[2:45] All right. Oh, it's on. I'm gonna bang
this thing. Are we ready?
[2:52] » Sure.
>> All right. That's me calling this August
[2:57] 24th meeting of the Cumberland Town
Council to order. Chair Eids is out this
[3:01] evening, so I'm driving the bus. Um, the
finance committee met beforehand at 6
[3:06] PM, went over some cool stuff. Um, some
of which we'll touch on later. And
[3:13] first up, we have the approval of the
minutes.
[3:17] » Anybody wants to give a motion?
>> I'll give you a motion. Motion to
[3:22] approve the minutes.
Second.
[3:25] » Great.
>> From the August 10th, 2026 meeting.
[3:28] » All right, we have a motion and a
second. All those in favor?
[3:32] » Oh, unanimous.
All right, moving on to this meetings
[3:40] business
highlight,
[3:44] we have Daniel Tracy of the com of the
community food pantry. um
[3:51] if you'd like to introduce the
organization for those who don't know
[3:55] much about it or maybe provide some
updates on current happenings or needs
[3:58] or anything the community should know.
Thank you and welcome.
[4:01] » Thank you.
This on Hi.
[4:05] I've been here for so many other
occasions, not for a town council
[4:08] meeting. Um hi. Well, thank you for
inviting me. My name is Danielle Tracy.
[4:13] I am um the president of the food
pantry, which really just means I get
[4:20] stuck giving the speech um [laughter]
because, you know, we couldn't do it
[4:25] without everybody else. Um but so the
food pantry of course was started by um
[4:32] Bill Jane and Linda and it's been about
a year, it's been a little over a year
[4:35] since um lovely Linda and uh and Bill
have headed south for crazy warmer
[4:41] weather. Um and you know and also
similarly about a year since we've lost
[4:46] our dear friend Tom Gruber. So um so we
are proud to say that we didn't miss a
[4:53] beat. Um it might have looked a little
different and uh felt a little different
[4:58] but um we have been open every other
Friday. Um and we haven't missed it
[5:05] since um you know since losing
three founders. Um, but again, like I
[5:12] said, I we couldn't do it without
volunteers. I mean, we are all
[5:16] volunteers and you know, I'm happy to
say we've got some great ones here,
[5:20] Elaine and Danielle and Dean and Dana
and uh, you know, I mean, really, we've
[5:26] got we've we've got an amazing um, group
of people, Susan and Christine, and, you
[5:31] know, I could stand here and name a
hundred people. Um, but so every other
[5:36] week we're open on Fridays from 3 to 6.
Um and we have 90 to 100 um families
[5:42] that visit with us every other week. Um
mostly from Cumberland in North
[5:46] Yarmouth. We do have some outliers. Um
we started with the churches in the area
[5:52] with White Pines, with UCCC, with Holy
Martyrs, um with a number of other
[5:56] churches in the area, uh Tuttle Road.
So, um, we had some friends from those
[6:02] churches that came and, um, we've kind
of kept a lot of them along and
[6:07] sometimes people move from one place to
another and they ask if they can stay
[6:11] with us. Um, so we are, um, you know, we
try to help that out. God bless you. Um,
[6:18] so, you know, we go up to maybe 120
families or so around the holidays. Um,
[6:23] you know, different times of the year
for sure, we see u bumps in people. Um
[6:29] but um you know it's really since co um
every other Friday we don't have clients
[6:38] come in the pantry anymore. We um I
think what is you know a little special
[6:45] about us um is that we communicate with
our clients um some a volunteer um every
[6:54] week or every open week. So every other
week we communicate with them and we
[6:58] find out what their needs are. We have
personal conversations with them. Um you
[7:04] know we we know their patterns.
Sometimes we have sent um you know
[7:08] county sheriff's department for a
wellness check if we don't hear from um
[7:11] from some of our clients. So, I you
know, it's a really it's a great
[7:15] connection. And, you know, when when you
come here on Friday night, um if ever
[7:19] you try to come by, you know, if ever,
you know, Matt's parked in the parking
[7:24] lot, uh they're lined up by like noon.
You know, we don't open our doors till
[7:28] 3, but they, you know, obviously, um
have made friendships among themselves.
[7:33] And, um so, you know, it's a social it's
definitely a social event. Um, you know,
[7:38] like I said, we do the shopping for them
in the pantry. So, the stable goods, the
[7:46] dry goods. Um, when they come, we put in
um some meats that they requested, some
[7:52] frozen items, you know, milk, eggs,
cheese, um, you know, deli, uh, those
[7:58] kind of things. And then they get to get
out of their cars and go into what is
[8:04] the police bay next to us, next to the
food pantry, which we set up on Friday
[8:08] morning at 6:45,
um into a market that they can shop for
[8:13] their own fruits and vegetables and
breads and pastries, you know, which
[8:17] generally um are, you know, a
significant amount from the local
[8:20] Hannerford. Um,
so as far as technically, um, every one
[8:27] of our clients fills out paperwork that,
you know, we have Cumberland, uh,
[8:31] community food pantry paperwork. Um,
every one of our clients fills out part
[8:35] of that paperwork is the TFAP form, the,
um, emergency food assistance program
[8:40] from the federal government. You guys,
I'm sure, are all familiar with that
[8:44] because in October, November, you all um
uh agreed to the forms that come out
[8:52] that have uh income eligibility
guidelines on it. Um have the SNAP, you
[8:58] know, and Tannif and any wick and
anything else on there, the boxes that
[9:02] they can check. So, everybody fills that
out. Um, you know, Paige Kbakus, who is
[9:09] your GA administrator. She is also I'm
I'm from Felmouth, by the way. She's
[9:14] also a Felmouth GA, so she's a lot of
regional She does GA for a lot of the
[9:19] regional communities. She sent us all,
including you, I'm sure, uh, the DHS
[9:24] um, information last year on the number
of SNAP recipients in the area, you
[9:31] know, written out by towns. And you
know, here in Cumberland, you're over a
[9:36] hundred um friends and neighbors on
SNAP. Um and so Paige works with them
[9:43] on, you know, GA and things that she can
things that you as a community support.
[9:49] Um you know, heating assistance, rental
assistance, those kind of things. She
[9:54] sends them to me for food. We are food.
We begin with food and we end with food
[9:58] and we do as much food as we can. So,
um, but you know, but Paige is a great
[10:03] resource and she and I connect and she's
here on Thursdays in the little
[10:06] conference room over there and she's a
wonderful resource for everybody. Um,
[10:11] and sends people my way when they need
some help. Um, you know, as far as the
[10:17] world that we're living in now, uh, SNAP
is hurting people in this community.
[10:22] SNAP is hurting people all over for
sure. Um, but but for sure, you know, I
[10:27] always want people, you know, like I
said, in my community of Felmouth and in
[10:31] your community of Cumberland, there are
people here that are hurt by this, well,
[10:36] by what was the snap cuts in the big
newspaper, still is the snap cuts. Um,
[10:41] so I can say that that's still a thing
that we um have. I don't do personally
[10:47] help them, but I try to help them
further in food because I know that SNAP
[10:50] cuts hurts a lot of them. Um what I can
see is the USDA cuts has definitely made
[10:56] a difference in what food I can get. Um
local farmers um we're not getting the
[11:02] food or the fresh produce we used to
get. For instance, this week I order
[11:09] from the good sheeperd um and the
wayside food program. I was not order
[11:14] able to order potatoes and carrots and
onions. Your basic 50 lb bags. We used
[11:19] to always have four 50 pound bags of
potatoes and carrots and onions. Um, but
[11:23] I couldn't get any this week because I'm
hopeful that the good shepherd has a
[11:28] little bit of them and they'll give me a
few in the van when we go up on
[11:31] Thursday, but those are cuts and the
farmers aren't farming for food pantries
[11:38] anymore. So, those are kind of specific
things that are in the news that are
[11:44] truly happening to us or to all of our
people. Um, but you know what?
[11:49] Hannerford's been amazing. They, you
know, we get a lot of food. And again,
[11:53] we can do it because we have amazing
volunteers every Thursday, every Sunday
[11:59] that um picks it up, brings it to us,
and sorts it. You know, some of it's not
[12:05] good. We do a lot of um pig runs.
Danielle and Dana and Dean know where
[12:11] the pig farm is very well. So, um, but,
you know, we do get a lot of stuff. And
[12:16] again, without our volunteers, we
couldn't take all of this food because
[12:21] we couldn't deal with it. Um, and we
also have great refrigeration.
[12:27] We have a great walk-in freezer, so
everything gets immediately um put all
[12:33] of the meats, all of the pastries, all
of the breads go in the walk-in freezer
[12:37] until the night before we're open. Um,
so there's a lot of different things
[12:44] going on. Um, but it's good. It's, you
know, it's there's a lot of, you know,
[12:48] some scary things that are happening.
The Good Sheeperd is doing a great job
[12:51] at trying to manage it all. Um, you
know, Don Morrison over at the Wayside
[12:55] Food Program is doing a great job trying
to manage it all. You know, Paige here.
[13:00] Um, but you know, I have to say
Cumberland has been an amazing
[13:05] community. Um, you know, we have amazing
partners here in Cumberland. I mean,
[13:10] Matt, Whitney, Helen, you know, and um
library, lots of library folks and, you
[13:16] know, lots of volunteers that that we
have here and and Jessica in the finance
[13:21] office as well. And Christina and Devon
and Ally and, you know, at the at the
[13:25] clerk's office and um you know, and
certainly the police department puts up
[13:29] with us. You know, we try to be a good
neighbor and keep the place clean and
[13:34] stuff, but um you know, doors are open
and and when it's hot, I'm sure it
[13:38] affects them. um you know with their air
conditioning but um you know but they
[13:41] put up with us. So um you know the the
schools have been amazing. May I Wilson
[13:46] um does a lot with you know bringing us
food once a month. They have little
[13:51] collections at the school. The middle
school does Scholastic book funds and
[13:55] brings us books for our we can donate to
our kids and money. Um, you know, I had
[14:00] I worked with um some students from um
the high school from a world studies
[14:06] class, I think it was, that wanted to do
something and so we, you know, talked
[14:10] and and they made us some food to give
out to our friends. Um, you know, the
[14:16] cafeteria is great. When they go on
break, they bring us all of their food
[14:20] and, you know, we're thrilled to be able
to um give it to everybody and, you
[14:25] know, pre-made sandwiches and soups and
things like that. Um certainly Fab Fab.
[14:29] I'm sure you've seen the bus with the
big Fab Fab. Filip Fil a bus. Um it's a
[14:36] huge program every year. Um and uh you
know, gosh, I I like I said, I could go
[14:43] on and on. Um the library has been
amazing and has um you know, done a lot
[14:47] for us as well. Um, you know, Cumberland
Crossing group of friends, Village
[14:53] Green, Food Stop, um, you know,
[clears throat] local farmers, Sicilian
[14:58] Table, Tuscan Table, Maggie Mays, you
know, all these relationships that we
[15:02] have, um, you know, help us, you know,
even the farmers market, um, they have
[15:07] Maine Harvest Bucks and they, you know,
give us some help as well. So, um, so
[15:12] it's great. You know, bottom line is
it's every day is a struggle for some
[15:17] people and we do everything we can to
help them out. Um, we try to be
[15:22] friendly. I think we have fun. I think
we laugh and joke and, um, smile a lot
[15:26] with our friends and I think that they
just think they're coming grocery
[15:29] shopping and that's what we try to make
it feel like. So, um, you know, we do
[15:33] special events Thanksgiving and
Christmas. I'm sure you guys know
[15:36] because this whole town council chambers
is full of stuff. Um, you know, we just
[15:41] did school supplies, so you know, we all
know how expensive that is and trying to
[15:45] help teachers so that they don't have to
supply everything. So, um, yeah, I mean,
[15:50] it just it's it's we go on and on with
the things that we try to do to help.
[15:57] Um, and the things that I don't think
people understand that even those that
[16:01] get SNAP, you can't buy toilet paper
with SNAP. Um, you know, you can't buy
[16:06] dish soap with SNAP. um you you know
there's so many things you can't buy. So
[16:11] we try you know we with our cash
donations we buy everybody gets three
[16:14] rolls of toilet paper and a roll of
paper towels every other week. Uh you
[16:18] know dish soap, laundry soap, um you
know other things, cleaning supplies,
[16:23] you can't buy them with um with SNAP. So
you know if you're money is limited,
[16:27] you're going to buy food, you're not
necessarily going to buy those kind of
[16:30] things. So we we recognize that we get a
lot of food donated that we can give.
[16:34] the money we get donated, we try to
spend on other things that we feel um
[16:39] you know, me as a as a mom, as a parent,
as a person living in a home needs and
[16:43] that other people would appreciate. So,
um
[16:48] so
I don't know if that I got no agenda for
[16:51] what I was supposed to talk about.
[laughter]
[16:54] Matt just said, "Come on over." And I
said, "I got permission from my town I'm
[16:57] a town counselor at Felma. So, I got
permission from my town manager to be
[17:01] late to my um council meeting." And um
but uh so I I have no agenda other than
[17:08] that um laid out for you and you know if
there are any um specific questions you
[17:16] know I'm going to take off after this
but we have we do have an email cfpo421
[17:22] um pretty simple atgmail um or we have a
phone number downstairs 558-9121
[17:29] um which instantly sends me an email
that says you have a voicemail and you
[17:33] You know, I it's a fascinating again,
town of Cumberland has set it up.
[17:37] Brandon's a great IT guy. Uh, you know,
set it up for us so that we can um, you
[17:42] know, we don't have anybody that
actually works in the office. So, um,
[17:46] but I thank you.
>> How did I do? Did I cover it all?
[17:49] » My people.
[laughter]
[17:52] » I learned more than I ever knew I wanted
to know. I appreciate it. So, um, we
[17:57] have, uh, councelor Filson will go first
and then councelor Vil has a question or
[18:02] comment. Thank you so much um just for
all of the great work and for you all
[18:06] being here. This is so wonderful and a
privilege for us to be able to recognize
[18:09] you. Um I had two questions. Uh so for
folks to qualify um to get uh food for
[18:19] paper towels uh everything um that you
provide. So for the paperwork,
[18:25] say someone loses their job and you you
so your your income statements from last
[18:30] year aren't going to reflect that. Is
there flexibility with all of that or do
[18:34] people have to kind of qualify on paper
per their last like tax return?
[18:39] » Absolutely. If you come to the food
pantry because you need food, I'm going
[18:43] to give you food. Okay. I'm not I don't
ask people to bring We are asking them
[18:46] to bring an ID so we can see where they
live. Um, but I'm not, you know, and we
[18:51] and we tell them to fill out the TFAP
form. They don't have to circle um their
[18:55] income on the TFAP form. They just have
to check the box that says that they
[18:59] have reviewed it and so that they
understand what the eligibility
[19:03] requirements are. But I do not um we
don't ask if you need food um and you
[19:09] come to us, we're going to give you food
because you're right, there are, you
[19:11] know, we've had divorced a divorced mom
and you know and and and I just said to
[19:16] her, I want you to be safe and if that
means you have to get divorced and go
[19:21] live somewhere else, then I'm going to
give you every food I can give you. I
[19:24] mean, I you know, I've got nothing else,
but I can give you a lot of food. So,
[19:27] yeah, for sure. we don't um you know
check their last year's tax returns and
[19:33] all that kind of thing. So
>> awesome. Um and then my second question
[19:36] was um so right now you don't have
enough onions and carrots and um are
[19:41] there parameters around like where you
were able to accept food from i.e. if I
[19:49] grew way too many gigantic zucchini this
year and I have 15 chickens so we are
[19:54] always have lots of eggs. Are people
able to just regular citizens able to
[19:58] donate or do you have to work through
some of the organizations that you
[20:02] mentioned? [snorts]
>> No, we will take food from regular
[20:05] citizens. You know, you're not you're
not a regular citizen. You're a town
[20:09] counselor. Uh [laughter]
[20:13] » I'm below a regular citizen. Um so yeah,
I mean, you know, especially at this
[20:18] time, we do get some people that come by
on a Friday. You know, the hard part is
[20:22] we're open every other Friday, so I
don't want to take your fresh
[20:25] vegetables. I could put them in my
refrigerator, but I don't want you to
[20:29] leave them in the grocery cart out
front. Again, we have volunteers that
[20:32] probably almost every day check the
carts and bring them downstairs, but it
[20:36] would help us more if you sent us an
email or, you know, and said, "Hey, I've
[20:41] got, you know, [clears throat] 10 pounds
of zucchini." And I would say, "Okay,
[20:45] well, come either I can meet you here at
a certain day or tell you when people
[20:48] are here." um generally all day Thursday
before our open day Friday and we are
[20:53] open this Friday. So you know if you
look from there on out for the
[20:57] foreseeable well it till maybe January
1st but um or Sunday mornings Danielle
[21:04] is here we get Hannerford here. So, so
there are opportunities for sure. Um,
[21:08] even to the point where, you know, I
have a dear friend whose dog died and
[21:12] she said, "I have this giant bag, half
bag of dog food. Can I bring it over?"
[21:16] And sure. Um, so you know, so again um
and we have somebody I think from the
[21:22] council or from prior council brings us
um some deer meat that is processed. And
[21:29] again, we kind of need to know. I don't
just take it from just anybody. I don't
[21:33] if it's in the cart and it's something
that's perishable, I'm gonna throw it
[21:37] away. But if I get a call or an email
that says, I have, you know, we had this
[21:42] big retirement party and and we, you
know, took whatever and we're going to
[21:47] bring it to you or something, we can
make that work. For sure.
[21:49] » I think it's good for people at home to
know, too.
[21:51] » Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
[clears throat]
[21:55] » I want to thank you for all you've all
do and all the people that that are here
[21:59] that uh put the work behind it. Uh we
had a former town counselor, Tom Gruber.
[22:05] Uh Bill Rashane, his wife, uh all three
of them put tremendous amount of hours
[22:10] in. Uh and I I just it's it fills such
an important part of the needs of the
[22:16] community. Uh the thing that I
appreciate your you mentioning is that
[22:20] you speak to the people that come and so
those conversations, you know, people
[22:26] who have food insecurities also have
other insecurities. And I hope that
[22:31] there's a uh that you're you're reaching
out to them and questioning them, you
[22:35] know, whether it's a set of winter tires
or a car repair or a roof patch or
[22:40] something like that. There are
organizations, the Lions Club for one.
[22:44] Uh but there's also other people that in
the community who will step up and and
[22:49] provide some of those things that that
as a as needed basis. So, uh, I'm hoping
[22:54] that you those conversations are ongoing
and and that you you know the people.
[23:01] » We do. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like I
said, I I don't provide those kind of
[23:05] things. And you're right, Bill Shane,
you know, had more connections than I
[23:09] did, but um but you know, Cop Motors and
Story Brothers and you know, there's a
[23:14] lot of community groups that do um a lot
of work here and that can be connected
[23:20] to these people to help. You know, like
I said, Paige helps do some I think
[23:24] Devon works with the seniors and she
helps them connect with others. So, um,
[23:29] yeah, there are some great community
connections here. And we do, you know,
[23:33] feel comfortable that we know our people
pretty well.
[23:38] » Anyone else on the council questions or
comments?
[23:41] » Yeah.
I I just given the changes in the SNAP
[23:46] benefits and the u you know the
qualifying levels are you guys going to
[23:52] adjust yours your levels? I know you say
you don't really ask but you are asking
[23:57] them to do the forms. Are you going to
kind of keep it at historical levels or
[24:03] » so the the TFAT form that we have them
fill out is something that you as town
[24:07] counselors us at as all town counselors
in the region um is something that we
[24:12] approve. So, um it's not uh the income
eligibility statement is not something
[24:17] that um that comes from us. It's a state
form. It's a a TFAP federal form. And I
[24:25] don't see it changing dramatically. I
mean, you know, maybe Matt is in on the
[24:29] on the conversation a bit more or, you
know, it might be a good question to
[24:33] catch up with Paige someday and have um
her come and talk a bit more about um
[24:38] how it happens, but it comes through DHS
and um you know, and and it is way above
[24:46] my zero dollar pay grade. [laughter]
>> Yeah. I just I guess my question was
[24:51] just is like just because the federal
mandates changed, are we going to be
[24:54] able to maintain the same level of
service? Right. that that that's the
[24:57] goal is to maintain the same level of
service.
[24:59] » Absolutely.
>> Yeah.
[25:00] » Yeah.
Great.
[25:04] » All right.
>> Yeah. Go for it.
[25:06] » Just wanted to say thank you for
everything you folks do and uh
[25:10] appreciate appreciate all your efforts.
Thank you.
[25:12] » Thank you. Thank you so much, Danielle,
for coming tonight. For real. This is
[25:16] very enlightening. I had no idea all
like the interconnected web of
[25:20] everything that the food pantry does and
>> community partnerships and everything
[25:23] like that. It's really awesome to hear
more about your day-to-day and just how
[25:28] it all works. I appreciate it.
>> Well, I'm thrilled that the library is
[25:32] on the is on the agenda because I didn't
ask my friends to come tonight, but
[25:36] [laughter]
>> bonus. So, thank you.
[25:39] » Thank you so much.
>> Send and send us an email or, you know,
[25:42] give us a call. I'm gonna fly out of
here, but uh happy to answer any more
[25:47] questions.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
[25:49] » Thank you.
>> All righty. Next up is our manager's
[25:53] report. Turn it over to you.
>> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh this evening
[25:58] uh we you get a two for one special and
uh that and I'm I hope I'm wise enough
[26:05] at this point to get out of the way
because we have a fantastic uh library
[26:09] director in Stacy Mer who's here this
evening and she's given us a uh she
[26:14] she's given the council a lot of
background information as well as u our
[26:18] impact report for this year. So, I had
asked her when we met at our monthly
[26:22] meeting if she'd be willing to come to
the council this evening and lo and
[26:27] behold, she did. So, I'll get out of her
way that I have a few items after after
[26:31] that if it'd be okay that I can circle
back on.
[26:34] » Sure.
>> Thank you.
[26:34] » Oh, yes. Yes. [laughter]
>> She's coming to get me.
[26:41] » Okay, here we go.
>> Hi.
[26:44] » Hello.
>> Good evening. [laughter] I'm Stacy Maer,
[26:47] the director of Prince Memorial Library.
Uh, thank you so much for having me
[26:51] tonight. I'm just here to do a sort of
short wrap-up of fiscal year 26.
[26:58] We have had record high attendance at
library events. Um, really good card
[27:03] holder growth this year. And for every
dollar invested in fiscal year 26, we
[27:09] saw a $1.75 of return on that
investment.
[27:14] Um we saw really we've seen really great
through the door statistics for visits.
[27:19] We are sort of holding steady at around
60,000 visits right now post the
[27:23] pandemic and that's an increase over
before the pandemic which is more around
[27:28] the 50,000.
[27:32] We are seeing incredible growth within
our events. Uh this year alone we saw a
[27:38] 12% increase over last year and we've
seen three straight years of increase
[27:43] which is in part because we have made
this very deliberate choice over the
[27:48] last five years to invest in our
staffing. So I'm very thankful for that
[27:51] and I'm thankful for all the hard work
that our staff has done to get that um
[27:56] that engagement with our community.
[28:00] So as you know in 2024 we joined a 60
area library consortium called Manurva
[28:07] and since that this is our first full
year in Manurva and we've seen this
[28:11] really awesome growth of our library
card holders. We added around 600 new
[28:16] library card holders this year which is
about a 15% increase which is great. So,
[28:21] what our goal is though, um, by fiscal
year 28, we hope to have 6,000 library
[28:26] card holders overall. And stay tuned in
September, which is library card signup
[28:32] week, uh, signup month, um, we're going
to be launching a new initiative, and we
[28:35] hope you will join us in that
initiative.
[28:40] Along with all of the work that we did
to get ready for Manurva, we've done a
[28:44] lot of weeding in our collection. And so
weeding is basically basically where we
[28:48] uh withdraw um old outdated material,
worn material, just things that aren't
[28:53] really very active in our community. And
typically when you do a really good job
[28:56] at weeding, it produces really good
results because people are more able to
[29:01] find the the items that they want. Your
collection does a lot better. And we
[29:05] have seen that this year. We are also
seeing this first year of engagement
[29:09] with Manurva going very strongly. We've
had uh our patrons request 12,000 items
[29:15] from other libraries and we have sent
out 12,000 items as well. Um I'm looking
[29:20] forward to fiscal year 27 when we see
what our first full year of Manurva is
[29:24] versus our second. I'm really hoping
that as people get comfortable with
[29:28] Manurva, we start to see more growth of
that within our community.
[29:33] So as I said uh what we did is there is
a uh a calculator online. It's the main
[29:38] state libraries value calculator. So
they assign a retail value for every
[29:42] book, every event, every reference
question, anything that you could think
[29:47] of. Uh the value calculator is actually
from 2019. So let's imagine the
[29:52] appreciation that's probably happened
since then. But with that calculator, uh
[29:56] we have found that based on
appropriation last year, as I said,
[30:01] we've seen a $1.75 of investment
returned on what we uh committed to the
[30:06] library, which I think is fantastic. has
around $1.5 million that our community
[30:11] shows has engaged in our library.
So, what we're hoping to sort of focus
[30:17] on in the next couple years, um we are
hopefully doing a building assessment.
[30:22] We're going to do a community needs
assessment. As I said before, we're
[30:26] hoping to increase our card holders to
6,000. And we're going to continue to
[30:30] pursue investing in our youth services
uh staffing because we do feel that if
[30:35] we continue to increase hours within
that that service pool, we'll see the
[30:39] response from our community. They've
shown that already when we put it out
[30:42] there for them, they come to it.
Any questions?
[30:52] Questions, comments? Anyone? Yeah, go
for it.
[30:57] I have a lot of questions. Um, and what
I really want to ask you is the best
[31:01] thing you've read in the last 12 months,
but I'm not going to ask you that
[31:03] question. [laughter]
Um,
[31:05] » dungeon [clears throat] crawler Carl.
>> Dungeon crawler car.
[31:09] » Carl.
>> Carl.
[31:10] » Carl. Thank you.
>> Don't expect it to be high literature.
[31:15] [laughter]
>> Just fun.
[31:17] » I'm just glad you didn't say yester
year. Um, uh, which is also wonderful.
[31:21] But anyway, um so one of the So, uh
I love like I think that I love the
[31:28] library. Um but I think the library um
especially for um I mean every everyone
[31:33] has different things that they love
about the library, right? Um I'm in the
[31:36] phase of life where uh when school is
closed um and it's on a weekday uh
[31:42] that's not Monday. Um, you know, we try
to get over there as quickly as
[31:45] possible. Uh, because you are a port in
the storm, especially when, uh, you're a
[31:50] working parent and you're trying to
mangle your, you know, naughty children.
[31:54] And one of the wonderful things about
the library is that parents can work and
[32:00] um, you know, kind of their kids can be
entertained in a safe environment that's
[32:03] not in front of a screen. Knowing that
the library is closed and you mentioned
[32:07] kind of special programming, I wonder if
you guys had ever talked about or
[32:11] considered maybe doing like some kind of
programming or maybe even a couple of
[32:16] hours on like certain holidays when that
might fall onto a Monday or like if
[32:21] that's totally crazy. Uh, understood.
Not trying to add more to your already
[32:26] very full plate. Um, I just I I know it
is like such a port in the storm as it's
[32:32] such a wonderful thing and um not trying
to milk more out of you, but is there
[32:36] any opportunity to I think it's a
service that a lot of parents
[32:40] desperately feel when they're like,
"What do I do when my kids are off, you
[32:44] know?"
>> Yeah. So, the library I came from, we
[32:47] would typically actually be open um two
Mondays. We picked two that we would
[32:51] randomly try to be in service. Um it's
economics. We would have to budget for
[32:55] it. That's that's what it comes down to.
It's staff hours. Um
[33:00] » that's good to know.
>> And but I mean Mondays in general, I
[33:04] think we could be open every day of the
week. People basically asked us to be
[33:08] open every day of the week.
>> Sure.
[33:11] » Um I sure give us some money. We'll do
it. [laughter]
[33:15] » Okay. Great. Great.
>> Thank you. But yes, that that certainly
[33:19] sounds like yes, we see it on the on the
holidays and on the the early release
[33:24] Wednesdays, we are very busy. We have a
lot of children that come over and are
[33:28] engaged in gaming and Legos and hanging
out and their parents come in, they get
[33:33] books. Yes. So, we know that we are one
of the many resources that families use
[33:39] when it's
>> and love.
[33:40] » Yay. Yes.
>> I have a question, but you can go first.
[33:45] » Uh, this isn't really a question. It's
just more of a comment. Uh, thank you
[33:48] for getting Libby.
>> You're welcome.
[33:51] » I've been waiting for years and years
and, you know, having to use it for
[33:56] other libraries that are much further a
field. Um, so thank you.
[34:00] » That was one of the big initiatives we
just did this past um, year and that is
[34:04] in part because our lovely, wonderful
friends at the library did help
[34:08] supplement the funding for that. Um,
that is a, if you don't know, uh, we get
[34:12] cloud library through the state. that is
an ebook service where you can read
[34:16] ebooks or e audiobooks. And then we have
decided to invest part of our budget
[34:21] specifically into a new platform that's
not new called Libby. Um it works a bit
[34:26] more on some of the other types of
Kindle readers. And so we started with
[34:31] our very little libby library. It was
just um but we have been fortunate
[34:37] enough that uh Wells and Kabunk have
agreed to basically share collections
[34:42] with us. So we have formed our little
tiny consortium of three libraries and
[34:46] so you can check out books from Wells
and Kennabunk and us and they all show
[34:51] up in the app now very easily. You don't
have to like hunt and peck for them.
[34:56] » So if I go on and look for a book and it
says that it's available at Prince
[35:00] Memorial, even if it's not actually
Prince Memorial as well as kind of bunk
[35:04] that will
>> show it a little different on your app.
[35:06] Why don't you just come on by the
library and I'll show you and I can walk
[35:09] you through it. [laughter] But yeah, the
the icon for the library, I think it
[35:12] like changes color for the library card
itself. So,
[35:14] » okay. But I don't need to put a a card
in for Wells or Kabunker. Okay. Just
[35:20] great.
>> It just works.
[35:21] » Perfect.
>> So cool.
[35:23] » Yes.
>> All right. My question because I'm
[35:26] looking at um one of your like key
priorities going forward is like the
[35:30] teen attendance and the drop in kind of
engagement with them. Do you all know
[35:35] why that's happening or have like a
strategy for how to bring that back? Is
[35:39] it the activities [clears throat] or
timings or
[35:43] » so? I wouldn't say that um while
attendance at teen events is kind of
[35:47] down, that doesn't mean that we aren't
seeing teens in the library. The library
[35:51] is very busy for teens after school. Um
it comes down to staffing. Um Jennifer
[35:57] and it was previously Melissa only have
so much time in their day to both host
[36:02] events, manage collections, and do all
the other things that they have to do.
[36:06] So if we are able to in the next couple
years increase our hours for that youth
[36:11] service position. We we have seen in the
region Thompson literally in their most
[36:16] recent fiscal um report the library not
the town talked about how they had um
[36:24] previously like a assistant director
teen librarian shared position and they
[36:27] had these low attendances and when they
made the deliberate decision to break
[36:31] those out. They immediately saw this
>> when there's that human there that's
[36:35] just for you
>> right
[36:37] » it it brings it brings people in. So,
um, if if we get to that point, that
[36:41] would be fantastic. I think that will
address it.
[36:44] » Great.
[36:48] » Questions, comments from the council.
>> Thank you, Stacy.
[36:51] » Thank you. So, before I leave, I just
want to say one thing or two things or
[36:54] two things.
>> First, thank you so much to my amazing
[36:57] staff. They are the reason that our
community comes to our library. Their
[37:02] generosity and the care and love that
they show everybody that walks through
[37:06] that door. They challenge me every day
to be a really good leader. Um, so if
[37:12] you are wondering why our library is so
great, it's them. Um, and also thank you
[37:17] very much to our amazing friends of the
library. They fund all of our events.
[37:22] All of the work they do, the hard free
work they do is how we have all the
[37:26] events that we have in this town. And of
course, thank you and thank you to our
[37:31] advisory board.
>> Okay.
[37:35] » Thank you very much. Thank you very
much.
[37:41] » Just do it.
>> All right, back to you.
[37:44] » That is one very tough act to follow
after you. [laughter]
[37:48] So, thanks Stacy. She's amazing and and
councelor Filson. She is uh our library
[37:54] director is very good in the no judgment
area for what we read for books. and uh
[37:58] she's [laughter]
she doesn't mind the the the uh the
[38:01] reacher books that I read,
but uh no, it's just great. I mean, it's
[38:06] it's a se it's a celebration. So, thank
you very much for that. Uh I I have a
[38:11] couple different items to talk about
with the council this evening. Uh I'd
[38:14] like to circle back on uh I some
conversation at the last meeting that I
[38:18] wasn't at um that I [clears throat] want
to talk about with u regarding the
[38:22] reval. And then uh I had another just
I'll start off some quick updates. uh
[38:27] the village green gazebo. I don't know
if you had a chance to look at that. It
[38:31] was in a mess. I mean, it was in
disrespect disrepair early in the
[38:35] summer.
>> Well, uh Mr. Baldick has done a great
[38:39] job moving Heaven and Earth and getting
the right folks in there. It's uh now
[38:43] have a full refresh, so it's in great
shape now. Um has a brand new roof,
[38:48] decking, structure repairs, uh put some
good drainage in there. Uh and a lot of
[38:53] lot of really good work. A lot of our
work was done by our public works staff
[38:57] as well. Uh and uh it's it's back to uh
back to being ready to to rock and roll.
[39:04] So, it's it's beautiful there. Now, uh I
do want to thank Wallace Roofing because
[39:08] they donated the roof u the roofing job.
So, that was really nice of them to do.
[39:13] Uh so, their sign's going to be out on
the out by the road for about another 75
[39:18] days. Um that was part of part of the
deal, but that was a really nice nice
[39:23] gift by them to do that. And this it
just looks great and it it really sits
[39:26] perfectly in there. And speaking of the
uh of the village green, there is a
[39:30] brand new sidewalk in there. We had all
that torn out and Story Brothers did a
[39:33] great job on that. We did that all as
part of the uh part of the bid work for
[39:37] the some of the work that they had to do
for the school project. Uh that so that
[39:42] work was done right at the same time
after they finished up the the new
[39:45] sidewalks on Tuttle Road. So, uh that
all kind of came together and we wanted
[39:49] that to be ready uh in time for the
school year to begin. So, and you might
[39:53] have noticed this in really nice new
flashing uh I always murder this
[39:57] acronym, but it's like RRFBS or
reflecting flashing beacons uh that
[40:03] we've got on there and I think we're
doing another one up on Main Street that
[40:06] we had talked about earlier, Council
Mun. So, uh so we're in good shape
[40:09] there. Very excited about that and have
that ready. Um there there will be
[40:12] another sidewalk done next summer and
that's going to be from uh Main Street
[40:18] down Blanchard Road uh to just after
Sweetzers. So that's all part of that
[40:23] same project. Uh but that's going to be
on next year's next year's work
[40:27] workload. Uh there is if you are on Main
Street, you're going to notice there is
[40:31] a nice new water fountain at Moside. And
uh I I will say I got to give credit to
[40:38] Jess Grandon. She was bird dogging me
from like the second month I was here to
[40:43] uh to replace that one that had been
shut down during the pandemic and it was
[40:47] old and uh needed a refresh anyways. But
it's got a bottle bottle filler fountain
[40:53] and a dog bowl.
>> So uh it's a triple threat water
[40:56] fountain right there on Main Street. So
pretty excited about that. Uh when I uh
[41:01] a couple marathons ago, I I relied on
that uh as a water stop all along the
[41:06] way. So, my thrifty nature, I could
refill my bottle without having to spend
[41:09] money. But it's it's great to have that
back back in action now. So, uh let's
[41:14] see. We're wrapping up a paving work and
driveway uh replacement at Hawthorne
[41:20] Court. That was well overdue. So, I
think they're going to have that all
[41:23] tied up or wrapped up this week, which
is good. The road was in rough shape.
[41:27] And uh so, that'll be done uh this week.
in the, you know, we we are grateful for
[41:31] the patients of our residents who who
live there because they have to park in
[41:35] the in the circle in the middle while we
do all their driveways over. So, they've
[41:39] been great to work with on that. Um, the
work on the cover replacement on Route 9
[41:45] is ongoing. Uh, but the detour is still
in place. This is a state of Maine DOT
[41:52] project, not a town project. So, uh,
please don't kill me or our good people
[41:57] who work for us. Uh that is they were
supposed to have that opened up at the
[42:02] end of last week. It is not. So they've
got some they've got some issues that
[42:05] they're working on there, but we do
anticipate the road to reopen this week
[42:09] and uh just in time for school to begin
because uh the detour is about ready to
[42:13] be done.
Now on to the uh other item. I've got a
[42:18] couple items relating to taxes and and
the reval. Um, if you looked at your tax
[42:23] bill that you received hopefully in the
past few days, uh, good, bad, or
[42:28] indifferent, uh, you'll notice the
breakdown of the rate. It's a little bit
[42:33] odd this year. Uh, that was due to just
an error in figuring out the the the
[42:39] portions. The tax rate itself is is is
right. $1412 is the rate. However, the
[42:45] distribution between the town, the
county, and the school uh wasn't that
[42:52] the math on that wasn't done 100%
correct. So, um you'll notice I think
[42:58] the school was at like 55%, the town was
at like 40 some odd percent, and the
[43:02] county was at like 3%. Um
what happened was it just was
[43:07] miscalculated. They were looking at the
overall uh expenditures versus the net
[43:12] expenditures for the town. And so that
kind of it tweaked or it misrepresented
[43:17] the allocation on your second half tax
bill. The correction will be there on
[43:21] the town's website. We've got an update
that's going to be flowing out there. So
[43:25] it'll show the actual uh correct
allocation. Uh it should be that the the
[43:30] schools are at 68% of your tax rate,
which is where they've pretty much
[43:34] always have tracked. Uh so uh and then
the town's at about 28 and a.5% and the
[43:39] and the county is at three and a half%.
So that second half tax bill will show
[43:43] those proper ratios, but I just wanted
people to see that if it looked a little
[43:47] odd, that's because it was. So, uh, it's
repaired and like I said, the tax rate
[43:52] itself is fine and that's all accurate.
It's just how how it was divvied up. uh
[43:57] looking at the revaluation uh based on
the conversation that the council had uh
[44:02] two weeks ago and uh when the tax
assessor was here and trying to talk
[44:06] about uh what the impacts are of the of
the reval, I thought it might be
[44:11] important for council and uh and and our
good citizens to understand uh what the
[44:16] real impact of the reval itself was
versus saying like a lot of it la at the
[44:22] last meeting was talking about um how it
impacted and how was how uh like so many
[44:27] properties had their taxes go up by this
amount or were within this bracket here.
[44:32] Well, that included the
the annual increase in the budgets for
[44:37] the town, the county, and the and the
schools. So, um
[44:42] that would be your normal like the
impact of your normal tax rate increase.
[44:46] Uh so what I thought it might be
important to do is a little bit of a
[44:50] deeper dive and an analysis of the
assessment database to better understand
[44:54] as to where like what did the reval
really mean as far as if if you if
[44:59] everything was flat and nothing changed
on the spending side how did that really
[45:04] how did that get distributed across
across all the properties in town. So
[45:08] what I did was I took last year's budget
and this year's budget and looked at the
[45:13] net overmount to be raised and then
found the difference between the two and
[45:18] figured out what the percentage increase
was going to be from last year to this
[45:21] year.
Now offsetting that is and that was
[45:25] roughly okay let me get to this
offsetting that is the normal growth
[45:29] that we have. So if like year over year
houses get built, lots get split, um
[45:36] people do renovations, uh new personal
property comes to town that's taxable,
[45:40] things like that that change and we can
we know on average it's about 1.2 to
[45:44] 1.5% annually is what the value increase
happens. Um
[45:50] so we take that into effect as well. And
then you also look at okay the school
[45:55] budget increased or the t let's see the
town went up by about two and a half
[45:59] percent this year. The school went up by
seven and three/4ers percent and the
[46:05] county increased by 7.6%.
So what I did was I took that amount
[46:10] there and figured out the impact of the
new value and the net impact of that
[46:15] those three budget increases was about
6.3%.
[46:19] So we stripped that out. So that kind of
brings us back to flatline. You could
[46:23] compare apples and apples at that point
in time. So then I took that and figured
[46:27] out what the new rate was. Well, um,
long story short, uh, the impact of the
[46:34] town, school, and county budget
increases resulted in about a dollar
[46:38] increase on the tax rate. So without
those increases, it would have been
[46:42] $1312 versus 1412, which is what the tax
rate is.
[46:47] So after that I took that new rate and
said okay now I know with the budget
[46:52] increases stripped out what's the true
impact of the reval meaning that it was
[46:56] revenue you know revenue neutral and all
that jazz but it it now I could say okay
[47:01] if if this house went up by this amount
what would it be if there was no tax
[47:05] increase so then I took that math and I
applied it to uh 3,923
[47:12] properties that's what we have in town
that are taxed So, and I know if I'm
[47:17] glazing you over, please forgive me, but
I'm just trying to get to the bottom of
[47:20] to try to see where it's at. Um, but
looking at that and comparing what the
[47:24] impact was due to the value change, uh,
it changed the picture a little bit. Um
[47:31] so the net uh so looking at all those
properties there was uh properties that
[47:37] had a decrease in in their taxes if just
because of the reval there was roughly
[47:42] about 1 1630 or about just under 42% of
the properties had their prop had their
[47:47] taxes decrease or would have had them
decrease if everything else had stayed
[47:51] flat.
16 properties had zero change like it
[47:56] would have been like to the penny the
same. That was like 4/10en of 1%. So
[48:00] that was that was an easy one. Um but
then really the the lion share like or
[48:05] or good let's look at the increase size
but from onetenth of 1% up to 5% there
[48:11] was like 1,272
properties or 32.4%.
[48:16] sets. So if you think about it, that's
roughly about 74% of the properties
[48:21] either saw their property taxes either
decrease or uh have 5% or less increase.
[48:28] Um so that kind of shows you the impact
as to how it hits with the with the with
[48:33] the year-over-year budget increases. Now
between uh from like from 5.1 to 10%
[48:39] there's about 13.7% or 536 properties.
from 10.1 to 15 is just under 200
[48:46] properties at 5% of that. And then
anything from 15.1 to 20% which is uh
[48:54] there was 84 properties there or 2%. And
then uh 20% or greater or 40% or greater
[49:00] there was roughly 1.4 and 3.3%.
On those larger numbers those are
[49:05] usually what if it's a big number like
that it's that was a new house. uh some
[49:10] you know something was built at uh Kland
Crossing or uh or over at the pit uh you
[49:16] know u a new a new house a new lot
something that had a very low assessment
[49:21] the year before or was not assessed
before. So that comes in with like a a
[49:26] very large percentage change
year-over-year.
[49:29] So I thought that was hopefully that's
going to be interesting. We put that on
[49:33] the we're going to have that on the
town's uh website. Uh let's see. Is that
[49:38] is it this one. There we go. Awesome.
Thank you. So, um, so we're going to
[49:43] have the these graphics here on the, uh,
on the website. This one's already
[49:47] there. Uh, this kind of shows the, uh,
impact of the reval as I, as I was
[49:52] talking about earlier without, uh, oh,
sorry, with all the growth put in there.
[49:56] So, that kind of shows you 3,900
properties. Uh, this is the effect like
[50:01] 20% saw decrease taxes, 1% no change,
uh, 12% of 1 to 5%. Uh so that kind of
[50:10] offsets that 74% of properties that
would have seen it. But that's again you
[50:15] take out that 6% of a change and that
kind of gives you the bottom line. So
[50:20] that's a lot to digest but it just and
then the second one I have here is uh
[50:25] with the reevaluation in there as to
where we're going to be. So we'll have
[50:28] that if people have further questions
I'm always happy to answer them. But I
[50:33] was trying to dig in deeper after the
last one because you kind of want to
[50:36] know like what's that baseline that you
start at and then you know going forward
[50:41] people can at least have a feel as to
where where they're going to be at and
[50:45] it kind of tracks comparably to what
what you know anecdotally assessors will
[50:49] say like a third go up a third stay the
same and a third go down.
[50:54] It's pretty close to that. Um, if you
think about the the first two categories
[50:59] about with the 74% that saw it either
stay either go down or go up to like a
[51:04] 5% range. So, um, that's that's where
I'm at. Madam Chair, I'm happy to take
[51:10] any questions for sure.
>> Sure. Go ahead.
[51:13] » Just out of curiosity, you take all the
tax property tax revenue collected. I
[51:19] don't know the number off the top of my
head, but it's probably a couple
[51:22] million. um
like how many millions goes to operate
[51:26] the town, how many millions go to the
county, and how many millions go to the
[51:31] school. And if you don't have it right
now, Matt, that's that's fine. I just I
[51:35] think probably some of the people in the
town might want to know that.
[51:39] » Oh, sure. Um
[51:43] you know, give me just a quick sec and
uh I I can get there, too. Um
[51:48] » sorry, I didn't mean to stump you.
>> You're all right. I'm not completely
[51:52] stumped. I'm partially stumped.
>> Dollar amounts are helpful as well. So,
[51:55] I see where you're going.
>> Yeah.
[52:00] » Let's see.
[52:16] I think you should have that. Let's see.
[52:26] Okay. So, the school assessment on that,
Council Mahik, thank you for for your
[52:30] question. Um, the the local education
appropriation is roughly 20 I got to
[52:36] zoom this in. Sorry.
[52:40] » It's easier to do that.
>> Oh my gosh.
[52:42] » Manual zoom. Sorry. [laughter]
28.75
[52:47] uh million is the annual school
appropriation. Uh the the town is
[52:52] roughly um 9.6 million and the county
itself is about 1.5 million.
[53:00] » Thank you.
>> Yes sir.
[53:04] » Follow question on the same thing. when
when I look at the numbers that we have
[53:08] in our council pack for the uh 26
actuals and I see that right we've spent
[53:17] the actuals for the year are 44276
million
[53:22] um and if I take away the capital
reserve fund for example 887 and then I
[53:27] look at the MSAD expense is 26676967
[53:34] doesn't get me to 72% %. It gets me more
to like 60% of the budget. What am I
[53:38] missing?
>> 68% of the budget.
[53:41] » 68% of the budget. It still doesn't The
math doesn't work, right? It's a lower
[53:45] percentage for the school percentage
[snorts]
[53:47] than 68%.
[53:52] » Tiff.
>> Yeah. Uh TIFF impact.
[53:56] » Okay. So, okay.
>> Yeah. Does that because that comes uh
[54:01] yeah that that comes off the out of the
equation
[54:05] » out of the but it comes out of the town
right so the tiffs offset the town
[54:08] expenditure.
>> Yes. Yeah.
[54:11] » But the town expenditure though for the
year isn't nine is right is so what the
[54:16] net is is 9 million bucks but the town
expenditure for the year is actually if
[54:20] you're saying there's $4 million in tiff
the expenditure is more like $13
[54:25] million.
[54:29] I think just a quick second. I got to
get back to that spreadsheet.
[54:34] » Yeah. Yeah.
>> While while you're contemplating that,
[54:38] Bill, I think I'd add a little bit of
more fuel to that. So, the school the
[54:45] the municipal budget is 2 and a half%.
Uh the school budget
[54:53] is seven and a 7 and 3/4 of a percent,
but that's divided by two towns.
[55:00] And then the county budget is a 7.6%
increase over 15
[55:09] from last year to this year.
So, but I guess I what I'd like to see
[55:14] is the dollar value of those three
percentages.
[55:18] Uh and I don't need that tonight, but
what is the dollar value impact
[55:24] of those three budgets? Because you take
the school impact and you you divide it
[55:29] by two towns. You take the county budget
and you divide it by all the towns as a
[55:33] county. So, the
the budget went up 7.6% 6% but the
[55:39] impact to the town of Cumberland is a a
small number. You want driving that?
[55:47] » Yeah. Um yeah, obviously the big driver
on that would be uh
[55:52] is I mean ultimately like I'll say this
year like last year um
[55:59] yeah I guess you could see like the the
sorry the county impacts like 3.5% to
[56:05] the overall tax rate. So it's that's
>> that's really small.
[56:09] » My my my revaluation was was basically
flat if you will. I I you know and I I
[56:15] think comparing it with my neighbors and
other people in a in the valuation
[56:21] doubled but it the you know and it threw
off a $1,500 bill. And so I'm I'm I'm
[56:28] concerned that if the expending our
spending rate for next year, it's going
[56:33] to throw off another $1,500 bill. So I
think I'd like to see a way to
[56:40] instead of looking at percentage, look
at the actual numbers.
[56:45] » Yeah. And and um
yeah, we want to look at that early.
[56:50] » Yeah. Yes.
>> That's that's I think that's where I'm
[56:54] driving. And then um our uh let's see
I'm trying to
[57:02] uh let's see
to councelor Paul's question. Yeah on
[57:07] some of that like you'll find the let's
see 20
[57:20] Yeah, Mr. Manager. It's just really
looking at the and when I look at the
[57:24] actuals, right? And I look at all the
line items and the actuals
[57:27] » is that at the uh in the in in the
packet, which part are you looking at?
[57:31] » So when I look at the I look at total
expenses for say the 20 26 actuals,
[57:37] right?
And then I look at the MSAD 51 expenses,
[57:44] right? So our overall
actuals for the year are 44.25. 25
[57:51] million, right? And MSAD1,
MSAD 51 out of that is 26 677
[58:01] million.
[58:04] So I just I just when I look at it just
I mean I'm I'm expecting that I'm
[58:09] missing something in the math here, you
know, just as someone who's new looking
[58:13] at the budgets. But I I just think it's
one of those things on messaging, right?
[58:16] When we say it's like part of our mun
municipal budget is this, this is how
[58:20] much for the school department, this is
how much, right? It's kind of a
[58:24] depending on how you look at it, you can
come up with a very different story.
[58:27] » Also, if you take into account if you're
going to bring in tiffs into it, how
[58:31] much that tiff sheltering benefits the
school as far as funding goes, there's
[58:35] that trade-off as well. And I I don't
know if we break even somewhere along
[58:39] the way to where that math doesn't
matter anymore. But as far as breaking
[58:43] it out on the tax bill,
yeah, those are the numbers. But I
[58:48] appreciate you letting us know that the
percentages were off and correcting us.
[58:53] Yes.
[59:00] subtract out the non-t tax revenue which
means you also so the number you're
[59:07] looking at on on your sheet for the
financials is the net impact for what we
[59:13] need to pull for the school. So
basically, it's the their amount minus
[59:20] revenues. When you're looking at what
that total is, the 44 million, you're
[59:24] forgetting to subtract out our non our
non-t tax revenues, which is the 9
[59:30] something million that that we had,
budgeted.
[59:35] » So,
>> thanks. Yeah, I figured there was a
[59:36] there was an better explanation.
>> Yeah. And then and then on part of that
[59:40] too, I just found the email that I was
looking for as well where I did a little
[59:43] bit. So on the school side of it, it was
28745
[59:47] uh 465 and then the gross overall
appropriation was 40 like that needed to
[59:52] be raised by property taxes was 42,536.
So we took that the school number
[59:58] divided it by the overall net to be
raised that got us at roughly 68%. on
[1:00:03] the county it was a million495 divided
by that same baseline number of 42 40
[1:00:08] let's say 426 or 425 and that's going to
set our three and a half% and then the
[1:00:14] the remainder uh is roughly that you
know 12 uh roughly 12 $12 million there
[1:00:22] at the 28 and a half% that was allocated
to the town or what needed to be raised
[1:00:27] and then part of that too there's yeah
there's overlay in there as well which
[1:00:31] is basically it's a little bit of a gap
that takes place surrounding. Uh
[1:00:36] that's a whole other I could glaze the
whole room over if I get into
[1:00:41] » So a little more education on my part.
Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate.
[1:00:43] » No, I'm happy to go through it too uh in
depth if you ever want to. We can we can
[1:00:47] lay all kinds of paper out on my desk.
[1:00:52] » Thank you.
>> No, thank you.
[1:00:54] So Matt, we saw the breakdown of, you
know, 40ish% saw because of the reval if
[1:01:02] you you not everything equal saw a
decrease
[1:01:05] um you know less than half a percent saw
no change and then you know almost a
[1:01:11] third saw up to a 5% change. So this was
a reval after what 18 years. Um, is
[1:01:19] there a I know there's you're talking
about the sort of the adage of like a
[1:01:23] third, a third, a third
of that increase. Is there a rough, you
[1:01:30] know, it should be if we do it every two
years or every, you know, a much shorter
[1:01:34] amount of time?
>> That increase should usually only be for
[1:01:39] the vast majority up to this percentage.
And then realizing that you'll get the
[1:01:43] the 40 plus percents when you turn, you
know, vacant land and put a, you know,
[1:01:47] however many hundred,000 million dollar
house on it is that's obviously going to
[1:01:51] change a lot. But for most people,
houses have been around for ever.
[1:01:58] What should we be?
Can we look forward enough to be able to
[1:02:03] say like, yeah, we should roughly see if
it's going to go up, it's probably going
[1:02:06] to go up reval alone by x amount,
realizing that the budget is a whole
[1:02:12] another increase potentially.
>> Yeah. Uh, that's a great question,
[1:02:15] Council McGon. Uh oftentimes we we look
at that as you could say um
[1:02:23] if you did it more regularly or more
frequently like every two years which is
[1:02:27] kind of the plan going forward uh you
will see not gigantic swings or large
[1:02:32] swings between assessments so that that
doesn't like time gives space I guess
[1:02:39] would be a way to look at it. So space
between properties if they're
[1:02:42] undervalued or overvalued that gap or
that space between those that
[1:02:48] discrepancy grows over time. So if let's
say your rate of appreciation is maybe
[1:02:53] 4% in the market 3% in the market those
differences where one property may be
[1:02:58] valued more than another uh and when
one's a little bit lesser valued that
[1:03:03] that 3% grows faster as that as that
difference enhances. So if you did it
[1:03:08] every couple of years, you'd look at
more of a stabilized tax rate as well as
[1:03:15] uh stabilized or lesser impacts. So you
don't have that swing like council veil
[1:03:19] going up $1,500 on his property taxes as
a result of the reval. Um looking at
[1:03:25] things like that, that's uh that's
smoothed out a lot more. So, um, there
[1:03:29] may be, you know, the the I guess you
could say the the adjustments aren't as
[1:03:35] significant when you do them more more
frequently because you're not letting it
[1:03:38] get too far away from, you know, most of
the properties being equitably assessed.
[1:03:43] So, it's just a question of refreshing
that uh their overall values and maybe
[1:03:47] making that adjustment and uh finding
some corrections that have to take
[1:03:50] place, but it's not as dramatic as
saying, yeah, waiting 18 to 20 years.
[1:03:54] It's usually, you know, sadly it's a
whiplash effect or at least it sure darn
[1:03:58] feels like it.
>> So, should we be thinking like, you
[1:04:03] know, just revalone
that fiveish% is
[1:04:12] » wouldn't be too far wouldn't be too far
a field.
[1:04:15] » Okay,
>> I can see that. The next question is,
[1:04:17] this might just be something I'd be
interested in, but would there be a way
[1:04:20] to put a calculator on the website where
if you say, you know, all right,
[1:04:26] my taxes are, you know, went up this
much, how much of that was the reval,
[1:04:32] how much of that was just the budget
and, you know, to break it down uh with,
[1:04:37] you know,
the budget increase caused by this much,
[1:04:40] but then within that budget increase,
you know, this much for the school, this
[1:04:43] much for the county, you know, and all
to
[1:04:46] see like where th those changes are
from.
[1:04:50] I don't know how much use that would be
if people would actually use it, but
[1:04:54] could be interesting to say, you know,
okay, it went up by this much. Well,
[1:04:58] yeah, because your house wasn't reval,
you know, 18 years or because the budget
[1:05:02] went up by x%.
>> It's a combination of both.
[1:05:06] » I know it sounds funny, but they're
classes of property that some appreciate
[1:05:10] greater than others do. So like that
first year of a reval like that when you
[1:05:13] reset the bar so to speak or reset the
floor uh you're closing those gaps that
[1:05:20] really magnified over that time period.
So it's it's hard to say uh what it
[1:05:25] would have been because u
just because like a waterfront property
[1:05:31] may may appreciate at a greater rate
than say uh a property next to um
[1:05:37] you know next to like I don't know next
to next to the turnpike for instance
[1:05:44] where you know some neighborhoods
appreciate better than other at greater
[1:05:47] rates than others do. Um, so it's that
one's hard to tell when it's been that
[1:05:52] much time. Um, going forward, you can
look at that and say, well, if you know
[1:05:55] the overall market has changed like two
to three% a year for the past couple
[1:06:00] three years, then you're going to you're
going to know that you're going to go up
[1:06:03] by about this amount of percentage and
and then you look at it. Then that's
[1:06:06] exact then you still have to do that
same performance performative behavior
[1:06:10] of saying okay um you know even during
that time period if the tax rate went up
[1:06:16] or the or budget budgeted spending went
up by x amount per year over those that
[1:06:21] period of time that has to be factored
in as well.
[1:06:26] But for this year, from last year's
evaluate, you know, taxable
[1:06:32] um
amount to this year's taxable amount.
[1:06:37] Can we put something in there that says
like, okay, you know, it went from
[1:06:40] 100,000 to 500,000,
but your taxes only went up by X amount.
[1:06:45] Like, you know, most of your tax
increase, X% of your tax increase was
[1:06:50] the reval and the rest of it was a
budget.
[1:06:53] » Yeah.
>> Kind of thing.
[1:06:55] » Yeah. You could I mean I I've got a
spreadsheet that kind of shows that.
[1:06:59] » Um
>> I I don't know if it might be
[1:07:02] interesting to put that if we could
easily put that on where all the math is
[1:07:05] done in the background.
>> Yeah.
[1:07:06] » And you put in simple numbers and then
it spits out you know
[1:07:11] » if we do not have the time or
person available to do something like
[1:07:16] that on the townwide level. Are people
welcome to come to you as individuals
[1:07:20] and ask you those questions and you can
break out that.
[1:07:22] » Yeah. Or or talk to Clint, our assessor.
He should be able to
[1:07:26] » Yeah,
>> I'd prefer if they spoke to Clint
[1:07:28] because if [laughter] there's there may
be bigger fish to fry that, you know, if
[1:07:32] someone had some of those questions
generally tend to snowball into other
[1:07:36] questions and uh he's our assessor. So,
>> you shouldn't have done this exercise
[1:07:40] then because you just shown your hand.
>> Hard [laughter] madam chair. I did it
[1:07:45] for 30 years. So,
>> I really appreciate you breaking all
[1:07:48] this down because I know I came away
from that conversation wondering what
[1:07:52] the heck like
where do we find where did we fall out
[1:07:56] in the breakdown you know like of you
know 30 3030 what actually was it? So,
[1:08:00] um at first I was a little shocked of
course like wow that that was actually
[1:08:05] um an enormous increase for everyone but
then as now of you you've broken that
[1:08:09] out and
>> kind of sanitized the data so we can see
[1:08:12] really exactly what the rebell did. So,
it's enlightening for sure and I'm glad
[1:08:16] that we have that
>> on the the website or will because I
[1:08:19] know everyone else is probably wondering
the same thing.
[1:08:21] » Well, it's to to be honest, it's
something that we're you know, you want
[1:08:24] to be really sensitive to because even a
dollar impact on anybody, it's
[1:08:28] significant and uh we we take that we
take that seriously because it it has
[1:08:33] different impacts across all different
spectrums of life that we know. So, you
[1:08:38] take that uh you want to have a high
level of sensitivity to to those impacts
[1:08:41] and
>> where they're at.
[1:08:43] » Okay. Anybody else have any questions or
comments before we move on?
[1:08:46] » All righty.
>> That was a big manager report. That was
[1:08:50] I'm like, "Oh, wow. We're only on I'm
just kidding.
[1:08:52] » My biggest in two and a half years."
[laughter] So, sorry. That's why we had
[1:08:54] a skim agenda.
>> All your speaking time for the year now.
[1:08:57] You're done. I'm just kidding. Okay. So,
now we'll move on to public discussion.
[1:09:01] Um public discussion is for comments on
items that are not on the agenda. If you
[1:09:06] want to talk about an agenda item, you
can do that later. Um, comments are
[1:09:09] limited to five minutes per person and
rebuttal comments will be limited to two
[1:09:12] minutes per person. Public discussion
topics may be brought up again under new
[1:09:16] business for further council discussion.
Do we have anyone who would like to make
[1:09:21] a comment? Yeah, just um come on up. Let
us know your name and where you live.
[1:09:30] » Okay. Um, my name is Danielle. I live in
Cumberland and uh it's on the agenda but
[1:09:36] I guess it's when I'm supposed to come
up. It's about the library. Talking
[1:09:39] about the library. Um thank you for your
time in advance. Uh when my family and I
[1:09:44] moved to Cartland three years ago, um
Prince Memorial Library was one of the
[1:09:47] first places we visited. Um I was
immediately drawn to the atrium and its
[1:09:51] comfy chairs and the bright light coming
through the windows. Um pretty soon I
[1:09:56] started to craft there at night and I
met friends crafting
[1:10:00] also. Um, while we have family in Maine,
we didn't know anyone in town. Um, and I
[1:10:06] went looking for community and boy howdy
did I find it at Prince Memorial
[1:10:10] Library. So, um, while the library is
meaningful to lots of people for lots of
[1:10:14] different reasons, I just wanted to give
a sample of how the library has enriched
[1:10:19] my family's life. Um, my family,
especially my foodie son, look forward
[1:10:24] to cook the book every month. We pick
the recipes in advance and my son gets
[1:10:28] excited to bring the dish he made to
share. Um, he also participates in the
[1:10:32] Thursday night Dungeons and Dragons
group and in the tween book club at the
[1:10:36] library. He routinely walks or bikes to
the library after school and spends time
[1:10:40] in the teen center like a lot. Um, if
you ask him what his top three favorite
[1:10:45] places are in town, the library will be
in that top three. Food stop is number
[1:10:49] one.
>> [laughter]
[1:10:51] » Um
this summer uh I participated or well
[1:10:57] this summer he went to California for a
month and he didn't get to go to the
[1:11:00] library [laughter] and one of the uh
Mondays that he was gone was a day that
[1:11:04] we had bingo and he nearly cried when he
found out he was going to miss a bingo
[1:11:08] night. Um we all love bingo. Um
he's looking at me funny but he but he
[1:11:14] was devastated.
>> I was afraid too. It's okay. [laughter]
[1:11:17] And for people who are planners, uh
there are usually four Mondays in July
[1:11:22] because there's only four weeks in a
month. Um but in 2028, there will be
[1:11:25] five Mondays in July. So there will be a
bonus bingo night. And if that means
[1:11:29] anything to you, it means a lot to me.
So I I just wanted you to know that.
[1:11:33] » Um right when we moved here, I started
nanning for a local family and the
[1:11:37] enclosed toddler room at the library was
a godsend. Like you know, Tick had said
[1:11:42] or council member Filson had said. Um
uh it was great um to just have a change
[1:11:47] of pace, get some fresh air, walk, new
toys. Um it was a really wonderful place
[1:11:53] uh space to have. Um a few months after
I moved here, I joined a book club in
[1:11:58] Westbrook and the first few books they
picked were always available at the
[1:12:02] library, even like obscure titles. And I
sort of cut to thinking this might be a
[1:12:06] magic library. Um anyway, so uh now I'm
in the monthly book club on Saturday
[1:12:12] mornings at the library and it's uh
really wonderful to sit in the prince
[1:12:15] room when I could be sleeping on on a
Saturday, but I love to go and listen to
[1:12:19] what the ladies have to say about that
month's book and it's really been I
[1:12:22] think a value ad to my life for sure.
Um,
[1:12:26] I also love the Prince Room because it's
very unique and architecturally
[1:12:31] interesting and I know like building
plans might change but that room is it
[1:12:35] feels historic and so it's just nice to
be in there and be touched with history.
[1:12:40] Um, I also participated in the yearly
summer reading challenge and the 18
[1:12:44] prompts in 12 months and if you are a
fan of reading things you might not
[1:12:49] read. One of the prompts was read a
memoir by or biography of someone you
[1:12:52] think you wouldn't like. And I read
Britney Spears's memoir and I still
[1:12:57] don't like her, but I'm was glad to have
read it and I wouldn't have otherwise
[1:13:00] without the library. Um, let's see. Uh,
we also make sure to attend Oh, I can't
[1:13:07] wait for the Banana Grahams tournament
in February. I do practice all year
[1:13:10] long. Doesn't really help me, but I do
practice. And the Banana Grams
[1:13:13] tournament is highly coveted prizes of
like banana bread, banana socks. Like,
[1:13:17] it's a wonderful event. This guy last
year came from Bath because he put it on
[1:13:21] his calendar. Drove all the way from
Bath and he won.
[1:13:25] Um anyway, we also make sure to attend
as many special events we can. We really
[1:13:29] appreciated the Gone Guys documentary
that was put on earlier this year. Um
[1:13:33] the community plate storytelling
stoppers and the star party. I'm really
[1:13:37] bummed that the weather did not
cooperate this year. Um, what I wanted
[1:13:40] to say about the star party in
particular, um, is that it's pretty
[1:13:43] magical to lay on a blanket surrounded
by people in your community, all looking
[1:13:46] at the stars, all interested in learning
about the stars, and being there for ice
[1:13:50] cream. Um, okay. So, like, you're around
people that care about the same things
[1:13:55] you do is what I wanted to say. Uh, I
want to end by shouting out my love and
[1:13:58] appreciation to all the library staff.
Um, one of the biggest reasons this town
[1:14:02] feels like home to my family is because
of them. Because they made us feel
[1:14:06] welcome and engaged. Um,
I heard about the library being on the
[1:14:11] agenda today and and this is also my
13th wedding anniversary and I love the
[1:14:16] library so much that I should be out
celebrating but instead I'm here
[1:14:20] nervously talking about how much I love
the library. Um, anyway, it's it's a
[1:14:24] it's been a wonderful opportunity for us
to be here for it and to enjoy it and
[1:14:29] for my family it's just been like a gem
of a place. So, thank you for your
[1:14:34] support of the library. Thank you,
Danielle, and happy anniversary.
[1:14:38] [laughter]
[1:14:41] » Does anyone else want to try to follow
that up? I'm just [laughter] kidding.
[1:14:46] I don't follow her. I don't have much to
say, but um my name is Barb Hul and I am
[1:14:53] a friend of the library. Um, and I just
wanted to say Stacy said pretty much
[1:15:00] everything and
I don't know what else I can say about
[1:15:04] her, but um, uh, just our mission is to
raise funds um, to expand, enhance, and
[1:15:11] support all the library programs,
events, and services for our community.
[1:15:16] And most of our money comes from the
appeal.
[1:15:20] But we have I think around 20 volunteers
who weekly sort the books, who work in
[1:15:26] the garden, do the major book sale,
basically do anything that the library
[1:15:31] needs to make the librarian's job
easier. And we just are so they always
[1:15:39] tell us they're grateful for us, but we
are so incredibly grateful for them. Uh
[1:15:46] they're so very friendly, inclusive for
all of us. Um and they help make our
[1:15:52] jobs easier. We're so so happy to be
able to provide them with the money so
[1:15:59] they can do the wonderful programs that
they come up with. Um I don't think
[1:16:05] there's a more gratifying volunteer
experience that you could have and we're
[1:16:10] always looking for more. So if anybody
wants to spread the word, we would love
[1:16:15] that.
[1:16:18] » Thank you.
Would anybody else like to come up for
[1:16:23] public comment?
Going once, twice. All righty.
[1:16:30] We will then move on to legislation and
policy.
[1:16:34] There will be an opportunity for public
comment. Per article 2, section seven of
[1:16:38] the town charter. There will be an
opportunity for public comment on each
[1:16:42] item on the agenda. Comments are limited
to five minutes per person.
[1:16:47] We will start with 26-094
to hold a public hearing to consider and
[1:16:52] act on amendments to chapter 48 coastal
waters of the Cumberland code of
[1:16:56] ordinances as recommended by the
ordinance committee. And I believe we
[1:16:59] have do we have Chief Ramsey here to
talk about that?
[1:17:02] » We certainly do, Madam Chair.
>> Had a hunch. So we will have Chief
[1:17:06] Ramsey introduce the amendments and
perhaps afterward maybe councelor Veil,
[1:17:10] chair of the ordinance committee might
want to have some additional ordinance
[1:17:14] committee background that you might want
to share.
[1:17:17] » Thank you councilors. Uh I believe in
your packet you have a memo from myself
[1:17:23] and a copy of the proposed ordinance
changes. So just in brief, what we're
[1:17:28] asking you to consider approving tonight
is a few changes to the ordinance which
[1:17:32] would do the following. uh explicitly
prohibit the placement of a float on a
[1:17:38] mooring for any purpose other than
commercial fishing. We actually updated
[1:17:42] this ordinance language a little while
ago, but there was some concern
[1:17:47] following our update that the language
wasn't clear enough to ensure that no
[1:17:54] one would ever try to put a float onto a
moing for anything other than commercial
[1:17:58] fishing. And what we're concerned about
is something like a a float that would
[1:18:01] be placed on a moing to be used for a
party spot or a tiny house or, you know,
[1:18:06] whatever kind of uh potential um
potential other use there could be other
[1:18:13] than mooring a boat or putting a a
commercial fishing platform out there.
[1:18:18] So you have that for your consideration.
Also the uh harbor masters and the
[1:18:23] coastal waters commission for a number
of years have been talking about ways to
[1:18:28] maximize the use of the number of
moorings that we have in broad cove and
[1:18:33] have observed that use of moorings that
have been permitted is at about 50% each
[1:18:39] year and so one of the measures that we
are proposing is to require moing
[1:18:46] holders to actually put a boat on their
mooring so that We started out, we just
[1:18:51] gave, you know, when we first created
the Broad Cove Reserve mooring field, we
[1:18:55] would just permit you to have a moing
and then we didn't do anything else.
[1:18:59] Then we made a change to require you if
you received a moing to actually install
[1:19:04] a moing. So, what we've learned is that
there are plenty of folks that will
[1:19:09] receive a moing permit, pay an installer
to go out and put a moing out there
[1:19:13] without ever having having the intention
to put a boat on there. They may have a
[1:19:18] mooring in some other moing field. They
may be happy to just take that mooring,
[1:19:23] uh, put it out there and have it sort of
as a hedge against, you know, some
[1:19:28] potential desire to have it for future
use. So, we have this pretty big mooring
[1:19:32] field that just isn't being used by by
folks for moing their boats. So, we are
[1:19:37] proposing that change and then proposing
a third change which basically states
[1:19:43] that if you are on our wait list and as
we go through um assigning moorings in
[1:19:49] the Rodco Cove Reserve moing field every
spring, if we offer you a moing and you
[1:19:55] say, "Thank you, but I don't want to
take a moing this year. either my boat's
[1:19:58] on order or just had a baby or whatever
the reason might be, we'll allow you to
[1:20:03] pass and keep your spot on that wait
list. If we ask you again, you can pass
[1:20:09] and keep your spot on that wait list. If
we offer you a third time that year, you
[1:20:13] have to accept the mooring, install a
moing, and put a boat on your mooring,
[1:20:18] or else we remove you from the weight
list, you can immediately reapply and go
[1:20:23] back on the wait list, but you would
then be at the bottom of the list.
[1:20:27] Uh the harbor masters and myself are
hopeful that if we pass these the two
[1:20:32] particular recommended changes that have
to do with the way we um expect folks to
[1:20:38] use moorings in the broad cove mooring
field that we will have a much more full
[1:20:42] moing field and that we'll have a much
shorter weight list. Both of the things
[1:20:45] that we think would be really great for
the the Cumberland community. So happy
[1:20:49] to go into any more depth or answer any
questions that you may have about any of
[1:20:53] that language, but that's a brief
overview for you.
[1:20:57] question.
>> Uh so two things one uh just to clarify
[1:21:01] with the the weight list that's asking
once a year correct. So they the first
[1:21:05] year you ask they can pass then the next
requ or next ask would be the second
[1:21:10] year and then the third year it's take
or leave it.
[1:21:14] » Okay. Um, and then with the floats, is
it really a safety concern of not having
[1:21:25] non-commercial fishing floats out there
in terms of, you know, people putting
[1:21:30] [sighs] diving off the a dock, you know,
a float or something like that and then
[1:21:34] not seeing other boats come in and all.
So, sort of why just commercial fishing
[1:21:39] and not anything else? I think safety
concern and then a potential
[1:21:44] proliferation concern. If we if we start
allowing them on permitted moorings,
[1:21:49] then there could suddenly be a bunch of
them that could have other hazards for
[1:21:54] um creating issues with our ability to u
monitor what's going on. And again, you
[1:22:00] know, our our former harbor master had
heard of some communities in the US
[1:22:05] where people were putting floats on
moorings and then putting tiny houses on
[1:22:09] them or, you know, small structures that
people were basically like renting out
[1:22:12] as an Airbnb or VRBO, uh, having parties
out on those platforms. And so it was
[1:22:19] never the intention of our mooring
ordinance to do anything other than
[1:22:23] moore a boat. And uh when we discussed
limiting it to just mooring a boat, we
[1:22:29] realized we needed to also allow lawful
commercial fishing activities and
[1:22:34] sometimes those do require a float. So
has not been an issue here trying to
[1:22:38] head off a potential issue that we uh
saw coming down the pike from other
[1:22:42] areas of the country.
[1:22:47] I'm just curious what analysis has been
done to understand why people aren't
[1:22:52] using their moorings. Um, and also it's
my or I was on I'm not on the Coastal
[1:22:58] Waters Commission anymore, but when I
was my understanding was that not
[1:23:02] everyone that had a moing also had a
dinghy on the float. Is that still the
[1:23:05] case?
>> So, if I understand your two-part
[1:23:08] question, yes, we did make an attempt to
understand a little bit about what was
[1:23:12] going on out there by doing a a poll. We
pulled all the folks that had a moing, I
[1:23:17] think it was two years ago, to ask them,
"If you had a moing, did you install
[1:23:22] your moing? Did you put a boat on the
moing? If not, why not?" And we didn't
[1:23:26] get great response. We can't compel
people to respond back to us. And so the
[1:23:31] response was yet, you know, between yes,
I did, no, I didn't. My boat was in the
[1:23:36] shop being repaired all summer or busy
with the family or I had my boat
[1:23:40] somewhere else for the summer. So, it
didn't really create it didn't really
[1:23:44] create a clear picture for us to
understand. And and I assume because if
[1:23:49] there were some people that received a
moing, installed a received a moing
[1:23:53] permit, installed a moing and never
intended to put a boat on it because
[1:23:56] they have a moing somewhere else, uh
they're not going to respond to the to
[1:24:00] the poll and tell us that probably. So,
it didn't it didn't help us carve our
[1:24:06] path forward, I help us chart our path
forward to that extent. And then the
[1:24:11] second part of your question, I knew I
should have been able to remember it in
[1:24:14] a very short
>> uh dingies, but on the first part, um,
[1:24:18] sorry, it just seems installing a boring
is really expensive. Um, and so it seems
[1:24:25] just like a big amount of money to put
forth with not having the intention of
[1:24:33] putting a vote on it. And so I'm just
wondering
[1:24:38] like is there something else that could
possibly be going on?
[1:24:42] » Um I thought so as well and I'm not a
ocean varying person but my
[1:24:47] understanding is that owning a boat,
operating a boat, mooring a boat,
[1:24:50] especially depending on where you're
doing all those things is very
[1:24:53] expensive. And so the prospect of
purchasing um a moing and then having a
[1:25:01] mooring installer put it in for you is
probably in the realm of hundreds of
[1:25:06] dollars when owning and operating a boat
on Main's coast is much more expensive
[1:25:11] than that. And and I think compared to
what folks are paying in some of the
[1:25:15] moing fields in Falmouth and Yarmouth,
it's a very small amount of money
[1:25:20] compared to what they may be spending
somewhere else. So I think comparatively
[1:25:23] it's not a ton of money. Uh so that's
been sort of our analysis on that.
[1:25:31] » Okay. Um I guess my my second question
was around uh dinghy access. So
[1:25:39] the folks that have moorings that does
not guarantee
[1:25:45] on the dock, right?
>> So speaking this. Okay. So the um
[1:25:53] we have currently approved 48 moings and
out of those 48 approved moings all but
[1:25:59] five
may have a dinghy
[1:26:04] docked at our town floats if they want
to.
[1:26:06] » Okay.
>> So up to 43 of our moing holders could
[1:26:11] dock a dinghy there.
>> And that doesn't include the um like the
[1:26:15] dry racks or the correct dry storage.
>> That's correct. It does not include the
[1:26:19] we call them personal watercraft storage
racks because it could be a paddle
[1:26:22] board, canoe, kayak that's up there.
>> Okay.
[1:26:29] » So, as one of the folks that uh as the
chief and I have discussed um you know
[1:26:36] to answer your question, Tig, I think
one of the reasons that folks get
[1:26:39] moorings there and keep moorings is in
the past it's been very very challenging
[1:26:43] to get a moing in Casco Bay. So, for
example, if you were in Felmouth or in
[1:26:47] South Freeport or something like that,
there is no way you're going to get a
[1:26:52] moing. So,
uh myself who moved my mooring from
[1:26:56] Felmouth to Cumberland with the intent
of putting my boat on the mooring, which
[1:27:00] you know, as you anyone who knows, my
boat has been in dry dock in my yard for
[1:27:04] more than a few years. Um but uh I think
the changes that you propose chief are
[1:27:10] are good um in that you know you you get
the you need to use the mooring um and
[1:27:18] have you know a chance or two to say uh
you know to continue to use it if you if
[1:27:25] you're off for a year or something going
on and then being able to go back on the
[1:27:29] list again right off the bat I think is
a is a big deal. I I think people just
[1:27:33] keep the moorings because
it's it's it has been historically very
[1:27:38] challenging to get one and they also
have ambitions to have their boat in the
[1:27:42] water which doesn't always work. So, um
and for example, if you do to Chief's
[1:27:47] point, if you do have a moing like I
did, it doesn't cost a lot to get that
[1:27:50] once you get the moing moved, it doesn't
cost a lot each year to keep it going.
[1:27:54] So, uh it's a pretty cheap option to to
maintain an option to to and to maintain
[1:27:59] it
>> right
[1:28:00] » year on year. putting it in isn't cheap.
>> It depends.
[1:28:05] » Um or
sorry, I don't know if we're
[1:28:08] » Yeah, we don't want to get into that
that debate yet. Yeah. Just as a piece,
[1:28:11] I think that just as a I think the
changes to the ordinance are good and I
[1:28:16] I definitely support
>> We're not quite there yet, though. This
[1:28:18] is just question moment. So, if anyone
has any other questions,
[1:28:22] then we'll open the public hearing,
close it, and then we'll discuss. So,
[1:28:26] any further questions?
>> Not yet. for comments before we open the
[1:28:30] public hearing. Okay, cool. Let's do
this official bit here. Um, this is a
[1:28:35] public hearing. If anyone would like to
come up and speak on this topic, the
[1:28:39] floor is open. Anybody want to talk
about moorings? Great. The public
[1:28:44] hearing is now closed.
>> Do you have anything you'd like to talk
[1:28:48] about, chair of the ordinance committee?
>> This is an item that came from the
[1:28:53] coastal water commission, the harbor
master, and the police chief. the
[1:28:57] ordinance committee as as a matter of
policy reviews it. Uh so but this is not
[1:29:03] something that the ordinance committee
drafted but we have supported it and it
[1:29:08] came out of the ordinance committee with
a should pass uh recommendation. So the
[1:29:14] recommendation is from the ordinance
committee that this be adopted.
[1:29:20] » I have a question if uh no one else
does. Um, so I think we're at 57 waiting
[1:29:26] list applicants or something and we've
got 48 moorings. Um,
[1:29:33] do you anticipate the people on the wait
list also going to be kind of like
[1:29:40] active users or I'm I'm just wondering
I'm I'm I'd be glad to see some turnover
[1:29:45] on the wait list,
but what if the weight list people also
[1:29:50] are going to pass? I'm just wondering if
we reach a point where we have no weight
[1:29:52] list but we also have no one using the
morings. Um what would we do then?
[1:29:57] » Well, our intention is that at the end
of this year, provided that you all vote
[1:30:01] to to make these changes to the
ordinance, we would be having
[1:30:05] conversations with the roughly 50% of
current moing holders who haven't put a
[1:30:10] vote on their moing to say, listen, the
there's been a change to the to the
[1:30:13] ordinance which is going to require you
to have a a mooring. uh this year is
[1:30:18] fine, but next year that's going to be
an expectation. Do you reasonably expect
[1:30:21] to have a more a vote on your mooring
next year? Do you want to talk about
[1:30:24] surrendering that mooring? And we think
that that's going to probably have some
[1:30:28] people bow out and not come back again
next year. Then we would start on the
[1:30:31] wait list. And if folks, as we
mentioned, passed, we would work our way
[1:30:36] down the wait list. And so
>> when we call the wait list this time, we
[1:30:40] would be saying your your number's up.
You're welcome to have a morning if you
[1:30:44] want to. keep in mind this is the
expectation, right?
[1:30:47] » And then uh folks will have to make
their decision then take the moing, get
[1:30:52] a boat on or I'll pass. And then we do
think that
[1:30:56] » uh those two changes are going to result
in a number of people just self-
[1:31:01] selecting to not be on the wait list
anymore and that it's going to result in
[1:31:06] a more full mooring field.
>> That's going to result in issues with
[1:31:10] dingy dockage. We realize there will be
a ex u an increase in dinghyd dockage
[1:31:14] space right this coming spring when the
floats are expanded and then we will uh
[1:31:20] well I will work with the coastal waters
commission to be keeping an eye on
[1:31:23] things down there. Have we have we
solved one problem created another one?
[1:31:27] How do we sort of keep our hand on the
throttle right for that moving forward?
[1:31:30] But we think that it'll be a good way to
increase the use of that resource for
[1:31:35] the town uh be fair to folks that have
been on the waiting list for a long
[1:31:38] time. And you know, I I would love to
think we would reach a point where there
[1:31:41] isn't a wait list anymore, but I suspect
we'll have one of some some length for
[1:31:47] the foreseeable future.
>> Anybody have any comments or opinions or
[1:31:55] take a motion?
>> Oh, I have a lot of comments and
[1:31:57] opinions. Sorry. [laughter]
>> Go for it.
[1:32:00] » Okay. So, a couple of things. Um, first,
so I think that take I think that rather
[1:32:08] than removing someone entirely from the
weight list, it might be a better move
[1:32:14] to ask them one, do you still want to be
on here?
[1:32:18] » And they might just say, "No, no, thank
you. Um, take me off. I sold my boat."
[1:32:24] But what we could also do, which would
actually be more consistent with what we
[1:32:28] do on the shellfish commission, is they
get moved automatically to the bottom of
[1:32:34] the weight list. Um, because
I'm on the wait list, right? I've been
[1:32:38] on the wait list for a while. Our boat
is in dry dock. Our engine is screwed.
[1:32:45] And unfortunately, um, we can't afford
right now to buy an $8,000 new engine.
[1:32:52] We can't. Do we have every intention of
putting our boat on a mooring when we
[1:32:57] are in a more financially stable
position? Like absolutely. But what'll
[1:33:01] happen is that if we're at the top of
the wait list and we say no, it's not
[1:33:05] going to happen this year. It's not
going to happen next year. And boat
[1:33:08] people who are real boat people know
that boat problems are problems. They're
[1:33:12] money pits. They're not something that
you should necessarily get because you
[1:33:16] will constantly be looking at your
wallet and saying, "Why did I do this?"
[1:33:19] You can probably agree with me at least
on that, right? Um, but you know, like
[1:33:24] we come off the wait list and my
husband's just going to reapply, get put
[1:33:28] to the wait list. We'll have to pay the
fee again. And like I don't know. I just
[1:33:32] I don't think that that's I don't love
that. Um even though I know it's a very
[1:33:36] very small fee. I just for the residents
I just I don't think that's cool. And I
[1:33:39] think that it would be more consistent
for our code if we were to do it the way
[1:33:44] that we do for the shellfish with the
shellfish commission commission. The
[1:33:47] other part in here that I don't love is
um the harbor master may refuse to renew
[1:33:54] any mooring assignment or permit in the
broad cove reserve boring field that is
[1:34:00] not used by the permit holder for one
full boating year season rather. Um so
[1:34:05] I'm trying to understand like
enforcement here like how do you know
[1:34:11] whether or not someone is putting their
boat there? the harbor master here might
[1:34:15] not be the same type of harbor master
that we have in a much more robust
[1:34:20] waterfront. Uh like we don't have a
boat, right?
[1:34:24] » Correct.
>> Um and so h how are we determining
[1:34:30] because this language I think is sort of
subjective like so how are you
[1:34:33] determining what the use looks like?
So, great question. And so, what we've
[1:34:38] done this year, I anticipate is what we
would be doing in future years is that
[1:34:43] in the spring when the moorings go out,
a tag goes on the moing that just says,
[1:34:46] "Hey, when you put your boat on this
moing, would you remove this tag?" And
[1:34:49] reach out to the harbor master. So, then
folks get their boat out, they go to mo
[1:34:54] their boat, they see that tag, they
remove it, they reach out to officer
[1:34:57] Marman, our harbor master, and say,
"Hey, Matt, my boat's on the mooring."
[1:35:00] And Matt says, "Check mark that that
moing is being used." We go out and
[1:35:04] inspect our moorings. We're trying to do
it about four times over the summer. And
[1:35:09] so I think at the end of a at the end of
a boating season, if there's a moing
[1:35:14] that has a a tag on it that has not been
removed during the times they did their
[1:35:18] four checks, they never saw a boat on
that moing, there's a pretty good
[1:35:20] argument that that mooring has not been
used during that full boating season.
[1:35:25] And then Matt would be having a
conversation with that moing holder.
[1:35:28] What's happening? What's going on with
you? And we wrote the language
[1:35:32] to be um flexible for Matt. So when Matt
talks to someone, if the person says, "I
[1:35:38] had a death in the family. I've been
battling a serious health concern or
[1:35:42] whatever the case may be that Matt can
provide some grace to that person to to
[1:35:47] understand that and let them push it out
by one more year or just have the
[1:35:51] conversation with them about what's
what's the deal, where's your boat, is
[1:35:54] it, you know, is it in dry dock? Do you
have something uh you know in place for
[1:35:59] repairs? Do you have an expectation that
boat's going to be there again in the
[1:36:02] near future? and then just work through
that with them um based on I think
[1:36:07] conversation and an expectation that
folks are going to be candid and helpful
[1:36:10] and and um that if he needs to and he
tells a person that based on whatever
[1:36:16] the the totality of the circumstances is
that he's not going to renew their
[1:36:20] mooring that's his decision but his
decision can be appealed to the entire
[1:36:24] coastal waters commission. So there's
there's good due process involved. If he
[1:36:28] makes a decision after having that
conversation, again, looking at all the
[1:36:32] the facts of the case, and he says no,
then they can present themselves before
[1:36:36] the Coastal Waters Commission and make
their case to that to that group who can
[1:36:39] either sustain his decision or overturn
it.
[1:36:44] » And I I just would add, I think, to um
to add on to some of the other comments
[1:36:49] that were made that this is very similar
to language that's being used in
[1:36:52] Yarmouth and Falmouth. are obviously
very close to their harbor masters and
[1:36:55] talk with them on a regular basis to
bounce ideas off of them and ask them
[1:36:59] for recommendations for language. So
they both use language that's very
[1:37:03] similar to this and think that it's
worked well for them. Um it was also
[1:37:06] reviewed by the coastal waters
commission and our town council. So um
[1:37:11] could be words smith I guess but it does
provide flexibility for our harbor
[1:37:15] master and it does provide due process
for anyone that feels agrieved by a
[1:37:18] decision made by our harbor master.
I I would exc um I mean I would argue
[1:37:24] that Yarmmouth and Felmouth are very
different harbors than Broad Cove. Um
[1:37:30] there's a lot more traffic. Uh there's a
lot more use. Um
[1:37:37] it's just like it's a it's a they're
much busier. So So I'm not sure that
[1:37:41] it's apples to apples. Um I'm not saying
that there's anything wrong. I think the
[1:37:44] benchmarking is great. Um,
[1:37:51] yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's I
just I think it's unreasonable. Um, but
[1:37:56] that's me. I would be more comfortable
with at least folks having the option or
[1:38:02] being put to the bottom of the weight
list or as asked if they want to stay on
[1:38:07] the weight list and then move to the
bottom, which is more consistent with
[1:38:10] what we do with Shellfish.
Um,
[1:38:16] and I don't know, like the tagging
system, I I guess I understand it, but
[1:38:20] someone could go out there, remove the
tag like on their paddle board, and then
[1:38:25] they've ticked the box, you know, like I
just it's it seems a little
[1:38:32] it it just kind of seems like you're
like I don't love it. It seems kind of
[1:38:36] arbitrary. It doesn't really seem um
like it's solving the problem, which is
[1:38:40] we want people to use this
We want people, we want it to be a more
[1:38:45] bustling harbor and I'm not sure this is
going to solve that problem.
[1:38:49] » So, I wouldn't be in support of it as
written.
[1:38:53] » Want to say something?
>> Yeah. I mean,
[1:38:56] » think about it.
>> I I I
[1:38:58] Yes, I understand your uh questions, uh,
Councelor Fison. Um, but, uh, you know,
[1:39:06] I think there's a, you know, as someone
who is, you know, potentially going to
[1:39:10] go and have this change affect me. Um,
and I'm sure others I I can see other
[1:39:15] moorings out there that I know of, folks
that, you know, you, you can tell that a
[1:39:18] moing's not been used when the grass is
on the right, it's sitting there, right?
[1:39:22] I went out and got my tag off the
mooring with my kayak the other day,
[1:39:25] right? So, um I think that this will
help move things along.
[1:39:33] Um and I think there's flexibility in
there. One of the conversations that we
[1:39:38] had in the in the ordinance committee
was there was initially a penalty where
[1:39:42] right where you couldn't reapply to the
list for three years if you decided not
[1:39:45] to have the mooring and we took that off
right Chief Ramsey took that off
[1:39:50] » and I think this in here too whereas if
you choose not to go on or accept the
[1:39:54] moring and you just go right back onto
the you know you start at the bottom of
[1:39:57] the list again right I mean I think
that's I think that's pretty fair
[1:40:01] » all is inconsistent with what we do in
our other code So, would we want to do
[1:40:07] that for the shellfish as well?
>> Yeah, I don't I don't know why we
[1:40:10] wouldn't, but yeah. So, at least in
Yeah, I don't know. I think this would
[1:40:15] be I would like to see this get move
forward. You know, if others think we
[1:40:20] need to tweak it, great. But for my
world, I think it works.
[1:40:27] Bill,
>> I think the u one of the things to
[1:40:31] understand is the capacity of Broad Cove
is not nearly being utilized to anywhere
[1:40:38] near its capacity and and as as people
use it. We have the ability to expand
[1:40:44] it. We certainly have the ability to
issue more permits and and change as
[1:40:50] necessary. So, I think for tonight we
should move this ahead. The this is a
[1:40:55] recommendation from uh a an appointed
committee that has done the due
[1:41:00] diligence
there. The ordinance committee has
[1:41:04] reviewed it. Um if if it we find that
there's something that's not working, we
[1:41:11] can always go back and request the
coastal commission to re-examine this
[1:41:17] and and come back with a different
recommendation. But I'm I'm ready to
[1:41:21] move move it tonight. Um, I'll give my
two cents before someone inevitably
[1:41:27] gives a motion. Um, I understand your
concerns, especially around the
[1:41:32] subjectivity of the language of the
harbor master's um, discretion and I
[1:41:39] know in this case it's for a person
who's got, you know, good things in
[1:41:45] mind. There could be a harbor master
working for the forces of evil who wants
[1:41:48] to go around and target individuals for
the moorings. Who knows? But I do
[1:41:54] appreciate that you mentioned the
appeals process because I think that's
[1:41:57] where any of that would play out. And
again, you would hope that the Coastal
[1:42:00] Waters Commission is also operating in
the best interests um of everyone and
[1:42:05] having some ethics there, which I know
they do. Um so that makes me feel better
[1:42:09] about that language piece at least. And
then I think it's pretty fair to let a
[1:42:13] person pass for two years and then they
have that third time to accept. I would
[1:42:19] be in favor of just tweaking the wording
a little bit um on where it says when an
[1:42:25] applicant is offered a moing for the
third time, they must accept the offered
[1:42:29] moing assignment or their name will be
moved to the bottom of the waiting list
[1:42:33] or something instead of just being
removed from the waiting list. I can see
[1:42:36] that being a little tweak, but I
wouldn't hold this whole thing back um
[1:42:41] based on that wording. I would just ask
that we just revisit that sentence again
[1:42:46] sometime uh soon.
But um yeah, I mean I'm in favor of it
[1:42:53] on the whole. Um if anybody has anything
else to say, go for it. Otherwise,
[1:43:00] » someone make a motion.
>> I'll make I'll make a motion.
[1:43:04] So
>> yeah, go for it.
[1:43:07] » Item number 26094. I move to amend
chapter 48, coastal waters of the
[1:43:13] Cumberland one code of ordinances as
recommended by the ordinance committee.
[1:43:16] » Second.
>> All right, we have a motion and a
[1:43:19] second. Any discussion on the motion?
All those in favor?
[1:43:27] » Oh, sorry. All those opposed?
Motion carries. Thank you, councilors.
[1:43:33] » Thanks, chief.
>> All righty. Next, we have 26-095
[1:43:39] to authorize fiscal year 2026, end of
year transfers. Um, this is our annual
[1:43:45] housekeeping item. And if we would like,
who wants to talk about it? I'm guessing
[1:43:52] finance director.
>> We do have our little on this finance
[1:43:57] director here this evening. So, is more
than ready to talk about. the expert in
[1:44:02] the room.
[1:44:07] » Good evening, councilors. As discussed
during our finance committee meeting, um
[1:44:12] we showed a budget um surplus of uh $1.3
million with a request to use some of
[1:44:20] those funds for urine transfers for our
HR, our um our CIP budget that we've uh
[1:44:29] planned for the fire department. And um
I think the total was I'm sorry I don't
[1:44:35] have the agenda in front of me. 1966 673
>> 1976 673
[1:44:42] » 196 673 that's close unless you want the
extra grand [laughter]
[1:44:47] and then um as as we also discussed um I
haven't completely closed the books but
[1:44:52] um I do see uh do not foresee us needing
to u back any of those out. I know in
[1:44:59] the past we've put preliminary based on
where we would end the year. Um, and if
[1:45:04] you had any questions about revenues and
expenses, we went through those as well.
[1:45:09] So, not sure if there's any other
questions.
[1:45:16] » Um, I don't have any.
[1:45:20] » Anybody want to get into the details
here or we good?
[1:45:24] » I think we covered them earlier.
>> Yeah, it wasn't televised. I don't know
[1:45:29] if we should give like the TLDDR of or
the summary I should say for those who
[1:45:34] don't know the lingo um
just the general [snorts]
[1:45:40] what was generally over budget
what was under how revenues balanced out
[1:45:45] and this and that or we can just uh move
it forward. I'm I'm happy either way.
[1:45:54] » I'm I'm happy to provide you a motion if
you want. Um
[1:45:59] item number 26-095.
I move to authorize the town manager to
[1:46:04] transfer excess and end of year
operating revenues and departmental
[1:46:08] operating balances from the general fund
to close all departmental
[1:46:12] budgets. And further, I also I also move
to authorize a town manager to transfer
[1:46:17] up to 196 thou6,673
from end ofear excess revenues from the
[1:46:23] general fund for projects and any
additional excess revenues to be applied
[1:46:27] to endofear fund balances.
>> All right, have a motion. We have a
[1:46:32] second.
>> Second.
[1:46:35] » Any discussion on that motion? Nope. All
those in favor?
[1:46:40] Unanimous.
Thank you, Helen.
[1:46:46] All right, next we have 26-096
to appoint a member to the planning
[1:46:52] board. Exciting.
Um,
[1:46:55] » like to speak on that.
>> Yes, indeed, chair of that committee,
[1:46:59] Mahalik.
>> So, first of all, I just want to thank
[1:47:02] all the people that applied. We had a
number of great applicants. Um, but
[1:47:07] after going through the selection
process, you know, looked like that
[1:47:12] We should move to appoint Jane Wilson to
the planning to the planning board.
[1:47:19] » And as I understand it, it was
unanimously approved. Yes.
[1:47:22] » By the non nominating committee. So you
guys are all on the same page.
[1:47:25] » Yep.
>> Great.
[1:47:28] » So I'll give you a motion whenever
you're ready.
[1:47:31] » Unless anyone wants to talk about it,
I'm ready.
[1:47:36] » Item number 26-096.
I move to appoint Jane Wilson to the
[1:47:40] planning board.
Second. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I was
[1:47:46] there. I love her. She's amazing.
>> She's awesome.
[1:47:49] » All right. Motion second.
>> Discussion on the motion.
[1:47:52] » Seeing none. All those in favor?
>> Unanimous. Great. Congratulations.
[1:47:57] » Go Jane. Go.
>> Welcome to the planning board.
[1:48:02] All right.
Finally, we have item 26-097
[1:48:08] to set a public hearing date of
September 14th to consider an act on a
[1:48:12] liquor license application for Marmain
LLC. And I will note, if you didn't
[1:48:18] catch my emphasis, that this is not
approving anything tonight. This is just
[1:48:22] to establish the hearing date. Um the
actual hearing and decision would be
[1:48:26] scheduled for September 14th if um that
goes through. So, um, if nobody would
[1:48:33] like to discuss it or if you would like
to discuss it, um, you can do that. It's
[1:48:38] probably not the time for it.
>> Somebody wants to give me a motion.
[1:48:41] » Would you like a motion?
>> Yeah, I'll give you one.
[1:48:45] » All right,
>> let's do it.
[1:48:46] » I move to set a public hearing date of
September 14th to consider an act on a
[1:48:50] liquor license application for I hope
I'm pronouncing this right, Mayor Mine
[1:48:54] LLC. Oh, you're here.
>> Oh, I have already been looking to at
[1:49:00] that menu. I sent it to all my
neighbors.
[1:49:02] » Really good. [laughter]
>> Uh we have a
[1:49:06] » we have
[1:49:12] so happy you're here. Thank you.
>> While we distribute these, I have a
[1:49:16] motion. Do we have a second?
>> Second.
[1:49:18] » Okay. Any discussion on it? All those in
favor?
[1:49:22] Unanimous.
We will see you on September 14th
[1:49:26] [clears throat] where we will discuss
this in detail. I'm just kidding. I'm
[1:49:30] not kidding though. I'm going to talk
about this menu. All right, great. That
[1:49:36] concludes legislation and policy. Now,
we're going to get into new business.
[1:49:40] And I'm left-handed, so I'm going to
start on my left. Councelor Filson, if
[1:49:45] you're prepared.
>> Thank you. I sure am. Um, so one of the
[1:49:49] things that I'm hoping that we can talk
about, and I already um uh surfaced or
[1:49:54] bubbled this to the surface with um
Lily, is um I'd like to have some kind
[1:50:00] of discussion about
some kind of program for tax relief um
[1:50:06] for families who may that that possibly
is an expansion of the senior program.
[1:50:14] um where families who may have found
themselves in economic hardship for
[1:50:19] whatever reason, maybe it's a year where
they're just really not doing well,
[1:50:23] can't afford their tax bill. Um just
looking at whether or not there's
[1:50:28] something that we could do, um a program
that we can put in place, uh for folks
[1:50:32] that yeah are financially struggling,
may not be able to hit their tax bill
[1:50:37] that particular year. um could be
temporary um or could be something that
[1:50:42] may temporary for that family. Um but I
think that the economic hardship is um
[1:50:49] out there. Um there are big life events
like divorces, people are unexpectedly
[1:50:54] widowed. Um you know, all sorts of
things happen and sometimes it takes a
[1:50:58] little bit of time to regain your
footing. Um, and so that's just
[1:51:02] something at some point I'd love for us
to look at the options and see if um
[1:51:07] that's something we want to look at.
That's it for me.
[1:51:10] » Great.
Council follow.
[1:51:14] » What do you have?
>> Ah, I have two two items. Um, so the
[1:51:20] first one is like to propose or discuss
for new business is regards to the rail
[1:51:25] trail. Um, and I think that there is an
opportunity since I know as as we as we
[1:51:33] hear the community, right? I think
there's overwhelming support to do this.
[1:51:37] Um, and I realize that there's concerns
from a Butters as well. Um, but I think
[1:51:44] that not moving forward on the
engineering study is a is a bad choice.
[1:51:50] Um, and I think that's a process where
we can get the uh abutters, right? Get
[1:51:55] their concerns heard in a in a process
that is a normal process. But I also
[1:52:01] respect the fact that, right, we're in
this world of needs and wants and trying
[1:52:07] to be respectful of the the cost of the
study and the match. And again, this is
[1:52:12] just for the study, the $12,000
contribution. I think that there is um
[1:52:19] sufficient support
um in town from folks who would like to
[1:52:25] see this move forward that we could um
do it as a charitable uh thing, right,
[1:52:31] where people can contribute to this to
fund the $12,000. And I think we'd find
[1:52:36] that that would get funded quite
quickly. Um, so I just wanted to throw
[1:52:41] that out as as something that we can
consider and if there's a um, you know,
[1:52:48] Mr. Manager, if there's a mechanism that
we can use that would allow us to take
[1:52:52] those charitable contributions in and
then use that to fund the study. So
[1:52:56] again, you know, with the we're not
we're not worried about the expenditure
[1:53:01] of the study. And again, just the study,
that's it. That's where it stops.
[1:53:06] » Two things if I can. Um I we haven't
made that agenda obviously yet, but I
[1:53:12] think we were aiming for the end of
September,
[1:53:14] » I think the 28th to revisit this. Um,
additionally, I know that people can
[1:53:20] make donations to the town. I don't know
if we need to have a specific like fund
[1:53:24] category set up for a a specific use or
if people could donate and just say, you
[1:53:29] know, in the memo like this is for a
particular thing.
[1:53:32] » We we we definitely can.
>> Okay. Um the oftentimes what you find is
[1:53:37] a town can receive gifts and then uh and
then uh the council can allocate those
[1:53:42] gifts uh depending upon that like uh
occasionally folks will make a donation
[1:53:47] to the town uh specific to support the
fire and rescue or uh an ambulance fund
[1:53:54] if there was something along those lines
or
[1:53:57] certain areas. So we could uh or even uh
quite honestly the food pantry is
[1:54:01] another one uh that we do. Council
Mahalik donates his $20 at each council
[1:54:06] meeting. We take that and and that goes
into their account. So, we could set up
[1:54:11] a fund for that and then the council
could look at that and say, "Okay, we're
[1:54:15] going to receive it here. Are we going
to expend it here?" And then it's a one
[1:54:17] for one uh that way we could we could
keep that clean. But it's it's it's
[1:54:22] definitely a mechanism we could put in
place.
[1:54:24] » So, what all do we need to do to to do
that? And would it be only for the
[1:54:29] design study or can it be a that rail
trail over there general fund to where
[1:54:35] if you have things over that it goes to
potentially something in the future
[1:54:41] regarding it or what do you do if it
goes over the 12,000 do you give refunds
[1:54:45] like how does how do the how does the
nitty-gritty work on that kind of thing
[1:54:48] before we were to do something like
that? It'd be a nice problem to have.
[1:54:52] » Indeed,
>> would [laughter] be would be the way I
[1:54:54] would look at that, but uh not I was not
trying to be flip at all with that. Uh
[1:54:59] but it would be a nice problem to have.
But generally what you would do is uh
[1:55:02] you know, once you get to that point,
ultimately comes down to council because
[1:55:05] council would have to say, you know, we
will receive those funds and we we're
[1:55:09] happy and we will expend them based on
what the donor's um desires are. Um,
[1:55:15] that's a pretty easy one, but really
ends up having the council just would
[1:55:18] need to authorize that expenditure.
>> So, is that something we need to stick
[1:55:21] on our agenda coming up to establish
this?
[1:55:26] » Yeah, we can get that on for the 14th
without without a problem at all. And I
[1:55:29] could get the language really cleaned up
and and and and ready to ready to go.
[1:55:34] So, if there were willing and ready
donors out there, we'd be we could set
[1:55:38] it up to do it. And then probably then
you could look at the 28th and say,
[1:55:41] "Okay, uh, you know, if those funds came
in, the council could then look at that.
[1:55:46] If you want to make the decision to say,
"Yeah, we're going to do this and we're
[1:55:49] going to have these funds. We're going
to use them." Uh, that would that would
[1:55:52] be a pretty ministerial uh item to do.
I mean that to me all looks nice and
[1:55:59] neat potentially um to authorize you to
go set up that kind of fund if that is
[1:56:07] something we need to do as a group like
>> how do we do it? Do we have to like vote
[1:56:13] on this officially at our next meeting?
Like is it just a consensus right now?
[1:56:16] It's just like yeah that seems like a
good idea. Go forth and
[1:56:18] » I could do it tomorrow.
>> Do your thing
[1:56:20] » or more importantly Helen could do it
[laughter] tomorrow to be honest. Uh but
[1:56:25] if Because people do send donations into
the town for certain things and we have
[1:56:29] to find a place to house it,
>> right? So, if you even get like a dollar
[1:56:32] toward this thing, you're going to have
to put it in some place and you're going
[1:56:34] to have to make
>> funding. We want to account for it. Yep.
[1:56:38] » Do you want to donate a dollar to get it
started? I'm just kidding. [laughter]
[1:56:43] Okay. Sure. I guess. Do you have
anything else that
[1:56:48] » I do, but I didn't know if anybody else
wanted to go. It's that this
[1:56:53] Wow. Thanks. Um so councelor Vale and I
um put together uh some ideas um on an
[1:57:03] outline and a plan to address the need
for workforce housing in Cumberland. And
[1:57:08] this is something that both he and
myself and then Tig I I you know also
[1:57:14] heard when we were working on the comp
plan right and I don't I don't have the
[1:57:19] statistics in front of me tonight but it
was definitely uh an area of discussion
[1:57:25] across town in that you know municipal
employees uh MSAD 51 employees right
[1:57:32] often have a very hard time affording
finding a finding a place to live in
[1:57:37] town and um that's not going to change
anytime soon, right? With the property
[1:57:43] values in town and just, you know,
that's I think just the reality of it.
[1:57:47] So, we put together some some thoughts
on here is how this might work. Um and I
[1:57:54] know we've gone over this ground before
and and maybe somewhat painfully. Um but
[1:58:00] doesn't mean that we can't try again
with a new approach. I do think it's
[1:58:04] something that's come out of the comp
plan that was very uh
[1:58:12] well supported to move forward, right? A
committee of all these citizens to to
[1:58:16] voted to move this forward over an
18-month period. So, I don't think it's
[1:58:21] something that we can just let lie and
think it's something we need to take up.
[1:58:26] We're obviously not going to solve or go
through all of this now. Um but you know
[1:58:31] in the recommendation in here is to
develop a committee again like we've had
[1:58:37] a committee in the past um to go through
and look at this option or look at this
[1:58:43] issue and see if we can find a solution.
Um so that's the I don't want to bore
[1:58:48] everybody with every detail in here but
you guys have all seen it and uh I'm
[1:58:52] sure it's now out for public view as
well as as a plan or an idea.
[1:58:58] » Great.
>> That's all I've got. All right, Council
[1:59:00] Mahal.
>> All right, so
[1:59:04] food pantry $20.
Um,
[1:59:09] didn't know if we could come up with a
date for West Carlo meeting like we did
[1:59:13] last year. I think that'd be think it
was pretty appreciative by the citizens.
[1:59:16] And just a couple other items that
probably if I paid more attention I
[1:59:20] could answer myself. But did the welcome
to Cumberland signs ever get up?
[1:59:26] » I don't think we have them yet.
>> Okay. Okay. But they are we've we've
[1:59:29] ordered them and I can I'll get I'll get
an update tomorrow to council, but we
[1:59:34] ordered them through our our folks who
normally do our assigned work. So
[1:59:40] » I'll provide an update tomorrow.
>> They're they're somewhere between the
[1:59:43] vendor and here.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
[1:59:44] » Yeah. They must be
>> um
[1:59:45] » they're on Earth somewhere. And then the
last the last meeting I brought up to um
[1:59:50] Chris about the crosswalk on Route 100
that a citizen brought forward and I
[1:59:55] know he was going to look into it, but I
just didn't know if we' maybe it's
[1:59:59] already rectified. I didn't know if we'd
heard anything on that. So
[2:00:02] » is is that for for painting it?
>> Yeah, the one that goes between the
[2:00:05] rusty lantern and um the and House of
Pizza.
[2:00:09] » I think that's on that should be
happening fairly soon because all of our
[2:00:13] striping is lined up to be done. So
they'll they it's the same company.
[2:00:16] Awesome.
>> So, and Chris had updated me uh that
[2:00:19] that that we should be striping
hopefully within the next two to three
[2:00:22] weeks. So, we should see that hopefully
shortly. Be nice to do it when you can
[2:00:26] still see the road.
>> Yeah. No, thank you.
[2:00:30] » Thank you, Council Hollik.
>> It's everything I have. Thank you very
[2:00:33] much,
>> Council Dun.
[2:00:36] Uh all I have is that the LCC, the Land
Conservation Commission is meeting on
[2:00:42] the
uh 2nd, so it's what? Next Wednesday. Um
[2:00:49] not this week's, but next week's
Wednesday at 7 p.m. here in the Council
[2:00:54] Chambers.
>> Thank you, Councelor Bill.
[2:00:59] » Uh just capitalize on Bill's uh impetus
there. Thank you. U I think both of
[2:01:06] these um initiatives uh rail to trail uh
it's a um
[2:01:13] I think there's overwhelming public
support for this. Anybody that's used
[2:01:17] the trails uh elsewhere across the
country um
[2:01:24] we hear nothing but good uh from that.
Uh I think the the first step in getting
[2:01:30] that exploratory
uh work done is is important for us to
[2:01:35] be able to have a fuller understanding
of what the costs are. Certainly uh that
[2:01:42] that is a that's a much bigger nut to
crack than $12,000 of
[2:01:48] just preliminary work. uh on the
housing. Uh this is a an opportunity for
[2:01:55] us to show leadership that uh every
community should be engaged in. Freeport
[2:02:00] has just finished a project and I think
it'd be helpful if we reached out to
[2:02:04] them and and had a little uh sitewalk if
you will uh and how they accomplished
[2:02:12] that. But uh getting the task uh force
started the the committee is a is a
[2:02:18] first step for us to do uh to u
give us a sense of how we can pull this
[2:02:26] project off. uh the uh every day I I
walk into food sap or I walk into darers
[2:02:33] or or any other uh store in the
community and you see the people working
[2:02:37] there and and uh u you know you you know
they're not living in our community
[2:02:42] because there's no opportunity for them
to live in our community. Uh you talk
[2:02:46] about young families, we talk about
friends who have children who have
[2:02:50] graduated from college or or having
their first job. And uh you know, when
[2:02:56] you talk about $2,000 for rent someplace
in Poland, um you know, we we we can we
[2:03:04] can do our share to uh make it uh
available for others. So
[2:03:10] I want to see this brought forward and
we'll take a step towards uh making this
[2:03:15] happen.
>> Thank you.
[2:03:19] Um, for my stuff, I just want to
reiterate how thankful I am for Dakota
[2:03:28] Hulet of MDOT for spending so much time
with us at recent workshops, um, like
[2:03:36] sitewalks with neighbors along the
proposed trail site. um just being
[2:03:42] extremely helpful and answering all of
our questions and being really great at
[2:03:48] answering them in an unbiased way and
not taking sides, just doing your job,
[2:03:54] providing facts, sharing your knowledge,
and admitting when you don't know the
[2:03:58] answer and then coming back with one.
So, it's basically everything you could
[2:04:01] ask for. So, I know we had talked about
sending some like official fancy thing
[2:04:07] to [laughter] to go to superiors at
least like
[2:04:11] give this person a raise immediately. I
>> I had an email to the commissioner at
[2:04:16] 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning that was
uh that he responded grateful for our
[2:04:22] appreciation, but I said on behalf of
the council and staff and
[2:04:26] » uh the many people in attendance that
Dakota just did a great job in a tough
[2:04:31] situation and uh we appreciated his
professionalism and uh ability to answer
[2:04:35] questions and his just uh general
enthusiasm for what he does for work. So
[2:04:40] that was really well done.
>> And when I think you had mentioned that
[2:04:44] you asked like oh so is this something
they train you on like no this is just
[2:04:48] me and that that kind of thing that kind
of spirit can be just crushed over time
[2:04:54] working in a place that where other
people around you are not up to that
[2:04:58] same standard. I'm not trying to be
rude. This is just like the reality of
[2:05:02] things. And so giving that encouragement
and recognition really helps keep that
[2:05:06] alive so you're not just crushed under
the weight of the machine. So, um, I'm
[2:05:11] glad you did that. So, thank you. And I
know Dakota probably appreciates it,
[2:05:14] too. Um,
on the topic of the gazebo at Cumberland
[2:05:19] Common, thank you for that update. I
think I can't remember if this was just
[2:05:24] your idea or if we had an email that
came through at one point mentioning how
[2:05:29] it was had fallen into disrepair. So
just those kind of things like also um
[2:05:34] during the election people were showing
up on bikes and the bike racks had gone
[2:05:39] missing at one point. The bike racks are
back. Um just like community feedback
[2:05:44] like if you see something busted send an
email and it'll probably get fixed. Or
[2:05:48] if you want a particular feature around
town that um isn't too taxing to install
[2:05:55] or expensive it it will most likely
magically show up um shortly after. Big
[2:06:01] big thanks to uh Mr. Baldick who bird
dogged the uh the gazebo and to our uh
[2:06:05] lovely planner Bridget Perry who uh got
a grant for the bike racks. So
[2:06:10] » see
>> pretty exciting. Yeah, we have great
[2:06:12] staff doing great things. We're very
very grateful for them.
[2:06:16] » And then one last thing um I texted you
all individually about a survey that um
[2:06:22] Chair Eids started and then abandoned
me. [laughter] So now I am I have taken
[2:06:30] that on and you basically said here's my
rough draft of random stuff um of
[2:06:37] general priorities and kind of projects
that have kind of been floating around
[2:06:40] the council for a while. Um but we
haven't had the opportunity to kind of
[2:06:47] prioritize them personally and also um
our council caucus we didn't get super
[2:06:53] into those types of projects and um talk
about them specifically and we have very
[2:06:59] limited time together as a group and um
the idea of the survey was to kind of
[2:07:06] list out all the things that like I said
have been floating around and then
[2:07:10] basically
I will send out um a Google form to all
[2:07:14] of us and we will basically it's
anonymous and we will prioritize kind of
[2:07:19] what key things are most important to us
um to try to help us kind of pin down
[2:07:23] what we should work on like this year in
particular perhaps in the next six
[2:07:27] months just things that we all kind of
have consensus on that we know we can
[2:07:31] move forward as like an easy win. I
think that most of us want to improve
[2:07:35] water conditions in West Cumberland. I
don't know that though because we
[2:07:37] haven't taken a poll about it and um
anonymous because
[2:07:44] sometimes people are really passionate
about things and you might not want to
[2:07:49] disagree with them in in front of them
because there is peer pressure involved
[2:07:53] in these kinds of things. So anonymous
is an easy way for us to just honestly
[2:07:58] answer and say where we stand on
particular things and what we'd like to
[2:08:02] prioritize. Um it's just very general.
This is not like trying to make policy
[2:08:08] or anything. This is uh Mike's
assignment and this is the kind of data
[2:08:12] that he wants to have as chair to try to
help us go forward together. But it's
[2:08:18] voluntary. You don't have to fill it out
if you don't want to. So yes,
[2:08:22] » I'm not going to fill it out. We don't
we don't do things anonymously. We have
[2:08:26] a workshop. We have full input. We make
decisions based on everybody's input.
[2:08:33] Um, we
that's how we conduct business. We don't
[2:08:37] do anything anonymously and and I I
frankly I I don't I I don't condone it.
[2:08:46] » Okay. Anyone else?
>> I got something, but it's not on that.
[2:08:50] So, if you give me a second after, but
>> Okay, that's fine.
[2:08:54] » I'm good with it, but
>> All right. I'm going to complete the
[2:08:57] assignment as tasked and we can do it or
not do it. Doesn't matter to me either
[2:09:02] way.
you have something?
[2:09:05] » Yeah, I did I did think I did think of
it as we were all talking. You know,
[2:09:08] Council F, I just want to say that
you're
[2:09:11] » bringing up the funding idea for the
rail trail is a good idea. Um, you know,
[2:09:16] and we don't know what direction we're
going to go yet. And my here's my fear,
[2:09:21] right, is we have $15,000 roll into the
town and let's just say we we go in a
[2:09:26] direction that isn't how some of the
residents want us to go.
[2:09:31] what these people that have sent in this
money, they're going to kind of wonder
[2:09:34] like what are we doing with it? So, are
we if we're going to meet in say four
[2:09:38] weeks, are we better off to hold that
concept until that meeting before we
[2:09:42] start looking at setting up an account?
Because otherwise, we're going to, you
[2:09:47] know, we potentially have to give people
their money back. We have to track it
[2:09:50] all. To me, it just seems like an
accounting nightmare. I mean, I guess if
[2:09:53] you're that if you have the funds to
write the check, you can grow some
[2:09:58] interest for a couple more weeks and
still be ready to write the check if
[2:10:02] that's if that's the direction we go.
Just it's just an idea. So, I wanted to
[2:10:05] throw it out to everyone and see what
everyone's thoughts are. So
[2:10:13] » I think we move forward with it because
I think it shows that when I look at
[2:10:18] this I see a world of 10 to one support
for this and I think people putting the
[2:10:24] money where their mouth is says a lot.
So I'm I'm for moving it forward.
[2:10:31] We we can I mean it's not going to be
hard to track on that and if council
[2:10:36] decides that they don't want to do that
you know we have received from you know
[2:10:41] Joe Smith $100 you know if there's 120
people who write $100 check we just keep
[2:10:47] that down name address and then we send
it back if council decides they don't
[2:10:50] want to do it that's we we can do that
too.
[2:10:54] » Okay. As long I mean as long as it's not
going to create a bunch of work for you.
[2:10:57] Yeah.
>> We we should be able to do that one
[2:10:59] pretty pretty decently.
[2:11:03] Okay.
>> Um, just one quickie. Sorry, I don't
[2:11:07] want to keep everybody. It's time to go.
Um, one thing when we're thinking about
[2:11:11] the priorities is and and thanks Lee for
putting the priorities together. I do
[2:11:15] think that we should do it in a workshop
versus anonymously as well. I I agree
[2:11:20] with Bob on that. Um, but I think one of
the things is when we're looking at the
[2:11:25] priorities, let's also make sure that
we're taking a look at what the
[2:11:28] priorities are on the comp plan, right?
Because that's been 18 months of work
[2:11:33] with, you know, 17 citizens, right, who
volunteered to do that. And that should
[2:11:37] be kind of, you know, I know a lot of
the a lot of the things are there
[2:11:41] already, but let's look at what those
are in the plan, you know, because
[2:11:47] that's going to come up to us here soon.
So, I think we ought to just kind of tie
[2:11:50] it together if we can. So, but I
appreciate the I appreciate the effort
[2:11:55] in there. I just do think we should do
it in a workshop instead. Personally,
[2:12:00] » um I will say that a lot of things on
the list are things that probably should
[2:12:05] wait for the comp plan to exist in its
final form. I think some of these
[2:12:09] projects are jumping the gun. Um and
that's my opinion on it. Um in including
[2:12:15] housing, but this is Again, I didn't put
it together. Um, this was Chair Eids
[2:12:24] compiled all this stuff that's been
floating around for years at this point.
[2:12:26] And, um, you can be anti- anonymous on
this preliminary survey all you want.
[2:12:34] Um, I have experienced hostility
[laughter] for sharing opinions publicly
[2:12:39] in the past from fellow counselors, and
I'm not looking to do that. And if
[2:12:43] someone has ever felt that same way, I
think they would appreciate being able
[2:12:47] to prioritize their items anonymously
and not have to deal with like the
[2:12:50] glares of their colleagues on the dis
while they're trying to share their
[2:12:56] opinions while knowing that they can
like feel the pressure coming down on
[2:12:59] them for disagreeing. And the vast
majority of the time we maintain a
[2:13:03] respectful environment where we don't do
that. But non-verbal communication is
[2:13:07] real. And so that's just one way to
eliminate it from the equation entirely.
[2:13:11] Not saying that anything from that
survey would make anything happen or not
[2:13:15] happen. Just a way to gauge where people
are honestly without any external
[2:13:21] pressure. So that was the intent. It was
not an intent to go around some
[2:13:26] established process or make things
secret or anything. It was just trying
[2:13:30] to get objective information. That's
all.
[2:13:34] » I love the idea of the survey. Um, you
know, I'm not in Mike's position or your
[2:13:40] position right now. Um, but knowing that
it can be difficult to track a lot of
[2:13:46] the excellent ideas that are thrown
around and put a cadence to them, I
[2:13:50] think that we all have a lot of really
great ideas. We hear a lot from
[2:13:53] residents and being able to put together
a focused work plan, I think, would be a
[2:14:00] good thing. Um 100% the comp plan I
think needs to be finalized not just
[2:14:07] public hearing but we need a final
document because the comp plan is the
[2:14:11] foundation for our zoning and that
should be sort of what we are always
[2:14:15] working toward. Um but I think that it's
you know and if not every counselor
[2:14:22] wants to do it that's fine. Um, but from
my and in a workshop is also a follow-up
[2:14:27] great idea, but it's data. It helps us
prioritize and if we can't agree on a
[2:14:34] priority list, then
we're just kind of going from meeting to
[2:14:41] meeting and um I think it would be good
for us to get our ducks in a row and try
[2:14:45] something new. So, I'm all for it.
>> All righty. Does anyone have anything
[2:14:51] else before we adjourn?
I'll give you
[2:14:55] » second.
>> All right. Motion to second if there's
[2:14:58] no discussion. Oh, yeah. And unanimous.
>> Everyone wants to leave. Good night.
[2:15:03] Thank you. Oh. Oh, wait. I got to do
this.
[2:15:06] » It It has ended.
>> This was supposed to be a quick one
[2:15:08] tonight.