All right, I will call you. All right, call this public safety committee meeting to order for Thursday, May 22nd, 2025. Berkeley, can please call a roll. Council, present. Councelor
Harder, present. And councelor Brooks, present. Open meeting recordings. Any person to make a video recording when open session may transmit the meeting for any meeting subject to reasonable requirements as a chair to the member of placement and operational equipment use so as not to interfere with conduct meeting. Any person intending to make
recording shall notify chair wars with all documents exhibit used at reference meeting must be submitted to dark as they become part of the meeting meetings. Does anyone making a recording of this meeting? Uh reading the minutes of prior meeting March March 28th
2025. Um, I move that we uh dispense with the reading of the minutes and approve them as presented. Second motion by councelor Brook, second by councelor Harden to wave the reading of the minutes and accept them as printed. All in favor? I
oppose. Item two, the fiscal 2026 budget meetings. Uh what we'll do is we will go department by department and let the department heads uh high and the mayor uh highlight any things that we should
be taking note of and then we'll follow up with questions. So we will start with the first the health department. Sorry, not the health department. [Music] Uh or it was the health department,
right? Yep. Yes. I'm sorry. Health. private. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, just as an overview of the budget as a whole, uh, the overall budget for the city this year has a 2% increase over last year's budget. Uh, there are variations as to
how much uh, fluctuates between which department had an increase versus others, which line items increased versus others. Uh when the auditor and I were working on the budget this year, uh all expense line items were really made off of the trends uh that we were seeing over the course of the last couple years. Our revenue projections, we did
the usual uh as always where we took about 96% of the uh the average of the last three years for those revenue line items uh in order to um present the budget that's fully balanced that's in front of you uh today. uh related to the budgets that you have before you today.
Uh going before the council shortly will be some pre-cash appropriations for the overages uh and certain accounts that are there due to fluctuations that took place within the fiscal year for various reasons uh from cost fluctuations in the market from inflation to staffing issues, vacancies, injuries, and such on
from there. Uh those related to the departments you're going to be seeing today, uh fire department overtime will have an overage appropriation request of $260,000. Uh that's mainly due to uh staffing changes due to uh deployments, injuries, vacancies, the uh recalls for
uh mutual aid with the brush fires that we saw this past fall. Uh same thing with the police department, mainly due to staffing changes uh from vacancies and injuries. Uh that has a uh a free cash appropriation that'll be coming soon before the council of $170,000.
Uh those uh we anticipate won't be as big of a need coming up uh as we do currently have several individuals at the fire academy that should be graduating between now and September. That'll make us fully staffed once all those graduates come through that will alleviate those concerns over there. And
we're in the process of hiring an additional uh personnel over at police department even though we know we have three uh upcoming retirements in the upcoming fiscal year. Uh those are all things that we're planning for to make sure that we can kind of lower the overtime hit that's there. But we never know what's going to happen given a year and how many mutual aid calls will happen, how many fires may happen, how
many other situations may come up. Uh but those are uh the overall things with the departments you're going to be seeing here. Uh with the items related to salary and wages that are listed in your council's full council packet as item 11539, which is the salary ordinance for the city. You'll notice it looks
different this year. Um rather than the usual compensation schedule that has been submitted by administrations in the past, this year I submitted a grid scale uh for our non-unit employees with a couple factors in mind on that matter. Uh the first being the uh salary survey
that the city recently undertook. Uh the uh results of that salary survey said that all but two of our non-UN positions fell within the minimum bound of the salary surveys findings. Uh the two that were outside of the minimum were our
director of veteran services and our um uh senior center director were underneath what the minimum bounds were there. So since everyone else fell within that minimum and how that grid was constructed uh was uh the current
rate of pay for the FY25 salary ordinance was listed as step one in that grid and the two positions that were under the minimum were brought up to what the minimum was in the salary survey for those positions just for equity purposes. Uh and then from there it mimicked all of our uh other
contracts for wages that we have within the city uh with 4% between the steps and the year breakdown. Um that was there too. That's meant uh as a um incentive for longevity with the city. Uh we've got a lot of employees who have been here for a long time and it's uh
something that the city has been looking at doing for a step scale for a while too and making it uh so that we give our employees a reason to stay here and recognize the work and the years of service that they've had for the city. um and also make it so that there's room for growth and room for uh a visual
long-term path for them moving forward. So that's why that was submitted there for you. And those budget uh those uh salary compensation numbers uh that you see in the uh item number 11539 are reflected in the budgets that you have before you today uh for the departments. But that's the brief cliffnotes overview
of the budget and happy to go uh into the different lines with the directors as they come forward. Thank you. All right. Um, so for our budget, the biggest part is always uh the trash collection and disposal for the city
that our contract currently has a 3% increase built into the contract. Um, there's also been an increase in the per ton household usage. So, the amount of trash gardener residents have been
throwing away has been increasing by a good percentage as well as recycling. Um, those two kind of are the amounts that will fluctuate and are a little harder to predict, but they've been steadily
increasing. Um, so I did ask for increases there. And recycling also is a market rate. So that fluctuates depending on how much it costs or how much they get for for certain uh
commodities. Um the other big part of our budget is the environmental monitoring at the landfill. Um I just got the contracts proposals for that. Um and it's about a
5% increase from last year. Uh which also increased about 5% the year before. So, I tried to reflect that in my request. Um, another development on our budget is that we've had an open admin position
that we do not plan on on filling. Um, so that's going to remain open. Um, and everything else is pretty much just trying to stay in line with with what we requested for for last year.
Um, just for clarification purposes, that landfill is the solid waste landfill. So, the dump on West Street, uh, just because it can be confusing sometimes with the two landfills we have. That's the solid waste one. Um, the landfill closure account and the solid waste account are on page seven and eight of the welfare packet. Um, for
the I broke out the budgets just for what you were meeting on today just to make it easier. Um, and those are again in the enterprise account. So, anything that doesn't get expended out of the account just falls back to that account. Uh, and we do the annual free cash appropriation in the fall when uh, free
cash is certified into the landfill closure account for their monitoring services as well. And one thing I'll add is that we are looking at some trying to get funding for some major repairs on the landfill. So, we're also trying to build up the
the free cash we have available for that um, so that we can start taking a look at those. questions. Yes, I Yes, I do. So, just I think you clarified is the the sludge landfill has nothing to do with
the solid waste. I understand that. Correct. And board of health does not deal with the slugs landfill. Correct. Correct. Okay. On a solid waste landfill, um we've been monitoring and so on. Are there do we do we have potential issues coming up with it in
terms of leakage or um repairs or anything like that? I I think that was the one I noticed there were a couple of pumps that need to be replaced. So there's a a system that collects what's called the leech from the landfill. Um and there's a six pumps that are pumping
that out to the uh sewer collection station, sewer pumping station. Um, and those pumps are at the end of their their life. Um, they've been in there about 20 years. So, that is our number one priority would be to get those pumps
replaced. Um, so we got an estimate for that done in 2023, I believe 2022, and it was for 145,000. Um, I'm in the process right now of getting a a new estimate done to see
exactly how much we're going to need for that. And if we're pumping out the lie, then that means the leech is not getting into the ground and ground water and all that stuff. Correct. Correct. And our environmental monitoring has shown that
um all of the the levels have remained stable. So it doesn't indicate that anything is leeching out or causing any issues. Um we do also have some erosion happening on the cap of the
landfill. So that is another project that um we definitely need to take a look at as well. Okay. And those are Is there enough room for a racetrack up there? That would make for an interesting racetrack. Yeah.
All right. a little further down here, too. Yeah. Okay. And then in your in your discussion on your budget, uh you talked about um private properties that you sometimes have to go on to to clean up or or deal with in some fashion. As
we spend money on those properties, do we lean the properties for those? Yes, we we do. Um and we're I'm really hesitant to to utilize those services until it becomes kind of an extreme issue and we can't like the owner's not
able to track them down or um it's unclear who owns it anymore. Those kind of situations or or what I reserve that for. But we do lean the property for those amounts. And that that's good because that gives that leans it. So then it goes on eventually goes onto the property taxes and allows the city to
foreclose if we need to force on it. So that's that's a good way to do it. All right. Thank you. No questions. Thank you. Thank you. Um you've mentioned that the tonnage has increased. Has that uh just been replaced or has entered the transfer station?
That is the um curbside collection tonnage that's increased. Um the transfer station has remained relatively the same. We have added a little services. I know there was a Christmas light collection
box that we've added. There's certain things under the state sustainable materials program. There's another acronym in the there's another letter in the acronym uh that if we add certain services including just one box, we get additional funding from the Commonwealth to assist with the operations of the
transfer station. Uh that's one thing that director Blondo's been really making a concerted effort on too. And I just wanted to point that out and give him some kudos for that too cuz he's helping bring money. Um yeah, to add on that, we just got a new shed out there
um from a grant from D from that program. Um so I am every year trying to get every grant I can get for improving recycling and hopefully reducing what's actually being thrown away. So
and what's the admin position that you're leaving open? Um it was our license commission clerk. license commission clerk. Um that has been open since um I think about February. Yeah.
And it's just being absorbed by someone else at the moment. Yes. So it's been absorbed by the other admin and the uh assistant director and myself. I have no other questions. Further questions counselors. All right. Thank
you. Thank you. Thank you. on to the building. The building next building. [Applause] Um overall the um the request is you know like I said
earlier um based off of trends of the last couple fiscal years that were there where we were able to fit certain things in. Um you'll notice that there are some encumbered accounts. Those are accounts that either have open POS for them or have plans for them too, but I wanted to include them there so you could see the
longerterm plans for the count uh for the uh departments that are in there. Um, the one thing I will point out that we unfortunately weren't able to accommodate this year that the director requested, but it is something we should be working towards on the long term is a full-time plumbing inspector, uh, versus the part-time that we've had right now.
Uh, that inspector does plumbing and gas. They're only in, uh, up to 20 hours a week currently. Um, that does make it so that it could hold up certain permits, especially with new construction and needing signoffs on something like that. Uh it's just something we weren't able to afford at this time, but I do agree with the uh commissioner that that is something that
in a long time the city should be working towards planning toward. Um and I do want to publicly thank Commissioner Zupa uh for the work that he's done with the city. His last day with the city is this coming uh not this Friday, but the following after. Um and he's done a lot of great work with the city. So I do
want to just get the opportunity to thank him uh while I have him here, too. Thank you. All right. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so I will I'll touch on the encumbered accounts. Um, uh, as the mayor stated, um, the encumbered accounts generally
have POS attached to them. Uh, there many of them are for our decorative light poles that we see downtown. The lead time on getting those poles in varies dramatically uh, depending on on when they're ordered. Um, and they can be they can be pretty costly as well. Um, so that's why you see the the
incumbent counts. Um, I want to thank the mayor for um, it it looks like there's a there's a slight bump and an increase in the alternate inspector salaries as the inspectors uh, remain with the city for longer periods of time, their earned time off for vacations uh, increases. So, that's a
line item that I would expect to see incremental increases or the need for in uh, incremental increases in the years to come. If an inspector takes a day off, a sick day here or there, we don't really need coverage. Um, but we do need coverage if an inspector's off for an entire week. Um, the overtime, I I
understand, you know, we we don't have a lot of money in the budget uh this year for overtime, but moving forward, that's something that I I would encourage the city to look at a little further. Um, now that the inspectors are union members, they also get a minimum call-in time should they have to come back in of
4 hours. Um, generally that's going to be the wire inspector for fires, lights down, things of that nature. Um, so that's something I would encourage the city to, you know, continue to look at in in the years to come. Um, that's really about all I have for now. We do, we do have, um, we are
looking at a vehicle replacement. We have a vehicle that, um, failed inspection. That's something that, um, I would say within the next year is is is something we would like to try to um, try to accommodate for the department. Questions? I really don't have any questions, but I
want to say you do really you've done a really good job and I'm sure you missed and you've helped me align my board and I want to thank you. Well, I I appreciate you saying that, counselor. I I I thank you for it. It's been uh it's been an it's been an honor and I and I've expressed this to the mayor on several occasions. This is my hometown,
so it's been an honor to serve and protect the the city of Gardener. Um it's not a job that I take lightly. Um so I I am thankful for that. Thank you. Uh yes, thank you. On uh new new vehicles, you requested a new vehicle. Yes, sir. Which is in the budget. I
understand that. Uh when did we last get a new vehicle? Uh so the last vehicle was purchased uh as a used vehicle. It's a 2019. It was a used vehicle. It was approximately 5 years ago at this point. Um the vehicle that is in need of replacement is a 2010 if I remember
correctly. 2010 and 2011. So So we haven't replaced vehicles in a while? Not you're not within the building department. Correct. Yes, sir. Yeah. I know it's one of those things that if you can get by with it, you get by with it. Yeah. Yeah. And and unfortunately some of some of the vehicles tend to have a little bit of uh lower mileage,
but it's the salt and sand and um now we have a a better maintenance program in place for the vehicles. So DPW does a tremendous job doing the vehicle maintenance, but now we wash them and clean them more regularly as well. So that's all part of the preventive maintenance. So hopefully what we have here now minus the the new vehicle is
something we can stretch out a little further. Thank you. Um and and I do wish you well. I work with you in Fitsburg as well at Garder and you will be missed. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. Um part-time to full-time for the
plumbing inspect. Do we feel or have we had complaints that uh permits are not being issued on a timely basis because of underst staffing more because there are so many projects going on at the moment? More just because there's so many projects that are going on and that we see in the pipeline. More just future
planning wise. We haven't really received too many complaints on you know fallbacks on timelines and everything like that. But it's one of those it could happen with the amount of projects that we see happening moving forward. So I I'll add to that as well. um being only a 20-hour position, uh the inspectors here 8 to 12 um Monday
through Friday. Um there's a lot that he can't get to in the afternoons. Um and and even more so than permits not getting issued, it's a delay on inspections um because he just simply can't get to them in the afternoon. Um in order to do the job to its fullest
and provide all of the documentation that that's required. So if an inspection passes or fails, we cite the specific codes. We and then we also do a narrative. Uh in order to do that and do that properly, it it needs to be a full-time position. Our plumbing and gas
inspector is hands down one of the best around. Um but he's he's entering retirement again for a second time. So we do have the position posted as part-time. Uh but in order to to do the job the way it's the way it's intended, um he simply can't do many many aspects
of the job within the 20 hours. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you for your service to the city. Police Department. Next. Good morning. Good morning. Uh I'll just add that behind the uh
school department, the police chief is the uh department head who oversees the next biggest budget amount uh for the city overseeing police, animal control, dispatch, civil defense uh which is emergency management in the budget uh the and the animal shelter. Uh that's a
couple million dollars that of the full budget that's there. So not quite the school department's $37 million, but um pretty big after that, too. Um, so there's a lot that you'll see here. A lot of it's just the trends that we saw there, too. I mentioned earlier that we do have a couple of, uh, new hires in
the pipeline for the new fiscal year. Uh, some of it was pre-planning for some of the positions we knew that were going to be vacant. Some of it is filling the vacancies that we already had. Uh, so I'll let the chief get into the specifics if you have any questions further than that. Morning. Thank you. Um the majority of
the increases you'll see are uh salary line items with in in obviously going along with collective bargaining agreements. Um the majority of the service accounts uh maintenance accounts things like that have been actually reduced.
Um the obviously the biggest issue uh currently for me is is overtime and back filling but um that that is relative to the number of officers I have out in the vacant positions open as well to try to keep staffing levels at a safe
level. Um it's I'll be happy to take any questions. Um but it's again fairly the the the majority of the increases are under salary line items which are obviously tied to collective bargaining. We have done a lot of capital work with
the police department in recent years through various different grant forms uh and different financing stuff. We did the radios and the firearms through free cash appropriations a couple years ago. The drone was purchased through a grant. Um actually it was purchased through
some of the cash we had left over. Yeah. Okay. Um and one of the things that we do do is a vehicle rotation for the police department. We normally try to do three cruisers a year. Those are normally done out of free cash appropriations. Um the goal is to eventually build those into the budget as that is a reoccurring schedule that
we have to make sure that the fleet stays at its useful life. Um once we can build up a little further um we'll hopefully be able to add that in. There's a lot of things that are reoccurring that we've carried as a capital cost out of our free cash that
uh out of just an abundance of caution I didn't put into the budget this year. um mainly just because of the fluctuations in the economy, fluctuations in price trends and things like that. I want to make sure that the budget stayed the way it was. So, we were a little more conservative this side on our revenue projections. Um but that is something that we're going to be looking at moving
forward uh in our long-term plans. And just one piece um with regard to cruisers, the deputy chief met and the auditor met with a company regarding leasing vehicles. So, we're looking at different options to try to reduce costs for vehicles. Um, maintenance costs for
vehicles are through the roof. Um, you can pretty much guarantee parts go up somewhere between 5 and 15% per year. Um, these vehicles are all computerized now. So, anytime we have an issue with them, they require to go back to the dealership to be, you know, reprogrammed on the computer, things like that. So,
we're looking at different avenues for cost savings, but, you know, still fairly preliminary as well. questions. I guess it's not a question so much as some comments. Um it was interesting to be reading your you're right up on the
budget and going back to 2003 when we had the layoffs and I was part of that. uh that was how the city managed to survive and in the course of that we also restructured some things budgetarywise so that we could afford to buy three cruises a year and do some
things. I was a little surprised that we hadn't gone we hadn't increase the staffing. Um I think looking ahead uh one of the things I see in you know in the early 2030s uh we pay off the pension
liability and so there will be room to start looking at things and it'll be very um I'll get on my soap box and just say it it's important that we not just uh fritter that money away that it be used in in uh smart ways. One of which I
think is is with the police department and and the fire department and say, "Okay, do we bump up the staffing some because we can now afford to do that and we can do some things with vehicles and do some things with fixed assets that that that need to get done."
Um, I don't want to I want to make sure that we're not just um suddenly saying, "Woohoo! We've got millions of dollars and let's give everybody a raise." I you know, it'll be important. So, I I saw this and I like the idea that
that it it's kind of laying the groundwork to say, "Okay, here's here's where we should be. Here's where we are. It'd be nice to get there." And in my head, I'm saying, "Okay, so how do how do you get there? How do we start doing it?" Oh, thank you, councel. I
appreciate you bringing that up. I mean, it's certainly something the mayor and I have had numerous conversations about. Um, he realizes the need. Obviously, you know, the budget's the budget and, you know, the money is is is money. Um, we understand that. I'm very proud of our
people in the police department. Um, they do a lot with, you know, with what they have and and I I really couldn't ask for any more than they do. Um, they all step up and I I think obviously with less personnel and more coverage on things, you're going to see an increase
in overtime with stuff like that because this is a 24/7 365 type of operation. Um, you know, I get calls at the deputy chief gets calls at 2 or three in the morning or 4 in the morning when things happen or on a Saturday night or whatnot, and that requires coverage. So,
but anyway, but you're right. I I mean, statistically, we should be in the mid-40s for full-time officers. Um, we're authorized for 33 from top to bottom. You know, it's it's a definite I have if I have probably delusions of grandeur, but like I I have all kinds of
thoughts in my head if we were able to increase um positions. We could we could, you know, dedicated traffic units. Um we could certainly use another detective for general investigations and some narcotics work. Um community policing outreach. I mean, we there are a lot of things that that we want want
to do obviously, but there are limitations. So, I appreciate you bringing that up, counselor. And and I was going to say when when we went through that um experience in 2003 for the 2004 budget, I was impressed with how well city the city city employees kind of
worked together. and we were in a tough situation and and we had spread around the the cuts and and I can't say that employees were happy that they that they were uh accepting of the fact that we there were things we had to do and did
did what needed to be done. We worked our way through it, brought back people and and trying to keep things going. Um, so I I recognize that in a lot of places it's it's been and and uh you know when we get this windfall um
I think it behooves us to make sure that we spend it wisely. That'll be for the next chief. But thank you council. I I do appreciate that. But you're laying the ground. Thank you. You're kind. We really I mean I like to think I left
a little something behind. So I was here in 2003 obviously when those layoffs as I was a patrol officer then. Um and I will tell you that it was a miserable experience. Um I understood the city needed to do what they needed to do. But coming from the line like the
people working on the line um that was where I was at the time and um we were minimum staffed every single shift. Um anybody used time off it required you to back fill with overtime and usually the junior people were getting forced. Um, and now may sound great like you're
making all kinds of money with overtime, but um, it was pretty miserable experience because you would come in at work and you didn't know if you were going home in 8 hours or you're going home in 16 hours. So, um, but if we can get I think is if we can make this a goal and start to, you know,
incrementally move forward to get to these position numbers. Um, I think we could do a lot of a lot of real good ground work here with that. If I could add to that too, uh the uh like as the chief said in his write up and you'll see it in the fire chief's write up too
by both FBI standards for the police department and FPA. Thank you. Um standards for the police department, uh our staffing levels are down on both of those based on the population that we have and those staffing standards are set by these national uh accrediting organizations
based off of the population of the community. There are federal grants out there for both police staffing for additional staff and fire department staffing for additional staff. The reason why the city has not gone after those at this time yet is because the scale for those grants for those
positions is that it'll cover 100% of the position the first year, 75 the next year, 50% 25% and then nothing after that. But if after the five years, for a certain number of years, those positions then get cut, you owe 100% of that grant funding that paid for that police uh police officer or firefighter back to
the federal government after that. And where we don't have that sustainable outlook yet until 2032 when the pension liability uh is uh paid off at that point per our schedule uh where we budget, I want to say it's around $6 or 7 million a year in our pension uh
payments right now. um that just isn't sustainable for us to look at right now where we don't know what would happen after that 5-year period is done. Uh so that's why that's not something that we've taken a look at or advantage of right now just to be financially responsible for the city. But that doesn't mean in the future later on as we're building up
towards th that long-term planning that we're looking at meeting those staffing levels for certain departments in those responsible ways like councelor Brooks just said. Right. Right. I think in looking at the numbers on the pension, we're still two or three years away from where we need to start serious planning
at but it's it's close enough to where say okay what are the things we can do how do we start doing this and I'm going to throw out there the you know the one question is with the school department and do they get a cut of it and I know they're going to say well we should get half of it and I'm saying well you know
the city the non-school departments have been carrying a heavy load for a long time with the schools at least guaranteed a minimum funding so we'll But that that's the mayor's call. It's not like Yes. Um it's more of a um just a
statement here on the energy utilities. It it fluctuates every Yeah. You know what? This is really not that bad for the size and what you do. And um I have a friend, she just paid an electric bill for a very small home, almost $1,000 for the
month. So this is um very impressive. I mean obviously it's a the building is open, you know, 24 hours a day, you know, 365 days a year. So I mean, you know, lights are on where they wouldn't normally be on in your house at, you know, 3:00 in the morning. But um but yeah, I mean it's it's certainly
something that we, you know, we try to take a active approach, you know, conservative conservation approach to. So um I'm like the old I still shut off lights. I I go around shut off lights. So that's the it's the father in me, but you know, just a different age group that the
younger generation just leave a bottle all over the house, you know. Yeah. I mean, we we we certainly try to I mean, if if if I can hold off on something like an expense, you know, that's not necessary. I mean, we do the best we can with it. We evaluate obviously the building the building needs to be
repaired. The building needs to be maintained. Um, Department of Public Health standards, everything else. I mean, if if the cells, especially if something is malfunctioning the cells, we're pretty much obligated to fix that immediately. So, but we try to prioritize the best we can. You know, I have a great administrative staff. I I'm
very very very fortunate. Um my my executive coordinator is um she's like my right arm. So, um knows the budget inside out and we have conversations multiple times a week about the budget. Sure. So, thank you.
Um, are you finding it easier or harder to find good candidates now that we've changed? I will say the hiring process is streamlined. Um, candidates, it's coming along. Um,
but what I've seen I I think that the candidates that I'm seeing now, a lot of them aren't as serious as as I used to see with the, you know, the candidates we we'd see coming through. Um, you know, this is a very serious job. Um, you there's a lot
of attention to to that, paid attention to that. Um, I feel almost like the kid coming in like I'm going to give it a try for a while. Whereas when I started, this was um this was my career. This was my path. This is where I But I see a lot of people kind of dipping their toes in the water now to see if it's going to work
for them. And um the job's definitely a little bit different for sure. But I mean, we we still bringing in great some great people. I I'm I'm very impressed with, you know, the officers we have, you know, the trainees we have in the academy. Um I was able to bring back one of our officers who left um 12 years ago
to for a change in career. um he's older like me and uh he came back and said he wanted to work again and I'm like you know you didn't you were a great person to work with I'm I'm glad to have you back. He has to go to another academy in his 50s but um he I wouldn't do it but
he's fully accepting of it. So we are we are we are bringing in great candidates for the city. I I wouldn't I would never reduce um our standards to you know to just to get bodies in here. I won't do it. So um and that's something that we're seeing. I mean, we saw it somewhat
with the while we were still in civil service, the caliber of candidates that we saw there, too. It was just the trends that we're seeing right now across applicant pools, both civil service, non-Ivil service. But, um, with Officer Rogers coming back with, uh, the other recruits that we have, fingers
crossed, my fingers I'm very hopeful what we have going on. Um, we have, um, we currently have, uh, one one officer in the academy. We have an officer who started Monday, came from Florida. Um, so there the officer that started the academy Monday, he's in the Fitsburg
State program, so he graduates mid-Sepptemeber. We have another officer, officer Rob, Robert, our officer I was just talking about, he starts the academy in early June. We have another officer, another recruit starting in July. We just gave another conditional offer to another one. We're trying to get him into August. We're
we're trying to stack this as best we can um and try to get everything in place so when the three officers do retire, we don't really kind of miss much of a of the heat. Robert, I switched his first name and his last name. He has two first names.
Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Good job. council. Uh pretty similar to everything I've said for the other departments. The uh compensation line items here are either part of that non-un scale that uh I've put forward. Uh the other ones are union
employees. Uh every everyone besides the chief that works for the fire department are union employees. So, the wages are all based off of their respective union contracts, and everything else is based off of the trends that we've seen over the last several years for both the fire department uh and the ambulance department uh budgets that are there. Uh
we did order the uh the new ambulance, rescue truck, engine. Um the engine has arrived and the ambulance has arrived. The rescue truck had a malfunction while they were driving it to us. Uh so that is being repaired before we get it. And
the ladder truck is still in design. Uh so that's still a couple years out before we get that here too. But those will at least help us hopefully help with some maintenance costs uh moving forward with the budget. Um probably not in this fiscal year, but at least moving forward in the fiscal years after that. Um but other than that, I'll let the
chief answer any of the more detailed questions that you have moving forward. Yeah. Um morning. Thank you. Uh, like the mayor said, it's I I describe it as pretty much a level funded budget other than contractual increases.
Um, nothing really different than years past. um to respond to uh what councelor uh Brooks pointed out in the police department side here too. You'll see the long-term plan that the uh fire chief has put forward under the department request there too for where that
additional staff could fall with an EMS coordinator, a group floater uh to help when uh you know someone's out or there's some other jobs that need to be done uh with the full 247 department uh uh everything from including a deputy chief. Um there's different things there
that could be filled that um if we were to meet the minimum staffing levers through the um National Fire Protection Associ association. Thank you very much. Um the alphabet soup with government does get confusing sometimes but um where those would fall and what that plan would be. So that's why I've asked
the departments to put those in their department request so that we could see the plan moving forward uh and be able to explain that now so that when if we ever are at a point where we able to fund those positions there's a at least a paper trail documenting this is why those positions are in there too. So
that's why that's been included in there questions counselor. Okay. So the ladder truck, do we expect to get it before or after Air Force One is delivered? Uh yeah, just to kind of follow up on what I was saying to the the police chief on, you know, the the pension
being paid off and so on. I think I think what you're presenting here are some good ideas. Um and again, back in 2003, I know the fire department took a hit. I think eight eight firefighters would be laid off at that time. And it was interesting to to see how the firefighters among themselves
uh chose to take a hit rather than let younger colleagues um be laid off because of seniority issues and things like that. Mhm. Um I I do think it's important in in figuring out what the what the final
plan is. It's going to be one of those where every department can't get everything they want, but it's kind of laying it out and saying, "Okay, what are the things that will make us better?" And how do how do we move forward with that? Because it's going to be kind of found money. And I we just have to be careful that we're not just
tossing it in the air on on frivolous things. And I know that's not how uh guardian people think. We tend to be very tight with our pennies, not even dollars with our pennies. And uh So I I'm encouraged by this and I think it's
it's one of these things that we just start looking ahead and saying okay in three or four years are there are there smaller steps we can take to do that. So um yeah you know I was working at the time of the layoffs in the early 2000s.
I was also I was laid off in the early 1990s when when we had that fiscal challenge also. Um and yeah we the firefighters always make it work. Um, you know, we're there. We do what most we can with what we have. Um, you know,
one benefit that the fire department experienced was we were able to restore positions um with the support of the mayor and the council to establish the ambulance service. Yes. Um, which is still, you know, it's it's running at no cost to
the city. Um, basically, um, it's it's paying for itself. um which gives us an additional two firefighters per shift. They're not always available for firefighting duties because they they're on ambulance call sometimes, but a lot of the time we can pull them away for
firefighting duties. So that that was a huge asset to the fire department and to the city to be able to do that to at least offset some of the staffing losses due to the budget that we had previously. we have the ability to establish that service and create these
these um dual role firefighter EMTs. So that that's been a big help to our staffing situation. Um so NFPA, the National Fire Protection Association, um they they have staffing standards which
are difficult to meet in any budget. Um there are few cities and towns that meet those staffing recommendations. Um it's tough to meet um readiness staffing. You know, we refer to it as readiness is expensive
and we understand, you know, the the budget like the police said, the budget is the budget. There's only um so many needs that can be fulfilled. Um so working towards that is always a goal and we do what we can to to meet that.
Okay. Thank you. All right. Um I have no other questions. I appreciate your time. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Any other questions or comments
regarding the budget? If anything comes up in the intro, always around for answering questions, too. Uh I thank all department heads for that on that. So So we just so I understand are we recommending that the budget be
um approved as um councelor has any I don't I don't have any. I'm just just making sure that's where we are. Uh yeah we can move that. Sure. So I I'll move that
we recommend that the budget be approved as presented with no cuts. Second motion by councelor Brooks, same by councelor Harden to recommend approval of the safety committee budgets as presented without any cuts. All in
favor? I opposed. That motion carries. Uh next on the agenda is item 11531, communication from the mayor regarding the status of the city's parking meters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh the director of purchasing is
here as uh we got a couple departments here who can answer some of these questions if you got them. How's that? Um um the parking meters are fully active now. There are a couple that need some parts to uh uh bring them back up. Those
have been bagged. Those are mainly in front of the police station. Um direct uh director Cormier has been taking point on the installation of those. Um we had a change in the parking meter maintenance staff. Um that was really one of the reasons for the delays in
installing the new meters that were there. Um the uh previous staff member went out on injury leave. Uh so was only able to do a certain amount at that point and then when that staff member came back was able to do a little bit before he resigned. Uh Tom Roberts is our new parking meter. uh maintenance
technician that's hired by the city. So, he works for the city treasures office uh going around repairing and collecting. Uh in the interim, uh Gilbert Gravel and Matthew Moore from the Department of Public Works were able to help install the uh remaining meters that were out there. Uh per the parking
meter ordinance that the council has set. Uh the safety committee sets the locations where the meters are located. uh and the full council sets the zone in which the safety committee can determine where those meters are located within that zone. Uh there is currently one
area of the city that does not have meters yet that uh per what the ordinance says and past votes of the safety committee meeting, we have to order more meters in order to uh meet the requirement and that's City Hall Avenue. Uh everywhere else in the parking meter district does have uh the
parking meters newly installed. Uh the um meters have been programmed. I see the director has the programmer. It's probably part of his thing. It costs around $750 per meter uh in order to order them. Um and that includes the
housing, the internal computerized mechanisms, the domes over them, um and the posts. Uh the uh new meters unlike the former meters that we got rid of uh are not when I say they're not the smart
meters, I mean technology-wise and that they don't connect to the internet. Uh we were bleeding money out mainly on the internet subscription that each and every individual meter had prior to that cuz each meter basically had a cell phone inside it and that's how it connected to the internet. That's how they were able to do credit card
payments. Uh the new meters right now you're able to put point into directly or they have a connection to an app uh mobile app on your cell phone called Park Mobile that you can put your uh credit card on that way and pay that way that's used by several dozens of cities in Massachusetts
uh and other communities across quite frankly the United States um to verify that for a credit card option. The color code on the meter itself will not switch from red to green if you use the park mobile app. Mainly because the
meter itself does not have that cell phone internet connection in that meter. That would be what it would need to connect from the phone to the meter to change the color from red to green. However, when the police department goes around and scans that meter, it will tell them if that meter is paid or not. So, it's okay if the meter doesn't
change from red to green. The police department will still know if you paid or not on that one. Um but collections have been going forward uh with both the cing and the turnovers from PAC mobile. Uh but I'll leave that more detailed description to direct
corner. Uh just to go back real quickly, uh the installation of the meters was done by the DPW primarily. Uh they did literally most of the work. So I I think they deserve credit on that as well. U but the mayor's right. Uh somehow I I I
think everybody stepped back when I wasn't ready to step back and they said step forward if you want to do this and uh so I ended up with the parking meter kind of in general. Um uh just a couple things. So they've been they've been installed. There are some issues with the programming. So, this is the
programming unit and basically this thing gets inserted into the coin slot and it updates the the availability uh what you can pay on coin uh how much you have to pay until you see it flip um and then how long you're allowed to pay the
meter. So, um recently we did I think we were able to get 180 of them programmed, but there's a few that aren't programmed. Uh some of that has to do with firmware within the the the actual meter. Some of it has to do with just the meters just
being too old. So when they went out and did it, we had purchased a bunch of new ones, but we as we also back backed in a lot of the old ones that could still work. Um, so there are some, as the mayor said, that we need to do new, but there are some that we need to replace. There are some that are just so old we
have to replace. Uh, for instance, there are two up on Central Street next to the bus stop that they can't get into the coin area. So it just it's so old they can't do it. So, uh, we did get a a quote on, uh, based on what DPW had presented for a new meters, uh, 15 new
meters, 10 of the guts inside and then some other parts that were needed to go forward. Some of those are being proactive. So, obviously, they're not emergencies, some are more of an emergency. Uh, just to kind of piggyback on the mayor said, uh, again, uh, there was a group that was formed and include
business owners, includ some department heads as well as some, uh, some other individuals. And the idea was keep the meters but we need to figure out a way to accept coins still and to accept credit card. Park mobile is an app that we researched and we did sele multiple quotes from credit card
companies. Park mobile was the best one. When you use the park mobile app though just to be clear there is a 40cent transaction fee that's being questioned now. That is not by the city. That is a park mobile app. That's the convenience that Park mobile will charge you to be able to use the app. Uh it's not a city
it's not a city fee. Our fee is the actual um 50 cents a half hour, which is what the council voted on a couple months ago. Uh other than that, I got to go back out and reprogram them all. I'm going to try not to do it today unless I'm directed to because it looks like I'll need a vote to do that. Um and I
will say that the uh enforcement we have definitely seen has increased because we've seen appeals increase. Uh the civil enforcement department has probably seen a 6 to 700% increase in our appeals over the last two weeks. Um and it is a habit that we are u that
we are forming again uh with the public to pay these meters because again in their defense it hasn't they haven't been paid for a few years. So availability of parking on Main Street is just far more apparent now than was
for a long time. I myself am not a big parking meter fan as we know. Um and I respect the fact that the council wanted they wanted this these parking meters. Um I myself at the time was approached by one or two storefront
owners that wanted the meters. Um I I think what you're you're saying is you have to retrain these people because they just I had a business down in South Ghana for 25 years. None of us ever parked your front. Yeah. Um, you've got quite a few
out there all day long and that's their business. How do you retrain? That's my question. So, I'm just I'm kind of stepping back seeing how it goes. I wish the best of luck to it, you know. Um, and um I did want to say if I can direct this to the chief that um I seen one of
his ladies out there. I think she was checking the meters which is um it's tough but uh I I don't know if you wanted to speak on it or answer that or if you can at this point. So
enforcement u just so or um as soon as we got the word for enforcement was going to be um we we directed the officers out there uh just for an example I believe the first day was it 61 tickets? Yep. 61 tickets the first day. So um is correct. We do have to
retrain. It's been what, four years or so? Um I did walk the beat downtown. Um right tickets where we used to have a walking beat. Um it's uh it's just one of those things and I understand both sides of the coin. Um the issue is is that we need to regulate so that
businesses can have spaces there because as we've seen over the last four years that doesn't happen without regulation. Um, so you realize that in terms of uh in my I I've seen, you know, obviously the 6 or 700% increase to director
Cormier probably wasn't really thrilling, but it's it's obvious to see the necessity that needs to be done. And I think we're back on track like council just said that there's actually parking spots on Main Street. I mean, I I stopped downtown pretty regularly and I've talked to some of the business
owners and they're just thankful to have they have parking spots available again for their businesses. So, any questions on enforcement or anything like that? Thank you. I'll just add after that first day, I went downtown to talk to a few business
owners. It is a you have to be a little brave to do that when the car community and it was it was funny because I heard the same complaints about some of the businesses down there. That was what was coming. And when I talked to other businesses, uh they said, "Oh, yeah, we got a ticket this morning." "Oh, yeah, this person
got a ticket this morning." So like a lot of the businesses were doing it and as the chief says I mean in 2020 when co shut it down we didn't have anybody parking downtown so the meters and then in 2021 we kind of gave a grace and then 2022 they started to die and then we
worked on replacing the meters. So again we're retraining people on what to do downtown as we continue to kind of grow parking and on the exterior part of downtown as well. And it's just all the dominoes didn't fall at once. So that's
what's the struggle right now. So part of what your letter is talking about is parking putting parking beers back on the city hall app next to the post office and those spaces have been full for the last 5 years. I'm assuming it was post
office employee parking. Are we going to have a problem? So I've spoken and met with the postmaster twice. Okay. um the votes of the safety committee that have been done in the past that regulate where those meters go are for the first five spaces on City
Hall Avenue. The remaining spaces on City Hall Avenue, excuse me, are unmetered as well as all of Connor Street is unmetered, right? Um so they uh she has informed the employees over there um that the where the unmetered spaces will remain to be after that.
Okay. So we're just putting meters in the first five spaces. Correct. Where they were before. Okay. The uh which is the five closest to the corner. Five closest to the corner. Yes. Um those meters were removed when we uh experimented with closing down Pleasant Street uh to provide some type of free
parking alternative since we were closing all of Pleasant Street that summer. Um and the vote that was taken at the time by the safety committee was just to remove them for that period of the summer themselves. Um and then that vote has since now sunset. So that's why uh following the letter of the
ordinance, they go back in that spot. Uh but that's just for those first five spots closest to Pleasant Street. Okay. I almost want to say there were polls put in further down, but maybe there were, but there were some taken out. Okay. Yep. Okay. Thank you. You're
welcome. Any questions? Oh, sorry. That was the confusion. Five poles versus five spots because the polls cover two spots. Yes. Uh, next item on the agenda is item 11535 application for license to collect
the deal on secondhand articles gardener coins and cards 18 Parker Street. Good morning. Uh, the police department has no issues or concerns with this particular application as well. Come on. Business questions,
comments motion. Yeah, I'll make a motion to send it to the council um as a whole as presented for approval. Second. Motion by councelor Harden, second by councelor Brooks to recommend approval to the full council. All in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. Item
11536 after license collector deal and second articles hopeful boutique 29 Pleasant Street. Again, police department has no issues or concerns with this license. Same for you. Question, comments? No. Motion. Yeah,
I'll make a motion to uh present this to the council for approval. Second motion by councelor Brooks to recommend approval to the full council. All in favor? I oppose. Carries. And council questions, comments, concerns.
No, I just want to thank all of you to comprehend. And um Mr. Mayor, um it's not easy out there. Thank you all very much. All right. Motion to adjurnn. Move to adjurnn. A second. Motion by councelor Brooks. Second by councelor Harden to
adjurnn. All in favor? I opposed. Thank you everyone. Good job.