 Good evening everybody tonight is the meeting of the Waterbury Select Board for Tuesday September the 6th, 2022 in this field community room here and first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda any additions or amendments to the agenda I was wondering if we are received a comment from a constituent about traffic situation on Gupt Hill and I was just wondering if we might be able to get a range to have our Vermont State Police contingent to attend one of the upcoming meetings so we could address that situation and others that have come before the board. Sure. Do you want to put that as an agenda item? I don't know if it needs to be an agenda item I just wanted to get that out. Just if Karen can put it in the parking lot for a future meeting we'll get it on. Yeah and hopefully within the next month. Duly noted Roger. Any other changes to the agenda? The editor's search on the agenda? No, as we discussed we will be glad to add that to select board items the manager's search and we'd be glad to have you do an update here. Okay. We'll have that first on the select board. I appreciate it. Mike, I have two things. Yes. One is to ratify the new clerk treasurer's salary and then the second I'd like to just talk about the audit proposal for years 2022 to 2026 if you I think we can do it quickly tonight it just came today if you'd rather wait until a meeting in October that's okay too so I think that's reason that does anyone have any objections on the board? If not we'll add that under select board items. Added under manager's items. Manager's items. Both of them. I see. I'll move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? There being no further discussion all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Now is the time on the agenda where we have a period of time for people to make brief public comments if they wish anyone wishes to make a public comment if you could come forward say your name for the record and you have up to two minutes or we're a little flexible if it's over. Well I'll try to be brief. Skip Flanders, one of the EFUD commissioners and I didn't know that I would get so involved in housing in Waterbury but it has crossed EFUD's path with our attempt to find a use for 51 South Main Street that we had proposed with Down Street to look for a public housing project there out of the need in that plan. We held an informational meeting which was well attended, 50 people and many spoken things and what I kind of took away from that was I'm not sure how big the need for housing is in Waterbury in terms of affecting employers, finding staff and things and the EFUD commissioners are meeting next week to take up when we have our vote and things but my reason for coming here is to, well I'd like to have more information about what the real need for housing is in Waterbury so that they would have that when the voters voted but housing is more of a I see it as a select board issue rather than a water and sewer issue. So I'm a little, you know, wondering what the select board thought about between now and then in terms of what information you'd like to kind of maybe help or support or where we go from here. I know Alyssa had proposed a housing task force which I guess hasn't gotten started. So I understand some people may not want to speak too much about real housing whether we get the reputation that there's no housing in Waterbury so employers don't want to come here but I know I've heard sort of bad stories about housing in the last month how apartments have been sold and doubled the rent and they're invicting people and I think it's a pretty tough situation out there from what I hear these 25 years would certainly help that. Temporary housing stock, not necessarily who goes to live here. How is this here to get your thoughts or what? Skip, what makes you think that there is not a problem with housing? Well, if you listen to some of the people that didn't think it's pressing, why are we doing this now? You know, maybe Stanley Watsonlawn is going to come around in a couple years and why do we need to do this? I mean, I guess I would even look at myself not needing to find an apartment. I was really in tune to how real the need is out there. Not like some people that are having to search and can't find anything. We've kind of looked online what the vacancy rate is in Waterbury which is pretty tough to calculate but I guess it's pretty low from what I hear that there are many opportunities. You know, we chose Down Street because they have a track record in Waterbury. They have a number of buildings that are well maintained. They just renovated the Stimson Braves building for a million or two dollars. The slide they showed had a zero vacancy rate in all their units and people expressed satisfaction with what they did. That's where we reached out to them. Bill had talked to them more than a year ago and things and finally they, you know, I guess, wanted to take the opportunity of the funding potential plus, you know, a real need here and things. Elizabeth, do you want to comment? Because I know you've been involved with the housing cast for four years. There was no sound on the Zoom. Try joining. Sure, so I can start. Thank you Skip for coming in. I guess I'll first just say in full disclosure for this board so they know I did present at that meeting. I'm not presenting as former planning commission chair because you know how much I love showing 16 slides about the town plan and why the town plan says that housing is a good idea. But I also would say to to skip that I also want to just highlight that I think you thought is a really important important partner for housing. I appreciate you coming here and wanting to talk with the select board and also if you look at the program for town fair that the Vermont League of Cities and Towns is hosting. They have a two part series about why you need infrastructure to develop housing. So I just want to acknowledge that we said this before with the water presentation but we're in a very different place to have a discussion about how we can support housing development. I'm acknowledging that we have municipal water and sewer through EFUD so that's just that I guess to the piece around data. What I've said with skip is you know there's a variety of data there's local data there's county wide there's statewide data and it's updated at varying frequencies and with varying degrees of accuracy. Small community sizes of some of the town specific data is a bit of a shot in the dark in terms of how much weight I personally would give it. I do feel like at least personally it's really important to just publicly state that I think we do have an enormous housing challenge in Waterbury and across the state and really across all types of housing. So not only the need for rental housing but some of the terms are workforce housing but homes for folks to buy to rent really across the spectrum and you know they'll spoke to this in the meeting but they're all interrelated. And just personally if I lost my current rental housing situation I am not confident I would be able to continue to live in Waterbury and serve on the soft board and I have an enormous amount of privilege in terms of access to financial resources and friends in the community that many people might not especially if they were looking to move here. So again that's one personal anecdote kind of with regards to the housing task force. So yes the action we took at a press meeting in response to I think our concerns and also cited the housing study from RW was saying we should have a group. I did meet with Steve and go over an outline of what that group looks like. Some of us have gotten feedback about who makes up different boards and committees so we wanted to do it right. I have not brought that back to this board to approve though we certainly could like at our next meeting we were in the midst of other housing conversations so it didn't make the agenda tonight. In terms of data it is also if you go to housingdata.org which is run by the Vermont Housing Finance Authority one of the first things they say a housing task force can do is figure out what the data is. You know recognize that you know seven days has done the newspaper from Burlington a like year long series on the housing crisis in Vermont. So there's all sorts of anecdotes on the state but saying all right at a local level you know what are types of housing that might fill local needs or could be built based on zoning or whatever things are. So that's often a work that a group like that does but we haven't started that yet. As for next week I mean personally I'm continue to be happy to provide whatever data we have and we can get the data that does exist already on state and local levels and can pile it to what extent that would help inform folks. I'm not sure but can I comment on this housing thing. I wasn't able to make the meeting the other night but if you read from porch forum there's not a week that goes by without someone desperately seeking housing for someone who wants to move here or a teacher who needs. You know I mean I think there's a huge need for housing statewide and locally and amen let's do 51 South Main and do that all when that property becomes available because we want to keep our community vibrant. People have a decent place with my two cents on the housing. There was an article there that I read the other day that talked about housing in Vermont just in Burlington alone the average single family home is now half a million dollars. $1600 $400,000 mortgage a year ago was $1600 that same mortgage now is $2,400. We have several column stakeholders you know people in this in this community that have recently built apartment housing. Joel Baker being one of them. Caleb Ainsworth being another one. Scotland's working on a triplex down here. Those are the types of people that you might want to contact. They could give you a good insight and as to you know how quick if they're renting these things before they're even built. You know that might give you some idea of the desire need in the community. I spoke with a lengthy conversation with Tony Walton the other day about real estate issues in this area. Things are starting to subside as far as the shark frenzy over house buying. The inventory is starting to come up a little bit and you know the amount of people seeking new homes or homes here in town are starting to wane a little bit. I think as inflation continues to ramp up it's going to get more and more difficult to provide these types of housing for people at the lower end of the spectrum. Speaking to one of the guy that bought my concrete business years back. Today he called me about a project we're doing and he's so backed up with foundations. He's booked into May already. He's got piles and piles of jobs he needs to get to that are already in the works. Things are still booming on even though interest rates are going up. That money and those projects were already in the pipeline. So I think we'll see what happens come spring of next year. Fuel prices watching the stock market program there today. They're anticipating the Russian oil reserve supplies are going to be cut off here just prior to winter. There's going to be huge shortages and the price is going to ramp back up again. So none of this is good for the housing market right now. We're kind of a little bit unfortunately a little bit behind the A-ball when it comes to trying to provide affordable housing. That's my two cents for what it's worth. But I think some local people, guys like even Paul Arnaud, he's a developer. Those are the types of people that maybe we ought to be speaking to about what they're seeing on their end of it. And the potential for more housing or even the need for more. I'll just give a real brief comment. I've been in the housing world in Vermont for over 40 years. I was on a long time supporter of Down Street. I was on that board for six years. Housing program director at USDA rules development. So housing is a problem statewide. There's no place and what a very if you look as several people said houses are hard to come by a reasonable amount and rentals are hard. Someone working person like Alyssa, for example, she's even said she may not be able to find. Those of us who own houses probably haven't paid off. We're all a little more comfortable except for maybe our property taxes. I think it's a problem and I think the housing task force is the way for us to have that discussion and figure out strategies for what we're going to do in the future. We've been talking about it in a select board for several years. There's one other topic that relates that's not really EFUD's responsibility and one of the spokesman that the meeting was concerned about parking and the loss of parking. The trustee did a parking evaluation I think in 2016 that how was the parking in Waterbury. We had adequate parking if you looked around and that was before the bank parking that expanded and things. We're thinking of or I was going to propose that we perhaps have that parking evaluation sort of updated to show whether or not 51 is not a critical part of the parking need there. I think back then they showed that we were only at 68% in the bank. That didn't include the bank parking lot because it was private at the time. Now it's paid for parking and it's about doubled. It didn't include 51 because we did that while Main Street was being constructed. Never intending that it be used as a permanent parking lot and stuff. I was going to talk with EFUD next Wednesday when we meet whether we wanted to have I think it was Stantec that did the parking study and everything. They looked at that and made sure that 51 was not a critical part of the parking needs in Waterbury. I think it said we were only 68% of a critical level for what we had for the downtown area there. I don't know that we need to get into parking policy and long-term planning, but I guess I would just say that here's irony skip. In our parking lot we have parking ordinance and I think as you're uniquely aware the former village trustees used to allocate the staff to ever many high parking on the street and I would just state with regards to 51 South Main Street the sketch plan layout showed enough parking to meet what they were proposing to build in that building with no on-street parking and so certainly I support data-driven decision making. I would love to know what data you would like us to help support you getting before the 14th and I also think at a certain point some folks are not convinced by data and I think that public sentiment is important and just moving things forward. I don't think he's looking to get stuff done by the 14th. That's only next week. I agree with you Alyssa. I think one of the challenges that EFUD has with this lot and we saw it the last time EFUD talked about selling it to this guy by the name of Dan Johnson and we saw a little bit last week. It was a great presentation last week. I think we answered a lot of questions. I think a lot of people were very happy with what they heard. The problem is you know this group of people well we can't support it unless we see what it's going to look like. This group of people well you know it's not going to help anybody who you know makes more than $60,000 a year and therefore you know teachers and nurses and other kind of professional people they're not going to be helped by it. And everybody all of the folks that oppose it it seems like no matter what EFUD does there's going to be enough people that their questions aren't going to be answered so we vote to just do nothing and it just sits there. And then so is EFUD's only option to just put it out there and say we'll sell it to the highest bidder and then people are going to say well gee we're not going to authorize the trustees to sell it to the highest bidder unless we know what's there. So it's this continual dog chasing its tail and you never get the answer. So I mean I think a statement by the select board and the EFUD commissioners that housing is a critical need in water rates but identified by the Planning Commission and you know if you want to try to get some additional information I'm not sure the parking information is all that critical I think anecdotally there's doesn't seem to be a parking issue out there that I can see but you know I understand your concern skip and I understand why you're a little bit frustrated but I think that it's definitely the need of the hour from everything that we hear. I agree with what MK says if you read front porch forum people are always looking at something and this organization has a good track record in water rate. As I said at that meeting you know some people say well it's it's a you know not-for-profit housing company let the private sector do it and people like Joel Baker and Neyland-Eensworth and others are you know they're probably good folks but I can as the health officer I get called to go into a lot of private places in this community and you wouldn't want your worst enemy living in them. Thank you. Roger. I'll move that the select board encouraged EFUD to pursue the housing with Down Street as proposed with our full endorsement based on available information about housing issues in water rate. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion at second. Any further discussion on that? If not all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion carries. I appreciate your support. I have one second there because you're going to be up real quick. So I'll save you the trip. I have just one point of order Mike. I don't know if we approve the consent. Oh yes thank you. I guess we'll have to go back. The consent agenda items are solely the minutes of the August 15, 2022 meeting. Thank you Roger for that. Do we have a motion? I'll move to approve. Second. Yep. Motion in a second. Any discussion? If not all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. With any further public comments? The only thing I do want to add is as a public comment we got through the select board from CV Fiber. It says I'll read it. It's a very brief year town of Waterbury and select board. Thank you for your generous contribution to CV Fiber. It is through your collaboration and commitment that we will realize the dream of high speed fiber in our communities with warmest gratitude, Janelle and the CV Fiber team. Just to acknowledge that. Okay. Moving on, first item on the amended agenda was Skip was going to give an update on the selection process. Yes I worked on it. Most up to date with... Abbey Freedman. Abbey Freedman there. And getting things set for tomorrow. So at noon time, 12.30 I think the informal group of people selected to interview the three candidates has happened between 1 and 3.30 I think. And in the meantime the candidates will be meeting with Bill to ask questions of anything they have and Woody will be giving them a tour of the town and then they'll rotate around. They'll be giving us their feedback later in the evening beginning at 8 o'clock after our interviews. And the select board and the E5 commissioners are going to be convening at I think 4.30 in the south of the library there things to conduct the interviews of the three candidates and then following that we'll get the feedback from the people who were on the informal committee that met in the afternoon and that's complete. And then we'll go into discussion of the candidates and we want to go from there. So it could be a long evening for us tomorrow I think. So Abbey Freedman at the League of Cities and Towns is Phillip Hanford Rick McGinley who's on vacation there. So Bill has volunteered or offered to meet with them in terms of the rotation of the candidates in the afternoon. Bill Woodruff is going to give them a tour of the town and then they'll rotate around with the questions. So hopefully all of you I think have your questions put in and Abbey Freedman is going through and really be assigned the questions to ask. I think all of the select board can make it and Cindy Parks is not going to be able to make it of the B-Fud commissioners and Mermody is going to be joining us as far as I know. So it could be a long evening. Any questions of the board? Who's going to be facilitating the discussion? Will that be you or Abbey? Abbey. When you'll be getting, I don't know whether it's tonight or tomorrow but the list with your name is assigned for the question. We usually have a list of, you know, this person goes first, second, third, you know. It's good to have a lineup. Right. It'll be a lineup. It's a baseball or a meeting. The first meeting went pretty well. I think in the beginning they're going to be given five minutes to respond to that question that they were all to answer and you all should have gotten their response in writing and they'll be given five minutes to what they want to say about their response to that question. Yeah, thanks for distributing that, Scott. So, and when it's over, hopefully I'll have more free time that I haven't been spending on this for... And just on behalf of the board, thank you for chairing that. The meeting was really helpful. I knew... I definitely wanted to be a full participant but I was always scared with a 97-year-old and 102-year-old that, you know, things could feel bad so your participation has been unbelievable working with Rick and both Abby and it's the process I think has went well. Well, I'll put in a plug for the league of cities and towns because I don't see how any community handles the process on our own that we just don't have the... where I don't have the time to spend on it to do the things that they have done to help us along in the process of things. I said the same thing. I was talking with my wife on the drive back north and I said, if we had to do this whole thing ourselves, boy, it would have been an astronomical process and maybe for real small communities are able to do that but, you know, a community our size, it's a very... you need some sort of a steward to guide you through the process. Yes. So you don't fall into the failure cracks of other people and things. Right. So maybe it went over my head but the questions that the select board each, the three questions that each select board member posed to the candidates, how does that fit into this process? They'll be on the list that different people will be assigned. They didn't all make it. It's kind of a range of questions and like if, you know, I had a question similar to something like that or something that those, you know, they get to ask one question in that category so it covers a sort of range of things that people pick out. You all got the list to take your questions from there being the right or wrong. You'll get at the beginning of the session a list of who goes where, you know, it's not going to be half-pass or it'll be organized, you know, Chris or then Alissa may go, you know, Abby will have, you know, a set schedule of people asking. Right. And just to reiterate the answer to Chris's question is we all submitted questions. VLCT staff helped consolidate and they'll help distribute them back out. Sounds good. So one piece of housekeeping information and I just kind of thought about this over the weekend and it's probably just me being a little bit anal about it but the boards will need to decide. I mean, we talked about having the person start on November 1st. You can only have one town manager so is the new person going to be the special assistant to the town manager for two months or is the person going to be the town manager on November 1st and I'll be the special assistant. I don't really care but you can't appoint that person as town manager on November 1st and also have me as town manager on November 1st. So just think about that a little bit. That's a good point. I would think that that person would likely be more the special assistant going forward because, you know, he's training kind of under you. That seems to me. My lexicon seems to make a lot of sense and then when you leave, he would take over that. Right. And it's just a small housekeeping thing but I want you to make sure you do it and the more you're going to do it. We will. Thanks. Any other questions? Just to remind you all, except for the two boards there was 425 in the south room at the library beginning, except 425. This room was occupied with, I think it's the DRB and they already scheduled people here. It's illegal notices. The room at the library. It's the big room kind of toward the parking lot there. Skip one question that I had. If we get to the end of the process and there's no clear choice, you know, whether I'm not saying there's no choice or, you know, it couldn't be where we say none of the three candidates we would like, unlikely. But there might be a possibility that we might not come to consensus that night. I'm thinking we will. What would be the process if we didn't come to consensus that evening? Well, I've never been through it before, but in talking with Abby a little bit, you may narrow it down to two candidates, you know, that we don't agree on one, but you can agree on two and you can have a second or third round of process that you want to do something between the two other candidates or, you know, more written description. It's unlikely, but it could happen. Let's stay cautiously optimistic and cross that bridge when we come to it. Exactly. If there are no further questions, we'll see you tomorrow at 4.25 at the sour. And also, there's we're doing the sort of informal and formal, but the interviews with the committee that we have pointed there are beginning at 12.30, so I think Chris, are you planning to attend that? And Lefkin's planning to attend, and I don't know what the year... No, I said, you know, I asked if Chris was going to attend, I would figure out. Well, you could, we thought up to three people could, you know, sit in on that. You wouldn't be asking questions, but you've been listening to the whole process and things at UOG, sort of running the meeting and things. And then those people are going to be calling back in by way of Zoom beginning at 8 o'clock by the time. So if we get all their feedback, then we would begin talking about the, you know, the candidates and pros and cons of what you do. Look forward to it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next item, electrical box art design. M.A., come on up. Hello. How'd you like the first one? Love it. Did you hear a yellow mark window? I'm going to hit you. Nice and done. Thank you. So we have a new group of kids. These are freshmen at Harwood. And they worked with Julio last week. They had a lot of different ideas than the younger kids. But it's mostly landscape with some town buildings with a person on a corner of the box, sort of community storytelling of maybe future past. I don't know. It's hard to describe. It'll be a landscape-ish thing. But if you trust me, I think it'll be nice. I didn't get to see the box on the corner. Yeah, I didn't. The roundabout just to show it. Yeah. In the paper. But yeah, it's four different seasons. Each side has a different season. So one is in the fall, summer. Winter spring. Summer faces Main Street. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so it's different colors. But it's also got the train. Is that a wishful thinking? So summer can stay forever. No. Summer can stay forever. Another community. Thank you. And then it's also got the train motif. Right. But why we're in a little pause. If Brian F. and TCL A3, if you could identify yourselves for the record. Brian, answer. Okay. Okay. And TCL A3. Could you send something to them in the chat? I don't have chat. I don't have chat. No, we could send something to them. I don't have chat. Don't know chat. No, we could send something to them. Yeah, I would say. If they're not going to identify themselves. They don't want to identify themselves. I would say. Put them in the waiting room. I would make this is the rest of the board and agreement to put TCL A3 in the waiting room because they won't identify themselves. Yeah. Why in the waiting room? How are they going to identify themselves from there? How else would you recommend? If they're not being obtrusive, this is a publicly recorded meeting, so they and the rest of the public are entitled to see it. We can reflect them in the minutes as TCL A3, but obviously we won't take public comment unless they identify themselves. If they're disruptive, like any other disruptive person, we're allowed to make an order. We have other members of the public here that identify themselves, so I'm not sure if that's required. I think it's mostly if it's problematic, that's why I get wary on Zoom, but if they're sitting there muted, seems fine to me. Okay. So my question is, can we paint the next electrical box? Sure. I'll move that we give M.K. and her team of authority to paint the next electrical box. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Is there any reason? Okay. You've already explained what the last one is going to be about. Landscape. Landscape with LaVanna. On town. Vermont. Vermont. Yeah. Okay. Now based on the first one, I'd say absolutely. Let's go for it. No further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. Nice job. I think we should just read for the record the first sentence of the article in the roundabout quote, what was the quickest improvement to Main Street in four years? So props to the group for doing it and for doing it. That was good. That was good. That was loud. All right. Have a good night. Before the Main Street. I passed her on the way to work the next day. It was quite funny. All right. Okay. Okay. Next item on the agenda is closure of Randall Street for Halloween. So Jeff Smith, who lives on Randall Street is involved in Halloween activities as many folks on Randall Street are. He reached out last week and given that if we don't do something, he'll reach out again next week after. Randall Street is, as you know, high volume. It is the place to go in Waterbury for Halloween for trick or treating. Party. So we have typically closed Randall Street, about half of Elm Street, I guess, just beyond the, you know, small parking lot. We closed there from four to eight on Halloween and it's a town street now. Not the bulge. It doesn't have anything to do with it anymore. So I would recommend the select board. Authorize the closure of Randall Street from four to eight on Halloween. Authorize the closure as outlined. Thank you. Second. I'll second it. We will motion to the second. Any further discussion on the closure? Do we, or anyone need like Sheriff's, I mean, I know when we had, but we're fine. Just close it with signs. Call it a day. Am I dreaming Bill? Have we not done this before of official closure of Randall Street? Maybe I'm just, because it just goes fast that we haven't. You've done it before. Okay. That's been closed past five years at least. Yeah. No, I know it's always been closed, but I just can't remember it being in a select board. Yeah. Yeah, I believe we have brought it to the select board. Yeah, probably. It's just, it's just money. Important information, does anyone take candy donations for the people who do it? Yeah, we all do. Is it usually, I know, but did they, where would one consolidate those? Or do you just leave all Roger's stuff? It has several years. Jeremy Ayers has been coordinating that. I think he put something out on the front porch forum. He also has a Facebook page. And I believe the Brookside Elementary. There's collection boxes at Brookside. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just on the receiving end of that. That's a good one. That is a dark secret. I know there's some residents that get pretty involved. At least they used to. Still do. I get involved on the other side. I like to just guess what each kid is dressed up as. So I've been getting better. Not 100%. As we get older, we don't know a lot. That's right. That is the challenge. Okay. Moving forward. Next slide. Yeah, they didn't bring it to a vote. Oh, I thought we did. Okay. Second. Second. Then if there's no further discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. August 26th in the pouring rain and thunderstorm at Hope TV in the morning to do sidewalk, but it was really great We had a nice range of again folks involved on the steering committee people who play in disc golf with their kids people focused on Equestrian people focused on conservation Equestrian access through the back So again a nice range and it was really just an opportunity for the consultants to hear from folks on the property We'll get to the next other opportunity for that But also there was a wetlands delineation Consultant and then Arborist, so they were there as well. So that happened But the important thing is that I would like to invite everyone to the public visioning workshop and open house in This room so it's in the steel community room Thursday September 15th from five to seven that is a change of location So mostly I just wanted to highlight this is on the home page of our municipal website It's from five to seven. It's drop-in so you can come for a half hour and then leave to go to the RW business mixer Or whatever else you would like to do with your evening There also will be an online survey Because it's drop-in. It's not a formal presentation where we would like record it on zoom But there will be an online survey option posted on the town website So if for some reason you can't come in person, but you want to provide feedback you can do that Here's the beautiful poster which is going at the post offices here and anyone can take one and happy to answer any questions But that's all I have Originally this was going to be a bit of an update Correct Due to both accessibility and the fact that darkness at 7 p.m. In outdoor settings at this time a year gets less and less productive this the sidewalk was inspired grain was Really interesting. I never realized how close some of the disc golf was to some of the houses, but as I Kind of asked the question, you know all the houses Postated the the disc golf course so it's a kind of old fire. Yeah So there are there are definitely some conflicts. There was also some in interesting things that we discussed down at the By the ice center, you know one of the I guess real issues there were parking as I guess parking is kind of a theme tonight That was a big issue on how to keep on creating if you created a new skate park down at the center Right, that's where they're kind of looking and how they were going to configure that, you know, the consultants are going to look at that But you know, they want to make I just crazy idea. I said you want to really think out of the box they should make a lose rink in the winter and they any ice ice Waterpark in the summer, but that's really thinking creatively, but I don't think that bring your ideas 15th at 7 5 to 7 But it was a very interesting Sidewalk, you know, it really highlighted a lot of the issues and I think the people involved in an excellent job You know, you know Giving giving the floor. I think the people the people from the this golf community were very respectful I think the some of the local residents were very I was a little concerned that that was there was going to be a Little bit of a mix up there, but that never seemed to happen And so I think as I said, I think the public visioning workshop is going to be a real You know, we'll be with him rubber heat meets the road The better the input the better the plan will be and then we will have a plan informed by a lot of public input to make Decisions moving forward. So please share your input in person around the search your parks make you make use best use of them Any other questions? Signing certificates to appoint the town clerk and treasurer I Do it Hey, well, I think just requires our signatures. If not, we'll move on to managers items Letter of support for capital region capital region communication systems Yeah, so at an upcoming meeting We'll have somebody here from capital West to talk about this capital regions communication system The long and short of it is the you've probably read or heard that the state police Do not want to be in the dispatching business for municipalities fire departments ambulances etc any longer going forward and This is a long process by which The state police will wean themselves away from that now the state police don't do any dispatching For us anymore when the village police department existed the state police did dispatch the village police But now the village police are gone the state police dispatches their own police officers of which We have a contract to Provide service here, but capital West capital region communication Dispatches wassy and they dispatch our fire departments our fire department and But there are little towns in our region that the state police does some dispatching for both fire and Ambulance, so that's going to be moving off and before the state police does that to all of their municipal dispatch clients if you will The various regions have to ramp up their communication system so that it's Seamless and nobody goes without the Chief of Barry City, I believe it is is involved with capital West and there's a grant that this organization has Applied for looks pretty certain they're going to get it But what the state said when when they were lobbied for the grant was We'll help you get the new system set up Because we're dispatching now and we don't want to dispatch anymore. So we'll help provide some money To set up the new communication system, but the regions have to have a plan in place To maintain and then replace this system when the system goes down so This letter of support that frankly I have already signed because they bugged me and bugged me and Gary and I I signed it and I put an asterisk here And I said subject to approval by the select board on the 6th of September The grant application had to go in last week So it went in with my signature on it if the select board doesn't want to do it then I'll With draw it But all this is basically saying now is whereas the town of watery currently uses the city of Montpelier and city of Barry to provide emergency dispatch those two dispatching Departments in Barry City and in Montpelier those two city departments. They provide There's a contract that they do the dispatching for capital West Whereas the town is aware that communications needs assessment was recently performed Which recommended certain and how enhancements to dispatch capabilities and emergency radio systems Whereas the town of watery recognizes that the ability for dispatch facilities in the cities of Barry and Montpelier To provide backup dispatch service for each other will greatly improve and the redundancy and reliability will be improved The providing public safety dispatching and communication services to each facility in the capital region Therefore the town of watery expresses its support for the application to the state of Vermont for dispatch and radio enhancement funding Furthermore, this funding will support necessary emergency service communications via the capital region communication system project for many years to come so I Would recommend that you make a motion to authorize this to go in it's already gone in With the caveat that I talked about and then probably in October, I would hope that Somebody from capital West will come here and describe What the plan is going to be going forward and How much it will cost and they will there will be cost we already pay We already pay for Dispatching We pay right now Yeah Dispatching We're paying 86 thousand six hundred dollars right now And that is for our dispatching and we pay for the dispatching from wassy wassy reduces our direct assessment or appropriation to them to reflect the fact that we are providing that a building right now and Providing this dispatching so it's all factored in but going forward That 86,000 is to just pay the costs for dispatching It's going to go up from there there's going to be an additional cost to pay into a fund that will help to maintain and Replace that system going forward. So anyway, that's it for now. You're not committing to anything right now except agreeing to ask for the funding to support that facility so I move that the select board authorize the letter of support that they'll just read to us in support of the Capital Region Communication System Project Motion to the other second second discussion upon the securing of this Grandin ends up happening and moving forward of the process I'm assuming that there'll be Budgetary numbers relating to the maintenance part of it. Yeah, yeah Two-part questions. No, I'm very supportive, but I don't know if we have any choice I don't think we could be without dispatching so it's kind of a almost a moot point that we needed dispatching and to How do you see like Central Vermont? I know I missed the last meeting, but the Central Vermont State Police Advisory Board the 18 towns have they Are they all I assume they're part of this and yeah Most of the 18 most of the towns that are members of this State Police Advisory Commission Most of those towns are included in Capital West. They're already paying for the dispatching services to a degree a Few of the small ones might be dispatched by the state and they might be getting it for free right now So, yeah, they're all they're all on board Their capital West is starting to go around to the different towns to Explain just the answer to the question that you had that you know, we're going to if this Grant comes to fruition. We're going to get all this equipment and when I believe it was They were asked to show how they could have a system in place That would have a million dollars available after ten years in order to Replace if they if they needed to and to me I think that's That's more than it will cost in ten years or maybe the life will go out more than ten years But they've got there. They're trying to look at this from all angles, you know, it's it's I'm not going to debate anybody and say it's not a lot of money, but if we had to provide 24-hour a day dispatching 365 days a year it cost us a half a million dollars So it's it's pretty it's a pretty good deal Brian's out on zoom has a question his hands up Well, they didn't give me a reason, but I believe the reason that they want to divest themselves from this is that they've got enough to do on their own that and There's there's issues of fairness, you know It's we used to face that when when the village was dispatched, you know when I first came here We had well Mary Dow was the dispatcher from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon and then when she went home the state police took it from five to you know, eight in the morning and You know, I'd go to managers meetings in the city manager of Montpelier would say How come you get 16 hours a day free from the state police? We don't get that from the state police, you know, so Anyway, it's it's I think that It's just They feel the time has come to kind of cut that cord Any further questions or comments? If not all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any post any abstentions motion carries Financial reports All right You can spend as little as Much time on this as you want. That's the highway in general fund. I apologize for the Bond size. It's pretty small on the general fund in the library the Capital funds are a little bit easier to read I Didn't I didn't do a budget for the library this time around. I just kind of ran out of time I'm just going to hit the high points I don't know if there's one for Lisa There's one each there's somebody else back there to Karen if they want I'll just wait for everybody to get what they are looking for So start with the general fund The general fund in the highway fund, which is the one with the small font with the Yellow green and blue on the first page on the revenue side of things You'll see that We budgeted 4,067,000 dollars of revenue down as the bottom of the page And if you look over the projected column, it's 3,353 That looks like it's way down and people might want to say why is that way down? the big deal there is that because of EFUD's decision not to transfer the UDAG fund to you The town isn't going to transfer six hundred thousand dollars to EFUD. Therefore in the bottom miscellaneous Budget there you see that six hundred thousand dollar transfer in APA funds If you look over in the right-hand column, that's not going to happen I did increase the budget for the APA lost revenue line that includes the hundred thousand dollars going to the ice center And I said well, there's no place else to put the fifty thousand dollars that you agreed to give to CB fiber, so that's in that line The things that are highlighted in yellow and green in the service fee section Looks like the town clerk's fees are going to be down I suspect the major reason why that's down is that nobody's refinancing mortgages anymore because interest rates are going up you know, there's still activity of transfers marriage licenses and all that kind of stuff, but The past several years we've had a lot of refinancing because interest rates were so low and that's just not happening now The number down is going to be down from the historical society because they used to have Two positions and one position hasn't been filled since early in the year So that will be offset by a reduction in expenses as well The swimming pool income We budgeted 50 we took in 45 632 Normally at this point in time I would suggest that would probably make up the difference with our fall swim lessons but the combination of COVID staffing issues Nick having left Why it just coming in I'm not sure we're going to have any swim lessons that we We the last several years Nick put into place System where we worked with either first and fitness in Montpelier or I think it was the Golden Eagle and Stowe to rent those facilities to provide Swim lessons in the in the cold weather months. I don't think we're going to have that at least this fall I imagine why it will think about that for next year The rec program Revenues and the mini camp revenues. I think there's a little bit of cross-pollination there If you add the two together, you know, we're looking at a hundred and eighty one thousand dollars about between Recreation revenues and mini camp revenues that were budgeted and if you look at what we've received We're a little over 200,000 So we're not too far off on that and it's just a matter of where those Programs where they choose to put that revenue. So there's nothing there That's a miss the planning fees Right now if you divided twenty thousand three seventy four by eight months and then multiply it by twelve months It would be close to thirty thousand I ratcheted that down to an estimate of twenty five thousand five sixty just because typically in the fall As winter approaches, you know, you get less and less permits But it it looks like we will at least get our budgeted amount there And then the blue at the bottom from tax stabilization fund. We have budgeted fifty thousand dollars That's what and we'll talk about that as we get closer to the end of the year, but for Roger and Alyssa's benefit we used to have a fairly complex formula as To how to determine how much money from the tax stabilization fund that we could transfer But now that the tax stabilization fund has a fund balance over a million dollars What we've pretty typically said now and the voters approved this about three years ago is that we could transfer in any given year five percent of the value so fifty thousand dollars is five percent of a million and You know if the if the fund lost Ten or fifteen percent you could still transfer that five percent and not have it really negatively impact the fund so it's in blue because if if we don't have to transfer it even though we said that we Will transfer it If we end up in revenues or ahead of expenses, and we decide not to transfer it We can make that choice. It's not mandatory that we transfer it I Think there's something to be said maybe this year going into this budget season that even if we look at the budget now And the transfer isn't necessary You know, maybe we want to build the fund balance up a little bit to try to make a buffer for taxes Next year because it's a little bit unknown But we'll make that decision as we get toward the end of the year So that's it on the revenues if you turn over the page It's double-sided. We start the expenses there I'm not going to go through this line item by line item But the 310 on the regular pay When I put the budget together in 2022 back in January You know, I was proposing that Nick was going to work as Recreation director the director of recreation and community services and some of his pay was going to be in the Recreation line and some of his pay was going to be in the general government line and and He's he's left. So we're probably not going to spend all of that all of that money I Did factor in the wild card is going to be how much you choose to pay the new Municipal manager for for two months. That's the line. It will come out up. I think I estimated that it was going to be $100,000 salary which is I think that's below your your starting level or quite close anyway for 11 weeks But you're going to have enough Play there. So you won't have to worry about it. The clerk's line is Blue it looks like we're going to go over a little bit Carla while she has retired She still has some vacation time coming to her and she's continuing to get paid for a few more weeks And then, you know Karen is now the town clerk. So there's a little bit of Might be additional pay there that I wasn't banking on because what I did the calculation. I just figured Carla was Well, she hadn't really announced to anybody except me. So I was just kind of taking a shot in the dark that Because she hadn't told us when she was going to go out So anyway, there's nothing more on that page the third page fire department the building maintenance line looks like it's Going to be way over budget, but it's not quite as bad as it seems it is above what we budgeted but they pay a An annual fee to Honeywell in January which represents about half of the $30,000 for Mechanical Service that they provide there in that building. So that was paid early in the year It is going to go over More than it is right now, but it's not going to be Terribly over Yep, yep this everything in here is for two stations and all of the people the insurance and liability Property and liability insurance The 1555 is paid quarterly We did have one accident with the firetruck side-swiped Passenger car it was our fault. So there was an insurance claim the town has a $5,000 deductible So that claim was about 67 $6,800 we had to pay 5,000 of it. So I just I Goes on that insurance line 5,000 might sound like a high deductible and certainly for most people for their passenger cars It's a lot higher than people carry But you know, we're municipality we get Because we take a higher deductible our premiums are significantly lower We've had a bad year this year when it comes to deductibles We have this one. I think we've had two in the highway department. So we probably paid 15,000 dollars in deductibles, but over time I look at The choices that we can make and that $5,000 deductible has paid You know, it's We're we're still paying less over time than we would otherwise The new equipment line pretty typically Gary waits Until very late in the year before he buys the equipment So we fund the new equipment line this year Most of what we buy in any given year is really going to be put in Into service at the end of the year and in the next year and he just waits because it's one line That there's a little bit of a buffer so if we Found that we were going to be way over budget for some reason we could pull back in on that line a little bit Turning over the page in the rec programs The Right now Michelle. I didn't tell her so we hired wired O'Brien as the program coordinator For the budget for this year is $24,000. She started in August You can see that nothing has been paid there But you see the summer recreation the summer program pays way over budget Some of that money that in that 132 473 belongs on the $24,000 line. So But also remember That record, you know, even if you took 24,000 out of that and why it hasn't earned $24,000 yet this year We're going to be way over on that line But if you remember the revenue lines at the beginning of the year, we've taken in significantly more revenue So I think it's going to be okay The recreation director lying down at the bottom of the page in blue again Some of that 51,000 224 which has been paid to Nick through August should have been going into the Into the general government pay line because it was supposed to be for that community You know what he was doing for community services, but he never did anything there So just going to pay everything out of the wreck out of the rec line There's really nothing else of significance to talk about If you turn over to the back of the last page in the general government We've budgeted four million 140 My projections right now are a little less than 3.5 million and the big difference there again If you added that $600,000 and it'd be right on target. So I think we're in pretty good shape when it comes to the General fund budget Highway fund is next And There's really not a lot to say here the things that are above Well above cost all have to do are related with fuel so the propane line We're already pretty close to what we budgeted for the year. It looks like we're going to spend about 15 thousand Gas and diesel fuel are both Just about spent for the year and we're going to go over there Right now as you know fuel prices have come down about a dollar from their highs But we're going into the time of year where you know Heating fuel is going to maybe stack on the other direction what happens with Russia and Ukraine, you know, we're just at the mercy of the market like everybody else is And we'll we'll pay attention to that The emergency road repairs we talked about that earlier And we actually spent more on stone than we needed to for actually putting on the road this one silly it was sick Randy was kind of running things and There was a little bit of miscommunication. So we have we have some of that stone still available to us Yeah, I'm sorry. Can you the 95,000 up the top transfer from our but I know you've answered it Yeah, is it in blue because that's another scenario where we could hypothetically not yeah, is yes, so I I budgeted the 95,000 from our pa at the beginning of the year as lost revenue Because we needed it to balance the budget But I said at the time if if we get through the year and we don't need to transfer that money and just leave it To appropriate for something else It wouldn't be a bad idea to do and you know we can We can look at the budget holistically at that point You know if we end up with If we didn't transfer that money right now We're looks like we're projecting a little bit over on The expenses we budgeted 1959 and we're already at we're looking at 1990 So we're about $30,000 over right now, which is that emergency road repair line So in order to balance the highway fund would need that 95,000 dollars, but if the budget as a whole is You know has excessive revenues over expenditures You can choose to do with all that if you if you want to But again, there's nothing out of the ordinary that I can see here Any questions about the general fund or the highway five Yeah, we might need it Chris, you know I If you look at the projection for diesel fuel It's about $30,000 that we've already spent. I'm hopeful that's That's a high estimate, you know to spend $30,000 when in the first eight months of the year Which where most of our winter is you know January, February, March part of April is winter in the in the rest of this year in a typical year winter starts November 15th we have six weeks of winter and that's when we use most of our fuel So I'm hoping these projections are high and it's taken into consideration What might happen to the prices, but we'll just Right diesel is still up there pretty good, but again to to expect that you know, we've spent Five eighths of what we're going to spend right now I'm hoping that I've Projected conservatively we'll find out. It's the fuel prices definitely having an impact Just because it's not available it's being gobbled up so fast They're paying a hundred and fifteen dollars a cord now and that's unheard of for for wood on the landing Hardwood pulp, you know has gone to a hundred dollars a cord and that's unheard of it. She was around sixty five dollars a cord because the Firewood market is stealing so much from home on the whole market the whole prices To try to be more competitive So people are really starting to challenge Firewood prices are going through the roof Thank God, just glad I got my name our state government didn't follow through with that Commission there that was gonna acts all Form the fossil fuel there include the fire From from the state of Ramon anybody that you weren't gonna be allowed you're gonna have to change everything over to Alternatives you weren't gonna be able to burn diesel propane firewood Really My player still works I Because they want it there, you know the state is building all these biofueled places where they Anyway, the the next one is the capital budgets and this one is a lot less Precise even then my estimations on the other one. So on the first page is the Top of the page is the paving fund We're going to spend That 135 plus 270 it might not exactly be in Class 3 at 135 in class 2 at 270 there may be a little bit of mixing there we got decent prices from Whitcomb Because we've decided For a variety of reasons not to change that culvert this year up on blush Hill We're not going to put the the second coat from Won't some trail out to the end of the pavement on blush Hill so We've done some Shimming resurfacing parts of Guple Road There's a couple of other places that we've done a little bit that we hadn't really intended to do we may Try to put a shim coat and level up going down to the ice center especially in the narrow section there before you break out From the woods. That's pretty rough shape we're trying to get a Recalculated price on that, but we'll if anything will be a little bit low on the paving costs Blush Hill job until next year. Yeah. Yeah, so The That culvert that's right in the That area there It's just been challenging to get people who are able to do the work and to bid and And there's been some other challenges just keeping up with things So what he came to me a couple months ago and said really Be better off if we try not to tackle that this year so we saved a little bit of Rather than have the paving money just sit there there were places that we could use it so Got a little bit More done in some places that had some fairly significant needs in terms of rough road On the fund 71 the infrastructure program that $200,000 state grant is That funds That downtown projects down in the expenses. You can see the first line in the expenses $240,000 the 240 is for the sidewalks on Randall Street and Park Row the Randall Street side of Park Row We're going to come around the corner on Elm Street I think it's on skips side of the street come down and pick up a little bit more sidewalk there and then the other part of that project was the lighting and Trash receptacles in Rusty Parker Memorial Park The lighting in the trash receptacles are not going to happen in 2022 this grant is We we've got until The end of the construction season in 2023 to get all of it done so my projection here is that we'll get 75% of the 200,000 so we'll probably get 150 there and we'll spend 75% of the of the project and those are just estimates Just saying we're not going to get the whole $240,000 project done this year And then you can see that culvert improvement that 62,000 was for the culvert on Blush Hill and we're not going to do that this year The reservoir road project is going to go ahead They're pushing it off a little bit longer than I had hoped but That's what the plan is right now They're going to do it they're going to do it this year. Yeah Yeah, it's it's definitely a challenge and you know where we've got the state Jay McDonald's We put it out to be So they're ready to go and they should do a good job, but it's like Chris says it's the the weather They got to worry about it. You know here. We're trying to stabilize the road and Now you know look at what's happening now, so It's going to be a challenge, but the state parks have been barking at us. Oh, you can't close the state Road in the state park and blah blah blah So anyway, we'll see what happens Vehicle fund fund 72 that's pretty straightforward Fire vehicles nothing this year so everything else is pretty much on the line If you turn to the last page the recreation CIP It wasn't a huge CIP in the first place, but looks like we're going to end up spending about a quarter of what we thought those projects Recreation building through the tennis courts tennis court one is is done it costs less to put up the wind screens than we thought but the field improvements and the rec building improvements those were projects that You need a lot of input from Nick and Bill Woodruff together and just given the circumstances with Nick deciding to move on it just didn't We weren't able to get that stuff Ready to go so Anyway, yeah, I imagine we'll we'll have them still on the list to look at this So I think we're in pretty decent shape Haven't looked at the investment portfolio of late If you've looked at your own You've looked at your own it's relatively bad news But it's it's we've been kind of dollar-cost averaging, you know, we had we had Come out of the market significantly in 20 early 20 and 21 and We've been in several of the funds buying systematically, so I'm hoping that we're buying Relatively low price. I mean it still could go down from here. We don't know but I think eventually will be rewarded for what we're doing So maybe at the next meeting I'll bring you up to speed on what's happening with those Any further questions from the board? Thank you bill for the update Here where we are the last item is the salary of town Yeah, so the audit proposal if you want to deal with that now We Since two thousand Since 2017 Sullivan empowers is our audit auditing firm When bill Yacoboni left we put it out to bid Sullivan powers They were only one of can't remember we had three. I think we only had two bidders And Sullivan powers got the bid They gave us five years worth of Proposals 2021 was the last year that we were Under contract with them for and Pretty typically an audit firm is looking at a five-year commitment so because we had Come to the end of our time Our contract and time with Sullivan empowers I Reached out to Fred de Plessy of their firm a couple weeks ago and said can you give me a proposal for the next five years? I would recommend that you stay with some of them Sullivan powers right now for two reasons one They're a good firm they know what they're doing they know us And in keeping with they know us I'm going to be transitioning out of here in 2022 to 2023 Now we haven't talked about it yet We can talk about it when we get towards budget time, but my expectation is that You may want me to have some role because they're going to come in May or June to do the 2022 audit And they're going to ask the town manager and he's going to say I have no idea so I Think that keeping them in play is a good idea their prices We budgeted twenty five thousand dollars this year for their audit and They Commercial audit so we budgeted twenty five thousand in 2022 The costs that they build us was twenty four thousand three hundred and forty dollars They're proposing Twenty five thousand dollars for next year to do the 2022 audit so that will be the 2023 expense And then it goes up twenty five five so up five hundred dollars for the next year And then twenty six two so that's what seven hundred dollars the next year then it goes up eight hundred dollars then it goes up Another eight hundred dollars for the last two years What's that I said it's worse than property taxes impacts property taxes Well, I'm not sure So anyway My recommendation would be for you to accept this for the five-year term If you don't want to accept it for the five-year term then I'd have to I really think you need to have them do this Years audit because changing auditors at the same time you're trying to get a new Manager and it's not a good idea If you told them well, we'll commit to 2022 and then we want to go out to bid I'm not sure you're going to get any prices that are going to be any lower than The twenty five five that they're looking at is that was that schedule of increase the same as the last five years? I Have to look Roger if you want to wait I I told Fred today this just came today and I told him that it wasn't on the agenda today That it might be until October before the select board gets back So if you want more information, you don't have to take any action tonight. You can wait until October to do this They're not expecting it back tomorrow The only thing I'm a little concerned of you know, I understand why auditors won five-year contracts But also we're going in I think we have to be with the same auditor going into a new town manager But at some point might he want more of a say or if he feels more comfortable with a certain auditing firm, I don't know You know Right and that's what we might want it might be a question if we do hire someone tomorrow it might be a question For them if they haven't had any experience with Solvent powers how they feel about them sir Do you recall if there was any up-front charge or additional charge when they first step through the door to? Kind of take over thing from bill Was it just I don't recall if it was just a contract price Well, they made they made a proposal They just put a proposal together. It was a significant increase over what yet morning was charging. So there's a huge increase So It sounds like you have other questions, so we can table this until October All right Just be interested to see if that those increases are in line with They charge through the last five years Three percent of the total value of the contract less of that So I'm I don't want to minimize three thousand dollars of expense But I also think in a five-year hundred eight five thousand dollar contract three thousand dollars of increases I'm not deeply concerned about but I'm happy to table it and get additional information I just think to the point we may end up know better and I think it's imperative for next year and there is a Cost to transition, so I I don't think we need to decide tonight But I have no reservations with that as outline and in defense of Solvent powers We're seeing they're seeing less and less auditors who are taking on the business So we might be paid twenty five thousand dollars this year and you're saying you're keeping within a thousand dollars for the Years that can be set for planning and they can't they're right now 500 under budget if they're done. I feel So I just want you to understand my comment was a bit of frustration that It just makes it You know every time you turn around and look at somebody I haven't raised my prices on my equipment five years including this year because I didn't want to participate in The economic destruction of Mike, you know What I can do I'm a drop in a bucket but I Refused to raise my prices on my equipment. There's other things that I don't have control over I have to pass those costs on but Just every every turn it's right. It's an increase an increase an increase and Not only does it affect people who are looking to retire It also affects people who are young people who are looking to try to buy their first home or try to get started or you know I'm saying so it's it's just And Chris I really deeply respect that my grocery bill is going up faster than that So the point being if we're setting a contract for five years I'm not saying I wish it wasn't like that But I think being dealt the hand that we're dealt it might be about as good as we get I completely agree with that as well. Okay, I'll bring it back Thank you, thank you further further for better Salary the clerk salary So so The as I explained to Karen recently Karen And Karla before her Are answerable to the public not to the select board or to the town manager, so you don't supervise her I don't supervise her. She's she runs her own ship right now But I did tell her that the one control that the select board has is the budget so you have to put a budget together that shows what the clerk's salary is and if The clerk doesn't feel that's adequate, you know, if there's a discussion during the budget time, you know, she'll make her her case and the select board can decide what it's going to put in the In the Town report and what the proposed budget is going to be and if she doesn't like it there She can go to the voters and ask them to increase it. They do they do So it's a little bit odd in that I don't there's not been a time in the 40 years that I've been doing this that we've had a town clerk transition during the year it usually happens that that the Exiting town clerk decides not to run again. We kind of know that there's a budget made so Karen and I have talked and my recommendation to the select board is that Karen's annualized salary be fifty eight thousand two hundred and forty dollars a year and If you divide that by two thousand eighty hours, it's twenty eight dollars an hour Which is less than the former town clerk was making But more than she was making as the utility billing clerk So it's a formality. I hope you you have this one Right now Even though she doesn't work for you, you know, you have the control of the purse So if you agree to twenty eight dollars an hour, she'll be happy enough to come to work tomorrow But your pleasure I'll move that we approve the salary of fifty eight thousand two hundred and forty Any further discussion There being none all in favor say aye Any opposed any abstentions motion carries Congratulations Yes Are you getting ready to adjourn? Yeah, all right. So before you adjourn the next meeting is Monday, September 19th I Would encourage you to meet that day if you'd like maybe you have something to do after tomorrow with the town manager search committee But on the 19th of September, I will be in Columbus, Ohio at my final International City Management Association conference, so I won't be here on the 19th of September So if you don't want to meet on the 19th The next meeting would be on October 3rd And it's up to the board. I'm just letting you know I won't be here for it. So I Would encourage us to keep on key and we have a lot of things on our agenda I know we missed one meeting and there's stuff in the parking lot that Yeah, this is off a meeting at the beginning of August and it seems like we have We continue to add things to part to the parking lot. We haven't taken much out of it Let's try to meet on the 19th Do you want me to try to get the State police folks on the 19th or do you want me to hear for that meeting or Yeah, I might want you there for if we can do that on the 3rd of October I think we should have Because one of the things I'm interested in is the interplay between the town manager and the state police in terms of how they prioritize and do these And that's where we're going. Okay. Great. But perhaps some of these others Yeah, so You can have Skip discuss the sewer system. I bet Bella is well versed in the sewer system. So that could be perhaps a Skip the sewer system Skip back And perhaps I would also just propose at that meeting we have a subject around future agenda items because I currently have a half page with Gupto parking parking ordinance are closing emergency management plan dance suite assessor presentation on a report from what state police sewer system So yes, I agree. I think whatever we can check off and recognizing many of those Would be aided by Bill's presence and expertise, but maybe let's try for skin at least Mm-hmm Thank you The housing yeah, I was I can come back with the we can do finalization of the task force Yeah, and maybe invite some friends Maybe we can one-on-one maybe say whatever our priorities among each other and what we can do the next meeting And I think the point that we may have Other follow-up about Prospective future manager depending on tomorrow's outcomes Or other community updates Anything further that could legally come before us if not someone want to make a motion to adjourn Oh Second second All in favor say aye aye Opposed any abstentions motion carries. Thank you all for coming