Budget: Megan [Bracket, Rockport’s financial director] and I have spent a great deal of time working on the budget over the past month. I have spent more time in her office than my own.

I have included in my budget the estimated cost of the road reconstruction and parking reconfiguration we need for the library project , if passed. I have included offsetting revenue for that project from Maine DOT as well as TIF proceeds to reduce the overall impact of the work. If the library bond fails to get voter support, these can be removed at the town meeting where the budget gets passed.

We met twice with each department head once to hear their budget needs and once to cuts being made. Megan and I will work Friday on finalizing it so it can be printed and be available as planned.

In the end we had to make about $250,000 in cuts to get to LD  1 . M ost of those cuts were made in the PWD budget because as Willi Sutton said: “that’s where the money is.”

There were many small cuts throughout the budget, but they did not amount to anyway near enough to get us to LD 1. Cuts that I made that are specific to meet LD - 1 are highlighted , so that you can see what they are. In many cases they are NOT cuts that I would recommend. In fact , I think they might slow im provement, but in many cases , they are new expenditures or increases that we could live with.

Library

The library has also taken up a significant amount of my time over the last month. We have finalized the contract with Steve Smith after a lot of work with our lawyer fine-tuning out the details over insurance coverage.

One area of difference in this contract , as opposed to the R eed contract , is due to the construction management process we are using. Some work being done in this phase would normally be done in the design development phase. This includes some structural design as well as HVAC analysis . This needs to be de veloped earlier in the process, so that the CM can develop a more realistic price estimate based on these facts.

A price per square foot leaves too many variables to move forward with a concrete number for the budget. The goal is to go to the voters in June with as close to a bid number as possible . The worst thing would be that the price to build came in higher than the estimates.

We are now working on the contract for the construction manager.

I have been working on finding people to be part of the C a pital C ampaign C ommittee and start the fundraising campaign. It is a cart and a horse question . How does the committee get formed? O nce a

group is basically self - created, they will work autonomously in raising money. This group has to work parallel but separate from the Town’s efforts.

Public Works

The Public Works department has been very busy. While it does not seem like we have had a lot of snow at this point, most of the storms have been enough of a problem to cause the department to be out a lot o n weekends and evenings. We have gone through a lot of sand and salt and are beginning to rack up a lot of OT.

Ambulance Contract

We have been working on the ambulance contract over the past month and the four managers are writing a contract that we hope to get to the ambulance review committee at their next meeting.

One area of difficulty is in what is expected for level of service. There is a bit of disagreement between the four towns about what level of service is acceptable . There are some members of the committee that believe that every ambulance should be staffed with an Paramedic. While t hat would be nice it will come with a higher cost . G iven that only a small percentage of calls require a paramedic, it leads us to be paying for a service we do n’t often need.

The four managers are currently developing reporting and levels of service benchmarks that ca n be buil t into the contract.

This is a complicated issue that will not be solved easily.

MCSW

The Mid - C oast Solid Waste Committee has been working on a redesign of the facility that will allow us to be more efficient, safer and save money in the end. A huge problem we are facing is the declining value of recyclables in the global market , which is causing us to rethink how we handle recyclable materials. Lissa from Eco Maine, shared that she expected the cost to get rid of recyclables to decrease but that it would not decrease to the point of being profitable in the near future.

Livestream

I am happy to report that the live stream is beginning to show its value for our investment in it.

As you can see below, people are using the livestream to become more engaged in local government. While the average over the last 6 months is bumped up a bit by some meetings of higher interest, many more peopl e are taking part than would come to a meeting. This is good news. While it would be great to have increased physical presence at the meetings, may prefer to be involved in other ways. Having them vote informed is the name of the game for us.

It would b e great to get more people to follow the livestream . In order to increase these numbers, we will be creating a notification system that informs subscribers when there is an upcoming meeting.

Livestream Views

6 Month Average (1/24/18 – 8/14/2017): 173.4 views

1 Year Average (1/24/2018 – 1/4/2017): 88.6 views

Average of All Views (1/24/2018 – 5/28/2015): 75.1 views

Fire Department

The Fire Department has been very busy with calls and motor vehicle accidents. They have responded to three fires at Fisher E ngineering in Rockland. In addition, they continue to train on a regular basis.

One issue is they responded to a Carbon Monoxide call where they arrived just in the nick of time. It was a good reminder for people to pay attention to their Carbon Monoxide detectors , and a reminder to have their furnace and chimney checked annually. In this case the high reading we caused by a malfunctioning f urnace and an almost totally plugged chimney.

Thanks to the quick response of the Fire Department a serious emergency was averted.

Resignation

Jamie Francomano our Planning and Community Development Director has taken another job as Executive Director of MidCoast Regional Planning.

Jamie will continue to help us through a contract with MRP t o work with the Ordinance Review Committee and the Comprehensive Plan Review Committee .

We will begin the process to find a replacement over the next few weeks .

New Hire

We have hired a new Administrative Assistant at Public Works, her name is Brandi Hare and she will be starting full time on Monday, February 12 th . Sue Dates will be retiring soon.