 to select board Monday, June 15th here at 6. Thank you, John, for reminding me of that important fact. So, all right, Michelle, do you have a, all right. Sorry, I'm back. That's all right. What's up? So, I just wanted to talk about the Zoom subscription. Okay. So, check in about that. The library has a Zoom account, and I know the planning commission was interested in maybe the DRB as well. So, I didn't know if the town was going to get a Zoom account where, you know, there'd be different hosts, and the library would be one host, and the planning commission would be another, or if the library's going to continue to have a separate account. So, and I had Sasha look into this for me this past week, and she sent me something here right before we get on the call. But maybe you can share with me, Michelle, or us. How does the host account work? Is it possible that we could all use that one, or is it really not feasible? What do you think? So, my understanding of reading the Zoom rules online, so we have one account, a pro account with one host, and the library is the host, and it's $14.99. So, each entity would be another host. So, I know when the planning commission used our account, Corey set up the meeting, and she didn't participate in the meeting, but she was there. So, when I read it, I don't think you can share an account, but you can't share hosts. So, because we only have one host, we can't share beyond the library, because that would be a violation of the rules. That's my understanding. Okay. Well, then we will look into it. Sasha, did you find out anything different? No. No. I think Michelle got a little bit further than I did. All right. So, we can check with Jonathan and John Riley, and if there's still continued interest in wanting to host their meetings with Zoom. Why don't you go ahead and bring that to the board next time, Sasha, or even before then? I don't think it's an awful lot, if it's something those guys want to get started on, but just see what we can do as far as, I guess, the option with several hosts, and maybe we can get rid of the library's subscription if it's any cheaper to do with that one. Cool. We found it. We really liked, we meet via Zoom, and then Corey does programming. It's worked really well so far. Yeah, I use it for another, for my work, and like I said, it's nice, especially if you want to share documents and such. It's a little bit easier. So, you know, I think if we're, depending on what we decide here or the board going forward, we may take advantage of that as well. Cool. One more quick thing that I wanted to tell you about was we voted at our last trustees meeting. We were going to move $500 from our approved budget in the portable toilets line into the building maintenance fund line to cover some trash costs. Do you want me to send that change to you in writing, or can I just tell you? I mean, since you approved it, I want to let you know that we're moving money around. It's not going to change the bottom line. How do you want me to handle that? Yeah, I think if you guys have made that decision, let us know. Yeah, and we'll take care of that. I don't want to eliminate those line items, or if we're moving the money around, I want to make sure that we're budgeting correctly going forward. So, Meg, I just want to make sure we're not just throwing things around and not realizing where it's going or where it's from so we can budget correctly going forward. Yeah, that makes sense. Normally, we wouldn't move the money around, but the trash cost was unbudgeted, and then also the portable toilet cost, which we would have used, but we don't need to now because you are letting us stay in the town hall. It's also unbudgeted, so it seems like more representative of what we're doing to move it. Sure. All right, thank you for asking, though. Anything else with the library stuff? I'm good. Jamie, are you on? Do you have anything? I am on, and I was really just here in case you needed me, but it sounds like everything is good, so no, I don't have anything else. What are you guys' plans to reopen, Jamie or Michelle? I'm sorry, what, Jamie? I asked if you guys have plans to reopen or what's going forward. We do have a plan that is all laid out at different stages that we would be open, depending on various factors. Right now, I'm waiting for, so the next stage, we would be open by appointment. We would continue curbside service. I think Corey is just waiting for some PPE supply, so that she'll be able to sanitize between patrons. All right. Well, it sounds like you guys are moving forward, and you have a... We could share that plan with you, if you'd like. Yeah, wouldn't you get it just so that we know what's going on? I mean, I'm sure you're doing to the codes, but just so we have it on record would be good. Yes, I'll take care of that. Thank you very much. All right. Now, who else, Neil? I know you're here, but I'm going to have you speak a little bit later on my old business, because I think what you have is old businesses kind of pulling out of the school district that we had talked about before, which we have on our agenda as old-tending business. Is there anyone else here for general public comment? Yes, I believe that's me. Steve Robbins, and I'm here with my more town recreation committee. Okay, Steve, thanks. Hey, before you start, Steve, I'm just going to hop off. Thank you so much for having us, and take care. All right, thank you. Bye, Michelle. So, Steve, go ahead. What's up? I submitted a very short one-pager to Sasha to circulate to the board. I don't know if that made it through to you all, and this could certainly be an agenda going forward, but I thought it was worth the committee sort of tasked me with bringing at least a couple things to the board's mind that we've been kicking around for the last few months. One is we developed, and this is actually not just a little sale. Over the course of a few meetings over the winter, we developed a mission statement, but we realized that really it's up to the select board to always say what we are not or are not. And that's one of your considerations. If you don't have it in front of you, I could read it, but hopefully there's a handout. Yeah, I do not have that in front of me. But, Steve, on that, and I don't know who has it, but this would be a good topic to have as an agenda item. Feel free to invite me back to a future meeting, and we can discuss this any of this another time. Yeah, not that I don't want to. In fact, I'd like to get your other idea out as well, but these are things what I'd like to see going forward is to reach out to Sasha and get on the agenda so we know what you're coming for, and then just gives us a little bit of time. But more for other people out there wanting to know what's going on. Understood. That was my intent. The other thing is field mowing, and I'm sure we could come up with a longer list of things to discuss, but those were the two. The board to consider approving a mission statement and also I guess our opinion or guidance on what we think a mowing schedule could be. So why don't we plan at our next meeting, and Sasha, you can put Steve on for our first guest at our next meeting, and we'll take a look at those mission statements, and plan 20 minutes with you, say, between that and talking about the fields and if there's other things that you want to send forward to discuss that fine as well. Yes, I would ask Sasha if she can advance at least the one pager, and if there's other things we can develop, we can add to it. All right. Is that fair? So will I get confirmation that I'm coming on a certain date of time? Yeah, she will send it out to you. But plan on our next meeting is going to be the first week in July, July is Monday the 6th. I'm writing it down, 7-6. 7-6, and if you can, you know, somewhere between 6-15 and 6-30. Got it. I'll put it in my calendar. And Sasha, you can put that as well. Yep, I got it. Thank you. All right, thanks. Steve, before you go. Yeah, I'm still here. This is John. I do also see who on the WREC committee would like to be part of the land management plan committee, that I'm trying to put together. The forestry management plan for the town forest? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that there was a subcommittee being formed, but sure, I can bring that up at our next meeting. Yeah. You want how many people you want from our group? Yeah. I mean, I think Chuck might have wanted to, but I don't know. Chuck and I discussed things back before COVID-19, and so I figured that we could probably start going on, getting going on this forest management plan. Is this the new land? What's that? John, is this that new land that we got? No, no, no. It's the existing, because that's the plan. Actually, that was 10 years ago, so that plan has expired. Really, just updating the plan. It's not a big deal. I know what I thought. I was going to just ask Steve, because I bumped into him the other day, and we started talking, and isn't it this new land that we got as well, right? Well, that's got to be a separate item. I mean, that eventually will come also, but we have to get the access to it straightened out first. Oh, see, I don't know anything about it, so I was just wondering what was going on with that. Yeah. And I'm going to bring that up a little bit later, too. Oh, okay. So I'll just weigh in one last moment, and then we'll get back to that. Yes, we want to at least be part of the forestry plan. I had connected with a couple of individual members of the planning commission to express the same, and they assured us that yes, we would at least be involved. So if the reach out is to get a couple of members from our group to sit on a subcommittee, I'm sure that won't be hard to get a couple folks to do. Well, I say that, but I'm sure there'll be some interest. Okay. For me, of course, I have the hat of tree warden and also of flex board. I'm on their duel. Yeah, yeah. You're critical. That's great. You have the long view of the whole project, so that's great. Okay, good. Anything else for Steve? All right, so let's go ahead and move forward. Thank you, Steve. I appreciate your help. Okay, guys and girls, signing off. Thank you. Thanks, Dave. Thank you, Steve. So do we have anyone else on for general public comment? No, all right. Not hearing any one speak up. We're going to move on to the next agenda item, and that is regarding the first console position. So, Mr. Chenette, certainly come off hold if you are. And first, thank you for expressing interest in the job. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself. Absolutely. Hey, thanks for having me on tonight. So I am currently a police officer in Burlington. I'm a detective. I've got 15 years on the job. I work in the major crimes division, which is mainly homicides, attempted homicides, major arson, major violent crimes. So for a while now I've been looking at different committees and different boards to possibly be on, because I've been trying to do some community service beyond my job in my little spare time, how to have. And I talked to some of my neighbors, and I was aware that the console position here was open. So it just seems like a good way that I can give back to the community that also fits my schedule. I understand it to be mainly the service of civil paperwork, and that I can fit in certainly around my nine to five. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, as far as background beyond that. I went to Kapliton, my undergrad. Psychology is my background there. I was also in the cards. I worked with Iraq back in 2005, with a group out of Waterbury. Did you grow up in there? I did, yes, I grew up in East Bump Tillier. And my wife and I have lived in Moretown since 2007. We built just off the river road. Actually, I can see Sarah-Lynn Powell from here right now. All right. Well, certainly I would welcome you on the board. Regarding most of it, like you said, in every once in a while, there's civil papers to be served or such, is there anything else as a police officer because you are licensed that you can do within our town? Well, I guess I could do, as far as police services. Yeah. I could. I understand that each town really sets the boundaries for what a console would do. When there are towns, like Menden, for example, that use that console position as a full-time law enforcement position because every town is allotted to have at least one or two. So they paid, should send an individual to the police academy. They get trained at a level two or three. And then they give them equipment and have them go out and primarily do traffic, which creates revenue for the town. I don't know that I would have the time to do that on a regular basis. Again, as far as any kind of enforcement. But if you had, you know, say like a low-level crime or maybe even a fraud, I could actually look into, I believe I would be able to charge that on a state level as in criminal court in the county. Because we're always, and mostly our issue around here that we deal with is speeding. So we're always looking for, all right, and in the past, I said, God, if we could just get someone licensed, because oftentimes the towns, they can go to the academy, but they have to spend time out in the field and no one really has the time to sponsor them. Right. So I think the car would be the biggest impediment to that. And I know most towns contract with the sheriff's office. Yeah. And to be able to... We used to do that in the past, and that didn't work out so well for us. But anyways, down the road, maybe we can look at other things. But did anyone else on the board have any questions for... Hearing... He appears to be an excellent candidate, so... Would you like to make a motion, John? Yeah, so I'll make a motion that we appoint Tom Chinette as first constable. Second. Callie seconds it. All in favor, vote aye. Aye. Well, congratulations, Mr. Chinette. Thank you. That would be constable. And the other thing, oh, we didn't... Also, sometimes every once in a while, dog issues are... When the dog warden is not available, sometimes you might get a call, but not too often. Sure. Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. We never tell anyone that before we get them appointed, because oftentimes they'll say, they won't take the appointment if we do. But... Yeah, that was actually one of my hold-ups was the animal thing. And then I understand there was an actual dog warden. It's Ray... I chatted with Ray Monk for a bit, and he let me know that. Yeah, we have Shane Grace on the common. They are either pet-detected, as we say. And he does a real good job with it. But every once in a while, he's out of town, so sometimes it falls back onto the constable. But anyways, thank you very much again. We appreciate it. If you have any questions, you can reach out to any of us or anyone down at the office. You'll need to go in at some point and get sworn in. From Cheryl in. And I think she can do that for you where she might even be able to do it remotely now. I'm not sure how that... Sure. Sure. We are actually neighbors, so I could probably just coordinate with her. All right. Pop it in. Time to meet up. All right. Sounds good. Well, again, thank you very much. Could you make sure you give your phone number to Sasha and she can pass it on to all of us? Yeah. If she has it, I can certainly send it again, maybe. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. Good night. Okay. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Thank you, John. All right. Well, that's good to fill that position. Certainly it looks like someone or sounds like someone very qualified to do it as well. So let's go ahead and Sasha, did you have reappointments for both DRB and Planning Commission? Yes. Pahla Woods is term expired, and so does Turnhorn. And they both sent in letters saying that they wanted to be reappointed. All right. So let's deal with Paula first. Paula is on the DRB. Does anyone have any objections to reappointing Paula? As in the alternate? Yes. Yes. She's an alternate there. No. I'll make a motion to appoint Paula as an alternate to the DRB or reappoint or renew. All right. Thank you, Kelly. All in favor of reappointing to the DRB, Pahla Woods. All right. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. And Sasha, again, for the Planning Commission? Karen Horne. Karen Horne to the Planning Commission. I think Karen would be great to keep on. Does anyone have any objections to reappointing Karen? No. I'll make a motion to reappoint Karen Horne on the Planning Commission. Back here. Thank you, Kelly. All in favor of appointing Karen Horne to the PC, Planning Commission, Lodi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you, everyone. All right. So, again, let's go ahead and move on to reports, communications. Sasha, what do you got for us? I'll be sending out a curve cut for the rest of the board to sign off on for Otter and William. And that's about it right now. All right. Kelly, do you have anything for us tonight? I have a couple of things. All right. So, I did talk with Stefan and he's chatting with some of the observers to figure out some stuff that they had that they wanted to talk about regarding the fire department. So, when they get their list all organized, we're going to talk about that. All right. And if I was watching the news this morning, I saw an interesting advertisement for a basement guy. He does basement stuff. And I've probably seen it like 10 times, but it didn't click. But the first thing I thought of was the town hall and the basement. And if there was anything we could do to make that base a little bit more appealing. Because I'm thinking about, great, you've got the kitchen. I mean, if you think about some like kids groups down there, it's a great place for them to like get messy without being upstairs. You've got the kitchen, the bathroom. And I guess he does like free quotes. I don't know if there's anything he could do with it, but I just saw it and it popped in my head. Well, can you get some information for the rest of the board so we can take a look at it? And then maybe we can, if it's something we want to look at, we can get him in to give us a quote on it. Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you very much. Don, or did someone have a question there on that? Yeah, no. Or just in the communications. I was going to say that I've been trying to just work along on what we've talked about actually two minutes meetings ago about trying to get a town hall committee together. And so I've sort of just been, you know, kind of going slow at it only because we're going through the C-19 process and how does it really look to start, you know, having some kind of meetings to talk about something like that. And if you were saying, Tom, to be able to have people feel that it's inclusive, you know. But I think even something like this, the basement, which is definitely part of the whole discussion for the town hall and what might get done down there, would certainly come be a mage-deep part of that discussion of how we use the building and how we can get the basement to be more usable. So anyway, to that end, I'd like to see back at some suggestions because it would be one thought I had was to see on the committee, this town hall committee, if I could reach out to the other committees in town and see if there was a person, any of those people in those committees who would like to be involved in a town hall committee as a step towards getting it organized. I think that would be a good first step. I think we've talked in the past that it would be nice to start with at least someone from each board, planning commission, DRB, especially. So yeah, I think that's a good idea. Yeah, I mean, again, I don't want to turn away anyone that wants to be on any committee. I just don't want it stacked one way or another. Yeah, no, I agree. I also think that maybe the committee eventually would organize some forums, you know, maybe when we get to finally be yet that we can have some meeting, and even in different parts of the town so people can come out and share their thoughts in their opinion. Pardon me. No, I think that's something we've all discussed is, again, that needs to be discussed throughout the town. So no, I think you're starting in the right area. Just, you know, go slow and make sure you're checking in with us. See good things in the future there. Okay, well, I'll just sort of reach out to some of the committees and see what kind of feedback I get. So I guess one of the first things I would ask is, so when you're asking them, what is your pitched on as far as, you know, we're just looking to turn this building into this or what, you know... My pitch is under... My pitch is that I'm going to join the committee will be a free bus ticket to Burlington and dinner out. Well, just put me on my committee then. What would be my pitch? Yeah, I mean, what are you selling? As far as, you know, we're, you know, yeah. So for the town, so that we could start to discuss the way that the library can be a so-called tenant of a town hall that would become maybe a community building that could be hold our meetings, still be rentable to people who want to rent it for things, and a basement that would be usable from classes for little kids or old people and dinners or whatever, you know, that we could end up having a building that would be used more than a few times a year. I think that's a good approach. You know, more wide, either wide open and, you know, all possibilities. I think there's a lot that can be done with that building and accommodate every, all groups. Yep. All right. Well, thanks, John. All the board members, if you can. And you just, you know, go to Seven Days' website and then type in, you know, library story on libraries, and they use the story of libraries in the state, you know, just about four or five months ago. Actually, I have it with me here. And it's quite interesting, and, you know, if you read it, you'll see what some other towns have done. All right. The title of the, it's called Check This Out. That's the title of the article they wrote. And it was in the Seven Days of, I can't find the date on this right now, but there you go. That's what it's called. It was in, on February 19th, if anybody wants to check that out. I'll put the story called Check This Out. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. So, John, what do you have for us? I don't know whether you want to give a run-down on the construction, what's going on there. Do I have an old business or do that now? I think you can just go ahead and write through it right now. I mean, we're old business next anyway, so go ahead. So as pretty much as you see, we're all set for voting tomorrow. So they finished up so that School Street is open so people will be able to enter our Moortown school and then exit the School Street. So they're working, in terms of the drainage work, that's where they're working, between School Street now and the Moortown School driveway. There, where we had an issue, they found two gas tanks, underground tanks, the Moortown General Store. And so those have been removed. And as far as I know, and I believe Ray has already confirmed this, we're set to go on that section as well. So the sidewalk can start in there as well. I know Tom may want to explain some of the issues on the sidewalk better, but generally speaking, there were quite a few errors in the sidewalk that they laid down that are all going to be fixed. And I think that's pretty much it. Yeah, and I don't think we have to go into, there was one ADA issue and a couple little spec issues, but Du Bois is taking care of it. I heard back from GPI tonight that they were going to replace the sections that needed to be taken care of. So I'm pleased with that. And I don't know, Ray, is there anything you want to say on that? You know, I think I want to say is, you know, I think we have, we recognize that we made some mistakes on the width of the sidewalk and we are going to replace those. I do think regarding the dome, as you might call it, between the store and the next driveway, if you followed the emails, we exercised, I think, due diligence in trying to get it right before it was poured. I would fully agree on that, Ray, and the guys this morning on that, on the job, and I thank them for picking it up. And I saw Lee's email, and that's why I was, what the hell? Why wouldn't someone just, you're the engineer on the job, measure that out? I mean, I'm not an engineer, and I looked at it, and I said, Jesus Christ, I mean, kids in town love it, for white, you know, but that doesn't work. It's an issue that's going to be resolved, and, you know, I just want to emphasize that we do recognize we did make some mistakes. It may be middle of June, but for us, it's the middle of April, as far as my crews have not been working steadily for two months. They're coming off, a lot of them are coming off the layoff. They're not as sharp as they should be. I'm just throwing that out there. There's a lot of issues here, but we stand by our product, and certainly we want to leave this town happy. Everybody should be happy, and we're going to get that. Absolutely. I agree that you will, and again, we all, and you've heard me say it many times, we all make mistakes, do things sometimes that we, you know, are up to our standards, but it's how we all come behind and correct those mistakes, the difference, and you guys are doing that and even taking some responsibility for an area where I don't think that it lies on you, and that's that little jump, but I appreciate anyways getting it. I think the pipe crew has done well. We hope to be out of there by the end of this month, and that will reduce the big traffic thing, as obviously that part of the job is it takes up a lot of space, but once they're out of town, it should improve traffic dramatically through town, and certainly, you know, there'll be a lot less people. A lot will happen towards the end of the month that will get us out of town. Yes. Well, that's almost... I mean, I think we all knew going in that it was going to be a very congested and busy area, you know, and it is what it is, so everyone, I think, is doing the best they can, and, you know, we'll continue just moving forward, and everyone working towards a good product. And I might point out I saw Aaron Hunt today, and they're very happy with the work that was done back behind the fire station, so I was glad to hear that, so... Are those the people in Meridan's Old House? Yes. Yeah. We should send those people, and when this is done, send them something. I mean, to let us carry their bushes out and all that, I think was quite nice. Yeah, and... Excuse me. Also... Oh, I just lost my transfer for a minute. It will come back to me. That's right. I do it all the time, John. So, anyways... Ray, do you have anything else that you wanted to share at all? Whether it's a matter of the house or anything else? Yeah, a couple things I did want to mention when we were talking about the town halls and it's still on the agenda, I think, to replace the... put that trench drain in in front of the rear door. Yeah. That didn't get the past year. I think we recognize that was a major problem was the water game over the sill. I think that's still on the docket to get done this summer. That should help things dramatically in the basement. I just want to make sure everybody knows that's still on the table. Yeah, that's good to know. And make sure, Martin, you've talked to him recently about that, Ray. I didn't think of it when we were just talking about it tonight, but I will definitely talk to Martin about it. So, we can take that new shiny excavator of our excavator and use it down there in the middle of town for people. Yeah. And the other thing was, we had talked earlier this year about developing some sort of village sewer commission or committee to look into that and I still have that on my agenda. I just... I'm just waiting for us to... Waiting for the COVID thing to clear up a little bit more where we could have a committee that actually can get together, see each other and talk this over rather than try to start from scratch over the phone. Yeah, no, I agree. Remember, Clark and Amidon was... Yeah, I definitely got Clark on and both... Clark and Don have both expressed some interest in, you know... So, I'm going to start with those two guys but, again, I'd like to wait till we can all... We can sit down and talk about this where we're all comfortable about it, face to face. No, I think that's a good idea. That's fair. All right. So, yeah, what I wanted to mention is that I actually hadn't received these emails that weren't... We're out in June 8 where DuBois did question that bump and basically Doug Hanson explained why he planned it that way. And so, you know, moving forward, I mean, Doug's made so many... There's been so many errors in the plan and, you know, not showing spring lines and things like that. It's been very difficult. Everything that he says. And if there's a disagreement on what he says, you know, let's address it. You know, and, you know, not wait until a week later, which is... You know, I finally had the email forwarded to me. But, you know, we could have addressed that bump sooner. Yeah, no, in what... The answer was a very flip answer by Doug to Lee. You know, just, you know, I put it there so it's safe for a sidewalk. That's why the sidewalk is only like that. It was inappropriate, and that's where... But Lee should have stepped up at that point and measured it or taken a closer look at it. But, anyways, we're over that. But yeah, so I also saw, John, where you were able to get Pat Travers, who's now a GPI, to send out an email to make sure that you're on all lists. So hopefully going forward that does not happen again. Yeah, good. Okay. All right. So I don't have anything except that before we move forward, we just need to approve the minutes for June 1st. I'll make a motion to accept the minutes of June 1st. All right, thank you. Callie, you're still awake. All right. Thank you. All in favor of approving the minutes for June 1st, please vote aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. All right. So that's... Now we'll move into old business. So, Neil, thank you for being patient with us. Yep. Here. Here. Can you guys hear me? Yep. We can. So, Neil, you... Everyone, I'm sure, received from Sasha, what she forwarded us from Neil. So go ahead, Neil. Why don't you take the floor? You've got a few minutes here. Yeah, sure. Great. And so how's this connection, by the way, because I know that Johnny mentioned last time I talked. I was a little funky. And it's actually... I have to say, I got a little bit of an echo on my end. Can you guys hear me okay? Yep. Yeah, it's not too bad. It's much better than the last time. Last time I think I had a mute you because it was... I'm still an echo. Yeah, I can't... Yeah, I said it's an internet phone. But I can actually give you guys a ring back if you want, or I can just go for it. No, this is fine. I think... I don't know. I can hear you all right. If you guys will have your... Sure. All right. Yeah, so... And hopefully all you folks had an opportunity to read the letter that I sent you. I spoke to you guys back in March, right when we had gone into the COVID lockdown. And I had gathered up signatures right before the social distancing hit regarding holding a meeting for more towners to vote on whether or not to withdraw from the Consolidated School District. And I think when we... I'm not really knowing what was going to be happening when we talked about sometime this summer getting together. And I know that at the meeting two weeks ago, you folks took a vote of no confidence in our superintendent. And unfortunately, the vote did not go that way. It was at 9 to 5, 70% to 30% with the weighted vote in favor of renewing the superintendent's contract. Although they did reduce it from two years to one. So I just wanted to come back in front of you and see, given where we're at now with the pandemic, if there were any thoughts about moving forward. I would urge movement on the petition if possible and just going over from what I said last time. So the process is fairly easy to start, but the process in Nutshell is a meeting has to be held in more town. And if you get 51% of those present voting at that meeting saying that they want to withdraw from the district, at that point it gets certified to the Secretary of State's office. And the Secretary of State schedules a simultaneous election for the other five towns to vote on ratification. And this is the hard part because you have to get 51% from all five towns separately in order to get the withdrawal ratified. And at that point it goes back to the State Board of Education. According to the statute, and there hasn't been a lot of... There's only one district out south that has tried this so far. And they're kind of right in the middle of the process right now. But it goes back to the State Board of Education. The statute seems to say that if you get a ratified withdrawal, then that town is out. And the only thing the State Board of Education is going to consider is whether or not to let the Consolidated District continue to operate or if they're going to dissolve it. Practically speaking, the big thing that's going to come up if we vote to withdraw and certainly if we move to... and we successfully ratify is going to be that the Consolidated District now owns the school. We sold to them for a dollar back in 2016. So one of the things... Another thing I was suggesting was putting together perhaps some folks to part the process of negotiating that. If we got to the more town meeting and we were... we're going to be having the ratification vote with the five towns and then probably definitely it would be good to start approaching the Consolidated Board and seeing if they can work out some terms as far as selling the school back. But it's not... I mean, you know, things don't look great from Wartown or for Fashton. There is a 3K through 12 plan that the Board approved a couple months ago. And basically they're just... So initially what the Board Chair said in the press that if people wanted to object to the plan which involves moving the fifth and sixth graders from Wartown up to Crossett and the seventh and eighth from Hums to Crossett that they should vote against the budget, which of course happened quite handily. And they immediately backpedaled and said, well, we're not really sure why. There could be all sorts of reasons for voting no. So the long insured is that our position in this Consolidated Board is still very precarious. I definitely think that regaining self-determination would be the best thing for Wartown. And so one thought that I had, and I have no idea if this is really practical or not, would be that if tomorrow's budget vote goes down, that if there's a ratification... If there's a withdrawal vote from Wartown that potentially the Secretary of State could piggyback the five-pound ratification vote on the next budget re-vote. I have no idea whether that would really work logistically or not, but it does seem like if it would work, it would be a decent way of carrying those two things up and getting folks near the town. Anyways, that might be a little short timeline there. Let me get some input from the rest of the board. So Neil pulled the story of what's going on. And John, I know you're paying a lot of attention to this. What is your thoughts, John? I'm certainly open to that idea, especially since Mecca is no longer part of the district. And my understanding there was that with the new contract, health insurance would have been offered to the employees of Mecca, and there's no way Mecca could have afforded, could have been able to afford that. So that's the main reason that they withdrew. So now they're not even there. So I mean, there's, you know, and the fact that they already want to move five and six, I think more town school is in a bigger danger now than they have been in the past. John, have you been paying much attention to this at all? Yeah, I've been trying to weed my way through it. And in my sense from just what I've been reading and hearing, it sounds to me like the budget is going to pass tomorrow. I don't think it's not going to pass. There's been a lot of people talking in favor of passing it, because I thought that was going to give us one year to reach talk and for people to figure out what the next step is based on what, you know, this budget passing represents and that they're not going to do anything this year, other than regroup and see where we're going. Am I getting that message wrong? No, no, you're getting that right. And I mean, I agree. I think the budget will pass tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that we're safe. You know, we basically, the way I see it is we have a year to, you know, really take a look at this. We're not as much under the gun as we were before when if the first budget had passed, you know, I mean, we would have lost our fifth and sixth graders. So at least we've got this year of breathing room. So I think we could, you know, slowly start the ball rolling. And I can speak to that briefly, Donny. So, you know, for whatever reason, the Consolidated Board decided to link the budget vote to this idea of moving the more town fifth and sixth graders, which really is part of a separate vote that they took, which is part of this, like I said, pre-K through 12 plans. So it was voted down. So like John's saying, we have the year, but the pre-K through 12 plans was never, that wasn't up for vote at town meeting and that didn't get rejected. So they just had a committee meeting of the committee that's doing this thing and they're basically moving right forward just setting the same thing up for 2021. So they're talking about getting the more town fifth and sixth graders into the pods and all that and getting the vote on an additional process just that they pushed over a year. But really, if the same plan is just not happening this year anymore like John's saying, we really have the same, the threat of the same thing happening. It's off the table, so the budget tomorrow, it's definitely not going to happen this fall, which is what was the proposal back in March, but it is still very much, you know, in the works there. But then if that budget to do that next year gets turned down, do you think that that would get the message? So they haven't got the message right now, another rundown to make a difference. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they're really determined to do this thing, to show that as a consolidated district, they can close schools in the valley and save, yeah. All right, so we need to turn into that now, yeah. The other thing to consider is that, you know, what's been forgotten here is originally, there was going to be a bond vote in June, you know, to make these improvements. And Harwood can't keep waiting to make these improvements. So they've got that to deal with too. I don't see how they can push forward with a pre-K to 12 plan without taking care of these improvements to Harwood. But, you know... Isn't that, John, what's the... I mean, I don't trust anything that comes out of that board. And so, you know, who knows what's going to happen? So... Excuse me, isn't the surplus that they have, the maintenance surplus or something? I think they use that for some of the infrastructure work they need to do, the roof or something. There's some stuff, the science department needs some work and the roof or whatever. I don't know, I didn't get that feeling. I didn't think they could do anything without a bond vote. No, but they have a million and a half maintenance surplus. They have a million and a half maintenance surplus. They thought that they were going to do some, you know, infrastructure, some work on the... They may, I mean, and I haven't seen that, but even if they took, you know, half that money or two-thirds of it, it's not close to what the infrastructure needs are for that school look there. I think one of the folks who was intense and another person told me is that they're actually talking about using some of those main infrastructure funds for the temporary... for the pods, the temporary housing for students that they would need in 2021 so that they wouldn't need a vote on that otherwise. But that came from just from somebody else who's paying attention to this stuff who actually ended, you know, by Zoom, this committee meeting that they had last week before the full board meeting. Well, they can't do that. Yeah, I mean, as far as the bond vote, what we really have here is Act 46 was like a perfect storm because, you know, this bond vote for Howard has been desperate for years now, but what you have is a board that's just really pretty much incapable of doing anything. You know, there's 14 of them. They're split like Republicans and Democrats and they take forever to just, you know, work out who gets to talk for five minutes. So the bond vote has just suffered and suffered and so I don't know what the plan is for at this point, right, but I can tell you, one of the things is they are really... they're sort of like paralyzed and doing things in a sort of effective way because the board, it's just a really screwy situation. Honestly, this should have never happened. And John, I'm sure you can attest this, too. They really...they can't move. You know, they're just...they're too divided and stuff. Yeah, exactly. Well, there's no leadership and they had an opportunity to change that leadership and they failed miserably again. And... But I mean, you know, the given pretty much is that we eventually would lose, at the very least, five and six. And I'm totally in favor of leaving Moretown School intact and I would like to see how the townspeople feel. So I think it's time to explore it and get a feeling for how everybody in town feels. All right, so why don't we... I'll just want to say a couple things. Yeah, go ahead, Ray. Yeah, so again, I'm with you on that. I'd like to see the Moretown School stay. But it seems like we have a lot of work to do, or somebody does, as far as breaking away from the district, as far as costs, what's going to happen with our students and are the students going to benefit from this? I just think there's... I don't see a vote this year, in my opinion, that I don't see a vote this year, unless somebody does a lot of research. I mean, I wouldn't be comfortable fitting on something without knowing all the... the total cost of this thing, because it seems like the cost is going to be really expensive pulling out of the district. Yeah, Ray, you make some good points. I mean, this would be, like, I'm complaining about to that board, they're making decisions without knowing what costs and what ramifications are to our students. Yeah, I hope to come to you folks with some more research about that. My computer decided to crash on this first thing this morning and took me about six hours to get back up and running, so I really... I don't have anything, unfortunately, but it's definitely on my sure list is to look into this some more and to reach out to the folks down in Halifax and Reesboro where they're undergoing this... that they're in the process and get you guys some... Well, why don't you... if you continue to do that, John, why don't... we need to discuss and we need to figure out how to put something going forward so we can start getting a little bit of input from townspeople, but, like you said, to raise the point, we'll need to get what we're getting into. And I know Ron Shems has looked into it a little bit of that as well, so... I think now, like you said, everyone, we need to start beating this drum. We kind of see the future, so let's move forward by... I don't want to put any firm dates, but assurance on this board that we're going to start discussing this at some point in the near future to get town input, but we need to just... I guess we need to put a map together how we want to do this. Yes, exactly. And I think John and I maybe working, talked to Ron a little bit and get some advice from him if we could put something together for everyone and then we could start to hold some meetings or it depends on what he says. But yeah, I think it's something we should look at. And I can definitely put... I can get on that, and I should be able to have something for you guys before the next meeting in July 6, so you have something to look at it. Lisa and Chris both reached out to me after I sent the letter to you and asked to be kept in the loop, so I can make that information available to them as well. I think you'll be appreciated. I'll be helpful. Your help on that side and you can reach out to the southern counties as well. Sure. I'm just curious. Where do our two reps stand on this? On the issue specifically of withdrawal? Yeah. Yeah, so I copied them on the letter to the select board and like I said, I heard back from both of them and what they said was that they would like to be kept in the loop, that they would like to... I'm sure they do. Yeah. You know, of course, they both voted to not renew the superintendent's contract. It was them. Two facing reps and one from Warren and that was it. Well, Tom, don't you think it would be good if we going forward as we figure out what this process is that we met with our two... also got a chance to talk with our two reps and just... I think that's a great idea. Maybe the next... I think that's a great idea. Maybe the next meeting on July 6th we can invite them to come and give us some perspective. Yeah. They've been at some needies and they could maybe help us understand a little bit more. They may have some ideas going forward. What's the plan? No, I think that's a very good idea. I'll give myself a June 30th deadline just because we've got the fourth holiday there to get everybody something so that folks can take a look at something before you get together on the 6th. Sounds good, Neil. Thank you. I was also curious, because I didn't see any mention of this anywhere after the vote, but is there anything... any discussion on the conflict of interest? It's Jeremy Tridiak and Michael Frank. It's funny, I actually was... I'm just working on this email two hours after the chair right before this meeting. So it wouldn't have ended up being just positive of the issue in any event because the two of them were 15% of the vote and like it said, it was 70 to 30. Right. Having said that, Court Chair just ignored the conflict policy. I was at the meeting, you know, by Zoom, ready to make my little spiel. And so essentially like a two-step process, the people who I've complained against are supposed to say whether they think there's conflict or not, or if there's informal hearing where we both get to be heard. And she worked it out so that they got to speak and I didn't. I was sitting there hitting the star 9 button over and over again, and I just... I had nothing. And that was that. Okay. Yeah. They didn't follow the Appearance of Conflict Standard, which is the standard that I was using on the complaint. It was honestly, it was very typical of how it goes with this board. Yeah. Yeah, it was just kind of a kangaroo court or whatever. Yeah. And like I said, it wouldn't have made a difference. It was just... It was just more the same... Yeah, exactly. It's the principle of the thing. Sure. All right. Well, again, thank you, Neil. I appreciate your time and your efforts on this back to the board. Sure. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Neil. All right. So is there any other old business below that we can talk about? Sasha, Linda, did you have an opportunity, Sasha, to get information on Vantime? I have talked to her twice. She is working on getting the financials that you guys need. Okay. I will reach out to her again. Very good. Well, you know, it's her... you know, put the ordinances on her, so I don't spend too much time on it. Donny, did you have a question? I just didn't. I just said one other thing that chime in about the school. I don't know if this would be helpful or not as far as when we have the July 6th. The other gentleman who we've heard a lot from seems to be pretty knowledgeable. Thanks, Peter Leyland, I think it is. Langella. What is it? Langella. Yeah. I mean, would that be... I mean, would that be someone we should also ask to join or just wait until we get further along? Let's go with the school board members first and then get another perspective. It's good sometimes to get different perspectives on different things that way. Okay. Good idea. Thank you. Any other old business? Yeah. Where are we at with trail 17? Where are we at with it? I think... Yeah. I mean, we have this property and we have no access to it. Why is that? I mean, how is we don't have any access to it? Well, not in the new trail. But it needs to be cut out. Is that what you're saying? Well, my understanding is that it was never finalized that Ron has some work to do and so on. I think Shasha has a whole file on it that Cheryl gave to her. I've asked about this and I asked Ron quite some time ago and he indicated that it was all taken care of. Sasha, do you have stuff that's not complete? Not that I'm aware of, but I can follow up again with Ron and see what he says again. I remember I had you do that. I think, John, my understanding is we had gone through everything with the blodgets and the trail swap and then it was appealed. So we did everything and then it was appealed at the 11th hour by the timber group. Right. So everything had been done. We were just at that point just waiting for the days to count off and then it was appealed. So once the timber group dropped their suit, it's there's nothing else to do because now that appeal time has gone out. Okay, so bottom line, we've thrown up the old portion? We threw up the old portion quite some time ago. I mean, that's what I thought. And I had the same questions. I don't know, it was in January sometime because I just wanted to make sure that we could take possession of it. And Ron looked into it at that point so I know everything was all taken care of. But let's make sure before we turn everyone loose on the property let's make sure that all teeth have been crossed and eyes dotted because we know it's a very touchy area over there. Right, right. Okay. So if in fact that's okay then I actually have been involved with Vermont Master Naturalist Program and it's sponsored by UVM, Alliance for Half-Earth and Friends of the Mad River. And so I thought that that would be a good project to do a natural community study there which would be part of the foundation of the land management plan. So, I was hoping to move forward as long as we have proper access to the property. All right, well let's make sure but again based on my past conversations that's where it was. Okay. Let's really be sure of that. I know maybe Cheryl I'll check with her as well. I did actually speak with Cheryl and she seemed to think that it wasn't. Really? Well, we'll ask everyone to produce their documents why or why not. All right. So I can check with Cheryl in too because it would be recorded. Yep. Yeah. I thought this was done for you. I did record the documents. You did? Yeah. Okay. Maybe send a copy of that around. Yeah. And I just also wanted to remind you that I know that tonight Steve Robbins talked about the planning commission talking about the forest management plan and so on and just wanted to remind everyone that select board is in charge of these properties and so we should take control of that and last time, the last plan Don might remember he was chair then was it was a combined effort of the select board school and planning commission and I think that's what we're looking at now but have this committee so I'll reach out especially to the older one the new one can wait a little bit especially if I am able to put together this thing with the Vermont NASA natural program as long as everybody is available for something like that. I think that would be a good it would be a great study. Yeah, I think it would be great. I think there's people in town who would like to do it as well. Exactly and that's once again, I've kind of been holding off for the COVID-19 thing but once we're able to do more things it would be nice to get the town involved have a meeting and see who wants to help out and see what their intentions is. It's town land and everybody should have some input. Yeah, sounds good. Well, we have moved through quite a bit of stuff tonight. Is there any any other new business that anyone has? There was one old business that we just did a quick update other than if it's just the email. I was just curious about the bridge. Has anybody heard anything other than the email from Sasha from the lady saying they were checking with the schools? No. Still in that situation. What's that? We're still in that situation still checking to see what's going on with the school. Although I think we know a little bit better now since it sounds like school is going to be in session from September. Right. It would seem to me that they're getting awful close to the point that they're not being able to start it. It's almost July 1st. Well, they actually have started. They just hadn't planned in terms of the dates when they would actually be closing the bridge. That hasn't been finalized. They're starting to do all the preliminary work. There's a lot of stuff that has to be done to actually close the bridge. So you think they've started that? They will close? Well, I believe we just don't have the exact date. I'm right. Are I right? Isn't that what you understand? Well, I mean, there's work going on in the background. I think getting the medals and getting all their steel in that we're not seeing. And the last I heard, the bridge was starting in August on site. So I don't know and I'm not completely up to speed on all conversations, but I don't think anything's happening on site to August. Okay. Although they have their trailer there, right? Yep. Yeah, they moved that in maybe a month ago. But again, I think they were waiting on materials. And you know, hopefully to John's point, I hope they don't decide to put it off another year, but I don't see him at this point doing that. But as you can see, I mean, Sasha, when you get a chance on tomorrow, if you could send out another email just for another update on that, see if there's any other decisions being made. Okay. Thank you. One more thing, actually, it's back on old business. I apologize. I was mistaken. The Moretown Elementary School ERP grant, we still will be responsible for some of that cost. That we would be splitting with the school board. How much is that, Tom? Not very much, is it? 17,000. But split, right? Yeah. What was that for, John, again? So that's for the engineering studies of the plan for the Moretown Elementary School work. Can you talk about the impact? The drainage work, yeah. So do we have a contract for that, defining what their scope of work is? I mean, a contract for who's doing the work? I mean, in terms of the in terms of the plan, that's oh, boy. Being done. Yeah, we did choose to choose a firm for that. That's a firm out of it. Just out of the valley there. Yeah. Let me do this. I just, I'm quite sure that they are not professional engineers. And so that's why I'm concerned on what they're doing and what they're going to give us. Are they just going to give us some general plan that we, again, have to hire a professional engineer to finish the work? I'm just concerned that they, I don't believe have a professional engineer on staff. No, they don't. It's watershed consulting associates? Yes, that's right. Yeah, but they work jointly with, I'd have to pull that. I'm trying to find I just would hate to see it. We had $17,000 spent on just a document that says what we need to do without having an actual engineered plan for that kind of money. Right. Yeah. I mean, because I could sit here and for a lot less than $70,000 and write a report. Right. Give us directions. We want to know how the, my understanding is the plan was going to be, all right, this is what the plan is engineered to, all right, we need a pre-institute of this is the, you know, the tubing or whatever. Yeah. All right, let me see. So, John, can we check on that? Yeah, I'm actually pulling it up right now. They've got that in here. Yeah, the engineer, it's S-E group. Okay. Are you familiar with them? S-E group? S-E group. S-E group. It's not really I don't recognize that right away. I don't know, maybe if I saw it or he texted it to me, whatever. I thought we all had gotten a copy of their plan, but let me do that. Let me email you their plan. The watershed consulting. Yeah, okay. I just, again, you know, so we have got the, we've got a contract with Watershed. Correct. Oh, sorry. Okay. But wasn't that, that was covered under that grant, John, was that we have, that's what she explained to us, I don't know. The centers are not planning? Yeah, but that grant, that grant covered 30% of the project. Right. And then basically the rest of the project is what we're, we would have to write. I mean, the grant covered I thought it was a 30% grant. But then they covered the whole engineering part. Was that the total project, John, or just the engineering, engineering part? Oh, no, the, the, well, the, the design, it's called the Morton Elementary School Stormwater Mitigation Final Design. So that's, that's the design plan. Okay. So once they have a plan then we decide to go out for a bit. Whatever, does the 30% also cover the project cost? No. The project costs? No. Just, just this initial design. And I, I would like to try and find out, and I don't know if Sasha knows this or not, but I mean, basically the whole, whole thing here, you know, we were looking at this, it's Cheryl got originally, and then the stormwater thing hit, you know, with the catch basins and everything, and I don't know where the rest of it is. I mean, at this point, Tom, do you know? We had like, you know, the whole project was like 700,000 or something like that, maybe even more. Right, right. So we had, we never put it out to bid. We just, I know that they put it in the budget number of it. Yeah. But I do know when we hired Green Mountain Engineering that they had designed a stormwater system for the school and everything that, you know, if they're just going to take those plans and make them their plans and charge us $17,000 for work that we were already done, it just, I don't know, it just, maybe it's too late to even go in that direction, but it just seems like I just don't know what we're getting out of. They said the group, I don't know for sure. But anyway. What it really does is it takes into consideration things like a rain garden and, you know, different things to mitigate stormwater. So it's more than just the entire drainage. I understand that part of it, John. But there's, along with that part, there's a certain amount of engineering that has to be done to make sure that we have the right size pipes and so forth that I'm not sure that these people have the qualification to do all that. All right, wait a minute, wait a minute. I pulled up another one. Okay, now we have Civil Engineering Associates. Okay. Civil Engineering Associates and the, let's see, I just found the name is Marshall. Okay, so yeah, I mean, I'm free with them. They are a civil engineering group certainly they're they're capable of doing the engineering part of the project. I'm just, again, wondering if we're just duplicating some of the work that's already been done. But anyway, they've got them on board and I guess, you know, I guess at this point we're just going to go forward with it. It just strikes me as a lot of money but I think before we but I thought that I thought that there was some issues with Green Mountain Engineering with and I might be wrong, I'm going back we're going back so many years now but that the state wasn't in favor of, they had some difficulty. No, it came down to to do to do work for the central planning commission, you have to be on a list if you're going to use their money and they're not on that list. That only means if we're going to use their money, if they're only paying 30% of $17,000 which is $5,000 and we've already spent $15,000 on engineering plans we're going to spend now another $13,000 for work that's already been done even with the central planning commission money we're not really gaining anything from their money because we're still back where we were again, I guess. Yeah, well actually it's the whole project costs $32,000 as a plan. Yeah. Okay, well I guess I'd like to see their proposal again and certainly we'll have to see what their plans look like. Okay. I know it's fake to drag this out it just occurred to me talking about this we're just spending a lot of money on plans and we're not going the construction part of it is lacking. Yeah, and Ray and John, if you can look back into what you have there because I think we talked about this before I can't recall like you said it's been a while but I know there was a reason why we chose to go the direction we were and not to spend money after a good money effort. Yeah, because I mean we you know Tom Cheryl and I chose what I said consulting and the board did vote on it. Yes. Prior to that John, John there was quite some time ago when we decided that we had to go in this direction. I can't hear you if you're fading out. I said I think it was a couple of years ago or a year and a half ago that we decided that we had to go a different direction. I mean this has been something that's been right. I'm going to pick up some of your notes or get our reasons why we went in. And I'll talk with Cheryl about it. Yeah. Because I don't like the idea of again re-spending money but I think there were some reasons why we... Yeah, I have to do some research on my own as well. I know we had this discussion parts of this discussion before. Yeah, I just can't remember where we went but we kind of gone back and forth. I think you had to do with something about the phosphate and how it was being handled and something along those lines. Yeah, I think you're on the right track there. I think that's exactly because it was an acceptable amount of phosphate. Yeah. The kickoff meeting for the whole thing was last week, so I just... Okay. Let's move forward. John, if you can put some more information together and get together with Ray and come back with an explanation for all of us so that we're both on the same page. Yep. All right. Any other new business? So is there anything else that anyone... Otherwise I'll take the motion to adjourn. I'll make the motion to adjourn. Second. Thank you, Callie. I'll say goodbye. Bye.