 the request from the Romney School for permission to use the abutting townland for classes, etc. I believe we all received the letter from Casey. Hopefully everybody had a chance to read it. And I guess Casey, I would just ask you to give us an overview of the request and let us to know what has happened and changed since we had our last meeting. Sure. Thanks for having me. I bet some of you, but my name is Casey Provost and the principal at Romney School. I look forward to meeting you sometime, whether it's visiting here outside at school or be happy to visit when you have a meeting in person at some point as well. It's helpful to put faces to names. So it is Romney is a busy place just like all schools across Vermont, the country, and probably the world in many regards right now. We have been planning for the return to in-person instruction here at school. We're also having remote learning that's happening as well. And part of our programming that we're planning for when we reopen next week is being able to take students outdoors as much as possible, as much as it's comfortable for them. We recognize that we're going to be spending quite a bit of time in the building, but to the extent possible and that again is comfortable for kids and for families. We want to make sure to get some fresh air to reduce the the spread of germs and to keep to keep folks as safe as possible. So we have, it's my understanding, it's only my second school year that I've been here at Romney, but it's my understanding that for a number of years that the school has used the the woods and has gone out into the wood space all throughout the year and in a variety of capacities. More explicitly this year we're hoping to have a few classes that would identify a space in the wooded area that that would be like their go-to spots. So we'll each class will have some spots in the grassy areas around the school, including looking also to go over to the soccer field area in the baseball or softball diamond as well, and then a couple of classrooms would like to have some spots in the woods. So in order to do that safely, we had we've been partnering with Amy Butler from North Branch Nature Center and Amy has taught a number of graduate and I'm assuming undergraduate courses as well has worked with three of our classroom teachers who have completed the course and that involves before just going outside to use a space ensuring that the space is safe and that folks who are going outdoors have the skills and resources to access outdoor education safely. So part of that was doing a site assessment and wanting to make sure that the woods, although they may appear to be safe in many regards, wanting to have professionals come in and assess the the area. So sorry, this is a long-winded answer to your question, but it's my understanding that since the last meeting, we had had asked fire, sorry, I'm just looking at this Foxfire Treecare LLC from Plainfield, Nathan Ebert. He's a ISA certified arborist, so he came out to check out the spots in the woods again, which is on town property. He gave an estimate that I have forwarded that it would cost $2,000 not to be removing trees, but to take two more substantial trees down and then there were about 10 or so smaller trees. So again, the entire intention of that is that it is town property. We appreciate your generosity in letting us use that space. It's so close and so convenient and so helpful for us and wanting to make sure that if we were to go out there and bring numbers of groups out there that it is ensured to be a safe space. So he's done that assessment. The cost would be $2,000 from to take those trees down. We've had a very generous community donation that we've received, so we have the funds that we could pay for that $2,000, but that work could be impacting town lands. We want to make sure that you are fully aware of that and support it as well. There's one other thing. I'm assuming that Chris McVeigh had followed up with you, but following your last meeting around that I think it was maybe the 19th of August, sorry the date might be incorrect, but Chris had followed up with myself in our central office and we've reached out to our insurance company to add the town of middle sex as an additional insured entity on our insurance. So I'll stop there. I hope that was helpful, but I apologize if it was too much. Thank you. Questions for members? Yep. I thought we were going to have an onsite trip, all the select board. That never happened. Has anybody been out there to see those various sites, Peter? I walked around over there married, but I couldn't really tell where the sites were. I didn't hear any overwhelming interest in having a site visit, and the timing of the school getting back to us was such that it pretty much corresponded to this meeting. So if we need to have a site visit, I'm sure we can have one. I don't think we really need one. I wasn't saying we needed one. I was just saying, you know, wasn't that something we were going to do, but we're obviously, I didn't do one, didn't hear about one. So I just wondered if anyone else had done it. My other question is, was there a supplemental letter? I know Chris McVeigh told us about the insurance, but was there a supplemental letter about the Foxfire tree care that I've missed? I was just checking my email. Or is it just that original letter that we are talking about that you mentioned, Peter? It was an estimate, and it was an attachment to Casey's letter, but it basically just said, and I'm paraphrasing, because I don't have it up in front of me, tree work $2,000. It wasn't a lot of detail. Okay, so we got forwarded a letter from Casey or was it directly to all of us? I just haven't seen it. That's all. I believe Sarah forwarded it to you either today or yesterday. Okay, well, I'm just looking. Yes, on Monday. On Monday, okay. All right, thanks. So I guess the only question I have is, number one, is it, I asked the question after getting the good news that we could be added to the school's insurance for no cost, which really was good news. I would suggest in the future that we should ask for that all the time, because the school is using our rec field. It's probably an oversight that we haven't done that in the past. But I would expect Casey, and I don't know if you know the answer to this, but they will be sending a certificate of insurance. I hope. Yeah, I'll ask that the central office send that. Okay. I would think they would, I would think they would know to do that, but it would be good to, it would be good to have. That's what happened. You have an insurance person on your select board. Trying to protect your interests, Mary, at all times, and the town's interests and the school's interests. And the kids. Especially the kids. Yes. So the only question, I guess the only question I have, Casey, is my understanding it's not the intention to physically remove the trees, but to chop the big trees up into, up into chunks and then pile a brush from the smaller trees and let, let nature, let nature take care of it over time? Yes, exactly. And just the description in case you don't have the attachment in front of you. Like you said, it is pretty brief, but it says felt trees marked with flagging, pile brush, two larger hardwood trees cut rounds to between 12 to 16 inches, move wood from central gathering areas. So yes, letting helping nature do its, its work. Yep. The only thing that occurred to me is those rounds might make pretty good seats. Right, right. I think we will, we will capitalize on those. Eventually, they would probably make firewood, but in the short run, they would make good seats. Well, I guess if, if no one has any questions to someone have a motion. So sorry, a second, you want to do it. Now you, Mary, Mary's got the motion. I've got the second. What's the motion to allow the school to use it to the town lands behind Romney School? Yeah, yeah. That's what I said. I would just say, you know, for appropriate educational purposes or some kind of language like that be, be general, not specific. Does that work for you, Casey? I just wanted to clarify that I didn't know if it needed to be explicit that we could go ahead and work with Fox Fire Tree Care to do this work as well, to address foul tree. So I don't know how it should be. Are you okay putting that in the motion, Mary? Absolutely. I support it. And so you'll accept the amendment. Okay. So with that, are we ready to vote? I think we are. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Casey, you're all set. Thanks, guys. I hope we can be careful and be safe. As I said to you on the phone, we want to, we want to help with this process, not hinder the process. We are so appreciative of your support now and always. So thank you so much. Take care. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Okay. Considering whether to eliminate, modify petition requirements for 2021 town meeting funding requests over $250 due to COVID action possible. So Sarah's had a number of requests from organizations saying in these times getting petitions is going to be a going to be a challenge and potentially a safety hazard to those gathering the petitions to which I must admit, I agree. I don't know what the solution is. I hate to, I hate to just throw the door wide open and I'm sure Dorinda would have a heart attack if we did that. And rightly so. I guess in thinking about it, what I was wondering is if we said, okay, any organization which received money last year, who only wants to get what they got last year with no change, we would agree that for this year only, there would be no petition requirement. But for any new organization, we would have a petition requirement. I like that. I don't know how that works for everybody else. But that was my thought about it. I would also ask the question, is it possible that organizations who do want petition for money that are new or change their amount or whatever, that they that we would accept electronic signatures? Yes, my concern would be how many organizations or your organization might be set up to accept electronic signatures? I don't know how many others would be. But I guess that would be a good thing for those who could do it. Yeah, how would it work, Liz? I mean, they'd send you to- Yeah, you would get a- Well, there's a couple ways to do it. It's like, you know, someone could send me something in a PDF and I either use my Adobe professional signature or I actually have a snapshot of my signature that I can pull in as a photo. That's a signature. Or if you use or if you use DocuSign, they'll even give you a suggested signature. So, you know, they'll put up some dummy version of your signature and you just say it's okay. Right, right, exactly. And they do it. I guess I would be fine with that. I mean, we'd have to work out the details, but it would be up to the organization to make us comfortable with- I mean, the organization would have to have everyone sign their own document. You wouldn't be asking us to sign a thing with 30 signatures on it. You would be saying, you would be saying, I want- and they would have to hand you, you know, 50 pieces of paper with 50 signatures on it, if they wanted to do that. And hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, they could submit. I mean, I don't know if we could require them to use DocuSign. The nice thing about DocuSign is, is you would get a list of people who would sign the letter so the town could even accept that list and not have to compile 50 letters or 75 letters or whatever it is. Well, how does Sarah feel about that? Well, right now it sounds like it's going to take up a lot of space in the vault. If I get 75 pages per petition of signatures, but- But I don't think we're talking that many because we're talking, if we allow everyone who was on it last year, we're talking of maybe a handful of people who would want to bother even to try to collect signatures. Well, I mean, the ultimate problem here is just approaching people within six feet and asking them to get signatures. You know, I don't think the school's gonna allow, it's just, I don't know, it's going to be very complicated. I suppose it's up to the school to figure out whether or not people can stand in the driveway and collect signatures, but you're not going to have school concerts anymore. You're not going to have school, dude, it's not going to be the hardest. Oh yeah, I think it's, I think the burden of that is up to the organization now. Right. You know, I think when they look at it, most organizations will say, you know what, we'd be glad to get what we got last year with a simple letter of question and filing our usual report. Yeah, the onus is on them to get the electronic signatures, not us. So, I guess I just was asking because I don't, I was trying to figure out the logistics, but Sarah, who has called the best of your recollection about this issue? Well, I've received a number of calls and sometimes organizations, I mean, they do talk among each other as Peter knows. And so there's been just a collective conversation from okay, I think I think it was the council on aging and some others who called and just said, you know, calling around the towns on just trying to get an idea of whether or not you're going to require us to submit petitions because of COVID, blah, blah, blah. So, I can't remember exactly who called, but there have probably been about three or four calls. But again, they've been, they're calling also as a group, they're calling, you know, they're breaking up the duties. You call Moortown, you call Montpelier, you know, that type of thing. So is that as the library call? I think I had a conversation at the library pretty early on. I'm trying to remember what that was about. I think there was some tentative concern about whether or not the, what the board was going to do. And I think at that stage of the game, we were just still so immersed in the beginning of COVID, there was no way to answer that question. I mean, there's not even, there's a larger question about if we have town meeting, what will that look like? Will these all go on? Will the legislature give a town like Middlesex the ability to put all these questions on the ballot considering town voters in the past have said, no, we just want town officers on the ballot and big questions like the town plan, not these funding requests on the ballot. So there are some bigger hurdles to go through, but I think right now people just want to know if they need to circulate petitions. And how about the Waterbury? You know, it's been a kind of crazy six weeks. We've just gone through elections and taxes. And I don't remember exactly who's called. That's wondering. Whatever we do, whatever we do, you know, we're not going to keep it a secret. So people find out soon enough. I mean, we're, excuse my expression, but we're dropping our pants a little bit, that's for sure. But we're not, at least we're not opening the, opening the gates completely. I don't know. I feel, I feel uneasy saying we're just going to close the gates and not give out any money. I don't think that's the right approach. Don't want to do that. But we do know that once they get on the ballot, they're sure to the money. So that's, it's got to be something of a gate somewhere along the line. And I guess for this year, everything's different. We just have to approach it that way. Well, that's in thinking about it, Mary, that's what I came up with. Because I was thinking about, do we, do we have some kind of a process where we have a committee that reviews the requests or we have the select board reviews the requests? I mean, I don't see that as a very fruitful process. Right. I don't feel comfortable, I don't feel comfortable having us decide to cut somebody out that the town's been regularly supporting. Right. I say that they get what you suggested, Peter, that anyone who was on last year's town meeting book, who was in last year's town meeting book can ask for the same amount, but no more and or less. And that we will accept electronic signatures in lieu of hand signatures if people are submitting a petition. I would add one more thing. They at least have to submit a letter to get that. Yes. And submit a letter to get it. They have to submit a letter and they have to submit their report. The other, the other requirement. I do not want their reports. I mean, I pretty much ask them not, I mean, they have to submit their 250 word statement, but not their annual reports. No, no, that's what I mean. Whatever, whatever it is that they normally submit. They can't just automatically get on without doing anything. They should send a letter and have that statement. Yeah, I support that. So I'll move that. Okay. So, so just to, is there a second? I'll second. Okay. So let me, let me, let me restate the motion. The motion is that any organization was requesting more than $250 with a letter and whatever you're calling it, Sarah, a statement can go on the ballot for the same amount as last year without a petition. If they want more money, they have to submit a petition and we will agree to accept electronic signatures. And if they weren't on last year's ballot, we will accept it, but it has to be a petition. There has to be this required petition. Yeah. We just, we don't know whether or not these are going to go on a ballot. So can we just budget and say go before the voters at the time? Yes. Do we want to specify that they need to use either DocuSign or Adobe or? No. There's going to be so many old people that don't, that like are going to try to do their best and no, I think that's going to be too much hassle for someone to. Okay. I mean, we're not going to have some, it's not going to be someone making up signatures. I mean, you know, just say electronic signatures. I can't see, I just can't see anybody going door to door standing, standing out in the school, in front of the school trying to get signatures. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I think it's, I think it's going to be. I think it's going to be go to this link on Front Porch Forum and fill out this, you know, Google Doc survey thing that's going to have some electronic signature potential there. Maybe no. Things exist now. Like there's all, you know, there's clever ways. But maybe there won't be anybody new. Right. And that's going to take a lot of work for someone to do that. And they may not bother. If they haven't been on our thing last year, the only ones I sort of worry about are places like, you know, North Branch Nature Center, which lost a lot of money this year because of their camps. They weren't on last year. So I don't think I think they forgot it or they didn't get the right signatures or something. And, you know, they want to cut back and be like, Oh, how do I get the signatures, but they may be savvy enough to just go around and collect them. Well, I don't want to worry about individual organizations. I think that's a mistake. I think we have to, to establish a standard. I mean, what we could, if we wanted to do something for the North Branch Nature Center or say anybody who'd been on there the last, one of the last two years could be automatically on there, but I'm against doing that. Me too. Yeah. Mark, are you, are you listening, Susan? Yes, I'm listening in here. And I agree. Do you have any thoughts on this subject? I do. And I like where this conversation is going. I think it makes sense. I agree that it's going to be hard for people to collect signatures in person, but giving groups online, possibility of collecting signatures is a nice option. And basically, I mean, I think a lot of stuff with COVID is just kind of, it's going to be, what did we do last year? Let's try to kind of, you know, just stay the course and assume that the following year is when, you know, we might make, you know, bigger changes in various funding things. But I think you guys, I think I appreciate this conversation and agree with it. Okay. Thank you. So are we, are we ready to vote? All in favor of the motion? Please say aye. Any opposed? Okay. We've done it. Thank you. You've got it in good shape, Sarah. You're comfortable. I do. It's quite a long motion, but I think I got it all. Okay. Perfect. Highway report. We don't have Steve with us. I did meet with him this morning. Paul, I don't know if you're in a place where you can give us an update. Is Paul on? Yes. Well, let me, let me give an update. Paul comes on and can add to what he can. So I met with Steve this morning to review what's been going on over at the, over at the pits, over at the pit. And there was really good news there. I mean, we have not only successfully gotten all our winter sand from this year, as many of you know, because you witnessed the trucks roaring around town there for about two weeks. But the estimate is now that we have at least six years of winter sand there. There is a huge victory. We started out hoping we would have one or two years. And now it looks like five or six years, as well as a lot of other material tailings and crusher run, which we can use on our roads, getting material from our own pit instead of having to, instead of having to buy it. So I would say all in all, that's a huge, huge success for us. Steve is planning as soon as possible to be able to gate off the pit and create a separate entrance for the parking area there for people who want to access the town forest. So there'll be a way to get into that parking area, but you won't be able to be a barrier of rocks or something. And so you can get into the parking area, but you can't go back for whaling in the, or whatever you want to do in the, in the back of the pit. We have had a little four wheel action in there already. And we want to be sure we prevent that. So also can't you shoot, can't use it as a gun range or whatever they were doing down there? Well, I mean, it's going to be gated off and saying, you know, no, no public access or whatever the, whatever the appropriate language is. I mean, will somebody be able to walk in there? Of course they're well, we can't prevent that. But the good news is, are, are, I'll call it rolling the dice in terms of getting sand, getting sand out of our own pit has turned out to be a big success. Steve is going to have numbers for us showing exactly what the difference in cost was. And at this point he said, you know, what I'm hoping is the cost is less than last year, but it may not be that much less because we had a lot of work to do to get ready to draw the sand out. He certainly doesn't think it's going to be more, but in the next years we're all set up and ready to go. So that's where we're going to, that's where we're going to see the savings. So that's part one of the report. Part two of the report is they've been primarily working in the last two weeks up on McCullough Hill Road and Upper Barnett Hill Road. I would encourage any of you to, to drive through McCullough. I did that today. I did not go up Upper Barnett Hill, but they've done really serious ditching and ledge removal and stuff on McCullough Road. It's dramatically, dramatically improved. And I presume the activity on Upper Barnett is the same. The plan is to finish that up and then get in there are some odds and ends projects to do this fall. We still haven't repaired the bridge deck on the bridge down below the school. And there's just a lot of typical pre-winter catch-up work, grading, ditching, whatever around town to get ready, get ready for winter. Are you saying 80 Reel Road Bridge? Yes. Well, it's not the Shady Reel Road Bridge. It's off Shady Reel, but it's the, it's the concrete, I can't think of the name of the road. I'm sorry. 80 Reel to Wood Road. Yeah, the Wood Road Bridge. Yes. I mean, there are some wicked divots in that bridge. And Steve and I had a discussion about, so what, what we've done the last two times we've repaired that bridge is use this special concrete, which is made for patching bridges. Liz, you're at the beach. And you've got to share that thing and go. Looking good. That's what you're going to get. Anyway, the problem with the concrete repair is it looks really good at first, but it only lasts two years. And Steve and I discussed, you know, what we think is going on is that every time a heavy truck drives over that bridge and maybe a not so heavy truck, the bridge flexes. So, you know, the concrete is rigid. The patch starts to separate from the bridge deck itself, then moisture gets in there, then it freezes, then it thaws, then it deteriorates. So we're going to look in, I shouldn't say we, Steve is going to look into whether it makes sense to put a one inch skim coat of asphalt over the bridge to seal it, or if there's some other material, flexible type material or spray on application or something to try and seal the bridge better. So it lasts a little, lasts a little longer. But in any event, the bridge deck will be repaired before winter. And last but not least, everybody's favorite subject. We had a long discussion about, about graders. We have poured a fair amount of money and Steve didn't have the amount of his fingertips and I don't either into the grader this year, but they put in about all the money they want to do. I mean, they'd have to put in a bunch more. So the plan is potentially budget committee and select board and everybody else being in agreement to start the new grader process with this budget cycle, with the idea that it would be financed over 10 years, not, not five years, but we can't, we can't put that off much longer. But obviously, there's, you know, a lot of work to be done before we get there. But that's what, that's what Steven Paul are, are thinking and I agree with them, because this is a year when we're not buying a heavy truck or anything else, hopefully. This brings up the subject of, you know, the, the whole idea of a, you know, capital, you know, sort of improvement plan and looking at our budget over the next few years, five years, three to five years. And, you know, I think we owe it to the town to, I mean, COVID doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. And, you know, maybe it's begins as a virtual sort of subcommittee of people in the town who are interested in partaking in this conversation, besides just us, because the greater is just one of a number of high ticket items that, you know, we've talked about. And, and, you know, at this point too, given people's sort of uncertainty in their financial futures, you know, I just think that this is the time to really start thinking about that engaging the community in that discussion. I don't know what other people think. I agree with you, Liz. The only thing I would say is, when it comes to the greater and the town equipment plan and budget, we've had that for a while. That's nothing new. And we've deferred this greater, we were supposed to do it last year and we made the decision not to do it because of COVID. We're going to back ourselves in a corner if we don't move forward. And if we put it on the ballot and the voters turn it down, they turn it down. But I'm starting to have nightmares about metal and the oil filter on the greater, you know, that one of these days they're just going to red line the damn thing and we're not going to have a greater. So I wholeheartedly agree. We need to get back to the facilities, discussion and all those discussions which we initiated. But did we know if we had used that? Because I know that I had first mentioned a while ago applying for a grant to have Bonnie Weninger help us with, you know, a plan around looking at a capital budget. And I think we had two opportunities to apply. And I think that they've maybe both been applied for one through Russ Bennett's group and the planning grants that we have those two planning grants, we have two opportunities for planning grants. And one was through the, you know, village. And then I thought there might be that the planning commission was going to apply for a grant to. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer either. But I was I was thinking the same thing that, you know, we really need to get back to that idea of a capital budget. But weren't there two things where people were quite excited after the town meeting? I mean, the capital budget let me to think of the discussion at the end of town meeting. And then afterwards when we talked to people informally, weren't there two things where people wanted to have a lot of input? I think the two things, Mary, were what I will call facilities, you know, town clerk's office, town garage, that that thing. And then the other was a town highway plan, which would include the plan for for equipment. And we have done historically a highway plan, but in getting more public input and having a more open process. Well, also, I think it all arose when they wanted to put up those signs on route 12. I think they wanted to have it more than just we're going to work on this road, we're going to work on that road. I mean, an expansive definition of improving roads, I guess is what to include signage at least. Right. That does bring me bring me back to one other thing. And then I'll finish up your thought. I did I did suggest to Steve this morning that was school opening. This was the time to buy those damn signs and get them up. Let's let's be let's be proactive and get them up before the people start saying, Hey, what happened to our sign schools open, you know, blah, blah, blah. You're talking about right still, right? So hopefully, I mean, I don't know whether we can get them open. I'm sure we can't probably get them up before next week when schools open. But I I moved them up near the top of the near the top of the list. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Those signs need to be permitted by the state of Vermont. We need to submit a permit application for the state of Vermont. Sarah, I know, I know all the issues. All I want to do is move forward not wait till next spring. That's what I'm saying. No, no, no. I guess my question is who's moving forward? Whose responsibility is it to do the permitting for those signs? I would say all. Okay, I don't know the answer to that. I don't I don't know what the what the usual process is, but normally when we need to state permit, it goes through fall. Just that helps a lot. You know, and there are and there are and I he isn't he isn't demuting himself and objecting. So I don't know the process. This isn't my thing. We have to have a special kind of special kind of breakaway posts and some other things for because it's going to be in the state right away and you're absolutely right. We need state permits and all that. I just the school was an important part of the issue. The bus is there and it was approved at town meeting and I just want to make sure we follow through and do it before people start complaining. And then when school starts, they're not there. We can say they've been ordered whatever I want to get them done. So getting getting getting back to the getting back to the planning process. I wholeheartedly I wholeheartedly support that. Making the the road and and equipment thing. Have a couple of public meetings. If nobody shows up, we say we had the public meetings. I mean, don't get me wrong. As I've said before, anybody in town can attend our budget discussion when we go over to that plan and we go over the plan for equipment. But that said, whether we have a special select board meeting where we focus just on that issue, or we have a separate hearing or we just have an informal meeting, we committed to having a more public process. And I think it's a good idea. So let's make sure we let's make sure we follow up follow up with both some suggestions in terms of like what that might look like, or would it make sense to have like someone. Yeah, I mean, I really like the idea of engaging the Bonnie from regional planning. But I mean, and there's a grant for that, which I really think we we've already written our two grants that we could write. And so I don't think that's available to us right now. But do you have some thoughts on that, Susan Clark, in terms of what that might look like to do a community engagement that's more than just, Hey, here's the link to zoom. Good luck. Right. Yeah, I do feel like that was one of the things that came out of town meeting last year was that people, you know, there were numerous projects that sounded like they were coming down the road at us, you know, Sarah talked about the town hall renovations that was talking about the greater. There were other issues and the recognition that we weren't going to be able to, you know, afford everything and people's concerns about spending too much added to that COVID now. So people are even more concerned about finances. I think that it I think that a, you know, a facilitator could help us design a good little process. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but it might involve breakout groups so that people could talk about. I think start with values, start with some of the qualities that people want in priority spending. What are the most important things now? What are the most important things in the future so that people could talk broadly first before you sort of get into that? Sometimes these conversations can quickly devolve into, you know, greater versus town vault, you know, and just sort of A versus B instead of really talking about where we can collectively move forward together. So I think it helps to not have it be a hearing situation and instead have it be a less formal, more deliberative process. I think it could help the select board inform its prioritization process if you had a better sort of qualitative understanding of what the biggest priorities were of the people who chose to participate in that process. I find just from my experience with work, you know, a lot of times we have these larger meetings and breakout rooms are sort of fun and helpful. You know, there's maybe three or four person people in your room. So basically, if it's the group of us, I might, you know, be with Peter and Mary and the three of us sit and talk about it and then we all come back together and share like what our common, you know, what our theme was or what we prioritized and then, but you have a, you sort of have a person who oversees the meeting and moderates it and and I mean, I think that given given the fact that before we know it, town meeting is going to happen again, that we're starting this process now. One of my big concerns about this is I like all that, but I just wonder in the back of my mind, like, you know, Sarah and I were talking the other day about what town meeting is going to look like, you know, my experience with Zoom is it works pretty well if you have 10 or 12 people, maybe, maybe a few more, but when all of a sudden you have 50 or 60 or a whole town meeting 150, really doesn't work that well in my experience. So, you know, that may be all we have for town meeting, I don't know, but, you know, if we're going to have a socially distanced town meeting, we're going to be halfway up the side of Mount Hunger trying to separate everybody, I don't think that's going to work, give everybody a megaphone, I don't know, but a Zoom meeting with a lot of people, you've got to have a moderator person who is really on top of their game to control a process. Look at Susan, you want to volunteer to help us with this? Yeah, I definitely would be glad to help. I don't think that I'm necessarily the tech person or even necessarily the Zoom moderator, but I will say that facilitators that I know since last March have been, you know, had a J curve of learning of how to have exactly the kind of meetings that you're talking about, Peter. So, I mean, you know, it used to be sure, you know, you would know how to have a five person or 10 person Zoom meeting, but now people are using a variety of technologies to have the kind of meetings that we're talking about. And I think that if you were going to do that, you would want to have multiple ways for people to participate. You would hope that they might come to a Zoom meeting, but you also might have a way for them to, you know, fill out a five question questionnaire or, you know, so that people could have multiple ways to engage in, in case they, you know, they didn't, they weren't comfortable with the technology or they didn't, you know, have access to a computer or whatever. You want to have a diverse way to do it, but the good news is I'm sure you know, with Zoom, you can also just call in, right? Yes, that's relatively easy to do as long as you have a moderator who, you know, recognizes the call in people and just doesn't respond to the waving hands. And I think the key is having an experienced Zoom moderator. I think it's offering potentially some Zoom classes and some practice so people know what to expect. They know how to mute themselves, unmute themselves. They know what speaker view is rather than group view because the bigger the group gets, the more you need to use speaker view so you can, you know, you see the person who's who's talking. I don't know the answer to these questions, but I, I agree with Liz. This is going to be coming down the, coming down the road fast. And Peter, would you, I mean, like I'm just wondering, Susan, if you have any ideas of, you know, for someone to facilitate, say, hour and a half meeting, because they get long on Zoom, people don't want to be sitting there for two hours, but like an hour and a half meeting, maybe, you know, for three months, once a month. Like what kind of cost would we be looking at to pay someone? Right. That's a good question. I actually just was talking to Delia, you know, my sister who facilitated what's next middle sex. And she was, she was talking with the town of Virginia about doing one, it was one 90 minute meeting, but doing the entire, you know, it was around a complex issue that they're dealing with. But it was one of these kind of things where you invite the whole community, you break up into small groups, you create the, you know, the purpose statement and all that kind of stuff. So she was estimating it would take her sort of five conversations to make sure that she was designing the meeting that the town wanted and then, and then actually facilitate that meeting. And she's been doing so many of these that I think that her estimate was something like $1,500. I mean, which I consider to be really cheap for that kind of expertise. And I, there may be other people who would do it for cheaper there. I'm sure there will be lots of people who would do it for more. But I wonder if the, you mentioned the Regional Planning Commission, I just wonder if there are organizations maybe that the town has access to that might offer sort of a blueprint for how a conversation like this could happen or if there are moderators out there who are doing this work? Well, I think we could also ask Sarah whether the town clerks are getting together any ideas or the league. Sarah, are you there? I think right now we're just trying to get past the election where we've all been swamped beyond belief. And I mean, most of us were here late trying to get the grant in. So we're getting past our taxis and just the most important thing for town meeting right now on our plates is simply answering the petition question, which is what you've done and moving forward. But, you know, even the legislature doesn't know what town meeting is going to look like. So it's all kind of up in the air. Well, I'll get in touch with Bonnie for some ideas and maybe have a conversation with Susan about like what this would look like, not necessarily what exactly we're going to talk about within it, but like, you know, not the structure itself of the meeting, but like how the meeting would roll and how many we would want to have and see if actually there is still a planning grant available that hasn't been applied that we can apply for to help us fund a facilitator because that would be good. There may be some, I mean, there's so much COVID money out there. This may be some COVID money that we can access to do this. Susan, does that sound like something you'd be willing to help me out with? Absolutely. I've been, it's one of the reasons I wanted to come to this meeting. I'm just, I'm really glad to hear you guys thinking ahead because having these kind of conversations in the fall or winter is the way to have town meeting, whatever it is, be more successful because we can't have, we can't have a conversation last March that said we want to have this conversation and then the following March say, well, we didn't quite get around to it. So I love that idea. And I would just back up what Sarah said, all the conversations I've had with the Liga Cities and Townsend Secretary of State's office about sort of my, I'm questioning, what is timing going to look like? Have met with a whole lot of, let us just get past the November elections, please. So people, it's very, very hard to think about. And yet, of course, we have to be thinking about it now because if we wait until November to think, I mean, you guys are already going to be setting the agendas and the budgets and it's, it, we have to do some proactive work and I'm more than willing to. Well, the other, the other problem is, if we're talking about hiring somebody to help us with this, they're going to get booked up fast. Right. So, you know, whoever those, whoever those people are, let's try and be at the head of the line, even if we can't yet commit and they can't commit, but be on the, there may also be someone in town that, you know, has the skill or who has developed the skill, at least for, you know, managing the Zoom meetings. I mean, my, my concern is, and I think it's a good concern, is so many people, including myself, have some Zoom experience. I feel like I spend half my life in Zoom meetings and I've hosted Zoom meetings and everything else. I would not consider myself qualified to do this. It's important, I think, that the person doing it has to be removed from the issue when it's just focusing on managing the meeting. Totally, yes. So, the bottom line is, I'm afraid there are a lot of people who say, oh, sure, I can do it. I do Zoom meetings for our office of 10 people all the time. Well, I think this is a totally different thing than a meeting for 10 people. Vic, what do you think? He's not on. Vic, what happened? Oh, he's there. I can just remember what's next, middle sex, and that, that meeting there and I put a lot, we put a lot of time in that and I was very upset and Susan knows this. We've talked about it at the last minute, a couple of influential people stepped in and changed our whole outlook on what was going on and what we wanted and what we were working on just fizzled out and I just hate to see that happen again. Unfortunately, I had the same experience with our subgroup when I participated, the moderator of our subgroup just took over and put down her agenda and didn't listen to anything. Anybody else on the subcommittee had to say? I'm not going to mention any names, but there were some, I was really shocked that in the last couple of hours or last, on the last day we were there, everything that we had talked and we put a lot of effort in. I don't think Susan can say that we didn't put a lot of effort in there and I went to just about every meeting it was there and then right at the last, last half hour I just took over and yeah, I just get excited about it, talking about it now so I have to stop. Well, I think that I go back to what I said a minute ago, having whoever is running the small groups or moderating the whole meeting has to be someone who doesn't have an agenda in the process. They need to be somebody who is organizing the process, but helping everybody build consensus, not putting forth their own agenda at the end. And I think what I remember, what next middle sex process was, the first part was very much like that and then the end, I think at least the person who, and I can't even remember who it is now, but they definitely took over right at the end and said these are the five points that our committee agrees on and I'm sitting there saying I don't agree to that. Poor other people raised their hand and she didn't care, that's what she reported out, was exactly what she wanted to report out, which I know is bad, but anyway. And I just want to say that my heart is breaking to hear this and I have had a conversation with Vic about this, a couple of them, and I do, it does sound as if the small group facilitation was inadequate at what's next middle sex. I think we had a good, bigger process and the small group processes were spotty and we have two committees that came out of what's next middle sex that have continued to do, well three really that have continued to do, I think good work for the town, but we also have some committee, at least one committee, it's not too, that the description that you're describing is really heartbreaking, so I just want to acknowledge that, that there's a mix of outcomes and it all comes down to good facilitation. Right, Susan I'm not, I don't think Vic is either, I'm not pointing any fingers at you, I'm just saying, you know, that's something we want to try to avoid in the future. I'm not pointing any finger at you Susan, it wasn't, I don't, I could not fathom that it anyway would be your fault that what that happened. I don't even know where these people came from. We need to move on tonight, Liz I appreciate you offering to work on that and Susan, I think you know they're going to be a lot of people from the Secretary of State's office to the League of Cities and Towns to the legislature to every community in Vermont that are going to be struggling with this and a lot of smart people are going to be trying to trying to figure it out but I think getting ahead of the curve especially if we think we want to hire people to help us is a good thing and I agree Liz that Bonnie is a great person to get involved. She's super busy I have to say like we're all just so freaking busy and I don't know how she gets, she doesn't get all her work done so I'm a little worried about whether or not she'll be able to be terribly helpful right now but but also I'll shoot her an email and I talk to her like every week so well and that's going to be if there's grant money available already risen to the top of their to top of their to-do list it's going to very soon that's for sure okay okay thank you everyone that was good and thank you Susan um so that concludes the highway report can I Peter moving right along wait yeah Peter can I ask uh can I give you a ring maybe tomorrow or something and discuss uh about the the bridge I asked some questions you had you set a couple of things there that made me nervous and I've had asked some questions today uh of the uh road crew uh Steve was up here and uh I got a couple of ideas that might might be beneficial uh to repairing that bridge I would love that Victor give me a call I'll be around okay thank you thank you very much thanks big report to Renda short and sweet I don't have anything to report other than tax money is coming in and better to do tomorrow yeah no it's uh it seems to be coming in pretty well so good good because that's certainly been a concern so can I just chime in on something I um last night submitted a we today was the deadline for a digitization this is COVID money the kind of COVID money you guys been talking about so here's what I put in hold on uh I asked for about $14,000 where we can we can request up to $20,000 this is going to be this money is funneled through the Department of Taxes and $4,000 would be allocated toward a new computer for a new recording computer and scanner equipment because our contract with ACS is coming up in May and we either pay for it gradually through our ACS contract or if we can get the state to pay for it now that'll come off our contract when we renew in May and then uh about $10,000 for taking the volumes all the way back to the card the dreaded card catalogs volume 38 we've already made progress going from 98 to 84 before we had the original bid from ACS Avenue Insights conduit whatever you want to call them so I've talked to conduit I think we're going to stick with them because switching vendors right now for scanning is just too big of a hassle the grant is completely unrealistic it says that the money must if we get the money it must be expended before December 2020 I don't know how that's possible I mean all these vendors are completely up to their eyeballs right now as everyone's scrambling to get their land records digitized so I we're just gonna have to ask for an extension but I think there's a good chance we might get something and if we do that'll take care of at least one computer station and probably some more stuff great Sarah thanks for but let's hope fingers crossed fingers crossed wow you just did that all on your own that's terrific wasn't really hard they made it really simple for you there uh just say just say thank you don't say how easy it was well it was really easy okay I move right along approval of the August 18th 2020 select board minutes I move it move them second socket thank you Phil uh all in favor of approving the minutes of august 18th please say aye aye aye any opposed uh borders either have or will be uh approved or end up also I mean I was uh and I know Steve isn't uh here but I was horrified to see that $5,000 repaid that was an inspection on the truck to turn into a $5,000 bill once again in Charles boys and they kept our truck for a whole week right when we needed it the most uh again so anyway it is what it is we got to fix the truck um correspondence Sarah no oh business did Jill want to say anything Jill Drury who's here is a guest no we're good okay it is hi randy hi Paul if Paul if you can hear us do you have anything to add to any of the highway stuff I don't think he's here I think he just got cut off and he just wasn't even unable to take himself off right um so I guess that concludes our uh our meeting for this evening uh I don't see us fortunately or unfortunately I don't see us changing from zoom meetings anytime soon I was thinking it might be nice idea to have a socially distanced select board meeting before the weather got too cold but it's already almost too cold who can predict the weather ahead we don't want to be sitting out in the parking lot behind the town hall if it's 43 or sitting on those uh those lot those those fogs in the woods behind the school now I think this is you know we can build a fire there yeah on fire it's uh it's working and I really do uh I really do appreciate everybody's uh indulgence and understanding and patience and Susan and Vic and uh Randy and others others who've been participating in our meetings I appreciate that too I mean we haven't had participation like this in our uh great together meetings so maybe we can get some more people to start participating that's a rum in our select board meetings that's not an issue I don't think so I'll transmit all this stuff Peter this is Randy um I just have one question with the talk about moving these back to uh um you know in person meetings uh is the intention to you know that's a way is off anyway but one that does resume is the intention to uh continue on with the zoom so that uh folks like myself who might have a hard time being there in person uh can still attend through uh a platform like this um I would say Randy undetermined but we're gonna when the time comes we're gonna look at all the options I mean I I like that idea I don't think it will be quite as quite as user friendly if you're on the computer screen down at the end of the table but if it enables people to participate in our select board meetings I'm all in favor of it I mean we heard Latin clear last year people want a more open process and I said well come to any of our select board meetings well they never come but a few of you started showing up at our meetings and I appreciate it so I would say it's highly likely that we would do it but I can't we haven't made that decision yet and I think it's I think we're gonna have some time yeah I know I I agree with you and uh thanks I want to know what does Orca do how do they is there someone from Orca who can talk to what you do is that Susan Batman there or somebody else I think it's automated Mary oh well I mean what do they do they're able to get this whole picture I include them as one of the participants and they and they record it and with the we all get the same screen that we got I believe but where do you get to see it on their website yeah we have a link on our website to them well interesting so people had do you have any idea whether anybody's ever gone to the website and looked at it Sarah yes I just I don't have a way of checking that I do know people who have gone there and actually somebody who lives out of state who has property here launches every select board meeting yeah oh I've heard from a number of people that they go in and look at it so I think it's definitely I mean not as many not as many as we might hope but uh again anything we can do to have it be a more open process yeah that's a lot different than a lot different than reading the minutes right okay everyone all righty pretty good hour and 15 minutes our meetings are a lot shorter when they're on zoom nice to see everybody great to see you have a good evening everybody I promise I'm paying my taxes tomorrow don't worry I'll send you a notice if not right here right on the top of the pile there wait a minute our taxes due tomorrow yes well mine come out automatically so I don't know I just like yeah no okay good to know mine come out automatically as long as I write the check yeah yeah mine too I will say that we did have a taxpayer write me today saying that there was a typo on the tax bill but I don't know if I've noticed it or not but that taxes it says that taxes are due 9 2 when I'm sure we meant 9 20 I had the I had the horrible duty of informing them no actually it's due 9 2 not 9 20 20 20 better than they call today than the day after tomorrow that's very true okay everybody have a good evening