefiles or something, but I'm not. [1:05:37] Shanna Cox: He was working in Alistair for a couple of projects [1:05:40] Speaker C (unidentified): happening in the studios, and that was a long time ago. Even though there's something else after that. Yeah, but I do wonder about, you know, [1:05:54] Shanna Cox: It's big, I feel like I need to sign big. What's that signing like? [1:06:03] Paul Josephson: Where's Jeremy? Thanks, folks. We're all in the same neighborhood. Oh, my God. come on [1:06:17] Shanna Cox: brad if you wanted to send that plan that you talked about to be included in our notes and for us to read we'd welcome it does your committee get a budget we don't so i mean yeah There's like a purview here, but it's not the whole. I don't think she, there's a, and there's some, well, there's some extra, plans from the ordinance, but, yeah, I don't think we got the ordinance itself. Hey, Shelly. Sorry, this is as much for you maybe as Kevin. Can you make a follow-up item to send us the ordinance? We have the policy and we have some languages, but the complete street ordinance. We've got the policy and your memo has some snags from the ordinance, but can we have the ordinance? I'll be honest with you, I don't know. I guess what I'm talking about is the ordinance created eight years ago that joined the city of which they were referenced. [1:08:33] Speaker C (unidentified): I just, I like this whole crew of people that we went to school with years ago. I have just reconnected with a bunch of them, and so it'd be fun to. The policy is ordinance. Adopted it. Yeah, that's right, that's right. [1:09:10] Shanna Cox: One minute warning before we dive back in. On Martel Senior Development, to see how they feel about little old ladies walking up that street, that pathway with no sidewalks, no nothing. I kid around that I am that demographic. I'm not 79 years old, so I am that little old lady that might be there. Yeah, I know, that's the problem. Yeah, that's the, yeah. Unfortunately, I still think they should have found a way to build. [1:09:56] Speaker C (unidentified): Oh, I think I do too, right? Yeah. [1:09:59] Shanna Cox: I get the many ways that you're going to mess up my name, but Sharon's a wild one. No,, no, I'm talking about, you know, themselves. Which all of those, I'm like, okay. I can't tear it. [1:10:16] Speaker O (unidentified): It's stuck in my throat. [1:10:18] Shanna Cox: I mean, yours is cooler. If I had to pick, yours is cooler. Right. [1:10:25] Speaker C (unidentified): All right, there's a lot of that thing. Oh yeah, I'm messing around. Yeah, sorry, thanks, welcome back. [1:10:37] Shanna Cox: Everybody okay, appreciate it, we're moving on to other business item A, which is reviewing questions with administration on the Lewiston Capital Improvement Plan and naming the construct of reviewing questions might or might not be challenging for all board members who might or might not have had all of the time to put all of the questions together, though we welcome questions before we dive in from Shelley and administrator Kainrath and Kevin who's just sticking around all night tonight which we greatly appreciate. I'd like to point out the way we approached this last year and propose it as the board's approach this year. Bear with me, we named and just so you know in terms of where we were last year at this point, we're ahead by timeline. Last year on the January 27th meeting, we were naming in that meeting that each board member would maybe aim at the next meeting to bring a list of the top three areas to prioritize if we needed to cut. Given that historically this board usually gets a capital improvement plan that far outweighs our bonding ability and cutting is pretty much our priority Recommendation I'd love for that to be different some year, but I don't think this is that here And so that's that 's the approach that we've taken before and I say that because it is an improvement We found it to be an improvement. I think most members of the board did last year to doing a line-by-line review of the entire capital improvement plan and asking questions as we go and so that onus is on us to come to the next meeting with specific areas that we want to dig deeper in or and specifically to propose that we would cut it helped us organize our conversation and time for our folks okay with using that approach as the expectation for our next meeting and using that as our way of organizing our conversation tonight Great Shelley is there anything you'd like to do to introduce this item I know that you wrote the memo but we're joined by two wise folks here today no other than Just to remind the board that I do state in the memo that your questions for department heads are due Wednesday this week to me so that I can get them to the finance director on Thursday this week thanks we will remind ourselves of that Again as we close our meeting tonight shall I turn it over to you [1:13:03] Bryan Kaenrath: Administrator came out all right thank you so we did have a presentation of the last council meeting going over the LC IP for 2731 from this is my first time through obviously from what I understand this is the opportunity for the board to ask questions of Kevin myself or pose questions for us to take back to other city staff or the school department also so I don't know how you've handled this in previous years but we don't have a particular presentation other than the one given that I think Most of you are at actually in the audience of the council meeting so how we'd like to proceed from coast but we were all given [1:13:43] Shanna Cox: The link and requested to watch it as well did anyone come to tonight's meeting with any follow-up conversations or questions based on that presentation [1:13:52] Speaker D (unidentified): So I did go through the packet and sort of do questions as we went through but happy to just type those up or if we think they're valuable to talk about [1:14:02] Shanna Cox: Tonight we can do that. I would say I think it will be challenging to go through all of those questions tonight, and please do type them up, but as you went, because that's kind of chronologically. Were there any questions of which felt like a discussion and not just a follow-up, can you get me this answer, in terms of like what might need a discussion to understand the nature of your question or the presentation point that created? It sure, let me look. Yeah, I you know I'm looking at the police department, okay, and they want take-home vehicles. I don't remember 65, I think it is somewhere in that neighborhood, and it's 5 million, over 5 million, and our allocation is going to be 6 million, so I don't think that makes any sense logically. I mean, I understand the premise of wanting the police personnel to have the vehicles and to be able to get to someplace with a police vehicle. But my question actually is, this a complete update of the fleet or is this an additional 65? However, I don't have it right on, but it's somewhere in that neighborhood of, is that an additional 65? Vehicles or is it this just a replacement of our fleet in and then adding some? [1:15:36] Bryan Kaenrath: So there will be a presentation on this item on January 20th at the council meeting as we mentioned. This will be a new initiative. To have take-home vehicles for all officers. So it would be an additional number of vehicles beyond what we currently have. There are a number of points that we discussed in the presentation that the police department and myself be putting on. Really the number one priority and goal of is, as most of you know, I think we have a serious problem with recruiting police officers here. We are down a significant number of officers impacting our public safety situation. We've identified public safety is our number one priority in the city and we have to look at any possible avenues to fill these seats, to be able to get more boots on the ground, to do a much better job with community policing and many other things. So number one is to do more with recruitment. Many officers they've done a lot of research into this, providing take-home vehicles is a major draw on the recruitment front. There's also when you look at what is spent over a five-year period with the current program for replacing vehicles versus the take-home program because vehicles will be getting such less mileage and use on them now. We would actually end up saving approximately two hundred thousand dollars over that time, so there is some cost savings in the long run. The other piece, going back to the public safety front, is there's just a lot more visibility of police being out in the community, and you know, we're not just talking about police being in cruisers all the time, but hopefully out in the community walking around and just being seen places, so there are a number of pieces to this. Like I said, we'll have a presentation on January 20th. It's really dive further, but there are some, and this is for consideration. It's certainly something new, but our job is to look at any and all potential ways to solve our recruitment shortage and do more public safety in the community, so we'll be talking about all these issues more on the 20th, so maybe tune in. Thank [1:17:37] Shanna Cox: you. Can I just follow up on that point? When I look at the police department, the only, that is the only item the police department has in the capital improvement budget, and there is nothing for 28, 29, 30, or 31. So generally speaking, regardless of the department, we tend to be pretty interested in seeing the planfulness coming from each. This has been a chief concern relative to the school budget in previous years, and I personally agree public safety is one of our biggest concerns, and from a development perspective, is a really important thing. So am I reading it right that take home vehicles is the only capital improvement request over the next five years from our police department? Correct. Currently that maybe next year capital improvement there. I mean, there was leadership transition, and I don't know if you, if you want to speak to the timing of that and its impact on the budget process, but if we see a capital improvement request next year that shows four years of planning, and then it's just this year is empty and it's just vehicles, that can sometimes be a hard pill for us to [1:18:41] Bryan Kaenrath: swallow. No, I think we can, we can follow up with, I don't think any of this is due to leadership transition, I will say that, but this is the only thing submitted by [1:18:51] Shanna Cox: the pd for the five-year plan. It did get a nice pretty building, and maybe that's a reflection of it. [1:18:57] Bryan Kaenrath: Yeah, there's a new building, but we can certainly follow up with chief and with police leadership. [1:19:04] Shanna Cox: If we want a more concrete sort of idea on that, so a question that I would name for us to capture, and so I'll say it for the recording in case it's fast, but specifically, what would be the impact of approving that over two years of the capital improvement plan, and what is the real realistic approach to being able to recruit half that many officers, that many cars? Like, could we get half a fleet this year and half a fleet next year? And given how hard it is to recruit in general, are we capital improvement budgeting for 30 cars and we know we're only gonna probably get 15 officers because it's hard to recruit them so like what's the impact if we recommend and that 's only half approved would be the question specifically alex you had been pulling [1:19:50] Speaker D (unidentified): some. Yes, please. Yeah, so sort of an overarching question, I went through and there were line items that I saw there being maybe opportunity for grant funding, you know, outside of sort of traditional federal funding or anything like that, maybe more like state programs. I had brought this up last, probably for the past two budgets that have come in front of us. I think you know the answer then was sort of like, well, it's up to the staff preparing those particular items to do the research into those programs. Has anything changed on that front, or is that still sort of the same case as far as working on grant opportunities? Yeah, and these aren't like one-off grants, these are, you know, evergreen things that we could go after. Yeah, I [1:20:33] Bryan Kaenrath: think there are always more grant opportunities to go after out there. I think, you know, maybe I'm still getting a bit of a sense here, but it's often an issue of staff resources, for sure. A lot of grants are time consuming, you know, as you know. I think we should be taking anal opportunities to go after a lot of these grant funding opportunities. You know, there could be potential to reorg some staff, you know, in the future to devote more time and energy to specifically going after grants because you're right, there are a number of projects that I think if the bandwidth was there, we could be going after them with a number of grants that are available out there. So it's, it's a fair point, and then [1:21:14] Speaker D (unidentified): Another sort of overarching question, a little more geared towards wastewater or stormwater. Actually, you know, a lot of those projects, you know, one person's drainage ditch is another person's stream, depending on where you are in the watershed, right? I'm wondering if any of those projects have the possibility of sort of being thought of in a recreational capacity, or if that's something that sort of crosses the mind of the folks working on stormwater related things, especially for stormwater. Resources that are a little more natural, a little less, you know, color dies or anything like that. You know, I see those natural resources as being a really inviting thing for the city. That's why I moved here, was being able to access, you know, parks and trails and water and all of these things. And so just thinking of ways that we can leverage those projects to help increase access and connectivity. So I don't know, so I'll answer that. [1:22:24] Kevin Gagne: That, you know, the streams that are currently open are open for a reason. The ones that were in the 60s and 70s were storm drain improvements, concrete line with fences, were for flooding, for high rain events. So beyond the immediate focus is trying to meet drink, yeah, DEP standards, we are looking at some of those to be able to get back to a natural stream scenario. Parts of Heartbrook out of the industrialized areas, or the or the built-up neighborhoods where fast-moving water is a concern, then those. Areas are looking to be a reestablished as a natural channel way. But yeah, anytime that we're we're doing some of our paths that we were looking at the last couple years, we're not received by the neighborhood, but existing paths that are being used or proposed, we definitely look at seeing, you know, nobody wants to look at a concrete line stream. Yeah, we're in that context we are, but I know that in trying to get, you know, people in touch with my riverfront and our lower canal, is also safety concerns. With any type of water body and change of use, so ball again. [1:23:45] Speaker D (unidentified): Balance that. Yeah, okay, well. [1:23:51] Speaker E (unidentified): You don't know where to start. My quickly copy down some pages that I had notated, and I have interest in it. Lucy stole my thunder on the police item. I had that was a nice presentation on why no, we need them. I didn't catch on the answer to Shannon's question, so 65 the full complement of vehicles, or is the number higher? It's definitely made up the number, but we. [1:24:21] Bryan Kaenrath: Didn't speak to a specific number, I apologize. Okay, yes, I believe it's 65 is. [1:24:25] Shanna Cox: That what's in them, that's what's in the book. Yes, yeah, and the book is 45 patrol and 20 administrative, and that's the full fleet. That sounds correct. Yes, okay. [1:24:36] Speaker E (unidentified): So and I done the math this weekend, I don't remember specifically, but it's between 70 and 80 thousand dollars per vehicle. Of course that's including lights, droves, and all kinds of other things that go into the outfitting of a vehicle, and it's an average, so there's gonna be some that are higher and some that are lower. But before I heard the rationale, I had made some notes and I'd just like to put it on the record, and it's more of a question and maybe a rhetorical question now. Are we facing a known plausible threat that is requiring us to move our police assets out of harm's way, away from our new multi-million dollar hardened police station which came with a nice price tag itself, and [1:25:24] Shanna Cox: the park them in person a lot of time. Yeah, a lot of officers don't [1:25:29] Speaker E (unidentified): live in Lewiston. I don't see where that lowers the cost of fuel use and wear and tear, it may actually reduce the life expectancy of a vehicle. I've been on the Finance Committee as well in 2009, and we saw plenty of police car and plenty of public works assets coming through, and sometimes very concerned with respect to quickened life expectancy. These assets don't come cheap as we see here, five million dollars for the entire 65 item fleet. If I can use that as a segue, my other big concern is everybody on this board knows is the financial condition of the municipality, and I'd like to pay attention to the pages that are entitled the debt limit calculation and how our debt continues to soar when our revenue activities or an attempt to create revenue into the city doesn't get as much attention, and I don't know that I'm gonna remember or have time to speak to a page on the schools, but I got a comment there too, because when you add this all up like what was just noted, thirty four million dollar ask, six million dollar debt limitation, it's a lot of distance between those two numbers. What gets cut? We can sit here and everybody on this board may have something different from their perspective, what items should be cut, what items should be kept. As a planning board, we all love the spending on things like the Samad Payne Park and so forth, but other people may have different priorities on what to keep and what not to. And then in the end, almost everything gets funded, and we're getting further into debt. I really think that historically, and hopefully there's a culture change in City Hall, that our economic development department does concentrate more, and here's my little dig, big, concentrates more on bringing us industry, job opportunities, put people to work in this community instead of building subsidized housing. Because subsidized housing and how much has been invested in that has been a bit of an overkill in the past few years. And when we look at the request for more school space, 5 million, 10 million, 5 million, I us 20 million over three years how can we continue to keep our financial condition above water with such activities as that yeah that pretty much covers school police I do like the trail connectivity which that comes with a big price tag that's an area that could use grants for sure places where they might be available and of course I'm not even focused on it but the big elephant in the room would be the new public works facility that's a huge price tag it may be necessary it begs the question what are we going to do with the old property too often you know we abandoned something that was a city-owned parcel and it doesn't go back into the private sector doesn't get developed in such a way as to return some sort of investment back into the community in return for what we're losing there was something else that yes I'm sure I'm sure I can key off some of [1:29:33] Shanna Cox: those other comments too I'm holding some of mine until we've heard from everybody Alex I do note that you have something to contribute I want to hear from anyone who hasn't had a chance yet I'm looking down the line to see Zoe did you have anything specific we heard from you a little bit already Amy I mean I [1:29:54] Speaker O (unidentified): guess I just have one comment about the police vehicles I have no beef with you know the take-home vehicles but it seems weird that you already have how many vehicles do we already have and how old are all of them like doing this full replacement it was like I drive my vehicles for 10 years right so why does everybody need a brand new vehicle in one year I just it feels it feels like it should be able to be parsed out a little bit supportive of the idea but it seems a little bit extreme so that we'll wait for the [1:30:23] Bryan Kaenrath: presentation, but it would not be replacing every single vehicle in one year. There would be a rotation in, so I think January 20th may help provide some more context when that presentation happens. But again, the number one priority was, and I guess we knew this project would be kind of a lightning rod of all the things submitted this year. But recruitment is a huge issue, and they've done some analysis, and in the five years of replacing vehicles with the current replacement plan, we have, we're actually spending a little bit more than we would be in the five years of doing the take-home program, so, and we'll get into more details on that. But because of the usage of the vehicles is so much lower right now between the mileage and the hours, police vehicles, cruisers only last two to three years right now. And with this would be more like in the seven to eight year range, so there's a significant longevity difference. [1:31:20] Speaker O (unidentified): So the more they're used, the longer they last. [1:31:25] Bryan Kaenrath: No, though, they'd be used less if you have a take-home vehicle to assign to just one officer. It's not on the road 24 7. It's right now vehicles there, they're, they're running it on the road 24 7 every day. So by being a take-home vehicle, the mileage would be cut and the hours substantially. So the forecast is a vehicle would last now in the seven to eight year range of stuff two to three. So that's the difference. [1:31:48] Shanna Cox: I'll come to you next pen i just have one question that like can you bring it to whomever is doing the presentation on the 20th and ask them to address this question which is i hear you speaking towards patrol cars and edmund cars what is our current gap in recruitment challenge to patrol versus admin and can that presentation speak to the recruitment challenge for admin of which often is like a promotional [1:32:14] Bryan Kaenrath: it's mostly all patrol as you know just have them speak to that because there's that like chief colony on the 20th to dive into more details that 4020 split [1:32:24] Shanna Cox: in there might be updated in the plan, and just last comment on that, and if [1:32:31] Speaker O (unidentified): it's a program we're gonna roll things over and retire things, it just is so weird to have that whole full amount just in one year and then not showing how it, how it plays out in subsequent years. Just feedback for whoever's give me the presentation, manager. Okay, I'm the same, so just sure I'm still [1:32:50] Speaker E (unidentified): trying to reconcile the math in my head if a patrol car goes home with an officer that prop likely increases the number of the units needed as opposed to having a different officer in the same car for three different eight-hour spans during the day so I don't know how that decreases the number of cars needed and the cost all the way around and additionally from a financial perspective changing over an entire fleet in the same year no it might likely will cause the same thing to happen at obsolesce seven years from now. Yeah, so it's a bad financial policy, whether it's done in my business, whether it's done Lewiston fire trucks and the public works vehicles, or anything. You need a rotation program somewhere. If this five million is a complete fleet and maybe it gets cut in one third and done over three different years, it's one way to get one third of that number out of this year's LCIP and, well, that's what I'd say on that topic. Thanks, Cynthia. Was there [1:33:59] Speaker C (unidentified): anything that you wanted to add? The same, the same, along the same line as what the conversation's [1:34:04] Shanna Cox: been. Thank you. I'm going to go to Alex. That I'm going to throw in my own and then we'll come back [1:34:08] Speaker D (unidentified): to mr marco cool for the police car issue if i'm hoping there will be data in this presentation around sort of meantime between failure with the current fleet things like that just because in the request it sort of says the cars fail often like what does often look like right now i think you know typically when i've seen these types of requests come up you know we sort of end up in a medium spot you know compromises are made things like that so I'm just curious yeah sort of where 's the fleet at now I 'm hoping there will be a lot of detail in the presentation if there isn't some would be appreciated you know how many cars do we have now how many are gonna rotate it and what's the average failure rate how old are things I think that could really help with decision-making back to sort of high-level questions for all of the road related repairs there's a couple of main dot specific projects in here are there places where we as a board can look at those files so just sort of see you Know I don't know if there's designs already done or you know just to get a better sense of what's being asked for funding beyond the text description. So you're asking for a scope summary, scope summary, or just some sort of packet. I don't know if it's something where we can go find it ourselves or if this is something we need to ask you for. I think that's maybe more like [1:35:31] Kevin Gagne: Question, it's something we need to provide. The East Avenue one, a lot of our D.O.T. projects depending on what's going on, it's three years of programming. Yeah, that East Avenue project specifically was involved right away, so it extended that. The projects that we do with D.O.T. that we show in the CRP are because we have a share. Some of these are MPIs, which additional municipal partial partnership initiative. Those are a 50 share, and then you have depending on the federal highway or straight DOT Funding we're at a 20 or 10 match, so the ones that we're showing in here I think are at the, you know, we try to phase it in on our matches and follow the budget, so we can try to look and get a summary because right now I don't think we [1:36:20] Speaker D (unidentified): Have anything available. Yeah, just some, something that gives us a little more to think about it with. And then I know we brought it up last year, but there is, you know, there's sort of an alluding to, you know, we have a replacement program for sidewalks, and I know, I think last year when I asked the same question it was like, well, we're just sort of as we tackle the street we tackle the sidewalk, we sort of, you know, do what we can when we can, and I think that's great that we're doing that, but has there Been any change to maybe move to sort of thinking about it in a more planned way of like, you know, these sidewalks when we replace them here, this street over here is gonna be next up, so then that's gonna be a network, you know, or is it still very much like street by street, place by [1:37:04] Kevin Gagne: Place. So when it comes to straight city funding, we are absolutely looking at the planning of the street, so we have a five-year window to that. Yeah, if we can condition driven, usually yes, yep. And I mentioned in the previous agenda item, but the, we're looking at, we have a pavement condition rating on streets, we also have a condition rating on sidewalks, the engineering got out of the last analysis, so we're utilizing that as well as use our priority, priorities are hospitals, schools, so we've got some Things planned in those areas, the other sidewalks that aren't even being used, or they're just totally deteriorated. We're looking at the viability of that retirement. Like I said, we have, if there's sidewalks on both sides, looking at the side that has the least encroachments, that's going to provide a better sidewalk, more protection, more to a DA, and better ability for public works to maintain it if we're doing snow removal or plowing. Or better yet, I just want to take this minute for anybody that's listening, thank you for cleaning your sidewalk. There's not an ordinance, it's not like in Portland, but we do appreciate it. We're trying to make connectivity in the winter as well. I think we have over 50 miles of sidewalks and we're not able to maintain all of that. So answer your question, yes, we do have a plan where we're doing with DOT. Their funding mechanism has changed as well, so requesting it through ATRC and AVCOG has been a little bit different. So I think doing LPA or LAP, depending on the acronym, of locally administered project, securing those funds has given Lewiston the ability to do these projects quicker than if we were just relying on DOT to do these projects. So with that, you know, we'll try to get more out there on the, we're trying to get more mapping in place so that something that would be utilized maybe. And answer your question on where we're looking at next, I [1:39:11] Speaker D (unidentified): think the last time we spoke about this, like the city was still working on mapping all of the sidewalks because there's just so much. We do have a map we [1:39:18] Kevin Gagne: have a route on where we're plowing. We've got the plan for where we're going next, so just upstate updating that as well as our storyboard is important. But like anything would administer a cane raft started and we met, I shared with them, you know, our biggest thing is there's too many asks for resources. So yeah, here we are in another year. Paving is important, but there are other things that the administrator and council and you all are balancing. So realistically, we 're trying to prioritize whether it's the street paving or the sidewalks and what's being utilized. Got it. And then just [1:39:53] Speaker D (unidentified): last two, one specifically was around the bridge street abutment repair, which sounds like, can you offer the page reference please? Oh yes, 61. So this seems like sort of a last minute thing, or you know, we discovered it was in bad condition, needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later. I've heard from, because this is sort of in my neighborhood, I've heard from multiple people in my life who are not really connected to each other that they're all independently asking around, trying to work on getting quiet crossings in the neighborhood. So for those of you who don't know, that means making it so that the train doesn't have to sound its horn at the grade crossing, the crossing bells are quieter, just all these things to just make it a little more livable when you live next to a grade crossing. And from what I've heard from all these people separately is that it sounds like closing one of their grade crossings would be necessary to do that in the neighborhood. And it seems like all of these people are still working towards that goal. And so in reading this, that DOT sees it as a low volume redundant bridge that may be the case now, but maybe not in the future. And I don't know if there can be sort of a case made to the state of like, well, we're working on this, you know, can you cover the cost, just was sort of throwing that out there. And then, oh geez, the last one is escaping me now. So oh, the last one was, you know, looking at street paving, you know, that's a really big budget item, right, as a whole, right. And when I read through a lot of these streets, you know, age that you're on 57 is the list, and then the request is on the preceding page on 56. A lot of them are dead ends, right. And so I think when we think about public rights of way, you know, we often think of them as providing access from one place to another, transportation value, access to resources, but at the end of the day, a dead end street often can behave more like just like a shared driveway for a set of houses. And I guess I wonder, are they, has the city ever retired streets from city care to reduce, you know, but budget strain, basically like I remember I think last year's capital improvement plan. There was a road that serves a handful of houses. It's very long, needed a ton of work, didn't connect any Jan's Boulevard. I don't think it was Jan's Boulevard. This was out off of Sabata Street, Bradbury Road. Yeah, and I and I and I wonder about situations like that, because we're under so much financial stress here. If there has ever been a conversation about, you know, moving some of these roads to private maintenance, or you know, some something that's more part in partnership with the residents who are directly benefiting, when these roads often are not providing benefit [1:42:58] Kevin Gagne: for the overall community. So if Shelly wants to chime in, she can talk about the planning and their department. But I can tell you that as far as public works, through a new development proposal, we're we do not want to take on more inventory. So if a new neighborhood is planned and new streets are built, we are supportive of having that private. The issue with that becomes if there is connectivity, associations dissolve over time. Yes, it's happened several times in my tenure here. I've been here 33 years, I was the an engineer and then the watered sewer guy, and I remember hearing about different occasions. Okay, so we want to be thoughtful about it. Yes, and the other issue that I hear from constituents and administrator Canraf can chime in, is that I hear the saying we pay our fair taxes. So you know, as far as my job in engineering, we don't get into the political part of it. We're using PCI, which is pavement condition ratings, you know, trips per day or more for like we talked about earlier traffic and things like that. So you know, and the counterbalances, you have a potholes on your street, it's right now it's acting as a traffic calming. Right, oh yeah, I have requests for speed bumps where we just paved the street and now speed's too quick. So we're trying to balance all those priorities. I know I've had a counselor that asked, you know, from a constituent, why when's my road getting paved? In last year's budget there were numbers cut, and that their street went from F calendar year 26 to now calendar year 27. Yeah, so we try to do the worst roads, but our planning is also around which ones are good for an overlay, because it costs more when we have to do a strip and pave. Yeah, or a full depth recon. So we're trying to get out of that. DOT is doing much more frequent thin overlays for that same thing, so crack ceiling and keeping the top pavement and getting keeping the stormwater out of it. [1:44:58] Speaker D (unidentified): And proper drainage is really key, so that's what's really destroying the road is when you rest freeze where we have dead-end private streets, those [1:45:08] Kevin Gagne: residents don't want it. I, we have, you know, near developments where they were willing to take over the street. Essex was one and some of these other ones, so where we can, but they're very short, and if it's taken over by development, then great, but the reality is it's not something that a taxpayer or neighborhood is going to want to take on with an association. I [1:45:30] Speaker D (unidentified): hear that. I just think about it because I live in town, you know, my street, you know, you could probably throw a tennis ball down it, but there's a ton of residential tax benefit there, right, you know, every foot of that street has frontage, so I'm gonna stop the conversation [1:45:47] Shanna Cox: there so we can move on. That's fine, I appreciate it. Yep, I would enjoy that topic as well, but it's not tonight's, not tonight, I get it, I get it. I'd like to chime in with a couple of my own since we've heard from everybody at least once. One is just a gut check on page 10 under economic and community development, you'll see that canal ownership projects and riverfront island implementation appear to not have a 2027 request, and I think that's just like formatting on the page because when I look at page 18 we see the riverfront island implementation having the like 3.38 and it not having a city share, so like I don't know if that's why it just got formatted that way, but we've been really intentional about putting money into the riverfront island implementation every year, and given the kind of update to the plan and the momentum that's happening kind of around the point and in other areas, I just want to make sure, and then I don't know if that's a follow-up question you want to speak to it later, which is totally fine, but there is a request for something to happen in 27, it's just not costing us anything and we don't have to cut it. Is that accurate? So congressional delegated spending [1:46:56] Kevin Gagne: has been great to Lewiston in the last two of those projects, so we have funds that are in the queue right now, so reality is the amount of work that's going on in that area, this is the request where we can, we can build it and there's no additional funds needed than what we've requested. Likewise on some of the canal maintenance projects, yeah, that one was less clear to me and I was [1:47:19] Shanna Cox: hoping particularly with some of the work that has been aimed for in samar pain relative to the canal [1:47:24] Kevin Gagne: So it's related, so the city of Lewiston owns the canals, took over that ownership. As I'm sure you're all aware, it was not maintained the last 20 or 30 years, so we're doing improvements to implement the river island master plan, but also keep it structurally sound and be able to operate, because where we are required to operate it and decommission it in regards to FERC, because we're no longer doing power generation. So we have money left in there as well. I think there's about nine hundred thousand. That, you know, so you see the trimming that's going on, we're gonna be planting some trees, so there's some other structural things we need to do with upper A and some of these other areas to maintain water levels, to maintain gate structures as we did on the lower canal. So that's the plan and we have money, which are not asking for it, so it's a gap year, but trust more things are still going on and moving. It felt like it spoke. [1:48:14] Shanna Cox: To that it was a little more clear on the riverfront island master plan than it was on the canal aspect of it, and it, I know there's canal work being done within the riverfront island master plan, so I just want to double check on page 11. I'm looking under the school department and this can be a follow-up question. I see educational space for growing enrollment and there's, I'm, I'm challenged with a couple of things. The 27 request as stated on page 77 appears to be 10 million, but on page 11 of the. Guide to like the breakdown, it looks like it's 5 million in 27, so I'm not sure it was like just. [1:48:57] Bryan Kaenrath: Typo, okay, so that was cut. The initial ask was 10 and obviously you guys know typos are cool and there's lots, so please don't think it was, what was submitted was five. That was, we discussed with the superintendent, he was supportive of five. Okay, great, thanks. My. [1:49:16] Shanna Cox: Follow-up question to that would be, you know, we're looking at a lot of millions of dollars over multiple years to make room for our students. I think that when I dig into that proposal for the project educational space for growing enrollment, what we're really talking about is renovations to 287 Main Street and the ability to house school programs. I'm assuming because of its title, actual students in that in that building and not just like admin, though I've heard it be bull, so it would be really. Helpful because even when you read this page, Shelly, not clear. So like that's a lot of million dollars. What is the proposal? Is it special ed programs? Is it additional classrooms? Is it K-6? Is it 6-8? Is it 9-12? Is it admin? Like what is it? And those are really round numbers and this is a pretty big school item. Like it's not a whole new school and a new bond, but it's like also a whole new school or maybe that's the part I'm asking. But can we just get more details on what the facility plan as it relates to educational space for students is for 287 Maine? Yeah. [1:50:25] Bryan Kaenrath: I love the superintendent follow up on that, but it does involve 287 Main Street, it does involve potentially the Dingley building and some other spaces, but we'll get follow-up from [1:50:33] Shanna Cox: superintendent. I just, I mean, if it's for growing enrollment and not admin's ability to process growing enrollment, I'd love to distinguish between the two, particularly because every time we've heard 287 referred to, it has been to replace some of the utility that happens at Dingley and there are no students actively educated at Dingley. And if we're gonna put 10 or 15 million dollars and over the next three years to growing educational enrollment, I'd like to see how that jives. So that's that's my follow-up question there, I guess. And like my overarching question would be to each department head, what is the single most important thing that gets approved in this capital improvement budget? And could each department had answer that clearly for this board? If our, if our purview is to look at it and say okay, we're gonna cut what, three quarters or make recommendations for three quarters of this to not be approved, what's the most important thing that they that like moves this city forward and maintain services and pride of place and value? You, I'd love to hear each department head's answer to that question. Are there other items from the planning board? Amy, have, Amy, thank you. [1:51:50] Speaker O (unidentified): Yeah, again, just sort of in general as I look at all these different projects, like I would love to understand how shovel ready some of these big projects are, because is it really true that we're ready? Somebody's standing by to build the fire station for seven million dollars in one year? So I just don't have a feel on these projects for, I mean, it's great to ask for the money in FY 27 would actually be spent in that year. So similarly going back to the departments and if you have a big project like That if you could just help us understand the likely likelihood of it actually being executed in this time frame, I [1:52:30] Speaker E (unidentified): think I remember the item that I wanted to get add to, but keying off some of the interim comments, looking at the ones you address, you know, yeah, it does look like it's just juxtaposition on the which item was that, riverfront, which is nice that it's fully paid by love, I believe the FS stands for federal state, federal state, and looking at the tally at the bottom of the three-page grid, the numbers 8.6 million across many other items, and that, and that's great because that's not even part of the 34 million that we see on the preceding pages, looking at the school one, and I kind of alluded to that in my previous comments about growing enrollment, and that's coming from a lot of the project housing that are being introduced into Lewiston, but I was surprised to see that it was highlighted in red under SC HBI, meaning a bond issue and paid for entirely local, some of this could, I suspect, could be paid for by state and federal with the right sort of grant applications, and shouldn't be totally on our burden, especially when some of this is being introduced by us as a city in this state taking on that burden, and it's not being taken on by some of the rural communities and suburban communities to the, to our city or any other major city in the state, so if we're going to be a service center, the rest of the state should be able to kick in through state funding is what I'm driving at there. Coming back to the debt limit, it's been 16 years, 17 years. I was there when the debt limit was introduced at 90%. I remember asking for 80% was left at that meeting. A short three years later, I got to interim chair the ask right in that back room there to make it 80%, so I asked for 70, same thing, but it was rather interesting that directive, either it came from the finance director or the City Council and to the finance director and then to the Finance Committee, but it was a serious thing to be considered back in 2009, 2012, and here we are in 2026 and we still have a very concerning debt structure in Lewiston, Maine, and I Know there's a chart somewhere, It's I don't believe it's in this LC IP book that shows us when those debt limits were met and when they weren't, and Part of the ordinance states that all you need is that fifth vote on the City Council in order to breach the debt limit. And when it's breached, nobody discusses how much that puts you out into the future. Because even if you have fewer years where you breach it than you do, it keeps extending that debt out and out and out. And that's why when I look at a $34 million ask with a six million dollar debt limit, I sense that we're going to breach that eighty percent this year. But by how much? And the more that it is, hey, we'll do it this year, in the next four years, and then we'll sit down, be within the debt limit, maybe not. But if we are, it still takes that debt repayment plan out into decades of years. That's not good financial planning, you know, even at the most introductory level of collegiate study. Thank [1:56:46] Shanna Cox: you. On the item of debt, I would just say one active conversation from previous administrators and finance directors that I like to annually check in on is that 80 of last year is always going to get smaller. And that is part of one of the structural issues with, like, at some point we're going to be 80 of 5 million, and then we're at two million. And yeah, and so I appreciate having a debt limit, I appreciate it triggering a conversation and there being a, an override vote. But if you meet that debt limit, [1:57:22] Speaker E (unidentified): none, you will still potentially be, and I'd have to study the math, but I believe that you'd be pretty much flush on a plateau. Because when we look at the chart in the back of the book that shows a decreasing debt limit, it's assuming that you're not borrowing any more than what you're paying off, that you're not paying off. So that chart is a little bit misleading that we see in the back of the book. I believe it's assuming that there's no extra debt, and that would be the study that I need to do on the math is if you see it going from six million to four million in the roughly five years that are in the book, back of the book, that means you haven't borrowed [1:58:08] Shanna Cox: anything more to burden those out years. I can appreciate that. So my follow-up question that can get submitted and brought back to the board at a future point would be, what is the historical debt amount and the amount that was financed for the last five years, and what's the 80% number of that, and then how does that line up against what's being projected or aimed? So just an [1:58:32] Speaker E (unidentified): updated chart. Does that make sense? I know that heather hunter had that chart somewhere, so it's [1:58:38] Shanna Cox: Probably on Alan Wood's computer somewhere. Good luck, godspeed sir. I'm gonna point out a couple of items to the board before we move on to the next agenda item, which is you have until end of day Wednesday to get your items to Shelly. If you didn't name your question specifically today, or if it was super important to you, make sure you follow up with Shelly. She'll be sharing those questions with each department. Now's your time. Please don't ask a department head to come forward in four weeks time. When we have the opportunity now. The second point is we're organizing ourselves around those questions, those responses, for a February 9th deadline. We're in good condition, better than we've ever been, because we're meeting early this year, so that's fantastic. Each of you are charged with coming to our next meeting with the three things that you would recommend being cut. As a reminder of how we did that, it's not an advocacy session. You simply are gonna name school department page 60, I don't think. We need it, fire department page 13, I don't think we need it. We'll just each go through, name our top three, see where there's some alignment. It helps us organize the start of our conversation around recommendations that will be met with, hopefully, the very specific question what is the most important thing by department for each department had to have answered. I think those two will bookend our conversation nicely. It will give us time to discuss questions and answers at our next session, and then. Formalize a recommendation at the following before the 9th, if need be, that. [2:00:04] Bryan Kaenrath: Right, and just a reminder, it will be January 20th at 6 p.m. It will be right at 6 p.m. First item on the meeting present Tuesday, correct, presentation on the police take-home vehicles proposal. So 6 p.m. on the 20th, thank you so well. [2:00:23] Shanna Cox: You can assume some of our questions might get answered that day, but that'll be the day after we meet next. Maybe we'll hold our police questions for that one, unless they want to come in and do a practice run of their rehearsal on the 19th for us. So the 19th, a holiday, that's great. It's gonna be perfect, it's nice sequencing. Okay, with everybody's permission, I'd like to take us to other business B. No, one last thing, short, I'd like to thank the city. [2:00:51] Speaker E (unidentified): Administrator and Public Works Director for being here tonight. Over the years since I first came on this board in the fall of 2009, and it was a struggle to get the Public Works Director here, that was my here at the time, or any other board, it would have been nice to see the stoop intended here tonight, and maybe a few of the other departments with the big ass [2:01:16] Shanna Cox: ask. Feel free to stick around for hot de minimis discussions you'd like, or you can be excused to go back to your orderly life. We do not have a memo or item for this. May I riff for a second, and then anything that I miss? So I'm gonna report out on this. I would just like to take this opportunity to name for the board that it wasn't until I was chair that I was aware of de minimis request and how it was handled at the board, and I am always mindful of where power sits and when I have it, and so I'm naming that I really appreciate this opportunity to lift this up, because de minimis requests specific to a change to an application this board has already reviewed come to the Planning Board chair, and I take that pretty seriously. I'm probably kind of annoying from time to time for city staff, certainly for developers, and so I wanted to name kind of the criteria that I use while also sharing like, and here's the update. So this specific project is the Gendron project that is Farwell neighborhood Charles Street abuts the Nuria on Sabatus Street. You've seen that, you've heard a lot of dialogue about it. We approved of the application a little bit ago, and the de minimis request did not change, just in, just a little preview of my criteria about whether I make people come to the board or not, it didn't change the impervious surface area, so that's always something that I'm looking at. If there's something that this board discussed specifically in the application review conversation, and that's being changed in a way that kind of negatively impacts it from what we had proposed or heard, that is also a flag for me for it to come to the board. So there was no change to the impervious, there was no increase in height, we saw a reduction in height from four stories to three stories on a number of the building. The other item that I paid close attention to is there's no overall change in total units, so though you saw this floor reduction on three or four of the buildings, the overall number of Units stayed, and that's because they changed the composition of units. I think without seeing like a full breakdown, they took some of the two bedrooms and made them ones in studios, probably based on market demand for this target population, frankly. And so there weren't any significant changes to that. There were no changes to pedestrian thruways. The only changes was I dropped a story on a couple of the buildings. That was pretty much it. So it didn't change street scale or elevation. And so I approve that. I say that because there are times that a de minimis request is made to me as chair, and I tend to use that criteria. Now we're gonna have even less shrubs, or we removed bike racks. If that's a conversation that's being proposed, so it's not just the type of de minimis request that I'm being asked to review, but it's also the overall number. So recently LHA came in before us for us to review the Martel project, a number that had been a de minimis request which I did not approve and brought to the board because there were some changes to the bike racks, and all the things that you guys mentioned during that review were things that I wasn't satisfied with the answers and felt important for the board to hear. And so I take that role pretty seriously. I appreciate the opportunity to report out on it, and if anyone ever [2:04:42] Speaker E (unidentified): has any questions, holler. Mr. Murkoff, I thank you for the report, and you addressed my major concern that I spoke with the planning co-director John Connor with on Friday, because when I my first read, and like you said, there was nothing in the packet for a memo, and I read that and I had to read it a dozen times because I saw that we were losing I think 32 units by the decrease in a few of the buildings, and the grammar in here or the sentence structure I couldn't tell whether it, you know, it was continuing to say reduced from 32 to 37, and it might have been a typo that it was 37 or 32, but when I went through every unit by, you know, every building by building, you know, with Mr. Connor, I came to the realization I think there may have even been an increase of a couple of [2:05:35] Shanna Cox: Units in the end which no exactly it was exactly the same and I say this because I requested maps and a couple of follow-ups because I did the same like I mean the biggest reason that we were excited to approve this when there was a lot of neighborhood pushback we hear that yeah there was a total number of units being proposed and so a reduction of units after that kind of disruption to the landscape would have [2:06:01] Speaker E (unidentified): Been a concern well that was one of the comments I made John on Friday was after all of that now they're reducing I thought it was all of the four-story buildings but when he went through it with me and maybe the math didn't jive I'm trying to write down numbers and so I'm probably wrong in the additional couple but I came away from the conversation with my biggest concern was that it was not a reduction in density because we're trying to provide senior housing it is still a senior housing Project right yeah okay none and in that case I didn't want to see a drastic reduction in units none after going through all of that but I was happy with the conversation with Mr. Connor and our chair said the same thing tonight as far to address that issue might be nice to have a memo well with this in the future you know when it's on [2:06:53] Shanna Cox: The agenda just print the email of the back and forth I don't know they need to write a memo just like attach my I know the FOIA is the thing so I'm always like polite in my exchanges and feel free to just print it and attach it but I requested a number of follow-up items and they were answered to my satisfaction whereas sometimes those requests are not answered to my [2:07:11] Speaker D (unidentified): Satisfaction and this board does see those requests we don't get a dramatic reading of your email I mean I don't know that it was dramatic you could [2:07:18] Shanna Cox: Read you well I think there was a correction of my math too if it makes you feel any better Mr. Mercatus that I think somewhere there's someone who's like no Shannon it's still the same number here's the math but yeah I appreciate it and I appreciate the opportunity to just name to you guys that I wasn't aware when I took this role that was the thing it makes sense that it's a thing it certainly makes the staff and we don't want I don't want the developer to be on a two or four week schedule and hold things up and so I'm glad that there's a process for it but I do take it seriously yeah Any questions? Still the same number of shrubs, of buildings, of units. Yeah, berm didn't change nothing. I was just talking about berm with a neighbor who was curious. I will say, for all of the concerns about the construction, I did hear recently from a family who lives on [street] who was enjoying very much watching all the construction, because they have a young four-year-old who's thoroughly into all of the big equipment. So yeah, it's not all bad. Gonna move us to reading of the minutes and seek a motion to adopt the December 22nd, 2025 draft minutes. So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Is there any amendments or changes would like to name before voting? Okay, will you call the [2:08:32] Speaker F (unidentified): roll? Zoe Lidstrom? Yes. Michael Marcotte? Yes. Lucy Bisson? Yes. Shanna Cox? Yeah. Amy [2:08:38] Shanna Cox: Smith yes Alex pine yes Cynthia burns yes great please remember our next normal Monday is the holiday right or is that next Monday next Monday holiday so we'll see you here on the 26 your questions in by Wednesday the 14th council meeting 20th is the City Council meeting and a police vehicle workshop in advance okay I heard a motion to adjourn is there a second all in favor yay thanks see you on the 26th yeah happy long weekend then my weekends are [2:09:17] Speaker D (unidentified): all along, but I [2:09:27] Shanna Cox: have, I have multiple years, I got rid of, I think I got rid of like four or five years