 Good evening, everyone. Today is Wednesday, November 16, 2022. We have a forum present so I will call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the Chittenden Solid Waste District Board of Commissioners. Before we begin, I just want to explain that normally this program this meeting would be televised by Channel 17. They are not here so that those of us present in the room in the Williston Town Hall meeting room are all going to be attending via Zoom. But since we're all in the same room, we're going to have some audio challenges and perhaps some other coordination challenges so ask that you all bear with us. Also, if you cannot hear us, please swing your arms or let us know. Conversely, we may have problems hearing you. Because we're going to be listening through Sarah's audio. So please speak clearly and slowly and as audibly as possible. And feel free to use the chat feature as well. We'll be monitoring the chat. So, I hope everybody understands that there's always something new with our meetings. With that, we'll begin the meeting. The first item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Are there any requests to change or add anything to the agenda? Yeah, this is Henry. I'd like to see furniture discussed specifically furniture deconstruction. Business with well, we'll do that under other business at item number seven Henry. Okay, well that's that's last okay. Yeah. I don't have to potentially not a very lengthy agenda tonight so hopefully we'll be able to get to that I know you often have a hard stop on these meetings. We'll do our best to get you get you in there beforehand. Any other requests concerning the agenda, the other than the agenda then will be accepted as presented with the addition of furniture discussion under other business item number seven. The agenda is the public comment period. Are there any members of the public present via zoom or on the phone who would like to address the board. I can state positively there are no members of the public in this meeting room. There are none online I'm hearing none by a phone so we will close the public comment period. Move on to item number three which is the consent agenda consisting of the minutes of the October 26 2022 board meeting program updates executive director update and the finance report. Any requests from a commissioner to pull anything. Yes, Bryn. I have a very small minor change in the notes. In the minutes. Yeah, in the minutes. Well the minutes I actually have one too since you've asked for it to be pulled. Any other requests to pull an item from the consent agenda. Therefore, I will say that the consent agenda with the exception of the minutes will be approved as presented. Thank you. You address your concern about the minutes. Sure. So, on page two of the minutes. Section for 2021 waste diversion and disposal report. And kind of right dead center in the middle. There's a note that says. I have notes that the MSW pounds per capita per day diversion is higher than accepted. And I'm curious if it was supposed to be expected. I looked at that as well I was confused I don't remember exactly what I said. I don't think I would have said higher than expected because I wouldn't normally thought we had expectation. My solution would be just to strike those three words. I don't know if I can find it here. I think higher than accepted. I think the intent of what I said would be preserved by just removing those three words with that. Do you have a concern with that Bryn. No, I don't. To your point, it didn't read correctly to me. Yeah. But again, I think the gist of what I was driving at, which was that the diversion rates were were exceptional. And that was really what I was pointing out. And maybe that's the word I used rather than accepted. But with that, we could make that correction. My correction was at the very beginning of the minutes, just the very minor. The minutes refer to me opening the meeting, actually opening the organizational meeting at 6pm. I believe that's just a carryover of a template. And if we could remove the word organizational, so that the minutes actually reflect that this was a regular meeting, not an organizational meeting. Any other discussion or requests for the minutes of the October 26th meeting. Believe them, we need a motion to accept the minutes as amended. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second. Thank you. Williston has seconded. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor of accepting the minutes as amended, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. The opposed say nay. Minutes are accepted as amended. Next item on the agenda then is the, as item number four, the preliminary FY 24 budget. I'll turn the meeting over to Sarah to address this item. Thank you. We did review this with the finance committee. This week. And as I think most commissioners are aware, but for those who may be new to the district, we are required by our charter to the board is to propose a fiscal year budget. And no later than December 1, and to have that budget be made available for public comment and public hearing and to our member towns. And really the main, the main focus and purpose of that preliminary budget is to alert our member towns and cities if there will be any assessments from the district to the towns for the upcoming fiscal year. The city's and towns past their budgets in, in March, a town meeting day. So this gives them presumably time to add any assessments into their budgets if they're necessary. And we are not anticipating or proposing any assessments to any of our member towns. And in the memo you'll see that I wanted to kind of highlight some of the drivers in this particular budget. There were several factors that that led to some double digit increases in expenses and things that were affecting some revenue. And also a reminder as well that this is this is preliminary, even though this is the proposed budget for the next fiscal year it is preliminary. The finance committee will be doing their review work, starting in January. So we will be coming back to you most likely in March this year that is the goal with the, the final proposed budget that the board will then review and vote on and then we can get out to do our review with the cities and towns and from there at that point we have 45 days to get their approval of the budget. And this year was a particularly tricky budget, and you'll see that there, there is an initial recommendation to recover some of the costs, the expenses through raising the solidest management fee. It's, it's a proposal. It is something that we have not done in 10 years. This will be the 10th year of keeping it at $27 a ton. You know, many of the costs obviously around us are going up, and it really is a reflection of, you know, two years in a row of very high consumer price increases cost of living increases, health care, health insurance numbers going up double digits and, and one of the ways that we can recover some of these administrative costs is through this always management fee, even with an increase of $2, which is is a moderate increase. We would still not be the highest district, as far as the, the solidest management fee so sometimes we are. This is just one potential option to help us kind of recover some of those administrative costs and there are other other options that we're working on internally to bring to the finance committee but I wanted to put that out there. So what we do have one of the avenues for us is through this, this charge on all the trash that is, you know, basically disposed of in Coventry has this management fee attached to it. So that is, you know, the explanation of why we're saying let's take a look at the solidest management fee. There will be other items that we can take a look at as well. So Nola and I are happy to answer any questions that you may have on on the proposed budget as presented. Let's try to get back to. Now we can see. Okay. Alan. Alan. Yes, and then I'll meet this. The next question for individuals is if we raise the solid waste management fee, and then we have to raise it again the next year. And are we believing that the $2 increase will be able to carry us for at least another year or two after we raise it enough so we don't have to raise it in another year or two. And your hand is up. Go ahead. Did you want to get back down. Okay, go ahead. Can you hear me. Can we hear you. Okay, great. Did you want to respond to Alan first. No, let's let's see if they're possibly connected and maybe I can. So my question is if gate. If the DOC fees are being proposed to be raised as part of this as well. And if so, how much. So I'm looking at Josh I don't believe that we are planning to raise drop off center fees at this time. That is not included in this proposed budget. And the, the thought of the question is $2 enough in one for one year and how long will that carry us. That is a good question. It doesn't get us all the way to what was the initial shortfall. So when we were first looking at the proposed budget before it came to the finance committee, we were about $500,000 below break even. So Josh and Noel and I did some, some quick review of where we were, and put some things together for the finance committee to be able to review. And a $2 increase on this always management fee brings in about another $200,000 I think it was so that didn't get us all the way we made some additional cuts and adjustments. So we are looking at other strategies for, you know, how to, to manage the ongoing costs. So we are actually in, in personnel, and are there other ways to do that other than through raising fees. And I know that we're, we do need to be very sensitive to what we're charging our customers we're charging the public, and making sure that it's reflective of covering our costs, but not also continuing to just to raise the costs and not be related to the actual users of the, of the, the services. So, these are some of the conversations will be having a more depth of the finance committee and as Paul frequently recommends, please do attend finance committee meetings and listen to what's going on and what's being discussed to really have a, a broader understanding of kind of how the, the district operates and how the revenues and expenses are flow through. So it helps us this year, Alan, and we do have operational reserves. And this was an, you know, and again we could not raise the so as mentioned fee and we could dip into the operation reserves to cover the shortfall and take this next year to do more analysis. So we do have some options. We know we need to get to the number at that bottom line and if we did not raise the so as mentioned fee, you take that $200,000 off of that bottom line, it basically puts us at a break even. So, again, this is all for a greater conversation and as a way to show this would be the effect of just a $2 increase on, you know, again a fee that we haven't raised in a decade. I have heard when I go out and talk to select boards, I've heard a few times from different cities and towns. Why don't you just raise it a little bit each year and not do big jumps. And our response has been, well, if we're able to generate revenue from other resources, it doesn't really make sense, necessarily for us to just raise the fees without rationale to raise the fees. So we have have not raised some of these fees because we have been trying to, again, make make do another areas. With the drop off centers needing a significant subsidy this year. It really is centered there. And how, how can we manage, manage that and so to make this budget, not quite as scary. We said, let's, let's take a look at this always management fee, propose a raise there, but also over the next month or six weeks be looking at other options to really tackle the where where the issue is, and where the issue is, is with the heavy subsidy in the drop off center. So that's that's where the ongoing conversations will be focused over the next few weeks that answers some of the questions. And other commissioners like to ask a question to make an observation. Rick has a question. Right. Right. Not a question just an observation. When I did my front porch forum posts about the Murph bond, I heard from exactly two people, both were supportive, and both still found a way to be snippy about it when they were being supportive. But one of them rather pointedly asked when the other shoe was going to fall and when rates were going to go up as a result of the Murph. And that led to some, you know, a nice little dialogue with her. But I'm just mentioned this because people may be primed to say, Oh, well, here we go. We're raising rates because of the Murph. So just, just saying just putting that out on the table. And, and we've heard that also internally from from folks in our communication and outreach team saying, you know, essentially please don't make me have to go explain this. And, you know, And I have been saying to the select boards when I've been meeting with them for the budgets for the past two years that we were doing a drop off center analysis and and looking at our fee structures there. In the past budget session cycle where I was out in the spring. I said, most likely we will be raising fees and fiscal 24, just letting you know. Now that is a very, very tiny small subset of all of the people who are obviously using our facilities. So, you know, it's not something that you know is is a total surprise to everyone and yet it will come as a total surprise to anyone. And this is where we're wanting to look at well what are our if there are ways or need to raise to raise additional revenue. Does it need to come from fees. Right, so that's really why I want to look at other costs and and making sure that we're looking particularly at the drop off centers are the fees that we're charging for the materials that were made just the materials. We don't need to go up for any reason, for example, a few years ago we had to raise the prices on mattresses, because our costs to dispose mattresses were raised by the vendor that we were using to manage the mattresses. That was an easy pass through. Right, so making sure that all of our fees that we charge, we are very transparent about why we're charging the fee. I think that sometimes gets a little bit murkier with the solid waste management fee because it's not a direct line item say on a customer's, you know, bill when they come to the drop off center, nor is it a line item on a curbside hauler when you are billed from your curbside hauler there's not a generally a solid waste management fee listed on that it gets spread out over all of the customers and and haulers will charge however they feel they need to. But Rick your concern is correct and we did hear that say when are the fees going to go up. And we want to I think point to, again we've been telling people the mergers going to pay for the Murph. And, and that is how we've structured this project. The same, the same focus with with compost, when we're making the changes there so yeah we very much are focused on making sure that there's very little subsidy to the compost facility and that's that's the structure and the direction. We're next to the drop off center with a very significant subsidy. And what are some of the methods and the techniques that we can employ to reduce that subsidy, if that is what the board wants us to do. Similarly with the environmental Depot has a very heavy subsidy and that subsidy has been supported over the years by the board as necessary. So for very good reason so that's why we don't, we don't charge residents a fee to use the environmental Depot, because it has been determined that this is something that the board of commissioners feels is very important to continue to make sure is available at no cost to residents. So, so yeah Rick, you're exactly right that talking about this in the public that is going that would be the logical thought and we have to do a really good job at explaining if there are going to be changes if we're not going to dip into reserves to cover the shortfall, why what we're changing and why and how might it affect people and in the wallet on a weekly basis. So yeah it's it's certainly a tricking difficult conversation. I have an observation, and then ultimately a question to pose. This discussion has been talking about fees that recharge, but there are other variables that go into putting together this initial crack at a budget to those variables which we don't control would be volume estimates, the barriers that we process, and then also the ACR the average commodity revenue, again something we don't control but which seriously impacts our financial performance so I would throw it open to Sarah and Josh if you could just address those two components and what your thought has been in baking those into the this preliminary budget. We've been very conservative with the estimate for the average commodity revenue for the Murph. It's, it is volatile as I think this group is well aware, and you know we don't want to run the risk of being too. You know, to, I want to say, we say we're conservative liberal but just, just, you know, to Rosie on that because we know that the downside can be pretty dramatic. We are seeing declines in that now, and are expected to see declines going for the next six or so months. And so, that's probably always budget conservatively and, and I actually asked Josh to, or maybe twisted his arm to raise a slightly higher than he, he was comfortable with. So we had he initially had $80 a ton for the ACR and I bumped it up to 84. So we're still being conservative but not not as dire as I think Josh would have preferred. But that does obviously affect the, the inbound revenue coming from the Murph. And with bond payments and loan payments. What we don't have is any fluff in that budget so that budget is also very tight. And that has come into play and Leslie brought this up about a year and a half ago. When we're really talking about this and starting to dive into it was, how are we going to make sure that the capital needs are going to be able to be met without the Murph essentially subsidizing the capital reserves and the capital budget, where are we going to recover that and what's the strategy for that. And that was exactly the right question to ask and it's exactly the right question to continue to, to investigate. And that's something where we do have to look at some of these other avenues for raising revenue for capital in particular. And where we do that, where we can do that from fees we will but I'm leery of resting too much capital on fees. I prefer to keep that to what is it costing us to manage these materials, have the fees be is directly related to that actual cost as possible again, yes we can build in some internal management costs for those but are there other ways other methods that we can satisfy the cost of the people and of the capital and not necessarily kind of put a premium on on some fees. So, so yeah there are a number of outside our control most of our expenses actually are a good portion or outside of our immediate control. And we are trying to be very conservative but also trying to look at just different approaches, because it's becoming more clear, as we go on that things are changing more rapidly than we may as a municipality have the ability to adjust their, you know, again, the Murph is a good example. When if we were a private facility called a merchant Murph, we would be able to adjust our tip fee on a weekly basis a daily basis if we needed to. And certainly that does happen on a monthly basis for private facilities, as the average money revenue goes up or down the tip fee goes down or up to compensate to make sure that that facility is still making the profit margin that they need to make. We don't do that. As a municipality we strive to maintain and again we pass a budget with one number in our tip fee, and we are, we strive to maintain that single tip fee throughout the year. That's unusual. And sometimes it helps us sometimes it hurts us but in times of volatility. It is much more difficult to manage the revenue expectations in particular when we do that. Can you briefly address volume estimates, there are drivers on both sides we may be heading into a recession, but population is increasing in my sense as economic activity in Chinden County is still fairly strong but it is strong. The, the solidest management fee. Tonnage estimate is slightly down, and we used the, the model the Schumann Schumann model to generate that estimate. It's only down by a few thousand tons fewer than five so essentially it's flat but there'll be a slight downward turn. We do see when they're, and it's kind of a trailing factor, but we do notice that in times of recession that solid generation tends to go down. We certainly saw that in with COVID, not necessarily residential generation went down significantly but obviously commercial generation did. We did notice that we are seeing again your construction is still happening. That doesn't carry the same amount of solidest management fee revenue that residential or straight commercial institutional activity does. So we're, but we're looking at essentially flat to slightly down on this always management tons for this year. Thank you. Alan has a comment and then we'll go over to Kelton, but we need to mute Sarah and then you can turn on your. Okay, then Leslie. We have had in the past discussions about how when we win in the recycling arena, we are going to lose in the trash arena. And I know that in conversations I've had with our select board. That has been a thing to to discuss. But the problem now is that the select boards turn over. And those people aren't there that we may have talked to four or five years ago but as we win the recycling game. We're going to lose the volume of trash game and thereby having to increase our solid waste management fee. And that is our ultimate. Thank you. So we were saying we do want to reduce our reliance on the solid waste management fee as a stream of revenue because we, the whole goal is to decrease the amount of tons going into the landfill and being disposed. So we do want to be looking for alternate streams of revenue to be able to support the services that our residents and businesses have come to rely on and expect. And to do that, while we're also lowering our main, you know, one of our main streams of revenue it is, it is a conundrum. Yeah, just a point of curiosity. What's the ACR at now. I know you said you budgeted 84. So I'm just curious what the ACR is now. The ACR is right now at about $51 the average for the year 106 and that's the fiscal years though. I've said that the monthly is about $51 right now the current month, the average is for the year of the 12 month 12 month or fiscal year is about $106 a ton running 12 month 12 month 126. Leslie had her hand up and then Henry, right Leslie then Henry. Thanks. On the question of the DOC cost and slash subsidy. This is not the time to discuss it, but I just wanted to put a marker down that when we're in the budget discussion. I think the finance committee will want to hear from the staff. Regarding any kinds of cost savings or efficiencies you might have identified, leaving that aside, I don't know if Michelle might have this to hand. But I believe at some point when we were we had our retreat on the future of the DOC and this is now what three, four years ago. Did we ever do a population opinion survey on DOC's where we could. So, plum whether they think it's whether the fee structure is a great deal, or a fair deal, or overpriced or, you know, just to find out what the temperature appetite might be for maybe changing the structure fee structure increasing fees. Is there any survey data that could inform that that's just a question to staff to consider that. Thank you. We don't have anything recent. And you're right the last time we really talked in depth about this was I believe 2018. So it has been quite some time so we don't have anything that would indicate either way other than increasing usage. We do know that certain of our DOC's have seen some some slightly increasing usage over the past couple of years. Was that due to COVID was that due to pricing from haulers going up. We don't have that that scientific data but that is a very good idea Leslie to take that temperature and see if we can get some insights. Henry. You got it right now. Okay, two comments one sort of related was a funding model so you don't lose money. Okay, when you generate less trash, I'm not sort of obvious but I don't know in your business. What are the funding models would be so right. You know so right now you profit from more and more stuff going to the dump or we do or whatever so I don't know what you have an alternative funding model. And also, what's what happens when a town turns down the budget, you have a rate increase and the town says no. So, we will we go out to have our budget accepted by our member towns we need to have 50% plus one town so essentially 10 of our members need to approve the budget and then the budget is has been authorized and is good to go. So, we had towns reject the budget, and there's a whole process in our charter that they need to follow in order to kind of register that rejection the reasons why I'm going to specific areas in the budget that they would request be changed. And so, just because one town may reject the budget does not necessarily mean that the board as a whole will take any action based on that one towns rejection. If the majority of the towns reject the budget, then yes it is not accepted and the board has to prepare either a new budget or make changes to the budget based on the specific items that the towns identified in the correspondence back to the board to say this is what we are reacting to and requesting that you change. So, so no one one towns rejection. Does not necessarily mean no I have no fine I got I had read that part of it or so I just sort of scanned the documents and it's a, it's a better process and GMT has. I'll say that's okay thank you. Your hand is up. Yes just a very quick correction to what I said earlier. I use the word snippy to refer to a communication from a voter and a better word would be wary it was a respectful communication at but at the same time some concerns were expressed. Understood. Any other discussion on this budget. Again I point out that this is just the preliminary. Yeah kelton go ahead and I'll give my final comments. Yeah, I just echo it. I just what he said is I did see that on the Wilson front port form as well. A lot of comments and it just seems like we're promising no rate increases and then immediately following up promising no rate increases with the rate increase. Again, I think it's just kind of what I saw and just me as a commissioner even explaining it to people. It's definitely tough and it almost feels like if we could use our reserves for a year and look at the doc's and see, you know, see if that if that's really where we're leaking the most how can we use a reserve for a year and look at how we can use our doc's and maybe again revisit the salt waste management fee as well next year and see. So we're not just doing a one time band aid on a budget that's not going to make it. I just think it's, you know, it's definitely to me feels like kind of the easy way to is just putting it on a fee that we don't necessarily that, you know, goes out to the hauling community and then they have to do all the increases to their to their customers, rather than. And then, you know, the district isn't going back as well and looking at, you know, raising the, you know, the trash rates on the doc customers as well. But that just might might be now when I read it. And I definitely echo I did see that on the front porch forum for Wilson as well. This has been an excellent conversation. Again, this is we're just at the beginning of the process. I think all of these comments can be taken under advisement. And again, as Leslie, I'm sorry, Sarah already predicted. I was going to say that finance committee meetings are open to all commissioners it's a great way to get deeply involved in the workings of the district and the board. The first meeting to go over the budget is January 4. You're interested in attending I'm sure the schedule is on the website or you could reach out to Amy. I believe, but easily send you the full schedule of all the weekly budget meetings that will be happening in January, and into February, bring your muted. Just take some minute for me to click it. So, in going to the packet. I guess it's page 12 of 18 looking at the warrants reserves and cash balance. When we're talking about reserves just so we're all talking about the same reserve line, would that be the operating reserves. So that that would be another determination I would say yes it would be the operating reserve if we're looking specifically at the DOC subsidy. If we wanted to more closely kind of parse that out which we could say well exactly which which pieces of the administration costs are also an undersharp ball if they are, then we could take from the cell waste management fee reserve so it would be either one of those. Okay, I'm going to play the balances if you haven't looked at about 2.75 million dollars in those two reserve accounts. Okay, and I'm sure we'll in the next agenda item will get into discussion about the next stages of our capital projects and use of reserves as well. There further discussion on this preliminary budget. We do need to have a motion and hopefully we will approve this preliminary budget. We have other hands raised for discussion entertain a motion to approve. Thanks. Thanks very much. We do have a proposed motion fall it is be a result of the board of commissioners acknowledges the receipt of a preliminary budget to be further developed through the normal budget process. Thank you Essex do we have a second. Thank you it's been moved and seconded the motion to acknowledge receipt of this preliminary budget. There further discussion on this motion, seeing none and hearing none. All those in favor of the motion please say I and raise your hand. I opposed say nay and raise your hand. Are there any abstentions. Motion carries. Thank you all very much the hard work is about to begin. The next item on the agenda item number five, the materials recovery facility bond vote update kind of a recap of where we've been and where we're going starts on page 17 of your packet. Sarah I guess I'll turn it over to you again to give us an overview. I'm going to let gender the overview but I want to first take a little bit of minute or two, just to say a very heartfelt sincere and and this ecstatic thank you to all of the voters in Chittenden County who who went. You know, kind of the extra mile for us who did support our, our initiative, over 30,000 voters in Chittenden County voted on this proposal, about 82% of those folks voted yes. It is a huge show of support for CSWD for the work that we do for this project for recycling in Vermont. And I just so thankful for that support of voters and and equally now more thankful for the very hard work of the CSWD team who, you know, tirelessly was working over this whole summer on making sure that people knew about our project, and particularly once we realize that the ballots would not be able to be mailed and really informing as many people as possible and how to access the ballot and how to vote and how to make their voices heard, and a huge thank you to this Board of members for your strong support and for your activities and your actions in getting the word out and in talking with your constituents. And, you know, just always being again so supportive of the work that we do as staff, it is so appreciated. And I could not let this opportunity go without making sure that everyone was really very aware of just how much we value your participation and your voices and and I thank you. And I jump in say I was remiss I actually thought about intended to open the meeting with with that acknowledgement of thanks Sarah as well for her vision and leadership in getting us to this point. I don't think much more needs to be said but it was a smashing success. Thank you everybody who's involved. Thank you. So Jen if I could turn it over to you for some of the nitty gritty details and the highlights of the project. And you're muted Jen. Thank you Sarah. As you said, my team worked tires tire tirelessly on this initiative. It was an uphill slog because of the situation with the general election ballots being mailed. I'm incredibly proud of the fact that almost 25% of the voters actually took the time to either request a ballot or vote for in person on election day I think that is huge. The list here in the memo shows you what that campaign consisted of. This was a tremendous amount of work. The in person presentations, television interviews and op eds being written and letters to the editor editor, some of which you provided posts on front porch form. The social media posts that that we did that then got shared and retweeted. And then the digital advertisements were incredibly effective I think we learned a lot about that aspect of the campaign and in terms of reaching the members and the voters. We also did two postcard mailings that reached 107,000 voters and tours at the mark as well so that that work started mostly starting in July and ran through early November. So moving forward the project timeline that's outlined here is that the design in permitting it's going to be starting immediately as you know we've selected the equipment provider van diaper cycling solutions. And they will be starting to manufacture that equipment construction will start to take place in 2023 in equipment installation in 2024 with the startup of the facility in 2025. And the financing just as a reminder, we asked the voters for $22 million of a $26 million project. We anticipate about a half a million dollars in grant, and then the additional funding will come from reserves, and we also hope to apply for EPA grant. The announcement for the grant application for the the federal solid waste infrastructure funding is just been released yesterday on America Recycle State. So will be. I believe they, the grants can be up to $5 million. I believe it was for they said a lot of funerals. I'm not dead yet, but we'll be applying for the maximum amount and hope to reduce the amount of money that we have to borrow. So we're super excited about this work. Again, I'll reiterate that we were really extremely pleased to see such support from our community. We really appreciate the assurance, particularly over the last few years of what we've had to go through that our community trusts us and supports what we do. And we're really looking forward to moving forward on this project. Thank you, Jen. Any questions or comments from commissioners. Sarah, you'll have to repeat because those on zoom can't hear that what he's saying. Thank you. Yes, we heard that from from several communities that folks had already mailed in their ballots, but then went and voted in person for for our project. Nope, I think we're then ready to move on. We'll be here of course more about the progress of this project in the months and year to come. Thank you everyone for an excellent job. Next item on the agenda is executive session for the purpose of discussing contract negotiations. We do have the secretary have language to read into the record for moving us into executive session. Can everyone hear me. I'm going to ask the board of commissioners of the Chitenden solid waste district going to executive session to discuss contract negotiation negotiations, where premature general public knowledge would clearly place the district it's member municipalities and other public bodies or persons involved at a substantial disadvantage and to permit authorized staffed other invited interested parties and the solid waste district attorney to be present for this session. So, if I'm not the most at Berlin. There are two, two contracts. So it to contract so drop of center in Berlin and the cell of materials would come in. Thank you. Thank you. You have a second. I'll move in. Thank you. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded that we entered the executive section for the purpose of discussing this set of contracts. All those in favor, please say hi. Hi. Hi. Are there any opposed say nay. We'll now move into executive session per the link that Sarah had emailed out to all of the board members. We'll see you over there in executive session shortly. Okay, we are back now, we do have a quorum present. Back in public session, entertain a motion to exit executive session. So move. So move Jericho. Thank you. Thank you, Winozki. Thank you, it's been moved and seconded that we exit executive session and return to public session. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any nay. I don't think there are any abstentions. We're back in public session. We've concluded item number six, executive session for discussion of contracts, contract negotiations. Next item on the agenda is other business. We did have a request from a commissioner to address furniture deconstruction. He's not here. Henry is not present at the meeting and I am not certain that it would be necessary to provide additional time as we've been in executive session for well over an hour. I think we can offer to put it on a future agenda. Yeah. So we will then, is there any other business to come before the board tonight? Oh, I just want to say, I should have said this earlier, kudos to staff for the, especially outreaching communications for the excellent work they did to ensure the bond passed and so, so well. So I just, you know, I don't think we say enough good things about the staff. So I'm adding my voice to that. I really am appreciative and I think you guys did a great job. I saw all sorts of communications and it was hard to miss. So it was great. So anyway, thank you. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Here, here. Yep. Thank you for underscoring that. I think our worry would be they're gonna hire you out or that you're gonna be in demand for figuring out how to help other people run their campaigns. We could write a book. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Thank you. We have a second. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor to move seconded to adjourn. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. We are adjourned. Thank you all. Have a nice, good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you.