Good afternoon and welcome to the uh Monday, October 20th, 2025 meeting of the Orno Town Council. Uh we'll start with roll call. We have a councelor Jacob Baker, councelor Matthew Powers, councelor Leo Kenny is not with us this evening. I'm councelor Dan Demerit, councelor Sarah Mars, councelor Andrea Hardison, councelor Rob Lowway, and town manager Clint Dashan is with us. So, welcome everybody. Nice to see um so many folks here at an orno town council meeting. Um as we always do at the start of our meeting, item number two is agenda review where we discuss um questions about the agenda and potentially move things around on the agenda. I have one item um for the council's consideration. We do this by unanimous agreement if we make a change. But does anyone have any questions about anything on the agenda? Any members of the council? Hearing none, I'm going to suggest there's been um some members of the council have asked for more time for the discussion. You know, there's several people here on a topic um on some agenda topics this evening and we have an interest in taking a deeper dive into the question um of the agreement for design services for the future home of the police station across the street. So, I was going to suggest that we take order 25261 off the agenda um and then schedule a work session two weeks from now at our next council meeting. Um, and during the manager's report at the end of the meeting, we'll talk a little bit about what that's going to entail. Anyone have any concerns with that approach or questions about that approach? >> Um, just to clarify, so that would mean that we would have a a discussion presentation and more time for more detailed discussion on that starting at the next meeting on November 3rd. >> Is that correct? >> Yes, we would. >> Okay, perfect. >> At the top end. Yep. Well, >> that put us behind in any of the work that needs to be done over there. >> We've never set a schedule, so we're not behind anything because we didn't set one yet. It was kind of to get that process rolling. This was the first schedule. So, it's just going to move the start date potentially back two weeks, if not a little bit more. >> Council Marks. >> Yeah. Actually, just a follow-up to that. I was under the impression that some work is already happening though, right, with the 500,000 that was already designated, or is all that on hold waiting for this? Also, >> we we're going to hold everything till we get a plan forward on how to start moving on it. We've done a couple little little things on cleaning and some abatements, but nothing of any significance. >> We want to make sure it's a thoughtful plan from start to finish. >> And you're comfortable with the twoe wait. >> I'm always comfortable. Yep. Fine. We'll make it happen. >> Cool. There's a cucumber down at that end of the table. I would suggest um and while we're talking about the agenda, we can talk about it in future agenda items at the end as well, but my thinking would be to have an order in front of us at the end of the meeting in the action item. So, we'll start the meeting two weeks from now with a workshop. So, if people have questions or things like that, want to spend more time with the material, get them to the town manager for um so he's ready to address those questions in in our public meeting. And then in the action items later in that meeting on November 3rd, we'll have an action item where council can act if it chooses to. Does that make sense? >> Okay. So, without objection, we're going to strike order 25261 with the understanding that we'll do a work session on it um in in two weeks. Without objection, I guess if unless there's Yep. Um, anything else under agenda review? Uh, here we also place different items that are before our committee. So, if members of the public and the council can keep us on on task for what's going on, we do a committee report at the towards the end of the meeting as well. >> Okay. Seeing no more discussion under item two, we'll move to item three, which is approval of the minutes for October 6, 2025. Could I have a motion? I didn't hear the was Ron. So, okay. Moved and seconded. And any corrections or suggestions for the minutes? All those in favor of approving the minutes from October 6, 2025. And that's unanimous. We don't have to do the roll call um because we're all present. That was a six to zero vote. Item number four in public com is public comments where we welcome members of the public to address something that's not on our agenda uh this evening. So, if you've got a topic that you'd like to talk with us about that's going to be an agenda item later on, we're happy to include you during that part of the meeting. But for now, we ask for people to come forward who have something to share that's not on the agenda. And there's a public comment at the end of the agenda as well. So, Bob, this feels like a good chance for you. But yeah, go ahead. Please introduce yourself and from the mic >> standing happy. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Okay. Uh yeah, my name is Bob Sinclair and I I appreciate the the few minutes that you have to give us. Uh I'm here on behalf of the historical society and I want to talk to you about something that we've been working on now for better part of a year and uh for me as a president it's probably going to be one of the most important and meaningful things that I'm a part of with our historical society. And what I've given you is I've given you some information on a on a lady who uh for those of us who've lived in Orno for a long long time. Um and I'm one of those people. Uh you would have come across a lady by the name of June Cota Anderson. And uh you undoubtedly know about her husband Keith. Okay, we have a building named after Keith. Um but June was a pretty special person too. And she uh among other things she was a longtime secretary of the historical society uh an orno resident. Um she if there was something going on in Oro, she was part of it. Um she was very supportive. Um she did an awful lot of service work uh on behalf of the citizens of Orino. Um and we would like to honor her. I'll go on just a little bit more about some of the things she did, but we'd like to honor her and ask your permission to honor her um by planting a tree in her memory uh at the library site. And we have um we've had that that site uh kind of vetted by uh by um you know Megan's been a great help for us and also by uh public works. Um and it's a beautiful site down beside uh a stone bench and it's right against that that uh fence along the the side where it really kind of falls down at the back very back. Little more about June. Um as I said she was into everything about Orno. She was extremely proud of being an Oro resident and she loved this community. uh like no other. But among other things, she was a member of the Kota family and uh they they did a lot for the town as well. Um and the Cota family was uh had a fuel business in Orno for a great many years and they supported the the town in many ways. And one of the things that June was really a pioneer about um that she accomplished in Orno with her service work was she probably was one of the first people in the state to become active in uh in uh taking care of people who needed help with heating oil. And so she she did that uh quietly um would go to people's homes when they she knew that they might be too proud to accept that and she would find a way to get that done. Um she also uh was involved with starting um a senior citizen um you know nursing program to help them. Um very supportive of of our community. Um there was a strong love of the family uh and and of her for all of the stuff that were Orino. Um she took part in a grocery store that that uh her and her husband ran. um just a very special person and a a very significant for those of us that were around back then that could remember June very significant member of our community. So we're just asking um I've also given you a a kind of a an information some background on on the project itself. We would like to plant a tree uh in the library garden um down where the the library is at the very back. Um and we also would like to put up a plaque. Okay? And you have the words that we'll put on the plaque. uh if if you so desire and you so support this project, um the cost will be taken care of, okay, solely by the historical society. However, if the council felt like at some point in time you might want to throw us a few bucks, we wouldn't refuse, but uh we're prepared to take care of all of that. Um uh the tree we want to plant has been vetted through the uh tree board and they suggested um several and they are generously going to uh take care of the cost of an eastern red bud that will be a beautiful pink bloom in the spring. Um the plaque that we want to purchase will say the following things. In loving memory of June Cota Anderson 1926 2023 June left an indelible mark on the Orno community. Her love for the town of Orno and many opportunities she chose, okay, to enrich and support the community that she called home leave our hearts filled with gratitude and respect given by the Orno Historical Society October 2025. The estimated cost for this that we will incur will be uh somewhere at best guess between $350 and $400. Okay? And that would be to purchase the plaque um and to have it inscribed with those words. and we would prefer that it have a a a metal base. Some of the plaques that are there have wooden base KD lumber and they're starting to to disintegrate a little bit. So maybe that'll be the next project that I do. Maybe I'll help put those up for free for you. Um I like to give back, too. Um and we feel a location that we've chosen that has been supported by the library is the perfect spot to honor this lady. So, respectfully, we're just going to ask the council um to give us permission to do this on behalf of June and the Cota family and the Anderson family and uh let us know what you think. Any questions? Thank you. I don't think um typically we don't do Q&A during um public comment, but I I would say um if council >> we we talk about at the end end of the meeting and get back to you, but I suspect one of us will want to work with you on developing a resolution for an agenda. >> Sure. um that bring forward honoring June and approving the approving the installation. >> Good. >> Okay. >> Thanks for the time. >> Yep. We'll get back to you. >> Thanks both. >> Would anyone else like to speak with us this evening? Um in this first public comment session, there's a second one at the end of the meeting on any item that's not on our agenda. Okay. Item five, we'll close the public comment and move to item five, presentation on the history of the Sailor Neighborhood. I guess um as we start we just say council asked for this. We had a lot of turnout at a recent comprehensive planning discussion about the Sailor neighborhood which prompted a discussion here in the council about um that par the publicly owned parcel. So we thought the first appropriate thing to do and several had questions that you know um about the parcel and the the town's property and we've had other conversations and you'll see about public owned parcels and property. So, um, owing to the fact that we want to make sure there are no surprises in the SAR neighborhood and getting back to the folks that came and participated in that comprehensive planning discussion, we wanted to have a presentation about the Sailor neighborhood. And I will say, you know, we'll certainly welcome people's comments as part of the presentation. Um, tonight we're not so much soliciting ideas and suggestions as we are. This is we're trying to learn things. happy to hear from people, but we'll hear from staff first. And unless anyone on the council has anything else they want to raise, we'll turn it over to the town manager for to lead the conversation and do with appreciation for people who turned out and the work that staff did. Um if if you saw a drone flying over our neighborhood, um you can see my house on this too. Um I think this is why or at least one of the reasons why maybe there are lots of reasons why drones are flying over. Um who's to say? But Clint, you want to >> Sure. Uh thank you for the introduction. appreciate everybody coming out. I also want to thank, you know, the a lot of people in the planning and code department as well as in our press and communications, particularly Maddie and and uh Cody did an awful lot to put this together. It was a learning session for all of us and it's helpful. I mean, a lot of this all um predates my time as your town manager. Um a lot of staff learned this. It was very helpful process for all of us. Um it's the history of the neighborhood. Uh we took that quite literally. That's what we were asked to kind of find out and see what we could learn about the Sailor Development itself. I've heard a lot of comments. I've had a lot of residents take the time to speak with me and I appreciate all of you. It helped me understand a little bit more what was going on. Um, and again, I think to the same end, we'll talk more as we get to it. Uh, the process we had in here is if there were if there ever was, and I think there may be, and uh, hopefully not in the next couple of months, but when there's a little bit more time on the calendar, there would be more of a public meeting where we just open it up for conversation. Um, and that's one of the things I'd had a couple questions about that. I think this is the first step in that process. Um the uh the parcel, you know, we started very factual. I don't know if people have looked at budget processes and capital improvement programs, but I like to get as much as we can out there and the team does too. We're talking about a 15.21 acre parcel. It's located in map 27 lot 2. There is a strip of land a budding Mainwood properties that is on map 27 lot 397. And there's some uh Scolar Park is abuing this. So that's when this was originally transferred to Clar Park um was a development that grew with parking and a road service after this land was donated. Um the own next slide. So a little bit with the owner history. Um so in 1958 this was a combination of two developments. The Arundle Construction Corporation and there's a some extensions in here from 1962 and extension three for George Sailor in 1958. Um those are and the attachments. This is kind of an interactive document on our website. When you go to it, all the links will take you right to the documents themselves. So you can see the backup to it. Um in 1961, uh the land was sold to individuals for individual plots and then there was a lot of non there was leftover non-developed plots that appear to have been bought jointly by the university realy company. We cite the book page for people want to look that up. and then in uh 1961 who sold the Arundle Construction in May. Um Arundle Construction filed for bankruptcy in 1963 uh filing to disclaim the land bought by the university realy company and was received back the realy company received their land back and then in 1973 that realy company would sell f went on to sell more parcels and then would sell the remaining parcels jointly to the town of Orno in May of 73. That book page is also referenced there. And they sold it to the town for $4,000 is what we paid for it in 1973. Um, next, here's the links to all those, the deed to the town, the extensions. Um, there's up here on the wall, we have the far one on the left is one of those two extension PDFs. Um, we'll talk about those again here in a second. The one on the right represents something that was done in 2023, uh, about two just over two years ago. must have started in 2022 with the university but we'll get more to those as we go along. Um so the development next slide uh what could you know a lot of done was with the history this project is exempt from further review under state law. The lot sizes are smaller than minimum requirements for the um medium density residential which is what this is zoned and could be developed without further modifications. So what we're trying to say is is the original deed represented in half by the one on the left was what was originally planned and is recorded at the registry of deeds. If someone were ever to acquire it, they would be able to develop what is there. That's that's the way that parcel sits. Um to orientate yourself, route two is to the right and so you're coming in and there's a little dotted line you'll see through the middle that represents the Johnny Mbrook. Anything to the left of the Johnny Mack Brook is now Scalar Park. So, even though there's a huge development shown on there, it's no longer developable as that. It's a park. It's only up to that line. And as you can see, we're pretty much splitting it in half and what they call as a recreation area. Um there was multiple lots. Um the uh trails, I think a lot of people that live there see them as were proposed as roads and each one of those roads through would serve as four houses on the left and the right going in. And that's what you can see when you see this Beachwood. That would have been the last street that you can see on paper out there. The next street up does not exist anywhere. And actually, you can tell because that land's owned by the town. So, when you go out there, there these these weird spots between houses where nothing's happening. That was a proposed street. Um, some of them now enter into a park area. We'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to the next slide, but those could be built if so in theory, the town of Orno said, "We're done with it. We're selling it. Somebody bought it." a developer would have to would have that as their right to go develop from um with modifications. We didn't get into all of them. I don't know how many times the town has talked about this, but it got to the point where there was a lot of conversations at different times you've had. Um what we did do is is that you can modify this any way you want because the town's the owner. We would just have to follow our own current rules. you'd have to present it to the planning board and you'd have to talk of all modifications to lots, lands, layouts, etc. And that's what's been attempted on a few occasions. Um, you know more than I do. I've only been here for a year and a half, but as residents have been here a long time, you probably can name the dates and times of all the conversations. Why I did I have I don't think the 2023 plan was ever part of a public discussion. We could not find a record, but it was developed. We do these these are capstone projects of the University of Maine. A bunch of students took that land and said, "What could we do with it?" And they took input from prior meetings with the public about using it for recreational purposes, maybe having small parks, getting some development in there. There's a lot of number crunching where they were trying to show the uh return on investment for the infrastructure that would cost to build it. Would it pay for itself? Would it not? um they ultimately came forward with this plan and and again this would fall into just like any other plan would that if you want to do something with modifications you would have to go back to the planning board and present this. This one in particular shows um instead of eight lots in between each street, four and then putting three new lots on the back side and not developing the other side of the road, ending it there. When you read it, there's talks of parks. I'm going to show one thing. I'm going to walk over. So when you if you live there, if you've been there, first street in this is open space now. It's been maintained by the town. It's mode. It's there's no lots there. There's no nothing. People can walk in and use it. I'm assuming soccer, frisbee, you name it. It's there as a a nonp park in town open space. Don't know how else I'd reference to it, but it is there. Um the remainder um you know some you can see some of the lots are uneven. Um at some points the town has sold pieces of it. Probably should have done an amended plan that the planning board saw to sell off little pieces. Um there's probably some housekeeping that could be done no matter what's done just to make sure everything is clear and transparent to the community what we did and why. Um, I can't tell you, but I I believe what was happened is all Butters were offered a little bit of rear land. Some bought, some didn't. Um, so you now see a inconsistency of lot sizes there to some degree. Um, but so the one thing the pointed out is that Oh, where is it? I'm going to get ahead. I'm going to wait. I'm gonna wait a second because showing those is a bit go to the next slide for accessibility and amenities. Um so on the property itself as it sits there's no infrastructure on the to the individual lots. Um sewer storm water service both Gilbert and Mainwood. Um they stop at lot 273326 which is 50 Gilbert Street and on Maidwood both stop at 39 Maidwood. Um the water district um has confirmed the water lines are new and feasible for development. Same with sewer. There are there could be connected to. Um that's just the status of those as they sit. Um probably when they were installed there was thought towards future development and they've sat that way ever since whether it was 1958 or 1973. I could do more research and get those. But to the recent study um again this came from the University of Maine's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. It was done in 2023. And go to the next slide. Yes. So, this summarizes what they came up with. They put in a new 550 foot road connecting Mainwood and Gilbert on the back on the very far left of the first first drawing. Um they included a drainage system and a detention basin um of 2 and a half acres um to get because there was talks of drainage issues out there. um basement foundations and reinforced concretes where a standard strip foundation was designed for the uh for the area that what they recommended. There was a goal at the time that this done. I not by the town. I think it was a goal that they did when they created the capstone to set parameters on themselves that they were looking for affordable single family housing and a recreational communal area. And again, from best I can tell from the conversation the community had, that to them summarized what a lot of the input had been. Um, they do finish with some recommendations. None of this is, no one's touched this since, but they did suggest the town confirm all the soil conditions. They also said that we should do a community outreach process, which we may be at the beginning of if there was ever to be one, and remove uh improve the existing drainage infrastructure that's out there for for whatever development was proposed. Um, so we do end it. This is kind of the end of those. That's the history of what we have. There's probably a lot more you may or may not want to know. Um, if this were a public presentation, this is where we figured we'd go into a Q&A period. And then we also reference all the other things at the last page of the all the deeds, all the other places where you can find more information about them. Um, and I will say special thanks to the University of Maine and their capstones. They've done a lot of those for the town over the years. They've been great documents. Everything from there's one that talks about building a parking garage. Um there's one that has a bridge across the still water for pedestrians. There's a lot of information there that people have researched and I think it's as we go forward we always remember them as a great resource. It's one thing that Oro can be proud of that we got the University of Maine right in our backyard and they can help us sometimes just explore ideas at much lower cost ways. So I'll stop there if you guys want to. >> Okay. I think in looking around the the table here, I think if there are clarifying questions for uh the town manager and staff and then open it up to any public comment that we're going to have on this topic and then I don't think well I don't know I don't think we're going to schedule something any followup on this at any time in the immediate future. Um but we'll see what how the conversation goes. Yep. The only other piece there has been a lot of residents that have talked about buying land from the town as this conversation going on. We're not I'm not bringing forward anything of that nature at this time. I think there's a lot of conversation. Um I wouldn't want to see any further steps done. I think that would have to be more planned out. You should have a drawing of the properties as how they would be sold if they were going to sell pieces. You should have some open meetings. You shouldn't just sell to one property owner and not tell the rest you're offering it. So we'd have to go through some significant steps to do that in a way that is fair to all concerned. >> Could you um before we I guess a before the clarifying questions start maybe uh expanding upon the the strip of land that the town owns between the Gilbert Street properties and the Page Place properties. Can you give us just a little bit of that and kind of the >> so >> opportunity we had recently to help out a a Gilbert Street resident on that parcel? Yeah. So through all this development, it's it's on the back side of uh Gilbert over here. Um on this first drawing, the older one, you actually see it says Spalding at one place. What's happened is where that ab butts up to page place. Something must have happened when Paige place was developed. And for some reason they conveyed a 10-ft, no greater than 10 foot wide strip. It must have been a buffer. Some places it's less than six. Um we had a resident come in. They wanted a tree that they were worried was going to fall in their house. we ended up removing that tree. That's been done sporadically or haphazardly over the years that if there's trees in this strip that we've been cutting them. Um other than that, no one wants us to cut the trees. So, they sit there and it's never done in a method where you can get value for doing more trees at once because they want the protection. Um there's rumors that it was a wastewater uh storm water area. Um it's deed land the town owns. Best record we can show is a buffer. Land can be wet. It can have water on it. If it rains, you're it. But it is not a storm water. It's not a runoff. Does not take it to any other catch basins, ponds, drainage areas. Was just land that was given to us. And I'm assuming at that time maybe the neighbors wanted the town to own some land in between them so that they wouldn't not get along well with each other. Guess that's the most politically way correct way I can say it. So it gave a little bit of buffer that the town could do in between. I think that's a piece of land the town should look at. There's no, you know, we look at public purposes. what usually towns own land if they know why they want to own it. If a resident knows a reason why we should consider owning it, I'd probably love to hear that. I think for the most part it might be a better piece of land to look at the abutters and say, "Do you want to own the land behind your house?" Cuz we can't even get to it without walking across your properties. Um they may or may not be interested. I don't think we're looking at selling it. I think this would be a situation as the manager that can represent this to you. If there was a Butters that wanted it, I think it would be we would write the deeds and give it to them because but that's saying today I've never heard a resident tell me a good legitimate public purpose for the land we own in between you and if somebody can have one, I'd love to hear it cuz it would help me understand maybe why that was put there in the first place. Otherwise, it's that can be done any you can email me after the meeting if you know why that was put there. I'd love to, you know, that would be even more helpful, I think. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, do we have any clarifying questions from councilors on the presentation? Council marks, >> I should just to start, is it possible for someone to actually go to those two maps and tell us where the names of these main streets are on there? Because I can't see them from here, and I'm not entirely sure how the two maps fit together. Is that possible to do? >> So, back here doesn't exist, >> right? >> So, you're looking at Mainwood is the top street on both of them. And so the fact that there's so many more lots on Mainwood here is because they would extend those lots further in this university plan. I mean there look like there like seven or six more. I dark is already there bold lines around it. The ones that are light lines around them were what they proposed as new. So they proposed four 8 11 new lots. All these other house lots are existing. >> What is that street at the bottom then? We're looking at Mainwood. Okay. And on the other map, Mainwood is also on the top and Gilbert is on the bottom. And where do those additional lots does it does that map just stop before they >> additional street of Beachwood, the last street in that you can find the opening between the houses? This is also Beachwood. So this and this. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> You're not seeing all of this that you see here is not on this map. You actually look at it. There's another version much larger, but they actually proposed uh 10 lots in every one of those little blocks. >> Okay. But even though those are not on the map here, all of the darker marked lots are existing lots and only the light ones in the middle in this university plan were new ones. Is that correct? >> Okay, I get it. >> And verifying question on the park. Um, is it still town owned or did we deed it to the land trust for the the park piece? >> Town owns that little Oh, Scolar Park. >> Scalar Park. Yeah. Sorry. >> We hold it in trust that we promise to use it as public as as open space. >> Okay. >> So, that's a legal we have a legal agreement with >> I don't know how that I have to research that. No idea what the terms of that agreement were. Maybe just put into a the land trusts. Robert, do you know Mitch? >> They just manage the land the trails. >> I'd have to look there back there. I think it was maybe under promise the town to not develop it. I don't know. >> Okay. And then one final clarifying piece for me. The university study from 2023. I don't recall that being a matter that was before the council. Was that a staff to was that a >> I don't know. I don't know who brought it forward. We started this conversation around that time frame. We had we had discussion and then to figure out what to do with it. >> Yep. >> There was a committee that was formed. Oh, >> and one of the things they did was this proposal to figure out like what could we do >> uh with that area because I I had initially >> Are we picking this up Cody on mic or do we need to come up to the >> Do you want to would you come up and introduce yourself and just I'm sorry I don't want to put you on the spot but the the hand went up so we're >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So Dan the Ranger I live on Gilbert Street and uh I had actually >> light on Dan is a >> on the mic. >> Yep. It's green. >> Good. Thank you. >> Yep. Um, I live at 29 Gilbert and in and around that time frame I had I came to the town and asked if I could buy a buffer as some of these other lots had long conversations. It went to the town um and it turned into a bigger conversation about what do we do with this piece of property for the for the town of Oro and it went back and forth and it went to com. So, we as a a neighborhood formed a small committee and we had three or four meetings to try and figure out what could be done with that. And because my conversation sparked like, well, what do we what what could we do with it? Do we want to sell little bits of it? Do we want to develop this as house lots or so on and so forth? So, this conversation or this map was developed during that time frame. Um, we also talked about trails that we could develop in between and that ran the length and connected into Scolar Park. Um, but it kind of went away. We we had three or four meetings and it it kind of died. So, but that's that's my understanding of >> So, clarifying question for you. I mean, we had a leadership transition at the town. Is that part of do you think or is it was it just sort of lack of interest or could >> it just Yeah, it kind of fizzled like it uh we were having conversations and there were things that going to be looked into and >> it it died in email. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's all right. >> Former council Osher was around for that. Lori, do you want to come up? Sorry. And this is we do that for those who aren't here all we try and include people. So sometimes it's you know >> my apologies for missing the beginning of this presentation. So this second picture here the second map that was a student project >> close >> and and what's the >> original what's recorded in the registry of >> Oh I see. So that so there was going to be a lot more development but we've turned a lot of that into parking. Yeah. >> So the only thing that's in play for discussion is what's on this? >> Nope. Anything's in place. You can start there and end with nothing. You have everything in between. You can do zero. You can do everything. >> But Park cannot be developed. >> To my knowledge, Scalar Park is the the Johnny Mack brook divides the parcel in such a way there's no development beyond that. When these were originally created, Johnny Mack Brook would have been able to have been impacted. You're not going to be able to impact it now. So, there's no way to get over to the other side. So, I think that's what led to the town >> say is is that line is that >> that's that little dotted wavy line that goes through. Okay. So, so there's it looks like maybe 10 more parcels than are beyond this wave this line here. >> Correct. >> And and then the size of these parcels at.3 acres um that's well beyond the minimum size presently. And I have long advocated and I did when I was on council that we should make our minimum lot size much smaller to enable and that was before we had 2003 the state law that said that you could make one a single family home have up to four units but I was encouraging I live on a.11 acre lot and people constantly ask me if I would sell them my house so obviously people don't mind if it's a tenth of an acre um and so you can have a large house on a tenth of an acre less land to take care of the unit the utilities are much closer together and so all of the work that we're doing for our roads and our utilities there um there's a lot more nodes to have access for buildings so I would encourage I think this is great a great start but I would encourage much smaller lot sizes >> Lori would you just introduce yourself since I don't think >> sorry I'm Lori Osher I live uh on Mayo Street and I'm uh the legislator that represents a town in the state and I was on council for 5 years and so excited you're looking at housing cuz that's was one of my things I was hoping we would do. >> Well, we're doing a history lesson today so we're not I don't know how far we're looking at any anything yet. But any clarifying questions before we invite people up who may have more information they want to share or and again in the spirit of the history lesson that we're having today. So the la the last time any development happened here would be um your street right Dan that would have impacted this. Do you when was the last time like when was the Gilbert >> when was took ownership of this in 1973 >> aside from just maintaining lots. They've done nothing with it in >> that 52 years. They just owned it. >> Yep. >> Yeah. in the 90s. Yeah. >> Sorry, Dan. >> No, I've heard that before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> That's all right. All right. We're going to get into have people come up, too. So, anything else here before we invite people to come up for a minute or two if they've got something they want to share or something they think we ought to know more about? Okay. members of the public like to ask some questions or share some information. Hello. Uh Sam Coons. I live at 29 Mainwood. And if we're going to do that former counselor thing, former counselor is on it for six years. Um I've lived at 29 Mainwood uh since January 2016. Um, this is a nice overview. You missed some stuff, I'll help you out with that. Um, the back thing is for drainage because it's there's a there's a path um a 10ft or so swath behind mainwood as well. There is enormous drainage issue in this neighborhood and that's what is there for. There's a gully that runs behind and the town used to clear that out. They haven't done that in in years and years. Um, I think we you're right. There was a huge uh calling, shall we call it? I mean, of overturn of of leadership here over the last couple years and and I think we're we're witnessing the enormous historic loss of historical knowledge and um and so I think I question a lot of uh motives and ideas and things behind here. There's a lot of I don't know and of course you don't because you weren't here. Um I think that information has uh has been squandered. great history overview. Um, but like I said, you missed a few things. Um, in 2018, the neighbors took it upon ourselves to to develop a a little summer festival, a neighborhood festival. It's a phenomenal neighborhood. And um had a parade, all the kids were in costumes, a lot of fun. We had um Spencer's ice cream truck came. Or police was there. Orno fire truck fire department was there with the truck for the kids. It was amazing. It was a wonderful experience. And that green space that you also thankfully Mo take care of. That's great. Which is not is not all of it by the way. It's just a small portion. Um we met up there had a potluck had a sack race. We take it pretty seriously. We have two heats. We have the six and then the 12 to six. I still use a video of that in my classes to teach grit and resiliency from when my six-year-old daughter took an absolute face plant. She'll love me for mentioning that. Every December up until this past December, um we've had our own parade for Christmas. Santa Claus comes actually and that was organized by um a neighbor who they've since moved to Vermont recently. And so I hope somebody steps up. I'll do what I can to help out. I know I have the physique and the beard to play the big guy, but we'll see how that works out. Um, it's a trick-or-treating mecca. Okay. People come from all over towns. Some come from Hampton or Herman, right? Herman. Yeah. So, we bring them. Um, it's a great neighborhood. We have the coolest little free library in the world. It's carved out of a tree that fell down. Darren and and um Jim, thank you. Um hired someone to to to do that and to paint that to carve that um to just just for the sake of the neighborhood, you know, for the for the kids. Um a couple years ago, uh neighbors, they had a health issue. They couldn't take care of their lawn. They were very concerned about how their lawn was going. And within 5 minutes, there were about five of us going down there with our own mowers. We worked together. We did it. Had a nice beer afterwards. It was great. Incredible neighborhood. We get uh wind storms now and then like the town does. We look out for each other. There were at least three times since I've been there where we couldn't get out from my end um of the neighborhood. And we looked out for each other. You know, we're without power for a long time. We pulled out the grill. We cooked each other's food, ate it, had a grand old time. when we get a snow dump, we'll snowb blow each other's driveway when we need to. My neighbor, uh, Mike, young guy, you know, strong scrapping guy, he threw his shoulder out and, uh, and three of us went over to do his driveway for him. His mom made whoopy pies for us. It was an incredible great deal, right? So, my point is, you see a lot of the history um, here and there's some data here. This that's spotty, but I get it. We're doing our best. But what you're missing is there's a neighborhood there. What you're missing is that land is used. It serves a purpose. It makes this neighborhood desirable. It makes it home. Okay? Or is a great town. I mean, I'm here 10 years ago. I went through events that I very well could have moved back to Vermont. And I chose to stay here for a number of reasons. Okay? And I and I just happened to find this neighborhood, you know, at a time when I just need it was like kind of, you know, magical, right? So when you're doing all this consideration of whatever and also we can we can cut up these into little itty bitty tiny lots and really pack them in there. That's not what this neighborhood is. Okay? If you want to do that, you want to have that housing, that kind of thing. Find somewhere, go down to the basin, go to the right of OBC, whatever, see if you can develop that and pack them in there. But this isn't a neighborhood where you you pack them in. I know this is just sort of general topic tonight, but I think it's really important for you to have the real flavor and the real sense of what this neighborhood is, okay? It's a neighborhood. It's more than just my home. I know you guys are town council, you know, and I was on town council before I get it. So, you'll do what you what you feel is right, but I hope you take some time to figure out what is right as opposed to what is simply a solution. Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Sam. Anyone else want to share anything from the public? Yeah, come on up and please introduce yourself. Thank you. Good afternoon, council public. My name is Sean Francy. Um, I've lived in Orno for 14 years and we just moved into Pinewood Street four months ago. We actually own what used to be the Spalding lot, which is this L-shaped lot here. Uh since moving into our first house, we found the neighborhood welcoming. Our backyard overlooks the paper street known as Sprucewood Street, which is this is the proposed street that they're talking about paving so they can put a street to increase housing. In our short time in the Sailor neighborhood, I can tell you the children come here to play daily. It's an open grassy field, a safe place where there are no cars to play tag, throw a Frisbee, or kick a ball. In an age of children being raised on iPads, having a place for kids to play with other kids is critical to their development. Spending time outside improves health and reduces depression. It gives people a third place. Think about how you grew up. Maybe your family owned a big property where there is a space to run around. I assure you, Sailor neighborhood residents don't have large properties where kids can run around. Most of these lots are a quarter to half an acre. What we have is this communal area, and we're grateful that the town maintains it. If you build the street, you'd be taking away a safe place where there are no cars that children can grow and play, a place for recreation. Orno doesn't have many grassy parks left. When the town hosts outdoor events like outdoor markets and trunk or treat, they have to close Mil Street because Orno parks are so limited or events are held in a parking lot such as the farmers market. Places where cars are present and children have to be supervised constantly. Not to mention the bigger question. The property on one side of this street is privately owned, this property here. So, the town would have to acquire this property. If the town was unable to acquire this property, you could build at best four homes. I only see two lots proposed here. Just doing some quick napkin math. If this costs $1 million to build a street, drainage, sewer, and power lines, add four homes generates $5,000 a year in property taxes times four homes, that's $20,000 a year. And say it costs a million dollar. It would take 50 years just to pay for the road. I know housing is a priority for many Orno residents, but so is preservation of the environment. There are other sites in Orno that can be developed for housing, such as the 62 acres on Ayes Island. This money could be used to repair the bridge to increase access to the island. Let's preserve a legacy for our children in a place Sailor Neighborhood residents can enjoy. I encourage counselors to support your constituents, the people in this room now. Ask yourselves, do you want to create a place to live in or do you want to create places worth living? Thank you. >> Very nice. Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone come on? Yeah, please join us. My name is Rachel Bull. I live at 19 Gilbert, which isn't on this map. Sorry. Um I think it was 07 or ' 08. The man who lived at the end of Page Place was going to put a road that connected all of his lots out there to Gilbert Street. So that would affect this and it would go over Johnny Mur. Um but if before you figure this out, you have to figure out what is he not doing that? Has he given up the land? What's he going to do with his land? Because that's going to affect everything you do. And if you're going to do that, when you very nicely wasn't y'all, when they did our sewer and and water, you narrowed our streets because you added the curbs, which are cool except that you can't get a wing plow down them anymore cuz it takes off half about 2 feet of my yard every year, which is fine. We they you fix it, we fix it. But if you're going to add all those houses and then these houses, you need to get rid of our herbs because we don't have enough space for and and I granted I drive a Tahoe. It's big, but I can't pass a small car and if cars are parked on the street, it's very difficult. I'm not blaming anybody. It just is. So, you need to consider at least how our narrow street is going to affect all these other houses because you can't get you can't get a semi um moving van up into our neighborhood. You have to offload your your furniture onto another truck that's smaller because they can't make the turns. >> But it's something to think about when you're the grand scheme of this because you will need big trucks to do that. Okay, great. Would anyone else like to share anything? Yes, please come on up. My name is Dennis King from 24 Mainwood A in Oro here. And um we moved into our house. If you look at 24 mainwood, it's right here. And um it's been a fine place to raise two children, send them to Orno schools. And um things have changed since we moved in. And I know it's about 50 years, but we were the young kids on the block with children. And I think the point that I wanted to make is that children are so important and this neighborhood is really looking out and raising children. We sometimes don't remember that children do want to learn how to ride a bike. They're going to be in the streets. We have a lot of walkers of all types and ages coming up our way. And it is a wonderful neighborhood to be part of. The um section that is being talked about across here at one time was well maintained by the town of Orno. They mowed that all and in the spring they would um burn they would have the firefighters come out and they would burn that whole area and they were doing that to keep the well I guess there was invasive weeds that would come there bittersweet and other things and there there's some out there now the drainage is not um very good because The soil is clay soil and many of the houses, not a whole lot, but many of the houses could have water problems. These existing homes have water problems. We were one of those fortunate people to be able to buy 25 ft on the back of our lot. The people who live up here, they have a wonderful flower garden. And a lot of people come up to look at Lisa Coburn's fire I mean flower garden. We tried to buy this strip of land between the two of us and the town almost sold it to us but they they said no. We even asked to buy more than 25 feet on the back end of the lot and they said no. But the point that I want to make is that it's a fine neighborhood. A lot of people coming up there enjoying it as it is, but it has changed over the years. And I know I'm one of the older people now that's living in the neighborhood. But it it is a thriving, helpful neighborhood to be part of. And I'll answer any questions. I didn't prepare a speech, but I I'll answer any questions that you might have historically about the area. >> I don't see any, but appreciate you joining us in the conversation. So, thank you. >> Very well done. Um, so I guess I'll ask for one more any any more. Yep. Can I get a sense of how many other people may have something they want to share with us? Just two more. Three. Okay. So, is that I mean I'm kind of a p pushover. So, if other people but So, that looks like three people. Okay. Thank you. Okay. My name is Tim Hackett. Uh my family moved from Guilford I think in 1963 and we moved to 23 Gilbert Street and I'm the oldest of six. And so I have one, I have one daughter, one sister and four brothers. And I can remember when Paige Place didn't exist and that was very similar to what is now between Mainwood and Gilbert Street. Uh it was a great place to play. I don't remember how many pickup baseball games there were and there weren't many cell phones around or video games or anything. So it was a great place. Excuse me. when when we moved uh well I did get married. I married my wife Pam and she had lived at 8 Cedarwood. Uh well since birth basically 51 almost birth. Um, and then I moved her out of Orno and we moved to Holden for 5 years and then we moved back and now we live on 8 Cedarwood Street what used to be 8 Cedarwood Avenue and we've been there for oh I don't know what almost 50 years. So since 79 on Cedarwood and one of the things that we've seen because we when we started we were some of the young people on the block and we were able to do a lot of things. We had some older neighbors. Now, I think we're probably referred to as that old couple on the corner of Gilbert Street and or Mainwood and Cedarwood, but we've seen probably what, five or six different generations. You see the little ones starting down here when they're just walking through the puddles and everything else and all of a sudden you turn around and now they're up here graduating from high school. And we've seen a lot of that happen. We've and as people have mentioned and I won't go on much longer but you'd see a lot of little ones riding bikes and scooters and most people that come through most are very careful when they come and we live kind of well it's like on an S turn you come in Maplewood go see the wood and then down Mainwood and when we first moved in some people like to go see how fast they could do that. That doesn't really happen anymore. there are enough kids around and enough people there that are doing it. And the field that the kids can play in as everybody said, it's a great neighborhood. I can't think of any place else I'd rather live. And the feel of it is something. And if people come in, whether they're visiting and that and I taught at Brewer for 40 years, and I still have some students who bring their kids to our house once they found our house out, what neighborhood it was in for trick-or- treat. and it's good to see their kids come up that way. But that that feel is something that that's awfully hard to to emulate. So that's that's all I have to say at this, but I'd be glad to. >> Thank you very much. So there are a couple more hands who is wanted to come up. Come on up, please. Hi, my name is Donna Loving. I live at 13 Glenwood Street. I've owned the house for three and a half years. Love the neighborhood. Moved there. They always say location, location, location, and that's where I bought a fixer upper. Working on it. Um, but I just I'm in the transportation business. So, I would request that you would do a traffic study as part of your preparation to see what the traffic is now and then base what it would be and could it handle it because that's a very important piece and that's everyone's talked about is the children in the neighborhood and everything. So, I think it's a very important to do. Um, and that's all I have to say. Oh, and I do have a wet basement. Sorry, Donna. Thank you. >> Hi, I'm Kate Ruskin. I live at 38 Gilbert Street and I had a similar question. Um, because this is already the deed, does there need to be a traffic study? And I'm kind of new to engaging with the town council in this way, but I'm curious about the information about traffic and the school district specifically data because that's the justification I've heard for um for the development in the comprehensive land plan and I'm not opposed to, you know, infill in general, but I would request to see information about how much money is this going to net us, how does that relate to the school district if that is in fact the rationale um for yeah the school and the traffic because I will say sometimes you can't even make a left or in mornings because traffic is back that far up um and I asked about this at the the land planning meeting or the comprehensive plan meeting um you know yeah so because it's approved do you need any additional studies with traffic or to put in a light or you you know, get back the Saturday service for the bus. Does any of that need to happen to do this development or no? Because it's already on the books. >> Up to you, Dan. >> This isn't the meeting with >> Yeah. No, this isn't in the meeting for that. I would think that um so what's on the books is the development to the the picture. >> So, the history of the neighborhood, that's what was planned in the 50s. It was deed to the town in the 70s. It's recorded at the registry of deeds. If the town was to put this for sale and someone was to buy it, they can build that stopping at Johnny Mack because it's now no longer available. But they could come in there. They don't want to build what's on the map and they want to change it just the slightest, which I think they'd have to because we've already changed it slightly without telling anybody by selling land to people buying their houses. And no one really designed that. So I think there's a a moment where that's got to be cleaned up. >> So it would require new presentation to your planning board. There's no plans to do anything here. I think what happened is is that this is a 52-year-old and I'm going to say that with a spirited comment, piece of land that was intended to be a very large housing development and they went bankrupt and sold and transferred and ended up in the town's ants. So now we own it. And so every time the comp plan meets every decade or so, they talk about urban infill and the easiest property quote unquote I will say my words easiest because it's already on registry of deeds as a development. Well, why don't we develop the Sailor neighborhood? I think you as residents become very concerned because you think we're the first one we're going to go do. There's no conversations other than the fact that it's the longest standing owned subdivision that the town has. In fact, I think it's the only subdivision we own. No plans to do anything. I think what I've heard from this council is if we're going to do anything when the comp plan's done, we want to have some public meetings along the lines about I think the first speaker said, "What should we do with it?" And I think uh Sam, you said it best. What is right? I think that's the question this group keeps asking me what's right. I have no idea. It's your neighborhoods, your towns, your community. Um you get to tell them, they get to tell me, and I I see what we can do and what things cost. Um there's a lot of goals, policies, procedures, right? school wants more students. Um, traffic studies, I think, make tons of sense. I think there's a lot of great comments that were said here today. There is zero intention. There's zero budget. There's no money to do any of this. It's just the early stages of sharing the history because a lot of us didn't know it and we learned a lot more of it tonight. And I hope to get a couple more emails to fill in a few more blanks. Um, because we've had a lot of really good people look at some of these areas and they can't figure out why we own some of them. Um, and there's another, you know, unrelated issue related to other parcels of land the town has. Some of them are real tiny, scattered all over the place. Um, we just don't know why we own some of them. And I think this is the beginning of a process to say, why do we own it? And do we want to? And if we do, maybe it should be a park or maybe it should be a subdivision or maybe it should be something else. So, I think that's where we're at and I think these are the beginnings of that conversation. If I'm correct me if I'm wrong, >> I think you're absolutely right. Um I think that you know we know we needed to have a history lesson. It was a sense of the council. There has been um a lot of transition both in the municipal off municipal officials um you know offices and the council. And so we wanted to have this conversation and we thought that it would be important to have both the the history lesson and the personal stories too. who I think are a good start and a good conversation to have in tandem to understand what the neighborhood interests are going to be. Um we didn't want people um feeling like they had to storm town the town office to to be heard. We wanted people to be invited to make sure there are no surprises in the Salem neighborhood and I'm very satisfied with what people have shared today and kind of you know my one counselor but my hope would be that whatever future discussions we have after the we'll have a we have an election coming up there'll be a new municipal year we're going to get a comprehensive plan on the books we're going to have council workshops on our goal setting for 2026 the 25 26 municipal year so there's a lot of chances for us to talk about Is this is this a parcel we want to tackle or we want to talk more about in depth? How do we make sure the neighborhood continues to be involved in those discussions? And nothing will happen without I mean Sam's going to be my first email. The people that I've emailed will be hear from us directly and I'm happy to add people to that list as we go forward. Um as one counselor, but as the you know, the current chair and you know, we'll see what the new council wants to do with the center seat um in a few weeks. But um you know, we'll keep people informed because my my goal for the Sailor neighborhood is I think a good goal would be whatever happens in your I I'd want the same process in your neighborhood that I'd want in my neighborhood, you know. And I think all of us feel the same way. If you you know, if it was up where Jacob lives or on Main Street or, you know, over in the Webster side, you know, yeah, we just we want we're not going to do we this town was going to this council is going to do things the way that neighbors want to be treated, I think, is kind of how we want to do it. So that's where we're at. All right. So that one more thing. Sam, >> thank you for being so transparent. You be great about getting emails out. We do our best to disseminated among the neighborhood, but thank you for those efforts. >> No, happy to do it. And if we did something more meaningful, we'd do like a postcard or something like that, you know, in terms of to the people to make we started to get to the point where we're having meaningful conversations with meat on the bones. I guess we would mail people or knock on doors and make sure people are aware. So, okay, we'll close this um presentation and thank everyone who um came out to participate. Anybody? Okay, on this one, um item 5B is a discussion um about the city of Brewers. This could be why the Bangor Daily News is here. Um discussion the city of Brewers letter to Ponopscot County Commissioners. Clint, do you want to >> They don't want to listen to the county. Okay. So, uh, this started a month or so back. Um, the county commissioners have been very responsive, um, in recent months, uh, since I became your manager. They had a couple, uh, networking, I guess I would call them, meetings where they just came in to talk about county topics. Uh, led to another announcement. They were going to do another one. Um, then a few days before it, we found out that they were in some financial need. Um, they had run in what they are calling a revenue shortfall. um they owe they to you have they're like a town. They have to have a balanced budget. Revenues and expenses have to come out to zero so that you don't have an you know at the each year. And what they ran into was is that their expenses exceeded revenues because of certain areas where they weren't getting what they were supposed to from the state for jails. And so they um intentionally budgeted more revenue than they thought they were going to get. And they were right. They didn't get that much revenue. So they've run themselves into a little bit of a hole financially. um they're looking at options and they just came forward. It was a good listening session. Um there was talks of an increase this year in the mag, you know, in the order of 14%. Um but there was no firm numbers. Their budget I've been watching a little bit on their website. I have not checked this week, but I don't think they've posted their first budget committee meeting yet. Those will be starting soon. Um, but Brewer did put a letter out that the Bangor Daily covered and we I have reached out to them and a few of the other managers and I think there's just some general conversations and I wanted the council to be aware if you wanted to consider this. Um, but the Brewers asked a little bit if other towns would join in. I think at at a minimum this is probably a situation where um my time is your time and we're all pretty busy, but I think this is one of those ones when you look like we're coming into the budget that it may be beneficial for at a minimum for some coordinated conversations or meetings to be happened amongst the managers to find out what is going on. The last it was left is the county was intending to create a strategic committee and they were looking at changing their fiscal year and they were looking at changing their budget committee design was one of the suggestions they thought they'd consider. Um currently the budget committee of the county is all has to be an elected official from within the county. So it has to be a counselor or state representative. It does not allow for any outside professionals or non um elected sta people to be appointed. So like a finance director from a town unless they're an elected official which they can't be. Um members of a municipality can't be an elected official. So they just don't get that diversity. So it came up in conversation to look at that. Um so I didn't know if the council wanted to take a look at this. It is a significant increase. They are in a significant financial situation and they are also starting to bring this conversation into the uh future need of a jail. Um, other communities were bringing questions about what's it going to cost to operate the jail, what's the debt service, and they're I I think the need is very is is here today and the planning is been missed. So, they're starting to try to play the catch-up. And I think this is where they've just reached out to all the members of the communities that they serve and said, "What do you think? Can you help us? How do we move forward?" And like I said, it's early stages. I did follow up immediately with the chief appointed official, the county administrator when he asked for people to serve on the committee and I said would definitely have some interest if it's me or someone else but we were definitely help out and we haven't heard back since. So I think the beginnings of the conversations are with what Brewers brought forward and we thank them for doing it is that maybe it's time to reconvene a group and see what is going to happen next. So, I thought I'd kick it to you because you have to set policies if you're otherwise they're going to go through their normal budget process. They'll send us a letter and tell us what the increase is and that will be included in your annual budget for next year. That's the normal process. >> Do we have any questions for the manager? >> Clarifying council marks. >> Yeah, just to reiterate numbers. So, what we're looking at at the moment is that the county is saying that there'll be a 12% increase in the bill that they're planning to send us. Correct. Yes. And I have some questions that I think need to be further developed as did other communities. They stated a $3 million shortfall. They stated that that was now $3.5 million. There was numbers shared that looks like around June that it may have grown close to 4 million, right? >> Um so I think they're still working through this there. You know, um I also had questions about the, you know, their what their bond ratings going to look like, um with this financial shortfall. Are they going to be able to bond to jail? What's the interest rates going to look like? What's the cost to us on that? just a whole lot of questions. Uh came up at one point that uh a few of us wanted insuranceances that if we if a new jail is being built, are they intending to tear down the old jail or are they going to try to get that repurpose it later? And um there was a conversation at one point in the in the meeting that they thought they would destroy they tear it down, raise it was the exact words. There's just a lot of questions I didn't know. Again, I've been away from the county for quite quite a few months or years. um when I left some 12- 15 years ago, this was a topic of a conversation then um about needing a new jail. So there's trying to get to the next goal I think or next point. >> Again, just to my original question though, that 12% increase that doesn't even include the new jail. Correct. That's just what they're saying is because of the existing shortfall without even building. Correct. >> So we'd like to have seen it in writing. What they were proposing is a 12% increase this year would be sufficient to be the future debt service payment of a new jail. But there wasn't any conversations about whether they're able to meet their ongoing increases. Does 12% is that the max or is there another three to five percent needed on top of that for operations. There's just a lot of questions and like I said I want to really stress I said this when the Bangor Daily called me. It was an opening meeting where they shared a lot of great information. I think that was the, you know, they opened the door. Now the conversations need to keep going and they we're at that point where I have as many questions I think as you do. >> And the options that you're asking us for though, I'm wasn't sure I fully understood. I mean, they set this rate. We have no control over what the county passes to us. Is that correct? Or do we have control at this point as municipalities sending representatives to some sort of process? you have your authority as a council to say like Brewer did that we don't want to pay this, we don't want to see this and don't pass this budget on. There are other steps that can be done. I think they're at a point where they're willing to consider other options. Um they do have to go to the borrowing for a jail has to be a public vote. It's a big bond um item. My understanding is is Ponam Scott County has to go to public vote to do it. So again, they they want to be very mindful I think of this as they're going to come forward. Um the new jail uh has some cost savings. Um they are they are uh housing many inmates outside of the county at a high cost. So they're trying to get to a jail that's big enough to house their current needs. Like I said, there's a lot of data that needs to come together that hasn't been shared out. And again, I think that's where Brewer was beginning the conversation with. We need more information. >> And just to clarify, if it was a 12% increase, is that like ongoing or was it just for this year? and then they drop it back down. >> It was forever the way I interpret it. >> That's it was a forever increase irrespective of other operating increases. >> Well, I mean and yes, and their increases I mean we talked about this last year in our budget process. Their rate of growth on taxes has significantly outpaced schools and towns. So I mean Brewer put it in their letter that it was 88% I believe over the past 10 years and the town had grown at I think 30 something%. So they are outpacing typical municipal spending. >> Councel Baker. >> So to piggyback on a sarah's question, I mean, what recourse do we as a town have? And and I asked this because not truly understanding, you know, county finances, it I I have serious questions now about financial management given that this is an issue that appears to have been um compounding for the past several years. So I I instead of you know giving them additional funds to correct past issues I mean I would personally like to get a comfort level about their ability to manage their budget and and funds but I guess do we have any re what do we have any recourse towards you could do a letter like Brewer did as a starting point and get more involved as a with staff and yourselves to see their budget process. through. But that's right now. Those are the ones that are in front of me. I think we could have more conversations. Um, at a minimum, do you support me continuing to have those conversations and going to those meetings? Um, there's a whole lot more substance being added to them. Now, um, you've taken no specific policy position on any of this. I would continue to represent the town of Orno for, you know, as much as possible stable tax increases, you know, and that would be going into those meetings making sure they're doing all they can to mitigate what they have to do. >> There's a There's a bill that be that's uh bill requested in the legislature, right, that you shared with me that is that would it now has to get through it's been put in as request in the second regular session. So, it's not guaranteed that the legislature will even take it up, but it's a bill that would give county residents the ability to like with the school budgets to approve at referendum the annual county budgets. So, we would as Ponopskot County, if that bill passed, we as Canop Ponopskot County residents would have a chance to vote yay or nay on the county budget. And I suspect that, you know, these are this feels a lot like these are how big conversations get started about support for jails and things like that where um you know, this this crisis is it I don't know. Crisis is a big word. There's challenges >> in their letter. They have a financial crisis. Yeah, this challenge in Washington County that you read about that, you know, we've got this in front of us and you know, this is ultimately there a political institution just like the town of Orno is um with elected county commissioners. Um we've got um legislators we can talk to and things like that. And um but I do think I I think it's definitely worth the town manager's time to be engaged in this and continue to provide us. You know, we could look at a letter similar to Brewer. We could urge, you know, the legislature to take up take up a matter um like this bill for instance. We could do a lot of different things, but we can't just we don't have the power to say no, we're not going to pay you the parent. I don't think we can Zach. We can't just tell Zach to sit on that check for >> Could you remind us how >> they'll come for Zack and put him in that overcrowded jail? We don't want that for Zach. So, >> could you remind us for of what that 12% about is in like actual dollars for >> last year's bill was just short of just over 900,000. So, you would be, you know, again, the rough numbers we calculated would be at least 12 uh uh $100,000 more. And what does this have to do with the state funding? I I read somewhere in their letter something about this this began because of a state funding problem. What What is that about? >> It's about how the state funded jails is my understanding. I'm guessing and I'd have to do a lot more research, but it appears that maybe they curtailed the amount of money that was going to the counties to run and operate jails, which led to some, you know, and again there's an awful lot the county did share. I would agree there's a lot of times a lot of unfunded mandates that come to them that they have to follow for the treatment of inmates and that significantly increases their cost especially with ones that need medical treatment. Um they shared stories where they have inmates that have been there 5 years um because they're waiting trial and they have to and that's the law they have to follow it and they're doing that whereas some people are not even in the jail an hour they're processed and out. I think they they gave data on the average and it was it was you know they have a lot of difficult situations and it's just going to be tough for them to navigate but um >> go ahead Matt I I do think it's important for us to be involved in this and understand what's going on. Do you think it's something that like how much time do you think this will end up costing you or or some representative of the town? I'm just curious. It's a project. It's going to take a few months and it's going to span more than just this budget season. It's going to crawl into a year. I think this is maybe where the council, you as a council may want to talk about getting back on their budget committee, especially to see through some of the things about changing that and when those come open. Um, who would maybe be interested in that would be stuff we could come back and talk about. But, um, and from my perspective, yeah, I would assume this is this is going to be a significant amount of time. >> All those in favor of appointing councelor Leo Kenny to the Yeah. >> Um, the man knows how to say no. >> He would get Yeah, he'd get some traction. >> Yeah. >> Um, so fair to assume we don't have a letter in front of us to sign. Fair to assume we'd like to and I don't know that we we don't have a formal order asking you to do something, but fair to assume kind of sense of the council continue to monitor it and look for opportunities for us to be a part of this budget committee. And then as as it moves forward and if there's opportunities for us to have a more formal >> engagement appropriate engage, you know, governing is hard, right? And we don't want to just we don't want to lean into it just if this is low hanging, you know, we don't want to kick somebody when they're down, you know, and you know, there's and being respect. We want to be respectful, but we've got taxpayers who this is going to impact. And um >> and again it's a tough mixture because the county represents large communities and small communities. So it's a diverse set of interests that have to be met. So I just want to make sure as Orno comes in I'll represent Orno and our interest as best as possible. That also means listening to what the county needs in this situation too. So and it may mean a letter comes back. I don't know where. But I'd like to get with some other managers and find out what what it is we can do. I'd like to hear from Scott Atkins as administrator for the county and see what he's come up with since that meeting that we can do. But again, it felt like it was going to be more time invested and I really wanted to get this in front of you to see if there was general support. You don't need to vote yet, but you would I don't want to hear, you know, when we leave. This is just going to be something I want to make sure it's time well spent from your perspective. >> Yep. Council mayor. So um as far as you know whether we join Brewer in taking a public stance or not to even more of extent that you know these meetings are public I will defer to those much better versed in uh county municipal relationships. um then there's probably some pros and cons, but I I would appreciate or I think that we should be pushing back um to this increase and and I understand that the county has to raise money. So, you know, just an across the board saying no isn't the right answer, but it seems like there has been a history of of mismanagement or or something to that extent. Not suggesting anything nefarious, but um before we simply just increase our taxes to support this deficit, I want to know that their financial house is is in order and we're not just throwing good money after bad money. >> Okay. Anything else on this item? We do not want the jail and the sailor development. I'm pretty sure we're pretty clear on that. >> Airports. That's we're going to put the Dan Demerit intern orno international airport international airport Matt we're not we're not talking you know just crop dusters here >> we're going to move to um we'll close out our presentations and discussion items take it easy on me some people know when a joke is being told and others don't public hearings um I'm gonna open public hearing a to consider amendments to the town of Oro Code of Ordinance Chapter 30, Solid Waste. And we'll turn first to staff on this. Shelley, apologize for um keeping you with us so late, but thank you for joining us remotely. This is Shelley Crosby, our town clerk, and um staff to the or um ordinance review committee. >> All right. So, good evening, Shelley Crosby, town clerk. I um am putting forward for public hearing the solid waste ordinance which was reviewed throughout the summer by um department staff as well as the orientation um I mean ordinance committee apologize. And in your packet, you should have been provided the um internal memo which outlines the different areas of um the ordinance that got updated. And you would also have the original ordinance, the redlinined copy, and then the clean copy with all of the changes made. I will add that this was a project that involved quite a few departments and um everyone really rolled up their sleeves and put forward an ordinance that we feel is more updated to the daily operations of that facility. And the last time that we had actually looked at this in depth was back in 2018. Um so it definitely was due. it had been a period of 7 years. Um some of the significant changes of this is we did update the chain of command in the hierarchy of how that um ordinance is going to be managed. Meaning that we identified that the town manager does um evaluate and supervise the public works director. The public works director of course is in charge of the public works department and is um the figure head of solid waste and runs up the chain of command to the town manager and then staff of course would report to the public works director. We also removed any outdated definitions, any contractual vendors or any operations which are no longer in force. We made accommodations for the introduction of municipal waste hub and we also looked at the minimum standards and the industry expectations through the year 2028 so that we had a solid waste um proposal in front of you that was more policydriven and less daily operation driven. Um and that is the intent that we're heading as an um ordinance committee is we're trying to get the council back to a place of looking at the policym versus the daily operation and then daily operation would be treated through an SOP standard operating procedure or an actual policy that would be a department structure. So, I'm not sure, Dan, that that really gives the overview you were looking for, but it certainly explains the work that we've been doing throughout the summer and the early fall. >> Councelor Laray chairs the ordinance committee. Anything, Rob, from you? >> Uh, just that Shel's been incredible working with all the other staff members to to do really thorough work here that makes sense to just clean up um the section of the ordinances. Um these seem like really um you know basic but important changes um to to bring us up to to where we're already pra up to practice. I do appreciate I don't know if it was said I stepped out for just a second Shelley, but I do really appreciate these cover memos as a chance to give um the rest of council sort of an overview of what the you know what we're talking about at the committee level um and to be kind of a history of kind of the thought process on on why the change was made. So any other clarifying questions for Shelley? Okay, thank you Shel. Any comments from the public on this public hearing? Okay. And I guess that we will close the public hearing and thank Shelley for um for her time this evening. I'm not going to bang the gabble. All right. And that'll come up just for our information and others. That'll come up for a vote to the 17th of November. 30 days from now. Okay. The 17th of November. Um consent agenda. Um, oh, acknowledgement by counselors. You guys, you gonna stop me there or I got to catch my um Amanda often catches me at these bottom of the sheet changes. Uh, acknowledgement by councilors. We'll start with councelor Baker's side of the table. Uh just Clint, Zach, and uh Mitch, as we work through the bonding price bonding prices process in uh finance committee, we are asking a lot of you all and you're doing a wonderful job at compiling information and um I truly appreciate all the time that's gone into this guys. I just want to acknowledge that they're already putting the lights up for the Trail of Lights, which is amazing. And uh that takes a long time and thank you to the staff who are um involved in that. And I see that the big um cherry lifter is out and people are putting those lights up. Thank you. >> I almost hit it with my mountain bike the other day. >> Yeah. >> Um I I'll go last. Council Marks. >> Yeah. Yeah, I think it piggybacks on Matt's, but um I think a lot of us in town appreciate our trails year round, but for me, this is the most beautiful time of the year on all our trails. And a huge thank you to all the staff members, trails committee members, land trust people. There's so many people involved in making those trails available, and they're spectacular right now. Um I also wanted to actually thank the I wanted to um mention that the town council performance survey is still live for one more day. So, I am taking this as a chance to um thank everyone who's already filled it out. And to remind anyone who hasn't, staff, community members, counselors, last I knew there were a few of us who had not yet evaluated ourselves. We all have one more day and counselors are expected to do it anyway. Everyone else gets to choose whether they um would like to or not. But um thank you to folks who already have. Data came in on that a bit. Um and last, thanks to fire department staff who put together the safer data as requested in an incredible way. Just really, really helpful and clear. Thank you, >> Councelor Hardison. um for my t-shirt today. Um, October is domestic violence awareness month and I want to thank uh Casper Cowan uh for their leadership and there were a lot of organizations Friday that um at the 13th annual march against domestic violence but um Casper's leadership uh it was a great turnout and I appreciate that they have brought this uh attention to such an important issue. Council Lar, >> I guess just uh how large of a crowd of people from Sailor Neighborhood came out to make their voices heard. I really appreciated um their perspective on their neighborhood. >> It's good to hear that early. Um I'll say I'd like to um acknowledge uh public works and probably parks for the work done on the Brownies beach landing. I think it's beautiful and um I think I know we've heard um from at least one member of the public with some concerns about how it'll change the water level. Um I understand that you know we're going to assess as we go and learn as we go and improve as we go and I think that's exactly the right approach to those kinds of things. But I think I saw people when I was dodging the cherry picker the other day, I saw young people on the rocks kind of enjoying the river and every opportunity we get to kind of embrace the river. Um, I think is is a good thing for Orno. So, thank you for that. Um, all right. Now, we're going to move beyond acknowledgements to the consent agenda. The consent agenda is an opportunity for us to pass things um without discussion. any counselor or any member of the public can. There's only one item on our consent agenda this evening, which is almost unheard of. Um, but anyone can ask us to pull the in this case this particular item off the consent agenda and take it as a regular action item. Hearing none, seeing no concerns, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> Moved and seconded. And because there's no discussion, all those in favor, it's going to be five to zero. and note that council Mark stepped out of the room for a moment. Action items. Um, order 25257, order amending the town of Orono fee scheduled concealed weapons permit. Uh, Clint, you going to give us something quick on this or >> you had a public hearing on this? This is the amendment that would just uh get us in conformity with state changes to the amounts to charge. Okay. Any clarifying questions? Any comments from the public? So moved. Second. >> Thank you. >> Moved and seconded. Okay. Any clarifying questions? Any comments from the public? And any council discussion? Okay. All those in favor? Excellent. That's 5 to zero. And order 25258 order authorizing town manager to execute a memorandum of understanding with OEDC. Could I have a motion? >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. Clint, real quick. >> Yeah, I got a email as well today also from the from um Dave Pickering regarding this. They theou we've discussed quite a bit. It's included in the council packet. Um as we discussed even a little bit here in the Sailor neighborhood, we have a lot of parcels that the town owns. Some of them we have to maintain, but no one's ever developed a true list of what their stated purpose is. And this we also thought this is also a chance to move a nonprofit um that is purpose is growing the community consistent with our policies and ordinances. So what we've did is enter this agreement to meet those goals that are coming out of the comp plan and share in the profits of any sales of any lands that we would do but also to both invest uh us 50,000 them 75,000 towards any uh monies we would need as we develop some of these parcels and look at them. Um the clear to point out that they talk quite a bit. None of this changes our charter and ordinances. Um council's the only authority allowed to dispose of, sell, keep, maintain any property. So it would just be recommendations back to you as we work on them together. Understanding that if we did sell one, it would be a 50/50 split. Um, conversationally, there's a few parcels that we've seen that are on the outskirts of town seem to be buildable house lots that we just sit and own and no one knows why they've stayed for the length of time. Um, this does not include 98 Ponomscot Street. That's on its own path right now that the town started and they understand that as well. >> Okay. Any clarifying questions? I have one, but anybody else have any? We're going to do clarifying questions, comments from the public, and then this council discussion. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so the town the $50,000 town commitment comes, have we acted on that yet? Will that come as a separate item or is that >> It would come as if you want to do theou' come up. Right now, the two ideas I had is there's a couple reserve lines that could fund it. Now, the other one is is that if we sell an offscot street for more than 50 grand, I was thinking that we'd allocate that 50,000 towards it and put the remainder to a strategic investment reserve for the council. So, there's no time crunch on this. Those are the two ideas I've been kicking around. If you have thoughts on either, um I would probably like to wait and see if we can sell on Offscot Street. Last time the offers were around 100,000. I expect we will get them in that range again. >> Excellent. Okay, that was my clarifying question. Any comments from the public? Okay, any council discussion? We'll start with Jacob. a question. This came up at OEDC. Um, I'm in support of this. Uh, but I abstained because I sit on OEDC. Should I abstain from this vote since I'm kind of on both sides? >> No, you're a counselor. You abstain because you're a counselor there. I think you should vote here because you're a counselor. You don't have a financial aid. >> Perfect. The so up I have so for discussion I guess is there any apart from 98 Ponopscott Street is there any parcels that would be off limits here or we so if >> that county jail offered us like Matt's suggestion >> there it's on the list as it sits today I gave I can share out again I actually never I should have done that I never put we do have a property list of the town uh it includes like we own the town office we own all those anything that's a town purpose already on it said you're it's not included. So if we decided to sell the town office, we're not sharing in those profits. It's just anything that's >> no stated purpose. These ones have state of purpose. This is the town office. That's a public safety building. That's a police station. Webster Park's a park. We're not selling any of those or doing anything with them. It's these multitude of halfacre, quarter acre, third an acre um strips of land that don't even seem to serve as a trail. They're just they're all over. We just kind of and some of them may be come back and saying we just want to think it it should be a trail. Let's name it that and get a list that everybody can work from. >> So the sailor we since we talked about it if some we did something with sailor >> it would be included. >> It would be included in this. >> It's part of this deal. It would be included. >> Got it. >> Yep. >> All right. Any other questions or discussion? >> Council marks. >> I missed the very beginning so I might have missed this and if that's the case I apologize. Um I just I I think I'm in support of this. I don't have a problem with it at all, but I just I'm wondering if you could state clearly um maybe you did. What is the benefit to us as a town of partnering with OEDC on this? Like what does that benefit bring to us as opposed to doing this ourselves? >> I think it's a multiple levels. You have a service promise of your voice matters and we're bringing more residents into this conversation that get more opinions and more ideas. It's not limited just to elected officials and staff. So, I think that's a great step forward. It's a big organization. They've also signed anou that supports the growth of our community in very um sustainable and meaningful ways. So I think that's the number one thing that it does that we get extra opinions vested at the table right from the beginning. >> They don't go to Vegas when they make some money, right? They put that back into their mission. >> The money is theirs, but they are supposed to use that for development of Orno. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> All right. So let's u see no more discussion. Let's move to a vote. All those in favor? Okay. That's Yanis 6 to zero. Thank you for that. Thanks for bringing that forward. Um, order number 25259, order setting the date of November 17th, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. Republic hearing to consider amendments to the town of Oralo Code of Ordinances Chapter 18, land use. Could I have a motion? >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. And we'll get a presentation from assistant town manager. It looks like Mitch Stone. >> Uh, Mitch Stone, assistant town manager. I am uh kind of filling in as we uh uh look to fill our planner role. Um and I just want to be clear about this that obviously these are ordinance changes and we do have a comprehensive plan coming up. These are what Isabelle would have called cleaning up. Um there are a lot of cleanup issues whether there are um state laws or something that have changed or things that are in practice aren't working for us. So there are two I'm going to go quick through this. There are two pieces to this. This is just set to set the um public hearing for November 17th. And at that time, obviously, we can talk further. Um the first one is around the land use ordinance um to update and re uh the review procedures described in this section to better reflect the current process being followed by town staff and planning board. Namely, updating references to the planning board designated staff person. Currently, it's the code enforcement officer and that would be changed to the planner. um you know so there's a there's a couple other pieces in there around subdivision pre-application conference making that optional and a few other things. Um the second piece to this is around um a the land use ordinance to amend the definition of mobile/manufactured homes to comply with the 20 um 24 state law commonly known as LD337 an act to amend law governing the regulation of manufacturer housing to increase affordable housing. um this is just to change some of the definitions and to be compliant with that um that state law um as our ordinance it's right now it needs to make some changes. So, those are the two uh main things I would encourage in your packet when you look at the planning board minutes from uh August 20th. Um there are timestamps. Go back and Isabelle did a great job of fully going through all these things. So, if you have questions on it, if you um look at those online, you can watch the video and she'll explain it to you much better than I can explain it to you. So, okay. Any clarifying questions? Any comments from the public? Any council discussion? All those in favor of order 25259 setting the public hearing. Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you, Mitch. Um 6 to zero. Order 25260. order to see if the town of Orna will vote to adopt the provisions of 5 MRS section 18252C PL 2021 chapter 286 as allowed by Maine PERS rule chapter 803 and as printed in the agenda. Um could I have a motion? >> So moved second. >> Moved and seconded. Uh Clint, do you want to walk us through this or this is a two-parter, right? to adopt the provisions and then authorize the town manager to sign an amendment agreement between the town and the main pers. >> Correct. So, um it's come up a few times since I've been here. There's currently only uh uh one employee probably still eligible, but we do get asked. So, our rules, if you get hired by the town, you've got three days to decide if you want to join Maine public employees retirement system. And some people feel pressured by the amount of time it takes to make that decision. Once you decide, that's forever. the there are other options in front of us, but one of the ones that we talked about and this was a year ago and I didn't want to rush something like this. I wanted to spend some more time was we can amend our agreement that allows a person that's hired to have up to 5 years in the open enrollment period to decide they want to become a member. Um then that it's no additional cost for buybacks or anything. It just gives that employee after three or four or five years saying you know what I am going to stay here. this is my lifetime commitment and I want to start in main pers now or I want to add to the years I already have. So this just gives us that opportunity to allow employee to opt in within the first 5 years. Staff's recommending it. We think it's good. I'm recommending it because I think it's helpful to employees to give them more options. Um we've made multiple measures since I've been here as a manager. Um in fact, most recently is that all employees um have to get a town manager sign off when they get hired of their election. Um so that there's just no confusion that they understand this is a forever decision. You opt out, you can't just change your mind in a few years and say no, I want in there. It's it's a forever decision. So yeah, I think it's good. Gives more flexibility to what we do. There's minimal exposure. Like I said, there's a few employees that would have this opportunity. Um and they may or may not do it. There's only two employees that are currently beyond the 5-year limit that are not enrolled. And uh that's uh that they're outside the 5 years. Can't do anything with those. One of them is well over the 5year limit though. >> If we wanted to make it 50 years, we can't do it. Right. Five years main pers allows you to do >> five years. >> Okay. Any clarifying questions before we any public comment or >> I'm gonna I'm going to abstain just because of my direct relationship to an employee. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor except the abstainer. It's five to nothing with one abstension. Thank you. Sounded pjorative the way I said abstainer, but it was responsible. I appreciate I appreciate that you're transparent about that whenever you feel there's a need. So, it was not meant to be pjorative at all. Um, okay. We moved um we're going to workshop um the benchmark piece with the future the 56 Main Street property. So, we're not going to do order 25261 though we'll see something. I don't know if it'll be the same number some something after that with a workshop but two weeks from now. Order 25262. Go ahead and entertain a motion on this for it's an order authorizing town manager drop to $38,7316 from the WPCF enterprise fund um unassigned fund balance for roof repairs and heater replacement. >> So moved, seconded. >> Moved and seconded. Chris, you got to Is it cold down there? Chris, you got to tell us. >> Yeah, Chris P, WPCF. I'm sure you've all read the packet I had for the agenda. Um yeah, we're asking to amend FY26 budget to include uh accessing funds to the unassigned balance. Um these funds would be used to replace the propane gas heaters at the pump stations. We have four um when replacing five heaters, one's in disinfection. They're all um 20 years or older. They've all had numerous repairs. It's time for them to go um and be replaced. The roofs, uh, although they don't leak now, uh, they will be soon. Just just from experience, we've had situations in the past where the roof didn't leak and then one night it did and it cost thousands of dollars because it leaked on electrical equipment and we need to avoid that from happening in the future. Um, there is also um some electrical work uh that's needs to be paid for. Um, we lost motor drives to some of the sledgeham equipment. Um, these are situations where when this happens, we have to fix it and we have to fix it now. Um, if we don't, um, and the other one breaks, then we have nothing and we could very easily violate our license. Um, I've had these items in capital, um, and I thought they'd be there another year, but in discussions with Clint, um, we decided that, um, we had plenty of money in unassigned fund that we could we can do it now. >> Yep. Any clarifying questions? >> I guess just where does this leave the unassigned fund balance? >> Excuse me. >> Uh, where would I mean I I intend to vote for this. It sounds like a really obvious need. I was wondering just where where does this then leave the uh the unassigned fund balance? >> Uh it's it's it's around 1.3 right now I believe but we don't want to go beyond 800 >> thousand and the total for all of this uh the electrical the roofs and the heaters a little shy of 39. >> Okay, that was a clarifying question. Any more clarifying questions comments from the public? Council discussion. >> I'm just wondering I I know you said something that you were having this in the capital for a year and then this came up, but are these items that were part of the original budget discussion or budget proposal and then had to be taken out because we were looking for reduction? >> Nope. I'm trying to get us out of putting minor capital minor maintenance issues into your capital plan. I'm trying to get us focused that the capital plan's the bigger things and the little ones we got to work into our operating budgets and unassigned fund balance. It was listed as a need that these were coming up and we they were there as in reference as we move forward from it, but they were not um specifically removed from this year's capital improvement plan. We were looking to some bonding options. Um when he came forward and said it, I said, "You know what? Let's move on these now with unassigned fund balance rather than waiting another 6 months to a year." I think what I'll probably do is I have a line for equipment replacement. Um that's historically been at um I think around $20,000 and it's always been enough. Um the situation that we're getting into now is the plan is aging and these types of things um are going to continue to happen. Especially with the electrical um you know you need to understand that all of our equipment runs 247 365. It never shuts off. The only time it shuts off is if we have to do maintenance. That's why everything we have we have two of. So if something breaks we have a spare but we need to immediately fix the one that broke. So we continue to have a spare. It's the nature of the business. It runs 24/7 and most of it runs submerged in waste water. >> Better your location than mine. Yeah. >> Um, so anybody want to pick out the colors or anything before we vote on this? >> This, you know, your your pipes last 100 years. I don't know why, you know, your shingles can't last that long, but >> I got to tell you, Chris, it's hard to like fathom that you have to come to us and ask for permission. You're such a good steward of the work that you do. And >> every time they're coming here, I'm looking for money, right? Yeah, you you do, but I mean I always feel a little funny about voting to approve things on your budget because I feel like you do such a you're so on top of it and so gracious and concerned about it whenever you ask for stuff. So, thank you. Um, all those in favor I hope it's everybody given what I just said. Thank you. >> All right, that's unanimous. Thank you, Crystal. >> All right. >> Thank you. You do that without moving your lips. We're just order 25263. We're having our own little separate meeting. I mean, order. Authorizing the town manager to create a planning and economic development manager position with funding from the current FY26 planning budget with any additional funds drawn from the budgeted FY26 TIFF funds. Could I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved. So Matt got it and yeah. Okay. Uh Clint, do you want to present on this one? >> Um I can. Mitch is here as well. Um this is uh Isabelle Exley has our contracted planner is leaving. Um we've had a shortfall since last year a little bit on on the ability for what staff could do. Um as I've shared out, you know, there's been a lot of change, a lot of things going on, but um when you look at the the three full-time positions that used to be here and most of that duties falling on the two, we need an extra person to assist and right now we're presenting this only to create the position. Um, right now we're it's very close, but we think within the budgeted a lotments for planning and what we have and because it's a partial remaining year and we'll have to spend a month or two filling the vacancy um that we can fill it without any increases to this year's budget. If that's not the case, we'll know more come the time we fill the position or at the time near we're getting near the end of the year. It's a TIFF funded position 100%. So, it would just be utilization. But again, I'm also looking at this from the perspective we never spend 100% of that budget. I think within the efficiencies of the department, we can make it due for the rest of the year. But since this is adding this as a full-time permanent position, I wanted the council to approve this because that means it will be in next year's budget as a full-time position. >> I bet that was going to come up. Um, all right. Um, any clarifying questions, there's clarifying question, not discussion. Go ahead. I'm >> just wanted to know what is the amount in the FY26 budget for the planning position currently? It's a little difficult because it's it's actually in the contracted plan and I think um originally I think we're around 424 45 $42,000. Um and obviously we spent a little bit of that with with Isabelle. Um there also may be some funds left over from the um comp plan um funds that once that's finished up um we did move some stuff forward to that and I think between those two lines we should be pretty close based on what you know we believe that bottom >> we we advertise the starting pay that's probably right along the same lines. What did we >> se right around 73? >> Y >> and then if you if you take that out starting probably in December, um you know, you you're right pretty close. >> And full disclosure, we're updating your pay and benefits plan. The one you've had doesn't include a position of this nature. So I classified it with staff to kind of feel where it felt most appropriate. So that's what got it to the 73,000 starting wage. >> Okay. And so that was really my question. So the difference between what we were already funding and what this position might cost us, not so much this year, but in the future, we were already funding somewhere around 42 to 45. We'd be looking at funding about 75, but that's prior to benefits. There would also be benefits on top of that. So we'd probably be looking at something slightly over a 100red for full cost. Um, and you're feeling confident, not I'm not this year, but as we look to future years, Clint, you to be feeling confident that that additional difference of 60 maybe a little plus thousand would be covered out of the tiff potentially going forward as well, not just this one year. >> Correct. >> Thank you. That's my question. >> So, by doing that, it wouldn't count as the FTEEs that we talk about when we're looking at budgets and salaries. >> It would increase your FTEEs. Yes. Okay. You said it would. Yeah. All right. Any other clarifying questions? You haven't Have you posted the spot yet? You just drop. >> We have. It's been posted for a little over a week. I told you at the last council meeting that I was going to post it pending this decision here. Um I'm doing well with doing well. Looks hopeful. >> Okay. Any comments from the public? Any council discussion? Okay. All those in favor? I got one two looks unanimous. Six to zero. And thank you. And look forward to having a safe space in the in the back and look forward to having somebody with us. Um, sorry. Which one? What's that? Let's do some committee reports. Community development. Thank you. >> We are um currently um working at um coming back to the council for a vote on um some proposed ideas for the Orno stops for making um it safer here in Orno. Some ideas for the staff. So, we'll have a discussion on that coming forward in the next couple of meetings. And we're also going to be assessing the um all the data and information that we got um as part of the or no stops initiative that um Dan put forth with. We had a communitywide um uh um poll on what we should be tackling in terms of um pedestrian safety, car safety, anything that had to do with the road safeties. And so we will start to um prioritize those going forward. Thank you. >> Anything else? Yeah, I just give Cody credit for the survey that was statistically relevant and absolutely accurate reflection of the priorities of the people of Oro that right. Yep. So, we got a survey a lot of great ideas about where we could do some safety stuff and that's on it. >> Good. Thank you. Um, sorry I'm not on the list. Next committee up is finance and operations. >> Yeah. Uh, we've been spending the bulk of our time on uh bonding and uh options there. We're having another special finance committee meeting um later this month, beginning of November um with the intent uh to bring back uh options to council um to for consideration and vote um as far as projects to fund everything from do nothing, fund nothing to fund everything and a couple options in between along with ways to pay that that include everything from drawing completely off of reserves to bonding it all. So, our goal, easy Dan. Our goal is to bring council those options for discussion and consideration. Um, yes. >> It's like a menu. >> Yeah, a menu of options. Exactly. I personally just wanted to come back with one option and take it or leave it, but uh Sarah and Leo want you all to have an option. So, menu of options. um continue to discuss spending limits uh with the intent to hopefully bring actually an ordinance change to council Decemberish. Um and then also today we started uh reviewing safer uh data on the safer grant program or um those positions with the intent to bring that data back to council in January as we prepare uh for our upcoming year's budget uh conversation. Excellent. Thank you for the report. Um, next up, nominations, evaluations, and council policies committee. >> Uh, we have not met since the last meeting, so there's nothing new to update. We will be meeting this week on Thursday. So, we will continue on the policy and procedures manual, >> ordinance review committee. >> Yes. Um so uh we did discuss uh the ongoing charge that we have to come up with a a schedule for um the review of ordinances. Um and part of what we discussed with Shelley was the fact that um we likely aren't going to be meeting a a three-year goal um of reviewing all things partly because so many ordinances have gone for in in many cases decades without having been touched. Um so the idea right now is the thoroughess of the work that we're doing over the course of the next several years if um this committee structure remains sort of as it is um the idea is that come I want to say 20 28 or in in several years um the idea is then the hope is to get on to a three-year cycle. Um, so I think that's partly to answer your question that you raised at one of our previous meetings, Sarah, um, about where the committee was at in terms of talking about the schedule. Um, we are about to be digging in a little bit more into chapter 34 traffic and vehicles to update things in in line with sort of the fact that there's a lot of references to taxis and other things that aren't necessarily as important for us to be listing in ordinances right now. Um, and how we're managing traffic and vehicles in town. Um, also discussed, um, Shelley has been doing some really interesting work talking to, uh, Chief Merrill as well as others about, um, the fact that ordinances only update online once a year in May and how we can make sure that people have access to changes as they're happening. Um, if there's some way that can be put on the website. Other ideas, I mean, these are ideas that are being floated I think things are going to be brought to council more fully about what exactly is possible for us to make uh accessible the most up-to-date ordinance information for everybody in the public and make that easy to find. Um so I think we'll probably hear more from Shel about that soon enough. I think that's everything right now. >> You can absolutely you can ask a question. >> When do I tell you no? >> I don't know. But I just I just wanted to ask um I really appreciated the the memo that came um from Shelley and um to all of council and I'm still hoping though that we might see an actual schedule of um I realize it will get bumped down as council keeps bumping things up in priority Q. Will we eventually see a schedule saying if we were on temporarily a six-year schedule while we're in this more extensive phase, what order those chapters might be being looked at? Because I think it would be helpful to the council and the public to kind of know when they're coming up. Some of us might want to read ahead and see if we have any thoughts on anything. So, I was curious. >> I think I think we will be discussing that further. Um, there is a document that I think everybody does have access to that is roughly the the order that I think right now staff is currently working with. um and with some priorities listed and all the rest, but I think the idea is that we're going to clean that up even more. >> Yeah, it's not sequenced precisely, but you know, winter 2025 or you know, those kinds of things. So, >> thank you. I appreciate knowing that'll come. >> Yep. Oh, you got to you there was an email four days ago, so if you haven't Okay, so that's Yep. Okay. Um diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging committee. We are we are trying to um take bite-sized um pieces out of our proposed work plan and actually um have be able to present this to the council in a way that actually um has tangible goals. And so um we're hoping to have that very soon. Um, we have 22 kind of working ideas and not all of these will make it to you guys, but um, there there's a lot of of ideas and we're we're trying to organize this and have our a really good first meeting with you guys. Right. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, comprehensive plan committee update. Um up on Wednesday, October 29th, the comprehensive plan committee and planning board will be holding a joint public hearing on the draft comprehensive plan which is available on the website. It's been on the website um and a draft form for I think about a month now. Um so people are encouraged to participate in that and then after that public hearing um it'll move towards the council process for consideration this fall. Quinn, >> oh 10:27, >> what's that? October 27th council workshop just on comp plan. >> Yep. >> So that's uh not a hearing just your presentation. So you you were promised one directly. So we're going to fit those in so Isabelle can assist us. >> So Monday, October 27th, we're doing that. >> Yep. And 29th is a public hearing. We didn't want to do them both in the same night. Felt like it was overloading. >> Yep. >> Yep. >> Yep. Thank you. And um council chair update. I would share one thing. We're getting ready to do our good neighbor um November meeting and you know Rob and I co-chair that and you Rob and I will be discussing um finding a suitable time for that November meeting. Um pleased to report we have uh heard from the graduate student government um in the last couple days. So we have an appointment from the graduate student government, one appointment, and we have the two appointments that we've received from um Uain student government. Um so those members will be among those we reach out to in terms of finding the right time to schedule this meeting working with staff and the chambers and things like that. So um looking forward to that discussion and what we hear from staff about the first you know three months of of implementations. Um so that's what I have for the chair update. I guess I would remind people that um we've got an election coming up and uh we've got two council seats um and one school board seat um and among other referendum type issues that'll be on the ballot. So we encourage people to take part in that election um and and so that's it. I'll turn it over to the town manager for his report. >> Yeah. Uh so year end work plan. Uh, since we're doing the six-month quote unquote check-in tonight, that is the completion. I want to do this every year. I adopt a work plan. I'll show you the progress. It's never expected to be 100% complete, but I am extremely impressed with staff and everybody's efforts, council, community. We moved a lot of things over the past year. Um, and to some degree, maybe too many. So, we'll talk more as we move forward, but I'm quite impressed with what we did. This will be how we evolve it. It's a growing changing document every year, but I like to have a little bit of a metrics just based upon my analysis of we set a goal. Do we do nothing 25, 50, 75, 100%. You know, and just what we should do with it for the going forward for future years. Um, some of these need to roll. It may have hit 100% but we got to bring it back because now the step two should be in front of us. And I'll work with you on those. Um, staff appreciation's been set for December 10th. We will be closed. Um, and we want to see what counselors are available. We'd love to have you join us for lunch and some of the awards for longevity and maybe a couple surprises I'm working on with staff as we get between now and there. Um, so email me or Amanda if you'd like to attend and we'll get you all squared away. Um, we are doing a delayed office opening on November 5th after the elections. Um, so that the election staff that works late can come in, get a chance to get their feet under them before we start. And on that same day, we're having a graduation tomorrow for the Art of Human Relations from our second class of 20 some odd uh 20ish staff members, which will put us at 36 total have done this in the past year. Um, and we're going to close the office from about 12 to 1 to have some pizza as a group and celebrate our progress. So, it'll be a short closure then as well. Uh, the 2026 proposed state valuations in there. Um, just something I wanted you to share, something we put out. Wanted you to see, take a look where our valuation is growing. We are consistently challenged by the fact that um, COVID and house values grown at a rate that's been hard for all towns across the state to keep up with. Oro suffering from that as well. And our assessor is diving into year three of a three-year plan to try to correct this. um probably will have a workshop of some nature late winter, early spring without interfering with the lengthy budget process to update you on how he's how he did and what he did to make it happen. But we are seeing some inconsistencies and the number one rule of assessing is to have equity across all housing, all commercial real estate, etc. So, he's working on that. Um art festival, I got an I met with MJ Sedlock. I'm going to have an agenda item. I'm going to be speaking with leadership about, but we did well on the fall festival. She had some ideas for growth opportunities and I'm thought it was great to bring to you guys a potential for additional funding request. So, she's going to see if you'll take some of that savings and put it towards her. We'll have more information for you when that comes. Um, I received notice this morning that the Webster neighborhood train track schedule is finally in front of us and it's the 27th and 28th and you will be public announcements coming out, but they will be working 24 hours straight. The railroads got a bore under it, build the trenches so that they can go under it and if they came back and forth and back and forth, it will be weeks of work. Whereas right now I saw a start date of the 27th probably done the pit by the 28th. Boring would start that's right after that and be done by the 30th is the current information I have. But this is an evolving process with our engineering firm at Oliver Associates. >> The week of the the week coming into Halloween, it'll be >> pretty much 247 at the train tracks. >> We're going to have a tunnel under the train track. >> They're going to tunnel big two pits to put a tunnel under the track. >> Yep. Not fit for kids though, right? I mean, stay away from it. >> Yes. >> Is Is there a notice like going out to the Webster? >> It's going to hit our website tomorrow. I think we I sent it off to Cody. We've got the information. We're working on all that. We'll probably be sending notices to the neighborhood directly, but again, we've got one week to get this out to everybody and we're going to get on it. So, >> and so it's from the 27th to the 30th. >> That's the current schedule I have. We're confirming whether it's going to be the 31st. urged them not to be working on the 31st since it's Halloween, but we'll see where we end up. Um, and then you uh you did um pull the uh order regarding benchmark and I think that was a great decision. I think you need more time to vet these. I think we're learning with as we work with each other. Um that was an RFQ process that we adopted in July. It led through them five different vendors uh were interested. We interviewed two um benchmark gave a great proposal. I will share that one out for the council to see as well in advance of the workshop and now for November 3rd um they are putting forward what is a construction management agreement that will lead to a um GMP contract which is considered guaranteed maximum price. Um in your package you had an AIA agreement. Um there's some you know the goals uh they were working towards a $3.25 $25 million project, but they're not sure. They've been extremely responsive. They were going to get information for me today. Um, but I I I knew from the finance committee's input what was going on. I asked them to take their time. I knew we were going to be doing something different and so I said, "Let's get some more information from them." Um, we're also going to look at other options of what we could pursue here with staff. Um, this is a very big project in the sense that you, you know, you've only do these about once every 30, 40 years when you change police stations, fire stations, do major additions to libraries. So, we want to make sure you get it right and you've had time to fully consider this. Um, it's a really good approach. Doesn't mean it's the only. So, we'll see you on November 3rd. And if you have any questions between now and then, filter my direction and I'll try to assemble as best we can a summary of those for follow-ups and things we could do. But right now, more focused on how to move forward on that project. >> Do you think um that we'll have does it make sense to put an an action given that you may be coming back with some things from staff too? How do I I don't want to create like a I want to move quickly but and I want to make reach a decision and not you know um extend this beyond the point where it delays the project but does it um will do you think it's appropriate to have the work works shop the involved discussion and then have a vote and I guess I'm asking other counselors too are you are we going to be prepared nodding of heads to to make a decision after this workshop I'd like to think we could, but >> well, I think you also need to yes or no is fine. Either option or or variation, but we at least got to show the current vendor that we're willing to get to that they are. >> This will change their workload. If we're not going to commit to this project, they need to find other work. Y >> they have a a staff of people they work with that they want to keep employed and working on new projects and building a queue. So, we can be methodical, but we can't take advantage of them working with us. >> All right. So, good. So, we're going to make a call on November 3rd. Okay, good. >> Okay. >> Uh, >> we'll have an opportunity. What, you know, whether we Yeah, we will, but >> is that everything? >> That's everything. >> Can you um No, not quite. Um, can you How' the traffic signaling go today? Is everything okay with that in terms of >> It got to postponed. >> Oh, did it get postponed? >> Yeah, they're moving the date. That notice is coming out as well or went out today, but they moved the date. They could not install it. That was pushed out because of equipment timeline. So, um, that all changed. >> Okay. Working with outside agencies, this is what we deal with. >> No, I I agree. Um, but when that upgrade's done, we're going to have better responsiveness from the signaling, right? That was I recall, I don't remember the order number, but when we approved the >> There's a couple things. One, like during the events, hockey events, we have to plunge it, they call it. They have to be there and manually do it. It can actually be set up on a timer, which is a major step forward. Bigger than anything though, it's it's going to set up the equipment we need for any improvements long term in that intersection. It's the best equipment available. So, other lighting changes that we may do in the future. We have a $3 million CDS grant for that intersection. This equipment would be better serving our community's needs for all that. But the immediate fix is programmable time slots on the changing of that signal light for major events at the university. So, this is incredibly unfair, but you know, far be it for me not to be unfair sometimes. So, is would that include like we wanted to do something with the three curb cuts at the Circle K? There's three curb cuts. It's it's such an odd intersection, right? There's, you know, you've got the the the roads and then you've got a curb cut at um Woodman's and then two at um K. And, you know, Facebook was alive with a with a a kid who got hit um didn't get hurt fortunately, but got hit at that. >> Yep. It's just it's a hard hard intersection. >> So, we're going to have to do something with that. That's not going to be fixed with this. This is the but the lines that are underground. I think you've heard this at different times. We've had struggles. They're also replacing those. We've confirmed with Sobago the underground lines can be done now and they will not affect future projects. >> It was a small ad and I it's foolish not to do it now because it could be three years before we see that project occur and I wouldn't want to wait three more years for that. >> Well, I I don't feel that bad about asking you unfair questions because you're so well prepared to answer them. So, I appreciate >> it's all because I got a great team giving me the information as fast as they can and it's fast. >> Yeah, that Circle K parking lot's going to come up. All right. Um, sure, C. >> I don't know how quick, but is it possible to for the week that they're working on the railroad that we could look at opening the back gates to the A so that people living on Ponobscot would have an exit point other than going over the tracks? >> I mean, say we will. No. Look at it. Yes, definitely. Yeah, we'll take a look. Yeah. >> Okay. Um, anything else in the manager report? We don't have any public petitions. Um, future agenda items. I've got a couple quick ones. Anybody have any? Um, what we talked about, and I don't know if I was supposed to bring this up in my chair report, but um, we talked a little bit about Holton, I think, in our at the end of our ordinance review committee. Um, and if you follow the news up there, they've had some challenges with their their town manager was um, and several members of the council, and it's not clear to me what, you know, we show up two weeks from now and it's just Matt and I and the rest of you aren't aren't here. I don't know how we govern or um so it's not clear to me like that kind of like and nobody anticipates it until I'm sure the good people of Holton didn't anticipate it but I just so we talked with Shelley Rob right about just kind of getting a better understanding of what where we are with the charter with that kind of thing um and I just we'll bring something back in terms of just our own awareness and >> so yeah what we discussed was basically if if we were going to have this be something we discuss in the ordinance review committee workload. We would want to make sure we're doing that through the right channel and see what the rest of council thinks about that being something worth moving up on the priority list. Um I don't think we anticipate this becoming an imminent issue here in Oro. But um I think uh yeah Dan raised it said it might be worth us discussing and I guess the question is maybe I mean maybe this isn't your question Dan but if that's something that the ordinance review committee is taking on or not. I don't want any part of these king rallies, you be know targeting oro or anything. So I don't want to be I like governing with you know seven of you as opposed to so all right. So >> just to be clear is that a future ask that council talk about whether we want the ordinance review committee to bring us a proposed ordinance of how we would handle such a situation or what exactly is that future ask? I suppose it's to work with to maybe to make aware and I don't know if it's a need to ask but I'm going to try and get a sense of what and maybe it's a nest maybe we assign it to um decap um if there has to be something more than what we have in place but I think may ask and we can talk about in the leadership development committee a leadership council leadership meeting where are we with that kind of thing um and if it's something where we need to formalize some kind of you know We we plan meticulously for all this stuff and then you know you missed the big one the big So >> Okay. Yeah. So it but it would come back to council another time for us to say yes we want to assign this to a committee. >> Yeah. If if there's action needed you know if there's something in the charter that we're just not reading then maybe it's covered. But I'll I'll bring that back to we will. Um and then finally um we have been talking a little bit about um the fireworks. As you'll recall, um, we got rained out at the very end of Orno Festival Day. Um, so we've been talking about that and I don't know if we've got anything else. I don't know if we're going to decide that. Just staff's going to set the date for it based on where we want to go. We're being mindful around um hockey games and other things are going on with like the river, the Still Water River and the end of the >> report for the Friday that closes the student year before finals for the University of Maine. So, it would tie back to that. That's the strongest date right now we're looking at, but it's not set for certain. It was seemed like to have positive feedback, but if not, we're gonna probably have to roll it because the holiday tree lighting and soccer or sorry, hockey events, it was going to create some chaos in the downtown we didn't need. >> Okay, but we'll get that a decision made on that. And um I think it would be a nice way to celebrate the end of the semester. So, all right. Um item 14 is public comment. Anybody have any public comment they like to share with us as we come up on the 7:15 hour and at least 20 minutes of that is my fault. Sorry. Okay. No public comment. No one online. Okay. Uh executive session and we are not going to have anything after executive session. Right. >> You might have action on one might >> have action on one item >> unless or you might tell me to bring it back for the next meeting. I don't know which way you go. >> So we're going to uh we may for those in the know and if we do come back it'll be on the YouTube channel. Right, Cody. >> Yeah. >> Can I ask which one we're doing first? Are we doing the one we might come back with action on first? >> Second one's the 360 review of the >> Thank you. >> So, I'll take a motion to move into executive session pursuant to one MRS 456A. Okay. Um, all those in favor? Okay, we're in executive session. We do it here. We're going to move into the conference room. I >> think here's good. Okay, we'll do it here. Thank you, everybody. I got you. Have a good one. >> Hey, Zad precise. >> What? You would make a I I make a motion to authorize the town. >> Okay. The Orno town council is you don't upstage me, Jacob. The Orno Town Council is back from executive session and we'll entertain a motion from Council Lar. >> Yes. I'd like to uh make a motion to authorize the town manager to reconcile contributions to the town 457 plan and main pers for an employee whose deductions did not match the original intent of the enrollment and to fund an extra town portion of contributions from the interest on investment reserve up to $15,000. Have a second. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? >> Okay, that's unanimous. It's six to zero. Thank you. >> Need another motion to go back in. >> Yep. I would like a motion to move back in in this. We will not be coming back into session, public session after this. I will just be adjourning directly after this um last executive session. I'll take a motion move in moved and second in pursuant to one MSR. I'm going to say it anyway. One MSR 4056A. All those in favor. Thank you.