TIME & PLACE:

Meeting June 5, 2002 at 7:00 PM at Sam Lake House

ATTENDANCE:

Kent Ruesswick
Charlie Cook
Mike Capone - Selectmen representative
Bob Fife
Jeremy Slayton
Kevin Bragg - Historical District Commision(?)
Ted West
Ken Jordan
Beth Blair

Canterbury Police Chief Gwen Deurell
Canterbury Fire Chief Dale Caswell

MINUTES:

Meeting with Police Chief Gwen Deurell

Chief Deurell stated that her needs have not changed significantly since we met with her last year.

The perennial problems are lack of space, storage, meeting space, juvenile detention/ interrogation.

As is with current staff, it will not meet the needs of the department for another ten years.

The major concern the chief stated was with not being able to interview Juveniles since the standards are much more stringent than with adults. Many of her interviews are with juveniles, and they have to be sceduled elsewhere, such as Boscawen or Loudon, which is a major inconvenience and takes up extra time in travel.

“It seems illogical that we can’t interview in our own police station.”

The current facilities are below the standard of departments in surrounding communities.

Several committee members suggested reutilizing the maintenance building (or part of it) for police interview rooms, or for administrative space.

If space was developed there for police use, and a Life Safety building was later built, the office space in the old maintenance building could be reclaimed for administrative offices for the town when the P.D. moved into the new LSB.

The chief responded to the initial center plan concept by approving of one-way traffic by the store, and by better defining the parking spaces in fron of it. Also liked the idea of the library being central to the community and nearby the police station so kids can be better protected through convenient patroling.

Committee acknowledges that we need to look at both the short term and long term needs. The short term may involve reworking part of the existing garage on the police station. A longer term solution might involve a reworking of the maintenance building and or a new Life Safety Building.

Chief Deurell will meet with the committee again on July 3rd at 7 PM to share with us her further ideas on space needs.

Meeting with Fire Chief Caswell

Chief Caswell shared his thoughts on a design for a Life Safety building created by a tech student working on an architectural design project.

He mentioned that the building was planned with both police and fire departments in m ind with some shared facilities.

The department has terrible space limitations for vehicles.

Needs space for hazardous materials handling... showers and wash up.

For storms and other long term events it would be helpful to have bunking capabilities in the building for members to stage between calls.

Chief feels that an economy would probably be derived from a new construction because room placement would not limited by old architectural lines, etc.

He gave the example of Holderness’ life safety building as a workable design that operates all on one level to minimize issues of ADA compliance.

Kent shared with the Chief the current concept for the town center plan.

Chief feels that the traffic access as currently represented is inadequate (too long to get to and from the station).

Chief Caswell feels that a location closer to the fire pond would shorten the distance to egress.

Town Selectmen/Town Office Personnel

The selectmen and town office personnel are flexible in terms of where they are to be situated in the town center plan.

Either location, in the old maintenance building; or staying where it is which would leave the old maintenance building available for use as part of a new library or life safety building.

This would also mean one less building to be “shuffled in the mix.”

Some additional room will be needed for administrative and town management staff that will be added in a not too distant future.


Church Representative

The church is planning an addition to the north side.

In general the church committee is in support of the concept of the more pedestrian center and the additional parking. Conerned that existing memorial trees are not removed. The church will pay for the annual salt needs for the Water softener/filtration system for the town/church water system. The town will be paying for the actual softener/filtration device and any maintenance thereof.


Other Business:

Kent discussed the events of the HDC meeting the prior evening, where the HDC voted to allow the CBNC to choose either 3 or 5 basement windows in the SW foundation, and none on the NE foundation.

The CBNC committee discussed this issue and decided on 5 windows in the SW foundation in order to maintain the symmetry that was part of turn of the century architectural design.


NEXT MEETING:

We have a meeting in two weeks (June 19, 2002) with the Library and the Historical Society. Dump and recycling committee following. 6:30 PM.

We will be meeting in four weeks with Bob Pollock to go over the revised center plan.