Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the budget and capital improvement program workshop for the town of Brunswick this March 23rd, 2026.

Was the meeting properly noticed?

Yes, it was.

Thank you.

I will note that we have two counselors that will be joining us on Zoom, uh, Councilor Teamy as well as Counselor Wilson.

Counselor Wilson is currently here.

Teamy uh has yet to arrive, but told me they were going to be participating that way.

So just so we know.

Are there any adjustments to the agenda over here uh for this budget workshop?

Not seeing any.

I'll remind folks that are in the audience or on Zoom that this is a budget workshop, so it's a little bit less formal than our our council meetings.

We will be uh hearing a couple presentations today.

Um, one from public works, one from the engineering department.

Um the town manager is gonna do a little presentation, and then we're gonna have a discussion.

Um there will be public comment after council discussion before we adjourn.

So if you have public comment that you would like to state, that would be the time to do so.

But without further ado, I will turn it over to the public works department.

Good evening.

I'm running late in public works director.

All right.

And then discuss some of the upcoming uh budget requests and some of the challenges moving forward.

Go ahead, Larry.

So just as a um recap for some that haven't been here uh for long.

But in 2018, the public works department uh the at the time the director was the town engineer.

So at that time they split responsibilities, and which is why you have two presentations tonight, one from public works, one from engineering.

And from the public works standpoint, basically we kept the maintenance side of the house when it came to public public infrastructure.

So we're responsible for taking care of uh 150 miles of road, approximately 40 miles of sidewalk.

Um both of those uh amounts tend to go up occasionally.

Um approximately 2700 road and traffic signs, 2700 catch basins, 50 miles of storm pipe, uh, and then another 150 miles of pavement markings, which is kind of weird that it actually matches the mileage considering we don't stripe everything uh but based on some of the four-lane sections of the of the roadways and uh areas where there's center line and and edge line versus just um center line.

Uh and then of course the grand road processing facility.

Um this data that data all came out of our GAS system, and I did I know you guys heard this at the last council meeting, but I would be remiss if I didn't say congratulations to Jessica again.

She is a fantastic asset to this town, and a lot of the stuff that we do, she's built for us.

So it's just been I just wanted to give my my kudos to her in public because she has been an excellent, excellent uh addition for us.

Um this budget represents um 30 full-time employees and two to five part-time employees, and I say the two to five because uh for the last two years, Public Works has partnered with Region 10.

Uh, and so we do their with their pre-apprentice program.

Um over the last three or four years, we've really struggled with trying to find employees.

And so we would really uh working on a um some inroads wherever we could find them.

Um and for the last two years we've been able to work with Region 10 and Jason Darling, who's their pre-apprentice program uh leader, and it's uh worked out very well for us this past.

Well, currently we have three um students that have been working with us through part of the year.

Um the year before that we had a a couple in one of those uh employee uh one of those students actually became a full-time employee for a little over a year for us.

So it's it's worked out fairly well.

We go to the career fairs there, and it's um been a good good partnership.

Um the rest of that stuff is just the list of all the different parts and pieces that we have uh to help us do our job.

Next slide.

Uh typically we like to talk about some of the highlights for for the last year, and it's kind of strange doing it fiscal year because our construction season is kind of the fall, and then we jump into winter operations or excuse me, summer and fall.

So there's quite an overlap there.

Um but we tried to jot down some of the things that we had done basically since last July.

And um we've been very productive for the last year.

Um see there just the the different items that we've we've accomplished.

Um we have done a fair amount of uh tree work with contractors.

Um see 51 hazard trees removed.

That's uh when I got some of the statistics, I was quite surprised it wasn't quite that many, but there was a a good charge of them that we had taken down on Collins Brook that were all dead or dying that were in the right of way.

So trying to be proactive and remove that.

And then when we got the numbers that we had done for dig safe tickets, that was another one that really kind of stood out because that that's uh that's a time that uh we have to send somebody out and mark the infrastructure uh in the roadway.

Um and and that's again that was a bit a bit alarming that that it was that high just based on.

I mean, we know we do it because we do it every day, but then when you actually put numbers down, it it's it's enlightening.

Um and then the other one that I just kind of totaled today was we've had 65 days out of um 133 days that we've been in to do something in terms of winter operations.

Um here we try to show you know the the dirt work pictures and that kind of stuff is the things that are a little bit more exciting as far as we're concerned.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that the public works main goal is and main responsibility is winter operations.

It is a it's a daunting task um that you never know what we're gonna end up with, and this year has certainly been one that that we have been busy since November 11th.