Economic Development Committee Minutes 09.05.24

The meeting came to order at 6:00 pm. Present were Scott McCaskill (Chair), Bruce Gezelman, and Jim Bibbo. Also present were Marlene Freyler, and, by ZOOM, Matt Monahan of CNHRPC.

The minutes for the last two meetings were approved.

On the proposal to route a branch of the Currier & Ives Scenic Byway through Bradford, Marlene has not been able to make progress due to many of the people she attempted to contact being on vacation or otherwise unavailable. She will continue her efforts in the coming month.

On the reduction of the width of the Route 103 right-of-way where it crosses Main Street, Matt has not yet gotten a response from his state DOT contact. Jim suggested that the most effective way to accomplish this, would be to talk to a local legislator about adding the reduction as an amendment to a bill. Scott and Matt will see whether they can have the DOT representative make a site visit.

On the topic of finding a grant writer for the town, Bruce said that he had continued talking to Bryan Nowell, but pointed out that the writer that Bryan uses tends to specialize in Police and Fire grants. Jim brought up the subject of looking for a grant to fund a new Police Station. Marlene pointed out how expensive a new facility would be. Jim said he thought that the town had a few hundred thousand dollars in a fund toward that purpose. Marlene countered that it was probably no more than ten thousand*.

We moved back to the discussion of grants in general. Matt noted that our current CEDS grant applications will need to be revised for the next round. Jim noted that we have always placed near the top, but that the grants are difficult to get because Bradford is not in a distressed area.

On the subject of revising the town web site, Bruce has done some research and estimates the job could be done by a professional for about $5,000. He offered to talk about this with the Select Board at their next meeting.

The committee decided to postpone the discussion on fund raising until the October meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 6:53 pm

Minutes submitted by Scott McCaskill

*The Police Facility Capital Reserve Fund has a current balance of $76,820.12. [SMcC]