 Okay. So I'm going to call the meeting to order at 630. Do we have any additions to agenda? There is a couple. Yes. Yes, I see that. Arpa. Planning for Arpa. In personnel matters. Okay. So I'll write these down. Okay. I'm going to call the meeting. I'm going to call the meeting. I'm going to call the meeting. The opposite. Why would we give away the bushels of money, I believe? It is. And it's something Carl last for. And I had forgotten it until after I put the agenda out. But before I did the minutes. So. I had to add it. Yeah. Okay. That would be good to refine that concept a little bit. You're going to do the minutes now. Good. Me. No, I'm refining the concept of the bushels of money. Oh, okay. Okay. Review of minutes, February 28th. I moved to pass the air to approve the minutes as submitted. Second. Any further discussion? So I think it's how do this hand go up. I was going to second, but. Oh, okay. Okay. So we have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. Hi. The minutes are approved. Thank you. Let the minutes of this week reflect that John got here in time to participate in this vote. Hi, John. We're doing well, John. It's good to see you. Public comment. What do we have for public comment? Okay. The next item on the agenda. 2022 slack board organization. This is where we elect. A chairman, a vice chair. And wealth. What else do we like? Oh, someone, a secretary. Don't we? You don't usually, but you could if you wanted to. No, I don't really want to, but. I just want to find out what we usually do. Okay. So. Let's start with chairman. What do we have? Can we just call it a person? Call it a person. Oh, yeah, very good. Thank you. That's a good idea. Chairperson. What do we. I nominate, I think Seth would be a really good chairperson. I'm glad you use that. Thank you. Okay. I'll second that. John has a second. Now, is it appropriate for me to call that question? Whatever you want. I think this is what. Vice chair is supposed to take over. The vice chair has to take over. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So Carl. I'll take over and are there any other nominations. For the position of chair. Or chair person. Seeing none, let's proceed to, is there any discussion? Seeing none. Let's proceed to a vote. All those in favor. Please say aye. Aye. All those opposed. The eyes appear to have it. The eyes have it. Congratulations, Seth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your support. The next position is vice chair. And I think that Carl is existing vice chair. Do you want to do that again, Carl? Just ask. I would be happy to. Okay. I'm quaking in my boots at the responsibility. I would be happy to. I know it's not often that I haven't made meetings, but I would be happy to. I'd like to speak a word in support of Carl doing. I think he's done a good job when I haven't been around. So. Thank you. There you go. So do we have a nomination for. I nominate Carl. And Judith seconded him. Amy made the nomination. Is there further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. No. I'm sorry. I don't know if they do have it. Congratulations Carl. Thank you. The position of vice chair. Is there any other positions that we have to do. You do the payroll warrants, the payroll vendor warrants, all that fun stuff, but no, there's no other positions that you generally done. But don't we just sort that out on the payroll vendor. Check over that I usually do. You assign it. No, you don't. I say somebody makes a motion. Authorizes someone to do that. So would that, would Seth be a good one to authorize? Well, I've been doing it. I don't mind doing it. It's pretty handy for me because I drive by. Often. And you know, I know that we're going to have. A change of positions in the office. But that doesn't change the fact that I do drive by often. And it hasn't been too inconvenient for anybody to have me do it. Cause I'm in the area. So. I make a motion. We authorize a Seth Gardner to sign payroll warrants, payroll, a vendor warrants and necessary expense warrants. When do dates don't align with meeting dates. Nice. Second. I'll second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. I abstain. Now. The way we've done in the past when I couldn't make it and the has been a few times is. Bruce has done it. Do you think we should have someone else. Bruce in line because you're going to be gone. We will have a treasure. But the treasure shouldn't be checking anyway. But we have John that lives handy by. John's fine. You used to have Casey do it. That's right. That's why I'm bringing it up. We had Casey do it and he was handy by John's handy by. What do you think of that idea, John? Well, I'm handy by most of the time. I may not be that handy by like in April, but yeah, but. Most of the time. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. I mean, I'm around most of the time, but there's been a few times I haven't been. And then we have Bruce at the moment, but you know, that's coming up and that. You won't be here, but at least you'll be around. So I think that we should do that. Unless Carl's wound up to do it. Well, Carl's far away kind of. I'm on the opposite side of town. Yeah, gas is crazy. Right. And mass transportation is not going to play into it very well because he lives kind of out of the way. He doesn't, he drives electric vehicle though. So he's. Well, the electric vehicle is good. Yeah. I think, I think it's fine to have John do that. It's, it's fairly efficient because he's close. So we're being energy conscious too. Yep. Okay. He can walk down here. We're being health conscious too. I'm gonna die doing that today. Do we have to have a motion to have John as a stand stand in? Yes. Okay. So we need a motion. I'm not going to hate John to be the stand in for that motion that he just so, so eloquently worded a moment ago. Okay. Do we have a second on that? Amy second it. All those in favor, please say hi. Hi. Hi. The eyes have it. John, you have a new position. All right. Okay. Power surging through my body. Wow, really? Yeah. Yeah. I'm drinking. Okay. So then we have to have adopt the 20,000. 2022. Select board rules of transaction. Are these the same as 2021. They are at this point, other than saying they're 2022. Okay. So I have a, I have a tiny suggestion just to make them clearer. I was looking through them earlier and realized there's a term in here that I don't understand. And I think we could fix that. And, but if we decide not to do it, it's not, not a huge thing. Let me just find it again. It's on. It's in section 5. 11. So the last paragraph in section 5. The final sentence begins a transcript of the minutes or a summary of discussion will not be kept, et cetera, et cetera. A transcript of the minutes. I talked with Bruce about it and he said basically it's a transcript of the meeting. And since the phrase a transcript of the minutes is incredibly opaque. I suggest we strike of the minutes. And just call it a transcript or a summary. Of discussion will not be kept. Other than that will not be kept. Will not be kept though. The full sentence reads for a meeting unless specifically requested at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. And there's a statutory citation there. So I'm sorry, could you just repeat how the sentence will appear now at your, what you're proposing. What I'm proposing is that the sentence. Read a transcript. Or a summary of discussion will not be kept for a meeting. Et cetera. But we are keeping a recording. Yes. Yes. But we're not binding ourselves to do it by these rules. All right. Let's only specifically request it. We are binding ourselves. We aren't binding ourselves to do a recording. Whether or not someone specifically request it, we are binding ourselves apparently under state statute to provide the transcript or summary of discussion if specifically requested. And Bruce says that there's a provision to have us charge. The party. For the cost of transcribing. Is there any requirement? Is there any language in here requiring us to. Maintain or to create minutes. It says how to create minutes, but it doesn't say we will or shall create minutes. Well, that, that's in statute. Okay. I'm just, so for purposes of. This we're not repeating. What the statute required. Court requirement is. We're specifying how we're fulfilling that statutory obligation. Is that what the purpose of this is. Question mark. I think it's mixed in, Judith. For example, if you look at. 5.6 access to public records, I just picked that at random because there's a statutory reference there. It begins by saying public records include any communication, regardless of form. Relating to the conduct of town business. And then there's a citation that's just for the purpose of making this document read clearly. Okay. The reason why I just ask is because. Absent understanding what minutes are. The first sentence and the second sentence might appear. Consistent. So minutes are one thing. And then a trans, a summary of discussion. Isn't the same as minutes. That's correct. And a transcript isn't the same as minutes. And a transcript isn't the same as a summary of discussion. That paragraph has three different concepts in it. Okay. It's not very clear to me, but if others are okay with that, that's fine. What do you think, Bruce? I want to ask a legal. Legal expert. But that's okay. No worries. No, no offense taken. What are you saying, Bruce? All I was going to say is that these were brought in. This is what. We had when we started. Right. We haven't overthought this. Right. I'm fine with it. I just. No, no. I appreciate the discussion actually, but I'm not sure where we're going with it. So. As long as you understand that minutes are one thing. And then the summary of discussion is something different. It is right. I get that. What are you saying, Carl? Yeah. If there's objections to it, I will happily be at a retreat. This is not something worth spending any more of our time on, but. But it seems like people are amenable to it. So I would move to adopt the select board rules of transapse action. From last year for this year. Well, amending them by removing the phrase of the minutes. In 5.11. Okay. I'll second that. All right. All those in favor. Please say hi. Hi. The eyes appear to have it. They do have it. So we've adopted the 2022 select board rules of transaction. The next thing we're going to move to D. Is the town meeting review. I'm just going to see where we are for time. Quarter out, right on time, right on time. Okay. So what are we going to review? Everything passed. Does anybody have any questions, comments on what happened? Yes. I would just like to commend Rosie and all the. The BCA and all of the people who volunteered. On that day and evening to count votes and the school board. Vote took place at the East Montpelier polling site. And folks were there until 1 30 at night. And I really appreciate all of the hard work and effort. That went into it. And I think that Rosie maintained. Good spirits and good order. And lots of patients. So I'm not sure about the good spirits, but she definitely was there a long time. You're going to take ship. And she almost talked me into coming back that night. I didn't know. I was there until 1 a.m. and I could vote for the good spirits. Well, Rosie, thank you. Thank you, Rosie. Thank you. It was a lot of work. Well done. I was a lot of work. I don't know. Some way we can make that better next year. We need to talk about that. Yeah. The, the, the bottleneck at the end was a tabulator. And apparently we're not going to use that tabulator and any further elections. We're getting new ones in. New tabulators next year and then I've convinced the school, they need to buy their own. So we'll have. Two of them. To use. Yeah. And so those will be ones that are owned. Yeah. One by, owned by a small player and one by the school. Oh, good. And you think that'll make things move more smoothly. Yes. Tabulated. They're pretty old, aren't they? They are. They can't find parts for them anymore. Which is why we're getting an upgrade. Are they expensive? Just out of curiosity. Really. They're about $5,000. What? Yeah. No. Considering you haven't. No one's ever bought one for 17 years. And you folks don't have to pay for the state. The state provides them for us. Yeah. Well, it sounds like a worthwhile investment. I mean, If they last that long. Yeah. And we're going to have to take, we're going to take the new ones anyway. They're going to provide them for us. Right. And the new ones will make our jobs easier. For example, they can keep track of ballots with. Right ends on them. Now we have. The new ones will make our jobs easier. For example, they can keep track of ballots with. Right ends on them. Now we are manually separating out. Oh, that's right. With right ends. Yeah. And we may, we may be able to save money by printing our own ballots as well. Which would be cool. Right. And the other good news was we had a lot of people voting. 800, right? Or something. So that's roughly a strong third of the. The. Possible. Voters and East popular. So that's a pretty good turnout for a non-election here. Oh, that's nice. That was a good thing. A non-election. Well, not non-presidential presidential here. Non non-presidential election. So is there anything else on the town meeting? I saw that the constable position is now going to be appointed. That correct. And that was about nine to one in favor of appointing versus elected. Which is pretty overwhelming. Anything else? Carl got reelected and John did. Congratulations. Right down to the last second. They're voting. It must have been this huge right in campaign. I think the person they were voting for was called not him. Well, I can't go into that anymore. That there wasn't much competition. But thank you again for running such a strong campaign and winning by such an overwhelming margin. But was there anything else that. The town fire truck got passed. Overwhelming and. Overwhelming Lee and callous and also. He's my player, which was nice. So that plan will move forward, which I'm sure the fire department appreciates. And I don't think I can't think of anything else of worth not worthy. Unless someone else has something else, we can move to the next item. I don't see much. Okay. I don't think we have to discuss on the agenda is E, which is a town treasure report. And Don's not here that I can see. And I don't have a report in front of me. I'm at a different, my different location here. And the other computer wouldn't work. So don't think I have it. But is there anything. That we need to know about Bruce on that. It looks remarkably similar to the one you saw last month. Yeah. February is a pretty. Lightweight month in terms of expenses. Right. Or collections. Yep. Yep. Okay. Does anybody have any questions on that report? It's probably you've got a copy of it on, on the screen. John, I see you're looking at. I am. I don't have any, any issues with it. All right. Okay. All right. Amy's extra nose, but that doesn't mean she's has any questions. Okay. So are we a little bit early for the hearing? I see Joanne Gartner is here. Jeff Cueto, Paul Kate. For eight minutes early. We could. Fit something else in. What about the. Annual highway financial plan. That we have. Isn't that the usual plan that we have to sign off on? It's the usual plan just in a new form this year, a stripped down form. Oh, stripped down. Okay. There used to be four columns. Now there's just one. Okay. I think you need a motion to pass it. That correct. That is correct. Okay. Does anybody want to mention motion. Make a motion. Pass the annual, or do you have questions about it? I moved to pass the annual highway financial plan. Okay. We have a motion. Second. And we have a second by Carl. So you understand the motions. Yeah, you're, you're authorizing me to sign on your behalf. Very good. You can sign it on Friday if you want. That's not, not your behalf, the board's behalf board's behalf. Very old fashioned version. This had five. Slots and you all signed it. Got that. I don't have in front of me. So I'm being a little. Off the cuff here. So. What we're voting on is for Bruce to sign it. In lieu of the select board members. Is that correct? Yes. I think so. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Bruce is going to sign it. Okay. We got rid of that. Um, we could do K. Cause that's another rubber stamp. Basically. Yeah. Do we. Has the road foreman signed off on this? Cause I don't know if I guess I would like to hear a representation regarding our road and bridge standards. But the road and bridge standards are the ones that town adopted in 2019. And those wouldn't change for any reason. The only thing that is a wild card here is whether our. Network. Inventory is still up to date and it still is this year. It may not be next year. Now, what does it mean by network inventory? That's a combo phrase because it means a couple of things. We've got a culvert inventory that's nearing the end of its life. You now have that. Essentially the inventory that was done for the municipal. Roads general permit. Yep. That gauges every segment of every road. For its compliance with the stormwater expectations. That's also part of this. Inventory. Yep. So basically what it is, is the way it phrases it here is your conditions of the roads. That's something that CVRPC does at the same time it does its culvert inventory. And then you add in that erosion segment stuff. So those are the three elements. That we have. And the oldest of them is that. Culvert inventory. That's from 2016. Okay. And the culvert inventory just to be clear is the culverts that actually are in the road. We're not talking about second culverts back in the town garage. Correct. Right. It's, it actually is a. Every single culvert that we have is. Right. Is reviewed. It's reviewed by size and condition and whereabouts. And that's from 2017. 2016. Does that constitute an up to date inventory of. At this point, it still does. But as I said, it's. Whether it'll still be good for next year is a question. Almost certainly not for 2024. Regional planning handles this stuff for us. And they are. There's a deadline at the end of this year to deal with the municipal general roads permits. That's regional planning is sending out. Probably within the next month. Updated information on, on how we're all going to handle this. In our region. And we'll. Wait on that and move forward with it. So the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That 2016, does that include an estimated cost of repair? Essentially what it is. The. Again, this is regional planning doing. Bought us subscriptions for the. RS MS service out of Maine. And that RS MS service has all our roads in it. And that's the cost of a average segment of road, whether it's gravel, whether it's. 24 inch, excuse me, 24 foot paved road like town Hill or 22 foot paved road, like most of the others. That's all in there. And that's. What essentially. Is considered the. The cost element. Yeah. And is that from 2016 or current. So it's updated as time goes on. For when work is done. That's one of the requirements for the municipal roads. General permit. That came in in 2017, 2018. So this is all. Oh, sorry, go on. The reason I ask is the certificate of compliance requires that we have an up to date, which is that we certified that we do have enough to take up to date highway network in one inventory, which identifies location size deficiencies condition of roads, bridges, causeways, culverts and highways related to retaining walls. Class one, two and three town highways and estimated cost of repair. So is that an up to date estimated cost of repair of the. Routes and highways related retaining walls. As we understand the phrase, yes. Possibly ever have. Ever calculate the cost of repairs for every single culvert in the town and every single bridge. So what happens is the towns put aside a certain amount of money every year to maintain their bridges, culverts and roads. And then the planning commission comes out, send someone out. And the road, road form, at least where I used to work, road form. And then they come out with an iPad and take pictures of, of various have been worked on and repaired. And then the town puts together their budget every year. What the, what the road foreman considers is, is adequate for that road. They put together projects every year, which we have listed here. And then that is sent forward to V trans and V trans approvals. That's the way everybody does it. And you can't catch up with all the culvert issues. So that's the way it's going to cost you. You look at the, what we're been trying to do for the last two years on that culvert. On, is it on what? That's on the center road. You know, the cost went up. Unexpectedly. So we do the best we can with information that we have. And then we provide it to be trans and be trans. If they didn't like it, they wouldn't approve it. Okay. Well, that's a good answer. I don't know if it's good or not, but that's, that's the answer I've always given. And I think that was in hybrid. It could have been. That's the only way you can do it. Okay. So everyone happy with the answers to the questions that you had about the consideration of annual certification. Of compliance. Because we need to. Move on from that or. I move to authorize the town administrator to sign the town. Certification of compliance for town roads and bridge standards and network inventory. On behalf of the select board. And we need a second for that. We'll second it. And we have a second from John. Any further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The eyes appear to have that they do have it. Okay. So now, because we're around eight o'clock. Seven. Oh, seven o'clock. Sorry. We are ready for the special joint public meeting with town tree warden on East Montpellier shade tree preservation plan. So welcome. All of you. I see. Tree wardens here. Paul Kate. I see Jeff free. I see. And I also see Joe and garden. And I see the road foreman's iPhone. Is there anybody else from the tree committee? Oh, Steve justice. Welcome. To our special hearing. So I'm opening it up. Who wants to speak first? I can. Okay. So do we have to have a time. When we open this is it. We're opening it now. Okay. Now. I don't know if there's people here to speak. I see some names. I'm not familiar with. On the screen. They may have questions about the plan. I've read the plan myself. I'm sure other select board members have also, we probably have some questions discussion, but I would like to have the public. First. And I do see some names here. So if you're here to tune into hearing and you will have a question of the tree warden. Or anybody else is here. Can you please step forward? I do see some names here that I'm not familiar with. So maybe they're here for the hearing. I suspect some people may be here to see what's happening. And then they probably have some questions afterwards. Okay. So why don't you tell us what's happening, Paul? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I just decided you don't want anybody cutting trees along the road. Designating shade trees. Is it the whole area of the town? Every row. Well, potentially. Sure. Okay. Well, I just, I'm just pointing that question out there just to open up the discussion. So I read the plan and it looked like. What the statute says is. I'm going to use the, the statute. And if you want to protect the trees along the road. You have to have a plan. And this is your plan. And it designates every tree within the town right away over four inches as a shade tree. Now, maybe my perception is off. But it looks like it's on every road in East Montpellier that has trees on. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. What's that? All the town roads. So we're going to apply to state highways. No, no. Right. Right. Town roads that have trees along the side in the town right away. They're over four inches. Yeah. Essentially this is not. Changing things very much from what. Existed before. Yeah. 2020. Before they changed the statute. Yeah. They, they changed. What the. Tree wardens jurisdiction was. By going instead of. Whatever was. Was growing on. In the town right of way. And said, well, this is just for. The only place that tree warden would have any jurisdiction would be where you have trees that were planted by the town. Well, you know, we have relatively few trees planted by the town. So essentially you'd be saying, well, the things that. You've expected the town tree warden to do in the past. Wouldn't. Probably happen. Very often in this situation. Where you don't, you don't have any jurisdictions. You don't have any. On, on the road, road right of ways, which has always been the case in the past. Yeah. Yeah. So it doesn't, doesn't really change that part of it. So much. And. You know, there's. Sometimes there's some contrary. Wording, if you will, or just. Interpretation. You know, they were trying to straighten out some of it. Some of it didn't. Didn't get straightened out. You know, to the satisfaction of those of us who are trying to do the work. So. So essentially we're. We're not. Changing the jurisdiction. We're just taking advantage of. You know, I think it's probably an afterthought. You know, to, to deal with. Trees that weren't planted by the town. Right. So, you know, if you're, if you're in Burlington. You know, the trees were probably planted by the town for the most part. But in most of rural Vermont, that's not true. And you have relatively few trees that were. Planted by the town. They may have been planted by. The farmers back in the 18 late 1800s. And that's how we got a lot of our large roadside. Isles of Naples. But, but that would have been. I'm sure the town wasn't back in that. And there weren't tree wardens. Dealing with that at that time. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a different background. So what you, what are you trying to interpret that, I guess, is the question. And in this case that. League of cities and towns. Lobbyed for, for this arrangement. Well, because of confusion of the. Definition. Of. Trees are planted by the town. And they say, you have to have a plan. If you have a plan. And you can designate those a shade trees and then they're protected. And the tree warden can say, I, yes or no. Correct. I mean, if you just said, oh, we're just going to protect the trees by the statue, which is the trees planted by the town. There's very few in East Montpellier. They're planted by the town. Very, very few. So anyway. So it cleared. They were trying to clear it up because it was confusing before. This is less confusing. And. Passes off the duties a little more clearly. So basically if this plan passes though, I'm a little. Squeezy about it because it takes. Right away from landowners that have trees along the road. That I understand that before 2020, that was the same. It was the same case. You always had to call the tree warden to cut a tree. Now. If you had sections of roads. That were not in the shade tree preservation plan. The landowner would have a little more right to cut the tree. That was in the town right away. Essentially all you're doing is. Is. Checking with the. Tree warden to see. If you've got a problem with it. And a lot of times we wouldn't. But it's also, of course, at this point. You know, the town's roads are all busier than they used to be. And stuff like this. And. The road form. And I'm sure it doesn't want. People out in the roads unnecessarily, especially if they. Skills and know what they're doing. And you know, you would have a public hazard there. But you see, that's what, that's what happens when you. You're trying to update things. And. The whole situation has changed over that period of time. Yeah. So, but you're, you're still, you still have your town. Right of way. Which. The owners. On the trees. Or. Or best we can tell, I don't know how that would work out in all court cases. I don't know. But. It's not. Something that. That you would normally. Have an issue with because. The land owner. I mean, the town. Holds the easement. Yeah. To deal with the. Right. Maintaining the roads and ditches and all this kind of stuff. Right. So. That in a way, that's a carve out. Right. The land owners. But instead of making it into something that. Tight regulation. It says stay to hang out of the road. And. We do all the dealing. In the, in the situation like this, you have. Supposedly. Decent advice from. From a tree ward. About whether. Whether that's. The best thing to be doing there, why is to do or not. Yeah. You know, from things like. What's the health of the tree. You know, what's the hazard. For. Working on the road. All of that would be. Taken into account by the. The tree would. And obviously. If there was. A serious issue with it. And you had to appeal it and all of this kind of business. And then you folks would be. Be the ones. Calling the shots. But. Does that make sense? Yeah. Oh, I like your answers, Paul. But I want other people to be able to ask you some stuff. Besides just me. So sure. By the way. Anytime anybody. Has questions, you know, my phone numbers in the book. And I'm happy to. To talk with you or look at a situation or whatever, because I think. That's how. We should make something like this work. It's not. Whether you have jurisdiction. And hence. You know, power. To do whatever you think is the thing to do. What we're trying to do is. Work with land owners and. And the town. And be good neighbors. But sometimes there's. There's reasons that you have to do something or there's. Just more information that's needed. You know, as to what. What really makes sense or not, you know, we're not just looking to make work. I can tell you that. We got enough things to do with. EAB and. All of that. You know, and there's certainly there would be places. Which we're looking at to actually do some tests. And, you know, we're going to be able to work with this and, you know, where we think we actually stand a good chance of. Making some of these. Isles of trees. That aren't 120 years old. Or more. But we'll. Last for the next 100 years. Instead of just having it be. All wild. You know, You know, You know, You know, Down the sides of the road. And, and just a. A headache for the. Road crew because so much stuff is falling apart. Hasn't been maintained. And. So. Shoot anybody who's got questions. And, and by the way. Jeff. Quetto is. Done a lot of that. And so he may be able to answer questions and. Stuff that. That I'm not. As. Tight to as he is. I'm probably better off dealing with the trees themselves instead of the paper that the words are written on. Okay. Well, thank you, Paul. It looks like Steve. Did you want to say something? No, I just. I just. So, um, Guthrie, you're on here, right? Yes. Do you have any thoughts about this. Shade tree preservation plan put together by. Jeff Quetto and Paul Kate, et cetera. I do like the. The aspect of. The pre no need of a tree warden. That Paul has to be involved to an ass to a certain amount. But like you, I think what you were getting at Seth, having all the trees in town that are over four inches considered to say shade tree. Seems a little aggressive. Um, yeah, there's. Plenty of species that I wouldn't even consider a shade tree. And they grow rapidly anyway. Right. They don't have any value. They don't have any value in my sex. Um, so that's kind of my. Catch 22 of it. I do like to have Paul involved. I think Paul will vouch for that. I use him. Quite often as far as getting permission to. Take out or remove. Anything with any size to it. But it does make me nervous to think of. All the, all the trees along every bit of road. That are over four inches. That's a lot of trees. I mean, we just went through into the ash free inventory. Similar to this. And that was a couple of thousand. So, right. I'm the same way. I like the concept. But then I think to myself, oh, those two dead maples are right on the edge of. Up on Snow Hill road, right on the edge of the town right away. Geez, you know, but. You know, I suppose that, you know, Paul is. Not far away and we could come to some kind of. You know, discussion on the trees and. We would get clearance to cut them, I assume. With your guthrie's involvement and Paul's. You know, so the discussion doesn't really hurt. It's just that it is daunting. So anyway, I see Carl is hand up Carl. Are you muted? He had her hand up first. Oh, who did. Judith. Oh, Judith. Oh, go for it. I'm sorry. It's okay. What's the extent of the right of way beyond the road border? Like how far beyond the edge of the road. Right away. It's not necessarily anything to do with the edge of the road. It's from the center of the road. And it's either three rods or four rods throughout town. It's mostly three rods, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some roads are four. Plus 49 and a half feet. That's three rods is 49 and a half feet. Right. Right. Four rods is 64 or whatever it is. Something like that. Yeah. 16 feet to a rod about. So. Yeah. 16 and a half. The majority of the roads that this would apply to. Would be three rods, which is the. 50 feet. 50 feet. 25 feet from the center. 25 feet from the center of the road, Judith. Yeah. I'm just trying to, you know. On average with your three rod. Right away. Right away. No, three rod, right away. How, I mean, for the majority of the roads, or can you even say this that you'd be looking at, you know, four, four feet. No. Beyond the. I understand what he's saying. I'm just trying to address your concern that. If there's a property owner that might think golly, this tree is on my property, but in reality, it's also within the right of way for them to envision. The location of the extent of the right of way. Yeah. So it's 12 or 12 to 15 feet, depending on the width of the road. Right. That's like up on your end of North street that you live on. There's a lot of right away outside of the road. Yeah. That you would be shocked if you went and measured it. Okay. Thank you. But where I am, the road's around 25 feet. So that's half of it. So you measure, you know, 12 feet off the edge of the road is about. The extent of the right of way. No, because we measure it often. Carl. Yeah. So, Seth, you started out by asking questions for questions from townspeople and I think it was, it was a good move to allow a presentation from the committee to get the ball rolling here. The select board and the people involved in putting this together have already had an opportunity at a select board meeting to discuss this. We do have, as you pointed out, some names that are not familiar with us. Could we just open it up one more time and just be quiet for a while. Those of us who've already discussed this to allow some room for other people to ask questions. Sounds good. We'd like to go first. Yep. I see Joanne gardens. Well, I'm Joanne. I work with the Vermont urban community forestry program. So I'm not East Montpelier resident. This is just a clarification. I've heard that the term thrown around a bit today. Trees four inches and greater. And I just wanted to clarify for folks who haven't like worked with tree size as much. It's not four inches in height, but I just triple checked the statute that it's four inches in diameter, like standing height. Just in case that was a sort of a confusing phrase. So the four inches is four inches diameter, which could be a very tall tree as opposed to a four inch tall tree. And technically that's at four and a half feet above the ground. Okay. Where you measured that. Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you, Joanne. Oh, I see Chelsea Blackwell. Hi, Colin. Hey, perhaps. Colin, yeah. Colin Blackwell. Trying to figure this thing out here, but. Well, you're coming through when you have a beautiful picture. So I think you figured it out. All right, good. Yeah. Yeah, I talked with Paul. Over the last little bit here about. Some of this stuff and. Just barely getting familiar with. With the tree law myself, but. I was pretty concerned with looking at the proposal. For one reason. The big one was. Just what, what a burden it might be for a tree warden. To take on all those trees. Assuming that. If you put everything. In appendix D. As every tree in town. Boy, you could be out there every day looking at a tree. And the other concern is just. You do have some landowners who are. Doing work safely. And in getting a look, getting thinnings done. Moving trees that. You know, You know, just saves the town a lot of money. And. You'd be losing that ability too. So I just like to hear more about. How are you going to classify the, the shade tree law? Well, Let's look at it this way. There's not. You've got all these trees that are within the town right of way. They're a potential problem. Particularly back. A ways back in the ditch, you know, at the out. Outside of those. Right of way wits. So a lot of those trees. Typically. Would never, it would never be an issue. You know, would we, if somebody wants to. Be cutting trees down there. Would we. Like to. Know about it. Yes, we would simply so that. You know, Guthrie knows. But there's work going on there, but it doesn't mean that. That the tree warden is going to be. Out supervising everything up anywhere in town. It's particularly the ones that are. You know, you know, closest to the road or have. You know, leaning right out over the road and their species that are. Prone to problems. Stuff like that. Other than that, you. You probably wouldn't even know where we were doing work. In a lot of town, because it's no way. You're going to, you know, if you consider that. You know, We've been working with Jill Ann. And our volunteers. Just to figure out the ash trees that were. Potential problems for the road. In our best judgment. Amounts to about 2,700 trees. Well, that's cool. That's a lot of trees to get down in a relatively short period of time. But. A number of other species which don't have some of the. Drawbacks in terms of. Snapping off. You know, a foot in diameter. Drop and stuff in the road there, you know, the maple trees and the elm trees that we all grew up with. Tend to shed their limbs. So probably half of the. With the right of way on each side is, isn't even going to be a. Anything that we'd ever deal. In a lot of places in town, especially places where you've got. Either a distinct hedge row that doesn't have. Trees behind it. Or you have. You have a tree. What used to be pasture. And is now forest. And you've got enough trees that. Are between those and the road that that's not apt to be so much of a problem either. And so those are going to. Not be dealt with by. By the roadside committee or the tree ward. So it's not like you're. Going to tangle with every tree. That's under four inches. Over four inches. I mean. Does that make any sense? Yeah, I mean it. It does. I don't have a good feel for. You know. How much tree warden. You know, I know in the past, it's been a pretty limited. Type of. Input that the tree warden. Gets involved with. You know, certain trees or. Or landowners who might have a question about it. But. The shade tree. Definition. You know. Really implies that the town is in complete control of the tree. So. If you change the definition. Of all the trees. You're just going to open up for a lot more. Disputes and. All the trees as opposed to what. As opposed to. Right now. They're not. The trees on most of the road size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but. They're not shade trees. They're not planted by the town. So. Statute defined it. The new statute defined. That the jurisdiction by the tree warden was just over trees that were planted by the town in the town right away. So this is why they're coming up with a plan because they extend their jurisdiction over all trees. Rather than just trees planted in the tree right away. So that's what the new statute says. Under the old rule, which was before 2020. The town tree warden had jurisdiction over all the trees. In the town right away. Whether they're planted by the town or not. But it was pretty gray. So they tried to clear it up by making the definition. More defined. So the town. Tree warden, et cetera. Has come up with this plan as you point out. That's what we call a tree warden. And that's what we call a tree warden. That protects all the trees over four inches in the town, right away and calls them a shade tree. And you're exactly right. That's true. So let's, let's take up Collins questions and refer back to the time before 2020, where we had, before this new legislation was passed, where we had essentially the same conditions as we'd have under the plan, as you've described it. Did you feel overburdened by the number of calls you got out to go and look at trees? No. No. How often do you think that happened? No. Probably a dozen, 15 times. Total or per year. Oh, wow. You know, sometimes we'd go out and we. Right around the different parts of town where there was particular questions. And, you know, we might. In the course of that, look at. A few, quite a few trees, but. But in terms of number of times that I was. Called in to do that. I can tell you, I've got to hang a lot more time. Tied up in this. Business in the last. Two or three years than we ever had before. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the original. Roadside committee, you know, talking about. Other factors that. That we should be dealing with, but. But I would say no. And I, I wouldn't foresee that. Changing. Because so much of that is. Yeah. As I say, it's trees that are over in the back, or they're leaning the other way. Or whatever. And it's. You know, you don't do what you don't need to do. So it'd be fair to refer to the town road. Tree policy as a benign neglect. You don't know what you don't need to do. But if something's a problem, you take care of it. Well, yeah. You know, you ask. Guthrie. And he can tell you that. You end up with. Things that you just have to solve. At the moment. And, you know, basically what this. Would do would give us a little tighter handle on. On dealing with. In areas where we actually. Have considerable. Stems that are a problem. Right. And get them dealt with before. It's in the middle of a snowstorm or a windstorm or something. And they're, you're down all over the place. Because we're trying to, we're trying to. Where it's feasible and it's not. Feasible everywhere in town by any means. But. To. Actually grow trees. Just. Like the farmers did back in the late 1800s. They wanted trees there. And. And then be able to see that you had a future of. A lot of those trees. Being much healthier. And more species diversity. And better able to withstand the kinds of stresses that. They have now that they didn't have in the late 1800s. That. Make it hard for trees. You know, and you can, you can. Call it benign neglect neglect. I guess it has. Has been to a, to a great degree. If you're considering the majority of the roads in town. But. I don't think that was intentional. I think it was just. That's the way it happened to. Yeah. Yeah. And then, thank you. And then getting to Colin's second point about. Landowners who can do a good job. Maintaining the trees along their roadside. Let me see if I can address that. Maybe. Address some other issues too, just in the bargain. By asking. Prior to 2020 with the tree warden system. How many complaints has a town gotten from landowners that it's just not working. The tree warden has gotten in the way of the way they managed. Want to manage their, their, their trees along the roadway. And, you know, what sort of complaints have those been? And I'm not just asking you, Paul. But anybody who's, who's fielded those complaints. Who's, who's on the call today. We're going to do a little bit of a review on that one. Sure. That's kind of what I was going to get at with Collins comments as well. At some point, just the policy alone. May cause people to not want to ask. Or have someone come out. They're just going to do it because you're not going to glue a tree back up. So I'm asking historically, what sort of complaints have we gotten about the way that the system has worked in the past. So I haven't got necessarily complaints, but they've been asked if there's ways to work around having to deal with the tree warden at all because they're worried that it might be something cause a hearing and times and delays. Usually when someone wants to remove a tree off their property they want to do it now rather than at some other point. It sounds like we need some education if we're going to pass this we need some education to landowners that that removing a tree is by talking to tree warden is not a very onerous or complicated process. Generally speaking, yeah, Bruce you've been in the town office for for a long time what have you heard in terms of complaints about the tree warden system prior to 2020. I'll go back to something that Paul said that he didn't really get called out all that often. I'm not sure people asked. I mean, I don't think it was a big concern. The shade tree concept was not terribly well understood. And I don't think people worried about it. So the answer your question, no one in the 11 plus years I've been doing this. So, so Carl just asked you that questions it seems like you're on this on this trajectory about what was going on. What's going to go on is slightly different. I think that we're looking at tighter regulation. I correct me if my wrong but we're not going back to that same system though it looks similar. It's a tighter system of regulating the trees along the road. That's my perception and I think that's Collins also, but there are other people here from the general public I wouldn't be nice if we could hear from them to I'm not sure if there are other people here but I would like to open up to some other people. I think Colin has given us some input and I think he might have some other things to say, but I see other people here do you does either members of the public here, they would like to speak about this tree thing. I guess not so. Okay, so, so back to Colin what do you what are you thinking Colin on the answers they've gotten and Carl's fleshing out the question. Yeah. Let me check my on right now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, thanks. Well, I, I, my first thought after reading, you know, proposal was, could it be done in a way that present presents a new proposal with objectives of the town has to have a shade tree preservation plan. It's a broad defining of all trees shade trees and so you say, well, because the thing is, it's still the town right away. So, the tree warden's job is going to be the same. If that if a trees in that right away and it's a hazard to the public. It doesn't matter if it's a shade tree or not it's still the tree warden, and then the select board. I don't know how far as I can understand has the authority. Maybe that's the whole issue here that it's somehow written that that's that authority doesn't exist anymore but I would assume that in town right away you, you still maintain that authority. You know the proposal could be more not just protecting that authority but to promote the type of maintenance that you that the town would like to see. Are you saying, but what I see what they're saying and what they're trying to clear up here is that what the town is doing now with a new plan is designated every tree over four inches. Every town right away as a shade tree. And when it has that designation, every single tree that's over four inches would require the tree warden to come out and look at that tree. So, that's what you're saying, Colin it seems like that there's it's broad. Is that correct. That's a broad definition of every single tree over four inches in the town right away. That's a broad definition. Yeah, because when you look when you look at the shade tree requirements for, you know, so say, you know, people read that and they're trying to follow the rules and they're like, yeah, I got a call tree warden. You know, it really, you're setting your I think you're setting everyone up for, you know, more, a lot more work, both the tree warden and landowner. And that it kind of, it's kind of just saying, you know, everyone in town is is not competent to look at trees. Well, I'm exaggerating here, but I just, my thought process is let's look at some other proposals that might get out some of the maintenance schedules without just clearly defining it as a shade tree. And otherwise, we may end up meeting a tree warden position. That's something that a volunteer won't want to do. And that was the that that concern is just the burden thing is what you know how much work is it going to be. We already have the animal back ash stuff going on. That's the future cost to the town. Okay, I've got a question for Julian. You there somewhere. Yeah, I'm here. She's here. What is your sense of how shade tree is construed here. I just wanted to kind of go back to something Colin was just talking about. There's a there's a fine distinction there that if the trees, all trees over four inches diameter at breast height are designated as shade trees which is what's proposed, then yes the tree warden needs to be involved. It may be coming to look at the tree it may be a phone call and maybe all kinds of things but that the difference if those trees are not designated as shade trees. You're right the town does still manage the right of way that the tree warden doesn't have to be involved and maybe that Guthrie and Paul end up chatting anyway but there's no requirement that if those are, if those are not designated as shade trees, and the tree warden does not have to be involved. So that's where the distinction is of designating them as shade trees are not. There's definitely plenty of ways and reasons to take down shade trees, particularly if they're hazardous in some way. I think there's an infestation control program like, like we've been talking about the ash trees and managing those. Hopefully before the emerald that's where it gets to them so there are. I think there's also the kind of quick pass for trees that are in conflict with state or federal statutes I'm guessing that's referring to like a municipal roads general permit kind of thing. So that way the tree warden is involved and can acknowledge that yes this is hazardous or yes this is part of our infestation program. But you're completely right that the right of way trees are managed by the town whether or not their shade trees is just that extra layer of the tree warden being involved and and frankly I think like the intent of a lot of this work is to put a value on public trees is not defined so but that there there is a public benefit to some trees over other trees and simply because they're in a public right of way or in public spaces. So it's kind of I guess like tobacco back away from the who has permission to do what it's really getting at this idea that some trees maybe managed differently than others because they provide a public good. And I absolutely see the concern of a landowner maybe wanting to do something that. That person cannot just go ahead and do without talking to the tree warden. But at the same time there's a lot of ways and a lot of reasons to remove trees and I think Paul is was getting at that a little bit I don't want to put any more words in your mouth Paul but about species selection and which trees will grow to be the larger trees. And hopefully you know lots of discussion if if that question from the landowner is, I would like to take down all the trees here, because they are shading my field or what I can't see that for the view or any of those things. And the tree warden is still consulted in the tree warden, then may say, Well, you know I don't see anything wrong with these trees I can't just authorize you to take them down but we can put this out for public comment and and then sort of the public in general is able to weigh in on how those trees are managed. Thank you Joanne. That was that cleared it up a bit right Colin so if you objected to the trees that you want to cut, and you could have a public hearing and then the people could weigh in on whether to let you cut those trees down on your property that were in the town right away. Yeah. I can go ahead here I think if the town had the interest of saying. We don't want to have more than four trees taken down on one strip of road without a hearing or maybe one way to go. I think that the state has left this proposal thing up to the town so they can decide how they wanted how the town wants to do it. And so, you could get real creative with it but it is complicated because you, it turns around and catch you in a different, you know you might have someone who really wants trees and, you know, doesn't want to see a single tree taken down and that's, that's important for that landowner. So, I can see why it's typical. But I just, I think the broad sweeping, let's call them all shade trees. You know, historically that term has been for a tree that a city planted, and it gave that city or village the right to, you know, it's a fine to damage that tree even, even to take an axe and, you know, put a mark on it, you can get fine. And so, you know, how much do you want to bring in of that to just our back roads and our, you know, country roads. Yeah, well. So we've kind of used up time but I hate to end this discussion because it's pretty interesting. Should we have another hearing on the tree thing because it seems like there's still more to say or what do I mean the next item on our agenda is we were going to review the hearing. And we've used up that time to not in a bad way though. And what it says on agenda is consideration of plan adoption but I just think there's too many questions for us really to adopt the plan. Right now. I mean, what do you think the rest of select board or Steve justice as his hand up I think is that you Steve. I see crystal rose pierce with the hand up. Okay, so does Steve has his hand up to but no I not intentionally I don't know if I've got. Okay. Okay, so we'll move to the next person that has a hand up you says crystal rose. Yep, she's got a hand up to. Hi, how are you. Crystal rose pierce I'm I live in Shelburne actually so I'm here more as an observer. I'm very interested in governance around the state so I'm just observing and listening to the process. I advocate for technology and for technology platforms and how we can create more efficiency within government and I'm just as a question on how you plan to implement a potential new role as the tree warden. If you have considered to use a an online platform, particularly a blockchain based platform where you could do a voting system digitally. So I build AI and blockchain based products and there is a free AI that exists where you can take a photo of a leaf of a tree, and it will identify the species. So it might be easier to be able to send it through at least one layer of technology before going through a person and then going through the process of voting and having to have a town hall meeting. I just wanted to put that out there and ask if you had considered maybe building a technology platform or if the city has given you a budget to do that. Well we haven't considered that yet but you know if we implement the plan, obviously we'll have to get more technology involved because it looks like it's going to be a more complicated situation to deal with in the future. It'll be many calls and we'll probably have to move some more technology. There'll be more hearings, etc, etc. This is following in line with Colin was saying so that's a good thought that maybe we should be moving in that direction but we don't really know yet because we still have to finish up this hearing and then decide what we're going to do with the plan that's been brought forth so Thank you for that crystal and we'll definitely keep that in mind. Thank you. Yes. So just to move along because it's getting late ish. I just mentioned something. I heard the word hearing a few times and just to clarify things under the pre 2020 process. The tree warden had to do a written decision and hold a hearing which is what we were doing with the ash trees. Before, it was a current process. The tree warden makes a decision without a hearing. The only case where you have a hearing is on appeal of his decision to select board. So normally the process doesn't involve the hearing. It is a more simple process, given that and relative to workload I just want to say, I mean, if we look at the history, I don't think there's a tremendous amount of private tree cutting along our roads. Certainly road foreman's active with tree cutting, but I don't see this as something really onerous. And we talked before about getting a deputy tree warden to help Paul, which would kind of, you know, spread out some of the workloads I don't think it's a problem. And you know, my main concern, I mean, the way we structured this was to try to provide blanket protection for these trees. Yeah, as they were protected before by doing the four inch and larger on all roads. Yeah, and it's just sort of a free fire zone right now. In terms of landowners doing it so if you don't provide that blanket protection and just aren't protecting the trees. And you're not protecting your options for the future. That's, yeah, yeah, that's really the basis for some of the work that we're trying to do is to hopefully cut down on maintenance in the future by planning it out a little bit. Sorry, sorry, sorry, what we're doing with you 32 in the hedge road there. The withers property in the center, we're trying to actively manage these roadsides so you know looking towards the future, we won't have these conflicts. So we're certainly not going to be doing what we're doing in the center on all roadsides everywhere in town. Right. You got your hand up. Yes, so Seth you were asking for procedural suggestions. I think that this committee has done a good job of putting together a plan that that seems to work well for the town for protecting public trees and I recognize that our discussion is not over even though we've used up the time allotted for both the hearing and our discussion of the hearing. And from what I understand from Bruce's select board memo. There's not a real time crunch after this hearing for when we adopt this plan or take further action on it. So, given that we have some other significant things to talk about tonight. I would recommend that we move on and schedule not further hearing. We've done the hearing but we schedule further discussion in the select board which of course everybody's welcome to come back to and and join us on of this at a meeting in the next month or six weeks. Can I ask Bruce a procedural question. Seeing as their people have participated in the hearing, or at least attended the hearing. I think they have to be notified of the decision. So I know if you have to like pass a clipboard around. So Bruce you're muted I think it's not that kind of hearing Jeff. Okay, there is no decision that needs to be disseminated. This is just a hearing for exactly what we're doing getting public feedback. Yeah, and you don't have to respond to it at all down the road. Again, we have another hearing or extend this hearing to another date. You could do that, or you could do what Carl said and just come back and have another discussion on it you had to have a public hearing. Okay, yeah, so this is the public hearing. That's a required public hearing. Yeah, right. And I'm back and talk about it. Okay, so we don't have any time to talk about now that's the thing. So, so just Paul, Seth, I think you probably missed most of what I said, I missed it because I got something right, right. So what I was suggesting for your question of procedure was to, to stop the discussion for tonight, and schedule a further discussion not a hearing extension but a further discussion within the next month or six weeks. That's what I'd like to do. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. We just don't have it all wrapped up like we could or should. So, I think Paul, Kate had his hand up. Paul did you have anything else you wanted to say. I was just going to say. I think we talked about going out, I believe, looking at the corner of Jacobs Road and Barrow Farm Road. Yes, for a field trip. And if we put those can we put those two things together and anybody who wants to come can come because we'll weekend as we're looking at that site, you know, we can talk about some of the things that we were talking about tonight. So then I'll think that's going to be the end of the discussion. No, no, I hope the discussion never ends. But as far as it's right. I just think we need the give and take, you know, and have people understand what it is we're actually trying to do, and how we're trying to align things with Guthrie and anything else, and there's a lot more to it than you probably realize. And so I'm just offering that sometimes not that that's the answer for everything but the field trip may might be quite useful to some people to see what we're really looking at out there. Okay, that sounds good and we'll definitely schedule that trip but as far as the adoption of the plan goes, we'll still have another discussion about that. Absolutely. Okay, so I want to close the hearing for the moment or for now or for for tonight. Okay. Thank you. Actually, Seth, I think you're closing the hearing period, correct. I'm closing the hearing period because thank you, but there'll still be time to discuss this publicly about this plan. It doesn't necessarily have to be a worn hearing, but on our warning we will put the discussion out there. It will be an agenda in the public will be able to tune in and talk about the ramifications of the plan. So I'm not, I'm just trying to make sure that everyone still has a chance to have input on this important discussion for the future. So for tonight, the hearing for now, or forever, the hearing is not recording stopped. Oh, recording stopped recording in progress. Okay. All right. All right. So, we are not going to do that. So we have to have the conversation with planning commission. Zach. Yeah, is that still here? Yeah, I'm here, Seth. Okay. I'm proposed zoning regulation amendments. Yeah, so I'll try to, I'll try to keep this brief. So we had, we held our public hearing on our proposed zoning, you know, amendments on February 17th to take public comment. Yeah, as a reminder of those, the big, the big groups of changes were a large group of changes to implement the East Montpellier village master plan. So it's a smaller changes to address change in statute and then is some changes to address identified issues where the current regs didn't appear to be working particularly well. We did not have huge attendance at the hearing, but we did have, we did receive some comments, particularly particular areas, some, some disappointment that we had not done more to address strip zoning or strip development. Because when we had, when we really scaled back the changes following the, you know, following the first attempt to change the zoning with using the consultant and we got feedback that it was too much too fast. We decided to really limit things to the village and to technical changes that were causing problems and so that was dropped at that point. We received some comments about stormwater runoff and about noise pollution. They believe the noise pollution one was more will come up again with cell towers based on some conversations that had with technical comment or outside of the hearing. The other, the, the, the largest area of comment that we received was about the question of were we were we reducing the setbacks too much. You know, we did, you know, that's an area that where we're a significant, you know, a significant amount of work has come to the DRB with, you know, with way for waivers and variances because the setbacks are quite large in some parts of the town and so those were cut pretty significantly. That was that those comments were from one individual. We did discuss them decided ultimately that that was that that we that we were in agreement that it made that it made sense to bring bring this setbacks down quite a bit. And also, you know, from a member of the DRB we received some tech, some technical comments on, you know, one, one error that was caught one area where our definite, you know, where the regs weren't really clear because we can define things well and so we did go back and update definitions to try to, you know, to try to better to make the, the regs clear for when the DRB needs to interpret these. I will have respond to any questions you have but I am, I am here to formally hand this over to you now because this is, this is the point at which the planning commission hands us over to the select board so that you can hold your own hearings, you know, on it and then make a decision on how to, you know, ultimately how to act on the proposal. That sounds good to me. I can't wait to look them all over actually. What's that? What's that, Zach? So we will certainly be available for questions if you, you know, if you have some. Well, I assume that you'll show up at our meeting or hearings, hearing. Yes. So does anybody have any questions of Zach at this point? Yes, Scott has those. I do not have any questions, but I just want to make a quick comment that I've been on the planning commission for about nine years or so. And I just want to compliment Zach on his tremendous amount of work. And Julie Potter, he had really big shoes to fill. Julie Potter had done a tremendous job and numerous other people before him. And anyway, I just, I just want to, I just want the select board to know as a member of the long standing member of the planning, I guess, now a long standing member that Zach has just done a tremendous job. And that you have a tremendous chairman as, as the leader of the planning commission and I just wanted the select board to be aware of that. Okay. Well, thank you, Scott. And that's, that's nice of you to acknowledge all the people that have worked on this. I know there's been a lot of hard work put on to us taking a long time. And you guys, everyone's worked hard on it. And Zach, thank you for bringing it all up and we'll definitely look at it with great interest. I myself am very interested in these new amendments to the plan. I can't wait to see them and thank you again for bringing it out and all your hard work. Anybody else have any questions or comments? Scott's here, Zach's here. They've all worked on this. It looks like Judith has a question. Judith, you have a question. I do. Thank you. And I, I appreciate all of the effort and hard work and I can appreciate how much time went into it. One question that I had was, did, is there any, any provision regarding an enhanced energy plan for the town? I don't know if that's in the new regulations amendments, is it, Zach? No, so actually, I have a couple other things that I would like to just give up, you know, one to an update to you on one of which is the enhanced energy plan. Okay. But we'll see if there are any other questions on the zoning before we switch topics. Right. Because the zoning and the energy plan are two different parts, right? Correct. The energy plan would be part of the town plan, not part of the. Yes. And so yes, I'm not seeing a lot of the questions. So, so just more to answer your question more directly. We have, you know, this, the planning commission has just taken up the, the energy plan. So we are, we are working. We are starting to work on that now. The other, the other piece that we are currently wrapping up is the, the town plan amendments to deal with cell towers. We will be holding a hearing on that at the beginning of May. And then we'll hopefully be getting that over to you. We, you know, we've decided to keep that moving forward. It will be a little bit, you know, it'll be a bit of, you know, here's, you know, here's a piece for the town plan. And here's another piece of the town plan because the energy and what would also be an amendment, given the governor's focus on, you know, increasing the number of cell towers in the state. We thought it was wise, given how much work has been done on that to, to finalize that and move it forward. The, the cell tower section is modeled on the current. You know, in a lot of ways on the current energy section of the town plan, which I think does a good job of both saying where areas that we don't want this kind of infrastructure, but also providing guidance on where we do and where we think it would make sense. Both so that there is some opportunity for that development also to basically give guidance to developers about what kind of evidence we're looking for what kind of sites would make sense, so that we can try to, you know, try to make things work. Does that answer your question, Judith, on the. Okay. Yeah, you're welcome. And the last bug I'll just put in your ear is that we, you know, in starting to work on energy planets, you know, we're noticing there are some areas of the implementation that might make sense for a conservation commission to look at. So I know that that is something that was considered, you know, you know that those voted on attending a couple of years ago and then COVID got in the way of everything. But it might be it might be worth thinking about getting that moving again because some of these planning needs potentially could use the conservation commission. Yeah, good point. We'll definitely be looking at that. I kind of fell through the cracks but I thought of it myself lately is like, oh, we didn't really do anything with that. Okay, so is that, is that all you want to share with us now is that. That's all I've got yeah I can, I think based on time if you would like to hear more about the cell tower work I could certainly come back at some point. I don't, I don't know how much information you want prior to that hearing but I realized that you're behind schedule and to try to. So you're saying that you have language that you're working on for the cell tower regulation. Yes, at this, at this point there is an amendment that has where there is text that is ready to go. Okay, so you're thinking it would be useful to us to see that before the hearing I would like to see that myself before the hearing. I would like to read it to me right now. But I would like that text said to select board if possible, Judith. I agree I think that'd be helpful and also whether or how the amended language would address the concerns that came up, you know, a year a year and a half ago regarding the cell tower proposal on Jacobs Road, how that would have. How would have responded to that concern. So, so just my just a quick point that is it sounds like what you're doing is you're trying to make the cell tower language clear about where we want that infrastructure and where we don't want the infrastructure. Okay. And what, and one of, one of the criticisms that came up in the with her pose around Jacobs Road was the question of did you know, could people in town reasonably predict what we were going to do, based on what was in the regs and what was being proposed. Yeah. And so we're trying to make that clear so it's a little, it's a little easier for everyone to see. Yeah, this is this is what the plan says this was, yeah, pose doesn't meet the plan or not. So, if you could send us that language when you get it crafted up. That would be great. So maybe we could have some input on before the hearing. Yeah. Sounds good to me. Thank you thank you. Does anybody else have any questions is that I don't see any. Okay. Thanks. Thanks again Zach. You're welcome. We'll be in touch soon. So that takes care of age. The next item is I discussed on town management light of COVID-19. And the first bullet is consideration mask mandate rule repeal. So this is a controversial item. Kyle put it on front porch forum. I saw the emails. I saw a bunch of them. I asked people to call in tonight. We have the owner of Dudley store is on. Where do we want to proceed with this first. Kyle, do you want to give us a mixed regulation of what you came out with. I read a bunch. I can give a summary. Sure. So, so at the website are posted two documents with emails that were received either by Bruce or by Bruce and me or by me. Everything that was received by Bruce and me is in the. The trench that is under the ones that came to the town office. I just posted the ones that came exclusively to me. And I have done a rough tally of them. There was one more that came in about 625. This evening that is not posted there. So I added that to my tally. It was a little tricky making a tally because some people wrote, most people wrote only for themselves. Some people wrote on behalf of their spouse. Some people wrote on behalf of all four members of their family. Some people wrote on behalf of all four members of their family. And so I tried to, you know, respect the voting numbers of people writing in the tally. And then some people said, well, I think you should drop it immediately or let it expire when it's due to expire on March 17th. Some people said, I like, I think you should either extend it or let it expire. So in those cases, I just made a mark in both columns. I just wanted to remind you the front porch forum asked for feedback for people who wanted us to drop the mask mandate immediately tonight. To let it expire at the end of 30 days from the last authorization, which would be March 17th, or to renew it for another 30 days or to take some other action. And the, the votes then tallyed the way I described come. 18 for dropping it. 17 for sorry, seven for letting it expire on March 17th. And 13 for extending it. So one way of looking at that is that it's almost a two to one margin in favor of not extending it. Another way of looking at it, putting the, the expire and extend together is it's pretty even 18 to 20. So I think that's one way of looking at it in terms of not dropping dropping it tonight or not dropping it tonight. Well, thank you, Carl. That was very useful and very thorough. And I like the way you did. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Now I'm going to, I'd like to open it up to the public. I know Angela's got work to do. She's been on here for a while. So what do you think Angela as the owner of Dudley store. Yeah. I would like the town to, to end the mandate. It doesn't honestly matter to me too much, whether it's tonight or just letting it expire. I can give kind of a very brief reason for that. So. I mean, I have been very in favor of Mac mask use when I feel like it has been sort of like warranted and effective. I think that following right now, both Vermont Department of Health and like general CDC guidelines. I think it's time to end it and sort of make it a personal decision. So I think it's, it's a very important part of the process. Dudley's in particular, the. Having a mask mandate right now has put a bit of a hardship on both our employees and the business. It's something that a lot of people don't like. And we have definitely had people, you know, they come to the door and they see the sign and they turn around. Because they don't want to do business with us because we have the sign up. So I think it's a great idea and what I think makes sense. But I think the ending the mask mandate will still allow for a personal choice, which I think is super important. I think that people need to be able to feel comfortable, but I do think that we kind of need to move in a direction of. Ending it now. Thank you. This is Kim Watson and I can't raise my hand because I'm on a phone. So. Just let me know when I can speak. Hey, Kim, you can speak. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Miss Watson, you can speak now. I'm sorry. I'm hogging the computer, but. You're outside on the phone and. I think you should start cooking supper. So you should probably speak now. So I did a little research today as well. And I think when I called in, when you did the mask mandate, I did a little research on the mask mandate, which I'm sure you've seen on the internet, and I think that was when Tom Kerchin had said, and some other people had said that they really wanted to do the mass mandate to keep the hospitalizations down, people in the ICU and things like that. And it, it was. Effective at the time. And I just wanted to say in the whole state, there's only 25 possible. There's only three in ICU. erroneous reporting and I don't know if anybody saw the documentation that came out because Washington County apparently had the highest number of COVID in the whole state and that everybody was freaking out but it was erroneous reporting and again today the stick came on and said the deaths reported for March 6th were also incorrect and showed three deaths and only there were no death there was zero death in the state so doing I just would like to also see the mass mandate dropped because I'd rather encourage the signs that say you know a no mass are required if you're vaccinated and to keep that plugging that key essential vaccination versus you know and saying that it's recommended that if you're not vaccinated that you come in with a mass and that's just all I'd like to say just just thank you Kim just to be clear Kim would like to drop the vaccination mandate needs more clear because she feels that we should be pushing vaccines a vaccination come into Dudley's if you're vaccinated if you're not you should wear a mask so that is giving the message that vaccines are important and not be saying to people they're vaccinated you have to wear a mask anyway enough for me there's other people on the line does anybody else have any oh Scott has his hand up Scott I love agreeing with Kim because we don't always agree on everything but um yes and I I've been chairing the the task force group the COVID task force group for since this whole nightmare started at the Unitarian Church and we've already started in-house services and people actually people can to a to a limited degree and I I I totally agree with Kim at this point things should be relaxed the business owners need a break at this point and if you've already been fully vaccinated I guess the booster I agree with Angela and I think that the rules should be changed not waiting till not waiting till they expire but I would I would suggest you David you would change tonight thank you Scott thank you Scott um is there anybody else here that would like to comment on that before select board members would like to have their say I I don't know there's either members of the public tuning in or not um I've had a lot of calls please ask please end the mass mandate uh East Montpeteer home center has not been doing it um I did reach out to Tom Swenson I wasn't able to get a hold of him I just wonder what his thought was um but you know I've been doing my due diligence not through funports forum but just speaking to the ordinary public walking down the street and overwhelmingly they would like us to end the mandate um I have not run into one person of the general public walking up and down the street around the post office or do these that wants us to extend it or they would like us to end it now um so and andress a andress please end the mandate um so I'd like to open it up to the board members what do you think hey Seth Zach it's got his hand up oh Zach you have your hand up oh yeah I just you know just to reiterate with Kim and Scott you're one thing that I have seen is some questions about the CDC guidelines of is this area your high transmission partly there is some there are some issues with their data um the other thing to be aware of is that the CDC issued that guidance you know at the start of the Delta wave and the relationship between cases and hospitalizations has really changed from Delta to Omicron and so we're seeing far fewer people come into the hospital I'm not wearing my planning commission hat anymore I'm wearing my member of the general public that does the work for the hospital out of the moment um you know we we have seen far you know as a percentage of the total cases far far fewer people ended up in the hospital in Omicron than they did in Delta and so I think that in some ways that guidance is a little outdated now yeah yeah I read the same actually um so I don't see any more hands up what do you think the rest of select board Carl do you want to speak first sure based on what we've heard tonight based on the feedback we've gotten I don't see that we have a mandate to extend this I don't think there's anyone right or wrong way to proceed here I think we're flying by the seat of our pants as non-medical experts in the face of a pandemic we just have to use our best judgment based on listening to medical experts and and listening to the people around us I do take seriously one of the letter writers who said you know dropping the mandate basically says people who have compromised immune systems or are medically unable to get vaccinations are to live life as second-class citizens and not be able to risk going out into the public spaces you know having everybody wear masks does ensure that those who are vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated if it's followed but it ensures that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people are are matched up and protecting others so I think there's an argument for keeping it for a while I think you know given the split on this I would say let's just let the current mandate expire on March 17th and and take no further action tonight well thank you Carl um Amy what is your what do you think I think that well I'm sort of inclined just to cancel the mandate now but then it could be a little jarring I guess like just all of a sudden it's not there anymore rather than let it expect would it be jarring does anybody have an opinion on that um I Amy this is Kim I think what um it's not really jarring because you're not saying the masks are going away they are not disappearing what you're encouraging is that you want people that are not vaccinated to have masks still and the people that are vaccinated have you know uh can can choose whether they want to have a mask on or not and I think that's what we're trying to encourage I guess a point of clarification if we're either allowing the mask mandate to expire on its own on the 17th or we vote today we're not replacing it with something else correct it's people will determine whether they want to wear a mask or don't want to wear a mask and business owners like um Angie or others are not going to be validating whether someone has a vaccine or not and ensuring that they're wearing a mask so it's if there's no mandate folks have to determine or you know can determine on their own whether they're going to wear a mask employees can decide if they want to wear a mask or not wear a mask but it's not being replaced by something else no but just to clarify point point of order we did pass a resolution back when we were originally frustrated in our attempt to pass a mask mandate we did pass a resolution uh encouraging vaccination and mask wearing and uh there was no expiration date on that if I recall correctly so yes juniors we aren't um there's no proposal I've heard tonight to replace uh our current mask mandate with anything but but that still remains in effect thank you but I just want to say Judith wait for a second is that then it's up to the business they can put what they want on the door they can say vaccinated don't have to wear a mask if you're not vaccinated we strongly encourage you to wear a mask they can they can that's their right and it's also the right for people to wear a mask or not which at this point seems entirely appropriate uh that's my opinion anyway so and and that's the governor's stand as well and the state stand as well right so Amy was your question thought answered appropriately you think about the jarring aspect yeah yeah thank you okay and Judith um I I think um torn I I do appreciate the comments and I appreciate Andrew you're coming and hearing your thoughtful concerns and also how you have applied the mandate and I appreciate you and your employees who have done that over the past several several weeks or months and really appreciate your adherence to that um I think um on the fence about letting it expire on its own versus removing it today I'm not I think that the um as Carl identified the split between letting it expire on its own um and letting it expire now I I'm not feeling we need to to extend it um on the fence about whether we let it expire die a natural death on the 17th or we do it now um any now right yeah so I you know and you know if we're letting folk know that it's ending on the 17th or it will end on the 17th you know it allows people time to adjust or you know those folks who are immunocompromised or live with people are immunocompromised or live with young kiddos who are under five can make sure that golly I'm walking into a place you know there won't be the mask mandate anymore so I need to make sure that me and my kids you know we need to decide how we're going into places so I think I've kind of talked myself into can I can I finish my thought I'm sorry I think I just talked myself into letting it expire on the 17th versus taking action today that would be my suggestion yeah well thank you Judith so who's that you can I was just gonna say to um understand that the state has also lifted the mask mandate requirements in the schools as of uh February 28 so that too only puts it forth that you know why why keep it extending it when there's when already it's being lifted in so many other places and it's not being followed I mean this is the other thing that it's like putting a rule in place where people aren't policing it it's kind of like going over the speed limit and not having any cops on the road you know why why are we doing it well I think we're doing it because there are people like Angie who had hid here to it and we appreciate that and we have speed limits because we're encouraging people to drive safely so we're hoping that members of the public do what they can to protect each other I'm not proposing extending the mandate I'm proposing that we allow it to expire by its own terms which folks have represented is the 17th okay so I just want to hear from one more select board member John Jewett who hasn't had chances say much John what do you think um well I think when we when we were talking about passing this mandate we were talking with Dr. Kirchen I think we had said in that meeting that we expected you know we're not going to make everybody wear a mask with the mask mandate and then we were expecting probably to get 20 of improvement in mask wearing and and and I think that after our our discussion last week I mean we've gone from 37 hospitalizations at 25 we've gone from a positivity rate of 4.9 to 4.2 percent and and I've heard discussed several times now that the Omicron virus is not sending as many people to the hospital um I am not in favor of of extending this in any way um because we're surrounded by communities who aren't don't have mask mandates and I can't see that Eastmont Theater is going to suddenly drive a surge because we are five businesses we allow people to go in and and not wear a mask and I think that I mean we can let this thing play out to the end or we can end it tonight I don't have a strong feeling either way um but I do know when I go into Berlin people aren't you know people wear masks if they want or if they don't want or they don't I've gone I went to the price shop or the other day I wasn't going to wear a mask I put a mask on and I was like because I felt uncomfortable not wearing a mask and I went in and you know probably two-thirds of their employees weren't wearing masks anymore um I think Walmart did away with their mask mandate um they see a lot more business than Dudley's does and uh and I suppose that's not a really good example you know just because somebody dropped a mask mandate is not it um we don't need to follow suit but I do feel that the data is indicating that this is going in the other direction unless something comes along that's different another another variant um I think that we should drop the mask mandate I strongly feel that we should I'm sick of it actually so it from my point of view I would like to end it tonight because I empathize with the employees and some of these businesses like Dudley's they're just sick and tired of it and I I feel their pain and it's like you know we go in the home center not one person's wearing a mask I don't know about the fireworks place but Dudley's is a place I go into every single day and they're looking at me like Seth what the heck is going on here so that's where I am I'd like to end it I don't know if I have the sport I don't know if we can make a motion that's why I would end it tonight Seth I absolutely would I would too I'll make a motion and we end the mask mandate tonight I second that all right um yes Carl yeah so people have talked about Dudley's in the home center I'd like to bring up another major business in town which is playing field hardware and they have a mask mandate and I'm frequently in there and it is universally followed by the employees and the the customers it's so rare that customers object that they say oh yeah there was one guy last Tuesday I think it was who came in and and objected and we just had to pay and get out of the store as soon as possible so you know where where there's a strong culture in the store to enforce it at least in that place then then it's followed I would wear a mask and I'd wear a mask there I mean I do when I go in I mean obviously they have that's their requirement that's what they want and that's what we should do and that's that's totally up to them and that's perfect so um I'd like to call the question all those in favor you can't do that Seth oh I can't well we no no the procedure for calling the question is is to make a motion to call the question the there's no debate on that motion and or you can just say is there any other discussion and probably people will just not say anything is there any further discussion on the motion that John before okay all those in favor of John's motion that was seconded by any please say aye all right all those applause please say nay nay okay we have three eyes and two nays the eyes haven't the motion is passed and by our rules the procedure which we just passed again tonight then select board members have the right to state for the minutes why they voted the way they did and I I wish to say that as I said earlier I would prefer to let the current mandates die a natural death as someone said and expire when it's due to expire not extend it thank you girl I would I would concur with Carl and also based upon the feedback that there were a number of folks who were interested in extending it and also those who would wanted it to expire on its own so that's why I but I do appreciate the comments that were made by folks seeking that to be ended today thank you yeah me too thank you for everybody for tuning in and participating in this important discussion thank you angel I I know you've got school work to do but thanks a lot thank you for for listening that was helpful yes see it's not so bad was it no just to clarify does that mean that I can tell employees tomorrow okay all right okay thank you all very much thank you um okay so I'd like to move to the next item on the agenda I believe it's appointments no the second half of this uh COVID thing is is the meeting methodology right right yeah and and it's probably worth clarifying that what we did tonight applies to our mask mandate for public place places and invite in members of the public that are not owned by the town we still have a mask mandate in place for the town office we have not considered doing otherwise and well that's that's the next item is discussed on select board meeting methodology well that's not the next item the next item is select board methodology what I'm saying is visitors to the town office are required to have masks now regardless of whether the select board is meeting at the time and we haven't changed that and it's not on the agenda to change that okay um um so we were we're going to discuss the select board meeting correct methodology um now the planning commission is having in-person meetings just as a question right is that Bruce correct yes they their last one was yes yes so moving forward on the select board meeting discussion is this the time that we can change it to something different I don't remember how long our current methodology is um effective arguably Seth you could change it on your own volition but okay uh since you did that last time and you got some blowback it makes more sense to talk it through this time well I definitely want to talk it through so the way the way we have it now is that no one can come in in person I have a question I have a question about that um that's what I understood had been the case for a couple meetings but now in the announcement it says public and select board members are encouraged to participate remotely as explained below and then it gives the zoom options encouraged is not mandated so it sounds as if it's perfectly okay to come into the town office for the meeting so I'm not sure what what I saw tonight is can I push back on that one a little bit carol please that's the language we've used all along that encouraged word I think the concept was encouraged to participate period and it just has gotten kind of smushed together I agree it's kind of a mixed message but the intent was not to have it open I see okay so just to move forward with the discussion with the plan where what are we looking at here so we still nobody wants to meet in person I want to meet in person I have no problem meeting in person what are you telling us Seth you don't want to meet in person no I want to encourage us to meet in person okay ideally ideally I don't know where the comfort level is here among the rest of select board members I think we need a person again me too me too Judith um yep but don't be offended if I wear a mask so no of course not we're used to that okay but where the tricky part is is what about the public we we can't open it up just to us and not open to the public is that correct Bruce that is correct that's what I thought are we comfortable with opening up our meetings to the public if we're going to open it up to ourselves we kind of have to I'm fine with it and we don't get many people come in from the public anyway and the reason I'm fine with that is because it is a small room and you know you might get a little creeped out the first time just because we're not used to that anymore but who comes not very few people come to our meetings in person and we still would have the zoom option which I think people become more comfortable and more used to yes and I think that this is something that we can evaluate on a case by case basis in the future if we see that we're going to have an agenda item that we anticipate a large turnout for we might decide to go back to only remote I mean a good example is the tree um it's not going to be hearing anymore but it will be on our agenda discussion on the tree uh shade tree plan so that could be where there's a lot of people that would want to come in but I don't know they people like to zoom in now anyway so I'm not sure I guess we'll just have to evaluate but we're going to change the language on our agenda are we not isn't that the plan it would change back to what it was two months ago right and what was that I just want to be clear I'm just trying to be clear here hang on and I'll pull one up and I'll tell you what it said good I'm not trying to be difficult I just want to be clear so the way it was phrased before East Montpelier has resumed in-person meetings at the municipal office building with a mask mandate a remote attendance option will be offered via zoom with participation details below sounds good to me everybody comes with that okay sounds good I don't think we need a motion do we we can just change that okay perfect okay anything else on the mask on the town management light of COVID-19 agenda item is there anything else okay so going on to appointments says potential executive session but I'm not thinking there is anything we have to go on it is there something anything we have to go on in executive session not that I know of I'm going to have a big argument over it for some reason that doesn't usually happen that doesn't mean it won't happen oh it doesn't look like it's gonna happen look at that I moved I moved to appoint the slate in the select board memo I second that uh any further discussion on that uh all those in favor please say hi hi hi the eyes appear to have it they do have it um that's a pretty short list it won't be next time it won't be this is that weird one in every seven year on average situation where the town meeting is on Tuesday the first yeah and the first meeting is on the seventh yeah so there isn't the turnaround time we usually have right the slate of appointments will be ready for the 21st yeah and that'll be a big long list yes yeah now we haven't done the two additions and we probably should now one is the planning for ARPA and Mr. Atenar has requested the board develop a plan of action for the discussion itself for engaging the public in advance now do we have guidelines for this the ARPA request I don't think that's what Carl was talking about yes you have guidelines but he was talking about the public side of it yeah how are you we're gonna put out the right don't you have to have guidelines when you put out a a thought or you don't okay so I just say I think yeah I is what you're getting at Seth that if we're going to ask for public input we need to be clear to them on what we want input on and on what the range of possibilities that was my thought buying a buying a pony for everybody in town for example is probably well I thought it was a bunch of money for everybody in town yeah yeah so so we yeah we want to have some materials that clearly explains what we what our options are that the quantity of money available to us and you know it sounds like we can use it just to reduce taxes if we want and continue on as normal it sounds like we could keep taxes where they are and make some significant investments in the town we've got some ideas that we've talked about and I think it's important to open it up to the public because this is their money and and get a sense from them on what they want to do with this opportunity and I did not bring in proposed guidelines for the public involvement and it is late so I'm I'm willing to put this off until next meeting for a more detailed discussion if folks want but if you want to get the ball rolling here that'd be great too I just thought that before you put out anything about ARPA you have to say something about what the what what's what we're looking for we're not just looking for people to say we want $20,000 to fix the house we're looking for something that fits within the framework of the guidelines that we just got or we have is that correct I mean we're gonna have to craft up some language that meets the requirements so that's going to take some time so I would also push back just a little bit Seth because of this get out of jail free card that you now have where you can just go we'll absorb that money into into the essentially the general fund I would say that it's your decision and your decision alone about that one and then you okay take the use of that if you decide to take it all in you take the use of that to a public engagement effort whatever okay so the choice would be we could put it in general fund and say we're going to use it for XYZ and present it to the public and say do you approve this for the construction of a highway garage or a town hall or something right you would put that out to the public that's the side of this that I would put out to the public yes yeah I guess I would ask for a more open-ended process not a referendum on choices the select board has come to but rather say hey there are a lot of smart people out there who've been looking at this town with loving eyes for a long time and have some good ideas let's let's get some some input you know we've been talking about it some but what else is out there and Carl I apologize I agree with you 100 percent okay what I was saying is that the the initial decision as to whether to accept that essentially check off should be the select boards and then what to do with it what you just said okay so I guess I'm not understanding Bruce what what the other way of going is other than the select board saying okay we're going to take this money into the general fund thank you very much what what would be an alternative to doing that what I don't think you will take the money in to the general fund thank you very much I think you'll take the money in holding it separately and decide what to do with the money for special projects whatever the town decides that's the part the public engagement then comes in I think right now your focus should be on what do we want to do as the initial step do you want to just absorb the money back in as the so-called lost revenue check off I understand that and what I'm trying to get at is you are recommending or it sounds like you're recommending that that we decide to absorb it into the the general fund I'm wondering what other decision might we make I think if it's as easy as we've been led to believe you shouldn't make any other decision right I don't think there's another decision out there but what other possibilities are there otherwise the guidelines it's okay you're asking us to make a decision but you're not presenting this a decision you're saying this is a thing that you should do but what's the alternative no no no that's what the April 4th meeting is for to have those possibilities put forward to the select board yeah what I'm saying is the select board should hear those and then engage the public I'm not sure what engaging the public between now and April 4th will do for that April 4th discussion okay so let me let me see if I understand you correctly sounds like the April 4th discussions let me just say something because I'm not sure myself Carl and I appreciate this discussion it sounds like the April 4th we're going to have our options whether to put it in the general fund or not is that correct Bruce what you're going to have is is regional planning and hopefully some guidance from VLCT but you'll have Bonnie wanting her here to essentially just lay out where the this ARPA funding environment is sitting right now it's changed yeah and you need to see whether what seems to be too good to be true stuff is actually holding up right and if it is then go make your move and then figure out how to engage the public so that you're making effective use of this once in a generation pot of money okay so I think I understand you April 4th is the bureaucratic question of what do we do in response to getting this ARPA money bureaucratically how do we account for it bookkeeping and then after that we'll have the basis for going out to the town and saying okay we'd like your input on how to actually spend this money regardless of which account we put it in and if you do what if you do the the check off you can go back to the public with a blank slate right right whereas if you don't do the check off you have to fit within those very narrow guidelines got it right so that's a good point so now we won't be able to stand on the front steps with bushel baskets of money we can wait till after the fourth the roof is dripping you don't want to stand outside with the barrel right now okay so are you are you clear because I'm pretty clear I'm pretty understanding yeah so we're just going to wait until the fourth if the check off taking into our general fund is the way to go which sounds like it is then we'll take the money and then what then we'll go to the public and say hey how are we going to spend all this money works for me April 4th coming quick okay okay so so now we don't have to do anything as far as advertising for the free giveaways okay you may want to stop saying that but yeah it's not that free after the fourth what was the next thing on your proposed personnel matters oh yeah Rosie tell clear bonus for holiday election work you have made a habit of the past few years providing a bonus of vacation time or sick leave time yeah for Rosie in thanks for the election work because that is a stressful and time-consuming stretch right whatever works and we all it's also it's also a holiday that everybody else gets that I don't right the opposite of a holiday for you what would you like Rosie I'm sorry but anybody involved with the election and we were there for the prep Rosie goes over and above so whatever you guys can give her as a as just a citizen she deserves absolutely what what have we done in the past Bruce you've generally given a certain number of hours for holiday vacation or sick leave to add to the bank what did we do last year we should give her a day holiday pay or something but we do last year you did three days worth of sick time to add to the bank sick time okay is that Rosie is that appropriate or would you like a holiday instead it is appropriate that's fine three days of sick time is that going to work for you it will I may have some extended need for some sick time coming up and I'm currently holding on to vacation time instead because my sick bank isn't as robust as my vacation so that would be perfectly appropriate thank you I'm sorry Rosie how many hours did you work on Tuesday I don't know I was about a double day I was officially at let's say I stopped at the office at six o'clock to pick up the tabulator and I was up at the school for 6 30 and I was there until 130 and I got home at 2 15 but you know some some years are much better than others some years I'm home by 9 o'clock so I would propose four days instead of three because this year was longer than last year because of the school vote as well so if we made if we made it three days last year I would propose four days one day to account for the lost holiday that you didn't get and three days to account for the almost 24 hours you work so that would be my that would be my request I'll second that okay yeah sounds good to me all so we had a motion and we had a second all those in favor please say aye thank all right so you got four days thank you well you deserve it and thank you we appreciate it hard work you know I learned a lot I had a lot of help well that's a good thing I'm not sure if the quality was there but at least you had them and uh hey I just just want to point out um select board member participation in the board of civil authority affairs has varied over the years but for for this election we had four members who participated and and one who had a family emergency going on so I want to clap ourselves on the back a little bit and well deserved thank you um other town clerks are honestly jealous of the support I get from my bca seriously okay well that sounds good we have warrants we've been no one's down there to sign them right no Carl is here Carl you're there okay so Carl can sign them so we need a motion to have Carl sign the warrant so moved second yep we have a second Amy moved it I think uh Judith seconded um all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi to have Carl sign the warrant um we did the other business what else is there Ruth I'm just looking at your select board ma'am not much just a reminder to you and Amy that you have a meeting this Friday to review your treasurer applications right we have quite a few well you have more than you did but not quite a few yeah to be more like I didn't see I saw two more but I think we have three more you did have three more yes three more okay yes well that's like six all together that's a lot small state yes that's a lot these small pairs of small town okay so so where are we in the process has the committee vetted all six of these and passing are passing them on to the select board or what no no no we have to review the applications on Friday because what we did is we this is a committee meeting on Friday yeah got it yeah okay yeah we asked for we we stopped we asked for more applications and we advertised in other places yeah that were more costly but you know cost isn't really consideration at this point we just really want to get more applications right got it thank you so we get yeah so we got six applications and on Friday we'll get together and and go over them all hey Bruce did anybody respond to the seven days ad just out of curiosity because that was the big expenditure okay that was the big expenditure yeah expensive fuck it's out of it okay did we get nothing nothing out of seven days okay but we got three you got to leave them indeed yeah that's that's usually the way it happens i think well that's okay we got some hey we got applications what's that indeed was cheaper a lot cheaper yeah yeah seven days is a lot but they have a huge number of ads in here so they must get some success i saw i saw calluses was in there yes oh really primary things they said town treasurer and delinquent tax collector i said you know i probably would have included delinquent taxes in the job description but not necessarily made it a title on the not everybody wants to be a delinquent tax collector right i will tell you that the seven days methodology was fantastic that was the most pleasant experience i've had putting a a help on it add into a newspaper oh yeah yeah oh yeah that's true okay um Amy's yawning so it's a little past your bedtime sorry i'm tired that's okay i am too um um so the meeting schedule is here and looked for it what the heck is it April 4th March 21st okay um anything else bruce March 21st we'll have lieutenant white here and and that hopefully the full slate of appointments and then uh you're gonna have to make you'll have an agenda item to figure out how you want to handle those uh zoning rights yeah uh because you got to get that in gear because the town plan thing will hit you in in two months right that's good that sounds good um okay i think we're good thank uh thank you all for attending and it was a robust meeting for sure a lot of discussion a lot of healthy discussion and i want to thank you all for participating it was a good meeting i enjoyed it yep i moved to adjourn very nice we have a second oh my god here all those in favor please say hi hi hi guys appear to have it they do have it see you again soon bye everybody bye bye everybody stay healthy yeah all right soon bye all right good night bruce so yes thank you hopefully you'll be here this week i will okay i'll go as well i'll be here yes sounds good yeah thanks again