Fort Fairfield Council Sets Mill Rate, Backs Paving and Radio Upgrades

[0:04] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: Okay, good evening. I'd like to call the meeting to order. We're missing two counselors tonight, but we do have a quorum. Start with prayer. We pray [0:26] Speaker B (unidentified): for our country at all times, that all citizens are safe, healthy, and happy. We pray for wisdom for all those who guide and govern help this government body in every situation to know and to do the things that are right and just the soundness of judgment and making vital decisions we pray for the peacemakers that the holy life-giving spirit may ever dwell in their hearts and the barriers of fear suspicion and hatred may fall this we pray to the holy father amen the pleasure of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god invisible [1:06] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: liberty justice for all okay i would open the floor to public comments nobody's [1:26] Speaker B (unidentified): interested okay aaron all right before we begin on the agenda i would like to add a memo to new business i'll stick it right in at the top of new business regarding some additional paving that we may have the opportunity to do so we'll start with liquor license renewals we had two applications come in from the state for clear field alliance club and the vfw paul lockhart post 6187 both reels came in digitally and were approved online any questions about of those i did not attend the last heuristic waste solutions report and neither did steve but i believe steve has a he spoke with mark and has a short update yeah so i'll invite steve [2:20] Town Manager (Mark): to the podium please evening counselors the last meeting was august 18th neither here nor i could attend that but when i talked to mark today i forget some august finances that we'll go over this friday and in our income statements we're about two percent behind for the month and but we're one point three percent ahead year to date on our income coming in for september and our expenses excuse me for august and our expenses for august we're one percent over for the month of august and year to date we're one percent over so we're a little bit more OUR EXPENSES BUT WE EXPECT TO CATCH UP WITH THOSE PRETTY SOON CURRENTLY OUR LIABILITIES AND RESERVES ARE FUNDED AT 105 SO WE'RE STILL IN PRETTY GOOD SHAPE WE GOT THE LAST TIME I STARTED WITH YOU GUYS WE HAD TO BRING A CONSULTANT TO HELP US WITH SOME OF OUR PERSONNEL POLICIES WHICH ARE WAY BEHIND WE HAVEN'T UPDATED IN 30 YEARS SO THEY'VE BEEN WORKING ON THAT CONSISTENTLY AND THEY'VE MADE SOME PROGRESS ON THAT WE'LL HAVE SOME FINAL STUFF TO Go to on Friday and I'll bring it to you at our next meeting. We had a building at the old Prescott landfill that had to be a lot demolished, and actually altered the landfill, so that's been taken care of. And they're building a new smaller structure there for them to use, for just for bathroom facilities and storage over there, truck in the wintertime over there. That's been scaled back quite a bit on our operations because they're not really hauled there at all. And we start doing some timber harvesting thing, which we've done every four or five years. And the Prescott landfill, there's several hundreds of acres of woods there, and we've got a forest to work in there consistently for us. We don't have final numbers for this year, but these generally run around seventeen thousand dollars in the income we'll see from that forestry stuff. And the new litter fences that we put in to try to catch some of the plastic bags up on top of the hill, as opposed to trying to catch them down below with the big netting, had a good chance to try them a couple of weeks ago. They got a 35 to 40 mile an hour winds, and they moved the fencing around, and they did a really good job of trapping the litter. 100 trial for everything yet, it'll be a couple of months to see how that all works. And certainly there'll be some challenges moving these around in the winter time. They're about the size of two soccer goals put together, and they've already moved around with the bulldozer forks on itself, and they're pretty heavy, so the wind won't blow them over, but they sure save help, they save on going back and picking that stuff up from the bottom of the hill. And that's all I have. I appreciate any questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll [5:00] Speaker B (unidentified): add to that report the we still have a significant amount of tonnage available for cleaning up blighted homes. And we do, we had a resident contact us about an old home on Richard Street, I want to say, and then High Street. So hopefully have some residents taking advantage of that and clean up some areas that really could use being cleaned up. So it's good to still have a little bit left. What I hate to see is in December we have all kinds of it left. Last year we had a fire, we're able to use that Volume and help out that resident, but we don't want to have fires in December every year, so there is, there is an opportunity to help presidents pay for that. Anyways, next I'd like to invite Tim Goth of the Fairfield, Fort Fairfield Economic Development Corporation to, talk a little bit about a new grant program that they have. [6:01] Tindoff, Fort Fairfield Economic Development Corporation member: Thank you Mr. Hootery, and thank you counselors for having me here. As Mr. Houdry said, I am Tindoff, I am a member of the Corporate Field Economic Development Corporation, and just a little bit of, just a slight bit of history, the Economic Development Corporation was founded around the time that the AP plant here in Warfarefield was developed. That board helped with some of the financing, like a second mortgage or a bond for the development of that property, and as that bond was paid back, the development corporation netted some profit over the years. That profit's been used to be lent out in the community for economic development opportunities. Most recently was used to rehabilitate a home for the Quality Place Council several years ago, that was fixed up on Columbia Avenue. In the years since, those funds haven't really been put to work, and they've been aggregating, really just gathering interest, so worth met a few times and looking at opportunities to put those funds to work, and potentially dissolve the corporation. And so the discussion became what opportunities were out there, and without really knowing what was out there, we decided that we would put together a grant application program to solicit input, and the kind of the exciting thing about this, I've worked on a lot of grants over the last several years, there's no grant match requirement, and the application really is a, is a three page, what do you want to do, what, how much would you like, and then really it start the process of engagement with the Ford Fairfield Economic Development Corporation about potential uses. So while we say it could be any entity, so it could be a non-profit, it could be a government entity, it could be a business, and it could even be individual, what we, you know, we would caution on the individual side is if it was an individual that was seeking direct funding, there would be potential to pay income taxes on that, so but if it was an individual that was looking to do a project that would help a Business or residents of Fort Fairfield, you know, we certainly would entertain that. We have upwards of 250,000 to give. We haven't set a limit because we just don't know exactly what potential projects are out there. So we could maybe find one really good project and invest all 250,000, and it's a grant, it's not a loan, so those funds would be there for that project. We have, you know, talked through a bunch of different potential projects that could be utilized. Really the only caveat is that it needs to benefit the residents of Fort Fairfield. So if it's physical construction, it would be on a property in Fort Fairfield. If it was to help elderly people stay in their homes, we would want an entity that, you know, is able to perform those weatherization duties. It could really be anything. I think sometimes that ambiguity makes it a little difficult. I mean, it could be a park renovation, it could be equipment, it really could be put to use in any way. I think the board is really just looking for ideas, input, and we hope by putting this out there to you counselors, to the general public, putting it out on the town website, which again we really appreciate, sharing it through social media, that we can generate some ideas to either incent business activity or to help the residents of Fort Fairfield. It's a pretty simple process. The application is open now. You can find it on the town website, you can find it on the Quality Place Council's Facebook page, which has been shared a few times, and ultimately we'll accept applications until November 20th. We'll take those, aggregate those, and start to review those during the month of December, with a goal of awarding funds in early 2027, which sounds crazy because I don't know how we're to 2026 already, a little 2027. So that's really the program. Happy to answer any questions if you guys have them. I have questions, but we'll answer them once we get some applications in, you know, but it's just, it's just a way for us to put these funds to work for the benefit of our community. It's exciting. Questions, comments, concerns, dad jokes, anyone? Thank you for your time and for [11:00] Speaker B (unidentified): your service to our community. Thank you, Tim. Thank you. I thank you to the Economic Development Cooperation. This is great stuff, making opportunities available, support opportunities available to residents and entrepreneurs and homeowners. How can we go wrong with that? So very appreciative and happy to post that, just because I know our residents need access to that information. So jump into August financials. We closed the month of August with sixteen thousand three hundred and eighty nine dollars in our checking account, fifty eight thousand eight hundred and sixty one and certificates of deposit, one million two hundred ninety thousand two hundred and fifty four in our investment account. We did have outstanding payables at the end of the month of one hundred and thirty eight thousand three hundred and thirty nine dollars, which brought our net cash position to $1,227,165. The attached revenue report shows $562,071 in revenue. We also received $282 in tax payments for tax years 24 and 25, with the remaining balance due of $199,913. Our largest source of income for August was the state of Maine homestead exemption reimbursement, which was kind of nice, two hundred and thirty eight thousand one hundred and seventy three dollars, which was which accounted for a little over a forty three percent of our monthly revenue. As best I can track, that is the reimbursement from our exemptions that we granted last October, so they take their time paying it to us, but we're very happy to get that money nonetheless. Expenses for July were for August, excuse me, were $560,380, which is about 3.42% less than planned year to date. The school appropriation, of course, every month I feel like a broken record saying that the school appropriation accounted for 43% of that expense and was obviously our biggest payout. After consulting with council members, I do plan to schedule a workshop on October 21st to review the status of reserve accounts. THAT WORKSHOP WILL TAKE PLACE FOR THE REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING. SO WE'LL START GOING THROUGH THOSE RESERVE ACCOUNTS AND DECIDE WHETHER EVERYTHING IS APPROPRIATELY PLACED OR WHETHER WE NEED TO MOVE STUFF AROUND. AND ALL THREE REPORTS ARE ATTACHED, INCLUDING THE RESERVE REPORT. ANY QUESTIONS? [13:33] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: THAT HOMESTEAD REIMBURSEMENT, DOES THAT COME ONCE A YEAR? [13:36] Speaker B (unidentified): THEY PAY IT IN TWO PIECES. Is they pay a small portion in July, each July, and the rest in August. The obviously the lion's share is that August, and that homestead exemption, we're giving a 25 000 exemption value on the value of the home, and then they pay us back, let's say 50 of what we have exempted, so sort of like an unfunded mandate, but partially funded mandate. Yes, anything else? My monthly economic community and economic development update, my efforts over the last month have included several trips to northern Maine Development Commission. I attended the Executive Committee and Loan Committee meetings last month. Also had a really nice meeting with NMDC staff to discuss implementation of GIS mapping, support local economic and development initiatives. I talked with some businesses and I think Bri, I was telling you that I talked with a surveyor and lamenting the fact that we don't have GIS maps on our town and it makes it difficult for developers to really see what the tracks of land might be and what opportunities may be available. So super excited to have met with them and find out that they have a lot of data on our town already. So we just need to determine the affordable host site for that and then we can start updating it from when those are created. I found out that the USDA also has maps of all the water and sewer lines for the utilities district. So I'm our approach Noah and talk to him about sharing that resource so that they can see where their lines where their lines and you know the shutoffs and all that stuff are and found out that the main dot has an extensive GIS database on our state road features like all down Main Street up Prescott Street that includes a lot of additional information there. So really good meeting with them and hope to move that forward. I did participate in a training focused on small business development plans helping small businesses develop those business plans so that they have a higher chance of success. Really nice training there and also had the opportunity to speak at the Fort Fairfield Blockhouse rededication ceremony. I thought it was a really great turnout great day beautiful day for it and had a deputy mayor from Perth Andover Village of South Victoria come over and speak and a lot of local speakers and a really nice event to celebrate our blockhouse heritage. I issued five building permits and actually I think we've issued two more since this was written but and then performed five code enforcement property inspections attended the Aroostook Code Enforcement Organization's annual meeting. I got to meet a lot of other code enforcement officers and just as important as the training that they presented, I think it's just the connections I made with some of those so that I can call them up and go, okay, what the heck am I supposed to do here? Cause still trying to figure that out big time. Completed three days of training at the Institute for Civic Leadership, really great deep dive into different leadership styles. So I'm hoping to benefit from that. Also got a chance to attend the Maine Community Foundation session focused on community resilience and identified some opportunities there, potential grant opportunities to help us with our work. So I feel that was worth the time. IT WAS ONLY IN PRESCOIL, TOO, SO IT WASN'T LIKE I HAD TO DRIVE TO AUGUSTA FOR ANOTHER MEETING. SPEAKING OF DRIVING TO AUGUSTA, I ATTENDED THE MMA EDUCATION TRAINING ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING AND THEN PARTICIPATED IN A TRAINING ON MUNICIPAL RESERVE ACCOUNT BUDGETING, which is pretty relevant to what we're going to be discussing here pretty quick so that was a nice class to come up at the right time any questions feels like i've been a lot busier than that 's what i have any questions on that for the gis mapping do you have you identified [18:02] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: somebody that can integrate all of those things with the OT and the utility? So my understanding [18:08] Speaker B (unidentified): is that once we get a host, my familiarity is with Esri, that's all I know, but I think they're kind the gold standard, which means they charge gold standard prices, so that they may not be who I go with, but there's some really low cost options out there that obviously offer less features. Once we choose that, we just upload those files and they're visible, and then it's a matter of how we're able to edit those. So as a piece of property, a parcel is split into, how hard is it to go in and change that? I know the work that I did in Esri, I was able to put in, you know, crosswalks and different things, put in a new street light when we've had one really easily. I don't know what that's going to look like in the lower cost options, but it's really just load that up and that data is going to be early. I think it's 2020, I think it was 2014 ish maybe, so anything since then we would have to update, bring up today, but infrastructure probably hasn't changed a whole lot, you know, the state roads probably not a whole lot of changes you know what I mean they've been updating what has been here so it's really going to be about trying to update those parcel that parcel data and make that make that and our goal is to make it available to the public not just an internal I guess we had esri here before tony was the only one that had it Joni wasn't super techie so I'm not sure what he did with it but I think having it open to the to the public to be able to see that data is going to be super important and make people again feel like we're being more transparent but number two a developer says hey I want to come in and build what can I well hold on pull up the maps and I'll show you here I mean we can do it right over the phone and that type of thing so I see a lot of potential value there yeah anything else keeping right along an update on lean and foreclosed properties we still have as the end of end of august we had 48 liens on 2024 properties owing a total of 53 161 dollars and 113 liens on 2025 property taxes for 145 591 those are the 2025 is still a ways out but we're actually going to start foreclosure proceedings in february on 2024 taxes so that's that's coming right along and my intention is to continue to move those proceedings forward as soon as the statute allows us to you know the minimum time frame so we continue to recover taxes as fast as possible no changes in our three listed properties we have two properties listed for to recover 2022 property taxes and one to recover 2023 property taxes and had no bids or apparent interest in those at this time questions all right so this is a long one and I think I'm going to read it pretty much word for word because I think this is a really important initiative in fort fairfield and then while there's not a ton of data right now I think the more people think about this and the more people understand what the process looks like the more able they are going to be to make an informed decision as this project moves forward so I'm going to talk about the new regional 9 through 16 educational facility proposal. On September 8, the superintendents of Fort Fairfield, Presque Island, and Caribou held a session at Fort Fairfield Middle High School and presented the slides, the slide deck that I included in here. I thought it was well attended. What did you, I thought it must have been 25, 30 people there. Yeah, good mix of school staff and, yeah, so good attendance. Two members of town council were there, Brie and Mike, and I attended as well. I thought there was some really engaged discussions. It was a little quiet at first, but once people kind of warmed up, the discussion expanded. There was a wide range of thoughtful questions and sentiments voiced by the attendees. So some of the key feedback that came from people that were there was the financial implications, and I have to say I'm one of the people that spoke on that, just because budgeting, I live budgeting all the time, so I, it's a big part of my work, and I remember, distinctly remember the discussions as we were working through the budget about the 200 plus thousand dollar increase in their budget this year and how is that going to be sustainable for them to keep doing that. So the long-term impact of local property taxes and the operational cost sharing formulas, facility overhead, those were all discussed. If we don't, if we choose not to join into a regional school, talked about quality of service and offerings, the balance between a broader academic, vocational and extracurricular opportunities for students versus each district having their own schools and trying to support all that themselves, which really isn't just about the money, it's about attracting talent. I mean, you need to attract good teachers to really give a high quality education, so that can be difficult. I talked about concerns about the potential loss of our hometown pride, you know, I mean, that's a really important pride, traditions, our tiger identity, those are, those are important to people, and you know, how do you, how do you calculate that into the decision-making equation. And then a real big one I think, local control and what the school environment would look like, the vital importance of maintaining local governance, you know, the ability to not have Fort Fairfield be relegated to the corner every time a decision is being made. I mean, how do we maintain some control over that, making sure that we have some say in class sizes, keeping classes small, just because we go to a big school, not jumping class sizes up to 35, 40 students where nobody's getting individual attention. All, I think all valid concerns and valid points of discussion as this moves forward. So the school board is going to be voting on October 13th on whether to proceed with the application there is an october 30th deadline for that application to be submitted it if it's not submitted by october 30th then this doesn't move forward it's dead in the water it is important i feel it's important to emphasize that this vote by the school board serves solely to allow this application to proceed we don't a positive vote by them does not commit the school to anything does not commit the town of fort fairfield to anything thing we do not have to join the group if we decide at a later point this isn't for us, and we are not committed to constructing a regional school facility. This is just to let the application move forward. So next steps include the advisory board is going to be meeting again. Mike and I sat on that, we met in June, we'll be meeting again on September 28th I believe was the date. The school board will hold their vote on October 13th again at whether or not to submit, or you know submit the application. Once that application is submitted, the state will evaluate all submissions. At this point only eight groups, eight regions, a community of groups of communities are being allowed to submit because that first step had to be done first. So now there's just eight applications coming in. They're going to select one application provided the requirements are met. They will select one application from those eight, and the word, the winning school will be notified. Once the winning school is notified, that the winning school, the win, the winning region is notified, then each of the schools in that region, us, if it's us it would be us and Presque Isle and Caribou, has to have a referendum vote. It's a requirement of this grant, and the town has to come out to vote for or against it. That I think is our critical point, that is when it's really important for a lot of details, and you and I spoke about it briefly afterwards. We need to start having very clear pictures of what this is going to cost us, what kind of benefit we would get from in terms of an enhanced education, what kind of bus trips our students are going to have to take to be able to get into this new school, you know how it's going to affect our budget. There's a lot of questions that really need to have a lot of clarity before I think residents will be ready to vote in that referendum. Only two schools are required to join, so this kill, if we backed out, Prescott and Caribou could still move forward with it. They wouldn't get the full grant amount, it would be reduced proportionately. But and the same if we joined in with Prescott or Caribou, it could still move forward. So the core drivers, I just want to hit on these. The three superintendents pointed out that the demographic trend across all three districts is a drop in enrollment of eight percent. High school enrollment is down eight percent. Total district enrollment is down 9.2. We're down 17. All three districts are dealing with rising operational costs and capital overhead and really facing a challenge of sustaining advanced coursework like AP classes, that type of thing, electives, and then just staffing, trying to fight for one teacher becomes available. All three schools are trying to use that teacher to fill their empty positions. The consolidated school facility would serve grades 9 through 12, along with an integrated in the school building post-secondary pathway featuring 22 career and technical education programs that right now are split between Caribou and Prescott, and students are spending a long time busing back and forth to those facilities. Those would be right in house. They would have direct apprenticeships and an on-campus dual enrollment presence from UMP and EM NMCC so students can take college classes while they're still in high school, meet their college high school requirements and smearing college credit and be that much further ahead. There will be no college students on the campus though. That was one of the questions that came up. The teachers and instructors would be there. The college students will be on their own campuses, not at the high school campus, and there's still local, there would still be local elementary and middle school autonomy. This exclusively covers grades 9 THROUGH 16 FOR FAIRFIELD WILL RETAIN COMPLETE LOCAL CONTROL ADMINISTRATION AND INDEPENDENCE OVER ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL PROGRAMS, WHICH IS PRE-K THROUGH 8. SO THAT WAS A LOT. AND THAT WAS A LOT IN THE MEETING, TOO, AND I DON'T KNOW IF THEY POSTED THE RECORDING ONLINE, DID THEY, OR WAS IT JUST BROADCAST LIVE, MATT? DID YOU SEE THAT? [30:00] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: IT WAS BROADCAST LIVE, AND I HAVE NOT SEEN IT, I HAVEN'T SEEN A RECORDING. [30:04] Speaker B (unidentified): So but I posted this with our packet online, the slide deck, so hopefully that gives people some more information if they weren't able to attend. Do you [30:16] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: know the time frame for the state to make the selection? I was trying to [30:20] Speaker B (unidentified): remember that I was writing the memo and I don't remember exactly I was thinking it was going to be sometime next year but I don't know I feel like I remember MELODY IS SAYING IT WAS GOING TO BE A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME FOR THEM TO GO THROUGH AND EVALUATE EACH OF THOSE APPLICATIONS BECAUSE THEY ARE LENGTHY APPLICATIONS. ANYTHING ELSE? WE 'LL MAKE SURE YOU WEREN'T WORKING ON THE QUESTION. I'M VERY PLEASED TO BRING THIS NEXT ONE UP. I don't know if you guys remember in June we did receive approval from the council to partner with Martha Smith of Evans Smith LLC to create a community vulnerability assessment, which is really a preparation for our upcoming comprehensive plan update. Martha found an opportunity for a service provider grant so the town can apply for it, but a service provider that we partner with can apply for it, which she did. The whole plan of us partnering together was really contingent on this grant because we can't pay for her work. Unfortunately we didn't budget for it, and this $15,000 grant would allow her to do this work along with staff support and hopefully a couple interns and some piece and some other things together. Anyways, on September 10th Evan Smith, Martha, received a conditional award of the fifteen thousand dollar grant, and it's and it was conditional. I think as of Monday it is now finalized, so she has received, has been awarded, formally awarded the grant to start working on the Fort Fairfield community vulnerability assessment. There is no fiscal match required from the town. As part of her proposal she did submit a discounted rate for her work that allows us to get the most bang for her buck. It's really great stuff, and then like I said volunteers and staff will be contributing time and effort to this assessment. I just want to take a moment once I saw this award and I did attach it to this because I was just amazed. Days that was an extremely thorough application. She really did a great job and she did it on behalf of the town. You know she put all this effort into this as a volunteer because we weren't paying her, and she ended up getting 95 out of 105 points on her application. They commended her on the detail, how detailed the plan was. They pointed out that it might be a little ambitious, but I'm not really worried about it with Martha leaving. Matt did, I was out of town and Martha was out of town on the last quality of place council meeting, but Matt read a short memo For us, and there was some interest expressed by Quality of Place to help and assisting with this as well. So you know, when you look at Martha stepping up and presenting Evan Smith LLC as a potential partner, you've got Quality of Play stepping up to be potential partners in this, in this process. These are examples of community spirit that really make our town special, and it's the key to our future success. It really is what it is, what will make us successful as we move forward. So super happy about that. Take a look at that application, it should not the application, the award letter. Eastern Development Corporation, Center for Ecology-Based Economy, Androscoggin Valley, Council of Governments, Midcoast Council of Governments, Kennebec Valley. These are organizations with a lot of staff and the ability to focus a lot of energy on a long application. And you have Evan Smith right there on the list with the rest of these being awarded an application to serve the town of, for Fairfield. I just really proud of the effort that she put in, and then happy for the town that she's, she's working with us. Questions? Thank you, Martha. Yes, thank you, much appreciated. All right, old business, zoning board of appeals appointment. I'm very pleased to be presenting this one. So I had to schedule the first zoning board of appeals meeting in, according to Tony, 21 years and I discovered that one of our four members, so we're supposed to have five members and two alternates, we only have four, and one of those four said that he resigned years ago and should not have been on the list. So our records never got updated. Fortunately three members is a quorum, but it'll be tight because that's all we have. We did run another ad because of this to solicit application for the planning board and the zoning board of appeals. We received an application from Gary Casas. Is anybody in the house that causes? Okay, for a seat on the zoning board of appeals. Mr. Casas has previous experience serving on the planning board and the state board of education. Feels like a great fit for the board of appeals. So tonight we're requesting approval to appoint Gary Casas to the zoning board of appeals for the vacant seat with an in-progress first term expiration of June 30th, 2028. [36:07] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: New speakers, can we appoint Mr. Kazis to the employee seat on the board of appeals. New speakers, seconded. New speakers, any discussion? New speakers, okay. New speakers, we'll [36:26] Speaker B (unidentified): HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO START SERVING NEXT WEEK WHEN WE HAVE OUR FIRST MEETING. SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT. All right, so staff, and when I say staff, it was me, has learned that the state does not allow an employee to sign a plumbing permit application or inspection as a licensed plumbing inspector unless they have actually earned their license. Unlike code enforcement, you have up to a year to earn it. Licensed plumbing inspector, you don't. And I've already signed off on like two or three things. In light of this information, we did approach Tony Levec and asked if he would be willing to perform inspections assigned plumbing applications under his authority, under his state licensing, licensure. He has agreed to serve the town in this capacity until we get somebody licensed who's currently on staff. So we are requesting approval to appoint Tony Levec as alternate license plumbing inspector for the purposes of compliance with state statute until a full-time staff member is able to earn licensure. Tony's employment will be as a contractor and he will work for the town when there is a need for a plumbing inspector once [37:39] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: you may approve it. Very pleased [37:49] Speaker B (unidentified): that Tony was willing to step up and help us out. I really didn't doubt that he would, but it felt really bad knowing that I signed up without the licenses. So do we have somebody on staff that's going to be working toward that? Yes, we do. Yeah, we have somebody right here in the room and he was volunteering, so that's an even better situation. Yeah, so we're moving forward with that. Tony's coming in tomorrow morning for his first subsurface wastewater application, so perfect time. All right, moving on to the GA maximum ordinance hearing. We do this each year. The new maximums are attached through appendices A through H. These are sent down from the state. In order to participate in the general assistance program, we have to adopt these each year. The money that we give out through the program is reimbursed by the state 75%. So this really is an opportunity for us to be able to serve our residents who are in times of need and still not incur really huge costs. We end up paying 25%, they pay 75%. So state law requires that municipal officers adopt the ordinance and appendices after notice and public hearing. WHAT WE'RE REQUESTING OF COUNCIL IS THAT ONE OF THE COUNCILORS INTRODUCE THE ATTACHED ORDINANCE PROPOSAL AND DIRECT US TO HOLD A PUBLIC HEARING ON THIS PROPOSED ORDINANCE ON SEPTEMBER 30TH AT 12 P.M. HERE IN COUNCIL CHANGERS. AND IT IS NOT IN THE PACKET, BUT I DID GIVE EACH OF YOU A COPY OF THE ORDINANCE THAT [39:31] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: I'm asking you to introduce. I would like to introduce the General Assistance [39:37] Speaker B (unidentified): ordinance. And direct us to hold it. [39:41] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: And direct you to hold a public hearing on September 30th. Perfect. Excellent. Yeah, thank you. All right, here's a good one. [40:02] Speaker B (unidentified): On April 23rd, 1975, the Town of Fort Fairfield Tax Collector filed a tax lien on real estate state located on Dorsey Road, Map 3, Lot 14, for non-payment 1.66 in property taxes. The town never foreclosed on the lien, and the taxes are currently paid in full on this property. We have no legal claim on the property as a result of this lien, but the lien was never discharged. The property has been sold. They'd like to get that cleaned up. There's no reason for the town not to release their interest in this. So we have a quick claim deed, and I am requesting approval to sign off on that quick claim redeem quick claim deed releasing our claim on the property by virtue of this 1975 lien. Make a motion. We approve it. As you're in. Second. [40:54] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: Any discussion? All in favor? I [41:00] Speaker B (unidentified): got that. I'm like, we did not foreclose. We have no claim on that, and like, yeah, we just need to clean up. Should we search to make sure there are no others? No, you have to go through each property and look and see lean discharge, lean discharge. Yeah, I think we wait till somebody calls us and says hey, it'll come up in the title search. Yes, exactly, and that's when this came up. All right, moving into new business. I've asked to add a memo to the beginning, and so I'll jump right into that. This is a memo regarding additional paving. Public Works, Public Works Department has an opportunity to perform some additional paving this fall. Per our current contract, Trombley Industries will start paving the Career Road beginning Monday, September 28th. This project will consume the entire 225,000 that was approved for paving in the current budget. The contractor has stated that he's willing to perform additional paving at that same contracted price of 89.45 per ton. If you remember, right, he actually went down In a competitive bid process, went down on his price from prior year despite reason to have a higher price this year with fuel costs, knowing that the asphalt is largely composed of fuel. So we are proposing to the council that we pave two severely deteriorated sections of Marshall Road. First being from the town line east for two thousand two hundred and ten feet, tying into a section that was previously shimmed. Cost for this section would be approximately thirty two thousand dollars. There's another failed section to the east of that, approximately 1500 street, 1500 feet in length. Cost for this section would be around 22,000. We feel these sections would provide service to residents of a section of town that hasn't been served, their roads haven't been served in years. The other area that we would like to pave is Hunt Street. We know that's a short street, 435 feet. It is in really poor condition and just gets worse as the seasons progress. Approximate cost would be 5900 to overlay that section of road. We acknowledge that this paving would completely deplete our paving reserve if we use that money, but the condition of the community's roads, not just these, a lot more, but you have to do one piece at a time. And the fact that cost of asphalt is continually increasing. We feel that it would be fiscally prudent to invest in paving right now where they're not too late in the season. They're projecting warmer weather for next week, which is actually great paving for this time of year. This work will not encompass, like I said, all of our failed sections, but it shows a commitment to working towards a better system in both our urban and rural areas. So staff is requesting approval to spend paving reserve funds of up to $59,512 to pave a portion of two portions of Marshall Road and Hunt Street during the current paving season. And I have, as I said previously, confirmed that there is money to back up those reserves. [44:24] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: I'm not going to approve it as read. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? No. Okay. All in favor? [44:34] Speaker B (unidentified): I may not have been super happy about the plumbing inspector thing, but I think he probably had another great memo to read and request for action. The main redevelopment land bank authority recently announced an opportunity to apply for a lightning stabilization grant to fund municipal property stabilization. Staff did submit an application for a grant on August 31st. On September 9th, we received formal notification that we have been selected for an award of $23,203. The funds are specifically allocated towards critical exterior envelope stabilization efforts here at 18 Community Center Drive. Over on the other side of the building, the windows over there, if you take a look at them, they curve up at the corners. They let air in through. Through, they've just a really horrible condition, and this will allow us to stop the water infiltration and the damage from pre-storm cycles. The primary intent of the program is to assist municipalities in halting the deterioration of publicly owned buildings, safeguarding the structural integrity of community assets, while long-term planning and community visioning continue. This is a reimbursement grant, so we do need to spend the money and then get reimbursed. There is no matching requirement of the town, so we'll be able to spend up to the full amount with no matching requirement, no funds, actual funds required to be able to replace all those windows. I'm still trying to figure all that out. I'd like to be able to do some of the work in-house. I'm not sure that we have the capacity to do that fully, but we're going to take advantage of every penny of that grant if the council approves us to accept the grant from a free development. [46:25] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: I move that we accept the grant of $22,203 for marine redevelopment land bank stories. [Speaker B (unidentified): I second it.] Any discussion? All in favor? [46:41] Speaker B (unidentified): They're coming up to take a look at it. And this organization, you've heard me talk about meeting with them several times already. I was on a call with them today. They coordinated with the main DP to offer to pay for an assessment of the old public works facility and that whole property down there, the phase one brownfields assessment, and we won't have to pay a penny. So this is just an excellent organization, and they're doing great, really great work, and they're coming up next month to do a little tour of this building, but also go down there and take a look at that. So super excited about that, and you know what, it's nice to just see money coming into the town that didn't come out of taxpayers pocket. Well, yes, it all probably came out of some taxpayers pocket somewhere, but the ten thousand dollar grant, the fifteen thousand dollar service provider grant, the twenty three thousand here, and this isn't the end of that. So yeah, keep working for that. You want me to read this and you answer [47:48] Public Safety / Police Communications presenter: your questions, or do you want to get up and present this? I can present it. Okay, good. [47:52] Speaker B (unidentified): i'm going to invite acting fire chief daniel to the podium to talk about some work that we [48:02] Public Safety / Police Communications presenter: Need done and ask for permission. Good evening, counselors. Thank you for this opportunity again to speak with you. So one of the big things, like I said, like them in here, I wanted to prove things how they were and I found a very huge deficit with our reading communications. So as I sit today, and I wrote this on July 30th, and I was talking about five instances, and we've doubled that now, where if my crew is on a scene, I can't talk to them unless I'm within a half mile of the scene. So it's very nerve wracking if I'm coming in from home, or if anybody else is responding, we know we have a call, maybe a structured fire or car accident. I have no idea what's going on at the scene until I get there within that mile, half mile radius. One perfect example that we had was July 4th. We had a car accident just over the line into Fort Fairfield, probably three miles from my house. So I said, well, you know, coming as a car in the ditch and I'm like, I'll go check that out just down the road. Not a big deal. She actually had driven through three trees and I was like, holy crap. My EMS crew was out on a call already and I was trying to get out to my crew responding saying hey bring me an ambulance may any mess laws state that unless you have a licensed provider you're on scene or in that ambulance nobody can just take the ambulance so I'll be being a licensed provider I'm like hey bring me the ambulance I can take care of the patient that couldn't reach anybody I'm trying to call a kind of cell phone it just there's so much pandalirium that you know we just i said well We'll deal with what we got. I had Prescott come, we end up having two patients anyway, but those are just some of the things we're running into and that's a huge safety concern I have with just not only my people but trying to, you know, get the right resources when I can and a little back story with this is that state police is our dispatcher and this frequency I'm looking at is our fire department frequency so it's actually two different frequencies so my people on a fire ground will talk to me. or anybody else but like I said once a truck leaves to go get water I have no idea how long they're going to be there's no ready communications whatsoever so it's very nerve-racking so what I've done so far is I have went out we've got three quotes one from juristic technology and one from RCM the quotes I have right now it's a four thousand dollar quote from ATI and that basically takes our old equipment and puts some new stuff on there and I'm not a big fan of that is that if that old equipment ends up breaking, then we have to buy new equipment anyway, so we're kind of out that money. The other one they have is a seven thousand dollar grant, or I'm sorry, quote, that gets us a new repeater, gets us all new equipment. RCM also gave me a quote as well, basically the same thing, all new equipment, manpower to put in, including radio programming, and they come up to eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety seven dollars. The issue I have with that one is we have just over twelve thousand in our reserve communications, which is where I'm looking to take this out of, and that would complete that, leaving us no opportunity, you know, I need a portable radio, to buy a portable or mobile radio. I'm looking at the ATI grant or proposal for $7,371.22 right now. That'll give us enough wiggle room in case we do have a radio that goes down, we can still purchase that. As we sit right now, we're stripping money everywhere we get. We just bought four older radios, I think for the 10th, the 10th of the price of a new portable, just to try to save money somewhere, and they're still great working radios. We just, we buy them off eBay, like, programs and gets them all up and running, and they work just as well. So we're, you know, saving money where we can, but I think a repeater would be very important for our infrastructure here with [52:00] Speaker B (unidentified): TAP and everything that we do, and then future plans as well. Does that allow you to talk to [52:06] Public Safety / Police Communications presenter: the police department as well? So we can talk to the police now with ours. The problem is, unless we're on a scene together, that's the only time I can talk to people. Once they leave that half mile radius, I can't talk to them at all on the radio. But this new thing, yes, yeah, it'll give us a huge coverage area. So [52:28] Speaker B (unidentified): what he's asking is for council approval FOR STAFF TO SPEND $7,371.22 WITH THE ROOSTING TECHNOLOGIES FUNDED TO UPGRADE THIS REPEATER, PUT IN NEW EQUIPMENT ACTUALLY, AND FUND IT FROM OUR COMMUNICATION RESERVE ACCOUNT, WHICH THERE IS AMPLE FUNDS TO COVER THAT. [52:50] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: NEW SPEAKER I MOVE THAT WE FUND THIS QUOTE FOR ROOSTING TECHNOLOGIES OF THAT RESERVE ACCOUNT. [52:57] Speaker B (unidentified): NEW SPEAKER SECOND IT. NEW SPEAKER CLARIFY THE SECOND. [53:01] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: seven thousand three hundred seven dollars and twenty percent quote okay good thank you okay second yeah any discussion oh that's great thank you so much [53:17] Speaker B (unidentified): this has been something that i've heard them talk about since i came but had no idea what was required to really get it updated so it was great to see danny take the lead on that pull all this [53:29] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: information together so does this also work where cell phones don't work yes okay yes it's hard to [53:35] Public Safety / Police Communications presenter: get on a phone during a structure buy or anything like that i try not to just because it's so much going on so yeah usually as much as we can all [53:46] Speaker B (unidentified): right the big topic of the night the fy 2026 2027 millage rate calculation town of fort fairfield was fortunate to be able to certify it 100 of the state of maine valuation this year the initial form they sent us over actually said that we needed to go up another 15 percent we contested that sent them over some data they finally valued us at 100 that means no property value adjustments are required this year no across the board adjustments put in a new garage you're getting adjusted but other than that i thought that was good news because we've done two adjustments in a row as you may You may remember the approved 2627 budget showed a 10% increase in spending this increase or total budget 10.5% increase. This was due to a combination of just under 1% increase in town spending and 3.93% increase in school and county funding, coupled with a 3.71 decrease in forecasted revenues. So kind of a double whammy there that led to that 10.5. the attached municipal rate calculate tax rate calculation form accounts for all known and estimated revenues and costs including state exemptions like the homestead exemption betty reimbursement personal property exemption and it uses that to calculate the mill rate for the town to cover our expenses if we look strictly at that budget 10.5 increase over our current mill rate would get us to 20.94 20.94 per thousand dollars evaluation however we did reduce the overlay down to 28 000 that's used to cover abatements for the most part so that brings our mill rate down to 20.5 not a great mill rate but understandable with an approved budget of 10.5 increase an eight percent mill rate increase is i feel appropriate i want to throw this out there as a disclaimer i still feel strongly that we face a risk of overspending our budget this year if fuel prices stay where they are i was not happy to hear mr rojeski say before the meeting started that prices are going to stay up until april that is not good news for us so i'm hoping that he's completely wrong i just don't know that i feel strongly enough about it to allocate a higher overlay to handle unanticipated costs i think that staff will continue to monitor our spending and then control our costs in every possible area to try to stay within our budget despite increased fuel costs so staff is requesting approval to set the millage rate at 0.0205%, which is $20.50 per $1,000 of valuation for the fiscal year 2027 for real estate and personal property taxes, to set the due date for tax payments at February 1st, 2027, to set a 7% interest rate for unpaid taxes after March 1st of 2027, and to set the interest rate for prepayment of future taxes at 0%. That's a lot. [57:10] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: I'm just curious, I know it's probably very minimal effect, but you said seven building permits. So do you anticipate how much property valuation that might add for the next? [57:21] Speaker B (unidentified): Small, you know what I mean? It's barns, maybe a porch. Yeah. We've issued one new home building permit on our street, which is nice. you know i mean that will that permit was issued after april 1st so and there's it's not bill yet so it's not reflected on this year's valuation but it should be completed for next year's valuation which will be that will help but yeah i have no other new construction just small additions at this point no we're getting ready to approve another one so out on page road [58:02] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: we'll take it right i mean i think that's a reasonable rate it's not putting much extra in there incidentally we were at 18. [58:14] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that's the problem is so much of it really is out of our control. Those state revenues we can't control those, and school budget we can't control, county budget we can't control. So it makes it tough for us to do a whole lot different than what we've done, other than cut that overlay down. I had hopes that we were going to see some big jumps in valuation just from small home improvements and maybe be able to start putting some money into reserve, but I just don't feel it's appropriate to present that to the council at this time. I'm [58:47] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: pleased that we came in at 100 because that was going to be you [58:52] Speaker B (unidentified): know increasing the values. It was kind of scary seeing some of the home value sales values rather THAT ARE COMING ACROSS BECAUSE IT JUST SETS US UP FOR ANOTHER BUMP AT SOME POINT HERE. BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR GROUP IS THE FIRST TO SELLING IT THOUGH RIGHT MADE GOOD MONEY ON IT SO [59:10] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: YEAH OKAY SO WE'VE HAD A MOTION IN A SECOND. WE'VE HAD A DISCUSSION. ANY MORE DISCUSSION? ALL IN FAVOR? THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT. I [59:24] Speaker B (unidentified): WOULD ASK FOR APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF the august 19th 2026 council meeting. I move that we approve the meeting minutes from august 19th [59:35] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: second. Discussion? On favor? I'm going to need a motion to approve warrants number four for 231 643 dollars and 27 cents and warrant number five for 454 thousand ninety two dollars and 96 cents. We approve warrants number four and five for the amounts that you received. Seconded. Okay, any discussion? All in favor? Any other [1:00:16] Speaker B (unidentified): I have nothing else. That was enough, right? [1:00:19] Council Chair / Presiding Officer: Yeah, the second and last public comment period. If anybody has anything they want to say, Okay, I just need one more motion. Okay, again. Second. All in favor, yes. [1:00:49] Town Manager (Mark): Terrification is served.