City Council Meeting

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[0:00] Good evening, everyone. We're going to call the order of the July 1st, 2026, 11 in city council meeting. Mr. Management, if you could give your
[0:06] field please. Thank you Mr. Mayor. This meeting is being conducted in accordance with our say 91 a it's being conducted in person 11 in city council chambers. This meeting can be accessed through the city's virtual platform.
[0:18] Instructions on how to enter the meeting remotely are available in the city's website 11 and a h dot go back slash five. If there's any problem with the virtual platform, the meetings will continue is the only legal requirement under our say 91 a.
[0:28] has to have a form of member's present in person,
[0:30] individuals participating remotely,
[0:32] who wish to speak when public comment is allowed.
[0:34] Can I mute themselves and ask to be recognized by the chair?
[0:37] Individuals attending in person,
[0:38] who wish to speak when public comment is allowed,
[0:40] can raise their hand to be recognized by the chair.
[0:42] Individuals attending in person should approach the podium
[0:44] more of the presenter's table to use the microphone
[0:47] so that everyone in the room and attending virtually can hear.
[0:50] For all individuals speaking, either remotely
[0:51] or in person, please state your name and the Board of Residents
[0:53] and Lebanon and our name, the community where you live.
[0:56] And if appropriate, please be prepared to spell,
[0:58] your name for the recording secretary.
[1:01] Thank you, Mr. Manager.
[1:02] If you get all please rise for the pledge.
[1:08] pledge allegiance to the side of the United States of America.
[1:11] And to the Republic for which is one nation
[1:14] on regard on indivisible liberty and justice for all.
[1:20] Thank you, everyone, as a manager noted,
[1:22] any member of the public who desires to speak on an item
[1:24] may do so when the item is taken up by the council.
[1:27] If you wish to speak on an item not on tonight's agenda,
[1:30] may do so in the open of the public section shortly to follow. Again, we ask you to come to the
[1:38] podium or the microphones, state your name, order of residence, or location from where you live,
[1:43] and use the microphone provided. Without we'll go right into the city manager report.
[1:47] Thank you Mr. Mayor, very briefly this evening. Just a couple of items. I sent out to all of you earlier
[1:53] today that our protocol for the heat wave that we're in the midst of right now as well as some resources
[1:59] for your constituents and city residents. We do have cooling areas for people, downtown public
[2:08] library, the Kilton Public Library, the 11th and senior center of 11th and city hall. All will
[2:12] be open tomorrow with water, staff, seating areas, ADA accessibility, restrooms and air
[2:17] conditioning. The Lakona Municipal pool will be open through the weekend and free to residents
[2:22] of 11th. So this will continue to monitor the situation and the heat is supposed to break
[2:29] sometime on Saturday, but we'll keep an eye on it and adjust our plants in the city accordingly
[2:35] based on the weather conditions. All of you have seen there's significant construction
[2:42] taking place throughout the city of Lebanon. There's an awful lot of congestion and struggles
[2:47] with our pedestrian traffic that we are aware of. The city has made some trade-offs and a
[2:54] retrospective perhaps we could have revisited some of the pedestrian walkways and the issues that
[2:58] having right now, but we were trying to not only create the shortest route for people to travel
[3:03] during the construction period, but most importantly to create the safest route. I know
[3:07] that's created some issues with folks, particularly on pedestrians and bike traffic. We are
[3:14] trying to work through it as fast as we can on the safest manner possible. I would, if you have
[3:19] constituents who have concerns or complaints, make sure to direct them to my office. I'll certainly
[3:23] share them with the crew that's out there right now.
[3:27] Coming up tomorrow evening on July 2nd is our July 4th fireworks.
[3:31] It will take place after the farmer's market
[3:33] in the front porch concert here downtown.
[3:37] The fireworks will be launched from Stor's Hill.
[3:41] So that is an exciting way.
[3:42] And as I said last time, our friends at Novo
[3:44] inortis were kind enough to sponsor our fireworks show this year.
[3:48] So make sure to extend our appreciation if you happen to bump
[3:51] into someone from Novo.
[3:53] And also, MacAv, our smoke test is scheduled for tomorrow.
[3:57] I believe we're starting between 8 and 9 a.m.
[3:59] We'll have a full crew down there.
[4:00] I'll be there at some point myself as well to talk with residents, let them know what's going on,
[4:07] and do a full analysis once the test is completed.
[4:10] With that, I would conclude my remarks this evening, Mr. Mayor.
[4:13] If you have any questions or comments, I'd be happy to take them.
[4:15] Councillor Oslo's questions?
[4:17] This is Mark. Maybe not a question so much, but thank you for the checking in on the
[4:24] Mescomo Mechanic High Street intersection. It's my constituents and myself as a pedestrian who
[4:31] were raising concerns and I will say that as much as it has been difficult for people who are
[4:37] pedestrians to get through the work crews and the flaggers have been very helpful. I am grateful that
[4:45] are, they're doing their best to help us get through the intersection as difficult as it is.
[4:54] Councillor's any other comments? Questions? Just they have council funds?
[4:59] Kind of a timely update on that. Am I way in from West Leb, coming in on
[5:05] mechanic street? A person coming the other direction from high street?
[5:13] I made a wrong turn and ended up in my lane so the navigation of that circle or how when
[5:20] navigates it without a flag or might be a little bit unclear.
[5:25] Okay.
[5:29] We'll do.
[5:33] Thanks, Councillor.
[5:35] Anyone else?
[5:37] Seeing none, we'll move into open to the public discussion if there's a member of the public
[5:41] here tonight who would like to speak on an item not on tonight's item that they can
[5:44] do so now. I think it's coming right on out. There's a lot of you here.
[5:50] Bring up my teams. Anyone online who'd like to make a comment not on tonight's
[5:55] agenda, you may do so now just please come off mute, say your name, et cetera.
[6:09] We'll close the open of the public section. We'll move right into our approval
[6:13] minutes. We have one set of minutes from June 17th.
[6:16] Councillors, are there any changes you like to make some of its
[6:20] Thank you Mr. Mayor, this is on page 14,
[6:29] just a second, line 15, and it starts Ms. Davis asked about recreational parking side of things and said it would be unfortunate dot dot dot. I remember that comment being raised, but it wasn't me that raised it, and I don't recall who did.
[6:48] Councillor Cole is that? I know you talked about that too. I might have been. Yeah, I raised that. Yeah. Okay. So I think so Donna for on page 14 of tonight's
[6:59] packet line 15, change mis Davis to Mr. Cole. I think that's yeah. And and there was a comment that I made that is not reflected in the minutes, but was quoted in the newspaper.
[7:12] And it was towards the end of the conversation that I said that I hoped that the due diligence
[7:22] was being conducted to make sure that the city could not be accused of spots on it.
[7:28] Right.
[7:29] And that's not here at all.
[7:32] Donna, let's add that comment on page 15 of the packet.
[7:38] It would be between Rose 15 and 16, not sure 100% when it happened and then reflect close enough.
[7:47] And you'll hear it back on the recording, but the common is just to ensure the city is looking to ensure that we are not spot zoning.
[7:55] Or sorry, Councilor Davis is looking to have the city ensure that we are not going to be accused of spot zoning.
[8:02] All right, Councillors, any other changes?
[8:07] Councillor Key?
[8:08] Yes, on page 14, line 32.
[8:12] It says, Councillor Key asked if they want to expand in the future.
[8:16] Are they locked into the current plan?
[8:18] I actually was sentiment was.
[8:22] Is there a current site plan and use plan finalized?
[8:27] And if so, are they locked into that for the future?
[8:32] I didn't receive a response about it seemed that there was no site plan that was final in
[8:40] the or at least the city was unaware of what their use plan was.
[8:51] Yep, Councillor Fonts.
[8:53] Same page, 14, lines, 39, 342.
[8:59] I think the just of what it is that I expressed as a
[9:02] mixture of really, I was concerned about whether the
[9:06] intended future use of the child care facility
[9:08] would negatively impact all of the desire to
[9:12] potential future uses of BSA, U-building, and it's
[9:15] surrounding ground.
[9:16] From the context for that, of course, that the
[9:18] subcommittee as well as others are looking at that property as a potential arts, being
[9:24] or other sort of community asset, and we wouldn't want to have programming in that space,
[9:30] or for that matter, parking accessibility and that to those services negatively affected
[9:37] by additional development on that platform.
[9:42] You know, Councillors, any other changes?
[9:46] Do we have a motion to approve as amended?
[9:49] So moved by Councillor Fonts, we have a second, seconded by Councillor Ford Burling, Donna
[9:56] is noting Councillor Appleton is arrived at as of 16, so it will be eight of us, so
[10:02] all those in favor.
[10:04] If you're an animist among the eight of us present, thank you.
[10:07] Mr. Mayor, do you have a quick reminder, can I ask the Councillors to pull the microphones
[10:10] towards them to make sure that audio is getting captured please?
[10:15] And unmuted because I am the worst offender about that.
[10:20] All right.
[10:22] We're now going to move into appointments.
[10:24] I'm going to, we are pointing up to six tonight.
[10:28] So we four regular members to appoint two alternates.
[10:32] Everyone had applied just to be considered.
[10:36] So to capture this,
[10:39] we obviously, we recently stood up a,
[10:41] and acted a finance advisory committee for this year
[10:43] that go in the effect today, and we have three counselor members, four citizen representatives,
[10:51] two alternates.
[10:53] We asked everyone to apply and just, you know, because this is a committee that is first
[10:58] being stood up now, what I decided we would do is from a voting perspective, so I'll present
[11:04] them, myself, counselor, four burling, counselor key, all interviewed the applicants, I'm
[11:11] just trying to hit some of the high notes.
[11:13] I've provided everyone with counselor interview report forms
[11:16] admittedly somewhat late today.
[11:18] So apologies for that.
[11:20] But I'm just going to try and hit the high notes.
[11:22] And I'll let counselors for Berlin,
[11:24] counselor key way and if I have missed anything.
[11:28] And then what we're going to do is we'll have counselors
[11:30] can ask questions.
[11:32] And then yeah, we will hand out two sets of paper ballots.
[11:36] One is for regular membership.
[11:38] One is for alternate membership.
[11:39] So the regular membership, you're
[11:40] circle, the form applicants, who you would like to see appointed, we will total them up, and
[11:46] the four highest vote getters will be the regular members, and then we'll vote on the
[11:51] alternates, which will be the other two.
[11:56] Do a minute and a half of these out of the house, please.
[11:59] So the city manager is handing out the forms, so just sign your name to it too, because we'll
[12:05] using these forms for the minutes so that the votes are public. But I didn't want to just
[12:14] do kind of a roll call type vote in the sense of, I didn't want it to voting for one person
[12:21] to necessarily imply that you didn't want to vote for another or having no votes that may not
[12:26] reflect how you're feeling on any individual candidate. So this felt the most fair. So that said,
[12:34] We have six members, our six applicants,
[12:37] Fran Pacell, Bill Martin, Bob Moses, Kevin Percel,
[12:40] Jason Smith, and Matt Smith,
[12:42] and I'm just going to present them in alphabetical order by last name.
[12:47] So first up is Fran Percel,
[12:50] and I apologize if Fran, if I'm getting your last name,
[12:54] the pronunciation of your last name wrong.
[12:57] So obviously, we all know Fran, he is a very
[13:01] have it a tender of all of our meetings very engaged in the city has become very
[13:08] engaged to in the finance and budget process. He's also a strong history of
[13:15] engagement with the city through various sports and committees that he
[13:18] attends voluntarily to understand what is going on in the city and what decisions
[13:22] are being made.
[13:25] In terms of I think highlights I'm going to focus more for all candidates
[13:30] It's kind of on experience, but so Fran has experienced long-term experience in banking,
[13:38] running his own business, obviously being very involved and engaged with the city's budget
[13:45] process and our very sports and committees.
[13:51] He's when we asked about to define his own, how he would define his own qualifications,
[13:57] one of the things he highlighted that I wanted to highlight here is,
[13:59] ability to analyze things pretty quickly, come up with an assessment about what's happening around
[14:04] him, noting his strong work ethic, which we've all seen, and how he's really learned a lot about
[14:10] our municipal operations and finance in the past. Oh, that's a typo. I should have said two years. Sorry,
[14:15] past two years of involvement.
[14:21] In terms of what he hopes the fact will accomplish is really
[14:24] his focus as much more on revenue opportunities, just quoting what I put in the reform, but he
[14:31] that Levin has tremendous opportunity right now that the city isn't using and he wants residents
[14:36] have a sustainable community that provides all the services needed and also takes care of our neighbors who may be less fortunate.
[14:43] And feels that the city can do that and he wants to make Levin better for everyone and sure that everyone can stay here.
[14:49] And that can be achieved really with a bigger focus on revenue opportunities and maximizing use of various assets of the city.
[14:56] I think I captured the highlights, but the counselors, if I missed any.
[15:00] Anything?
[15:01] Thank you.
[15:04] So, and I should have said too.
[15:07] I'm going to open this up to Councillors to just ask questions because obviously we interviewed
[15:11] them and I'm just kind of rapid fire going through some of this a little bit, but if there's
[15:15] certain things, you might want more insight on or, you know, kind of answers to or happy
[15:22] to do so.
[15:23] And you can ask at any time or not.
[15:25] I just should have said that upfront.
[15:27] so sorry.
[15:32] So I will move into Bill Martin.
[15:39] So Bill is a finance professional. He's worked
[15:43] in investment banking and for the past 25 years he's taught finance investments and strategy
[15:49] at talk. He served on on profit boards for profit boards. I believe I hope I'm not miscoding
[15:57] that. And what he brought I think that stood out was really his approach to listening to all sides,
[16:03] understanding the issues and hoping to make meaningful contributions to the council that really
[16:08] balances all of the stakeholder interests and very complex topics.
[16:15] He, his background, as I said,
[16:17] it's an investment banking and bond option trading, which is very financially driven and complicated.
[16:23] I know from my own past experience in hedge funds, he did that for about a decade and then
[16:29] since after that he's been teaching at talk for the past 25 years, so very dialed into the finance world.
[16:35] Very familiar with the kind of work we would be doing, budgets to actual financial reviews,
[16:41] kind of common size analysis.
[16:48] I think in terms of other highlights, you know, I would say, you know, to note that he
[16:55] has served on various boards such as hospital boards, habitat for humanity, and working
[16:59] in kind of across, you know, I would say, organizational modalities, sorry to be MBA, people
[17:07] It's late in the night for that,
[17:13] but
[17:13] Councilors any additions to Bill think I hit the
[17:19] No, I think he also pointed out that there are you know many different stakeholder groups and you know
[17:27] Trying to unify around some consensus with the important
[17:31] Thank you
[17:38] next up is Bob Moses
[17:40] Bob is an ex-very experienced CTA
[17:43] He served on the school board
[17:44] He served on City Council, many non-profit boards.
[17:49] He is a lot of relevant education and experience
[17:51] directly related to the work of the fact
[17:54] he'd be bringing a business perspective as well
[17:56] as a knowledge of municipal and state government
[17:58] and union contracts, especially through his experience
[18:01] on the school board.
[18:05] Kind of all of the highlights I have for him really hit,
[18:09] kind of billed off of that,
[18:10] but he's run his own CPA firm in Lebanon for 30 years.
[18:13] He served in various leadership capacities.
[18:16] He served on the MSB board.
[18:19] He served as chairman of that.
[18:20] He's also served on the Hampshire Charitable Foundation
[18:22] Finance Committee,
[18:27] and again, similarly,
[18:28] I think he in terms of approach,
[18:34] he
[18:34] think, you know, I just noted from the interview notes
[18:37] that really bringing people together
[18:39] finding consensus and finding that balance among the various interests, stakeholders and needs.
[18:48] Yeah, Council for Berley.
[18:50] Yes, to add that that a little bit.
[18:52] Yeah, Bob has been a volunteer in many, many capacities over the years.
[18:59] And in the interview, he really expressed that this was,
[19:02] it's another way for him to give back to the community.
[19:04] He's happy to see his seat to, he specifically said someone younger.
[19:09] So he's thinking about the future of Lebanon and over all just very thoughtful and someone who's been very involved in Lebanon for a long time
[19:21] Conquer
[19:22] All right,
[19:25] just to note that it looks like the version of the report that was in here is not the complete one. We were emailed the complete one later. Yeah, that's a me a culpa
[19:36] Autosave was not my friend when I sent this so it saved only half of what I put in so I did send a revised version to counselors
[19:43] We'll get the revised version in
[19:47] For the minutes, but yeah, sorry about that
[19:51] And thank you to these just a mayor for sending me a message about that because I said no, I feel the whole thing. How what do you?
[19:59] sad
[20:00] All right next up Kevin Purcell
[20:03] so Kevin is
[20:05] longstanding, obviously, Lebanon resident, business operations
[20:09] profession, and all, he has significant professional experience
[20:12] directly relevant to the work and goals of the fact, and he also
[20:16] is experienced serving on the board.
[20:18] I've served with him on EDC, he served on planning board, and one of
[20:23] the strengths that Kevin highlighted that he thought he would bring is
[20:26] he has an established network that he consults with regularly on business
[20:29] matters and that those are readily applicable to the city, especially
[20:32] given his involvement in, I'm going to be really brought about this, and so apologies to Kevin
[20:37] that this is probably too broad and simplistic, but within the real estate world, but related
[20:46] to that, he is responsible for the management of five different business entities and overseeing
[20:51] those, including dealing with labor, contracts, insurance, making sure following his own
[20:59] vegetables for his companies being able to make, you know, both short, quick, short term
[21:06] type changes to that when, you know, there's significant kind of outside events such as
[21:10] when gas prices went to six dollars a gallon, as well as long term financial planning around,
[21:16] you know, kind of the best use of assets and, you know, kind of best optimal outcomes in the long
[21:22] term.
[21:27] Sorry, I lost my place.
[21:30] I think, you know, Kevin, obviously is a lot of experience
[21:34] working, you know, kind of, it working within the city, but also working with the city
[21:38] in terms of both processes from like planning board perspective, but also having, again,
[21:42] served on the planning board served on EDC. He's been a tremendous asset in a number of ways
[21:49] to the city and some of the work we do. And certainly I would say from my own perspective,
[21:54] I've had some great conversations with Kevin about things.
[21:59] So I would now turn it to
[22:02] the Council's Fort Berlin Council key if I missed anything. I like
[22:10] moving on to and then
[22:12] Jay Sims, another experience CPA. Jay is also an auditor. He is obviously significant experience
[22:19] through that, looking at municipal budgets, municipal finances, municipal accounting, experience
[22:28] through city of Manchester, auditing the city of Manchester in the city of Burlington.
[22:33] He is a long, you know, a strong history of engaging with the city on financial
[22:38] matters and really backing that with effort to understand the operational needs and to explore
[22:44] measures and bringing a detailed oriented data
[22:46] to a different approach to review, to reviews, sorry.
[22:51] He served, obviously, so Jay is the chair
[22:53] of the trustees of the trust, and I
[22:54] think that's worth highlighting.
[22:55] He's been part of that group for a very long time.
[22:59] He's served on the Library Foundation Board
[23:01] and the President of the Lebanon Little League.
[23:05] And one of the, sorry, I got to find it,
[23:06] because I really liked the quote, and I wrote it down.
[23:11] Oh, here we go.
[23:12] So one of the things in his 40-year career
[23:14] an auditor, he always helped focus to help clients grow their business through revenue growth
[23:18] or expense savings, six expense savings to help drive his own practice success, but his goal
[23:24] is an auditor was to, as he said, always come back with an idea, and I think that's great.
[23:29] And I say that to also echo, like I've seen that in Jay's, like Jay will send very long detailed
[23:35] emails, and I always make sure to read them all, because there's always really good ideas
[23:38] in there.
[23:38] And so I think, you know, I just wanted to highlight that, and certainly in terms of my experience.
[23:44] Counselors, yep, for Councilor Farberley.
[23:47] I'll just note that Jay was the only one that we interviewed who came with handouts.
[23:52] That's true.
[23:56] Yeah, we're going to use, we're going to leverage Jay's claw licensing to reduce some financials.
[24:04] All right, and now we also now have Matt Smith.
[24:09] So Matt is also a financial professional who brings kind of as he even described more of a non-finance
[24:16] lay person perspective, but he's tremendous experience serving on Lebanon and boards, including
[24:21] the Heritage Commission, Matt also interested in using data to understand and explain big
[24:26] picture concepts and is hoping the fact will take deeper dives on specific topics to provide objective
[24:33] information of the city council, he currently serves on the Heritage Commission, on the Board
[24:41] of the Historical Society, and he's a financial manager by trade for UVMC, and one of the
[24:48] things I thought was interesting in the way Matt framed it is his, sorry, here we go, I was trying
[24:59] of it. Matt and getting his degree in history wrote his capstone project using newspaper primary
[25:08] sources to explain changes in census data in South Carolina, which is just the context
[25:13] for he really discussed with us that he really wants to use data and history to tell the story
[25:22] in the numbers. And especially, you know, we saw this across a few applicants kind of the view
[25:29] to try and understand how we got here and where we are
[25:33] and using, again, that data and history
[25:35] to explain kind of the current state
[25:37] and perhaps decisions that need to be made
[25:39] and actions that need to be taken.
[25:44] Counselors?
[25:46] Okay.
[25:49] So that is all six.
[25:52] I will just give a couple moments
[25:53] if anyone has questions.
[25:57] I did rapid fire through that.
[25:58] So I appreciate everyone hanging in there with me.
[26:04] One additional comment is we're incredibly fortunate
[26:06] to have so many qualified candidates.
[26:10] I think it's very obvious from the mayor's summary.
[26:13] But no one is unqualified.
[26:15] I think we're the city of Lebanon is a very fortunate.
[26:19] So I want to thank everyone who volunteered their time,
[26:22] both for this committee and in general.
[26:25] OK, this is stuck with us.
[26:28] OK.
[26:29] Thank you.
[26:30] So with that I'm just going to go ahead and nominate all six for regular membership and obviously now you have your piece of paper I'm just going to hold it up so people can see it's very fancy.
[26:43] But just circle before that you would like for regular membership and then kind of I guess I'll collect them because I'm counting them.
[26:53] And then I go, go ahead and count on it.
[26:57] Go ahead and count on it.
[26:57] Go ahead and count on it.
[26:58] Go ahead and count
[27:05] on it.
[27:05] If I just need one,
[27:24] I can count on it.
[27:25] I can count on what we all have to wait while I count these.
[27:29] You know, I should have thought that one too though.
[27:31] I don't know what we're going to do.
[27:34] I'm going to be more complicated, right?
[27:37] Well, you know, we like CPAs, like very structured.
[27:50] Talk amongst yourselves.
[28:05] Talk in the flying.
[28:46] And while I'm doing this, Donna, we will provide these to you as well as the totals for the minutes, just so that that can get copied in.
[29:08] I mean you'll provide valid. Correct. Okay, thank you.
[29:35] So this should be 32.
[29:39] All right, great. I got that right.
[29:53] All right, so I'm going to, actually, I'm going to double check this one.
[30:01] All right.
[30:07] So, going through, I'm just going to go in terms of top votes. Jason's with eight. Bob Moses with six. Bill Martin with five and Matt Smith with five. Kevin for the L with four and Frank a cell with four. So our regular members will be J. Bob Bill and Matt. So congratulations and thank you.
[30:32] Yes, sir May, or procedurally speaking, would it make sense for somebody to nominate those
[30:38] or have an official vote on the record or does this face as an official record?
[30:44] That's why I actually, that's why I said I'm going to nominate all six and then you're going to choose.
[30:49] And then we will tally these votes and we include them in the minutes, specifically to record all of our votes.
[30:55] Okay, thank you.
[30:56] Yep.
[30:56] It's a good question.
[30:58] That one I at least had thought through, and actually I'm going to hand you the means for safekeeping.
[31:04] We all also double check those numbers, but I'm pretty sure I got a hundred percent.
[31:11] It's always good to have someone else check your word.
[31:13] So with that, I set this up when I was thinking we might have more than six, but obviously we've got two members left.
[31:22] So I will go ahead and nominate Kevin Purcell and Frank Isel for Alternate Membership.
[31:31] So there's two left and two open spots, so I'm just going to run these in order.
[31:36] So again, I'll nominate them, all those in favor of appointing Kevin Purcell as an alternate
[31:40] member.
[31:41] It is unanimous.
[31:42] Thank you.
[31:43] And all those in favor of appointing Frank Isel as an alternate member.
[31:47] It is unanimous.
[31:47] Thank you.
[31:49] I think that's probably quicker than me counting these all again.
[31:54] So I want to thank every all the applicants to for the Finance Advisory Committee.
[31:59] I know I think a good most of you are all of you very well.
[32:03] And as Councillor Forberley said, just the tremendous amount of experience in skill sets that
[32:08] that came forward is tremendous.
[32:10] And I think also speeds to the level of engagement the residents have in the city.
[32:15] So looking forward to working with all of you, we will be in touch, we are probably going to have a meeting kick off meeting in a couple weeks, but I have to organize that with everyone.
[32:28] But that first meeting just for everyone's clarity will probably start figuring out meeting cadence, think, you know, what we're going to do and when.
[32:36] And then in August, we will have another meeting to start reviewing the Q2.
[32:43] Yeah, Q2 financials.
[32:46] We have, we're going to hold the councils review of the financials in September.
[32:52] We've kind of pushed that one back a little bit so that the finance committee can do its first pass.
[32:59] And it's kind of a first attempt at this.
[33:01] So we'll probably do it a little differently each time for a couple quarters.
[33:05] And do it a little quicker next time, but I wanted to again, since we were starting up, give the Finance Committee a chance to review it first.
[33:15] So with that, I need to email this to you, Andrew.
[33:19] So that again, thank you all.
[33:21] Really appreciate it looking forward to working with you.
[33:24] We have no public hearing items tonight.
[33:26] We have no old business tonight.
[33:27] We have quite a lot of new business.
[33:30] So, we are first going to lead off with public information presentation from the Hampshire
[33:34] DOT.
[33:35] So, thank you for coming down here, or up here, tonight, on the Route 10 Culvert Replacement
[33:41] Project.
[33:51] Thank you very much.
[33:53] My name is Kirk Mudgek.
[33:54] I'm a project manager for this project.
[33:57] I had the specialty section at the Hampshire DOT.
[34:02] with me is Chris Wall and John Perrelli of Claw Farber Associates, the designers on the project.
[34:12] And we're here to present Lebanon 44776 proposed replacement of existing 4-foot by 3-foot concrete box under Route 10,
[34:23] located a half mile south of Wilderdam.
[34:28] We have invited a budding parcel owners to attend this meeting to make this meeting serve as a combined public officials and public information meeting.
[34:39] A public hearing for a right-of-way is expected later this summer.
[34:45] This project is funded through their covert rehab replacement and drainage repairs program.
[34:50] It is funded at 80% federal, 20% state, no local funds being sought.
[35:01] And I'll start off by giving us the background info on the project, really kind of setting the table, and then I'll turn it over for the bulk of the presentation to CHA to do the project details.
[35:12] At the end, we'll be happy to answer any questions.
[35:16] And we're showing a project location map.
[35:18] circle does a in red as the location of a culvert. It's an unnamed
[35:24] tributary to connect river. Next slide. And we zoom in a little bit for the
[35:32] aerial view and some tax map level property lines in light gray and the
[35:40] project area of focus on is in a wind and orange.
[35:48] So we inventory and
[35:50] respect and score and rank are worse condition large culverts in the state.
[35:55] This location was chosen as a product due to its age, condition and solstability issues.
[36:02] It's a routine, light to call it a routine, routine type of project.
[36:07] Generally, culvert placements are, however, this location has some challenges.
[36:12] Mostly do that, solstability.
[36:14] In the past, we placed some stone on those steep slopes and extended the headers via some
[36:22] concrete barrier. On it to see those measures eventually start to fail. As you can kind of
[36:27] see in the lower right hand corner, some of that barrier is falling off that head wall. I think
[36:33] maybe district is taking care of that in the meantime, but that is something that had occurred.
[36:39] And on the bottom right we indicate the intern inside inlet part that has been eroding both the head wall and the bottom or the base of the walls and it's kind of hidden by the shadows and it goes in the covered but it kind of causes a stability issue that we need to watch for long term concern.
[37:11] The immediate slope stability issue could be, and I'm adding larger wing walls with this project.
[37:23] So as we show these photos, you might know that this culprit is really kind of reach the end of its service life and these replacement.
[37:33] And we had previously replaced a covert, I think 2019 era,
[37:42] to the north of this covert,
[37:45] draining Boston Lot Lake, or at least the outlet across Route 10 for Boston Lot Lake.
[37:52] And at that time we came to you with the idea of closure of the roadway, it was not an easy
[37:59] prospect, mainly due to the hospital, to the north and the connection on Route 10 to service
[38:06] the city's needs. So, we are proceeding with this project with the intention to keep
[38:14] the road open. However, Route 10 is very narrow at the site and there are steep drop-offs
[38:20] there at this particular location leading to challenges and additional costs to keep that
[38:26] way open during construction.
[38:29] So now I'll turn this presentation over to CHA to cover more details
[38:35] and propose traffic control.
[38:37] Thanks, Kurt. I'm Chris Wall, structural engineer and project manager for CHA. I'm here today
[38:43] with John Carelli, who is the lead highway engineer for CHA for this project. Since I'm a bridge engineer,
[38:48] I'd like to start out with these photos. I provide a view of the site and can't get from Google
[38:52] street view, or C. driving down the road. If you are driving north under 10, the water through
[38:57] the culvert would be flowing from right to left. The two photos on the left are on the
[39:02] downstream or west side of the road. You can see in the top left photo that concrete barriers
[39:06] installed to retain the soil embakments have shifted and are a little longer functional as
[39:10] intended as curtailed to this. It has been addressed recently, but this did occur. Since this
[39:16] The cause and reduction in the size of the outlet at that time.
[39:20] The bottom left photo shows the steep drop and elevation from the cover down of the
[39:24] kinetic river and the distance.
[39:27] The top right photo shows the severe deterioration of concrete and how water has to flow
[39:31] around obstructions in the channel to enter the cover.
[39:35] Finally, the bottom right photo illustrates how shallow the water is upstream and how much
[39:39] flat are the approaches in the downstream set.
[39:44] Unfortunately, the cover does not the only thing to consider for this product.
[39:46] Route 10 passes over the structure in the north-south direction, there is one traveling in each direction that are a little over 11 feet wide with paved shoulders at about a foot wide.
[39:56] The guard rolls are close to the roadway and as you can see in both photos, they are too close as there is impact damage visible that is likely from class.
[40:04] It might be hard to tell from the photos, but the road itself has vertical and horizontal pairs, particularly at the south approach.
[40:13] Now that you've seen the site and existing locations, let's talk about the goals, what the goals are for this project.
[40:20] Obviously the main goals replace the existing culprit.
[40:22] A new structure would have a design life of at least 75 years.
[40:25] It would increase the size of the opening, which improves hydraulic performance,
[40:28] and it can stabilize the slopes on both sides of the road.
[40:31] As Kurt mentioned earlier, maintaining two weight traffic throughout the construction is a major priority.
[40:36] To accomplish this, on such a narrow road, the road at the culvert will be limited to one lane of alternating traffic and both directions.
[40:43] To minimize vehicular impacts and improve safety for any pedestrians or bicyclists, the guard will offset or where you consider the shoulder will be increased to 5 feet.
[40:52] Since the culvert itself is small, the amount of proposed roadwork is not significant and will be limited to less than 200 feet north and south of the culvert.
[41:00] Restricting the size of the project also has right away an environmental benefit as it minimizes impacts.
[41:06] There were three design alternatives considered to accomplish the project goals.
[41:10] The first was replicating the structure that is out there now.
[41:13] The second alternative was a larger box cover, as the name indicates a box cover would
[41:17] have four sides, so the natural stream bed material will be placed within the cover.
[41:21] The last design alternative was a larger three-sided cover that would have concrete footings
[41:25] which support the walls.
[41:27] While this is not at least a channel exposed, there is potential for scour.
[41:31] Scour is when the stream bed material gets washed away downstream and made the structure
[41:34] Foundation on stable. This is a serious concern as scour is the number one cause of bridge failures.
[41:41] Compare on the three design alternatives led to the decision to proceed with alternative to
[41:44] the larger concrete box cover. This alternative does extend the product limits,
[41:49] it minimizes environmental impacts, provides a larger opening that reduces the need for
[41:54] debris removal, and accommodates aquatic life passage, and eliminates scour concerns.
[42:00] When comparing existing versus proposed cover performance, there are a few key points.
[42:04] Because changes in minor, the channel and roadway will have very similar vertical profiles and horizontal elements.
[42:11] The structure itself will be safer, and embakeness will be more stable.
[42:15] Also, the larger culvert allows for more water to flow below the roadway at a lower speed,
[42:19] and that minimizes erosion and future impacts to the downstream embakments.
[42:25] Here is the proposed general plan of the entire product.
[42:28] As noted, the total length of the roadward is about 325 feet.
[42:32] The proposed culver is centered between these limits and the temporary water bypass location is depicted to the right.
[42:40] Since slope stability is a current issue, we consider various options.
[42:44] Because the channel is very now for stream diversion and the proposed culver, a steep stone slope, is required at the outlet.
[42:52] Which is illustrated with the hatch area above the roadway and on this plan view.
[42:57] We will be assessing tree impacts this area in the near future.
[43:01] This is the profile of root 10, which is basically a cross section along the center line of the road.
[43:06] You can see the depth of the culvert and the size comparison between existing proposed structures,
[43:10] but be aware the scale for this detail is stretched vertically to show the minor change in the profile,
[43:14] and the culvert is actually wider than it is tall.
[43:19] Here's a good comparison of the existing and proposed sections, which are taken across the roadway with the culvert crosses.
[43:25] This is a view looking north of this downstream or the west side is on the left.
[43:29] The left side of the cover ends at a similar location for both existing and proposed sections.
[43:34] Because the proposed section will have a taller wall and both sides of the roadway,
[43:38] we can actually increase the roadway with with the cover that doesn't extend as far on the right side.
[43:43] I'd also like to point out that there is an existing waterman near the top of the proposed cover that may need to be relocated.
[43:51] I'm sure most of you are curious about impacts of traffic.
[43:54] The next set of slides will walk you through how traffic will be managed during construction.
[43:57] Again, looking north here is the existing traffic layout with one lane dedicated to travel in each direction.
[44:07] Prior to any reduction in the number of lanes, the roadway will need to be widened on the east side.
[44:12] There will be sheeting install to reduce impact to property parcels on the east side, but that does come at it is added cost.
[44:17] For the first phase of the Colbert construction, the roadway will shift to the east and utilize one lane, alternative pattern to maintain northbound and southbound traffic.
[44:27] Here's a plan view of what the first phase will look like.
[44:30] The travel line is narrow at the culvert, but why does it do allow access to nearby driveways.
[44:36] Once the west side of the culvert is constructed, constructed traffic can shift onto the
[44:40] proposed section while the remaining eastern portion is removed and replaced.
[44:46] Here's a plan view of the second phase, similar to the first phase the travel narrows
[44:50] at the culvert, but why does it allow driveway access.
[44:55] Once the entire proposed cover is completed, traffic will be restored to two travel lanes
[44:59] with five-foot sh-
[45:00] Please note that two feet of the show that will be paved while the other three feet will be gravel where there is gargrel.
[45:08] As you can see, we are currently in the design phase. The schedule has an anticipated ad date of February 16th, 2027, to allow construction to begin in fall of 2027.
[45:17] However, if there are delays due to right away permitting or utilities, the construction may get pushed to 2028.
[45:23] Corneus have not been itemized yet, but the preliminary estimate for construction is $1 million.
[45:30] Thank you for your time and we'd be glad to answer any questions you may have about this
[45:33] project.
[45:35] Yeah, just a couple of quick questions.
[45:37] The first is, you talked about alternating traffic in a one-lane road.
[45:42] So how are you going to alternate, is that going to be the kind of temporary traffic light
[45:48] that was done when there's some road work that I'd be done on, like, a couple years ago?
[45:53] Yeah, so like you said temporary traffic signals that either end would be handling the alternating to a traffic.
[46:00] All right, this plan view shows the stop bars and how you would be stopped.
[46:05] Oh, I would certainly distance away from the right narrows.
[46:08] The waves themselves aren't shown, but yeah.
[46:10] And how long is the project anticipated to last in terms of like total construction timeline?
[46:18] It would be within one construction season.
[46:19] I'd expect timeline to like come three months.
[46:22] Yeah, something like that.
[46:23] Okay.
[46:23] It's not a huge project.
[46:25] Thank you.
[46:26] Councillor Stavis.
[46:28] Thank you.
[46:30] Questions about the map, which I can't quite make out.
[46:34] The project locations slide.
[46:36] Oh, sure.
[46:38] I've been one.
[46:39] This one.
[46:39] Yeah.
[46:40] There are streets here that exist, but are not on the map.
[46:44] Like esterbrook circle, north of that, that's what I can't make out from this map.
[46:51] It's like the North and the world of sensing is around the park.
[46:56] Yeah, the
[47:13] west side is deep, yeah.
[47:14] So will any of the right of way be on the River Park land?
[47:20] So there would need to be a small easement on that parcel.
[47:27] There's no right-of-way purchase plan with it.
[47:30] Right, but there's easements.
[47:48] It's not a backseat engineer here, I'm just kind of curious, and do you know is this considered an intermittent or perennial stream?
[47:55] And either way, do you know what the percentage of bank full of color is projected to be?
[47:59] I'm just curious, I didn't see them in plans.
[48:02] I do not know if it's been very shallow without there.
[48:06] I believe it's perennial, but it is a lower class stream, right?
[48:11] When we classify tears.
[48:14] Yeah, yeah, I was mostly just curious just because I know that like yeah, like you're saying that there's a pretty steep in bank bend on the west side there and you know
[48:22] Just trying to make sure that we don't over like construct our streams in case of you know more more
[48:27] Extreme weather and the emotion from there. I drive this way a lot because it is directly between my house and campion hockey
[48:35] Rink so in winter I drive this like four times a week or more
[48:41] But it's like, there's that whole funnel kind of on the east side going up that hill that's right there.
[48:48] And it just drains straight like straight into where this cul-very is based.
[48:52] They have that kind of bridge there right before you get to the house.
[48:55] So that, you know, in terms of like you're talking about that, the big risk is really around, you know, March April when everything's melting.
[49:03] Because all of that is funneling through.
[49:04] And it goes from like tiny little creek into actually like very noticeable influence or whatever.
[49:11] It's not that much, but you know what I mean?
[49:12] Yeah, that makes sense.
[49:13] Yeah, this photo show, how the problem you have,
[49:16] the one in the bottom, right, is actually looking a little bit of an angle.
[49:19] So it doesn't flow directly into it, as I said,
[49:21] it kind of is a little concrete chunk in front of the opening
[49:24] on the top, right?
[49:26] So it kind of comes in and goes, just a sharp right,
[49:28] and then it'll left to go under the top,
[49:30] the inch of the culvert.
[49:31] And right now, it's about, it's a three and a half by four
[49:34] for culvert, we're gonna make it of like a feet wide and five feet tall.
[49:37] So it's gonna be bigger.
[49:38] It's gonna be both twice as big.
[49:39] Yeah, that makes sense.
[49:40] I just know I worked a little bit on top of it in Vermont and so just I have definitely seen it where people have gone
[49:46] We have a tiny little culper. We're gonna upgrade it. It's gonna be big and then it's still under so I
[49:50] And we checked that it's size for the high jobs. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, just curious. Thank you
[49:57] Council is any other questions council fonts?
[50:00] Can you remind us what is the total width of the road before and after and likewise the shoulders?
[50:05] So there were 11 foot lanes with one foot shoulders. There was a little bit of
[50:12] I can show you here.
[50:13] So that's the 11 foot, 11 foot, three inch lanes, and then about one foot shoulder.
[50:17] I think there's a little bit more between the offset of the guardrails, and then we're
[50:22] going to have 11 foot lanes with five foot shoulders from the lane to the face of guardrail.
[50:29] But the page surface is not changing.
[50:31] The page surface will be two feet wide, so it kind of ends where it is now, but we're going
[50:35] to offset the guardrails more.
[50:36] Essentially, just to get the plows more space, so our guardrails don't get impacted.
[50:41] maybe pedestrian travel is improved. We're having a gravel shoulder as well as we're providing
[50:47] proper backup for our guard real posts. We're today and they don't really have that.
[50:54] Did any of the exploration for this project include kind of looking at the full length of that
[50:59] road with respect to whether that improvement that you're making in the shoulder might extend beyond
[51:04] the work zone? Not that you would do it on the project, but rather just informationally.
[51:08] We didn't look at that aspect.
[51:12] Years ago prior to the Boston Law Lake Colbert,
[51:17] we looked at resurfacing and widening shoulders,
[51:20] so that had been looked at 15 years ago,
[51:24] we hadn't looked at it that I know of since.
[51:27] Okay, thank you.
[51:30] Sorry, one question off of that from me.
[51:33] So is your widening the guardrails?
[51:38] obviously very dense kind of foliage in that area. When you widen the
[51:42] guardrails, there's a plan to provide any kind of like regular, it wouldn't
[51:47] be mowing, but you know what I mean? Like, kind of floor a maintenance, you know, to keep
[51:52] that space open or like what would be the plan or just leave it to be? Well, our
[52:00] slopes that we'll put back, we'll likely have that larger stone. Okay, then what's
[52:05] today. We'll make growing a little bit even harder. Today there are some small trees on the
[52:12] outlet side. I want to say that there's not much growing except for Japanese knotweed on the
[52:19] inlet side. We wouldn't necessarily be trying to mow those steep slopes because what we put back
[52:24] will be steep slopes. Yeah I was just thinking like really like where the guard rail is now you just
[52:30] kind of standard like brush that's growing up through it. And it's really it's more on the
[52:36] upslope side than the downslope side but I was like I got always more of curiosity if there's any kind
[52:42] of plan to do any kind of routine maintenance around there or not. Yeah limited right of way here.
[52:48] Okay for a roadway I don't know you know what kind of mowing right behind the guardrail that we
[52:55] trying to do,
[52:59] I don't see anything the point, though, is that unless there is some management
[53:03] of that vegetation, it doesn't matter that we have widened the road technically because
[53:08] a person that's walking or riding a bike can't get through it. So, if there were a practice
[53:15] that could be put in place to actually manage the vegetation on the inside of the guardrail,
[53:20] that would be, I think really, very helpful for those other uses. To challenge today,
[53:26] but that not weird because there's there's challenges to when you can and when you should
[53:32] and shouldn't be cutting that to prevent spread. So most of the time, at least in the past,
[53:41] we were told, don't mow it. Okay.
[53:47] Also the there will be walls and there are
[53:49] now there's slopes if you've seen the top one. It kind of goes from the roadway and slopes down
[53:53] with like the natural, we're going to be putting in walls there.
[53:56] So there will be just basically gravel in there.
[53:58] OK, so you're going to be taking out some of the gates
[54:01] that it's growing in.
[54:02] Yeah, the covert section itself is going to be walls there to retain it.
[54:07] So it's not just going to slip down.
[54:08] That's how we can get away with not having a structure that says long,
[54:11] but it gives you a little bit more roadway with just flat ends.
[54:13] Everything else, and provide the more stable slope on that one.
[54:17] Council for Bro, is this project undergoing review section
[54:23] one-on-one sex review with the dividend of historical resources?
[54:28] Yes.
[54:29] Thank you.
[54:34] Can I say any other questions?
[54:36] Just a quick comment.
[54:37] Picking up on what Councillor Fauts mentioned regarding the improvements here.
[54:41] I believe this is a statewide bike route along Route 10.
[54:47] It's certainly used to be.
[54:49] And obviously going from one foot of pavement, one foot paid shoulder to two feet is a big improvement for cyclists.
[54:57] going to three or four feet would be even better if that was a possibility.
[55:02] And still provide some separation from the guardrail and from the traveling lane.
[55:10] I do run, I do appreciate the extra foot.
[55:13] But again, the product limit is only 325 feet.
[55:16] So I think I suppose if you were actually widened the roadway beyond that,
[55:20] it wouldn't be much to go back and pave that extra footer through when that time comes.
[55:25] It kind of, it's sometimes it's a problem when people have that, they have this swirf.
[55:35] I think that's all from us.
[55:36] I appreciate you coming and presenting and looking forward to our new culvert.
[55:42] I'm sure I'll try to buy your team, so as it's going in.
[55:48] So, thank you, gentlemen, for coming tonight.
[55:50] Thank you.
[55:50] Thank you.
[55:52] Was there any opportunity for the butters to provide in?
[55:55] Oh, yeah.
[55:55] Thank you for that.
[55:57] No, absolutely.
[55:57] Yeah, I'm not useful for you or here.
[56:00] Yeah, is there anyone who'd like to weigh in any of
[56:02] the butters with comments?
[56:05] People who don't just drive it for hockey?
[56:07] Yeah, Rebecca.
[56:08] Has the number of that?
[56:10] Yeah, you need to do the usual spiel.
[56:14] Sorry, as a representative of advanced transit,
[56:17] I'm interested in hearing what type of stakeholder
[56:20] outreach for those who have time-sensitive services
[56:25] probably might be the only ones.
[56:26] but if that is planned.
[56:32] Well, we haven't gone through that.
[56:36] It's a challenge here just to keep in this roadway open.
[56:41] Now it's been our approach from the beginning.
[56:44] But we haven't done a outreach specifically to any groups.
[56:48] Okay, so it sounds like in our own public noticing,
[56:51] we will try to cover that as a city.
[56:53] it's not. And I just want to follow up quickly on what Mr. Brooks said. I'm seeing your planner
[57:03] first city of Lebanon formally staffed to the PED by committee. And this section of root
[57:09] 10 has been looked at intensively in the past and including, you know, coordination with New Hampshire
[57:16] DOT to look at opportunities to widen. I appreciate, as was mentioned, the opportunity to widen
[57:23] the shoulders whenever we can with the dig once approach and encourage when there are other
[57:33] culverts or servicing projects to keep incrementally improving that quarter. It is a big
[57:40] challenge and we haven't been able to make progress in the multi-mobile safety there. Just
[57:46] Lastly,
[57:49] as a footnote, the Regional Planning Commission has been looking at co-verts, including
[57:53] that quarter, for opportunities for wildlife friendly measures, e-box co-verts are more wildlife
[58:02] friendly than others and help reduce roadway collisions, and if there are any opportunities
[58:08] during the whining to create or facilitate wildlife access to the
[58:16] cover on the sides, it would probably be used even more.
[58:20] That's all I had, thank you.
[58:22] Thanks for back home.
[58:27] Anyone else, or anyone online?
[58:35] I'm just knowing for the online audience if you want to weigh in.
[58:38] Just come off mute because we really don't see the answer.
[58:46] Thanks, that's it.
[58:47] Thank you.
[58:48] Thank you.
[58:48] Thank you.
[58:49] Thank you.
[58:53] We'll now move into our next time of new business, the essential air service contract.
[58:59] So just noting a couple things.
[59:03] So we have three proposals for essential to provide essential air service for the out of
[59:10] the city of Lebanon airport.
[59:12] We are going to hear each proposal.
[59:15] We're going to go in alphabetical order.
[59:18] We aren't going to take public comment ahead of the presentations.
[59:22] We'll take input comments after all free applicants have presented.
[59:26] All the comments and questions really should be addressed to the council and if there
[59:29] are questions, we'll ensure that they're answered during the council discussion.
[59:33] We will adhere to the three-minute rule, just given the number of people here.
[59:37] So we're requesting wherever possible to be brief and maybe into the extent possible to
[59:43] providing them at a date of comments. And I think we will, there's a number of people online,
[59:50] so I don't think I can really do the show of hands for support, but you know, you can obviously
[59:55] feel free to share your support for which group. But yeah, again, just...
[1:00:00] I'm going to keep things moving forward in a judicious fashion. So with that, we will start with our first proposal, which I believe is boutique air. I'm getting the name right.
[1:00:15] All right, buddy. Give me a minute to get some air. No worries.
[1:00:18] I'm neck everybody. Nice to meet everybody up here.
[1:00:21] I was going to say if you give you a name and kind of, I guess, position with boutique air for our court and secretary who's online.
[1:00:28] She can't hear you, if you're not next to the microphone. She can't hear you.
[1:00:31] Alright, hello everybody. My name is Nick Newsom. I am the assistant to you by the outlet with Uteek Air, Katie.
[1:00:38] Hi, I'm Katie. I'm a senior project manager and also the marketing director for Uteek Air.
[1:00:46] Okay, what is your first name in the last name?
[1:00:50] Katie, I guard him.
[1:00:53] K-81.
[1:00:55] I-G-A-R-T-A.
[1:00:59] It is give me one second. The internet is being a little bit slow for me.
[1:01:20] A little bit of awkward silence never heard in the body.
[1:01:22] That's fine.
[1:01:24] Yeah, just hit their mind.
[1:01:29] And actually, so while you're getting loaded up, just to note for our, our, our viewing audience.
[1:01:35] The, obviously, we go through this process every, you know, two to four years, depending on the length of the contract.
[1:01:41] So it's an interesting process wherein this is one step of the overall review and decision being made by the FAA.
[1:01:49] So our purpose here is the city council tonight is to make a recommendation for who the city of Lebanon,
[1:01:57] who the council would like the city of Lebanon to see as the essential air services provider.
[1:02:02] But we don't actually make that final choice.
[1:02:05] So again, it's kind of like it's the FAA's way of getting stakeholder input.
[1:02:09] So, we hold the public hearing and they ask for an email, but it's this is, you know, our purpose here is the city council and I
[1:02:16] It's here the proposals and then make a decision on which essential air service provider we would like to recommend to the FAA for consideration
[1:02:25] And then they will do what they choose to do.
[1:02:30] Great breakdown. Yes. Yes.
[1:02:42] All right there we go. That was perfect timing.
[1:02:45] Yeah, it is now loading up finally actually
[1:02:54] right now.
[1:03:04] Yes, finally. Well, thank you guys for selecting at least we are putting in our bid here.
[1:03:11] Thanks for guys for at least listening to us here.
[1:03:15] We're going to have a little bit of what we offer.
[1:03:19] Our aircraft is the PC12. It is a modern fleet with GPS approaches about 95% of all of our aircraft are now.
[1:03:26] have freshly and fresh new paint, our ceilings are about 30,000 feet as you guys can see.
[1:03:32] Can everybody hear me on the microphone pretty good? Sounds like I've got a little bit of feedback here. We're good.
[1:03:39] We have superb implement weather handling and the aircraft has been in production since 1994.
[1:03:47] Kevin Class comfort and space. We also have the superb handling since we do have that modern design.
[1:03:53] It is pressurized and it's climate control.
[1:03:56] We have very fast aircraft roughly 300 miles per hour.
[1:04:01] We get all the way up to about 289, which is roughly 300 miles per hour.
[1:04:06] Our drag link gear creates a very smooth landing.
[1:04:12] That 30,000 foot ceiling.
[1:04:17] The reason that this is so has such a good safety rating.
[1:04:22] Over the PT6 engine has had over 2,000 engines produced to 10 million plus flight hours logged, 47,000, sorry, 2,000 aircraft has been produced, the 47,000 PT6 engines have been produced and over 400 million hours logged in the aircraft.
[1:04:46] So it is the safest single turbine engine aircraft ever built.
[1:04:54] Since we do have a cabin class aircraft, it is 8 to 9 passengers.
[1:04:59] So we have in cabin storage space, a large TSA security cargo area, pressurized climate control as we said before,
[1:05:06] and also enclosed laboratory.
[1:05:08] It does not make it awkward if you do.
[1:05:10] How to use the rest of your monitor aircraft, everything is enclosed.
[1:05:12] It is actually people have used it before.
[1:05:17] What all of this means on the past couple slides
[1:05:22] means that over the current option we are more capable.
[1:05:27] We can get through whether we can get through
[1:05:33] other environmental factors that allow us to get up
[1:05:38] or around income at lower. Our reliability, big thing for us, 99.97% in 2025. It is steadily
[1:05:49] increased year over year about 0.3% in large part because of our director of operations
[1:05:59] in the back there. He has been very good at coordinating and making sure everything is
[1:06:06] smoothly. All of our aircraft on our on our flights 99.9% percent are
[1:06:14] flown two pilots. All of our training is done in aircraft. Our workforce, we do have strong
[1:06:21] reserves and we are regionally trained. We do have a large presence of aircraft out here.
[1:06:26] We are able to operate the Boston to machine aircraft. Our aircraft, we have multiple aircraft
[1:06:32] all the route. They are dedicated and they're also we do have regional recovery. Our mechanics,
[1:06:38] we support local mechanics first. We have a base in Dallas for our mechanics that are on
[1:06:45] staff, but we also do have a nationwide contract maintenance for nationwide. Our maintenance flow
[1:06:54] is if an aircraft goes down for maintenance,
[1:07:01] contract maintenance is called first, if they can't fix it, we move to the next plane, then we send either a contract maintenance out there to fix the aircraft or send our personnel up if it's more of a bigger issue.
[1:07:13] Um,
[1:07:19] this is a view of our schedule, um, so in the bid, uh, we did, we did support, uh, two different
[1:07:24] bids. We had the 28 round trips and the 21 round trips. You guys can probably see both of
[1:07:30] those. Um, this is our 28 round trips. So you guys will, you guys will have the same service
[1:07:36] you have now, just in a more reliable basis. Um, this is just an example we can adjust these
[1:07:42] as necessary. My self-cating and a deem actually flew in from the Boston area. Our flight
[1:07:50] time was roughly 35 minutes with a pretty strong headwind. So roughly 25 minutes, one way,
[1:07:57] 35 minutes, another way, could be expected.
[1:08:02] Not only do we offer the EAS services, but we also offer
[1:08:06] charter services. Why this is important? Dartmouth is out here. There is a large doctor
[1:08:14] presence out in this area. We offer this for not just the doctors but CEOs and personal
[1:08:24] business. What I've seen so far is that there is a lot of traffic out here, even from
[1:08:31] the airport manager, Mr. Gross, he said that the airport itself operates much more charter
[1:08:39] aircraft than it does EAS. That means that we will support places like Nentecate, Titoboro,
[1:08:46] and Martha's Vineyard. There's a lot of different places that we can get into there, which
[1:08:50] is very important.
[1:08:53] We also offer a very large airline crew travel. If we do, if there is employees
[1:09:00] that work around here, Delta, United, Alaska, et cetera.
[1:09:06] They can fly on our airlines.
[1:09:07] They use the ID90, my ID Travel.
[1:09:11] We have 40 reciprocal airline travel agreements.
[1:09:14] So if there isn't airline employees here,
[1:09:17] they can get on our airline using the standby privileges
[1:09:20] very easily.
[1:09:23] For the upper value region,
[1:09:25] there is a large population of pilots out here
[1:09:28] talk to several of them and they have said that yes they would they they would like to use
[1:09:34] us for the travel between here in Boston here in New York. And this this we offer increased
[1:09:41] reliability and more options for local crews. This is where I'll hand it over to Katie.
[1:09:47] Okay I want to talk a little bit about our baggage fees so we have none we have no baggage fees we
[1:09:53] have no fees actually so I think we're the only carrier that offers that we have no baggage fees
[1:10:00] for any checked bag. We have no baggage fees for oversized baggage. We have no pet fees if you want
[1:10:06] to bring your dog and we have no fees for an unaccompanied minor. So whatever you pay for
[1:10:11] the ticket is what you pay for the ticket. So it's not something that's going to be built in
[1:10:16] when you check out and all these other fees are going to be there. The ticket price is the ticket price.
[1:10:21] So that's something that I think is a little bit different from the other airlines bidding.
[1:10:26] And then our fair would be $79 for both routes,
[1:10:32] so whether it's white planes or Boston,
[1:10:36] it's a $79 is our lowest guaranteed fair.
[1:10:39] Another thing that we have is a voucher program.
[1:10:43] So you can buy vouchers at a set price,
[1:10:46] and it's a book of 10.
[1:10:49] So this applies to if an individual wants to buy them,
[1:10:52] if a business wants to buy them,
[1:10:54] basically you buy a set set of vouchers at that same price and for one year it's good at that price
[1:11:03] for any flight that you book on this route. So if you bought a book of vouchers and you
[1:11:10] wanted to fly tomorrow and you wanted the refundable fare, you wanted the very highest option,
[1:11:16] you can use your voucher that you paid your flat fee for. So that's a way that people if they want to
[1:11:23] yourself, you get recurring passengers, but second off, you can ensure that they will always
[1:11:29] get a reasonable fare. And then we have complimentary onboard beverages and snacks. We do
[1:11:38] have the mobile passport, you can do everything on your phone. If you guys have a season, season
[1:11:45] only meant like something is really big here. So in one of our communities, Pendleton, they
[1:11:52] of Pendleton and Whiskey, that's that city and their rodeo is huge. So during that time there's
[1:12:00] not enough flight so we add them so whatever they need we add extra flights seasonally and then
[1:12:08] we do have customer service agents available 24-7 and they are all bilingual so they speak both
[1:12:17] English and Spanish, every one of them, and then several of them also speak, I believe, French and Tagalog.
[1:12:24] So we've got probably four or five languages and every single one at least speaks to.
[1:12:31] I think that's that one's all for that one. This is just a part of the people in our communities.
[1:12:38] We know them personally. That's Erica and you know we become friends with the people in the communities.
[1:12:44] So, not only do we participate in the communities and come and fly with their community members,
[1:12:51] but we're actively participating in the community.
[1:12:54] The same thing with Masina, we do their big, fast-fishing blowout.
[1:13:00] I don't know if you guys are familiar, but they have a huge tournament on the St. Lawrence River.
[1:13:04] And we participate and also provide flights to the winners.
[1:13:09] So we give prizes and things like that.
[1:13:11] Now one thing that we started this year that I think could be mirrored here is we have an
[1:13:17] official partnership with the universities.
[1:13:20] So they are recommending to their students that we made them their own code for the students
[1:13:26] and the students' families.
[1:13:28] So this pairs really nicely with our no fees because we've done this in other cities.
[1:13:34] When we have university or college students that need to go back and forth for a low cost,
[1:13:40] Not having fees, you know, if you want to bring a dorm room, a college kid doesn't necessarily have a ton of furniture, but they've got bags, and you can bring those on our our planes.
[1:13:51] And if we can't fit it on that flight, they can bring it early. We'll send it early on on a different flight or we'll send it later on a later flight.
[1:14:00] But this is something we've done with the university.
[1:14:04] Their students are guaranteed the same rate.
[1:14:06] It's sort of like buying a voucher,
[1:14:08] but it's not a voucher.
[1:14:09] It's just something that we have made specifically
[1:14:12] for the university students.
[1:14:14] And they're really happy with that.
[1:14:16] So that's another way to partner with your community
[1:14:20] that I think would be very valuable to this community
[1:14:24] specifically.
[1:14:25] All right, thank you, Katie.
[1:14:28] We are on all the search engines, so we're going to come up on Travelocity, Expedia, all
[1:14:34] everywhere you look for flight, we will come up and then, next slide, we also have the
[1:14:40] inner lines.
[1:14:41] As you guys, I'm sure you're aware, your bags get transferred, we have access to change the
[1:14:46] tickets.
[1:14:46] If something happened with your flight on United, or we can also make that seamless for you
[1:14:53] to where you're not dealing with booking a bunch of different flights with different airlines.
[1:15:00] You can book everything all the way through, your badge will get transferred. And that works out really nicely. And I think everybody has interline, but I just wanted to remind you, we also have that.
[1:15:13] All right. Well, so why boutique here? I'm going to back out just a little bit. I did make a, I need to make a correction for our schedule. We did propose 42 and 35 round trips. So I didn't include the white plants. So we do offer that as well. So we're off from the same service that you guys have now.
[1:15:31] just with the better reliability. That is the only change.
[1:15:36] So why us again, turbine and PC12 safety? We also have uniformity.
[1:15:41] We don't operate other aircraft. We only have the PC12.
[1:15:45] All of our pilots fly the PC12 every single day that is all they fly.
[1:15:50] Our mechanics work on the PC12 that is all they work on at the moment.
[1:15:55] We have flexibility in our operations.
[1:15:57] we have aircraft at multiple locations.
[1:16:01] We can operate with those executive charters,
[1:16:06] those CEO charters, et cetera.
[1:16:11] Our efficiency and speed, the PC-12 is efficient
[1:16:15] and it is fast when we go 300 miles an hour.
[1:16:18] Like I said, 25 and 35 minutes between Boston and here.
[1:16:23] I did it.
[1:16:24] We enhanced the local workforce by increasing maintenance here that they can also use, not just their piston engine training, so as far as like A&P mechanics, I'm also an A&P mechanic.
[1:16:38] Having that turbine experience would be extreme for not just the hour airline, but the community itself.
[1:16:46] We would bring in that added added maybe just that added little thing that you guys might want.
[1:16:53] the increased business growth.
[1:16:56] Instead of the operations going out to other companies,
[1:17:01] it'll come here and you guys will see more traffic
[1:17:05] on boutique on our delivery.
[1:17:07] It won't be just at the terminal.
[1:17:08] It'll be over at the FBOs.
[1:17:10] It'll be in and out.
[1:17:11] You'll see them go everywhere.
[1:17:13] Whether it blends, we get up and around whether we do this
[1:17:18] all the time and we still offer our shuttle services.
[1:17:22] If in the event that something goes wrong, we have a shuttle service so you guys don't have to take that
[1:17:27] Dartmouth shuttle from what I've heard had to has happened before.
[1:17:32] Pricing and fees are route pricing for Boston and white planes is the same.
[1:17:36] No matter if you're going to Boston or you're going to white planes, we offer that.
[1:17:40] We know that that does change with other operators.
[1:17:42] Our pricing and our checked baggage fees like what Katie said.
[1:17:46] At those together, I've talked to my veterans at the Veterans Association, I've talked to Dartmouth,
[1:17:54] I've talked to local business operators and they say that they need something cheaper.
[1:17:59] They need to be able to get the Boston for a better price.
[1:18:03] This is what we offer. You buy the ticket, that's what you get.
[1:18:07] I have several unaccompanied minors that I fly over in Pendleton that during our last bid,
[1:18:14] They were very upset there that there was the possibility they were going to go to another airline and they weren't going to be able to see me and they were and they were going to have to pay a large fee to get for one place to another
[1:18:26] Our frequency is seven days a week for both
[1:18:30] Boston and white lanes. We that's that those are the routes that we offered. We did offer them a different frequencies
[1:18:36] It is up to you guys if you guys want I saw that the Lebanon does have that
[1:18:40] that feature on the website, it's very important for the community to say what they want.
[1:18:49] And lastly, we have seen the current capabilities. This is not a dig on Cape Air, but we just
[1:18:56] exceed them. That is the aircraft they operate. This is the aircraft we operate.
[1:19:01] If you guys have any questions, or if you guys would like to talk to us more, here's our
[1:19:06] information. Throughout the slide, you saw this QR code. If you guys had any information on it,
[1:19:11] you guys that is a QR code directly to the DOT's website. I'll leave it up to anybody's questions.
[1:19:17] If you guys have any. Council's questions.
[1:19:24] Seeing none, we'll move on to the next presentation. Thank you,
[1:19:29] both. Thank you. Appreciate you coming out. So next up, we have K-Pair.
[1:19:58] Good evening, everybody.
[1:19:59] Thank you for your time today, and for us to present.
[1:20:03] My name is Michael Glory.
[1:20:05] I am the president and CEO of Cape Air,
[1:20:08] and I've been with them for almost 16 years,
[1:20:11] 16 years and a couple of weeks.
[1:20:13] Also, joining me today are a handful of folks
[1:20:17] from leadership that I'd like for them to introduce themselves.
[1:20:21] Hello, my name is Chuck Ferrara.
[1:20:23] I'm the vice president of corporate and airport affairs.
[1:20:26] I don't exactly know what that title means,
[1:20:28] but I've had it for a little bit.
[1:20:30] 35 years, I've worked with Cape Air.
[1:20:33] So I was hired when I was three.
[1:20:37] Before they started cracking down on those things,
[1:20:39] I had Boston.
[1:20:41] I have been here for several of these presentations
[1:20:43] and learned how to say Lebanon in this room.
[1:20:48] Much of the secret of my friend, who grew up in Beirut,
[1:20:52] who says, don't say when is the next trip
[1:20:55] I'm taking to Lebanon, it's Lebanon, so I have to make that distinction when I talk to him.
[1:21:01] It's going to be with you again.
[1:21:03] Hello.
[1:21:04] My name is Rebecca Chase, I'm the Director of Marketing, here I came there.
[1:21:08] And I've been with a couple of me for two and a half years.
[1:21:13] Good evening.
[1:21:14] My name is Katie Stone.
[1:21:15] I'm a CEO of I've been with a couple of me.
[1:21:19] I'm a family on the lowest market manager.
[1:21:22] And I've been with Kate there for two and a half years.
[1:21:25] Do you think Steve Phillips, director of operations, would have taken 31 years?
[1:21:31] You're a regional manager, but I don't care if I are 20 years.
[1:21:36] We're going to make your station manager further.
[1:21:39] I'm going to take care for three years.
[1:21:42] Thanks, guys.
[1:21:43] As you can see, we have every department covered here at Cape Air.
[1:21:47] So please, if you have any questions or any presentation, somebody should know the answer.
[1:21:51] We've had the privilege of serving Lebanon for 18 years.
[1:21:56] And we feel like we're actually a part of the community.
[1:22:00] We have 19 employees that live and work here.
[1:22:04] Five of our airport services folks,
[1:22:06] the ones that greet our passengers with a smile every day,
[1:22:10] work at the airport and live here.
[1:22:11] We have two technicians that do an amazing job,
[1:22:14] keeping their craft running if there's any problems,
[1:22:16] they live here and we have 12 pilots.
[1:22:19] And most of them do live here in the Upper Valley,
[1:22:23] Some of them are based here, but I'm a majority of them do live here.
[1:22:28] You have three great presentations tonight.
[1:22:31] From three great airlines.
[1:22:33] You'll never hear us talk about each other, right?
[1:22:35] We compete, but we have to respect for each other.
[1:22:38] But I think what you'll see the difference from us today
[1:22:41] is that we're not going to promise what we can do in the next two to four years.
[1:22:46] We're going to show you what we've actually done over the last 18 years
[1:22:50] and how what we've accomplished together.
[1:22:55] We are proud of what we've built here together with Lebanon.
[1:23:02] And we would love to continue flying here for the next couple of years.
[1:23:11] So since we've basically grew up together, right?
[1:23:13] We've been in business for 37 years, we've been here for 18 years.
[1:23:18] What I want to point out is that we serve communities like Lebanon
[1:23:22] for more than 37 years, but in business since 1989, and we are the New England local airline.
[1:23:31] Our Northeast region, our New England region, is our largest.
[1:23:35] We have 17 different locations that we serve out of New England.
[1:23:40] Our headquarters is in Pianas, Massachusetts, just a thome throw away.
[1:23:44] As you can see with the delegation here, it's very easy for us to get here.
[1:23:48] We also serve the Caribbean, 12 locations out of the Caribbean, and then our Montana region.
[1:23:55] We have five locations out of buildings, and that's all EAS.
[1:24:01] So when we talk about reliability, we're not just focused on reliability, we deliver reliability.
[1:24:09] Our company-controlled completion rate, year to date, 2026, is 99.6%.
[1:24:16] But also, if you look up at the graph, it shows that it's not just your date.
[1:24:21] Over the last 13 months, our company controllable is the exact same thing, 99.6.
[1:24:28] Right? That consistency doesn't come by happenstance.
[1:24:33] It comes from our dedicated employees that are there to make sure our passengers get to the destinations
[1:24:40] they need to get to.
[1:24:43] And not only do we want to get them there, we want to get them there on time.
[1:24:48] Because it doesn't help if we get somebody there, and they miss their connection, they miss their appointment.
[1:24:55] And I'm proud to say that Cape Air was the number one North American on-time airline the last three months, March, April and May.
[1:25:05] And I know it's small up there.
[1:25:07] But the industry average is 8% and this is as of May, Cape Air was 86.4% on-time performance.
[1:25:16] We're very, very proud of this performance.
[1:25:23] I'm going to have my colleague, Chuck, talk about what is connections mean.
[1:25:28] If Boston is your destination, then you know how close Logan Airport is to the city of Boston.
[1:25:33] It's a great airport to get in and out of the city from, to and from.
[1:25:39] But if Boston is not your destination, then you're looking to make connections.
[1:25:42] Logan offers the world to you.
[1:25:45] Through our interline partners, we have
[1:25:49] relationships with carriers that you see here on the graph, particularly Delta
[1:25:53] JetBlue, American and United, who provide about 77% of the seats going on
[1:26:00] at Boston. So it's a significant market share that Cape area is connected to. So if
[1:26:06] you're looking to go from Leb to Boston to wherever these airlines are all in
[1:26:12] partnership with us and we've worked very hard over the years to develop those
[1:26:16] partnerships and continue to explore partnerships with other airlines as they make a presence
[1:26:21] at Logan Airport in Boston. Speaking of Logan Airport in Boston, okay. He signs the check.
[1:26:29] So I have to defer whenever I get that look. Speaking of Boston, you know, my long career with
[1:26:37] Cape Ear has been spent not a headquarters, but at Logan Airport. So when I first started, we were
[1:26:42] surely the little fish in the big pond, right?
[1:26:46] Capu, what are you talking about?
[1:26:48] What are these little things you fly around?
[1:26:51] Are you serious?
[1:26:52] You won't be around very long.
[1:26:54] And I've outlived many of those managers who've moved
[1:26:58] on to other things.
[1:27:01] But we are a significant player at Logan Airport.
[1:27:04] And we have a lot of operations there
[1:27:06] and have been a solid presence at Logan
[1:27:09] for almost four decades.
[1:27:11] It is not an easy airport to plant roots and it's it's it's locked in geographically this space is
[1:27:20] Not vast and is coveted by lots of airlines. So when you can plant an operation at Logan Airport
[1:27:27] It's no small feet and I'm very proud my mom and used to say now honey
[1:27:32] She's from New Orleans. Nobody likes to hear anybody talk about how good they are about anything
[1:27:38] Even if you're all kind of good about it. So forgive this hubris, but I'm very proud of what we've done at Logan Airport
[1:27:45] We have a fabulous operation right in the center of the airport. We're in terminal C at Gates
[1:27:52] 27 and 33
[1:27:55] we do amazing things and a very small plot of land at Logan and you can connect to
[1:28:03] to terminals B and the operations in C and in the international terminal all without going through
[1:28:12] security you get. It took us a while to get there and we have a great home there and a great
[1:28:17] reputation there. I will say that Delta is a little bit different but we're working on it. Delta is
[1:28:23] in a separate terminal and it is not yet connected so any of you will flow in us and have connected
[1:28:28] the Delta, you know that that is the one outlier, but we're pressing and there is a plan
[1:28:33] to connect now terminal A with the rest of the terminal. So it will be seamless with all
[1:28:39] of Logan Airport. So I'm very proud of where we are at Boston and I think it's super convenient.
[1:28:45] This is a picture that just shows you of what our connectivity means when you're online looking
[1:28:52] to make connection. So let's say you want to go from Lebanon to Fort Lauderdale and you're on Jet
[1:28:56] You go to JetBlue's website, if you wish, and you put in starting and live, want to go to
[1:29:02] a lot of detail, and it pops up for you something that looks like this.
[1:29:07] And the same is there.
[1:29:08] We've given you examples with Delta to LA, American to Chicago, and United to Newark.
[1:29:14] Yeah, please.
[1:29:15] So I think what's important here, right, it's a busy slide.
[1:29:18] But we have interline or co-chair with JetBlue Delta, American and United.
[1:29:24] And I think what's important, whether you're booking from Lebanon, going someplace or someplace
[1:29:30] to Lebanon, on all of the major websites, there's going to be a drop-down for Lebanon
[1:29:35] and Hampshire.
[1:29:36] Right?
[1:29:36] And it's a single-artinerary, seamless connection.
[1:29:40] Go ahead.
[1:29:41] You book your, you check your bag at the first destination, it arrives at your final destination.
[1:29:47] So it's really important to have these partnerships with the majors.
[1:29:53] And then our goal is to make it easy to book and easy to connect, so we have distribution
[1:29:58] systems, these names may or may not mean it.
[1:30:00] We think to you, in terms of the top row, it's kind of airline, nerd, stuff, savor, omidayas, travel port,
[1:30:06] rural span. These are global distribution systems that we are participating in, so that agencies,
[1:30:12] travel agencies, and other travel professionals can access the Cape beer flight network. And then we have online travel platforms, which you're
[1:30:21] from the UIT, Expedia, Pricine, Orbits, Travelocity, Kayak Copper, and we have a relationship
[1:30:26] also with the MX, you know, a little company that you may have heard of there for corporate
[1:30:31] travel, travel agencies. And then finally we do have relationships with loyalty programs
[1:30:36] that many of the majors. These are some of the programs that you may already be participating
[1:30:40] in yourselves. I could never explain them all because I don't understand them all, but there
[1:30:47] There are elements to each of these programs
[1:30:49] and Capegar has fostered relationships with these carriers
[1:30:52] and these programs, such that it benefits the traveler.
[1:30:58] Thanks, Chuck. Appreciate it.
[1:31:02] You know, Bootie touched on this.
[1:31:03] I think our biggest advantage is our frequency, period.
[1:31:08] Four daily flights to Boston, two daily flights to New York.
[1:31:15] provides more opportunity for travelers, more flexibility for travelers.
[1:31:21] And I think this really kind of points it out when you look at our schedule versus say a contour schedule with the larger plane.
[1:31:30] This is our actual schedule, right? So six daily flights.
[1:31:35] We have two flights in the morning, right? The 7 a.m.
[1:31:43] hour,
[1:31:43] And then we have three additional flights in the afternoon,
[1:31:46] Boston, New York, and then Boston.
[1:31:50] And it makes a huge difference
[1:31:51] when you're trying to get some place for the time you want.
[1:31:54] So the flexibility is amazing.
[1:31:56] When you look over at the options that contour,
[1:31:59] they have limited to one, possibly two flights
[1:32:03] a day depending on which day it is.
[1:32:08] And our proposal provides the most seats.
[1:32:10] And this is no fall of contour, right?
[1:32:13] the DOT regulates based on the number of seats that you have,
[1:32:17] how many weekly departures that you can have.
[1:32:20] We have 42 weekly departures going out compared to,
[1:32:25] you know, a 30-seat, which can only have 12 weekly departures.
[1:32:30] So our advantage is we actually have more seats
[1:32:33] into 11 on every single week, five percent more.
[1:32:37] All right, so our capacity and our flexibility
[1:32:40] has an advantage.
[1:32:43] And then you take the Cape Air White Plains New York City connector.
[1:32:48] We started flying Lebanon back in 2008 and very quickly the community came and says,
[1:32:54] you need to get us to New York.
[1:32:56] So we came up with this very elegant solution where Cape Air has a complementary private
[1:33:01] shuttle that connects passengers between white planes and downtown Manhattan in less than
[1:33:07] an hour.
[1:33:10] And what's great about it is, this is actually connected to your
[1:33:13] itinerary.
[1:33:14] So no matter what traffic is, you're not going to miss your flight.
[1:33:18] Back in 2010, we partnered with Dashway and the owner, I think, is here at Mr. Allen
[1:33:23] Joseph.
[1:33:24] It's Joseph.
[1:33:24] Thank you so much for your partnership.
[1:33:26] We really appreciate it.
[1:33:28] We've been doing business with them for 16 years and it's been amazing and our passengers
[1:33:32] absolutely love it.
[1:33:36] At this point, I want to turn over to RECCA, Director of Marketing.
[1:33:40] Again, my name is RECCA, Director of Marketing for Cape There.
[1:33:43] At Cape There, Marketing is not just advertising, it's showing up for the communities that
[1:33:47] we serve.
[1:33:48] We are proud members of the UVBA, and sponsor events like Leb Fess and Reader's Choice
[1:33:53] Awards.
[1:33:54] We just recently participated in the Lebanon Middle School's job shadow day in partnership
[1:33:57] with Carl Gross in the airport.
[1:33:59] Thank you, Carl.
[1:34:01] We've also increased our annual budget from $65,000 to $110,000.
[1:34:07] And what's important to us is spending those dollars locally.
[1:34:11] We partner with local radio stations like
[1:34:14] Great Eastern Radio, New Hampshire Public Radio.
[1:34:17] We advertise and local publications like the Dartmouth Alumni
[1:34:19] Magazine and Valley News.
[1:34:21] We also advertise nationally through Nusson
[1:34:24] during Red Sox and Greensgames.
[1:34:26] We've made countless donations to help your fundraising efforts.
[1:34:30] We are your partner, call upon us and we will answer.
[1:34:34] Thank you.
[1:34:34] I have to reiterate what Rebecca said, right?
[1:34:37] We know how important marketing is to the region to Lebanon.
[1:34:40] We've increased our yearly budget from $65 to $110,000 a year.
[1:34:48] So in summary, why do we believe that Cape Are is still the right choice for Lebanon?
[1:34:54] The first and foremost is reliability, 99.6% completion rate for the last 13 months.
[1:35:03] Number one, on time, airline for the last three months.
[1:35:07] And this is what we do well.
[1:35:09] We flew across all the system.
[1:35:12] We flew over 90,000 flights for Cape Bear.
[1:35:16] Communities like this is what we provide servers to when we do it well.
[1:35:19] Strong connectivity.
[1:35:20] Right, one ticket, seamless access, 150 destinations that you can connect to, both international and domestic coming out of Boston.
[1:35:30] And of course, as I mentioned, direct access to New York with our great private shuttle service to downtown Manhattan.
[1:35:36] And then last but not least, is our community commitment.
[1:35:40] You know, we support our communities.
[1:35:42] We hire local, as Rebecca said, community engagement is very important to us.
[1:35:47] We have 19 employees that work here in Lebanon.
[1:35:51] Our flexible schedule, our high frequency service.
[1:35:55] So, I just want to reiterate, thank you once again,
[1:35:58] really appreciate your time.
[1:36:00] We want to show you that we're not here to promise what we can do.
[1:36:05] We've been serving Lebanon in proud of it for the last 18 years.
[1:36:12] Thank you very much.
[1:36:13] Open up any questions.
[1:36:14] Yeah, thanks. Just a couple of questions.
[1:36:16] So when you did this presentation as I was like four years ago, you're just starting to bring in the technums
[1:36:21] So are those now the main
[1:36:24] Flare you still doing the sesanas we're doing a little bit of both okay, so we have 30 tech them and we schedule
[1:36:30] the tech them 100% of the time sometimes there's mechanical issues and so
[1:36:35] What we do we would much rather backfill with the 402 and cancel flight so you do see the sesna 402s in here and out
[1:36:44] Several times too
[1:36:49] And I know if the tech knows ARC is I walk through one of them four years ago, but can you just give a kind of an overview of the features of the tech and I'm just so
[1:36:57] Everyone's kind of aware of the main plane that you're using
[1:37:00] And what type of just like the features what it you know again like you kind of touched on that it has nine seats
[1:37:05] But in terms of like storage seating of you know just sure. Yeah, so two seats up front for the pilots nine seats the back
[1:37:13] And if you've been in it, it's it's much bigger much more roomier customers absolutely love it
[1:37:19] It's got the amenities where you have the USB port that's in there, you know, a couple
[1:37:24] there's it's just much, much newer than our 402, which is like information on the performance of it.
[1:37:31] Yeah, yeah, if you can also talk about, yeah, kind of the overall performance, you know, reliability.
[1:37:37] It's a single turbo, probably.
[1:37:39] No, it's a dual turbo thing, thank you.
[1:37:41] If you want one, I'm going to bring up my D.O. and talk a little bit about the performance.
[1:37:44] Would you mind?
[1:37:45] I would.
[1:37:46] He's a hot of all our pilots, he flies it every day, so I'm just grab an available mic.
[1:37:52] Thank you, David, thanks for having us here today.
[1:37:55] The tech room is a great airplane.
[1:37:57] I was a part of the original cadre that went over to Italy to get trained on it by their two-pause.
[1:38:03] So we were basically the first civilians to operate it, and we developed our own training program.
[1:38:08] It's a really reliable airplane.
[1:38:09] And it has, like I said, night seats in the back and two dedicated pilot seats has got the
[1:38:15] most advanced avionics up front with a new Garmin 1000 EX, so it's all glass and digital
[1:38:23] latest avionics, including weather radar and GPS.
[1:38:29] So we have that contributes to the situational awareness of all the pilots terrain avoidance
[1:38:34] and weather avoidance as well.
[1:38:36] So we found it very reliable with the pilots and enjoy flying it,
[1:38:42] because it's a very good situation where airplane.
[1:38:45] Any other questions about their performance?
[1:38:47] The speed is very similar to the 402.
[1:38:52] Councillor, there's questions.
[1:38:56] Yeah, Councillor Colt.
[1:38:57] What is the price of a ticket from Lebanon to Boston?
[1:39:01] I think our lowest price is $59.
[1:39:05] I think in the bid, we put $79.
[1:39:07] but our lowest price right now is 59 and they're teared, you know, as it
[1:39:11] books up and it goes up to, um, um, uh, and did you say to Boston? Yeah. Yeah, to
[1:39:17] Boston a little bit different between Boston and White Plains. Sure. So, but it
[1:39:21] starts at $59.
[1:39:27] How's this any other questions? All right, Jim. Thank you. Great.
[1:39:32] Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. All right. And next we have...
[1:39:56] Thank you for the time this evening. We're so excited about this community. For my presentation today, I kind of want to go through two sections.
[1:39:57] Thank you.
[1:39:57] Good evening.
[1:39:59] Good evening. Mayor City Manager.
[1:40:01] Councillor Stanky so much for the time here today.
[1:40:05] My name is Ben Munson. I'm the President of Contouralance.
[1:40:08] And this is Chris.
[1:40:10] Hello, Chris Andy. I'm the corporate controller work on the finance student contour.
[1:40:14] Thank you so much for the time this evening.
[1:40:16] We're so excited about this community for my presentation today.
[1:40:20] I kind of want to go through two sections.
[1:40:23] The first is to tell you a little bit who contour is.
[1:40:27] And then the second is specifically two focus on our plan for 11 in this community.
[1:40:32] But maybe you can just back up the title.
[1:40:34] I think something that's really important just to isolate immediately.
[1:40:37] That is distinct.
[1:40:38] And I think it's a question for this body and for the community.
[1:40:41] If it's something that makes sense with contour versus some of the other
[1:40:45] that we have here today is the type of aircraft that we're interested in bringing into the airport here in Lebanon.
[1:40:51] This is a picture of it here. This is aircraft 501. It's an embryo regional jet.
[1:40:56] Our entire central air service network is supported by regional jet aircraft configured with 30 seats.
[1:41:03] And I'll get into some detail about that today. And that means some different things in terms of destination opportunities
[1:41:08] in terms of the number of seats you can bring into the community.
[1:41:12] as well as the amount of passengers that actually can utilize service, and it's these things combined that make us really excited about the potential of the servo Lebanon and the upper belt.
[1:41:21] So maybe first a little bit about us, our history.
[1:41:25] We're based in Nashville, Tennessee, through both Chris and I live.
[1:41:29] We've been around for actually a long time.
[1:41:31] Company was founded in 1982, and for about the first 30 years of the business, I'm going to focus a little bit more on the charter side.
[1:41:39] That's still a big part of what we do.
[1:41:41] It's probably about 30% of our business.
[1:41:44] Being a national, we get a lot of music industry type stuff.
[1:41:47] We've got a Sesame Association fleet.
[1:41:49] They rotate through the North East quite a bit.
[1:41:50] I think in addition to this community,
[1:41:54] but about 70% of our business is now on the air-wide side.
[1:41:58] And that's something that's really evolved over the last 10 years.
[1:42:02] When there was an ownership change at our organization,
[1:42:04] and there was an interest in building in new model,
[1:42:06] specifically like four communities like this one.
[1:42:10] That could introduce regional jets.
[1:42:12] Do it in a way that doesn't put a burden on the airport
[1:42:14] and create a different level of connectivity
[1:42:17] and lower fairs and then communities like this one
[1:42:20] where we're able to receive.
[1:42:22] And we've been very successful and growing our network
[1:42:24] and building our partnerships
[1:42:25] and growing traffic in the communities that we serve.
[1:42:30] Speaking a little bit about the hard product,
[1:42:33] First, so I mentioned where we would bring in the Embraer Regional Jet into this airport, if selected, that aircraft is built for anywhere from 37 to 50 seats, so we have a couple different variations of it.
[1:42:48] They all use the same pilots, same maintenance support networks, same parts on the airplane, but we actually de-densify the cabin down to 30 seats.
[1:42:57] still considerable increase than what's in the market today, but what that does is it makes for a
[1:43:03] very comfortable cabin experience. And so effectively from a seat pitch, what you're getting is like
[1:43:08] 36 to 37 inches of pitch, that's kind of like the premium cabin of a of a larger regional jet aircraft,
[1:43:15] one of our main line partners, and it's two by one seating. So really nice, if you're an individual
[1:43:22] traveling or a couple family, it's easy for folks to sit together as well and very comfortable
[1:43:27] set up. I'm going to have a true cabinet class experience as well. So we've got two pilots on board. We've
[1:43:34] gotten so proud of our inflight team. We've got a wonderful group of flight attendants to take care of our
[1:43:39] passengers and just deliver, I think, a more traditional airline experience into this community.
[1:43:45] Outside of the comfort that that comes with with a flight attendant, food and beverage service on board,
[1:43:51] this is also an aircraft type that we've seen transform the type of people that can take advantage
[1:43:56] of regional air service in their community.
[1:43:59] Folks that might have mobility challenges,
[1:44:02] we're going to be bringing a ramp,
[1:44:03] and it's a lot easier to get those individuals
[1:44:06] comfortably on board and off the aircraft,
[1:44:10] and that's making travel for folks.
[1:44:13] A lot of the communities that we serve,
[1:44:15] a lot easier to do than before we've come into the community.
[1:44:22] Here's a snapshot of our network,
[1:44:25] really proud of what we've built.
[1:44:28] We've now got about 30 regional jets in the dedicated to the EAS.
[1:44:33] That works right across the country.
[1:44:35] We're in Plotsburg, New York.
[1:44:37] We're sad we've got an operation in the Caribbean as well,
[1:44:40] but what's more important than the specific lines
[1:44:43] is to where we're flying is to understand
[1:44:46] how we build our schedules.
[1:44:48] Because I think it's really relevant.
[1:44:50] If there's a long-term partnership this community,
[1:44:52] The way that we're thinking about coming into any city that we serve is we're dedicated in aircraft line and we're dedicated in crew lines.
[1:45:00] To that community. And what that means is really the schedule is yours to build whether that's the destination mix or whether that's the frequent, where kind of the frequencies fall based on the time of day. And, you know, we're grown into a reasonably sized company, but we're still a very small airline and we work with each one of these companies or excuse me, each one of these communities.
[1:45:22] I do this personally to make sure that we're providing them the best possible schedule and getting them to the destinations that they're interested in.
[1:45:29] And our most important to connect their community too.
[1:45:32] And that's something that we would be very much committed to
[1:45:37] if selected here.
[1:45:39] We've got a large maintenance set up in Nashville, Tennessee.
[1:45:42] It's a great place to be in terms of a central location.
[1:45:46] But what we're also doing in each one of these stations
[1:45:49] is having multiple mechanics based in each one of our markets
[1:45:53] to make sure that we're keeping the airline moving.
[1:45:56] And we've got technicians employed in the communities
[1:45:59] that we serve and that would be the case in London and as well.
[1:46:04] You have heard about reliability from some of our counterparts, you there are three
[1:46:08] really good airlines here with you today, each book on their reliability, I think they've
[1:46:13] got fantastic numbers, we're really proud of the numbers that that we have as well.
[1:46:18] Just to go through these a little bit from a controllable completion factor, we're north of
[1:46:23] 99%, 97% when we're factoring for things like whether it's you see related delays, some
[1:46:28] those things that you just just can't get around as an airline, no matter what type of equipment
[1:46:33] that you're operating, but we do have the ability with the larger regional jet aircraft
[1:46:37] to get around some weather and things and especially winter operations that tends to be very,
[1:46:41] very favorable. The other thing that's unique about, I think, the way that we measure ourselves
[1:46:46] and it's something that we've elected to do internally, but we like to highlight to our communities
[1:46:52] as well as a lot of airlines with the public information that shared is on a metric called
[1:46:56] which means that you got in within about 15 minutes of your scheduled arrival time.
[1:47:02] The way that we measure ourselves and this is stemming from a place of understanding so many of our customers are making connections.
[1:47:09] Is that we're always measuring our team based on what we call D0, which means you are departing exactly on time.
[1:47:17] And that's how we measure ourselves.
[1:47:19] And we stack up very well that we're at 72% based on that metric.
[1:47:23] We measure ourselves against the largest carriers in the industry, and the premise of that is if you're coming into a Logan or a JFK or a DOS like coming in five ten minutes late on a real tight connection could matter and so a departure of leaving one minute late for us is digging that metric and we're making sure that we're holding a very very tight schedule and people can know with confidence when booking on contour that they're going to be able to make their connection to one of our partner elements.
[1:47:50] important thing to touch on from a safety perspective, there's a lot of information on this slide that's something I'm very proud of.
[1:47:59] The both the safety and the security teams that we have at contour, and I think what's important to know is that every accreditation really that our organization can have on either decide whether private or with the deity.
[1:48:13] We've got a full safety organization that operates really independently to make sure that we're always operating at the highest level of safety and it's something that has an incredible amount of focus for our organization.
[1:48:28] A big part of I think what has transformed contour over the last couple years is our ability to build out a stronger connecting portfolio.
[1:48:40] So when our airline really kind of moved into the essential air service program about 10 years ago,
[1:48:46] for the first shots we were operating, we didn't have any partner airlines.
[1:48:49] And it was more about us bringing in a larger jet that people were comfortable with,
[1:48:55] bringing in lower fairs than what they were used to paying.
[1:48:57] And that worked reasonably well.
[1:48:59] But it was somewhat limited.
[1:49:01] And our first partner a couple of years ago was American Airlines.
[1:49:04] ones, subsequently last year we onboarded Alaska and United, and this year we're in the process
[1:49:11] fully introducing JetBlue and Delta Airlines as well.
[1:49:15] And to the extent that Boston or JFK are of interest to the community, of course, that
[1:49:19] becomes really important and we're really proud of the relationship that we're building with
[1:49:23] those carriers and growing with those carriers.
[1:49:26] And of course, that from a business perspective are some of the reasons why we're interested
[1:49:30] in this community in particular, in some other markets, in this region.
[1:49:37] Now, a little bit more on the specifics and our plans for Lebanon.
[1:49:42] You can go ahead, Chris.
[1:49:44] There's a lot of information on this slide, but on the left hand, what you're looking at,
[1:49:49] is really kind of what jumps off the page to us in terms of opportunity.
[1:49:54] And this is the number of past years and thousands from the Department of Transportation
[1:49:58] that are going to and from the Lebanon airport.
[1:50:00] And it's been about 20,000 passengers consistently.
[1:50:04] That's really relevant in the 10,000 passengers kind of caps out AIP funding for the airport.
[1:50:11] And that is a very, very large number for a community that still has a nine-seat platform.
[1:50:17] It's the second largest in the continental US and the EAS program and it's over twice the size of the average for communities that have nine-seat aircraft.
[1:50:26] So this is something when we're looking at the size of the community.
[1:50:30] in terms of the demand that exists today in terms of the economy that's here, the travel demand
[1:50:38] that is here. We see a significant amount of opportunity already with the base of traffic.
[1:50:43] And we see a significant amount of opportunity from our experience in communities like this one
[1:50:48] and having ability to grow on that number and that's why we're so motivated to come in and serve this community and serve it well.
[1:50:54] The other opportunity that we see is that there has been a decline recently, and I think
[1:51:01] you know, following K-Fair, and I don't just say this because they significantly outnumber
[1:51:05] me.
[1:51:06] They are a, they are a wonderful airline, I'm absolutely certain that they've done an incredible
[1:51:11] job, but there is some inherent limitations that come from operating a twin piston or a single
[1:51:17] of a prop aircraft, the nine seats that inherently can push people to a Manchester or to a
[1:51:25] Boston that are then missed opportunities for the local airport or can make business or travel
[1:51:30] to this community more difficult. And those are all passengers that we immediately see as
[1:51:35] opportunities to recapture into the airport here.
[1:51:40] I'm so just to capture a couple of the pieces that I think really build up to the business
[1:51:46] for contouring while we're excited about this community as first, the premium jet service.
[1:51:52] I can went through the capabilities of our Emberia 135 aircraft.
[1:51:56] We want to provide a, as part of our bid, I think we put five different options in front
[1:52:01] of the Department of Transportation.
[1:52:03] And there's quite a bit of flexibility built into those options as well,
[1:52:06] and willing to talk to those today.
[1:52:08] It's really answering questions, because we've added some commitments on top of the DAT frequency
[1:52:14] the allocation for our aircraft type that I specifically wanted to highlight, and we want
[1:52:20] to lower fairs and bring more seats into the community.
[1:52:25] And I think, you know, this is, and again, this is taking nothing, nothing away from Cape
[1:52:30] Air.
[1:52:31] Again, like if absolutely outstanding airline that we hold the hold of an Irish regard, but what we
[1:52:37] are talking about is bringing in a totally different platform.
[1:52:40] Something that's a little bit more similar to what this community had in kind of the mid-2000s
[1:52:45] and actually I think enough great from that
[1:52:47] in that we're talking about a cabin-clot-serocraft
[1:52:50] for the longer ranges, especially,
[1:52:52] but even for Boston significantly cutting down
[1:52:54] travel time, our ERJs crews at over 500 miles per hour.
[1:52:59] You've got a true stand-up cabin with the flight attendant
[1:53:01] onboarding your delivering folks,
[1:53:03] a true cabin-clot-serocraft experience.
[1:53:08] So in terms of the options, and there's quite a bit,
[1:53:12] that we wanted to put in front of the DOT,
[1:53:14] and we do that strategically to make sure that the community is part of the recommendation process,
[1:53:19] can have the opportunity to select something that they think best potentially fits the community.
[1:53:26] There's four different, I guess, hub options, if you will, or large market options,
[1:53:31] that are various proposals include, versus continuing service to Boston, whether that's
[1:53:38] by itself, or whether that's complemented with another hub,
[1:53:41] going, continuing to maintain the service in New York.
[1:53:45] We would be interested in opening up JFK that's a plan for us
[1:53:49] as part of our new partnership with Jeff Blue,
[1:53:52] or maintaining that service into White Plans,
[1:53:55] the Westchester, that's interesting for the community.
[1:53:58] The other, the other airport that we heard quite a bit about,
[1:54:02] and we've had a tremendous amount of success with,
[1:54:04] with our United Airlines partnership
[1:54:06] is created in a connection to DC,
[1:54:08] specifically Washington, Dallas,
[1:54:09] where we'd be connecting to the United's hub there.
[1:54:13] One question we often get when we're replacing a smaller aircraft type is, okay, this
[1:54:18] sounds nice, what does this mean from a fairs perspective?
[1:54:21] And we do have a considerable amount of opportunity just in that.
[1:54:26] We're spreading the costs over 30 seats, as opposed to some of our competitors,
[1:54:32] to be able to actually lower the fairs that we're bringing into the community.
[1:54:35] these are the real numbers that we included as part of our bids. This is labeled as average
[1:54:41] fair. It's actually really revenue for passengers. So this is including the ticket fair
[1:54:45] or any fees that we would estimate. This is something we spend a considerable amount of time
[1:54:50] modeling because of course this drives the economics that we would have coming into this community.
[1:54:55] We're looking at an average fair of only $55 in Boston. It's over 20% reduction in
[1:55:00] what's in the year for today, $110 fair to New York, very similar numbers between JFK and
[1:55:07] White Plains, and a little bit higher with the longer stage length of $125 fair going into
[1:55:15] dollars.
[1:55:18] So to go through the detail of some of our proposals or each one of our proposals that we put in front
[1:55:26] of the Department of Transportation, there's two important components to what we're committing
[1:55:32] to this community first is what we're able to do with essential air service and those are the frequencies
[1:55:38] that will be subsidized from the Department of Transportation. They limit those to 12 flights per week in this community.
[1:55:45] That gives considerable room for growth. That's typically what we're going into a community with.
[1:55:52] But when we see considerable opportunity, whether it's in different destinations or in supplemental frequencies,
[1:55:57] we will add to that in operating additional at-risk flights and we'll absolutely make a commitment
[1:56:02] to do this in the case of Lebanon. And so kind of to go through each one of our proposals and
[1:56:09] in what this would mean is the first option that we put in front of the department was to put
[1:56:14] all of the capacity, the EAS capacity and the Boston Logan. That would be the 12 flights per week.
[1:56:20] If that's something the community would want to do, we have confidence enough from what we've seen in
[1:56:24] New York market, what we've seen with our previous experience, that we would then at risk
[1:56:28] at service in New York, and that could be the community's choice between white planes
[1:56:32] and our JFK service, based on whatever the preference was, two iterations on this would
[1:56:40] be to have 14 flights a week split between Boston and New York, whether that's JFK and
[1:56:45] white planes.
[1:56:46] It's a little bit less frequency, it's a lower-soaked city number with those, or kind
[1:56:51] in a different hub options. Option D is particularly interesting for us. That's opening an
[1:56:57] up Washington DC and introducing JFK service for a total of 14 flights per week between what we're
[1:57:05] willing to do as part of the EAS contract and supplemental service. Or if it was of the community's
[1:57:10] interest to put all capacity into the New York market, we'd be able to do that whether that's
[1:57:14] a split between white planes and JFK or whether that's the frequencies allocated into one of those
[1:57:20] reports individually across the board, which you're getting is a 3CDRJ aircraft, 5 underlying
[1:57:25] partners, and supplemental hours, flying to the essential service contract.
[1:57:31] From a marketing perspective, we were really proud of our ability to engage with communities.
[1:57:36] We've got a team of folks that do this, a $75,000 budget, to make that a reality with the
[1:57:43] community. We do this really probably three different ways. We've got communities that effectively
[1:57:52] want us to write them a check and they're convinced that they know the best in some case
[1:57:56] they do about how to market their service. We're willing to do that. There's some communities
[1:58:00] that the airport in the community leadership says as an airline that's our responsibility and
[1:58:04] make sure that's allocated and invalid that that's been in as occurred and we do that. Or
[1:58:08] the best, I think the best partnerships we have is there's kind of a hybrid in between
[1:58:13] working with community leadership, we're getting, finding out,
[1:58:16] hearing that community has a best way to maximize
[1:58:18] employment and working with those partners to understand
[1:58:21] the dynamics of, of Lebanon, of the upper valley and
[1:58:25] being able to just maximize the performance of our service,
[1:58:29] which we're both very motivated to do all complimented with
[1:58:31] very low affairs to make it affordable for folks to be able to
[1:58:35] travel.
[1:58:38] And again, this is absolutely nothing, nothing against
[1:58:41] paper, but there's a lot of things I think that you'll hear as part of all the presentations
[1:58:47] about.
[1:58:47] I think the concept of frequency, relative to seats, relative to aircraft type, and what I can
[1:58:53] say definitively is that in every one of our situations where we follow K-Pair into a community,
[1:58:59] we've grown traffic by an average of 40%, and this is nothing against them. It's a carrier
[1:59:04] K-Pair as a stunt-ite, certain a wonderful job each one of these communities, most of which
[1:59:08] or smaller hatch merriest, then what I think love and offers, but still just the nature of
[1:59:15] being able to have a cabin class aircraft being able to offer low fairs, making it more comfortable
[1:59:20] for folks being able to travel sometimes to a different hub than otherwise they would have been
[1:59:24] going to. That might be more convenient for them as across the board led to significant stimulation.
[1:59:31] And a lot last slide for me here, but just to recap first as to why I come to our cabin class
[1:59:38] service, what you're talking about, is double-digit seek growth across the options with
[1:59:43] the supplemental frequencies that we're willing to commit to this community, reduce
[1:59:47] fares versus what exists now, significant passenger growth, that of course has a significant
[1:59:52] economic benefit for the community, but specifically for the airport that opens up additional
[1:59:57] AIP funding as well, which is directly tied.
[2:00:00] Now, on a variable basis, to the number of passengers that are at the airport, with that happy to take any questions.
[2:00:09] Can I please?
[2:00:14] Second.
[2:00:15] I'll take one.
[2:00:17] Thank you very much.
[2:00:19] It was a very good presentation.
[2:00:20] I was a very good presentation by all three, quite frankly.
[2:00:25] And a couple of the questions I have for the non-keep air folks.
[2:00:29] It seems to me it's been a very popular option for passengers in the area to fly to white planes
[2:00:36] but have the shuttle service.
[2:00:38] Then we've heard that in a lot and I want to know what your willingness or ability is
[2:00:44] to package the shuttle service from white planes to midtown in maintain your price structure.
[2:00:51] Yeah, I would be willing to speak to that first, then if we take away that's something that
[2:00:55] we'd be interested in maintaining.
[2:00:56] if the Westchester service continues.
[2:01:00] My part of being a contour, I spent a lot of five years
[2:01:03] before this in surface transportation,
[2:01:05] as well as something that I'm close to,
[2:01:06] whether it's with the current provider.
[2:01:08] We'd have to find a larger vehicle
[2:01:10] than I think what it's just today,
[2:01:12] but we absolutely would be willing to maintain
[2:01:14] that surface transportation connection to the flight.
[2:01:17] That's great.
[2:01:18] I look over to Bootique, I'm the few.
[2:01:25] Sorry, but I'll borrow more.
[2:01:26] I'll borrow more.
[2:01:27] I'll borrow your mic here.
[2:01:28] Everybody, yes.
[2:01:29] So we are willing to extend that same service that you guys have now.
[2:01:35] No changes.
[2:01:37] You guys need it?
[2:01:38] We'll give it.
[2:01:39] Thank you.
[2:01:40] Another question I have.
[2:01:42] And don't go too far away on this.
[2:01:43] We have limited limited levers at the airport to drive revenue.
[2:01:47] And as you may or may not know, this is a, of course, you know, it's a city owned airport.
[2:01:52] And sometimes we answer the questions for our constituents here.
[2:01:55] What's, what's in it for us for the city owning an airport?
[2:01:58] we don't fly out of the airport and it seems to be a pretty significant cost structure.
[2:02:03] It is a very well-run airport that's improving every year, so we can look into drive some additional
[2:02:09] revenues.
[2:02:10] And I guess one of the levers that we depend on is a fuel flowage fees, which you know is important
[2:02:16] on a fairly narrow margin that we operate there.
[2:02:19] And I'm just wondering your thoughts on minimal flowage each calendar year that you're there,
[2:02:25] you're looking to perhaps ensure that you'll be pumping the same amount of fuel as say
[2:02:30] Cape Airstream pumping more and more going forward.
[2:02:33] So we can assure that that revenue structure will stay in place in a consistent flow of revenues.
[2:02:39] Yeah, absolutely.
[2:02:40] In our outstations in Pendleton and Masina, we purchase fuel at those stations primarily.
[2:02:47] Let's say, 98% of the time, the bigger airport's tend to get us a little bit on the
[2:02:55] price of the fuel there. So we definitely do purchase the fuel in our
[2:03:01] outstation. So the EAS community itself. I do believe we did what was the numbers
[2:03:10] in the name for the fuel in Messina. It was 25,000 gallons per week in
[2:03:18] Messina. And that was just using three round trips. So if we're up in that
[2:03:23] into six, then 12,000 roughly.
[2:03:28] Yeah, so we understand the importance of the fuel flow
[2:03:30] fees for the airport and as wonderful as that airplane is,
[2:03:34] it's fuel efficiency relative to a 40 to our technicians,
[2:03:37] not it's leading attributes.
[2:03:39] So I would suspect that we're going to bring in a more fuel,
[2:03:43] but sometimes we manage things a little bit differently
[2:03:45] in that because of the amount of fuel that we're consuming
[2:03:48] and the cost difference that might exist,
[2:03:49] It's like a Logan or a Dullis versus a Seraport.
[2:03:53] What we'll do is we'll enter into a contract with the airport
[2:03:56] or with the FBI, whoever's the relevant party,
[2:03:58] to commit to a minimum fuel flowage fee,
[2:04:01] per month, whether we uplift or not.
[2:04:03] Because that typically creates an opportunity
[2:04:05] based on the amount of volume that we're doing
[2:04:07] in the price per gallon spread, that we can make sure
[2:04:10] that you maintain or improve the economics that you have today
[2:04:13] and without us paying a three or four dollar
[2:04:16] price per gallon premium, if that makes sense.
[2:04:18] It does, in the retail price of the wholesale price you buy it at is obviously not really relevant to us when it gets dumped into the tank
[2:04:27] and that's those are the numbers that make a difference into the fuel to the large fuel tank that you'll be pumping from, that's when it's most important to us.
[2:04:33] How much goes in there and how much the fee is generates for us.
[2:04:38] I guess the only other question I think boutique touched on this a little bit and maybe a harder for a contour to do this, but if we start to see any increase in demand
[2:04:48] for the services that you provide, you know, what is your flexibility to say increase frequency
[2:04:54] for those very popular roots during specific times of year?
[2:04:58] Yeah, we've got a lot of opportunities.
[2:05:00] So the aircraft that we're operating in is built to fly eight, nine hours a day.
[2:05:05] And what we're talking about is in this scenario is flying at something like four to six.
[2:05:09] So when there's opportunity with demand, we absolutely flux it.
[2:05:13] in our, it's our incentive to do that.
[2:05:15] One sort kind of set up the way that we operate,
[2:05:19] you know, the aircraft is fixed.
[2:05:20] We've got fixed employees here,
[2:05:21] typically on salary, our pilots are on salary,
[2:05:24] flood tenants as well.
[2:05:26] So it becomes that like a variable cost exercise for us.
[2:05:28] And so we're very interested in growing
[2:05:30] when that opportunity exists.
[2:05:32] Just today, we started flights from two of our communities
[2:05:36] to mortal beach.
[2:05:37] Then it just because we felt there was an opportunity
[2:05:39] to be able to do that in those communities
[2:05:41] and has nothing to do with the Central Air Service program,
[2:05:44] I think that we serve them, otherwise.
[2:05:46] And so we'd be looking for those opportunities here as well.
[2:05:49] All right.
[2:05:50] And a follow-up question for both of you here,
[2:05:54] and certainly K-Pairs have been happy to have you weigh in on this as well.
[2:05:57] But we've seen a significant inflationary impact on fuel.
[2:06:02] And it may have had something to do with the downfall of spirit airlines.
[2:06:06] I don't know, but I certainly think when you take a player like that out of the market,
[2:06:10] It creates a little bit of havoc and often wonder that ensuring that the city is recommending
[2:06:16] any AS provider that has the ability to weather these difficult periods in the economy and survive.
[2:06:23] You know, that's critically important to I once become dependent on a certain service.
[2:06:28] So I'm wondering how the fuel and the price of oil is impacting your overall operational costs.
[2:06:34] And you know, I think we're probably all hoping that whoever this council recommends,
[2:06:38] And we can feel really good that the next four-year stretch,
[2:06:42] your company will be here.
[2:06:44] Yeah, I can speak to that first.
[2:06:46] Contour has been here for 40 years and so in the end of the span
[2:06:49] that we think about what that means for aviation.
[2:06:51] There's been a lot of tumultuous times that we've gone through
[2:06:54] and we've weathered all of those.
[2:06:56] And with that, whether it's been original fuel spikes or with COVID,
[2:07:01] like we didn't reduce or eliminate any of our commitments.
[2:07:03] Any EAS, communities we know how important that is.
[2:07:11] So, we've seen a significant increase in the price of fuel.
[2:07:15] Everybody can agree on that and that's where you're asking the question here.
[2:07:20] We're seeing a increase at Boston, advertised prices is now $11 per gallon.
[2:07:26] We have been operating at Boston for roughly 10 years now.
[2:07:32] No changes to the service, no changes to the ticket prices or any of that.
[2:07:36] We do the same thing out in Portland, in Pendleton route.
[2:07:41] We see those increases, and we don't see a change in any of the prices.
[2:07:47] $79 a $79 for us, and we share that with the community.
[2:07:57] Yeah, I mean, like Contra, we've been in business for 37 years.
[2:08:00] We could list everything that we've gone through, and really have come out better on the other end.
[2:08:07] As for fuel, for us, AvGAS is a little different than jet fuel.
[2:08:13] Our overall cost of fuel is roughly about 12% of our total cost.
[2:08:18] When you look at, you know, majors and jets, that's much, much higher.
[2:08:22] So for us, it's not as big of a deal.
[2:08:24] We'd love for it to come down, of course.
[2:08:26] But with AvGAS, we don't have any issue when it comes up.
[2:08:32] Thanks Mike.
[2:08:33] One more question, if I have Mr. Mayor.
[2:08:35] Any labor negotiations if you're a union chops that we should be worried about you in the midst of contract cycles or either with your mechanics or your pilots your flight attendants anything there that would come up for a negotiation during the next four four and a half years or so
[2:08:51] We are not union base. We we go off a contract for our pilots and our mechanics and nothing to negotiate at the time our reserves are good and I'm a tax great
[2:09:06] Yeah
[2:09:08] We do have a pilot.
[2:09:12] We do have a pilot unit. We do have a pilot unit. It's the IBT in October.
[2:09:18] We just signed a four-year agreement with them. We've had a great relationship and we have more pilots today than we've had in the last ten years.
[2:09:25] Thanks.
[2:09:28] Thank you, Mr. Manager.
[2:09:29] Councillors, any questions or move into taking some public comment?
[2:09:37] All right, we'll now start taking some public comment.
[2:09:42] Again, just reiterating, please try to be as brief as you can,
[2:09:47] and maybe not necessarily repeat comments that have already been provided,
[2:09:51] but feel free to provide your support for which airline.
[2:09:55] And also just note in our own meeting packet,
[2:09:57] we have a pretty extensive list of supportive comments.
[2:10:01] And thank you to City staff for pulling that together
[2:10:04] and summarizing that was very helpful.
[2:10:07] So we'll start with the in-person audience.
[2:10:10] Yep, just line up, kind of cue up,
[2:10:16] yeah.
[2:10:16] Test.
[2:10:17] OK, I just want to make sure it was on.
[2:10:18] I saw no green line.
[2:10:21] My name is Chris McIntyre.
[2:10:22] Last name spelled MC.
[2:10:24] I-N-T-Y-R-E.
[2:10:27] I'm from Grant from the Hampshire, and obviously
[2:10:29] not from Lebanon, but I do have a regional interest in the decision here. I'm going to go right up front and say, I'm going to violate the three minutes, but I'll be less than six. Let's say. Okay. I will cut you off it for two minutes. Okay.
[2:10:48] Life along the hamster resident, raised in Nashville, went to UNH, went to the Air Force for
[2:10:54] 22 years, came to grant them flu for Dart for six years.
[2:10:59] I own a small business now, set it up with my life for the last five, and now full disclosure
[2:11:04] I'm a captain for Cape Air.
[2:11:06] I do have a vested interest in this decision.
[2:11:10] This isn't simply a choice of whether we have a jet, flan at 11 or not, they're human
[2:11:16] human interests at stake here. And I am one of them. We have 11 Pirate, 12 Pilots. I think
[2:11:26] as Mike had alluded to, 11 of them either rent here in the Lebanon area or own property.
[2:11:34] Were your neighbors? We go to church here. We buy shop locally here. And we have friends
[2:11:41] here and some of us specifically me, I'm not quite sure about the other pilots, but I have
[2:11:48] a child here who went to Lebanon High School, graduated in 2022, and now is a junior at UNH.
[2:11:58] So we are woven into fabric at Cape Air into the community here.
[2:12:03] Cape Air is a local airline, New England-based, and they hire New England people for a large
[2:12:11] number of their pilot pull.
[2:12:15] So what the council here decides will have a distinct impact
[2:12:20] on a number of individuals who live in this community. If you bring in an airline that lives
[2:12:27] or that is based in either Tennessee or California, I am not so sure they're going to be able
[2:12:33] to say that they will base their pilots here like Cape Air does. So that's definitely something
[2:12:38] you guys need to think about. That's it. Thanks, Chris.
[2:12:48] Hi, my name is Don Buck. I live in
[2:12:51] Orford. I'm a passenger. I have flown on Cape Air twice and I've lived in Orford for 25 years
[2:13:00] and taken many bus rides to New York and I won't do that again. I'm going to fly on Cape Air
[2:13:08] the next time I go to New York. It was easy to book. The staff was, at the airport,
[2:13:16] was friendly. The pilots were, you know, asked, answer a lot of questions I asked.
[2:13:21] And the whole flight was down and back for me and my wife was trouble-free and
[2:13:32] I would definitely fly Cape Air again.
[2:13:36] Thank you.
[2:13:37] Thank you.
[2:13:46] Good evening.
[2:13:46] My name is Christopher Johnson.
[2:13:47] I'm not a Lebanon resident, but I am the proud father of whom.
[2:13:51] My son Chris, who you may know from the Conservation Commission.
[2:13:55] I live in Quiche and New York.
[2:13:58] And like many more Cape Air passengers, then you might realize I live primarily in the upper valley.
[2:14:06] maintain an office in New York City. I urge the council to recommend that Cape Air continue
[2:14:15] the continued providing the Central Air Service at Lebanon. I have four brief points, first flight
[2:14:22] frequency matters. Cape Air provides 42 weekly round trips, four daily to Boston and two daily
[2:14:30] to New York.
[2:14:32] Contour, I think, was proposing only 12 weekly round trips.
[2:14:36] Fewer flights mean fewer travel options, fewer opportunities,
[2:14:41] for same-day business trips, far less flexibility
[2:14:45] when weather or other delays occur.
[2:14:49] Second, for travel to New York,
[2:14:52] the destination isn't the airport.
[2:14:55] It's Manhattan.
[2:14:55] I have flown, probably.
[2:15:00] More than 200 of round trips on the Cape Air Flight to New York. I've developed a pretty good understanding
[2:15:10] of the people who use that flight. Many of them, some of them here, Peter back there, are traveling
[2:15:18] to New York City for work or meetings. Cape Air has built its New York service around that
[2:15:26] reality. They operate twice daily flights to a private terminal in white planes, where passengers
[2:15:34] simply walk off the plane, get on to a complimentary shuttle, provided by Alan, and Dave,
[2:15:45] and they drop you up in midtown and head. Sometimes they have a spot where they drop
[2:15:52] can pick up. But sometimes they'll drive you to the specific location that you're going to.
[2:15:59] It is terrific service. It is as convenient as air travel gets.
[2:16:07] The JFK option that I think has
[2:16:09] been discussed by contour is markedly less convenient. At JFK passengers going to need
[2:16:22] get to an air train, take that up to Jamaica, get on the subway into New York on the
[2:16:30] native New Yorker. Trust me on this. If you don't want to go that way. Cape Air Service
[2:16:37] is extremely convenient.
[2:16:42] Third, Cape Air offers reliability that has been proven over
[2:16:46] 15 years in the Upper Valley's Weather Conditions.
[2:16:50] Cape Air pilots, one of whom just spoke,
[2:16:53] know how to take off and land and still in wind and fog.
[2:17:02] When we had this hearing four years ago,
[2:17:04] I remember one of the pilots talking about the experience,
[2:17:09] one needs in order to come through the mountains
[2:17:12] into the Lebanon airport.
[2:17:14] the Cape Air pilots have that experience and it provides
[2:17:18] invaluable safety for the upper valley passengers.
[2:17:24] And finally, I'm not an aviation lawyer, but I am a lawyer.
[2:17:29] And so I do want to point out something I noticed in the
[2:17:33] contour proposal that has not been mentioned,
[2:17:38] which is that it states that explicitly states that its flights
[2:17:41] would be conducted as part 380 public charters, which I think my understanding is that it would
[2:17:50] require Lebanon to wave its statutory right to scheduled air service or convert to an
[2:17:57] alternate essential air service program. So that appears to represent a significant change in
[2:18:04] framework and so I'll just make sure that the city council considers that when someone asked
[2:18:12] to a community about existing legal right, I think it's important to ask why, so I don't
[2:18:21] think this is about choosing the airline and choosing the kind of service that best serves the
[2:18:26] upper valley and I respectfully ask the council to continue to preserve the reliable service
[2:18:34] that Cape Air has provided for 15 years. I will say it is police or hype up.
[2:18:40] Sorry, the last thing. The company provides the best customer service of any company I have
[2:18:47] encountered in my 66 years. Thank you.
[2:18:54] Greetings. My name is Alice Reberge,
[2:18:58] R. O. B. E. R. G. E. I'm a resident of St. John's Berry Vermont. I am here to offer testimonies
[2:19:05] support of Cape Air Airlines.
[2:19:08] Cape Air has played a significant role in saving my life.
[2:19:11] Perhaps you think I am exaggerating, but this is not the case.
[2:19:15] Let me explain.
[2:19:17] I was diagnosed with metastatic grade 4 cancer in April of 2023.
[2:19:22] My prognosis was grim.
[2:19:25] My Dartmouth Hitchcock Cancer Center oncologists
[2:19:27] said to think in terms of months, not ears.
[2:19:31] I had chemotherapy, radiation treatment, immunotherapy, and a novel oral agent, but my cancer
[2:19:38] was spreading.
[2:19:40] Finally, I was told that I had only Hail Mary options remaining therapies that were unlikely
[2:19:46] to help progression and that all had significant side effects.
[2:19:50] I decided to opt for hops hospice.
[2:19:53] However, at the very last schedule of meeting with the psychologists, I was told that I was eligible
[2:20:00] for a phase one clinical trial at Memorial Sloan Catering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
[2:20:08] Phase one means that the drug was being tested on humans to ascertain safety and dosage,
[2:20:15] in other words, an experimental medication. There was one catch. I would need to be in Manhattan
[2:20:22] very frequently after I started to drug, sometimes as often as several times a month,
[2:20:27] and sometimes for days at a time.
[2:20:30] Once its safety in me had been established with frequent testing,
[2:20:35] I would be able to go only monthly.
[2:20:37] And how was I going to get to New York,
[2:20:40] especially in the beginning when I had to return so often?
[2:20:43] This is how Cape Air became a life saver.
[2:20:46] I could fly to Westchester when my brother lived stay overnight
[2:20:49] and take an early morning train to Manhattan the next day.
[2:20:53] Sometimes in the beginning I had days of testing
[2:20:56] And I stayed at Hope Lodge, run by the American Cancer Society, and how did I get to Hope
[2:21:02] Lodge?
[2:21:03] Capia runs a shuttle, which stops very close to Hope Lodge, operated by the nicest driver
[2:21:08] when can imagine.
[2:21:09] Some days, I had to just go get my blood drum, and MSK in West Harrison, and I would take an early morning
[2:21:16] flight and return the same day.
[2:21:18] Months have become nearly two years.
[2:21:21] The drug is preventing my cancer from growing and even causing it to shrink.
[2:21:24] Every month, I like Cape Air from Lebanon to Westchester and return with a one-month
[2:21:31] worth of oral medication. Everyone from the attendants who check me in to the pilots are
[2:21:37] incredibly nice and pleasant to be around. If I make reservations three months and advance,
[2:21:43] the price can't be beat. If I had to drive or take a bossy train, it would take much longer
[2:21:48] and be more difficult. If there was only one flight a day, I would have to stay over another night
[2:21:53] this would be much less convenient. I also want to say that Cape Air is always on time
[2:22:00] and oftentimes early. So I've never been late for an appointment. I have flown in the early morning
[2:22:07] and I've flown in the late afternoon. The convenience is incredible. So Cape Air has played an
[2:22:14] outside role in my survival and I am here to recommend that this service continues. You never know
[2:22:20] when another life may depend on it.
[2:22:23] Thank you.
[2:22:23] Thank you, Mr. Raesh.
[2:22:28] Hello, everyone.
[2:22:29] My name is Nersoldin Calibac,
[2:22:31] and I'm a young professional,
[2:22:33] living in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
[2:22:36] I would say I do represent a slightly different demographic,
[2:22:39] compared to the previous speakers.
[2:22:41] But as a young professional,
[2:22:43] I do like to explore different cities in the U.S.
[2:22:46] and not internationally.
[2:22:48] And so often, flying internationally,
[2:22:51] different options are competing with each other
[2:22:53] from different hubs.
[2:22:55] And so the only option available to me
[2:22:57] as a young professional, mostly is Boston.
[2:23:00] And especially with the prices going up,
[2:23:04] you compare different fears.
[2:23:06] You often come down to whether or not you
[2:23:08] would want to make an earlier trip to Boston or take
[2:23:13] capier.
[2:23:14] And frankly speaking, considering taking capier to Boston
[2:23:20] would add on to the cost by an altitude of around $200.
[2:23:26] Compare that to, for example, go into New York City
[2:23:29] that would increase to $253.00.
[2:23:33] And so where I'm getting at is my hope
[2:23:35] is for example what Contour is proposing that would
[2:23:41] give us slightly more options to travel accessible.
[2:23:46] So for example, having three different hubs
[2:23:49] as options for travel to different destinations compared to just one option that's
[2:23:55] realistically accessible, would hopefully give us as travelers more accessible to different
[2:24:00] destinations that are comparably accessible price. And so I am to be frank with you many times
[2:24:09] when I had to calculate this economic cost of traveling somewhere, I have rarely come to the conclusion
[2:24:15] that Cape Era would be an accessible option to travel, both to New York or Boston, for Boston.
[2:24:23] It often makes sense to just take Dartmouth Coach or just drive there for a New York
[2:24:28] city.
[2:24:30] I cannot justify the price of taking Cape Era instead of Dartmouth Coach.
[2:24:37] And if I consider traveling through JFK, that option becomes even less attainable.
[2:24:42] So I could also say that I spoke to a lot of my peers,
[2:24:47] a lot of my friends, who are of the same or similar age.
[2:24:51] And they did share similar struggles that they had
[2:24:55] was accessing different travel options.
[2:24:58] And also, I would say that as just a regular passenger,
[2:25:02] I do feel a little more safe, especially in the winter
[2:25:05] when conditions are not as stable.
[2:25:08] I'm traveling in a bigger and heavier jet
[2:25:10] compared to a smaller plane that could face a little more of the turbulence that
[2:25:16] different weather could offer us. So this is just my input and I do hope that this would be
[2:25:23] also considered. Thank you. Thank you.
[2:25:28] Good evening. My name is Peter Spencer. I live in Hanover with
[2:25:31] my wife and my children. My youngest is 15 and coincidentally cycles regularly between Hanover and
[2:25:37] West Lebanon on the route 10 and yes, it does need to be widened.
[2:25:42] I've been flying from Lebanon for almost 20 years now. I'm starting with Colganet that I think
[2:25:49] when the contract for a small number of years, it did run bigger planes, I think 20
[2:25:54] Seeders, I think for a short time, and then was taken over by Cape Per, I think in 2008.
[2:26:01] Over the last five years, I've averaged about 70 flights a year on business, mostly to New
[2:26:06] city and also another time with my family mostly to Boston on leisure. But my message is simple,
[2:26:12] destination frequency and schedule to me and more important than the type of plant. I mean,
[2:26:18] the plant is offered by boutique and contour a lovely, I would fire in joy, sorry, KP,
[2:26:24] but I would fire, enjoy, flying on those plants, but that's not as important to me and many
[2:26:30] of the people that I talk to is destination frequency and schedule. Destination and a combination
[2:26:35] of Logan provides the connections around the world, and I do fly regularly international and
[2:26:41] use those connections. Flying to New York through white planes provides access for business,
[2:26:48] it provides access for health care, it provides access for leisure as well. Frequency is also
[2:26:53] very important. Having multiple flights a day is important. Flying into a connecting hub is
[2:26:59] only useful if you're able to connect efficiently to another plane. If you fly for that hub
[2:27:03] today, it really limits the options that are available.
[2:27:09] So having the frequency of the
[2:27:10] flights at K-Pair provides, I think, four flights to Boston, two flights to New York is extremely
[2:27:15] compelling. Contours proposal only offers twelve flights, I think, in total a week, which
[2:27:20] is, I think, a quarter of the flights of almost in comparison. And then, thirdly, schedule.
[2:27:24] Schedule is also important. As a frequent business traveler to New York City, it is important
[2:27:30] for me to be able to arrive early in the working day, Cape A flies at 7.22, departure from
[2:27:37] Lebanon, which is OK, I think boutique, I think, flashed up a departure time of
[2:27:43] 8.50, which is almost an hour and a half later, that is not going to work for the people
[2:27:48] that have to work in the city for the day, for example.
[2:27:54] I would like to encourage Cape A to
[2:28:00] 18 years, I think. And that is one is at a tweak to the schedules, leaving earlier, perhaps
[2:28:06] switching the schedule around with the Boston flight would be a great improvement, being
[2:28:09] able to get to New York City earlier in the day.
[2:28:15] I also call out the free ground transportation
[2:28:17] in UK, and White Plains is excellent, it's free at land-guried at Hudsonyards in the city,
[2:28:23] right on the subway there as well. And then finally, we've been here before Colganair, operated
[2:28:30] with bigger planes nearly 20 years ago, but only around the service for a short number of years
[2:28:35] before K-Pair took over. And I think there was a big gap in the service between Colganair,
[2:28:40] finishing and K-Pair started in up as well. I think perhaps Colganair terminated a little bit early.
[2:28:46] Bigger planes alone are not the answer, but destination frequency schedule are and I do believe
[2:28:52] that with K-Pair it will provide a compelling service for the community. Thank you.
[2:28:58] Thank you.
[2:29:07] My name is Sean O'Donnell.
[2:29:09] I'm a Vermont resident and a small business owner.
[2:29:15] I'm a regular traveler, often in partnership with JetBlue
[2:29:20] or Delta, currently I'm flying around Trip Roughly every three weeks.
[2:29:25] I have previously submitted comments in support of Cape Bear
[2:29:28] for all of the reasons we've just discussed primarily
[2:29:31] flexibility and schedule.
[2:29:33] We've got my attention tonight, if I understood it correctly,
[2:29:36] is that the boutique proposal includes ground replacement ground shuttle replacement service
[2:29:41] in the event of a flight cancellation.
[2:29:44] Is that true, and if it is, can K-Pair provide similar arrangements perhaps in combination
[2:29:48] with Dartmouth Coach?
[2:29:50] Thank you.
[2:29:57] Hello.
[2:29:58] My name is Sean K.
[2:30:00] Bill spelled S. E. A. N. and K. H. I. L. L. I can't believe it's already been four years. I feel like we just did this.
[2:30:11] I'm one of your neighbors to the West and Woodstock, and though firmly committed to my family's home and farm and Woodstock, my career and professional interests require that my firm, that I be in my firm's offices and either Boston or New York on a weekly basis.
[2:30:26] My company supports managed honeybee populations for businesses and municipalities across
[2:30:31] more than 26 cities.
[2:30:34] Our work in research and honeybee health, we believe contributes in a small way to food security
[2:30:38] and agricultural resilience, something that is interesting to rural communities.
[2:30:43] Living in Woodstock, but committing weekly means that in the four years since we last discussed
[2:30:48] the essential air services agreement, I have probably flown on more than 250 kb flights
[2:30:54] to and from Lebanon. I use I rely on this service. The service has enabled me to remain at the
[2:31:01] helm of my firm and at the same time participate near fully in family life here. During the
[2:31:06] shortening season I fly out Monday mornings to attend to the company and fly back on Thursday
[2:31:11] evenings to attend to the accumulated sap with uncle. This council should be pleased with Cape
[2:31:16] Air as an essential air services vendor. It is enabling the exact goal of the air services agreement.
[2:31:28] It's meaningful link and it allows me to drive and income in an urban area and spend those revenues here.
[2:31:36] The service is excellent.
[2:31:38] Cape air looks after its passengers very well.
[2:31:40] They're more timely than any airline I know, of course they're friendly and courteous.
[2:31:46] And after 18 years they have figured out how to make it work.
[2:31:49] It just works.
[2:31:50] The other proposals should not match the frequency of service the Cape air offers.
[2:31:53] They do not presently have gates at Logan.
[2:31:55] I believe. I'm not in the airline industry, but I think that's sort of a difficult challenge.
[2:32:03] With Cape Air, we've had 18 years of reliable, consistent, and friendly service.
[2:32:07] We have a fair structure that we understand and is reasonable.
[2:32:11] More importantly, we have an undeniable track record of success that now spans almost two decades.
[2:32:16] I hope the Council will recommend Cape Air's continued service.
[2:32:19] I believe that it's the best for our community, and I think for most of us in this room that commute, it's the best choice.
[2:32:24] Thank you.
[2:32:26] Thank you.
[2:32:32] Hello, my name is Bill Sandy and I live in Woodstock.
[2:32:35] I've been flying Cape Air for 10 years now, and I cannot beat Alice's story, but I have something similar.
[2:32:45] One of my best experiences with Cape Air and I've got many positive experiences.
[2:32:50] Eight weeks ago, Dartmouth-Hitchcock diagnosed me with a partially detached retina.
[2:32:59] I called up, my doctor first, and then K-bear second.
[2:33:04] Nina picked up at K-bear, and she said, I'm so sorry, the flight is full, but
[2:33:08] Bill, hold on just a second.
[2:33:11] Two minutes later, she came back on, and she said, well, I've checked with the pilot
[2:33:15] and we've done some waiting balances, and we're going to get you on tomorrow's
[2:33:20] flight at 7.22.
[2:33:22] That was Friday.
[2:33:26] Friday afternoon, I was being operated on.
[2:33:28] And they saved the vision in my right eye.
[2:33:33] Thanks, Cape bear.
[2:33:35] I'm with Cape bear.
[2:33:36] The service and the quality of their employees are unmatched.
[2:33:41] They're the best.
[2:33:42] Thank you.
[2:33:51] Before we go to the online audience,
[2:33:53] anyone else here tonight would like something to another comment?
[2:33:59] All right, I'll open it up to the online audience.
[2:34:04] It's hard to see hand.
[2:34:06] So just come off and give me your name and location and have your three minutes.
[2:34:21] I've lived in New York for months.
[2:34:23] And for 20 years, I've been at this
[2:34:31] as a time.
[2:34:32] And so I have a few printed all of this institution options in the upper valley.
[2:34:37] And my father, my third option is K.D.
[2:34:41] through London Airport.
[2:34:43] I feel okay.
[2:34:44] There's a couple things that people said I wanted to just sign in.
[2:34:49] One, I think the frequency and having multiple options
[2:34:53] through the New York State is hugely important.
[2:34:56] I actually have plenty of funds.
[2:34:58] You had to vote the upper alley in New York.
[2:35:00] I'm ready for the frequency, just a huge number of words.
[2:35:04] I also want to say, repeat what others have said around the Christmas service.
[2:35:10] I must say hi to Alan, I love Alan, Alan is absolutely fantastic.
[2:35:16] I actually brought him and say that Nina had loved it in her court.
[2:35:22] The community ties and connections and the fact that half of the time you can follow
[2:35:26] up in her court is one, but from here we actually realize that our interview is
[2:35:33] I think that I have a lot of people who lost a big figure.
[2:35:37] It'd be nice to have another way to stand.
[2:35:40] I mean, I shouldn't have that for them,
[2:35:42] but I'd love that I have to keep it so best.
[2:35:44] And it has really a people that we have really personally lost
[2:35:49] this season for you.
[2:35:50] So I would really urge you all to stay prepared and as always.
[2:35:56] Thank you.
[2:36:02] Next person on line.
[2:36:10] Anyone else on line?
[2:37:00] I don't
[2:37:17] know if you're still there. We lost you
[2:37:25] with this one more thing.
[2:37:29] Adam, can you hear us?
[2:37:40] We will try and come back to Adam in a minute. Is there anyone else online who would like to make comment?
[2:37:52] Yes, I would like to make a comment.
[2:37:55] Yes.
[2:38:00] looks too, it has a rare blade size, can you take your name?
[2:38:15] I'm sure you used up,
[2:38:26] so you can take care of it.
[2:38:29] If you wasn't looking here, I would not have been able to
[2:38:36] hold it.
[2:38:37] So, I keep going back to the way back
[2:38:48] to 24 hours.
[2:38:50] This is what I did.
[2:38:52] From 11 a.m. to my office in three hours.
[2:38:56] Nobody has to be sad because
[2:39:02] I'm in a dead end, this has been like,
[2:39:04] honestly,
[2:39:14] I'm going to all the
[2:39:20] family see everybody.
[2:39:37] Thank you.
[2:39:43] Next time line comment,
[2:39:56] since Nolan's coming off me, I'm just going to start
[2:39:57] Adam, are you back on? I'm going to finish.
[2:40:04] All right, yeah, I'm starting to have a better start of rolling through.
[2:40:07] No worries.
[2:40:50] Oh, thank you. Thank you.
[2:40:56] Anyone else online?
[2:41:04] Go on twice.
[2:41:05] All right. We'll close the public comment. I do, there's one kind of main question and I'm
[2:41:11] sure this just mayors kept track if I miss anything. But Carl, can you just come up and explain
[2:41:18] the part 380 waiver and some of the legal technicalities? Because I think we kind of covered some
[2:41:25] of this four years ago, but just go through some of those nuances for us.
[2:41:35] The part 380, the aircraft
[2:41:38] operates basically as a public charter.
[2:41:44] So it fits kind of between a niche with the
[2:41:46] Federal Aviation Administration between aircraft that are less intense seats and aircraft
[2:41:52] that are greater than 30 seats.
[2:41:57] So it's operating as a charter. It would be a waiver for scheduled
[2:42:02] air service at the airport. That being said, they're operating as a public schedule charter.
[2:42:11] The thing we went through the last time was a potential waiver to go from two
[2:42:17] engines to one engine. Oh, I don't know. Depending on the choice that you would make,
[2:42:23] you would also, you would potentially need to make that waiver.
[2:42:28] Kate Bear is a twin-engine which you don't have the, you wouldn't have the waiver right now.
[2:42:36] We'll take you to have to make a single-engine waiver, a contour you'd have to make that part 380 waiver.
[2:42:44] Is there any of those that we can't like go back on in the future?
[2:42:49] Once you make the waiver, the ability to demand that type of service in the future is gone.
[2:43:03] So if we went to a greater than 30-seat aircraft, we would essentially be locking ourselves in.
[2:43:13] If we went to a greater than 30-seat aircraft, the airport has to become certificated again.
[2:43:18] and that's when we have to bring the fire service back to the airport.
[2:43:24] And can you just discuss what that implies for the city?
[2:43:29] What it would imply would be having a fire department
[2:43:33] certificate as airport rescue and firefighter
[2:43:39] personnel.
[2:43:40] We'd have to have personnel at the airport minimum 15 minutes before
[2:43:46] in 15 minutes after any scheduled arrival or departure.
[2:43:52] We'd essentially be paying the Lebanon Fire Department to come out and provide that service.
[2:43:58] And then the airport itself would have to become certificate again for those flights.
[2:44:04] We would have to have someone who is able to perform an airfield inspection at the airport again
[2:44:11] the 15 minutes before or after any schedule the rival. So we'd also have to work on staffing
[2:44:19] at the airport in terms of staffing. What does that mean? Like would you need new people?
[2:44:24] Yes, how many? I would probably need two people. This would be seven day week operation.
[2:44:32] So I would have to bring some additional personnel in and depending on when the nighttime
[2:44:37] arrivals come in I would also have to have a person there in terms of being
[2:44:47] he said certificated what is for the airport having to do it again do we not
[2:44:52] have to do that with boutique and k-bear and as of the plane we also do not have
[2:44:58] to do it with contour
[2:45:00] Okay.
[2:45:03] So the certification part isn't an issue then. Correct. We verify that with the regional report district office.
[2:45:15] So I get back to my question though, if we went with an aircraft greater than 30 seats, does that mean that it's weird, like, four years from now, we're still, we're only going to be able to see proposals with over 30 seats.
[2:45:28] No, they can propose anything which you're essentially waving, say if you go from two-engine aircraft to one-engine aircraft, in the future you cannot demand a two-engine aircraft for service.
[2:45:47] And only accept proposals from those two. I'm sorry, from a aircraft with two engines.
[2:45:53] So, it's a limitation on what we can require in the proposal.
[2:45:57] Correct. You're waving your requirements.
[2:46:04] Just to be exceptionally clear, there aren't any proposals in front of us that have greater
[2:46:09] than 30 seats in their place.
[2:46:11] Correct. There's not a proposal that requires to re-certify the report.
[2:46:17] Or have additional staff of staffing.
[2:46:22] So we're meeting that by being just 30 seats.
[2:46:26] Correct.
[2:46:32] Thanks, Scott.
[2:46:33] That's, you might as well take as I, other
[2:46:34] Council's may have questions.
[2:46:35] I just wanted to tackle that one first since that came up.
[2:46:38] And it's a good point.
[2:46:40] What, what is the, I suppose my ignorance here,
[2:46:43] but what is the limitation that that a 30 seat plan cannot
[2:46:47] make more than the number of
[2:46:50] departures that arrivals that are currently in the schedule?
[2:46:53] It's federal statute.
[2:46:54] Okay.
[2:46:55] Okay.
[2:46:56] The number of daily arrivals into bombs, sorry, weekly arrivals into
[2:47:00] departures is based on the number of seats the aircraft has, but not
[2:47:04] on actual arrivals into departures.
[2:47:08] Yeah, I guess I can.
[2:47:09] Yeah.
[2:47:10] If your 30 seats are greater, you're limited to 12 per a central or
[2:47:14] service.
[2:47:16] 9C and I believe you can go to 42.
[2:47:19] Are there options for said carrier to be able to offer additional
[2:47:24] of departures based on another category of service.
[2:47:29] They can operate the additional departures at their own risk.
[2:47:33] The Department of Transportation will only subsidize
[2:47:35] on the under-essential service that whatever
[2:47:40] number of flights based on the number of seats.
[2:47:43] Thank you.
[2:47:46] Council?
[2:47:46] Yeah.
[2:47:50] With regards to
[2:47:52] I'm assuming everybody is paying landing fees, regardless.
[2:47:56] Core of their Cape Aire, our boutique,
[2:47:58] or contour your plant-paying landing fees, right?
[2:48:02] Now, what is the impact of going from six flights a day
[2:48:07] of landing fees to 12 per week on a larger aircraft?
[2:48:12] What does that do for our revenue for landing fees?
[2:48:15] Based on our current landing fees, landing fees structure.
[2:48:20] It's based on way to the aircraft.
[2:48:21] It would almost be a negligible difference for us.
[2:48:25] It's almost almost a wash.
[2:48:27] So we're not losing or we're really gaining anything out of
[2:48:30] Programmer at revenue standpoint.
[2:48:38] Can you just briefly on how in payments are going this year.
[2:48:41] And if there's any kind of like if that's reflective of nationwide trends
[2:48:45] or not given costs for.
[2:48:48] Currently we're down about a hundred and two hundred and fifty passengers
[2:48:52] year over date from last year.
[2:48:54] Last year, we were down about 1500 passengers.
[2:49:00] This year,
[2:49:03] it started out in March and April.
[2:49:09] Tickets were already purchased.
[2:49:10] They were slightly above last year.
[2:49:14] The past three weeks or so, we've been slightly below
[2:49:18] last year's average nationwide.
[2:49:21] right now that is starting to level off and we're starting to see just a little bit of an increase coming.
[2:49:29] But so like they dip in is the dip that that occurred that was saw in 2025 I mean even from our own
[2:49:36] employment numbers that in the packet is that in line with national averages or is that you need to
[2:49:42] than in there. That's kind of unique to love it on. Last year it was up slightly
[2:49:46] nationwide.
[2:49:55] Okay.
[2:49:56] Mr. Mayor, you mentioned earlier the number of responses that were included in the
[2:50:01] packet at the time that the packet was put together. We were around 320 responses,
[2:50:07] which is what that is reflective of. We ran that the results of the survey again
[2:50:14] afternoon as of about 4 p.m. and we were up to 620 responses. Just quickly the overall percentages
[2:50:26] were contour at around 58 percent, okay, bare 31 percent, boutique 10 percent. I can break
[2:50:35] down the specific route options for boutique and contour if you're interested.
[2:50:44] Council's service. What does those percentages mean, David?
[2:50:49] The of the of the 621 people who completed the survey and filled out which one they have a preference for.
[2:50:59] 357 of those 621 said contour preferred contour.
[2:51:05] 193 preferred Cape Air 60 preferred boutique.
[2:51:09] It's just the percentage of the people who did the survey.
[2:51:17] I had a question.
[2:51:19] Did we ask did in the survey, and I'm guessing I know the question,
[2:51:24] because we've got the form in front of us,
[2:51:25] but did we track where these folks that are responding to our from?
[2:51:30] We didn't.
[2:51:31] I don't believe we did.
[2:51:32] We've got for the boutique air and the contour air,
[2:51:38] where there are multiple options to choose from, we ask which one they preferred.
[2:51:42] We've got an email address, which we've hidden from what was printed out, and then we've got
[2:51:48] there over all comments. But we did not ask where they were responding from.
[2:52:02] I guess I'll just make an observation from the folks that spoke tonight.
[2:52:09] There wasn't what's, you know, and I think capabilities to be really proud of their support that they
[2:52:16] was shown here tonight.
[2:52:18] Everybody did a great job with their presentations.
[2:52:21] I have one glaring observation that I've seen tonight with the folks that have gotten up
[2:52:28] and spoken is that not a single person that got up and spoke in favor of Cape Aire lives in
[2:52:38] The only person that lives in that got up and spoke from Lebanon was suggest that we go
[2:52:46] with contour.
[2:52:47] I'm not making any statements on anything other than it's, I personally have lived here
[2:52:59] for 53 years.
[2:53:00] I've never flown out of Lebanon airport ever once.
[2:53:03] It's never been really an option for me.
[2:53:07] I don't know what, I'm not an expert at any of this.
[2:53:15] So I think it's just a valid observation to see that this, you know, our airport seems to be very important to folks that are not living in Lebanon.
[2:53:31] do with what you want, but it's an observation.
[2:53:35] Councillor Key, you want to make a commenter?
[2:53:38] Yes, I just wanted to circle back to the data on the
[2:53:41] employment.
[2:53:43] And I thought I heard you say it was up last year?
[2:53:47] Nationwide.
[2:53:49] So, 11 in it was the what?
[2:53:52] 15% down.
[2:53:54] And what do you think that might have been related to?
[2:53:59] You know, we did have some fog that was surprisingly occurring in the summer early mornings
[2:54:08] last year, which may have like this morning and the other morning.
[2:54:12] Yeah, I don't know if that was related to how dry it was in relation to the air temperatures
[2:54:17] last summer, but that may have had an effect on it.
[2:54:22] This is pretty dramatic that it have been in the 20,000 range now.
[2:54:28] It's down.
[2:54:30] The numbers are the employment numbers.
[2:54:33] So rather than 20,000, you have half of that for an employment,
[2:54:37] the other half would be coming off the airplane at 11 on.
[2:54:41] So about 10,000, while a little over 10,000
[2:54:43] employment last year, we were about 8,500
[2:54:46] employment. Just for everyone, Carl, can you explain the importance of having 10,000
[2:54:52] employment here? That's changed. Oh, it has? Oh, then fix, blame the new stuff for everyone.
[2:54:58] Yes, when Department of Transportation Reauthorization Bill was passed a couple of years ago,
[2:55:06] they removed the 10,000 employment funding deck. It used to be if you were
[2:55:14] $10,000 in playments, you would receive about $1,000,000, and if you went to $9,999,
[2:55:21] you would receive $150,000.
[2:55:23] Great funding.
[2:55:25] That funding formula has changed.
[2:55:27] It is now based set rate per passenger rather than having that large cliff.
[2:55:35] Oh, it.
[2:55:36] But that being said, it's about $135,000 in federal funding for projects for a passenger.
[2:55:48] $135,000.
[2:55:49] I'm sorry.
[2:55:51] $135.
[2:55:52] Oh, okay.
[2:55:53] That's why I wanted to double cash.
[2:55:54] That's a lot of money.
[2:55:56] I didn't know the federal government to be so generous.
[2:56:00] Okay.
[2:56:00] You haven't seen our goal-plated faucets?
[2:56:03] No, that somehow I didn't get a copy of those.
[2:56:09] I counseles any other questions for a car or can kind of more open it up to discussion.
[2:56:17] Anyone want to offer some observations or thoughts on choices.
[2:56:21] Council for Berlin.
[2:56:23] Yeah, this want to comment on the public comment.
[2:56:29] This is a lot of feedback.
[2:56:31] This is really impressive.
[2:56:32] I was very impressed with what was in the packet and to know that this is only half of what we actually
[2:56:37] receive is very impressive. So when I first read the feedback, I saw a support for Cape Ares,
[2:56:43] no surprise. I was very surprised by the feedback for contour, and I thought about it. I said,
[2:56:51] you know what, I love people are excited about the potential for JFK and Dallas, right? I'm kind
[2:56:58] excited about that too. But in reviewing it again and hearing some of the comments tonight,
[2:57:08] it strikes me that most of the Cape Air positive comments are by people who do fly, have
[2:57:16] flown, do make use of love in an airport in a regular basis. And I think the majority of the
[2:57:25] to our very aspirational. I would love that that would be so cool and I wonder how much of that
[2:57:33] will actually manifest if we were to go with one of those proposals.
[2:57:43] I have no words to go with
[2:57:45] that. I was one of my primary observation and having reviewed public comment because like I said,
[2:57:51] this is a really impressive amount of feedback that we've received from the upper valley and I was
[2:57:57] I want to say that this is Levenon's airport, but there's no mistake.
[2:58:01] This is the upper rail is airport.
[2:58:02] We're just the stories of them.
[2:58:08] So, I'll have more comments, but we'll start there.
[2:58:12] Councillor Appleton.
[2:58:13] Sure. Yeah, so I just wanted them to say that I think one of the advantages of the city
[2:58:17] and also the region is that we are exceptionally well-connected,
[2:58:21] regionally in terms of transportation options in terms of having
[2:58:25] like this essential air service, but also having a very frequent
[2:58:28] and regular bus service, and also having an Amtrak service.
[2:58:31] And part of the reason that those are all such high quality
[2:58:34] in May thrives, so well, is because that they
[2:58:36] are a little bit redundant there.
[2:58:38] It'll decompete on the similar routes and provide service
[2:58:41] in this way.
[2:58:43] And I think that being able to keep that sort of frequency
[2:58:48] and the sorts of similar destinations where
[2:58:51] we are ensuring that the big regional hubs
[2:58:54] that we are connected to in the Northeast Boston
[2:58:56] in New York, in particular, having those be
[2:59:02] within easy access, is I think probably going to be
[2:59:04] our most important thing more than able to be
[2:59:06] able to access once or twice daily flights
[2:59:09] into Washington, DC, or connecting out to the JFK.
[2:59:14] Yeah, Creek Winsierly does matter, and that is what
[2:59:16] makes these services reliable.
[2:59:17] I think Lebanon is a little bit, frankly, I can't
[2:59:21] to have them policy-wise, why live it in qualifies for essential air service, but now that we do,
[2:59:28] I think is a little bit different where we're not connecting this sort of disparate population as a single lifeline
[2:59:36] through these sorts of flights that would, I think, lean towards, you know, big major hub connections.
[2:59:41] We're actually, we're integrating into a relatively metropolitan northeast.
[2:59:45] and so yeah, I'm just saying I think frequency does matter here and that's kind of where
[2:59:50] what I'm looking at.
[2:59:52] Councillor Stavis and the Assistant Mayor.
[2:59:55] So as having been a frequent international traveler.
[3:00:00] When I was a Dartmouth, I flew many cave air flights and I really appreciated the white, the white planes flight and the ride into midtown Manhattan was incredibly convenient, much more convenient than JFK.
[3:00:18] And I'd also like to make the observation that while it is true that many of the people
[3:00:25] who spoke here this evening do not live in Lebanon, I think that it is to Lebanon's
[3:00:31] great advantage that those people utilize our services here in this city to conduct their
[3:00:39] I've sent their businesses, and that that is that redowns favorably to us.
[3:00:47] So I have nothing but good things to say about Cape Air.
[3:00:51] I've had long and varied experience with them.
[3:00:55] I find that their service is exceptional, and the frequency of the flights really makes a difference.
[3:01:03] Thank you.
[3:01:05] Buckle up, because I'm not entirely sure where my thoughts are going to go, but I have
[3:01:09] quite a few of them, so I'll try to make them breath, full of it in form.
[3:01:14] I agree with Councillor Cole, I noticed I noticed four years ago and noticed again tonight
[3:01:20] and in reviewing the other comments that did not mention municipality that indeed we do get
[3:01:27] a lot of input from people who are not in Lebanon.
[3:01:30] When I talked to my neighbors, especially when I talked to them about this, I think there was
[3:01:37] a general, I would characterize what I heard as people aren't using Cape Air. People would
[3:01:45] be inclined to use contour, the service that's being presented to us through contour. I do
[3:01:53] have a concern that maybe they wouldn't be as frequent flyers, and I think that's what I'm
[3:01:59] what is potentially leading my decision. Personally, I have not flown Cape Air before,
[3:02:06] it's personal failing of mine because I do travel a lot and I should
[3:02:10] I'm taking the coach tomorrow.
[3:02:13] But I do think that the base that exists right now is important to consider
[3:02:22] when we talk in advance transit about what we see the future of the organization being
[3:02:30] there's often a tension between do we expand the services that we already have
[3:02:34] in the areas that we already have them.
[3:02:37] And strengthen them, or do we expand to more communities?
[3:02:40] And two day, I think there's been much more appetite
[3:02:43] for strengthening what we have that's already been working.
[3:02:47] Personally, I think I'd be more inclined to use contour.
[3:02:52] I think many of the people that I know
[3:02:55] would be more inclined to use contour.
[3:02:57] I also don't know that they would use it as frequently
[3:03:00] and as was mentioned, I believe Councillor Fort Burley mentioned, it's more of a potential
[3:03:08] than it is a concrete reality that I'm still not. A hundred percent sure, I also was very
[3:03:19] impressed with what boutique mentioned. I think had neither of the two been in the community before
[3:03:27] tape and boutique, it would certainly be a very different conversation than it is right now.
[3:03:34] I don't know whether or not I've fully decided what my preference is, but I do think there
[3:03:41] is value to considering that we have something built here that we should continue to expand rather
[3:03:50] than, you know, swap it for something that may be better.
[3:03:58] Period.
[3:04:01] Meet it going, we can destroy a sort of kind of run out of steam.
[3:04:06] Counselors, any other comments?
[3:04:07] I've my own, but I'll let everyone else go first.
[3:04:10] Before Jay throws something at me, probably rightfully so.
[3:04:14] Yeah, I'll circle back around.
[3:04:17] You know, one concern I have about this idea of expanding, looking for maybe moving out of New England is the frequency.
[3:04:30] I think of, you know, if you're someone who's perhaps traveling internationally, flying out of JFK, water the odds that that one flight for days actually going to meet your needs.
[3:04:40] So, I do think the frequency piece is really important to assessing our options.
[3:04:53] It sounds like there's potential for additional at risk flights, though, right?
[3:05:02] I mean, we're talking about 12 a week for contour, but it sounds like there's potential
[3:05:12] if the demand is there for additional, do I understand that correctly?
[3:05:20] Yeah, I think in their proposal there is, they said there's a kind of potential for
[3:05:25] up to two at-risk flights per week if I'm remembering the slide correctly.
[3:05:30] Is that, is that count?
[3:05:33] Well, no, so like what they mean by at-risk is it's just not hard of the AS for the rest.
[3:05:37] So it's just, it's not regulated the same way, so like they would just be providing that
[3:05:41] to write, but if there was demand, they could do, or is there a cap on those, I think we're
[3:05:50] if I'm not mistaken, I'm talking about the subsidy proceed. They're getting through the EAS plan,
[3:05:55] right? But if you say risk versus risk versus risk versus risk versus risk.
[3:05:57] Yeah, I see additional flights. Good question for you. No, yeah. So there wouldn't be a cap on
[3:06:02] the at risk because they're running it at their own rate. They don't get hateful, right? So really,
[3:06:06] it's less of a, I'd say, a cap on the flights and more of like a floor that you're going to have on
[3:06:10] like a per-flight minimum number of passengers.
[3:06:13] Correct, because you have a certain fixed cost
[3:06:16] for every flight you take, regardless of the passengers,
[3:06:19] plus your variable cost, and I don't even understand that all.
[3:06:22] But you'd have to make sure that you get
[3:06:24] a certain number of minimum passengers
[3:06:26] to make that flight profitable to take,
[3:06:29] that really make it realistic to take that risk.
[3:06:32] So that would be kind of a consideration as opposed to the FAA.
[3:06:36] It says, you have this many seats, you get to run.
[3:06:38] And it's many flights, pretty cut and dry for me with somehow.
[3:06:42] I guess my point is that if there was demand,
[3:06:45] and they could fill those seats,
[3:06:48] there's potential for higher frequency from contour.
[3:06:55] And I'm in the same boat.
[3:06:57] I don't really know how I'm just making some observations.
[3:07:03] And I have some personal feelings.
[3:07:05] And yet I'm trying to take into consideration
[3:07:07] everybody else's, you know, needs as well. So, I'm, I'm kind of in, I'm both here myself
[3:07:15] to be honest with you, so yeah. Yeah, Councilor Kate. Yeah, my, so I have had in my past some trips
[3:07:24] on Cape Air and I didn't find it was difficult because it's only nine seats, a lot of the times
[3:07:34] that I would have probably tried to do Cape Air since then, it's just never been a seat available.
[3:07:40] So a small plane, you know, can only carry nine people, and I've been on the plane
[3:07:48] when it's full, and there's a special seat, well, maybe not your new or model, but the last time.
[3:07:54] That only a short person, like myself,
[3:07:58] had to sit there, and you just, you had just, was on the top
[3:08:01] of the airplane the whole time.
[3:08:03] So, you know, I, and we had, you know, four kids we could never give, there's no options.
[3:08:12] So, and I know that there's people in the community that a small plane is, you know,
[3:08:16] they feel that it's unsafe.
[3:08:18] I never had that sense, but, so I just, I like that we have had an experience with a company
[3:08:26] and it's been positive for people that are using it all the time, especially, but I don't
[3:08:31] No, if we're really achieving the full potential of who might use the airline anyway, we have the Dartmouth coach that I know a lot of people are taking down a Boston, and if we made a change to an airline that maybe could support growth in more landings, et cetera.
[3:08:55] I don't know. You have to kind of weigh that too. Does that open us up to more people that
[3:09:02] would be interested in flying out of 11? And that hasn't been able to.
[3:09:13] I think it's a classic case of you have a known entity and it's comfortable and that delivers
[3:09:19] kind of a small town easy. Walk up, you're on the plane almost instantly,
[3:09:25] kind of experience that you can't get anywhere else. And that's really charming, free parking is great,
[3:09:31] all that other good stuff. And then you separately have people that may aspire to doing something
[3:09:38] different having more options. But those options are also down the road in Manchester or in
[3:09:45] somewhere else for the family trip or whatever to some exotic port of call. So we have the thing that's
[3:09:52] working, it's meeting a lot of needs, it's sort of comfortable, but limited, and we have
[3:09:58] these other possibilities that might reveal themselves, or may not.
[3:10:06] I don't know that I know enough to know which is really right.
[3:10:10] I would want to maybe look at the data of people's aspirations, or maybe ask the questions differently
[3:10:17] in order to relinder with in order to jump up into that choice.
[3:10:23] Yeah.
[3:10:25] Yep, council service.
[3:10:27] I don't know how much useful data you can glean from the past.
[3:10:32] But a million years ago, I was on the airport advisory committee.
[3:10:36] Back when there were 18 seat planes flying in and out of Lebanon.
[3:10:44] And as I recall,
[3:10:47] in plainments were down,
[3:10:49] like way down.
[3:10:51] And it was a real problem for the city at that point.
[3:10:55] And so, if you can draw any kind of correlation
[3:10:59] from that past experience with larger planes,
[3:11:03] to a potential future experience with larger planes,
[3:11:06] I just prefer that as one experience.
[3:11:09] And to offer my own thoughts, having now gone through this my second time around, but I mean really similar to prior times.
[3:11:24] The choice comes down to really, do you go and do choose the option that leverages frequency and convenience, which will have a natural emphasis on more business related travel or the need for interline connectivity for leisure travel.
[3:11:40] Or do you go with something that's more opening up recreational travel with a far less kind of flight options and throughput?
[3:11:51] And you would need to really be very careful that the leisure travel would fill up in the same way.
[3:12:02] to bat basically to offset the loss of business travel.
[3:12:07] And I think really when you get down to it
[3:12:10] from an overall approach business travel is a lot less competitive.
[3:12:14] The convenience and location is ultimately the most critical factor.
[3:12:19] Being able to fly directly into the airport,
[3:12:22] you want to arrive in and come out of an interline
[3:12:26] connectivity is also important, but especially to Boston and New York.
[3:12:34] Leisure Travel is just frankly a lot more competitive.
[3:12:37] We've got Burlington, Manchester, Boston, Hartford, Connecticut.
[3:12:40] You've got the Dartmouth coach that runs to both New York City and to Boston, Logan, and
[3:12:46] Boston, back Bay.
[3:12:48] I think that in that vein, when you're traveling for leisure, you expect to be traveling.
[3:12:54] Right, like the whole point is like, well, I'm going to be stuck going there all day anyway, so I might as well book, you know, like you're not as as time sensitive, but I just, I my concern is that we will not at generate the leisure travel and claimants necessary to offset the loss of business travel and payments.
[3:13:17] At the one point I would counterpoint, I'd make to the Assistant Mayor and Councillor Cole about who's in the community who's speaking is I do want to emphasize and I actually agree with this wholeheartedly capabilities in our community.
[3:13:29] There are residents, there are people coming and shopping in our businesses, they live here, they work here.
[3:13:36] So I understand the supporters may not be here, but the supporters are enabling people to live here.
[3:13:42] and they are our residents. And I think that's really important. It's important to me.
[3:13:48] But I just I think really ultimately the option we go with is whether you think that the
[3:13:54] leisure options that are offered are really going to drive enough traffic to offset the loss of
[3:14:03] business travel. Personally, I actually don't think they will. Like our catchment area for leisure
[3:14:10] travel is so narrow that you really, you kind of think of like what's our competitive edge
[3:14:18] and to me that's the business travel and the frequency and convenience there. So those are my
[3:14:24] thoughts. Any other comments, Councillors?
[3:14:31] Thoughts? Is there no way to have both? No, we only get one
[3:14:36] Yeah, sorry, I'm just making sure.
[3:14:39] Yeah, no, no, it's fair.
[3:14:41] I've been through this before, and that's the thing.
[3:14:44] So we're making a recommendation of the FAA.
[3:14:45] They're going to choose one provider.
[3:14:48] So that's the other fun thing.
[3:14:49] We can recommend whoever we want.
[3:14:51] And they may go, well, we don't like it.
[3:14:54] So the FAA is going to do what they want to do,
[3:14:57] but they will certainly take our recommendation into consideration.
[3:15:01] But we do have a choice we need to make tonight to make that recommendation to continue this process because it will continue without us.
[3:15:13] Is there a motion to be made?
[3:15:15] There is, I am happy to have a motion if you'd like.
[3:15:19] Yeah, so it is 56.
[3:15:21] I've got an expanded motion that includes some of the waivers that were discussed that Carl mentioned earlier.
[3:15:27] Thank you.
[3:15:28] Depending on which airline you might choose.
[3:15:30] And so just as a note that there is some let's say variability to these motions, not just as Mr. Brooks pointed out for the waivers potentially depending on who is chosen, but also the terms, I think I know we have a choice between recommending a two-year term or a four-year term, I don't believe anyone was offering anything other than that, but in all cases, I would just my experiences it's better to do with like a four-year term because it just allows people to settle in.
[3:16:00] Yeah, I guess one. Yeah. What was the percentages again for each airline from the most recent?
[3:16:08] I just want to just make sure that we're clear.
[3:16:11] Yeah, again out of the 621 results we had as a four clock today.
[3:16:16] 60 preferred boutique.
[3:16:19] 1093 preferred Cape Air.
[3:16:22] 357 preferred contour.
[3:16:23] in the percentages are what? 50 percent. 10 percent for Booty. 31 percent for Cape Aire
[3:16:31] 58 percent for Contour. 58. 58.
[3:16:37] Which gets back to I think the question of like, do
[3:16:39] you think that 58 percent and this ties into the Council of Fort Burley's point really
[3:16:44] translates into purchase data? I know, I totally get it. And I'll just use myself and
[3:16:49] say like, I would love to fly to like Dolis. Actually I grew up in Jersey and lived in Manhattan
[3:16:54] So I will never fly to JFK, in the JFK so much.
[3:16:59] But for exactly the reason that one of the people
[3:17:01] spoke to about it is impossible to get to from Manhattan,
[3:17:04] but that's aside.
[3:17:06] But if you look at Boston or Dullis Hager,
[3:17:09] it would be great to fly to Dullis and connect through.
[3:17:15] The likelihood I do that maybe once a year, maybe,
[3:17:18] if I did that with my family, it would be for travel, right?
[3:17:20] It would be our vacation.
[3:17:21] It's maybe four tickets.
[3:17:23] the loss of planes may be 20, 30, 40.
[3:17:27] Councillor Savis.
[3:17:28] Except it's tougher to connect from Dallas
[3:17:30] then it is from Reagan.
[3:17:34] I mean, I've never flown in and out of diesel.
[3:17:37] I don't think so.
[3:17:37] But like the addition to La Guardia on JFK.
[3:17:39] National salsa, but I don't think it's like either.
[3:17:41] La Guardia on JFK.
[3:17:44] I don't think it's like either.
[3:17:45] No.
[3:17:46] I concur with, you know, the insight about
[3:17:52] Are these aspirational flyers or are these real flyers and I think that's very important?
[3:17:59] I think what I'm worried a little bit about is like really getting around.
[3:18:03] Why is why are our flight people taking flights gone gone down 15 percent?
[3:18:10] And is it are we missing something that people really do need that for whatever reason
[3:18:16] paper is his name to provide one
[3:18:27] wants to take the lead on us.
[3:18:28] Happy to make a motion.
[3:18:29] Okay.
[3:18:29] Sure.
[3:18:29] I do it.
[3:18:30] Yeah.
[3:18:30] I had moved with 11 in the city council.
[3:18:32] Here by recommend to the U.S.D.O.T.
[3:18:34] that the paper is selected to provide essential air service with 11
[3:18:37] an airport for a four year term beginning December 1st, 2026.
[3:18:42] All right.
[3:18:42] Motion by Councillor Appleton.
[3:18:44] Seconded by Councillor Ford Burling.
[3:18:47] Yeah.
[3:18:47] Councillor.
[3:18:48] Councillor.
[3:18:48] Can we do the further moves?
[3:18:51] the way it's something that I'm having chosen, having selected.
[3:18:57] Oh, I'm sorry.
[3:18:58] Yes.
[3:18:58] And via, I did not see the KBR would also require that.
[3:19:01] Oh, yeah.
[3:19:02] Be it further moves of the city council understands
[3:19:03] that KBR may operate at service using utilizing
[3:19:06] non-seed single-engine aircraft.
[3:19:07] And here, by ways, it's right to receive
[3:19:08] the Central Air Service with 15 C to order larger aircraft
[3:19:11] and waves the right to use the multi-engine aircraft
[3:19:13] as a selection criterion.
[3:19:15] All right, do second, second and second
[3:19:17] by Councillor Ford Burley.
[3:19:18] Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
[3:19:19] any comments before I move to vote.
[3:19:23] Okay, none.
[3:19:23] We'll move to the vote.
[3:19:24] All those in favor.
[3:19:29] All right.
[3:19:30] Seven in favor.
[3:19:31] All those opposed.
[3:19:32] One opposed.
[3:19:33] Any abstentions.
[3:19:35] No abstentions.
[3:19:36] This motion passes.
[3:19:38] Seven in favor.
[3:19:39] Councillor Cole posed.
[3:19:41] Thank you.
[3:19:44] All right.
[3:19:46] On to more substantive.
[3:19:47] Also substantive discussions.
[3:19:50] We've got two.
[3:19:51] So just I'm going to pair.
[3:19:52] Both of these up for us just really quick. So we have two items and more items and new businesses. We have to address these are just to
[3:19:59] Disset a public hearing for the related items
[3:20:03] So I just mentioned that given that it is 929
[3:20:07] So the whole purpose of these is to set up public hearing on these items for us to discuss and have public input at those digs. So cueing that out
[3:20:15] CDBG application and adoption of anti-displacement and relocation assistance plan
[3:20:20] This is a discussion to set the public hearing for July 15th, 2026.
[3:20:27] Rebecca, can you give us a few of this all for us?
[3:20:29] Sure.
[3:20:30] Everyone's great.
[3:20:32] Good evening.
[3:20:34] Rebecca Owens, senior planner for the city of Lebanon.
[3:20:40] Tonight, the city is considering submission of a New Hampshire community development
[3:20:45] Finance Authority Community Development Block Grant Public Facilities Application.
[3:20:50] I know it's a mouthful, so I'm going to call it CDBG.
[3:20:55] And the application is for up to $750,000.
[3:20:59] It's for of the Boys and Girls clubs upper valley child care facility to be located in West Lebanon, New Hampshire.
[3:21:08] CDBG Public Facilities grants are federal HUD funds, and they are administered by the New Hampshire CDFA,
[3:21:14] And they're intended to support projects that principally benefit low and medium or moderate income persons.
[3:21:23] And child care facilities are particularly recognized as an eligible and high priority activity.
[3:21:30] The specific location for the proposed facility is primarily 20 Seminary Hill Road,
[3:21:38] with a portion of the site improvements on six, six Aldridge app.
[3:21:44] And in case there are questions as I move forward,
[3:21:48] the seat President and CEO of the Boys and Girls clubs is also here tonight.
[3:21:54] And tonight's ask, as the mayor mentioned,
[3:21:57] is only to set the public hearing date for July 15th
[3:22:02] for two separate motions.
[3:22:04] If awarded the grant, the city would be the grantee, and would sub-grant funds to the Boys and Girls
[3:22:11] clubs through a formal sub-recipient agreement that is separate from any proposed license
[3:22:18] early agreements. The city would not own or operate the facility. There's additional information
[3:22:25] in your packet tonight. I'm happy to go through more background if you'd like. If we do obtain
[3:22:32] the grant, the city is eligible for up to $4,000 in grant writing expenses as well as up to
[3:22:40] $30,000 in grant administration costs if we choose to be the project administrator.
[3:22:48] There's no expected fiscal impact beyond that with the administrative tracking reporting
[3:22:54] and reimbursement requests.
[3:22:59] The required benefit period for a CBG grant is 20 years, so there would be a performance
[3:23:04] lien on the property, should anything change payment back would be required and that would
[3:23:12] be tied to the subrecipient agreement.
[3:23:19] I think if there are questions, I'm open to that at this point.
[3:23:24] Council, any kind of clarifying questions, again, just noting that we're going to take this
[3:23:31] back up on Wednesday, July 15th, beginning at 6 p.m. in Council chambers.
[3:23:37] I guess I just have one quick question.
[3:23:38] Is there any reason why we would not be the project manager?
[3:23:42] Like, if I were too busy and I'm ending that's a possibility.
[3:23:47] If I were to be the administrator, but given the staggering of projects,
[3:23:54] I wish to highlight this point to be the administrator of a grant.
[3:23:59] Well, I am told, and I haven't done a CDV grant, a CDV grant administration at this point.
[3:24:04] It could be up to 25% of my time.
[3:24:07] 25% of Europe.
[3:24:09] During the most active period, but at the same time, through the subrecipient agreement, it also
[3:24:15] depends on the frequency and quantity of reimbursement requests, there can be ways to streamline
[3:24:22] that. So that's about as much as I can tell you right now.
[3:24:26] And if who would be this, might also be the administrator if we weren't?
[3:24:32] I can't answer that. My short answer to Councillor would be we would be
[3:24:37] administrating. Yeah, I mean, given that this is my area as a
[3:24:43] post-war finance director, I would say we would not want to put that out there
[3:24:49] because even as a grant recipient and a pastor
[3:24:53] entity on a sub-awardy, we have obligations
[3:24:56] to ensure the sub-awardy is performing all work
[3:24:59] in accordance with federal regulations,
[3:25:01] uniform guidance, and all that.
[3:25:03] So I don't see a scenario where the city,
[3:25:06] and however that may need to play out,
[3:25:10] would not be the administrator.
[3:25:12] It's so like, I would be hard to oppose to it.
[3:25:17] like I would rather hire people before we went out and tried to send someone else to do it
[3:25:21] just again because of the compliance and like liability issues with that.
[3:25:25] But I would, you know, my experience, I would highly suggest a recommend that we look at,
[3:25:31] like, monthly invoicing and obviously monthly, you know, invoicing to our prime sponsor through
[3:25:39] the CDVG and just minimizing the overall amount of, you know, administrative burden.
[3:25:47] that acting as a passer-on ID would require, like I think there's ways to make sure that we can
[3:25:55] streamline that process, but then being realistic. This is something we would be audited about.
[3:26:01] I mean, just it's standard course. Since we're already audited for federal awards anyway,
[3:26:05] it would just be looped into the overall audit potentially broader controls. It would have,
[3:26:11] It has to meet all kinds of criteria, but it would just there would be a certain amount
[3:26:18] of additional kind of outside of Rebecca's time burden on, like finance and administration.
[3:26:30] A bit one more question.
[3:26:32] Grants are we, can I ask the question about number two, please, is that the Obsis appropriate
[3:26:38] time?
[3:26:39] Are we splitting?
[3:26:40] Sorry.
[3:26:41] Let me ask David this.
[3:26:41] David, are we splitting these into two resolutions? Are we just doing this all as one?
[3:26:46] I think to set the public hearing, you're doing it all as one motion.
[3:26:49] Okay, unless there's no, there's two separate motions.
[3:26:51] Oh, they are. It's just, they have to be two separate motions.
[3:26:54] So that's next meeting, the public hearing could be.
[3:26:58] Right. I think for consistency, we should do them separately. That's traditionally been my guidance for this.
[3:27:06] I mean, sure. That's fine. I would hate to air on the side of it.
[3:27:09] Yeah, I mean it's it's a single motion to send a set public hearings for the following number one
[3:27:15] number two
[3:27:17] I don't want so I I think that meets the
[3:27:21] I will defer to because I know that the CDBG grants and the whole process is very
[3:27:28] Regulented. Yeah, it's got to be like words in the certain let's likely. Yeah, let's air on the side of caution and just like this into two
[3:27:37] understanding their pretty much one requires the other. So I mean, if you want to ask a question, I'd say go ahead, but let's split this into two motions.
[3:27:44] Simple question. Hopefully it's a simple answer. Can you please explain to me those city 11 and residential anti displacement relocation assistance plan?
[3:27:54] Like, what is that?
[3:27:55] Rebecca may be able to do that, but primarily is my understanding correct me if I'm wrong.
[3:27:59] is if this project displaces peoples from their homes,
[3:28:03] it's the obligation I believe for the entity to
[3:28:06] find alternative housing of equal or greater value,
[3:28:10] so they're not just booted out onto the street because of the program.
[3:28:13] So I don't think it impacts this because it's a built field.
[3:28:16] That's an interesting question.
[3:28:18] But we're not talking about displacing employees from other,
[3:28:23] it's like, no, no, it's basically basically like for that.
[3:28:26] and then in domain take over a house and kick people like you know like think about today right like if we if you
[3:28:33] like kick someone out and like oh well we'll give you the assessed value right you'd go in and be like okay good luck
[3:28:38] mind I just wasn't sure how yeah broad of like just like that man so yeah as
[3:28:44] yeah it's residential and it's included with every CDPG application
[3:28:50] we yeah we've done a few of these and we have not kicked anyone out of their homes
[3:29:00] I don't know if they're appropriate.
[3:29:04] I'd ask a native the last time we were gathered together on this topic.
[3:29:10] How could we be assured, or what assurance is there, as to the ongoing use of the SAU building?
[3:29:19] And how and whether that might be affected by another building,
[3:29:23] with another set of services specifically delivered to children on the same
[3:29:27] lot or in close proximity.
[3:29:31] That didn't get discussed last week and I don't know
[3:29:34] whether this is the forum within which that can be entertained or if that's
[3:29:38] something that could just be well legal done the next time we get together.
[3:29:42] It would be it would be discussed in the public hearing. Perfect.
[3:29:46] And then my other question has to do with to
[3:29:49] Lebanon is, is, in effect, sponsoring of this important service in Lebanon, and I'm
[3:29:57] just curious what guardrails of anything they're made.
[3:30:06] So I think this is outside the scope of what we're talking about right now.
[3:30:11] I think it's probably something that can be addressed tomorrow when we talk about some of the least language.
[3:30:18] And I, one of the challenges associated with this is excluding a portion of the population from having acts equal access to a federally funded program,
[3:30:29] which would run us a follow-up of all sorts of issues there, which we can't do.
[3:30:34] That's my understanding of it.
[3:30:36] But we can probably address some of the other issues, as far as accessibility,
[3:30:44] to trying to ensure that accessibility to our Lebanon residents is a priority.
[3:30:50] I think we can be able to discuss that with Chris E.M.
[3:30:52] from the Boys and Girls Club tomorrow as well, hopefully get all your questions answered.
[3:30:56] Good.
[3:31:01] You want to make much? I can make a couple of motions one at a time. Yeah, you got to do it.
[3:31:06] I'll start by moving the 11 in city council here by schedules one public hearing for Wednesday, July 15,
[3:31:12] 2026 beginning at six o'clock PM council chambers city hall and remote via the city's virtual platform for the following.
[3:31:20] A public hearing for the purpose of receiving public input and taking action on a proposed CDBG grant application for up to $750,000
[3:31:27] $1,000 in CDBG public facilities funds to be subgranted to boys and girls clubs of central in northern New Hampshire and to authorize the city manager to sign submit and execute any documents
[3:31:37] Which may be necessary to effectuate the CDBG application and contract the CDBG
[3:31:44] BG CC and
[3:31:47] Yes, there they go. You said you were gonna say it
[3:31:51] All right, so we have the motion by the system married. We have a second second by counselor Appleton all those in favor
[3:31:58] It's unanimous.
[3:31:59] We'll talk about this again on the 15th.
[3:32:01] I'll make the other one.
[3:32:02] Please do.
[3:32:02] To make move to the 11th city council here by schedule is a public hearing for Wednesday
[3:32:06] July 15th, 2026 beginning at 6 o'clock in council chamber city hall and remotely
[3:32:11] the city's virtual platform for the following.
[3:32:14] A public hearing for the purpose of receiving public input and taking action to adopt the city
[3:32:18] of 11 in residential anti-displacement and relocation assistance plan for the boys and girls
[3:32:23] clubs of central and northern New Hampshire.
[3:32:25] Thank you, Sister Mary, do I have a second?
[3:32:27] Second, by Councillor Opton, all those in favor?
[3:32:31] Thank you, Annemes, thank you all.
[3:32:33] We will now move on to our last time of new business.
[3:32:36] Also, to discuss instead of public hearing.
[3:32:38] Thank you for your time.
[3:32:39] Yeah, thanks Rebecca, for August 19th, 2026
[3:32:44] to reclassify an existing class six highway,
[3:32:46] which is a portion of old King's highway as a class five highway.
[3:32:49] We're so into the attached RSI.
[3:32:52] need.
[3:32:54] Sorry.
[3:32:55] You used to calling on me.
[3:32:56] Please forgive me.
[3:32:58] Thank you.
[3:32:59] Tim Quarwin, Deputy Planning and Development Director.
[3:33:03] Robert and Carolyn Townsend are the owners of a 70-acre parcel at 125-store-till
[3:33:07] road in March of the Sierra the Planning Board.
[3:33:11] Granted approval to subdivide the Townsend Lot into two lots for the zoning district
[3:33:17] in which the Townsend's properties located,
[3:33:20] the zoning ordinance requires minimum frontage
[3:33:23] for each lot of 200 feet on a classified road or better.
[3:33:29] Currently, however, lot too, as it appears
[3:33:32] on the subdivision plot, on the subdivision plot
[3:33:33] of copy, which was included with your agenda materials.
[3:33:37] Lot too only has 34 feet of frontage on stores
[3:33:41] road, which is a class 5 road, the remainder of lot-toes front-age is on Old King's Highway,
[3:33:50] which is a Class 6 road. It has about, has over a thousand feet of front-age on Old King's Highway.
[3:33:58] So, because lot-toes does not meet the minimum required front-age for the zoning ordinance,
[3:34:03] the planning board included a condition that required the town sense to request and for the Council to approve,
[3:34:11] if approved, a reclassification of a sufficient portion of
[3:34:16] old King's highway to give the town tens, the minimum records
[3:34:20] at Frontage on a Class 5 road to reclassify a portion of 166 foot
[3:34:25] portion of old King's highway from Class 6 to Class 5.
[3:34:29] So that's the, that's the request to the council.
[3:34:34] Following conditional subdivision approval, staff met with the
[3:34:37] on-site to evaluate existing conditions.
[3:34:41] And it was determined based on that site.
[3:34:44] Visit that no additional physical improvements
[3:34:46] or changes would be needed to that segment
[3:34:49] of old King's highway proposed to be reclassified,
[3:34:53] at least in connection with the proposed reclassification.
[3:34:57] However, DPW did request that the Townsend's
[3:35:01] consider granting DPW or the city an easement
[3:35:04] to turn around.
[3:35:05] And the turnaround isn't for city vehicles that proposed easement area is 50 feet by 50 feet
[3:35:12] and it's depicted on the reclassification plot, copy of which is included with your
[3:35:18] agenda pack and materials.
[3:35:19] So the towns and the have agreed to grant the city that turnaround easement.
[3:35:26] The state statute authorizes city council to reclassify a classic road to a class five road
[3:35:32] by simple majority vote.
[3:35:34] So a public hearing isn't technically legally required.
[3:35:38] However, staff would recommend that the council
[3:35:40] go ahead and schedule a public hearing on this matter.
[3:35:44] Should you choose move forward and also to provide notified,
[3:35:48] provide notice of the public hearing by certified mail
[3:35:50] to the abutters, just as a matter of good policy,
[3:35:54] public outreach, that's practices, that's sort of thing.
[3:35:59] So pursuant to the towns ends,
[3:36:00] Request to reclassify 166-foot portion of the old King's right away, which is currently classified as class six to class five.
[3:36:12] The request is that the City Council set a public hearing on this matter for your meeting on August 15, believe 2026.
[3:36:22] And then concurrently with the vote to reclassify staff would also ask that the council or would also recommend that the council consider changing the name of the segment proposed proposed to be reclassified for class six to class five.
[3:36:39] Change the name of that segment from Old King's Highway to Stores Hill Road to match the adjoining class five store still road right away.
[3:36:48] And then finally, to authorize the city manager to accept the turnaround easement on behalf of the city,
[3:36:55] and it's our intent to provide you with a copy of that easement with the August 15th
[3:37:00] of Jenna Packameterals.
[3:37:02] And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions I have.
[3:37:05] Thanks, Tim.
[3:37:05] Yeah.
[3:37:05] Councillor Key.
[3:37:07] What is the reason why somebody would need 200 feet for that lot?
[3:37:14] You know, the class five.
[3:37:16] What is the reason why you need to change that? Is it a safety thing?
[3:37:22] So, yeah, typically a classifier road is going to be, well, the classifier road is required to be maintained by immunosuppality,
[3:37:32] whereas a class six road is not required to be maintained. And so the reason why a lot,
[3:37:38] the general reason why there's a minimum classifier under requirement on any particular lot
[3:37:45] is to provide safe access for emergency vehicles, and otherwise.
[3:37:51] And so, that's the purpose of requiring a minimum, a certain minimum amount of
[3:37:57] front-age on a classified road.
[3:37:59] The width of that minimum front-age, that's a matter of policy.
[3:38:05] And so, there are other factors that can come into play.
[3:38:07] and so that the minimum 200 foot front of requirement is based again on a couple of factors,
[3:38:15] it part of which is access to or service by public water and sewer and as well as general
[3:38:23] aesthetics so that there could be a variety of policy reasons that would dictate what the exact
[3:38:31] frontages for any particular law in any particular zone.
[3:38:36] But again, the general reason is to ensure that there's safe access to a lot for emergency vehicles and such.
[3:38:44] And just noting, I mean, part of this is in terms of the maintenance.
[3:38:48] So some of this is already being maintained anyway, even as a class six, because the police communications tower is up there.
[3:38:55] So it's still somewhat being taken care of by the city as I remember,
[3:38:58] because the police need access to their communications
[3:39:02] tower for maintenance, etc.
[3:39:06] It's kind of cool.
[3:39:07] Where does the plows turn around currently
[3:39:09] or where have they been turning around for all these years?
[3:39:15] We can get, we can get some clarification on that
[3:39:18] for the public hearing, but it's my understanding
[3:39:21] that at one point the area that's proposed to be formalized
[3:39:26] with a turnaround easement was actually being used by city vehicles as a turnaround area.
[3:39:33] I think it's a little unclear. It sounds like that that's stopped at some point relatively
[3:39:40] recently, but I can get some clarification on that. Yeah, we'll get Jayda way and on that for
[3:39:51] Councils questions, comments, set up public hearing.
[3:39:55] Happy to make a move.
[3:39:56] Yeah, please.
[3:39:58] Move.
[3:39:58] That's 11 in City Council.
[3:39:59] Hereby schedules the public hearing for Wednesday, August 19th, 2026.
[3:40:02] Beginning at 7 p.m. in Council Chamber of City Hall.
[3:40:04] And remote via the City's virtual platform for the purpose of receding public input and taking action to reclassify portion.
[3:40:10] Of the old Kins Highway, right away from a class 6 road to a class 5 road,
[3:40:13] and you have to RSA, 231-22-A, as shown on a plat-titled plan of petitioned road reclassification
[3:40:20] old Kings Highway at end of Stores Hill Road, prepared by Cardigan Mountain Land Service LLC,
[3:40:26] dated March 31st, 2026 and revised May 2026 as presented in the July 1st, 2026 City Council
[3:40:32] agenda packet. Thank you, Councillor Forberley. Do I have a second? Seconded by Councillor
[3:40:37] Stavis, all those in favor. It's unanimous among the eight of us, President. Thank you. Thank
[3:40:43] Just a quick note for everyone we are starting in two weeks on the 15th at 6 o'clock.
[3:40:48] We're going to have warden committee's reports and then we're going to roll right into the
[3:40:51] main agenda which is going to be quite busy as well.
[3:40:56] And then we will be off.
[3:40:58] We will not have our August 1st meeting in August.
[3:41:01] We will not reconvene until August 19th to discuss the last six to class five road.
[3:41:06] So we'll have a nice bit of a break there.
[3:41:10] Good night.
[3:41:11] Do I have a motion to adjourn?
[3:41:13] I'm going to say move by Councillor Ford Burley and seconded by Councillor Fonts, all those
[3:41:16] in favor.
[3:41:18] It's unanimous.
[3:41:18] Go home.
[3:41:19] Have a safe and happy fourth.
[3:41:21] And cool.
[3:41:21] Yeah.