Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Sarko City Council meeting for Monday, May 4th, 2026, at 630 p.m.

Would like to make recognition of all members of the council present this evening, with the exception of Councillor Doyle, who has been excused.

And with us tonight, we also have City Administrator Palletier.

Would you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Thank you very much.

Okay, moving on to item number four under General.

We do not have anything this evening.

Item five is committee correspondence to council.

Are there any counselors wishing to share?

Okay, not seeing anyone seeking recognition.

Moving on to item six, that is public comment.

I do have two members already pre-signed up.

After that, I will call members of the audience.

First up, we do have Kathleen DeZazzo.

Please step forward, step state your name and address for the record, and you will have three minutes to address counsel.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Kathleen Jojo and my address is 15 Plymouth Drive.

I sent an email to the Council on February 2nd, 2026, because I had already had a conversation with the SACO Code Enforcement regarding illegal seasonal rentals in my neighborhood.

Code enforcement told me first that the council had not given them any direction as to how to handle these.

And then when I called back after locating Chapter 173 of the Sacco City Code, the story became that Code Enforcement believed it was not legal because it was written in 1999 and not updated since 2000.

Since these conversations, I have met first with the mayor and separately with the city administrator and the deputy city administrator regarding this issue.

The last communication I had from Mr.

Pellateer was on March 9th when he wrote, We are just waiting on the legal opinion.

While the code was written more than 25 years ago, Sacco paid significant monies to an independent agency not too long ago to review all of our codes, an update is needed.

The fact that this code still stands says to me it is still relevant.

If Mr.

Pelleteer heard differently, I was not informed.

Under the purpose and finding in the code is the statement, the city believes and has found that seasonal rentals, no matter where found, poses substantial safety risk to our visitor guests.

It further states such overburdening of properties place places living lives in jeopardy and affects surrounding residents adversely.

Second, the code also outlines where these properties can be located geographically under 173-2A applicability, stating first that this applies to all properties.

It identifies only single-family, two-family, and multifamily dwelling units within the area east of Seaside Avenue and Camp Ellis Avenue, and areas within 400 feet to the west of the center line of these streets may be rented or leased as a seasonal dwelling.

And this is the first time they discuss fines, and they describe are described as no less than 100 per day, nor more than 1,000 per day for each violation.

That's 173-2C.

Now comes to the crux of the matter.

And what under 173-4B is complaints.

Any individual or city official can file and or initiate a complaint against a license holder.

All complaints shall be promptly forwarded to the property owner at their address of record, and any response from said owner or their agent shall be kept and maintained by the code enforcement officer for further consideration, along with the underlying complaint when and if the owner seeks to renew their license.

It is well written, clear, and concise, and should be enforced by our code enforcement.

The final argument I received from Code Enforcement was that they lacked the manpower to enforce this document after first saying that it did not exist.

Neither argument is acceptable to those of us who are facing having our neighborhoods ruined by vacationers.

We have a nice quiet residential neighborhood, and I want to keep it that way.

My second argument for enforcing the code is that every housing unit turned into seasonal short-term rentals removes this property from year-round use by families.

It has, I am sure, lost some rental units and has also increased pricing of properties by changing them from housing to business.

Kathleen, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you are almost 40 seconds over.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's okay, thank you.

Okay.

Next on the list, we do have Phil Hatch.

Good evening.

My name is Phil Hatch.

I reside at uh 19 Evergreen Drive here in Sarco.

I'm going to read into the record uh the text of an email I sent to all of you today, so it can be uh in the record appropriately.

As you review the proposed uh fiscal year in 2027 budget this evening, I I probably don't need to remind you of the financial struggles many in our community face.

It seems that every aspect of normal life is experiencing significant cost increases, placing a heavy financial burden and additional emotional stress on SARCO taxpayers.

While maintaining a steady municipal mill rate may seem admirable admirable, any reduction would be welcome news.

Even a small token decrease could send a strong message of understanding, concern, and support from the City Council.

So I encourage you to reflect on that concern tonight.

As you discuss agenda item 12A this evening, I would like to share some specific comments for your consideration.

Although supported entities may seem to have little impact on the mill rate, I believe that your policies and actions in this area of the budget send an important message to SARCOS taxpayers.

Last year at this time, the City Council participated in a robust discussion about the role of taxpayers in funding 501c3 entities.