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Welcome everybody to the candidates forum for those people running for town council. We have six candidates with us.

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They'll get a chance to introduce themselves and quickly say why they may be running for this office.

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We'll take a series of questions. If you have a question, see Joshua, he will run that up here.

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Each person will have two minutes to respond to the question.

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They'll get a quick one ding or warning when you have 15 or 20 seconds left.

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And when you have two games, your time is expired and we'll go right to the next person.

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What we will do is we'll start with the first question.

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So the first question we'll go all the way across and then the second question we'll start with blue and we'll work that way in that sequence all the way through to try to get some semblance of flow here.

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So without further ado, let's start with what he and a little candidate background who you are and why are you running for town council.

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And welcome everybody.

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My name is Peter.

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My wife, excuse me, my wife, Devin, I've been married for 33 years.

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We have a daughter, Kelly, who went through the SAV 15 school system, graduated in 2005.

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From there she went on to Boston University, worked hard, did well.

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We felt in hindsight that her education in the local school system was very well done.

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She was well positioned to make the jump from the little gray mane to Boston and did it quite well.

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She is married to a fellow classmate, Matt Mingo.

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I'm a USM graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Education.

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I was employed for 35 years by blue rock industries in Westbrook.

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Currently I'm the president of Lathrop Asset Management in Portland.

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I served on the town council before for a one three year term between 2008 and 2011.

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And I was also chairman of the council for those three years.

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I've also served a combined total of 13 years on the town planning board.

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I also served the three year term on the committee for economic development.

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I've also just recently served on the library expansion committee that has gotten us this room tonight for 15 months.

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I'm currently a member of the public library board of trustees.

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And I'm also one of the board of directors of the Royce and Abel Lake Association.

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Thank you very much.

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Hi, my name is Umi Encini.

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I moved to Gray at the right age of six years old in late 1959.

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I've pretty much been here since.

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My first year of school was in the basement of what is now the superintendent's office.

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My wife and Debbie and I have been there for 33 years.

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We have four grown children and we have three grandchildren that are currently in the very lost school system.

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I worked for a couple of local contractors when I first got into the building business.

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I spent the last 40 years as a self-employed building contractor.

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I think that goes a long ways to my attitude towards if something needs to be done, then let's get it done.

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I really enjoy my job.

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The job I've had the last three years as a counselor.

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I like working with the people.

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I like working for the people.

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I like working with my fellow counselors on trying to make the best decisions for Gray.

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To be perfectly honest with you, the politics gets a little bit exhausting at times.

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I'm kind of a results-driven person.

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Sometimes when I think it's taking a year to get something done that should take a week, it gets a little old.

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I think my fellow counselors probably would share that too.

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But I've developed some really good relationships as I've become involved in the politics of the town.

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Almost a totally different, separate sect of people than I did in my working career.

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And I'll tell you right now, I'm really impressed with the quality of the citizens of Gray

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and I think that they are probably our largest and most important resource.

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So hopefully, there's any chance that we can get to get them involved is good.

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Basically, I look forward to continuing.

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I would appreciate your vote for a second term.

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Thank you.

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Hi, I'm Jim Henneman. I've been living in the town of Gray now for 13 years.

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Married to my wife Wendy. We've been married 23 years.

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We've got two children.

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My oldest one is a just missed a sophomore year at UMaine.

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My youngest one is at this moment at the National Ones Society Induction Ceremony over at high school.

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He'll be a senior next year.

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I am employed by Crown Fortless out of New England, Ohio.

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I handle the state of Maine and I sell Fortless material.

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The main reason I want to run for town council is I believe I can offer just a lot of just being me.

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Just being a social person and getting a feel of making things work by not only getting a grasp around them

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and making them move forward, but being able to talk to people and understand that there are different views.

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And everybody who counts and some people just aren't going to get their way,

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but you're going to have to at least be able to people in a civil way and make sure we're all neighborhood men.

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I'm a master mason and a trainer.

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That's kind of me in a nutshell.

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You usually see them float around in a party.

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Hi, I'm Cameron Roe and we've been here for about 40 years now.

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I'm at Twinsby-Lewson Road where I've operated a very successful tax practice.

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I've had it one time over 800 clients.

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And to be tied just three years ago.

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So I should be done.

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I'm a collaborator and enjoying myself, however, I think I had a brain clamp down here tonight.

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So if you don't mind, I'm just going to read a little intro and then I'll go into more of my background

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and talk about my involvement and how it started 40 years ago.

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We have brought the kids over to the library for a study hour at the time.

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The librarian, which is appropriate for tonight, had talked us women into starting a study hour.

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And there were six of us.

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And so what we did was we met and once every six weeks we had to take that term.

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So this is what somehow or another I end up getting into the activity of other things in the community as well,

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which kept me up pretty much every night.

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Luckily we had a reasonable advice.

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Maybe so just so we could be able to take advantage of, you know, taking the opportunity.

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So what happened was we had, you know, I do have this public speaking situation.

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And it started in my senior year in college and I had to get an oral report on my thesis.

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And that was a nightmare.

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I still remember the pain being up in front of all my classmates

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and speaking face-to-face, knee-shaking, you know, the whole night, yes.

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So never got over that till this day, I guess.

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However, I did tell Donnie that I was going to mention him this evening.

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And I got to tell you, there was a time that he was the moderator at a meeting.

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And we brought in a speaker, a loud speaker, which most of us engrave when I used to.

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And so he, you know, raised it to my face and wanted me to speak through it.

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And that was what started the whole public speaking era for me.

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And since then, you know, I've been known to be at the microphone quite often

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at our town council meetings especially.

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And so this is where we started.

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Now, one of the things that I found interesting, what?

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Please.

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Really?

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I mean, go ahead.

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We'll ask you more.

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I put off my speech.

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All right, I'll get right over to then.

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I was going to give you a poll, but what we're going to do is talk about my background.

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I am, as I say here, I grew up on Provincere Island.

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I went to school there.

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I went to Bryan College and had three majors, accounting, economics, and law.

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And I married for 46 years, had two grown children, three grandchildren, all living in Maine.

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I'm a downhill skier, a sailor.

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And in my retirement years, I've taken up kayak and something brand new for me

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along with extensive traveling, most recently to Japan.

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And I also now have become and have been pulled up.

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So basically that's it for now.

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No!

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Okay.

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Why don't you get that microphone?

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All right.

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I'm John.

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I'm John Cangway.

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Thank you for coming, Joe.

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I'm a moderate, and I'm a co-founder, so it's meaningful.

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I'm a 42-year resident of Provincere Island.

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I'm not a...

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I have no...

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Oh, so I mean...

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I have no council experiences yet.

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I mean, this is all I've been doing for 48 years.

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I'm just a little positive.

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I think that I have the knowledge and where it was all found to come.

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Just a response both to the tax payers and the tax base, too.

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I'm going to enjoy my hobbies.

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I'm going to enjoy gardening and IPPs.

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I'm going to be deeper in that part.

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And I really do enjoy the town of Bray.

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I enjoy the people in the town of Bray.

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I don't work here specifically because my job fair has been different places,

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but my occupation here has been different places.

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But I do purchase a lot of your town.

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I know a lot of people in your town,

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and I really truly enjoy the people that live here.

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I think this is a wonderful community.

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I truly do.

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Especially my neighborhood.

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My neighborhood is fabulous.

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I've told more than one person if I could design that neighborhood

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and my choice, I wouldn't change it.

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And I kind of feel that way about the town of Bray.

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I think the town has a lot of things that could be improved,

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but I think basically it is a nice thing to have.

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Thank you.

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Tracy.

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I'm Tracy Shepple.

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I did serve about a year and a half of an unexplored term

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that Allison Libby resigned from when we first moved to Bray.

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John and I are married over 20 years.

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We have three grown children, one grandchild,

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one on the way, and a wedding happening at our house in, you know, in August.

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So it's a little busy for us,

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but we made a conscious decision to move to Bray.

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We always knew we wanted to come to New England

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and main beat in New Hampshire and Vermont

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because it's got more beach.

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And Bray was the place we chose

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because of the potential that the community has

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and its proximity to Portland and Lewiston

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and all the places we like to visit and play

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and things we like to do.

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So we've lived here seven years this month.

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Probably have had involvement up here

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for closer to 14 because my brother lived here

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before we moved here.

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And so we spent a good deal of our time visiting him

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and taking care of an investment property we had in Portland.

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And I'm not even going to try to explain why

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two weeks after we moved here,

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my brother just started to move back to New Jersey,

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and I have had a lifetime,

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and I won't call it political, but government involvement.

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I just have a passion for it.

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And from the time I was not even legal to vote,

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I was running municipal campaigns in the town

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that I grew up in because it's just been a passion of mine.

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My degree is in architectural and interior design,

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and I have a real estate broker's license in New Jersey.

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So when we came here,

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because of what my education

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and what we had done professionally in New Jersey,

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I always had kind of a penchant for

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economic and community development

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and have always volunteered from PTA

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on up to rent-leveling board,

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ordinance review committees, et cetera.

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So of course we get here,

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and I start looking into ways that I can get involved,

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and I decided to apply to be on

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as soon to be defunct as I learned

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the master plan committee because that project was done.

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Made the application to be on that,

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and then got a call from someone suggesting

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that I apply for Allison's

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unexpired seat for the next eight or nine months,

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which I laughed at because I'm from away,

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and John and I were hoping to be able

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to relaunch our architecture business up here.

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So after we had the conversation,

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and he said, do you have a snowballs chance?

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And he was getting appointed,

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but if you stand on camera

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and say shackled design three times, it's worth it.

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So I did that, and lo and behold,

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I was appointed, and then he ran

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for the last year of her term.

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My passions when I was on the council then,

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as they are now, were communication,

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transparency, and economic development.

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I did try desperately to launch

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an online newspaper to serve

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Gray and Mubasa,

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which was the GMGKZ.com,

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and that is why I did not run for the seat

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when it was up in 2000.

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And now that that has not been a very successful business venture, I'm back. And that's why I want to work for economic development

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and to continue a trend toward transparency and inclusion in our government.

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Thank you.

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So now we know a little bit about each of them. So now we're going to get into some of the committee

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and we'll start with Lou and others. What issues can we tell you to run for the council and where do you stand on those?

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Surprise.

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There's one I want to get to.

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Originally, when I ran in 2011, the original reason was because I thought although the town has a lot to offer

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and I still think it does, I really thought that the town was stuck in a rut.

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I think there's a lot of opportunities for the town to run up both economically for the town-wide citizens.

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But for some reason or other, we seem to be having a hard time actually doing this thing about it.

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And I said, well, I've got some ideas that are bad and don't know yet.

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But I have some ideas about economic development and a few other things.

239
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And I said, well, the way to get involved and get my ideas up in this way is to run for council.

240
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:44,000
I still feel very strongly about that.

241
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:48,000
I think the town of Gray has an awful lot to offer.

242
00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:52,000
I think the citizens of Gray have an awful lot to offer.

243
00:16:52,000 --> 00:17:02,000
But for some reason or other, we seem to struggle to make that offer and put that offer out there.

244
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:08,000
I think we have a perfect opportunity. I think we have a location.

245
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:18,000
We have a term plan kit. We have several assets that work in our FEMA to take advantage of economic development,

246
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:24,000
which not only brings business to the town that helps abroad and not tax-based,

247
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,000
but it also provides jobs and services.

248
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:32,000
And I've always been supportive of schools.

249
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I think that's one of one of the big, great assets the town of Gray has had.

250
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:44,000
And I would continue to support the school.

251
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:48,000
Jim, welcome. How did it run?

252
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:56,000
Well, the biggest thing that has been in the race is the 26-quarter study that we've just done.

253
00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:00,000
And some of the opportunities that are at Gray is faith-proof.

254
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:08,000
And I mean that there are opportunities, towns of the crossroads where if we decide to open a retail run through 26,

255
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:14,000
they want to come. So it's just a matter of whether we want to keep Gray a bedroom community

256
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,000
or whether we want to make it something else.

257
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:24,000
There's room in between, I think, to do something in the middle of that.

258
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:30,000
I am not against growth as a whole. I am not against taking the town of Gray

259
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:34,000
and taking the charm of it that brought me to Gray and throwing out the windows

260
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:38,000
and putting a bunch of Walmart targets or whatever else is coming in.

261
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:43,000
I am basically running to keep Gray a bedroom community.

262
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,000
I don't have a problem with businesses that want to come in.

263
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,000
We have bladed areas in town that we can definitely promote and increase

264
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:52,000
and get a development, an economic platform around it.

265
00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:56,000
I don't want to see the baby out in the bathwater just changing everything.

266
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:01,000
I didn't move to Gray to be in an area like that or I wouldn't move to one.

267
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,000
And that's essentially it.

268
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:04,000
Thank you.

269
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:05,000
Fran.

270
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:12,000
Yeah. I'm finding that Gray is under a lot of pressure right now to grow

271
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:17,000
and what I'd like to do is support a more conservative approach to grow.

272
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:22,000
We've been very fortunate in the past to have so many wonderful businesses

273
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:26,000
that came into our community, which includes business like,

274
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,000
and I always mention the Brown Brothers because they are originally

275
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:36,000
a resident who had built businesses up and supported a lot of people with jobs

276
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:42,000
and also had built infrastructure that any citizen of Gray should be proud of

277
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:44,000
and in the sense of being baddest about.

278
00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:52,000
We also have great moderns that offers everything for anybody, basically.

279
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:58,000
We have the China Village that just celebrated its 20 years doing business in our community.

280
00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:03,000
So these are some of the businesses that have grown.

281
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:08,000
We had Castleboro when I first moved here who was a big employer,

282
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,000
a large employer, I should say.

283
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:16,000
And they moved, however, other businesses came into their location.

284
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:22,000
So we've had this steady growth with population and with businesses.

285
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:31,000
I just think a few businesses, by the way, to give an idea of what we do really should be proud of in Gray.

286
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:38,000
I find that the citizens, another issue is the citizens have been very careful

287
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,000
with their properties and taken very good care of them.

288
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:45,000
So we don't have a great-lighted community at all.

289
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:51,000
We have some very conscientious citizens who respect their properties.

290
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:56,000
So I think that I'd like to continue with that kind of attitude in growth

291
00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:04,000
that it be steady and at this time also watching for our tax dollars.

292
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:06,000
That's the biggest plus, the most important issue.

293
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:12,000
Every year it goes up and we need to scrutinize our budget.

294
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:14,000
Thank you.

295
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,000
Chuck, what compelled you to run?

296
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:18,000
Were you staying on the issues?

297
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,000
As a lot of people know, I did run last year.

298
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,000
I ran against a very vulnerable boy.

299
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:27,000
I remember the customers at the time and he still lives with me.

300
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,000
That's a really good thing.

301
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:37,000
I don't bet that a lot, but that's the way it was.

302
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:46,000
I agree that Gray has to develop, but I think Gray has to develop at a reasonable rate.

303
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:49,000
I don't think we can change the town.

304
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,000
We are a better community.

305
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:56,000
We are essentially located between some really heavy-getters,

306
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:01,000
they cover in the Quarland, Williston, Summon, and Freeport Bay in that area.

307
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:07,000
We are a location where people want to live here to commute softly

308
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:10,000
or short trips to the work.

309
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,000
And I don't know if that's going to change.

310
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,000
The one thing that I think we do have, and I kind of researched,

311
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,000
I didn't do every town on the Turnpike bike.

312
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,000
The ones that I did do on the Turnpike bike,

313
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,000
you're the only one that you can drive off the Turnpike

314
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,000
and within just a few hundred yards, you're in town.

315
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,000
Everywhere else came on, you know, the South Quarland.

316
00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,000
A lot of the others, Quarland, you are nowhere near downtown,

317
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:35,000
so why don't you get off the Turnpike.

318
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:39,000
So I think there is a definite class there

319
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,000
that I think Gray has a huge advantage.

320
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,000
If we do some industrial areas or whatever,

321
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,000
I think it could be a huge advantage.

322
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:51,000
That's kind of what made me, and I had a lot of people tell me

323
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,000
after last year that the notion of trying to get them,

324
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,000
so I'm watering that.

325
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,000
And so I'm, thank you.

326
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:04,000
I guess the most important factor for me is

327
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,000
economic development and appropriate economic development.

328
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:10,000
Gray has a lot of irons in the fire right now

329
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,000
with the agritourism zone that was created up

330
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,000
on North Raven Road and whether it fails

331
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:21,000
or comes back to life, the Monument Square project in the village

332
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:25,000
and the possible rezoning of Route 26 North,

333
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:27,000
there's a lot of stuff going on.

334
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:32,000
And there's, in my opinion, there is a more logical approach

335
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,000
to trying to make the different decisions

336
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,000
that we're trying to make for these different areas in town.

337
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,000
And as Mr. Henneman said, the people that moved up there,

338
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,000
moved up there because it's the RRA

339
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,000
and they wanted a rural area,

340
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,000
we moved to the village because I have a vision problem

341
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,000
and I don't drive, and I walk everywhere.

342
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,000
And trying to put myself in their position,

343
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,000
if Pine Land came and said,

344
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,000
Gray, we're going to give you $100 million,

345
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,000
sell us your village, we want to turn it into a farm,

346
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,000
I wouldn't be very happy about that

347
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,000
because all the services that I could walk to would go away.

348
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,000
And, you know, that's why you have zoning.

349
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:11,000
And I think that building the economic base

350
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,000
so that we have the funds for the town

351
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,000
and the school system to grow is very important.

352
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,000
But I think doing it with forethought is something

353
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:23,000
that we just maybe haven't been the best at at this point.

354
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,000
And I have some ideas on how to better approach it

355
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,000
and that's really what's bringing me to the council.

356
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,000
One of the things that I hear from professionals

357
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:36,000
is we could zone the whole town for commercial.

358
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:38,000
If people and developers don't feel

359
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,000
that they're going to have a streamlined method

360
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,000
to get through the planning department,

361
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,000
they're not going to come here.

362
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,000
And right now, that, in my opinion, is a shortcoming.

363
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,000
I mean, if a developer who knows he can go to Wyndham

364
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,000
and in three months' time get approval for a project

365
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,000
and he knows it's going to take him six to nine years,

366
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,000
time is money, he's not coming here.

367
00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:59,000
So we need to work from inside

368
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,000
in addition to ordinance refissions and zoning.

369
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,000
Thank you, Casey.

370
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,000
So some of you talked to Jim,

371
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:08,000
I think he started the discussion off.

372
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,000
Let's go to that discussion.

373
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,000
Oh, Pete, I'm sorry.

374
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:18,000
Pete, why aren't you running for council?

375
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:23,000
I think, to be honest, my number one reason for running

376
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:28,000
is I'm just concerned with where potential taxes are headed.

377
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,000
We haven't, and I'm going to use round figures,

378
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,000
we have an 8% increase last year

379
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,000
according to the latest information I got,

380
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:40,000
even today, you know, we're headed to a 5% or 6%,

381
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:46,000
5% to 6% increase if the budget is approved in June.

382
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:53,000
And I'm just concerned, my pay hasn't come anywhere near.

383
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,000
Keeping up with that the past two or three years

384
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,000
and I doubt if any of yours has.

385
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,000
So that's my biggest concern,

386
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:05,000
not that I have a magic bullet to cure that.

387
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:11,000
But I'm concerned that it's getting out of hand.

388
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
I do think we have to use every trick in the book

389
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:21,000
to bring some economic development to gray.

390
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,000
Like Jim said, I don't want to have to deal with them at all.

391
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,000
But we have a lot of assets.

392
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,000
We have a gas, natural gas main on the eastern part of town.

393
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,000
There's land over there.

394
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:37,000
We could try to create some sort of a light industrial pack in that area,

395
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:41,000
make use of that natural gas to attract business.

396
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,000
I think we have a lot going for us.

397
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,000
We just need the kind of hardest to get the town together

398
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,000
and make it work.

399
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,000
Those are my two biggest reasons

400
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:56,000
to donate for running again for the town council.

401
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,000
So Jim started with his response

402
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,000
to the earliest question about the Route 26 corridor.

403
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,000
So we're going to give you all the opportunity to expand a little bit.

404
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,000
So we want you to state your position

405
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:12,000
and explain your reasons on your thoughts

406
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:16,000
on the rezoning of that 1.6 mile Route 26 corridor.

407
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,000
Okay.

408
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,000
The Route 26 corridor is going to be redone.

409
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:22,000
There's nothing we can do.

410
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,000
It's got to do with the roads a mess.

411
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:25,000
There's too much traffic.

412
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,000
You can't kick kids down the road on a bicycle or sidewalk.

413
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:29,000
Get them into school.

414
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,000
So we have to do something.

415
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,000
Absolutely agree with that.

416
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,000
What I don't agree with is making that the opportunity

417
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:40,000
to turn that into a completely different resident

418
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,000
or take the residential feel out of that area.

419
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:43,000
It's a nice area.

420
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:44,000
There's a lot of people who live there.

421
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,000
And once you turn it so you turn a retail application,

422
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,000
even partially down that road,

423
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,000
it changes that area forever.

424
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:53,000
You don't ever see it go back.

425
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,000
Last time you saw a Walmart getting knocked down in the houses.

426
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,000
Usually it turns into something that's just predicate

427
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,000
for walking doors through many malls

428
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,000
or strip malls or what have you.

429
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:08,000
I think responsible development on that road is needed.

430
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:12,000
The Flinttown Planner has done some great visionary work,

431
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,000
I think, to look at this from the ground up

432
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,000
to lay out different ideas for front roads

433
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,000
and things like that if we decide to go that way.

434
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,000
I'm not saying I'm closed off to it completely,

435
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:23,000
but I definitely want to be very selective

436
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,000
of what gets in that area.

437
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,000
In fact, I don't want it to lose its charm

438
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:28,000
of being a small town.

439
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,000
And that road is coming when we're the others,

440
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:31,000
so we do have to address that.

441
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,000
I think the town council has been seeing

442
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,000
that the rest of it has done a good job

443
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,000
looking at that so far.

444
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,000
And I just want to be part of it,

445
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,000
continue through next time.

446
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,000
Do you actually need a degree of policy

447
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,000
to change this equally?

448
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:46,000
Sure.

449
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:47,000
Yeah.

450
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,000
I think I've spoken publicly on this

451
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,000
and I still feel the same that,

452
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,000
I need to be here definitely.

453
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,000
I've also found that the state is better receptive

454
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,000
in doing pretty much what we would like to have done

455
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,000
in that area.

456
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,000
I originally thought that they would only work with us

457
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,000
if we did economic development.

458
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,000
And it appears that,

459
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,000
at least tomorrow night's the meeting,

460
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:16,000
we'll find out for sure,

461
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,000
but it appears that it doesn't necessarily

462
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,000
have to be developed.

463
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,000
We have to do a little planning, I would think.

464
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:31,000
But anyway, basically what I've said before,

465
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,000
development, I believe,

466
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:34,000
the roads are already there

467
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:38,000
for Route 100 North and South.

468
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000
That to me would be the natural transition,

469
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:42,000
but then again,

470
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,000
businesses are looking to go where they want to go.

471
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:50,000
And if some business buys up some land on Route 26,

472
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:54,000
and your incident is commercial,

473
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:55,000
some type of commercial,

474
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,000
then there's not much, you know,

475
00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:59,000
the best that this can do.

476
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:00,000
So...

477
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:06,000
So maybe they need to look forward, you know, that area needs to look at who, if they want

478
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:10,000
a protection for that area to zoning or anything along those lines. They should be meetings

479
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:14,000
and discussions regarding the future growth of Route 26.

480
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:20,000
They should involve most of the townspeople because they're the ones who are going to be impacted with traffic

481
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:26,000
or with jobs or any of those types of things. So it's important to communicate and discuss

482
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:33,000
what needs to be done. I don't have any answer for it because that, again, as I say,

483
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:38,000
it's a natural transition just as it has been right around the 12th, the time of break,

484
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:44,000
that actually has developed every 100 north and south.

485
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,000
Thank you. Chuck. Thank you.

486
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:53,000
I believe Route 26 development is, I think it falls a little bit short, actually,

487
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:57,000
because I've traveled that road for many, many years.

488
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:01,000
I lived over in Los Alamos for a long, long time.

489
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,000
And I think the problem actually starts at dry mills.

490
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:12,000
I think that to just look at that one area between Santa Cruz-Sos Beach

491
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:20,000
or Viapas and dry mills, I think that's great to improve that section of road,

492
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:24,000
but I think it's going to improve the section of road if only it gets you to a bottleneck

493
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:30,000
when you go up past dry mills through the lake area and move it beyond.

494
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:37,000
I just can't quite wrap my head around spending a ton of money to move the bottleneck

495
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,000
from one section of the town a little further up.

496
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,000
So far as the development of that, I can't say that it shouldn't be developed

497
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:49,000
because it's a huge traffic area and it would be a mistake not to take

498
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:56,000
some credence to that amount of traffic that goes through there.

499
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:01,000
I think there's something to be said about how many people actually want to stop there

500
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,000
or how many people just want to get skewed.

501
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:08,000
I guess I'm on the fence about how many people just want to travel through there

502
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:13,000
and get through dodge and do what they want to do or get skewed or whatever it is.

503
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:18,000
But I definitely think that area is definitely a hot area of town

504
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:22,000
and I think it needs some cautious development.

505
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,000
I think it should be very cautious.

506
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:32,000
And I also would like to say, except for your input,

507
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,000
and I mean I've got a lot of calls meetings all the time

508
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,000
and just a few people there.

509
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,000
There might be thousands of people watching,

510
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:42,000
but I think there should be a lot more people actually speaking up

511
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,000
as to what they want.

512
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,000
This is a town of people of gray

513
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,000
and I think that people should be more informed

514
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,000
and be able to decide how that should be done.

515
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,000
Thank you.

516
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:54,000
Casey?

517
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,000
No, just kidding.

518
00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:02,000
My jury is still kind of out on the rezoning of that question under the 26th.

519
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,000
I have a lot of questions in my mind.

520
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000
First and foremost, I am absolutely in favor of the corridor study

521
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:13,000
and in favor of making sure that when the DOT makes the improvements

522
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,000
that we inevitably do because it's the only piece of 26

523
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,000
that hasn't been improved, that they'll take into account

524
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,000
what the citizens of gray want.

525
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:25,000
And what was unequivocally clear to me at the first of those

526
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,000
community forums was that the public wants the gesturing way,

527
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:34,000
maybe some guide paths, they want the kids to be able to get to school safely, et cetera.

528
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,000
That being said, as far as the future development,

529
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,000
I don't think anybody in the town has indicated,

530
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:46,000
or heard, a vision for what they want to draw there.

531
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,000
We have plans that show everything from light industry

532
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:53,000
to medical professionals to restaurants to hotels.

533
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,000
And I think you need to know what your market is

534
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:00,000
and if your market is tourist, they're not going to stop to get their teeth cleaned.

535
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,000
And they may want to stop to have a meal.

536
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:09,000
So tell her down to what exactly the market for that traffic corridor is.

537
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:14,000
And in my true opinion, without having someone sway me,

538
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,000
the people that came and put in that really lovely bypass

539
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,000
so that people that wanted to get from point A to point B

540
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,000
could bypass the village, keep the trucks out of the village,

541
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,000
keep the traffic down in the village.

542
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,000
And now what you're going to do is when they take that bypass,

543
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:33,000
create what could be another bottleneck that slows everybody down.

544
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,000
So they're still not getting through town.

545
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,000
And it's a catch-22.

546
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,000
We want them to come to town and spend money.

547
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,000
But if they're not going to stop in town,

548
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,000
we don't want them fluttering in town while they're trying to make their way through.

549
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:49,000
So like I said, I'm curious to see what the latest maconation is tomorrow night.

550
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:53,000
But my big passion where that's concerned is to see that

551
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,000
whatever the DOT does has...

552
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,000
pays close attention to what the citizens of Grey want,

553
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,000
which at this point seems like pedestrian ways

554
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,000
and safe passage for people on feet and mics.

555
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:10,000
Which is 8.26.

556
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:15,000
Tracy is correct that that is the last un-improves route 26

557
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,000
between Handels and Norway.

558
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,000
It's a matter of time, fairly short time,

559
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,000
and all probability before the DOT rebuilds that.

560
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,000
I think the council and the town as a whole

561
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,000
have done the proper thing in trying to team up with the DOT

562
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:37,000
and make plans for when the day comes that that is rebuilt.

563
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,000
From what I've seen of the various plans that have been floated out,

564
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:49,000
it will not look like North Windham should it be developed.

565
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,000
But business will determine where they want to go.

566
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,000
We won't do that for the most part.

567
00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:00,000
We can offer incentives, tips, things of that nature.

568
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,000
But they'll decide where they want to go.

569
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:08,000
And obviously the big attraction there is the 16,000 to 17,000 cars per day.

570
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:13,000
I do think there are other places in town

571
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,000
that could be stronger candidates for various reasons,

572
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,000
natural gas being one very strong one.

573
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:25,000
But I think my general comment is the town has so far done

574
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:29,000
a cautious, thorough approach

575
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:35,000
to looking at the 26th corridor from a development point of view.

576
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,000
Thank you.

577
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:41,000
Thank you.

578
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:48,000
Of course, this is a subject I've been involved in since its conception.

579
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,000
And first of all, in front of where I was paying attention,

580
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:56,000
I think it's been, I don't think there's any question of the fact that

581
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:03,000
what has been done so far has been taken the path of well thought out

582
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,000
and well planned development.

583
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:12,000
We said right from the beginning that there would be no zoning changes

584
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:20,000
until all new zoning language and design standards were in place

585
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,000
so that we would be 100% prepared.

586
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:28,000
And this is an opportunity basically the state invited us to the table

587
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:32,000
which every town gets the opportunity to sit at the table

588
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,000
because doing a corridor study they said,

589
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:39,000
well, what are your plans for the land along that corridor

590
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:44,000
because that is going to have an effect on their corridor study.

591
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:51,000
And so we said well, this is an opportunity for us to pass on.

592
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:54,000
Now, tomorrow night hopefully there's going to be some more information

593
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:59,000
released about, especially about the dry mills area, the innocent area,

594
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:01,000
the traffic problems.

595
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,000
Phil and Councilor Matt Gaudy has mentioned on many occasions

596
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:08,000
that the traffic is a very important part of the corridor study

597
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,000
which is true.

598
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,000
But these are all, we're trying to deal with all of these.

599
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:19,000
And right now this is just a plain, this is a conception

600
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,000
of what could happen, but why wouldn't they take the opportunity

601
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:27,000
to at least look at the possibility of commercial development up there.

602
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,000
Because I, number one, I think the town needs to think,

603
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,000
number one, the plan you're using doesn't seem to be working

604
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:38,000
and my tax bill says it is not working as good as we hoped it would

605
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,000
but we should be willing to diversify

606
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:43,000
and it's great if Route 26 is the hot area

607
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,000
and why don't they take advantage of that.

608
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,000
And maybe two years from now, five years and now the village

609
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:53,000
on Route 100 or 202 someplace else will be the popular area.

610
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:58,000
And I heard you mention the other day that we shouldn't, you know,

611
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:03,000
we shouldn't do these things

612
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,000
because of something they have on the town of Gray

613
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,000
and they were really too good for this one.

614
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,000
Okay, thank you.

615
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,000
Okay, we're going to switch gears just a little bit

616
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:27,000
from solving economic development to a little budget talk.

617
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:28,000
I'm going to start with you.

618
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:29,000
Oh, okay.

619
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,000
Are you ready?

620
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:31,000
Yeah, I am.

621
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,000
Capital funding is always limited.

622
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,000
Do you have any, what are your priorities

623
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,000
for capital projects for the town of Gray?

624
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:49,000
We seem to be, you know, the major road construction

625
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,000
that we've had going on.

626
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,000
The fact that we had to bow for that is something

627
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,000
that is bothersome.

628
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,000
That should have been something that would have been

629
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,000
taken out of our regular operating budget.

630
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:06,000
And that, because of that and the other funding issues

631
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:10,000
that we have taken over in the last three years,

632
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,000
I think limits the amount of tax files available

633
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:18,000
to other types of capital improvements.

634
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:24,000
We have the public safety garage area,

635
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:29,000
evidently, it needs some work, serious work to it

636
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,000
and it should be studied.

637
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,000
We should start funding for something like that.

638
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,000
Or other kinds of buildings that need,

639
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,000
in the future, some repairs.

640
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:41,000
So I think we take away from major,

641
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:45,000
necessary capital improvements in buildings and in roads

642
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:49,000
and, you know, end up using the funds elsewhere.

643
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:54,000
So I think that that's a serious situation.

644
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,000
One of the things that happened was we thought

645
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,000
that we needed to improve the village.

646
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,000
We went ahead and took some funding for that

647
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:07,000
to grant as well as taxpayer dollars.

648
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:14,000
And that money now, you know, has been used

649
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:18,000
and we haven't accomplished what we set out to do.

650
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:22,000
So I guess we have to stop and think about these projects

651
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:26,000
that we have.

652
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:33,000
And we need to do a better handle of using our funds

653
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,000
for the things that are necessary for improvement.

654
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:42,000
Charles, capital funding limitations and priorities.

655
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,000
I think one of the priorities we have to be,

656
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,000
we have, it's actually what we do with schools.

657
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:53,000
I think we have a lot of school buildings that are coming up on stage.

658
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,000
I don't know if we have capital improvements on the school budget

659
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,000
but it's still self-paced from the taxpayers' questions.

660
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,000
I think that's one of the major things

661
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,000
that really should be watching out for,

662
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,000
that I think the education is the only thing

663
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,000
to sort of keep bringing new people and new people

664
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,000
that want to have good education for children

665
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,000
in the town, right?

666
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:18,000
The other thing I think there are some things

667
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,000
in town that definitely need to be done.

668
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:28,000
But I really think that if there's anything we can put out

669
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:32,000
until we can get the capital improvement process

670
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:35,000
to build up a little bit more, I think we should.

671
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:39,000
I think we should wait on things that are absolutely pressing,

672
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,000
let the things go a little bit more

673
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,000
way down to no capital reserves, basically.

674
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:49,000
And I think that's a very dangerous position.

675
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,000
My issue is not so much what should be done,

676
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,000
what capital improvements we should make or not make.

677
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,000
I think that's for council staff

678
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,000
and particularly department heads

679
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,000
to bring to council for recommendation.

680
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,000
But what I think the council needs to do

681
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:09,000
is to find a way to ensure that future councils

682
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,000
don't dip into the CIP

683
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:16,000
or at least dip into what was supposed to go into the CIP

684
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,000
for future repairs.

685
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,000
And that's happened historically,

686
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,000
and I'm sad to say it happened when I was on the council

687
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,000
and it's happened since I've been off the council.

688
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:30,000
And in an effort to keep the tax rate as flat as possible

689
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,000
or make up for whatever the increase in the school budget

690
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:36,000
is going to be in its best efforts,

691
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,000
council continually tries to juggle money

692
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,000
and it always seems that the CIP

693
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,000
is the thing that loses out.

694
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,000
And it's my understanding.

695
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,000
The talk of fiscal policy

696
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:52,000
and a potential charter revision that addresses that

697
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:54,000
because technically,

698
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,000
and this is one of the things I learned

699
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:57,000
from the council last time,

700
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,000
is one council cannot make a decision

701
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:01,000
that holds another future council to it.

702
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,000
But if it's a policy or an ordinance or a law,

703
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,000
it can.

704
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,000
And I think that the department heads know

705
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,000
they're not on a budget,

706
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,000
I'm going to need a dump truck in three years,

707
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,000
I'm going to need a fire truck in five years

708
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,000
to tell the council what they need

709
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:17,000
and how they're planning for it.

710
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:18,000
But it's the council's job

711
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,000
to make sure the money gets put into the account

712
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:22,000
so when those things come due, it's there.

713
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,000
And I think that's the biggest issue,

714
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,000
not what needs to be done or what doesn't

715
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,000
but how to ensure that

716
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:31,000
for going forward forever

717
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,000
that that account always stays funded appropriately.

718
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,000
I'm probably going to go against everybody else in the room

719
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:43,000
but I was on the council

720
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,000
when we acknowledged

721
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:49,000
our first lease purchase of dump trucks

722
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:53,000
and it's a way to keep

723
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:55,000
annual costs down

724
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:59,000
and spread out over a longer period of time.

725
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:00,000
The dump trucks

726
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:09,000
If you see Steve LaValley running over the road today, fully equipped are probably $100,000 at least.

727
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:19,000
The ladder truck that I heard is getting close to replacement for the fire department I believe is over $1 million to replace.

728
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:27,000
I don't think personally, and I'm a very conservative person financially, but I don't think you have a choice.

729
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:36,000
I think you're going to have to borrow in order to keep the annual, whether it's CIP or equipment though, whatever you want to call it,

730
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:49,000
to keep the annual cost within reason or the tax rates are going to go out of sight on certain years where the $1 million ladder truck is bought for the fire department.

731
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:53,000
I think you've got to have a way to even out it.

732
00:45:53,000 --> 00:46:02,000
The other thing right now, interest rates are very low and I'm paying a great deal of interest expense to borrow money.

733
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:08,000
It is an opportunity to make at least make use of that situation for the future.

734
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:27,000
Basically, I agree with what Pete said and the council adopted the plan to go to a lease program for the vehicles.

735
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:39,000
And as it turned out, it cost us about half per year that it was costing us to put into the long term CIP plan every year.

736
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:44,000
But what that does is that frees up somebody to go into other areas of the CIP.

737
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:51,000
Now, I think anybody would tell me that a long term CIP plan doesn't be shaped as not telling you the truth because it's not.

738
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:55,000
And we have some serious issues that we're trying to deal with.

739
00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:00,000
Personally, I think the current council did pull it off.

740
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:10,000
I thought it was a really spot move by pulling it back to a more like a five year plan as opposed to a 20 year plan because it makes it a little bit more manageable.

741
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:18,000
And I think it was Tracy, as someone mentioned, because things do happen and that's easy money to grab.

742
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:28,000
And I don't know how many of you remember, it wasn't too often, many years ago when we had the floods, roads were washed out, culverts were washed out, you know, just millions of dollars worth of damage.

743
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,000
And that's where they got the money to fix that.

744
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:39,000
And the other capital reserve funds that we've had over the years were spent on paying our tax rate now so we don't have taxes.

745
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:44,000
So everybody said, well, taxes are going to realistically low to our surrounding areas.

746
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:52,000
Well, if not for reasons like that, I think it would be in excess of $20,000 now.

747
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:56,000
Okay, but at some point we need to pay the price of that.

748
00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:03,000
Now, what the exact plan is to best accommodate the long-term CI plan?

749
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:10,000
I don't know, I think that something is still working on and hopefully the finance committee is working on that.

750
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:13,000
But there are certain things that have to be funded.

751
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:20,000
I think another issue that we need to deal with is we need to stop patching our roads and stop fixing them.

752
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:24,000
Jim, capital funding limitations and priorities.

753
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:35,000
Okay, before I worked in the forklift sales when I was, I spent seven years doing heavy-duty trucks for municipal trucks, including NDOT and the Turnpike Authority, and I also did fire engines.

754
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:44,000
The municipal lease package that you folks have come up with is actually a very effective way of doing things the council has now.

755
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:52,000
The one thing I disagree with is, and you were stopped, because they were stopped, the town council was stopped for what we had,

756
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:56,000
but you need to do this stuff when they come due.

757
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,000
You can't have five trucks come in at the same time.

758
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,000
We have five dump trucks that we picked up the plows on in the town of Gray.

759
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:06,000
And if you try to do a budget for that, it's almost impossible, because trucks have life cycles.

760
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:08,000
First year, you get them, there's nothing.

761
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,000
Year two, a couple of things to do on by year three, you put tires on them, and then you start doing overhauls,

762
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:15,000
and you start doing this, and then the chains on the sanders and all that stuff.

763
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:17,000
So you start doing this.

764
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,000
Well, if you've got a whole series of trucks, they all come somewhere in the valleys,

765
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:26,000
and you have a budget line across them, and you can have a lump sum of half a million dollars, whatever the number might be for making some of the trucks.

766
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:30,000
When they're doing this, you go from nothing to 700, you're all over the ban.

767
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:36,000
So the ideal way of doing it, to minimize your cost, would be to have one a year, or one every two years,

768
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,000
or whatever you're going to do to minimize the two, to get this together.

769
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,000
In a perfect world, that's great.

770
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,000
You know, the valley had no choice.

771
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,000
The trucks were falling apart around it.

772
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:46,000
He had no life.

773
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:49,000
He had to do something, and that's what we did, and I'm not saying it was a bad move,

774
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:51,000
but the fire engine's the same thing.

775
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,000
Land life cycles, no one to come and do it.

776
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,000
If the department has, they should know when they're coming.

777
00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:01,000
The town council's job is to have plan for it, so that we know there's something coming.

778
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,000
If you have a stretcher next year, once in a while, that's one thing, but you can't put them off.

779
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,000
And look, the thing is just rust to the ground.

780
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:08,000
That's when you start getting into trouble.

781
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:12,000
And the long you leave things before you address them, same with the roads.

782
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:13,000
Patch them again.

783
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,000
You patch and patch and patch them.

784
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:18,000
Next thing you know, you've got $10 million bill because everything else is telephone and anything.

785
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,000
You need to take the stuff by the horns and go over it,

786
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,000
and get creative and looking for funding.

787
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:26,000
Jim, thank you.

788
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,000
Chuck, we're studying with this one with you.

789
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:34,000
What are your feelings about a town meeting like we used to have?

790
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,000
I'm glad you asked that.

791
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,000
I didn't ask you. Someone else did.

792
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,000
I'm glad they asked me that.

793
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,000
I do talk to a lot of people that say they really miss the town.

794
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:52,000
And one of my strongest concerns is that I really think if we could get a higher population

795
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:58,000
of the town to come out to the council meetings and make it easier or more comfortable

796
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:03,000
or whatever it takes for people to come out there and speak their mind

797
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:06,000
and get a lot of these ideas rolling around and asking about that.

798
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,000
I think that's what people miss.

799
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,000
And I think people are reluctant to come to the town meeting

800
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,000
because it's only their television.

801
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:13,000
I mean, it's plain and simple.

802
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:16,000
And when I started school, it wasn't easy.

803
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:18,000
It wasn't easy. It still isn't.

804
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:24,000
But so I think the town meeting, I don't know that the town meeting format

805
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,000
will never be anything we'll ever go back to completely.

806
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:33,000
But I think the idea of being able to be in with a larger group of people,

807
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,000
speak to your mind freely, listen to your neighbor,

808
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:38,000
listen to everybody else's opinions,

809
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,000
and whatever could be the changing mind or just your attitude.

810
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,000
And I don't think you'd go in with that.

811
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:49,000
I feel that possibly we could definitely benefit

812
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:53,000
by having more people attend a lot of these different meetings.

813
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,000
Thank you.

814
00:51:55,000 --> 00:52:01,000
When we first moved here, we were still doing the bifurcated town meeting.

815
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,000
And basically what that means is there was an open floor town meeting

816
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,000
and the public could do exactly what Mr. Tang Wei described,

817
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:10,000
discuss each individual item, throw their two cents in,

818
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:13,000
reduce amounts, blah, blah, blah, blah.

819
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:18,000
And then a month later in June, all of those questions would go to the polls

820
00:52:18,000 --> 00:52:22,000
and people could go and vote on them essentially a second time.

821
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,000
And I think, I don't know the history of how that happened here

822
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:28,000
because I know other towns just have an annual meeting

823
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,000
and they don't have the second vote.

824
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:38,000
But I think it created a lapse in why would I come and sit for four hours

825
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:42,000
and debate with you over these items when I can go vote yes or no in June.

826
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:47,000
So I think that that may have hurt the attendance at the open floor meeting

827
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:50,000
and it was decided, I guess, when I was on the council

828
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:56,000
to take the bifurcated meeting and eliminate the open floor portion

829
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,000
so that people could come at full.

830
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:03,000
And hindsight being 2020 and not being very well-versed

831
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:06,000
because we had nothing like that in New Jersey.

832
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,000
I kind of missed the town meeting,

833
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:11,000
but I think in order for a town meeting to be successful

834
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,000
the bifurcated part of it should go away

835
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,000
and maybe the referendum portion goes away

836
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:21,000
so people put their stock into making the time to come to the open floor meeting.

837
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,000
I know it was a great challenge for me.

838
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:26,000
The first one we had after I was on the council

839
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,000
I got together with the rec department

840
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:30,000
and we had babysitting available

841
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,000
and we had a barbecue and 286 people showed up

842
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,000
and it was the demographic.

843
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:39,000
It was the 30-somethings who can't leave their three kids at home

844
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,000
every day for the five hours.

845
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:43,000
Excuse me.

846
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,000
The following year we didn't have a straight attendance

847
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,000
but we did attempt to do the babysitting thing

848
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:50,000
and welcome families because that's what you need to do

849
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,000
because the town is filled with families.

850
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:56,000
But again, I think that if we were going to go back to an open floor town meeting

851
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,000
we should take the referendum out of it

852
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:02,000
because I think it waters down the importance of the open floor meeting.

853
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:08,000
Well, I was on the council that voted to do away

854
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:13,000
with the open floor town meeting.

855
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:16,000
I voted for that to do away with it

856
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,000
for a couple of reasons.

857
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,000
One, poor attendance.

858
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:22,000
And it wasn't just gray, it was poor attendance.

859
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:24,000
Winden was worse than gray,

860
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,000
the particular year that I was involved.

861
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:30,000
I was concerned and I still am concerned

862
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:34,000
about a vocal minority controlling things in town

863
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:37,000
by attending the town meeting.

864
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:41,000
I was in favor of the vote,

865
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:43,000
the referendum vote that I would call it

866
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:46,000
because I knew more people would participate

867
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,000
and I thought it would be a broader view

868
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:54,000
of the various issues in front of the voters.

869
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,000
I still feel that way.

870
00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:00,000
I haven't seen a landslide,

871
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,000
a landsaw swell of people interested

872
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:05,000
in what's going on in the town government

873
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:07,000
where I could see that, see that change,

874
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,000
then I would feel differently.

875
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,000
But that's why I voted the way I did.

876
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,000
I still feel that way.

877
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,000
Could my mind be changed?

878
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:16,000
It could.

879
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,000
If I felt as though things were changing

880
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:20,000
and more people wanted to attend.

881
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:23,000
I was very concerned that a small group

882
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:26,000
would control over the destiny of the town.

883
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:28,000
Thank you very much.

884
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:29,000
Did it?

885
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,000
I personally was funny when I asked that question

886
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:34,000
because I was talking more white just the other day

887
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,000
instead of I could do two things in gray

888
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:38,000
if I had the power to do them.

889
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:42,000
One of them would be to bring back the open town meeting.

890
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:47,000
And I still, and I honestly believe that

891
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:49,000
and I don't disagree.

892
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,000
Number one, I don't have a problem with having

893
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,000
the town meeting and the referendum vote.

894
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,000
Number one, if you have the town meeting

895
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:57,000
that gives you one more opportunity

896
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,000
to have the face-to-face,

897
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,000
come face-to-face with the citizens

898
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,000
and hear what they have to say.

899
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,000
And it also gives you an opportunity

900
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,000
to change the numbers.

901
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:10,000
Okay, I've seen that happen before.

902
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:12,000
You know, they may not necessarily take a particularly

903
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,000
and throw it out, but they may,

904
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:17,000
the discussion may lead to a lowering

905
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:23,000
of a particular article that's going out to vote.

906
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,000
Now, personally I think if the people,

907
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:28,000
the people that won't show up

908
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,000
and the people that should make the decisions,

909
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:32,000
it's as simple as that.

910
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,000
Great, a lot of people showed up

911
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:36,000
to the last couple of town meetings

912
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:38,000
and I understand why that caused a concern.

913
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:40,000
But what are you going to do if 50 people

914
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:44,000
show up and vote and you're going to do away with that too?

915
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:47,000
You know, I think you really need to think

916
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:49,000
that any opportunity you have to deal

917
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:51,000
face-to-face with the public, I think,

918
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:54,000
is an opportunity you can't pass up.

919
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,000
And, you know, maybe with

920
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,000
a little bit more enthusiasm

921
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:01,000
and maybe even a little bit more,

922
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:04,000
I think government should lead by example.

923
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,000
And I think it's done and done correctly

924
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:09,000
that more and more people can

925
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,000
and will get involved.

926
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:13,000
There's some serious issues in this town

927
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:15,000
that need to be dealt with.

928
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:17,000
There's a lot of great things happening in town,

929
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:19,000
but there's still some serious

930
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:21,000
that need to be dealt with

931
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:23,000
and I think the people are really...

932
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:26,000
Jim, your stance on how many of the way you used to be.

933
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:28,000
I would be willing to look at those meetings.

934
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,000
There are some questions I'd have

935
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:32,000
with the fact that if you get up 25 or 30 people

936
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:34,000
making a lot of decisions under the fees

937
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:36,000
of 100 people, whatever they come to

938
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:38,000
with a count of 7,000

939
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,000
that can change everything from the tax rate

940
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:45,000
to what we're doing with anything in town.

941
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:48,000
It is the way towns like ours work.

942
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:51,000
I'm wishing to wash my hands.

943
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:53,000
I'd be almost seen away.

944
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:55,000
Thank you.

945
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,000
Ryan, how mean.

946
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:00,000
Yeah, I'm totally in favor.

947
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,000
I always have been up to town

948
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:04,000
meaning whether it is 50 people

949
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:06,000
or 500 people.

950
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:09,000
We've had some very exciting town meetings in the past

951
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:11,000
when an issue is controversial.

952
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:13,000
People do come out.

953
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:15,000
It's been historic.

954
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:17,000
They get an opportunity to speak

955
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:19,000
on both sides of the issue.

956
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:21,000
I think it's a great opportunity for community.

957
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,000
When we eliminated the town meeting,

958
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:25,000
we got a total disconnect between

959
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:28,000
the government and this becomes

960
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:30,000
very difficult now for the citizens

961
00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:33,000
to be able to get their views.

962
00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:36,000
Mainly, you know, people say

963
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:38,000
well, they could come to a town council meeting.

964
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:41,000
They're quite the same when

965
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:44,000
because they don't get to vote at a town council meeting.

966
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:46,000
They can vote at a town meeting.

967
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,000
That's what we should have.

968
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:50,000
I would work if I was selected

969
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:53,000
diligently to get that format back

970
00:58:53,000 --> 00:58:55,000
to get back out again.

971
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,000
And to say that,

972
00:58:57,000 --> 00:58:59,000
I did speak with some just recently

973
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:01,000
in their 40s

974
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:04,000
who was giving me some reasons

975
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:07,000
why that age rule price is very difficult

976
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:09,000
to attend meetings.

977
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,000
Basically because the business schedules and all,

978
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:14,000
they believe that government needs to have

979
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:16,000
a different format and reach it out

980
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,000
and get information to the public.

981
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:20,000
I totally agree with that.

982
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:22,000
That's where the information gets to the public,

983
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:24,000
to, we could even do

984
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:26,000
Facebook, I think,

985
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:28,000
or whatever those things are.

986
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,000
Even my old posting group

987
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:32,000
have all these connections

988
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:34,000
that you can communicate.

989
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:36,000
But in government,

990
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:38,000
we just seem to have

991
00:59:38,000 --> 00:59:40,000
information coming out in one venue,

992
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:42,000
which is the, you know,

993
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:44,000
internet, and then there's

994
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,000
no back and forth communication.

995
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:48,000
So that's where we need to

996
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:50,000
take it to that other part

997
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:52,000
and have the back and forth conversation.

998
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,000
And at that point,

999
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:56,000
citizens would probably

1000
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:58,000
have the information on these things

1001
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:00,000
and then be able to come to the meeting

1002
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,000
and get those.

1003
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:29,000
Okay. Taking off from community town meetings, let's talk about how do you increase, oh, Chuck,

1004
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:32,000
I think it's a tummy.

1005
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:42,000
Are you watching?

1006
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:44,000
Tracy, are you ready?

1007
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,000
Yes, I think so.

1008
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:55,000
Watching me down to increase volunteerism, public service, communications between town and the residents.

1009
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:57,000
Okay.

1010
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:04,000
Thanks. I think that we have a really good level of volunteerism in this town.

1011
01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:11,000
I think that there could be a little bit more consideration and respect of certain volunteers.

1012
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:19,000
Everybody can work on something that's popular across the board and sometimes volunteers get a bum rap.

1013
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:29,000
I don't think this is only in gray, but a lot of times, you know, we tend to study things to death and we charge committees with, do this,

1014
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:35,000
Village Master Plan or do this, and they work really diligently and then they bring it back to the council

1015
01:01:35,000 --> 01:01:39,000
and either the council that's sitting is different and it's not their priority anymore

1016
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:43,000
and there's some reason why this is great work and we'll get to it someday and it gets put on the shelf

1017
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:48,000
and I think that that has a chilling effect on how people choose to spend their time

1018
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:56,000
because time is really valuable and if somebody is going to devote a night a month and sometimes more to a committee

1019
01:01:56,000 --> 01:02:00,000
and work on a project for eight months and then they're going to find out that after all the hard work

1020
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:05,000
nothing is going to go further with it, why wouldn't they put their efforts into coaching a little team

1021
01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:08,000
where they might see a victory or something.

1022
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:16,000
So I think that there needs to be a better connection and that the council and council staff need to more embrace the people

1023
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:19,000
that are volunteers that they charge to do things with.

1024
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:23,000
What was that? Communication? That was the other one.

1025
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:28,000
And I think that the website and the monthly newsletter that's been initiated is a really great help

1026
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:33,000
but there is also a population out there that just simply doesn't want to be online

1027
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:38,000
and doesn't want to get their information that way

1028
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:43,000
and I'm not a fan of spending cash dollars to put things in the mail

1029
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:48,000
so maybe it's a matter of putting some things on paper and having them at the library

1030
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:53,000
and places where people go so the people that may be intimidated by this internet

1031
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:56,000
can pick up a piece of paper and read what's going on

1032
01:02:56,000 --> 01:03:00,000
because some people just don't want the e-mail that most of us sign up for

1033
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:04,000
but I think getting back to the volunteers, that is the most important thing

1034
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,000
is to make them feel appreciated and respect them.

1035
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:16,000
One of the things that I'm personally most proud of from my previous service

1036
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:23,000
on the town council is the two electronic signs that are located at that panel on the fire station.

1037
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:29,000
I advocated heavily at the time to put those into the budget

1038
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:35,000
because I wanted to try to improve communications between the town and its citizens.

1039
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:39,000
Do I think they have been used at their optimum? No, I don't

1040
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:46,000
and I've criticized the town managers a few times for trying the need to do more with them.

1041
01:03:46,000 --> 01:03:52,000
As far as volunteerism, I don't have an easy solution.

1042
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:58,000
I think you either want to volunteer to help your town or you don't.

1043
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:01,000
I can tell you one of the people sitting in this room tonight

1044
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,000
that I'm probably the most proud of is Matt Deli.

1045
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:08,000
He's a young guy who has three young children

1046
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:13,000
and yet he's here tonight taking in the debate

1047
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:19,000
and I think it's either within you to make the effort

1048
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:23,000
to find the time or not.

1049
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:28,000
And those are the people that find the time and want to volunteer are here

1050
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:31,000
in various committees throughout the town.

1051
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:35,000
There's no magic cure in my opinion.

1052
01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:37,000
Everybody's lives are very busy.

1053
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:40,000
So is mine. I live way on the west side of the town.

1054
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:44,000
It takes me 20, 25 minutes just to get here.

1055
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:49,000
So you've either got to want to do it or you don't.

1056
01:04:52,000 --> 01:05:00,000
One thing that the current council, I should make it a conscious effort to do

1057
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:03,000
in the last all three years I've been there anyway

1058
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:11,000
and I'll have to give the large amount of the credit to Richard Nodder

1059
01:05:11,000 --> 01:05:18,000
to see that the committee volunteer committees are more filled

1060
01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:21,000
and I can't remember the exact numbers right now

1061
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:27,000
but I know the numbers of the committees, the vacant seats in the committees

1062
01:05:27,000 --> 01:05:29,000
a lot of them were filled.

1063
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:32,000
We had some really good people that had to leave

1064
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:36,000
because of business and family issues were just tough.

1065
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:41,000
One of the, I mean, I'm basically sent to retire

1066
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:43,000
so I have the time to do this.

1067
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:47,000
I agree with Peter how a person who holds a full-time job would do this job.

1068
01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:50,000
I don't know. I don't know how we do it.

1069
01:05:50,000 --> 01:05:57,000
So it does take a lot, it asks a lot of the committees that you volunteer.

1070
01:05:57,000 --> 01:06:03,000
And I think a big part of the council's job is to give clear and direct

1071
01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:08,000
guidance to their committees and their boards as to what they want.

1072
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,000
Now they may not always agree with them.

1073
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:14,000
They may not always accept their recommendations.

1074
01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:19,000
That's just part of the, again, the council may charge to do certain things.

1075
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:23,000
But I do think it's very important to give direction

1076
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:28,000
as to the things that they want some of these committees to work on

1077
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:33,000
and there's always specific projects that the council's trying to get information on

1078
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:36,000
to ask these people to do.

1079
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:38,000
Ken?

1080
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:42,000
Yeah, I do a lot of volunteer work and I'm also in charge of a lot of volunteers

1081
01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:45,000
getting people into some of the things that I do.

1082
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:47,000
I'm part of the booster club in town.

1083
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:51,000
It was going to put the burgers in a snack shack behind the high school

1084
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:53,000
couple nights a week there in the fall.

1085
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:58,000
It's more along the lines of asking people to do it,

1086
01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:01,000
appreciate them, don't criticize them,

1087
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:04,000
and then allow them to do what they're asked to do.

1088
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:06,000
If you sit there and micromanage them nobody wants to do it.

1089
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:07,000
It's not fun anymore.

1090
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:10,000
Give them some, give them a task, let them go with it and run with it.

1091
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:12,000
I'm vice president of the main shrine obstacle.

1092
01:07:12,000 --> 01:07:15,000
I've got field operations in my job.

1093
01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:19,000
I've got 150 volunteers that I have to get into place to do everything

1094
01:07:19,000 --> 01:07:24,000
from ticket sales to vending to clean up and all the other stuff that goes on.

1095
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:26,000
You need to find them, ask them if they'll help,

1096
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:29,000
and once they've asked you, give them the task, let them do it.

1097
01:07:29,000 --> 01:07:30,000
Don't sit there and tell them,

1098
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:32,000
I didn't like the way you stacked those chairs.

1099
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:33,000
Let them do it.

1100
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:35,000
If it's something that's bigger than the person,

1101
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:38,000
you get someone else to help them or pay someone to do the job.

1102
01:07:38,000 --> 01:07:40,000
If it's a volunteer you treat them as a volunteer,

1103
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:41,000
they're helping you.

1104
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:44,000
If they're not helping you find somebody you need to readdress for

1105
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:47,000
whether it's a volunteer position or should you pay for it.

1106
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:56,000
Yeah, I think back to when I sat on many of the committees

1107
01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:58,000
and organizations that I belong to in town,

1108
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:00,000
and there were quite a few.

1109
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:04,000
The way I got involved was people asked me.

1110
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:06,000
They asked me to join, be part of the group.

1111
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:09,000
If there was something of interest to me, then I would.

1112
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:15,000
I was working, I had a family, but once in a while I was able to take the time

1113
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:19,000
to find something that was of interest to me.

1114
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:22,000
We also, pretty much as committee members,

1115
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:28,000
were able to discuss the pros and cons of the issues that we had in front of us

1116
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:30,000
and come to a conclusion.

1117
01:08:30,000 --> 01:08:34,000
Sometimes we even had a minor report to go on with the majority report.

1118
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:42,000
They were very interesting and educational experiences that I feel that we had in the past.

1119
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:45,000
I'm not sure what the direction is today.

1120
01:08:45,000 --> 01:08:53,000
We didn't really receive any direction from the government, from the council as such

1121
01:08:53,000 --> 01:08:58,000
that they just stated they needed, they had a need and then we citizens came forward

1122
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:02,000
and tried to fill that need.

1123
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:07,000
I'm not sure today that that's very clear that the constitution is very clear indication

1124
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:13,000
that they want, so that keeps people from wanting to participate.

1125
01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:19,000
We need to, one natural person though, as far as getting the word out,

1126
01:09:19,000 --> 01:09:23,000
one natural person in Citizen and Grade just told me recently

1127
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:25,000
that in other communities they put up signs.

1128
01:09:25,000 --> 01:09:28,000
Along the way, if something's happened until that particular day,

1129
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:31,000
there's not just a sign in front of the town office,

1130
01:09:31,000 --> 01:09:33,000
but it's in all the intersections and stuff.

1131
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:35,000
That's a very good suggestion.

1132
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:37,000
It gives the people an opportunity to say,

1133
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:39,000
well, maybe I might be interested in that.

1134
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:41,000
I think I'm going to try to get there tonight.

1135
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:45,000
That's how, you know, I think we can increase participation

1136
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:51,000
and volunteer and fight personal contact and guidance.

1137
01:09:51,000 --> 01:09:54,000
Thank you, Simon. Chuck. Yes. Thank you.

1138
01:09:54,000 --> 01:09:59,000
I think volunteering, you know, is essentially critical.

1139
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:03,000
The amount of people that do a lot of volunteer work and stuff

1140
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:07,000
take such a load off of all the rest of the employees

1141
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:09,000
that would be filling the gap and doing those things.

1142
01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:11,000
I think that's a great point.

1143
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:15,000
The one thing that I do feel, and I agree with the whole audience

1144
01:10:15,000 --> 01:10:19,000
and Tracy, that volunteering really needs to be appreciated.

1145
01:10:19,000 --> 01:10:24,000
They need to know that they have to step up to the plate

1146
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:26,000
and do whatever there has to do.

1147
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:28,000
It's really recognized.

1148
01:10:28,000 --> 01:10:30,000
We have a volunteer recognition.

1149
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:33,000
I've learned a lot from this interview.

1150
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:37,000
And it was pretty well attended, I have been.

1151
01:10:37,000 --> 01:10:42,000
And I think it's essential that the more people

1152
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:46,000
feel more comfortable with doing things to help off the town

1153
01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:52,000
and I think that's going to be a key to helping people

1154
01:10:52,000 --> 01:10:54,000
get involved and do things.

1155
01:10:54,000 --> 01:10:56,000
I think once you start getting involved

1156
01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:58,000
and you start meeting a lot of the people

1157
01:10:58,000 --> 01:11:01,000
that really are the energy of this town,

1158
01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:05,000
the volunteer energy is helpful.

1159
01:11:05,000 --> 01:11:08,000
It's really, it's personally helpful. Thank you.

1160
01:11:08,000 --> 01:11:10,000
This is probably going to be the last question

1161
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:13,000
so we'll give you all the chance to read that

1162
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:15,000
and make your final statement so we make sure

1163
01:11:15,000 --> 01:11:17,000
we get it all on tape.

1164
01:11:17,000 --> 01:11:21,000
So this one comes from some of the attendees.

1165
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:24,000
So I think we're studying with you on this one.

1166
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:27,000
Where do you stand on educational impact fees

1167
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:31,000
on large subdivisions?

1168
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:36,000
We might as well end it with a thank you.

1169
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:41,000
Unfortunately, residential housing is a necessary evil

1170
01:11:41,000 --> 01:11:45,000
for every town, not just the gray.

1171
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:50,000
The town of gray cannot cover its costs

1172
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:53,000
based upon the back of residential housing.

1173
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:56,000
You have to have other revenues coming in

1174
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:59,000
in order to support your school system.

1175
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:05,000
I happen to think we have a gray school system in SAT 15.

1176
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:10,000
I think the impact fee has some merit

1177
01:12:10,000 --> 01:12:15,000
because we desperately need to find other funding mechanisms

1178
01:12:15,000 --> 01:12:18,000
to support our tax base, you heard me say,

1179
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:21,000
but we had an 8% increase last year.

1180
01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:23,000
We're going to be five or six percent

1181
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:25,000
by the end of this year.

1182
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:29,000
And personally, we just cannot keep going in that direction.

1183
01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:33,000
So I'm in support of the assessment.

1184
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:35,000
Thanks, Donnie.

1185
01:12:35,000 --> 01:12:37,000
I assume it's already the election

1186
01:12:37,000 --> 01:12:40,000
and it doesn't likely pay a fair price to that.

1187
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:45,000
I brought this up with me.

1188
01:12:45,000 --> 01:12:55,000
It was brought up for that very reason that Peter stated.

1189
01:12:55,000 --> 01:13:00,000
If we are going to continue to struggle

1190
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:03,000
in accepting economic development

1191
01:13:03,000 --> 01:13:05,000
and trying to increase revenues that way,

1192
01:13:05,000 --> 01:13:09,000
we're going to have to search out other ways

1193
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:14,000
to increase our revenue intake.

1194
01:13:14,000 --> 01:13:19,000
The reason I picked on big sub-divisions

1195
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:21,000
was that, and I said this at the meeting,

1196
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:25,000
is that major sub-divisions is a business.

1197
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:29,000
It's not a right that you have

1198
01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:31,000
like a person that has a fine ache a lot

1199
01:13:31,000 --> 01:13:33,000
and wants to chop it in half

1200
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:35,000
and give his one of his children

1201
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:37,000
a house lock styled on.

1202
01:13:37,000 --> 01:13:39,000
That's a different story.

1203
01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:41,000
Major sub-divisions are big business.

1204
01:13:41,000 --> 01:13:43,000
And when big business comes to town

1205
01:13:43,000 --> 01:13:45,000
that's hand if it's big.

1206
01:13:45,000 --> 01:13:49,000
And some others, they get treated a certain way.

1207
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:52,000
And we ask a certain amount of them.

1208
01:13:52,000 --> 01:13:54,000
We ask them to do things.

1209
01:13:54,000 --> 01:13:56,000
And hand if it's did a lock trust

1210
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:57,000
when they came to town,

1211
01:13:57,000 --> 01:13:59,000
simply because we asked them to do it.

1212
01:13:59,000 --> 01:14:02,000
And I think if you look at it,

1213
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:04,000
if you would treat sub-divisions

1214
01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:06,000
like you would a business,

1215
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:08,000
you realize that, okay,

1216
01:14:08,000 --> 01:14:09,000
if you put a sub-division,

1217
01:14:09,000 --> 01:14:11,000
it causes a major problem,

1218
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,000
and then in the section or something like that,

1219
01:14:13,000 --> 01:14:16,000
then I don't think you should be treated any different

1220
01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:18,000
than it would be if it was a business

1221
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:21,000
because chances are you'd have that business

1222
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:23,000
if not paid for the opening,

1223
01:14:23,000 --> 01:14:26,000
paying a large part of the cost

1224
01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:28,000
of fixing that intersection.

1225
01:14:28,000 --> 01:14:31,000
And plus the fact that it gives us

1226
01:14:31,000 --> 01:14:33,000
help down the road,

1227
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:35,000
maybe to buy some sports equipment

1228
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:38,000
or uniforms or something

1229
01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:40,000
that we can use in the school.

1230
01:14:40,000 --> 01:14:43,000
We did that and say everybody put something in there

1231
01:14:43,000 --> 01:14:45,000
so that every 15 or 20 years,

1232
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:48,000
regardless of whether or not it has to be spent.

1233
01:14:48,000 --> 01:14:49,000
And what that does,

1234
01:14:49,000 --> 01:14:52,000
it takes a little of the tax burden off the tax payers.

1235
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:54,000
Jim,

1236
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:57,000
major sub-divisions,

1237
01:14:57,000 --> 01:15:00,000
educational and impact agencies.

1238
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:04,000
Education? Education is a piece of the right subdivisions.

1239
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:12,000
Once the subdivisions put in, kind of worse it out of our, you need to have that planned ahead of time.

1240
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:16,000
If you're going to have some proof of subdivision, I think we need to address it.

1241
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:20,000
There's going to be an implication for the schools. You're going to get overwhelmed in school.

1242
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:24,000
You're going to have people coming in. It's part of what veteran communities deal with.

1243
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:28,000
If we're going to be busted, it seems, in the school, we know what you're going to do.

1244
01:15:28,000 --> 01:15:32,000
It's that simple. If we're going to have 400 houses in the way and we're already maxed out

1245
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:36,000
in the school district and that's going to bring 800 more kids into the school district,

1246
01:15:36,000 --> 01:15:40,000
we then even decide to have them help us build a new school,

1247
01:15:40,000 --> 01:15:44,000
or we need to have them say, sorry, you can't put that many kids, you can't put that many houses in.

1248
01:15:44,000 --> 01:15:48,000
It is part of planning. It is part of zoning.

1249
01:15:48,000 --> 01:15:52,000
It is things that we do deal with, just like if the guy who was the road intersection point

1250
01:15:52,000 --> 01:15:56,000
would kind of be a problem. I don't have a problem putting an assessment on the subdivision.

1251
01:15:56,000 --> 01:16:00,000
But once the subdivision is built, you can't go back to them year after year

1252
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:04,000
because that business could fall into whatever, they're gone.

1253
01:16:04,000 --> 01:16:08,000
Once they need to deal with people who live in town and their residents just like the rest of us,

1254
01:16:08,000 --> 01:16:12,000
and you really can't go back to them and say, oh, by the way, we need more money out of you

1255
01:16:12,000 --> 01:16:16,000
because you're moving to a major that was up last time. So it's got to be done

1256
01:16:16,000 --> 01:16:20,000
after the development time and before you give them approval to start building. I don't have a problem with that.

1257
01:16:20,000 --> 01:16:22,000
Thank you.

1258
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:26,000
Yeah, I see that as an additional

1259
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:30,000
tax on the residents in that subdivision.

1260
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:34,000
Perhaps the builder of the subdivision is the business, but then the residents

1261
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:38,000
are left the same as myself or anyone else in this room.

1262
01:16:38,000 --> 01:16:42,000
And they're already going to be paying their taxes

1263
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:46,000
for the valuations as everyone else is. So to use

1264
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:50,000
that, just because they came in a

1265
01:16:50,000 --> 01:16:54,000
neighborhood instead of an individual housing,

1266
01:16:54,000 --> 01:16:58,000
I don't feel it's proper to tax them

1267
01:16:58,000 --> 01:17:02,000
and that's what I would call that. If there's going to be an impact

1268
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:06,000
based on that subdivision of intersections and things of that nature,

1269
01:17:06,000 --> 01:17:10,000
that should be taken care of right up front. That's the responsibility

1270
01:17:10,000 --> 01:17:14,000
of the planning board and others who review and engineers who review all these

1271
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:18,000
plans of the subdivision and make sure that they won't

1272
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:22,000
be the negative impact on the community or in the neighborhood.

1273
01:17:22,000 --> 01:17:26,000
So the funding for additional items for the schools

1274
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:30,000
will have to be paid like it normally is, you know, for fundraising and things of

1275
01:17:30,000 --> 01:17:34,000
that nature, but I don't think it's fair additional

1276
01:17:34,000 --> 01:17:38,000
taxation to citizens inside, I believe.

1277
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:41,000
Thank you, Fran.

1278
01:17:41,000 --> 01:17:45,000
Thank you. I don't believe that the original assessment

1279
01:17:45,000 --> 01:17:49,000
is to the developer is certainly just going to be passed down the corner about that rate.

1280
01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:53,000
I don't know if that's the clearest way to

1281
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:57,000
raise that revenue for the

1282
01:17:57,000 --> 01:18:01,000
school fund.

1283
01:18:01,000 --> 01:18:05,000
I think there are definitely things that

1284
01:18:05,000 --> 01:18:09,000
there are definitely costs that are going to come with having any major subdivision.

1285
01:18:09,000 --> 01:18:13,000
I think that a lot of people would

1286
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:17,000
really walk at a

1287
01:18:17,000 --> 01:18:21,000
large amount, I certainly would.

1288
01:18:21,000 --> 01:18:25,000
If I was thinking about making something for everyone, I know

1289
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:29,000
a $500,000, $600,000 assessment would have been a lot. I don't think that would be there.

1290
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:33,000
So I have to say that I think

1291
01:18:33,000 --> 01:18:37,000
that I have to agree with Mr. Monroe that we take the taxes

1292
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:41,000
and we go down into these individual assessments and be like,

1293
01:18:41,000 --> 01:18:45,000
this is a commercial building based on public

1294
01:18:45,000 --> 01:18:49,000
poison that they might have or whatever.

1295
01:18:49,000 --> 01:18:53,000
I think it's a way to raise revenue and I can just agree with that.

1296
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:57,000
But I don't think it's a problem.

1297
01:18:57,000 --> 01:19:01,000
I don't have a particular problem with educational impact fees.

1298
01:19:01,000 --> 01:19:05,000
Right now, we have a recreation impact fee

1299
01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:09,000
and when you put up a house, not so much when you get your development approval,

1300
01:19:09,000 --> 01:19:13,000
but when you actually build the house, if you as a developer are not providing

1301
01:19:13,000 --> 01:19:17,000
public green space within your development, I believe it's $400

1302
01:19:17,000 --> 01:19:21,000
per residence that gets put into the subdivision recreation

1303
01:19:21,000 --> 01:19:25,000
fund which the taxpayers have discretion over to buy land.

1304
01:19:25,000 --> 01:19:29,000
We bought part of the land behind the panel to expand the fields.

1305
01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:33,000
We used it to buy part of the Libby Hill trails.

1306
01:19:33,000 --> 01:19:37,000
In theory, an educational impact fee is acceptable to me

1307
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:41,000
and if it's another $400 or $500, absolutely the developer

1308
01:19:41,000 --> 01:19:45,000
is going to pass it on to the buyer but so be it.

1309
01:19:45,000 --> 01:19:49,000
My big concern with that would be what are you going to do with that money down the road

1310
01:19:49,000 --> 01:19:53,000
because in my mind, if you're collecting money because of educational

1311
01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:57,000
impact, it's going to be because eventually the school is going to need to float

1312
01:19:57,000 --> 01:20:01,000
on because they're going to need to build extra space or they're going to need to rehab

1313
01:20:01,000 --> 01:20:05,000
a field because of the wear and tear. I would be more worried with

1314
01:20:05,000 --> 01:20:09,000
what happens after you start collecting the money and how it was allocated

1315
01:20:09,000 --> 01:20:13,000
to whom and by whom and that's where my concern would be

1316
01:20:13,000 --> 01:20:17,000
with it because a lot of times in maybe not just locally but even at the state level

1317
01:20:17,000 --> 01:20:21,000
people come up with these great ideas like school consolidation

1318
01:20:21,000 --> 01:20:25,000
and everybody runs around crazy and comes up with a way to do it and then nobody thinks about

1319
01:20:25,000 --> 01:20:29,000
what happens tomorrow after your school consolidates and that would be my concern with the

1320
01:20:29,000 --> 01:20:33,000
impact fees is how would they be administered and what would they be used for

1321
01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:37,000
and in my opinion it wouldn't be football uniforms and computers

1322
01:20:37,000 --> 01:20:41,000
I think it would be for capital improvement.

1323
01:20:41,000 --> 01:20:45,000
Thank you. We thank all of you for being on target

1324
01:20:45,000 --> 01:20:49,000
and answering the questions without dodging them.

1325
01:20:49,000 --> 01:20:53,000
You'll have up to five minutes, three minutes.

1326
01:20:53,000 --> 01:20:57,000
We're going to run out of time.

1327
01:20:57,000 --> 01:21:01,000
Sorry I said five minutes for three

1328
01:21:01,000 --> 01:21:05,000
for time on you. So we're going to go, when we get in those prides it's not jumping up and down.

1329
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:09,000
So we're going to start with Lou

1330
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:13,000
when you're closing the comments to everyone in the voters.

1331
01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:17,000
First of all I'd like to make all of you coming out.

1332
01:21:17,000 --> 01:21:21,000
I just said earlier I am running

1333
01:21:21,000 --> 01:21:25,000
for second term of the town council.

1334
01:21:25,000 --> 01:21:29,000
I do enjoy the job. I think this council

1335
01:21:29,000 --> 01:21:33,000
that I'm sitting with right now I think we've done a good

1336
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:37,000
job. I think we've come in a lot of topics. I think we've

1337
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:41,000
made things better and great for the

1338
01:21:41,000 --> 01:21:45,000
years that I've been here and I think that we

1339
01:21:45,000 --> 01:21:49,000
have a good grasp on so the needs of the town, the needs of

1340
01:21:49,000 --> 01:21:53,000
the people. I think I

1341
01:21:53,000 --> 01:21:57,000
bring the open mindedness to the table

1342
01:21:57,000 --> 01:22:01,000
I definitely have my ideas and my concerns

1343
01:22:01,000 --> 01:22:05,000
but I'm willing to listen to anybody and if you can

1344
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:09,000
convince me that I'm wrong you're all right I don't have a problem with that.

1345
01:22:09,000 --> 01:22:13,000
I think the thing you have to do is to and what I always try to do

1346
01:22:13,000 --> 01:22:17,000
and I try to make my decisions based on what I think is best

1347
01:22:17,000 --> 01:22:21,000
for the most people in the town of Gray, for the majority of the town of Gray

1348
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:25,000
and I think that's basically the major job of the government

1349
01:22:25,000 --> 01:22:29,000
of the town council per se is to

1350
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:33,000
put together some sort of

1351
01:22:33,000 --> 01:22:37,000
plan that says okay we have got X amount of tax dollars

1352
01:22:37,000 --> 01:22:41,000
now what can we do with those tax dollars to make

1353
01:22:41,000 --> 01:22:45,000
all the things we want happen that have the most positive

1354
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:49,000
effect on the most people in Gray. I can't keep them all

1355
01:22:49,000 --> 01:22:53,000
happy so I'm lucky to get half of them happy

1356
01:22:53,000 --> 01:22:57,000
and that's part of the game but I really

1357
01:22:57,000 --> 01:23:01,000
want to appreciate you both. I'd like to have another year to serve the town.

1358
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:05,000
Thank you. I'd also like to thank everyone

1359
01:23:05,000 --> 01:23:09,000
for coming thanks for watching and thanks for moderating.

1360
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:13,000
It's been a enjoyable evening. One of the things I want to touch

1361
01:23:13,000 --> 01:23:17,000
kind of come back on who's been talking about volunteers and one of the things that I think

1362
01:23:17,000 --> 01:23:21,000
make some of what we have brought up that maybe think of it. One of the things why I think people

1363
01:23:21,000 --> 01:23:25,000
don't like to volunteer is because they're afraid if they volunteer they're going to have the whole thing dropped in their lap.

1364
01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:29,000
One of the biggest things about finding volunteers is to say hey I need you for

1365
01:23:29,000 --> 01:23:33,000
two hours on Saturday to do something. I need you to run something.

1366
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:37,000
And that's a way to get people involved so that they really can do it for an hour or two

1367
01:23:37,000 --> 01:23:41,000
not for the rest of their lives and having a full time job. So getting back on target.

1368
01:23:41,000 --> 01:23:45,000
Again I thank you. I hope I

1369
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:49,000
could earn some of your votes out there. Does anybody have any questions

1370
01:23:49,000 --> 01:23:53,000
that I always find me I'm listening. I'm listening in the phone book and there is no

1371
01:23:53,000 --> 01:23:57,000
phone book in the back. I appreciate that.

1372
01:23:57,000 --> 01:24:01,000
Fran. As I said I've been here

1373
01:24:01,000 --> 01:24:05,000
for over 40 years. I have been a town council in the past.

1374
01:24:05,000 --> 01:24:09,000
I've also served on many committees, started up many organizations

1375
01:24:09,000 --> 01:24:13,000
and groups in town especially economic development

1376
01:24:13,000 --> 01:24:17,000
and being a chairman and

1377
01:24:17,000 --> 01:24:21,000
chairman of the Republican Party and all

1378
01:24:21,000 --> 01:24:25,000
kinds of aspects of community involvement. Also

1379
01:24:25,000 --> 01:24:29,000
I am besides being retired as an accountant

1380
01:24:29,000 --> 01:24:33,000
who had to serve and service my clients

1381
01:24:33,000 --> 01:24:37,000
I am presently employed by the seasonal

1382
01:24:37,000 --> 01:24:41,000
job at Eloving and well if anyone's

1383
01:24:41,000 --> 01:24:45,000
familiar with the history of Eloving they expect in the end that we

1384
01:24:45,000 --> 01:24:49,000
provide a great service for the customer. And

1385
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:53,000
I feel that that's another

1386
01:24:53,000 --> 01:24:57,000
aspect that I have for

1387
01:24:57,000 --> 01:25:01,000
asset and able to be able to listen to the public and do what the public wants.

1388
01:25:01,000 --> 01:25:05,000
My opinion doesn't really have much to do when there's an issue in front

1389
01:25:05,000 --> 01:25:09,000
of us and someone gives me information to help me

1390
01:25:09,000 --> 01:25:13,000
make a decision. I think it's that's what makes it good council.

1391
01:25:13,000 --> 01:25:17,000
It's someone who's open and listening and I think that I've had

1392
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:21,000
a lot of experience in that and I feel that I have done

1393
01:25:21,000 --> 01:25:25,000
it in the past and I will continue on being a good listener and take

1394
01:25:25,000 --> 01:25:29,000
the information that the citizens provide me with to make this even a better community

1395
01:25:29,000 --> 01:25:33,000
for themselves as well as their fellow citizens.

1396
01:25:33,000 --> 01:25:37,000
So I hope that people do consider me for the vote and I do want to encourage everyone

1397
01:25:37,000 --> 01:25:41,000
to vote on June 10. Until that we do

1398
01:25:41,000 --> 01:25:45,000
give as a group of citizens that we want to be part of

1399
01:25:45,000 --> 01:25:49,000
our government and that's one easy way of doing it.

1400
01:25:49,000 --> 01:25:53,000
So thank you all for coming and I hope that I get to see you on

1401
01:25:53,000 --> 01:25:57,000
June 10. Thank you so much.

1402
01:25:57,000 --> 01:26:01,000
We also would like to thank you for showing up. I'm really good proud that you're

1403
01:26:01,000 --> 01:26:05,000
actually there when I thought about it. And I would just like to say

1404
01:26:05,000 --> 01:26:09,000
that I think my one goal as a council should

1405
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:13,000
be, but this is a personal goal, would be to make the council and the council meetings

1406
01:26:13,000 --> 01:26:17,000
more accessible and more comfortable to people.

1407
01:26:17,000 --> 01:26:21,000
That's what I ran against when I first became involved with

1408
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:25,000
not the policies to speak but just with

1409
01:26:25,000 --> 01:26:29,000
the council. It was scary. It was scary at best

1410
01:26:29,000 --> 01:26:33,000
because I really felt like the previous council, not this one

1411
01:26:33,000 --> 01:26:37,000
was sitting out of the previous council, was kind of

1412
01:26:37,000 --> 01:26:41,000
disconnected and I felt bad. I really felt bad for our issue.

1413
01:26:41,000 --> 01:26:45,000
I felt bad for some of the people that

1414
01:26:45,000 --> 01:26:49,000
proceeded to be another issue that really could have had more. And I really

1415
01:26:49,000 --> 01:26:53,000
think that should be one of the most comfortable places for people to go

1416
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:57,000
and maybe not have that

1417
01:26:57,000 --> 01:27:01,000
commenting feeling because there probably will never be 250 people at the council meeting.

1418
01:27:01,000 --> 01:27:05,000
But I think they should still be able to go there without any fear

1419
01:27:05,000 --> 01:27:09,000
especially on intelligent neighbors watching or whatever

1420
01:27:09,000 --> 01:27:13,000
and be able to speak comfortably to

1421
01:27:13,000 --> 01:27:17,000
people who are making decisions.

1422
01:27:17,000 --> 01:27:21,000
And I think one other thing that I

1423
01:27:21,000 --> 01:27:25,000
strongly say that I'm going to tend to, I will listen. I will listen

1424
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:29,000
to anything and everything that anyone has to say. But beyond that

1425
01:27:29,000 --> 01:27:33,000
I will listen intently and respectfully.

1426
01:27:33,000 --> 01:27:37,000
I think I can comfortably say that I can

1427
01:27:37,000 --> 01:27:41,000
and I would at the end of my

1428
01:27:41,000 --> 01:27:45,000
terms that should be elected, I would hope to say that

1429
01:27:45,000 --> 01:27:49,000
I could run on my entire term without

1430
01:27:49,000 --> 01:27:53,000
making an apology to anyone.

1431
01:27:53,000 --> 01:27:57,000
That would be my only

1432
01:27:57,000 --> 01:28:01,000
thank you so much for coming out. I would appreciate you both. I think this

1433
01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:05,000
is a great opportunity for

1434
01:28:05,000 --> 01:28:09,000
it can be great.

1435
01:28:09,000 --> 01:28:13,000
That's a tough one to be. I can't imagine if you would

1436
01:28:13,000 --> 01:28:17,000
apologize or anything. I again would like to thank everybody

1437
01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:21,000
but with only three minutes I'm not going to go into it. But thank you for coming. Thank you for giving us this

1438
01:28:21,000 --> 01:28:25,000
opportunity because certainly our newspapers as they stand right now are not going to

1439
01:28:25,000 --> 01:28:29,000
provide us with this forum. I do want to talk just a little bit about

1440
01:28:29,000 --> 01:28:33,000
my campaign. I'm one of these people that runs around

1441
01:28:33,000 --> 01:28:37,000
talking about the village aesthetic and I helped to offer the new sign ordinance

1442
01:28:37,000 --> 01:28:41,000
and did a lot of research and I'm very concerned about

1443
01:28:41,000 --> 01:28:45,000
the aesthetic of the village and to that end I am not putting up

1444
01:28:45,000 --> 01:28:49,000
paper signs. I think they're unsightly and they're clutter some and

1445
01:28:49,000 --> 01:28:53,000
I'm not putting them. Please don't take that indication that I don't want to be elected.

1446
01:28:53,000 --> 01:28:57,000
It's just I'm putting my money where my mouth is or I should say I'm not putting my

1447
01:28:57,000 --> 01:29:01,000
money there because they also cost money. In that same

1448
01:29:01,000 --> 01:29:05,000
vein I'm not sending out mailings and spending money on postage and printing

1449
01:29:05,000 --> 01:29:09,000
because I'm physically responsible with my own money and plan to be

1450
01:29:09,000 --> 01:29:13,000
that way with yours should you elect me. So that out of the way please

1451
01:29:13,000 --> 01:29:17,000
don't take it as I'm not really caring if I get elected I'm just trying to be responsible.

1452
01:29:17,000 --> 01:29:21,000
I do have a couple of resumes with me in case anybody didn't get the email I sent

1453
01:29:21,000 --> 01:29:25,000
and anybody who'd like to give me their email to get more information is welcome to do that before

1454
01:29:25,000 --> 01:29:29,000
the night is out. The only thing that I can say

1455
01:29:29,000 --> 01:29:33,000
about why you should vote for me is

1456
01:29:33,000 --> 01:29:37,000
what comes out of my mouth is my truth.

1457
01:29:37,000 --> 01:29:41,000
You may not agree with my opinions and I'm one vote of five

1458
01:29:41,000 --> 01:29:45,000
and if I'm a descending vote and you don't agree with me you can choose

1459
01:29:45,000 --> 01:29:49,000
not to agree with me but I can guarantee you that what comes out

1460
01:29:49,000 --> 01:29:53,000
of my mouth is what my heart feels and I'm not giving you lip service to give

1461
01:29:53,000 --> 01:29:57,000
you what you think you want what I think you want to hear. And good bad

1462
01:29:57,000 --> 01:30:01,000
or indifferent that's the way I am it gets me in trouble.

1463
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:05,000
Sometimes it doesn't, but there's plenty of people in this room that I consider my friends,

1464
01:30:05,000 --> 01:30:09,000
and there's times where we vehemently disagree, and we're still friends.

1465
01:30:09,000 --> 01:30:13,000
And at least they know that what I'm saying is wrong.

1466
01:30:13,000 --> 01:30:18,000
And when I was on the council in the past, and in everything I've done since then,

1467
01:30:18,000 --> 01:30:24,000
I've always tried to consider what is in the best interest of everybody in town, or at least the majority.

1468
01:30:24,000 --> 01:30:29,000
And the beauty of democracy is whether I agree with my fellow councillors

1469
01:30:29,000 --> 01:30:33,000
who are not on one vote and five, and whether you agree with me or not,

1470
01:30:33,000 --> 01:30:37,000
come election time, you can vote me off the island if that's the need to.

1471
01:30:37,000 --> 01:30:39,000
But I hope that on June 10th they'll support me.

1472
01:30:39,000 --> 01:30:43,000
And at the very least, don't vote because it's our right and our privilege.

1473
01:30:43,000 --> 01:30:44,000
Thank you.

1474
01:30:44,000 --> 01:30:45,000
Thank you, Tracy.

1475
01:30:45,000 --> 01:30:46,000
Pete?

1476
01:30:46,000 --> 01:30:50,000
Well, last but not least, but I'd like the rest.

1477
01:30:50,000 --> 01:30:52,000
I want to thank you all for coming.

1478
01:30:52,000 --> 01:30:54,000
It means a lot.

1479
01:30:54,000 --> 01:30:59,000
I've always said at our planning board meetings that we learn so much from the public.

1480
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:09,000
I've got the experience to do the job. I've been the job.

1481
01:31:09,000 --> 01:31:15,000
I volunteer countless years and hours for the town.

1482
01:31:15,000 --> 01:31:18,000
I also think I'm a neutral party.

1483
01:31:18,000 --> 01:31:20,000
I don't live in the village.

1484
01:31:20,000 --> 01:31:23,000
I live almost on the ringing line.

1485
01:31:23,000 --> 01:31:29,000
So a lot of the issues that impact gray, I really don't have a vested interest in

1486
01:31:29,000 --> 01:31:33,000
other than being a taxpayer for three, five years.

1487
01:31:33,000 --> 01:31:40,000
So I'm willing to listen to any argument or position and try to be fair

1488
01:31:40,000 --> 01:31:46,000
in hearing what you have to say.

1489
01:31:47,000 --> 01:31:49,000
There are major issues.

1490
01:31:49,000 --> 01:31:55,000
June 6th besides taking two out of us six, the Phillipa Council seat.

1491
01:31:55,000 --> 01:31:58,000
There are school budgets, municipal budgets.

1492
01:31:58,000 --> 01:32:04,000
And I certainly urge everybody to make the effort to get to the polls June 6th,

1493
01:32:04,000 --> 01:32:05,000
June 10th.

1494
01:32:05,000 --> 01:32:09,000
And also there are absentee ballots available today.

1495
01:32:09,000 --> 01:32:13,000
So I encourage you to get up there and vote.

1496
01:32:13,000 --> 01:32:17,000
And I want to thank Brad for running the camera and Josh for running the ballot.

1497
01:32:17,000 --> 01:32:18,000
Thank you.

1498
01:32:18,000 --> 01:32:19,000
Thank you, Pete.

1499
01:32:19,000 --> 01:32:24,000
I'd like to thank Josh, our timekeeper and the library for hosting this.

1500
01:32:24,000 --> 01:32:28,000
I'd like to thank Brad and the folks at Cable who make all of these things possible.

1501
01:32:28,000 --> 01:32:32,000
All of you for showing up, particularly the candidates for giving their time

1502
01:32:32,000 --> 01:32:38,000
and getting ready to put their lives on public view for everybody.

1503
01:32:38,000 --> 01:32:41,000
They've spoken, it's up to you on June 10th.

1504
01:32:41,000 --> 01:32:42,000
Go vote.

1505
01:32:42,000 --> 01:32:44,000
Thank you all for tuning in.