Good evening. This is a meeting of the Hampton Select Board and Board of Health being held in the townhouse on June 24th, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. This meeting is being conducted in person and remotely using video conferencing technology. Please stand for the pledge of
allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Uh is anyone recording the meeting other than
ourselves? Seeing none, anybody? No. Okay. Uh, I'd like to behalf of the select board uh and the and the members of the town administration, I'd like to congratulate
Eric Vanderleen for being elected to the select board and um he's here this evening and welcome Eric. Thank you. Okay, we I think you'll find it congratulations. Thank you. I think you'll find it rewarding, time consuming, tiring, rewarding, but
but but um you'll enjoy it. You know, it's it's helping your neighbors and friends and in town. It's it's an important it's an important job and uh the people in town I have found have always appreciated
even if they even if they disagree with us at times, they always appreciate that someone's out there at least trying to do the right thing for the town. No one's throwing things at us anymore. So, I think that's Yeah. Yeah. We had that bear in your backyard. Had the bear. Uh,
minutes of June 9th, Mr. Chairman, I looked over these minutes. I thought the uh font and the spacing look good and the subject was well reported. I'd move for approval. I'll second that because you weren't here. All in favor? All right. All right. And the June 9th executive
session I think the uh so we have not completed this at this point. Correct. Waiting for them to come back. Correct. Okay. A motion approval without release at this point. Second. All in favor? I
Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry, Eric. Typically on the executive session ones, we can motion to release approve or approve without release. If it's something that's still going on currently, you know, rather than tip our hand, we'll wait until the whole thing's over and then the chair will schedule
once a year typically done. Yeah. About once a year to review all the and see if any need to be released at that point. and release. So, uh the next item on our agenda is traditionally after after an election, we reorganize the board and uh the next item is reorganization. So, I'll turn it
over to the town administrator to conduct the reorganization. Thank you. All right. So, um would you elect chair, vice chair, and clerk or do you not do the clerk? We don't do we don't do the
clerk clerk. So, you just do cookies. We do we do we do chair and the chair of the of the uh board of health. Mr. Chair, so is there a motion to elect a uh chairperson for the Hampton Select Board? I move we appoint we elect uh
John Flynn. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Other than to say it was traditional. Yeah, John's had a lot of experience being chairman and traditionally we the person who's up for election the next time as the chairman for that year, right? Election. Eric, just the last
quick note, the last three years, uh, we split it down like 18 months a piece because Craig did not want to be chair. Okay. So, we kind of took his year and did six months each. So, good. Good. All right. We can call for a vote then.
Do you roll call or just normal? Just normal. All right. Um, all in favor? I I Wow. I think it's back. All right. Motion carries. Three to nothing. You want me to the board of
health or would you like to take it from here? Yeah. If you're the chairman, go ahead. uh like you typically we the second person or rather than the newly appointed person newly elected person serves as the board of health chair um
and that would be Don Davenport. So I would enter Don Davenport's name to nomination for chairman of the board of health. Second all those in f Don do you accept that nomination? I do. I do discount on the Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The last time I said I do, Last
time I said I do, I got myself into something. Yes. This will be much more rewarding, I'm sure. All those in favor? I thank you. All right. All right. You want to take out the rest of the meeting? Want to switch? Not. We'll switch next time.
Got it. I remember think back before we used to have we would take our drawers with us and move to another spot cuz we see back then we keep so much secret stuff before we had computers everything we had was in the drawer your whole life was in there. Are we taking this table
with us to Thorn Burgess? Yes we can get it out. Are we using it in our office? Just as well let me rephrase that. Do would you like it? Yeah, I think some office would appreciate this table. It's not in bad
shape. I look at I do watch some other select media on YouTube. Maybe I need more of a life, but I watch a lot of other towns. And what we've been doing with the public thing and Don, you've been to other places, maybe even the Islam one
where it's a little more the not angled, not semicircle, but that type of thing. I think uh when Brian gets into setting up our meeting room. Oh, I see. That would be the uh thing because you because you're more talking to I'm talking about the meeting room area
here. And I think this will be more of a workspace in here. But uh it's all about inclusivity when we get into that meeting room so people don't feel they're being talked to, they're being talked with. So, uh, next on the agenda, we have an
update on the police chief search from a town administrator. Thank you. So, Chief Trum, who's retiring July 17th, and we need to start talk him out of it. Nope. Couldn't talk him out of it. We
need to start uh the process of filling that vacancy or that anticipated vacancy. So, I think the decisions that need to be made are whether we're going to use a really how how are we going to go about the search, right? Are we going to hire
a search for a search firm um to really take on the whole process? soup to nuts meaning they they'll advertise they'll collect uh resumes they'll collect cover letters they'll collect applications and then they'll um
they'll present those to the board they'll run um a police chief assessment similar to the sergeants you know the sergeants assessment and then they'll come to the board with their recommendations of the candidates um you had two firms you suggested last time
and a couple of costs associated with both yep Scott Yep. Those are recommendations from Chief Trombly as to search firms that are typically used in Massachusetts. The other option is to really just have one of these search firms run the police chief assessment.
Town staff would do the front end of that work, meaning the advertising, the collecting resumes, really all of the the administrative work, contacting applicants, running the job advertisements. And that's assuming that that that we're
going to be looking for both internal and external candidates as part of the search. That was kind of a question I think we talked about before where we're going to post this internally or make it external from the get-go. And I think like you say there is a blend would be
the appropriate that firm that knows that they can do both. They can look external but no internal candidate is out of the mix as well. Um, makes sense. And move on from there. Uh, which firm
in your opinion had a better resume? Um, I'm not sure I could pick one over the other. Um, I think it I think we could have both of them come in and talk to the board if we if we wanted to do that. I think that would be a wise move
to this should almost be like like what we did for the econ administrator search where do you how much work is involved for the for staff to do the you know initial administrative stuff.
Um I mean we we have the job descriptions. We could put together a job advertisement within probably a couple hours, right? I think there's stuff out there. I think it's the back and forth with candidates that will will will take a lot of time. We don't really have the we don't have
the connections to to reach out to to actively reach out to the policing community and contact people through connections. I think that's where we would miss out running the the job advertisements the easy part and getting emails uh getting resumes emailed in
that's that's easy but if if we want to be proactive about it I don't think town staff other people to do it. No offense to anybody, including myself, but we lack those connections into the policing community. So, I think we should, like you say, interview both places. We may want to
set parameters. We have like uh we're looking for candidates no further than 25, 50 miles, something like that. And we don't want to get into I think down we saw this before where a couple people from Newton applied for something and that was you knew practically that wasn't going to happen. Right. Right.
So, and we have seen the board has seen this. There has been some local interest already, unsolicited interest. Yeah. In the position. Sure. Do you think we can get these guys in here next week? I mean, I'm just thinking a timeline here. You know, we're
chief is leaving the 17th. We got to do an interim thing. We don't want to drag that on forever. The holiday weekend and that might be a thing for Yeah. you know, are people taking the week of the first off as a long school is out and they're hitting the
road even if they come in on Zoom. Is that is that fine? Sure. Yeah, you do. A lot of times it's not too big of a lift. Yeah, we could do it on Zoom. You know, I just think we need to move on because you you got to figure you got a time. He's leaving the 17th, so we have to
have an interim, but then you got a time a couple of weeks to get resumes, couple of weeks to do interviews, couple weeks to make a decision. you know, you're into the fall. And the thing may also chief said he's taking vacation or chief. He's willing to act as interim,
but then he's leaving. Right. Right. You want me to see if I can get try him for the seventh? Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Try him for the 30th. But uh we had you had talked about setting up the financial thing. Was that the 30th or we pushed it because they
couldn't come? Yeah. If they're meeting with the advisory committee at the end of the year for transfers that that department um departments that might have over you know exceeded their budget by a little bit then they they can change within the lines of their budget. So right for instance highway might be shortened
utilities but their maintenance budget has the extra $100. So you vote to just move it back and forth. If that fails, there are the reserve fund which has voted $25,000 as a emergency fund basically, but that has
to be approved by the advisory committee. We can't we can submit a request to them, but they have to say yes or no. Okay. And then many times select will just donate their salaries to uh paying shortages. select,
right? I don't remember. I don't remember that. Really? We take it out without asking. Short of a couple dollars. I was wondering what what happened. You got to call it home. Uh so you'll get back to us on that. So at this point, uh are we going to discuss
the interim thing just like you talked about with the timeline knowing that's probably not going to happen? We have the basically we have a proposal from the chief now for what he would do the job for. I did ask Brian it's certainly within
our budgeted amount for chief. It's less than he was getting on a weekly basis. So it doesn't require additional expenditure. I think it's a prudent thing to do. So he's saying you're saying monthto month no longer than Labor Day. So it's a
timeline there. Oh 24 hours a week. Mhm. $75 per hour. Of course, he's not going to work on his vacation because he's already got that schedule, right? What's the liability indemnification coverage? He just wants to make sure he's covered.
Um he talked about some of the statutes, um some of the liability statutes or identification statutes. He just wants to have what's in his existing contract carried over into the interim.
All right. Okay. Into his into the temporary contract. That's under that's our underright town insurance policy, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, this would be subject to a this could be subject to a contract negotiation
um or a separate contract. And I would recommend that that's that that that if this is the way we want to go, we would ask the the chief to um the chief and I would work on a job, which I believe is what we did before. What we did with when we did the
searching for Scott. Yeah. We a contract with that guy, Marchy. Yeah. Yeah. Casey. And obviously there's other there's other options as well. Um, I believe we had the email with the email to the
board from someone who was interested in possibly an intern position or I think like you said we from three or four people already expressed an interest. So we forward those names to whichever firm we pick and let them know. I think like you say we have a goal. We've got to get
somebody in place by Liberty. Yeah. End of August. Do you do you did he did the chief talk to you about appointing the sergeant and the detective and another officer? Yeah. Yes.
Yep. Well, right now he um July 7th he'd like to um bring in the bring in the uh sergeant. Okay. The next sergeant for appointment July 7th um which will open up the detective
spot. Will open up the detective spot. And we still have the IT question. We still have the IT question. Yes, that could be. And just to segue into we talked before about we need I think a little more interaction with
dispatch and we talked before about is there an opportunity as we discussed with them to talk about I know it's in the contract but is there something could be done with their IT staff as well? I think what we' heard before from the prior IT person
and he threw out a percentage but I'm going to say it was pretty darn high about how much of it's done remotely you know which we see and I think in our business life now I call my people can you look at this computer doing it now thank you how long you've been doing
that but right so I think there's an opportunity maybe to get involved with the dispatch people and offload some of that if it involves open the contract. Well, we have that request already. We got the request already. Yeah. The regional dispatch agreement with the
grant FY26 is the last year. Last year. So, I don't think we need to. As I said, I don't think we've been in the loop as much as we should be per the agreement. You know, there supposed to be quarterly meetings and I don't recall getting any reports from the people who attend those
for cheap, etc. Yeah. So, like I said, now that you have to talk about a limit cost next year, now's the time. And we talked before since you brought in Belter Town, it must have changed the dynamic somehow. Your costs are different. So, we need to
look and see what it does for Hampton. The service has been good. I don't know your experience has been Eric, you know, hearing from people, but I think people look you call them the people know Hampton. You know, I know some of the dispatchers personally and they're like, "Oh, I'm on uh you know, Spring Meadow.
Oh, yeah. You're third house down, you know, right?" So, that part and we have a mobile police force. It is what it is. They shouldn't be at the station. They should be out and about and around and they are. Still haven't found the person taking that shrief in the bank yet. But
still, right? Oh, the other part John you'd mentioned in past about the TWWB camera monitoring also. Right. Right. And not just I think you know we expand that especially with the facilities person coming along
maybe some type but I mean yeah we use I think well dine for quite a bit of our security part there but you know should there be a camera at the we spend a lot of money operating the highway department. We have concerns about
especially if the town hall is moving less eyes on the academy hall and that might be a concern, you know. So I think, you know, those are all questions to be brought in with them. You know, what type of security upgrade
can we expect from regional dispatch? Okay, put regional dispatch. What about uh you talking about Okay, dispatch officer. Okay, I got it. All right. Okay. So, you're taking care of reaching out to the firm, setting up times. Okay.
We'll try to get them at the next meeting, right? Um, and you want me to work with the on the little truck thing? Right. Quickly on the time thing, you're off in not until August, right? July. It
is July. Yeah. End of July. Middle. So, I would check with the boss. No, no, but week the 13th. I know that because jury due that week 13th, you're out of the country, right?
Yeah. Somebody will be housesitting though, so the house won't be empty. Don't worry. Wasn't even a concern. Sorry. We're on vacation. So, you're out the week of the 13th, actually. All right.
We'll see if they let me back into the country. I know those people. You'll be all right. Where are you going? Uh Tying Caos. Oh, nice. Stop at the Cayman's visit your money for you if you'd like. Yeah.
Check on. If I gave you a bag, could you Eric, this is how it goes. Feels good. Sorry. Good company. Yeah. No motions, just decisions. It just happens. If you object to anything, you just got to yell. Okay. You really got to get your time in there. Um, so that might be a bit of an impact. Obviously, when you're
setting these things up, you know, we want you to be here for that. Uh, so if we're talking about this thing for Scott, the sign, we'd like to have our meeting at the 7th, I would think, while you're here. Two weeks. Yeah, I think if
what's your your schedule if we ever had to move a meeting to Tuesday or something like that? Do you have any family thing that might interfere or um because we're big about family. We know family usually pretty flexible like that during the week typically. Um yeah, I'm usually pretty flexible just we have
summer vacations as well. Anything coming up that we should think about? So I'm on vacation the week so the 4th of July and the whole following. So taking the fourth off the whole following week. So the seven through the away or just off? Away. That's what we're talking about on the chief thing. So you
possibly might not be here on the seventh. Correct. Would you be able to zoom in? Oh, absolutely. Okay, great. I can zoom in. Okay, great. That's right. Absolutely. Good. Okay, good. Internet access. Y daily on occasion there have been times
when we got to all meet down here for 10:00. It might be a timing thing because we have a 48 hour notice. Is an in-person thing tough for you? because I'm not quite sure what you do but or is it able you're able to zoom and look I can almost catch a quick zoom on my phone if I need to. Typically I'm
able to zoom. It's tougher for me to get away because the the type of work I do being you know hands-on radiation therapy engineering clinical engineering I kind of have to be there to be able to work on the machines as the problems happen. So, um, but I usually can
typically probably Zoom for something like that. Again, I there might be a time where you just and you have notice. We're not talking 15 minutes, you know. Oh, yeah. You know, Thursday, hey, we got to meet Monday at 10:00. Can you be there? Usually, yeah, I I can make things work with that much notice. Okay, great. Good to know. Thank you.
All right. Facilities. Can you hire him? When's he start? No. Oh, we're short money, of course. Um, we had requested 70,000. Yeah. and we have 40,000. Um, so that with that amount of money, then we would be likely
be unable to hire a full-time facility manager. And even the 70,000 may be a little would be short um is probably the low end of a facilities salary. Um, the other thing is that really doesn't give any expense account to go with it
either. You know, it's not just that's the salary part. So, what's he doing with the drawing from all the different lines that will work with those places? It seems like there still should be another pot of money to go with it. The 20,000 on top
go back. Did we thought about ceiling tiles, all the amenities that go into fixing things up, right? Something comes up and people, oh, a flush one, it's not a flush one. It's like you don't know. Like you said, you know, two months into it, that pipe broke, I had to fix it. And nobody knew that. You can't plan for
that stuff. You just have to have liquidity to be able to do it. Absolutely agree. Don, I think you had talked before. Is this something that we're going to reassess in the fall and see if we could Yeah, I think we should bring it bring it back up a bit at that point. Yeah, I think we need to. I we we've got we're going to have Thornton
Burgess. We're going to have uh you know the police department, the senior center. I mean, I I assume his job is to be to look at all these buildings, right? And do things that they need done if they could get it done. Academy Hall. We've talked before that, you know, that heating that electric building heating
bill is going through the roof. Somebody's got to look at that and somebody still has to come back to this building and make sure it's functioning. It's safe. Right. So, I think we need to put that on the town meeting. Mhm. Yeah. What do we do in the interim though to get the TWWB ready? Right. Right. So,
will a person be hired on a hope a hope? Yeah. We're going to get more money for you later. And it might say, "No, I think we get two different types of candidates if it's we have a part-time position or we have a full-time position." Um, well, I think what we're saying is here advertise as a full-time
position that we promise to increase the funding for later. Like right now 40,000 would pay fulltime through January or something like that, you know? Yeah. And you need that person
full-time, especially when you're ramping up Art Burgess, right? That's that's I guess I'm of of two minds of this. A lot of work initially, right? Cuz that's going to offload some of what you've been doing by going over and you add somebody there. And I think we're all
thinking about there's obviously some candidates that would give you a leg up because of their familiarity with what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. So, here here's here's one of my concerns is that there's going to be an initial there's going to be initially there's going to
be a lot of work at TWWB. Mhm. Um, but then once we're over there and we're moved in and we're set that that initial rush of work is going to is going to is going to slow down. Um, and that's why when when we initially thought about the position, it was kind of a split, right?
It was it was facilities maybe about half and then I guess what I thought was sort of mainten maintenance and custodial work uh to to fill in some of those hours as well. Um yeah, we have a lot of buildings that are big, but uh it
they don't break all the time. Uh once you get the capital plan, you know, there's going to be uh there's going to be working with contractors and getting contractors in and fixing things as as they break or bring contractors in. Do you think it's more of a 75 257 by TWWB 25 the rest of the buildings in that
type of thing? Initially I think initially ideally it would be almost 9010. Yeah. Right. Cuz we want to we want to really make a big push over there to get that ready and then afterwards I think it well you're fortunate that you have and done you said it's almost between the moving
money the previous money the new money it's almost 300,000 280 something like that at this point. So yeah, in a lot of the work over there, as I had mentioned before, you know, it's the building's in pretty good shape. Um, Herb Foley has done a great job keeping that keeping
that building running mechanically and um structurally and and otherwise. And a lot of it is, you know, uh replacing the the lights that are burnt out, replacing the the ceiling tiles that are stained or that the kids painted. Um, you know,
we need some of the flooring replaced. Mhm. Um, obviously painting helps to to brighten up the space, replace light bulbs, those types of things. That's really the initial push that we need. Somebody asked me, "What are we doing for and they almost refer to us cosmetic
things?" We talked about the the lockers and things like that. And you know, where's that A B C? And I said, "Hey to tell you, to me it's C on the list because it's not integral to the function." Yeah, maybe you don't want them in a town hall, but it doesn't hurt anything that's happening there. And why
spend the money something else? And maybe you never get it done, but it does nothing to make the town hall better or worse. So, those are the things we have to like choose. You know, to me, access points. Somebody asked me about going to the library on a Saturday. They coming
in the main entrance. They said, "Well, we haven't decided yet because if you come in the main entrance, the hallway in front of you is open with no doors and it doesn't direct you to flow that way." So, maybe it's the side entrance. Maybe you talked about that. It's the uh
north entrance and the other doors are electronically controlled and keeps you in the library area. And then you got parks that could be running programs and they want that back corridor, right? You know, but keep the library off, you know, sectioned off as well. So,
a bit of a uh also some HVAC kind of stuff, right? Some cooling and then Yeah. by next by next spring, we're really going to need to get cooling figured out there installed and strained out there. I mean, do you think we're looking at mini splits from most of it
or is there an opportunity to get some duck work in there? I don't know that there's a lot of space for duck work. Yeah, maybe there is. I I I don't really know. It's almost like getting a David in here. Look at the around and see if there's the open space
to be able to put a bigger unit that way maybe conserves house but split up split up zones I mean that's have somebody to do an assessment you bring like a Harley-David I did walk an energy contractor through there and um they were working at mini splits Mhm.
mini splits and then changing out the lights and mini splits are really expensive. They they've come down pretty good. We sell we do training equipment mini splits mostly dyken, some Fuji, some Mitsy. And I have to tell you, they have really dropped in price from one
about 10 years ago and look at that 20 a piece back then. Now you get a mini split for the $2 to $3,000 range, you know, that that'll do a room. So, you know, we put these in. They were incredibly expensive with these rooms. On a day like today, I thank you for
doing I said in a day like today, I thank you for doing. So, you have one comment. Would you like to hear it? Busy volunteering to serve unpaid. I chatted. It's on the chat.
Go ahead. What's he got to say? Busy until it's me. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear us? Yeah. Now we lost your chat. Temp hire the custodial.
Yeah. Tempire custodial work and find some local contractor handyman. The guy will be super busy until it's all ready. Possibly. Anyhow, so but right now Brian's been honing that and it taken away from his full-time job if you will.
And if he had a secondary person underneath him that he could delegate to who's also familiar with it, that would be a help because right now if he's spending three hours a day at TWWB, he's not searching for a grant to do
something else to fix up TW. Right. Basically, so I think that person there. Exactly. you would you would want someone I' I've done that sort of stuff in the past in a number of facilities, you know, going in place to start with
is a lot of work, but once the work's in place, it's going to be a part-time job, but finding that person to do that. But we're now so we feel we haven't been doing a bang up job of facility management,
you know, for all the other places we talked about. Uh, you know, obviously we have maintenance things to do with the senior center. Is there things done along the way that might have helped if we had a full-time person? So, does Mark, sorry to interrupt this. So, does Mark look at the highway department? He's got some pretty handy hands-on
guys. Is there almost like a hybrid guy that might be able to We looked at one of their guys before for it, but again, same thing. you know, he's got more and more things to do and he hasn't increased from the four people he had back when Dana right or Garish whatever you know Homer you know that department
hasn't increased you know so um if you look at the growth in the town government and we've added some positions in government but the actual personnel that if you were boots on the ground hasn't really expanded that much
so still select board members. Got this guy over here. But that those are good points. Good points. What's um so what you talk about, you know, what we
want to get done here and with your your week there, what's your next thought about coming in with something about this? Is this something you'd have ready to discuss on the 7th? a job description, a way to advertise, a
which position are we talking about? Facilities. Facilities. Full uh full-time. I think we tell them it's full-time, right? Yeah, we have the uh we had the the draft job description created when we were proposing to advisory. So, that's pretty much all
set. And then doing the the the the job advertisement, job posting would be pretty quick. Okay. this is something that we would take care of the interviews and whatever. We don't need a firm knowledge of this. You know, we know it better. So, so I I think the expectation of and
this is where this is where I struggle a little bit. So the facilities coordinator is the expectation the facilities coordinator from let's say July through October that they're going to be changing ceiling tiles and light bulbs and doing all that kind of stuff and
helping us move in or is it more of like a higher level supervisor position? We still need to hire people to do the actual work. I see both. I see that person working with you, un offloading you from going over
there, looking at the thing, meeting with Andre, meeting with Weld, meeting with the dispatch center, you know, that's your point person over there getting that done. So, you're here rather than somebody going, "Where's Brian?" Uh, he's over
at the And then then they need to handle whatever they can handle. If they need to If they got 50 rooms of tiles they have to do, obviously you want to hire someone because they'll get it done in a day. But they can do three rooms, you
know. Yeah. And here's the other thing. We have two repair projects coming on. Wouldn't they also then we have now the repair work that's going to be scheduled at the senior center. Wouldn't that person also be helping with that? Yeah. Almost like what's the word I'm looking for?
Um OM. OM basically on the job. Yeah. And obviously not now, but at some point that'll be your potential person to help with the fire station part as well. Yeah.
Okay. So, full-time facilities. Great. I think when we meet with the people, we tell them this is what you're going to do for if you get hired. This is what you're doing for the next three months. Yeah. Right. Focus on that. Yeah. And after that, you'll be doing something different. Same busy.
Hi Camden facilities coordinator. What should you say for the 30th or for the 7th? I'd like it as soon as possible. So yeah, if you if you can't do the 30th and the seventh. Okay. Hi Camden.
Uh the town submitted a uh block grant application to the uh gaming commission, the community mitigation fund, and the town was awarded that for $75,000. So that project
will focus on marketing the town's or really marketing and branding the town's outdoor recreational assets. So, we're talking uh a lot of it will be focused on hiking,
hiked, right? Machog Mountain, Coat Rock, um Laughing Brook. Uh what other ones am I missing? Uh I just had a meeting with uh uh Opacum Opum Land. Is that the people
at the top of Chapen South that were looking at their property? Opacum Land Trust. They're trying to purchase a Mhm. a parcel of land. Um so 75,000 when we had submitted the scope of work to the gaming commission we were trying to
focus on u bringing together uh mass autoabon mach the town and opacum will be a new one uh putting together a stakeholder group and we really be focusing on uh trying to market everything as a single brand like
whether it's hikam or or something or whatever it is a single brand so we would have uh a unified design concept for a website paid for a website. It would uh signage for the the different parcels. Um some improvement on the
trails. Yeah. Some improvements and the and the and the theory behind it is that it to bring people into town could help some of our businesses. And not only that, you know, people come to town, they see what a beautiful town it is and everything, particularly if they have
kids, then, you know, they might want to move here and they can pay real estate taxes. Yeah. One of the one of the theories of economic develop or economic development. I'll say economic development that has a a bad
connotation, but how do we support our local economy is it's unlikely we're going to get these large gamecher facilities in here where there's going to be thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of tax revenue. It's going to be supporting our local businesses by
getting people into town um who are going to go to the restaurants, who are going to go to the stores and support our our local businesses. And if their business can grow, maybe they get larger and they grow. That's sort of the idea of I think that's what the master plan committee was talking about how we're
going to support our our local economy. So what's our next step? So I don't have the grant contract yet. I believe that was pro I think they promised in two weeks but they're don't they have staffing problems there now. Um so we would uh convene a meeting with
the stakeholders outside of the ones I just mentioned. Mhm. Um then we'll have a a first meeting and talk about the scope of the grant, make sure they're all on board, and then we'll we'll go from there. We'll eventually have to put out an RFP for uh the marketing and
branding because I think that's going to trip a threshold. Um and then we'll go from there. Okay. The basically when you get back, this is something after you get back. Yeah, we'll probably Yeah, we can schedule it now, but it probably after.
Okay. Yeah. Great. Now, you've been pushing that for a while. So, I have be the leader. You and your staff just going out. Moses, I have to cross this brook, but don't worry.
Parts. Okay. Little a little much there. A little much. Okay. Uh liaison assignment, Eric. This is typically uh I don't know if you're familiar with it that we have obviously many boards and committees in town and we all take like three or four of them
and say okay hey I'll go to this meeting and I'll report back to the board and stuff like that and I don't know I'll throw it to you if there any near and dear to your heart you say you know I've always worked with parks wreck and I'd like to I'm happy to you know stop in and check and report back and forth
about things they have or something like that. Um, not in particular. I mean, I'm I I'm I'm open to whatever whatever assignments you want me to do. So, okay. We have a typical list and they didn't give it to us typically. Uh, like I take planning because I was on plan for 16
years. So, yeah. And, uh, they haven't thrown me out yet. Uh Don's pretty familiar with the school, so he's been the school liaison for their planning committees and stuff like that, you know. Um in conservation and advisory. Conservation and advisory because he's
all about conserving stuff. ZBA, right? Oh, ZBA. Yeah, I know some folks in the conservation. I do confer it conservation and I do um uh COA that was a you know
CO type thing, right? What else we I was going to talk to you about the housing authority, but I also don't want to get into a thing where, you know, I know your sister's on it and stuff like that here. Well, no, you can't because it's like Thursday morning, you couldn't go. Yeah. Um,
but it's been one the Thursday morning thing with my mother-in-law situation. It's been tough for me to get there. Do you want housing authority? Yeah, I'll do it. If there's a problem, I have to deal with my sister. I have to deal with my sister. Oh, you still want it?
All right. So, you're going to do conservation? Yep. No, I got advisory, ZBA, housing, and the the school thing. School planning. Planning council on aging. I'm already on the CPA committee
as an atlarge member. Right. So, uh, typically we have some of the ones we've pushed over to Brian that we used to have before, like you handle the police, the fire directly. Keep those Brian, right? What about we do cemetery? Do Do we do a
cemetery? I don't think so. Or library. No, we don't do those two. No, I think Brian wants to do library, you said. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be right next door. Oh, right. Exactly. Yeah. Any other ones we think of, we'll just Yeah. come up. I
mean, we talked about got that list. All right. Thank you. Who had conservation? You took conservation. Conservation. I'm going to do go back to housing. Actually asking you where do we stand with fiber? So, basically, um I just actually spoke with Brian about this earlier. So, back
in the day, we had originally wanted to bring, you know, fiber optic count as you know. And so we started to kind of get to the point where with our with our board that we kind of went with a particular vendor and then Spectrum kind of stepped up and I think Brian reached out to Brian and said, "Hey, you know
what? We're going to bring in a hybrid solution to Hampton." This was last year and and Wolver too as well. Yes, exactly. uh and basically said, "Hey, by the end of this year, 2025, we're going to install a hybrid based system that provides symmetrical upload and download
speeds," which is basically all we were trying to accomplish around the community. So, you know, of course, fiber optic is still superior than a hybrid system, but it it is what it is. We couldn't then move forward and say, hey, you know, we're going to ask the residents to put this on the line to borrow all this money for a potential
system if Spectrum is going to step up to the plate and give us the free infrastructure. It just was. So the committee still exists today, but Spectrum I think Brian was saying now 2020 early 26 or late 25 maybe early 26 egg now. You said January 2026. January
2026. They're kind of kick the can down the road a couple times. So we didn't know we to see if they're going to put their money where their mouth is in 26. But it's just there's too much going on right now in town with money that just not responsible to to go forward. I think your point unless there's unless there's some huge grants that come out
of the woodwork and say, "Hey, we're going to finance, you know, 90% of their project." I don't anticipate that's going to happen, but something of that nature, then obviously we probably reconvene. But what they're talking about is it going to provide better service than what we get now. That's what they're saying. we should be
getting symmetrical upload and download speeds where now right now broadband the one of the limitations of broadbound cable internet is that you have your upload speeds are extremely you know very very slow and your download speeds are extremely quick they're now saying your upload speeds will be as quick as your download speeds with this hybrid
system I'll believe it when I see it it's not hopefully it's not by dropping the downloads exactly but it should be better than what we have so and we we just we're just going to move forward and you know responsibly asking for that kind of with that. Would we be able to watch Wolverham and you think they'll do
Wolverampton build out before us? Obviously, the density would be better. I think I think they're kind of going to wrap it all one and the same from what I from what I understand from what Brian indicated as well because uh yeah, from from the the last phone call I think you had with the the Spectrum folks. They basically said they're going to kind of
group us together and just Have they done this anywhere else to this point? Brian might know the answer to that. Yes. I I I can't recall exactly where, but And they were just going to hammer it out within over the course of like two two nights, you know, overnights of like two weeks or something. It was
Yeah. They made it seem like it was going to be that quick. Yeah. They're just going to come ac overnights and just I mean, it's really they're running fiber to the null, right? So, it's fiber to the right the the fiber on the lines, right? Not to the houses. So, right. Everything's on the
poles that they're changing. Yeah. He's notified of equipment changes by the end of July. How that solves his to issue. No. How are you notified? Because I mean I have charter. I didn't get any notifications. I just I I have I just have one for I
Yeah, I got the cable. I still have the internet. Yeah. Yeah. I said Yeah, John. I I have that to and I require um these tuning adapters in order for it to work with the existing cable system. So they
knew I had that equipment. So they're sending me replacement equipment to take the place of those uh tuning adapters which will work on my to unit. So they only notified the customers that are in
a situation like I was. But that shows something about reach. That's good. That that part of the change over is because they're changing the the front end or the head end doing the upgrades up there for the for the long range project in in in the end of the
year. So, it is in the works and I should be getting those boxes any day now. Great. Good. Okay. All right. Uh Amaresco lease. So, this is the pretty much closing out the 22-year journey we've had with Amaresco
at the transfer station. Don, you're a young man when we started, I believe. And so, solar is producing. I did and I think you verified that, but I did talk to uh Steve Mcdana up there. They are
producing. We do have a contract in place where we get basically it's part pilot part taxes because they started the generation after the first of the year. The
assessors do what's in place as of January 1st. So the next increase in our payment will be as of what's in place in January 1st, 2026, which will bring us up to a full 145 145,000. I think we get it on an annual
basis. Certainly, I think a pretty productive upgrade for land that wasn't doing anything. You know, the town paid a million dollars to close it back in 1999 and cap the the landfill at that point
and now we're going to be getting money back that basically can be used for any other project. Um, so they did surround they put in an a lease area that would surround their panels with a fence. When they found to
put the fence in, the fence had to be shifted down because it was too close on the slope and D wasn't happy with that being too close to the cap. Fair enough. They moved the fence. Concom approved it. D approved it. The town meeting
approved it. Now we need to sign the memorandum understanding lease change and people who have made out great I believe are all lawyers right time I got their fees
do we know we have to actually vote we have to vote this or the town voted this didn't they voted to bring it to town meeting so I think once town meeting approved it the vote stands but of course we do have a new member so I think maybe that might be appropo So, we're looking for a motion to uh approve
the change amendment to the lease with Emoresco up at the cross station transfer station. So, moved. Second. All in favor? Does just one of us have to sign this?
Uh, it just says landlord on it. I think all three of you should sign. I think all three of us are sign on both of them. Yeah. under the landlord part. Yeah. Oh, well,
this is your first one, Eric. I hope you've been practicing. Yeah. Yeah. Should I sign under by or just under? Find it. We'll they'll figure it out. I look at the whole thing except for all if we're all sees it. Yes.
I don't want to change it. I want to notoriize it. Hi. Oh, does one of the notes has be notorious? I don't know. That's the landlord. Okay. Landlord.
We're finding the landlord part. Landlord. That's good. That's good. calendar over there. There's a lot of this that goes on there. You sign this one already, right? All right.
Want this? Wait till the calendar. Oh, yeah. Oh, we're standing on stamp. We're standing on appointing some stuff like that. I'm working on trying to get them ready for some meeting. Okay. Are you hearing from anybody that's stepping
down or not yet? I haven't reached out to everyone. So, so who got the housing? Was it Amy got the housing in the annual election? In the annual election, who got the housing? Was it Amy? Bill.
That's what I heard. I heard there might be some changes on the fire department building committee. I talked with Mark Barber today. There might be some people coming on or off. So, external people or he didn't he he was going to give me a look at my next meeting. That might make
sense just because of, you know, they were there for the Yeah. Yeah. It's a different mission now. It's the Right. Exactly. Okay. Any correspondence? No. Any member report? Done. Nothing to report. Nothing to report. Erica,
anything to report? Nothing to report. All right. Good. Just a sunburn. Yes. Where'd you get that sunburn? Short report. Oh. our report. Um, couple things. Um,
there's requests for the highway union for some uh, negotiation dates. We had that initial meeting and thought we had agreed upon certain things and then they took it back to review and uh, I have requests from from the union,
not the not the union rep, not the employee union representative, from the union, whoever, whatever their position is for negotiation dates. I checked with our employee and they said yes it was it was a legitimate request. So um do we want to just put them at the end of the
next meeting? Mhm. 30th. Okay. That was easy. What we do? Uh Minichog land trust land purchase you require. Uh you'll you'll uh remember
that at the comm meeting it was approved to uh move ahead with the purchase of the property on North Road to create the um uh the connection uh for that for for the hiking area there. Um so I can reach out to Rose and
we can get that started or not or I can wait but Sherry has called me. Sherry Hamilton has called me wants to obviously kick that off because they will cuz they're the seller, right? Um, so Don, you brought this up last time and
just fees. Who's paying them? And I think I thought we came back to MLT pays Rose's time cuz this came up the last time. Yeah. And Sherry in the phone call that I had
with Sher, she also also mentioned something similar about us banging it. Yeah. A little different interpretation. Yes. Okay. All right. Um we can probably go back to the Olga and Tony thing and
see who paid that time. That was the last I thought they paid it. I thought so, too. But that was the last one that took forever. Three years on Walnut Road, right? So, so you we want to move forward with
Yeah, we got this. Yeah. Right. Yeah. These ones these projects that take there was the probate one on North Road. The other property, the Ogre and Pony one took three years. These just take nothing's easy. This type of stuff.
Second question. uh who who from the town in the past and maybe it's been the conservation commission that stepped up to do this. who's who's been sort of the lead board or committee in terms of of this work because not only is it the
purchase of of the property, but it's trail head development, it's parking lot development, there's CPA money that was appropriated in sub most of the time it's gone through Doug cuz the CPA has pretty much always given the money and they've Doug's been good enough to hono
the project going forward. Okay? Because pretty much the CP he has to endorse the bills coming back to release the money. without his signature, they don't get the money. So, and nobody's got more familiarity with what's going on.
He's he's taken the brunt of it at this point on all these projects. I think he only then they got the only other CPA project would be the sun shade thing at the park, I believe. Right. Yeah. I had another comment from somebody who
was down there over the weekend like what a fantastic upgrade it's been thanking the towns people for everything they've done for upgrading Memorial Parks. So they did say they missed the pool.
I'm like how old are you? I remember being in that pool. Uh so we've had inquiries about uh Friday holidays. We should have them. July 4th falls on a Friday. Oh, well, they closed anyhow.
Perfect. So, our employee our employee handbook is silent on what to do on holidays that fall on a Friday. You take them off because you're off anyhow. That's one answer.
You are the milk of human kindness after you parted the sea. Well, if the if the holiday is on a Friday, it's I know if that's the day you take off and it happens to be the day you're off. See, that's the difference. So, you've got the five-day people like the senior
center, the highway department, the the fire department. They get that day off with pay because it's a holiday on day. If it was Saturday, Fred, would you get paid for that day? You're off today.
That's my point. Now, in the business world, if fourth of July is on a Saturday, we get the third off and we get paid for the third. I don't know if that happens for That's the way it works. That's what happened for me because you're very lucky. No, if I if the Fourth of July falls on a
weekend, I get don't get anything. Are you a five day Monday through Friday? I'm surprised. So, yeah, that's how you know if it came out Sunday, we had Monday off. That's the day it's closed. No. So
are we saying then if Fourth of July was on a Sunday, nobody would get it off and nobody would get paid? Well, if the Fourth of July was on a Sunday, the traditionally Monday, they traditionally they celebrate on Monday, right? So you get paid and you have Monday off, right?
That's how we do it here. So, if it's on a Friday and you don't work that Friday, you're off on Friday and you get paid for it. Or no, it's a paid holiday. It's paid holiday, right? But you don't get
another day off. No, if it falls on a Thursday when you're working, it's a holiday. You get paid for it. Right. Right. I mean, you get the Friday off.
Why? Because they close on Friday anyhow. Well, I mean, there's lots of you don't know. Some people don't show up on Friday is what we're saying, right? So then, can you restate Friday then?
All right. Right. So the people Friday the people who work on Friday people who work on Fridays. Yes. Get Friday off and they get paid for because and this year it's showing at one. This year it's on a Friday. Okay. That's this
is the most imminent. Yeah. So the people who work don't work on Friday get paid for the holiday because it's a holiday they get paid for. But you're saying your concern is like the people who
worked on Friday got the day off. Like so the people who don't work on Friday get an extra day's pay. They're getting hours if they're hourly or they're getting an extra proportional of the week. Well, let's say let's say they're
let's say they're let's just say they're 40 40 hours, but they usually do 40 hours in the 4 day period. So now so now they get 48 or are they now do we pay them for 48 and now we're into overtime if they're hourly then now we're paying them overtime for that 48.
Why do they get I see what you're saying. If they do, you're saying if they do a 4 day work week and a Friday is a holiday, they should I would say that they're most likely you don't get paid for having because that's not doesn't fall within your work schedule, right? And that makes sense. This is not a holiday if you're off on that schedule. But they're full-time
employees. They're full-time employees that are entitled to all legal holidays, right? But if they're scheduled 40 hours Monday through Thursday, I think is what Brian was saying, then there would be eight hours of there would be a bonus. This is the problem. It happens on Christmas, you know, typically, you
know, all those ones. Sure. Well, who works who works 40 hours in a 4 day in four days? Um, they're pretty close, but I mean, Lauren, Brian, so there's he's not here Fridays, but I'm
salaried, so I don't Okay. Yeah. So, so we have a a couple employees who work 35 hours a week, Monday through Thursday. So if we gave them 8 hours on that Friday, then that 3 hours overtime, right? Because it would be 35 plus 8
would be 43. No, they're not working. No, they don't. They're not working. They're getting holiday pay. Holiday pay doesn't count towards overtime. It does not count towards overtime. No. Okay. So then we don't have that issue. We still have the
But we also minor budget issue that we don't. Well, the budget, but they're also getting extra that the fiveday people don't get. If the five pay people are getting just the holiday pay, but they're lost out on the regular pay.
Basically, the day off, but getting paid for it where they didn't get they're working 40 hours. The other people who worked for 35 hours got paid for 43 hours. And that's I can't quite describe but
there's an inequity right there in that cannot be the only place going through this. So if you if you have to work you get a If you don't work it, you don't get it. So they go back to
learn, but that's my job. We got a week to figure this out. We can decide on 30th. The only thing we need to know, we're not closing on the third, right? No, there's no need to close. As long as I can, as long as we can tell people that that we're not closing on third, there's no need to close on
third, right? This is not like shopping before Christmas. If Yeah. If you need to travel to a friend's full fourth, you take some vacation time, whatever. They're not closing in on the third, right?
Anything else? Oh, what else you got on your list? We'll figure that out. I'll do a spreadsheet. It'll be fun. Um, work with Dan and get a PowerPoint. You got lots of stuff. No. Um, I think
that's good for now. Close on the cable agreement. uh insurance is set for fiscal year 26. TWWB will be insured on July 1st in case anybody anything happens to it. You're changing the locks are you or no? Um
maybe. So I'm going to be meeting over there with I'm going to meet with her over there on Thursday again. I have asked cutting or anything down thinking that don't we have some kind of cut midnight July 30th July 1st we can't be up at
midnight he might be 2 a.m. 2 a.m. That's when he's getting up though. That's the thing. You know, that I have asked the the police to increase patrols over there now that now that we own it, we got to take care of it better. When it
was a school cares, but um they they will increase their patrols over there. Okay, Lauren. Uh I have nothing. Okay. I want to say that I saw Don at
the celebration the parks did. I thought it was a very nice event. The weather held off pretty well. Uh I saw Don testing the uh food cart trucks. You signed them. You signed a permit. If you don't I was kind of auditioning to be
board of health chair. So I wanted to make sure that the food was all seven flavors at the batch ice cream place. I mean seriously under selecting expenses. Really done business. I'm taking two of those.
right? Yeah. Need a receipt. Um Eric, any comments? No, just sitting back and observing. Okay. Well, we're happy to have you here. We really are. We appreciate that. I know it's one thing a lot of people talked about. I think the balance on the board. Uh you know, and certainly this
is reflection Kathy was a very worthy candidate and a lot of experience. I think the balance would have been well served either of you got on, but you're here and we welcome you to that. I think uh you'll bring a perspective to things that are happening here in the 21st century. We appreciate that. Right.
You probably don't know how to run the fax machine, but that's okay. What? What? Oh, is it? Oh, we still have one. Yeah. Yeah. Right next to Right next right next to Right next to the TX. I was told it need to be upgraded. Okay.
All right. So, if there's no further uh action to come before the board, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. Bill moved. All in favor? I thank you. Thank you. Welcome again, Eric. Thank you again, Eric. All right, we're out of here. Well, then are we Are we out of here
yet? Yeah.