 But let's call the meeting to order. Is there any public comment for items not on the agenda. Additions or changes to the agenda. Alrighty. So, um, Dirk sent us an email, which is in the folder if anybody wanted to look at it. Um, I think there's something to be appointed to the historic preservation commission. And I know David supports that. And Scott's here. And he supports it. Um, Does anybody have any. Thoughts on that. Or would like somebody like to make a motion to a point, Dirk. It's like Scott has his hand up. Hi, Scott. You want to say something. Um, There we have no member from maple corner. And this, this year, our project is going to be all about maple corner. So we feel really fortunate to have Dirk. Say that he was, would be, would join the commission. Great. Great. Thank you. All right. I would make a motion. To appoint Dirk. Dirk Van Suster into the historic preservation commission. Scott, which term. I don't know right at the moment. I'll, uh, I bet Katie knows. It's a, it's been vacant for quite a long time. Okay. Katie, I'll communicate or you ask. Ask me if I can. Those are four year terms. Scott. Great. Great. So we'll, um, my motion will be to appoint. Dirk Van Suster to fill one of the vacant three year term positions. Is there a second? I'll second that. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. I'm an eye. Cliff. Hi. Karen. You're on mute. Hi. Okay. Thank you. Rose. Hi. All right. Done deal. Tell Dirk, tell Dirk we appreciate his. Good question. I'm not. I'm just. Stepping up and being on the commission. Scott. All right. So next up is, um, East Cala's community trust. And I previously. Um, recuse myself. I don't think that I have. Real conflict of interest because I don't, I'm not receiving any financial compensation, but for the. I'm going to recuse myself on this. So Denise, does that mean that I am chairing the meeting for this portion of it? Yes, if you would please. Okay. So I think I was looking back through and I actually couldn't find our minutes, but I think it was October 26th that we met with the ECC team. So I'm going to start with the ECC team on this idea of, of the town. Applying for a community development block grant for restoration of the East callous store. And my understanding is, and we said, we, we gave it like a, just a, sounds like a great idea kind of, you know, let's move forward that, let's move forward. I think that the group is coming back to us because they're ready for some next steps. And it, and my understanding is, and I'm going to turn this over to Mark and the folks who are here, but that we don't have to. We don't have. We're not formally, we wouldn't be asked to formally approve it tonight, but we are going to be asked to approve some steps in the process, and then we're going to be asked to approve it. And then we're going to be asked to approve it. We have to hold a public hearing. So the question will be whether to delegate that. And what's, what does that look like? How does a town or select board actually engage and be represented in that process? And then there's some resolutions that we have to approve so that, that they have been approved by the town. And they're part of the packet for the application. That's my understanding of the steps where we are. Mark and team. I'm going to turn this over to Mark. And with that, I am going to turn our. Discussion over to Mark. Thank you. And by the way, thanks for taking time for this in the middle of when you got to work on your budget. And deal with town meeting. So I appreciate it. We all do. Basically, first of all, I just want to say at the outset. If you guys have any questions that. You come to you outside of the meetings. Feel free to call me. Or any other member of ECCT. And if necessary, we'll bring in Brian and Liz. To answer your questions. Basically at the broadest level tonight. The major point of tonight is just to kick this off and to give you a sense of what the process is and give you a chance to ask any questions you might want to ask. Tonight. But what this really is, is a three part process. There's tonight. Which is just a chance to talk. There are a few things we need to know from you tonight. They don't take resolutions, I think. Then on the 11th. You're meeting the first meeting of the new year, which hopefully will be better than the last year. I'm going to start with you. The first meeting of the new year. We will ask you to adopt. Three resolutions. And those resolutions really are precursors to our submitting the application. And they, I, I enclosed two of them. We can describe them in more detail, but they're pretty straightforward. We think. One of them is a resolution saying you have the authority to do it. You have the authority to do it. You have the authority to do it. You have the authority to do it. You have the authority to do it. You have the authority to do it. And then in a minute. Another is a resolution adopting very standard federal policies. And then there's a third resolution. And that happens on the 11th. After that, there has to be a hearing. A public hearing. And that it's, it's a process that's mandated by the state. It uses a state form. For publication. And there has to be publication in the newspaper, et cetera. And that's what we're going to do. And in this case, the last chance to do that is on the 25th. Your second meeting of the month. Or it can be delegated to us. So I'm going to just go back for a second tonight. What we. What. What we would ask of you is number one. Just to tell us that it's okay for Liz to go ahead and start with the publication process. 15 days notice publication in the newspaper. That's one thing. Because if you do, we'll start right away because it's, you know, it's a long process. The second thing is we'd like to. Ask you to confirm. That it's okay if the contact people for the grant are in fact, Liz and Brian. And the third is we. We'd like you to pick one of yourselves who's the. Called the authorizing. Whatever the authorizing individual or something like Liz. What's the name of it? Authorized authorizing official. It's one of your members. Who. Is going to have to do almost nothing. I mean, we'll do all the work, but they, they want one of you to be picked. And that individual could actually delegate some of it to the state treasure. I mean, to the, to the town treasure. The last thing is to let us know whether you want to hold the public hearing yourselves. On the 25th. Or whether you'd like to just delegate it to us, believe it or not. That's a function you can do. Liz, would you just take a minute and. Describe the process of how you would hold the hearing if they don't. I mean, if they hold the hearing, if you guys hold the hearing, it's, you know, it'd probably be 10 minutes on the agenda on the 25th. It's noticed it's a chance for any member of the public or the town to ask any question. We have to have. Available the text of the application. And so they can, you know, look at it. And that's it. That's it. It looks like if it's private. If we. So with the caveat that we would need to just confirm with the Vermont community development program that the. Delegation of. The authority to hold the public hearing is still acceptable on zoom. I don't know why it wouldn't be. What we've done in the past is. We've done it. We've done it. We've done it. We've done it. Literally a person from the nonprofit that's submitting the grant application shows shows up. Figuratively speaking now. At a public place, which would be warned on zoom. And opens the hearing. And any member of the public. Can join and. Is there to just have discussion and answer questions. If there's a public hearing. That would all be documented. By minutes. In this case, both Brian and I either are currently or have been elected officials. So we're very familiar with municipal. Procedures as far as public hearings and minutes. And then the public hearing would stay open for an hour. So the zoom link would need to stay open. When it was. A physical hearing that was held. The public hearing was opened. The public hearing was opened to the town or city hall. And used the room that the select board would meet in. And I would sit there for an hour, usually with no one showing up. And just wait and document that. The public hearing was opened. No one showed up. Or if one person showed up, you know, just whatever the conversation was pertaining to the application. And then closing the public hearing. And that's really it. I think we'll be, um, I don't think we'll be actually writing the whole application. Um, before the public notice happens, but that we have plenty of materials so that we will provide a comprehensive project narrative. There are requirements such that you have to put in the amount that you're requesting up to. And so the community development program advises usually that you. Overshoot so that you're not, you know, telling the public that you're going to apply for 300,000 and then later apply for 350 or 400,000. So things like that are. Are familiar to us and just have to follow a set of requirements. Thank you. I don't, I want to make clear. We're not, we're neutral, whichever you want to do. So to sum up. And then it's up to you to ask questions. One. I'd like one of, if you would designate one of your number. To be the official contact person. And we'll do 99% of the work. And they can delegate the rest to the. Town treasure, but we gotta fill in the blank on this, on this. Uh, This thing that you would adopt the resolution you'd adopt on the 11th. And the second is tell us whether you want to, which kind of hearing you want to hold yourself. Or you'd like us to do it. And, uh, subject to we. And, and, and let you know, but we're neutral on that. So that's, and that's about it. Sharon, I turn it back to you. And then we, and the third thing is when you time on the, we need to, at our, at the meeting on the 11th at the very least, we have to approve the resolutions. Yeah, we have got resolutions to approve on the 11th. And you've seen two of the three. We'll make sure you get it. Okay. So, okay. So, Katie, will you put that on the new list, please? So, um, why don't we do, why don't we do it in this order? Why don't I'd like to ask Rose and Cliff. And yeah, John's not here. If they have questions about. The. Uh, the hearing. And, or the project generally that will inform our decision on what we want to do about a hearing. And then, and then Mark, Liz and Brian, I'm going to turn back to you to quickly, uh, introduce us to the resolutions that we will have to approve next time for the project. So Cliff, let's start with you. Thanks, Sharon. Before I get to any of my questions. For the, uh, verbal and visual record, there was a question asked via chat. And responded to via chat. The question is, um, who would pay for the notification publication in the newspaper. And, uh, Brian pine, uh, responded and said that they eat. Um, East Calus trust would community trust would, uh, pay for the cost of the public notice in the times, Argus. So just so we have that on file. The question I would ask, um, I don't know, Mark, maybe you can answer it or, or Liz or. Brian is. Is there a preference on your site? I know you're not partial, but is there a preference as to how the hearing is conducted? Or the group. I think I am. I'm under the impression, Liz, that it's. You'd certainly be willing to do it, right? And you, I think. I think it might be a little easier for you. If we did it. We have to check with VCDP to make sure. Brian. Do you have an opinion? I think VCDP allows that option in cases where it's not practical. For the local elected body. To hold the hearing. And it. It would, in fact, for ECCT, which is, I'm a frugal person is paying. Us for our time. It would add time to our workload that he has to pay for. So that's one thing, but that's for you all to decide whether that's a point that you're concerned with. But I think that it's there only as an option for, or not only, it's really there when it's just not practical for a local elected body to hold the public hearing. Or they feel that there's going to be absolutely no public comment or public concern or interest. And that's subject to every town's own conditions. I think it's, it really is a local decision. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just ask the question. Brian and Liz. You said something about. Jen, Jen. Can you wait until Cliff and Rose have had a chance to. Thank you. Thanks. And thank you for the response. That's pretty much my main question. I can go ahead and defer to Rose now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the questions. Thank you. And I'm very excited for the question that you guys have provided. And I guess I would be more inclined more in favor that. You folks do the public hearing. You know, especially if, as Liz has said, there'd been other instances where. In some cases, it might be like just a formality. you know I I'm fine with it either way but I think you people are the experts in this and you know maybe you could do it succinctly and that would be that. So and I also I would be in favor of appointing Sharon as our delegated official or authorizing official if she'd be willing to serve in that capacity. So can I ask a procedural question as a board member? Go ahead Denise. The public hearing would be on January 25th and you said that we have to leave it open for an hour. Is that right Liz? That is standard practice yes. Okay so I would suggest then when the notice goes out that you schedule it from six to seven and and a quorum of the select board needs to be there or not? There's no requirement for a quorum of the select board. Okay I don't want to I don't want to have a meeting scheduled have it start at seven we're trying to meet for other stuff and people pop in and out to ask questions about this project. So so Liz I would expect that that there's a subtlety here right so if we've delegated it to ECCT to hold the hearing and coincidentally it occurs at six o'clock on the 25th then there's no reason that that a quorum of the select board has to be there because it's not a select board meeting. On the other hand if the select board is is actually hosting the hearing as as a board then I would imagine we do have to have a quorum and then the question procedurally is um I guess we could sit around three of us or is it sufficient if we have it as a 10-minute item and take comments that through the meeting if we choose to hold it ourselves do I have this right? You see the problem is they don't want they're right in the middle of their budget process so I mean I mean it sounds to me Sharon like there's a slight preference on of the select board we we got to talk to ACC the state but if the state is okay with it and you can delegate the hearing there's a slight preference to delegate the hearing to us and then we can do that we don't have to do it on the 25th right Liz? Yeah we just take the time and we do it okay right but if they say nah we'd rather you have the select board do it then we have the problem of this you don't want to take a precious hour of your meeting and sit around waiting for someone to show up so we have to make sure Liz we have to tell them and I don't think we know the answer yet we have to tell them a do we need even need a quorum there and second if we this is not delegated it's them holding the hearing do we need a quorum there and if we don't well then that's fine we'll do it at six and they can all show up at seven yeah part of my question is if even if we delegate this do we still have to participate? No okay that's the weird thing about this you've delegated the whole function if you delegate it to us and it's just Liz sitting in a room. Well and if the answer is no it's better if the select board holds it but the entire select board doesn't have to be present then I'd be happy to show up at six o'clock on the 25th and hang out with Liz and Mark and Brian and Charlotte and I'm guessing Charlotte and Scott and others who are really involved in the project and that's not hard that's doable so if Mark's summary is accurate let me say it again to make sure that I'm getting that I'm getting it board I'm looking at Cliff and Rose we have a preference to delegate because of all because of as Mark notes we have budget and the general question I'm getting ready for select board that's on a very short time or a select board time meeting which is on a very short timeline at this point so so if we have a slight preference to delegating that's what I would imagine but I would like one of you to jump in if I'm getting this wrong and so what we're asking the group to do Mark, Liz and Brian is to figure out whether the town and the ECCT is at any disadvantage if we delegate if there's a disadvantage then we we will hold a select board hosted hearing on 25th at six at which point we will open the Zoom room I will be present with the ECCT folks to hear any public comments and then select board just starts at seven as a regular meeting right and if worse comes to worse Sharon I don't anticipate this if the if we do need a quorum then we then the question is can we just hold the hearing open for an hour and conduct other business right can we we just don't want to get into a situation where we're taking an hour of the hearing and everybody's sitting around yeah okay agree Brian I should just point out that the public notice that is required to be published in the paper does notify the public of the nature of the project and gives people a chance to submit comments in writing as well and that can be done through email and through letters and so the public hearing is is really just one way to communicate concerns or questions I just want to make that point okay thank you Brian so I think we I think if we don't need to make a motion tonight on our hearing process then we've got a clear path of our options one two and three yeah cliff and then I'm going to ask Jan what her question point was and then I'm going to turn back to the group on resolutions cliff go ahead yeah I was just gonna say and I think Jan had a question so you're ahead of me thank you I think my question has been answered but my reality to my life is not to expect a lot of people to show up on this meeting on the public hearing I mean I think there's a certain reality there was a town that held their hearing for planning and nobody showed up so I have a feeling we'll be sitting or you'll be that's probably true but we just have to make sure we got everything covered yeah we'll find all this out okay Mark Liz and Brian give us a quick you know two or three bullet points on what each of the resolutions is we'll do that but before we do okay well actually let's see what's part of one of the resolutions one of the resolution is called the resolution for the grant application authority and it just basically is a series of assertions by the town this is the resolution that would be adopted your next meeting that you have the legal authority to do it and that you have a valid municipal plan and that the regional planning commission says it's the project's consistent with it we have that we got that from them the one and that we'd ask that you're okay with the contact people being Liz and Brian but it does say that one of you becomes the authorized official and there's a blank I got to fill it in so that's one resolution Sharon do you want to discuss the issue of who that blank person is at this point or shall I go on I think why don't we so we don't forget about it maybe we should officially take an action on who that authorized person is because it's it's somebody appointed by the select board to act to act on behalf of the select board so let's take a pause and do a little business guys rose you made rose your eye mute but I think you might be making a motion you're such a mind reader I was talking to you I asked you if you would be willing to be that authorizing official yes I am okay I'll make a motion to appoint Sharon when as the authorizing official as far as this requirement of the resolution for the ec ct grant application I'll second that thank you class all right now we're going to vote cliff is there any discussion before we vote okay I'm ready to vote go ahead cliff I rose I and I'm an eye okay so that's done all right mark so there's a resolution of grant authorization right then there's a municipal policies and codes resolution where you assert that you either have that you have adopted at any point and if not at any point right now policies and they're all the standard federal policies I've read through them carefully I have not seen looking for alarm bells none went off they're pretty straightforward there's an equal opportunity policy that you won't discriminate on the basis of race sex national origin gender sexual orientation disabling condition etc there's a housing policy which does apply only to housing things where you won't discriminate on the or in any way on those bases in the housing context there's a use of excessive force policy that you won't use that there's another one that you won't use the money that we get to lobby the federal government to congress and the code of ethics which looks a lot like your is pretty much covered by your policies that exist for conflict of interest is a drug free workplace and an oversight monitoring policy and a whistleblower policy and I went through them and they're pretty standard and you adopt this resolution and then there they are that's the policies okay the third one I don't have in front of me could Liz or Brian could you just mention very briefly the third policy that you want a third there's another resolution right yeah we will um write it up as a resolution there's a requirement that as part of the fair housing kind of anti-discriminatory policies it's called anti-displacement policy which because this is federal money says that the project impact will not include displacement of any resident living there and then there's a whole set of regulations that go along with that that we will comply with and work with the state in terms of developing it a plan to make sure that the renters they are not displaced as a result of the use of federal funds in this project and those are the resolutions there is there is going to be a moment at some point one of you you're going to one of you the job of spending a little time looking at a video on fair housing right there's a court a little course on fair housing and that's down the road but that's down the road how I missed any we missed that's about it Sharon okay right and blizz right we're okay okay all right and so I heard you say we have two of those policies in our in in our folders already guys that you can be looking at before the next one in the third one arrived before the 11th to send yeah we'll send them to you right away okay yeah okay uh rose any questions no cliff I don't have any at this time thank you okay so I think we've have we done everything that you guys came here to do tonight I believe so Brian right Jan Liz what have we missed I think we've covered it all 30 minutes flat Scott great to see you hey thank you again Sharon thank you guys and all of you all of you for taking time on out of out of this meeting of all meetings thank you guys thank you happy new year good night guys thank you good night okay so moving on um Toby do you have anything operations wise to um fill the board in on are you all set Toby he's on mute yeah okay so let's move on um we have a ro w request from um Ben Jenkins for their ben okay there you are um for putting they want to put power poles in along peak and brook and so they can have power to their house cliff can you call up the ro w application please yep working on it and while he's doing while cliff's doing that Alfred you've been on site yes and do you have any concerns uh the the main one that I have is that in the past when these things come through it's usually a permit given to the utility and this one is in the homeowner's name so that is just a formal question that I have and maybe it's fine maybe it's okay but every other right away permit for utilities is usually given to the utility yeah usually they're wet I think this one um gmp did submit a I think it's gmp they did submit a letter yep I haven't seen it filled out and I guess it's for you guys to sign you mean the letter just double check yes the letter that's up there right now I'm just double checking making sure that that is sufficient because essentially they're gonna it's gonna be these poles are gonna belong to green mountain power and they're gonna need to service them time to time and so I think the right away should be theirs well if you it's cliff if you scroll down a little further there's a place for the select board to sign off an approval to gmp plus ben jenkins filed the right-of-way application so I think that it's two things and they both and they both result in the same outcome okay so I think we're we've never had one that I remember from gmp it's usually been wet and that's been done a little differently but Denise are you saying that uh so when we so we're being asked to authorize a right-of-way along peek and brook road because it's in the town's right-of-way right right yes so the right-of-way I I I the right-of-way itself though is we would be authorizing and because this is going to be like a document that's recorded in the land records forever and ever so it would be it would be to green mountain power not to the landowner so if we go back up to the letter they're asking permission request permission from this left board for the poles guys and wires and I think that the right-of-way application that ben filed we could say on we could say on the approval that the approval is to green mountain power for the power for jenkins and is it rose last name rose that's correct yeah yeah I would be fine with that just as long as it's you know it's that green mount power is protected down the road so that if they can come and maintain their poles yeah right we give a right away to the homeowner that gives the homeowner right away but it doesn't give green mount power right so back to the back down on their letter they're asking for permission for the um the right-of-way the way I read the letter so it seems it seems like that this letter is this is I think that's what you're saying right and he said another way this letter is their version of applying for filling out our our permit application right so so if we were to approve and sign off on this letter and then make a notation on the form that we have to sign approving the right-of-way we could say there that it's granted to green mountain power right another way of saying it is we are granting green mountain power permission to work in the town's right-of-way mr jenkins and the rose they're not working in the town's right-of-way they're going to be the recipient of the power right but it's not we're yeah we're granting gmp permission to work in our right-of-way but it's not it's not just work it's forever and ever having a right a right-of-way for power lines right and of the poles and wires and all that right right yeah yeah exactly it needs to be issued to green mountain power yeah yeah do we do we normally do this as a as a deeded right-of-way do we like go to jim and have him draw up a deeded right-of-way no it just gets recorded in the land records just as however we approve it right all right so it's really important so can we can we just add green mountain power to the actual permit application well that's that's in part what i'm suggesting that we when we when we if we issue the right-of-way permit on there we could specifically state that the permit is granted to green mountain power we're working the right-of-way right yeah yeah yeah i think we treated as though the request came from green mountain power and ignore the fact that it came from that the current landowners right right because i mean the only the other thing i was thinking of is if if in the future other landowners want to add to that to that power line further up peakingbrook then green mountain power is going to want the right way yeah more so i'm just going by what i remember over the years of this happening before and it's always the right-of-way permit has been issued to the utility yeah right i think that's what we're saying that's the only issue that i have yeah and that's and that's what we're saying that we're going to do if we have a motion to approve the request by green mountain power for the right-of-way okay so that was my one question okay then the other question is i wondered if there was any any idea of how many trees they were going to have to cut and whatnot in order to do that they're they're definitely is going to be some and i just want everybody to be aware of that ben do you know i i don't know how many trees um i'm working with snapping turtle tree service pat carry i know he's uh he's pretty flexible on this and he'd be more than happy to walk this line with you alfred if uh if you want to make a date and we can kind of go over the project i don't know how many trees there's definitely a couple lines that are going to be going through some of the turns so there's going to be you know a handful coming down for sure yeah well i i just see where the stakes are and it looked like the stakes are zigzagging across the road yeah and that is a great idea that eliminates i mean that that lessens the amount of trees that you have to cut but i just want the select board to know that that's some that's some trees are gonna have to be cut there yeah definitely you can get green mountain power to mark the trees that they have to cut um yeah well yeah i think that might be yeah i think pat and um i'm dealing with lauren kelly from gmp um i could probably get them out there again to mark these um yeah i yeah i'm sure that could be done so really i think alfred the point you're raising for us is we don't like having trees cut in a right of way unnecessarily we like our trees said yeah another way don't cut trees you don't have to said a third way so that's that's really the that's the point ben and alfred as you're working with green mountain power is cut only what's necessary right that's what you're saying so we can add that we can add that to the permit that um all efforts will be taken to avoid to have minimal tree cutting preserve yeah preserve to preserve right preserve and only as necessary yeah yeah okay i'm i'd like to make a comment my name is jesse harper i've worked with ben on this project too we are of the same mind we want to have the least impact as possible and i think lauren did a good job designing it by now jesse wait a minute before you keep speaking what is your are you a green mountain power person or are you a neighbor or no i'm sorry i i work with uh with ben on the farm project so i'm i'm the managing member of uh of clover properties which is the owner of the uh of the farm oh okay yeah i i couldn't see if it'd be night it'd be great if people could if we don't see your face if you could raise your hand to be called on that would be helpful sure sorry about that i i don't i didn't see that option on my phone but let me uh all enable the video if you go to the participants you can there you are okay so what were you going to say jesse i was just commenting that i thought lauren did a really good job with um zigzagging the road and minimizing the impact on that and we work closely with with bill uh william and jesse pelton who are the landowners of the property i thought that i thought ben jenkins was the only one of them ben ben and myself are are in the farm project so both be considered that you are the property owners yes all right so anyway i i just my my point was i i wanted you guys to know that we are mindful of that of the tree cutting and or of the of the same mindset that we want to minimize that and um most of it is falling in the right away and we're trying to keep the impact as as low as as humanly possible okay he was referring to the pelton's are the landowners from root 14 up to where our property meets theirs so we don't own all the way to root 14 off of peak and brook road we own about a third or a little bit more of it and then from there bill and jesse pelton own all the way to root 14 so we had to get permission from them okay all right is there any further comments or questions or um are you ready select board are you ready to move forward with this any other questions rose cliff oh did rose disappear yes oh yeah she dropped out i will make the motion that we approve the right of way permit to green mountain power for the project at is it 480 peak and brook road 480 correct thank you uh with the condition and instruction that the project be completed with an itube preserving as much of the tree as many trees as possible in other words cut as few as only as what's necessary okay and would you like to authorize me to sign on behalf of the board yes okay i'll second that motion board members any further comments of discussion no okay you're ready to vote i'm an i cliff i wrote i mean Sharon hi so rose slipped out probably bad internet but we have a forum so the um rw application now is approved as noted and katie you got in the minutes the conditions okay thank you beautiful guys thank you so much we appreciate you thank you nice nice to meet you ben and jesse nice to meet you guys thank you so much you're welcome thank you like likewise i i had a quick question is there anything else that we would need to do um will we will we get a letter will gmp get a letter how does that work well we'll i'll sign off on the approval form that we have for author for issuing the permit and you'll get a copy of that as we'll bring a remount and power okay great so i'll email i'll email it to ben oh perfect thank you okay very good all right happy new year thank you happy new year we intend to sign with gmp on wednesday would it be possible to have that in hand by them i will do it tomorrow perfect all right thank you thank you all thank you all right next up um piano bassage curb pet application 2020-06 on peck kill road um cliff maybe you can call that up alfred while cliff's calling that up you've had a chance to um review the site or view the site i i drove by there and couldn't quite figure it out but if you're you've been there i assume uh yes i've maxed out there a couple of times okay and uh the first time was further down the hill and then they thought it would be a better idea further up the hill which is closer to uh the the old house ralph i forget his last name now but uh anyway it's further up the hill still got site distance still has uh a need for a culvert what size what size culvert alfred well it would be a 15 inch culvert same as all all dry voice okay um but the one request and i don't think it's a big one but the one request i would like to put into this is that there is a pre-construction meeting before this happens just so that we that i and the contractor can go over it because of mainly the fact is that there's a brook that runs down right where charlotte wants to put the driveway so it's just going to be a little bit complicated to figure that out and you know then between me and the contractor or the contractor can give me his ideas and whatnot like to be part of that um where where's the where's the brook on this map it may not be on the map but it's it's a it's a year round brook it runs quite often and there's a culvert that carries it under peck hill road and i mean i think you know we won't know until we get there and start talking about it with the contractor that's why i want to do a pre-construction um because we may have to move the town culvert which i'd be totally willing to do um depending on where works the best for getting up over that little bank to getting to the the level spot where they want to build and what would be what would be the cost if we had to the town had to move our culvert um well it probably would be a day's labor with two guys and an excavator and if the culvert needs replaced and we would probably replace it at that point i believe it's a 15 inch culvert now so it would probably want to be upgraded anyways to a to a 18 you mean the town the town's culvert yes okay that's something we and it's possible that it doesn't need to be i just know that the configuration of where where charlotte pointed out where she wants the driveway is a little bit challenging yeah because there's a stone wall there there's a level spot up above it's probably 10 feet in elevation higher than our road and there's a brook involved so i think there's just needs to be some wiggle room there and some ability to work together and do what's best for it i mean we can incorporate that into um a permit if the board decides to issue a curb permit incorporate any are you saying the costs the car well i guess the pre-construction meeting would probably determine if there's going to be costs and i'm not sure um we've never i don't remember ever having to do this before but it seems like the cost of upgrading the i don't know how i guess i want to hear from board members how you feel about um the town paying for or not paying for well i think i mean i'm not a board member but i think that could be determined later i mean we're just we're just talking about the permit right now and all i'm asking for is just a guarantee that i'll get notified or that i can have a site visit before construction starts so that we can have that conversation right but if we issue a permit we would want to maybe put something in the permit with regard to that so that we kind of have a placeholder yeah yeah okay it sounds like i mean is there such a thing as um you know approval or uh you know sounds sounds sounds really cool and come come back after you've done that visit and you have you know you've determined for sure where that curb cut needs to go and what costs are associated so that we can build all of those things into the actual approval of the permit well i i certainly don't want to hold their project up i mean just just for a curb cut i mean i don't know i'm assuming they want to start in the spring but spring's a few months away yeah it's december alfred even though it there's no snow out here i know but but you're saying you're suggesting that i we wait on the permit until we can have the site visit is that correct i don't think that's what she's saying no well i guess it was what i was saying but i don't i but all all i want is what i want is to be able to approve a curb cut in its actual spot um and have all of the conditions and costs built in to that approval and that's why i'm saying we could put in a conditional phrase that says if the town has to replace the culvert our culvert you know maybe we wouldn't charge for the time but we might charge for the cost of the culvert if we have to replace it and upgrade it i would charge i would actually denise what i heard was kind of the opposite that that we might in any it might be time to replace you know it we might replace the culvert because it makes sense to do it while we're moving whatever we're moving the brooks path but we're moving the where the brook passes if i understand this because of the project right but i don't know the time to do that i would want to charge the time to the project and have the town maybe incur the cost of the new culvert you know the i don't know how we would do that i don't know how we could charge for the town's time i could see how we could charge for a culvert cliff and then cliff and then charlotte actually charlotte had her hand up before me denise so well yeah but i want to give board members a chance to talk first okay i offered a question i'd have for you um rough idea of the cost of the if you had to go to an 18 inch culvert what the cost of that would be uh new culvert is around 300 for the pipe and then like i said the the machine time your better part of the day with two guys so machine is a hundred dollars an hour if you got eight hours in it it would be 800 bucks well i mean that's on the very high end of things right and i honestly am not trying to hold this job this this project up or the permit i just want to be able to have a conversation with the contractor when this work goes down yep i mean only because it's a tricky spot with that brook and and where the location of the driveway wants to be yeah i mean i i guess going forward it would have been helpful if this this conversation if you had raised these issues and met with charlotte and scott about these concerns and had some ideas and answers before we get to this point because now it makes it difficult for you to raise these issues now and well i don't i think it's a doable project i i really do i don't think it's a game a game changer i think it's just something i want to be able to look at it why can't we just say that you know uh the permit is honored if as long as there's a pre-construction meeting and then charlotte and scott are pretty reasonable i think we could work out a deal at that point whether the the town needs to replace the colbert or not no i i hear you alfred the point the reason that we would want to put it in the permit is because if somebody else comes along and wants to do the same thing we're sort of setting a precedent of how we would handle this so that's the reason to put stuff and conditions in the permit so that everybody is treated the same way it's fair everybody knows what to expect that's all also i know that i know that charlotte and scott are very reasonable and very accommodating folks other people might not be right the only condition i'm asking for is that we have a conversation before the work happens right but that conversation might involve the town having replaced one of our culverts so that's why this that's why we would put something in the permit so that it's on the record of what we expect charlotte yeah yeah that's exactly it the permit is the place where things go on the record and get recorded as part of the land record and that's the that's what's really important and tied tied to the precedent but things that we approve knowing that we're going to work something out later even even though with charlotte and and scott that may all work out just fine we still need to be crystal clear for all the reasons and he's said so can we can we ask charlotte to move the curb cut down the hill a little bit so it's below our existing culvert well i'm sure it's been wanting to say something i want to give her a chance to chime in me too thank you i i actually think alfie's idea is a really good one and as alfie mentioned this was the second place that we identified for a drive and the reason that we moved it is because willy sears is the person that we would be using and as many of you know willy has done a million of these things or probably at least hundreds so when he said oh yeah we can do this and preserve the existing town culvert i said okay you know more than i but i think it's a really good idea to get alfie and willy talking together and that's not a problem i think that's maybe the best um solution of all so and charlotte is there time to do that before we have oh sure no so we don't have to approve this tonight oh well um what if we what if we granted preliminary approval based on alfred meeting up with willy sears and coming back to the select board to final approval depending on what you find out can go right right including including the understanding that we may very well pass costs to the town back to the project okay but this would at least give them the opportunity to get started would that work for you guys charlotte and scott that sounds good we're we're also perfectly open to including in the permit that we would bear any costs um of cost to the town of accommodating our right of way okay so why don't we why don't we here's what i'm thinking i'll just off the top of my head the permit application um there's a form that we fill out to grant approval i think we could grant preliminary approval on that form and say it's preliminary approval based on um the road commissioner and their contractor getting together and looking at the site and alfred bringing back to the board um his interpretation and then we could grant final approval but that way at least you could get started that makes sense to anybody it does and can we tenice can we tie a meeting date so alfred knows exactly when we're expecting to hear from him um do you think that you guys can get this done and be available for the 11th of january i don't know i i would have to i need to talk to willy it's up to willy and up to alfred's availability would that work for you alfred if willy's available i can meet anytime during okay so why don't we shoot why don't we shoot for the 11th if something comes up and that doesn't work um alfred and charlotte you need to let us know okay does that make sense yep yeah okay so could we get a motion to grant preliminary approval as we've discussed so moved uh oh now sharon and rosa both gone oh sharon are you there yeah something happened and rose has been in and out i don't know how many times he's coming back on who is oh sharon there you are and there's rose again rose yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna step away just for a couple minutes to see what i can do to reduce the drain on my the internet in my house okay so we're making a motion um to grant preliminary approval as we discussed does somebody want to second that i didn't hear it because i keep losing connectivity and i missed it i missed the date that alfred's coming back we're we're gonna shoot for the 11th okay could you read back the motion yes cliff emmons made a motion to grant preliminary approval based on the road commissioner and the contractor meeting and looking at the site and the road commissioner bringing back to the board his interpretation final approval will be considered then meeting date january 11 and and and and then i'd like to make a friendly amendment share yeah i'd like to make an amendment that that formal approval will include or may include um a statement about the costs town cost being passed to the project can we can we just can we just hold off i mean it's only two week and we just hold off until willy and i can meet and then finalize the whole permit that's what you're saying a few minutes right that's what i know i'll argue that point charlotte said that she wanted she alluded that she wanted to get it done i'm i again i don't want to hold this project up but with this with this information and the fact that we need i need to meet with willy i think let's just wait on the whole thing until november 11th and then it can be approved one-shot deal january 11 is that is that work for you charlotte yes indeed i think that's a good suggestion thanks alphie okay all right so this will be back on the agenda for the 11th okay thank you all right all right thank you charlotte scott thank you oh i and i want to thank alphie for taking the time to meet with me and and look ahead and look at the different choices we had and also bob has been really helpful to me in this process too so i want to thank him all these guys who are willing to come uh take a look and meet um it is a big help okay great thank you so much charlotte okay next up truck so um thank you for getting us some information all the questions that you know we would ask um so alford or tovi do you want to uh take us through the truck yes well um things have changed a bit i called the company today that owns the truck i wanted to purchase and it's sold i as you know i thought we were we were having a meeting last week and i asked to be on the agenda but you weren't meeting so right um i know can you imagine we took a monday off yeah well i just i mean so at any rate i i asked the dealer if you hold it until that following tuesday of last week and he honored that but this week it's gone okay so i have got some more feelers out for a different truck that i that will fit our needs um but i don't have one right now okay so i'm wondering first of all is this an idea that you guys will support i think if it's the right price i mean this truck that you were looking at sounded like it would work okay well it certainly i mean i felt good about it it was they were giving us pretty decent money for our spare and i went and looked at the truck test drove it i talked to the previous owner of the road commissioner for um blubber and also the employee that drove the truck and they both loved it they had nothing bad to say about that truck so you know with that and my looking at it i really thought that was the winner yeah so now i got to go back and do some more homework but i just want to make sure that you guys are thinking it's a good idea before i do all that extra work yeah i mean that's like i said to for me this truck sounded like it would have worked i would have supported it okay any other yeah i agree um if if we're in a position to update that older vehicle and it makes sense then obviously we would support it bummer that we we missed this one one question i would ask is there's a line item in the budget that we're working on for repairs and one of the reasons for the that was cited for why that line has gone up as much as it has is because of the one of the reasons not all the reasons that that repair line item went up but one of the reasons is the older truck the spare truck any sense of how much that could be reduced if we did replace that truck uh boy that a loaded question difficult to answer because like you said some of those reasons that budget line item went up was uh was the tractor was you know other other two the two graders the two graders are 20 something years old 20 almost 25 years old uh things of that nature um yeah i suppose we could probably reduce that a little bit by this five-year-old five-year newer truck um but it's hard to calculate that i mean it's you know because you don't know what breakdowns you're going to have the other issue is reliability so a lot of times that in 2009 truck is not going out of the road because something's broken liability isn't is an issue in the middle of the snowstorm understood yeah just i was just curious obviously we got to do due diligence and if there's a way to uh save somebody who we're going to we're going to look at it but understood and thank you for the response so i think the other thing we need to address is the flexibility of the select board to react to a possible purchase of a used piece of equipment i mean had we had some way to have a special meeting or understand what the time limit was to um to move on a truck that was available i think we need to make sure you guys are willing to move quickly because opportunities exist for a very short period of time and waiting for a full scheduled select board meeting is not necessarily going to meet that need well if somebody had if somebody had given us the information um that you did and asked and explained that timing was of the essence and would we be willing to meet for a special meeting we might have done that but if you don't say anything then we don't know right well with this with this particular circumstance i thought you know i thought for sure that there would be a meeting last monday and then the time frame wouldn't have been so crucial yeah but i think toby's thinking about the future if i find a truck tomorrow or or you know and i can get them to hold it for one week but maybe i can't get them to hold it for two weeks right we're meeting on the fourth probably the 11th um i don't know about the 18th but we're definitely meeting on the 25th well we might not find another truck for a month or two i'm just saying that um i just want to make sure you guys are willing to have a special meeting and deal with this because the opportunity is very a very small window sometimes yeah no i understand why we hear you but we need we need the communication on your end to understand why it's why it's urgent and we need the information which is which what you provided was great because you know the questions we're going to ask so if you come up with another truck you know the questions we're going to ask um and we have to know no one understand the timing of that so that we can be accommodating so i'm sorry i had to step away guys but i understand what i'm getting from what i what i've heard is that we this truck is gone right okay all righty can we are you are you done with the truck alfred i just want to i just want to underscore that uh yeah the the laying out of the facts in the background i know denise already said it i'm just i want to i want to underscore it it's important to all of us having that having the background having the details and knowing that you guys have really looked under the hood and kicked the tires on both the need and the homework around whether this you know truck that you found is the right one for us yes well i can assure you i kicked the tires and i looked under the hood i talked to the previous owner in detail about this truck that's why i was certain i i don't buy equipment without looking at it i know that has happened in the past but i do not so i will give you definite details of the next truck that i fall in love with and you will know everything about it okay that's what we need to know thank you so much thanks alfred thanks alfred all right are you done with me for the night yes happy new year okay same to you all right take care bye bye thank you toby thank you toby yeah i'm sticking around okay that's fine um hey chance happy holidays thanks you too i saw what did i see i saw something i saw something um if it was on the news or what it was where you guys did some kind of a parade for somebody that was turning like 93 or 95 that was awesome awesome yeah ken king was a former chief of the woodbury fire department and his wife passed a few weeks before his birthday and somebody posted something so we we voted him in as a life member which should have happened years ago and it may have but there's no records yeah so we voted him in as a life member like we do most of our cold retired guys and we took him up the fire plate and the t-shirt and wish him a happy birthday and brought the trucks up we ran the sirens long enough so half the town heard it so that was nice yeah no nice job thank you it was a very nice thing for you guys to do so here we are um cliff can you call up um the documents that chance gave us and we ask you to come every year just so we can say hi right um anything anything you want to give us enough you want to start talking to us about um your budget yeah the budget uh you know the budget went up minimally as much as we could uh cut off other places you know if you look down through the line items yeah uh there was the the uncontrollables that we have no control over you know insurances and dispatching and all that we cut down uh you know on the firefighting gear what's that does woodbury use the same capital west dispatching yes okay yep um we cut down on you know we we pulled out where we could you know like under firefighting equipment so instead of buying three sets of gear we'll only buy two this year whatever we're looking at so we we cut here and there to try to make it uh as flush as we could um you know your your overall budget was a one percent increase which three hundred forty bucks three hundred forty two dollars we really appreciate you looking at every line item and considering you know the cost of the taxpayers and the memo that you do which spells out exactly what you're looking for is very very helpful so we don't have to go through well line after line of budget items to try to figure out what you're asking for it's really helpful thank you oh no not a problem it's it's easier for me too when I first took this over there was a lot of miscellaneous columns and uh I got rid of those I don't like miscellaneous it's hard to remain transparent when you have miscellaneous stuff so right and we really appreciate having the percentages because we look at that yeah well that's and that's that's uh you know where I start trying to cut when I see things that don't look right so yeah again you know it works out good it's it's beneficial for you guys and for the wood I just actually left the woodbury uh it's the lifeboard meeting just before I came here so I've uh doubling up meetings tonight and well at least you get it all done in one night and that's that's the benefit you know and it's all before new year so we can celebrate on new year's eve and do we have and are we set up now so that we don't have that issue that we had well it was it last year where you needed payment or something but we hadn't we couldn't pay it until like July did we fix that problem we did we moved we moved that payment to October 1st okay um which which helped you guys some this year where we've we've gotten things uh enough in the in the positive where we can hold off to January 1st for both towns which allows both towns to get all of their tax revenue in before they have to pay the $31,000 for that capital replacement so it took two years to get there but we're there so we'll we'll be doing this year January 1st instead of October 1st so it'll be back in the next three months well we really appreciate you're working that out to help us well it you know it comes back to you know one hand washes the other uh you know the select board and the voters have supported us uh so we need to try to make sure we're doing the same back hey bob what bob I think you we're getting feedback from you can you put your microphone on mute please oh i'm sorry that's okay thank you um anything else you want to tell us about um right now we uh one of the reasons I met with the the Woodbury select board is the the department uh as Denise knows and I'm not sure anybody else is really truly aware we've been working for some time on a building uh this project started about seven years ago and it kind of got beat up about five years ago and it dropped and then we asked Denise and a few others to come talk with us starting last year and COVID was friendly enough to come and interrupt all of that work as well but we've we've gotten basically we've gotten the opinion of probable cost for a much smaller building than what we were looking at seven years ago we were looking at a 7 000 square foot building um that was going to cost about 2.8 million dollars this one is about 4 000 square feet which means we'll still have to use one of the existing buildings that we have now um but we'd be able to get rid of one of the buildings the cost is going to be about 1.2 million and due to some odd language um part of the odd language issue um the fire department decided to ask woodbury voters to fund this bond as this is a woodbury fire station building and it's woodbury property um if something were to happen to the wood and I'm not saying he's going to happen to us but if something were to happen to us uh has a non-profit organization if we dissolved um the physical property would return to the village of woodbury um so we didn't feel it was fair to saddle you guys with that um so we're moving forward asking the woodbury voters to fund a 1.2 million dollar new fire station in the town of woodbury would you be coming back well Bob Bob Bob you got to put your microphone on mute please I'm going to learn about this thank you so would you be then coming to call us to um ask us for an increase in operating or anything like that to help pay for the the building nope unless of course the woodbury voters shoot me down if they shoot me down and say hell no we're not paying for it all then I'm going to have to back up and figure out a different approach and figure out how to get both towns to pay I guess but um originally we were really hoping to have an aggressive fundraising campaign this year and like I said yeah COVID has not been friendly we are launching tomorrow a fundraising campaign that deals with the brick pavers and a brick garden that would be part of the new property um and I plan on posting that in many many many many spots uh so if callous voters felt generous and wanted to donate money in that way they could buy a brick with their name on it or you know in memory of a loved one um but no this is this is going to be kept out of the operating budget uh the only things that should be part of our operating budget moving forward are the items that you guys already have which is the truck replacement fund which will be going away as soon as those loans mature in three years and then the capital replacement fund and then obviously your your regular operating budget the uh cost of maintaining a building would still be on there um but the cost of the bond if all goes well in woodbury would not appear in a later budget for you guys okay callous select board members um i'm going to go around rose do you have any questions or comments um when do you plan to bond for it is it this upcoming town meeting or in town meeting of 2022 it's the upcoming meeting uh is when we'll be asking for the bond vote um obviously you know we're not a municipal department we are by the way I love the jacket I had one of those just like that I see your vest um we we uh we're we're not a municipal department we're a non-profit organization but because we contract with woodbury and you guys of course the banks allow us to buy into the municipal bond system so originally we'd be getting a construction loan for the union bank to pay for whatever the cost is and then when the cost is done $1.2 million or less hopefully through the donations that's what would actually become the bond vote um so the bond wouldn't actually probably be purchased until the next cycle which would be next spring when you ask in the town for it this year but the the bond actually wouldn't be due for the next year because they wait until your your construction project is finished and then they they convert the construction loan in the next cycle through the bond buying good sounds good thank you we lose Denise I don't know did we I would say everybody get kind of still for a second I wasn't sure if I got I so I clip your next and then Sharon okay I gotta go find out I Ruby's having such a big mouth um chance I'm just curious do you have any sense for the likelihood of the bond passing I think it will I think you know this is one of those things you know you're asking for $1.2 million sounds like a lot but in the day of fire stations that's really a drop in the bucket um you know fire stations the one we were looking at before was almost three million dollars that had a lot of space a lot of room but the issues that were surrounding that particular project was it wasn't inside the village limits and the cost of three million dollars so we've cut the cost about half because it was like 2.8 we're at 1.2 and it's right across the street from our current fire station so it's in the village so the two biggest holdbacks we've addressed doesn't mean we won't have more holdbacks this year you know but we're chopping away at the tree a little bit at a time and hopefully you know once again the the voters will support you know what what is transparent and reasonable well we've been thinking good thoughts for you good luck on the on the whole process our our as the town already decided to do the town meeting by australian ballot i think they're voting on that tonight just like you guys are i i believe that's the assumption everybody's pretty much come to is uh most of us can't afford to wait until the summer time to have a have an outside town meeting and still pay our bills so i think most towns are going with the australian ballot yep that's it sounds like what you're just planning and yeah that's the feedback we're getting as well thanks chance appreciate it thank you sharing any questions or comments um not not on the on the bond and i'm sorry i missed the beginning i'm i'm struggling with my internet here tonight chance um so i'm just this may or may not this may be out of out of scope for tonight's discussion but to let chance know that we have started with the east montpellier fire department the but just by raising the point with them that we would like to separate the vote at our town meeting and vote on emergency budget separately and i don't believe or i'm not aware i should say that we have the same restrictions on doing that with woodbury as we do with east montpellier but just kind of let make chance aware of that i think every year in the past the the board has made the decision with us for our budget anyway whether they were going to put it into their budget or whether they were going to keep it separate um so we generally look to you guys as to how you want to do it and if you want to put it in your budget i write it as such and if you want me to put it as separate articles then that's how we do it so that's fine with me either way you just you guys usually let me know how you want to do it so that's how yeah thank you chance yeah that's refreshingly flexible yeah yeah we really appreciate working with you guys um and your flexibility and so is is that what you guys are planning this year is having everybody do separate articles because i'll write them up tonight if that's what you're looking for well we can't this year with east montpellier but we're going to give notice at some point to east montpellier we have an interlocal agreement that we need to update so we have a process we have to go through for that um so i think i think in previous years we've done it with articles um i'm just looking for my draft for us you mean that yeah i think that pretty much we've done it um last year last year you guys took the budget under yours the year before we did it articles because that was the year we asked for the capital replacement fund to be created so the voters voted on our individual right that year yep you're right um i guess i'll have to let you we'll have to let you know okay i'm not sure what we're going to decide but i will let you know that's fine okay any more questions for chance or can he go have a dinner oh cliff uh denise i just took a quick look at the draft of our budget and it is currently in the budget as it stands for the general for the general budget yep yep i think we would probably try to think how we would do that i know when we used to do it from the floor um somewhere you have to show what that amount would be and the cost of on you know the tax rate so all right anything else for chance or can we let him go have dinner i miss meeting with you guys at the station to talk about the building i'm telling you this this has just been absolutely crazy i bet and and now we have to drive around with mass and the fire trucks and you got to run around with a mask until you put a scba on it's just it's just crazy i can't wait for things to resume some sort of normalcy so you can actually meet right i like meeting with people in person so yeah i'm looking forward to it um and on another note just real quick i see judith is here as soon as you guys let me know how you want it i'll be sending those to judith and also the chief's report uh paul has already got it ready we're just waiting for the 31st to click so we can make sure we account for all the calls and then we'll get the the chief's report and articles or however does that work yeah thank thank you for the reports um and um if we decide that we want an article the deadline would be january 14th and we can be in communication about that i'll get them to you the first or second i don't like wait until the deadline right all right chance um just relate to the fire department how much we appreciate everything they do and how nice you guys are to work with we really appreciate it thank you happy new year everybody be safe happy new year you too take care thanks chance thank you bye bye thanks take care okay we're only a half an hour late that's not bad well not really because we had woodbury on so that's good town meeting prep i'm denise yes toby can we move up to the discussion of the east montpellier fire budget so i don't have to go through all of this um it's okay with me if it's okay with the rest of the board yeah i'm fine with that okay all right what would you like to what would you like to discuss toby um i'm just here to answer questions you guys have it on your agenda and um i'm not sure what your concerns are well i'm not sure that i'm not sure about the concerns but we need to vote to approve or not approve what you're asking us to put in the budget that's the way the process works um you sent us the figures which um sandra incorporated into the budget and click is there a way to just call up the page of the budget that shows the uh fire ambulance budgets it's on page six yeah second um and toby maybe you could just review your the fire department budget went down that's right and the percentage then it went down was what percent again six percent six percent okay and the ambulance um and this is we talked about this when we had our joint meeting that we agreed the two towns agreed to over the next three years starting last year or starting with fiscal 21 to put money in the budget to help pay for staffing um so i just want to remind the board that we talked about this and agreed to this previously and that's why there's an uh the increase or the change um for f y 22 and callous's share um i'm looking for the email that toby sent um um anyways it amounts to a 17 increase for the ambulance side but a six percent decrease for the fire side and the reality is that the 12 500 that you approved going forward um is essentially the the only thing that has raised the combined budgets because the fire department went down and the increase of other stuff not including salary on the ambulance side offset that same so essentially the budgets are level funded except for the 12 500 that you agreed to right and that's what we agreed to last year just just to remind the board um rose sharing clip comments questions i'll go first um i just want to say that you know i support the budget proposed budget request from emfd for fire and ambulance and um you know i know we've had this discussion before but i just want to say it on the record um that i feel it's an essential town service to provide fire protection and emergency medical emergency services and i know the board has said that it's not a law that we have to provide that for our residents but um i think we'd be hard pressed to find someone in town who didn't want access to fire protection or ambulance so um we know um in my view we have to provide these services i think we should ethically morally we need to do it and um we have to pay more for staffing um we're getting you know ems professional people paramedic level service um in many instances and you know you don't know when you're going to need it and they're always there for us um so i support woodbury's budget um but frankly you know denise i just want to say that i i really felt that your tone when you were talking to woodbury and chance um that you really were um overly generous with your gratitude and graciousness and i almost feel like i hear a little um sting in your tone at times when you reference emfd and so i'm not going to hold back i just publicly wanted to state that i think i think between both departments they both do a great job and we do need the coverage well thank you for your comment rose that's not my it was not my intention i think i've always thanked both departments graciously for their service and i don't disagree that we need to provide especially emt services to our residents nobody ever knows when they might need that um sharon you want to find any comments or questions yeah i would just say uh echo rose's sentiment that these are vital services for our community um and the the challenges of funding them is something that's being faced by every town in this state um and the nice thing is is we are uh working with the east montpelier to proactively address this concern about being able to staff our emt's and um it's not cheap but it would be a lot more expensive if we didn't start working on it now yeah so i i strongly i strongly support the fact that emfd needs to have the staffing um i think i've said that before that i understand that they need the staffing we all want to be able to have the services i totally appreciate which i've said to i think every meeting that we've attended the work that they do it's not easy um and they volunteer their time most of the time to provide these services um so i give them the same kudos as woodbury um and i would make a motion that we approve the east montpelier budget as um given to us back on december i think it was the third the third we went with emfd the tenth we met with east montpelier and east montpelier approved the budget then but we wanted to hold off and have a further discussion but i would make a motion that we approve the budget as proposed by emfd our second fact i'll second that okay any further discussion or comments can we just include denise in the motion the actual um some the numbers so they're they're captured in the minutes um yes we can get those exact figures i was looking for toby's email which i thought i'd print it off but i don't i guess i didn't um i'll put them up on the screen okay thank you thanks cliff so we're approving the fire department with a six percent decrease over last year and ambulance with 17 percent increase over last year right right and i want to make it clear though that we agreed to this increase of the 12 500 um last year in support of the fact that they need to find people to staff the ambulance and that's the reason for the increase and that we agreed to and approved that over the course of three years 12 500 of the 16 um yeah but yes correct okay kati you got all that can someone please it's so small on my screen can you read me the amount i do have all that information but i don't have what the total amount is proposed to can you see it now i can read it for the 265 000 it's for the f y 22 budget fire department is 60 977 dollars and that was a decrease of six percent so the fire department worked really hard to find savings which we really appreciate and east montpelier ambulance is 111 468 which includes the 12 500 dollars that we agreed to over the next three years starting with f y 21 right so so kati we're not approving that whole bottom 255 646 that's a that's a global that includes everybody we're just voting to improve approve the east montpelier fire department portion of that the fire department and the ambulance right for a total of 172 445 dollars yeah thank you cliff you're welcome okay was that a second sharon i think rose seconded oh rose seconded okay are you ready to vote okay i'm an eye rose hi jaren hi cliff hi and toby take the same message back to east montpelier folks fire department folks really really appreciate their service and um how much we appreciate everything they do great thanks appreciate it okay thank you thank you thanks toby good night toby right okay talk about town meeting austrian ballot we got a last-minute memo which i sent to everybody from the kreg line um asking some questions and he wasn't able to join us tonight um we talked to you want me to bring those up on the screen jenice or can i just can i make a suggestion yes i also sent a memo right after he sent that with um that compiles what the facts are at this point which i think might be more helpful than looking at his questions because his questions are answered by the memo that i sent oh i guess i didn't see that yeah i can pull that up i mean we can look at both but i don't want to go down rabbit holes if if the questions are already answered yeah i still i still don't see your memo judy um i sent it in an email yeah i got it you did i didn't get it i hit reply all to his memo i'll pull it up anyways let's just if we could just pull it up that would be helpful yeah i didn't get it either huh let me send it again did everybody get the one i forwarded from kreg yes okay i got it i did not have time to read it let me see i put it somewhere okay so yeah so some of his questions um judy has answered um he did ask the question and i know that um um we talked about this and which question was it it was why can't the why can't the town meeting be held the same way an informational meeting can be held and we've been told by um secretary of state or or the legislature that we cannot hold votes via a zoom meeting we have to do it by australian ballot so that's the answer to part of his first question and i think that's what um is that what you're referring to on that bullet judy under emergency legislation right i was kind of preparing to give an overview rather than responding to kreg okay um that would be an easier process for me if you don't mind okay so i just wanted to start with the you know this is these are notes from my training um with wilsonning who's the director of elections at the secretary of state and so these are direct uh you know text from his training so i just want to set the the tone or you know kind of the overview is that at this point floor meetings can be conducted for town meeting legally but they must adhere to the department of health regulations and the you know accessible uh all the accessibility and all the coven relation all the coven requirements so um i don't think there's any way that we could hold a traditional meeting um and have it be safe i i think most towns are coming to that conclusion otherwise you would be um reducing the number of people who can participate so i think that's kind of a basic premise to start is that while it's legal to hold a traditional town meeting um it's exactly what is not we're not able to do because of the pandemic there might be some requirements like no more than 75 people or 100 square feet per person that kind of thing that would be really difficult to accommodate um so at that point um based on that information duty do you have any idea how much how many people that could accommodate roughly at the school i wouldn't i don't have the math for that in my head i mean i think um 100 square feet per person i think just just people lining up and getting in and um frankly i don't want to put myself at that risk i don't want to put barber at that risk um no it's just i'm just asking what no i don't i don't know no okay we usually have 150 to 200 people plus voters coming through yeah so um you know i would think that around 75 people would be the limit in one place i'll spread out and i just think it would be really challenging to do that safely yeah no i'm not i'm i'm just agreeing i'm just asking so that we make sure we cover all the questions yeah um so hey i got i got i've got something to add here so i just googled what's the size of an elementary school basketball court and the callous gym is uh most most or all of the basketball court is the gym is taken up by most or all of the basketball court right yeah so according to sports rec dot com uh typical elementary school basketball court is 74 feet by 42 feet uh which is three 3100 square feet divided by 100 square feet per person is that what you said judy that will sending said that he wasn't absolutely sure but that was what he said 100 square feet per person so that's 31 people so so even if so even if he's wrong by half or if the size of the square of the basketball court is wrong by half um or several times we're magnitude at 31 people we're magnitudes away from being able to hold a successful callous select or town meeting in that venue which is the biggest one we have right yeah right follow following proper covid social distancing requirements right right kitty did you get those numbers you want me to email them to you yes okay i don't you got them yes you got them okay okay sorry judy go ahead so the other piece is that annual meetings and any special elections involving votes of the voters may not be conducted remotely or virtually so the legislature has not approved that towns um municipalities can vote remotely or virtually so that really eliminates the possibility of having town meeting where we have people you know the image the screen remotely sent to other rooms and and some people are at home and people are raising their hands on their on the screen or through their zoom or anything like that that's not legal so that eliminates that possibility um so typically adopting australian ballot has to be voted by all the voters but under emergency legislation act 162 the legislature is permit permitting legislative bodies of municipalities to adopt the australian ballot system of voting for this year's local election um and that would be just for this year it would revert back to our traditional method of voting and the only way it would ever change in the future is if all you know it was taken to all the voters to vote on to change town meeting the way we conduct it so it would not in any way remain this way it would just be a one-time pandemic response but as you can see under the next bullet you can't pick and choose what you want to have on the ballot all articles floor traditional floor ballot articles and traditional ballot articles would all have to be on an australian ballot so it's kind of an all or nothing um decision and that's only a one-year thing if we were it doesn't mean we're locked into doing this going absolutely not it's just a pandemic response for one year and that and you know the rest it goes on to other things but um the two things that need to be addressed tonight um are because all of our planning and we have a we've sent people a key deadlines list of all our dates that we need in order to just have all the ducks in a row for everything that needs to lead up to march 2nd and to get the warning out and all of that um that we need the select board to make this vote or decision about moving the articles to the australian ballot yeah and that's it's on the agenda tonight for us to vote on yeah it was reviewed at the last meeting so this is the second meeting to look at it yes um anything else you want to tell us under here i mean there's a second there's a second decision but maybe you want to discuss this first before we go on to the second right we have we have two things to vote on we have vote to approve or not that all articles you voted on by australian ballot and then the second piece as judy said is a different vote um probably the first one is the bigger issue uh select board members um comments questions lots rose do you want to go first you are oh it's so sad but it's the reality and you know um i appreciate judy's hard work and effort into thinking this through and presenting us all the facts all the details um and you know i support moving you know this to all the articles on our warning to australian ballot for this one year in the pandemic of 2020 that's you know captivated all of our lives so um i don't really see that we have much of a choice Sharon just did the math you know we can't have 31 or 62 people at the elementary school that's not going to cut it um we can't do it virtually i counted how many times i lost connectivity tonight in my house so far five times my internet cut out tonight so far um so we're not virtual so um you know i see no other way to do it i should can i say one more thing yeah um there is the option of moving the select moving the town meeting to a later date it's not a real option yet because the legislature has to vote on it to allow towns to move it to a later date which kind of creates a lot of chaos because we might not know if we can move it to a later date until mid january or later like maybe january 19th so all the planning that we would need to do if we can't move it i just can't imagine how that would work plus i was just texting with sandra how what's the latest we could have the meeting and still set the tax rate and not disrupt all of the other municipal budget and tax collection and everything else and she said that would be mid-may so i don't see that a mid-may meeting could be held outdoors necessarily say you know if the weather is unpredictable um and i mean i guess that is one other option would be to but then we would not you wouldn't really be able to vote on it tonight because we need to wait to hear from the legislature and the other thing too though what venue even if we waited and moved it till may and we were outside what venue you know would would be able to be outside and have a parking lot even be able to park or the cars would be in the parking lot right and hear each other speak and actually yeah it's just uh it's hard to imagine yeah yeah okay all right thank you rose cliff yeah um we we have a tradition that goes back hundreds of years and um think about all of the things that our country has faced over that period of time there have been uh wars there have been other plagues then um there have been civil wars even yet democracy has prevailed and found ways to adapt to the circumstances that it faced at any given point in our history this is this is another such moment and uh we need to err on the side of safety and caution and for the good of all of the citizens of our town which is why i would support going to the australian ballot it is not ideal it is not something that i would choose to do willingly but in this circumstance i believe it is what we must do to keep all of our citizens safe we really dodged a bullet if you think about it last year because it was right after town meeting that this thing blew up and uh it could have gone very different for our town if the town meeting had been held even just a week after the date that it actually occurred um the the idea of moving it outside uh does present another set of logistical challenges as well as um just throwing a bigger monkey wrench in my opinion to trying to pull this off under the current circumstances and using an australian ballot and holding to the original date but you look at all these things and then you have to consider one other factor we are all hoping and praying for the best but there's no guarantee that we're not in the same boat uh come mid-may that uh there's still other options other possibilities of this thing uh ballooning again even with vaccines available so i believe this is what we have to do this year and i'm looking forward to the following year when we can return to our traditional form of democracy and i will celebrate that day okay thank you yeah i agree with everything that's been said um the options the options are to to have to do australian ballot or to uh figure out some way of socially distancing in person not doable virtually um is cliff just said and then the third one is postpone the meeting so we can't we can't do an in-person um because with every one place we don't have a place in town that would accommodate that we just went over that a virtual meeting where we are all in various places is a at least on zoom not actually allowed and so by extension i'm not sure any of those other virtuals are allowed either i would assume under guidance from bcct and the state that those are those options are not not allowed either they're not allowed by the secretary's day right so the so so the only thing we could do is either have a venue that we don't have where everybody could be distanced or or push the meeting out for a few weeks and as a and i think i i wanted to say that's a that's an allowed option and we but what we're not yet it'll be right yeah so that's an important point it's not allowed yet um and as a practical as a practical matter the logistics of managing that making it happen keeping everybody safe while we do all of that that would be a full-time job for all how many of us are in this meeting right now the six of us plus you know plus sandra plus craig plus anybody else who is committed wants to make it happen and i think as a practical as a practical matter unfortunately uh that that option is not really available to us it's available but it but it would scuttle every other piece of work we have to do it's not even necessarily something we know we can do and again unfortunately i think it's important that we make the decision that we can make based on the facts we have right now so that we can be clear in communicating and clear and decisive in communicating what we're going to do and allow everybody including ourselves to move on to making that happen okay and i appreciate and agree with all the comments that have been made i've been going to town meeting now for decades and it's something that i've always i look forward to every year and i feel badly that we are put in a position now where we have to say we just can't do that it's just not safe we have to think about all of the residents and we don't want to be deemed as a super spreader by having a meeting that doesn't comply with the guidance and the governor's directives and i think that the legislature deciding in however many weeks it takes to them to decide doing an outdoor meeting is going to be really hard to pull off and unpredictable and for all the reasons everybody already said so i think we have to make the decision tonight to move forward with the articles being by australian ballot and just again it's only for one year we don't have authority to do this again next year and i hope we don't have to do it again like this next year this is not something that any of us asked for to have this pandemic happening but we have to figure out how to work around it and work with it and move forward so with that said and everybody's had a chance to say i would make a motion that we that we have the articles for town meeting we voted on by australian ballot for the march second town meeting and again this is only just for this one year anybody want to second that or make it clearer i think we should i think we should put that all articles that are traditionally floor or ballot just so that it's real that's really clear okay so i would accept that meant that clarification is there a second i'll second okay any further discussion if not we'll vote i'm an i rose hi garen hi cliff hi and i think it's fair to say that we're all reluctant and very sad that we have to do it this way this year for what it's worth i did i have heard from at least one maybe two people um that you know recognizing that that that's what we're gonna have to do this year yeah yeah i heard from several people on both sides of the issue but i think this is the responsible thing for us to do all right noting that we have those questions from craig and i feel i had them i had them open can we vote on the second thing though i just i thought we wanted to go through the rest of your comments can i just ask if somebody's gonna just point craig to tonight's meeting as a good discussion on the various points that he raised yeah i thought i would send him an email and thank him for raising the issues we appreciate it and you know we're we're looking for the you know to do the best and things in the best interest of the town and we hope to go back to our original democracy next year and then he can listen to the recording and he can read the minutes i think we were pretty clear on how we feel about it we feel pretty bad about it well and i i i did send him my notes that you're reading here yeah and those and those notes really do kind of hit on and and our discussion hits on many of the points that he raised and i would just want him to know that we we there there there are reasons it's not we're not just it's not from the gut it's a there's rationale and and reasons yeah i'll send him a response and cc everybody okay all right so judy do you want to finish up yeah so the next thing that is necessary to review and vote on at this point because of act 162 the emergency pandemic act candidates are not required to collect signatures so that still holds right now but what has not been covered by the legislation is the requirement for signatures for public articles oh so it's not so we don't have to vote i thought we had to vote on the petitions as well but it's just the articles or the candidates you don't have to vote on the candidates don't have they only need a consent form oh okay a petition with 14 signatures so we don't have to vote on that and for those of you who might be um you know a candidate um then the secretary of state is revising the consent form right now but i'll make it available as soon as it's revised um and i'll make that public for anyone else who might want to um be a candidate for an open position so so at this point uh the select board may choose to accept and place articles on the ballot without requiring now this says petitions i i think we do need to have if someone wants to petition us publicly they need to write up what the article is and you need to look at and review that article um but it's waiving the signatures on the petition so the petition would be something where there's like somebody wanting us to put a resolution or something right like woodbury was like woodbury fire department was talking about maybe needing an article i don't know if it does but if it would it would need you know 72 or i can't remember 72 signatures or something this would waive that requirement but if we vote but if we decide to put an article on the australian ballot we don't have to do that no you never do right the select board can always put something on yeah okay so is everybody clear on that any questions clarification on that from judy all right so um select board would you like to may have a motion to waive the signatures required for special i i i guess i i can public public petitions public petitions for example resolutions or would you still want to require the signatures discussion sharon how do you feel oh last time i was feeling like i wanted to require some effort but but like not at least knocking on your neighbor's door but but i think you guys felt like no no no there's people who really who are who you know even even five five signatures um is more than we should reasonably ask them to do so i have a question judy with regard to let's say somebody sends in a resolution um and asks us to put it on the warning do we have to do it even if they go had signatures do we have to so i don't i don't think i don't think so i think you know if it's a frivolous kind of thing i i can research that exact statute i don't have it right in front of me i don't think you have to i think the select board has the ultimate um i i could be wrong on that i'll i'll double i'll double check that okay cliff you have thoughts rose so go ahead cliff no you go ahead so i was thinking along the same lines of sharing um with regards to the signatures maybe not having them get 72 but maybe five or 10 just to show some effort or that there is some um agreement with this article or whatever that they want to put on the warning um so but sharing did you just did you say that you were okay with zero signatures uh well i'm reading i just pulled up the statute placing of articles on a warning for the annual town meeting articles may be placed on the warning by a majority vote of the board of selectmen a petition of at least five percent um articles submitted by petition that so those are those are a and b or one and two so it and is and there's no conjunction so i think we assume that means or a majority vote of selectmen or a petition of at least five percent articles submitted by petition must be filed with a town clerk not less than 40 days so we could could can we read into that the that we will waive the five percent but we will require the majority vote of the selectmen on every article oh that's good i like that yeah but judy your your document here says 47 days before the meeting and the statute says 40 sharing yep the one online which you know the bottom the bottom always says this is just for your information you shouldn't rely on it but i always do so it sounds like then we could have the option uh or not have the option but we could vote to approve any article that's put on the australian ballot is that what that's saying sharing and one of the ones you read be yeah it offers all i know is what i'm reading in the statutes so i don't want to overrule all the wisdom of years that you guys have but articles may be placed on the warning by one a majority vote of the board of selectmen two a petition of at least five percent of the voters registered at the time the petition is submitted okay so so what i am suggesting is that we waive two but we retain one so that all of those i like that signatures have to be approved by us yep i like that idea right sounds good so can we add that i don't know is katie's still there yeah she's still there so let's add that to the motion cliff where you just gotta cobbled together motion for us yeah cliff you want to comment yeah no hi i like this approach it it um i think my issue with requiring any signatures is the same issues as why we agreed we need to go to an australian ballot that once again we're we'd be putting people at risk and i just i'm not okay with that right so this proposal of um waiving the signature requirement but allowing the select board to preserve the right to approve it i think is a decent solution a decent compromise right you never know you never know what kind of resolution we might get and i think the subtlety is that we we are saying we will approve everything right i mean not not that we reserve the reserve the right to but that we will actually to be fair and transparent arms length everything that comes forward we will Judy will package it all up as long as it arrives in her office Judy you're gonna have to think about the timeline what's the timeline i've doubled and tripled check that so i think that's correct but um and i i think wilson even said that was the date so i i think yeah i think january 14 i'm just thinking you know if we get some frivolous resolution um we would then be able to put it on or not right that makes sense right right i agree but the judgment of what's frivolous is ours not judy's and the result of which is absolutely everything comes to us right right yeah right and so so judy when i'm saying timeline if we're gonna you know review them and we can do it as a block we can say yes we received them all judy got them gave them to us you know a week ago we've looked at all of them we approve them as a block i mean what's the timeline you'll be you will be um approving the warning and the ballot okay so all of this would be on the warning and on the ballot nothing would go forward without total select board approval okay and if there's if there's something on there that that we want to take off it's not too late at that point okay and and the final date i'm just looking at the key deadlines list right and we have to have that done we would have to do that by january 14th no that's when the deadline is for the public petitions and then there's you know some things some a couple days to withdraw them whatever so really what we're looking at is um there's a january 25th is the deadline for candidates to submit their consent forms so we really can't absolutely finish the warning we could give you draft a draft but the ultimate warning will not be finished until your january 25th select board meeting and even then candidates have a couple days to change their mind um but assuming they don't we we would be able to have um um you completely approve the ballot and the warning on the january 25th select board meeting you might want to give you a draft before that so that we're not kind of going way off base i would want maybe i don't know if you can do it but can you get a draft by the 11th uh yeah i could probably give you i could probably give you a draft tomorrow it's just i gave you i just added the social services to that draft that i sent you earlier so i could send you another draft that has more complete ones and because the select board will have to make some decisions about where those well obviously where the budget scope budget numbers and the percentage numbers for the delinquent taxes things like that and we also have to decide if we're going to put woodbury fire department's budget on on the warning right um and then what is so i don't understand on january 14th this is deadline for public petitions what is that anyone other than the select board who wants to you know like like some anybody from who's a voter who has an idea that they want the voters to vote on they have to get it to me by the 14th or they can't or it's too late and that includes resolutions i don't know what you mean by resolutions you know there are an article but there are resolution that somebody wants us to adopt regarding like climate change or something it's not something that's binding um i think this is just articles i don't know i don't understand i don't know how resolutions would work in this situation if it's not binding we're we're talking about a ballot and a warning it has to be voted on yeah um yeah well i know you know we didn't have any last year but i can remember residents standing up and you know like anti-vaccines and things like that yeah yeah those kinds of things um i kind of hope we don't have any why don't we cross that bridge if we have them i can i can look up what's the difference between a resolution and a article in terms of COVID a COVID ballot right because when somebody wants something like that on the warning don't they have to get the requisite number of signatures right right resolutions i think resolutions are generally from the floor and articles are on the ballot okay all right um um so we sort of have a motion hanging out there show me to read it yes please um x person made a motion to waive signatures required for public petitions for articles and funding requests for march to election but requires a majority vote of the select board requires a majority vote of the select board to approve the articles for the warning to be placed on the warning yeah that's it we placed on the warning okay so um i'll make that motion is there a second second for the discussion or comments all right you're ready to vote cliff hi Sharon hi rose hi and i'm an eye great thank you thank you very much thank you so much you guys are working under really challenging circumstances we realize that we really appreciate it yeah and um because we're planning in one direction and it is a lot of it depends on the legislatures very last minute decisions um we'll keep you posted but um right now we're we're putting together all the pieces to potentially mail ballots to everyone um but we realize that we might have to back off that if we don't have enough time to you know the legislature doesn't make a decision soon enough but we'll keep you posted on on any changes on our on our deadlines and our procedures yeah okay all right anything else Judy you want to talk about with the board or the board wanted to ask you no i really appreciate your making these decisions i think that's these are good solutions and this helps us move forward all right thank you so much okay and happy new year thank you happy new year thank you okay take care i think i'm gonna exit unless you have any other questions no i'm almost i'm sad everybody else all good yeah okay thank you so much happy new year happy new year take care all right so we need to um work on the budget so i assume cliff here in the process of calling that up um so while cliff's calling that up what do folks want to do about the woodbury budget do you want to put it on the warning or do it as we did last year what's your pleasure rose give me thoughts um i i would feel fine with just leaving it in the select board budget for this year um that's where the emfd one is and um you know yeah i it's in there and i i think we should just leave it in there for right now any sharing yeah i'm oh i'm okay with that um i do think we should sooner rather than later because it's by i just did the math when i was doing the the minutes from that meeting it's by april one we have to let them know right that we want to untangle so um i i'm thinking we yeah i agree with you um i think we need to get the letter out sooner than later i think they're kind of on notice right just from our meetings that we had with them and i think we need to have um jim do a letter um and we need to get him the documents so he can look at them so he understands what we're asking that we're asking them to um open up that open back up the agreement yeah or yeah or yeah that we won't we we will we are not yeah i mean that that's a that's a discussion we have to have but the most important thing is getting them notice notified that out and we and we will not subscribe to an auto renew right yeah right um all right cliff your thoughts on woodbury yeah the time we broke it out as a separate item is because there was a big ask involved it's not a huge change this go around so i would support leaving it in with the blackboard budget yeah and i'm in agreement so can we um we already kated we already vote to approve the woodbury budget let me look back do we have to separately i think well we did we did we did on the emfd one we had to vote to approve it but that's we're actually we are approving don't we have i don't know maybe we didn't have to do that either it's a separate board they i don't know we rely usually yeah well we've usually voted to approve their budget i just want to be fair that we're doing the same for both but i'm we can make a motion to a we can make a motion and approve woodbury's proposal budget request to be included in our select budget is that a motion rose sure okay is that a second yeah okay all right let's vote rose hi i'm an eye charon hi cliff hi that's good because that that way we're just you know we're flying the same standard to both all right so have you got the budget ready for us to look at and at some point in reviewing the budget we're going to need to go in executive session but we can do what we can do publicly first so i think um we had asked a bunch of questions hopefully you've had a chance to look at this budget it is percentage of change is zero with the figures that are in there so that's flat flat budget for the select board is everybody good with that and everything is everything is in there right it's not because we have some there's no no there's no missing figures yep okay next up oh oh i see we're looking only at the select board okay so i want to reserve my my approval until i understand that we're approving what we're approving in the global okay um all right next up grants that's kind of nothing to do there um pound clerk that's a four percent increase um what you're not seeing in this version of the spreadsheet as any rows that have to do with wages because that's going to come under the um as i said we would do that in executive session right but the percentage of the change of the budget for the town clerk is still going to be four percent right there are lines under the town clerk that you're not seeing so this figure um i'm talking about that portion of the town clerk's budget excluding salaries no this figure would include salary it's just you don't see those lines in here right now Denise if you look at the if you look at the numbers that cliff has if they're that are highlighted in gray land record books 580 or 550 plus digitizing 10 000 plus digitizing survey max 400 right away you realize oh that's less than 11 000 but the total in the in that section is seventy oh i see what you mean okay i see what you that's because there's salaries hiding behind that and so the four percent i'm assuming cliff um comes is that that we're not approving anything here because we haven't approved the salary numbers underneath so we should just skip this one we could say we're fine with the land record books going up five percent right we're going to have discussion about salaries and wages separately we're just reviewing the other line items that aren't related to that to see if we need to make any changes to them right so are we fine anything it seems like this section then should be i don't know okay never mind it's it's fine so so we're only looking at 11 000 dollars now we're looking at 30 dollars difference that all looks fine to me okay listers requested an increase for mapping um so it says two years of changes um and you probably saw jan's email so um you have to look back i have to look back at her email but what they don't understand is that if we put in the full amount for the two years in the f y 22 budget and they don't spend that full amount whatever is left over doesn't get held in reserve for the next year we have to budget each year on its own for the mapping so we need to plug in the numbers um that jan sent us in the email i'm just looking for it um i'm not she's saying that the mapping um oh she doesn't give us the figures to me when did that when did that email come i'm not finding one from her today um let me see maybe it's one of those ones like you know i don't know but anyways what so i'm trying to explain to the listers that we can only budget for f y 22's mapping and yeah f y 22 is mapping and then the next time we'd have to we'd have to um budget for the second year of mapping in the next year's budget you see what i'm saying yeah i had a question saying no well i wrote back to her and i still don't think she gets it i'm gonna i'll call her tomorrow and talk with her and get the what what amount do you need for f y 22 for mapping and what amount are you going to need for our f y 23 for mapping basically i had a question yes ma'am so the way i read this is that's the one year cost to map two years worth of changes that have occurred in town not that's the cost of mapping for two years that's i interpret that as this is the one year cost to include in the fiscal year 22 budget for two years worth we haven't done this mapping work for two years and now we've accumulated two years worth of mapping that needs to get updated that's the way i interpret that so i was wondering if i would back if that's a um that could be but that's why i need to double check with jan and find out yeah exactly what it is she needs so we're all on the same page yep that makes sense okay well if we if if that if rose is right i definitely don't have that email um so if rose is right i didn't get the email either huh i'll have to look and see who she sent it to so if that's correct then we've got sixteen hundred dollars 83 but it's sixteen hundred dollars so it's got very little influence on the overall okay yeah so yeah okay i still i just need clarification what she really much what is she really looking for and i don't know that i'm clear rose could be right but i don't know that so we need to double check the figure and i didn't have a chance to do that before we met okay can you ready to move on audits is there any way can you make it a little bigger clip how's that that's better a little bigger i don't know what everybody else want it bigger okay audits that's not changing election expenses are going down what's the bottom line here on this one it's going down okay um taxes dues assessment and we have in from um think we're i think we're all set there yeah we we just we're taking a guesstimate on the the county tax line yeah because we haven't been and we never we never get that that always comes late but we did didn't we just get the word from uh cbs wmd that there's no change yeah so that number that's in there it's correct yeah yeah okay zoning and i say i just want to make a note for sandra was that today jenice yeah that was from bill powell today and sandra got the emails okay i'm gonna get back to her and ambulance we already talked about that um police i haven't heard anything that um you know the sheriff's contract is what we decided we want it to be we want it to be a thousand or ten thousand so that's up to us to fill in an amount and they base what they can do for us on whatever amount we put in and they'll notice an f y 20 we only spent $2,800 so if we leave it as is there's basically no change the bottom line does the service say change if we flat line in other words do their costs evolve and we get less service for the same price um every year there we did their contract in i want to say july or august of this year and their prices went up a little bit um but we still have the bottom line amount that we're able to spend animal control you know everybody ready to move on animal control should be the same yeah we don't usually get we usually get something from um central my humane society i want to say in january and last it seems like last one of the years we recently saved money we used to be like budgeting $2,000 and they changed the way that they did um billing so now they're it's asking for like 700 um cliff you want to make a note there to ask sandra have we gotten anything from cvhs about changes in the amount that they're going to request okay planning commission i think there was no change here okay yeah same conservation fund last time we talked about reducing it from eight to five is that still everybody's where everybody's still thinking yeah well this is the question we'd asked and we've got this information now that there's the current balance yeah i think i i mean i think that's a good that's a good place but i want to see where we fall bottom line yeah i agree the swim program um yeah because they have a swim fund and we got an explanation from katie about the vanguard fund as opposed to the uh swim program reserve fund so we looked at budgeting 1500 instead of 2000 for f y 22 and that still gives them money in their um swim fund if the 1500 is approved uh you know close to 10 000 what's the bottom line on the hall okay everybody's okay with that one yeah these are all fixed let me receive the invoices so are we saving so we're saving money um because remember um sandra said we could reduce the amount we put in the hra where is that line that's farther down this is all about yeah that okay all right so that there's nothing really new to review on the debt portion we've done that yeah actually it'll be up above and it'll be down below because it's part of wages so you'll see some in the the tre and the um town clerk section and you'll see some in the highway section okay when we get when we're ready for that discussion wait we'll see some what about the hra and all that stuff along with wages and salaries yep all right so there's the bottom line on that but that could change depending on other things right okay social services wait this general that we have been general government does not include highway right right no it does not that'll come next or one of the next so yeah and this one mostly is what it is pretty much flat line except we've got the addition of the friends of callus town hall doing a request for 3000 so that would represent a six percent increase yeah and i don't think that i think the deadline for getting those requests in has come and gone correct it has yeah deadline for nonprofit funding request was december 15th yep okay so that's not gonna change unless we um yeah okay next i had a question yes ma'am so your friends of the town hall is not on this list of social service appropriations no it is it is it's new where is it right here line 214 it's right here line 214 i'm looking at mine on my computer and it's a p you see it on the screen can you see it on the screen rose yeah yeah yeah for yeah so i think it's just not on the version that i'm looking at on my computer yeah this is a later edition yeah sander just updated this was it today yeah today yep so is your is yours version four um i can't tell the prince is too small this is just do we all do we all have that one in our email it's in it's in the folder because i'm looking at version three dated on the 22nd right this is a modified version of version three that i created for us to use oh okay okay because i just this version doesn't have the friends group and i got nervous oh okay the friends group got a request in by the deadline okay good thank you good work so this is our document that we can play around with exactly okay that's why i do a separate one because you know sandra's always worried about the formula is getting bollocks if we make changes to her master file so i could be a secondary one give a unique name each date that we review these okay very good that to her as also as a pdf so that she doesn't have to worry that things got hunkered and mixed up okay so cemetery we already talked about this they're not asking for any increases yep can you guys hear my special needs guy getting ready for bed okay good uh okay so we're now on now we're on highway can we look at phobie's email together yep do you um yes now what did i do with that i've printed off a hard copy because i don't click and do two screens at once which the email with toby's reply is that what you're talking about yeah okay i just copied his comments into this document okay that works that's great that works thank you cliff welcome you'll see him in green oh tt past cost going on vendor yep and that's only in the version that you have not in our version that's correct because i added it this afternoon to this document that we're looking at right now does anybody think five thousand dollars is a lot of money for uniforms you know i don't know anything about uniforms and stuff but it seems like a lot but basically what you have to think about is um it's like going to the dry cleaners because they're cleaned with chemicals it's like having your dress shirts go into the cleaners that's what uniforms are it's so yeah i know i know i know what uniforms are but i just thought seems like it's i don't know this seems like a lot of money but but what you're saying rose and cliff i guess is that it's not the uniforms themselves it's the cleaning right well it it does supply them with the uniforms themselves yeah what they when you have a uniform service like they have uniforms each person on the road crew say they have seven pants and seven shirts so you have that and then the next week they come once a week and they take your dirty seven outfits or five outfits and they give you seven more and so you have a circulation so basically they're dry cleaning your dirty clothes so now i get like yeah i get that it just seems it just seems like i don't know this seems like a lot but yeah it's expensive because it's the chemicals they use to clean does this thing does anyone know if this includes the the boots no because we give them a boot allowance remember yeah no uniforms is just uniformed well the boot allowance must come out of that one though yeah that's the thing is what line does that allowance come from um good question good maybe we'll yeah maybe we'll see it when we're going through here municipal roads general permit we don't have much control over that okay so there was the bottom line for that one now we go to maintenance and this was one of the questions we asked them why is it going up and that's his answer actually but we have the budget but it's not going right it's not going up though no we flatlined all of these figures where they did oh so he was asking for 20 and we put it back to 15 right and then i said okay why are you wanting to go up to 20k here where you want to go to 72k here etc etc so do we want to put the 20k back in because i guess um with macaulay closing the trucking is going to be more expensive probably buying the sand is going to be more expensive than just having it like right in our backyard yep i i what i struggle with is the arbitrariness of the numbers you know it's like we we've been trying to sharpen our pencils and be um how you know just sharpen our pencils and not just shooting in the dark and 15 000 to 20 000 is is like might go up 33 increase because it might go up i'd like to you know i think to me what i'm more focused on is rather than where it goes up and by how much specifically is when you add up all of these onesy 2z might go up might go up and i don't remember what was the increase the bottom line increase in the highway budget well let's go through and see what answers we got from toby um so the next one that we had the question on was um sand and that's another one to share and point that it's who knows where this figure came from ridgles and culverts our next question was um crack and seal but i don't know you see and his answer is actually 14k and needs to be done every year so then why have all these other years even an fy 21 and fy 20 we didn't we didn't budget for the full amount yeah right it doesn't make any sense well it's because there was slush and looseness in other line items and he'll tell you it's a guide and at the end as long as the budget comes in comes in under budget or at budget yeah okay okay so the on the road salt we have um an actual answer yeah so the actual cost and it's in the fy you can see it in the fy 20 budget was 25 000 we're not done with fy 20 21 yet okay we'll go back scroll down a little bit uh the actual is through what date do we think the actual y 2020 you mean the actual you mean fy 2020 the that's that's done that's booked out that the school year is closed oh okay right it's the it's not right because we're still right because right now we're in fy 21 it's not a year to date that would be nice to have uh so okay so road salt he wanted to go to 30 it went to 25 last year yeah well now he was asking for 30 this year and last year 25 25 so that's probably he's figuring it's gonna go up a little bit which you probably will i think i heard there was a there's a shortage of salt so that could very well be right that's yeah he i mean i understand what he's doing he's he's taking it up by round numbers right but but 5000 is a 20 increase right i mean i think he's doing the best i think he's doing the best he can to try to put in some figures but we don't want to we want to make sure we're not having another one of those slush fun things right and the road salt oh i'm sorry nope no go ahead rose i was going to say the thing about the road salt is that's only for three miles of the county road and the little section on lightning ridge yep you don't put road salt on any of the gravel roads so that's right it does seem like a big amount for you know three or four miles of road yep so i have no idea how much it costs though if we had if we so 25,050 and 58 cents the actual from the last fiscal year if we go five percent over that it's 26,303 so so you know even if we go if we go 10 percent over that that's 27,5 that's 10 percent over last year yeah well let's go i think it sounds more reasonable yeah you want to go through the rest of this and get to the bottom line and then go back up and plug some numbers in and see what we get yeah okay so according to if we left some of the stuff the way we put it back in it would be 11 decrease so let's go back up to where we started to question well hang on but let's look at the vehicles too because we want to look at the whole thing right because one could could in theory i mean they we want i want to know what the bottom line is so and we had 27,500 to level to that would make it level funded because it was down 11 percent we could build 275 back in and still be level funded i'm not saying we would do that i'm saying that there's that much wiggle room in that section of the budget yeah so there's the um that's the garage he did not answer our question on communications i thought he i thought he mentioned something i saw a comment on one of the versions of these but i thought it was one that sounder might have said about that uh it includes the additional phones and stuff yeah but it's okay fact the matter is the actual runs higher so why haven't you increased what you're asking here right yeah because communications fy 20 the bottom line was 4200 sounder indicated that it's running more she anticipates it'll run more than a thousand for fy 21 yeah yeah i don't understand that either i know we the next the next line though we broke out communications from the radios and the pagers because the communication correct me if i'm wrong includes the security that's what i was just thinking well we had a big bump and but look look rose the security line shows nothing i know so i think maybe it got yeah it got lumped into that communications because they do have a security thing at the town garage right right yeah well i think we have to put in a number that's more realistic there than if if the actual for fy 20 was 4200 or routinely underfunding that line item which doesn't make any sense all right so the bottom line there is there it is next up is grants anybody good with that here's all of our equipment is at the end so do you want to go back up and fill in some numbers into the highway let me just expand these columns so you can see the numbers yeah yeah with with the understanding that we still have to look at it in executive session we have to look at personnel in executive session so that yeah so i would consider what we're going to do now absolutely just a just placeholders playing with numbers yeah i think that's pretty clear so here for security oh okay we're going to do that all right all right so they had proposed a $500 increase to $5500 is that what we're going to plug in for consideration right now yeah i mean if that's what the contract is asking for we don't have much choice well we don't know that for sure that looks a little big but no toby says cost going up from vendor right but he doesn't say we have an invoice they're going up i don't know you could be right but i don't necessarily take that away from his note oh i guess that he has a specific okay i'll leave it 5500 for now and that's that's 10 percent that would be that would be a lot for a vendor to say hey we're going up 10 next year in one run you want to put a number in uh no i mean not necessarily right now but i like leaving the pink box there so we know as a you know as a flag yep equipment hired what they were asking for it to go up to 2020 k yep and actual for fy 20 was 20 000 want to put 20 000 in there and just see where that gets us on the bottom line okay next so they want to go with 72 k here i don't know where they get that figure from divided 60 000 by five i don't know what if we put in 6500 just to see where that 60 65 000 yeah i mean 65 000 yep well i like 65 000 you only have me too i don't think it's realistic but i like it yeah okay this was uh when we talked about okay so it's always 14 000 why do we never budget that right yeah i just and i don't know where that money has come from before if fy 20 we paid 14 7 we didn't budget for it where did the money come from to pay for it right we would not have not did down that much no should we put in the actual figure of 14 7 that's about what 15 is that he asked for yeah let's do 15 and see what it looks like at the bottom you can always go back and ask Sandra to give us the actuals that we've spent on gravel for the past few years because the auditors have been we put suggesting we reduce it for at least a past couple of audits because well and then ability to knock it down even more right well we can see where what we spent in fy 20 i'm assuming is probably similar and instead of i think we put it at didn't we put in 80 we did that seems that seems they wanted to flat line this they had 95 here right they wanted to keep it at 95 even though FY 20 we only spent 75 right so we put it back down to 80 yep because the the auditors keep saying why do we budget so much and that maybe that's where some of this other money to cover like crack and seal has come from bottom line okay do we want to do we want to leave it at 80 though or do we want to go back down to like 70 75 5 something closer to 2020 why don't we say 76 yep thank you road salt what do you want to do about that you want to we want to try like maybe 26 or 27 and this is where Sharon had done some math we're at 25 now i gotta go get my water okay 27 5 is about a 10 increase i think yeah 27 5 is a 10 increase it also said didn't you do like a 3 projection as well which put us closer like 26 hang on i gotta i being sloppy with my punching numbers here 25 8 so 26 yeah okay you want to put that in 10 road signs they wanted to go to 5 000 signs are cheap though yeah start with that song again on the other side didn't say anything i know the the song we referenced last time we looked at this yeah don't start though cliff because i already can hear it in my head i can't oh that's because you're too young Sharon there's the one who brought it up last time i forgot somebody has to remind me a song about signs being everywhere oh yeah yeah so yeah soaking up the scenery messing with my mind okay do this they're asking for 3000 they are asking for 5000 oh okay right i think i think three sounds reasonable leave it at three yeah and guard rails it seems like we don't quite budget enough what if we put guard rails up to 1500 everybody good with that yeah okay vehicle equipment repairs they wanted 65 000 yep but it seems to me like if if we get a truck and i'm sure alfred will find one that hopefully we won't need 65 000 we only in fy 20 we spent 38 8 because i'm thinking keeping it at i'm i'm thinking keeping it at 55 seems reasonable what do you guys think well you know how much alphy loves his trucks and he's going to be looking for one for sure yeah so that's why i asked that question i asked earlier yeah good question yeah i i think 55 is reasonable yeah yeah i do yep that's fine okay unless we need to cut it you want to put the date in there close no it's kind of there but oh it's kind of there okay i'll make it clear that okay that's good thank you welcome all right now what do we want to do about this communications i think we've got to up it what happens if we put in 4200 which is actually what we spent in fy 20 or do we want to split it out and have some in the security line that's what i think that's what's happening now security got moved into another line so that's just there because it has to be on for like three years then it goes away because i think we somehow put it i think we somehow moved it from security to communications a while ago why we did that i don't know unless we figured it was all the same same stuff because the communications is separate from the radios and the pagers do you think sandra would know what she codes to that line probably yeah she would is it because security i forgot what we said security is but is it like an alarm at the town garage that runs through the internet they have it's cco security's at the garage just like it's at the hall but and in the town budget we put security as security right but in 2020 this line for the highway got moved into another line and we don't know what that is yeah i'm getting too tired to care very much yeah and we still need to go in executive session so let's see where we're at let's just yeah that's what i was going to suggest because everything else i think is pretty much what it is with those changes that's what we see the overall is a six percent decrease he's getting tired too all right do you want to do what's the date what's the date that we have to put our final sample approval on this is it the for next next meeting okay all right so we got to go into executive session and make some decisions about salaries yep or get close to a decision so i would know that we're going to executive session to discuss personnel matters per the usual statutory reference 1 dsa 3 3 3 1 3 a 3 at 9 13 p.m are second so move okay i made the motion i think yeah sharing second it all right rose you want to vote hi i'm an eye Sharon hi click hi all right thank you so much katie and everybody and you're available thank you and you're available