 We ordered it is Monday, October 17th, 2022. We're here at the John Hogan meeting room, and John is not with us tonight, but he's on vacation, so that's okay. There's the board, and aside from Cali, it is absent as well, but we get done. And Ray, we get our friends from Orca Media and Sasha. And in the gallery, we have Step On. So few people I thought I would announce this on. There are a few feeding persons that are a little emotional. Susan, thank you. Come on, Susan. All right, so we're online as well, and there does not appear to be anyone looking for public comment. So let's go ahead and do the health insurance. Sasha, did you hear from John? Yes, I think Chairman Ford, the email to everybody. Yeah, yeah. He approved it, and he said to just do the motion for it and sign it. All right. Who would like to do the motion? Probably. I'll move to renew the current health insurance policy. Blue edged business CDHP one. Obviously for that. Thank you, Ray. Any further discussion questions? Done. I have good. All in favor. Motion, vote aye. Aye. All right. All right. Yes, sir. All right. Good evening, sir. Are you here for public comment? Yes, I am. All right. We had moved on because no one was here. So if you don't mind stating your name. Oh, my name's Dexter Lafayette. Dexter Lafayette, all right, sir. Thank you. I live in Middlesex and I'm running for state senate. So I'm on a mission about introducing myself to select boards throughout the district, which is all Washington County, plus Raindry, Orange, and Stone. Thanks to redistricting. I know a couple of you guys are ready. So nice to see you again. Hey, Don. What's your own board? Don and I work together on the fire station. All right. Way back when? Probably, yeah, way back when. There's your bar chief right here. Did you build it? Step on the ground. Did I build it? No, I did the engineering. Oh, you're like, ah. No, I didn't need a septic system. I was at home with that. Good. That was awesome. That was awesome. I had a question about that. We did a pretty low budget stormwater system over there, so it's always full. Is that the tank? No, the tank for the water from the floors. Oh, yeah. That fills up quick. Yeah, that's it. And I'm on Tom Martin and from No Ray. Yeah, from No Ray. It sounds like Susan as well. Yeah, Susan's my neighbor in Middlesex. All right, so Susan, what do you have to say about him? He's a die-hard candidate. All right, I'm a good neighbor. He's a good neighbor. All right, that's the most important thing. Susan's blueberry is better than my blueberry, so. Yeah, but your tomatoes are far. All right. So yeah, being my platform is kind of simple. I like three basic things. I'm focused on is like affordability, being a bridging the partisan divide, being a nonpartisan voice in the legislature, and then also just trying to promote sensible policies in all areas, especially energy, health care, education, environment. Elizabeth's on and on. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so I know I mentioned here, I guess, because I did the fire station site plan and septic. I've got a farm in Middlesex, too. I grow industrial hemp and grown root vegetables a share. And a little cooperative thing with three other families. So it's a little big to share. So one of the things that we're facing throughout the state, here in Morchown as well, is affordable housing. And there seems to be a lack of rentals more than ever. One of the things that I've done just recently is when I went looking for a rental in Morchown, I don't thankfully need one, but just trying to find a, you know, see what's out there. There's really nothing available. But then I went to Airbnb to find out if I could come and stay in Morchown. And there's a lot of opportunities to do that. And I understand we, you know, people have properties and you can certainly do what you want. But is there a happy medium there or something that there's a lot of properties of being taken out of the rental, the long-term rental and put into Airbnb because it's more profitable. And I understand someone owning a home. I mean, the taxes and everything. So I understand why people are doing it, but what can we do to maybe bridge that gap? So that's interesting. So I think the housing crisis is a perfect storm of many, many factors sort of accelerated that worsened it. Another thing, again, this is sort of as a result of COVID is the ARCA funding. So there's an influx of federal money that the state is using to build state buildings that's sort of sucking the workforce away from residential housing towards government-funded construction and providing a short fall of, I'm not sure how to classify it, but house builders, contractors, builders as a result. So I think that could be a temporary thing. Once that big influx of ARCA money goes away, then the workforce would be available to build lower-cost residential housing and maybe overcome the loss to the increase of second homes. There's a lot of other things at play too, like government subsidies for low-income earners that support rental properties drives the cost up as well. So if you could afford a $500 a month apartment, but then you get a $500 subsidy, suddenly your apartment's worth 1,000 miles a month. So that drives the cost of the affordability up. And then I guess just affordability in general does drive up the cost of rental properties. Taxes are high, that's a result of high education costs, result of high insurance costs, both property insurance and health insurance in the educational sector, all these things contribute. So I started by saying it's a perfect storm of a number of things and I think it is. Most of them are market-driven. I mentioned a few things that are initiatives that the state sort of puts into the system that drives the cost up too. And I think that that's a way, backing some of those things off is a way to increase affordability, make lower-cost housing something that builders will build and also more available. As far as the Airbnb thing, I have two properties. I have my fireman, middle sex, and I built a retirement house at Sugarbush. Both properties have like an apartment, a one bedroom apartment. So we had the apartment in middle sex in Airbnb for a long time and we had a neighbor that approached us looking for housing and we took it off Airbnb and made it available to her and her daughter so they could save the U32 school district. And it's not, the income's the same. We don't have to clean it regularly but we also don't have, it gets a lot of use. It's used a lot more heavily, yeah, there's trade-offs but financially there's a break even. And then our property is Sugarbush so I guess we did rent that for a while. It was pretty steady last winter, it's new. So last winter was the first chance we had. The rentals were steady. The summer had just died. Fourth of July I had no bookings for the summer. I'm like, what is up with this? So I did a search for something that would match my availability for that property and there were 94 units available in Warren for that, for Fourth of July weekend. And that's like, well no wonder. Either, I don't have bookings. So we just took it off for the summer so it's not producing income now at all. It's kind of unfinished and it wouldn't, at the rates it gets, it wouldn't be affordable. Gentlemen, any other questions for Mr. Bayer? You know, Dexter, just wondering about the Act 250 permit process and how that affects these housing market as well. I mean, I've seen it where projects get 10 years to this process. Is there anything, any movement towards improving that that's by night and how to help these builders get some more income or affordable housing out there? Yeah, so that's one of the things that drives the affordability up. And it's regulation in general. It's not just Act 250. It's the water, wastewater permits have a cost associated with them. Public safety, you know, the fire preventant, plumbing permits are really expensive. And all those things drive up the cost. They also extend the time required to get a permit. So all those things contribute. And I think that there is probably things that can be done statutorily to make it easier. The one thing about Act 250 is that there's a lot of exemptions to Act 250. So like a smaller development in Montpelier or even in this town, if it's less than 10 lots, there's no Act 250. So, you know, so it wouldn't only apply to a larger. Subdivisions doesn't apply to like someone converting a house from one family to a two family wouldn't trip Act 250. So unless it's bigger lots, but I think the process, one thing I don't like about the Act 250 process is it's lively political, you know, and the different commissions and different parts of the state sort of act differently depending on the politics of the region, which is a little weird to me. I'd like to see it be less political or more objective. Yeah, certainly should be done, I mean. I don't know, I have no comments. Steph, do you have anything quick? No, I'm all set. All right, well, the Sasha has for the representative. All right, Mr. Baker, anything else to? No, I just thank you for my time. I've got a website, dexter4vt.com. So if you or anybody wants to reach me or find out more about me, do that there. Okay. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. That's one of the little cards right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got one for everybody. Thank you. Hot off the press, Susan. See ya. See ya. All right, so, Steph, why don't you roll on over? We've got the budget, the fire department. And I think we have in front of us a, can't see what they're lost on. You wanna show you, put that mic on? Yeah, I don't mind, that would be great. Yeah, no, I agree. It's a wrap behind me. I'm like, I'm turning things up. Oh, that's a nice one. Thank you, Sasha. Yeah, that's good. Comparative budget reports. I won't work into that season, you know, I can start. You certainly are. So I think... So if you wanna start, do you wanna do the fire department, or do you wanna do all of them? I'll go in order if you wanna do all of them that I'm involved in. Yeah, why don't we start with all of them. On page four, that's the bottom of the page, we have animal control. I put in, it was 2000 for last year, I brought up to 2,500. It's been staying busy, and it takes a lot of time to go out, and it's always the middle of the night. It's never midday, it's always late at night. Did we ever get to New Orleans? So we have gotten it back from the lawyer, and they changed it a lot from what VLCT had. So that might be something that you guys wanna look over, if Sasha, if you can send it to them. I looked it over myself, there's a lot taken out. You're saying you're a lawyer, art lawyer? Yes, we have our own chance, look at it. And I used the template from VLCT to do it, and there's a lot of that stuff from VLCT taken out by the kind of lawyer. And I'm not a legal jargon guy, so I don't understand all of it, but it seems to make sense. I think it just dials back our liability included. All right, so why don't we go ahead and take a look at that. As far as I'm a patrol officer, do you have a log every time you go out? I do, I do a copy every time. I don't have it with me today. I'm guessing this year I've probably done 15 to 20, I'm thinking, roughly off the top of my head from how thick the stack was. And how long was that average? It takes generally right around two hours, portal to port from home back to home. Right. So you gotta come out, find the animal, or pick it up from somebody, and then bring it to Warren, to Roy's, or in the case of our common denominator person, bring it back to their home. And it takes some time. So for this 2,500, then it builds mileage too? You build separately from that? I do, and it was 500 last year, and I kept it at 500. Because I mean, just looking at, say if you did 20 calls, that's 40 hours, roughly. That's 60 to 50 an hour. A good way to look at it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not against it. I just put it in that way, because it's, you know, it certainly, I can go a couple months without anything, and then it seems like in a week, I have three or a little bit of room. Right. And some of these are after hours or not weekends, right? They're mostly after hours and not weekends. I very rarely have a daytime. I've had one or two at the school during the day, but other than that, it's always... 11 o'clock at night, or something like that. Oh, it is, it's, yeah, 11, like last night I actually went and did a, we'll call it pro bono, the state police called me to Dutchbury to ask for my help, because Dutchbury doesn't have an ACO, and I went and did it. That's on me, though. That's my own, my own just helping out them. No, that's nice. They called it 10.30 last night for it. It was 12.30 that I found out I got home. Yeah. And that's pretty common for when they happen. It's usually somebody driving home at eight, nine o'clock at night and you see a dog running down the roadway. Yeah. If you could, at the end of the year, though, do an annual report course. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe even something so that we can put in the counterport. Absolutely. If you don't mind. And so, now we get to that. Yeah, people would be interested in knowing that, and then it can validate the... Right, and they talk about it, because we don't know what you're doing, or how often you're doing it. Okay, we'll see you guys. All right, so with the next one. And then on the next page was the mileage for it. It was at 500 last year, I kept it the same. Yep. And then on page six, E911 supplies. I kept that the same. I didn't use it all. So it could go down to a thousand. I kept it the same just because it's, you know, it's good business. It was the best thing I've ever done. And then we go to page seven. And that's the start of the fire department. You can kind of look that over. There's a few things that I brought up. You see, the stipend is double from 1500 to 3,000. Ah, it's staying the same from last year. It was 3,000 last year. All right. It was 21, it was 1,500, and we go to the 3,000. We go to the 3,000. And you used 1,400. You know, what do you generally... So what I've been doing with the direction of the guys at the fire department, I've been using some of that to buy them apparel, buy them t-shirts and hats and such. And then the rest of it at the end of the year, all the people who've been successfully active done 33% between calls and training and stuff, get their cut. So basically I take the number of people that are eligible and the amount of money left, and I cut down a check for that. And how many people usually make that cut? Others can make the cut this year. So it ends up being like 150 doctor person or something along those lines, which isn't much, but they, you know, it's appreciated because they don't plan on getting anything, right? So like a little present. Yeah, exactly. I do it at our annual meeting. So, you know, it's the time where we see them all. And it's the way to thank them for what they've been doing over the last year. Are you generally pleased with the response that you get from people during the day? You know, you have a fire here in town or? I am. They've, you know, it's harder during the day than any fire department volunteer type thing. But it's been really good. We have, I'm going to have Sean and I that are at the highway department. Yeah. And we have one of the guys works at the store, a couple of them work right in Waterbury. So if anything of, you know, real sustenance comes in, they come over, it's a pretty good response for during the day. We're very lucky in that aspect. Obviously, I can always use more guys. And that's one thing we're working on is trying to figure out a good way to put out recruiting. Yeah. Yes. It's a dying experience. Have you had anyone new recently? We did just have somebody, they made their three meetings but they go away for the winter. So they made their three meetings, joined the fire department. It was Riley from up on Lynn's show. He wanted to join and he did. And then we had one about six months before that and then probably a year before that was our last one. So we're slowing, you know, there's still people interested. And we've had a couple that have come to a meeting and been like, maybe not because they can't, we require three consecutive trainings to get voted on. That way, we know that they're interested and not just there to get a light on top of their car so they can be cool or anything like that. And that seems to be a good way to do it. And some people, they come, they see what we're doing and they're like, oh, it's not really for me. And I try to work with them to find a position of their comfort, whether it be operating the engine on the track or getting on a roof, if that's what they like, but most people don't like that. Right. So it's, we have a few people that are good interior inside the building and good exterior outside the building, giving support position. So we certainly could use more of them, but we have a really solid dedicated group of people then. Certainly, I don't know when's a good time to recruit, but you know, be putting it out there and our media stuff that we have, you know, either on the town page, from Port Schwarm. Just hey, if you ever thought about it, come down and give it a try. We're at Morfest next year. We usually, Morfest is interesting because people do ask, you know, how the fire department's doing, how's the membership, and he gives us our opportunity to say, well, we're always, we're there on the first and third Tuesday of every month and come down and check it out. Maybe a little hand down there. I think most people think, oh, the fire department, that means you gotta run inside a burning building. Well, if the construction of fires now is running inside the burning building, it's far less common because they cook so fast. And thankfully with all the common safety features, people are warned sooner so they can get out. Think about considering having maybe a little open house, you know, take some of your money to be donated or something to buy pizza or something. You'd come up with, you know, usually food will get people to go to things. We're actually talking about maybe this winter trying to do a little movie night on the wall of the fire station for some younger kids. We get the parents there too. Right. We've been working always to branch out to the community a little bit better. Just, you know, something to get the community out. You know, we do our Halloween thing when we're in the fire station. We do coffee and hot chocolate for the parents and candy for the kids. Okay, so we have to go. No, I mean, this is, what's the little red light in front of there? So we put the little red light. October is fall in the fire there. So the little red lights show that our support to the man went on the fall of the fire. And they look so nice. I might even keep them on after that. It'd be a nice thing to put, maybe just put the front porch close. Which I had never been concerned on doing it, just. Right. They drive in my car a lot. I don't know what that lights for now. I do know. Thank you. That's a really nice thing. Yeah, light up the night. I think those are the kids today. So dispatch and service is going up 5,000 things. So I think they said roughly it was going to be a 4% hike this year. And that's not solidified yet. So I figured that was, that's a good number to put in there. Obviously with dispatch and service, it's subject to change once they find it out. But I think that that's a fairly accurate number. All right. The only maintenance that's going up. Yes, our outside lights are non-functional and I can't get parts for them anymore. One of the domes fell off and rusted off. So we're going to need some new lights on the front of the building. And amongst other small things, our door is having some issues. We had some rooms eat the sign on our door. You said that, yeah. Which I believe I have eradicated them to have a heart trap and relocate them to buy Tom's house. No. So you said that the dispatch was going to put in there 5%. But this is actually a 25% increase. From 20 to 25. Yeah. So I put that in there because I knew it was going up and I'm not a, not much of a numbers guy, but also there is dispatch services. It's going to be, we have to bring our communication system up. That's what the letter of intent I had a month or two ago that they're going to be bringing that up. And I don't know if they're planning for this budget cycle to start putting that amount in or not either. So I just, I know that it's more certainly. I'm just not sure how much it's going to be. And I don't want to undercut the budget and be over by a lot. Maybe something we'll have to look at more. Yeah, absolutely. And I can get, do you haven't gotten actual numbers out for next year yet? I'm kind of rolling with, yeah, cause I mean, a 4% would be roughly $800. Right. And that's a $5,000, so. Right. No, and then it makes sense to me. But it's good to have a number to start with anyways. Yeah, I was trying to have a number in there. And you may get further information to help clarify where. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this isn't like necessarily set in stone by any means. So everything else, we have 12 problem that's looking almost in there, and that's electric a little up and oil up as well. Yeah, I was looking at where we're at in the budget. So I tried to adjust them accordingly. Trim page. So the second column here, fire equipment, looks like it's increasing what almost $7,000, is that right? Yes. So the radio repairs and maintenance, that's going up like everything else across the radios has gone up. And I'm working, we're gonna be going to digital in the very near future. And that'll be a lot of money. So I'm trying to start as my radios are starting to die out. I'm trying to make sure I get radios that are digital eligible radios so that we're not buying new radios when in two years, they're obsolete. How many radios do you have in service? In service currently, we have five mobile units and then we have seven portable units. And the portable units are next of some newer that are like four years old. And we've just replaced one of the older ones this year with a new one. I'm trying to just keep those cycling one or two a year along with a couple of pagers and try to keep up with it without asking for a lot of money to replace the whole shebang. Supplies expenses, we have 500 budgeted in 2022 and you're asking for 6,000. Yes, that is for a portable pump. We keep one on each truck because you have to be able to get down to some of these water spots to get water to pump up to the truck that you think at the truck close enough. And the one I'm trying to replace is old enough they have to wrap the cord around it, pull it and then if it doesn't start I have to wrap the cord again. It's far older than I am you have to be careful when you're trying to turn it off because you have to pull the cover off the spark plug you had to turn off. And it's an age unit and I got a rough budget number of $4,500 currently for the cost to replace it. And what's truck tobacco one? That would replace the one that's on engine one. I have the newest one that we currently have on our tanker just because that's the most likely truck to need it in a pen. So if you were getting a new tanker could you take that one and put it on engine one? And theoretically not have one on that new tanker because it can pump it down water. That is a possibility. It absolutely is. Obviously there's still the chance that it could be far enough away that we'd still need a portable pump. I don't have a million dollar bumper from that one. No, we're gonna go wherever we want it to go. No, that is two years away. Anyways, the new use of the lead time on those even after we approve it. Right. So that would be March of 25 that we would have a new tanker. And I'm not saying, you know, that pump does still work the old one. It does still work. And I certainly, I'm trying to figure out when the best time to start replacing stuff is. Been a while since we've been replacing that stuff. And I'm, you know, maybe this isn't the year. It's still in working order. But there's no anyways, but that's one of those things that we may have. If you're looking to cut a little thing. Yeah, no, that's perfectly fine too. I just, it's trying to find the best time to replace things before it fails miserably. Yeah. So I'm just, I'm trying to be mindful of all of that. Right. And I'm not trying to be cheap. I'm just trying to. Oh, and I understand that. I'm asking for a half a million dollar crap too. I, I certainly understand that. All right. So moving down the next column is under firemen and doesn't seem like there's, let's see what we have for change. I went on fire. What is that? So that is what would I believe the land is for is for some more wild land gear. We only have three sets of wild land coveralls with helmets and that's to help get more of those. I can get two sets with that at the 50, 50 grant. The state of Vermont for rural towns does a 50, 50 grant where they'll pay half and you pay half for that gear. And so I wanted to have a little money set in there so I could get it. So it meant your is particular to what? I mean, so I'm not familiar with wild land gear. So we have particular to wild fires, outdoor fires, basically the difference between it and our structural firefighting gear is it's a lot lighter and it, you know, being lighter we can wear it and hike out in the woods and it offers minimal protection from getting burned. You'll get hot so and you shouldn't get burned as long as it's just a, you know, quick flash of fire. But that's what I was really getting at. Yeah, it's meant for out in the woods and the wilderness trying to fight fire. And then the training went from 250 to 500. We've been working with Wakefield and Warren Fire Department's doing a training program. And it's been going really well. We're gonna need to buy some books and some literature for it. So we're all kind of trying to put in our piece to keep that program running. Sounds good. Vehicle maintenance repair. I wasn't sure it, this is one of those depends on I brought it up a thousand dollars, but it's one of those things I don't want to, I don't want to not have it if I need it, but it's one of those things where I, it couldn't be cut down a little bit as long as nothing bad happens to the truck. So it's kind of one of those hard, hard bargain things. And you'll see under fire warden, I gave myself a 50 cent or 50 cent, hike and pay. That position does not offer any mileage. And I go out for that more than I go out for any other thing in the world. People asking, well, can I burn? Can you look and see if it's okay for me to burn? And spending the time with somebody calls and send their neighbors burning trash. I'm spending an enormous amount of time even just answering phone calls from that. Now, do you keep, again, some kind of a lot? I try to, that's a little harder because I get calls and such at the most random hours, but I do know just from text messages, I would be able to say that I probably have a hundred text messages that burns this year so far. Right. Not every one of those of me going out and... Right, I picture a couple minutes. Yeah, exactly. And you know, there are certain people that'll burn once a week and they're really good about it. And then there's some people that only burn once or twice, but they have big fires and credit for it. And it's hard to keep track of all those just because I spend so much time because I try to be good about getting right back to them or answering them. And sometimes I'm in the middle of doing other things. And it's very hard to keep 100% track of that. Yeah. Trying to come up with a system whether you have just a notebook, but something that you can even on your phone there must be some kind of app where you can... I did do that in 2020, I did that. And it worked well for about nine months. And then it just, I stopped doing it before it stopped working. It stopped working, no fair. Because again, that's one of those things it would just be nice to have that info too. Yeah, absolutely. Now I agree with just what I could do and also it really allows me to, you know, that's where... Yeah, that's certainly one of the harder ones for me to keep track of is just, I mean, this morning, four people asked me for a burn permit. Right. Whereas last week, nobody would ask me for a permit. So it's... But if someone asks you for a burn permit, there must, you must put, or I'm hoping that you, there's some kind of documentation for that. That so if the house goes down or whatever happens that, you know... Right. So the state of Vermont, the Wildland program, only requires that I give verbal permission. But oftentimes what I'll try to do is I'll try to contact Capitalist Dispatch and just say, hey, I have a burn permit in this area, which also doesn't always happen in mill. I don't always keep documentation of every person that's burning, as I probably should. But that is, that's an enormous... Right. I'm just, for liability reasons, you know, one of those things where... But as long as you speak or somehow communicate with that, I guess that obviously the state's fine with it, sort of, I mean, I'm fine with it, but... Right. And that's one of those places where, yeah, thank you very much. I certainly strive for that. And I just, I get a lot going on. Oh no, no, no. Sometimes you always get away from me. You don't want to take a little bit off your shoulders, is if you know these people, just say, hey, text me. Give me a verbal text, and that's what I try to do. Just to have something, I just want something on record that we've talked. A lot of people, I get a lot of email and a lot of text messages. So that's good. But I do still get the first-timers that call me. Oh yeah, I mean, I understand that. And then they ask, oh, how does that work? And I'm like, well, if it's easier for you when you want to burn, you text and ask, and then I'll text them back with a yes, no, or maybe not, or what? Don, do you have a phone at home? Well, you know, maybe one of the things that I'm certainly not doing now, because we're doing the budget, but to that issue about people requesting burn and burn permits, maybe there could be a way that someone would have to go to the town website and there's a little place that you fill out a little form, and when they fill it out, it gets sent to Stephon or something, you know? And, you know, not everybody will do that, but maybe, you know, if we educated people when it was on front porch form, and it might take a year or two to initiate a program like that, but you could get people to, you know, boom. This is how, this is the way you gotta get a burn permit in town, you know? It's dry, climate, whatever. Something to think about. They might do some policy like that that you could come up with. Right, so. But again, I don't want to start adding laggers on a big number. No, no, I understand. No, I'm gonna work for him, but just that he would then get something, a form, an address, you know, I want to burn on October 3rd and, you know, whatever. Yeah, I think that there's a value in that where the neighbors hold on, they, you know, they see something going on and they will take a check and see if there's a burn permit. Yeah, there's something. That'll happen to colleagues. Right, no, that's, that's. Something to think about. Something to think about. Yeah, but yeah. It's one of those things where we're just transitioning now from the, call it the wild west, when I took over, I would, I'd get voicemails and it would be hurt. Somebody and I will unburn him today, why? Not quite, that's not quite how it works. I don't know who you are. And then I show up. Oh yeah, I called the fire warden while I am a fire warden. I don't know. I don't know how we got, I just construed here, but it didn't, it wasn't quite like that. All right. So we've got you down for more pay there too. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna go to you for a lot of fellow staff on here, or if you're more comfortable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll have money here to make here. All right, all right. So that's page seven. That was eight. Three, yeah. That's eight for them. And that is where my, my budget and it's going into, into the next page. I don't know, I don't really believe in the wrongs I did well. I went from 56 to 50 to 67, 550. What's that? I went from 56 to 500. Oh, this is, this was my writing. I don't know if I have to do that. Get the summary of what you, but that just. Yeah, that's just, I added up. Oh. All of it at the end, which also includes a line item I'd like to add. I don't know if that was added in. Great. So seven, would you say 67? 56 to 67, is that right? 56 to 50. 56 to 50. To 67 and 550. And which also includes a new line item I would like to add this year is for equipment testing. That'll be for trucks, hoses, ladders. And I'm looking for a new line item with $5,500 in it. And my reasoning behind that was I found out this year that annually under NSPA standards, you're supposed to test your hoses, ladders, and pumps. And it's something that I haven't done because I didn't know what it just did. And it's something that really needs to be done is to make sure the hoses are all safe and the pumps are in good working order. And I got a rough budget number and it was basically $4,000 for all the hoses and it was $300 per truck pump. So it's something, an actual texture comes out and it certifies this stuff. Yes. Seems like we've had that done before. It has been done. So when I called the company, they're like, oh yeah, we have you in our system. It's been quite a while since you've used this. I just, I didn't know it was such a thing. Yeah. And it certainly is something that needs to be done, especially now, because it's been so many years. I don't know what kind of shape the hoses are or are not in. I didn't know it was a yearly thing. It is a yearly thing, what a couple of the departments around are doing like we should have learned. They're, they did the same thing that I'm trying to do. They initially got everything tested, but then they worked on a rotating thing. So like we did the ladders and pumps one year and then the next year we do the hoses. We won't be in 100% compliance, but it's a lot better than not doing it at all. Right, and based on our records so far, we've been going around checking it, so. Right, well exactly, exactly. And it's good to get it done and give a lot of peace of mind to what the shape of the equipment is. You know, they'll be able to tell us, there'll be a spreadsheet that'll tell us what age of fire hoses, what condition it's in, and whether or not, you know, the life expectancy is my understanding will be part of it, like how much longer it lasts based on the amount of use it gets. Is it an independent lab or is it somebody who sells fire hoses? I mean, they do not sell fire hoses. Oh yeah, they sell fire hoses. Good question. Very, very good question. My understanding from this company is all they do is test those. They don't sell a darn thing. Yeah, that's right. Except for the whole test. It's an independent, yes. Somebody that's not gonna be... Right, no, that's a very good point, you know. And no, my understanding is that they are, they only do testing. And the company that I talked to does Northfield, Wakefield, Warren, Waterbury. So they get all the towns around us. Okay. And they seem like decent people from talking to a couple of the other fire chiefs. It's an important thing to have done. And I certainly agree with it being done. And it's one of the more important to me item this year. But we'll take it in the heart because that is just looking at it real quick. That's a 20% increase over... Yes, I... But everything we went through... There's room two for trimming. I certainly agree that there's room for trimming. But you don't go in trying to undercut yourself either. No, I agree. And we're not... We'll see where we go through with the rest of the budget. We're gonna think and see where there's things we need to talk, re-talk about. One of the things that I just, Seth and I were talking the other day. And one of the things we did talk about was if the fire truck passes the vote here in November 2nd, 3rd, 2nd. 8th. That's right. Yeah, it's so late. So anyways, when that passes, that we need to really either get it, I'm not gonna call it committee, but this would be one of the largest purchases that we make as a town for a piece of equipment. And in no way, just respect to just one person kind of doing that. We need to figure out and have pre-bid meetings with anyone that is interested in any of the manufacturers. So we can all, we can sit around the table and figure out, all right, how is it gonna be specced out and what it is, just so we can ask other questions, have other people from the fire department. And if we have, if we know someone that's, this is their specialty, then we can talk to them and have them look at our deal. Because I wanna make sure we do this that we absolutely get the best deal. If we're gonna go ahead and spend that type of money. Certainly more than my eyes on it. And I agree, it's an audit of me, which I absolutely would respect. There's possibly something I missed. Right. And you don't wanna truck that it gets here and everyone says, yeah, well, it would be great. If we only had this one thing, it could do all sorts of stuff. Yeah, exactly, that's in, I certainly, I spent a lot of time building the spec, so I'm 100% sure that there's, I certainly could have done something. I don't, I've heard from the manufacturers of small things that don't spec well together, which that makes perfect sense to me. I worked really hard on it, but nobody's perfect. Oh, no, no, no, I understand that. And I love the idea of it being looked over. I just, I want it to be looked over, but I want it also to not drag on, because I know most of the core of it. Let's not be the idea, the idea is to move a little team effort. Right, but. Yes, exactly. And in that 30 days after it is a prime time to start talking to those people. Right. And once you have that load, you'll have a lot more cooperation with manufacturers too as far as getting some help. And for them, just once they do that. For the $350,000 of voters paid. Yeah. I think I'd be close to that number. And so, if they know there's money on the table, they're going to come in the service, but anyone just stopping in on the prices, they're probably less giving you time and information that you need. The three that I've worked with so far, three different manufacturers, they've been good about getting back to me and explaining what they think doesn't work about my stuff, which may, some of it makes sense, some of it doesn't. Some of them didn't like my requirements on the length. I'm trying to keep the truck short for all the skinny driveways and such that we're getting into. And, you know, they were like, well, we can do it, but it would be three inches longer than that. All right, well, let's. Well, so it's a lot of things like that. You know, I was trying to do what made the most sense. Both economically and as far as, as far as I know. No, I'm sure you did a great job and did it, it's probably, it's a lot of money. And I, I thought the same thing when I was like, wait, where's the, where's the gold plated stuff? We can't build it out now. Yeah, but the checks and balances, it's good to have. We'll make sure, then, you know, it shows better transparency. And then it's not me when the truck comes and it doesn't do everything. It's not just me that's going down. The whole trip's coming down with it, you know what I'm saying? There you go. There's another way to look at it as well. Well, the other way to look at it is that we all find something and go, oh, why doesn't it have this or does it really need that? Right. Why does that need to be so shiny or what, you know? I already got rid of the nice wheels. Okay. And I got rid of the huge motor too. Trying to, trying to cut costs down. So we want to move the long step on so as long as there's anything else that we can help you with tonight. I don't think so. I still, I still don't like that ladder track, but. All right, we'll keep that, we'll keep that in mind. Yeah. I just got to take a baby brother tanker and throw him a ladder truck. Yeah, I really like that. Yeah, maybe he'll do the hop. Berlin has a nice big ladder truck for sale cheap, but it would never fit in our station. So, it's out of the question. Yeah, that's easy. We just built a new fire station, right? Well, we built the highway department a new station and it would fit in that shop. We'll just move you down there. That's the plan. Yeah, leave now. Once you move out of that building though, the land goes back to someone else, right? It has to be a fire station. Yeah. But that could be the outpost number one or something. Right, yeah. All right, Sasha, what do you got for us here? Of course. The resident that lives on Route 2, concerned about the new painting because people are going faster, so I guess that's Johnny's apartment. Just wind up voices of concerns. And... So is that something, at some point when you're talking with the sheriff or you're communicating back with them? Yep. Just make them aware of that. Look at with a new asphalt. Yep. There used to be an uptick in speed, which there would be. I mean, that was... Sure, yeah. Do you know where they're located? Where is it? Near the old Loneys property. Kind of by the down, by the boys'... Yeah, boys' house, boys' house. Oh, so see the... Yeah, section. So we had that discussion with them. That was the one when they changed the speed limit as you get to Gallagher Acres and Fairground. You know, they dropped the speed there to 35, and I attended that meeting, and there was discussion, you know, I think we made the joiners there as well, about how we would go about the next steps to going about getting that to 30. They have to lower it. Anyways, it's something that can be done, just like we just did. You get it on the agenda, and there's a committee that reviews speeds. They do a study, and I mean, it's something we could work on. John and I are kind of working on that transportation thing. All right, so I will keep it on. Between that and you getting your buddies over there. Debra Feldman has an concern about the stop sign. I forwarded that to you guys this afternoon. Fire and Road doesn't have a stop sign, if she was... Had it ever happened, or... I don't know. Ever been in there. Call me a lot. Yeah, but it does go all the way through. Yeah, so... She said GPS is bringing a lot of traffic on that fast-forward road. I'm sure of that. So then, obviously, in the winter, it stops. Or someone gets stuck. All right. So I think as a town, we can... That's something you just put up there. Yeah, I believe you just put the stop sign up. Why don't we go ahead and do that? I don't think that's a bad idea, that there's anyone here. That's a mow around it or something, or a plow around it. Oh, that's not the video. The signs are very expensive. It's like three or four hundred bucks to get that sign in place. But it is a need for sure. Yeah, if you're flying through, you can see where that would happen. And they don't realize that it's a stop. Yeah. It should be obvious for some people, but probably not. And when people come down the other way, how is road? Is there a stop there? She was thinking that she was thinking it on that side of the road, but it's on the other side. Yeah, cut-off. Gosh, you wouldn't think people would... And there is one on the other side, or far enough road, but not on the house far more side. Yeah. I'm fairly certain. I think I mow around it with it. That's what she was going to look at, too. She wasn't sure if it was going to be around there. I think there was. And then the other question I have is, there's just seeing all these bills coming for oil, propane, and sand. It's here. It's just... It's skyrocketed. What about putting this stuff out today? I just put invoices in today for Offroad Beasel and I was five grand just September and... I thought we... I mean, they had put it up, but... You know what, you should do maybe such as do you call around other towns to kind of find out what they're doing and what they're paying right now. And certainly a competitive environment, so I'm going to be fostered here. But let's get that information and then figure out probably now is not the time we want to go up there and bid out for this. But for next year I think there probably should be something that's sent out in the spring that's looking for these things. But just to make this feel better, why don't you call around to see where everyone else is at? And I'd love a bid for a different sand. If you can find somebody else close enough for different sand, we'd love to get another bid on that. Yeah, Martin's talking to me and he's talking about that. Maybe something from Northeast might be comparable, because I guess in that last year, we had $1.50 and he was only anticipating $0.50. Right, it's the same little sand that's sitting there. Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I understand the oil and the fuel. Another $0.50 yard is as significant. Yeah, and you can see some of that going up in the yard because there's a yard where they're crushing it or screening it and things like that. It seems, because it's only six. What's the percent 10 or 116? I don't remember what that was. It's a fairly large percent. Maybe because it was around $8.50 and now you're saying it's 10. Yeah. It's no more 10%. Yeah. All right, so yeah. Okay. And the last thing I have was to remind you about an email. Oh, yeah, I wrote that down just when I get to that. That's all I have. Right. I don't know, this is probably old business. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that on business just because we have that old business. Yeah. If we're on policy communication. Yeah. All right. So the email that Sasha was talking about, I got a communication from Dan Zucker and let's say this was a little while ago. I think the person was in late August probably September. And he has a neighbor that has removed a survey and is doing some work. The neighbor has clarified to him that he did in fact remove the pin because it was going to be in his way. So obviously Dan's tried to work with him as a neighbor to try to get him to have it replaced. But does anyone as a town is that in our jurisdiction to replace them? Well, I'm not replacing them, but to send out the letter to the owner to have it replaced. Statue would say that that person who's removed the pin is subject to $100 fine, which is stupid. Yeah. And go fine to a real fine and cost of replacing a pin with a certified That's a statute. That's a statute. I think I mean I don't think I ever recall going to them or like that. I don't see why they put this reference at statute. All right. So we'll have them send a little letter out. Yeah, or do we I mean, we need to get you in to it was not an item just you know, just believe what Dan was ever said to me that but it kind of puts us in place of our trainer or such when you know, this guy, his neighbor says I would Well, the other neighbor has not said that the neighbor said to him that he pulled it out but he might tell us that he has it, right? Maybe it's something we shouldn't excuse me, a neighbor The neighbor calls the police and doesn't know if they're a neighbor or two neighbors talking when he's at the maybe and say, you know they're asking both to come into the select board meeting and we can, you know, like, okay you want to talk about this boys or you know and it gets us and what's ironic is this is someone who you know, has emailed us about other you know, violations, you know of other people down the road, not this particular guy but on this neighbor so, you know, he's a picky person but then he feels like he can you know you know, do what he wants you know, maybe it would be worth a quick call to Ron to get his advice on alright, which is the best way to get into this Yeah, sure That's alright with everyone I understand the the neighbor not trying to get things riled up but, you know, I don't know if it's it's hard to be there That's all I have for communications or reports out we have the select word minutes from 10 3 2022 is there anyone have a motion on this? I think the motion Do you have a rule? I'll second, sure Thank you, Don All in favor, go right There's only three of us here There's only three of us here I'm sorry I was thinking of something else I was thinking of these nuts Alright, what are you doing Ray Hansen, old business force Just want to update you you should email with this kind of a draft a list of items that the committee has talked about which only a couple we've only got the city fighters, that's going to be on the town architect that's going to be on the select board I'm going to tell the Congress that's done the deal some of the other items that first is the Mad River Valley senior citizen the guy over here here last one of 10,000 came to the meeting and all of these requested five but we were thinking of as a committee because we don't think this is the old Mad River Valley senior citizen we were thinking of just coming up with a lump sum amount I think when it came up with like 30,000 that we would use to just single out Mad River Valley for 5,000 kind of consolidate stuff and come up with a one number that we would use I don't know the exact wording but it would be helping out the senior citizen it's a real program they're over budget not flagged water barrier council aging Google model together again these are all items that they're going to come to the select board with these numbers it's up to us to make that ultimate decision and whether we as a board feel that this is the correct use for that money it's something we should be thinking about freewheeling is if you don't know they go around and help seniors get to their appointments and other things like that that's what freewheeling does I wasn't aware of them so they're asking for 10,000 but sometime I told them we really would have this early December some more finalized plan so we kind of put it out that I think on front page 4 if you haven't seen it that any organization that went to go for money put in town we're setting a deadline of this month so there's a meeting on the 26th yeah it's like that's a deadline and then we'd like to have everything by that time and then there'll be a solid time to think about what the recommendations the board should be it's funny I just saw where Warren is just now putting together an opera committee maybe you could do a little research and find out what other towns are doing with their funds as it's going gearing up we're seeing a lot of more organizations coming out of the ruins but just with their hand up because they should so let's just see maybe this might be something that we need to discuss with other towns because I don't want to be the only town putting in for one organization and not have other towns and I'm sure they feel the same way that's a prosody and something that's you know that we're all doing sort of like out on the ambulance exactly when they came and having the percentages let's make sure it's all fair for everyone so no one feels like you can tell so if we can do a little look into that on that moment with the ambulance Mark Codrick the gentleman that came in here he passed away during surgery this last weekend the guy that was here with Maggie asking about getting him he was undergoing a fairly routine surgery and he ended up bleeding out I guess that's awful and I just figured you guys want to know that so I don't know they're trying to figure out their organization right now because you know he let it and he was a director so if you don't hear anything from them you might try to reach out to them because they might be a little bit of a car or something in the organization or condolences his family yeah it was it was not expected I mean he was just working the week before and then he went into surgery and it just didn't go well again well thank you for sharing that no I just you know it could it's a sad thing and you know we're all a community and he was a very lively guy he was a humor too yeah I know he was involved in around him yeah of energy and he was very passionate for what he was doing yes what was his emails Mark Poshway I couldn't tell you how to spell it if I wanted to right off my head let's see a lot of emails that we get from him can I ask you one quick question the neck of the woods the notice put on town ballot in March I thought I think that's just a note because I thought we already told them we were doing a proof I didn't know are we going to put it to vote or something or I don't know I thought we told them that it was a good thing and have the feeding wheels I remember somebody saying that they wanted the town input because 25,000 was a lot of money I do remember look at that these are just notes I understand I would look at the old people meeting and they came in if we did come into them I don't know just something I think somebody ordered it to go on in November and they brought it up they were talking about I think I asked a question about whether it should go on November or March and they were hoping it could go earlier but they didn't really care I think it was yeah I think that was I think that was and Don you have to go ahead and go back the best thing is go back and watch the one year movie watch the movie grab your popcorn yeah that would be interesting to see how that works out very good Don would you already have more of the old stuff like that Don old stuff size yourself well this is kind of old stuff the town garage sand pit gravel pit amazingly that I got this thing in the mail just the other day and the property that we looked at as a town as a select board back when we were thinking about relocating the town garage and the sand pit out by a water access it's not the same what near Linde just after Linde van times that house right there is for sale again so or it's on the market and of course my daughter was over visiting and they went online to check it out and it's 440,000 and when we were looking at it as a town I believe it was 250 or 2 something oh yeah no no so anyways this you know it's just no one's going to decide about it right now but maybe when you're driving around or thinking about it there's not a lot of places for us to move our town garage and sandpile if we ever want to move it out of town building a wastewater system having that beautiful access to the river well we can't move the fire station now to the town garage what she told me about that we have to say is that fire station still we call it fire station it could be a fire station no it could be apartments we could convince whoever it was but we could make housing but any event so that's old new thought you know just trying to keep that little fire alive for us to think about you know 10-5 a year plan maybe we could buy it and then rent the house for a while or something and the only other thing is I know when we get to talking about budgets and law enforcement and speed signs because you know remember the sheriff said that speed signs were too far apart and this and that just something to think about that if we do some of that maybe some of the roads we can blow some of the speeds if we're you know we could steal some 35 signs from some roads and make new signs 30s or something so well you and John are working on the sign stuff so keep that we have we've gathered back some of the slow down like your kids live here you know I've managed to find some of the ones that we got so I don't know it's getting a little late in the season to put those up maybe because they winter coming and plowing we've identified some other areas in town where we're going to try to put those up in the spring or something and so never miss any other business no I'm waiting to update you all hopefully the next meeting about the town of I don't have any news for you right now we're just working away alright so there's nothing new as far as frank properties you know it's nothing that we can do as a board you know so Ron's working on it he understands the situation so he's moving as quickly as he can you know and that's one of the reasons I was bringing up the rental would fade in the act to fit the airbnb so having as a town we should look a little bit more into what we can do for affordable housing there are so I went on this weekend looking I was starting working for grants and there's a lot of grants for affordable housing out there there's a lot for people actually like frank that have places in ill repair so even as you know if we can try to figure out something so we can outreach with some of these people so that we can get their places up to snuff so that they can be rented out that even might be a start so I'm going to have Sasha be in her free time if you could do a little research into just what the grants are out there I just googled it and did and then you're going into Vermont affordable housing grants grant and a bunch popped up but if you could do a little research something that might be available for our residents and that's something that we can publish a lot of people may not even know that there are things out there available for them and then there might be things as a town that's available to us to facilitate buying or financing something you know there's some third party things that allow us to do that and I know one of the things when the after funds came in and you were talking about you know what we could do one of the things was you know buying that house down the electric part of things so maybe you know if you get a moment just you know send that guy an email again hey are you guys doing anything have you decided you're going to do anything with this building um you know there may be more opportunities so if we scratch the surface with it I just think Sasha would be a good person to kind of head this up kind of look and see what can we really do feasibly as a town I mean I know we're not yeah I was thinking of that place that he had that closed down the school there just after the flower fund what's it called oh we have stone path academy stone path academy yeah I mean this you know now it's you know it's just a house and there's this building that you know I drive by and I go gosh there could be three or four units in that place you know yeah so but you know alright so use that as your basis there's something like that is there's money for town to go after something like that if we could do something like that right and you know maybe your money gives you some money that you can invest not you know and then somehow I don't know but I think you need to be a little creative and the other thing is a town I think and I don't know what we can do about the air b&b's but you know maybe some kind of a tax that we can put on it and spend towards affordable I think they just had a meeting about this in Maduro Valley I mean just the other night they had a meeting about housing he did and there's a young woman who's moved into town Amy Tomassia who works from Maduro the Maduro Valley the housing coalition well she works from Maduro Valley but I forget the last word but maybe we can invite her to come in and talk to us and see what she's found out and what she's worked on and stuff so maybe I can give her a call and get through it all you know so are you thinking as a town we would help a developer get the funding or do you think as a town the league person I would your first scenario what can we do as a town to and then bring in experts like I know in Burlington there's I don't know what the acronyms are but there's some groups there that the city has helped facilitate whether it's Champlain housing or Champlain coalition when I was doing the looking for affordable housing grants you know some of these communities that receive all this money through the city but to build and you know I don't know exactly how it works but if we don't look into it then we won't know and there may be those opportunities as a town I don't think we're sophisticated enough or have enough employees to house managers or developers but we may be able to do something as a town to take the money and pass it on to the experts and just figure out the product right yes it's a matter of valley planning district so yeah I think they have a meeting but you know and maybe nothing that we want to get involved in at all but I think now is the time to look at it and we got someone with Sasha that I think is probably capable or I know is capable of that something she can take on other old business that I'm stuff I'm going to help us here a little bit but when I was not here on the September meeting did you guys talk about the road crew when the days are going back to five days or four days we did we're getting that is we're just wrapping up on the mountain at the end of last week so we're just trying to wrap things up but we're assuming that it would be the end of this pain period would be the time probably to switch back because I think we said our partners here I believe for a number of reasons mine being school yours being darkness Labor Day would be that time and if there were any other mitigating circumstances to come back and chat to us about it so maybe you could give him a call in the morning I will I completely forgot that I remember having that conversation I think it was at a meeting it was at a meeting because Martin brought it up it was when he was giving us a look down on what was going on and asked and then that's what we thought this year this is what we'd like to do and we said there was flexibility but we wanted to be involved in that decision how are we going to focus on that Stormwater Project is there anything on that no I think they're reviewing they're going to find a review process I think it's still the plan is to have that out for maybe December I don't see anything else for old business Don, have you got anything for new business or what? well just the I haven't really gotten a chance to get into it but the what the planning commission said this oh yeah thank you it looks like a little piece of work to get into right now thank you so much for bringing that out in fact I talked to Sasha about it earlier to put a plan together I called today so she called to make sure we had the dates as far as when do we need to do is to execute public hearing so we're going to have the public hearing at our second meeting November or not the next meeting the following meeting so it would be the second meeting in November pardon me so between now and then as a select board we need to plow through those changes I went to the attachment and I saw I started to look at the zoning documents but I thought in his email he referenced that he was going to attach something that would help us follow it or something and I didn't see that or maybe that's in the week as you get into the document I couldn't figure out what he was talking about yeah maybe you print out what we have available so each person can come and pick it up um yeah I'm not kind of old looking at that yeah you don't have to get on your phone or try to figure that out I did the same thing you tried to check the doc yeah I mean just that he said that there was something that we should follow while we were looking at the zoning docs that would help make it clear but then they couldn't find it that much but I don't know I'll make sure that she has everything available so if we want to make any big changes between now and if you see anything we need to talk about that because the planning commission we need to go and have another meeting as well but so then we'll have that public hearing and if there's no substantive changes then at that point we can push back to the planning commission and it can go to a vote in March so that would be the idea is to get that out in March so we should maybe by the next meeting and read it so we can just discuss it and see if there's anything that we want or something that we might need to explain or something to think about so that would be great if everyone actually picks the time to read that so if that will be on the second one in November the second meeting in November I mean I think that's what we're kind of trying to shoot for also to have this presentation from BIA the architects I hope that one of these this thing will be 10 minutes and it probably would take that unless depends I haven't read the changes we'll decide whether we make that 10 minutes or half an hour but still having that other presentation at the same time will make time for that so we have a few invoices here to sign up some health insurance there's just one signature for thank you for coming step on lively crowd here today how are you doing today YouTube thank you this is the insurance office you know regular signs payroll so will we be like looking at this again next to the next meeting that's what's going on yeah that's what I'm thinking I'm going to be there I'll be there I mean where you're hunting I'll be there yeah just the way the calendar worked out that should be that's alright I'll be sure to look at that as well if there's any questions that were changes or things that you think is out of line just bring in some medicine yeah you have medicine in your town I'm not really able to look at some neighbors of mine I do a little bit of alright well I guess that is it for tonight so I move to adjourn all in favor alright thank you everyone