Penobscot County Commissioners Back $7,000 Match for Together Place, Advance Tower Fix

[8:27] David Marshall: I'll call the Commissioner's meeting of September 2nd to order. It's at 9.04 a.m., or if you're going to slate it. And we'll call the roll call. Commissioner Cushing is absent on his right of way seat. Commissioner Trimble? Present. Chair is present. And Treasurer? Present. And the Administrator is present. Okay. I'll start off and pledge your allegiance. Mr Treasurer, you can't leave us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr Treasurer. We now have a approval of the minutes of August 19th. The chair will entertain a motion. Commissioner Tremble moves approval of chair, seconds. Any comments? No comments. Call the roll call. The vote. I have two and one absentee. Our next will go into an executive session. [9:45] Andre Cushing: Can we wait until next week, especially with the commission pushing on that one? [9:54] Blair Tinkham: Do you need help with the recess? [9:57] David Marshall: We can recess. Do you need a recess? [10:00] Andre Cushing: We can get the aid. She's not here. [10:07] David Marshall: Nothing else is available in a short time. Approve the warrant and go on. Yeah, second, all those in favor, aye, zero, so it's crew two with one absentee. Okay, we want to discuss the states, what his dates for that kind of the budget committee. Yeah, would you, would you care to take that? My recommendation is to do it September 16th. It's the day that we have a community Wednesday 16. Now we'll do it. Well, I've seen two different times. You do it 5 31 one year and then 4 30. If you want the public to come, I think it needs to [11:03] Andre Cushing: be a little bit later. So okay, I think Wednesday's good because I think that's the That's a day when the least conflicts with local media or county agencies. [11:14] David Marshall: Yeah, we will also have the experience awards that day. And so we're going to have a, we'll have a, I'll make a little bit of an agenda. [11:24] Andre Cushing: So I'm starting at 5.30 on the 16th, Friday the 13th, will you, Wednesday the 16th, [11:33] David Marshall: 5.30 upstairs on the 3rd floor? Yes, and you know that's all parties involved. Why don't we have you take care of you right now, because we're waiting for the administrator. Welcome, I mean, I mean, we're waiting for them. Nice to meet you, sir, commissioner, welcome, thank you. So we're going to, we're going to skip those people who are following the agenda. We're going to skip to the D8 office, deputy D.A. Chelsea and the D.A. himself. Great to have you here, not for [12:20] Daniel Tremble: Long though, Chelsea take it over January 1st, and you're going to really enjoy working with her. She's not here. She's over there trying to child sexual abuse material. [12:30] David Marshall: And we're talking about a criminal forfeiture account. Would you care to say this? [12:35] Daniel Tremble: Right, so our account has $6,372.70 in the account. This is criminal forfeitures are based upon drug cases where the drug dealers have been convicted and were in possession of cash, which we assumed was his cash. So we're asking that we take $3,000 from that account to purchase what are known as Remarkable tablets. It's a digital notebook that syncs to the user's phone and computer for easy access at any time. Those who use Remarkables find them to be helpful when we're in court and then quick notes that are easily then put into our customer system and share file with me these are just asking that we purchase some of those and that the $3,000 that we're asking for go to that [13:40] David Marshall: purchase up to up to three up to up to three thousand dollars any questions do you have anything you know I would second all those in favor aye thank you thank you very much [13:59] Daniel Tremble: Thank you have any questions right upstairs I know where you are [14:05] David Marshall: Doesn't get any easier than that all right guys thank you thank you thank you all right [14:15] Daniel Tremble: So yeah we [14:27] Andre Cushing: Can do the tower through the what we're gonna do the tower project [14:31] David Marshall: Okay, the PRCC is, let's see here, we're going to skip to item G on the agenda for those of you following, the update on the tower project from Director Fitzgerald. One item on the PCC, PRCC, and then we'll be taking the ones up at 950. Thank you we'll try and keep us on schedule this is the subject is a 97 hands-free power project we actually saw that Director Fitzgerald will have the administrator make the presentation go ahead so obviously you have an issue paper in your packet essentially PRCC is requesting you use $51,425.50 to fix the radio tower on top of the roof. It's essentially 30 tool crossfires. And it'll also address the risk pool issue with the leak distribution that we've had in the past and fix that. And so this will be using remainder bond money that we have. And this will alleviate the liberty the liberty transfer assessment of our age up on the road right and we 're being complied with that we don't yes very good my only question was on the [17:11] Andre Cushing: Said there was what was what you mean in the radio bond, but more obviously my only question was they don't just say located funds or those sitting in the general fund, so we're again we actually spent those monies that we're just the chair will second the move will second to approve the 97 Hamlet Street power project. [17:54] David Marshall: Allocation of fifty one thousand four hundred forty five dollars fifty cents fix the radio communications tower well you actually have an additional price report. [18:03] Andre Cushing: Of course how do we come up with this project very specific number I don't know oh they do all the right here any. [18:18] David Marshall: Further questions okay let's see where we are now floor at 9 15 we're going to we have our scheduled an executive session the chair will entertain a motion on executive session on professional matters. [18:51] Andre Cushing: Move we go into an executive session one of our MRSA section four five six a personal matter. [18:57] David Marshall: Second all those in favor aye no opposed we are now in executive session and we'll not. [56:05] Blair Tinkham: We haven't really saved some money employees a little take care of this here and then we have a couple minor things like. [56:31] Andre Cushing: I didn't turn to the fund you're not able to reallocate that money other than for the product here so is that something that you will have for. [56:40] Blair Tinkham: Future work that needs to happen so we've got about 100 000 last rest of the office there's a couple of small minor things that we're going to do that we're going to keep on and then all of a sudden now there's a couple just little things that might not but. That's it okay. [57:04] Andre Cushing: Right that bond money needs to apply to we may need to use it for future parts I just know I went through this on another issue but we're getting close to. [57:18] Blair Tinkham: That being done with us so there's going to be a little bit of a meeting so okay all right well. [57:24] Andre Cushing: Thank you gentlemen okay so you've got your hands on the door open I think we're not yet are we still an executive no we are and we are so I would move to come out of the executive session and we engage in the public session okay second all. [57:45] David Marshall: In favor aye we're back in session thank you the next item on the agenda we need to take a vote on the on the PRCC we did you just have that question yeah he answered your question right okay next on the agenda is the Together Place Josh executive director with Natasha could you please come forward yeah in the. [58:44] Public commenter (Together Place representative): Floor is yours. Yeah, so I'm coming to the county commissioners today because the Together Place has been facing a crisis. We have a funding shortfall, and I'm glad to say, I'm excited to tell you that the community has really stepped up as a, as at this point we've raised about 220,000, about, sorry, 210,000, and the remaining balance for us to reopen, bear with me one second here, is $13,521, and that will give us a 12 months. During that time we're working with a consultant to create a really solid sustainability plan. We're working with Jesse Moriarty of the United Way, and we've got a great team that's coming together to look at ways that we could possibly use a braided funding model, so grants, foundations, but also looking at some of the Medicaid billing options so that we could bring in some main care dollars to pay a certain percentage of our operational [59:58] Andre Cushing: costs. Any questions? No, I would just kind of frame this. We've got an amount of opiate funds available. We've got a committee that looks at the process with delegates right now. I knew we invited you here, maybe they know you guys have a time frame you're up against, and so what is that time schedule? Because I think the opiate committee itself is, they were planning to look at some of the requests probably in the next couple months, and I know you probably want to tell you a time frame. Yes, I think the biggest thing that we're [1:00:32] Public commenter (Together Place representative): up against, I think in Bangor right now, is that the cold weather is coming, right, and we are working a lot of folks with substance use disorder, mental health, and increasingly homelessness, and so we would ask that the county consider this funding gap as soon as possible so that we can reopen the doors. We are turning away about 50 people a day right now. We're using our services and getting connections to care and substance use treatment. So we've received some generous matching donations. So we received a matching donation of 50,000, another match of 80,000, and then most recently we got 50,000 unrestricted funds from the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. So we've also received about $25,000 in community donations. That's through over 150 different community donors. That's $5, $10, $20, $500. So we are extremely close to our home communities really spoken that they see this nonprofit as an asset to the community, and we just want to be able to reopen, and we think that the opioid settlement dollars this will be a good use of those funds and you guys do you have an ask them to [1:01:47] Andre Cushing: The city of Bangalore as well. What's the time frame area? Yes, so September 9th. [1:01:52] Public commenter (Together Place representative): We're meeting with the government operations committee to discuss the funding shortfall. We also have a RFP and with the city of Bangor, and that's to provide a little barrier space during the year for unhoused residents. So that's that RFP is under consideration right now as well, so. [Andre Cushing: What is your] timeframe other than weather related? So other than weather related, I spoke with the matching donors and I know last night I got a call from one of them that was saying, you know, we really want to get you this match but we want to see your doors open. So I'm a little bit concerned about some of the donors backing out if we're not able to open soon. I think they have concerns like we're giving you this money, we want to make sure that you're open as soon as possible. So that's a concern, but in terms of the deadline, I don't have a solid deadline. I just, I think we're hoping is to open as soon as possible. [1:02:59] David Marshall: Let me ask, so we have an open committee here, what is your time frame, and given what you've heard here today, my sense is every request should go through the outdoor committee. We have given you a budget, you have the guidelines, education, prevention and treatment, which clearly this would fall under. You understand their time frame, how quickly given their situation do you think the committee could respond? I know you're, you've already received applications, correct? So the open [1:03:34] Blair Tinkham: applications are not, the application has been opening, we have received requests, right, but we haven't opened the RFP yet. The goal is to open the RFP soon with determining by December the awards and then the checks cut and out in January. That is the goal and that's what we met last year. That's what we were able to do an even shorter time frame because we really were like fine by the seat of our side, we've never written an RFP, did grant. So this year should be smoother. We have the application, we're going to tweak it a little, we now have a full committee, so we also have, will shortly will be a survey out to surveying some of the public throughout Penobscot County asking them where they see their gaps. So we know when we look at the RFPs that we're serving the whole county. So our real goal is to get that out by this fall, awarded in December and the checks [1:04:34] David Marshall: Cut by January, you will, you will through your process, you will interview or take applications, and you will qualify those according to your standards and make your recommendations at that point in time. Now you have a four hundred [1:04:52] Andre Cushing: thousand dollar budget any information we both to allocate another four [1:04:58] Blair Tinkham: hundred thousand. Yes, so we have the price of four thousand and again it'll be a competitive brand and that will, that will make sure that the agencies are vetted financially, they're sound, there's sustainability plans, as well as, which is really important to us, that there are goals that they need to meet so that we can measure at the end if the programs we're supporting with these funds have a positive impact in our community. So that's really important to us when people do the grants, that we know who they're serving, how many they're serving and what their ultimate goal is and then we collect all that data as well as checking with them periodically at the six month mark, you know, have you, have you spent the money, how have you spent the money. Again it's a whole process which again this money has come to us, if you listen to advocates and lived experience, it's blood money. We received it because people died and because people lost loved ones, so we believe as a committee that it is our responsibility to make sure this money is vetted appropriately on evidence-based programs and that there's accountability and that Penobscot County can then build their plan to ensure that lives get saved and lives get better, so [1:06:22] David Marshall: that's why it needs a process. You just have a question, I know that you just [1:06:28] Andre Cushing: laid out the process of meeting, but it seems to me that this is like the type of organization, the type of need we should address the open money. Do you see a way the committee could respond to emergency situations outside of that competitive process and like I don't know if there is or not, but this seems like the type of situation we shouldn't try to find but they probably need [1:06:51] Blair Tinkham: the answer sooner than December. So I think the committee could possibly do that, but I'm only one member of that committee, so the committee had to determine that. I will say that the committee feels very strongly in the process, but they certainly can look at, we're also very committed to the funding being all of Penobscot County and not Bangor center, and so we have to be careful for that, and unfortunately there are many agencies out there that are going to end up closing or in the verge of closing. Because of funding, and so we know this money needs to get where it needs to go as fast as it needs to get there. We understand that, but I think I can't speak one way or the other. I'm one person on our committee that would have to be brought to the committee, and then the committee would bring that decision to you, and then you would [1:07:47] David Marshall: out and we decided. Yeah, I mean, is there a scheduled meeting of the group? I mean, I [1:07:55] Andre Cushing: appreciate they can have it so much. If this is a live, if we were talking 150,000, no, we gotta have, take time. I mean, this is to me it's a small amount in relation to what we've got to find, and it would have a big impact. So there's a way to get a quicker question. Do you know of any other sources of opioid money that might be allocating to projects of this nature? So [1:08:19] Blair Tinkham: the opiate money really is like, for instance, okay, full disclosure, you know, I'm the chair of the of the main recovery council, so which I term out in November, so they, if this request and get together place, it's public knowledge that Together Place has asked this. The council has really determined that it needs to go through the grant process, that it needs, there will be in early spring sometime, late winter, a big RFP that will go out from the main recovery council, and agencies can apply. From then we are in the process of developing, and it probably won't come fast enough for Together Play. We've also taken a portion of our money to put in a like a foundation that you can get money out of faster by having a process, and those are smaller grants, ones that are under 50,000 can go through that process, but that isn't open yet. I don't know where the attorney general stands with his funds. I know that there's been a big ask because it's in the paper recently of them in regards to some of his funding and I don't know where he is. That those are the three sources either. Well, there's Penobscot County, Bangor, and then the attorney general and the main recovery council. But the main recovery council, because we get so many of these requests, we just have to stick by some sort of system, because we also can't promise money we don't have. And although this is a lot of money, it's still only given to us like yours in drips and little drips. So we have to be cautious we don't give out more than we have. So that's where all I know in regards to that. [1:10:12] Andre Cushing: Could I offer a suggestion? Recognizing that you're going to the city for something, and we certainly have partnered with the city before. One side note, have we had an application from them that we approved or did not approve in the opioid committee previously? [1:10:29] Blair Tinkham: The chair, Jamie Beck, is in conversations with Bangor in regards to doing a shared project with the money, but that hasn't really been determined yet. We did collaborate a little bit when the two grants went out last fall, but there really wasn't a lot of that shared money. There may have been organizations that got some Bangor money and some Penobscot, but I don't think it was many. [1:10:56] Andre Cushing: So I would offer our consideration that we would match up to a certain amount, but the city of Bangor agreed to put into this. I would support that as well. I would second that, and I would support that. I would say it would be out of the opiate fund, but not out of the $400,000. A lot of these, I mean, I think we should be nimble enough to be able to address emergency situations, and then we sent that money aside for the tender process. We've got enough money in the opiate account. We're talking, I think, if it's a match, let's set that down. What's your [1:11:39] David Marshall: So my understanding is that you would recommend we would do our own opioid funds in a co-operative effort with Bangor to address this situation, but retain the $400,000 for the opioid committee. Would that, I have a question, would that remove them from seeking an additional funding [1:12:01] Andre Cushing: from the committee, or that I'm not going to put that in my motion. I'm going to say that we would use discretionary opioid funds to match up to $7,000 what the city of Bangor's opioid fund would apply to this project, and that money is not to come, not to be derived, not out of the $400,000 unimpacted, and then I would [1:12:28] David Marshall: also reinforce my belief that all functions of open funding accounting will go through the committee, as many as they volunteer their time, their expertise, and I think we should observe and honor the protocols and all future request also the opioid committee in these related areas. I respect your [1:13:04] Andre Cushing: concern, but I'm not going to add that to my motion. In other words, this motion is to a unique situation offering us a chance to partner with banker. So I'm saying up to $7,000 of our discretionary money would match what the city banners. Hope you would understand, but my position would be going forward everything will [1:13:30] David Marshall: go through the public committee, and I would not consider any other request unless it went through [1:13:36] Andre Cushing: Your book, yeah. I, that's just, I'm not going to put that in my emotion. No, you don't have to. [1:13:42] David Marshall: But I want to make it clear where my position is going forward, that the focus will be through the opioid committee. I mean, I just want to let everybody know. So the motion on the floor for me, okay, it's consecutive, right, to answer that second. Did you get that motion? Did you get the motion more than that? [1:14:09] Andre Cushing: We think the motion would be to up to seven thousand dollars of our discretionary opioid funds, not from the $400,000, to this request from Together Place to match what the city of Bangor's allocation would be from their opioid funds. [1:14:37] David Marshall: You've got that all in reality. Okay, if I'm moved and seconded, any further discussion? I'll call for the vote. Yes, the ministry. To leave the end state, which is $7,000, are we having this FTC come back September 16th, verify the city of Bangor is going to provide the other $7,000. How are we going to meet? How are we going to know? [1:15:02] Andre Cushing: So the $7,000 is contingent on matching with the city of Bangor? September 9th. Would you like them to come back September 16th? I'm okay if they like to administrate it. I mean, we're authorizing the disbursement of that to match whatever the city of Bangor does. [1:15:23] David Marshall: And it'll be on the administrator to confirm that condition has been met. Got it, okay, thank you. [1:15:28] Andre Cushing: John, thank you to make your incentive pitch, and we would welcome the opportunity to collaborate more with the city. I think we did that some with Harper funds, and this is obviously something that benefits Bangor, but we know that there are Bangor based organizations that serve. [1:15:48] David Marshall: An outlining working in Canada case the movement seconded no more discussion all those in favor. [1:15:55] Public commenter (Together Place representative): Say aye unanimous thank you I just want to take a second to thank you guys I know that Penobscot county's been facing a huge problem with the opioid crisis and I think these dollars. [1:16:07] Andre Cushing: Are going to be well spent and I appreciate it thank you actually as you said we're the only county the safety to see our overdose that's what they had last year but when you do your census of these 50 people you know i'm sure you have a few get a sense of where they're you know where. [1:16:24] Public commenter (Together Place representative): The people are coming from, well, I'm happy to say that we just received a small grant for six thousand dollars from the Agnes Lindsey Foundation so that we can install the recovery data platform, and that captures a lot more demographics. I think as we ran the warming shelter this past year, we did see a lot of people from outlying communities because it can be difficult to provide those services in some communities. [1:16:49] Andre Cushing: Great. Thank you, John. And I think the intent was to serve this problem. If there are ongoing meetings, we're going to have to have a future discussion. So just to be clear, when you're going to the City of Bangor, this is for this year and now. Now. We're not committing to anything long term. That would require review by the opioid community if there is anything for it. [1:17:15] Public commenter (Together Place representative): Understood. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you, [1:17:21] David Marshall: Kevin. We'll do the UT update. [1:17:35] Andre Cushing: How are you? I'm good. How are you? If you've been getting emotional support, it's yours. How [1:17:48] Blair Tinkham: about yours, Gina? First thing on the agenda is the town of Mattawanke. Mattawanke Fire and Rescue, they have our human township. And we got them to agree to whatever three-year contract with no penalties. [1:18:05] Andre Cushing: Move to accept and authorize the administrator to sign that contract. [1:18:09] David Marshall: Second. I move and second any discussion. Any discussion? None? Call for a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. And that's 3-0. Thank you, Tina. [1:18:19] Blair Tinkham: The next one is the town of Milford. They've agreed to another three-year contract to cover Greenfield Township. And this contract has about a 3% increase each year. [1:18:33] Andre Cushing: There. Move to accept the new contract with the post and allow the administrators to sign [1:18:41] David Marshall: up to have a second. Second. Then move and second it. Any further discussion? No further discussion. Call the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Ms. Janus. Thank you, Tina. [1:18:53] Blair Tinkham: You're welcome. And just a little update on the Haven project from the County of Elgin Greenfield Township. They gave me a little map that shows. It's gone out to bid. The bids are due back by 4 p.m. on September 14th with a bid opening on September 16th. And this is to pave about 1.3 miles of the county road. Right [1:19:24] David Marshall: no action you know that it's underway we are really great right so just an update [1:19:30] Andre Cushing: Yeah thank you thank you for the update any other good news [1:19:34] David Marshall: Any other requests people want to question? Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, moving right along, Chair. We're a little ahead of schedule now for sure, and Pat has asked for five minutes over time. I think we should give her that. Now, I think before we do that, well, Commissioner [1:19:55] Andre Cushing: Cushing has a guest he'd like to recognize. I am delighted that a good friend of mine has come in to visit Bangor and join us. This is the honorable Carol Brubaker. He is, I think, still the longest serving member of the North Carolina House. No, not any longer, okay, but he didn't serve visit Speaker, and we have known each other for a number of years, and I'm delighted that he was able to come and see us in action this morning. So thank you. Welcome, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, our chair is also one of those venerable former members of the legislature, and not to in any way belittle him, but a long-serving council member, former state, former county treasurer, and mayor of the city, banker Dan Trumbull is our third member here. All right, thank you. Welcome, sir. Thank [David Marshall: you do one] part of the state? What part of the state were you in, the north Ashford or Randolph County, south of Greensboro? His boyfriend's Silent Pines. Oh yeah, [Blair Tinkham: we're just farmers.] I think we're going that's yes. Oh, I said my piece. [1:21:35] Blair Tinkham: I really, we just wanted, when we saw what was on the agenda, we just wanted to share with you our concerns that we needed to have a plan to filter out, and Chairman Marshall, you said it very well, that if we could have people requesting opiate funds filter through the committee, then we can do the vetting and then bring that back to you to share what the committee does, and that's all we wanted to share was that we just wanted to be again, you took great care and diligent due diligence in choosing people on the committee that serve all three of the districts that have certain expertise. So when you put that committee all together, if the requests come to us, we can filter from and look at them and make recommendations back to you. And that's really what we wanted to say here today. Jamie would have been here, but she is teaching this morning, so she won't, she's not here. So that's all I want to say, share with you a little bit about we're doing this big survey, getting that RFP out, and the hope that it will be out in the fall and get those approved in December and the checks and the contracts out in [1:22:54] David Marshall: January is your bra, you now have a fully constituted committee. Anyone, wow, we have one more coming, one more coming, and if you scheduled with your first baby in [1:23:06] Blair Tinkham: person will be as well. It will be probably in zoo on zoom, but we do it so that we have a two-week time frame that it's available to the public, so we always try to make sure that the public is there and zoom in and hear us and address concerns that they have either through, well, sometimes the chat isn't on, but hopefully I'll make sure that Jamie announces that if they have questions while they watch how to contact Jamie and filter those questions that they have, but we always make sure that it's public and we give a two-week notice and that is published on [1:23:44] David Marshall: the county website. Yes, okay, do you have any other way that is advertised? Not to my knowledge, [1:23:50] Blair Tinkham: no other than some of us will put it on Facebook, social media, Instagram, Daily News. Yeah, well, that is true, but I don't have a direct one until the BDN, so... [1:24:03] David Marshall: I'm opening your left shoulder there. [1:24:05] Blair Tinkham: But, I do have a direct social media, so sometimes some of us will put, you know, there's a Penobscot County Opiate meeting there. And there's a, there's two or three people that regularly, when you look, because you can say who, you know who's attending, attend regularly. There are interested people that are there and often they'll either contact Jamie or a member of the committee saying I have a question or give their opinion. But we try really hard to have it, to schedule them at least two weeks in advance to give people notice of the need. Well thank you for the update. [1:24:38] David Marshall: Thank you for the service that the Operating Committee serves and provides for us. It's our pleasure. [1:24:43] Blair Tinkham: As I share with people, it's the first time in my whole career I had money to give out. I spent my whole career begging for money to keep a program open and they actually are giving money away to really good organizations to make a difference in life, so it's a labor of love. [1:24:59] Andre Cushing: Thank you. Are you able to stay for the two presentations this morning? Are you able to stay for the two presentations this morning? We [1:25:10] David Marshall: can take a short 10 minute break. Our next it will be a 10 30, a scheduled 10 30 presentation, they are three one box and followed by a lot of presentation for [1:25:25] Andre Cushing: 11 o'clock you get to the invasions it. Yeah, we have one box and sit across the [1:25:30] David Marshall: problem that's scheduled at 10 30, so we've got nine minutes. We are in recess. Updates [1:35:04] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): for you guys sits and [1:35:10] David Marshall: While you're doing that, I'm elective interviews. Behind me is Pat Kimbrough. She is on our open committee, the advisory committee to the commission, and they review and vet all application and applicants for [1:35:27] Blair Tinkham: open consideration. And this is a young lady we went, yeah, I'm also the chair of the main recovery [1:35:41] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): I assume a lot of responses, but for those that aren't, it's the first ever video-enabled overdose response system. It's much more beyond that, but that is the simplest way to put it. So, synonymous with an AED or a fire extinguisher. We have the same responsiveness to those two things that we don't have in the program. I'm sure in our case it could be placed in public buildings, medicine cabinets, in the fire extinguisher itself, but it doesn't show somebody how to use them. There could be signs, but as we know, everything we've learned has gone out the window. So in 60 seconds... [1:36:41] Public commenter (rescue demonstration presenter): If you find this person is unresponsive, you will not be breathing proficiently. You want to use the rescue breathing mask, face shield, that is in your right hip. Push the flat block into the chin, pinch the nose, and breathe. Once spontaneous breathing returns, we want to place this patient in what we call a recovery position in some of their legs or arms. That would be on their left side. It would be one hand over their head and a bit over the other side. [1:37:37] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): The rescue video is also tri-liminal. We're currently working on tri-liminal. And then there's a five-minute training video for organizations at large. Now beyond the one box capability to show you exactly what to do when you've been on an overdose, over the last year, give or take, I've been working on a program to, as a personal long-term recovery, I know that critical moments after an overdose could lead to one, going back out on the street, or two, getting help that you need. So, I know that time is precious because I've been there with myself, unfortunately with my mother, she's since passed from this disease, so it's, it's even personally beyond this. So what I've been working on is a tool to place on each single box, not only track over dose data that we otherwise wouldn't have, that epidemiologists can go for this. The only way that we can work dose data is on people calling them on one phone in the ER, and that's a tape work that's filled out more unfortunately the latter the more. And if you guys want to scan this qr code with your phone, i'll ask you to allow your location. Now once everyone has actually scanned this with the qr code that [Andre Cushing: is] the public facing interface. Now when this box is scanned, we know exactly where the event of an overdose occurred, and we're training for this box. So not only can we track how many where overdoses are occurring, but we can track how many people are actually being trained to utilize naloxone. Each one of those drop downs, if you click yes in the event of an overdose, will prompt the user to say how many doses of naloxone were actually used. So now we can track the strength of the drug supply and [1:40:05] Blair Tinkham: basically identify any trends in the communities. So this would initiate a [1:40:09] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): resupply of that box? Exactly. So it's all self-sufficient. Either the Sheriff's office myself or my partners would get an alert, we could replenish the box, and at the bottom and that's just a test QR code for this county I haven't built without yet, are all the local recovery resources. So it's not just someone going to the ER getting turned in by another back out on the street, which they're much more likely out of a fatal overdose after an overdose, but it's already recurring. Now they're being taken from crisis to care and connected to the that we can actually help them. And on this side of it, map out each single box because each box comes with this code on the back. So now we know where each box is placed throughout the county. We're gonna put a dot right here in Bangalore. [1:41:19] David Marshall: Congress, state president Chairman. [1:41:22] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): Well, this is new, but yeah, we can push it live right to there. Wherever the box is placed, you'll actually see a dot. Okay. Yeah. So currently in the state of Maine, we have 100 boxes deployed to the Recovery Friendly Workplace Initiative. You'll see their letter of support for this application. I had sent it over to Mary. There's also a letter of support from the Bridgeton Recovery Center, the Portland Recovery Community Center, Lonnie Martin with Better Health Partners, and then... [1:42:09] David Marshall: Do we have coffee somewhere? All of those. [1:42:10] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): You should, if not I have them, who works as a community liaison officer with Belfast Police Department and volunteers for America, and currently we are deploying 200 units in neighboring Baltimore County. They actually arrived today, so that is great news. So go pick them up after this and get them all assembled, and by the end of the month we hope to have, I mean I have a year to do the work, but I like to take on big challenges. [1:42:42] David Marshall: Who's sponsoring the organization, Waldo? County sponsoring? Yes, [1:42:51] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): our application. I was very fortunate that we received the highest grade of any applicant when we had submitted it. There will be over 200 boxes placed for working with the CDC, the main CDC chapter as well. They're going to help with our deployment and utilize our network for tracking trends and data. Up so [1:43:17] Andre Cushing: you've submitted the proposal just to us, you haven't yet directed it to the opioid [1:43:25] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): community, right? So you could also be looking at no, okay, just you, all right, so we'll arrange to [1:43:31] Andre Cushing: get that forward to them, and I think they have an official grant application, which visited with these folks last year. I think it was NACO that we originally connected. They came up, were at convention. They also were willing to come up and present it at the Ginward Museum. I know Commissioner Trumbull was there. It happened at the Sunset Lado, and as we used the facilities there, we saw a Narcan box in the bathroom. It's a clear lock box that holds, I think, sharps as well as some of the materials. [1:44:17] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): It appears to be a sharps container. Those two are separate. It's referred to as the locks box. It's a wall-mounted, basic, it's a $400 capital. And I believe that any step towards harm reduction is a good step, but I also believe in being effective, especially when it comes to... [1:44:35] David Marshall: That was unattended and unaccounted for. Yeah. I looked at that. Yeah. And my first thought is, what if somebody takes it home for their personal use? I [1:44:48] Andre Cushing: certainly think that is a factor that could affect any of these units, but there's no box there at Somerset, but I'm assuming there is no panel with the [1:45:01] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): type of training or instructional video, to my knowledge it's a, there's no video making response, it's a document that's inside. I mean, it's effective, is essentially printing out the instructions to administer, placing it inside a cabinet, mounting it to a wall, and placing the locks on there. Really, what I wanted to do, Box looks the way it does, is to destigmatize the everyday person. It looks like a first aid kit for a reason. Not everybody wants to respond to an overdose because they don't know what's going to happen. They fear, the common fear is, what if I also overdose while resuscitating this person? But that's why we try to negate that bystander hesitation. Hesitation, whether it's CPR, gloves, masks, wipes, and multiple forms of instruction. So people don't hesitate, because every minute is precious, after six minutes, brand new that you can send in, so it's not frequent. Where I grew up, we actually just did a 500 bucks appointment, and ambulance response time in my community is anywhere from 30 to 35 minutes. That's how long the, comes from a neighboring city, which is 25 minutes away, and that doesn't account for them getting in the vehicle and getting there too. So rural communities like Bank, like Penobscot, have a special place in my heart because I grew up in a place just like it, just not on the ocean. And I want to have that interconnectivity and I know breaking down the barriers between people and recovery, allowing them to be connected to their options liaison or a recovery center at the bulk of the steps of the barn, to know that hope's there and it's just in the form of something that's sitting there in the box that's that's [1:46:53] Andre Cushing: Really our goal here from my review of this there were a couple of key points number one many of us maybe not as much in district one but you do have some towns where you're relying on small care given that having this deployment so that it is more accessible to get there. And it also continues the education. I mean, I learned a lot sharing the opioid task force and legislature. There's a broad spectrum of people who are being impacted by this. There are primary substance users who may OD from inadvertently taking too much medication for coming in contact with illicit substance that is maybe more powerful than you're used to and then there is a secondary effect that could happen it's it's less common but there are instances where people have come in contact with fentanyl or other agents that have threatened them in distress stress and I think for what we're talking about the education process this has some significant values yeah one Of the things I was trying to teach you that's something I was not aware of yeah I think what they're doing is developing and improving upon what the system offers to make sure you're not finding something that's aging out because nobody is watching it. This is a [1:48:38] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): Current work plan. Currently there's only one overdose tracking tool, but it's only available to law enforcement. They kind of had to crawl before we ran, but a lot, it's very underutilized. There's a Kentucky County Sheriff that is actually a part of our company, just work from the worst of mouth, nobody uses it. It's very difficult to navigate, and after a long day being on control, doing your duties, doing other paperwork, nobody wanted to go to that website and fill it out and do extra paperwork. This allows anyone with access to that QR code to report an incident anonymously. So when people, or anonymously, when people are like me, not that, not everybody, everyone is protected by the Good Samaritan law regardless. Something were to occur in the event of an overdose and that person did not make it, the rescuer is protected by state and federal law. With the development of the new technology, we saw that in most communities that these have been deployed in for a number of years, that when EMS arrives, the naloxone has already been administered, and that has saved countless lives. We have 30,000 of them deployed in 50 states. We're getting a number soon, but right now I can officially report 30,000 in 50 states and 500 plus provides. So all right, any [1:50:12] David Marshall: questions? Very impressive. Yeah, again, I'm in the pipeline of the process. [1:50:20] Andre Cushing: Thank you for being here. Thank you. Yes. [1:50:25] David Marshall: Do we need to make a recommendation to the committee, or do we have to make the application? I think you can make the application. Yeah. [1:50:33] Public commenter (rescue/overdose response system presenter): This is our application I'd like to go over with you guys. We discussed, Andre, the options for pursuing. Now, I put in three options. One, I typically have a favor of. Just because I don't want to just be the guy that ships you these and you have to say, hey, figure it out. That's, I would, this means more to me than just dropping something off and cashing a check. I really want, I see things through. So option A would be that, just dropping them off at the sheriff's deployment department. If they wanted to handle that, they would do all the deployment, all of the mapping, all of the data tracking. It can be quite tenuous, but what I found, that if you work in synchronicity with the existing apparatus, is us as a company and them as law enforcement or community volunteers, which I have support from a lot of them, would be, to the strategic option would be to us partner with the sheriffs and all of our community actors to not only just get the boxes but helping the employment out of those, and I have a lot of budget there to for that matter. [1:51:47] David Marshall: Yeah, absolutely, thank you very much. Any other questions? No other questions, thank you very [1:51:57] Andre Cushing: much for the wonderful presentation a very worthy cause just as a side note at nato a couple years ago there was a presentation by one of the commissioners there they had a very well thought-out collaborative program between county law enforcement. I think there were also some legislative people on the panel. I bring that up because our colleagues that sit in the back of the room. Brew, I don't know if you remember that. There was one of your commissioners who had suffered the loss of a son who had been addicted to opioid that he had gotten through a athletic advisor, and he kind of spearheaded that. I suspect you may know, if I could remember the gentleman's name. Thank you, thank you, thank you again. Yeah, thank you, thank you for your guys. We came in contact with Civic Operations Group through a visit that they made here. I have done some work with them on some referendum related items where they provided support on field canvassing and door-to-door activities, and I noticed an article about them in the NACO newsletter talking about a service they were providing for health care and substance abuse, and I believe it initiated in New Jersey. He's also online, so I will stop here and let them kind of facilitate an explanation of what they have done and what they can actually offer. I'll just say from my standpoint, and hopefully that agrees with me, part of the problem we have in dealing with it is the connectivity to make sure that those people at a vulnerable state who are maybe stabilized using the sublocator and injectable have the support once they get outside of our care to follow through and take those next steps to recovery. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jess and Alina. Thanks for being here. [1:54:44] Jess Amaya: Thanks for having us. Sorry, I'm trying to pull up the deck. I'm not sure if you have the deck in front, but happy to present here either way. [1:54:57] Andre Cushing: We do have it in the training forum, yep. [1:54:59] Jess Amaya: Yep, okay. I'll make sure to pull it up here anyway. Yeah, but thank you so much for having us. My name is Jess Amaya, President of Civic Operations Group, joined by Elena Estrin here, Vice President of Civic Operations Group. We are primarily a peer-to-peer, in-person, boots on the ground outreach firm. We specialize in scale and we have now done work in 12 different states, starting public health during COVID, essentially connecting people to resources, vaccine information testing. Over the last six years, that level of outreach has evolved to many lanes of activity, anything from community support, wraparound services, climate action, housing assistance, food insecurity. Most recently, we've been hyperfocused on substance use issues, Medicaid, redetermination, and SNAP. And, you know, in terms of what we do and, like I said, our expertise, our model relies on layered outreach and a 360 organizing model, but our strength is skill. What we want to share today is, again, one, what we've been able to do in other geographies via peer-to-peer outreach, and then two, the successes that we've had specifically on substance use. So at the onset of all of our programs, we start with the stakeholder outreach. I want to emphasize that our model is to add capacity, to expand boots on the ground, not to overlay organizations on the ground and the work that's already been happening, right? So what we see many times is that there is a gap in how different organizations and community resources are being communicated and shared where we come in as being that connective layer and organizing different relationships on the ground and then to this door-to-door canvassing or high traffic canvassing there's just so much stigma around substance use when we 've seen billboards We've seen sports, we've seen concerts, we've seen, you know, town halls, and all those methods are good, but they fall short of reaching the people that actually need this. So meeting people where they are is ultimately our goal. Again, we can have all these methods, all these methods of outreach, but our emphasis is on this peer-to-peer outreach. Where we've, you know, you all know this challenge better than we do, but again, what we've identified specifically for Penobscot County is the rural reach and making sure that we're saturating the areas and making sure that again, we're connecting all the local organizations. And then also, what happens in the re-entry period after the person affected is coming out of jail, from recovery? Those first two weeks after release are the most important. So what we suggest in the solution, right, is that again, this requires an in-person touch. This outreach is not only for the person that is struggling with substance use, but the person around them, the general community, their neighbors, their friends, their family. How do they know where to direct them? How can they provide support? How can they see what the county is doing to, you know, address this issue? So in other programs, what we do is flood the stone with resources like naloxone, you know, testing strips, syringes, whatever it may be, that we can put out in the community. And to give you an example of this, we recently started working in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Our goal for a one month program was 200 doses of naloxone. We were able to deliver 177 doses of naloxone in just one day, right? So right now we're a week and a half in. We have completely, you know, overshot that Mark and continuing to deliver naloxone into the communities. We see that many times it's not that people don't want it, 's is people don't know about it. So training, not only residents, but also businesses, and how to use it has been has been key. The other piece of this is that, you know, substance use is not in a vacuum. It's not an isolated issue. What our programs try to do is to connect people to, you know, housing resources, food assistance, utility assistance. How do we provide pillars of support for this person that is, again, either struggling with substance use or coming out from recovery, to make sure that they have all the other elements that they have? So talking to people about these wraparound services is a big part of what we do, while also amplifying what the local organizations are doing. So as has been said, many local orgs already have been funded to provide support. How do we provide that not only between the organizations, but also with the people affected and the people that are providing support, again, to their family member, to their friend, et cetera. And then finally, data is a big part of our program. So we provide only quantitative data. We'll tell you exactly where we've been, how many doors we've knocked, how many businesses we've spoken to, but also qualitative data. That level of color, like feedback from, again, not only people with substance use issues, but also people around them, provides a good color to how to approach this issue and what could be better. The other piece of this is there's a lot of scrutiny around substance use dollars. Being able to say you've spoken to X amount of people, delivered X amount of, you know, doses, and we have communicated with, you know, X amount of organizations is a big part of our work. How [2:01:35] Elena Estrin: are we thinking about this? I can jump in here. So yeah, we put together a couple of pillars for a program that we would see in Penobscot County. Of course, these are just suggestions. These are strategies that we've seen work elsewhere. But before we started any program, we would want to meet with the groups on the ground, meet with different stakeholders and leaders in the community to help refine our strategy to get some input. But these are some of the strategies that we've seen work well in other places. We want to have a robust door to door canvas that would be in Bangor, and that is focused on recruiting people locally. Locally, so hiring people from within the community, people with lived experience that can go out and actually talk about these issues and also connect people to those additional wraparound resources that Jess mentioned to make sure that them and their families have the support that they need. We've also seen a lot of success engaging local businesses and offering them Narcan kits as well. On other programs, we've been able to map out exactly where those Narcan kits are. They've put them on city and county websites that people can see this is where you can go if you do need a naloxone kit. And that's been another helpful element to make sure that local businesses are engaged and aware of this as well. And then, of course, doing different events in the community. This is either we have hosted these events and we've attended existing events to provide recovery resources. What we found is having a table at those events is great, but we actually prefer a more proactive approach. So walking around, engaging residents and talking to them about these available resources and programs as a way to get them access to what's available. And then the second pillar to the program would be a team that is basically roving around the other parts of the county and able to provide that wraparound support. We know that this is an issue where a lot of the concentration happens in Bangor. And so providing some of those services directly into community and other parts of the county may help to alleviate some of that burden. And these teams would be able to, you know, hit different areas of the county with different messages. We would be able to test what message works in which community and make sure that we're able to penetrate and deliver that message. We would also work with established organizations both in Bangor and in surrounding parts of the county to make sure that we are directing people to the right resources, to make sure that there, if there is a local resource that's available, that people know about it in other parts of the county. And then this is the last piece, just on our reporting. I know Jess touched on this already, but there is a ton of data that comes from each of these interactions, and we are able to record, you know, what is working, what message is penetrating in these communities, but also what are the different barriers to accessing these programs and how can we do a better job of, you know, presenting the programs or talking through eligibility or helping people with the actual applications in some cases. And so you'll be able to see every day we have a top line report of, you know, how many people went out, how many residents did they speak to, what were some of the results of those interactions. You'll also be able to see some qualitative stories from the field, so interactions that we had with residents that might be outliers, that might be things that adjust our messaging or our strategy on the program. And then we also provide on a monthly basis or a weekly basis, individualized data, which will allow you to see each resident, their individual, you know, we spoke to Jessica Tamayo at 123 Grant Street, and she was interested in, you know, these resources, and this is the followup that we still need to do with her. So you get very granular information on these conversations, and it just allows us to expand the reach of a lot of the existing programs while also handing out Narcan kits, you know, in community in real time. I [2:05:45] Jess Amaya: think we can stop it right there. I mean, ultimately what we want to convey is we're not clinicians, but we do, we are experts at engagement and outreach at scale, especially again in those hardest to reach communities. So open for questions, thoughts and feedback here. [2:06:09] Andre Cushing: Really, just looking further in, the budget, you had broken it down into a rural and a Bangalore specific and then the more rural areas of the county. What's the time frame? Is this a one-year project? [2:06:29] Jess Amaya: It's really dynamic. It's whatever we decide. We've had programs that are three months long. We've had programs that are five years long. Right, we recruit directly from the communities that we work in. The length of the program, it's really what you decided and [2:06:52] Elena Estrin: in that scenario we were envisioning, you know, two offices, one that would be in Bangor and one that would be for that roving team to reach the other parts of the county [2:07:14] Blair Tinkham: not for them I don't think. Particularly in reading it, my question that goes in my head is that there are some organizations that are doing some of this work. I know that in the Augusta area, Access Recovery and some of the advocates are doing a lot of this door-to-door with Narcan and outreach in the Augusta area, and I would be interested to see what other organizations in Penobscot County may be doing this kind of work. And the thing that goes into my head is this, that listening to the presentation earlier and listening to this, is there been any work done in really researching how many organizations are putting Narcan and where? So are we already supporting a lot of the distribution of Narcan in other different ways? Because we'd hate to duplicate our money by just investing in another company. I mean, you're certainly doing more than just Narcan, but again, that's sort of the thing that initially comes to my head. That's a lot, when I look at the budget, that's a lot of money. And so those are the questions I would ask is, there anyone currently doing this work and can we expand it internally in Maine? If not, you know, this does have some evidence-based work to have been successful in other places. But my thing is, I get concerned when I hear Narcan everywhere and how much money is going into Narcan, and although it's a good investment, it does save lives, is this program going to enhance what we do and better what we do and that would be some of the initial things that come in my head [2:08:56] Jess Amaya: i know my head spins thank you pat yeah i mean to address your first point we've had a few conversations with courtney at mirab something that we want to clarify is we never go into the community as civic operations group obviously every time we go into the community we like to partner with a local organization that has that brand again where we come in is that capacity so my understanding is that Courtney and MIRAP are now they just launched their summer canvassing in Augusta what we have proposed to Courtney is that we provide the bodies on the ground, we recruit the capacity on the ground to expand that canvassing that she's already doing the other parts of the state, in this case Penobscot County, like you said. We, distributing Narcan is just one of the things that we can do because we have boots on the ground to hand that out again, especially on areas that are hard to reach. So where people are not walking into a place to pick up a Narcan kit, but rather us taking them to their home, right? Meeting them where they are, you should have a Narcan kit in your home. Many times the people that we speak to are, you know, their household is not struggling with this issue, but they have a neighbor or they know of a friend, right? And those are the people that are not going to naturally walk into any of the organizations that have this or, you know, or a place where they can get it. We need to take it to them. And again, that's only one piece of the puzzle. What we do is provide that connective tissue where needed. And again, we're happy to, you know, for the pushback if that's not needed, that's also fine. We just want to be an additive layer. We don't want to step on, you know, other people's toes or work that is already happening. If it's not [2:10:51] Elena Estrin: additive, then there's no place for us. And I'll just add, we did, you know, research into the 12 groups that were awarded funding. You know, we know that there are groups that are focused on harm reduction. We'd love to amplify some of that work. You know, we didn't see any that were providing Narcan at scale like we're proposing, but they're, you know, they're very well maybe groups that are doing that. We'd love to get a better understanding of the landscape before we would start this. [2:11:16] Blair Tinkham: Outreach, I mean, part of the thing that really is appealing about what you're talking about, it really is bringing partnerships together, you know. And so that's an important piece is to, we don't want to be siloed, we want to be partnered, we want to be collaborative. And so that's the one appealing thing when you look at this, it is about the appealment. But my, again, as I shared earlier, those are my concerns is what's going on in Maine, is currently what's going on in Maine working, not working? Can we duplicate something that's working well in our community here? But thank you very much, it's very informative, thanks. [2:11:53] Andre Cushing: Yes, Conrad. I guess what really struck me for Penobscot County being the third largest county were unique with the size of our county the amount of rural areas but then the density in the central part of municipalities that are struggling with some of these issues and like you have mentioned and was presented here the connectivity is I think what is lacking in some there's a lot of well-intentioned of people but as you're I'm sure seeing they're kind of out there on their own and for these people we Recognize they're sometimes at the most vulnerable place and having that person show up and learn what their personal needs are sometimes gets them over that hurdle to move on so I commend you for what you're doing and appreciate this. I know you've met with the city manager at Bangor. I don't know if you've had any further interaction there, but like with the Together Place issue, I think it's an opportunity for us to collaborate more in how we can deliver some of these services in a city that's really seeing tremendous pressure. [2:13:17] Jess Amaya: Really appreciate it. [2:13:18] David Marshall: Thank you so much. [2:13:23] Andre Cushing: They're going to join us at convention later in the month and be on the panel with Gordon Smith and Brent Henderson and then Ryan Close from the Franklin County Jail who's been leading an effort using the sublocate for their inmates. So we're looking forward to that. I think it's going to be a great opportunity to further educate people. So thank you for your willingness to be with us in September being here today you're welcome okay thank you and we'll get it I'm sure we can get it to you or [2:14:13] Blair Tinkham: Jamie so you can share I think I think we got the link okay I think Jamie has That's the link. [2:14:20] David Marshall: Okay. Okay. All right. Our next item is the... [2:14:24] Andre Cushing: I think he's going to supply a great application though. [2:14:28] David Marshall: Okay. The 11 o'clock tax abatement warning is standing behind. Yeah. There it is. Do we have them online? [2:14:38] Blair Tinkham: Yes. Did I mention that? [2:14:40] David Marshall: You said yes? Okay. Let's proceed to the... Okay, next on the agenda is a tax payment hearing of Mattis v. State of Maine. We're going to start with introductions. Mr. Mattis, are you with us? [2:15:14] Blair Tinkham: I think he's muted. [2:15:18] David Marshall: Mr. Mattis, are you with us? [2:15:20] Andre Cushing: You're still muted, John. Yes, I am. [2:15:24] David Marshall: There you are. There you are. Welcome, Mr. Mattis. And with Mr. Mattis, I think we stop with your presentation and we'll hear from the state and I interject. Yeah, the spirit of keeping us on time, but we'd like both entities to stay within a 10 minute time frame. Mr. Mattis, we have your hearing script so we will make sure that's on file, but if you could highlight exactly what you would like to articulate out of the script within the next 10 minutes, we'd appreciate that and then we'll turn. [2:16:04] Public commenter (abatement appeal presenter): okay thank you thank you for doing this on zoom thank you for taking the time to hear our appeal of main revenue services denial of our request for an abatement on a property known as lot 5. the property is described in the script so i will skip over that and i want to begin by pointing out that we are contesting the evaluation of lot 5 in 2025. This is land only. There are no structures. We paid $17,500 for a 50% share of Lot 5 in 2010, as did the other abutting owners. We paid the same amount for the other 50% share as part of a land for cash swap with the same abutting owners in 2020. 20, so our total cost was $35,000. The property was assessed at $41,550 in 2024. The assessment was increased to $125,920 in 2025, an increase of $84,370, or 203%. We have proposed a fair market value for a lot five in 2025 of 62 960 an increase over in 2025 over 2024 of 51 0.5 percent and I'm giving you the actual tax amounts due as well lot five is described in detail with photographs and our request for an abatement submitted to the Maine Review Services in the document that you have before you. I want to emphasize that there is nothing on this property in the way of development. There's a totally raw property, no parking spaces, no driveway, no well, no septic system, no clearing, no nothing except for trees and rocks. The central issue of our appeal is what constitutes a comparable property. The Maine Revenue Service's Property Tax Division Bulletin No. 10, titled Property Tax Abatement and Appeal Procedures, dated December 15, 2022, states that there are three general valuation methods that all assessors employ, employee, market approach, cost approach, and income approach. But for purposes of seeking an abatement, it appears that only the market approach seems to apply. The approach rests on comparisons of sales of comparable properties, but the term comparable property is nowhere defined in this bulletin. We have talked on a number of occasions with various people about what a comparable property is, and there are multiple definitions which I've included in the written testimony. I would point out that this is a moving Target, which has been a challenge as we've proceeded with this appeal, and I would note that comparable property criteria do not include such things as whether there's a structure on the property, what other development of the property might exist, total acreage and lake frontage, size, depth, water quality, or fish stocks of the lake. All these may affect market value. I'd like to quickly go through the comparable properties that we have proposed. We've proposed eight of them at various times in this process. I'm going to skip the ones that are in organized townships since the Maine Revenue Services does not consider those and focus on the other four. First, Lot 8, Stunning Lane, Grand Falls Township, 3.7 acre property that sold for $63,000 in March 14th, 2025. 651 feet of waterfront on Seponic Pond, gravel parking area. Close to our property, and the sale price is very close to our proposed market value for lot five. Mr. McMahon of Maine Revenue Services rejected this lot because of a problem with flooding, although the zillow site description states this lot has already been soil tested and septic design is complete. Furthermore, the issue of flooding he raises is related to a very unique characteristic of saponic pond spawning pond, to quote the state report on this body of water in states exhibit 4, is essentially a large shallow flowage in the path of the penobscot river as the river floods in the spring bringing murky water with high tannic acid content downstream, so the shores of the pond also flood and the water quality is compromised year round, not exactly something one would emphasize when marketing properties on this lake. Second, lot 38.2 lord brook road grand falls, a half acre lot that sold for just nine thousand dollars on November 13th. The argument here is whether waterfront is sufficient or whether it must be on a lake, and we argue that the value of the waterfront on Passau-Duncan River is worthy of consideration. Our third and fourth comparable lots are lots one and two on Horseshoe Lake Road and Lakeville Plantation. Lot one was 4.7 acres, so much larger than ours, and 235 feet of water frontage sold for $77,000 on July 5, 2023. Lot two, five acres, 204 feet of water frontage, also on Horseshoe Lake, sold for $78,000. So similar in price, although larger your lots with more frontage and I'll skip over the next section which has to do with comparing the lakes that the properties are located on and we would argue that the market value of property is dependent on qualities of the lakes so you can read that. Next, I would like to review state's exhibits, starting with Exhibit 3, cited by the state as comparable on January 6, 2026. Until less than three weeks ago, August 16, 2026, the state has cited only one comparable property for its valuation, despite insisting that to meet the burden of proof for lower valuation, an applicant had to cite three comparable properties. The one property that the state cited was 21 Edgewater Court in Grand Falls. The property sold for $150,000 on August 31st. It has access to power, which Lot 5 does not. The Zillow description focuses entirely on the structures on the property, and clearly that was an important factor in the marketing of the property and the sale price. We would like to point out that the cost approach, as mentioned in the MRS bulletin, using that there's no way anyone could develop lot five to be the equivalent of 21 Edward Port and structures electric assets and other characteristics for the difference 24 080 between what the owner of 21 Edgewood Court paid 150 000 and what the state is assessing lot 5 for 125 920 2020. No way that could possibly be made equivalent. Basing the value of lot 5 entirely on the value of 21 Edgewater Court is not a fair determination of the market value of lot 5, but that's what the state did. And then a review of state's exhibits 1 through 14, dated August 16, 2026, so just three weeks ago, and received it by us the next day. Exhibit two, the purchase and sale of lot two at Virgin Shores Development is 15 years outside the time frame for comparable properties and should be dismissed for that reason. And I can tell you a story about the price of that lot if you're so inclined. We could come back to that. Escatas's Pond, Exhibit 5, is moot because the properties are in organized townships. So I'll skip that. That. Exhibits 7 through 10, the property at Keg Lake sold on July 14, 2026, just two months ago, therefore outside the time frame for determining 2025 assessments, is actually two properties, one of 1.9 acres with 770 feet of waterfront on the peninsula, the other of 1.3 acres with 211 feet of waterfront, and the Zillow description points out that these two could be sold separately without subdivision restrictions. Exhibit 11 through 12. Besides being in Hancock County, not Penobscot County, Nicatawis Lake is much larger than Soponic Pond, much deeper, much clearer, has better fishing and wildlife viewing opportunities than Soponic Pond. And yet the sale price on September 30th, 2024 for a comparable size lot, 1.0 acres was 78,000 and the assessment was even less, 73,410, in contrast to what our property has been assessed. And then finally exhibit 13, I'm giving you the Zillow description for that property. It is far and away different from our property. Which would you rather have? Land already partially developed, drilled well, electricity, driveway, cleared area for a building, a 500-foot-long wide sandy beach, very clear water, and a budding nature conservation area on a large lake system with a view of Mount Katahdin, or undeveloped land, and a rocky shoreline, murky water, a much smaller lake, close neighbors, albeit nice people, and a view of Pasadumke Mountain with 13 wind turbines on it. No wonder the sale prices of this property is much higher than what our property has been assessed for. We recognize that we have the burden of proof. We think we've proved that the valuation of lot 5 at $125,920 is too high and that our proposed valuation of $62,960 is reasonable and fair. Thank you very much for your time, and please reference our written remarks as well as our packet for further details. I think I've done that in the time you indicated. Thank you. [2:29:36] David Marshall: Thank you, Mr. Mattis, and we will now hear from the statement. Appreciate it. Justin McMahon, Wayne Revenue Service. Just wanted to quickly go through my exhibit list, just to give you an idea as to why I put together what I did put together. So exhibit one is the property record card of the subject property, and we can see the valuation of $125,000. We also recognize, we'll notice on the bottom, there's a minus 10% for no power at the road. And that's something that we identified in actually speaking with the owners, some of them, of Virgin Shore subdivision. I was able to spend an entire day in that subdivision, walked every lot, and keep in mind I did this just over somebody reaching out to me on the phone. There were no significant applications. We had a lot of abatements to review last year, but I took time out because I wanted to address this neighborhood. And what we did come out of our conversations is that there is the two sort of different sections of Saponic Pond located in Grand Falls that have different characteristics, and the striking difference in characteristic is power available in one section of no power available on the other. And so the areas that have no power have the no power reduction. Having said that, with technology today, we can't look at the value of that lot is decreased by however many hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to run power down the road to the property. It's what's the cost to cure? And curing it isn't about putting a mile of power in. Curing it is coming up with another means of power. Some folks down there run off generator, there's also solar available, and with the technology that's come along with batteries, you're able to put in a battery bank, run a generator for a couple hours, and get back to having your peace and tranquility and not having to listen to a generator run 24-7. And it's not overly expensive, but it is an investment in something that a potential purchaser may look into. It's tough in the unorganized territory because we do deal with a lot of areas that have no power, but this is unique where there's sort of this split of some areas have power, other areas don't, and we recognize that with the reduction for the no power, and that's something that we did for every single lot owner within this subdivision. Going on to exhibit number two, I did not include this for the sale that occurred in 2007. I think it's safe for us all to say that property values in 2007 aren't nearly what they are now, and well, it sold for 67.5 nearly 20 years ago, so could we use that as An indication to say, well, it's probably worth a lot more than that now. Sure, the reason why I included this is just to show consistency between properties. This is a neighboring property, suffers from the same no power. We can see the no power reduction there. We can go so far as to look at the acreage, how much frontage it has, and we can see that there's a similarity in values between those neighboring properties, which is important when it comes to property taxation because our values help to divvy up the taxes. We don't go to a property and say, you owe this amount of money. No, we're just developing a consistent way to value different types of property to divvy up that tax curve. So that's the reason why I included this exhibit number two, not for the sale that was old but just to show that there's consistency within the neighborhood. Exhibit number three is this, you know, the one single sale that we had on Saponic Pond and it happened to be a land building combination. And what we do in this instance is we and I like to gripe about it, you know, one thing that we are tasked with as opposed to other appraisers is you have an appraisal done on your property, they give you just one single number, and as a homeowner if you said well I'd like to know what the value of my land is compared to my building, they're not going to provide that to you because it's not in the scope of their work, but as assessors we have to figure out what's the value of the land and what's the value of the building and how do those values contribute to the sale price. So for exhibit 3 what we did is we looked at the structure, I verified what it had for components when I, you know, looking online make sure that we had the bathroom and had an understanding of what the interior finishes, you can see it's a very small camp, 17 by 26, we have $43,000 of value on that 440 square foot camp. So if we were to use the approach that the Mattises are proposing of this $62,000 lot, then that would mean that this 400 square foot camp is worth $90,000 and contributing $90,000 to the sale of this property, and then the other 60,000 is contributable to the land and its improvements, which would be a gray water system, and they draw their water from the lake, so that to me didn't make sense that this seasonal camp to have a cost of after depreciation of $90,000 and then the other 60,000 Attributable to the land. So in using our updated building values that we were going to implement for the rebout, derived from Marshall and Swift, which is a national publication, but it does grind into different areas of the country. We use that updated value to develop a replacement cost, depreciate the building, subtract the building value, and then figure out a way to develop a land model to consistently value the properties on Saponic pollen. So that is the reason why we hang our hat on this is because yeah, this is on the subject body of water, and we're able to break down what value is attributable to the building in order to back into a land value. Moving on to exhibit four, it's just basically giving the characteristics of Saponic Pond, because that is important, but we can just sort of browse through that. Going on to, I will note that a lot of these bodies of water I found were very similar as far as fish species, if it's appealing to anglers, but again, it's all sort of subjective as to what you want to do when you're at camp. Some want to fish, some want to relax, so certain things matter to different buyers, but I did find consistency within these bodies of water that none of them were over the deep, and they had a sort of the same principle fish species, if that matters. Moving on to exhibit seven, or excuse me, yes, exhibit seven of Ken Blake. The reason why I just happen to point this out, this is a newer sale, but and so not available for use of developing values, and we wouldn't use it, but it just a good idea as to what properties are selling for currently is to how our valuations are. So we can see Peg Lake on the second page of exhibit seven is, you know, very similar in its layout as far as it's an overly, it's fairly shallow, it does have one deep hole of 40 feet, but it's primarily everything is, you know, 10-12 and a little stretch of an area around 20 feet, so able to navigate a boat through there. It is much smaller in size. It's only 378 acres, this keg lake, as opposed to Saponik being, I believe, 800 or 900 acres. And exhibit 8 shows the characteristics of the water frontage. So one concern that the Maddison's had when we visited their property is just large rocks, that sort of thing. And it's very prominent in that area. Not just their subdivision, but when I went to the area where the sale occurred, I noticed large rocks, neighboring properties that had large boulders right next to the front door to get into the campus. Just it is a normal characteristic of that area, and so there's not a lot of variety in looking at the sale that occurred on supply as far as saying they didn't have to struggle with those same characteristics of the land. It's probably also good to note that the sale of the property on Seponic Pond that we looked at earlier on exhibit three is a half acre of land, so half the size of what the Mattises have. Moving on to exhibit nine, it's just another picture from the real estate listing showing that, yeah, there's some large boulders on this law, so really quite comparable to the Mattis's law, although a different body of water, and I believe that property sold for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that rock piece of land that needs to be developed. And so I think another good thing to really note is that we're seeing values all over the place, so sure we can go out and we can pick out comparables on different bodies of water that are sixty, seventy thousand dollars, but we also can go out and look at similar pieces of property on undeveloped bodies of water that have significantly higher values. And so again, really why we focused on building our model around exhibit three because it's on that subject potty of water, and we can see that there's a lot of variation between these bodies of water even though they may have very similar characteristics. Exhibit 11 is the Nicatawis Lake sale that we talked about. It sold for, I believe, seventy six thousand dollars or so, seventy eight thousand dollars. We treat every body of water differently according to what we have for sales. It's not just one uniform front foot value, but the relationship between a hundred feet of water frontage and two hundred feet of water frontage on the same body of water, we're going to see the same sort of mathematical equation as we go through with different bodies of water. So all of that part is the same, but we need to start at different numbers depending on what the body of water is and what sails are indicating is an appropriate value. So we can see on this Nicatales light sail, 150, or excuse me, 56 feet of frontage. It's valued at $73,000. It sold for $78,000. So we're using the same methodology to arrive at the value, and we just have a different starting point. And we can see that the values that we have on Nicatawas Lake are in line. And we can also flip back to Exhibit 2 and we can see that the valuation of the sale for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, excuse me, it would be exhibit three is the sale. We have a hundred and sixty four thousand dollars on that sale occurred in 2023. So in this instance when we get to our final numbers, given the way the market had grown over those years, we knew that if we were a little over on a sale in 2023 that it was okay because we've had growth from 2023 until we implement it in 2025. And although historically people are used to having their assessments under market value, we're tasked with assessing according to just value which is market value. But having the law is that you maintain 70 to 110 percent of market value, you're able to fall a lot further below 100 percent than you are to go up over 100 before you need to make some changes by law. So when revaluations happen, and there's been growth in the market, often times we're seeing large increases because you generally don't rebound until you fall below those standards. [2:42:13] Andre Cushing: You know on your sales that these are all arms like transactions, because it just seems odd that in almost 20 years, that went from $75,000 to $3,000, and sale price is almost 20 years. Sure. [2:42:30] David Marshall: Sure. The Nicatawis Lake sale, I tried to note MLS numbers. It was on the MLS. So the Nicatawis sale, I do have that it was on the open market, so I assumed that it was. And I did notice that also, that I was like, geez, I didn't see as much growth possibly as I would have expected over that time frame. And then the Exhibit 12, the Nicatawis Lake survey, I also want to point out one of the reasons why this sail may have been for as low as it was is you can see that it's carved out of a larger piece and you can see that the water frontage is split in between camps so you have this little 30 foot strip and then a 50 foot strip and then another 30 foot strip so it provides water access but it's sort of you're encroached by your neighbors and these little fingers that come down to the lake and You'll also notice a garage that's carved out of the middle so the owners retain some of the land. So I would argue that you know not the boathouse but actually back from the boathouse you'll notice a garage right here if you want a reference. And so that's right in the middle of the lot and they carved this rectangle out of the middle of the lot that sold. So again sometimes it's easy to look at a sale and say oh well that sold for 70 lines for 70 but you know looking at the at the survey I was like wow this is like a jigsaw puzzle the latest you know the way this lot shape and so that shape can make it difficult to find adequate building areas especially with the rectangle for the garage taken right out of the middle. So and then exhibit 13 I really just I put this in because we have a lot of different bodies of water and qualities and different characteristics throughout the unorganized territory so not one single front foot price is going to fit for all bodies of water. So this is on a much more popular lake it's on south twin lake like Mr Mattis mentioned you know potential of Katahdin views maybe it has a sandy beach those sorts of things that sold for 350 000 from 2025 and we currently have it assessed for 357.5. So I just wanted to point that out to say we do treat different bodies of water differently and we try to recognize those that are more popular and bring more money than others. We're not utilizing this sale on South Twin to try and develop anything on saponic maybe look at sales on South Twin over the years to get an idea as to what we've seen for growth to relate it to other bodies of water absolutely. But when it comes down to actually developing the front foot price we do understand that there's you know the more superior bodies of water we're going to happen exhibit 13 which is the swift brook road station that's different is that a butts the national woods and waters park doesn't it they live on the swift brook road in Stacyville this that's their mailing address on this property park. This particular piece of property is on south twin lane on turkey tail road and again not a comparable property. I just want to show that you know we have this 1.39 acre piece of property valued at 357 000 as opposed to the Mattis's one acre property at 125 000 so we do recognize that there's differences in the qualities of these bodies of water and We're not trying to find one single front foot value to cover every single body of water in the state of Maine. We have a variety of values that we have to start from. We utilize market sales, and we had that one sale in on Saponic at the time of reval. Since reval, Mr. Mattis did bring up the sale on Saponic Pond, and we talked about the wetlands, and he talked about how it was soil tested for a second system, and that's true, but would say one defining factor between these two pieces of property is that the shore frontage is in resource protection, so and it's a and it's a wetland, so yes, you can build 250 feet back from the water and the soils accommodate that, and that's great, that's what helps with that some that value, but keep in mind that the folks that purchase this property are not only 250 feet from back from the water that's illegally built, but they having to pass through a wetlands to get to the shoreline, and so that's why I say yes, we can take that into consideration, but I think it's safe to say that the locks on Virgin Shore are far superior because you're not walking through a wetlands to get to your water, and you're also not having to follow additional laws pertaining to the resource protection and having to be that 250 feet back, so it is a buildable lot and it's on Saponic Pond, but I think that it's very noteworthy to understand how that property is zoned and the limitations involved in it being resource protection, although it does have a building envelope and it's also worth noting that I believe the access to that lot is it conveyed any interest in a right-of-way but it didn't describe it, so I question if it truly has a right-of-way in existence that they are legally allowed to use, so I'm not to discredit that, but I feel like those are all things that are going to diminish value in comparison to the lots in the Virgin Shore subdivision, and I apologize for going a little over there. All right. [2:48:41] Andre Cushing: Okay, so first off, both of you, both parties have provided some very helpful data. We may have addressed this before. How did you combine the percentages for discount that you used for both for frontage and power? Sure. [2:49:02] David Marshall: It's one of those things that we try to create guidelines for, but we have to treat each situation differently. lake, so I may go to a lot and take off ten percent for being steep to the water in comparison to what we see the average law on that lake, because again, it's not necessarily like I say, one consistent reduction. For instance, the Moose River in Rockwood, there are some lots that they have these tremendous stairways that go down to the water. We give them a 30 reduction, but we have ample sales to show the difference in value between those river lots that are tremendously steep to the water and those that aren't. So long story short, we sort of have to do it on a situation by situation basis. We'll go to the lot, we look at it and we say, how does it compare to the average? And then let's make our reduction from there as to how extreme of a situation we're dealing with. [2:49:59] Blair Tinkham: it so [2:50:01] Andre Cushing: you have you have scaled from 10 to what percentage discount so to give you an idea you [2:50:08] David Marshall: know some I would say 10 to 30 on a buildable lot is generally what I've seen looking through the unorganized territory. Usually if there's, if it's higher than 30, there's usually additional things that might be hindering the value, just to give you an idea. On an unbuildable lot where removing 65%, so it's 35 to the good on that unbuildable lot, and usually it's usually they're little slurs of land, so that they may not have a lot of value anyways, but we do have situations where maybe a little bit of a larger lot that's unbuildable but provides good access to the water and that sort of thing, we would, we would treat it as 35% compared to the full value of those unbuildable rocks do any of them ever under grow or grow in tree growth Generally no, because they don't meet the size requirement of 10 acres unless they're contiguous, but we would have situations where a road maybe bisects, it's in tree growth and you've got a thin strip along the shoreline that's forested that's in tree growth and the other side is not. You allow them, exactly, that makes, that makes life easy on us because we don't have to figure out the values because it's, we're going to use true growth values, you know, by law when they [2:51:30] Andre Cushing: enroll in, but yes, so I know we're talking about the 2025 value, but what caused the drop in 2026 [2:51:40] David Marshall: Absolutely. So one thing that, you know, it's always sort of a work in progress for us, and one thing that I decided that I wanted to initiate that was a change from 2025 to 2026, our vacant waterfront properties are given a little bit of an additional reduction for vacancy. Now, going forward, we didn't make that change in 2025 because maybe the taxes and it was if everything was fine, but in talking with taxpayers and just looking at sales, I decided, you know, right now when somebody develops a lot, we add for a well, we add for a septic, but there's a lot of other expenses that you put in that we don't have a good way of adding value for, driveways, clearing a lot, and doing different things like that. So what we implemented from 2025 to 2026 is a vacancy factor on these, on these vacant lots that just accommodate for additional cost. And so, and it was something that we wanted to wait till 2026 because we, it was a big project, and it's not fair to give it to some and not to others. So it was just like it's not there for 2025, but for 2026, boom, got all these on these lots that are vacant that now have this vacancy factor, because it's all about being consistent too, because when you make an adjustment to just one blot in the middle of a subdivision that's the same as the rest of them, you're putting everybody else at a disadvantage because this one person gets a discount and the rest are not. So we did it as one big implementation [2:53:18] Andre Cushing: for 2026. What are you using for factor for those vacant lots? [2:53:22] David Marshall: And so that I also had to put on a sliding scale because think of it this way. The cost to put in a driveway, whether you're on Saponic Pond or South Twin Lake, if you're putting in x amount of feet of driveway, it's going to be relatively the same, given we're not dealing with any extreme topographical differences. So if I was to take, we'll just say 20 off from the Mattis's property, and that is an equivalent of twenty thousand dollars off from that hundred thousand dollar value, I don't want to take 20 off from that 300 000 lot because it's not going to cost three times as Much to develop that lot, so the more expensive lots get a lesser reduction, but it's to a common, you know, but it's basically we were looking to take like 25, 30,000, we'll just say, off from these lots to account for development purposes, and that was the way we had to do it. I sort of had to tear it as to if your lot isn't worth as much, I have to take a higher percentage off because otherwise, if I just take 10 off, it's only going to knock seven, eight thousand dollars off as opposed to knocking a lot more off than the other, so those bigger ones get a lesser reduction, and the smaller bodies of water or the less valuable bodies of water get a larger reduction, so that in the end we're all looking at like a 25, 30,000 reduction to account for development. [2:54:43] Andre Cushing: So if I'm following this, what you're doing is assessing what the potential cost to add that improvement would be as opposed to just a flat, right, because it's safe to assume that the market [2:54:57] David Marshall: would treat it differently like that. I would probably pay more for a lot that maybe has an existing driveway or cleared area as opposed to one that I know I need to go through the process of putting in a driveway and clearing an area out. And so, and again, that's why we wanted to implement all the ones for 2026 for all properties, and given that we've got 25,000 accounts and much of them can be vacant, it was, it was going to task from 2025 up to the 2026 given the production a year before. Can you help understand procedurally rate how you, how you came to the magnitude of the assessment increase, that magnitude that's substantial, by looking at what our valuations were in comparison to properties that sold on supply, like they say that one, the one sale, that one sale was developed for sure on buildings in what regards to size, it had a building and had development, it was comparable in size. Yes, so correct, so the Virgin Shore subdivision, given its creation, meets today's standards of that, you know, one acre ish minimum, as opposed to the lot that sold was an older lot, it was just a half acre lot created prior to any sort of zoning requirements to have a lot that big. So sure, so the mass has lost twice the size of the lot that sold with the camp on it, but again, keep in mind that when we looked at that sale price of 150,000, we looked at the value of the building and subtracted the value of that building from the sale price to, give us an indication of what the land value would be and the Power the Timpson power, I know there, I need a little bit of clarification. They're in, they're a mile from the road power line, right? Yeah, but you mentioned these other source of energy, solar. As you mentioned, solar requires some area availability, no trees, if you want anything effective. How does that fit into this small? Sure, with mass appraisal, sometimes we can't look at every little nook and cranny, so I look at the big picture. And so you're 100 correct, some lots might not be suitable for solar, so then you're left with what's my other option, generator or maybe a little wind turbine. It all depends on what the situation is and what's available. So I looked at it as either way, if it's suitable for solar, you call up the solar company, they come over and they look and they say, yeah. You know this, we can make this happen. If not, then you're looking at a different. Ground that's going to be, that's going to be a lot more expensive for a sole individual who's located deep into the woods as opposed to a community area where that's going to always drive down the place. So they're going to be looking at the high end for solar no matter what. I would say that, you know, you're, you're 100 correct, but you know, given the unorganized territory, I would say that Grand Falls in the grand scheme of things is nearly as remote as having somebody come up to northern, you know, like north of the Golden Road or something like that. But you're 100 correct that possibly there's a little bit, you know, so yes, there could be a or premium paid there, but what I looked at was what's the value of the law and then what's the result of the reduction and the. Reduction was right around fifteen thousand dollars, and I felt as though that fifteen thousand dollars was suitable to either put in some sort of a small solar system or be able to purchase a generator and a battery bank and go that route. Because again, it's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all, it's just we've got to figure out what's the cost to here, and I figured that fifteen thousand dollars would allow you to cure your, you're not being able to have power coming from the grid. I. [2:59:34] Andre Cushing: Noticed you did not apply the poor shoreland to this lot even though from what I'm seeing there are some rocks and maybe difficulties with access. [2:59:46] David Marshall: The reason I did that is because that's the characteristics of the entire lake. So it's not to say that they're in, like, a poor area of the lake in comparison to others. There's, that's a normal, that's sort of a typical layout of Saponic Pond shoreline in the way, in consistency throughout. So, although it does maybe have its challenges, it was very similar in what I saw around the entire lake, and that's why I didn't give it that reduction, especially given we built it off from a sail on saponic pond that has that same sort of rocks and issues to the frontage that 's the average that's the norm for person but you did apply it to 21 inch water court which is on saponic if i'm looking correct and that's because and i believe and i didn't apply that reduction there that reduction is something that historically has been there. When I do the rebound, we aren't able to visit every property and make these adjustments, but over the years, as we meet with people and we review properties, if we see an area that looks like an issue, we make that adjustment. And so that particular area is next to what's known as the basin, and when one of our field agents was there, they made a determination that lot was inferior to what they were seeing through that area, and so that reduction was placed on that particular lot. I can say that I look at other Edgewater Court properties that do not have the reduction. This place is all the way to the end, and it's near, like, let's say, what's known as the basin, which, if we were to look at the map, Exhibit Five, let me see if the basin is shown on that map of the lake. So yes, so the basin is this little shot out here, three feet of water filled full of weeds, and it sort of extends up out of there. And so I would assume that the field agent that was there when they reviewed that property made that determination, felt that end of that point getting towards the basin wasn't typical to what they saw around the remaining parts of the land. Regarding comparable sales, you did the one sale on Seponic Pond that was developed. The petitioner listed four other properties, and what was your assessment of his request to consider Those properties? Sure, we absolutely will look at that and take them into consideration, but we did have a sail on the lake that we were able to build on model rock. And so that's where- But you had to back to that. Absolutely, I had to back into it, but that's very typical for our assessment purposes. Because again, we're looking at, I brought forth sails on bodies of water that range anywhere from 400 acres to up over 1,000 acres. And the sale on the 400 acre pond that's shallow sold for 250 and we're looking at others they're sold for 70 so that's why I say looking at the sale on supports important because we've got numbers all over the place we've got numbers that range from 60,000 to 250 and so for me to hang my hat on values coming from those other bodies of water I'd rather utilize the subject body of water and back into it that way it's I think there's no you have [3:03:56] Andre Cushing: Any questions for say I'm I have adequate information I think I mean we're ready to have one thing after you Mr. Maddox we have a question for you saw with us yes I am I understand you disagree with the assessment and we get your sales data and you're comfortable how did you actually arrive at what you think is a just valuation the 60 62 yeah how did you arrive at that about okay [3:04:29] Public commenter (abatement appeal presenter): If you look at some of the other properties that we cited we're talking about sales in the 70 000 range for properties that are larger with more waterfront than what our property has and in various respects more development on some of those properties I emphasize again that there's no development on ours and the value of the land according to the state includes the value of whatever development there might have been so putting in roads septic systems wells all that sort of stuff is sure I just Added value no I get [3:05:27] Andre Cushing: What you're saying about that a lot did you look at an acreage figure and say well that price versus is this I just want to know how you got to 62 960 specifically I guess so we also looked at acreage [3:05:41] Public commenter (abatement appeal presenter): And several of those properties have more acreage so we deducted some and coming up with our estimate considering that we have exactly one acre well 0.98 acres and 100 feet of waterfront compared to some of the other properties that have more waterfront all right thank you I'd like to respond to some of the remarks that Mr McCann has made about other properties on Saponic if I may yes go ahead okay first of all I'd like to thank Mr. McCann for coming to Virgin Shores, spending a day with us, and for his time and attention. We also had a fairly lengthy phone call at one point, so appreciate his commitment of time to trying to come up with fairness on this. I would point out that if you look at the Zillow site for the 21 Edgewater Court property, you will see that the entire lot is cleared except for a handful of trees. There are no rocks on the shore, unlike the properties at Virgin Shores. Stores, the quality of the land in terms of enjoyment and access to the water and so on, I think is superior. And that's not taken into consideration. So it's more than just the structure that's on the land that's a factor. It's also that the land has been cleared, that it has easier access to the water, and we think that makes a difference. As regards solar power, my wife and I put solar power on our home in Orono, and we got a significant discount on that installation because the company that was installing solar power on our home in Orono was also installing solar power on 30 other homes in the immediate Bangor area. And that was a convenience factor that would not be possible at Virgin Shores. I would also point out that this is lot five is a long narrow lot. If you were going to put solar power on that lot, you'd have to clear a lot of trees which have no commercial value whatever. And you'd still be dealing with the trees immediately to the south of lot five, which is on lot four, which is a totally forested lot. So there are some challenges of putting solar power, getting it high enough so the sun would actually be able to reach the solar panels over the trees on the adjacent lot. So there's some challenges. There are some costs with clearing, with septic system, with driveway, all of these other things above and beyond the structure itself that one would try to have in order to be equivalent to 21 Edgewood Court. You'd have to do a lot of other investment. So I'm taking again the cost approach and saying that the difference between what our lot was assessed for with the 10% reduction. Mind you, that means that the lot was actually assessed initially at 140 before they did the 10% reduction for the solar power. There's no way that $10,000 is going to cover even the expenses of preparing the lot, much less building a structure on it. So we think that the comparison here is grossly unfair, and that 125,000 with the 10% reduction is far in excess of the value of that property. I would argue that the, other property, on the other side of the basin is buildable, and that the basin area is navigable, and we've been in and out of that repeatedly when we live there. And I would also argue that exhibit two is totally irrelevant. Knowing the people who own that lot and the story behind it, that lot was not on the market. Was the owners did not want to sell it. The purchasers were the owners of lot one, and they were, I think it's fair to say, desperate for a buffer because lot one has a flooding problem that Mr. McMahon does not seem to acknowledge, but it's there. And so the owners of lot one desperately wanted lot two and paid a lot more for it than any other purchaser would remotely consider, and certainly more than the owners of lots one and two paid for lots three and four when we sold to them for a total of 62,000 for two lots in 2020. So I think trying to make an argument from the sale of lot two in 2007 is very flawed. I would dispute that is relevant in any way to assessing a fair market value for Lot 5. [3:12:11] David Marshall: Thank you, Mr. Mattis. That ends the conclusion, well, that concludes the testimony. We have a recommendation of the committee to take this under advisement. So moved and seconded. And moved and seconded to take this issue under advisement. Any further discussion? No further discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Carry 3-0. Thank you, Justin, for showing your position. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mattis, for joining us today. [3:12:40] Public commenter (abatement appeal presenter): Thank you very much, Commissioners and Mr. Van Pan. [3:12:44] David Marshall: Yes, thank you, Johnny. Okay, next on the agenda, executive session. [3:12:55] Andre Cushing: Move to move on to executive session for contract matters. Okay. [3:13:00] David Marshall: Move to executive session on contract matters under section 4.5. 6D. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Passes 3-0. We are now in executive session. Thank you, gentlemen. We will close the door. Regional Jail, Boarding Agreement. [3:28:56] Andre Cushing: I would move that the Administrator sign the contract on behalf of the county under the terms we discussed. [3:29:03] David Marshall: Seconded. The woman in second to accept the Two Bridges Regional Jail Inmate Boarding Agreement. The County Administrator has signed out on behalf of all those in favor, aye. Aye. Those opposed, passes 3-0. Now we have one other thing we have. Do we want to put that on the agenda? [3:29:24] Andre Cushing: I think we need to just because it does affect the public. [3:29:28] David Marshall: Yeah, we will put on the agenda the... It comes back? Oh, okay. I agree with him. So [3:29:39] Andre Cushing: For this request that you have from the party organization, we sense that somebody will be at the meeting that has access and goes in the registrar's program. So we don't see a need to apply a fee to this particular request. [3:29:56] David Marshall: You will send an official policy to me as a matter on the agenda for the next meeting. And we'll pretty much have a consensus on what and how much and under what conditions. So I missed a little bit of this conversation. Yeah. I'm a little concerned with what we're doing. Okay. Based on the requirements that it takes from the full-time force and the cleaning. And I think we're underestimating the security requirements, the cleaning requirements, and what happens when they come in here. And granted, it's been one entity that's been the major utilization of it, but I also do not agree that we utilize the EOC. That should not be an area for public use. gocs are supposed to be protected areas with the equipment and sensitivity that's that's in that area so really what we're talking about is the third floor okay first of all before here this is if this is available so after hours you're saying we have a representative from [3:31:12] Andre Cushing: the full-time force you don't want to waive the fee he's going to be a hundred dollars [3:31:19] David Marshall: dollars for the first two hours, $50 for the first two hours, $100 for a third hour. [3:31:26] Andre Cushing: If an elected county official is here to be part of that meeting, I think it's great. If we have to have an agent for us in when people don't know, then it might be, and that's what we need to charge for. So who's responsible for the cleaning up? That would be the elected official. If the room is not clean, then we could assess a cleaning charge. [3:31:49] David Marshall: I can count at least three times an hour. Yeah, we're not going to clean it. We're going to pay our costs. [3:32:04] Andre Cushing: But in reality, this is a public building paid for by taxpayers and other public buildings that have been made accessible to the [3:32:17] David Marshall: state. All of your surrounding communities are charging you for rent for space including the state and at the federal level. So I hear your perspective, I appreciate it, but in today's society everybody is charging for the use of rooms after hours based on utilities maintenance and yeah we're going to do that. Okay. Whether I just want to make sure 50 dollars for the first one hundred dollars for any hour of their afternoon that's going to be the one that's going to go and we can attach clean up the attest this is something that we're going to put on [3:32:55] Andre Cushing: And the sixth, are we starting at nine again, or should I need to rearrange some things? [3:33:10] David Marshall: on the 16th what's your what's your kind of look like that 's the spirit of America or John okay you well I have I'll have pretty good about that I've [3:33:23] Andre Cushing: Been, I think for that, so I'm good 45 minutes to do is reading pictures, okay. [3:33:31] David Marshall: Okay, so why don't we do it now. 9 o'clock is fine. Is that okay? [3:33:36] Blair Tinkham: I've already sent out the invitations for Spirit of America, and I told them to be there at 10.30. [3:33:42] David Marshall: Yeah, that's fine. Okay, well, we can start, and then I'll finish. [3:33:45] Andre Cushing: I think in subject, June is fine. I just need a little bit more of a heads up. So 9,.30 is fine. According to that, I have a full agenda. But if we can accomplish things by, say, 10 o'clock. [3:34:10] David Marshall: So I wanted to formally recognize Brad Fitzgerald as the new PRCC Director, that went in effect Monday. The UT Director announcement is out, we're going to have a two week announcement there. HR Assistant is going back out, we [3:34:29] Andre Cushing: Didn't find a viable candidate for that. [3:34:31] David Marshall: I'm a little concerned about the salary range, it's not getting us the kind of level of candidate I'm sure with the procurement policy we made the revisions that Mr. Trimble wanted so we're ready to go in the implementation with the parents from the Commission the only thing that's missing which I've highlighted to you guys in some email is an enhance on credit card use that we need which we'll talk about travel expense in order to put that into compliance and then obviously we already addressed the round program but the procurement policy if that attempts to digest it in detail gives me the authority to address certain numbers in this county and that's 50 000 or less so I see things coming onto this agenda that doesn't need the commission's authority if you're going to give it to me and the procurement policy as the county administrator so a lot of things coming on here like forfeiture three thousand dollars I don't know why you want that presented in the future if I get the authority to approve that type of cost take anything out of the fortune guys [3:35:47] Andre Cushing: because it's going to prove the use of it not just the use of it could we not maybe develop a consent agenda and then we can pull off so develop a consent agenda put it on there if somebody wants to pull it off and discuss it they can but it 's getting that less the way it should without having to go through having smashed down here right yeah okay that sounds like that expeditious right for the forfeitures all right give [3:36:27] David Marshall: us a report and I just wanted to reiterate the budget we're meeting on Friday. All of the department heads have provided input. Put a meeting with Jason and Brenda to do my initial review, generate some questions, and set a timeline for them. It's Friday the fourth, this Friday, this Friday. I'm not inviting the commissioners for that. I don't want to see this hustle. I'm not inviting you either. I do not want to see. And then from there we'll sit down with each department head once we're happy that we've got a quality product for you, then we will present it to the commission. [3:37:08] Andre Cushing: That makes sense. What do you anticipate for a timeline for the budget committee to take this up? [3:37:17] David Marshall: Our goal is to have your endorsement of the budget by 30 September. You're [3:37:26] Andre Cushing: going to need to call a caucus to elect bills. Oh, we met, we talked about that in September 16th that night at 5 30 September or 16 in fact 30. [3:37:36] David Marshall: Yeah, that's the same, that's the same 16. We have a commission meeting that day, yeah, and then later on that day we'll have the 6 30s. That's five years. Anything else? Just a couple things. You guys going on, you want to just reiterate it or I think they were all just did we already vote on it? [3:38:11] Andre Cushing: We voted to approve the administrator signing the two bridges contract, yes. [3:38:18] David Marshall: And the other was taken under advisement to approve the walrus. We'll move on to evidence chair Lenten, a motion to adjourn. We'll move seconded, all those in favor, aye, we are closed.