Okay, your clock is right.

No, it's only one minute, so we're we're doing much better.

Good evening, everybody.

I'd like to call in order, uh, the county city council meeting for November tenth, twenty twenty-five.

And I'll ask uh Councillor Hoffman to lead us in a salute to the flag.

I'll ask the uh recording secretary, Katie Ganano to the roll call.

Councillor Cheney.

Here.

Councillor Susie.

President Councillor Hoffman.

Councillor Haynes.

Here.

Councillor Boker.

Here.

Councillor Fouch?

Here.

Mayor St.

Clair.

Here.

And staff in the tenants time.

We have uh city manager Kirk Piatti, we have uh Glenn Smith.

As you all just heard, we have our clerk here.

Katie Gennaro, thank you.

So moved.

So moved okay.

Okay, so that's done.

Thank you.

Items.

So eight eight, we have a request to appoint a city councillor representative to the twenty twenty-five Deborah B and I's award committee.

Councillor Cheney, you've normally done that?

I have done it on on occasion, but but rather not.

Not now.

Okay, so do we have a volunteer for that?

That's something that'll be done before the end of the year.

I think Mark would be good at that.

Fine.

Okay.

Um we don't need to vote.

This is just a motion if you ought to just to clean it up, we'll just do the motion at the bottom.

I'll make that motion.

I'll second.

Thank you.

That's been all in favor.

Uh no discussion.

Raise your hands.

Councilor Chenick, were you gonna vote on that?

That's sorry.

So six six in the affirmative, thank you.

Thank you.

Let me get my agenda in order here.

Thank you, uh Kirk for pointing that out to me again.

The next one we is a this is 8B.

We have a request from the Weirds Action Committee to use Endicut Rock parking lot for Laconi Motorcycle Week parking from June 13th, 2026 through June 21st, and to waive all special event fees in connection with the requested use.

Um that you want to just make a motion so moved.

Second okay.

Any any discussion?

We're just the motion.

We just read the motion though as you okay.

So we'll make that motion then um you want me to read it, Mayor?

No, I've got I went too far ahead here.

Well, he made the motion, he probably can read it.

Yeah, go ahead there.

I got it right here.

I move to approve the request by the Wheels Action Committee to use anticar parking lot for motorcycle week parking from June 13, 2026 through June 21, 2026, and to waive all special event fees in connection with the requested use.

Okay, thank you.

And that was seconded by Bruce Cheedy.

So is there any discussion?

I know this is what's been done in the past, so okay, all in favor?

Raise your hands, please.

Okay, six in the affirmative, and thank you very much.

Okay, so now we have citizens' comments for Matt is not on the agenda.

Is anybody in the uh audience would like to do that?

Come on up.

Sorry, Mr.

Mayor, Counselors, Patrick Wood, and chairman of the Human Relations Committee.

Just want to remind you that this Wednesday at 7 o'clock at the high school is going to be the forum on what do we know about homelessness in Laconia.

Um tonight it's a dark and stormy night.

We all have homes to go back to, but many of our residents don't.

So let's hear a little bit more about it.

We'll learn something and hopefully come up with some ideas, some solutions to fix some of the problems.

Wednesday night, seven o'clock, Laconi High School.

Thank you.

That's this Wednesday night.

This Wednesday night.

Yeah.

Oh, sir.

Go ahead.

Is it in the auditorium?

It in the auditorium.

Thank you.

Yep.

Good question, counselor.

Thank you.

Well, sometimes they do it in the hew it.

I know, or or next door.

Or you never know where it's going to be.

Uh, anybody else?

Come on up.

Good evening, Kelly Dion, 23 Winnie Clash Street.

Um, you would have all received an email from me the Monday prior to elections.

Um, I wish this was my idea, or it's not.

I read in the Concord Monitor Um the weekend prior to elections that Concord was placing uh collection bins at their polling spots to collect food.

Um, and I'd like to see that instituted in Laconia going forward.

So like a food drive.

Yeah, but I mean I think once it started, people would jump on board, you come to vote, you put something in the bin.

And who would pick up the food at the end of the day?

I don't have the details.

Okay.

The first thing we have to do is get you folks on board that at polling places, we can collect food items.

Well, I know I know uh the clerk's office has their hands full of that, but uh perhaps and I work the poll.

I work ward three from you know, opening to close counting.

So I know what's involved with how long a day it is, and you know, carrying things in and out, set up, etc.

But that's a great idea.

You know, let's you know, see if we can do it, and if there's um you know, if St.

Vincent DePaul or the Congo Church would like to, you know, do a drive through the city towards the end of the day and gather it.

Why aren't we doing it?

Well, yeah.

Okay.

So ahead.

Counselor.

Ms.

Patrick Wood, could you get up, please?

Stay with them.

Okay.

That's all right.

I'm I'm gonna ask you a question because of what she brought up, but I think is is great.

Can maybe over the next day and a half, you contact St.

Vincent DePaul and you set up some containers where you're gonna have the homeless meeting this Wednesday, and people come and can put the food in there.

Donate potatoes or something to let I don't care.

And I think maybe Gabe and his good wisdom could put a short article in the sun so we'll let people know.

Um there will be a second uh ad in the paper tomorrow.

I will talk to Gabe.

That's probably already print.

Maybe we can get something in the paper at least for Wednesday morning to specifically invite people and we can talk to the radio station, and maybe we can get a PSA.

I think it's a what she says is is all and I read it in my Concord paper also.

Um I think if we start it and just have it going forward, people will bring something when they come to vote.

You know, the people that can.

And it was it was timely that the article appeared in the Concord monitor with the SNAP benefits that day, no longer well.

Maybe maybe uh I mean, like I said, it sounds like a great idea, and maybe uh definitely before the next election, uh, we can set something up with one of the local charities that would come around and pick that up.

Uh but that you know, something we can talk about at the uh community college.

There's a collection area there.

I don't know very much about it, but we can find out some more.

And certainly we can community college means a lot of people are gonna go all the way up there.

Here you're gonna have a selected group of people going to the school, and I imagine it's gonna be pretty full, and hopefully some of those people can bring something.

What we'll do is I'll send out the notice to all the members of the human relations committee and the planning event committee and ask them to spread the word as much as possible.

There are people here tonight who are involved with Got Lunch, and we'll get them uh as well, get the Congressional Church, try to get the other churches involved and do the best we can.

Uh Council Cussi.

I but we're we're jumping on board with the jumping on board, so we're but you know we have to start somewhere.

We can we can do this together, we'll figure out a way to get something going anyway.

All right, thank you.

Okay, thank you both very much.

Is there anybody else that would like to mine short and sweet?

Um Kristen O'Brien, I am the director of philanthropy and community engagement with the Taylor community.

So I'm really just here to introduce myself to all of you.

Um you I think most of you may know Gretchen Gandini.

She is very much still at the Taylor community, so she's just taking on a new role as residence relations director.

So anything having to do with community engagement and philanthropy, I'm your new contact person.

I look forward to working with all of you and um seeing what we can do to again just continue to collaborate and make Lakoni a great place to live.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Anybody else?

Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to our first public hearing.

This is 13A, and this is uh resolution 2025-33 authorization of a supplemental appropriation of the amount of $750,000 for the purpose of covering the cost of a special assessment levied against the school department with funding to come from an unencumbered fund balance, and we'll open up the uh public hearing at 71.

Is there anybody that would like to speak to this?

We really need that music.

Okay, seeing none, we'll close the go ahead.

Did you want to uh just when you close the okay?

So we'll close the public hearing at 712.

Uh go ahead, counselor Cheney.

Thank you.

Um Glenn, can you explain what happened here?

What caused this?

Why don't we if you if you'd rather we Diane Clarity would probably be able to expell that out a little bit better?

We'll wait for that thing.

Okay, they're gonna be up after, so yeah.

You can bring that up at the uh you want to do it now, or you can bring it up when it comes up as the next one.

Can you wait?

We're gonna bring it up after the next public hearing.

That'll be great.

Thank you.

Okay, so now we'll move on to 13B.

This is a public hearing on resolution 2025-34 relative to the request of the Laconia School Board to transfer 400,000 dollars of financial year 25 fund balance to capital reserve funds, and I'll open that up at 712.

Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this item?

I gotta get one of those clocks.

No, no, no.

I don't know.

Okay, seeing none, we'll close the uh the uh public hearing at 713.

Thank you.

Okay, now I'm gonna ask that we change the agenda around a little bit uh without objection and move 22a and 22b up to right now.

Is there any objection to that?

Okay, so we'll go to 22a.

22A is this is resolution 2025-33 authorization of a supplemental appropriation, the amount of 757,000 for the purpose of covering the cost of a special assessment levied against the school against the school department with funding to come from unencumbered fund balance.

And the floor is all yours.

Uh Diane Clary, business administrator for the school district.

So school care is a pool similar to Primex and uh Health Trust and other other uh insurance providers in the state.

And when you're part of a pool, if they have a good year, you get money back.

Um, which we have in the past.

We've been members of school care for 30 years.

We have gotten money back in the past, and we roll that down to our employees.

Um they are required to have a 12 percent uh reserve account.

Uh and this past year they uh used up all the reserves and went into the negative 4.9 million dollars.

So everyone in the pool was given an assessment based on their percentage.

Our percentage was 2.9 of their full business percent.

Uh so our assessment was $874,000, which was a surprise, was not expected and was not budgeted.

So our request was to use unencumbered fund balance from 2425 because it does reflect the business of 2425 to use towards that 874, and the balance will come from this year's um budget.

Did I answer your questions?

Counselor?

Okay, counselor Cheney.

I'm sorry, Councillor Susi.

Can you define to me unencumbered balance?

Because if you had $757,000 in unincurrent balance, why was that that was another word to me?

That's tax money that's come into the school system that wasn't needed.

Right.

So our revenues out outweighed our expenditures for 2425 by that amount.

Um wouldn't that be returned to the taxpayer, not to the normally it would, but um, in this case, because we do owe that money, it's better to use it for that instead of taking out a loan or say a bond to pay it.

Okay, because let's say that didn't happen.

When it comes to this year's next year's budget, would you have taken that 750 and use it against that budget or keep an unincurred balance?

I would have left it as an unencumbered balance.

So that's extra money that's in there that the taxpayers have given you.

Now when you get money back from this the pool, that money went back to your teachers, not to the taxpayers.

Right.

So it went back to their their uh amounts that they paid towards their insurance, which at the end of the day, uh our bottom line budget would have reflected that extra money.

And if we had that extra money, we would either give it back to the pet taxpayers or maybe send it into a reserve account like we've done in the past.

When you said the word extra money right away, my taxpayer here is going back in my head.

Right.

Uh more revenue than we had expenditures.

I I applaud you for getting that.

That's good.

That's that's good management.

My question is, why didn't it go back to the taxpayer?

If we had not had this assessment, it would have.

Or you would have put it into another fund balance.

Well, I had already um proposed the 400,000.

So that 400,000, which is on the second thing.

That's monies if I remember from the last meeting is being used to put aside to replace the football field turf.

One 100,000 goes towards the turf and 300,000 goes back to our facilities reserve account because with the uh high school renovation, we depleted that.

So we're gonna try and um build that back up.

And the reason that we have reserve accounts, as you well know, is you know, costs keep going up, and sometimes the revenues don't match those costs.

So if we over expend in say special ed, we have those reserve accounts to make that up so that we don't have to come back to you and ask for more money.

Sounds sounds like the county.

Exactly.

Anything else?

Yeah, go ahead, council bogert.

I would sorry, you done?

No, I wasn't.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You can hold off, go ahead.

Go ahead, Diane.

Just for clarity and for my own curiosity, could you give the city manager or through with Glenn, maybe for our next meeting and we can after a summary of your reserve accounts and how much you have in there?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Well said, I'm all set, thank you.

Thank you.

Council Bogart.

So basically, unencumbered funds is a fund balance.

It would go into a fund balance, which helps to level out the bumps in the road that are unforeseen so that you don't show up at our doorsteps going, oh, by the way, I need 757,000 dollars to pay a shortcoming of the insurance fund.

So by having some of this money on hand, as like what the county does, it smooths the bump.

We use we keep a certain amount, it helps us with the bond rating, and it also helps to alleviate when we have too much.

We apply it towards the next budget cycle to help reduce that tax rate.

It goes right to the bottom line in reducing it.

So is that kind of like the same situation?

Yes, very much so.

Um we don't often have uh our revenues so much more than our expenditures, but we were really very um careful in our budgeting of last year, and so then and we got more expendit more revenues than we anticipated, which in a budget system that I do, I always underestimate my revenues so that we are we stay within our our means.

So that's kind of how that works.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

anybody thank you very much.

You're welcome.

So Kirk, I will look to you for any additional nope, no.

We um this I will just say that the city is now on school care, but because we're new to it in this fiscal year, we the city side wasn't affected this year.

Um our risk pool was affected a little bit, but at a much lower percentage, so it wasn't like this.

This was um quite a significant uh hit that they took.

Um so that that's why that's why this hasn't come up on the city side of it.

Okay, any other questions?

Go ahead, council Bogart.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um with that being said, if we get money back from the fund because it was underutilized, that's how that payment comes back, I assume.

Hopefully, we would start a reserve to counteract something like is happening with the school today.

And we have a we have a uh health insurance uh reserve fund.

We have used it uh in the past this last year uh as an example because of the uh the rates went out of control.

Um and it was the rates going out of control was was a way too offset, so they didn't run into this next year.

That's why they were so thrown off.

But yeah, we've had a we've had a uh uh a fund like that for a while.

Um try to put money into it when we can at the end of the year, it all depends on how insurance plays out uh over the cost course of the fiscal year.

So there it is available in an account like that.

I think that's sound practice to keep the bumps and the road a little smoother.

Yeah, and like I said, on the one that we looked at using in in the current fiscal year we're in, the only reason we had to uh even consider looking at that was because of the bump in this year, and um uh hopefully we don't run into that next year.

There's no guarantees because we don't know our numbers yet for next year, but we will soon.

Thank you.

All set, thank you.

Okay, welcome.

Okay, is that anybody else have any discussion?

All right, so I'll uh uh move to waive a reading of resolution 2025-33 in its entirety and to read by title only.

I look for a motion on that.

Uh okay, made by counselor felch, seconded by councillor bogert.

All in favor.

That's six in the affirmative, thank you.

Now I'll move to conduct a second reading of the resolution 2025-33, authorization of a supplemental appropriation, the amount of 757,000 for the purpose of covering the cost of a special assessment levied against the school department with funding to come from unincumbent fund balance.

Look for a motion on that.

So, councillor Cheney.

I'm sorry, counselor keep looking at you, just the blue shirts.

Councillor Susi made that motion and uh councillor hands second it.

Thank you.

All in favor, raise your hands.

That's six in the affirmative, thank you very much.

And lastly, I move to appropriate excuse me to approve resolution 2025-33 authorization of a supplemental appropriation in the amount of 757,000 for the purpose of covering the cost of a special assessment levied against the school department with funding to come from unencumbent fund balance as presented.

I look for a uh motion on that.

Um move by councillor Bogart, seconded by Councillor Felk, thank you.

Any uh more discussion?

All in favor, raise your hands.

That's six in the affirmative.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so now we're gonna go to 2022.

Yep.

Is there anybody want to speak to that?

City manager.

Well, I would say if you want to hear from somebody, um business administrator from the school would be anybody you guys anybody want to hear anything?

You need anything.

No, you could know we're educated.

Okay.

So I'll move to waiver reading of resolution 2025-34 in its entirety and read by title only.

I look for a motion on that.

Made by uh motion by Councillor Hoffman, seconded by Councillor Cheney.

All in favor, raise your hands.

That's six in the affirmative, thank you.

I move a second reading of resolution 2025-34 relevant to the request of the Laconia School Board to transfer 400,000 of uh FY25 fund balance to capital reserve funds.

Look for a uh motion on that made by uh councillor Bogart, seconded by Councillor Felch.

All in favor, reason raise your hands.

That's six in the affirmative.

Thank you.

And lastly, a move to approve resolution 2025-34 relative to the request of Laconia School Board to transfer of 400,000 of FY25 fund balance to capital reserve funds.

Look for a motion on that made by counselor Hoffman, seconded by Councillor Hance.

All in favor, raise your hands, please.

That's six in the affirmative.

Thank you all very much.

Okay, now we're gonna go back to I got a thank you.

Thank you all.

Okay, we have a uh presentation for a recap of the Laconia Pumpkin Festival.

So there's somebody here.

They're two very familiar faces.

Good evening, everyone.

Um so Nancy and I are here to just say who you are for all the everybody doesn't know you.

Thank you.

Amy Levisek, director of recreation facilities.

And Nancy Brown, Nancy Brown, the City Manager's Office.

Thank you.

Um we are here to just give you the nuts and bolts of how how the weekend went for October 25th of uh first annual Laconia Pumpkin Festival.

Um I believe I saw all of you down there at one point or another.

Um, and that being said, I don't have to tell you too much because you you saw it with your own your own eyes, but it was a huge success.

Uh we couldn't be more more happy.

And the uh I know I said it the last time I was here, but I'll say it again that the team that was that was put together for this was amazing.

Um I can't say everyone's name, but there were so many different departments taking part in this planning and DPW and the city manager's office and and just so many different um departments.

But I also wanted to thank you for for supporting us and thank all the patrons who came out to also support and enjoy the the day.

We did have about 20,000 visitors that day in Laconia, which it's quite impressive if you ask me.

They were not there all at one time.

So if you were there and you said, well, there's no way there was 20,000 people, it was a very very much an ebb and flow.

People were coming and going all day all day long.

Um we had 82 craft vendors and 91 regular vendors, which included food vendors, nonprofits, companies, that type of thing.

We did have a mini golf course setup that was sponsored by the Laconia Country Club, which we wanted to say thank you to that.

Um we sold t-shirts.

Some of you have bought multiple, thank you, Councillor Susie.

Um we we sold 176 so far, and at this point we are now in the profit making portion of the t-shirts, so please feel free and buy more, come to my office.

Uh, and we sold 42 mugs.

Um of the successes that we had were that people were just happy.

It was a it was a pleasant day to be down there.

Yes, the weather was great, not my doing.

Um just there were no real hiccups.

Um the the people were happy that came, the businesses were happy that we're there, the vendors were happy because a lot of them sold out of their wares, which you couldn't be more happy as a vendor.

Um, but not only that, but the police didn't have any calls, not one.

Um, and there were uh a couple minor scrapes and bumps and bruises that the fire department did have to respond to, um, but with 20,000 people, how do you not have that?

Um the other real success I think um I would be remiss to to bring up would be the cleanup on Sunday.

Uh DPW did an amazing job.

Uh they were there at 7 a.m.

Actually, I believe they were there before 7 a.m.

And they had those streets open and cleaned by 10 30.

Uh it was it was quite impressive, and they they moved very quickly, and people were pleased with that.

So I want to do a special shout out to them.

For the future, we are going to be changing things up.

Um we're looking to become a 501c3 so that we can potentially get grants to support this event.

Um, and it's a little easier for people to uh make tax-deductible donations to it as well.

Um in addition to that, with the sponsors, I I think people saw that it it was quite the event and were pleased, and I think more sponsors will be willing to willing to come out and support us.

So I think we'll do much better next year.

Um the budget, I know that's gonna be number one on your on your list to ask me.

Um, it's not quite ready.

So I apologize for that, but not all the invoices have come through and gone through the system.

So I don't have an accurate um number for you.

You all budgeted 97, no, 95 plus thousand dollars for it.

We're not going anywhere near that, so don't worry.

Um we are changing things up.

I the last time I was here we mentioned that we were going to have it October 17th and 18th.

We are changing that as of today.

Um the committee decided that they like the idea of being closer to Halloween, and capitalizing on the on the costumes and the zombie walks and and that type of an atmosphere, and so we've decided to keep it as it is, uh, as the the last weekend before Halloween, and that will be October 23rd and 24th next year.

It'll be actually we're going to be doing a Friday night and a Saturday instead of Saturday and Sunday.

So it was mentioned to us that vendors would be having to sleep over.

You know, the a number of a number of different things came up.

Um, businesses having to having to have that much extra for themselves during on Sunday.

So it was brought to our attention that Sunday might be a little bit more difficult for people.

And I think people are coming here Saturday anyway.

The Sunday would have been great if it rained, but I I think Saturday's gonna be the day.

However, the Friday is the new one, um, and we're going to have what I'm calling a soft opening.

Um it's going to be no pumpkin.

I mean the pumpkins will be on the tower, but it's not going to be lit.

Um, but the train will go off.

Hopefully, they'll they'll be with us.

Um we'll have the beer tent in the parking lot, and then all the food vendors we can in the parking lot.

And another idea is to also extend one more weekend and have the canal street block party happen that day as well on Canal Street.

So it it's just something more we can do on Friday, which is downtown's busiest day of the of the week.

So um that way we can help out there as well.

Lastly, is that we were notified that our logo um being that we were at a rush to hurry and get a logo last year.

Um it's a little bit more AI than people like.

I personally love our logo, but that's that's my personal opinion.

Um, and I think Savannah Vernel did an amazing job on it.

Um after speaking with her, she was okay with this idea.

But what we thank you very much for that.

Um what I what we were looking at doing is uh including our local artists, uh both you know actual paint pencil, pen, um, graphic arts, but we're looking for we're going to be doing a contest and looking for people to um come out and and and show us what they have, and the committee will be making the decision on on a new logo, potentially.

Um we will of course ask them to um allow us to use the use the image.

Um we might put it out on Facebook.

We're we've not come out with that yet, but I just want to let you know that we're our logo may change.

Um we have not decided whether or not we're sticking.

Well, we look we're sticking with the Laconia Pumpkin Festival, but we might do the logo with the Laconia Pumpkin Festival and New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival, so we can use them interchangeably because it is our festival and it is the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival, even though it's the Laconia Pumpkin Festival, it is the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival as well, and we don't want to lose that either.

So that's basically the pumpkin fest in a nutshell, not a very small nutshell, sorry about that.

But do you all have any questions for me or Nancy?

Well, you're gonna hear this.

Oh, yeah, it was a great job and a great time.

Thank you, thank you.

And uh I think you'll find hopefully if I I'm only going back to the first year, Amy, that Friday afternoon and evening was very busy, and I would expect that will happen again.

And maybe by some miracle you can get that tower lit Friday night.

But you never know, you never know.

No guarantees.

I'm just saying.

Um, but that's uh I think personally that's great news.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone have any else to okay?

Thank you both very much.

Thank you.

Okay, so now we have uh well my report.

I we had obviously we had an election uh this past Tuesday.

And I um to say that I was not happy with the turnout, I guess would be an understatement.

I would have liked to have seen a lot more of the voters come out.

Uh maybe we could have bumped it up to 30 percent, god forbid.

It would I'm sorry, it was 29 percent, like I said, maybe up to 30 percent.

Uh overwhelming at 40 percent, but it'd be nice because you know the candidates all worked very hard to get the voters out.

Um so it may be something that I know the midterms are a short time off.

I just under uh a year away now for that, which brings me to my next comment, which is I'm very very pleased with all the candidates getting their signs down.

And it seemed to me like this was a wrecked a wrecked effort this year, because normally we have signs out there at least a week and a half to two weeks and sometimes longer.

And I I'm really couldn't have been happier, and I heard that from uh other people too.

So I want to thank everybody for that.

Uh and speaking of signs, I guess it's I guess we're gonna have them up there about eight months or so, they'll probably start showing back up for the midterms in uh late August or definitely early September, dreading that already.

Um speaking of the election, we have Mayor elect Mike Boards here in the audience, and we have Council elect uh John Hildreth from Ward 1, and then the back somewhere we have uh there he is.

We have uh Mike Connett.

I hope I didn't mispronounce that Mike.

Uh he's uh counselor elect ward six.

So we uh I'm glad to see you all here and uh look forward to that uh in January.

Okay.

Uh one other thing is we have Christmas Village.

I just want to remind everybody.

I believe that opens up on the 4th of December.

Uh in your council, you're gonna be getting uh if you haven't already, you'll be getting an email inviting everybody there for that.

So that's that's that's our next big thing after Pumpkin Fest is is Christmas Village.

So many people look forward to that.

And uh so that that's on the fourth.

And that about wraps it up for me.

So any council comments tonight.

Counselor Cheney.

I have two items uh, Mr.

Mayor.

One is I was uh hoping the manager could work on getting that crosswalk at uh Cumberland Farms in the Weirs.

We've discussed it a number of times.

Uh apparently there's some confusion about the state.

It's a state road and whether or not we can put a site uh crosswalk on a state road.

Uh just uh an update.

I'm sorry, an update.

Yeah, and and hopefully some pressure on somebody at the state.

I think the last time we talked about this, Wes, did you have any updates on that?

I know that we you had worked on that before with the DOT.

The basic problem is the speed limit in that area of uh Endicott Street North Route 3.

Depending upon, we'll have to do a traffic study determine, depending upon it.

We either be more like the Meredith downtown Meredith crossings, or it would be more like the rapid flashing beacons, depending upon speed limits and what site distance and everything has for a for that engineering traffic study.

I thought the state had already approved it, and it was not they basically said we had to do the traffic study.

We being the city, yep.

Well, uh I can see five or ten volunteers out there, we can do this real cheap.

Go up there start counting cars and uh it's more in regards to speed limit and well that's not hard to do either.

I mean, I I would hate to see this dragged out for 20 years.

I mean, um they just smother people with these traffic studies, and uh my word.

I thought they excuse me, I thought this had been already approved, and it was going to be we were looking to see where it was going to be in a 10-year plan.

Um I was also under the impression, and correct me if I'm wrong, Wes, but there was money that was going to be put into the project from the condos that were being put up there.

We have a little bit of money, but it doesn't will not complete that project if the state requires the Meredith type uh well, I I can't traffic signals.

Yeah, that to me, and I think most people in the audience are familiar with the flashing light parade up there in Meredith, but I would think that uh just the blinking yellow lights we have around town now would suffice up there.

No, because of the speed limits 40 miles an hour through there, and you come in down from Meredith and you hit that corner, so you have a short sight.

But it's not 40 miles an hour at the ones up in Merrick.

That's right downtown.

Right.

But again, because it's state control road, we have to have a traffic study to do it.

Okay, so we're not we're not restricted to the lights that they either way, but that has to that just has to be a good thing.

It may require a reduction in speed limit earlier as you're coming into uh coming into the Weirs.

Okay, so this too.

Should this go back to public works or something as far as that goes, Kirk?

Let us take a look at uh let's get a uh we'll get a price of what the traffic study would be, if it fits within one of our uh budget lines for that, we can take care of it and then we'll have that.

Yeah, I know, but that's the only way we can do it.

That's where we've got to do it.

But I no, I understand that, but I'm so disappointed because I thought this was pretty much we were just waiting on this date to say when they were gonna do it.

I I would hope and encourage that, and I know this you know the council nobody wants to spend a million dollars on a traffic study, but I hope we can get away with something relatively quick and relatively easy because uh the traffic ebbs and flows up there on a regular basis, no matter what.

We'll get a price and then we'll make a determination from there on if it fits into something that we've already have budgeted, or if we need a different type of appropriation and if we have to figure out where we go with that next year or in the in somewhere else in the budget.

Okay, and that would come that would come back to you if we do that.

All right, counselor Bogart.

Uh two things.

One, did we have to do a traffic study for those new condos on the front side of Cumberland Farms?

That would have been one traffic study, and number two, did that thousand page, I haven't got through it all yet, but did that thousand-page traffic study in anything whatsoever.

So it would go back to did we do one for those condos that are going in, and if we've done one for that development, they buy out and paid for it and turned it over to the city.

It's a very good question.

So maybe we can use that traffic study.

That's a very, very good question.

And and I do recall um, and Wes, you can correct me on this too.

I do recall when they were uh doing the uh entranceway up there.

There some of us uh on the planning board too had had requested that they uh do a turn lane there for them, and um DOT said they didn't need one there.

So that's a sad so if they if they say they'll need one there, maybe you're right.

Maybe they have done a traffic study up there, or at least they've paid attention to it.

We'll check and see, but a lot of times they don't look at the pedestrian aspect of it, so we'd have to determine if they did or not.

Okay.

Well, let's we'll get it right on the on the front burner here.

Thank you, thank you, Council Cheney.

And you had something else.

I had a second thing if you would, Mr.

Mayor.

I uh uh it would now the election's over.

Uh I proposed bringing some charts in at the last meeting, and the manager said to me it was inappropriate because the election was coming up, but the number of uh letters and other suggestions that somehow these good old boys have been you know wasting money or not paying attention or whatever bothered me enough.

If any of you were at the forum, you know, I put these up, but I'd like to put them up so that the TV can have them.

Um where do you want to put them on?

Where's the best place, uh Katie, so that the TV can pick them up?

Right between these two would work.

It would catch the it would catch the culture right here.

Yeah, right there, yeah.

Okay.

I just you know, all six of you and and our former mayor, whether you agreed or not on any given issue, have all worked hard over the eight years that I've been here and paid attention to business, and I uh I want the people of Laconia to know what we have done for them, if I may slide down a little bit, yeah.

Okay, okay.

My first chart, oops.

My first chart is of the uh 13 city.

Oh, I'm sorry, this is uh Belnap County.

I average the tax rate of the uh 10 towns in the city of Laconia in Belknap County, and we are 68 cents higher than the average.

We have a county home, uh a county jail, a county house of correction, uh county courthouse, all of which require our services, and we get no tax money back.

Maybe if we did that, 68 cents would disappear.

Maybe if the other towns helped out, it would disappear.

But that's not going to happen.

I just want folks to know that you know we are paying attention, and we're not out that far out around uh with the other towns.

Uh the second one I have is the 13 cities in the state.

Um the second lowest city in the state of New Hampshire for taxes.

Tax rates.

Uh someone brought up at the forum that, well, yes, but my actual tax dollars went up substantially.

That's because of reappraisals.

And reappraisals aren't just Laconia, hit statewide.

It's required by law every five years.

Am I correct?

I think we do 20% of the city at a time, but over a five-year period, everybody in this city gets reappraised.

If the guy across the street from you, as was suggested at the meeting, sold his house for 1.2 million dollars, it's gonna affect you.

But it's not because of this, it's because the value of your property went up.

It has nothing to do with what the city has tried to do in terms of tax rates.

My final beef is this one.

And now that we have two members of the uh county delegation are going to be here next year.

I'm hoping they can work on this.

This is a chart.

Whoops.

Yeah, okay.

Yep.

This is a chart of the city's tax rate over the last uh 20 12, 14 years.

Please know there's a small drop here in that amount.

It at the same time, the county appropriation from the city has gone up dramatically.

That's this number over here.

Oops.

Yeah, I haven't been drinking.

Um it went up substantially.

Um, and we're paying that.

So it's not the good old boys wasting money, it's the good old boys picking up after the county and picking up after increased values, etc.

It's not you guys or me, I'm leaving.

Um not paying attention to business.

If you look at this the second in the state, the good old boys haven't been just sitting around doing nothing.

We've done a good job of trying to take care of the taxpayers in Laconia.

I'm one of them.

That's it for me, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you guys for for what you've done.

I mean that sincerely.

Thank you, counselor.

Anyone else in Council Commerce?

Counselor Felch.

Yeah, I just want to uh mention that the uh Greater Lakes Region Children's Auction is coming up um December 9th through the 12th.

Um so they're looking for items.

Um you go on the website, children's auction.org.

They have several locations to drop off items.

They're gonna be at the Bellinap Marketplace again this year in the old CVS.

Um they'll be accepting donations Black Friday that weekend.

Um also PubMania is the ninth.

Well, no, not the night, the 11th.

Um PubMania actually takes donations of food.

So if you know anybody that's on the PubMania team, they can take that food.

Um I'm one of them as well.

Uh you can drop stuff off at Cafe Dej Vou.

They're one of the teams.

Um if you have any questions or you want any information, children's auction.org, everything's on there.

Thank you, counselor.

Council Hoffman.

Yeah, I brought this issue up a few months ago that uh the streets uh Holman Street, Lynwood, Shore Drive.

Um, the the residents there had requested we lower the speed limit.

So uh the cooperation of the director of public works and he got in touch with uh Laconia PD, they set up uh speed tracking devices.

Um the results of that investigation didn't really warrant lowering the speed limit, but we still do have a traffic situation on these roads.

Um even in the results of that little traffic study, you know, the residents are complaining, people drive through there at 50, 60 miles an hour and going between Lexington and uh Dale Avenue.

Um it's a sleepy little residential area.

There's a lot of pedestrian traffic.

There was a hit and run there the other day on uh Halloween.

Um so I think people are understandably upset and they're they're looking for us to do something about it.

Was that at night time?

No.

Daytime.

Yes.

Okay.

I you know, I don't I remember when we heard that people were doing 50, 60 miles an hour on Beacon Street West.

And I think we our chief was I think was Mike Moore.

I might have been Matt Canfield, but they put those boxes up and uh had the same results.

I I realize that um people do speed, but if you're standing still and somebody goes by at even 25 miles an hour, it seems pretty fast if you're close.

I would hate to see us uh start.

I don't even know if we can do it uh in non-school zones, because I think the state frowns on that.

I understand the engineering reasons that we that we can't lower the speed limit, and I'm fine with that, but I think that we still need to do something.

I'd like to increase the the amount of no-through traffic signs between Lexington and and Gale Avenue.

I think we could put in some more stop signs to make it a uh less desirable shortcut.

Okay, um so you think we should send that to committee?

I do.

Um is that public works or government ops works with uh public works?

Yeah, I would say public works.

Council Cheney.

I just would add uh I as liaison to police and fire.

I'll talk to the chief.

Uh we usually have coffee once a month or so.

Uh I'll talk to him about increasing presence there.

Um my experience from a few years ago was uh law enforcement appearance on a in a neighborhood tends to quickly uh help with that problem.

So it doesn't mean they even have to give out tickets, it just means be seen there more frequently than they are now.

You know, their calls for service make them go from here to there to there.

And and the you tend to, and it happened when I was a chief.

You tend to forget about the residential streets uh that that need that sort of so I'll I'll talk the point is here I'll point out that I've gotten more calls, emails, and text messages about this issue than any other thing in the last two years.

It's uh I've been told that if if we need a petition with signatures, they can get me as many.

So it must be it must be the same actors doing this.

So it's not like that's a shortcut for people going from coming in from out of town going to Weir's Beach or something.

No, it's the people that work on Lexington and cutting around Main Street.

So perhaps as counselor China suggested, you know, uh more visibility there, and maybe a few tickets when heard either.

Yeah, go to counselor.

Certainly they they may well give out some tickets.

You know, as time goes by and they don't see anybody, because they're not supposed to go through that neighborhood at the end of the day.

Uh but it's probably been years since anybody paid a lot of attention, and the guy that was hired hired six months ago thinks, well, hell it's faster to go down Holman Street.

Um, and I might as well do 50 on that.

So let me I I'm not saying we shouldn't do these other things.

I'm simply saying on top of that, I'll talk to the police chief about you know, maybe increasing.

I mean, all of these things we've discussed, stop signs, speed limits, no through traffic signs, none of that does any good if if there's no enforcement.

That way, and and yeah, I'll speak to them about it.

Council Broker, yeah.

I think you had you had this to add to that, uh, there's another method without changing the speed limit or anything.

I noticed them in Massachusetts in uh like Medford area and stuff, they have this thing called a speed table, and it's it's a wider version of a speed bump, it's a little smoother, but it causes in the way it's lined and stuff, it causes you to slow down to go over this this speed table, and they also use the speed table on the crosswalks so that the person walking is on the speed bump, so the cars are naturally already slowing down instead of like on South Main Street to hurry in to get out of town or hurry in to get north and you get run over, not hard to have to dodge them.

But the speed table is something we can do, and it's very inexpensive without changing the uh uh speed limit or anything.

What are those things do to a snowpile?

They have snow in Boston, so they and they're they're graded as such, like I said, it's not a speed bump.

So it you slide up, your whole car goes on top and then it comes back down.

So it's smoothed enough so that a plow and stuff can go over.

Well, it sounds like a definite uh thing for the committee.

Uh go ahead, council Susie.

One other thing, and maybe when you speak to the chief or maybe a note from maybe city managed employers and lexington on industrial park, speak to the employers to let the employees know that we're gonna start getting tougher or whatever it is there because I know from my experience company I would we would take that quite to heart and get down to all employees.

That's not a bad idea at all.

Anybody else?

Councilor Commerce?

Okay, seeing nothing.

Any committee reports uh councillors, any committee reports, councillor Hayes?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Um government operations and ordinances met in regards to um the Hill Street parking restrictions, and after uh testimony from the uh public works director and the fire chief, um the committee was unanimous that the uh restrictions would stack.

What street was that?

Uh Hill Street, okay.

May I go ahead, Council Susie?

Which restrictions are you talking now?

Well, uh parking on one side of the street.

No, no, no, that's the way it is now.

Yeah, you're just gonna leave that be.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

Uh it was just too difficult for the fire.

You can't make that corner.

Yeah, right.

Okay, right.

I spoke to a couple of residents and they both said the same thing.

That's why I was just trying to get clarification.

Both ways, that's a tough corner.

That's a tough core.

So that's nothing we have we don't know.

No, it's not gonna go to the council.

All right, wonderful.

Anyone else?

Okay.

Thank you.

Any leason reports.

Leah's off reports.

From anybody.

Okay, citizens request a comment on current agenda items.

Is there anybody here that would like to comment on current matters on the agenda?

Oh, we got somebody here.

Rich McNeil, 47 Rowling Lane here in Laconia.

Um, also member of the planning board, and I'd just like to speak in favor.

Uh you can have a presentation from the planning department later about impact fees, and that will greatly help, I think, every department in the city of Laconia if we bring that up to uh a more current rate for new construction, and the impact to a builder is pretty incrementally small.

So I think Rob has some real good numbers, and I think maybe you have some packets on it.

So uh it's I think that could be really positive for us going forward.

Thank you very much.

Any questions?

Okay, thank you very much.

Anyone else?

I'll go ahead and ask it.

I already know the answer, but I'm gonna ask you.

Could you remove your hat, please?

No, but thank you.

Thank you.

All right, um, just give us who you are, please.

Sure, Doug Robinson uh 162 Cotton Hill Road.

I just want to talk about the HRC committee.

Um I'm gonna ask that you guys table that vote tonight um until some research is done.

Uh the last meeting, someone mentioned up here that we don't even know how we got here.

Someone had applied for some grants or something to that effect, and then also you guys mentioned up here that um they had started the subcommittee and you didn't know how that happened.

If these things aren't within their per view, when I go online to look, they're not within their purview on their rules.

So I'm gonna ask you that you don't take that vote tonight until you figure out what's going on with that and how these things happened and why they happened, right?

And if there was any grants taken, and Kirk told me there wasn't, but if there was, who applied for them in whose name?

The city's name or in or in their name, right?

So just just a couple of things there, and I'm just concerned and if I could just correct, I just I I maybe I wrote it wrong, but they there was a grant accepted.

Two years ago, you said yeah, two years ago when it was through the process.

But you said there hadn't been anything recently, but nothing was at the last meeting, they made it sound like that it happened again, at least applied for it, even if it wasn't I'm aware of not that I'm aware of yeah.

If you look at your meetings, it's there in the in the it's there.

Um but anyway, so just I just want to make sure that's taken care of before we move ahead with this vote.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Patrick of the Human Relations Committee.

There was a grant.

It was not applied for.

The city did not apply for it.

It was a grant offered to the human relations committee through the city from the New Hampshire Endowment for Our Arts.

It came totally out of the blue to the human relations commit human relations committee.

We were not anticipating it, but we received it gratefully.

It was $15,000.

We've used a few uh hundred dollars of it.

We plan to use some more as part of the event uh Wednesday night, and hopefully some additional programs during the coming year.

Uh the grant was originally intended to expire the end of this year, but we asked for an extension and we got it through the end of 2026.

So there's no taxpayer effort involved in applying for the grant.

Um, and it's a benefit to the city by allowing the human relations committee to use uh those funds to help build community engagement and trust making.

So just to clarify that, uh the other thing is the human relations committee meets monthly.

I'm sorry, uh the meetings are available on Zoom.

Anyone can participate.

They've come to the meetings, they're publicly notified.

Umticed in a proper manner.

Uh we have subcommittee meetings that are also uh publicly noticed.

Uh there isn't anything hidden or not transparent in the operations of the human relations committee.

Um we have worked diligently to provide information to you.

You know that I've been here on a regular basis explaining things.

Um again, our meetings are public, they're open to the public.

So perhaps I'm a bit overly defensive, but we've worked very hard to do what we can for the city.

Yes, sir.

Wait a second.

Counselor Cheney had a question.

Go ahead.

Pat, first of all, uh, the uh the item uh 28 23 32, which talks about 20,000, there's no other that's a grant from the Hampshire endowment for health.

Yeah, I think it was 15,000.

Was it 20,000?

We're down to we've used some of it.

So that grant has gone through its correct processes, but that's the same thing.

But again, we didn't apply for it.

Okay.

The other question I have is because I've been somewhat involved in this, it's it's my understanding that what we want to start the process of is answering all these questions by committing a crit committee, like all the other committees that we have in the city that has to meet certain guidelines, has to meet our guidelines, uh, reporting, all that other stuff to to eliminate the concern.

That that's exactly right, Council.

And as you know, and um city manager knows, uh, some weeks ago I presented something specifically to do that because right now the committee is appointed by the mayor, and um I felt, and I have expressed this to the committee at large, that we should be a more permanent uh entity in the city.

And so this evening's um proposal um will do what you heard expressed at your last meeting, make this committee a permanent committee, provide uh oversight specifically by the city council through their appointments, um, having uh a variety of appointments.

My only thought would be would we might want to have somebody from the uh superintendent of schools uh appointed as well to be on the committee, but I think the concept is to make it a permanent fixture of the city of Laconia rather than being in a situation where if the mayor changes the committee may disappear.

One more item, counselor Cheney.

Yes.

Uh Path that members of the committee will be appointed by the city council, uh like every other committee.

They'll have to go into the appointment committee and then they'll have to come here for majority vote.

The the draft that I've seen, if I remember correctly, one would be appointed by the mayor, two by the city manager, and the rest by the council.

If if if I remember that something along those lines, I think it's one by the city manager and two by the mayor.

Okay, well they're ahead of paper.

Okay the council correctly, everything is said.

Yeah, I before you get into too deep in the discussions on this.

I know we're we're in um public comment session.

Remember, this is on the table.

So before you get into too far with your own discussions, you'll want to take it off the table for just for discussion purposes.

Which we're gonna do later.

Which you're gonna do later, but if you get into too deep right now, I mean asking questions is one, but too much debate, just want to make sure that we don't get in there.

Yeah, let's wait.

Do that.

Council Susi, gonna wait.

Okay.

Thank you, Pat.

I don't think anybody's had a question.

Thank you, Pat.

I didn't know if no, we're gonna see how to take it off the table later and we'll thank you.

Anyone else?

Oh, yeah.

Mr.

Mayor Counselors, nice to see you.

Congratulations to those who congratulated and condolences to those.

Condolences.

Can you just give us your name?

Yeah, my name's Greg Huff.

Thank you.

I live at uh on uh Highland Street in Laconia.

And I just wanted to um address the impact fees uh for a minute.

Um I see we get the most of the planning board here, and they're gonna give a presentation.

I just want to caution um on what they're proposing.

What they're proposing is to use these impact fees to create revenue to build infrastructure for housing that's going to be coming in.

It's kind of um a self-fulfilling prophecy here.

You don't have the money for the infrastructure.

The comment that is usually made with something like this is it's not going on the taxpayers' back, it's going on the back of the builders.

Well, where do you think the builders are going to put that responsibility?

They're gonna dump it right into the price, and all of the things that you're trying to do, or that I've thought you've been trying to do with affordable housing and building infrastructure, it's counterproductive to it.

So I'm not gonna get deep into it because I know that these guys are gonna be doing a presentation and there's gonna be more on this.

But I would um just caution uh to maybe do some research on your own and not just listen to the echo chamber saying that this is a great idea.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I was gonna ask the city manager that uh and this will come, I guess maybe with the discussion, but I just want to be clear.

All the money doesn't go to building homes, right?

No, it goes it goes to the way the the RSA, I won't get too deep into it.

Rob can probably do it a lot better, but it has to go into capital improvement projects.

And you'll notice on this year what we did for CIP capital improvement program was we made sure we added all of the things that could potentially um be looked for.

Generally, when we send out our CIP for the department heads, they put in the top three, four, five, ten things that they want to do.

Some obviously more than others, depending on which department they are.

We we added more to it this year and asked for more because we can use that money towards CIP projects.

Um doesn't have to be necessary infrastructure.

It could there's there's a multitude of things that it can be used for.

Um, and that's what we sort of focused on this year.

Okay, counselor.

If I'm reading this, if I'm reading this right, the impact fees are spread up spread across all the departments, school police, fire parks, roads.

Is that correct?

Correct.

When you when they do uh when they do an impact fee, depending on what you're building, it determines a percentage of what goes into each of those of those pods.

You build a commercial structure that's you know, an industrial plant, you're not gonna be putting money into schools and libraries necessarily.

It but police fire roads, those are gonna be affected.

That that's there's there's a is a formula that goes into all of it.

It's not used just for housing or anything else.

No, no, no, it's capital improvement projects.

Okay, that's what I thought.

Okay, is that it for council?

Uh questions, okay.

We'll do the city manager's report now.

Oh, somebody else.

I'm sorry, I did not see you come up.

That's okay.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Sue Higgins, and I live in Ward 2 in Laconia, and I want to talk about the Human Relations Committee.

Um that you guys are talking about later tonight.

And I I guess um my major concern is that when you go to um number D of the items that you have, you're asking for policies and procedures to document, which includes a mission values and a purpose statement.

And um, it would seem to me that before you form a committee and make it a permanent part of the city of Laconia that those things should be addressed first so that the city knows exactly what the purpose and the st and the mission of this committee is.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, last shot.

Any other buddy, anybody else here?

Comments on the agenda.

Okay, we'll go to the city manager's report.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, including it in your pack tonight is your financial and operational trends.

Um we see our building construction numbers are are doing well uh comparatively this year.

Fire calls were up uh again.

Anytime you're clearing 400 calls a month, that's pretty busy.

The mobile integrated health care paramedic data is there.

That's the uh the the public health uh team that's going around working on uh our patients who are trying to keep them out of the hospital.

There was a great article in the paper this weekend about this.

If you haven't uh read that in the Daily Sun, take a look at that, it really explains it very well what they're doing over there.

Uh the general assistance data, we did see a little bit of bump this month.

As we talked about last month, it was probably a little under the invoices, probably all hadn't cleared.

Uh, we're still averaging around 16,000 a month to hit our budget exactly, would want to be under 13,000 a month.

So the number's not as far off as it has been in the last couple years, but it's still still a little bit uh high.

Um police data on the next page.

Um I'll talk to a police chief ahead of time.

Uh just to kind of look at the on the total call on the calls for service total.

There's the park walk and talk, extra patrol, community policing, sort of all clumped together into that community policing model.

Um if you look at the numbers year to date versus last year, it's up about 40 percent.

Uh it's something that uh that the chief has been really putting a lot of emphasis on increasing the uh that that part of what they do for our mission.

to kind of look at the under total call on the calls for service total there's the park walk and talk extra patrol community policing sort of all clumped together into that community policing model um if you look at the numbers year to date versus last year it's up about 40 percent and it's something that the that the chief has been really putting a lot of emphasis on um on increasing the uh that that part of what they do for mission property tax collection is where we would expect it to be at this time um overtime as well overtime is always a little tricky this time of year because it's coming off of the the summer months when vacation is taken so there's always a little bit of inf uh up and down there but again I've talked about this in the past and I'll say it again as we see our departments filled um well we see that come down and that and that's really a positive motor vehicle uh registration is uh we're 33% through the year and we're a little bit above there at this point so that's good.

Um we see the parks numbers are uh the requests are up uh on peak to be a little bit on uh pace rather to be a little bit higher than last year uh impact fee revenues uh that was just discussed on the different ones that they use and you'll note that the uh um where it stands and and again I'm gonna I I don't want to sound like a broken record but I I again one of the things that's been pushed by RSA we have to use this money within a certain time frame uh and I think you'll note that it's been a it's been something that we've been trying to make sure we push when they're looking when a department is looking for something in particular and and we have an opportunity to use this part of money that's why when it comes back to you it's we do try to use this money um one because it has to be within a certain time frame um but two if if that's what that money's there for we should be using it the reserve fund balances really haven't changed um what you see there uh on the uh on the next page is no real changes uh the TIFF summary it's in here we'll include it we'll make any changes um but when you look at the budgeted number that amount of money is gonna get spread out over the course of the year um so you're not gonna see a whole lot of changes in this uh this was a request um uh by you to have this on there uh you know you know just on a monthly update and that's what we'll continue to do um under code statistics if you look at the short term rental inspections one note I just want to make it's not about the number um but the short-term rental um ordinance uh is uh has been under review for a while there was close to being ready to come uh in front of you uh they had brought it to the planning board there was some legislative changes that happened that had to go back to our attorneys to be adjusted um and it's gone back to the planning board so you should be seeing that over the next couple of months um from uh the planning department here uh which will require another public hearing and all that before you can approve anything um but it uh that's why if you remember me saying that this was coming and it stopped that was why it had to it had to take that legislative updates through uh legal just to just to make sure we were still on this on the right uh track with it um the general fund uh the revenues and expenditures are there revenues down a little bit less than what we would expect at this time but not anything outside the average um and the the expenditures are um right on track they're under a little bit what I figured for the EMS building is it all the numbers are there nothing's really changed from last month um every quarter every six months or so we do an update with this so I figure this will you know over the next couple of months uh as we have some new people coming up here to set up here we'll get uh uh the fire department in Chief Jubert and uh his deputy VMS to come in and do another breakdown of this and just a continued understanding of of what this looks like but nothing really jumps out at me in this the second piece that I have for you is two things that I would recommend going to um government operations and ordinance committee um mayor sinclair and I discussed both of these earlier tonight um number one is as you saw on the uh during the the balloting there was uh the social districts passed um so now edit passed and it's and it's approved um that's step one the rest of it is now back on your shoulders um I would recommend that the discussions start with the government operations and ordinances committee um with uh public works police fire probably code and planning also being involved with um the beginning processes of what they want the what the beginning process of which you want the social distress to look like and making sure it fits in what what they have for public safety um before it comes in front of the full board so I would recommend it if that uh the next time the government operations ordinance committee meets that uh that that is on the agenda it's up to you guys but that was one of my recommendations yeah who's the chair of that yeah it's all yours all right it's all written down uh and that will come before a public hearing in any event oh yeah there's a there's a lot of steps involved before before that gets there we just really have to start well my guess is what'll happen is is the subcommittee will start the process it'll come to here'll be a lot more discussion probably go back to the committee I think there's gonna be a lot of back and forth over a few months to make this uh you know kind of exactly what you're looking for uh out of these social districts they're new they're new to everybody that that passed it a couple places passed it not everybody passed it but um

Uh and that will come before a public hearing in any event.

Oh, yeah, there's there's a there's a lot of steps involved before before that gets there.

We just really have to start.

Well, my guess is what'll happen is is the subcommittee will start the process, it'll come to here.

There'll be a lot more discussion, probably go back to the committee.

I think there's gonna be a lot of back and forth over a few months to make this uh you know, kind of exactly what you're looking for uh out of these social districts.

They're new, they're new to everybody that that passed it, a couple places passed it, not everybody passed it, but um, you know, we've been doing for lack of a better term, impromptu ones for decades.

Yeah, um, so I don't think that the uh the mechanics will be very difficult.

It'll be defining the the boundaries.

It's gonna what's probably gonna take the most time.

The second one that I that I would recommend at least taking a look at and and potentially sending it through, and again, they have um Mayor St.

Clair and I had this conversation earlier.

Is Mr.

Robinson did bring up uh an issue on some certain drugs that are being sold, quote unquote legally.

Um the K2 spice, all those.

Um he did talk about Franklin.

I did do a little research with what they did.

Um they they made a lot of adjustments to that.

Uh you know, I think ultimately it's probably a state or even a federal issue.

However, I think it's probably worth having conversation um to see maybe what comes out of the subcommittee is that it it should be going to uh the state, you know, or you know, the letters from you or whatever it might look like, or an ordinance change.

Um so I think it would be worth at least having that discussion, and I would recommend it at a at a committee level.

What committee you think that would be.

So we send everything.

I send everything to government operation ordinance.

Yeah.

I was thrown off when you said public workshop.

I sent everything to these kids.

I just want to keep me busy before I leave.

I got it.

So if you send those two, we'll and we'll take care of anything else you have.

I I think there was maybe something else that had to go to the committee as well.

Um we'll get all those lined up in a in a meeting set.

Yep.

Um that's all I have for you.

Thank you.

Uh Council Susi.

On the current year, we're 65 million dollars for new building permits.

Yeah.

And we still have what five months left?

Yeah, yes.

And remember, that's not uh that's uh um that's gross.

So there'll be a net we do take some things off that's not taken off in what you are reflected here, right?

Um it it it ends up coming down a little bit.

Essentially, what we look for is new building construction that affects potential value of homes and properties, businesses, is how it it worked out.

So there are a few things that come off and it ends up knocking it down.

I don't want to say a percentage, but you know, maybe five more months to add into that.

Yeah, oh yeah, no, there's the yeah, with even even with these numbers, we'll see that uh you know being higher, even with the with the subtractions that come off.

Knowing that you're you probably have discussions with planning and all, do you do you have any idea what this might reach?

No, I don't want to take that guess.

Okay.

Because you know, you we are the the problem with it is um there's a lot of little things that get thrown in, you know, ten thousand dollar fifty thousand dollar projects, not that those are little, but compared to uh half million dollar home, they're little.

Um so it all depends on when the the larger projects dump into this.

We may not have any larger projects come dumping into this.

That we just don't know.

Okay.

I mean, I can get those, I can get that information from planning.

I mean, uh from our code.

Code actually provides these for me.

But uh and the next question go ahead.

Okay.

I know here we're at the 10th of November, and soon's that magic day with tax bills go out.

Yeah, we're close.

How close are we?

Uh we're we're we're close, we're waiting.

Glenn has we are close though.

We're better than last year.

We are close.

All the information is in with DRA, and we're waiting for our first call back from them once that ball starts rolling, it's gonna move very quickly.

We have to turn in certain amount of information, both us and the school department.

All of our stuff is in.

Oh, so now it's wait, it's waiting on them.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, I I just have one question too.

Uh Kirk, the uh and probably maybe for West too.

This is uh winter hours or winter parking hours has gone into effect.

And how's that been working?

Is it been all right?

Have you heard any uh issues with that at all?

I I haven't heard anything.

Um I haven't heard anything.

Good.

Either way.

Okay, good.

Okay.

Anybody else for the city manager?

Okay.

We will now go to new business.

And 21A is a request to restore 138 Warren Street to pre-merger status so these were these were four different lots at uh at one point, sometime before 1949, they were merged into one lot, not by anywhere where they can find the owners.

So these were these were four different lots at uh at one point, sometime before 1949, they were merged into one lot, not by anywhere where they can find the owners.

Um the assumption is at some point the city merged the lots for tax purposes.

Um they do pop up occasionally, they're not super common, but we've had a few of them this year, and I think probably every year we have a couple of them that that come up.

So the owners are looking to uh they want them back to the pre-merger status, and they were involuntary mergers.

They didn't no owners that they could trace back, at least back to 1949 had had asked for this to happen.

Um it's unable to make it four new lots or return to four lots because of the way buildings were built over time.

There's a garage and a and a house on there.

Uh, but we can make it three lots.

So this is something that uh the council approves.

Um assessing doesn't have an issue approving this, planning doesn't have an issue, and certainly I have no issue with uh with recommending to you to return these to their pre-merger status.

Okay.

And three lots as opposed to four.

Any questions from counsel?

Go ahead, Councilor Bogart.

Um what does the actual deed say indicate?

Because a lot of this is deed from my real estate days, that's where I I question what the what the deed says.

The deed is going to show four separate lots.

Correct Rob?

Yeah, the deed's gonna show four separate lots.

Um the same thing we just did on the one up on uh in Lakeboard, it showed two separate lots by deed, but for tax purposes at some point many moons ago, they had it as one large lot.

So based on that, the deed will be modified to show three lots, and then the tax card will have three individuals.

Right, we would have done it back to four, but it'll be three because they aren't able to make um the way.

They would need a variance.

Yeah, they there's all there's all so much.

You might have the answer.

Is it the intention of the owner to sell the other two lots?

I cannot speak to his intention for doing that.

I would speculate that he wants to build on the three other lots in uh single family units.

Well, right now you're breaking it into three lots.

Looks like one lot has buildings on it, the other two do not.

The other, yep.

So they'd be putting a single family house on the lots, will they be the lots with no buildings on that?

Would that meet code to build on them, or is it gonna go to ZBA?

It depends on what he submits, uh, because that was done.

I think there's 66 roads of uh feet of road frontage there.

Today we would allow we would require 80, so they're a little bit more narrow.

So his building envelope that he has to his buildable area envelope would probably be a little bit smaller, but that hasn't stopped anybody from developing in those smaller uh smaller lots before.

Okay, thank you.

Yep, you're welcome.

Counselor Cheney.

If if he moves the garage, uh item two here, if he decides to move that auto the second lot, can would he would he could he come back and ask?

So theoretically, if they if they demoed right there and they wanted to come back, they could request request it again.

Councillor Hoffman.

Yeah, maybe I've spent a little bit too much time hanging out with the zoning board, but the if this were to go in front of zoning with these 66-foot road frontages, right?

There'd at least be a public hearing about this, right?

But the current process that's happening, there's no public hearing for this.

Right.

So all we're doing is restoring it to its original pre-merger status.

If they wanted to come in and go to the zoning board and ask for for uh a deviation from road frontage or buildable law area, they would have to go before the zoning board.

You said if they build anything on these lots, it's gonna be uh it would have to conform to today's standards if they're looking to they might have to go into a setback where they could build just something smaller and and stay without the setbacks, so it would really depend on what they're looking to do in the size of everything, but uh they could feasibly come in and build something that met today's standards, if not the requesting the variance.

I mean you just look at the surrounding road frontages here, and we're taking we're taking this big plot and subdividing it into a much higher density than anything else around it.

I I just question whether that's why it's councilor Bogart.

Uh and looking at the diagram, uh lot two appears to be a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty-two feet.

Sorry about that.

Go ahead.

That's okay.

Correct.

And then lot one is sixty-six.

And then lot three is sixty-six as well.

Yep.

And what is the out of I forgot what the road frontage is?

The requ the new required road frontage is 80.

So isn't that against zoning rules to create a uh we're creating already a problem with a 66 that doesn't match the code.

So we're already, and I'm I forgot the word, but it's we're restoring a nonconforming lot.

We are creating because it's not there, so it'll be there if we do it.

So we would be creating a non-conforming lot, which goes against the zoning rules in itself, if I'm not mistaken.

Is that true?

So it does uh contradict our zoning ordinance.

However, state law is the one that dictates this, and it's the property owners' right to request the restoration of their lots, regardless of what the zoning ordinance says.

The only way that we can prohibit them from restoring the lots is if they've utilized the lot in which it would make it impossible to restore, such as the lot um two there where they have constructed the garage.

That's the only reason why we can't restore that one is because they've given up their right to that boundary line.

So all we're doing is restoring their property to them.

And what is the road frontage?

Current road frontage would be 80 feet.

So if you took some of lot two of that open space there, uh approximately less than 30 feet of it, they would still have room for their garage and house, and then lot one would be a conforming lot.

Yes, but legally we can't require that of them.

You remember, counselor, those state laws.

All those people down the clock could just whoosh.

So but they would still have to get it.

They're not guaranteed to have a building lot.

No, that they're guaranteed to have their lot restored to them, but their building envelope is is limited due to current zoning requirements.

There's nothing that we can do to prohibit them from making the request to restore the lots.

So the follow-up on uh uh counselor Hoffman, they would need a variance on the 66 foot in order to develop and then just to get to build something?

No.

No, so they already have a right to build.

So they have the right, which is what they're requesting here is to restore the lots because the city merged them without their consent.

So they're requesting that their rights are restored and the properties are restored to those existing lots.

They don't have to meet existing zoning requirements.

If they were coming in for a conventional subdivision to restore back, back setback.

They have to meet set back.

Yes, so for a new building permit, it would have to meet today's standards.

So their building would have to meet setback requirements.

If they were looking to deviate from that or build something larger than what their building envelope would have then support, they'd have to get a variance from the zoning board.

But not on the 66.

Nope.

Call it set?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your patience.

That was not a problem.

Counselor Felch.

So at a later date, they could always come in and request to move the property lines, correct?

They could.

If um so once this is completed, they could come in and they could request a boundary line of adjustment, and that would go to the planning board.

And that any boundary line of adjustment they would they would do would have to make the law more conforming.

Right.

Yeah, because they'd have to meet the current codes.

All set, everybody.

Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Okay, I'll move to approve the request to restore 138 Warren Street as close as possible.

So it's pre-merged established as presented in the attached set plan.

Okay, counselor uh Felch made the motion.

Is there a second?

Counselor Susi.

Discussion?

Go ahead.

Yes.

In this motion, is it are stated that they can only be reformed into three lots and not four.

That's three.

But is it here in writing somewhere?

It is under facts.

Under facts?

Okay.

Just covering our base.

So it doesn't pop up to be four automatically.

Yeah, it says only three lots.

Last sentence.

Okay, all in favor, raise your hands, please.

Six and affirmative.

Uh that passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so now we're going to 21 B.

This is temporary traffic order 2025-20 Holiday Parade and Lights Festival and Chris Kringle marked.

This is go ahead.

Spelled correctly.

I know it's what everybody thought it should it was going to say, but um no.

This is just a uh it's the holiday parade um November 29th.

So this this uh takes care of any uh temporary traffic order that we have, plus the use of uh City Hall parking lot um by the Bell Knight Mill.

They're gonna be using that area for um the Chris Kindle Mart.

Um just more things to add to after the parade.

Uh it it would have been a um consent action item, but they did add that the request uh for the parking lot use, that's why it was added at the end.

What date is that for?

It is November 29th.

What time will that start?

We know the parade.

I believe it's 5 p.m.

I believe.

I know the the temporary traffic order is 5 to 6 p.m.

So whether it's stopping right at five or a few minutes later.

Oh, there we go.

Hi wonderful.

I'm Beth.

I'm from the president of Celebrate Laconia.

Um we plan to have a whole day of activities.

The Chris Kindle Mart will start at noon to four, set up starting at 10.

And where will that be?

It's actually down here on this parking lot.

Okay.

Um we're working with the mill to have kids' events and Santa visits, and then we'll have our parade.

We'll also have food trucks on Canal Street for everybody.

Um we the parade will come on, and then Santa's gonna turn the lights on.

So we're gonna be here till about seven o'clock at night.

That's uh Sunday or a Monday.

No, it's Saturday, the 29th of November.

November is the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year.

Okay.

And they like the mayor there.

Yes, sure.

You want to come play with Santa?

Oh, I'm sure.

I'm sure we could work you into our little speech.

Okay, just contact me, please.

I will, Charlie.

Okay, any other be Santa Claus.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Any other questions?

Uh okay, thank you very much.

Thanks.

It's always a fun time.

Yes.

Um, so I'm gonna make a motion to move to approve temporary traffic order 2025-20 for the holiday parade and lights festival and the Chris Kingle Mart as presented, and to approve the request to waive all city fees associated with the events.

I look for a motion on that.

Somebody uh councillor Felch, a second, Councillor Haynes.

Any discussion?

All in favor.

That's six any affirmative.

Thank you very much.

Move on now to 21C.

This is a request from ladies of the lake to hold a fundraising event at Levitt Park Clubhouse and parking lot.

And I love it because um wow, I have their t-shirts on.

And could you introduce yourselves, please?

My name is Kathy Druin, and I'm co-chair of Ladies of the Lake.

I'm Debbie Wallace, I'm the other co-chair.

And I'm Sherry Kimball, I'm the treasurer.

We have another co-chair, and she's in Florida, freezing your butt off.

So, anyways, we are ladies of the lake.

Um, we have been doing this for 10 years.

We do a lot of fundraising.

Our biggest one is for the children's auction.

And this event uh we want to have on November 21st.

We did one in April because we made what do you do when you kidding me?

I love your shirts.

You're not allowed to take pictures unless you ask for the city.

Oh, wait, wait a minute.

No, you're on TV anyway, doesn't matter.

Go ahead.

I thank you, please.

No, no, no.

All right, so we did one in April, and because we raised over $3,000, we have to come here to get approval from you guys.

So basically, what we do is we play games, people buy.

Oh, do you guys want to look at these?

Yeah, let me pass them out.

You pass them out.

So what we do is we uh rent the park.

We have it's BYOB, which we have an insurance policy.

We have a food truck that's outside.

This year we're gonna have Ben and Jerry's there.

People go on the QR code to buy their packages.

We play games, they win designer handbags, baskets.

Well, this one will be designer handbags, baskets.

And what happens is if you have multiple winners, then we have a big deck of cards, we lay them out on the table, everybody picks one, highest card gets the big prize.

Lower tier people get like gift certificates to fund spot bingo, gift cards, and all that good stuff.

That have been donated very generously by local merchants.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh question.

That way, anything else you want to present or is that it?

No, that's about it.

We just need you guys to bring it up.

All right, Councilor Susi.

If if uh somebody doesn't lean up somebody doesn't access and all use the QR code, where can they buy tickets ahead of time?

Yes.

Where um the what's gonna happen is it's gonna go on to our website.

You're gonna pick up the package that you want to buy, and then your name goes on a sheet, so when you come in, you'll say your name, then um they will give you your package.

If you come the day of it, we do up the price because we kind of wanna you know see how many people we get and blah blah blah.

I know a number of people don't have access to QR codes or computers, you know, or whatever like that.

I want to just find a way for them to make it easier.

So is there a phone number or something that what they can do is they can email um Holly or myself.

Or what I do is at because I go to Fun Spot Bingo every Tuesday night, and a lot of uh my bingo ladies are elderly and they don't use the computer.

Exactly.

So then what I do is I run around with a sheet, blah da-da, and just put them in for it.

But they can email us, they can call okay.

What do they call?

They can call Holly, which of course she didn't put her phone number up there.

No, that's what we're trying to get.

It's on the website.

So what's the home number?

Phone number.

Yeah, the moment we can call it midnight.

Do we have a phone number?

Okay.

Yep.

Just to say it publicly.

I I think it'll help.

The one that rings at two in the morning.

Actually, I have it in here.

So it's 603 493 0123.

0123.

Yes.

Okay.

493.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Other questions.

Ladies, thank you very much.

You're very welcome.

Do we have to do that?

It's an honor to have you here.

Do you guys vote or they're gonna in the second half of the code?

Oh, okay.

You don't need us anymore though?

No.

Okay, any other discussion?

No.

Okay.

Um so the motion I'm gonna make is a move to approve the use of Levett Park Clubhouse and parking lot on Friday, November 21st from 5 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

for a fundraising event as presented.

I look for a uh motion on that.

Councilor Susi, seconded by Councillor Bogart.

All in favor.

Six, six to nothing.

Councillor Cheney.

Counselor Cheney, you voted for that, right?

Okay, thank you.

So that's six six six to the affirmative.

Thank you very much.

And thank you again, ladies.

Thank you.

Okay, now we're at 21D.

This is a request for approval to issue a proposal for the engineering review, design and construction of a bandstand on the Weirs boardwalk.

Go ahead.

So this came to me after uh uh Weir's TIFF district meeting through um our planning director.

There they originally were looking for money from TIFF to put up a bandstand on the boardwalk.

Uh if you face the Mount Washington board, uh the Mount Washington ramp that goes down to the boat, it'd be on the left hand side just before you go down, uh which is on city uh property.

Uh the the original request was for actual money funding to build it.

Um without any any plans or engineering, I wasn't comfortable with that.

So what I did present to you for your discussion is to put out an RFP so we can actually see what it would be entailed in doing that if if you so choose to do so um without having to put any money into the project uh to begin with.

Okay, uh Rob, did you have anything you wanted to add to that?

Because you were at that TIFF meeting.

No, I think the city manager really summed it up really well.

Um so we're just looking for the RFP to go out to get the the cost estimates and to see if it's feasible to do the bandstand in that location as the Wears TIF would like to do.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Any questions?

Okay, go ahead.

Uh council.

Is this a a motion to approve it?

Or is this a motion to just see getting an RFP and design?

Just the RFP for the design and the feasibility of it.

And we don't always I mean, I back up and say we don't always request permission for RFPs.

Um, but where this was some debate on actually what they were looking for versus what we're looking to put out, we thought it was good to come forward to the council to have so that way if if we do get the RFP back and it's maybe it's a financial number that we can work with, that's not the first time you've seen this uh come in front of you.

Sure change after the R.

Is there any chance I'm sorry?

Is there any chance we can with the study look at other things?

Like the roof of the railroad station, which is where it used to be.

Can we include that problem?

Which is you and me behind you.

Or Rob, you Rob, you would also mention uh thought about the uh at the park there.

The bathroom.

The bathhouse, excuse me.

So I I think there's several options on the table.

It really is uh there's some options out there.

It depends on the the will of the board.

Um West might have more information regarding the feasibility of putting on top of the train station.

I think there's a question in that involves the ownership, as we don't actually own the the structure, so it might be some sort of uh lease agreement we would have to come to in order to do that.

I think Westnership or or a partnership or a partnership, yeah.

We have the set of plans for the boardwalk itself.

I don't have the set of plans for the for the right.

We're only discussing we're only discussing the boardwalk now.

But counselor Cheney asked if there were other things that could be looked at too.

That's all.

Right.

Council Bulgar.

Uh just a question, Mr.

Mayor.

Sure.

Um voting to seek an RFP after the RFP, should this go to the land and building committee to review before it comes to the council.

Well, either that or public work.

Because it is, well, it's public, it's only of land that is being built.

I mean it could.

I mean, it it's I mean it certainly could.

That would be up to whether you want to or not.

That's either to the full council or to that committee.

Because if the amount comes back from the uh the estimate or the what whatever they're talking about, yeah, we have no idea what the estimate would be anyhow.

And at that point, it may be a uh not approved just because of the money.

And it would probably have to go before TIFF again as well.

Well, one way or the other.

I mean, what I just didn't want to bring forward to you was the request for a dollar figure without doing all the the legwork like we would do any other project that we bring forward.

Right.

And so the the money uh it could go back to TIFF, but either way it would still come before the council to to approve that.

Because we don't know what that's gonna cost.

Go ahead, Council.

I just want to make sure whether it's TIFF money, money from here, money from anywhere else like that.

It's gonna come back here because just giving the okay to this doesn't mean I'm because I don't like the idea of putting a bandstand on the boardwalk.

No, TIFF would have to send it forward to the full council.

You can't they can't they have they're an advisory board, they don't spend that money, they don't allocate that money.

That's that's you guys.

Yep.

So if you choose to move forward with us and are willing to do this, the only money in it might be the the fee that a couple hundred dollars that we have to put out to put that we mail anything out or and you know, whenever we do that that's that's really all it would boil down to.

Yep.

Any anything else?

Any other questions?

I'd love to see it go to one of the committees just to find out what options there are besides being on the boardwalk.

I I would ask this question then would you prefer to table this and send it to a committee first to do type of the conversation before it goes to RFP or after?

I mean that's up to you guys.

That might be a better uh better idea since there seems to be uh some back and forth about that.

I would think this mayor, thank you.

Uh I would think after the RFP, because at that point we would know as a committee what you're working with and and what compound you're working with and the design.

But that's only that's only on the boardwalk though.

And what and what they're saying is to land and building which then encompasses all the Laconi owned land in Weirs, then that committee, just like you would do anything else when you send items like three or four or five items went to ordinance, government ordinance.

This is no difference.

It would go to the committee, they would after after this.

And then they could make a recommendation to the council, just like we would for all others.

But you're but but this particular correct me if I'm wrong, uh all I have is uh scale picture.

Kirk, correct me if I'm wrong, but this request is only an engineer review for the boardwalk, correct?

Yes.

And that's correct.

I mean we can certainly have the conversation if you want to look at it more broadly or in a different scope.

Yeah, and again, just so there's no surprises.

This is probably a couple months ready before it's ready to go out to RFP.

We have they have the the TIFF advisory board for the Wheels.

Um they have a uh concept of what they want to look like, but we did we have to tighten that up a little bit before it's ready to go out for engineers to to do their their drawings.

I guess I guess what I'm saying, counselor, is that we've heard from one counselor who said that he's not in favor of anything on the boardwalk, and we don't know what the other counselors think.

My only question is is that um wouldn't it be better to have it go to the land and use committee and look at other any options, and then if you can narrow it down, then go to the to come up with that spend that money for an engineering thing.

Why why do something Mr.

Mayor May?

Uh the committee works on the items that is set forth by the mayor.

So if you wish us to work on it prior to the RFP with that, then that's fine.

It would be okay.

Does that does that make any sense to it does to me?

I I'd like it to know if there are options.

I guess that's where I'm at.

That's fine.

And if and it won't, and if you're saying, Kirk, you're saying it would be a couple months before this could go out anyway.

It's gonna take a little while to get the drawing up and ready and sent out.

I mean, maybe a couple months is a little long, but it it won't be tomorrow morning.

So yeah, I mean we can get it in a committee in the next week or two and take a look at it.

Yeah, I think that's my committee anyhow.

So that would so we would table this now and then and send it to a yeah, I would just send it to uh land and buildings if that's okay.

So look for a motion to table this right now.

Councilor uh Cheney's made the motion as a second.

Councillor Bogart.

All in favor that's six uh six in the affirmative.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on.

And now we'll go to land land and buildings.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

You're very welcome.

My favorite counselor from Ward 5.

Thank you.

Uh we're gonna go now to um uh we're gonna go now to 21E, ordinance 2025-235-22, article article 4A, impact fees in attachment, six impact fees schedule.

And we have our famous dual from the planning department up here.

Good evening.

Um I brought Holly with me this evening.

He complained to me last time I only give him chickens.

So he said, Hey, can I do impact fees?

I said, Hey, you know.

Thanks for the help.

Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Get them warmed up for you.

Um so tonight we're bringing uh impact fees before you.

I know we've had several discussions in the past over the past few months.

Uh where is this at in the process?

Well, now it's finally here before you guys we have completed the study.

Uh just to recap here, the last study that was done was back in 2009.

So the impact fees we're collecting today is based off of data that was 16 years or even older than that.

Uh so over the past year we've put out a study and worked with uh contractor to look at all of our facilities in the city to interview department heads, um, gather all the data from previous CIPs, previous building permits issued, um, and also looked at growth trends in the region, the state, and the country.

Um with that, uh, you have that rather large uh impact fee study.

Uh it is also available online too for uh review.

We have created an impact fee webpage so people's gonna interrupt you.

It wasn't it's not printed for them in their packet, but it's it was uh available for them to see online with their um so with that uh and the there'll be plenty of time to read it as well.

Um so with that we have this study completed.

Um and with all the the development that's occurred in the city as well as all the the new data um we have new recommended uh fees for you all to take a look at.

Now, this has already gone before planning board for their review.

Um I will also mention that legal has reviewed the language and they approve of the language drafted for the ordinance.

Um but I think that the key things you know we really want to bring home are the fact that the current impact fee rates are based off of data that's you know 15 years or 16 years or older.

And um, you know, we're obviously we've been growing, we're projected to continue to grow, and uh you know the I think the key thing is to shift that financial burden from the taxpayer on to uh the developer for supporting that development.

Councilor Cheney, you have a question?

I I guess I have a statement.

I I'm on the planning board and I support what they're recommending.

I would point out to anyone who asked about this.

Forget everything else.

We we got a 2,000 homes and a bunch of businesses and whatever else going in just in South Town that are going to make demands on this city.

That we have to pay for.

You meant the state school.

State school, I'm sorry.

Uh so you know, I'm sure it looks expensive, but but increased police presence, increased cops, increased public works, um patching roads, whatever are cost that that uh we're asking everybody to pay when in fact South Down ought to be state school.

A state school.

And I haven't been drinking your self-down people.

Your self-down people are gonna be happy.

Yeah, no, they are.

But uh I I'm just saying, I mean, and they're not alone.

I don't mean the state school is the only place, but you know, these guys have uh hired somebody, they've made a recommendation based on the data they collected, and I hope this council can approve the recommendation for 50 percent.

Um it I it may sound awful to begin with, but I'm telling you, with the cost you're gonna see coming up in the next few years, it'll it'll be helpful.

Can I just ask real quick what what was the was the unanimous vote for the planning board?

Yes.

It was okay.

All right, that's that's what I'm gonna do.

And we also had uh we also did two public hearings.

Usually for zoning amendment amendments, we just do one public hearing, but because of the sheer size and scope of what this was and what we were proposing, we did have two public hearings because we wanted to maximize the ability for the public to come out and to give their input.

Okay.

Uh council Susan.

Couple of questions.

Number one, I see if we look at the chart, and it doesn't come up on the board, but look at the chart shows that Lacone is very, very low.

Okay.

So where would this position us?

In other words, I was looking here trying to find something that would tell me where's it gonna put us, and secondly, and an example like what is the impact fee under the old way and what would it be in the new way?

And then I come another question to follow up after that.

Yep, so we uh with the recommended rate we put it at 50 percent.

That would put us right about where Bedford is, and we'd be a little bit shy of what Bedford is by about.

50 percent of Brentwood.

And Brentwood.

So it would be a little bit less of what they were 50 percent of what of the of the new proposed rate, which um I can tell you, and do you have the rates for the chart here?

So they're not going up as much as they could.

Correct.

Right.

I just want to know.

So we're just comparing right now what would be a single family.

So a single family has what is recommended in the impact fee study that DTA did.

We are collecting about nine, the hundred percent rate today is about nine thousand and some change.

We're only collecting what was it, 50% of that?

Correct.

So the so for a single family home today, it's actually uh the 100% rate uh from the 2009 study was $7,629.61 cents, but we're only collecting half of that right now.

The new rate, why so back uh in 2022 the city council voted to actually increase it from 25% up to 50%?

So all the way from the adoption in 2011 to 2022.

2022, we were only collecting a quarter of what the recommended rate was.

So now you're collecting 50 percent.

And now we're and now we're collecting 50 percent of the recording.

100% of 9,000 some odd dollars.

So uh I apologize, that was that but the actual hundred percent rate was 7,629 dollars and you're proposing to raise that by 50 points.

So no, we're looking to use the new rate in the new study, which is the maximum rate is 19,307 and 33 cents.

We're only looking to collect 50 percent of that, okay, which is that.

Okay, but where does that 90?

What is the base come from?

In other words, you said the the your base rate is 19,000.

So where does that where does that number come from?

So that number comes from how they did the study.

So there was they looked at each department and there was a calculation based on the the type of services that department does.

So when they looked at school, it was level of service.

So they calculated out uh the capital needs for the entire uh school system, and then they the how many students, how many students they had?

I'm I'm gonna build a house.

I'm gonna spend 300,000 to build a house.

Yep.

What determines my impact fee?

So it's it's your single family house, your duplex, your multifamily, all these have different rates, and it's based off of what their historical use was to municipal services.

So if you have a multifamily or you have a single family uh you're doing a single family home with 300 grand, okay.

What's my my I'm sorry, what's that?

Good luck, right?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Well what somebody said earlier this evening, this the medium in Meredith was 1.2 million.

Okay.

So 300,000, I'm below my chicken coop or something, you know.

But uh yeah, like chickens.

Okay.

So you know, I'm trying to understand where the baseline comes from.

Okay, so if you're gonna do that, through how do I how can I determine what my is there's something in here that tells me the formula is?

Yes, yes.

The formula is it's throughout every department, and they look each department has their own formula for how they get to that rate, and then that rate is totaled from all the departments based on its leather level of service or its capital facilities needs that it looked at throughout the entire report, and then that's based off of statistics that brought it to a final number of the you must have a table.

Yes, right?

You have a table.

Right.

So there's it's in the final report.

It would be in your final.

The table is on is in page two of the full report.

And the full report is full document that was sent to you online on your on your online version, not on the paper because it was so long, it was not much.

Yeah, it's like 70 pages long.

Okay, but there's a table.

Yep, there's formulas in there, and you go to each department and it breaks it down, and they look at the financials for each department, the level of service that each department is providing, and then all those formulas equate to how they get that base number per each unit type.

Right.

Or performance for I I just go one more, counselor.

An impact fee is based on every time there's a building permit brought to you.

No.

No.

A billing permit is based off of its approval at planning board.

So if I come in and I'll use the I'll use the state school as an example.

I come in with a conceptual plan.

I'm gonna build 280 townhouses, 100 duplexes, 208 triplexes, 208 quadplexes, 83 courtyards, uh single families, and another 83 single families, and 20 workforce housing units, and then 250 multifamily senior residents, and then 783, you're assessed at that number at your planning board approval date.

So when you come in and you get your approval for that 783 multifamily, you're gonna be assessed at whatever impact fee at your time of approval.

And this is really important because once you get approved, you are then locked in at what that impact fee rate is.

You're guaranteed that rate for is it five, seven years now?

Because state law just changed.

It used to be five, now it's seven.

So if you get approval for those 783 units, and you you're locked in at that rate for seven years.

Okay.

So um you might take you that long to build out, is what you're saying.

It might take you that long to build out, but you're guaranteed that according to state law, um, protection from changes in the zoning ordinance.

Okay, right.

So the the next question is that these impact fees that we looking at here, okay.

Are they then can they be uh amended by the planning board and say, okay, so what we've seen often happen, some builder come in, well, we'll reduce your impact fees without a 50 or 25 percent.

I want to find a way to put in here that no.

So uh we took your uh when we came and we said we were doing the impact fee, we got some feedback from you previously, and that was one of the feedback items.

There is no waiver process for impact fees.

The only exemption that there is for impact fees is for Warfare's housing units up to a maximum of 20% of the development.

So if I was to come in and propose a hundred workforce housing units, only 20% of those would be exempt impact fees.

Is that recent?

That's with this new language.

That's what we're proposing today, and that's in conjunction with our discussions that we've had with our contractor for impact fees.

Okay, can that developer person, whoever it is, go to the ZBA and get that waived?

No, that power is solely with the planning board.

And if we write that in there, that's that's what that is.

Um we're all so what we're also doing is we proposed the the 50 percent with this language, it would go up five percent until it reached the maximum of the 100 percent by 2040.

And with this report, we've also factored into the study that it would go up with the cost of inflation.

So CPI plus five percent.

Yep, until it reached the maximum, it would just be C.

And then it would just be your CPI rate increase.

So it's five percent per year plus CPI until you reach the maximum, then become just CPI.

Yep.

So starting this year would jump five percent next year.

Yep.

So if we started this in December, um say we was approved in December, it would it that next increase would be July 1st because we put it in line with the with our fiscal calendar.

Yep.

So it would go up that five percent, and then the following July it would go up.

We also wrote it in here that we'd have to provide a report to city council each year the month before, so that city council would know this is what it is.

And city council sorry, my mouth is a little dry.

City council also has the right to request a planning board that they change that rate as well.

So as who can change the rate once the ordinance is approved?

Once it's approved, uh only an amendment from the zoning ordinance uh either from the city council or to the planning or from the planning board can make that change.

But either way, city council has final approval on change.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

Councilor Phillips, did you have a question?

I just wanted to mention that we're only sending the sending this to a public hearing tonight.

We won't be voting on standards.

I make sure that everybody knows what we talked about.

Council of Bulgar.

Uh just uh go back over the workforce housing portion.

Let's say workforce housing was 20% of it.

So they would not have an impact fee on that 20%?

Correct.

So up to a maximum of the 20%.

We just wouldn't be collecting an impact fee on that.

So the taxpayer would be paying for the increase in services to cover the workforce housing.

Is that correct?

I guess that would be correct.

Because if I understand what you're saying, is if your whole development is workforce housing, then there would be zero impact fee.

They would only be eligible for a 20% decrease.

Up to a 20%.

Up to a maximum of 20%.

Yes.

Only the workforce housing units would be exempt.

None of the others would be exempt.

And even if it was the entire development was workforce housing, only 20% of that entire development would ever be eligible for the for the reduction in fees.

Thank you for the clarification.

You're very welcome.

That makes more sense now, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, we definitely did not want to do a free-for-all, and we the planning board previously they approved up to 80%, and we thought 80% is too much, and this would be measured.

It'd be this is what it is.

Fact.

Nobody can deviate from it.

And of course, if city council wanted to amend that or penny board that they needed to amend that, we could easily go back and make that amendment.

One council question.

Can that be modified by the planning board or modified by the zoning board that 20%?

No.

No, the the power for impact fees can only be is only at planning board.

So the zoning board can't deviate from that.

But they can't lower it, they'd have to come back to city council if you guys decided that you wanted to change the case.

They can't increase it to 30% due to a request from a developer.

Correct.

Thank you for the clarification.

You're very welcome.

Council Hoffman.

So uh under the new impact fee scheme for a typical project, what percentage of the cost is of a project is impact fees?

So that's a really good question.

So I did do a little uh table out.

So under our current impact fee, if you were to build a 400 a 450,000 house, our current impact fee is 0.85% of the total cost of the single family unit.

With the new if you did it at the what's proposed today, it would be 2.1%.

2%.

Okay.

And if you did it at say a $750,000 house, which is the majority of the units that are coming in for building permits today, it is only 1.3% of the total cost of the project.

So it's your opinion, given the current demand for housing and and other construction and Laconia, this isn't going to uh lower the demand.

No, so you know what's what's very uh I'm it's a little bit humorous.

Um we have a number of developers that come in every day.

Um and we are the joke of the state when it comes to impact fees because ours are so low.

Um they they laugh when they say this is your impact.

So they're they're currently well below what the market will bear, you would say.

Yeah.

So I don't think you raise it again.

Uh when I talk to developers, I do not think this will phase them.

I agree.

I'm I totally support this, and I I think uh I don't expect it to impact the the final price of any of these properties, you know, passed on to the consumer.

I don't expect it to uh to decrease demand.

And you know, any dollar that we get out of impact fees is a dollar not coming out of the taxpayer, and I'm personally not gonna lose a minute of sleep over a developer paying another extra percent on their development to uh pay for our infrastructure.

Yeah, it's only uh it at the 750, it's only a point six five percent increase for the developer.

Yes, that's not screwed.

Councillor Cheney.

Uh my recollection of the discussion was the uh company that did the study did a comparison as well.

So this is not we just picked you know these numbers out of the air.

It's based on you know, other jurisdiction of the state, if I remember correctly, we're quite a bit below.

We are uh the rest of the state.

We are and and it is very difficult to to compare apples to apples because each municipality is different and how they assess impact fees and whether they assess impact fees for every uh everything that's allowed under state statute.

Um, for example, there's some communities that only collect uh Brent uh what was it, Bedford only collects impact fees for schools and for parks and rec.

And theirs is 11,000 just for those two, and we we would still be below that right, and we're collecting it uh for everything that we can, uh, which would also we have state law did just change it, we're allowed to collect for public works facilities.

So this money could be used to move towards okay developing a new parks and rec uh not parks right, I'm sorry, public works.

I I just want to make the point that this these numbers didn't come out of the air, they're numbers based on what other jurisdiction, a comparison to other jurisdictions, as well as looking at our needs here.

Uh but it's you know it's it we're below we are below.

And this whole study is it's a lot of math.

Yeah, and that's what it is.

Uh it's based off of math.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Mayor.

You're welcome.

Council Boogert.

Uh I'll try and promise this my last question.

It's okay.

Go ahead.

And thank you for taking my question.

Umpact fees, I know we keep saying it's for capital projects and stuff, and let's look at uh uh the state school property.

It has some uh sewer line issues, it has some water line issues and stuff.

So that's the perfect example of what you would use an impact fee for is to help bring that up because the increase in usage by the state school would then cause that to be helped to pay for that ability to improve those water lines and sewer lines.

Is my in ballpark with that?

Yes, waiting for the question.

Okay with that though, um the because of the sheer scope of that project, uh just like any other planning board application that comes before, they're required to bring and build out all of their infrastructure needs for their development.

So this impact fee that we would be assessing on their single family house would be the increased demand to our overall system or increase to demand that we have or increase to fire department requirements that they're not building out as part of their planning board approval for their infrastructure uh build out.

Yeah, impact fees are meant to uh basically help the city support that development and they're paying into that.

So this would be so the future use of increase in service.

Yep.

Yep, so the service is also water and sewer.

Yep.

Yep.

So that would be in line.

Yep.

Yep, yep.

Okay, but not necessarily not on that property.

Not the property, not on the street.

In the streets and stuff, correct.

There are infrastructure.

But within the streets itself, we could use the impact fee to offset cost of doing that.

Absolutely.

Yep.

Okay, so we're gonna have a public hearing on this, and that's what our motion is gonna be on.

Is there anything else for the planning department?

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, gotcha.

I uh we'll give Councilor Cheney a couple seconds here to come back because I know he wants to vote on this.

Um good job though from the planning department and the planning board, of course.

And I don't I don't think uh I don't see Mr.

Huff's still out there.

But I think we answered all the questions on this.

And if you do go online under the agenda, you can see the full um 70, 80 page report.

Yep.

All right, we'll go ahead and I'll make a uh I'll move to waive a reading of ordinance 2025-235-22 in its entirety and to read by title only.

Look for a motion on that.

Counselor Hoffman, Councillor Hayes is seconded.

All in favor.

Okay, it's five to zip.

That's a uh unanimous.

Okay, I move to contact, excuse me, conduct the first reading of ordinance 2025-235-22 amending chapter 235 zoning article for a impact fees as presented.

Look for a motion on that.

Uh Councilor Felch, seconded by Councillor Bogart.

All in favor.

Okay, that's five zip.

And lastly, we're gonna move to schedule a public hearing on December 8th, 2025 during the regular city council meeting to gather public input prior to any action being taken.

And we'll probably take it that night, I would think.

So um move by uh counselor uh Susi and second by Councillor Hoffman.

All in favor.

Okay, that's uh oh, just in time.

Six zip.

Thank you.

That's unanimous.

Okay, now we're gonna go to request to this is 21F request to expend funds from the downtown TIFF for conceptual design and cost estimating for lighting.

Um can you help us with that?

Uh no, I'm gonna jump in on this.

I'll jump in on this one.

Um this is a request to um we had originally had an RP to do to fix uh and approve the lighting in the main city hall parking lot and this lot over here, as well as I'm all back.

Um the request was made to us to get an expansion of that project to get a price for what it would be to go down uh further down Beacon Street into the Rotary Park, Stewart Park area.

Um that's what this is going to be requesting.

However, before you can vote on this, you should have had a resolution attached to this.

So I'm gonna ask that this be tabled tonight, and we'll bring back all the information you need at the next meeting.

Excellent.

Okay, we look for a motion to table this without discussion.

Make a motion.

Okay, uh Councillor Boker has motioned first and uh seconded by counselor Susi.

Any discussion?

All in favor, okay.

That's right.

We can't discuss the table.

That's right.

So it's a sixth sip.

Thank you very much.

We'll move right along now.

To 21G, this is ordinance 2025-5-20, 5-32, 5-33, boards and commissions.

Yep, so before I jump into uh my part of it, um this is on the table still, so I would ask if you guys choose to take it off the table or not.

Mr.

May, uh, if I may.

Um this item actually is not on the table.

I was gonna say this is this different this is a different that what was tabled was the mayor making reappointment.

Okay, all right.

That that's that's fine different.

That's fine.

I didn't want to be doing conversations without taking it off.

Okay, then I guess we're good.

Okay.

All right.

So I'll I'll I'll jump into uh my piece of it.

Uh so what was what's in front of you tonight?

Um following the the last council meeting.

Um my interpretation of what you're looking for was to have something if we were gonna continue with the human relations committee um as it as a standalone committee, how we could do that to have the council more uh involved and have more oversight.

That was that was the interpretation I took from our previous meeting with you guys.

What's presented for you today does that.

Um it is a it's a change in the ordinance um to make this a um a standing committee, um, but still under the city council's control, both for the majority of the personnel that the members rather that would sit on it.

Um also have input and oversight in their uh their mission value visions and um purpose of their of their organization.

Um so that's what that's what's included for you today.

This did go to to uh legal council as it stands right now.

They're they're as they stand right now.

They're council sushi, why don't you uh as it stands right now, they're good with this.

They do know that if it moves forward at all, um, even to go to a subcommittee, they would want to see language in um the the that mission values vision statement uh uh because there is some RSAs that are out there that are new to this year that does give some guidance on how this is supposed to be, uh how's how it's supposed to be termed.

So that's what you have in front of you tonight for your discussion.

Um, and that's for you guys.

Okay, wanna jump on this councillor Boger.

I uh I like the idea of bringing this under council.

I think that's an appropriate direction to take, but I think there's a few technical issues that need to get addressed uh along with this, and uh uh one of the technical issues is there's no purpose.

We need to have a purpose.

In other words, we're just saying we want a committee without a purpose, and I think in order to have a committee, it should have a purpose so that we could have an idea of what we're voting on, and I kind of think that having the Fox write what their purpose is after we voted on it, even though we can change it later on, it's kind of skewed a little bit.

That's my first technical issue.

The second technical issue is the wording under uh number C under 5-32.c, the human relations committee shall be comprised of members who own property, reside or own, manage representative business within the city of Laconia.

The the word I have a problem with is business, because business the way it is stated and being used is a for-profit business and a non-profit business.

Now, what we have is with our nonprofits, they take money from the taxpayer through the city and whatnot, they get money.

So I kind of feel funny about a committee or a nonprofit who's taken city tax money, be it on the board that is potentially given advice that could change our tax pay, how we tax pay.

So what I would recommend is that word be changed to either a uh for-profit business only, or if you want to have nonprofits, then it should be for uh or nonprofits receiving taxpayer funds shall not be eligible to become a part of the committee.

So it's not taking out every uh uh nonprofit, it's just taking out those that are receiving taxpayer money.

Uh the third thing would be I think it should go to government and operations to review, and I think that review should happen after public comment, because they need to hear what the public is saying in order to take it to the uh government committee, so they can review everything and make sure that the wording is correct and everything like that.

That is my technical issues at the moment.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Councilor Cheney.

I uh I I understand the counselor's concerns.

I and I had some concerns that I've uh expressed to uh the present chairman about people who are non-residents voting, and he has agreed that only residents can vote.

They may be participants on the committee, but they can't vote if they're not residents of the city.

Um if you want to say business uh for-profit business owners can also vote.

I'm fine with that, but uh and and the issue about they ought to have a purpose.

Um I think it's uh I think it's intended that a purpose be explained.

Uh I understood tonight's purpose was to decide whether we're gonna have a public hearing about or not, and put together what we're gonna ask the public at that at that hearing.

So I would expect the committee to put a purpose and make this statement about a voting um uh and and any other changes that might be required, but I'd like I'd like to vote to go ahead with a public hearing so we can get that input.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Hoffman.

Yeah, I agree that this should go to a public hearing.

Um I think I do agree that the the committee needs a policies and procedures, it needs a mission statement.

Um if this were a brand new committee, I I I would agree that that should happen before we we move forward, but given that this committee has been operating actually longer than anyone can figure out how long, at least 23 years.

Um I don't think there's gonna there's not a lot of mystery as to what they're doing for the city or what they intend to do for the city.

So I think I'm okay with letting them create their own mission statement counselor Susan.

I like the I agree with a public hearing.

I I don't like the wording on as Councillor Bogartz brought up.

I just don't like the word own manage or representative business.

I want people who reside in the city of Laconia to be the members of the committee and vote on the committee.

I just wanted to say that that comes out of your council rules for ad hoc committees.

That language is I'm just just saying that that is that's that's taken directly from the private question.

We can certainly we can certainly make any adjustments you guys want.

I just want to keep language consistent for discussion purposes.

Okay, uh Councilor Susi, are you done?

No, I mean I I look at some of the other boards we have, whether it's planning zone on the residents.

I'd like this committee to be residents.

That's who we represent.

I want to see the residents have a voice.

One, I don't mind people who aren't residents being on the committee if they have some involvement.

Yeah, right.

I don't want them to vote, but they may be able to give us information or give this committee information that helps them get where they're going.

A doctor is I'm picking this out of my yes, uh a doctor of psychology could be helpful to this committee, but he lives in Belmont.

Well, I don't want him voting, but I I don't mind him being there to talk about what he's doing.

I just I'm okay with that.

The other thing I was gonna ask if I can, and I uh please forgive me, counselor uh felt.

I I wonder if we could ask Pat to come up for just a minute so I could ask him a couple of questions.

Sure, come on up, Pat by the police chief.

I have to be careful there long retired.

Thank you, sir.

I still don't like lawyers, but long I don't like some of them either.

Uh yeah, well, I I'm in total understanding it all.

Pat, my concern, you and I have had some conversations.

Um can you put together a mission statement and a purpose and uh some of these recommendations we're making, get it to the manager quickly.

Yes.

Well uh I think uh the city manager has mentioned there's been some changes in the law that might uh provide some guidance.

I know we have a mission statement and a vision statement already for the human relations committee.

Um so I I will reach out to the city manager, uh ASAP and I we'm I'm I'm sorry, Pat.

I just want it done quick enough so before we have a public hearing, people can review it.

Right.

The committee meets next Tuesday next Monday.

So uh I will have something to present to the committee next Monday, and uh hopefully we will have a response uh definitely before the next city council meeting.

And and you understand the feeling about voting versus participation.

Absolutely.

Okay, I do I'm I'm not sure I understand the distinction between business that are profit for profit and nonprofit when you're talking about a person making their comments, no, and I don't quite understand that that distinction, but I do understand the residency.

I'm not gonna clarify what I was stating is if they're an advisory to the committee, that is not what I'm talking about.

A voting member should not be someone receiving taxpayer money.

Well, we all receive taxpayer money one way or the other.

Well, in the way you look at it, they should not be helping to set the standard for taxes.

Well, if the individual is the person that we're talking about, we're not talking about the agency being a member of the committee, we're talking about a person.

And person from the agency representing the agency.

If you take the region member, wait a second.

Then they're being represented.

Counselor, just I don't want to get back and forth on this.

You made you both have made your points on that.

So uh councillor Haynes, did you have something you want to ask?

No, other than that I researched it, and then there already is a mission statement.

So that's the purpose.

Right.

So why are we beating a dead horse?

Yeah.

Okay, Councilor Phelps, you had something.

I just want to say, I mean, this is to schedule a public hearing, not until December 8th, so we have plenty of time.

Possibly it should go before government operations before the public hearing, and maybe again afterwards, once we get some of this ironed out.

Before it would be nice to have some of it ironed out before the public hearing.

If need be, I uh look for the I make a motion that uh this goes to the committee as soon as they can come up with it.

The committee review it and uh prepare uh a statement for the full council uh prior to the eighth to settle.

So is that something that could be done by the next council meeting, which is the second to meeting?

So you're doing two meetings out for this uh for your next public meeting.

Well, the public hearing is actually two meetings away.

Right.

So we got a month.

Um yeah, we could probably for the next meeting.

Uh so you want us you want to see the purpose um mission statement, which by the way, the what they're using right now is almost identical to what they did back in the beginning.

Um yeah, we could we as long as the the subcommittee could meet, and I gotta get legal involved.

Right.

Um so if we could make all that line up and what what committee will this go to?

Government operations and ordinances.

Okay, so we're gonna spend a day sitting here.

Okay, so let's let's that's we don't have to vote on it.

That's just gonna go to government, okay?

Yeah, you know, you could you you can send that if you want to continue your your motions here, that would be what would send it to a public hearing.

Okay.

But we don't need a motion on that on the point.

We need a motion to go to a public hearing.

No, no, I got that.

I'm talking about the committee.

No.

Okay.

So the motion to go to the public committee.

Okay, but we I would like to vote.

Yeah.

Go to it.

Okay.

I want to vote.

I agree to vote to send it to a public hearing.

But I think we also need to decide.

I think after the public hearing it should go to government and operations.

And I think that should be part of the motion so we don't get it screwed up on the eighth, because we have the public hearing, and then usually we do business and action on that item after the public hearing.

And I don't want that to slip through the cracks.

That's fair enough.

We can bring it in at the next council meeting.

So I'm fine.

But is it going to go to the government?

It'll go to government operations first.

Right.

We will still have the public hearing on the eighth if you vote to to do so.

Um then what we would end up doing is probably have something under there that's on the eighth that would say no action taken tonight as the as part of the motion.

Yeah.

Uh, or as part of the public hearing, we'll put a little disclaimer that no action will be taken tonight, knowing it's going back to a tabled uh government operations and ordinances again.

And then it'll be on an agenda, and the next time it's on the agenda would be up for adoption.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it can be discussed though at the next council meeting if the government people operations have to.

Yeah, we get we'll add an ad uh we'll add an agenda item without necessarily a motion for any type of vote that night.

Okay.

Well, we can actually have a second public hearing before we vote on it.

Yeah, you could yeah, you do whatever.

Yep.

Okay, so I move to waiver reading of ordinance 2025-5-20, 5-32, 5-33 in its entirety, and to read by title title only.

So motion for that, Councillor Cheney, seconded by Councillor Hoffman.

All in favor?

Thank you.

That's six to zip.

Uh now we're going to move to conduct the first reading of ordinance 2025-5-20, 5-32, 5-33, amending chapter 5, Article 3.

Boards and commissions as presented.

Uh look for a motion that Councillor Felch.

For a second, Councillor Cheney.

All in favor.

That's uh six to nothing.

Thank you.

And lastly, a move to schedule a public hearing on December 8th, 2025, during a regular city council meeting to gather public input prior to any action being taken.

And we're gonna add no action that night.

If that would you like to be part of your um motion, that would be fine.

No, and no with no action to be taken that at that meeting.

And that it goes to the government operations before and after.

Yeah.

That's part of the motion.

That's right.

We got a nice clean motion.

Okay.

Everybody understands that nice clean motion now.

We get that.

Okay.

I need a uh a first on that.

I'll be able to spotlight.

Council Bogart.

Right.

You want spotlights, I'll give it to you.

So we have it.

So second, second it, Councilor Hoffman second it.

All in favor, raise your hands, please.

Okay, that's six to nothing.

Thank you very much.

Okay, now we move to the wall.

21H, donation of discarded bikes to the Wild Trail auction.

PD collects a number of bikes over, I was gonna say a year, but uh when I talked to the police chief, I'm not sure they remember last time they they disposed of them.

Um so they have uh quite a number, probably around the hundred-ish.

Um the WOW trail has asked that uh they can be part of the auction.

We do auctions the once upon a time, they used to do auctions where they would actually do them here.

Now they take them down to the state, the white farm.

Um they do the auction there, and we get back pennies on the dollar um back to the community.

They've asked to be part of they want to have the bikes either donated to them or be able to be part of the auction with the police department.

Um that the wild trail would receive the funds um as a donation to them to put back into the wild trail uh cleanup maintenance, that type of work.

Sure.

Counselor Susi.

You you work with the wild trail quite a bit, Tony.

Yes.

My question is this would they take all those bikes and like try to rehab some of them for us, the wild trail people, or they're just gonna arch it off with whatever they get.

Um I can find out about that.

Actually, I had a meeting with Alan Beadle and the chief be a few weeks ago about this.

Um they want to definitely do what they can.

They will run the auction as far as it goes.

We can probably have some type of event going on that day as well at the police department.

Um, maybe do some dogs or different information.

But yeah, we can definitely find out.

I'm sure they'll try to fix them up a little bit.

They don't really have the personnel to fix them up, but they'll clean them up and they'll get more money.

Yeah, make them look good.

Councilor Cheney?

I just want to say, having had an experience with this, giving them the these bikes is a great idea rather than send it to the state auction.

Yep.

I I just I totally support this.

And we don't have to move them.

We have the auction right there.

So okay.

All right, any other comments?

Okay, I will make a motion to move to allow the wild trail to take the proceeds of the bike auction and use those funds towards wild trail upkeep and maintenance.

So moved.

Okay, second first by uh councillor Cheney, seconded by counselor Felch.

All in favor.

Okay, thank you.

Now we're gonna go to 21.1 city manager contract extension.

Uh do we need to ask you anything?

You could you can if you'd like to.

Do we need to?

That's pretty self-serving on this one.

Uh this is not the financial one.

This is just uh we've already approved his raise.

Yeah, the raise is all done.

This is just the call.

My contract expires uh in August of 2026.

Oh my goodness.

Um this keeps another full year on the contract of 27.

All right.

How about we just move to it?

I'll make a motion to move to extend the contract to the city manager Kirk Preati as outlined in section two of his employment agreement until August 8th, 2027.

Oh second.

Okay, that was uh moved by Councillor Cheney and seconded by Council Susi.

All in favor, raise your hands.

It's an overwhelming vote.

Very good.

Wow, I think I was actually stressing it a lot.

Unfinished business.

That's if you will still want to be here.

Unfinished business.

I just want to say I was uh missing the saying, or Remus is saying, uh, not to mention tomorrow's Veterans Day.

And tomorrow, um, there will be a ceremony at the Veterans Monument over here in Veterans Square.

I believe it starts at 11 o'clock.

I forgot about it.

But even if you can't make that, just uh reach out to all the veterans you know.

I do.

Mr.

Mayor, I think you should point out that today is the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps as well.

Well, okay, that's so noted too.

And you would know that.

So good.

Any other business?

Mr.

Mayor, if I may.

Counselor Bowden.

We have to finish the in order to dispense with stuff on the table that uh uh we removed from the previous meeting.

There was item 21 B, which was to the reappointment.

Remove it from the table and then dispense of it accordingly so it's not hanging around.

Would that be appropriate?

I'm gonna look at the I can put it on his agenda item for the next meeting.

Just so we can deal with it and get rid of it.

I guarantee you go through, you'd find tons of stuff still on the table.

Oh yeah.

Or you can leave it.

I don't know here.

I was just gonna do that.

Okay, so all right.

So that's been if you went through it, look, there's tons of stuff.

Okay, so noted that's gonna be on the okay.

We're all set.

We'll move for uh motion to adjourn.

Stuff that never came back up.

Okay, okay.

It's been motion first motioned by Eric to uh adjourn.

Seconded by Mark Haynes, all in favor?

I good.

You gotta read your new Robert's rules.

You don't need a mosque.

Well, I did it anyway.