Town of Lamoine, Maine
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	Administrative Assistant to the Board of Selectmen				Stu Marckoon
	Report for Meeting of October 1, 2020

This has been a truly wonderful week at the town hall, and it’s only Thursday.  The crew from Mid-Maine Restoration is working feverishly on the cupola as I write.  It’ll be done tomorrow they tell me.  More on that later. 

Mike Hodgkins is finishing up the deck and ramp out the back door.  What a fabulous job he’s done with that – it came out far better than I would have imagined!  He’ll be finishing up the lock box this weekend, and then we’ll work on a window for the back room. 

Tonight the Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce will show a serious lack of judgment and present me with the Citizen of the Year award.  It’s a little embarrassing.  The event is at the Grand, and we were allowed to invite up to 8-people.  I asked Jo to attend, as she has the longest tenure as a Selectman.  Wish I could have invited everyone!

Your agenda is pretty light for this meeting.

Minutes – September 17, 2020 – Please review the minutes for errors.

Expenditure warrant 9 – The cupola folks appreciate your permission to release a payment on their arrival.  The remainder will be on here as well.  The Amazon purchases are for restroom supplies for the parks (toilet paper, sanitizer, dog bags).  Other than that, nothing unusual so far.  The school will have warrants but they won’t arrive until September 30^th.  Not sure how much they will be.

Cash & Budget Reports – We’ve got a goodly amount in checking, and depending on the school warrants, I might have you move some more to the investment account.  Budget overall is looking pretty good. 

Excise Tax Report – The quarterly report will be printed and posted the morning of your meeting (since the quarter ends on 9/30/20).   From what I’ve looked at thus far, we had a monster July. August was down a bit, and September looks strong.  May be our biggest quarter ever!

Health Insurance – My wife has ended her employment with the bank.  Our health insurance is paid through the end of the calendar year, but we will have to switch over to the MMA Health Trust starting January 1.   I’ll be submitting the paperwork to MMA in the next week or so.

Meeting with CES – Chip Reeves will be meeting with you via zoom.  I’ll invite Chris Meyer and Ken Smith as well.  Chip will be speaking with me prior to the meeting just to get a feel for where things might go from here.

Cupola – As mentioned above, the cupola project is expected to wrap up tomorrow.  The bell is now out of the cupola, and Andrew Wilcox (company owner) fabricated a wooden base and the original iron holders are mounted to that, and it has been dropped off at the school in the spot designated by the principal.  I sent a couple of e-mails last week, and School Committee chair Brett Jones indicated the school might want a fancier display.  That’ll be up to the school committee.  The bell itself is very sturdy, but very rusty.  Gordon Donaldson spoke with Mr. Wilcox about ways to clean it up. 

The cupola itself is in much better condition.  They didn’t have to completely rebuild the louvers – only replaced a few slats.  The roof above it and below it has been repaired so that when it rains, there will not be a torrent of water through the ceiling!  The crew was easy to work with and Mr. Wilcox kept me informed of progress several times a day. 

Back Door Ramp/Deck – As noted above, this project is complete and looks great!  Mike has also been a pleasure to have around the building this week.  We don’t usually see much of him as his maintenance work is performed when the building is closed.

Election – Ballot Clerks – Jennifer should have a list of clerks that will work during absentee ballot processing and on Election Day itself.  Just to make sure, the Board should probably confirm the appointment of the election staff for November 3^rd in case anything is questioned. 

Absentee ballot requests continue to pour in.  As of yesterday, we had just over 250-requests, many of them duplicates.  The ballots are not expected to arrive until October 2, 2020.  Jennifer and Nancy have been preparing the absentee envelopes by placing labels on them prior to mailing.  One of the warrant items was for 500 postage stamps so that we’ll have enough (I hope) to mail out those who’ve requested ballots to be delivered by mail. 

Mike plans to install a cover with a lock on the drop box slot this weekend.   The lettering was installed last week by Gary Saunders. 

Lamoine Quarterly – I’ve copied what I’ve got done thus far – it should be finished (barring any sudden increase in business) for your meeting night. A draft copy will be emailed prior to the meeting and printed for meeting night.

Lamoine 150! – The TreasureS hunt has proven quite popular – a lot of people have stopped by to pick up a map (and find the plaque). 

Merchandise has been selling well, especially T Shirts and hats.  Many of our summer residents have been purchasing multiple items to give as holiday gifts!  While the office staff is not in the “apparel biz”, it has been easy to handle.

And that wraps up your agenda – remember the October 15^th meeting (besides being a raucous celebration of my 62^nd birthday) will begin at 6PM with a meeting with the CEO, Assessors and Planning Board at the school.  A special town meeting will start at 7PM, and after that’s done (should take about 15-minutes at the most), you can wrap up whatever needs to be done with the remainder of the meeting.

Stu