The Bedford Town Council held its second retreat of the year on September 10, 2025, at 6:30 PM. The meeting was a brainstorming session with no formal votes or decisions. Council members discussed seven topics: tax credits and exemptions, historic vs. heritage district models, capital improvement vehicle replacement, zoning developments, the town office building, land acquisition, and the bidding process. A facility survey was also launched to gather public feedback.
Okay, good evening, Bedford. Welcome to the on a Bedford Town Council retreat. That's our second one of this year. September 10th, 2025 at 6 30 p.m. Before we begin, we'll do our traditional row call. Over to my right is Councillor Bill Carter. Good evening. With an excuse absent this evening, Michael Strian will not be joining us. We do have Councillor Beamis. Good evening. And Counselor Labesque. Good evening. Counselor Soule. Good evening, Bedford. Vice Chair of the Council, Bill Griazzo. Hello. Our wonderful town manager, Rick Sawyer. Good evening. And joining us this evening is Don Booper, who takes wonderful minutes. So if you haven't had an opportunity to read them, please do. It's good evening. And I'm Lori, your town council chair. At this time, we'll stand and pledge allegiance. Kathleen, you mind leading us? And to the Republican for which it stands. One nation. Underground individuals. Thank you. So for tonight's meeting, um, again, the second of two retreats. We had one in April. Um I have asked um Councillor Bash to help me with this, and she put together some good topics that the council tonight. And this is just going to be an opportunity for us to discuss. Um I think there's six seven seven uh topics here. I've asked Counselor Carter to keep us on task so that we don't uh spend the one the evening talking about one. So he's gonna let us know when time is just about up so we can get to the next topic, just so we can stay on task. It's important that we do that. So again, I want to thank Gail for really taking the lead on this and putting together the agenda and um getting these things going. So uh with that said, like I said tonight, we're not making any decisions. We're just simply discussing these items. Um, and there may be some we may be bringing it forward to a future meeting, we may not, but it's just an opportunity for the council to just do a little brainstorming talking. Um, and it's just kind of hopefully coming together with some ideas moving forward. So with that said, I think we'll start with um actually Lori. I think we're gonna start with a quick update on the survey. Okay, we'll do that. Thank you. All right, then before we get into the topics, I think uh councillor besque has an update on the survey. So go ahead, I'll give you the floor. Okay. So um today's Wednesday. So tomorrow, Friday, whatever day folks get the Bedford Bulletin in their mailbox.