The Brunswick Town Council met on November 3, 2025, with all councilors present except initially Counselor McDonald, who later participated and voted. The meeting included public comments, reports from the town manager, state representative, and advisory boards, and new business items including a public hearing on parking restrictions and an emergency moratorium on mobile home park lot rent increases. All votes were unanimous.
No, it's in this code. Good evening and welcome to the November Third, Twenty Twenty Five Meeting of the Brunswick Town Council. All counselors are present except for Counselor McDonald. Town Manager Hensley. Was the meeting properly noticed? Yes, it was. Now I am resuming the meeting. Please silence your devices and let's stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. Are there any adjustments to the agenda from the council? I have one. And representative Arford will be making a presentation tonight. We are moving her to the manager's report right after the Brunswick landing, Brunswick Executive Airport update. Are there any announcements from the council? Councillor Watson. Actually, I have a couple. And I uh I'm not sure, but I do want to announce that uh there are plans to present it live on TV three. That if if that all works out, that'll be the first time that we've done a live presentation. The second one I'm I'm very pleased to do, although it comes from a very unfortunate situation. Last Friday afternoon there was an incident at the Legion Post in which one of my post members, my Americanism officer, was transported by emergency to main med, and he's in the uh surgical ICU unit uh seriously injured. And uh actually we almost lost him. I want to this happened Friday afternoon. He was found in access of twelve hours later by a patrol officer with the Brunswick Police Department, Officer Page, I believe her name is. Um, I have an announcement that actually will be made by our communications and administration manager, Deb Young. Thank you. Um I think Sandy just wants me to talk about our new newsletter. Uh, we have a newsletter that went out on the first of November for our first time. It's called the Brunswick Buzz, and you can sign up for that under our website. Um it's gonna have lots of different information in it from hopefully every department out there, including when the town hall is going to be closed, we're gonna work on road closures, etc. Um, and again, you can sign up for that under our website. And thank you to our communications team. This is long awaited and much appreciated. Um we now have our public comment period. Are there people who would like to speak to us on non-agenda items? Steve Walker, 900 River Road. Um, today marked the start of the 2025 General Firearms hunting season. And I feel it's important to note that Brunswick, unlike other coastal Casco Bay communities, and especially unlike other main communities with populations over 20,000 people, still has impressive blocks of undeforunde forest land, some of which exceed 1,000 acres in size, where this main tradition can continue within our municipal boundaries. This is especially important in years like this when supplemental family nutritional needs are so important. The fact that we still have lands to support local hunting is not by happenstance, but rather in large part due to a commitment that Brunswick made more than 20 years ago to enact the first of its kind rural planning effort focused on protect protecting our large rural forest blocks from poorly planned sprawl. Unfortunately, despite these protections, our largest forest block in northwestern Brunswick is being threatened by a reckless request for dead end road and density waivers that'll in effect divide this block in two. Granting these waivers will forever sacrifice not only rural traditions and rural character, but also change forever some of our most resilient lands in the face of climate change, all while doing nothing to address the current affordable housing concerns. For your reference tonight, I'm passing out images prepared by the main department of inland fisheries and wildlife that illustrate the distribution of forest blocks in the region and that clearly show what has been lost in towns to our south and nearby. Um and what Brunswick can be proud of to have valued and preserved to date. That's just to give you more of a um landscape perspective, and I need to run to a parent teacher conference, so I'm just gonna hand these to Councillor Wilson to distribute. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for those comments. Jim Trusani, 149 Main Street. Uh 208, Brunswick, May. I want to spend a few minutes of my time talking about priority and liability in this town.