 It's 622 and I'm going to call the July 9th 2019 governing board meeting of CB Fiber to order Any additions to or changes Still want to move the business community report back To before the Treasurer's report you still want to do that earlier Okay, let's do that So I'll put that after the survey results if we have anything to report from that Okay public comment Hearing none, let's start with the business development committee report back This is development committee met on January 1st, June 25th, and attendance Agenda covered a lot of things about discussion items. We discussed integration and feasibility studies and we had a long discussion about the WEC Study and our study and we came out of that discussion with the recommendation for the board that to explore having two members from this board try to work with WEC's Committee on their feasibility study so that kind of recommendation Two-way street we need to have them participate in our study as well to sort of minimizing whole application and give a good bang around our case So we had a discussion on that and We also had a discussion and this is something that the policy committee will probably have to deal with there are a number of talented people on this board who Could offer consulting services to any contractor that was hired And so a policy on whether anybody on the board can be paid as a sub-consultant to a consultant to recommend that there being something to go upon that Maybe else in the Meaning wasn't addressed that, but I came up as a potential Issue we have some pretty talented people in the room with that topic We Spend a much time talking about elements we didn't get very far on Developing the scope work for feasibility study, but we've started We'll have more on that the next meeting The callus pilot survey was put out on June 18th on front porch forum and In checking in yesterday. There are 21 people who responded through yesterday Which is certainly not a large take So it's in today's repeat in tonight's front porch forum and callus to see what we get But quite a bit of support But I think it's people are filling it out that You know, I'm interested so getting us a real survey done is going to take some leg work and looking for some volunteers each time to Do work on that and Reached up to from porch for today to see if we could be Somebody mentioned this before I tried to create my I try to create myself as chairs a government physician that covered all 17 towns So I can do CBF ever broadcasts to all the towns. I think anybody on the board can do that I mean they asked me if I want to send it to everybody Okay, thank you. Anyway, I mean don't I send it on a call us Because that discussion on website content priorities Jared is still waiting to compete Minutes and agendas and whatever other materials want to put in there You would also like input on people want to look at the devil did all coincide And I'll send out the link to that all in sight to everybody It turns me that either organization of suggestions for how it Organized to do all that, but he wants somebody to do that And he doesn't want to you know turn off the other side until somebody has said oh, yeah, that looks good So if that could happen in the next three weeks, it'd be great Participants also note the address We discussed the Department of Public Services RFP for a feasibility study of electric companies offering broadband service and We've we've recommended somebody from the board or the committee stay on top of this stuff The proposals would have do one July first. So we don't have they're in the process of reviewing them I'm not but it was the out of the legislation that passed that the department was supposed to do its own study about feasibility of electric utilities getting into private So that's our recommendation Was there a suggestion about who that person would be He's working with the department It might be good to have that the person that is doing that also be the one who might be working back And he's also the one in the committee that's been scoping the scope of work and integration And he's pretty high on all this If you're somebody's we ended up in a pro and con discussion on Fiber and electric space And it's interesting pros and cons on that And you know, I'm not an expert on this. We have two people in the committee that seemed to know a lot about it but It's not a simple decision. That's what I came away from the meeting You know that the fire goes in like space or you do some combination. That's one of the things that come out of the discussion under its So you're saying go Oh When we have our discussion So the last meeting in terms of elements of the feasibility study and I wouldn't like everybody they've got their own ideas There was a discussion of the group that we want the feasibility to look at And understand rate schedules and options. This is part of the feasibility study So, you know one rate multiple rates. What's the experience from a consultant's perspective around the country of how that's worked? We think we need help on that Looking at demand aggregation software to find out where Who should be getting the services first? I think that was another topic that came up There's two different softwares out there that allows you to look at that One of the ideas is having neighborhoods fight with each other Over getting servers and the last discussion was trying to find some way of pushing Program for cable fiber optic stuff in the Vermont tech school system on the state That was the end of our lengthy discussion on that night We're meeting again. We're trying to meet two weeks before this meeting and so in terms of The motion of trying to get two people Signed to work Like to make a motion that we do that and I don't have names or recommendation other than Ken, but Well, maybe we put that out there that have been here at the moment. Does anybody want to be a liaison with uh, Washington Electric co-op? I have to say they're uh, so Michael so Michael and Michael Ken And Ken does Ken has previously said that he'd be willing to do this. I want to volunteer and You know doesn't want to really volunteer Is there anybody else who's interested in doing that Okay, so I move let me uh point Ken Jones and my verb problem to be uh, cb fibers liaisons with uh, Washington Electric co-op as they develop their feasibility study Okay Any further discussion And we're and we will request that they appoint two people to be with us. Yeah, okay. Maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll do the second motion Was there another organization that they would also be, uh Leasing with Or was it on the okay, we don't know of any. Yeah I'm sure they can tell us When they start moving forward I was confused about some of your Yeah, I think that's a little sucker. We don't ever really roll in that study Okay Any sense of what's the role like being When you leave like how's that? What's the mechanics? So the the the thing that came out of the discussion was that when the RFPs put together that there's some synergy between If there's duplication, we go to a survey or compile a survey in another way to make it efficient I think they have their own agenda. We have our agenda that their survey is probably shared That's probably the main thing and try to save money or Like be efficient All those in favor Opposed Obscaining Okay, motion passes. Thank you very much. And so we should also probably request that they formally establish a liaison with us Or for the purposes of by just my own Oh, oh the way liaison with us, um Well, we would like there to be a Liaison committee comprised of four people to from them and to from us So that we're aware of each other's activities so that we can encourage this direction. They can encourage that direction Okay, um The moment that we constitute a committee that we start triggering all sorts of Open meetings public records requirements So the liaison is not a committee. It's not a committee. So we don't need to I like that. Okay. So we can have them working with what that seems reasonable. Okay, but in terms of but honestly about It's a good one on more more ad hoc basis. So we can imagine that they the four of them would be meeting and that makes sense I mean, but in the past it's been Very steep Yeah, I mean, is there somebody else that that would be Okay, so I will move that we Request the Washington Electric co-op the point two people to Liaison to us Okay, second any from the discussion Very none. All those in favor Opposed Staining motion passes Anything else David, that's it. That's all right. All right, sorry Thanks, David. Have a good night Okay, uh, any thoughts of business development committee other business development committee folks Do you want to talk about any of the things you've raised or wait for general discussions? Um Does anybody want to weigh in on the board members being paid as a subcontractor to our contractors? I think that's that's for Other people besides that should talk about that Well, I if you go back to the enabling statute This this is contemplating this type of activity where board members are going to have conflicts of interest There's a very liberal liberal rule As far as the board being able to make decisions With a room full of people that have conflicts of interest in other words the short version being if this whole room were filled You know, we have a core goal of meaning If the motion gets put out to vote and aid if you guys have a conflict of interest, that's no problem We can still have a vote And it's just that if you have if you're engaged and you're have the conflict of interest you wouldn't be able to participate in the vote so I Is it necessarily good? I don't know if it's good or bad, but I think the law anticipates that sort of It seemed like they uniquely anticipated it and setting up these uh communications union districts because I haven't seen Things like that Straw hole how many of you think that that sort of structure Where one of our board members is a subcontractor to a contractor that we are paying you think that that is a conflict of interest Okay, and some of you have to but we could we could recognize we're being accepted Sure, but but we would just need to then react appropriately and make sure that those people who are You know who do have conflicts, you know We identified this you know early on last year with you Michael because you have another company doing something Rather similar so whenever there's going to be a conflict you reduce yourself and we get on their Okay, yeah, and I think the feeling was that collectively in the board There's a lot of knowledge and a consultant comes from elsewhere. They're gonna be asking us like well You know the fancy writing in the compiling we we're doing all work here. So, you know would be Overall less expensive as well I believe could be negotiated were Consolidates gathered information, but isn't Researching all is pulling together the alternates Yes, that's that's true. And then in fact unpaid in kind work is Was expected and written into the usda grant proposal as well. So but in terms of somebody getting paid I think that's that's what changes this a little bit right Yes, so transparency is the important bit here and recusal by the board member The obligation to disclose Could really rest with two people one is the board member Who may or may not Disclose for the other one to be the contractor if we're going to do a deal with a contractor We want that contractor to disclose their subcontractors, especially if there are any subcontractors that they intend to That's a good point So for just Does it raise undue influence that I mean Certain times they're disadvantaged versus other times because You can then steer direction of what happens In the process other people have less information and less knowledge of that That would be a concern. I think it could raise undue influence in a lot of issues Right just which tends to get fixed right so there would have to Maybe there needs to be a little oversight in that kind of situation Either so number two loss of expertise or reliance and you know, I view the board is more about We're we're motivating administrative force To make this happen and to bring together towns If we're relying on board members who also have Expertise and they're more of a board member to lose the expertise Not that you know just throwing that out there And then just the general appearance of it. I it doesn't make a good headline Yeah, so those just I'm just throwing those out there those came to mind Yeah, so I mean managing conflicts of interest is not an unusual thing Especially in Vermont. It's a small place and everybody has a day job. So these things will happen It's not like we would lose a board member forever We would just lose them in the consideration of those things that where there could be perceived conflicts So I'm not I'm not sure that I'm not sure that that would we really run into that problem too much and frankly Um, you know, we're all trusting each other to be above board and you know, it's only a handful of exceptions that have mostly been resolved Everybody has been so I think you know because we respect our communities and the responsibility that they place on our shoulders I think everybody continuing to be above above board is going to be uh It's going to allow us to move forward and hopefully not trip over our own shoelaces about this Did you have something wrong? Well, actually you said it I just want to I'll just tag on one last thing There's enough people on the board so that if one or two people have to recuse themselves because of a conflict There's a lot of other expertise. It's it's one of the geniuses of a committee system. It can be a little Belty at times, but it allows for you know enough input from enough different sources And I I would think with the board this side. We're not going to run into any serious troubles At the risk of violating his privacy I think it's useful to explain that Greg was the person who was thinking of offering Consulting services wasn't me And Greg is in a position where he's he's he's he's growing vegetables his conflict is Not the same kind as would exist if I was doing it because he's just drawing on his expertise and saying I can help the consultant get there faster and that seems pretty attractive to me So so that you understand that Yeah, and getting there faster is something I think we're all interested in but you know Lucas is there waiting in the wings on those things where you might be voting on a contract that includes you and that makes Yeah, I don't fundamentally have a problem with that. I think I'm also It's a largely dependent on what the The feasibility study entails and what has been looked for by the consultant. So as but in terms of local knowledge You know collectively, you know, we had that the consultants can be saying well, tell me about this or that or you know resource words if it's This is the best way to write the proposal for A usda grant or loan and they have expertise in that that's the value But the details that need to come from local Yes, as an example, they say well, we need to have Surveys don See the interest well We're the ones that are going to be doing that work not advice a consultant to do it to say You know, I'll call all my friends and neighbors and get them to go online to complete the survey and then the consultant gets paid for it so Largely to me depends on what We're asking I do think that it needs to be completely both for it. So I think that everybody has to be aware I mean if you're even approached by A contractor to be a subcontractor even if you don't Accept that that you should know that we should know as a board and all the members should know so that it's all You know, basically they say common knowledge Who who's working or who isn't working etc with their contractor? But you really don't have a choice like you say we We're all invested. That's why we're here You can put a key personnel The board would know You know, instead of just necessarily getting a laundry list of their employees and all the freelancers that they work with and everybody else Who you put in the contract a key personnel clause that the board would have to sign off on Who's working on that particular contract? And that would make it I think for me, it's just I don't want surprises. Just just tell me just tell me what's going on and You can work with whatever but I just I don't I didn't like the surprises we had last year So it sounds like when we get to the point where we're putting together Contracts and and such that we can you know request that that the contractors are also not going to provide us with any surprises I don't know that needs to be a specific policy This is just something that we're going to need to put in the contract We obviously need to make sure that it appears in the contract Because it's it's policy under statute like yeah, like like rama said and I think I'm not sure that we need to to reset that necessarily. I mean that that's my own opinion anybody wants to Sounds good anything else on uh business development committee treasures report We have 10 more dollars than we have on Every month, right? Yes, every month And uh bank fees interest anything different other than that? No And uh, however we do so Andrew The last email that I saw I think we were like they were confused about which screen you were talking about That was just so yeah just for everybody Time to cover has an investment fund on the CCIF That was related to a usda grant I And it's it's actually a there's a separate board that the ministry Comes from the town, but it's not general obligation. The concern was that it was general obligation But it's not and I confuse CCA which is the So but it is a CCIF grant Okay, so I The weird part is you do end up submitting So I can just submit an invoice for Some services related to the whatever night. Do you have a copy of the application? I sent it, but I can send it to you again Just to make sure it's consistent And this is and this is a grant that works with five new persons, right? So we pay money in the night Okay Yes, send it back you guys want to resolve that did did we manage to get the money out of the fundraising website? No, I'm still working on that Questions for Becca All right Hopefully And child schwa to get CD5 or approved as a place that people can Give donor advised funds So For I mean it's it's basically an investment that you have where You You know making dividends and all that kind of stuff isn't it it's a regular like mutual fund or brokerage account Yeah, what it is is it's a way for an individual to put aside money You actually give to a Aging in this case the church And from those funds, which are usually invested in a range of different mutual funds you can choose From those funds you can direct charitable gifts to charitable organizations It's become discussionally important because of the changes to the tax law and the deductions that came about in the tax During the job Because it's a way of aggregating donations, so you can still at some point Get a big deduction for the charitable gifts The problem that Becca and I have encountered is CDI is not the unusual final one Organization that has an IRS letter and all this other stuff that makes us You know, like the red cross Like So we've had to prove to Schwab that We are indeed eligible to receive charitable gifts and it's important to do this because I To mention a lot of people are starting to use these funds. You can give as much as $50. You don't have to have Tons and tons of money, but a lot of people are using these a lot of companies are said That Schwab has one They have one It's another way for them to get more money obviously The donor can direct where it goes. Yes, the owner can get the deduction and say it's more cv5 Yeah Well, it's great because whatever you whatever you donate to the fund you can donate an appreciated stock or mutual fund And you don't pay capital gains as well as able to charge So it it's it's a really good way It's a good thing when we try to raise money from people to mention that have happened to have one of these things They're usually called charitable funds charitable gift funds donor advised funds I think Schwab is something called Schwab charitable It's also it can become very confusing because you will receive a grant from an individual and you have no idea Went that the money arrived because it's from Charles Schwab Schwab or some other entity you have to Connect the dots oftentimes there won't be any sort of award letter or anything. It's also a way for wealthy individuals to Obscure their Investments But it's interesting because in the Schwab application when you apply to make a grant You are asked if you want your name and address to appear So someone makes a choice to not to not happen here You know the amount of community foundation does the same thing So you can have money in the community foundation that's invested And you know grows or doesn't grow But you can give money without saying who you're who is coming from it just comes from From our community foundation So that's still Yes, I submitted all the papers that they want And are are we going to uh solicit from our community foundation? You have to evaluate I mean the fees or what have you to pick one Well, you you don't I think solicit the community foundation I guess you could and then they might direct the The interest to people who might be interested in things like building out broadband And usually people identify the number of interest they have who they're giving And if they have a lot of money they give on the early basis You usually Perhaps you come in if you're a charity and you pitch to them It's the life you should get right Usually with the vermont community foundation they ask people that are Sort of members of the foundation that aggregate so you can give 500 But it ends up being 50 thousand dollars because so many people have sent 500 dollars so you can ask the vermont community foundation They have a special format And so every few months they send out to people that are members of the foundation Hey, we're we're collecting money for this school or we're collecting money for this thing and the other thing There is a process that be something worthwhile for us to proceed into and it sounds that way Who's gonna who's gonna do that? It's all vermont and all community. I think before we try and do something else We got to make sure that you can do it with schwa, right? This has been a difficult process because we don't have the usual paperwork if I don't want some free time But they have told me when I talked to schwa that yeah, that should work They just want I mean to their credit they're doing due diligence. We make sure that we are going to save It's anticipated that we're going to receive money from wealthy individuals because you may have noticed to do taxes this year Your charitable donations literally have no impact on your federal taxes No, regardless it may have little impact on your vermont taxes, but I know you've done your federal taxes So that just kind of kind of gone away Wealthy people are doing this It's not just wealthy people doing this. Well if they're doing for a tax deduction They're not going to get it. Yeah, they will get it because what you do is every five years you put in I don't know $50,000. Let's say you give $10,000 a year away to charity, which I you know I don't think is unusual All of you were doing it this year, okay Well, it's you get you get the tax deduction that year for the 50,000 And then you also the money is growing tax-free in the account As well, and you're not paying taxes on that I mean, it's it's kind of three different angles directly If Charles Schwab was involved with it, there must be money somewhere. So that's actually true. They figured it out I do have a business relationship with vermont community foundation So I'm willing to talk with them when you say it's the appropriate time Yeah, if you want to just just connect to make sure that Yeah, hopefully this will get cleared up in the next month, you know So it's always two weeks from now It's similar too, you know the financial people are sort of in the Hampton Okay, thanks Becca. All right. So the next one is um A formal discussion of the number of talents that we ought to have in the district. We're at 17 We've talked about this and sort of nibbled around the edges And never really come to a consensus Not that we need to but I thought I would put this on the agenda and make sure that we have a chance to actually say What we think about to happen Bring up to speed I had previously approached more town And they had said initially no They wouldn't put it on the they were going to put it on the town meeting agenda thumbing ballot There was some I heard from some folks in washington. I've not Followed up with them. I reached back out to folks in waterbury. I've not heard back from them And then there was some suggestion from duck spray. I've not followed up with them I reached back out to somebody who I know in more town, and I had no idea that they worked for was it Wadesfield champion valley telecom. I didn't realize that they were systems analysts there. It was like Wow, this is actually fortuitous. I just wanted you to talk to more town select board I'm gonna try I'm trying to set up a meeting with them to see if They would support Us going to the select board again and asking the select board to join. I think With the expectation that they're building fiber to all the rest of their customers this year So customers that they have that are not currently Connected with fiber that are connected with something else. They will have fiber the premises at the end of the year But she explicitly said in the email that there was not going to be 100 coverage in more town by Wcbt Which gives us the opportunity then to make sure that we can cover those those places that are fairly far out there And we can act as a bridge if we do end up going to ducksbury waterbury You know stowe l mark if we we go that route So that's my Lay of the land in terms of the number of towns. So just wondering if anybody else had any any thoughts about it I think more jobs. We have more political support. We have More political support. We have greater likely to go. We're going to get funding and other kinds of support and Go for it worry about us getting to great For a variety of reasons one of them being that The bigger we are the more towns get disappointed about being later The northeast kingdom is grappling with the same issue We discussed it at the summit Which you're going to report on but There's 55 towns in the northeast kingdom. There's probably 50 towns in central montaew And so they're exploring the idea of having multiple cuds to cover the kingdom and they have I sent them out with some possible groupings. I think the best way to do it is to think about What works what what's contiguous? Generally speaking What kinds of towns? Alive with each other And keep it manageable. I think you're right that More means we have more about and possibly more access to money but more is a much bigger Pragmatic issue of how to how to achieve it. So you have to balance those two things I think also there's On the political side the more towns you get the more political clout you can have but there's a flip side to that more political pushback you can get to and You know, it's already been referenced but Think of it another way that When you start building something now Um The fewer people involved The more, you know, you're meeting what's wanted if you're the only person doing it and you're building it out for yourself You know, you're going to get what you want if there's two people in the room You know, you're going to be able to get what you want But as you go along and you start adding on people sooner or later you get to the point where Either you're watering down what you do to try to keep everybody from not getting angry Or you have a group of people that are angry because they're not getting served As they feel they should get served because you got to start somewhere, right? And you know, I I mean for instance, uh talking with ec fiver was pleasant surprise for me from being a williams town because to be honest, I always kind of assumed That with this communications union district that the real greasy wheel of the squeaky wheels That was to north of montelior. I actually thought that the more activist smaller towns would kind of Get the first look for a variety of reasons So There there may be tensions that get created from day. I mean even as we are we're a fairly good-sized region right now I mean we go all the way from Northfield and williams down in the south to alpine north that we know Elmore Elmore. Yeah, which is a geographically. It's a good-sized area So we might be trying to take on More than we could chew as a single organization and maybe the approach is to encourage other communication unions districts to form And it's quite possible that expansion then could happen really quickly because then you'd be going from one communications union district to another as opposed to the town to a town to a town Um I Yeah, that's it And we're going to run into this next year I mean it's going to be it's that's happening immediately On this computer, which I'm hopefully going to talk about in the opening discussion section, but you know, I think you're right my An arbitrarily I think that somewhere around 20 Is probably the maximum that we want to deal with so remember each town needs a delegate And it makes the meetings longer. Not that I'm Not that it really matters that much. I mean we have a 17 member board right now And it works pretty well, but I mean there is a there is a logical point where it gets a little bit a little bit too much Easy five verse 24 we have 17 The ones that were envisioned up in the kingdom. I think how did she break that die? I don't have a map in front of me that I didn't like those servers are based on counties instead of 30 and 40, right? Yeah, they were too big Yeah, I think that there's a but there's no population there. So that's probably but imagine each town So imagine victory send has to send one of its 74 residents as a delegate Sends one of its three These are These are considerations. These are voting members and it's interesting, but I think we wouldn't want to go bigger than ec fiber and the ec fiber will hit all the one of their member towns And they will finish them up as far as they're they're planning to within the next couple years I Would suggest that we shouldn't go larger than 23 and I would even put out. I'll tell you the six towns. I think that If we're going to add anymore that these are what should we should consider just for kind of geographical compactness So to the very sort of gerrymandering our district Washington stowe waterbury ducksbury more town in morris town And i'm thinking in particular of stowe and morris town Really so that we can get elmore elmore. They were Elmore representatives aren't here today, but they were As eager as anyone else and here right from the beginning and if we're not running Fiber up through stowe and morris town. There's a big chunk of elmore. This is not to be served And yes, we can run things. We can run fiber through those towns To get to elmore, but it almost seems Silly And it's what there's a drop in morris town is it every substation they all And i think the next substation closest to elmore morris town i would suggest that enrolling the Politicians from the towns and representing towns that if you want your town to be picked you need to step up And that's not a guarantee but I don't see many politicians to stay i mean becca ballon is the most visible other than that i don't see We're all saying You know if it comes up in a bill we'll vote on it, but i don't see them Giving me support. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff being spearheaded up in the northeast kingdom and in southern vermont down by Dover braddle borough area There's going to be another communications union district likely being spun up down there too Probably will look different from e-c fiber So Yeah, i mean but do we do kind of one last to reach out and by we i mean me Do i reach out to washington's to i reach out to these six towns and say here we go i mean it's the door is open Yeah, really i mean before we start construction because then we i mean statutes says that we can charge them to join after that After we've actually started doing things But we don't have to we don't have to but it sort of seems like they can wait and see how things go I'm sort of inclined to saying Let them come to us. Why do we have to look for it if they want to join us and they get excited cool But otherwise, why aren't we looking for more because i i i was essentially want to establish the district and not really have to Think about it anymore that this that we've decided now and we can always change our minds later That's our board's work, but we can say here is what we are here's how we are expecting to um Project out the next 10 years and we can recently think about that Whereas you know if we're in year four of our 10 year plan and somebody is oh Can i come to Then we sort of require kind of rejiggering of the strategic plan and i would like to be able to say we've got 21 towns And we're going for Jeremy could i propose that you draft a letter that you would submit to these towns select boards so that's Sort of a template if you will that can be Should i wait to review and approve at the next meeting? That would be our You know offering them a 30 day 60 day Window in order to approach us. I think that would be a perfect Do you want to address anything? I know From the moment you bring it up, which is the towns that already have service And so towns that don't Be really resentful. You know you build in a town that already has service So is there something to think about? I can't come in from Worcester. I can't imagine where that would be a concern To me is that you know, we're all invested in this as individuals and And we're here representing the town that we live in And so it it really isn't a day. It's a he or a she In the in the towns that are In the towns that aren't involved. It's not it's not the town. It's an individual In the town that's going to make the the case for the town to join And so you can't say well, you know Stowe doesn't want to join it's like well The person in stowe that would get stowe to join Hasn't been approached yet rather than You know, we went to the select board and the select board said no It's because us coming to the select board and saying, you know, but who are we and what are we really are offering Whereas if it's if there's an individual or five or six individuals in stowe that go to their board and say So so it isn't like the town isn't interested. They haven't they haven't got that person And those people So I think You know, you were talking about front porch forum, you know putting Information on front porch forum. It's stowe and waterberry ducksberry, whatever And saying, you know, this is what these towns are doing Maybe you guys want to get your town to go up, too Yeah, I think in the way I started this out is I you know, I read such people are Already new right and then I started sending email messages to very much like like what What John's suggesting is that you know, I wrote letters and I really wrote emails I said, I'm happy to come and talk to you And basically everybody put me on their agendas and some of the places that didn't I just showed up And talked about it gave my pitch and had the same presentation Explained it and it was generally well received in like so what's the drawback that was what I was always asked Not really much One person Yeah, I mean one thought about if you send out a whole bunch of letters all at once, what if you get, you know The one town that's kind of islanded Not connected to anything else and then the other five say no and you've got this one town that said yes I don't know if that's a concern Yeah, that's that's true. Yeah, on the other hand if you invite them and then they say yes We'd like to and then we come back and say well, no you can't join That's just Yes, there's only one town that that would be in that in that boat that would be Duxbury And that so neither waterbury nor more town decided to to come on board And then they would be an island and that would be kind of sad and then But we could probably talk to the folks in Duxbury and have them, you know, exert some pressure On their neighbors to make sure things Michael, okay, I just wanted to explain what I did a moment ago I I brought a picture over to Jeremy to see because I was toying with the idea of natural CUDs on the map of northern Vermont And I know of certain towns that have affinities and certain geography And one of the CUDs I came up with and these are just speculation But one that I came up with included waterbury and stow and Morrisville Blowing not to us but the lying to and whether Going up the spine of the greens into Montgomery and Jay Because they they sort of go together and I don't know if they think that was just I went to a meeting in Montgomery that begged me to come over there and I said no way but There was a lot of interest in Montgomery and and they're a growing town because of Jay and So Jay and Montgomery and stow and waterbury and Morrisville So you actually had us taking waterbury I I think because we've been talking about them right, but I'm still saying what I'm saying is these these towns that we might consider Recruiting may belong better with another group. And so it's as this sort of sugars out They're going to be CUDs everywhere at some point So yeah, so I guess what I'm asking everybody is, you know, what's your what's your preference? Are we are we good? And do we just say Let's let's move on. Let's consider, you know, the 17 that we have our strategic plan. I think 23 is a good number I'm fine with 23 I think it's more bodies to be on committees The the towns that we're looking at waterbury stow Morris town What was the other one that you mentioned up Jay Montgomery into Jay? We're not talking about those. Um, they got money And they've got people there who are Who have invested in their towns who are frustrated at the relatively low tech level? available to them In those areas, but they're still invested in those areas which could be a benefit On a larger scale I sound mercenary and I realize that but it's it's um When you were saying Waterbury stow Montgomery I'm picturing all of the gold money going up with all of the gold money and hanging out there and not being any benefit To any of the other communities That's where I'm coming from on that and and it just seems like This is the opportunity it's it's There's no buy-in for them. They just have to say yeah We'll do this and then the work will happen and because it doesn't matter what city they join It's not not likely to happen any faster for them Than it would with any others you do I'm not sure about that They throw enough money at it. They'll get whatever they want, but I'm gonna go back to just there's different characteristics in the town based on this thing Service for not and also income and density and so other things. I guess I'm a little curious as to why They haven't decided to do anything up to this point We're pretty well known especially that you've reached out already the two So it's been blue. Yes. So whatever you reached out to me and there was somebody my co-working space. There was somebody from their Planning commission and there was somebody from Duxbury. Okay, I'm development organization too But I haven't talked to the select board in Waterbury. I haven't talked to the select board in Duxbury. You never talked to the campus select board like I guess it's coming back to that model if there's somebody in the It's not that difficult of a process to say if you're motivated for your town to say hey We really want to promise put it on the agenda. Let's talk about it. Yeah, you know, I mean drive it So I guess I'm just Yeah, I don't know. You know, I I'm a little bit more like wait and see like if people are motivated to join It's not like we're hiding here You know Jeremy's saying it doesn't want four years to pass and so maybe some kind of deadline. Maybe we've played way to see for a year or so But not a long time maybe we say by by the end of this year or or sooner that we really are going to put a You know kind of a soft cap at this point On the number of towns that we have I mean it would be nice to have Washington for example I mean, uh, because otherwise they're sort of carved out and I have had people Stay let's stay wrapped from Washington reach out to me I haven't I haven't talked to him in a year But I don't know that he went to the Washington select board and did anything So I think another What we can consider is is local other local providers such as stoke cable or trans video that They're in the community and then if you're saying when we come into the community Well, they're going to fight back and you know, and so Is it realistic to be I mean nobody's going to Object at all if you take on Comcast, right? But Take me on the local company And people will be asking why You know, and you I don't think we'd get the take rate in these towns that already have a local provider And so in the instance of stoke you may be able to cut a deal to lease fibers to get through town Because your goal is to get Delmore but Why bother taking on stoke cable? But stoke cable doesn't doesn't provide service 100 percent of stoke residents That's true But the ones that they don't provide are Uneconomical for them and you've got to go through them to get to the periphery of the town And so they become really expensive and so It it really negatively impacts the economics of trying to get the whole thing up the ground You're saying well, we're trying to serve these people that are on the periphery and Encourage stoke cable like go get those people. They're yours To speak to some of that as well as giving a potentially a little bit longer deadline for them to hit But we have to where we've minded at last time we had these kind of discussions We're are we going to wait to as a feasibility study and look at you know an actual informed Decision here rather than just arbitrarily saying we're going to select these towns or not and cut a number here I don't know where we're at on feasibility study in the long shorts the term range of things, but It seems like that would be a better choice making method than What we come up with in this room today Well, but it would also be nice that once we're ready to pull the trigger on a feasibility study that if we have other towns That need to be part of that we should be doing that feasibility study and say oh Actually, the best place for us to start is this is this group that just joined But if they're not at the table when we do the feasibility study, then we can't possibly Accommodate them I mean does it make sense for us to do our feasibility study and include Washington if they haven't been added I think sometimes make more sense than others. Washington really makes sense It's marooned by ac by maroon us. It needs to be in one or the other We're telling them what they need but maybe they don't want that but yes, if they if they want to be in something They should come to us That makes sense Still I'm not so sure about whatever. I'm not so sure about The motivation to get to Elmore seems to me we get to Elmore lots of ways I can tell you nobody's been successful ability through stuff because it's so electric and still cable and they're in cahoots They kept everybody out Comcast didn't get in Nobody got so the likelihood of This cb fiber getting through is not very hot Maybe we could work with that. Yes But that's what I'm saying. Say, oh, we're happy to lease fiber for me to get from one side of town together and we'll leave you alone Sure, and and those same conversations should be had but you know transmitting over northfield When we do our proper projects So what's your takeaway on this journey? That there's not a consensus I think it seems like everybody's I don't say in agreement necessarily but that 20 is not crazy And but I'm not hearing like a lot of eagerness, you know to rush out and Recruit a lot more Recruit Washington So I'm having the conversation with with more to actually not not more talented with the folks at the wcbt and they's very very initially seemed Receptive to talk to us So then and Washington and then maybe we just say And if someone comes to us later, we cross that bridge and we get there That seemed reasonable. It's also to throw it out about having a deadline Let these towns know X months from now, this is it. You're in the committee. You don't but Well, yeah, and that's and that's true on the other hand, you know We've been in the news enough We're out there folks should know by now I mean Andy you you know you you got the news right away And you're like no no we're in on this too because they do not leave us behind and so really jumped on that and Yeah folks are At a certain level willing to kind of put some of their own motivation into it Do we you know just kind of drag them along but So do do I send out messages to the other I think I think you push Washington the same way to push Worcester finally did And they were a natural even though it was the last cloud of mine But they fit and Washington fits and so I think you should give it a little extra push to them and Dexbury It's up to them Yeah, I wouldn't push them and I wouldn't push more burgers. No Okay, more more worse now if they're primarily covered Yeah, they're mostly covered by the con and they're going to build out more It seems like as a business case it leaves the hot stuff. They don't want to serve this expensive stuff. So my sense is But on the other hand, there's there's um residences in berlin and middle sex And northfields that are hard to reach without having those outline re places in more time Anyways, it's still going to be the super super sparse neighborhoods But if we're running out far northwest northfield or far west berlin There's some residences right ready across the board now that we can reach that way But I wouldn't close the door. I wouldn't say a year from now if you know, I didn't tell you I just In the road sort of we don't know that we might not need their support In getting you know, so a little bit Getting funds or having them form their own so Proceed with a couple of three you talked about and just Publicity will either bring them to us Publicity we've gotten to this point hasn't gotten them. I'm not sure what else so sorry, but I'm hearing more time in washington It might think if washington's an online orange It's going to take somebody like me who's got A real passion for this to get them going and that that person would be surprised It is like Like I said, there's state rep delmer He is expressing an interest in the past of going and Um driving this so if I go he goes You can both go to a select board meeting and hopefully I was going to suggest that I would be more careful. Great. Yeah, we'll bring you along to probably be a shorter drive for you. Yes Okay, so that we put us at 19 And then the question mark on whether we get any bigger, but it's I mean that's always the board's decision Any policy that we adopt of course we can later say Thank you I'm gonna try to burn through this next one quickly. If you have questions about it, that's fine It's in the email earlier today about this H513 the bill was the bill passed Signed by the governor a couple weeks ago. I went down to the signing at the dover Uh town hall, uh, it was reasonably well attended and everybody was pretty excited about all that Northeast kingdom broadband summit that was up in And that brought a whole bunch of people together who were interested in building communications union districts in northeast kingdom Um, turns out that linden already did they did their feasibility study their feasibility study says, yeah, things look good Build communications union district So we're kind of going at things Instead they were a reverse They did the reverse of what we're recommending doing they they went out and did a feasibility study They could have done for themselves And they still don't have a business We're gonna not waste our money on that We never want this So we're gonna build a business one was to leave them for grants They got they got a lot more they applied for and got a lot more usda for development money than we have than we have 60 70 thousand dollars And they did their feasibility study. So there was a uh, Evan Carlson's report about that was in the email that I sent you Our link to it was sent to you early today That was that was a really good meeting I thought because it showed that there's a lot of folks thinking about things in similar ways as we're Thinking down here. Maybe not as far along as as us I just like the people that I've talked to there, you know, like contacts with select boards or select boards They just put it on the agenda and just move it forward It's like let create create the thing and then to be able to start start going forward I got a chance though to talk briefly to Some folks at Vida or the folks who would be Hopefully offering us the up to four million dollar loan to do construction And uh, they're like, yeah, we don't really know much about this at all. So that's why we're here Um, so they're going to be spending several months ramping up and trying to understand What it is that they're turning over millions of dollars to do So they they seem to a little bit in correct correct me if I'm wrong I seem a little bit scared about the prospect like they didn't know like the risk exposure and such Um, what confident that they could seem very scared But I told that is in Vida's history They didn't make loans for broadband Highest people didn't even know that I told them about it. It was their highest area of the fall Loans for broadband. This is going back years Someone who lives in northfield who would be very well served by High-speed internet or his DSL right now The last thing is Denny. I don't know and then to rector The director of the loan program He was there And then also talked to Who's the head of accd? He was there Joan Goldstein Talked to her and said, you know, thanks for the thing for modern information grants Like the insurance requirements that are kind of weird for us. So I said because we're gonna end up spending $2,500 on a $12,500 grant. I don't really think that's probably what you're intending. She's like Interesting And a day later or two days later. I got an email from her office saying Joan just talked to me About that insurance thing There is a waiver process Which I was like, no, that would have been nice to know months ago There's a waiver process whereby we can say the insurance part Here here and here doesn't apply to our projects. So like the car thing which we talked about Doesn't apply to our project. We can explicitly ask to say This is not going to be relevant And we can apply give the justification and they can come back and say yes or no So I passed that along to josh who's been sort of collecting and getting all sorts of information together about the various insurance quotes and He is not here tonight that he got shifted to a slightly different schedule. So he won't be reporting back on that This is sort of my progress on insurance report back for you there, too But that that was that meeting was good for a number of reasons main in large part because we learned of that insurance waiver process So hopefully here by next month If we can leave those and whatever we can't waive It will hopefully be a cheaper insurance package Any comments from that you think was I thought the keynote presentation from the MTIA guy that came from washington All right, that's the department of commerce I don't know what it stands for Okay, department of commerce. He's a federal guy national telecommunications Information agency or something like that. They're they and usda were in charge of all the stimulus grants He did kind of a boilerplate Presentation but there were so many nuggets of useful information in his boilerplate that I I was very impressed and You can look at the there was supposed to think don something You should look at that presentation and and look for all the different ways you can get money And there's and they have a website called broadband something broadband usa or something like that And it lists every possible federal program that can bring in broadband money There's some weird ones And they're worth pursuing except for the ones that are all about Native Americans Because we don't have any reservations here, but but there's a lot of interesting kinds of grants you can get Transportation and libraries and all medicine and all kinds of things So that was useful And they're kind of starting The kingdom is starting something that's like an umbrella for cubes They're not going to they're not trying to do one cub, but they're trying to Stir up stir everybody up and get them to form things and They've got a plan to make it happen because Um The umbrella organization northeast kingdom collaborative is now scheduling the organizing meetings and I'm going to one next Wednesday and They're going to make it happen. Just just the way jeremy got this thing started just the way Tim malty got things started an easy fiber way back when this version's not insane, but I so I think good things are going to come from there I think it's a really good idea for us to keep tabs of the other cb's because We can teach them they we they can teach us even if they're newer They're going to come up with some ideas. We didn't think of Or maybe we thought of it, but we didn't know it'd be so lucrative or whatever. So I think Communicating with all these organizations as they grow. I think it'll be useful too. I mean folks up in linden I mean already did a survey And that's sort of I mean they would share that with us for example Ours is probably going to be a little bit different. We've already done a lot of work on it, but that things like that. Yeah Linden's a real special case because they're a it's a very served town. They're like 80 85 percent served and oh my god We have nothing here. We need to And it's a and to justify what they're doing and they're tacking on some poor towns around them to make this easy So they can get the rest of linden covered. So it's an interesting approach Mm-hmm That's that it's okay. I mean the the final goal that they will hopefully reach will be Linden gets covered 100 percent, but then everybody else around them too Okay, um Move on to progress on insurance and we'll just strike that one. Josh is not here. We'll put that on the next one do we need to Send me a motion here about actually doing a waiver and getting that done or um If you want to like explicitly authorize me to apply like me or josh to apply for a waiver With eccd. I'd be happy to have that kind of belt and suspenders Okay, so we have a we have a motion to authorize me or josh to apply for an insurance waiver with eccd And that was seconded by phil any further discussion Wow talk it All in favor Opposed abstaining motion passes Thanks for that Okay, we did the business development committee report back already initial survey results I don't think david has actually compiled any of those. I think we're still waiting on His next round so we'll strike that one as well Uh, can I just say that it's pretty revealing that we only got 21 responses They'll that you're going to have to look at some other ways besides from their formally get Surveys and that's that's why it's good. He's doing it pilot because it helps us understand that process That's because people that don't have broadband can't possibly There's that there's that but there's there's Many hundreds on the callus from which form So either the survey was too tedious and they don't care or it's just not the way We're doing notes Everybody's on vacation I will say one thing I remember years ago I Did an in-town survey in williams town about the asking people's attitudes I had a bunch of questions about school district merger of things that were going on that people wanted to see out of the school district and You know those things are notoriously poor for getting results. So what I did I went around and I forget now I got like 10 different prizes So that if you filled out the survey and Left your name in a contact that you would get put in for one of the possible Prizes and for a fairly mundane Well, I won't say mundane, but a boring survey is I ended up with over a hundred responses. Oh, you're a good idea So I I mean it's a simple but I that really helped That's what pop up does with their surveys. They offer you a hundred bucks You can win a hundred dollars if you put in your name address phone number I see a lot with like even academic surveys offer up to a hundred dollar amazon gift card if you're chosen And I would say quite comforted well, not only can you check the addresses that are different But I even went back and cross referenced the responses on the surveys And there was no indication that people were stacking the server, you know, just to get in Everything looked like, you know, there were different responses from survey to survey. So good And we just had the 4th of july and stuff But there are still a bajillion fairs and festivals this summer If people wanted to set up a table at a fair or a festival You should get a lot of survey results See, so when we're ready with a paper copy of the survey, you can, uh, It's not with us We're in our pathway If you've got that ready to go that's like my first job is I did phone surveys for my farmers in indiana about their Gold No, no, this was I was living in ireland That's why Yeah, no, this is a little two guy company in ireland Okay Is there any other social media forum that we can use that doesn't open it to a broader audience From which forum you can do targeted ads and facebook and other Other social media too. You could do Google ad words targeted ads certain geographic areas um Could do radio ads Um turn not terribly expensive newspaper ads So I mean it would depend on how much we wanted to spend on marketing Facebook ads would be a recently cheap Low hit rate from first forum. I think we knew for free Radio ads would be A couple hundred dollars Like a facebook gathering but the survey right in front of Yeah, um and getting at those people who are listening to the radio in their house who are not using social media Or maybe you know, they can call the number And have you can mail something to them? I think for enforcement was probably the best advertising thing It's just may not be the best way to get service Now we're a for-profit so we don't get free free ads, but um They looked kindly on what we're doing and they have a category I complained I said I don't want to They they have they have one front porch forum for most of the northeast kingdom So 50 something towns and I didn't want to advertise to 50 towns and get all these people Signing up. I said I really want to just do one town Oh, we don't do that for ads. Sorry But then a day later they got back to me and they said but we do that for candidates for public office They're called paid postings instead of ads And we've talked it over and we've decided that you qualify Okay, so I got paid postings just to one town And they were very reasonable and they were longer than an ad too So I think that's what they're going to extend to us for free Well, I mean, I think I may be able to just make a regular posting Like a state senator who covers all Washington county and they post the entire county I think I can post to the entire county plus But why does the other parts of the county? Take the town to one and leave out the ones that don't whereas the ads you can't They're becoming groups So, yeah, so hopefully we'll we'll I mean once we're ready to pull the trigger on that we'll be able to do that I think David will give us some more information about what he's finding out I think you can let's go from there Phil, okay, um policy under answer I only heard back from John Who gave me extensive? Suggestions so the the version that we have The steels liberally from his comments It was sent up to you earlier today. So let me ask the first question. Did anyone read? Oh, wow Yeah, that's that's it says because I was gonna say I really don't want to sit here and read this to you And I didn't didn't make comments Um Did I hit the points that that you had? I think you did a challenge to be the language to be clear And for the grant policy So it basically I took away the the The tiers everything needs approval except for the less than 1000 which as we said we're considering more to be a donation I added language that talks about in kind Grants again at your suggestion so that we can go either way there was something also, let me see Oh And again, this is like ongoing monitoring the the transparency that documents will be posted on our website including any kind of Reporting that we have to do or monitoring that we have to do The the chair Will designate an individual or committee to track and report back on each of the grants So as we do find things that we're interested if they get awarded we decide to accept them It'll be up to jeremy to ask certain ones of us or a committee to Well, it's kind of be the oversight person or committee to To follow that grant and to make sure all the eyes are dotted and teased across um Again, I said, you know if there's uh award letters Or conditions with the grant again that those would be posted also Skipped over that one and all all grant agreements would be signed by the chair After review by the full full full board and the vote to accept the conditions of the award I think I got it I'm going to have the word uh The way you read it out loud and out of vote because Otherwise, I first read that wrong which which item are you last very last line says right after the word hand at and the word a Okay One thing to note on this is sometime There are grants that are sometimes time sensitive when it comes to grant agreements and award conditions and such If we adopt this which I should I generally Agree with we'll we will almost certainly have to schedule special meetings To prove grant agreements just just you know our special agreement Yeah, so so we would have so it would have to be held somewhere But yeah, any of these meetings can always be intended by phone. You just need to give me or somebody else Enough advance warning so that we can make sure that we patch you up So number six is that all of the agreements shall be signed by the transport. Um I would see that possible conflict The differentiation between under a thousand and over a thousand do we want to Like we still have to have sign off for under a thousand dollar grants Yeah, because because they may have conditions the the board doesn't Need to be the most So it's not worth it. $500 if it costs us $5,000 Okay, is there is there anything in here that leaves out of you is uncomfortable? I mean, are you ready to vote on it or you want to chew on this for another month and adopt it then Okay, so I would like to read the entire policy. It's it's short enough But I want to make sure that you know what you're voting on Okay, so the grant application policy Whereas cb fiber may wish to apply for monetary or in-kind grants as opportunities arise number one Any board or committee member may apply for an appropriate grant on behalf of the central fiber fiber board within the limitations set forth below All grants except for those less than $1,000 are having in-kind value less than $1,000 Require the approval of the full board prior to submission Number three grants under $1,000 are largely considered donations and members do not require prior approval To apply however the individual or committee should inform the chair of their intent to apply for second grant For the chair shall designate individual or committee to track and report on each of the grants five grant submissions award letters, etc Shall be posted to the cb fiber website periodic reports and progress monitoring shall also be posted to the website six All grant agreements shall be signed by the chair after reviewed by the full board And a vote to accept the conditions of the award So I move that we adopt this policy as presented Any further discussion All in favor I'm stating Motion passes So we are under that that policy now We should print out a copy of that and sign that maybe next time around The grants are those that we have Terrific What are those documents submissions go to? Documents submissions You're going to split up on the website All right, I'm going to grant for the ESD For now it should go to Jared Just like I have Minutes and agendas most in most agendas that I need to get to Jared I think I have most of the minutes you have whichever ones I don't Okay Open discussion. So this is where we look at What we want to do for the next year? We have an upcoming annual report to put together that we have to have in front of the select boards This one helped me out And we will have to have a draft budget for their consideration About that time as well They then give us their feedback We bring it back here take their feedback maybe adjust the budget and then we adopt a budget for the next year We should also maybe at the next meeting Look at our budget status From what we did From what we adopted last year and what we actually ended up with this year So our next steps What we need to put in the budget And upcoming end report I think this is going to be Some of those things are going to be specific call-outs in future meetings, but um I want to restate the Vision that I had with the with the Vita loans and how we were approached by Ballinette I have not talked to Ballinette again with any sort of You know effort to firm things up or actually get contracts in front of us or anything That's something I intend to do soon but what I'm Imagining given The four million dollar possibility For next year is that rocksbury northfield williams town essentially washington Could be part of a first construction next year If everything lines up and the Vita money comes through And that could extend farther. I I don't know I would have to look at the at the road mileage I have not looked at that again. Look at the road mileage and see How much of those towns all of those towns? Would get covered by four million dollars So in terms of which towns are coming on later or whatever I am sort of envisioning Long term us starting from the south Sort of gradually moving north probably initially Sorry, Montpelier very city very town probably initially kind of going around them and then maybe at some point Building back in That's my it's my vision What's that? Yeah, it's sort of just like like like moles spreading, right slowly That's friendly. So could we release those terms of their loans? No, they're still working on How they can comply with the with h513 that just passed I was going to schedule a meeting with them To see if there's any sort of information that I can provide about what we're going to be looking for or if there's things that they are going to be looking for That we're going to be looking for that they can provide and advice for us So basically just making sure that they know that we're interested and if there's anything that we need to get in line Even before they know what those terms are Well, the payback schedule is going to be important to us And so how do we take a payback schedule and find that in terms of customers Into the adoption rate and having towns compete like enough people This is the first term and the sign on we'll do it. Yeah, it's it's a pretty easy fiber Yeah, the single legislation doesn't the statute says how the how some of that supposed to work Vita hasn't sort of kind of dealt with the Fine details. Let me see if I can find There's zero payments in the first two years. Yeah Unless you want to No principal no interest for two years, and I think it was 20 years at least 10 It's pretty favorable. No, it was still payments need to be made. Yeah, I went through they do a start Yeah, yeah one of the things that I think that they were hoping to Hoping to do is because we can't go through the municipal Bonds the revenue bonds For at least three years What they wanted to do is make sure that we had a chance to get some revenues Especially if we don't have to pay since you start paying the thing back We can start and build the thing gives us a bit of a gap start turning people on And then start giving those revenues in anticipation of then paying the back over the 15 or 20 years Um And the statute says, uh, yeah, we realize that these are high risk. I think that's a nod to the previous Problems Amounts up to four million dollars Eligible borrowers alone should not exceed 90 of projected costs interest and principal may be deferred up to two years What we have to provide to do it Um The interest is just deferred The interest and principal would be deferred. So it's a crewing. It's a crewing of course So they know you said 90 the via grant would or loan rather would No more than 90 of the costs of the project So if you got If you got a million dollar loan for instance, that would mean we'd be on the hope for at least coming up with Because but but those could be in kind Contribution as well contributions as well. That would be something we need to work out with the valley net because I think there are some um Engineering and contracting things that they can provide That would more than make up for You know that that difference. I mean that that's my that's my instinct about that I I don't know how well that would be and why would they give us that Because they said that they would All right, I can tell you the wire with this. I can teach half the people in this room how to do that. Yeah It's not hard Okay, the engineering. Yes. Yeah. So what so why would they do that because they want to be the operator? Yeah, so they're gonna make they're gonna get it somehow That they they're not to do But regardless the idea is that we have to come up with that 10 percent So yeah, so so so how am I right this time for 400 grand we go from there? We go? Okay, and I wanted I wanted to make another point. Um craft spur just built out got federal grants and To the basically half million dollar project and covered half the population A quarter of the roads To do to do the whole town of craft spur would have cost about two million So when we're talking about four million doing four towns It's probably not real. So I just wanted to throw that out. Yeah, I again I I wouldn't have to look at the mileage of crafts for you versus the mileage. I think it's So maybe it's only going to be two times or two. Yeah, probably two two or parts it for right Well, doesn't it lead to like various scenarios of how we could build out and we start Judging those and as far as like we build like a mold that slowly grows in a direction or like a tree that has a single shoot That goes through events for it Right well And one of the reasons that we would start in the south is because there is existing infrastructure the valley net has Um adjoining rocksbury in Williams town. So it's already there So building from there makes a certain amount of sense not that we're necessarily constrained to do that I mean, you know, like you said the like the velco Middle mile could be used too and we could start up in You know, I'm sorry from the northwestern corner. We could or wherever you could do elmore and rocksbury as your first project Yes, that's that's true because of velco Right the substations are in the right place. Yeah, I'm And anyways But yeah, so but this is why I'm bringing this here hoping that everybody understands What I'm picturing and if you're picturing something different or if there's something that we need to be thinking about or doing And let's get that let's get that out So that we can I would suggest that this is that if you get The time to define the criteria for which towns so And I'm thinking that the These village studies going to provide that or Or not So, but what are the criteria? Of for building in any particular town Valley net has explicitly come to us and said towns continues to their two Existing networks. So there's an incentive to start there. I think understanding What the These abilities that he's going to show us will will show us Those towns, but I think they will also show us the rest of the picture too. We will eventually want to build part two We will eventually want to expand without the benefit of formerly So so they can Connect and operate I think for for this first project that's that's my That's my my vision or adjacent to Somebody who's willing to build somebody who's got something in place part part of this I'm liking what he's saying in part because this gets us towns under the belt. This gets us approved We've got we've actually built something. It's actually out there and that gives us Broadcast And I say I haven't learned velcro maps in a number of years But when you're saying it's true, so they don't necessarily need to be continuous dc fiber as long as you Have a velcro substation in that town and because I know ec fiber is connected to velcro It isn't a jason geographically necessarily required Right, but they're saying they don't want to go wait up there. They want to say want to be continued They're still going to be rolling trucks from royal tent So rolling trucks from royalty to wister Is a bit of a they're they're not going to no, they're going to be hiring Eustace Eustace is no no tech tech support and installs not not the not the actual construction So yeah, they wouldn't be hiring use this or remember to go do the actual construction But once the people are turned on and they have you know the tech support Which happens or something You know they need to put some people in front of the customers It doesn't they don't want to go So it makes sense for them to stretch a little bit And go to rocksbury northfield williams town somewhere You know again, those are all thankfully most of our towns are reasonably easily accessible by i-89 It just seems that we should be doing it an easy way rather than Trying to invent a new way and so valley net like I said has come to us and said we want to do it So why wouldn't we do it? Is there a reason not to and if there's no reason not to Then let's let the sleeping dog at belco sleep for a little while longer nobody else is going to jump in there And once you show that you're successful and you have income Then you can go and start spreading out You know like measles and Your point that I think that's your point is just He doesn't bind us in perpetuity development. No, no, and they explicitly said that they but they wanted to have a guarantee That we would be with them for several years at least But but why not what what what? It it could be the easy way it is an easy way. There's no doubt that it's an easy way But it could not necessarily be the way We want for the long term Because we don't well, that's the why not and so I mean I want to explain my my version of a one You know, I might still vote for it, but why not is That we're locked into their way of doing things And it doesn't make sense to do it their way here in another way here in another way here It's really bad to have multiple systems You want to have an integral system that you're comfortable with that you can afford That you can manage and They will do it their way They will want to do it their way. It's conceivable. We could say yeah, we want you to do this But we want to use different technology. Would you do that for us? And maybe they'd say yes I don't know but I think we need to talk about that part because If we do four towns their way We've pretty much decided that's the way we're going to do 17 or 20 towns And we need to know if that's the way we want to do it Technically, so you're talking about like specific equipment like we're going to find these routers and we're only ever going to buy these Routers never again, right? Well, there's different protocols. There's still it's not just routers It's like are we doing activities or not? I know So this are you going to do g-pun? Are you going to use e-pun? Those are the three different ways For example, if you do g-pun, which is what they do, which a lot of places do You're buying into one manufacturer's Microsystem because they don't talk to each other But if you buy if you go into e-pun It's a standard training system and there's multiple Companies that work with each other. Oh, that doesn't use that doesn't use that So that's a big question to settle what we might want to do My valley net we're selling a lot of equipment that talks to e-pun Slowly decided And ac fiber itself Started with one set of equipment And partway through their build like four or five years later decided, you know, we're not so happy with this And they started going to this other one and now they're replacing their first stuff with their second one Because they're proprietary to one manufacturer So they learned from a mistake they chose something they didn't like and now they're choosing something else I'm not saying their choices are wrong. I'm just saying we need to Technically evaluate stuff and decide yes, that's what we're buying into because we are for a long time That's the point Yeah, I mean would that be something that would be included in the feasibility study like one of the relative costs and benefits of different technology types They can be doesn't I'm not sure that that was in the scope I guess I'm just wondering where we're going to get that information from Well, we talked to the people who are in here who know Being such things that we sit down with with that and talk about what's what's possible and what's not So breaks experiences with active ethernet, but not for beverage of the home So that was more all the more big business kinds of accounts my experiences with e-pun Um There's probably no one in the room that's experienced with g-pun. G-pun is the most popular system in the country So they're all three good systems, but they're very different and and g-pun is 20 to 30 percent more expensive That would be my error, but yeah, this is a single manufacturer But if we decided we wanted to go with a less expensive e-pun, we wouldn't be doing golly None that's we could say bellign that we'd like to work with you, but we want to use this equipment in And they might say yes. Okay. I don't know So this is one point about establishing the criteria There are a number of things that go into it and then making a decision But just saying well, they're there and you know, they're the easy one It's not necessarily I mean it's an easy decision to make, but it's not necessarily Encompassing The comment about an awesome manufacturer versus one manufacturer. I think is is really telling You know one manufacturer could be taken over by somebody that you don't want You know running your system Is there a window Is there will this offer be sunsetted at any point in the near future from valignette working with valignette? Not well Yes and no Know in that they're likely to continue to want to wanting to work with us Yes, in that we are going to need to get to that Vita pot of money First yeah, or second But not but not third So my concern is with all due respect to the august buddy body of people who are assembled here tonight With all your information and expertise my concern my real concern is that we got to You know grab this kind of well, I don't know the metaphor Yes, we have to move quickly and I'm concerned that while we if we were to Deliberate and quit and quibble and discuss that this money will bench before our eyes. So I'm inclined to say yes work with valignette and then any sort of nuances about Will they give us due deference when it comes to wanting to use certain kinds of technology in this region versus the other? Well, that could be worked out in a contract Right It's up to them It's up to them to say yes, you know that we're willing to work with the seller If they're going to be the they want to be the operators that great Yeah, so they want they're going to have their network management system they're going to be watching stuff and Are they going to want to watch two different kinds of systems? Maybe not Well, whatever agreement we don't know and so whatever agreement is I would say we we move to Work with them and then whatever agreement needs to be ratified and signed between these two parties us and them Then we can hand around the details later or we can assign it to a committee Or we can leave it to the experts in the room And but I'm inclined to just move forward at this time But moving forward and what I've heard is there's not been a specific proposal from valignette So that's cbg closing that that's that's like next step next few weeks I I want to go and find out what those what that looks like actually and simultaneously Moving as quickly as we can to educate and inform ourselves that you're able to evaluate a proposal from them Because otherwise you don't know what if it's satisfactory. So I don't think we should stop So can I can I grab a couple people and go down to valignette with you people who are interested in Debating the finer points and then we can have that conversation With the folks down there. Sure People with technical expertise You know, it's very important and the technical expertise is very good But as an organization my belief is we're buying off the shelf So It's it's you're going to have to know what you're buying off the shelf It's like if you go to buy a car, you know, I'm not going to sit there and know how to put the car together I may be interested in horsepower Transmission ratios, etc. There may be things of interest but And I may know a lot about an engine, but I'm buying a car I'm not buying parts of a car to take home and put together. So I really think that I agree with that, you know Forward motion is really about most important from my point of view And that we need to look at this and say listen, we've been listening to people We've been talking about getting something off the shelf so we can get something that runs well and works well and Pick an organization that has a track record that meets that that's what I would say would be the criteria And then where we hook up is where the feasibility studies and that organization that hook us up can say I think it falls pretty naturally once we decide to move forward There's a lot I guess I have a lot of concern about this That we don't have I like information We've not done a feasibility study. I don't really have any outline of the technical trade-offs I don't have any outline of the business and cost trade-offs I don't know how you want valley net to be a partner. There's going to be a lot of partners out there We have an issue doing our P. You know, you know, there's so much we haven't done And I realize there's a sense of urgency that you don't want to lose grant money But I also don't want it to be a de facto decision And like I have pretty strong concerns about that. I think it should be semi-informed So I guess I'm a little bit more like whoa What's going on here? Let's let's talk about how long that pot of money is going to be there Because that seems to be part of what's driving us. We don't want to miss out We don't want it to be bestowed on other CUDs and it's gone. So The first money isn't going to go out the door for quite some time because they're trying to get educated And they're going to lean on the department of public service for advice Because they really don't know telecom Can you define quite some time? More than a year The first money will go out within a year, but I don't think it will all go in the first 12 months from now You think it will you think it will. What's the total amount of money that's going to be available? 10.8 million 10.8 million and up to 4 million per So kingdom fiber isn't going to ask for 4 million. So that helps But what is Lyndon all going to ask for if they've already got their CUD No, what's newberry going to ask for? What's the southern brumont group? What's early telecom going to ask for? EC fiber could ask for it if they wanted to. I don't think they will. They don't really need to though. No But my prediction is that no one's going to get 4 million That there'll be a bunch of one and a half two million in the forwards I mean and they have to be it's reasonable to assume other CUDs have to be at a build ready phase too And they're behind this like they haven't even really formed Right. So but the other thing is it doesn't have to be CUDs. This is not explicitly for CUDs So kingdom fiber is doing this new berets already districts But other for-profit entities so Champlain Valley They could go apply for this stuff the folks who are up in jim and county. I forget who they are They can do this brilliant in telecom could So these bigger versions Are not going to be looked at favorably by Vita because the intent of the legislation is to People who can't go to bone markets who can't go to banks commercial banks and get loans They're going to favor startups Yes, but if startups haven't come to them, but these other places have that's true. They'll give them money I have served on a state Transferred well to say the state transportation alternatives committee when it still existed. We have dispersed dispensed rather Millions millions. I'm not I don't run this somewhere around 20 million dollars in like 30 minutes That's the point These aren't grants their loans sure sure but Vita's not gonna Underwrite a loan in 30 minutes I mean it's gonna go fast, but it's not gonna be that fast. So you're saying it won't be a year And you're saying it would be a year. Yeah, I'm saying I think it'll do six months I think from the from the window of time that they open the application process if you I would say less than Maybe just right right around a year. I would say There's a fair amount of political pressure on this and the governor's eyeballs are on sure And I my experience is the governor's looking at it. It's the most important thing on an impact desk What's our timeline till we Get get our earthy out select a consultant and get Business model written So that's five more months. Yeah, so that's less than the year Yeah, we should before that's done. We should be looking at Possible models, but we I think should rely on the results of that thing before we apply to Vita Right and part of you know part of the grant that we applied for with usda involves Valley net stand at valley net helping us do this partially with this with this potential project in mind so He he and they are necessarily part of our feasibility study process. So yes. Yes. You're you're absolutely right So I think that that window allows us to make the right decision before we sign at the dotted line on the loan application But because they've explicitly said You know that they will help us draft that language and essentially have a shovel ready project You know ready to go and present to Vita We would yeah, we will have say we should understand have a better context of Well, then that all seems good without what cost I mean so Sounds like nobody knows what they want to charge No, I can tell you what they what they so charge. What? Well, what would they charge for? Any aspect of what they value do that's not talking anything. I mean so no no for operating it as an example They're not turning anything to operate it. They will they will take their their costs like they've taken their costs from EC fiber, they're not a for-profit entity. They're a non-profit So so they will take their cost. We will pay them for the things that they do So they have, you know, 20 employees in their office space electricity and all the equipment that they buy for us and they will Apportion their Their employees those folks that are working on our projects and we will pay them for that and that will come out of our revenues and such But it would be a similar Okay, so I'm I'm I'm saying this not informed by any sort of contract or agreement between us But what they suggested would be that the agreement would be very similar to the relationship that they have with ec fiber So there could potentially be two contracts One the valley map and one the ec fiber Well, necessarily we would have to send an interconnecting agreement with ec fiber because ec fiber owns the owns the network Probably just from the connecting here I think that we should understand though that You know, there's this money today, but there'll be more money tomorrow if this works then the state will will feel like We've got to help more You know, we're not going to be able no matter what we think We're not going to be able to get everybody It's going to take more money and it's going to take more money than that So there will be more money. There'll be another Either an addition to 513 or a grant process or something because once Once, you know, ec fiber is already proven that they can do it And when we come along and we can do it, there's going to be lots of other places in the state that need to be covered Yeah, so I do think that it's going to get it twice No, but they they're but the other things. No, I don't agree I think that there will be money out there for us to say, you know We spent our formula, you know, whatever it was and we were really successful But it cost more or there's more people that we didn't reach because it was ill in a way or whatever But I think, you know, we're talking about Vermont and we're not just talking about ourselves You know, we're going to be part of this whole movement really It's going to grow So we we should try to go out there and be successful Rather than try and go out there and be unique So we can prove that we use the money properly. We got results with the money and now many more So it makes a point you make a point about using Equipment that you can buy off the shelf from anybody But if they say, you know, we'll do it. We'll start tomorrow But we're going to use cheap on instead of epon And then we shouldn't we shouldn't be thinking Oh, we need more flexibility. We should be saying we want to be successful And I think that's also your point that that we want to we want to be successful in order to be successful We have to be We have to be off the box. We have to define what it would be to be successful Well, is the state that's going to say what's successful That's that's what it's going to do. I think repayment Well, that's so true, but but So I'd rather get one and a half million dollars and sign up You know 400 homes they can get four million dollars and not know what to do with it Yeah, we too It's unlikely that they would write us alone for four million dollars if we don't know what to do with it But no, I think I think I take your point One thing I wanted to say is So I've lived in Vermont since 93 And I have been anxious. I was connected on computers in alaska when I before I moved to Vermont to BBS network So I've been anxious for connectivity for a very long time We were like the second customers in Mount Pylio when sovereign that came through It was we were on top of this and very anxious for this and so I've been watching how this has been going for a long time We have you know like this ground swell of support that pops up and suddenly there's some state money that comes in The companies get it They spend it. They don't do what they say they're going to do There's very little response to that and then the the swell of support fades away and we another 10 years goes by Before there's another ground swell of gee, we have to do something about this What I'm concerned about is we're at that That swell right now. We've got the state money and I want us to get that money I don't want The companies to get that money because they're just not going to do what they promise And then all of that is going to fade away and the political will is going to all fade away One of those companies that doesn't fulfill its promise I I just don't see us doing that that that's like We're not being you know talking to them about how we approach this we could end up inadvertently going down all the way in me dealing like bros and telecom did But the political landscape has changed the regulatory landscape is changing so we're in a different position now I think we're in a much better position now, but I don't want that political faith And I don't want this to be there's a decision we're trying to make there No, no, this is more more like vision looking what's what's the strategy going going forward? I mean I like I said I have my my vision for How we go forward that's not clearly not not everybody's I would just like us all to be rowing in the same direction and go into the next few months that if we do have timelines and Other things other decisions that we need to make as our as our target that we should start Taking a crack at that not to mention that we have to We are statutorily obliged to write an annual report and budget and whatever You know whatever our big ideas are for what we're doing next year if that budget doesn't include the thing that we're doing next year Why bother? So if just hypothetically speaking if we're going after the four million dollar veto loan Our budget for 2020 ought to have that listed For example, so so no no decisions concretely. I just want to make sure I want to start Moving towards if not consensus at least Kind of general goodwill towards, you know, some strategic objectives This is our timeline for applying for the four million dollars Are we applying for the four million dollars? Is there a decision made for that? Not at present No, they haven't even started that yet. I'm going so we've imagined I think you said might be imaginable january Well, one thing that we do know that we could be Defining is there's a 10 out payment if you will What what's the strategy for getting that money and whatever that is then Informs this is how much we're going to be able to borrow So that's one thing that's actually going to be taken off It's wrong. I mean if again if that's something that we're going to pursue well I think about 10 percent of four millions 400 grand and that's not going to just be in kind from Valley now That's a lot of money. Okay, so that's I don't know how do we find that? No, that's so so maybe that there's an earlier question that we need to ask is do we go after the four million dollars of Vita money that was essentially written into statute for us Just say it Yes Yes, the work is to raise $100,000 I think a good next step was for the delegation to to go with huge army to valley net have this discussion And then report back to this board next month about you should go to what their proposal is and then we can have a vote So whether or not to decide to pursue You should seriously I don't see this couple of decisions. I mean you don't have to use valley net as your provider But you would have to go to a bill plan you would have to go to the through the loan application with your You know with your construction and your Right, but isn't that what we would get out of some of this grant money that we hope they're going to get in terms of doing Feasibility But could we decide on an operator and a bill plan? I don't know. Yeah, I know what you're asking Well, there are different there are different elements and they can't be worked on simultaneously I think valuation of valley net and their proposal is one thing, right? There has to be money. I mean valley net is not going to be pony up any money so it has to be You know raising the 10% and that's going to inform the top line of what you raised so that that's not necessarily true They were one of the first investors at ec fiber. They were one of the Sources of seed money. It wasn't as much as some people put it, but I also had like the woman I forgot the Alaska woman I don't remember all my names and I should you know be more prepared but You know who was somebody who both very knowledgeable and resourceful And you know, obviously would be a candidate for me to engage in terms of helping us understand this a little bit And you know, are they you know, I guess I'm a little confused because we And we've had a number of people come before the board make presentations some which were A little out there some which were kind of neat and I thought pretty informative and I we just seemed to like never You know gone. That was great. Okay. We're gonna go valley net now. That's a little strange No, these are these are parallel tracks These are these are parallel because how can we afford that because we are waiting on We are waiting on grant money that will pay for that piece of police study. We will we're still going to do that That's still happening and that'll probably be we'll probably I'll hopefully be able to finish that by the end of the year But once we hear from usda for sure that we've gotten that if we get that then we can We can move forward with the rfi rfp process and go And get that goes back to that question Reason to make any decision about valley net before that process has started We don't even think we can't even apply for the loan yet. So, I mean, I it's okay to do informative discussions I think it's great, you know, and the more we learn the better the project the usda loan Invisions involves standard Williams at valley net helping us with the finances Essentially building that business plan and building the financial model. So It doesn't obligate us, of course to go valley net, but in so far as he is A big part of valley net Doing these things at the same time Any of the money that we might vision us getting awarded or at the award here in the short term for study work Could we engage the Alaska one? I expect that we would we would engage something like that You just said we have to use Stanley this is giving us in-kind free work to do this So that we could meet get so he's giving us 20,000 $5,000 $20,000 of in-kind Financial consultation work that was got us a couple more points towards He said to do this. What is this? I can look at the look at that Visibility study of business Writing the business model and doing the finances. He's the chief financial officer of valley net Yes, and I can go and look at so why are we hiring out in order? Why are we doing it for consultants? Because he's not doing a feasibility study he's not doing the other I mean I can send you again the the application toward the usda money for Feasibility study and business planning That didn't that got maybe halfway Right, so we have the thing for mon innovation grant Which we still need to match a little bit more from And we have our original the original funds that would be doing that matching. So that gets us You know Nearly there So having that extra, you know having the the finance guy being willing to sit down And do that extra work so that we don't have to be the consultant to do that part of the work That's that's why are we are we applying for one of the $60,000 Feasibility of business model grants from Department of Public Service I I when did when does that open close and whatever probably in january or something late? Yeah, probably in the fall Those are open and available and that's that's something that we can Uptail into a larger maybe at that point or like planning for construction phase Then Yeah, I don't see why not But the timing is wrong because we want to get going soon Right There's plenty of grant funding by all times of the year for what we're envisioning There's community facilities usd community facilities grants. There's the bcdp grant program, which is block grant money It I don't think we should Hesitate or Pause our work in order to wait on No, we should we be continually applying to anything we hear us That's a decision for this body or or a grand community or Yeah, I would say yes So will somebody find the next one that we should be Applying for So but knowing what those are and what the timelines are and how they fit into our larger plan so again What's that timeline? What's that strategic vision look like, you know, can do we realistically think that we can get a You know business plan and feasibility study and the survey stuff done by the end of the year I think I think it might be might be a little bit tight But I think we can do it and then looking at applying for Vita construction money in january as the next step If that's the That's the reality then yeah, so what what loan do we look at or at next? Probably the timing would be something that could be used as a match for the veto money or something that could be some additional planning for the engineering or some Supplementary construction money like the What's the money that comes the connectivity initiative? So for like looking to reach that last guy at the top of the hill, there's state money In addition to the money state money to go and get that last guy at the top of the hill When you applied for some of those I got those grants they're They're not to be Disregarded, but they're not a good path to getting serious money to build something Nades and dimes but in terms of if we're going to be building something Every little bit could help Our account increased by ten dollars Right When you make the the meeting Did you like to try? Yeah, uh, secondly the four million dollars I we're not going to get four million dollars and turn it over to valley net Here's four million dollars go do the thing I'm assuming that they're going to get paid as they perform And as they build that right so that over a period of a year or two years We'll have this four million dollars that will be standing I heard that there's no principal or interest payments for two years I'm assuming that it's not going to start on january 1st when you get that four million dollars It'll actually be kind of a line of credit and you'll be paying here's a million dollars or here's $250,000 dollars to go do some work and two years starts for that Level buy so we will We'll expand this over a two-year period Which means that we'll three years out four years. I will be making a total payments For all of that. Okay. I just want to make sure I've not dealt with veto loans before but any any other more Performed people in the house. Is that more what it looks like what Ray's talking about They don't just write us a check for four million dollars. I don't be entranced But I don't know if it'll be like a line of credit. It'll be something in between. But yeah Okay, so um, so several these one is I'm assuming veto would be like any Regular lender that the 10 percent money can't be another loan Not to be a grant or a real grant or or money raised, but it can't be dead kind But they do accept any kind, but it's going to be justified So are you seeing back that you could have like a supplementary? We'd allows for other loans to be We do that kind of lending all the time Could you use a revolving loan fund or to serve as bridge financing or whatever until I would assume so Because there's a number of communities in this room that have RLFs, right Or um, I feel like I like we talked about last year about looking at how you see fiber do with promissory notes Looking at those people who want to Help out and they could put some money into this and again with different interests or something like that and paying it back Yeah, but there's so many people who put up a hundred thousand age That's a hard thing to do. Yeah, that's that's true On the other hand, you know for people who are reasonably sure that we're going to get the project actually built We're looking at you know supporting a four million dollar Loan that might look more attractive Um, the donations that you were referring to there are people with more money If they're immediate benefit is they get the right off. Yes, they want the project to succeed You know front the benefit Sure, but if it's a promissory note an unsecured loan essentially, you know, I was referring to the donations. Yeah, but in Comparison to that, you know, but if they're getting You know seven percent eight percent whatever the going rate would be for that And they believe in the project And that can be other it may be another angle there, right? I think that sort of stuff comes out of the feasibility study And the business plan because yeah, there there still has to be That's a that that's a gap at twelve thousand five hundred was supposed to be easy, right? Yeah For the next meeting I'm going to try to have an annual report Written I will probably have to attend remotely. I think I'm going to be on a road trip with my kids So maybe like phoning in from some random hotel room somewhere So they'll probably ask you to do that again But I will try to get an annual an annual report draft Maybe not even something like final but just out there so we can talk about What's happened the last year? We're hoping to have in the next year and then I would like some budget ideas Was that something that was going to come out of the finance committee or you wanted to talk put that more here Is that right here? I'm not laying that one strictly on you but Refresh my memory where we left that discussion Well, last I remember that was Under the impression that the yeah, it was kind of kind of the budget development itself was going to kind of be taken up by the executive committee I remember What we found out at the finance committee was we just had no way to connect revenues with expenses We just figured we could make it up. Well, you guys Listen, you guys are sitting there kind of at the nexus of committees and for the most part You know the business development committee is probably the one that should be sitting down doing a Budget this year because they're the ones that have been talking about the The business plans are the ones that we're talking about come, you know, which grants to go out and get primarily, right? I mean, this is where the revenues have been coming from and where the expenses So it may not be the business development committee That develops a budget, but I think really right now. That's where the budgetary information is going to come from That's what I mean, that's where the known expenses and revenues would be anticipated expenses of revenues are known and they're not known Now, you know, they're finance. Okay, so can I can I ask everybody to Send me I don't want to say your your wish list but if you have Ideas about what needs to be in the budget Even if it's the big set that we've talked about just shoot me email I will try to aggregate all of these things so Yeah, I'm And what I'll do is I'll try to Remove the overlap of things that people submit, you know that are duplicated but just knowing Knowing that there's more than just, you know, me and Phil and Becca making this up So that we can put together to me literally the budget last year I don't know if you remember those of you who were here that that was that was me sitting down one afternoon and taking some information I think from Reading ahead with you Michael. It's kind of like throwing something against the wall and everybody was like I think we're gonna have to start taking it a bit more seriously. I want to make sure I'm not going to miss anything So if there are expenses if there are revenue sources, if there are things that I'm I or we are Likely to miss or things that we need to make sure that we help for Please send it my way and even if this is so it's literally Disjointed you would wake up in the middle they're like, oh my god. We forgot about this Just send it to me and email it. I'll Collect it. Hopefully do something intelligent about that Anything else anybody wants to talk about with next steps strategy budget and report Good Backward items committee assignments and memberships. Do we need to be assigning anything to committees? Because of Contra negotiations I've been involved in I've had our They just cons consistently been lining up with these meetings or CD5 so I Probably am not good as a chair of a committee right now I anticipate at least for the next couple of months the schedule is going to continue to clash and My priorities are really going to the negotiations Okay, who else is on the finance committee? One of you here or No, you can't hear You give what you paid for though No Well, I went to the first meeting right the first week I Not the chair You're the chair Well, so so we can still have a grants committee too, but Does so what does the finance committee have on its agenda right now? Or is this something that's going to be I mean you you rarely can do away with the finance committee. The only thing left to do now We successfully jettisoned everything else So maybe we can just agree to leave the finance committee where it is maybe when things stabilize a bit Bring it back. There's bills to review. Yeah bills Right now. There's really no treasure or work to oversee. I mean before reports there, right? So right we are So so wrong if I could ask you just uh, just be the chair and say gia for a little while longer and uh, if anything gets too serious I'm sure shavonna will pick up Open warning meetings and all that Seriously, it's simple to do but you know, I mean if you're not used to it, it's going to everybody This is as opposed to everything else. I can just do a reply to all on that. Yeah Oh, yeah, yeah when it comes to plan open meeting law when you're planning meetings or plan when you're planning meeting times Dates and agenda items feel free to communicate as often as Just don't discuss them Okay, so uh mentioned the grants committee And what's the what's the charter of this charter the grants committee would be to look for grants See if we can qualify for these grants and go get them So that we can we can make sure that the those reports are made And I would be willing to chair that over C reporting or do door Do the report Okay, so should john you're volunteering anybody else want to participate in grants committee you Will want more than You will want more than three people. We'll need four people on that lest you run into those Hilarious open meeting quorum Hilarious, uh, can it can it maybe one person? Well, so You could you could be assigned as a but I'm not allowed to think about anything without having a meeting So no, so we would constitute a committee we would simply say that you would be our grants coordinator Oh, that's a different thing and you can just own that and do that as you like And then you Drag in any people as necessary So phil just moves that appointment. I will second that Any further discussion about putting shavon in charge of grants You've just you've just received a whole bunch of community work just for yourself Oh We already talked with the back burner items other towns equipment policy We have not talked about equipment policy. We should probably do that at some point Especially with some of the news items out there lately about First lights like promise. We don't have any wealthy equipment except for those ones who have the green lights on in our publication space Somebody took a picture of Not they're not running but they're not hooked up. They're not hooked up to anything So to say power you usually unplug things or turn them off, but anyways, I'm being sarcastic So we should probably also adopt a similar policy Especially if we decide to do any work the state down the road Unfortunately our alternate from our field is not here the chief information officer of the state of vermont He could tell us all about the wonderful things going on. I didn't know if he was still even on board He's he's the alternate Anyways, I actually that equipment that while we equipment cannot Has is totally unimportant So the serious stuff that could possibly spy is not that stuff But whatever. Yes, that's uh, yeah So, yeah, I'll I'll I'll I'll invite john to come and we can play with this This is the case that the the lying and denial is worse than the crime. Exactly right. Yes We could just grab the state one and say this is this is our I don't see any other back burner items to talk about then All of you got a copy of the the meeting minutes for The june 11th meeting anybody want to take a quick look over that and say I have anything else to change I'll move it to be approved the June 12th june 11th 2019 everybody board meeting minutes as presented second second action on Any further discussion edits anything? On paper Standing motion passes Thanks for that. Uh, we're around the table Um Even off the shelf there's a difference between a jaguar and a Prius So fun one the Indiana reference in 2008 I was at this little conference actually that I had this bag with and I saw a dude make a presentation on putting wi-fi routers in barns and silos He could get a national network going in some rural part of the Indiana I thought it was one of the coolest things presentations I've ever seen in the conference I'm curious what the starling business is about and it will impact our work Starling Elon Musk's low satellite designed to bring broadband to There are multiple companies doing this It's fascinating. I would like to hear more about it from the experts Still still latency issues Speed of life Okay Speed of life every single kind of internet we have go speed No Um in terms of mesh that was actually the uh the first thing that I was looking at in terms of bringing Better connectivity around In the area as a matter of fact, Ray, I don't remember if you remember us talking on lunch Three years ago four years ago. It's like just moved here. You're like public private partnership. I'm like mesh, you know, like Newport Vermont has a mesh they're building up there one of the new port mesh Advocates she was actually that that was the scheme. Yeah, she has good team customers Yes, and nobody pays and and it's it's And and I and I have good relationships with folks that build a citywide mesh in berlin, germany Called fry folk and they actually have weekly meetings and are building all the firm We're building all the all the software for the routers and stuff and putting them out there Getting a lot of pass so they stick these things on top of public buildings and it's yeah It's really it's quite cool. So That's all I got Yes That's a friday. Is that intentional? That was probably me just pasting that in wrong because uh today's meeting is june 9 July I don't know what you're talking about What's my name again 13 August 13 13. Okay. Thank you very much, right?