And welcome to the December 1st, 2025 town council meeting.

Would you please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

All right.

Introduce the board to my far left is Councillor Stramalia.

Good evening.

His right is Council Squeeney.

Good evening.

His right is Council Bettencourt.

Good evening.

To his right is Councillor Bryant.

Madam Chair.

Good evening.

Is the Vice Chair, Councillor Hatch.

Hello, Salem.

To my immediate right is the Secretary, Councillor Withrow.

Good evening.

And to her right is Councillor Pellateer.

Good evening, Sarah.

And at the end of the table is Town Manager Joe Devine.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Okay.

Evening.

Oh, sorry.

I would like to move the November 17, 2025 non-public session number one.

Second.

The motion and a second by Councillor Bryant.

All those in favor?

Unanimous.

And next I would like to move November 17, 2025, public session.

Second.

Motion and a second by Councillor Bryant.

All those in favor?

Unanimous.

And that's all tonight.

Okay.

No chairman comments.

Consent agenda.

Council Bryant.

Madam Chair, at this time I move to approve the December 1st, 2025 consent agenda.

Second.

I have a motion and second by Councillor Sweeney.

Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Unanimous.

And Councillor Wright has joined us at 701.

Additions and our requests.

So I have the sign-in sheet.

If you are here to talk about the budget committee or anything that's an item on the agenda, you're gonna be having to wait.

Is there anybody who has signed up who is not signed up with regards to an item on the agenda?

Sir, why don't you come on out?

Give me your name and address, please.

Jake Schmitz, 32 Atkinson Road.

Uh hi.

So I'm wondering what needs to happen for us to change our salting policy.

After talking to the direct deputy director of DPW and the town manager last winter, my understanding is we only salt when there's currently salt on the roads.

Because of this, whenever it is above freezing during the day and there's water on the roads, or it begins to precipitate, and then the temperature drops overnight below 32 degrees.

Come warning, the roads usually end up covered in ice.

Uh I'd like to policy change to the following.

Whenever there's currently part precipitation near the roads, when there's an overnight forecast of protest precipitation and the forecasted overnight temperatures 32 degrees or lower, we preemptively salt.

I fully understand our roads not being immediately clear when after a snowfall, because that's not something we can preemptively do.

Um but ice is something we can preempt the day before.

Um so if we wait until ice is already on the road to salt, then that means hours will go by with dangerous roads, particularly in the early morning when it's dark and people are rushing to work.

This is also quite dangerous for pedestrians.

Full disclosure.

Um I run every morning, so that's a big reason why I care so much about this.

And look, I understand the cost to the town.

Uh this may cost the town more money in salt, and I'm all about the town spending as low as possible.

But until we figure out a way to a practical way of privatizing the roads, I suspect the town has a large consensus on supporting road spending.

I also know this isn't a crazy proposal.

I used to live in Western York, and this seemed to be a common practice.

I would routinely see the salters, spread salt and wet roads in order to preempt ice from forming overnight.

And look, I moved to New Hampshire for a reason, so ordinarily I'd say there's nothing I want to.

I've been late about New York State, but I guess dealing with roads uh in the winter may be one exception.

Um pre- refusing preemptively salt roads seems similar to sing a tree.

Uh days away from falling and blocking road and refusing to remove it until collapse, possibly damaging vehicles and never blocking the road.

Uh why wait for hazard exists when we can take reasonable steps to prevent the hazard from existing in the first place.

So I ask again just what needs to happen for us to change this policy.

Thank you, Mr.

Schmitz.

Did you want to say something to him?

I I just want to ask a question.

No, so uh this morning there was ice pretty much all around Atkinson, Dustin Road.

However, I did see a psalter while I was running in the morning.

Um but like I said, there were ice probably formed at like 2 a.m.

So that meant between 2 a.m.

and 7 a.m.

covered in ice.

One more if we may certainly can I ask what time you went out running so that uh six six thirty, I believe I was on the roads.

I know my road was salted this morning, so are we dismissing his road?

They salted mine where I was just too late.

It was salted because I drive that road.

I drive that road to go to work, and it was but that that was at quarter past seven, and I don't know what time they saw, but it was salted at quarter past seven.

I do know that.

Like the like they like I said, they were putting assault on at 6 30, but now this all takes a bit of time to get it to a fact.

Okay.

Council Bryant.

I don't see anybody from the DPW here.

But don't they normally put an emotion down or something?

Isn't there some kind of not typically liquid that they put down?

We don't have a machine to do that.

We don't.

Okay.

No.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

Anyone else that's not with regards to an item on the agenda?

Okie doke.

Okay.

Number six.

Mr.

Devine.

Uh, this is gonna be a public hearing in a second arena resolution 2025-36, which is the request to unmerge lots of 180 Main Street.

At your November 17th meeting, you did a first read on this.

Uh this is again to unmerge 180 Main Street.

Um, you are aware staff found no reasons to deny this in accordance with RSA 67939 double A.

Okay.

I'm gonna open the public hearing.

You can you can be quick.

I I can, madam Chair for the record.

Just attorney Bernard Campbell.

I submitted the petition on behalf of East Windfield Realty, which is the current owner.

I believe I included uh a necessary addendum explanation of the lots that exist.

Um it appears that there was a structure on what is now vacant back in the early 1940s.

Um and then when the second parcel came in, uh that structure went away.

House was built on the Easterly piece.

Um that's kind of the explanation why there appear to be two driveways.

Um we believe that uh the request meets the criteria.

I provided some explanation to Mr.

Lafontaine who asked for me to uh to elaborate on it one particular issue, and I think I answered his concerns.

Thank you.

Any other comments from the public?

I'm gonna close the hearing.

Councillor Bryant.

Madam Chair, at this time I move to the Salem Town Council hereby adopts resolution number two zero two five-36.

This resolution shall take effect upon its passage as follows.

Whereas RSA 674-39ouA authorizes the town council to grant request to unmerge lots, and where has the town council received a request from attorney Bernard Campbell representing East Winfield Realty LLC to unmerge lots at 180 Main Street, map 90, lot 1469.

And where has town staff reviewed the information submitted relating to the request to unmerge the lots at 180 Main Street?

And further, it is the recommendation of staff that the information provided supports the request to unmerge the lots at 180 Main Street, and accordingly recommend the application be granted.

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Salem Town Council that the Salem Town Council hereby grants the request of East Windfield Realty to unmerge the lots at 180 Main Street, map 90, lot 1469, in accordance with RSA 674, colon 39 AA.

Second.

I have a motion and a second by Council Withrow.

Any discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor?

Unanimous.

Thank you, please.

Gentlemen, thank you, Attorney Campbell.

New business.

State municipal agent fees.

So uh our town clerk Nicole Morse is here just to update the council and the public of of this information.

Um the state has increased their fees on a lot of their plates and titles and things like that.

So she's gonna give quick updates, everybody.

Welcome, Ms.

Moores.

Thank you so much.

Pretty straightforward.

State's increasing the municipal fees.

This is happening January 1st, effective.

Um so we just wanted to let you know because we send out letters to let the residents know registrations are due.

But we normally send those out halfway through the month prior.

So we're not gonna do those in December, because obviously the rates would not be correct.

So we're gonna wait until January 2nd when we're back at work.

Get those letters out.

Fees will be applicable.

Um we sent out a memo with the new fees if you're interested.

I guess the fees haven't been updated in about 20 years, so it was time.

So hopefully we won't get too much pushback.

Wonderful.

Any questions?

Council Betoncourt.

Thank you.

Roughly speaking, how many and by how much I don't know if there's a rough figure because uh all the fees are going up, so there's title fees that are increasing.

Uh your registration fees, it's it's all kinds of things.

So I don't know if there's any kind of baseline that I could give you a quick figure for.

But if you have the attachment, it breaks everything down.

Yeah.

No, I appreciate that.

We have it.

No, no, I get it.

We have it, but it's always good to share it with us.

And I'm assuming it's on the website.

It is on the website.

We've shared on social media as well.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Moving right along.

Uh so the next item on the agenda is going to be discussion on proposed color scheme for the new police station.

Um Mark Lahoolia from Trident is here to speak to that along with the Galanti group, Ted Galante.

Um, I believe Mark's gonna give a quick update just so the council's aware of where we're at with construction and things like that, and then Ted will go into his presentation.

Good evening, everybody.

Good evening.

Um as everybody has noticed, uh, something's come out out of the ground on uh uh.

And uh there are two things that everybody is always concerned about.

One is budget and one is schedule.

And I'm here just to uh do just a brief presentation as to uh pretty much where we're at.

Um as far as the budget goes, uh we entered into GMP and we started building this thing uh up.

Um all of the subcontracts have been have been let out.

Uh and um uh we recognize some reasonable, uh call it buyout savings, uh which uh we were able to utilize those savings as uh offsets for some unsuitable soils and those kinds of things.

Uh when we first started the um uh the project, uh we had a healthy contingency, and uh with the buyout savings and other um unexpended uh soft costs, we've been able to uh essentially maintain our contingency um even after the fact with the uh uh with the unsuitable soils, et cetera.

One of the factors that's coming up is uh uh what we term is winter conditions.

Um we'll get a taste of it tomorrow.

So we've established a winter conditions allowance that that will allow Harvey construction to be able to bill against uh to uh to compensate for uh uh for those uh for those winter aspects.

Uh they'll include costs for uh temporary heat, heating of the of the masonry as it's going up, uh winter concreting, snow plowing, uh uh tenting, those kinds of items.

So uh currently uh we're about I think about 25 percent built built out uh on the project.

Um and um uh everything seems to be going uh going fine.

Um as far as the schedule goes, almost to the day we're right on uh right on schedule, and that includes uh having to um with with the unsuitable soil situations, we ended up losing some time, but uh Harvey has been able to uh uh to um uh uh recoup that uh recoup that time.

Uh the original schedule uh as part of our contract with Harvey as a milestone uh schedule um set the uh the setting of steel uh for December 16th, and in fact on Monday, uh steel will arrive and we'll start to uh uh to uh erect the steel.

Um I would say that for the most part uh in another 60 days or so that main building should be generally considered enclosed.

Uh the roof may not be complete, uh the membrane uh may not be complete, but that will allow us uh to start the uh start the work on the inside.

Uh uh we also have uh an outbuilding, which is where the kennels will go, and also some vehicle uh uh storage.

Initially we were going to uh uh build that this fall.

We put we put the foundations in, but it was uh determined that it would be beneficial to the schedule for the precast concrete for the range for the firing range to be uh uh to be built early in the spring, that way giving us more room in order to swing steel and all of those kinds of things.

So um all told, we're in great shape.

Budget-wise, we're in great shape.

Schedule wise uh right now we're in.

All good news.

All good news.

Great.

All right, I'm gonna turn it over to uh uh to Ted.

Uh and Ted's gonna do a uh brief presentation as to what the building is gonna look like, and that's what it looked like about six weeks ago.

Good evening.

Good evening, counselors.

Uh very nice to be in front of you again.

Uh nice to see you all.

So um I don't have a mouse.

I'm gonna have to click for you, so you gotta click.

Thanks, Joe.

Uh so so uh as Mark said, that's where the building was a bit ago.

Um the the slide that we're looking at now is just sort of an overview.

The road is at the bottom of the slide.

The footprint of the main building is in the middle, left side is the Sally port, just behind that is the beginning of the training range, and then behind that is the outbuilding that Mark was talking about.

And then behind that is the outbuilding that Mark was talking about.

And so you can really get a great you know sketch of the site here because we can see the vehicles working around the perimeter and how the contractor is attacking it from all the sides.

And it's going quite well.

Next slide, please.

If you're standing at the front door, this is sort of very close to the front door.

You're you're looking into the building, and this is at where there was only one story built at the time.

We have another story that is now pretty much sketched out in uh CMU concrete masonry units.

Um and um so you sort of get a sense that there's a uh you know the entrance of the building, there's a lobby that's gonna be right here, um, and then right behind that is is the dispatch area and some communication off to the right will be a training room and such.

Next slide, please.

Um again, uh a few weeks ago the gun range looked like this.

Um the the beauty, so the building is primarily uh uh concrete masonry units, which go up a little bit slower uh than the pre-cast concrete.

And the the gun range went up very quickly and it's pre-cast concrete.

Um all of that was made in a factory and dropped in place, and the the roof is precast concrete.

And it's actually um we've been doing these things for a long, long time.

And this is some of the best pre-cast concrete I've ever seen.

Uh I mentioned to Chief Dolan on site that I this was I wanted to leave it alone and not covered.

It was so beautiful.

Uh next slide, please.

Just a general view from the side of the building.

Um, really not a lot to talk about here.

Generous windows and entrance and and exit off to the side.

Next one.

Um this is the um Sally port where they just have a slab in place.

Um the building is off to the left, and this will end up becoming an enclosure as well soon enough.

Uh the renderings look like this.

We're sort of across the street looking back toward the building.

Um, and um the the center entrance is a taller volume with a shorter uh front facade and then the double story, the two stories in the back.

Next slide.

Um the material is a um is a uh precast concrete uh that we've always talked about.

It's uh uh to emulate stone, right?

Stone's very expensive.

We were being cost effective.

It's it's a precast concrete that we're using to wrap the entire building.

Uh there's a cornice line that wraps the entire building, and again, large generous openings that that punch holes in the building with the name of the uh facility.

It's a um a beige con uh precast material.

It's got a couple of different textures in it.

When you see it up close, there's a rougher texture down low, and then a medium texture in the middle with insets of a smoother texture.

And so I think the building will read quite well and be I think it's gonna be a very strong, stately kind of civic building.

I'm really excited to see that that part come together.

Looking toward the rear on the on the right hand side of the slide is the outbuilding that's not uh started yet, other than the foundations, that's where some vehicles and the kennels and such will be.

The left-hand slide portion of the slide is the gun range.

Because it's a concrete building, we're gonna wrap it in in a corrugated metal panel and just have some openings in there to kind of break up the scale and the mass of this uh of this guy.

Next slide.

And then when we walk in, right, there's a there's a large glass entrance when we we walk in, and that we we we sort of brought there's a canopy on the outside and a canopy on the inside, and it's a way of you know the the volume of the space will really soar as you come inside, but immediately upon entry, there's a canopy there that sort of defines the entrance and keeps the scale at a reasonable place.

But you see uh a sign up in the front and the records window and dispatch and off to the left of this room is where you'll go into the training area or the community room, depending on what's happening there.

Next slide.

Here's what a view of what gets seen upon entry.

It's the Salem police department with their motto above that.

Um the dispatch window uh and some a set of entry doors into the uh into the um the back of house area, the office space.

Those are also the colors.

Sorry, Joe, could you go back one?

I didn't I should have talked about this.

Um the floor is a is a is a really nice, beautiful, warm.

It was part important for the department that the inside of the building felt warm and welcoming, that it felt like the the residents of Salem would be comfortable there.

And so it's uh it's a strong building, but it's a but it's a warm, welcoming building, light-filled, light colors, accents of blue, wood in many places, and so we think it's gonna be a really nicely warm building.

Next slide.

Um the training room that I mentioned has a carpeted floor.

Uh there's an accent color at the back of the room or the front of the room, as it were.

Um and um and the furniture is still being finalized, but these are representations of the furniture.

Next slide.

Uh corridor space um is a linoleum that is a beige kind of linoleum that goes throughout, like a grayish kind of linoleum that goes throughout with little accent lines that that that uh poke their way to kind of visually break up the corridor so they're not super long looking.

So that's kind of how that the strategy there.

Next slide.

Uh and these are just some images of the corridor, so you can see how that's coming together.

We bring accents of the wood in with doors with some panels in the wall so that so that again that warmth is brought through wherever we can in the building.

Kitchenettes, break rooms.

Um the police are doing some hard work there, and so we're gonna have a place for for a break room and uh there's cabinets.

There's like a charcoal gray um laminated on the cabinets here with a white counter and some blue accent tiles throughout, some blue paint.

Um felt really appropriate for PD.

Uh and they were happy with that.

Next slide.

Um it's a little bit of a tricky slide to see the floor is it.

This is the the fitness area.

The floor is a black floor with like blue uh fleck in it, the thicker gym floor, um, light walls all the way around, light ceiling, um blue accent wall on one side on the mirror wall, uh and the equipment is in there, so it's a little tricky.

And there's an overhead door at the back of the slide.

It's gonna be fantastic.

So they can open an overhead door and between the gun range and the the main building, there's like a 12 foot space back there, and they'll be able to work out outside as well as inside.

So it's a really nice little detail there.

Next slide.

Locker rooms, simple, keeping the color simple, warm wood, uh, same blue fleck, black floor with the blue fleck, and some accent colors here and there.

Next.

Again, that blue accent color travels through uh the conference rooms.

There's a there's a uh uh wains coating around the room, uh not a wainscoating, but uh but a board at the Wainscoat height uh to be able to protect the walls, um carpet matches the carpets in the other areas, and then light walls throughout.

We also made effort to put interior windows in the building in different places so that people can see one another working in different locations.

Sometimes uh buildings are created and you really can't see others, and it's a little isolating.

Well, this is a way of kind of visually visually socializing, seeing other people working and such, so that works very well.

And then restrooms, pretty straightforward, blue accents, uh white tile, um uh beige floor, um, just neat, clean, easy to maintain.

Uh office spaces are very similar.

Uh the carpet that we're using throughout some of the other places.

There's accent walls here and there.

You kind of get a sense of the window I'm talking about, uh, where you can see next to the door, there's a there's a vision panel to the outside.

Um and so that's generally where we are.

That's the um the color scheme seems it seems well received and and we're we're eager for the steel to go on so that we can start the interiors.

Very nice.

Any questions?

Council Bettencourt.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Question for Mark, and then a question for the chief tonight.

Uh so Mark, uh very much appreciate that update.

Um very thorough.

It was good as far as I could hear, it was all good news.

So the construction looks good.

You were clear that the project is on schedule.

Um when you were addressing the issue as to whether or not it was on budget, very thorough, very good uh response.

But there were a little bit of technical language there, contingency funds and all that.

So just kind of straightforward.

You're on budget.

We are on budget.

Wonderful.

Thanks for the healthy contingency.

That's what I love to hear.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

And if I might for the chief.

Good evening.

Madam Chair, Mr.

Manager.

My name is Joel Dolans, my honor to serve as your chief of police.

I'm also a town resident, and I'd be happy to answer any questions on that building.

Thank you, Chief.

I appreciate it.

A little off topic, but I think this is the only item we've got you on the agenda for tonight.

Uh so it used to be the case that one of the things that I would hear from residents the most about were potholes.

But the second thing that's now rivaling that are the number of people calling me about the uh number of dead animals that get left on the road.

And so when we were talking about the kennel at the at the new PD, it sparked my memory that I wanted to bring this up.

I mean, I think at some point in certainly work with the town manager and ultimately with us, but I think we've got to seriously consider when we're gonna bring on an ACO so that we don't have a situation where an animal gets struck on the road on a Saturday morning and you gotta wait until Monday or Tuesday to get it picked up.

Um it's something that has come up from a lot of people recently uh reaching out to me.

So I appreciate you can't be everywhere all the time.

Uh solved in 13 days because the new animal control also starts December 15th.

Lovely.

And they'll have weekend hours so that somebody can come and uh we do we do have some off hours for with some.

Okay.

Um, obviously a larger animal or one that that is causing a hazard.

We will certainly come out and we'll work either with municipal services or we'll take the animal control, you know, I'll have an officer go with the animal control vehicle or our pickup truck.

Uh some smaller animals that are you get a possum or a raccoon that made its way to the side of the road.

I'll be honest, it's it's a low priority for understanding.

With the uh bringing on board our new animal control officer, we were very excited to have.

Uh resident.

Uh it's uh that she will start December 15, two weeks from today, and uh hopefully that's uh no longer uh a burden for you.

No, I appreciate that, Chief.

And the folks who reach out, I'll let them know.

We've got a solution coming.

We do appreciate that.

You're very welcome.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Are we gonna talk about the color scheme changing?

Yeah, we're gonna talk about the color scheme.

Was it gonna be a discussion today about the color scheme changing?

There definitely there definitely can be.

Yeah, because it needs to be, because that was the whole perturbation.

About the fact that the color scheme changed from what the taxpayers saw on the uh original drawings.

So let's have a little discussion about that, please.

Do we have the Buffalo NAFTA?

I can find something definitely.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I think that what what it was said that it was too orangey, is that right?

Yeah, he just said it was beige.

It's not really, it's white.

Yeah, because the color scheme that was picked is the original was like tan.

Like tan color, orangey tan color.

And now they proposed some changes in the colors.

Is it gray white?

So the gray white.

That was the that was the original renderings that the voters saw when they voted on the building.

Okay.

And the new one, yep, I gotta open it back up.

If we can split screen that wow.

You're good at this, Joe.

Yeah, yeah.

He's very good.

Yeah, so see, it looks kind of the manager thing doesn't work out because helper and IT.

Can you zoom in on the right one, Joe?

Is that possible?

Thank you.

Yeah.

There you go.

So it's brighter, it's much brighter than what was proposed originally.

Um Ted, do you want to comment?

I absolutely thank you for the question.

And and uh let me start with uh apologizing if there was any kerfuffle caused by um uh color scheme changes in any possible way.

Um when we work on projects like this, um and this is not this is a uh uh project managers drive the bus very fast.

And they say we need renderings, we have town council meeting, we have to, and so we're working on concepts, right?

Um and and Mark Mark does a stellar job, so I'm not putting throwing Mark under that bus in any possible way.

Um we're generating concepts, and the concepts are that they are ideas, right?

If you look at the corresponding interior relevation, uh interior renderings to this to this uh exterior rendering, the concept it was radically different, right?

It's a very different concept because we we they're early concepts.

The design is not finalized.

And so as we're finalizing the design, that's when things solidify a little bit.

Um the exterior uh we um wanted the building to be lighter, we want it to be light in color overall.

Uh we felt that the beige was a little bit too muddy.

Um when we uh and so I'm skipping a step here.

Um between the concept and the final documents, we get some samples from the contractors.

Um from we don't know what's available when we're working on these concepts on the left.

We're uh looking at stone that we think might be available, pre-cast that might be available, a construction manager comes on board, they hire a uh uh a precast group, um, and we start to get stone samples from them or precast samples from them.

Um and we're looking at those precast samples and we get them there, they're this big, and we say give us these five colors, and we look at those five colors and we start to talk about them and we put them outside in the sun, and we start to pick, you know, color we say, can you make larger samples?

And that's kind of how we got to where we are.

The colors that we felt in the concept uh that when they were in sample felt muddy, they felt dark, they didn't feel as lively.

We thought that the lighter color, in fact, the much lighter color uh felt right for us.

We felt that it was that it would be uh uh uh um kind of a crisp, clean.

Um we're trying to uh develop as professional a building as we possibly can, right?

It's as as um uh you know driving professionalism in every way possible.

Um and so that's how the color change once we saw the physical samples, they were almost the size of this this podium.

Uh and so we said, okay, that's the color sample, let's go with that color sample.

A step that we might have missed is to say to city council here are the three colors that we're recommending, here are the three colors that we found.

We'd like to pursue this one.

And so I think that's how if there's any missed step or kerfufel on us on our our doing, that's a step that we probably missed.

Um, but uh at when the samples were on site, the mock-up samples were on site.

Um I think Mark and Joel saw them, they put their sunglasses on and they said that's too bright.

Let's have a conversation.

Uh and then we started to uh have a conversation, and I think the city council members uh were looking at the actual samples in the in the trailer.

Um and so if that helps at all, I I don't yeah.

Yeah, we just wanted we just want to be transparent because obviously we gave a rendering that looks the color-wise quite a bit different.

So we wanted to make sure that people were aware as to what's happened and why.

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't think cost change, correct?

There was no cost change.

There's no cost change.

Thank you for asking.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you, Ted.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Mr.

Devine.

Okay.

Um next on the agenda is from community development department.

Um it's the finalization of the LED streetlight project.

Um, if you remember back in 23 and 24, the council accepted 22,962 and 38 cents from Liberty.

We finally received the um incentive check, and it actually was for 24,817.20 cents.

So there's a difference of 1,854.82 cents that the council needs to accept an additional funds.

Council Bryant.

Are you ready for the motion?

I'm ready for it.

Madam Chair, I move in accordance with RSA 31 colon 95B, that the town council accepts with gratitude $1,854 and 82 cents in additional incentive funds from Liberty Utilities as part of the LED street light project.

I have a motion second by Council Stomalia.

Any discussion.

Seeing none, all is in favor.

Unanimous.

Super moving right along.

Mr.

Devine.

Next on the agenda is to discuss the provisions of RSA 6696.

Um, this was asked to be placed on the agenda.

Um and what 6696 speaks to is unless a person is otherwise provided by law, no person shall hold an elective uh town office who does not have a domicile within the town.

Um so there were some questions raised on should we be looking at our all of our committees, a time frame and establishing when somebody if they've moved out of town or are not being domiciled in Salem, should they resign from a committee or be removed from a committee?

Um so the council asked me to bring this place on the agenda.

Council Withwell.

So that was actually me, and thank you for letting us discuss this here.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um if you move out of town, I think it's clear as day you moved, you're done.

You shouldn't be on a board in this town.

But there are extenuating circumstances for some, and I think we need to define what that means and how long that goes for, and you know, between moving out for a time period because of a situation or you know, going to like now the state for the for the winter, you know, what does that mean?

What are the extenuating circumstances?

That way we're treating everybody the same.

There's no gray area, and we all know what's going to happen moving forward, and we don't have to maybe mess it up.

I don't want to mess it up.

So I'd like to have it to be a standard across the board as to what that means.

And I think we need to talk, we have to differentiate between elected positions and appointed positions, right?

That is crazy because there's two different things happening.

Um and so obviously that becomes part of the discussion as well.

I I'm happy to have staff and come back with as far as the committee side of things, a recommendation to the council that we can speak to the staff representatives.

Our concern obviously is quorums.

You know, if if we have um a lot of people being vacant a lot of times, we're not able to make a quorum for a lot of these committees.

Um and so that that's kind of the the larger discussion.

Um but I'm happy to work with staff and bring something back before the council if that's the wishes.

Council Sweeney.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just to add to this, I mean, domicile is such a tough word to define or to utilize the definition in state law.

I mean, we've had numerous battles when it comes to voting in the state, what domicile means versus residency.

Um so it is an area that we I think we need as much clarity as possible when it comes to the membership of boards and committees.

Also, like maybe looking into especially for the appointed positions, uh attendance factors.

If if members aren't able to show up to their meetings, there should be an ability to replace them uh from an appointed position.

It's tougher with the elected.

I remember the the charter commission looking at the recall provisions and everything, and essentially once you're elected, you're elected until you're uh removed.

Um it's very tough to do that.

So I do think with domicile, uh, even if somebody is temporarily removed from the town, as long as they have the intent to come back, typically that's enough for somebody to vote.

And usually the rules for holding office are equal what it takes to vote.

Um but I do think with the appointments, we should have more leeway to put some sort of show up to the meetings or we can replace you metric.

And I'm sure there's something that the town staff could look at.

Thank you.

Council with row.

So that's boards, and that's great, right?

But with I mean, when they're actually elected, once they move out of town, what does that mean?

Like did I'm you know, if if somebody moves out with the intent of coming back, do we have to put on the books when do they have to come back with to still be a Salem resident to be on these to be an elected official here?

I mean, moving out of town kind of disqualifies you, right?

Yeah.

So how do we clarify that?

I think if they still have claims to a Salem address, they can still qualify to be an elected office holder.

Like I think in So 673 requires you to be a resident under the under elected laws.

There you go.

You have to be a resident um of the municipality uh to be appointed or elected.

And so that's gonna be for your ZBA and your planning board specifically.

So what that's when you get elected.

Correct.

It doesn't say during your term.

But they should if they're not a resident, let's if somebody is not a resident at the time, let's say we're six months into their term, they should not be participating in the meetings.

Problem is they're not.

That's that's what we're talking.

I know I understand that, but they but they shouldn't be because they aren't a resident at that point.

So the the clarifying, I think as of right now, I believe on the planning board and the ZBA that the chair would have that discretion as far as deciding to grant that leniency or not grant that leniency and to kind of determine what isn't uh a good amount of time for them to be not a resident.

Okay.

So that goes at the whim of a chair, right?

There shouldn't be something more clear from the town that's a directive to Chia saying, you know, if if this person, if somebody on your board moved out of town and they're gone for say three months, that's okay if you deem it neatly, but they're coming back.

Like, I mean, shouldn't there be some kind of standard?

I think I think the only way you'd be able to do that is going through the charter process and and actually require no I'm being like I don't think I don't think the council cannot direct another can't can't direct the planning board, can't direct the zoning board.

So the only thing that would have that ability to do that would be the charter itself.

You can make a recommendation.

The council can say this is what we're doing for all appointed boards, and we would appreciate the elected boards also following suit.

Um, and and maybe it's us having the conversation with the chairs and with those elected bodies, having Jacob specifically since he was be the representative, to have those conversations to get to gauge what their feelings are as well, so that we're bringing something forward that at least we have hopefully buy-in then from those two elected boards as well.

Okay, can I just one more clarify?

Yeah, one more.

So let's just say if I if I'm on a board and I move for whatever reason, but plan on coming back two and a half years later.

I'm still on that board.

I would think at that point you would be removed.

I think that I think I would think the chair would have would want to the gray area.

Just I like everybody to be treating treated.

I see so but so these are my concerns.

Thank you, Council of Pelletier.

Yeah, we have some snowbirds.

I know I am not one of them, but I know there's some snowbirds uh amongst this community that wish to live in Florida more uh longer than they live in Salem during the winter months.

But as long as they're committed and they're elected or appointed to a board or a or a council or committee, they have a responsibility of participating with that board.

And that's by strong feeling.

If they can't make it within certain reasons, then we still have FaceTime that we can do that.

If I think that's still an option, because I've seen it over and over again where some of the candidates uh members in Florida and they get on there on FaceTime.

I know the I know the votes are a roll call, then but then that's still their responsibility, and they fulfill the responsibility if they do that face time.

But if they just don't show up, that's very unexpected unacceptable to me.

Okay.

So you look into that I'm happy to bring back a policy for the council.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, next is going to be an update on the road program.

Um services director was not able to be here tonight.

He's homesick.

Uh so deputy director from engineering, John Cliffelt is here to mention Clipville.

John Clipville Director Engineering.

And the chair of the Road Stabilization Committee.

There you go.

There's a nice view of Dustin Road.

From last year, we had an aerial shot done.

So just to recap this year, the 2025 road program.

This is a nice long list of all the roads that we did.

Right around 3.4 million, 3.4 million.

We came in just under.

We're still finalizing bills and closeouts with contractors.

But we hit pretty much everything that was on our list.

There was a couple of bigger roads under the mill and overlay streets.

Damascus and Teague that we found had some substantial drainage issues underneath when we TV'd the lines, and they're also longer roads, and some of the areas in those roads kind of fell into more of a reconstruction area.

We do have on the 2026 program to do some some drainage work under those roads.

We had a culvert fail on Zachary's crossing.

Pretty unique situation where the uh the final paving was going on the road, and the and the paver went right through the culvert.

So we had to kind of stop and and replace that culvert.

That was about 125,000 or so.

We'd also um we also had some dentist drive drainage and some road on the clough crossing intersection at South Broadway where we did the rail trail.

We got the state to kick in a good amount as part of that CMAC project, and then we kicked in a smaller percentage and got an excellent deal on paving that intersection to connect in with where node 10 left off.

Um we also had some gravel road conversions.

We did some great gravel road conversions up in North Salem on Hunt, Chase, and Griffin Street as well.

And then I'll draw your attention to rubber chip.

This was the first year that we did a rubber chip seal treatment in town.

Um and we hit uh about nine or ten roads on that list.

It's a newer treatment.

We're still you know getting the town acclimated, it's not a paving program.

You can go to the next slide.

Um, it's not a pavement, it's it's something in the middle.

It's a great, it's a great transition between the mill and overlay to save some roads before they get to mill and overlay, give them an extra eight to ten years before they drop down.

Um but it doesn't feel like pavement immediately.

And we've you know, some people have received calls, I've received calls.

This is nothing new in New England.

This is a treatment that's done been done for years and years, it's just new to Salem, so we have a little bit of a learning curve within these borders to get used to it.

Um but all in all, I mean it they said the first snow will uh really pull off some more of the rocks off the top, but um we'll see how that goes tomorrow.

But um, it saves us a lot of money and it and it really helps us maintain our roads and get us to a better place where we can uh we can keep our roads in better condition.

Um it significantly lowers you know the PCI, it helps the PCI on a lower road.

Um it helps those 75 to 80s, it keeps them up in the 75 to 80s.

You have to really look at the deterioration on some of these roads.

There's certain cracking in them that you can't do it on.

We work very closely with the contractor to pick the roads and pick the right roads and make sure that this will actually give us that eight to ten.

Some of these roads we may get 15 extra years out of.

Um so we're gonna we're gonna repeat that again for next year and keep on the same program right around the 200,000 dollar range we're gonna do.

Um, and we've picked some roads for next year, you'll see later in the slide.

Here's a historical road program funding.

You can see we're starting to uh starting to slide a little.

We are doing really strong.

We you know, we had created the 10-year road program back in 2011, 2012, and and we did a great job of kind of maintaining that, and now our curve's starting to dip a little, which which is okay.

Uh that was kind of the direction of the town.

Next slide.

So this was a slide that was presented in 2022 when we first did our evaluation of the roads, and it showed that we had about an 80 PCI back then.

Again, PCI is just a benchmark, it's a it's a high-level test of roads.

Some roads may be uh PCI of 60 in one area and a PCI of 90 in another, and we average them out.

So it's you know, it's not it.

We come up with a total road PCI, but it may vary from road to road, and it shows that we're right around on track.

We we were right hovering around the four million dollar mark, plus or minus, and don't forget those numbers from previous included drainage and utility work.

This chart does not include that, so we were essentially a little bit lower around the three million dollar mark year to year with just rate road treatment and paving.

So we landed right around where the chart said it would uh from 2022, or around a 77.9, and that's an estimate based on roads that we've done over the years.

We put them into the formula, we look at roads and how they deteriorated, and we put that into the program, and that's how we come up with that number.

So we took that number and kind of projected forward as of now.

77.9.

Again, this takes a lot into account a lot of assumptions as to what treatments we do.

We were really heavy in road reconstruction previously, and now we're kind of honing that back a little bit, using the rubber chip, putting that into it, doing a little bit more mill and overlay.

You can see the breakdowns right there.

But if we maintain around, you know, a 3.4 or so, we'd maintain our PCI a little bit lower, around 3 million, we'd drop, but it's not as substantial if we can kind of adjust where we're spending the money, and we really start bringing back on the reclaim.

It'll it'll kind of help us level out that curve.

So for 2026, these are little benchmarks that we use to build the program.

Again, PCI is just you know a guideline that we use.

Um we decided based on consensus that we're gonna build this program around three million dollars.

Uh we're putting about two and a half million in a mill and overlay, another 220 into rubber chip seal, 80,000 in crack seal, and another hundred thousand in mill and fills, and that also includes all the drainage, engineering, design, oversight, guardrails, all the various things that go along with the roads.

Uh and we're gonna do some contractor procurement later this year, earlier next year to make sure that we lock up all those numbers.

We do have some contracts that have extensions on them, so we'll utilize those to kind of maintain our numbers, and we're not gonna hopefully not gonna see a spike when I come back in another month and say, oh, prices went up 27% like we did last year.

Um so we've kind of found a way to avoid that a little bit.

And also we're gonna do a PCI update this next year.

We did one in 2022.

Those numbers were really from 21 or so, so I'm kind of sliding up another half a year of full evaluation of all our roads to update that PCI so we can have a fully updated one.

It's around every five years we want to do it.

Next year we'll do a full one and see where we're at.

This is our 2026 road program.

It lists out all the mill and overlay and the rubber chip streets that we're gonna do.

We did remove, I originally built it around 3.4 million with the engineering department, and uh what we ended up moving was the um the gravel road conversions is what's gonna kind of get dropped off.

We have a design for James Street, which was about a 750,000 street to convert, and that's gonna kind of be the one that hits the that hits the floor this year because of the little bit of a cut.

Um, but we'll still be able to bump up the mill and overlay, keep doing rubber chip seal.

So now we have more streets that we can point to and say, Oh, go look at this, your neighbor's street.

We did rubber chip over here.

We tried to build it in a in a neighborhood type scenario too.

There's a lot of factors involved in how we build it to kind of give the contractor a little bit like more pockets to work in, it helps our helps us keep our price as well.

Again, this is a list not to exceed three million.

We still have to go through procurement of it, um, which will happen at the end of the year.

We may have to move some roads out based on how the procurement goes in and out based on utilities and how the procurement goes, and we leave that up to the direction of the engineering department and the DPW.

So that's the road program as we built it, and uh I'm happy to answer any questions, and we're looking to support the road stabilization committee and and what they've presented today.

So I have a few questions.

So I'm looking at what was proposed and what was approved for last year, and there's a couple of roads that one of which is was supposed to be was proposed in 2023, didn't get done in 2024, isn't on the list for 2025, isn't on the list but 2026, and that's Duffy Avenue.

Same thing with Velesca Lane.

Those were those were supposed to be done this year, and they were not done.

So I'm wondering why.

Same thing with Peggy Lane, Lucille Avenue to Veronica Ravenne, those are all ones that were supposed to be done this year, but they've not been pulled forward, and I just kind of like to know why.

So, yeah, I know some of those uh I know Veleska anyways.

There was a lot of discussion on that.

Most of it has to do with with utilities, Valesca.

There was uh water and sewer issues, it's a small road.

There also those are roads that are in reconstruction as well, and we're kind of uh parring back some of the reconstruction roads in the in the future years because a reconstruction road this year is gonna be a reconstruction road next year, and it'll be a year after.

What we're trying to do now is transition the program a little bit and save some roads from dropping down into that.

This you know, we haven't been super consistent with our budget, so we're trying to use the rubber chip and the in the mill and overlay a little bit stronger.

So I'm just gonna comment.

So in 2024, Duffy Avenue PCI was 40.

And I would assume it's even lower now.

Right.

40 is a reconstruction road.

Right, right, which was supposed to take place this year.

So my question is why didn't it take place?

Because all these other ones that took that did, you know, you had you had bid alternatives that took place, but not the ones that were the main ones that were supposed to be done.

So obviously I'm concerned because you're pushing these off and pushing them off, and these people, the roads are a mess.

I drove them today.

They're a mess.

And so to me, and I don't see them in 26 or 27.

So it's like what what are we doing here when we have roads that probably are in the 30s now, and they're not on mill and overlay, they're not even listed.

So I mean that concerns me.

The reconstruction last year that came in 27 percent higher uh when we bid it.

So that's why a bunch of those reconstruction roads, in addition to the utility work, those reconstructions had to be dropped off to be able to get the mill and overlays again.

Teague and Damascus were two really big mill overlay roads that we had last year that had to be dropped.

So we brought some of the mill the alternatives in to replace those because it had so much underground drainage as well.

Yeah, there's some water mains on Asbury's another one that we had in A and Asbury have been on past years.

Um it's hard to build out a 10-year road program and and achieve it.

It'll never happen unless you can commit to increasing funds annually.

Well, and I and I appreciate that.

And I because I understand also the mill and overlay, you did Wendy Avenue, Nancy Avenue, Diamond, Robertson, Matthias, and Woodbury, and none of those were on the list to be done in 2025.

Yeah, they were in the years out from previously, and they were neighborhood roads that were right in the similar neighborhoods that we we were able to get with remaining funds that we had.

Thank you, John.

Council Pelletia.

Thank you.

Okay, and you explained about your gravel roads.

Uh you have to have to do some cutbacks on that on gravel roads, but I think it's a bloody shame.

Because uh I get a comment from a resident on Anderson Road offers drive every single year.

He built this house there 25 years ago, and he's still on a grab granite road.

He has called and made comments to I don't know what town official he's been he's been at this meeting here uh uh last year.

And uh at one time I think it was pushed off when I was on a CIP committee, it got pushed off to like uh 2030, somewhere around there.

It wasn't even considered.

But um there were only two houses at that time when I was on the CIP committee and that time on Anderson Road, and now there's six houses on there, and now he's this this gentleman tells me every single year.

I think he says I'm gonna give up because the town doesn't even listen to me.

And so we're up these are the people that that are gonna suffer that pay high taxes too, they're gonna suffer because these roads, these gravel roads still haven't been addressed in such a long time.

And that's I think it's a shame it's that's happened.

Thank you.

Council Bittencourt.

I thank you, Madam Chair.

John, good presentation.

I think there's a little bit of frustration being vented your way, but it's not directed at you.

No, just in your direction.

Okay.

Um it's all money issue.

Right.

Madam Chair, you brought up a very good point.

And it's perhaps a procedural issue, and we need to maybe make some adjustments to the transparency features around this because memory serves me correct.

When the roads program goes on the ballot, it lists the roads that are intended to be worked on.

Yep.

And so if I'm a voter and I'm looking at these roads, and to your point, madam chair, residents of this town may very well travel on those roads.

They may very well live on those roads.

They have an expectation that those are the roads that are going to be dealt with in that period of time when they uh vote to uh approve that warrant article, which has been the case every election that I've ever seen the road program on the ballot.

So I think we've got to perhaps look at how we present that to voters.

Because I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea that if there is some issue with the construction or the timeline or something happens that is gonna necessitate one of the roads on the list having to be bumped, and there's an opportunity to take a road that may be in the next year or the year after and get that one over and done with.

I think that's pragmatic and that makes some sense, but there's got to be a little bit of that transparency there, and I don't know exactly how you do that.

Maybe there's some changing to the verbiage of the warrant that can address that, but uh it was a very good point, and it struck that commitment to transparency piece that I know all of us here on the board share.

Um my other question though, and perhaps Joe, more of a question for you.

So uh John had mentioned that they are coming in a little bit under uh what they had planned to spend.

A number of different reasons for that.

I totally understand.

So if memory again serves, when that situation occurs, you cannot use those dollars because it's a warrant article, they have to be spent for that purpose.

You cannot take the unused funds and go do whatever you'd like with them.

They've got to be used for a similar purpose or or direct purpose.

It's a special fund.

That's right.

So it goes into the special fund.

That was my recollection on that.

So what is the current um balance in that fund uh at present?

And the answer to that I think will probably play in at least to my thinking when we talk about the proposed warrant articles a little bit later here in the meeting.

If you give me one second, I can look that up.

Sure.

And if you want to come back to a Joe at that time, that's fine too.

I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

You can look up, you know.

I have a ballpark in the $300,000 range, which Joe had mentioned to me or previously, but we also have funds from this year.

We tried to expend the $3.4 million uh this year uh as much as we could.

You never want to overexpend it, right?

But there's a fine line to get as close as you can to it, so you're not putting as much in, and so that's why we pulled in a couple from out years and pushed out a couple from this year.

Um, but I expect to put in maybe around another hundred or so thousand into that, maybe a balance of four hundred or so, depending on what's in there and what the final total is from this year where we need to close out the contracts.

There's three hundred and eighty-five thousand in the account right now.

Okay.

Council of Benton, go ahead.

And then last uh last just point if I might.

So when you had put up the graphic there and it showed the slope in terms of what was spent in the roads program, I don't want people to get the wrong impression that because we have ratcheted back some of the spending that we don't have making sure we've got good roads in this town as a priority.

For me, what that reflects is the fact that we've made a lot of investments in the roads in years past.

And when the program first started, there were roads that were in really dire shape and that had to be addressed very, very quickly.

And then as we've made progress with the program over time, we've been able to draw back on some of that spending because we've just not had as many roads in need of that dire immediate attention.

So I just didn't want people to get the impression that it's no longer priority for us.

Right.

We've been able to ratchet back on the spending because the program has been working as intended, and now we're more of uh we're more in a maintenance phase rather than having to do a lot of the reconstruction that we talked about with some of those other roads.

You're absolutely right that because that was always the intention so that we we get to the point where we're ahead of, you know, we're doing a minimal reconstruction, and the big piece is the mill and overlay.

And obviously, looking forward to what's happening with the rubber, you know, application to see how that works, and that's an eight to ten plus year extension on the life of a road.

Right, John?

Yeah, yeah, it is.

Um we're gonna, you know, I I would do want to put in a couple more years under our belt with that and not go too aggressive with it.

You also can't do one road in one neighborhood and you know, rubber chip and another one mill and overlay.

It's hard to to kind of fit all the pieces together.

Um, but it it it will in some of these side roads.

They you can use it on any road, uh, but I kind of want to slowly inch towards the higher volume roads as we go to see how it performs and to see what kind of concerns and in and questions we get from residents as we go.

I think that's and especially we have roads that we can point to and say, you know, you're doing this ex this special treatment that doesn't really look exactly like pavement.

We promise it'll look more like pavement in the future, but you know, go look at your neighbor's road on Castle Ridge that that we did two years ago.

Yeah.

Um so we're trying to to slowly build into it.

You know, mill and overly is kind of where you want to be.

That's where you can take off the rut the wearing surface and and redo it, right?

Rubber chip, you you don't have to the big savings is in the fact that you don't have to replace uh your driveway aprons, you don't have to adjust any castings, you know.

That's all the labor that you're saving, but you're really just kind of putting a code on top of it, you know, instead of the DPW putting bandages.

This is a you know, this is a cast or an ace bandage or something.

You know, it's just a little bit bigger of a of a cover up, you know.

But it the road every road's gonna fall apart over time.

This is just getting us a little extra.

And it'll be interesting to see what roads get what type of lifespan out of it moving forward.

Yeah, good job.

Thank you, John.

Do I have a motion?

Do we have one on the line?

Are we voting on it tonight?

You don't have to.

I think John was looking for support from the council.

Um, we're gonna do a warrant article on it anyway, right?

We are okay.

Thank you very much.

Yep, thank you very much.

Thank you, John.

Good job.

Okay.

Mr.

Devine.

Um, so next is gonna be a discussion on the budget committee's vote 5.4 to reduce two million dollars from the operating budget.

Um so staff got together, and I just want to kind of brief everybody on where we're at with that.

So again, at the November 12th budget committee meeting, um, the budget committee voted um five to four to reduce the bottom line budget uh by two million dollars, bringing it from 73.9 to 71.9 million dollars.

Um the reduction was made without adjusting revenues or identifying any spending, it was just right from the bottom line, um, basically leading it to staff to kind of determine the best course of action.

So staff met and we kind of came up with two scenarios that I want to bring forward to the council to get feedback, and that's gonna kind of really drive uh the next agenda item, which is the Warren article question, because depending on which way we go, there's different cost factors to each of them.

Um so the first one is if you remove the entire sidewalk program because there's no adjustment to the revenue, um, it's it's essentially 1.9 1.995, 1 million 995,000 is what it's budgeted for, uh which would believe $5,000 to reach the two million dollar cut.

Um it's important to remember that we have to reduce it exactly by two million dollars because that's what the budget committee put forward now as their vote.

So we couldn't remove something that was 300, you know, if that was three million dollars, we have to hit the two million mark exactly.

So if you wanted to go with option one, which again is the sidewalk project, um the estimated tax rate for 2026, and this is including the warrant articles that I'm going to be proposing tonight.

So this is giving you a total picture, so you're gonna see exactly what the tax rate looks like on the town side.

Uh it would be six dollars and thirty-eight cents, which is an increase of eight point eleven percent from twenty twenty-five.

Um staff does not believe this was probably the intent of the budget committee, um, to remove just one large item and not actually have that impact on the budget, uh, which is why we're giving the two options at this point.

Um the the real difference that came into play is because it was a bottom line cut, the revenues weren't adjusted, so that revenue is still sitting there, which would then have to be adjusted at typically in August or September when we are setting the tax rate.

We would adjust revenues.

Uh the DRA gives us the ability to go in and say, you know, are you gonna hit these?

Are you are you way off?

What's the reasoning behind it?

So we would have the ability to go in and adjust the revenues, um, but again, that that only gets you to that six dollars and thirty-year cents, which is an eight percent essentially increase from 25.

Um, option two, um, staff went through and identified two million dollars of targeted cuts.

Um essentially that brings the estimated tax rate for 2026 with again the recommended warrant articles that I'm gonna be proposing tonight to six dollars and thirteen cents, uh, which is a 3.98% increase over 2025.

Um we do think this aligns with what the budget committee was trying to achieve.

Um we just we kind of really worked on preserving core services and looked for areas to make cuts to.

Um, it does have long-term operational consequences, though, um, as I'm gonna get into the two large ones is we're removing six hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars from the fleet program.

Um we still are doing some vehicles, but that that's a big chunk of it that includes the 200, and I'm just gonna use round math here, 280,000 for the DPW six-wheel dump truck as well.

And then we identified $587,000 worth of maintenance allocations.

Um, the big chunk of that is going to be the $300,000 roughly for self-fire for the engineering, and then the other big piece of it is the $191,000 of the building maintenance we were proposing to do for the first time this year to start start getting caught up on our buildings to try to get them to have a longer lifespan.

So just as just a quick breakdown, just so you can kind of see how we came up with the two million dollars.

Um, as I mentioned, the first two already, uh, there was three hundred and twelve thousand dollars in staffing adjustments, 195,000 in contracted service, and we removed 250,000 from winter weather operations to get to the two million dollars.

Again, this is a long-term trade-off.

It does mitigate the tax impact in option one, but it delays capital progress and underfunds and maintenance.

Um, and to use the term that's used a lot, we're we're kicking the can right now again, is what's happening.

Um so it does create future budget pressures.

Um, I can tell you that we looked at the fleet program with the vehicles that were cut and to roll them into the next two years, um, which would have been again.

I don't have numbers because I don't know what it's gonna be in 27, but what we were estimating it's about 150,000 increase to those two years.

So you're looking at over 750,000 for fleet in 27 and 28 to to catch up on this, um, and that's going off of pricing today.

That's not off of pricing in 2027 and 2028.

Um we we know that next year will actually be our highest bond payment.

That that's gonna be the peak of our bond payments as well.

So we know that debt service payment is gonna be high next year as well, um, higher than it was this year.

So I'm I'm looking to the council um on which way you want to move if you want to remove the sidewalks in the five thousand dollars, which I'm calling option one, or if we want to go with option two, which is the removal of the two million dollars in cuts to the budget.

Okay.

So let's let's council Pelletier.

I'll start it off.

I'll start it up and I'll start because I'd rather go, my opinion and my vote would be with option one for the sidewalks, because I do not want to see police fire and municipal moving in a backward direction.

We must have them, those three uh sources working in 100% capacity to fulfill the town's needs.

And by cutting anything that they requested, they requested uh their vehicles, they requested equipment in the terms where they know their departments to the fullest and they know what they need to fulfill their requirements of the town.

Uh therefore I am totally against cutting anything from the three police fire and municipal.

That's my take on that.

Thank you.

Council Hatch.

I've been going back and forth on this since we've started with this, of course.

And I and I really haven't still, as I sit here today, haven't made up my mind, so I'm really interested in what my uh comparis here have to say, because what council Pellateris did, you know, we've cut the sidewalk, it's done and over, and we still the town gets to still move forward with programs that were already set up.

If we go ahead with the option two, which is kinder to the taxpayer, it's follows the intent of Mr.

Goddu's uh motion to cut the two million from the bottom line.

However, we won't recover that because we're gonna kick that can down the road, and I know next year I'm gonna be sitting here saying no no no because of that high bond payment.

So we're probably not gonna recover from this two million dollar cut if we go if we choose that option too until 2029, probably is my guess.

So I mean, I don't know.

I I really am on the fence here, and I don't know which way I'm going.

Um so that's why I want to hear from you all.

Council Ben, go ahead.

Thank you.

Joe, you may have explained it and I just missed it or didn't understand it.

Why is this such a binary choice?

Why can we not have some aspects of options one and two?

The the biggest piece of it is option one with that sidewalk piece is 1.9 million dollars.

So where I have to hit two million dollars exactly, that that's why it's there's really either we're making the two million dollars in reductions, and these are what I'm recommending right now.

I mean, at the end of the day, we may we could pivot and say we're gonna a vehicle we need to move place a vehicle, let's say, so we may reduce the salary line.

We may do other things within the operating budget.

Um, but I have to hit the two million exactly.

So I can't we can't say to the the sidewalks, well, let's just remove half of it because it's it's grant money involved, so it's it's an all or none kind of situation is the reason we went forward like this.

Okay, it it's it's difficult only insofar as some of the aspects of option two you can probably live with.

For example, before anybody freaks out, the winter weather operations.

Sure.

We don't we never want to mess around with that, but I do know that there is a reserve account that's pretty healthy.

So you could take the 250 out of that, knowing that you've got the reserve account that you could fall back on should this be a particularly bad winter or next winter.

Yep.

So I was trying to see here if we could spread the pain a little bit more evenly rather than like I said, just having two binary choices.

If if the council goes for I mean, this was staff, we got we got together, it was the the day after the budget committee made that decision.

Staff we got together and kind of went through the budget and took a took a good hard look at it.

Again, that if you went with option two, this is where we're looking right now.

Again, come March, something may need to change, and we may say, No, this is how we're gonna do it, or come July.

We we need to now push forward with this, so we may move within that.

Essentially, though, if you if you want me to go with option two, there's gonna be two million dollars in bottom line cuts from the budget.

I think that's that's the biggest point.

That's what I would say.

I want to hear from the other board members.

Um I I'm I'm resentful that we're stuck in this position because we need to do both.

Um my husband walks all over town, and he needs those sidewalks.

But we need everything else, too.

So I think we've put been put in a pretty much impossible situation.

Thank you.

Council Without.

Yeah, so I mean, I mean, bottom line, nobody wants to pay more taxes, right?

I mean, we would all like to have the lower rate any every year.

But thinking of the whole picture, thinking of what's coming next year, because that will be the biggest bond payment year, and that we're probably gonna have to make more steady cuts next year.

You know, I'm looking ahead too, but let's, you know, focusing on this year for now.

And I chairman your resentment a little bit, right?

Because the budget committee set us a goal, and we did more than meet that goal.

We were well under that goal.

Um, and it sure seems to me that their issue is what the voters vote in on the Warren articles, and if that's what you if that's where the tax increases are coming from, then that's where the focus should be from that group in trying to to talk out talk people out of voting for those who aren't articles.

I'm not saying I agree with that, but that's where the tax raise comes from.

So that's where the issue really is.

Um as to intent, you know, if they had clear intent, they would have picked line items.

They did not pick line items, they did a blanket cut.

And I, for one, know that this board worked very hard on the budget.

We looked at everything, we looked at every line item.

We took we took our job seriously, and we're thinking about this year.

It's not great.

Nobody wants to spend more money, but we're looking down the road, and we don't want to end up in the same position we were in, let's just say eight, ten years ago.

We were constantly trying to catch up, and we don't want to be there again.

And this is gonna this is the start to that happening, because what's gonna happen next year?

It's gonna be the same thing.

We're not gonna be able to catch up at all.

We're gonna be set further back, means we're kicking the can further down the road.

So you know, I'm proud of the budget that we put forward.

I wish it was less.

I I think we all wish it was less, but it's not.

And I'm proud of the work we did, and I think we did a good job thinking of Salem as a whole and what's best for this town and the maintenance and the upkeep and employees, and I think we did what we were supposed to do, and I think we did a good job coming at it as a flat budget.

So I'm a strong proponent for not that I want to get rid of the sidewalks, but I'm a strong proponent for getting rid of that at this time.

Council Stramaglio.

I mimic exactly what she said.

Yeah, what she said exactly.

I mean, we worked hard.

And the last two years, we had the best budget that ever came in this town ever.

There's a reason right there.

And he did a f we all did a fantastic job.

And the fact that she said we're faced with two million dollars, which we shouldn't be faced with two million dollar budget uh cut.

Uh I'm in op option one.

Any other comments?

And I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna reiterate maybe a little bit of what she said, but we went through a tremendous amount of work.

The departments especially, the heads of the departments with vehicle replacements.

Let's put it in a place where we can make it level and not have the spikes, you know, all of a sudden we need a two million dollar tower truck, or let's level it off.

We do all this work to put it all together.

And then a bunch of people sit together for less than 15 minutes and take two million dollars out of the bottom line without any without any conversation by any other member of the group, really.

They were not allowed to say, well, I had different plans or whatever.

So my problem with this whole thing is, and I have seen uh whether everybody likes that I've been around for 23 years or not, you know, it's it's okay.

I've seen it all, and I've seen other people, and I think Tom would would verify this, Mr.

Campbell, that other people have come down and said we want to cut a million dollars at the bottom line, we don't care where you find it.

You've been around long enough to see that.

I've been around long enough to see that.

And everybody that was on the select board at the time just looked at him and said, either make up your mind or we're gonna put it back.

It it it doesn't make any sense to just cut it because you feel like you need to cut something, because you passed a police station that has been an eyesore, health hazard, nasty piece of whatever you want to call it, real estate, in this town for the last 15, 20 years.

It was built for 11 people originally, and we've got over 70 people residing in the building.

So it's about time.

Now everybody wants to complain about it.

We need to find money to cover the you asked us to do it and we did it.

We leveled all the funding.

We built the police station you wanted.

It's under budget, like they said a little while ago.

And I'm on that committee.

It's under budget.

We haven't used our contingency, which is the money we use in case somebody wants to.

And Joel has not asked for a bigger office.

In case somebody wants a really nice leather seat.

It hasn't happened.

So I don't know what else we can do as a council or a board or whatever you want to call us to make this thing work.

It's just um if I had to cut something, there's no sidewalk there now, I'd cut the sidewalk.

And I understand that might disturb some of the people that are in that neighborhood.

Um but um that's probably where I'm leaning.

I don't want to see the vehicles go backwards.

I don't want to see salaries cut, I don't want to lose personnel, I don't want to affect services.

I want the employees to feel like they are they're in it with us, and so that's where I land.

Sorry, that went long.

And uh yeah, I've heard you all now.

I still can't get past that the one, it's it's really at this point it's not our budget, it's their budget is the budget committee.

It's just just to make that clear.

That's right.

Um and probably this is what I can't get past.

This when I look at the sidewalk project, it's not really cutting two million dollars or 1950.

It's really not.

What we're cutting is the 300,000 dollars, that's our portion of it, and the rest of it is grant money.

Yep.

And realistically, we all sitting here and we all know that if we choose option two, that 300,000 um, we can find that 300,000 somewhere to put that sidewalk in if we get the grant.

You can't tell me we can't.

Impact fees, recreational fees, there is something we can do with that.

I just can't get past the fact that the budget committee, they've voted, they've spoken, and I just don't think it's the right thing to do to choose option one.

I it's the it's their budget, that's what they chose, and as much as I'd m like to make some of them choke on that two million dollars, I can't.

The right thing to do here, I think, is to tread water on those vehicles on the fleet services, and choose option two.

Council Wright, if we can't find the 300 and whatever to do match the grant, then we put the sidewalks off for another year, and that is gonna cost us more.

If we put all the option number two and put all that stuff to another year, it's gonna cost us more.

So no matter what we do, it's gonna cost the taxpayers more in the long run.

Yep.

Just like the police station.

We could have had an eight million dollar police station if it wasn't for the budget committee back then.

That's why we got a 30 million dollar one now.

Because they didn't like the atrium in the middle.

Right.

38.

38 million.

It wasn't just them.

The voters voted it down too.

Yeah.

Well, who convinced them?

Well, well, nobody, you know, well, that's not the argument.

That's not a good thing.

That's off track.

That is off track, please.

That is off track.

But I I just think the right thing to do is choose option two.

I think that's what's doing right by the voters.

It's their budget.

And they gotta live with it.

And they gotta choke in it.

They have to live with it.

I agree with Jeff.

I I I support option two.

I think it is the budget committee's budget, it's not no longer our budget.

If we have to come up with the two million, you know, we have to cut two million.

That's where I think they should it should be cut.

And anybody who's complaining about they're not getting services that we've cut employees, yada yada yada, that's who they can call.

Because that was unconscionable to just cut two million dollars without specifying exactly what line items you want to remove money from.

And to think that you're basing a vote, 15 minutes, one person not letting the second person have an opinion as to what they wanted to do with on the budget committee of what they thought was a good proposal.

It just it is it just doesn't sit well.

It doesn't sit well, and I want everybody also re remember, we're going through a reval.

So hold on to your hats.

Because we haven't had a reveal in five years.

And we're looking at a good 40 percent increase in the values of property.

Okay.

So I mean that's on top of everything else.

These are these are the things we're faced here in this community.

You know, so you know, I don't like kicking the can down the road, but that's where where I'm falling.

Um counselor Bettencourt.

Joe, when do you have to make a final decision in terms of where these cuts are going to come from?

Well, it it's gonna impact the warrant article discussion because if I if I want to give you a complete picture of what the tax rate is going to be, I need to know which way we're gonna do the direction now.

Yep.

What's that?

You need the direction now.

I need the direction now so that we can we have no wiggle room.

That's what I was getting at.

We have no wiggle room.

You're telling us we have no wiggle.

I can I can show I mean I have no problem.

I have two PowerPoints ready to go for tonight.

I have option one and option two so that you can see the two different tax rates.

I have no problem showing you the warrants, and when you vote at the next meeting, you can decide which way you want to go want to go on it.

I I mean I just want to be clear.

I'm not questioning your work.

You guys clearly have to put the thinking caps on and make some difficult decisions.

I think what you're hearing from uh most of the board here, if not all of the board, is these are some lousy options.

Is there a potential third way for us to go?

And I that's why I floated some sort of a hybrid between the two.

I appreciate why that doesn't work.

But is there another way to get there?

I I don't know.

It sounds like you guys explored it pretty extensively, and it seems like these are the two options that are available.

These are these are really the two.

Um I mean, again, just because of the dollar value of the sidewalks is what made that a really viable choice.

Um and then the two million dollars in cuts.

I mean, that's what it really comes down to.

Um there was no other items that we could sit, you know.

If there was other items, they would have been included in that two million dollars in cuts.

When it comes down to them, we start reducing the budget.

Okay.

So I'm I'm happy working off of the option A, which would be the more expensive one, so you can see that for the full tax rate, and then if you decided you want to go with option two, and I can give you that number then as well.

I think that reasonable people have and can disagree.

It's an initial from my perspective of the two options.

You don't think option one is preferable for me.

Yeah, I think you're gonna find yeah.

I mean, obviously you can talk about it, but I don't think we're taking a final vote this evening.

No, I think what he was asking for, and I think what we've tried to give him, I don't know how clear we've been is you know, which way do you want to go?

Sure.

And so I I did want to from again, just from my perspective, say that I think of the two options, option one is preferable.

What I'll what I'll do is again I'll work off of option one then, and then if the staff comes up with any other ideas, we'll present them at the December 15th meeting, at which point um you'll be having your final discussion on warrant articles.

I think the decision would have to be made at that point.

So I think one of the questions that I'm gonna have is when we talk about staffing, 312,000.

What is that what does that mean to services in this community?

So that's looking at primarily open positions right now.

So I'm gonna use the HR director position.

We have an engineering position, and we're delaying we're delaying hiring, is what we're doing on the on these positions.

Um if you remember with the police officers, um, we funded two at eight months.

Um we've reduced we reduced the time on the funding on those for time.

So that that's where we've we made a lot of our reductions is within that piece of it.

Is you know, we we know that we're not gonna be posting the HR director's position, let's say till after the holidays.

So in realistic, it wouldn't be higher until March anyway.

So we we pulled the three months.

The engineering position has been open, we haven't had any applicants.

So let's let that sit for a little bit so that we're look to that for six months.

That's that's where the staffing reductions came into play.

Uh there's no layoffs.

Okay.

There was um the the new positions that we propose are still within the budget.

So though so the newer positions um for let's say the building maintenance side of things, those are still in the budget.

We've we've kept those intact.

Um it's it's open positions, we're just not funding for the full years.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Just on that thought, you you probably, you know, let's just say we're doing six to eight months worth of position salaries in this budget.

Next year it's gonna be twelve months.

It will be.

So instead of the cut that it looks like now, it's gonna make it look like we're raising taxes more next year.

That is correct.

Because it is a position that's they're all positions that are going to get filled, unless we eliminate positions, and that's just going way too far backwards.

Um it's just gonna look like a higher tax rate next year when we have to do even more work.

And I'd be first bigger.

What kick in the can.

Right?

What's the bond payment?

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

So thank you, Joe.

Thank you.

Okay.

So next on the agenda is going to be the discussion on the warrant articles.

So again, this is um the way I drafted this is it's an initial discussion to kind of get feedback from the council on how they want to proceed with warrant articles for the vote for next meeting.

So this is stuff that I've heard throughout the year.

This is things that councillors have mentioned that we're now bringing forward for this initial discussion.

So again, this is the 2026 operating budget tax impact.

Um, before any warrant articles were at 71 million, 71.9 million, which is five five dollars and eighty-four cents.

So that's no warrant articles, that is just operating right now.

So people are aware this is the estimated tax rate uh for the operating only on an assessed value of house for 300,000, 600,000, and 900,000.

So the first proposal warrant article that we're gonna present is for the road program.

Um again, John gave you these numbers already.

Uh, my recommendation tonight is three million dollars, which is a four hundred thousand dollar reduction.

The tax rate impact on that's 44 cents, is how much that piece would cost.

Um we have the OPEP trust fund, which is something we fund every year.

Uh 45,000 is going to be coming.

I'm suggesting we use um fund balance for this, so there'll be no tax impact on this.

Uh so 45,000 dollars would come from unassigned fund balance, and then $5,000 from the water fund is how we would fund this.

We have the town facility maintenance and improvement capital reserve account.

The current balance of this fund is is just over $225,000.

Um, I'm recommending last year we did $50,000.

I'm recommending $50,000 again.

I'm again I'm recommending unassigned fund balance for the use of this as well, so there's no tax impact on this either.

Um within CIP there was a fire engine replacement.

Um so we're looking to do a five-year lease.

Um, this was something I heard last year, um, primarily from a lot of the budget committee members that they did not like us paying cash for the tower truck.

They thought we should be leasing these larger apparatus.

Um so we actually came forward with a five-year lease.

Uh the annual lease payment um is two hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars.

Um, the total uh purchase price is one point three million.

Council hatch.

And you won't get it.

This is gonna replace a fire engine, correct?

This is going to reach how old is that fire engine that's gonna be replaced?

2006, 19 years old right now.

So it's 19 years old, and you have to remember it's gonna be three to four years probably before we get it.

So at the time of replacement, it's gonna be roughly 23 years old.

Okay, I'm good.

Um I already asked uh in an email about a seven-year lease.

So I'm working, I'm I reached out to Nicole, she was looking from lenders to figure out the seven-year lease piece.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay.

Oh, council banquet, I'm sorry.

No, no, no worries.

So this will be the second fire engine we've got in the oven.

This will be the second, yes.

So we have we have a tower truck, yeah that was purchased last year, and then this would be the second one.

Um when I get to my town manager's update, we actually just took delivery of a new engine that was approved by the motors in 2021.

Wow.

Look what it says.

Lead time for a new fire.

Oh no, I know it takes forever to build them.

Yeah, we gotta get the barts.

So you can give it a Keith.

You can build it in the URL.

Council Whipple.

How much are we gonna interest versus paying cash?

I have to I I can find that answer out.

I don't have it off the top of head.

I can get it from Nicole and bring that.

Yep.

Not a problem.

Um we have two CBAs that are gonna be on the warrant this year.

Um, the first is the Salem Police Employment Association or SPA.

Um, the first year um of this is two hundred and forty-seven thousand nine hundred and six dollars.

Uh it's a tax rate impact of roughly four cents.

Um, just we uh the council know this knows this, but for everybody else to be aware, um, we actually negotiated this a year early, and the reason behind that was because next year we we know next year is gonna be a tough year.

We keep talking about that, and we were supposed to have police fire SEA contracts all coming forward in the same year.

Um so the police offered to come a year early as opposed to having our two largest union, our three largest unions all at the same time, um, on top of bond payments and everything else.

So this is a year earlier than what was originally projected to be.

And we appreciate that.

Yep.

Um, and the second bargaining unit was SPA, which is the Salem Public Administrators Association.

Um, this is a lot of the deputy directors, managers, department heads, people like that.

Um, this is 141,582 dollars for the first year impact, uh, which is two cents on the tax rate.

So the remaining um warrant articles are not monetary.

Those were all the monetary warrant articles that we're proposing.

Um so these are gonna be the non-monetary ones.

Um the first one is to establish a municipal transportation improvement fund.

So RSA 26153 allows us to create this fund, and when people register their cars, the town can collect a five dollar fee essentially, and what that fee goes towards is for transportation needs.

It can go for roads, it can go for sidewalks, um, it can go for things.

You know, right now we fund cart within the operating budget.

This this money could actually go towards funding CART, so there's a lot of different options, uh, but in order to collect the five dollars, you have to have this trust fund established to be able to put the money into.

So this is kind of a two-part warrant question.

This is the first one that establishes the fund, and then the second piece of it is the five dollar motor vehicle registration fee.

Um again, it it goes for the the public transportation services.

Uh, there's no tax rate impact.

It's a fee that they would pay when they're registering their vehicle.

On top of all the new fees that we just got we just dumped on everyone.

That would be on top of the the that the state did, yes.

Yeah.

Well, I can tell you I'm not gonna I'm not going to support this.

Neither am I.

No, absolutely not.

Even though it's going to whatever it's supposed to be CART or whatever else.

My thing is, as we know from the presentation from CART, the people who are using CART get a great deal of what they're paying.

It's it's incredible.

Everybody should be using CART because you're paying three bucks, five bucks.

It's it's unbelievable.

Um, but my thing is we're looking at increased fees already.

We're looking at an increased tax rate now.

We're gonna tell people well, it's only five dollars, so let's just hack on the five dollars.

I I can't I can't do it.

I I can't do it.

I agree.

Thank you.

Um the next one, this was a conversation that came up.

Um the land use change tax currently 100% of the fund goes into the conservation fund.

Um the council has spoken about this in the this past year.

Um so we're actually putting forward a warrant article to do a 50-50 split between the conservation fund and the general fund, so 50% of that money would come back to the town, and then the conservation fund would get 50% of it.

And then uh finally, we had a 275th anniversary um revenue.

We need to put it back into the trust fund.

Um so the last warrant article would be to take that money.

We're still working on the final numbers, we'll have that for the next meeting, uh, but it's just to deposit that money back into the trust fund.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Um, this is just a quick snapshot again of those warrant articles so you can see the tax rate impact.

Council Wright, you have several things coming out of the unassigned fund.

Yep.

Is that gonna have any impact on our triple A?

It will not.

I the finance director, when we when we proposed the 2.5 to the council, I had already spoken to her about using the money like this for these two warrant articles, and it has no impact.

She's very comfortable with taking the hundred thousand to offset these two warrant articles.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Yep.

Council Sweeney.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, on number nine, the land use change tax.

Is there a way for for John or someone to get a map of what land is still under we have that?

I can definitely get that.

Yeah, I just yep.

When we look at it in the future, I think that'd be helpful.

Yep, not a problem.

What potentials out there for people to take out a current use that we would get money in from.

Sure.

Any other questions?

Council Van Court.

So if I am understanding this correctly, the only one of these warrant articles where there's flexibility for us to adjust the number in any significant way is really the roads program.

Right?

Because you either do the fire truck or you don't.

You either put the money for OPEB or you don't.

And I was whispering to Councillor Sweeney what's in the OPEB fund currently.

He gave me the number, and in terms of the average burn rate, you're gonna need what you've allocated for that.

So the only wiggle room so far as I can understand it is the roads program.

So not a ton of options.

Right.

Right.

Council Hatch.

I think uh as far as the roads program.

I mean, it's been cut already this year by uh 400,000.

So I don't see us cutting it again this year.

Next year, it may be at 2.5 because of the bond payment.

I think that's realistic.

But I think this year we it has to stay at the three.

I don't think we can.

I don't think we can take two years in a row at 2.5.

No.

Too much of a hit.

Yeah, that's too big of a hit.

It's too big of a hit, two years in a row.

Yeah.

And real realistically, in 2028, 2029, we're gonna be back at four million on that.

I think to catch back up.

Yeah, to catch back up.

I'd go back to the open.

Go to four.

Okay.

Any other questions on the other questions, guys?

Okay, good.

Okay.

Oh.

Well.

So next is going to be the proposed charter amendments.

So I'm going to open up the public hearing.

Thank you.

Charter amendments.

Um, so some of these we've we've spoken about.

We've kind of already talked about this, but this is the public hearing to actually have it on these items now.

Um, so the first charter amendment is to revise section 4.10.2 of the charter, uh, which is the selection of the audit firm that we've spoken about.

Um currently, again, we're required to change audit firms completely every three years.

Um, so we're we're looking to remove that requirement uh to select a new auto firm every six years.

So questions.

Nope.

Okay.

Uh second one is Charter Amendment 2, which is shall the town of Salem approve Charter Amendment 2 below to rescind its adoption of the optional provisions of the municipal budget law and approve the charter amendment summarized below.

Again, this is essentially a limiting the budget committee and the municipal budget act of that.

And so what it does is it takes any mention of the budget committee as you can see.

Um it's a little small, but um removes any portion of the budget committee that where it's mentioned in the charter um to move forward with that.

Okay.

So I'm gonna I know that we have people from the public who want to speak on this item.

So let's start with Ed Huminick.

Mr.

Humanic.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairperson.

I didn't think it was casual night tonight, but that's okay.

Name an address.

Mr.

Humanick, name an address, please.

Ed Humanick, 18 Corinthian Drive.

Thank you.

Maybe Mr.

Bryant can introduce me.

Yes.

I'd like to introduce Mr.

Humanic as the town's oldest and finest curmudgeon.

Thank you.

I I wear that title proudly, just join it.

He said this a couple years ago, and I love it.

Uh current member of the ZBA, chairman of the ZBA, and former budget committee member.

Yep.

Now, let me tell you something.

I spent 18 months on the budget committee.

The worst 18 months of my professional career.

Okay.

All we talked about was French doors in the town.

Oh that's that's your you guys know what I'm saying, right?

Oh, I know.

I know need to mention any names because maybe some relatives are sitting here.

Adam Chairman, I take objection to that.

Okay.

We all know who he's talking about.

Please, um, please.

However, however, I continue to watch the budget committee.

For whatever reason, I have no idea.

And I do think that uh for the past couple years, I'm impressed with the budget committee and the work they do.

And I think it's a uh we you may not may agree or disagree with what they come up with on the bottom line and how they got there.

I think it's great to have other opinions versus the town council.

Not that I don't trust everybody on this board.

Okay.

And I guess the question I was asking you if you were in front of my board individually would be.

We'll start with Mr.

Pellet here.

Why do you think we should not have a budget committee?

That's what I would like to hear, and we'll go down the board.

And I'd like to hear all of your opinions.

Well, we we had our opinions given the other night, and this is a public hearing for the public to speak, and we're not going to interject.

And I'll I'll look at the video tape, but I just think it's it's a uh it's an appropriate committee.

It's another overlook, and always saying it's a taxpayer.

I appreciate that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, and another we have just we make a uh ZBA announcement.

ZBA meeting for tomorrow night has been moved to a week from Thursday.

Okay.

So thank you.

If you want to come and see the highest-rated show on cable TV and say thank you, ladies.

Thank you, Mr.

Humanic.

Ohyssa Cadillac.

Did I pronounce that properly?

Oh, super.

Name and address, please.

Uh Clarene.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Um thank you for everyone's input and opinion tonight and kind of hearing what everybody had to say, and I speak on the budget committee as well.

Um you're tied into a place.

And I think the time has passed for the budget committee.

I think from listening, I've listened online.

This is now my second in-person meeting.

Um, but I've certainly listened online to to folks here having moved here two years ago.

There's an opportunity for um, you know, department heads to give their opinion for the town manager and the town council and the departments know what they need, and to come in at a level funded budget means that you are being fiscally responsible.

And to have the budget committee look at that and say, no, strip more and those of us who are in public service know where it falls.

It always falls to people.

At the end of the day, it's the people who lose their jobs or the services that we need.

And so I I think that you have hearings, you have open meetings, you have the ability to listen, people can ask questions, we can have the school board folks come.

You know, I think there's more opportunity potentially for some of that transparency by the town council um with how all those budget discussions, and at the end of the day, the voters do decide.

And I think the time has come for it to for it to be disbanded.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tom Campbell.

Name and address, Mr.

Campbell.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Tom Campbell, 160 Zion Hill Road.

Um, as you probably all know, there's been an attempt in the past to make the budget committee just an advisory board.

That doesn't make any sense to me because they can tell you we think this, and you're just gonna do whatever you want because they're only advisory and you don't have to take their advice.

So I would think about that when you make your decision.

Um I know the town, you you folks, the town manager, the the department heads aren't happy with the cuts that were proposed, but that's the budget committee's job is to look at the budget and see if they can't work things better.

Um to me, the reaction to get rid of the budget committee is akin to a little child wanting a piece of candy and having a temper tantrum because his parents said no.

Just you know, it doesn't make sense to me.

Uh we need checks and balances in this town.

We have it in the federal government, although most of us probably don't like what happens in Washington.

We have it in Washington, we have it in Concord.

We need to have checks and balances here too.

And that's what the budget committee really is.

They're part of the checks and balances, so you that you folks can come in with a budget that's way out of sight, and there's very little way to stop it.

And I'm not saying you did.

You guys do a great job of setting the budget.

And having been a homeowner in this town for a long time, even longer resident.

I appreciate that, and I understand the hard work that goes into that.

Um I have a couple of things I want to say.

I just don't think you should get rid of the budget committee just because they made some cuts.

Maybe the way they went about it wasn't right.

I know in past years, budget committee members have gone line by line, and this budget should cut this, this budget should cut that.

You know, but um to just get rid of them to me doesn't make sense.

And finally, and I know you're not gonna like this comment, Ms.

Stacy.

I don't appreciate the innuendo to my brother that was made here tonight by a member of your board and a member sitting back here.

He did his job what he thought was best.

Right.

Mr.

Bryant, look right at me and send my name.

He was talking about my brother.

I don't appreciate that slam at my brother.

I don't think it was a slam, but thank you, Tom.

No, it wasn't.

Okay.

Mr.

Boyer.

No, it wasn't.

Name and address, please.

Uh Jeff Boy, uh Celsius Road, St.

New Hampshire.

Um I'm here to talk about why we need to maintain our town and school budget committees.

I know we're only only here talking to you guys about the town one, but we also have to take into consideration that we have considerable oversight with a town, which is approaching a hundred million dollars.

Uh it's a lot of money.

The town's budget is 73 million.

If we were looking at a 73,000 dollar budget, and we were looking to cut 2,000 dollars from that, that would be quite quite doable, I'm sure.

But we're things are things have to be relative.

We're at 73 million, and we're asking for a proportional two two million dollar cut tentatively.

We have a long way to go between now uh when we go to the deliberative session, and uh also finally to to to the uh to the ballot.

So we have quite a ways to go with that.

Um introduction for me, just so who those that don't know I know all you people.

We've collaborated on many things, and I hope that we we have time and energy to collaborate on this issue.

I don't think it's a hard two million dollars, that's what we we do, but I think that there's some negotiation that can be done between now and the end of this.

Um I'm a five-year member on the budget committee.

Uh I'm currently the chair for the last three years.

And um, I just want to make sure that you know that I'm here tonight uh as a resident and speaking as a resident and not as a budget committee member.

So I'm not going to address the things that you just said because I do think that there are some grounds to move forward on that amicably.

Uh I'd like to speak to you tonight quickly about some key reasons why I think it's important for the Salem to maintain the status quo and keep the budget committee.

In essence of time, I'll limit my points to a few topics.

Mr.

Gardu will follow up addressing other concerns that you may have with his uh well, your concerns.

First of all, I did a little research into some statistics.

Uh my research indicates that the budget committee has been here in place since 1962.

That's 63 years.

So what you are proposing tonight is a historic event.

Okay.

Sixty-three years.

Okay.

The budget, the the taxpayers of Salem have relied on the budget committee, what we do and what we what we try to discuss and convey to them.

Um I'm concerned that I'd propose actually that the Charter Com the Charter Commission first reconvene to review and discuss all the possible in impacts of removing a sixty-three-year-old committee that taxpayers have relied upon.

Uh when you guys were drafting the Charter Commission, it was a it was a year-long process, if not more.

Um I don't understand why we're looking at a historic event, you know, of 63 years of budget committee, and all of a sudden this issue has come to a head, and we we we have to just like with one charter amendment amend it without considering all the impacts of that.

That's my point on that.

Um as Mr.

Humanik had uh mentioned, I don't think a lot of people have really studied the reasons why the town council actually wants these uh this charter amendment and the budget committee to go away.

So I'm standing here today.

I really haven't taken the time myself to study exactly what it is, but I guess that that's what we're going to do since this isn't going to be a two-way conversation.

With uh some just statistics, um, based on my review of New Hampshire Charter Towns, seven out of nine, seventy-eight percent of municipalities in New Hampshire Charter Towns still maintain a budget committee in one form or another.

Uh this charter amendment would put Salem in the minority, and for me, that's that's a cause for concern.

Again, that's seven out of nine.

So that's uh charter commission's charter charter towns are not that prevalent in the state of New Hampshire, but we should be cognizant of this historical event and to study it much harder or take a look at it before I hope you take it into considerate consideration in making your determination.

My second point is oversight.

The budget committee is a safety net for the taxpayers.

The budget committee provides an independent review of a spending plan, preventing a concentration of financial authority and ensures additional security of revenues, appropriations, and long-term obligations.

The third comment I want to make is about transparency.

Transparency is difficult, it's not efficient.

We're we're encountering that as we speak.

Uh the town council works very hard.

We didn't say you didn't work hard.

We also uh have worked very hard in trying to come up with a way to work around and bring the taxpayer the the taxpayers a reasonable rate at the ballot, not necessarily with the operating budget, but the past two years that I've been as a chairman, we we have always looked at it as the big picture when it comes to the ballot.

That's what we're shooting for, and we try to make sure that the taxpayers, when they go to the to the ballot, understand the rate that they're and what they're signing for.

When a taxpayer gets to the polls to vote, they deserve to understand how their vote impacts their ultimate tax bill.

Without a budget committee, taxes may vote incorrectly on what their true intentions are.

Not all taxpayers are are savvy to to the process, and it's a very complicated one.

Sometimes we even get confused.

It's frustrating.

My mandate since I've been on the budget committee for five years is I want to assist the taxpayers in the prudent allocation of public funds.

Educating taxpayers make better voters.

This creates more public order confidence and enhances public trust and ultimately more reliable budgets.

The fourth comment, which is important to me is community involvement.

Five years ago, I didn't know much about how municipalities work relative to their budgets.

I'm a CPA, I know a lot about numbers, but I wasn't sure of how that worked.

I know that Salem uh does need a fresh flow of volunteers for all our committees.

And by removing or considering removing the budget committee, it's like a training ground for everyone.

I think Mr.

Bryant has commented many times.

If you if you want to learn about how things work in Salem, try to get on the budget committee because you're gonna you're going to take an enhanced express in introduction by participating on the town and the school budgets.

Very informative, and I think that it's really important that by eliminating the budget committee, you're taking seven people out of the loop to refresh the committees that we have, which which are quite a bit.

I've been on the municipal building advisory committee, very helpful in coordinating and pushing the police station through.

Um that was an amazing thing.

I I've met Chief Amir, uh Chief Dolan.

Uh we know each other on the first name basis.

I have that opportunity now because of the budget committee, and I'm proud of that.

And I think that it's it's something that you really need to resonate with going forward.

In conclusion, uh taxpayers deserve oversight, transparency, and an opportunity to participate in local government.

I hope that what I said may resonate with you guys and somehow help you to not um eliminate the budget committee, and let's make this a historical event and keep it going.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Steve Gardeau.

Name and address, please.

Good evening, Madam Chair.

My name is Stephen Gardew.

I live at five Candlestick Lane here in Salem, and I thank you for this opportunity to talk about my favorite political subject, which is taxes.

First, I'd like to begin by clarifying some of my earlier remarks I made during the budget committee.

At no point did I intend to suggest that the town manager or the finance director lied.

They did not.

All of the information that was given to us was clear, it was transparent, and it was honest.

And I apologize if my presentation and remarks uh on that night uh was construed to imply that, because that was not my intention, and uh you have my sincere apology for that.

My concern is really not honesty, is the analysis that was presented that I believe did not fully uh describe the impact that uh this budget is going to have on taxpayers.

And that impact is significant.

A 9 percent increase in town tax rate is not something I believe any members of this council are really interested in pushing forward.

Yet the budget as it presented leaves us directly there.

In fact, even with the cuts that you were describing tonight uh by taking the sidewalk program out, you're only gonna be cutting, yes, we're still gonna have an 8 percent tax rate, which I don't find I find objectionable.

Our goals were strictly to uh bring the budget to four four and a half percent, which is something that I can look at my neighbors and tell them that, well, we just built the police station, uh, we need you expect certain amount of services.

There's some amount of money you have to pay extra.

Eight or nine percent, I think is unreasonable.

But this brings me to my central um my central point.

Salem needs a budget committee.

The towed budgeting process is complex.

It's multi-layered, and too often it's disconnected from the taxpayers bottom line.

We recommend a budget.

Weeks later, we review warrant articles that really should have been part of the budget.

Then soon after we evaluate citizen petitions, which again all affect the tax rate.

We have one-time grants that uh increase the uh budget for one year, then they disappear the next year.

Operating expenses are actually up 8.7 percent in this current budget.

And but yet we are told that it is flat because we reduce some one-time uh capital expenses.

That's not what taxpayers consider to be a flat budget.

A flat budget to the taxpayers would be the default budget.

That's the same budget as the previous year, and only asking for extra expenditure uh expenditures that were uh contractually obligated.

That's five million dollars less than this current budget.

That's a flat rate, that's a flat tax rate, and that's what most residents understand when you say we have a flat tax rate.

So this is why Salem residents rely on the budget committee, with the only body that is expected to step back and look at the full tax impact of the town and the school together.

Without that oversight, the only option frustrators frustrated voters will have is to choose the default budget.

And I predict that if you enact, if you eliminate the or if the voters eliminate the budget committee, we're going to see more default budgets.

And in many other towns, we see default budget after default budget.

And I don't think that's good for Salem.

History proves my point.

Just two years ago, the select board and previous town manager presented the budget committee with a 15 percent tax increase.

This is after they deliberated and handed it to us, which was totally outrageous.

Well, because of the work of the budget committee, we were able to get that tax rate down to about five or six percent, and it didn't affect any of the town services.

This is why we need a budget committee.

And this is what real oversight is all about that the budget committee is active in doing.

Checks and balances are not obstacles, they are protections.

The town council and the school board must focus on operations.

That's your role.

But every dollar is ultimately becomes a tax bill, and someone must be accountable for examining that full impact of the taxes.

This year, the town council did not meaningfully discuss during the budget deliberations how the tax rate was going to be affected.

I understand that oversight.

It is operation, you're focused on operations, but it's the budget committee that focuses on how much does my neighbors do my neighbors have to pay in additional taxes.

And when I turn to them and say, well, it's going to be eight or nine percent, they they look at me like, what are you crazy?

You know, what are you doing on the budget committee?

Anyway, um for these reasons, proposing a warrant to eliminate the budget committee is not a neutral action.

It is your recommendation to the voters that we should eliminate the budget committee, that we should eliminate the only independent body that's focused on tax burden.

Removing the budget committee does only one thing.

It lowers the barrier to higher spending.

That may make budgeting smoother for the boards, but it does not serve taxpayers.

I strongly urge you to recommend to not recommend such an article.

Doing so would undermine accountability, diminish transparency, and weaken the protections that Salem property owners demand.

Eliminating the budget committee does not reflect the best interest of the voters, and the voters deserve better.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Pamela Barry.

By the way, the score is seven seven, I think.

And schools canceled for tomorrow.

All right, well, thank you.

And I didn't write a speech.

So there's just some logistical questions that I wanted to come here and ask you.

I didn't know if you could respond.

Because I'm not I didn't want to get not going to get into a back-and-forth debate about it.

But um there's just some things that the I talked to our administrators and they kind of put together a couple questions, and I hope you don't mind if I asked them.

Sure.

Um does this vote what does it require?

A simple majority, or is it a majority vote?

50%.

And then does the article need the recommendation by the budget committee?

No.

They do not make recommendations on non-appropriation articles.

Okay.

And if this would go on the ballot and it would pass.

Does this eliminate the budget committee for just the town?

Or do we still have the budget committee?

The school district.

It would eliminate for the school district as well.

As well.

Okay.

And we don't have to do our own article if you do an article.

You do not.

Okay, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Before I close the public hearing, does anybody else wish to speak?

Please come on up to the podium.

Give us your name and address, please.

Good evening.

Valerie Tobin.

29 lamp lighter.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You know.

I'm very, very concerned about this town council trying to remove something that is for the citizens of this community.

To remove a budget committee, which is an integral part of our financial structure.

And not give the people an opportunity to voice their concern with the budget committee is egregious.

And this lady over here said that she thought that prices would not come down.

I totally disagree with you.

Prices are on the way of coming down.

And to think that, and actually Steve Gadu made an excellent point about default budgets.

I can tell you right now, for the last three years, I have voted for default budgets for the school committee and for the budget for this town, because I think the taxes are outrageous.

And for people to not go back in and look at every single budget of every single department and go through that and question every single light item, which you probably don't have time to do.

But the budget committee does do that.

We do do that.

Okay.

Well, I will tell you that a lot of people in those departments will probably say, oh, we need to have this money.

I used to teach in this school, and I can remember that when I had an opportunity to put forth the budget, they said you spend all your money and then you ask for extra.

And that's what these departments do.

Do I think these are good budgets?

Absolutely not.

I would like to see zero pace based budgeting.

I would like to go back and look at every single thing because I think these budgets are awful.

And I think for you to eliminate a core component of our community that helps us to be fiscally responsible, it's beyond the pale.

And I'm going to go to deliberative session and I'm going to try to get this eliminated from a warrant article.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Mr.

Campbell.

Attorney Campbell.

Name and address, please, sir.

Absolutely.

Madam Chair.

Bernard H.

Campbell, 106 Brady Avenue in Salem.

I first of all I want to say somebody said they had done the research.

Jeff maybe said it was like 1963.

Between my father and I, we've probably been on the budget committee nearly since 1963.

So I have a lot of experience with the budget committee.

And the only reason I'm really up here tonight, and Mrs.

Berry didn't mention it, but I understand that there was some suggestion in some quarters that this was uh either uh originated by the school board or endorsed by the school board, and nothing is farther from the truth.

Um anyone who says that uh lacks credibility.

Um so the fact is I have been very proud to be the school board's representative to the budget committee for many years now, and frankly, there have been difficult years.

Uh we've we haven't had to go to court in a long time, so that's good.

Um I think for the last three four, five budgets, um, we have actually come together with the budget committee um, and they have ended up recommending the budget that uh the school district has put forward, uh, to which we appreciate.

And we will still have our disagreements.

Um, but we we I think try and work with the budget committee as best we can.

Uh where we disagree, there'll be honest disagreement, there'll be transparent disagreement, and the voters ultimately get to decide that through the ballot.

And um, so my point here tonight was to say I haven't promoted.

Um I say let's say let me rephrase that.

The school board has not discussed it as a board.

The issue has not come forward, and we did not uh get behind any effort to bring this forward.

I think the the council has done that on its own.

Um and I think the voters can have a chance to decide if that's what they want to do.

But uh please don't please don't uh attribute something to us that we did not bring forward, and that's my point this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Bettencourt.

Thank you.

I just wanted to briefly respond.

To what to what do you respect?

So something was said.

There was a a comment made about the credibility of people in certain corners.

And I just I want to set the record straight on that a little bit.

I think that for some people it's a bit confusing as to how all of this came about when you have some members of the school board who are running around town telling everybody they run into how excited they are about this particular warrant article.

Certainly I've heard more uh from people coming back to me saying that they've been approached by a school board member about this than anybody on this board.

So I think that the confusion, at least in part, is somewhat understandable given that particular dynamic.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anyone else?

All right.

Moving right along.

Sure.

Uh so Charter Amendment 3.

Uh shall we have still open, still open public hearing?

Yep.

Go ahead.

I shall shall the town of Salem approve Charter Amendment 3 to amend Section 6.3.7 of the Charter to modify language concerning the use of influence.

So essentially, this amendment revises it to state that elected and appointed officials cannot use their position or influence to obtain any benefits, uh cause detriment or impact decisions for themselves or others.

And that's the language that how it would look on the charter.

Uh amendment number four, shall the town of Salem approve amendment number four to amend section 6.3 of the charter to add the requirement for elected and appointed officials to complete ethics training.

Um essentially the summary as a new section which requires any EAOs to complete ethics training within three months of their election or appointment to a subsequent year.

Council Hatch.

The only question I have on this is uh when we start talking about ethics training.

It's gonna make it mandatory that all these people have to take ethics training here.

That is correct.

Regardless if they work for the state or had it that county or wherever.

That is correct.

And so we uh we have reached out when uh when we had legal review all of our amendments to make sure that legally we were sound.

Um they had actually made a suggestion that we allow other people from let's say a state if they take ethics training to be able to have the ability to use that.

Um the assistant town manager spoke with a couple of members of the ethics committee, and their concern with that is how are they gonna be able to determine that it's appropriate for Salem was what really came up.

You know, was it Salem specific?

Is it you're learning about how our rules our our charter is established?

And so that's why we did not end up making that recommendation that the attorney had.

Again, it was a recommendation, it wasn't anything, it was a suggestion essentially.

Um so we are stuck with it after speaking to the ethics committee that it has to be a town of Salem.

Follow up.

Is this going to be required every year or just once during their term?

It's every year it's required.

It's required three three months um after the election or appointment, and then every year they're follow up.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Charter Amendment 5 is again it's to amend the staggering of terms from members of the conservation commission.

Uh back when we did an amendment in 2024 and made it irregular to the way we were appointing members.

This just cleans that up so that it's an actual staggered term.

And those are the five charter amendments.

Okay.

Anybody have any comments?

I'm gonna close the public hearing.

Council Betoncourt.

Just so just madam chair, whatever your pleasure is.

Or do we want to start the discussion tonight?

I can do either.

Does not matter.

I think on the 15th.

The people get an opportunity to mull them over and give them some thought and consideration.

Works for me.

That sound reasonable.

Joe has an issue.

Joe?

This one we have to send to the AG's office and to this DN to DRA.

So we don't have the ability to wait.

We presented these.

We presented all the first four in November to the council.

The only additional one that's now being presented was the budget committee as a reaction of the last meeting.

So the first you need a vote?

I will need a vote on the five charter amendments.

Do you want them individually or how do you want to do it, guys?

I can do them all.

You can do them all.

Can we modify?

I'm sorry.

Sure.

Can we modify them at the next meeting if we choose to?

You cannot, because again, we're sending the final.

Our opportunity.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

So you have another.

Do you have it?

I have the motion.

Okay.

Please.

Madam Chair, at this time, I move to the Salem Town Council.

Hereby adopts the proposed amendments to the Charter has proposed for inclusion on the 2026 Town Meeting Warrant, pending final approval, final review, and approval by the Attorney General's Office, New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration and the Secretary of State.

Second.

I have a motion by Council Bryan, a second by Councillor Hatch for the discussion.

Council Batoncourt.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I hardly think it's a surprise that I am not in favor of Charter Amendment No.

For me, it's very it's a matter of deep principle for me.

And part of I think what makes this discussion so difficult at this time is the backdrop of some real frustration over how the current budget committee approached our most recent budget.

And what I would respectfully ask of this board as best as they possibly can separate their frustration with five particular group of people versus the larger question of whether or not continuing to have a budget committee maintains its utility.

Because I think for me, and I think from some of the folks you've heard from tonight, this is not about a board or a bylaw change.

It's about whether we believe in a government that is accountable to the greatest number of people possible throughout the entire budget process.

Every one of us, and I pay attention to these things, every one of us ran for this office by and large, promoting and promising transparency, fiscal discipline, and appropriate stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

Now, we may have had slightly different definitions of exactly what those things meant.

But the core principles I think are very, very consistent.

And I think the question before us at this point is whether or not at its core, we actually meant those things when we said them.

Not to be repetitive of what has been said, but I think that it is at the core of the issue.

The budget committee is the only body in this town whose singular job is to be the watchdog for the taxpayer.

The town council runs the town, the school board runs the school, but the budget committee is the last gatekeeper before the decisions made by those two boards ultimately become the obligation of the taxpayer.

And I think that eliminating the watchdog doesn't streamline government.

What it does is it removes a safeguard.

And history teaches us that time and time again that once government lets go of a safeguard, it's nearly impossible to get it back.

Now, I've heard in the conversations that we've had here, as well as some of those that have been expressed tonight, there are two predominant frequently raised arguments for getting rid of the budget committee, and I want to briefly, if I might respond and rebut those arguments.

The first is that the budget committee has outlived its usefulness.

On a fundamental level, I could not more strongly disagree.

Oversight never outlives its usefulness.

Accountability never goes out of style.

And no matter how good or bad a budget might be, whatever the condition of the town at a particular time might be, there's never a moment when there should not be an advocate for the taxpayer.

Again, we have to weigh a lot of different things overseeing the entirety of the municipal budget.

They're focusing in on the dollars and cents.

And ideally, there's a good dialogue going on back and forth that helps us and helps them strike the appropriate balance between those two objectives.

Look, I understand, as I've said, that the budget committee has a number of us frustrated.

And I've made it clear I did not appreciate the approach that was taken.

I'm sympathetic to the end goal, but as Bob will tell you when we served on the budget committee together, there's a medium ground between my approach when I first got on there and was a young Turk and was fired up and ready to go, and I was making motions to cut pencils and pens and paper clips, and a straight back of the budget cut, which is what took place this time around.

There's a middle ground there.

But it doesn't mean that just because we didn't get to the result that we wanted to see, that the solution to that problem is to simply get rid of the board in its entirety.

That is a getting rid of the baby with the bath water approach.

And look, if the budget committee makes us feel a little uncomfortable, good.

If the budget committee makes the school board a little bit miserable, good.

Now, I think by and large, the school board here in Salem does a good job.

But I think there should be a group that scrutinizes that spending given its impact on the overall tax rate that is ultimately borne by the taxpayer.

So the second argument that I've heard is that what is the harm of simply putting the question on the ballot and then letting the voters decide.

Well, I think that sounds reasonable in theory, but there's a little bit of a problem practically with that.

I think a number of us remember a few years ago, there were two citizens' petitions.

It came right after the Citizens United Supreme Court case that dealt with campaign finance reform.

And there were two citizens' petitions on the ballot.

One said we love citizens united, we love that decision.

The other citizen petition or the citizen warrant said we hate it.

Does everybody remember what happened?

Both of them passed.

Both of them passed.

And so there's a bit of a practical problem with simply throwing it out there and saying, well, the voters will decide.

You know, there's a reason why the founding fathers of this country chose a republic and a representative form of democracy, because direct democracy causes a bit of confusion from time to time, as we've seen.

And so the people elect us to advocate for them and to speak on their behalf.

And that's why I think that there's an important stand for us to take to protect the checks and balances that are in place.

For me, again, it comes down to first principles.

I I think power is best when it is shared and not consolidated.

I think budgets should be justified and not assumed, and I think taxpayer protection should be structural and not optional.

So for those reasons, I simply cannot support the movement to try to get rid of the budget committee.

And uh I hope that everybody will, as I've said, do the best they can to separate some of the frustration that I know was generated as a result of the budget committee's approach to this particular budget and focus in on those core key principles of good governance.

Thank you.

Anyone else want to share any comments?

Council Sweeney.

Yeah, I'll I'll speak up.

So I want to say I respect all of my friends and everybody that came and spoke with us tonight.

Because I think there were a lot of good things said, a lot of good things shared, and I think in a perfect world, uh, we wouldn't be having this discussion about the budget committee, uh rumblings in town about who's trying to get rid of it, what what the scenario here is.

I think we did hear a lot of things that I do want to highlight, and I I agree with so much of what my friend said, but I do think there's an important value in getting this to the ballot for the voters to decide because it has been 67 years, 63 years since this uh since this budget committee was formed by the voters.

Um, but I do think there's an important value in getting this to the ballot for the voters to decide because it has been 67 years, 63 years since this uh since this budget committee was formed by the voters.

I think it's always healthy for voters to chime back in as to whether or not they want to continue having the budget committee or not.

I certainly think there could be a better way of handling finances in this town.

Um that probably preloads the process a little bit more.

We have a very short window that we work on this budget.

We get the budget, we work on it over a couple of meetings, then we send it over to the budget committee for them to work on over the span of a few weeks, and then and we expect to manage and operate not only a town but a school district that way.

Uh, I think structurally, and it's not something that we can do under the municipal budget act, but under the scenario that this were to pass by the voters and we eliminate the budget committee.

I think there's a place for this town council to form a finance committee or call it whatever you want committee that works year-round to develop the budget that works with the town manager that works with the town council to develop the budget, so we still have that citizen input.

We still have those taxpayer watchdogs, but we got to put them at the front of the process, not at the end of the process where they say, Hey, voters want us to cut spending, we're gonna cut spending by two million dollars.

And we don't have the line by line, then that line by line is left to us to clean up.

I also think it's important to note that yes, the the school district spending does account for roughly 66% of the tax rate in this town of the mill rate.

Uh, and that in recent years hasn't gotten as much scrutiny as our budget that asks for 33% of the mill rate gets, and I think there's a structural imbalance there with what is getting the attention of the pencil sharpeners and what is getting the check boxes when it comes to how the committee currently operates.

And I have nothing but respect and admiration from my friends that are on the budget committee.

I do love you guys, it's nothing personal against them, and I would hope that if the voters do eliminate the budget committee, that those budget committee members do run for town council, they run for school board, they ask for appointments to uh a finance committee that can help, similar to the way the CIP committee works throughout the year to help prepare the warrants in those projects that we have to give it a more long-term vision of the town and not just uh here's the work the the town council did uh before we get the work that the school board does.

Uh, because it in that the whole you know taxes go up eight percent, nine percent.

If the town side goes up eight percent and the school side goes up four percent, the tax rate impact is around five percent.

Like when you balance when you actually balance it out.

So when you we talked a lot about this is the only committee in town that looks at both the school and the town side of things, it just it's not set up structurally to do that because of the timeline that it works on where it has to deal with the town entirely before it even gets to see the school side of it.

So I think there are better structured ways to do it.

I don't think we're going to solve them in one night.

I don't think the voters are going to solve them on one charter amendment vote.

I don't even think another charter commission could solve all of the the best ways to put forward for taxpayer protection and finances to go forward uh without going down the line that other communities have done with tax caps and whatnot.

Uh, we are rare as a town, by the way.

We are the only town council in the state that has a budget committee.

Um, so there are boards of selectmen.

I mean, 1962, when a budget committee was adopted, we had three members of the board of selectmen and three members of the school board, 9200 residents in the town, give or take, uh, because 93 was still kind of becoming a thing.

Um, so we were a very different community, and that's not to say that we have to change everything, but I think it's just a healthy discourse to look at the way we do things, and that was the that's why most of us are here on this town council is an openness to looking at the way we do things and not just accepting we've always done it this way, so we have to keep doing it the that way.

Um again, I I think there's one motion for all five uh charter amendments tonight.

I think it's safest to always just put it back to the voters to see what they want to say, and then we'll go and take their direction from there.

So councilor Wright.

Okay, the town council is now larger than the former select board.

So there's nine of us to go over it.

We reviewed the budget line by line by line.

It doesn't sound like the budget committee did that.

But Mr.

Devine works with the departments, gets their budget, he sits down, says, Is this a want or need?

They thin it down, then it's presented to us.

We are the checks and balances.

Um in the past, the budget committee has removed several items, um, but they were added back as warrant articles by the voters.

The amount added back in is designated funds, they can't be used of an emergency like a uh furnace blows up.

They can't be used of an emergency like a furnace blows up.

If it's part of the full budget, then it can be switched around as needed.

Um the I'm sorry.

I left something out and I can't remember now.

Mr.

Sweeney and Mr.

Bettencourt and I were on the Charter Commission.

One of the things we heard is there are too many warrant articles.

So if we don't put the stuff in the budget and it has to be pulled out and brought back as a warrant article, it adds to the number of warrant articles.

We had an opportunity that Mr.

Devine set up for us.

All of the different department heads came and made presentations.

The budget committee was invited to join us.

They refused.

Um I did have one other thought, and I don't remember what it is.

Um, the items from several past years added back into as warrant articles.

The voters approved every single one of them.

That says the voters, the budget committee is not in sync with the public.

So that's my thoughts.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Council Pelletia.

Um okay, I've heard everybody's gestions.

I what I could come down to is how we got to this point now.

The basic thing, the basic topic that I missed right just said uh that the budget committee was invited by the town council it to attend a joint meeting to the discussine, the budget line by line.

And they refused to do that because they didn't they didn't think it was necessary.

If they had done that in the early stages, they would have worked digitally with the town council, with the members of the council, and they would have known each and every line or and where to cut if they needed to make some cuts.

But toward the end, just before the meeting, prior to the motion to cut the two million dollars, I sat there on the budget committee, and they went over the proposed budget that was proposed by the by the council line by line a little bit, and they and they said, Yeah, we can't touch that, we can't touch that.

That looks good, that looks good, we can't touch that, which came down to the point where the last meeting they came up with anything they can do is say uh uh do a bottom line two million dollar cut.

And I think when we talk about the budget committee starting to outdo its usefulness, usefulness.

We have to the committee and and the town council and all other committees too that involved with the town council, have to collaborate together.

We have to we have to have joint meetings together because everything's getting bigger.

The expenses are getting larger.

Uh there's more involved in it, there's more discussion that meets takes place, and without that, nobody nobody knows what each other committee is doing.

And to just say that I can't just say that the member says I can't look at my neighbors in the eye and tell them that the budget's gonna raise up to seven or eight percent.

And not really knowing why it got to that point to begin with.

Uh so there is there was the stepping stone to to to get involved the the with a joint meeting to know the knowledge to get with it.

Uh that was that was eliminated.

That wasn't that never took place.

So that's where we are.

That's how we got to where we are where we are today.

And uh for that note, I kind of agree with Council Sweeney that there should be a committee right at the front lines, knowing the exact what's in the default, uh, what was the default balance, what's it what's in the reserve balance, how we can and what we need at the end of the year or the beginning of the next year.

Right at the beginning, so that we're all in we're all on the same page, all at the same time.

And that's my feelings about that.

That's thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Yeah, Councillor Battencourt.

So one last thing.

I can count.

I know which way the the tides are flowing here.

What I would say is I think there are a lot of there's a lot of merit in the sentiments expressed by Councillor Sweeney and Pellateer and and some others, we come out in a different conclusion, but I think there's merit in the idea of taking a look at the process and taking a look at the timeline that the budget committee operates under and seeing if there's a better way for them to do their job and to fulfill their role and responsibility under that reformed process.

But I think you can do that while not eliminating the budget committee in its entirety.

Because I will say, you know, and it's just a pure matter of legal fact.

I'm not trying to besmirch anybody or um forecast what may or may not happen.

But if we go down the pathway that Joe described and we take care of it, we form some sort of a finance committee that functionally serves the same role as the budget committee and does it in the process that we design.

Um I mean ultimately I don't know how those board members are picked.

I would assume would have to appoint them, so there's a little bit of a separation there in terms of accountability between those individuals and the public.

But the other problem is is that the school board is not under any legal obligation to do the same.

They could they could very well mirror what we do.

I don't I have no idea what they'll do, and I'm not biasing their thought process should this come to pass.

Uh, but they would not, legally speaking, be required to do any of what we are thinking about doing.

And so there's a loss of a check and balance and an oversight that the budget committee currently serves over the school district and not just the town council.

And so I don't know how you account for that in some of the the ideas and principles that uh I I find a lot of merit in, but I I don't I don't know how you address that other huge part of the puzzle.

Okay.

I'm gonna call the question.

All those in favor.

All those posed.

So I have eight in favor, one opposition, which is Councilor Beckencourt.

And if I might, madam chair, just to let the record reflect, I'm uh in favor of all of the warrants with the exception of two.

I know we took it as a block.

So taken.

Yep.

So taken.

Thank you.

Okay, town manager.

Um, so we're gonna wrap up with the town manager's report.

I know it's it's getting late, so I'm gonna go through this as fast as I can for everybody because thank you.

You're welcome.

Um, I'm just putting another plug in for Civics 101 on December 9th between six and eight.

People are more than welcome to come out and learn how their town government works.

Um, so we would welcome people to come out.

There's no sign-up required, just come on down.

Um light refreshments, and just give you a quick overview of Salem's government and how we operate.

Um there's a menorah lighting on December 14th at the town common at 5 o'clock.

This is something we've started doing every year.

Um, and it is continuing.

I mentioned it earlier.

There's the nice new engine that we did take delivery of.

It's uh Pierce and Forcer from a 2021 warrantle.

And again, we want to thank residents who continue to support our public safety initiatives.

Another plug for Winterfest is coming up December 11th.

Um we hope to see people out there from 5 30 to 7 30.

Um it's gonna be a great time.

Um town hall and the senior center is gonna be closed on Wednesday, December 17th from 1145 to 2 uh for staff holiday party.

So we're getting the information out as soon as we can to people so they can make arrangements.

We will resume normal operations at 2 p.m.

right after the lunch.

I don't know if this is still going on.

We haven't heard, but we are supposed to have a tree lighting um tomorrow at the town common from six to eight.

Plenty of snow.

Plenty of snow is right.

So it depends.

Uh as soon as we hear something, we will put it on social media from the Lions Club just to make people aware as well.

But uh, as of right now, we have not heard uh it's been canceled yet.

Um the next two pieces um back uh several months ago um the council formed the same Salem Development Corporation at the uh pushing of Councillor Sweeney.

We're going through the process of creating the incorporation in order to make move forward with the nonprofit status and things like that.

Um so we need to have incorporators assigned to form the corporate the corporation.

So there's two options.

Um I'm I gave five proposed uh incorporators, and I just did uh counselor sweeney as the resolution sponsor, uh the chair, the vice chair, the secretary, and myself.

This would only be on a temporary basis to form the corporation, at which point then we were formed, and then we could have a call for candidates to for the appointment to this actual committee, or we can do the public call for candidates beforehand and then have them listed as the incorporators.

So I'm I'm looking to the council to see how you would like to proceed with that.

I'd rather see the board members be initiate initial incorporators.

At least to get it off the ground, right?

To get it off the ground and agree.

I need that for the paperwork in order to form the corporation.

So that's so I'll go forward with the proposed incorporators to get the people work going.

Yes.

And then finally, you know, we've had a lot of talk about warrant articles.

Uh petition warr articles are coming up, and we just want to make people aware if they're looking to do petition war articles.

So our our charter does govern how we have to do petition warrant articles.

Um, specifically, if there's an appropriation involved, you will follow the typical petition warrant process, um, which is 25 registered voters.

Um, and then you come in with your 25 signatures, but there has to be appropriations tied to that.

Um if there's no appropriations, if you're looking to change an ordinance, or if you're looking to change anything else, you have to go through the referendum process that the charter outlines, which requires 200 signatures.

Um you file it with the town uh manager's office.

We would then forward it to the town clerk to certify all the signatures.

The council has essentially three options at that point.

They can adopt the measure without alteration, um, they can place it on a ballot for the next municipal election, or they can call a special election if the petitioners submitted 500 additional signatures.

So that's the choices.

Um just for deadlines for people.

If you have a appropriated warrant petition warrant article, the deadline for filing is January 13th.

And if for some reason you're submitting a warrant article that has a bond on it, it's January 9th.

And then if you're looking to do an initiative petition, um it'd be December 26th, 2025 for the March 26th ballot.

And I'm happy to answer any questions on that.

Questions, and that's all I have tonight.

Super wonderful.

Uh upcoming meetings.

December 15th, January 12th, 2026, January 14th, 2026, and then January 26, 2026.

I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Madam Chair, motion to adjourn.

Unanimous.

Good night, Salem.

Thank you.