The Bedford Town Council met on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, at 7:00 PM. The meeting included administrative matters, public comments, a public hearing, presentations, and the submission of the town manager's budget. Councillor Strand participated remotely after a council vote approving his attendance. Key topics included recreational facility funding, road discontinuance, library services, skate park funding, a clean energy program, and the proposed 2026 budget.
I don't want to be a non-participant. Good evening. Welcome to the Town of Bedford Town Council meeting on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025. Before we begin the meeting, we'll have our roll call. Over to my right is Councillor Carter. Good evening. Counselor Beemis. Good evening. Counselor Besk. Good evening, Bedford. Counselor Sowell. Hi, Bedford. Counselor Griazzo. Hello. And I'm Council Chair Radke. We do have a joining us is Councilor Strand. However, before we can continue, we just need to do some administrative discussion here according to our rules of procedure. And I'm going to read part three. It says a councilor planning an extended more than three consecutive meetings with a teleconference included on the phone. Absence must receive agreement of five remaining council members in advance of the absence. Should the planned absence be unacceptable to the remaining council members, the chairperson shall ask the council seeking the absence to resign his or her seat prior to the start of the absence. Should an instance of this nature occur, the chairperson shall immediately seek resident volunteers to fill the vacated seat until the next scheduled town election. The town charter shall be followed in appointing a replacement. So just to give you a little background, Councillor Strand has missed three meetings, including him being here either through Zoom or the telephone. So we need to take a vote from the remaining counselors sitting here whether or not to allow him to continue on with the council and to also participate in this evening's meeting. So with that said, I will take a vote from actually I'm going to do almost a roll call vote for each councilor members. If you are in favor of having Counselor Strand uh join us for this meeting. So I'll start with Councillor Carter. Aye. Counselor Beamis. Aye. Counselor Besk. Aye. Counselor Sowell. Aye. Counselor Griazzo. I am also in favor of having Councillor Strand join us. So we'll finish our roll call. Councilor Strand, you are again part of the meeting this evening. Do you have anything you want to add? Good evening, Bedford. I appreciate uh the vote of confidence and just uh briefly wanted to provide some contact for public transparency purposes. Um I appreciate the opportunity to speak spoken with all of you individually. Um obviously uh took a new position recently that is uh you know heavily you know travel based, uh at least for now. And um the short answer is I wasn't aware that there was a potential risk of breaching the charter um, you know, by doing you know remote attendance. Um and so one thing I can assure uh both you know my colleagues on the council and the public is that uh obviously had I known I would have avoided this and scheduled a little bit differently going forward, we'll remedy you know that issue and we'll no longer um you know we'll we'll never be remote for more than two consecutive meetings. Um it will be short to schedule accordingly uh to be more physically present in addition to the other remote attendance. Thank you, Councilor Strand for that explanation. So with that said, we'll move on to the Pledge of Allegiance. Counselor Beemis, would you please lead us?