 I'd like to call the meeting to order. It is 6.30. We don't have any additions I know of, but do you have any additions? Hello, do you have any additions, Kyle? I have no additions. Great. So we do a minutes. Do we have minutes? Lots of minutes. Thanks to everybody who pitched in. Got them to us to review. Team approach? What the heck? It works. So which minute? Oh, we've got December 18th, January 8th. Did you circulate the amended versions, Gina? Yeah. Okay. These are a minutes, January 15th. I'll put it on your website. I'll put it on the website. This is also on your website. January 27th. Yeah, I can. Yeah. And I got those amended versions out many minutes ago. February 12th. Many seconds ago. Pre-finance and it's not the time to do all that. Makes it, makes it. Wow. So we have a lot of minutes to look over. Say it's about the historic integrity. That's what she said in Mrs. Update in July, 2023 storm repairs in FEMA. Which minutes are you looking at? I'm looking at that December 18th. I didn't know if the change is historic. Well, I don't know that there was any. I thought I was determined that there was not a historic significance. What it was was that there is no longer. That is what the determination was. I think it likely was a historic over before. Oh, it was? Okay. It may not have been specifically, but because of the damage it was. Oh, okay. I didn't get that sense from that. Culver, but whatever, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Because reading the sense, it's like, oh, that was historic. Yeah, I think those historic culverts are kind of deemed as, or most stone culverts are deemed as. Oh, are we stone? Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a stone culvert. Okay. I mean, it's still there. It's still. It's failed. But there's no lettering on it, which helps a lot because the one up in the center has to be made. I don't know that there was ever any details to that effect. I sent the state photos of the culvert of the damage. And that's based on all the information that she had at her available. She said it would have no longer retained it as her culvert. All right, good enough. It's all the same at the end of the day. It's getting replaced, and we don't have to worry about the historic. What a big difference if it was historic. Oh yeah, no, I know, I know. But that whole process kind of helped everything up for Sodom on. Yeah. So we're going to approve these minutes date by date. Probably better. Yeah. I think that's what we should do. So how is everyone doing on reading the December 18th minutes? You good? Yeah. Yep. So what about you, Tom? Yeah, so under the Kellogg Hubbard Library discussion, yeah, Dan Roberg's name is spelled with a G at the end. All right, that's a misprint. Who is noting the changes here? This is what I emailed. Yeah, you emailed them, so either Rosie can make the changes or I have more documents on it. Okay, and under the consideration, a little lower down consideration of the 2024 town meeting, warning Mr. Hess seconded the motion. So I just think we should go through them and approve them more whatever it has to go. So we're looking for a motion to approve the minutes as amended. Zoey made the motion. Oh, Zoey made the motion to approve the December 18th minutes as amended. Seconded. Seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Yeah, I just appear to have it, they do have it. Okay. And just so you know, Nick, your vote is not crucial with three other people in the Slack board. We constitute a quorum so we can pass them on their own, but should it come to a situation where the minutes are up for approval and you weren't at a meeting and your vote is necessary to get it to pass, then it's perfectly okay to approve minutes that you haven't been here for. Right, he can vote on them. Yeah. And regardless, I mean you could have voted just now. Okay. Yeah, you could have voted on it. Okay, so January 8th. So the in-person public attendance where it says Arrow, that is shorthand for Carol Canavino and both she and Janice Wallreffen are from All Together Now. And again, this is what I've emailed in. That's the only suggestion I have for a change. The Greenberry was in addition to the agenda because I thought that was already on the agenda. That. Not for the January 8th. It wasn't? That was for the next one. Oh, that was the next one? Yeah. Oh, right, that was for a different one. Different meeting, okay. Any other proposed changes to the minutes for January 8th? Wrong year. What's that? Wrong year. Ah! Okay. That's important. That is important. Yeah, no kidding. That's a very good catch. Yeah, good catch. I'm not working or something. Oh, you're allowed to make a, if you think wasn't here. I'm not working or something. If you think wasn't here. I'm not working or something. Anything else? Proposed changes? I move to approve the January 8th meeting minutes as amended. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, they do have it. That's January 8th. January 15th. Expect date is on this one. Looks good to me. That's quick. Yes. I stated previously how I would approach minutes. Yeah, I think it's fine. But you know, some people like the Nmala novella approach. I just wanted to get some minutes down. Me, not so much. Okay. No more, no proposed amendments to January 15th. I don't hear any. Maybe we should entertain a motion or... I move to approve the January 15th, 2024 amendments as submitted. Minutes. As submitted. Just a mumbo-jumbo going on. You got a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have it. January 15th. The next one, next ones. All right, January 22nd. Let's see, top of page three, when we decided to move the February 5th meeting to February 12th, was that the same time that we decided to move the meeting from the 19th through the 26th? I think so, yeah. I think we're scheduled to have the first and third essential. Right. Move the February 5th meeting to February 12th, comma, and the February 19th meeting to February 26th. Emotion would be good. Between the second and the second. To approve them as amended, I second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. They do have it. That's January 22nd. The next ones are February 12th. On page two, consideration of liquor and tobacco license. End of the paragraph right before the motion, spell tobacco license with only one S. And then give. And Scott, right? Then get rid of past unanimously. Wait, did you upset? No, it's just random, it's in the wrong place, yeah. Get rid of the past unanimously at the end of the paragraph there. It belongs at the end of the motion. Oh, right, right, right, gotcha, gotcha, yeah. And then consideration of CAI technology's tax map, that passed unanimously. Name change, and again, this is, you don't have to write it in, Zoe, because I emailed you the annotated version. Consideration of name change for emergency planning committee that passed unanimously. Bottom of page two. And then top of page three, I suggest striking the first two sentences. I just adapted language from the annotated agenda that I thought was clearer. Where is it? Sure. The first. Update on EMFD meeting schedule, strike the first two sentences, and replace it with the callus select board, requested that the East Montpelier Fire Department, EMFD, meeting schedule with the select boards, I misspelled, but somebody can take care of that. Be the second Thursday in April, August, and December. The previously agreed schedule was the second Thursday in April and August with the December meeting occurring on the first Thursday. Under motion to adjourn. We can joke around about vanilla meetings, but I don't think that belongs in the minutes. I was gonna take it out. I thought Scott was gonna mess with Scott. Yeah, okay. We're in favor of messing with Scott. I assumed that if he was here and read the minutes thoroughly, he would have noticed that. The second was inaudible. Yeah, it was in the Zoom recording I couldn't tell. Oh yeah. Okay. Are you taking this to that, by the way? Yeah. She is. Super, thank you. I'm telling people all the time, because he's typing. So either she's got a lot of other interests, or she's taking minutes. And there could have been more remote attendance I couldn't tell from the file that I had. Yeah, it's good to take notes on that. Right, I wasn't taking that last time. Yeah, yeah. That's okay. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for everyone fishing in the middle of the start-off. Yeah. Very nice. I move to approve the February 12th, 2024 select board minutes as amended. Second. Yeah, we have a second. Any further discussion? All is in favor? Please say. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, they do have it. Okay, I believe we are through the minutes. The next item on our agenda is public comment. Do we have public here? I see people up here on the Zoom, but they're not commenting. So I guess I won't worry about it. Oh. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're already behind. Board work session to prepare for municipal coordinator interview, which we're supposed to be doing right now. Are we going to the executive session? Might as well. Sure. Because we're gonna have to be in it for the interview anyway. And also, we need to talk about the whole thing, so be good to go in the executive session. So we're gonna- I move to go into executive session to discuss a personnel matter with the usual reference to the statute. Second. All is in favor? Please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. And now that we're out of executive session, I would like to make a motion to authorize the town administrator to offer the municipal coordinator position to the agreed upon candidate at the rate of $25 an hour. Second. Any further discussion? All is in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it or do have it? Ready to move to the next item? Next item. Consideration of town garage project owners representative services bid response. And one response, that's what I thought. What are the particulars on that? So has the, here it is. We have one option. Is there something you can tell us about this, Andy? Who interviewed the, oh, they're on the, on right here, right? That's owner's representative. Who's on the, oh, he's not on the zoom call anywhere. So did we interview this person or who did interview him? No. Andy? I sent this to you and Andy. Yeah, that's all it's all. So Andy, what do you think? That would be helpful. What's that? This is Andy. I can tell you a little bit if that would be helpful. Please. Any information would be great. I spoke with the architects and they spoke highly of the company that this guy's worked with said they're very good. I talked with them a little bit about the budget. It seemed a little high. And I think it was because they had a lot of time on site during construction, which might be excessive. It seemed like it was excessive to me. And David Roy, the architect agreed. He said, I don't think he's going to need that much time on site. So I think it'd be worth, I would recommend going with them unless there's some reason you, because we sent it out to four firms and that's the only response we got. We could try beating the bushes some more if you need to get another one. But I would suggest negotiating with these guys and try and get the budget down a bit. And would that be primarily during the construction phase? Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. Yeah, but we've also got the pre-design. You're thinking that 40 hours is going to be fairly accurate? They should be plenty. Plenty. But they're not, we're not holding to that 40 hours or what, it's built by the hour, is it not? They're in there and see. It is. It's built by the hour. Yeah. So they're getting $85. In the end, their scope is going to be how much they're needed to work. Because I do believe we need to get someone on board sooner versus later because there's a lot going on with this project and how they're going to be fielding and being your point person to the construction man. They're going to be, yeah, they're going to be your point person for this project. Yeah, the first thing though is we've got to do the pre-design, schematic design and then it gets presented to the townspeople. Correct. For a bond. So that's number one. And we don't even know if the project's going to get approved by the rest of the town. But of course it's good to have all these costs delineated, but number one, we have to have that on board. You could optimize them for the design, schematic design. I know, but right now, say, hey, this is what, because unless the project is approved by the voters, it's not going to continue anyway and then that scope can be further defined from there. But in the end, I mean, Guthrie and I recently had a meeting with the architect. I mean, this person needs to start attending those meetings, especially since I'm not going to be here. So. And this person understands that there's a line in here saying the above estimate reflects VIS owner's representative services using available information based on the actual needs of service. This may decrease or increase by mutual agreement of VIS at East Montpelier. Just sounds like what we're talking about. Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of flex in the cost. So do we want to beat the bushes some more? Go with this. If we have good signs from the architect that they're trying to work with. Yeah, I think the hourly rate is, I think we've talked about this before. It sounds like it's the going rate. The thing that's going to be flexible, of course, is the amount of hours they put in, but it sounds like they expect that. And if we feel that this is the right person for the job, the right fit, and you would know that, I would say that we move forward because they're already designing it. We already need to get the designers already coming for it. So what do you think, Andy? Yes, I would support that. Yeah. So that's what we'll do. So moving forward means taking this and translating it into a contract? We have to have a contract with them, yeah. But we also think we... So we'd authorize the town administrator to draw from it. Execute the contract in, but two for this people. Authorize you to decide. Okay. The contract. I move to... Or do we think we should look over the contract as a select board again? I can ask them for a draft of their contract. You can send it to them. And then I can send that to you all. The other question I would have is, do you want them to... I mean, I think we need to invite them to a select board meeting because I think the select board has to determine how you want to interact with them. Obviously they need to get connected with WLA. Yeah. And you all have to define what you expect of them as well. So how do you... What is it that you want them to do through this pre-designed schematic design? Because I think they need to help bring you the information from the architect. They do. I mean, I sent Andy and Seth what two versions, two ideas the architects have, but we have to figure out how that starts coming to you. But it's not in a format right now to really just bring to you but I would rather someone that's managing the process be the one to bring that to you. So engaging them as soon as possible in this would be important. So... So there's been no assumption of how frequently they've meet with us, what that looks like, that's why I had to get baked into that. Yeah, so let's go... I think they're pretty much going to come to most meet, any meeting that there's stuff comes up, they're going to have to come to... That's going to be our cost. That's going to get eaten out of this, so. Do we have a sense of how much of these meetings they would attend via Zoom versus in-person? That's a good question. I don't know how that's done in 2024 in this space. Right. Andy, what's your sense of that? I think what Gina said is great, is get them together with the select board I would come to and talk about what, how they would envision that. Because they don't need to travel here every time. But we do establish, I think, a personal relationship up front. Is that Mark on the Zoom? Is that Mark on Zoom? I can't see who that person is in the middle of the Zoom screen. That's Guthrie. That's Guthrie. Is that Guthrie? Okay. Guthrie. I've got to put on my glasses, I guess. Yeah, do you want some? I think they're also, and this will be for the select board, it's also defining how you bring this to voters. And I think this consultants could be a help to you potentially and also creating whatever that is when it's time to start presenting this to the voters. So. I think that's also in the scope of the architects for the pre-design thing that they're going to help prepare materials for that. Yeah, we talked to them about that. Yeah. But he'll be part of that process. So I think that we can go ahead, get the contract, and then establish how our relationship's gonna work, play out. You know, Zoom meetings probably will work fine for him, especially whoever it is, especially if they've got travel ways. I mean, if they're in town... I think I might need them for the kickoff, just establish that and then... Which is always nice. They could come into the first meeting after they get hired. Yeah, I was about to say the next meeting, that the next meeting is next week and that's the town forum, probably not an ideal meeting because you can't set a time. So the meeting after that. Yeah, the meeting after that. They should come in and then we should talk about how our relationship's gonna work. Yeah, all right. So I'll invite them to the March 18th meeting and we'll probably kick, that they'll be the beginning of the meeting. Yeah, that'd be good. Okay. Okay. That sound good, Andy? Yes, that sounds great. Okay, that sounds good to me. Did we pass them off? No. Well, we gotta pass the motion. So the motion is to authorize the town administrator to... Actually, you were gonna ask them for a draft contract and then send it out to us. So you do meet next week. We can review the contract and discuss it then. Yeah, perfect. And then that way, then we can kind of go from there. I'll still go ahead and invite them to the March 18th meeting. So this contract is just business that needs to be done. By consensus, we're asking you to get a draft contract. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Slightly ahead of schedule. Is that a problem with the rest of the cycle? Yeah. ARPA update. Annual reporting preview. So we need to do that. So the gist of all of this is, we are mostly spent with our ARPA. We have $9,600 remaining of the outstanding commitments. Most of it is spent to date. So I'm trying to get us a little over committed because like the phone system, for example, with RB Tech came in under. So I told RB Tech, I met with Rubin on Friday. I'm less concerned about them going over budget, more concerned about them coming under budget because we need to spend our ARPA funds. And if they come in under their commitment, the money would be lost, if not spent. You should be in that position. So it's a good idea to over commit ourselves. So I'm trying. So what I've done is done a little, refiguring myself, like for example, we had bought a locking cabinet for the vault at the recommendation of VLCT because we haven't been hit by it yet, but there's these first amendment audits that happen that people come in and say, I have a public right to view your records, which they do. So VLCT recommended you have a locking cabinet in your vault where you can actually put documents that need to remain confidential, that have private information and whatnot on them. So we did that. I put that to the general fund. I moved it into ARPA because it just got us a little bit over. And then I asked Guthrie what he needed, forgetting that he had already told me way back when that they needed a new pressure washer. So I'm also coming to the select board or Guthrie and I are, and Guthrie can fill you in more on the pressure washer, but to see if you would let us use the remaining $9,600 for Guthrie to, I mean, we need more than that, but to buy a pressure washer. So I mean, I kind of explained the pressure washer, but I'll let Guthrie speak to it. We'd also thrown out the idea at one point of using some of this money to invest in some of those fixed speed signs, have a speed limit and then the radar and it reads your speed as something that would be something that would be a firm, visible investment that we would perhaps otherwise wouldn't make. And we know that people in the village like to see lower speeds. Lower speeds. My speakers are muted. Oh, okay. It's coming from that direction, but it's maybe. It's coming where you think these little speakers. Yes, okay. Okay. Can you guys still hear us out there in Zoomland? I don't think I have a chance to speak when it's convenient. I can't quite tell if somebody else is speaking right now. Deb, can you hear us right now? Yes, I can hear you. Okay. So we had a little glitch there, but I think it's okay for her to speak. Yeah. Is that okay? Should we just speak right now? Well, I don't really know, but you can try. Depends what you say. Okay, you can hear me. Okay. I just want to remind you that the listeners were the first speakers at the September 11th hearing at which you guys were soliciting ideas for spending ARPA money. And we pointed out that there were three already existing categories that we had requests for. One was furniture. We requested a file cabinet, a fireproof file cabinet. It had been requested in December, 2022, thinking it would be put on maybe the 2024 select work budget, but then we brought back this request in September last year, saying we just realized that it could fall under furniture under ARPA, and so you can get it with ARPA money. And we haven't heard anything back about that. Is that still on the table or what's happening with that? So I can speak to that. Those cabinets are extremely expensive. I did reach out to the furniture company that got our furniture here. He wasn't even sure that he would commit to getting it into our building because of the weight of those. I also don't think it's prudent to put that type of weight on this floor. And that's the way it was. I'm sorry. I looked it up online and it was like $1,200. So I'm not sure what you're thinking about, but I'm just looking at something. I'm talking about weight. We already have three of them. I'm just wondering about the three that you have and the weight on this floor for anybody that's been in the basement. So. Okay. Okay. So what's the next? You had some other three things you said. Yes, we talked about a laptop. There are laptops for, I think, every other employee at the place there. And we could use one not only to work from home, but also in the field when we make site inspections because we could access our files and also to be able to work from home. But we sometimes have three listeners in the office. So having that laptop would allow all three of us to be online at the same time, but we've also got these two other uses for it. In the field, we've been going out every Saturday and spending four hours doing inspections and putting it on paper and then having to come back and translate the paper into the file. And there are times when I'm kind of working from home and I can access the list or email, but I can't get into a file to do the research that I have to do to respond to an email, you know, that kind of thing. Okay. And then the third thing was the digitization of the surveys that we had been told that Denise was gonna come back and she was gonna scan them in on the scanner that we had in-house. The select board approved a quote to have higher avenue to do that at a previous select board meeting. That issue's already been resolved. On the surveys? Yeah. Okay. Okay, then just let us know when, which surveys are going out of house because they're gonna have to go out of house, I assume, right? Yes, I will. There's some that we need to scan in for our updating of the tax maps. And so if we have to, we'll deal with it the old way, but we just don't wanna need them and then find out that they're gone for a month or something. Do you know how long they would be out of the building? They're not gone very long. I don't know specifics. Rosie will be managing that process when it comes to communicating with everyone in the office accordingly. Yeah. If there are. Yeah, we're interested in the most recent one, but obviously not the old ones. I don't know if we're gonna start with the old ones or start with the new ones, but whatever. So the laptop and the fire profile cabinet, again, it seems to me that 90% of the weight of that file cabinet is all the damn paper that's in it. It's full to the hilt of paper, which is pretty heavy. And we've got three of them already and I'm not sure is it really that much more weight to have the fireproofing in the walls of the file cabinet? I don't know, Guthrie. Tell us how easy was it to get you to get that very small lateral cabinet out that was a fireproof cabinet? I think it weighed 900 pounds in and of itself. It was brutal. Wow. It was not fun to move at all. All right, well, okay, at some point, if we can't get a fireproof cabinet, we may need just a new file cabinet. So regular old, you know, normal file cabinet because the one we've got is kind of dicey. We have a hard time locking it. We have to fiddle around with all these little things inside and just get a little lineup just right. And a couple of times we came in in the morning and opened up a drawer and realized, well, we may have locked the file cabinet, but that drawer was a lot. You know, so it'd be nice to at least upgrade that to a regular file cabinet, which wouldn't be that expensive, I guess. Okay. Yeah, and then the laptop is a serious request. So I don't know what's happening with that. Has anybody even looked into that? I don't know what a laptop costs, but it can't be that much. Well, we've discussed that back and forth and I can't remember the downsides, but there were some, but we can discuss it again. I don't know. It seems that everybody else in the office has got a laptop and nobody ever asked us if we needed one and we could definitely use one. Okay. We'll take that under consideration. So we're going to move on with the other thoughts on the ARPA money. We have yours. Thank you. So with the pressure washer. Yeah. The current pressure washer is old, basically nearing the end of its life or about to require significant investment to keep it going. So that's why we're going to have to get one anyway. So we have ARPA funds. Right. Seems like a good use of those. Is this hot water? Yes, it's, and not only we run hot water through it, but it creates hot water as well. Right, yeah, yeah. It's a former dollar and pressure washer. And you have one now that you're using? Yeah, it's got 2,053 hours on it as of the other day. And at 2,500, the recommendation is a complete overhaul or replacement of the engine. And we replaced the water pump, the high pressure pump at 1,200 hours. So in theory, if we had another 1,200 on that one, 2,400, we would be looking at another water pump and an engine replacement. At that point, I don't know why we would keep it. What's it got a hot engine on it also? This one has a Briggs, the one that we... Yeah. Yeah. If we serve it once a year, and it's got a remote filter and all that for the oil. It's actually set up really nice, just in the replacement that we looked at, the few that we looked at, one of them is an exact replacement. It's the exact same model. Are you going to sell the old one off or what? I think we should if it's something you want to move forward. Yeah, I'd be interested in making a bid on it for the farm. Because hot water works a lot better than that old water. That's what they keep telling me. But we just, we wash a ton of equipment, and we go for pressure wash like crazy. If you want to take a bid on it. But anyway. I'm also trying to get this buttoned up before the March 31st reporting for KERVA. Yeah, I'm good. I mean, technically there's some money in here that's not that is in the capital budget, or a capital, what do you call it, fund. The capital plan. All right, capital plan, that's, we can pull back out for the garage. Oh yeah, we have, remember, we have, yeah, we have freed up funds in the capital reserve. Exactly, capital reserve, that was the one that she was looking for. So there's, you know. One flaw in the capital plan is this pressure washer culvert thaw is not even in there. So technically the town holds no budget for this replacement anywhere. It's not in our operating budget or our capital plan. So utilizing ARPA funds for it would be a nice, it falls in line with the server and the phone system and some of the other things we've done that likewise are not in the capital plan. Yeah, this makes sense. What's agreed in this? Those are the items that are not yet complete. Everything else is done. Okay. Would it be worthwhile? We've talked about some of the commitments that we made for the ARPA funds. Those are special things that we never would have done without the ARPA funds. Other things are, we've used the term shell game, the understanding that's important to get the ARPA funds committed to projects that they are eligible for, even if they would normally have been part of the capital or the operating funds of the town. And that we could always, as you say, just take them back out of there if we wanted to free up some money for some other special projects with this. Could we just quickly go down this list and tick off which ones were the ones that fell outside of our normal budgetary process, like broadband enhancement, $100,000 to the fiber, is obviously one of those. Does that make sense to use our time together now to do that, to get an overview? Well, I mean, there's only really two big items in there. There's only two items that would have gone to the capital reserve. Exactly. And that is the MAC truck and the purchase of the fire engine chassis. Yeah, those are the... Server replacement is not in the capital plan, which was never thought of. There's nothing else on this list. That was already pre-planned for by the town. I'm just thinking of replacing the town office phone system, for example. Was not in the capital plan. We may not have budgeted for it, but it is just a foreseeable expense. If you're not planning for it in your capital plan, you're not really considering it a foreseeable expense. I don't really agree with that. It wasn't in any way, it was an unbudgeted item in all aspects. It may not have been foreseen, but it was foreseeable. Whereas some of these other things like the donations to the nonprofits, those were just things that we did because we wanted to use the money for that sort of thing. As a town, we do not have to do that sort of thing. No. And the mold remediation. Right. The oil tank needed to be replaced. Building needed to be repaired. Yeah. So what are you looking for? I'm just trying to get a sense of how much of this, and maybe I'm framing it the wrong way, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how much of this is stuff that we've already done just because we had the ARPA funds and we thought it'd be a good expenditure of the money and how much is part of our normal process that we put into the ARPA rubric as part of a shell game that we could use later. There's only those two things that we can pull. That fire truck, of course, we'd already approved it. Yeah. And the money's there, but we designated as ARPA money to take care of the deadline, but we could pull that money back out. The same with the Mack truck. But the rest of the money has been spent on some items that we deed worthy of, our ARPA money. Like the broadband, that's something we wouldn't normally give. Exactly. And the same for the Twin Valley and the trails and the altogether now in the Historical Society. Those aren't things we would normally do, but we had the money. And the Town Garage RFP development, we would normally do, but we didn't have budgeted for that. Right. And some of the things that we did, like the salaries and wages, that normally would have to be taken out of our tax pay, our tax payers. So to lighten the tax load on them and to keep the increase in our tax rate minimal, that's what we did. Sure. And you can say that for anything. Oh yeah. Well, yeah, that's true. I mean, some of the stuff we could get by without. You know, the town office furniture, that was a nice thing to do. We had the money. We have a lot of new staff. They have some expectations that when they come into this environment that things are gonna be functionally and nice. And comfortable. Good working environment. Exactly. So, you know, there's that's like these four corners schoolhouse mold remediation. We wouldn't normally have $30,000 to give to that project, but it seemed like a worthy project. They're working hard. They got matching pods, blah, blah, blah. So I think that's pretty clear. Are you thinking that it needs further explanation? Are you thinking about? No, I'm so excited. Okay. Or are you thinking about a town meeting? You know, can we defend our purchases, et cetera? And I mean, that's a worthy thought. Yeah. And I appreciate that. But I feel pretty comfortable with that how we've allocated the funds. I'm just trying to think about how much flexibility we have in looking at new bonus projects, if it were as you might say, for using our performance. Well, we have some money in there that we could use. You know, we have those two items that we took in and out. Total of 216. Exactly. Exactly. So that's pretty much it. So anyway, moving forward with the request for the pressure washer, what does everybody think? I'm not really hearing any objections. I think it's... It seems to make sense. Yeah, it makes sense. And then put the other one out for a bit. The old one. Okay. So where are we? Total remaining to spend. That's because those projects aren't quite finished up. Yeah. Okay. So are we good? And just to update you on the IT projects, I met with Ruben with RV Tech on Friday and we will be, he is going to ensure the server is replaced before April 30th. Okay. Good. Yeah. Okay. So we're authorizing the purchase of the pressure washer culvert thar and the trailer. That's what it looks like. Out of our funding. Yeah. Yep. 10,500 up to that total. Yeah. Okay. I think we need a motion for that. So moved. Kyle made the motion. Is that enough for you Zoe? Do you want to spell it out? More please. Okay. I moved to authorize the town purchase of a pressure washer slash culvert thar and trailer thar too for a cost of up to $10,345. If I'm doing my math correctly. Out of the remaining. Out of the ARPA funds. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have this. Two. Okay. We just pull that out of. Kevin. So the next thing on our agenda is consideration of annual highway financial plan and that. You have a draft version in your packet but Seth you actually have. Oh, you're raising? I took away the red at the top where I said it was a draft because I did get a quote back from Pike Industries and assuming approximately $400,000 for Town Hill Road, repaving is fair. So we can go ahead and if you're comfortable with this document, move forward with signing if the select board is with signing it tonight. So that has to be in the family. Find yourself something. Oh, you put it in the mails? Okay. They asked you to ask me. It was technically in there last year. We just didn't move forward because we didn't get a grant but we're going to try to get a grant again. Yes. And hopefully we'll repave Town Hill this year. Right, exactly. So what's. Are we signed here? Here it is. Obviously I've been around for a dozen of these or so, but how's this going to be used? By whom? It's a part of our requirement to be trans every year. We have to fill this completely document. Period. It's a requirement. Because they said so. Exactly. So I think we need a motion. You really don't because you all signed it? Okay. So as long as you all did the signing. Oh, do we agree with signing it? Are we all good with signing? Sure. Okay. And we have to certify that the funds raised by municipal taxes are equivalent to or greater than the sum of at least $300 per mile of the routes. That's the same. I think we can do that. We've had it every time. Exactly. The number never changes. Okay. I signed that. And meanwhile, I'm going to go to the next item. Consideration of annual. Is that? It's me. It's Andy. So I didn't see anything else from me there on the agenda unless you got anything. I think we're good, Andy. All right. Thank you all. Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate it. We appreciate it. Consideration of annual certification of compliance for town, road and bridge standards and network inventory. Another form you signed. Yeah. Right here. Rubber stamp. Yep. We all signed that. Then the next item is consideration of grant application for town, road, paving project. So it kind of looked exactly like last year's except shortly before this meeting, I got an updated quote from Pike Industries that I will insert into this PDF to send to the state. But I just want to apply for paving for town, road and hope that we get awarded funds this year. Yeah. We didn't get any grant last year, right? No, we were denied last year. Yeah. Well, we've been successful in getting paving grants. Well, we... But they're not going to give them to us this year. When they showed me last year the way we're ranked, we're actually ranked fairly high for earning funds. So I'm hoping since we didn't get it last year, we've been a little bit higher this year. I think so. We get the funds this year. Yeah, I bet we get it this year. We don't get it the next year. When was the last time this was repaved? That was shortly after you and I joined. Well, we got on a slack board. It was right, and that's been at least 12 years maybe. Yeah, 2010 you joined, 2011? Around there, yeah. Yeah, and I remember I brought it up right away. I think we got $400,000 or something for paving. Let's start with the paving. And we did. And that was the first one we did. So that's been over 10 years. And the projection was for shim and overlay, I think it was seven. Yeah, so we've done well. And roads held up well. And I think it's just shim and overlay. Is that just shim and overlay again, Guthrie? No, it would actually be milling off a tiny bit. And then all the other ones. But it's got mill it to get the ruts out of it? Yep, mill it to get the ruts out, crack seal it, and then, but the crack sealing isn't in the actual quote, so. Okay. And then put it in the form of like, get that figured out in the last week, so. Okay. Okay. On the grant, what do we need to do for the grant application? I don't think you really, I'll apply, and then if we get the grant, they'll send me back and remit, and I would bring that to you to authorize me to sign it. Yeah. So really, this is more just, yeah. I can sense that we're authorizing you to submit the grant application. Yeah, this is making sure you're, for some reason, wouldn't want me to submit for funds for Town Hill. Okay. I think we'd get in trouble if we stopped you. That sounds good to me. Yeah. Okay, so the next thing here is the Town Treasure Report. Monthly Financial Reporting Package, Lincoln-Taskplex Report. Oh, so we just have it, right? We have to look over it. Yeah, I think you, she wrote, you have something that looks like this in your package. Oh. That is the report from this truck. Probably like, the area somewhere. One important piece was Michelle rolled over funds of the CD at North Country Federal Credit Union. That was at a rate of 1.7% and is now at a rate of 5.2%. Wow, that was a good move. Yeah. It's a good credit union. Do you have any opinions on that? I do, actually. Interest rates are obviously up. So no tax sales, which is a good thing in a way. Yeah. A delinquent tax amount is tiny. It's the smallest I've ever seen since I've been on a cycle. Yeah. By far, by far. It's always been six figures. Good deal. Did anything jump up at you in the accounts report now? It's amazing, always the same people. Okay, anybody have any questions? Nada. Oh, consideration of Canon Copier Contract Renewal. So this is the main copier for the office. And essentially, it's just getting a new machine, but the price is technically a little bit less. It's essentially the same at 163 for a month, except the same costs for black and white images. But color copies, actually, the cost goes down. With the new machine. Sounds good. I'm good with it. It's either that or a price goes up to keep this machine, to go on a five month contract, so. So it makes sense to just get a new one. Does. Yeah. And the price includes all the copies that we want to make up to a certain amount. Yeah, yeah. And then it includes toner, so it's, yeah, service. Maintenance, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that amount, is that anywhere near what we use? What? The maximum amount of copies included. Oh, we always have extra costs for copies. We use, yeah. I use a lot. We actually use more paper now than the office has in the past. Really? Huh. And are those for? People like different quantities of paper. Are those for internal use, or are they for things that we can get reimbursed for? There are certain records that we get reimbursed for property records. Well, if there's someone doing land records and making copies, yeah, for that, of course. Is it a small fraction? Yeah, it is. It's a very small fraction. With online land records, not that much. So you need a motion? Yes, please. Okay. I move to authorize the town administrator to renew the contract with Canon copiers. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it. They do have it. The next thing are the warrants, which one is here. What's that corporate billing for that truck? What does that mean? That's allegiance. It's, if you look at the A, allegiance, that bill, that's who that is. Did something for $570, what time period is that for? The bill is in there. I don't know that. Okay. Have you, are they in communication with you regularly? No. Okay. You just do their stuff presumably. Yeah. Send us a bill now. Yeah. Okay. Bill monthly. Not much here actually. Thank you. Town administrator reports. Just to update you, there were two RFPs issued since the last meeting. Issued an RFP for the Ashtree removal project. Posted to the website. Unlike prior years, I did put this in the Times Argus. I followed the purchasing policy fully this year. So it was in the Times Argus. It's on the Vermont business registry. Same thing for the local hazard mitigation planning services RFP. You all knew I was working on that. That was issued as well. Have already gotten a few responses that people will be responding, which I think is good, including regional planning. So stay tuned for that. I gave people till March 14th for that. Permit application. A 16, other than the curb cut thing, that's not accurate. But a 16 by 16 shed. Is it a bicycle shed? No, I don't think it's a bicycle shed this time. Okay. And the time is incorrect for town meeting. I copied 6.30 p.m. for, obviously it's at 9.30 a.m. March 5th. Yeah. Which I think everyone knows, but just to be clear. Yeah. So the zoning ministry hasn't been too busy, I guess, for a minute or two. She has been busy, but with other things than permits. There have been a lot of questions with boundary line adjustments, subdivisions. She has been speaking with a lot of attorneys, including our town attorney on certain subjects. So now she has been busy. So that's good. Yeah. Good. I wonder because I see that she's got the 24 hours in a week, and I wasn't quite sure how that time was being spent. Yeah. Fair question, I thought. Okay. Good. What else do you have? That's it. We have no other business, so the thing that we'd be headed into would be the personnel that. Sure. Yeah. Enter executive session to discuss the personnel matter. And since this is it, well, we're doing that all the minutes, so we can't tell the minute taker to go home. No. The recording stopped. That's what we've done in the past. And we are going to come out of the executive session to adjourn the meeting. Exactly. So we can't send back a home. No. Unfortunately. Exactly. No, we need to have a second and take a vote. Yeah. In the executive second. Yeah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, we're out of the executive session at nine o'clock. And. Do you want someone else to say it? We are authorizing the town administrator to post the town administrator position. Thank you. Nice job. Thank you. We are regretfully authorizing the town administrator to post the TA position. Yeah, you're true. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Guys have it.