Could we uh take our seats before I have to compel the Orno Police Department to help counsel their That's in the charter. >> That's in the charter. Thanks, Mitch. Um action. Good. It's almost time to start saying afternoon, but I'm going to stay with evening for a little bit um until perhaps the the spring is officially here. But um good evening and welcome to the Monday, February 9th meeting of uh the Orno Town Council. Roll call shows that we have councelor Lare. We expect councelor Hardison. Um I expect councelor Marks as well. I'm Councelor Demerit, councelor Powers, councelor Baker, and councelor Quinn um in attendance this evening. U first part item two on our agenda is agenda review where we go through items that have been we list things that have been listed to committees. If anyone has any updates to these um or changes, they can let us know and it's an opportunity for us to review anything on the agenda um ask questions and potentially add things to the agenda if we all agree. Are there any agenda review questions or items for anyone this evening? Okay. Next up on our um agenda then is well okay sorry. Um, next up on our agenda, item three is approval of minutes for the January 26, 2026 meeting and the February 2nd, 2026 budget workshop. Anyone have any Can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. Moved and seconded. Any questions or corrections? Okay. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Five to zero. Those voting public comment. This is an opportunity for um anyone here with us in the audience or anyone in our global worldwide audience online to join us and speak with anything speak with the Ornal Town Council about anything that's not on our agenda. Do we have anyone in the audience who'd like to join us for public comment? Anybody online with their hand up? Okay, we'll move on from public comment. And we'll move right into um item five, presentations and discussion items. a resolution recognizing the University of Maine soccer team. I have it here. So, um we'd like and it looks like we have some soccer players here and definitely a soccer coach. Um so, the resolution, we'll read it and then we'll act on it. Um then we'll take a picture and um but the resolution by the Ornotown Council honoring the 2025 University of Maine women's soccer team. Whereas the University of Maine Black Bear women's soccer team demonstrated extraordinary talent, relentless dedication, and cohesive teamwork throughout the 2025 season. And whereas the team achieved a historic victory by clinching the America East Conference Championship title on November 9th, 2025. And whereas this is the third consecutive year the team has achieved this feat. And whereas the University of Maine has been an integral part of the town of Orno since its founding in 1865, it's the only NCAA Division 1 athletic program in the state of Maine. It students are celebrated members of the Orno community. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Orno town council that the town of Orno officially recognized and congratulates the 2025 University of Maine Black Bear women's soccer team. So, could I have a motion? >> Some moved. >> Seconded. >> Moved and seconded. Any other discussion other than what I just shared? >> John, I saw you at a lot of soccer games this year, right? So, I think every time I was at one, you were at one. Yeah, I don't think it's discussion, but just that uh it's been, you know, it's a really fun to have such uh exciting and competitive programs like right in our backyard. Um and I think it's a big big part of living here to be able to uh to go out and do that. So, I'm glad we're able to recognize these successes. >> Anyone else? as I take my son to the games and man, what what a great example of fast um and uh athletic and um fierce competition. So, he's it's a it's a good good um venue for him to uh to learn what it means to be a soccer player. Thank you. >> I'm trying to stall until all women members of our council get here to join us in voting in this, but I don't think I can go long enough. But I do say your new facility is amazing. you play excellent soccer. It's a lot of fun to watch. Um, and I think you have and they may be the softball team, but I think you have some of the rowdiest fans I see at UMain events. Um, they're a little rough on uh on a player. I don't I can't remember what maybe it was a Vermont player or something like that, but it was in good fun for the most part. Um, so I thought so. Anyway, if that's it, we'll go all in favor. Excellent. That's unanimous. Five to zero. And if we could um love to get a picture and congratulations. >> Thanks. >> Yeah. Right here. uh in two weeks from now we'll have the Seattle Seahawks I think. No. Perfect. No one charged on a trade forum. >> Yeah. Yeah. No. Um item B is a uh presentation on safer. I'll turn that to under presentation discussion items. I'll turn that to the town manager to introduce. >> Yeah. So uh um Chief Higgins and and uh deput chief partisan are here as well to back it up. Um but the so and again I want to make sure some of this because uh councelor Marks and I have had some great conversations. the finance committee received a presentation and she had asked and and um about some things to be pointed out but Mitch can you share it for online so people maybe could see can you do that maybe well open the I would hope that people could open the attachment um or at least the council could open the attachment that's in the packet um we'll start with the one that is uh labeled overtime percent spreadsheet and in looking at that I think that Can you give a little background on what SAFER is and why we're talking about it? >> Sure. Yes. Uh, so the SAFER is a grant. It's been four years with the town. Um, it it allowed the town to staff up to a sixth member and the four shift crew and it dropped down to a 42-hour shift schedule, which was a big change at the same time. Um, so again, we run four shifts, six firefighters, um, 24/7, 365. And with this, the safer grant funded three full-time positions of the four through the phase in and the final year is this year. It ends this month. And so starting March 1st, the budget this year carried the last third for the fiscal year to pay for the remaining months. Um there was a lot of discussion last year about how that was done. And we've looked at the data to see what's occurring. So the request last year was that this presentation be made before we switched over um and kicked into the budget season into the non-grant funded portion of the uh agreement. So a lot of this focuses on how much overtime and how we pay for it and does it offset it with the six firefighters. Um I guess in my terms we run a crew that's run we run two two ambulances. So, if two ambulance calls come in at the same time, they go to them both. That takes two firefighters each. Leaves two behind to run a truck, um that is uh what I would call a good minimum staffing guideline. It is recommended to have four on a fire truck. I think a lot of times on a very active fire scene, you want to see more than that command plus two in, two out um is an appropriate standard. And again, that does change um from time to time when federal standards get reviewed. So when you look at this the the the questions that have been coming up with the safer grant it funded this it's coming up and we want to know that how is it performing what is its benefit to the citizens is costing the town money and so this the data that was shared when you adopted it was hard to recreate for for me having been here only 18 months your chief as well but we went through and we put together the data that's up on the screen there for people at home and that you have in your packets to kind of create some sort of measurable uniform data that we can look at it yeartoear. Um what becomes tricky is that each year is different. You know the number of staff that's available uh the number of people that are responding the number of people that are out on short-term long-term leaves, vacation weeks, etc. can all play a factor in this. But what we're trying to do is build a set of data that helps measure its cost and success. So for 2025, they measure this on the calendar year um because that tracks to the overtime that we report on the employees for year end on their um tax returns. So the top section of that form you're looking in there talks is month by month and it it on the far left you'll see it says total shifts hours vacancies filled. That's the number of hours. The next column down is number of hours needing to be filled if at six. So that is setting the numbers that there is double missed shifts no matter what. So there's a scenario where even if we had six full-time firefighters, what is the most we'd have to fill? Cuz sometimes we have vacancies that are planned um for example training. So th those would be there anyway. And when you bring it across to the far right, you'll see that in fis calendar year 2025, 615 hours were un inevitable. You would have had them. Um and we'll come back to that in a second. And then um the difference is the hours that were not filled if we were at six. That's the 3,829. And that gets us to a ratio of 85% for the year. The next chart is where it can become confusing again. And I'm going to look to the chief and the and the deputy chief, but this is where we take the extra hours and we compare it to what we get we projected it would be. So the projected number is what the staff coming into the year felt we would be likely to hit. It's not based upon it's based upon just historical data and they try to do their best estimates of what they think it should happen. It changes year to year. Then the third column below the yellow line and as you see in says in yellow they don't take into account sick time for short notice uh sick time or short notice vacations. That gets you to the next column down where it looks at the total hours missed for the entire year being 5,962. That's where your leave time come sick time comes in and all the vacation hours that were matched above. If you notice the vacancies at 4359.5 in the first two sections matches the second number in that third box. So and again that puts you at the total overtime hours for 2025 at 5,962 hours. Now we have to figure out a way to show you the value of that. These are all based on actual numbers. Those are the actual hours missed. The 615 is the actual of hours that we would have had to have called another person back in. No one made any policy decisions. They are just reporting actual numbers. When you get to that, that takes us into that if you use $57.51, that's where staff has to make some summaries. Everybody makes different wages. It's an average of the total cost and benefits of a firefighter. Um on average um no overtime. Oh we yes sorry with overtime average overtime cost per hour. Thank you for clarifying. Um so then when you take that number and you take that the $5,962. It means that we had $342,874 of costs. That will not match your financials because the actual overtime is based upon the real cost of the actual person. but it's very close. Check that today. So, the numbers are fairly accurate in that regard. Um, but again, a higher cost employee being out more than a lowerc cost employee, those numbers would change. The next number, the unavoidable is the 615 hours. So, they knock that out. So, what it's saying is is if we were at six full-time firefighters, of the $342,000 of overtime, we had 30 and 7,000 would have been saved if we were at the full six and they could have covered them all perfectly throughout the whole year. Um, so this led us into a couple pieces of missing information that the finance committee thought was relevant. I started to put this together, actually met again today with staff on it some more and it became trickier just because staff had to make assumptions. So the one number that we would like to share that we know we can give you is that we took the average cost of a firefighter paying benefits per year and a single firefighter is $87,991 all in. So four of them as funded in the safer grant if we have to if it's all funded by taxes is $351,96612. So, what we were hoping to find, and this is where I probably need some guidance from the council, and we can catch counselor Marks up on this because I think she'll have some great insights, is in order to give a comparison. So, this is the quote unquote perfect scenario, if we were at full staff and everything worked perfectly compared to what actually occurred for the whole year. We had 615 hours. We know for a fact we had to call in double staff even if we were at 6. We know for a fact we had 5,962 hours of overtime paid. What should we what does staff think is reasonable? What's practable? So what really got into the trouble with this is I started looking prior year and I'm only going to talk about last year. So, in 2024, we had 7,310 vacancies, 8,8 hours of overtime. So, over a 2,000 hour difference in one year. 2,000 hours is a full-time position. That's a significant difference in one year. The ones that would have had to been filled, even if we were at six, would have been 1,812. It's a 1,200 hour difference. So, what the conversation we had and I've been around and around these numbers since the finance committee meeting and trying to figure out what can I tell you for a fact and I go back to what you have in your packet aside from the fact that we know four firefighters cost 351,000. We know that in fiscal year 25 615 hours would have been covered no matter what. those 615 hours are worth $35,000. So no matter what, we had $35,000 of costs. We also know in the other extreme that if we had had six all year long, and it would have been the perfect scenario, there was 307,000 of overtime hours we could have avoided, which takes us to the full number. We also know how many overtime hours we had and what it cost us, $342,000. So the best case scenario is 35 and the worst case scenario is 342. I did a quick comparison though and then in 2004 342,000 becomes 460. The savings jumps all the way up that we could have avoided was 364,000 but we actually avoided 104,000. So again, numbers that are changing by 300% in regards to the projected budgeted cost um uh 20% into the savings and again $120,000 increase in one year on actual overtime. I can't tell you what that number is going to be. You've been at 42 hours for three years. What are the parameters you want to put on us on the amount of overtime that we should or shouldn't be experiencing as a department? How do you want us to count the cost of overtime against the real fact that people go out on leaves? That sick time coincide with vacation. Um, I mean, I know that the average number of vacations is just under four weeks per person per shift. With six people per shift, that means there's 24 weeks roughly a year. So half the year they're going to be a vacation. They will never have to double up for vacations. That said though, when you have one long-term absence, whether it's a leave, it's training, medically related, that can be 800, 900 hours for one person in a single year. If we have a senior set of firefighters, they're not going to need as to go to training for the the fire academy. So we'll have less training hours. If they're all young and we're having to send many people to the academy, we're going to have more. Or if we're going to send more people to paramedic school, it becomes this moving target of what's the maximum exposure? What's the minimum? So I go back to in 2005, the maximum exposure was 342 and the minimum is 35. How you want to relate that on your own, it's anywhere's in between that. How you feel you want to judge that. Um, when I add to it that it cost us 351,000 to pay for four firefighters, you could say that the maximum savings 342 is completely mitigated by the 351. But if we start changing the number of firefighters from 6 to 5 or 6 to 7, it will change the amount of overtime each way you do it. So the policy that's in front of me is that we run with six. and you made the decision, we're going to staff every shift at six firefighters. In fiscal year calendar year 2025, that had the potential savings of 307, actual ex cost to because we weren't fully staffed of 342. Um, and I know that's a longer presentation than probably some expected, but again, the data is there. There's other sheets we can talk about, but everything keeps coming back to this one. And why I paused with the staff is I felt like I was making policy decisions by how I shared the data with you that could skew this one way or the other. What's in front of you does not put any opinion into it. It says this is what happened. And if you want to talk about the opinions I have, it's more about what happens to the service levels if we change our staffing. But from a cost and s hopefully you caught that last piece. I think the costs are in the spreadsheets you have. It's just we never have an understanding of what would be the trend over a long period of time yet cuz I only have two three years worth of data and I don't want to trend two three years of data because there's so much variance. Um I know in the two years I've been here why it's changed. You know, we've had a long-term absence this year. We had a lot of long-term medical leaves the prior year. Um, you know, and we got a lot of people at school doing trainings. That's what's really driving those numbers. Will it get better? Will it get worse? I guess that's subjective. What's better or what's worse? It could be more expensive, but we might have better coverage. Messy, I'm sorry. >> All right. Yeah, Council Marks. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> I'm sorry. Okay. >> Thanks, Clint. And I'm sorry that I missed the beginning. Are any of these numbers you just stated anywhere on any spreadsheet? I see the one that I saw at finance committee before, but I don't see any additions to it. >> The only one that's missing is the 351966. I held off on that one because it wasn't a complete answer to the finance committee and I thought a discussion would be better to understand why because I don't know. And I can give you the one with the 3519, but it was just one number >> and that's the cost of funding the four positions. >> That's the four. Yeah, that's the the And again, it's because you can't pick which Ford it is. So, I truly took the it's a uh fifth year firefighter. >> Got it. >> With some EMT certifications, >> but the numbers you were giving of 342 down to 35, those are not anywhere on any spreadsheet we've been given. We were just >> Nope, they're on that one >> where not on the version I have. >> Oh, don't tell me they changed from the one to the other. >> No, 330 342 and 35 368 should be right on that. Let me open the other one to make sure. >> Oh, you're talking about the overtime. I thought, okay, great. I thought you were on the sick leave. So, I really agree that for the most part, this shows what we need about this year's data. Um, and a big thank you to the fire department staff for all their work on that. As I said in the finance committee, the one part here that is not actual data is assumptions about how much of the sick leave would be covered or not covered when staffed at six. The other numbers above, you can see in the chart that says vacation training summary, there's actual data there about what percent were covered, which was about 85% leaving only about 15% that weren't able to be covered by that extra position. So I think it is a very safe assumption that at a minimum 15% of the sick leave hours would not be able to be covered either. If anything, it would probably be slightly higher because as the number of hours goes up, the number of potential points of overlap goes up. So, the only addition I would really like to see at a minimum is acknowledging that it's not 1600 hours of sick leave that will be filled. It's probably 85% of that. If you do the math on that, you end up with 240 hours if 15% were not covered. and 240 hours at the $57 rate is only about $14,000. So, it doesn't change the numbers significantly, but it at least builds in the reality that not all those sick leave hours are going to be able to be covered. So, in my opinion, a 293ish number is pretty accurate for the data that we have. It's hard to say where those sick leave hours would have come in if it was counted how many were covered. Um, but I think you know that range is reasonable. So if we're looking at 350 minus which is the cost of the four positions minus 290ish, we're looking at approximately $60,000 as our guess of what it what it did this year. And I really hear you that that doesn't necessarily mean what we'll do under any other set of circumstances. It just tells us pretty much what it did this year. Um, you know, and I think this is really valuable information for council to be able to take a look and say, you know, these four positions, if we choose to fund them, are not costing us 350,000. They are probably costing us something much whatever 350 minus 690 is, you know, about 60,000 approximately. So, I mean, that's a huge difference. And I I think what you bring up is just we've heard the whole way through. It's not just about money. It's also about quality of life for our firefighters and retention of firefighters and other issues. So, you know, in my mind, this is exactly what we asked for as council is to get a perspective on the level of cost that this was going to be. Not necessarily an exact figure, but there's an order of magnitude difference between 60 65,000 versus 350,000. And I think, you know, that's really important for us to have in front of us. So, that's all I've got. Okay, Matt. >> I I'm not as um quite as familiar with these um numbers and I see that it's 57 um 51 average overtime. What's when when a fire when there isn't an overtime um hour happening about what the what is the cost again? Can you remind me per hour? >> Like a normal firefighter that's not on overtime, what would that be per hour? >> Uh I can tell you that in two seconds. It's the 87991. >> Yes. What I'm asking is how much more is it overtime? >> Okay. That's what I was asking. That's all I needed. >> Okay. Yep. Sorry. Could have given you the dollar. And we can add if it's consensus. What Sarah shared is making some opinions that I'm okay with. I just felt uncomfortable saying it because I right now and again I think you may have missed this. The difference between 2024 and 2025 is drastic and it made me feel uncomfortable of what we think is trending. I I I'm like I don't know yet. I'm those numbers are very dis >> I just think it's an opinion not to state that those sick leave hours will assuredly not all be covered by a sixth person. That's also an opinion. Correct. And I think a more reasonable opinion is that approximately the same percentage would be covered as was covered for the vacation and training summary hours. In reality, it's a generous figure that I gave. So I don't think it's tilting data. I think what's currently here is actually tilting data. So >> anyone else? Um, do we have an our EMS? Are we an ambulance service or we I mean I know we're are we technically an ambulance service in terms of being able to bill for transport and things like that? >> Yes, we bill for transport. We're licensed to the full paramedic level. Correct. Yep. Permitted, sorry. To the paramedic. >> So we can if we are we also able to bill now for non-transport services as an ambulance service or are we still considered a a non-transport emergency service for that? >> So non-transport billing is an ordinance requirement of the council. You would have to adopt an ordinance. It's a fee. >> But we'd be able to bill >> Yeah. >> the person and through the person their insurance. >> Yep. But we do not have that ability yet because we don't have an ordinance authorizing that. >> Do you have you generated an idea of how much revenue that could >> It's what we're stumbling on to for the fiscal year 27 budget and we're trying to figure out what we could project and what we would recommend and it's probably going to be a proposal in the budget to see if you would want to adopt a different fee schedule and amend our ordinances. There's a a bill in the um in the legislature that it's LD530. I don't know how closely you're following it, but it would coming out of committee with a couple different reports and one of them would reimburse non um non-transport emergency medical service providers for 160% if you're in network for Medicare reimbursement rates. >> Um it would require that you require that coverage as a as a health insurance coverage. So, it's something to be looking at. It's too early to tell it's what'll happen when it um before the end of the session, but it's an interesting >> Chief Higgins. Tom Higgins, fire chief. So, I just want to reiterate that we are working on that, pulling that data together. I've been working on I got delayed last week, but trying to get everything together. There are ordinances around like that. I worked on one once before where people uh were really kind of abusive of the system. Some of them you'd feel bad for and in the end we at least wanted to have something put together so that you can assess a value to what you were doing so that when hospice comes in or these different people come in to work with them when you start telling them that they already owe you $7,000 and this is going to continue by this much then then it does uh head some of it off and it does uh generate some revenue. So it's strikes me to require a lot of judgment and care in terms of how you'd assess how to manage a call and Yeah. Yep. Okay. Anything else on in terms of the um the data that you shared with us, Clint, the um the call data is that um all it's not all year to year, right? The quick fact sheet it says you got 2025 as of are all five of the four of these years as of 1231 for the calendar year or they for the fiscal year >> all our calendar year >> okay >> it's the same all of 2022 all calendar year all calendar year >> so we spent less in 2025 than we did in 2024 >> it's 3.2 2 million 600 3.265 million in 2025 versus 3.284. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Have to verify why, but that is correct. >> No, it's a unexpected unexpected change but um okay. Anything else on this item? >> So just to clarify the discussion, I will add that to that sheet if that's the consensus council. I'm comfortable with that if we have it and we've had this discussion now and just present it back to you at the next meeting as a >> add what >> the uh the the analysis that if 85% of the 1600 sick time hours were actually needed to be a call back rather than 600. So it would increase the amount of mandatory hours that we would have to do for a double fill. So, how it works, right, is it just and I'm sorry if I missed it when it before, but is is how it works. We can run with five. We schedule six, but we can run with five without having to call somebody else in. And that's kind of the difference. So, if you've got six scheduled and someone calls out sick, you don't have to force somebody else into an overtime situation, right? some >> and the trick the ones that are tough is somebody's on vacation and then you have a training that comes up or a sick time that comes up on that same scheduled day which is I tried to run some I mean it's 40 the likelihood of that is is around 42% because that's the number of weeks a year a shift can have vacation >> on average >> so yeah >> I mean that's why I think that running with a 15% figure is very conservative and fair because I know the numbers you ran come in that it could be as high as 40% where that person still had to be called for sick time but I Just the 15 is the bare basics that ought to be there to make the figures not biased. And I have a different question beyond the spreadsheet whenever >> Sure. Go ahead. >> Um I wanted to ask about the spreadsheet regarding the reasons for departure of personnel. When I first looked at this in finance committee, I don't think I really had looked at the data how far back this data goes. So it goes back to 20 I mean 2022. And I guess I'm wondering if uh fire department staff could answer if they know. I'm hoping that these folks who left for less overtime happened in the early years before these safer positions came in. But maybe that's not accurate and people are still leaving at the same rate. And then if so, I wonder why because supposedly the point of these safer positions is to reduce the amount of call back on overtime. So So I think that some of these numbers um and some of these are have to be based on what people are telling you why they left. Um certainly some of them left uh and people leave all the time for different reasons even though we have the same schedule everybody had years ago with the 56-hour schedule. It was the least preferred. We were here in Orno like the last department to go down to the 42-hour work week. So, um there's a lot of variables on why they do leave. I mean, people are so much more I don't want to say portable today. Used to be when I was a young person, I started and could get a a fire department job. I stayed People were loyal to the department they they were with. Today, I swear they'll jump the fence for a nickel. And uh uh so it just it makes a big difference in how we're doing this. So recruiting and the opportunities uh people would want to hire and uh there'd be 25 30 maybe more. I don't know Brian probably have a better idea than me on historically on how many people would apply and come and test to come to work here. And now we're we're trying to to grab one or two out of a hiring process and uh and then have to start all over again on it. So, becomes a little bit difficult that way, but I think we're headed in the right direction. The the safer grant was a good thing. It helped with that transition when they were coming down from the 56-hour work week. So, I think that um people that made the choices back then made the right choices. So you are anecdotally seeing less folks leave saying they're leaving for less overtime or you're still seeing the exact same amount of reporting of that. >> Uh there's actually a lot of departments other departments are seeing more like what we're seeing for overtime now. Um but there's no one solid thing you can say. I mean, I I think that a lot of people just playing um if you just look at a typical of life today, people don't want to work overtime. You know, they they don't they I think of my own son. I work my 40 hours and I don't want to do something else. Dad, Saturday is my day off. And uh so it's it's just depends on the person. And uh it and it but it's nice seeing something like this compiled together so you have some ideas and uh of what and why people left. Someone else might there's no names on here but um Brian or people that have been with the department a long time could could uh look at this and say oh yeah I think I know that was that person that left. So >> okay I hope that we'll see less of that. I think that is the point right of these positions was primarily really to increase quality of life for staff that they're not having to be called in when they don't want to be and I don't think they should have to be. >> I think people should be able to you know have their quality of life. So I hope that these these data will start to show less people reporting that there's still too much overtime in their opinion. Thanks. >> Certainly people talk about that life work balance is a big thing that I don't know has any of us ever heard that 10 years 20 years ago. Anything else? >> It's progress, right? >> Absolutely. That having uh the six people on a shift and being able to drop down one still have some people uh is is a good thing for for the community. >> Yeah. >> Okay. just for just for historical things prior to Chief Higgins, prior to to uh Clint, um just from basic knowledge as being extended fire family, those overtime slash better pay, a lot of those people were working 48 hours on with 24 hours off for an extended period of time. Um and that was primarily like the 2024 2025. Um but that overtime balance has improved so that we don't have quite so many who are working the 48 hours on. Why was that happening when the safer positions were already there? Because we just couldn't fill positions and were running short staffed because technically the safer positions have been there since 2023. Correct. >> We had been short staffed when those were happening. Thanks. >> I actually wish we still had our volunteer and call people. That was that was an answer that's never been filled when we lost all those positions. They just really they drifted away over time and the trending of of organizations and the cost of training and competing with the grass that's growing in the front lawn or uh the dirty windows or getting to your kids uh sporting events and things like that. So they they just tailed away. But I still wish it was here. You call me, I'll show up, you know, especially if I get to drive the truck. But yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I am not getting a scanner. So all right. Uh that concludes uh the presentation items tonight's agenda. We'll move next to public hearings. And I will open public hearing A to consider amendments to the town of Orno's personnel policy handbook and call on the town manager to begin the uh public hearing. I want to thank the council for extending with the redline issues with conversion from Micros Google to Microsoft, but we did get it the PDF this time. So you had a word version with the edits in there. Um following my tradition, I'm not going to go page by page or line by line as part of the presentation. Um we did give the key highlights um in earlier memos. Um there are some adjustments. Earn paid leave was adjusted with the recommendation of our advisor, HR adviser. Um I recognized a need for an AI policy that was crafted and put together. And then um we did do some corrective language around how people are requesting time off. what is a uh in the number of adjustments you can make for qualifying events to define what a qualifying event is to change your benefits. I think I'm trying there was one other and everything was I'm so focused on the AI because that was such a big part of what I was writing in it. It was Oh, right there. Oh, yes. Uh, and the minimum pay for reporting uh reporting to work. Um, if you reported not needed, there was be a minimum of two hours. We wanted to clarify that. And then the other one was the amount of vacation time. Um, there there was kind of an unwritten rule that if you were taking more than one week, you needed to get some time off. And so with people doing like you know 11 days or a two week vacation or they were going to miss all of one week and part of the next um as long as it's staffing cover but it does require town manager sign off just to make sure the department heads reviewed their staffing needs and there's no other uh major demands being put on. But that was something we wanted to do. It was kind of the unwritten rule but I kind of like one of those things if it's kind of the unwritten rule let's just put in writing and everybody knows it. So that's it. I'll add if you have questions, want to refer to a page number, I'll do my best to answer them. >> Okay, those are I guess we'll ask um we'll ask for as we do with public hearings, we'll ask for clarifying questions now and then we'll open it up to the public. Um I guess just questions in general, but this is not approval, right? This is a public hearing. So, anybody have a clarifying question for the town manager? Is there anyone either here or online who would like to testify and as part of our public hearing? Seeing none any >> it was asked inadvertently and I don't Sarah it might have been at kneecap if these apply to the council um and I guess for me to share that I don't know if you want to yes if it's if you're adhering to a part of this you are in that intent an employee um in the sense that and again I was looking at the travel policy got some adjustments to to get to what we were actually doing but if you were to travel on a townsponsored travel you would have to adhere to that policy um you know AI use if you're doing town business and we would want you to adhere to our AI policies. Um that would mean you wouldn't bring in an AI drafted document um that you hadn't proof read. I guess is the easiest example. You're supposed to proofread if you use AI. Um but yeah, so it does apply but it's not across the board and I've never been asked that before. So I don't know how you would want to incorporate that for signoffs or not if you want to see it annually like staff do to acknowledge you viewed it. You do vote it in every year. So, I'm kind of assuming you've seen it when you voted in, but that's a that's an on you question. >> Good. Council Marks. >> Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Clint, because that's really where my questions were. Um, as we're working on the council policy and procedures manual, there are some sections of this personnel policy manual that apply to us. Um, and Clint has highlighted the two most obvious ones, the travel policy and the AI policy. So, I guess um reading them from a perspective of thinking about the council and the council policy and procedures manual, there were just a couple of things that jumped out at me and I wonder if they're easy fixes in here to make it more applicable when it applies to counselors or how we would handle that. Um on the travel policy, um that begins on page is it 44, Clint? Um, I think my only concern on this was there's a fair amount of reference, I think, to getting things approved by your department supervisor. And I wonder if we just change it here or we put it in the council policy and procedure manual, but somewhere we need to say in the case of a counselor, who is that? Is that the council chair? I don't know. So, or is that just it goes straight to the town manager? Um, so I'm fine if it's something you want to clarify here or if you want to bring back and say, "No, in the council policy and procedures manual, we should cite this policy with a notation that anywhere it says department supervisor, this is who it means for a counselor." Um, but I think we need to clarify it in one place or the other. Um, and then on the AI summary, um, they're not summary, um, rules. Um, I was thinking to councelor Demerit's request some weeks back now about using AI to um summarize meeting >> transcripts, >> right? Transcripts so that that's searchable more easily by the public for any specific word. And I I do see a lot of value in that for ease of the public being able to find information. Um, in looking at this, my concern was on um the acceptable uses. I believe that's on page 29. It says acceptable use for public facing digital services. AI may be used for public facing digital services, which I guess this would be since it would be facing out to the public where transparency and review are in place. So what does review mean in that case? we couldn't possibly review every word of a transcript. Um, and likewise then it on the bottom failure to review or verify the content is considered improper use of AI. And so it says content published by the town of Orino on public-f facing resources such as the website or any other public-f facing content would be an inappropriate and unacceptable use if it had not been reviewed. So I'm trying to understand if that's something council wants to do to make information more transparent to the public about what we discuss in our meetings. Is that in violation of this policy or can we clarify somehow what review means in this case? Yeah, if we wanted to apply, it's going to have to have language of what a pre-approved disclaimer is because we're not going to we can never approve what AI generates. And what we're trying to avoid is staff doing verbatim. And again, that's we just don't have the resources to do verbatim. I saw what we were doing and how much time it was consuming. So, I think if we just put in there that any public facing transcripts would include this disclaimer and then we could just put a sample, it would be pretty easy to do that and then people would understand. I think if we could add that in about what that reapproved disclaimer language would be in that case so we would not be in violation of the policy then I think we'd be set. Those are my two points. >> All right. And I know we'd um urge people not to come forward very often with travel requests more than $5,000 just for just you know if it's not it's not a good look. Um, all right. Any other comments or questions about the handbook? So, when will we see this for a vote? >> But we'll get the edits to you sooner. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Fair enough. Okay. I will close the public hearing and we'll start uh at the right side of the table, my right, um which is with councelor Quinn for council acknowledgements. >> Yeah. Um I sorry you caught me off guard there. Um uh just wanted to shout out I think they put on a really cool program uh this weekend over at the university uh uh for Women and Girls in Sports Day. Um and really kind of highlighted some uh some some unique and cool aspects of of community. I I think there's lots of uh lots of incredible ways to create community in spaces and uh athletics is one of them and the more opportunities we have to get kids into that uh the more they're a part of part of where they live. So, it was good to see. >> Excellent. Council Baker. >> Yeah. A couple weeks ago, uh, I took a tour of the police station, the public safety building, and, um, the, uh, wastewater treatment plant. So, thanks to to Brian, Dan, and Chris who took me around. Um, I saw some really cool things, and I saw some really horrifying things, uh, mostly in the wastewater treatment plant. But, no, appreciate you all taking the time to to do that. >> Okay. Council Powers, >> I've got nothing at the moment. >> Yep. I'll go last. Councelor Marks. >> Well, I have to disagree with Councelor Baker here. I went on those tours and I actually thought that the wastewater tour was the coolest of them all and not at all scary and incredibly reassuring about everything that's happening to our water and before it goes into the river that I swim in. Um, so a big thanks to everyone who led those tours. I also really enjoyed them, but especially to Chris Pru because it was a place I had never been and nothing I had ever seen or learned about and it was cold and we were outside a lot to do the tour. Um, and he claims that anyone in town who would like a tour of said facility can get one. So, I really do encourage people to take him up on it. It's pretty darn neat and fascinating. >> Councelor Hardison, >> just putting in a plug for Officer Patterson. He's going to be doing a Polar Plunge March 21st and 22nd. It's a 24-hour event um if to raise funds for Special Olympics. And for more information or a link to donate um look on the Oro Police Department Facebook page. >> Okay. See some sick days in the department's future perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Um, approve approved sick leave. Council Lway, >> I have nothing at this time. Thank you. >> Um, I would like to acknowledge that I did not respond to Marissa Schultz in time to let her know what the dress code was or whether she could bring her laptop, but she seems like she's hit it off all the same. Marissa is our new um student government liaison elected by I'm sure in a hotly contested um comp contest to be the um main student government liaison to the orno town council. We very much welcome having you here. Uh if you'd like to introduce yourself uh we'd welcome you to come up and say hello, but if you'd Yeah, come on up. Say hi. Yeah, >> Rob's in charge of making sure you press the button. He's the Yeah. >> This one to keep holding it. >> Yeah. >> No. Oh, okay. Uh I'm Marissa Schultz. Um I am a junior at the University of Maine. I transferred last year uh from Memphis, Tennessee. Uh I just joined student government this past fall. Um I'm having a blast with it. Um and I'm really looking forward to working with you guys. If there's anything that you need me to tell the student government or you want the information from the student government, I'd love to, you know, kind of work a little bit more than maybe we have in the past. Um, especially on the good neighbor policy. So, if there's anything you need, if you need me at all, um, I'll send you all my email so you can communicate with me in any way that you need to. Yeah. >> Thank you, Marissa. Uh we actually um had a uh a meeting with the student representatives to the good neighbor committee. Um UMain student government was involved in helping us um expand out that committee to include more representation from student government um and graduate student government. So, I had a meeting with some of those representatives a couple weeks ago and we prepared. I'll forward you the emails now that we're in touch um of the kind of ideas that we brought we're bringing together in terms of potential enhancements to the the policy moving forward. So, I'll make sure you're included and copied on those things. Welcome. Very we're happy to have you here and uh we are very serious about um our collaboration. you know, University of Maine students are our voters, our our citizens, and we're very happy to have you here and want very much to have um students involved in our process um as members of our community. So, thank you. That concludes item seven, pardon me, and we'll move now to the consent agenda. This is an opportunity for anyone to um this is a opportunity for council to move a block of items in one um without discussion, but any member of the public or any member of the council could ask for things to be removed and taken up as a separate action item. Anything anybody want to talk about other than that? All right, we'll take a motion on the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> So moved. >> Seconded. >> Moved and seconded. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Now we'll move on to action items. Order. I'll take a order motion on order 2629. >> So moved. >> Moved and seconded. Um can we get um just a brief overview of what we have in front of us, Jacob? >> Yeah. So, um, as promised, um, in prior council meetings, uh, you can expect to see, uh, quarterly financials brought to the full council, uh, every quarter. Um, the finance committee reviews them on a monthly basis and, you know, ask questions, clarification, etc. Um, and then the council will get a chance to review uh, on a quarterly basis. Uh in this first instance, uh they are being put on the action as an action item moving forward. Um unless there's any objections, uh we will put them on the consent agenda knowing that if any counselor has any questions, concerns, anything, you can readily pull it off. But um yeah, if anybody has any, you know, questions on either the monthly uh revenue report and expense report or the quarterly financial report, um Zach, Clint, anybody is here to to answer that. >> Okay, thank you for that presentation. Any clarifying questions? >> Only add that starting next I mean next quarter, you'll see them on the consent calendar. Yep. >> And so this um we this is the first time that we've seen these this way, but this is kind of what we expect every six months or every quarter and um because I notice every quarter and because and it'll give us a the percentage will go up presumably for Q3 in in a relatively one-third more type of thing, right? And so, all right, I'm just >> Okay, >> thanks. >> Any members of the public want to be heard on these? Mitch, anybody online? The hand up. Just checking. Anybody online at all? There's some views. Usually there's some views. Yep. Well, um, all right. And no more discussion on this. Council Baker, I trust you're going in every week to review the expenses like I used to do before we turn that over to you. I just approved a batch last night. >> Excellent. Do you There's nothing better than come up with one obscure thing to ask Zach about which, you know, just for fun. >> It's not my deal. No. >> Well, I liked it a lot and I >> What about this one? How come? It cost us how much to get a keep made? All right. Um, we have a motion. We have a second. I've gotten my joke in, so I guess we can vote. All those in favor? Excellent. That's unanimous. And Zach, thanks for all the good work. Yep. Supporting the committee and getting us this information and making it transparent. Next up on the agenda is order 2630 assigning the community development committee uh to design a committee structure in charge for a downtown committee. Can I get a motion? >> So moved >> in a second. >> Okay. So this is um we talked about this. We talked EJ presented us with EJ Roach, our economic development director. that the manager um presented us with um a really exciting opportunity to do a visioning for our downtown. And we talked about as part of that discussion when it was presented, we talked about having a of a committee structure um to help support that work and and give or residents who've got an interest in this an opportunity to be to be heard and to participate. I would say, you know, we've got so we talked about it in the council leadership meeting and considered a referral to the uh community development committee, which I apologize if that comes as a surprise to the members of the community development committee, but thought that would be the right committee with perhaps the the time. And I think councelor Quinn, I maybe heard a rumor that you had an interest in this as well. Is that true? >> Yeah. Yeah, that's true. >> Excellent. Um, so that was that was the thinking and, you know, we're going to want to do something short of, you know, it's not the full-blown in my view anyway, not the full-blown um you like the the town manager search we did. You know, it's not going to be as involved as that nine-month process. Um, but it'll be something, you know, it will be it'll be something where we invite people to come in and all those ideas that we've been what find their way into our inbox over the over over the past several months or years can kind of reach out to those people and see if they want to be be heard on it. So, that's kind of what we had. Any questions about that or anything else to add? Council Arway. Yeah, I guess um just I think this is I'm totally for this for the committee to design a committee structure in charge. I was wondering if we have any sense of a timeline that we're expecting on this. >> You want to take a crack at it? Yeah. Go ahead. >> I don't know what timeline council wants to put, but I do have some like factors that I think maybe, you know, we should consider on that. I guess the first is the community development committee meets on February 18th. I was told I don't know if Matt could speak to how jammed up is your agenda or is this something you could delve right into on the 18th? >> Yeah, I think we can start getting into this on the 18th. We have other stuff to do, but we can set aside some time to at least start the structure. >> And then I think the other question would be when would council hope that we could have such a committee in place like if we're hoping for it to meet before summer hits at in our university town, summer hits early, right? I mean, the university gets out on May I don't know what it is this year. Does someone know? Student representative, do you know what day we get out? May 5th, May 10th. It's somewhere in there, right? >> April 26th is our last council meeting before students go home. >> Okay. So, in order to have it meet before, you know, students left, it would need to happen. No, the first meeting would have to happen at the latest in April, which would mean that we would want council to be approving a slate of potential folks who applied in March, which doesn't give community development committee a whole lot of time. It gives you the 18th and maybe your March meeting also. um if a and and I think that sequence is determined a little by who is council asking to take a look at these applications that come in from the community because I assume it would go out on our website and all our social media. Is council wanting kneecap to take a look at that like we do for all the other committees or does council itself want to have a longer executive session and wade through all those applications as a full council? So the answer Matt is kind of fast if we're expecting it to meet this spring and slower if people are thinking not until the fall. I wasn't thinking that we necessarily had to have a timeline, but um in by April, but that's kind of I want the staff's input. If they want to get it on it, then that would kind of drive our uh focus and and how fast we want to do this. So, that's kind of I I would want to get some um idea from the staff what they're thinking of the timing of this before I said anything on that. I mean, isn't part of um why this was raised is that we have this opportunity to be working with a consultant at some point? I'm wondering um maybe somebody else remembers or if Jay could remind us what we're thinking would be the timeline of working with that consultant because that might help us decide whether or not we don't have to rush this and we could make something happen in the fall. Good evening. Uh AJ Roach, planning and economic development manager. Uh the timeline we were looking at, obviously we needed to put it in the upcoming budget. Uh so we put a placeholder in there for those expenses. Um timing wise, we were looking probably fall uh to bring the consultant in. So we do have some time to allow for the committee to form as you guys normally would would form it. So we're not in really a urgent push to to get that form. So we can go at the the pace of forming the committee. So >> how are we going to sequence this or will we sequence this for with you know we've got the police station work. We've got land use ordinance work that we're going to start getting into with the um plan the comprehensive plan update. So how do you see this Clint coming forward in terms of you all the different you know if we had just project plan like we you know could control everything which of course we can't how would you what would you envision for >> I mean and maybe I don't we step one would be a referral form tonight from someone to the staff so we can put it in the record and have it I mean that's the step one we got to get that form I've got them here >> um that's what we're looking for to get going as far is I I don't have a 100% full understanding of where you're going, but I think more of this isformational and conversational transparency and information gathering. Um so like when you refer to the land use changes staff's already started, that's our job. We're working on those as the comp plan. So we're getting prepared. Um taking feedback I guess would be important, but we've received I don't know the exact number of pages in the comp plan, but we've received a 100 plus pages of feedback to know where we're headed. So we got a good idea of where that's going to take place. I think it's more of when the police station gets further along, when we look at that green spacing, what are the opportunities we can consider? Um, the library's got some things that are going on down there that wouldn't probably be bad, but I think more of it's the more general overarching of the the uh consultant we're talking about is what is the vision of an oro downtown? And again, and I, you know, some of you have made the statements, you know, from when I've started about wanting to have a route to walkable corridor that's, you know, pedestrian friendly. We talk about having a clear connection so that it's cohesive with the university. We um I've had conversations with you and residents about what can we do to improve Mil Street um so that it has a character and theme that's consistent with the overall community and how could we do that? Um could we do grants? Could we do other things? I think this is our opportunity to put that all together and you know, as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words. If we can show a picture of what we want the areas of our downtown to look like, then we got the beginnings of a good plan. And then also being open to what we don't know. I mean, there's going to be things that some people will bring forward in your process, I think, as a committee that will be exciting for us to consider as something else that we maybe haven't thought of. So, I guess as I was to put this together, I think it would be great if you gave yourself two months to get a committee up and running and then maybe two months to get all your input so that by the time the budget's approved and we're moving into July, we've got information to hand in an RFP or RFQ or uh however we do it. Um, actually, this will be under the bid thresholds because the numbers I've been hearing is under 10,000. Then it would be a memo that we would give the consultant we intend to hire and say, "Here's your plat. Here's the basis of where we're coming you at you from. We've done our homework and this is going to help you get going quicker." Am I on the right page or am I misreading the >> I think so. I mean there are pieces that are um you the vision could really inform how we think about in terms of the we don't have a we don't have like the pictures really in a way that would be helpful in terms of this is what it looks like with the safety improvement and it's just really hard because there's so many different moving pieces to do this all at once. Um I do think I think we've done it a couple different ways. You know, typically when we're able to get things when we have some urgency and we get something done, um the faster acting with some urgency can make a difference in terms of actually getting it done. Um like you know with a good neighbor committee last year we got that was fast and maybe too fast but I it was fast and we got it done and it was a lot of work. Um, and I don't expect that this doesn't have that kind of urgency, but I do think the faster we move on things like this, the more likely we are to have an impact. And so, why don't we um >> I just looked at the calendar just to check committee dates and council meeting dates. Just can I just read that out? Like it is possible if community development thought that they could get recommendations back to council for our March 23rd meeting for us to vote on. That gives you two meetings, February 18th and March 18th to do that. Um if the council voted to approve the charge of the committee fully um at that meeting then um it depends if if council wants to look at applications itself that's fine. If they want NECAP to look at them, NICAP meets on April 9th, so we could look at those applications and bring a slate back to council at the April 13th meeting. Um but it does mean we would want to probably advertise that such a committee is forming um before the full description is done on March 23rd because we would probably want a full month for people to apply. >> Yeah. I don't >> So I mean that's I think the timeline is possible what Clint suggested to get in place by two months. Um >> yeah, I don't think we I would I would think we'd be able to come up with some recommendations, bring them right back to council and >> in one month. You could get them to us in one month or two from community development. Well, we're going to meet on the 18th to talk about it and then I think we could do it, you know, bring it into the the 23rd. If we've got two meetings between before the 23rd, I would think we could pull it off and have recommendations come back in and then we could talk about an executive committee and then come out and vote on the slate. So, >> and so are folks comfortable with the position that the fact that there will be such a committee and the advertisement going out to the public about that before the March 23rd meeting because I think that's important if we want to be able I mean we're going to have a committee. We're just not sure every single detail of how many people and which groups need to be represented and all of that. Right. >> Right. >> Okay. Then I think it would work. >> Matt, you're the chair. >> Yeah. So, let me just make sure this is in my mind. So, we want to get a charge done, right? It has to be approved by the town council and then we start bringing in candidates. Is that what you're saying or are you saying we want to start getting candidates in and then we have approval of the charge and approval of the candidates all in one meeting? I just want to make sure. >> Yeah. No, I think what we do is we refer it to the community development committee. The 18th we have kind of a discussion with staff and get a good sense of what what we're trying to do. Then we need to make it available agree to advertise in general what it's going to be and we'll finalize at the 18th at the March meeting we will review people who've come forward finalize a proposed charge to the committee for the council and then council will come in and approve it you know consider it on the 23rd and potentially adopt >> so you're saying >> yeah me too. So, you're saying that the after the February 18th meeting, there'd be enough information to put out a call for people to apply and then at the March 18th meeting, you will firm up the charge completely. And I think it's important to say like maybe you decide this in your February 18th meeting, but to get back to us on council about who's looking at those applications as they come in. Is that community development committee? Is that kneecap? Is that the full council? >> Yeah. And we'll decide that we'll discuss that our 18th. We'll give you an update at our next at the council meeting after that to let you know which way we're headed and take some feedback from people if they've got any suggestions. But if you're going to refer to the committee, you got to let the committee do the work. And that's >> 100%. I do think that we're advertising positions right now is why I'm bringing it up because there's a lot of other positions open. So, um, staff have been advertising that there are committee positions open. Nikap's been talking about that a lot. So, we want to be sure that this gets advertised, too, was my point. >> Okay. We'll take it all under adisement if uh the council acts on 2630. >> Got it. >> All right. And >> I know the staff also asked that someone needs to fill out the committee referral form for this being referred to committee. So I think we need to know who's filling that out. Um whether that's council or staff. And the charge I think is pretty clear. The summary of the referral is to design a committee structure and charge. I would also add a name. Um because maybe it's called the downtown committee, but maybe you guys have a different name that you want to bring back. Um if that's amendable to the rest of council. >> Well, yeah. And the two steps, one, we need the referral to community development to create a committee and then when they come back, they'll fill out they'll have a filled out form of what the new committee is called, >> right? But in for for council to refer to them, we're supposed to give them a charge. So I think the charge should be please create a committee structure, charge, and name. And we're also supposed to as a council identify any questions that we're asking them specifically. So other people may have questions, but you know, some things I would want to specifically hear is how many committee members are there any groups you're hoping to see especially represented? As I mentioned, who's going to take a look at the applications as they come in? Um, by what date are we hoping to have the committee in place? Um, and then the other one is a requested response date. So, I think we've been clear on that that we're requesting a response at the March 23rd meeting. If anyone has other questions they think the committee should answer, this is supposed to be council's chance to tell the committee. What do you want them to answer? It's how we've built our structure. So we have on do we have an order on the table assigning the committee development committee community development committee design a community committee structure and charge for a downtown committee. Do you want to are you offering an amendment Sarah to that or >> I would offer an amendment to add the word phrase committee name and I'm also suggesting that anyone else on council who has a question they want this committee to answer that I didn't just list it now because this is how the committee referral form gets made and how the committee knows what it's supposed to bring back. >> But I think uh to be clear all those other questions you asked, we don't need to put those in the amendment. Those are things we put on the referral form, >> right? They go on the referral form, not on the order. But everyone else should speak up if they have it. >> All right. So, well, someone I heard a I heard a a motion by councelor Marks to amend the order. So, it reads order assigning the community development committee to design a committee structure, a committee name and charge for a downtown committee. Is that a fair amendment? Will anyone second that? I guess. Okay. Any discussion on that amendment? I'm going to move us along. All those in favor? That amendment passes. Now, we've got the underlying order as amended. Any further discussion? and we will work with staff to get a referral sheet done based on the discussion. We'll go back and look at the YouTube video from 6:05 to 612. All those in favor of 46 order 2630 as amended. That's unanimous. Excellent. Um this would Marissa, this is a good example of something we'll want to talk with um you about in terms of the vision for the downtown of our college town. I think needs to have the point of view of university students, you know, for now and in the future. So be a good chance for collaboration. Um next up is council committee reports. We'll start with uh community development committee which just got a little busier. Yeah. So um we have put together the matrix uh for prioritizing issues relating to the um to the Orino stops survey and um the issues around town and John Quinn has um sent that and we are um tabulating that and we will try and prioritize those this coming um committee meeting and now we are looking at um setting up a uh downtown committee its structure it charge its Anything further to add? >> Nope. Sounds good. All right. Finance and operations committee. Nothing to report. Ncap, >> I mistakenly said at the last meeting that we were meeting last week, but we actually meet this week. So, report will come after this week. >> Thank you. Um, ordinance committee. >> Nothing new since our last meeting. Um just a reminder that in the agenda is linked a uh um document where you can check to see the general timeline on which we're going to be looking at things. Right now it's listing it more by season than particular months. Although with stuff that's coming up more uh coming up a little sooner like in uh number 40 vehicles for hire, we are listing that. We're hoping to work through that in March or April. So, uh, other things that are on the agenda right now are finishing up work around traffic vehicles, um, and talking about cemeteries like we discussed at our previous meeting. >> Council Marks has a clarifying question. >> I love this document. It was really great that it was here. And I just wanted to understand under the notes and the review dates when it says something like held per C34, what is C34? Is it >> That is a good question. Like maybe it means because we're going to do >> chapter 34 first. >> So then when it says that held per like on the one that says >> um should be reviewed with C34. So chapter 34 committee recommends repeal I get but one that says held for C34 per council order. When did the council have any discussion about chapter 34 or does that mean something different than I'm looking at the first page on chapter 8? >> Yeah, I see that >> held per chapter 34 council order. I I don't know what that means and I was curious if council has to take some action to know what that means. >> Not sure. I I mean, you know, Shelley, I think is really driving this document. I'm sure she would know why that's written there in that way. I think maybe we can clarify that with her. I just want to be sure we're not holding you guys up somewhere and if we're taking orders that have effects on you to know what they are. >> I it was I think I know if you don't mind. Chapter 34 is chapters is traffic and vehicles. Council order asked us to do that one now. So it was held in that it was postponed because we prioritized chapter 34 first and then that one was going to be the next one up. >> Does council order mean a council preference or does it mean an actual order that we voted on? I think it was an order that you I think I don't think you took an order. Yeah. And I think I can talk to Shel, but you you we you we came in here and you said we want to work on traffic and vehicles. We were having parking issues. >> So or may not be the right word because it's >> I'll double check that. >> Yeah, it just confused me. I couldn't remember us taking a vote on anything. That makes sense. Thanks. >> But I'll double check that and we'll get Shel back to you. >> Okay. >> Thanks so much. >> Yeah. In other words, I just want to thank Shilly again for all the work she's doing on this and all the collaboration with all the rest of the staff to be putting together this schedule and making sure that the work is happening. >> Okay. Um DEIB. >> I don't have any um thing to report at the moment. >> Um the comprehensive plan committee I think we can pull this from the agenda on an ongoing basis. Yep. And council chair update. I mentioned the good neighbor meeting I had with uh university students so uh prior so that was part of what I wanted to update on. I think that was it for my council chair updates at this point. Town manager report. >> Yeah. Um thank you. Appreciate it. So a few items on there. Uh unemployment reserves. We're going to come back to but I wanted to heads this up. Um the the way the reserves are set up, it's going to deplete to a lower level that we should. Um, but rather than dealing with it in the capital programs or reserve plannings, the budgets, Zach and I have identified a few sources and we'll be coming back to council near the end of the year when we know how the balances are actually going to finish um for the year's activity. But there will probably be some sort of review and discussion about replenishing the reserve accounts um because of the amount of activity. Uh so just want to give you the first notification. Um Orno Landing Road. So, we did receive a significant memo from our attorney and we began meeting. We're set beginning to set up meetings with the residents. Um, I did not share it here. I'd like to meet with the residents first. Council can have it and we'll maybe do more with it as a as a public discussion. Um, much as what we thought, it is a uh if it is a public road or right of way, we're going to have to provide access for everyone. It's not any one neighborhood. But there are some options where if the land owners can come together, there's alternative solutions. Um, so we're excited to report that we've got the information we need to continue forward. The staff's already reached out to some of the residents involved to see if they can come and meet and we'll keep you posted. But we did get a legal opinion on it that summarizes most of what we thought, which is good. Um, Benchmark, again, probably should have added that's Benchmark Construction, the company that's doing the design and has the agreement to uh do the work to do our new police station. Um, they have contacted me last week and we'll have a estimated price as we discussed to me for the next council meeting. It was getting close and they asked for a little bit more time. I told them you were meeting tonight and I said rather than rush it, I'd rather you have it complete. So I should see something by the end of this week. So it'll be on your next agenda to have the authorization to continue depending on what the budget is. Um well checks and the good morning program first thing that hyperlink in there takes you to the website for the town and if anybody wants a good morning wakeup call or a neighbor call the good morning program that's something we have people that participate now and others can sign up for. In addition to that, it was also asked if anybody wants to have a well check on a neighbor you're concerned, um just call the Orno police and they will take care of it. A uh in most cases that means a uh officer will show up um because sometimes you know what they see there could be a variety of issues, but so if any resident is concerned about their neighbor or another person in the community, you can just call the Orno police. It's confidential if you want it to be. Let us know that you have concerns and we will stop in and check on somebody. So, it gives you the two extremes. One, where you think something could be significantly wrong and you want a neighbor checked on? Or two, you're a family member and you know, could you call my mother who lives alone, you know, and they set up a program with her, they'll call um in some cases as much as multiple uh every day of the week. So, those are the two options that came up from the council. If you ever have questions, come see me. But those are the two programs that are available. Um council Googled a Microsoft update. You know, we're doing this. This will in what we probably have never shared. This will affect you. Your emails will stay the same, but the drives that we share for the council documents will be updated to Microsoft. Stay tuned. And it is coming soon. So, but I wanted to make sure we took this moment to share that with you. Um, you will have to have access to Microsoft. If any of you don't have access to the Microsoft suite, just contact staff and we'll get that squared away. Okay. uh annual report. So the 2024 annual report uh I want to please report Cody has it finished. It will be going on our website soon. Um that's a little bit behind but this is Pete started it. Cody came in and was onboarding and learning how to do it and took it over and has finished it. It is longer but the 2025 report will be coming right on time within the next month. So they're back in swing. He just had to get understanding what was going into it. Um, we have added a little bit the there's been some conversations. More sections are going to be added to the 2025 explaining why we do it, but you got to remember we're reporting on that year. So, for 2024, um, your town manager is Cornell Knight as the interim and it says interim town manager Cornell Knight. For 2025, um, I will show up on that annual report. That will be the first one I'm in. Uh, any other questions than that? We followed the model of what the town had been doing. So there no significant changes. I think Cody has ideas, but nothing happening yet. Just keep you posted. All right. >> All right. I saw Pete on Gilbert Street last night if we need him for anything. Okay. >> He's close. >> And then a couple I wanted to So there's a couple little things I wanted to uh to share that weren't here that kind of came up since then. First one, um the info sheets that we worked on for how our community safety and community policing works is being updated. biggest addition is we're adding our community uh policing policies that are on our website as direct links. We found some other links and I want to say a special thank you to all the members of our DEIB including the co-chairs Anila and Malcolm. Um I reached out at the advice of some counselors and that's led to a lot of dialogue. I've shifted this over to Cody. he's the community engagement director um and said take the lead and he's working on this at great lengths and I'm pleased to say we'll have more information and I'll share it for you when it's ready. >> Um so good news hopefully coming there. >> Is it posted still in its original format or updated format? >> It's not posted. It's available in its original format. >> Okay. >> Yep. And uh the annual audit I received at 4:03 today a draft. So we're making progress, but I have not read it. So I don't know much more than tell you that I wanted you to know I have the draft. And early this morning I saw a draft which I also haven't read of the interpretive plan that we were working on. So great news on both of those. Those are coming. I'll keep you posted. Um, but a lot of things happening on some of the projects we've been working on and that's it. >> Okay. Any questions for the manager on any of any and all that good work? Okay. Public petitions, there are none. Future agenda items and council requests for supporting items. We um we put a um we listed the main climate super fund item. It was in the uh first draft of the agenda as an action item that was shared with council on Wednesday. Um, I think we it came in as um a member of staff forwarded it to council leadership and um as something that we could it was relayed as an information item and I think we kind of ended up putting it on the agenda as it came in rather than um taking the time to talk about it and dig into it deeply. Um there was not a request by uh the coun staff member that it come forward. it wasn't in as an agenda item or something for the council to act on, but since we'd seen it and it had been shared in a draft in an earlier draft, I wanted to provide it um see if anybody had anything about it they want to talk about. I'm not particularly speaking for myself. Um I I did take some time to look at it once I saw it on the agenda and I would admit that I missed the initial email from staff on it. Um but it is a a bill that has been the subject of five different work sessions over 10 months and 121 pieces of testimony at the legislature. Um and it has to do with assessing a um a fund against fossil fuel companies that has had a lot of scrutiny and recent amendments and I just I don't the amount of time that I thought it would take for us to have it make an it's not in our sandbox. Lori Osher is a member of the committee, Representative Lori Osher from Orno. Um, she's doing her work on it. Um, if we had questions, we could talk to her, but it didn't feel to me like it was in our in our sandbox, but I did want to bring it as a future agenda item in case anybody wanted more information or felt like we ought to dig into it and take a position on a bill that's moving forward at the legislature. >> I I don't feel particularly called to work on it. Um, >> sorry. Sorry, Rob. What? >> I don't feel particularly called for us to spend a lot of time on it in unless we were to I mean I I trust that we would be informed um Representative Osher or others if support was seen as like it was going to be particularly helpful. Um uh I'm I'm appreciative um from our environmental services manager for bringing this up to us, but um yeah, I mean I I think if the work is continuing, this seems valuable. Um but I'm not sure if uh it's thought that us taking a position uh and the time it would take for us to develop a a position um is a good use of our time or if other people know a little bit more. >> Okay. >> I might have a slightly different opinion. I think that it came to us with a resolution already fully formed. It doesn't seem like it takes that much time for us to decide if we are interested in signing it or not. I think I would be curious in hearing from Representative Oer if she wanted to come. My standard really for things that I want to take a position on as a town is largely about what things are costing our taxpayers. And we keep hearing from our environmental services staff that storm water surges and storm water issues cost us money. and we're looking into grant money about how to deal with some of that. So, I think that things that have a significant financial impact on our taxpayers are worth taking a look at. Um, I hear you on the number of opinions. I haven't looked at them. I, you know, would be curious what companies are on which sides of those opinions would tell me a fair amount, I think. Um, so from my perspective with the potential financial impact it has on taxpayers, I think it could be worth asking Representative Osher to come talk, but I'd like to hear from other counselors. Do you want to spend Well, okay. >> I agree with Rob on this one that um I think it there there I I I don't know enough about this legislation um to advise or vote that the town take an active position on it. And um it sounds like, you know, based on the research I did since this agenda came out that it's it's not a it's it's a larger more complex issue that I I think it'll take more time than what I am willing to spend to do to to to get comfortable voting on on a resolution to support a piece of legislation at the state level. I I'd like to maybe clarify my position a little bit that um I mean I do find this to be a very valuable um bill um to the extent that I understand it. I mean I haven't dug in that deeply but I would be very open to us talking more about it um per what you just raised Sarah I think that makes a ton of sense. Um, I just, uh, I wasn't getting the impression that, um, it was, I mean, I guess I was getting the impression that the bill is, um, so far in a pretty good position to pass. So, I I didn't I wasn't sure that it was something worth the time, if only because it seemed like um, we're not going to make that much of a difference on it anyway. But, I'm also happy for us to take a position on it because I would be in support of this if we were to decide to go that way as a council. Well, we can put anything on our any counselor can put anything on the agenda um that they choose to and how much time we're going to spend asking people to come in and speak with us about it. Um I will say is a subject to kind of agenda setting um I will say all of us are certainly free to do our own research and reach out to members of the legislature who represent us individually. Um, we have been pretty careful about not taking positions on things that aren't directly in our purview. Um, and I I don't know. I don't know how much time we want to spend if we want to spend a half an hour of our time having a presentation and discussion and potentially voting on this resolution. I'm certainly not prepared or I certainly would not be inclined to vote for it as written. I think it would need some rewrites before I felt comfortable and I do. Um but if people want to do the work and spend the time that's a question for and we're not we can't vote now so we're just trying to have a conversation about what a consensus is. So it is right its current status is as of January 28 26 it there was an divided report out of the committee ought to pass as amended um that from representative voser and it had a 1 2 3 four five six seven eight members of the committee were ought to pass as amended and I haven't I don't know what that language was and five members of the committee were ought not to pass. So that's where the bill is and I don't know who would speak to us about it, who would be our, you know, who we'd ask to come be our expert, you know, and if we're going to have a proponent of the bill come in, do we also schedule an opponent of the bill? I mean, we're going to have our own public hearing on a bill that's, you know, at the legislature and all we're doing is but again, these things come forward all the time in terms of municipalities have a chance to endorse this or endorse that and it's, you know, it's politics and, you know, trying to build support for different positions. So, I'm not going to I'm not going to put it on the agenda unless others want to put it on the agenda and are willing to give us a balanced try and give us kind of a balanced discussion on it. But, and we don't have to and we could do the, you know, we could vote on it without any input from anybody. And, you know, frankly, our opinion on these things matter. You know, there's only so much that our opinions matter on these things, but all right, I'm going to leave this one unless um you know how to reach us if you have questions or suggestions moving forward, but um I won't be bringing it forward as an agenda item and um but others certainly have that opportunity if they choose to. The only last piece for the remember as a council you appoint a representative to the legislative policy committee of main municipal association and the main service center coalition. Right now that is your town manager. Um I have reached out to both. There's no position by either of them yet that I could find. Certainly not with main service center. The LPC I'm trying to find if they had it at a meeting I missed earlier in the year, but it wasn't in their tracker. If you ever want to ask the status of the positions of those two organizations, you ask me, I'll give you an update. Right. Okay. >> And I would just not to beat it too much, but we I think we've been trying to be careful about how resolutions come forward in terms of who who brings them forward. Um, an item. So, in this case, you know, a member of the community or member of the council or I suppose member of the staff really has to be the water car, you know, someone who's got an interest in seeing it move forward. But I think we've got a pretty open um opportunity for someone to have a chance to have their voice matter on these items, but someone's got to carry it forward. And I would say the staff memo that we got was just sort of a you know for your information if you want to. So it's a matter of someone has to want to do it. And I don't think it's fair to um expect a staff member to to be, you know, to be in front of us as a as the proponent because that wasn't how it was shared with us via email. So John, >> yeah, I just want to say I I I really like this idea because I hate the idea of like everything's on the individual. You got to sort your trash, but we're not going to like ask anybody else to do anything at a higher level, right? But um would it be within the realm of possibility to you know if I wanted to be that water carrier to uh find out a little bit more particular I think those are really valuable questions about like you know h how much is the this this voice needed and this push needed um to gather some information and bring this back at a later date. Yeah, if you want to and then you want to if you think it's something that you could be ready to bring to our meeting in two weeks, I'll forward you the background email I sent to Clinton Sarah about the data so you'd have a good place to start. >> And if you want to do it and you think it's ready for our something we ought to spend some time on, please, you know, I think that's that's how the process is supposed to work. >> Happy to do that. >> Okay. >> I have one more um question on that which is also just I mean Orno is a community that has invested a lot of time at the council level in really thinking about environmental concerns. We had a environmental committee of the council for many years and then that morphed into Megan Hess's position which was hired which a lot of towns don't have and there's still an advisory um I don't know what it's called but council or board or something to staff. It's not a council committee at this point but there's an environmental committee that staff reach out to with questions. I also wonder if it would be appropriate to reach out to them about their opinion on this bill because I don't think that this is out of left field. I think this is an issue and a topic that Oro has invested a lot of time, staff time, council time, not this specific one, but larger environmental concerns for the whole time I've been watching council the last 5 years. It's been a big push of this council and this town. So, I think we should leverage the resources that are already there too and be sure to just ask if there's um Clint, is that something you might do or Megan might do or could you coordinate with John about that? Yeah, >> with John and we'll talk to Megan. Yep. >> Okay. Um, next up, um, one other item that's not written down here, um, is wanted to, we'd been talking about having a discussion about camping on town on land. Clint, were you going to have an idea for us today and when we'd have a presentation on that or was that something you need more time on? >> I'm still working on it. I don't have a timeline. And I think the best uh opportunity for for the council and from the conversations I had is is that I think we need a council position to understand the overall issues. I got to have staff put together what the options are. I think for you. Um we're coming into that busy season, if you will. Um and I'm trying to figure out if it's going to be the next meeting of the 23rd or the first meeting in March if the council wanted that brought forward. It has been in that queue. I'm just trying to figure out how quickly I can get together some suggestions if that's what you were looking for. Yeah, it's was asked for. Um, so one of those two meetings, I think I would >> Yeah, one of those two is what I was hoping. >> It's important that it we do it. So, >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, item 14 is public comment. Do we have any um additional public comment? >> I do. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Andrea. Um I know we've got another council meeting between now and then, but um the plans for the next potluck are March 1st um from 4:30 to 6:30 at the Keith Anderson Community Building on Bennock Road. Uh NFR Main will be our hosts and they'll be bringing their mascots Norm and Scout for some photo ops. Ira Kramer will be providing music and I've heard that the brother leprechauns Larry and Louie might be causing some shenanigan shenanigans that night. >> Sorry. Okay. Anything else? Uh now we have public comment. Is there any public comment? Anyone online or Okay. Next up is executive session. Um, we're going to take a motion to move into executive session pursuant to 1 M 1 MRSA section 4056E regarding ongoing litigation. >> Motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Second. >> All those in favor. >> Okay. So, uh, we don't have any items after this, right? So, we'll shut down the meeting and we'll just come back in and adjourn. So, Marissa, you have to leave now. Um, but