 It's six o'clock, so I'm going to call the meeting to order and accept nomination for select board chair for the next year. I nominate Chris Jarvis. Second. Okay, I don't have any other nominations. All right, all those in favor. Hi. Hi. Post. You didn't get to say. Huh. Having hearing no more nominations. There you go. So one day. There you go. Can you vote against yourself? Well, it looks like Chris. There you go. Well, I was, I was reading through our. List of things that were supposed to act and you can vote. You can nominate and you can do everything on anything. Yeah. So. So yes, you can say no. We're not going to list. I know, but it still went. Yeah. So we just need a motion then to approve the agenda. Unless there's anything that needs to be amended. Move to approve is written. Second. Hey, all in favor. Hi. Probably. Welcome Denise. So anything comes up just. You didn't stop. Yeah, Paul didn't tell you. Paul. He didn't tell me my first meeting either. So. The next one. Yeah. He brought them through his last week. Yes. That's right. Six years late, but he brought them. That's right. So we'll try to. As we go through. Not just so usually the first two meetings after town meeting day is a lot of the. Annual appropriation pieces that. Usually don't change a whole lot from year to year. So you'll see some of those on. On this agenda as well. There will be some on the next one. So I'll try to, and my, myself and Chris, what we're talking about. I'll try to. Spend a little extra time on. What it is for so that you can kind of get a good handle on that. And don't forget eight o'clock. And then. Yeah, eight o'clock. And then once we get through on the normal. You know, Agenda items that there's ever a time where you're like, this is way over my head. Just, you know, I'm afraid to ask questions. We can get you up to speed pretty quick. Okay. What's the history? A lot of the board is really, you know, it takes. I don't know. It took me probably a year, like just sit and. Soak it up and understand everything. And then the next year. I know what that is, you know, okay. So thank you. So we're happy you're here. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to get you for three years because the first year is kind of like learning. Then we get two years that he, and then he, you know, So that's right. All right. So we do have one. One appointment. So we have the energy committee here. So low. Yeah. Nepal's big committee. Can everybody hear me and show you as a bigger voice. Yeah. So I, we're bringing our goals for 2023. We wanted to check in with everyone here, get some feedback before we finalize them within our own group. And I also sent over the T Rourke report card, which should be familiar to some of you. New members might not be as familiar. So that's there for reference. Yeah. The thing that sticks out for me and that is when you look at the electric vehicle goal for 2025. It's 126 on the road. And we're so far short of that. So really just trying to push forward and do what we can. And not. Just fall into that, you know, just to make sure that you're on the right track. You're on the right track. You're on the right track. You're on the right track. You're in progress. Definitely in some places slow and steady. We'll win the race. Hopefully. And you got your grant, right? For work. For manpower or person power. When does that. Start. So that will go into a little bit more detail as we get to that part of the goals. But it's, I'm working with Laura. Kevin Bailey now. And we're just formulating like the schedule. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sure if it was the most thing we had to wait, you know, a year and a half or something. So. I'm glad. Good. Good. I'm glad it's working out. Nicole. I found and reading this. I finally figured out one of them. G H G. G H G. I have no idea who any RP is or VCR. There's no definition or usually there's a. Letters and then I in parentheses, what it is. Yeah. And I'm going to go through each of them and we'll slow down and make sure that we get. Each one of those. Things hashed out because it's, you know, just coming from like the committee and we're volunteers. We're just. I understand that just when, you know, if you. I won't tell you how to do your committee, but I'm, I like Bethel energy, energy committee. That's what I'm looking for. So, I mean, the greenhouse gases. So. The one that's I think it's the work of machine, there, I connected with that. Not many dots to connect with the other. Yeah. And, you know, in professional writing, you are supposed to do the first, the long name and then put abbreviations at the end to make sure everyone's together. But volunteer writing, not quite professional. So that's where we're at. And I just, it would make it easier to understand. is in line with the state of Vermont's vision, which is to have 90% of all energy demand being met by renewable energy sources by 2050, which is about 25, 27 years from now. And this comes from the Vermont Climate Comprehensive Energy Plan. And this also comes from the Vermont Climate Action Plan just recently passed, which essentially released a whole bunch of funding out into Vermont to help implement projects that bring us closer to having 90% by 2050. And that money is only going to be available for a short time. So we're trying to stay organized here at the Energy Committee. We have our mission. Nothing's really changed in our mission other than we have one new line about focusing on low income residents. And other than that, we have one new member. And that is all that's changed on the front page. So diving into goals, we have outreach, which is really where we live as volunteers, making sure we're getting out connecting with our friends and neighbors in Bethel. And what's different this year is we have an email list that we're maintaining pretty well. We've been gathering emails from our outreach tables. We have somewhere around like 20, 20, 20 and 30. Some people just want monthly updates. Some people want intermittent updates. So that's going. And you all can join the email list. You can send me your emails. You can on Facebook, there's a link to join. We try to have the link out everywhere. But if all else fails, just send me your email and I'll pop you on there. What we've learned from doing all this outreach is that this year, people are looking for information on heat pumps, the Vermont climate action plan, solar power, and e-bikes. The when we did like a little survey downstairs during the open house in December, the top three projects they thought we should work on were continuing to do outreach, looking into the energy coordinator role, and energy audits plus solar on municipal buildings. So that's what people are telling us that they would like the town to do. And aside from that, not a whole lot has changed with the outreach. We consolidated electric vehicle outreach into general outreach because we just didn't have enough capacity to keep focusing on it as a separate thing at this time. But if anyone wants to volunteer and help us with that, we're here. And so moving down into municipal infrastructure, which is kind of how we could just coin anything that we really have to interact with the town to accomplish, we discovered that the Arlington Energy Committee is trying to come up with a tool to track their greenhouse gas emissions. And so if you all remember when I was here in November, that was one of the suggested projects that we sent over with that proposal to VCRD, Vermont Council on Rural Development. And so that was something I remember, Chris, you mentioned you thought it'd be handy for us to have a baseline so we know where to go from here. So if they're doing that in Arlington, and we can just kind of sit back and watch and maybe gather that tool when they're done with it. We're just going to keep track of that. And when they do it, we'll come back and let you all know what they came up with. Nice. It's always nice to have someone else. We don't have to invent the wheel every time. It's nice if someone else is doing it and they have the ability and the money to do it. It'd be nice to see a building here after. That's great. And they have a little more capacity. It's like a little higher income down there, closer to New York, Massachusetts border. But they're a town of 2000. Yeah, just small rural town. It'll be good. Scott offered to use any existing data we have now to try to get us a rough baseline. Not sure if he's still going to be into that because he just got elected as a treasurer, trustee. Trustee of public funds, which I'll have a meeting a year, or two meetings a year. So he won't be too tied up. Rick is the other trustee of public funds along with Sandy Farrell. So yeah, he offered to, if there is any data that we could pull together, he's willing to do it. So would that be something you'd be willing to work with him on? What does it need? I'm not quite sure. I would imagine how many gallons of gasoline were used last year. Probably something like that. And we track that anyways because we build twice a year. So that's easy enough. We build in usually in December, January, and then again in June, because the road crew pays for all the fuel and then we build the fire department and we build the constables and then they reimburse them. So we track diesel and gas usage. So if he wants to follow up, could he just reach out to you? He'll send me an email, yeah. Okay. And yeah, we'll see how that goes. Yeah, it's no problem. And we're hoping to maybe visit the Equipment Committee one time. There's, you know, it's like peanut butter and jelly. You have a car, you need gasoline. They, equipment and energy go together. So we just wanted to let them know what we're up to and see if any natural cross pollination occurs. When I see the muddy roads right now, I'm thinking, what if more people used e-bikes? Would we have less of that? Or even just if people had smaller lightweight vehicles, it conserves gas and it's also less rough on the roads. You have these F-250s. They just may not be able to get off or get through the mud. So it depends. Right, so there'd be no wear and tear on the house. They'd be walking. They'd be walking. So that's just kind of an example of maybe where some cross pollination could occur. And that's, I think if anything on this list were to fall to the wayside, it would be that one, because that's going to mean an extra meeting for someone on the committee. But we want to put it on there and we do want to try. And moving on to curtains, we wanted to talk about curtains. I, you know, ask the Historical Society if there's any restrictions. And they said, as long as we're not hammering into the walls, we might be able to do it. So I haven't like formally spoken to them. I just spoke to a member informally. So going the formal route and getting cohesion, seeing if everyone agrees, we might be able to get some curtains up on white people windows. Thermal, like thermal curtains for warmth and stuff, you mean? They could be. I know you mentioned wanting some like echo reduction. Well, any soft surface would provide echo reduction. So certainly, yeah. I mean, it certainly couldn't hurt if they were, I mean, you can get curtains for your home that have some sort of thermal backing. So I would think anything would be helpful. Yeah. And it couldn't, you know, improve the quality of our meetings here. Yeah, the sound would definitely help. Like sometimes we don't hit that right in your slide. Yeah, I've got a sunburn. Sit in the audience once. Just on one side of my face. So that is just kind of like projects we can do. And then moving into share news about Merp and how the town of Bethel is participating. So Merp stands for the Municipal Energy Resilience Program. And this comes from money from the state. I'm not going to try to say exactly where, but in general it comes from money from the state that is being released into towns. We have a coordinator at T-Rorg. His name is Harry. And he is here specifically to help towns implement the Merp funding. So you can use this funding for municipal buildings. The buildings have to have an energy audit. And then once they get audited and you know what you need, you can apply for up to $500,000. And that's a competitive process. Bethel has a moderate energy need. So we're in like the top 10 need of the region. But we're not like high. So there's money available. It's dependent on energy audits. I think we're really lucky that we actually have a town manager because a lot of the other towns trying to do participate in the program don't. And they're just kind of working from their select boards and energy committees. So we do have an opportunity here to really utilize this. I think if we have Therese. I already did it. Yeah, you already did the survey. I did the survey. And then Harry said he'd let me know when it came out. I saw an email today from him that I didn't get a chance to read. But you had to submit a building and I called the fire chief about his building and talked about our building. And so you just had to do a survey and give him square footage and stuff for the buildings you wanted to look at. So I did do that. And then he just said he'd let me know. But like I said, I had an email from him today and I didn't get a chance to read it yet. So maybe that's it. Maybe he's saying we made the first cut or something. So yeah, so we're definitely working on it. Do we want to do an energy audit in this building? Well, you guys had this redone not long ago. So you already made choices at that point that you're still paying a bond on. So when you redid it, you made choices, which I'm assuming that you made for historical purposes about what you would insulate, what you wouldn't. If you left the original glass in the windows, that sort of thing. So I actually did not pick this building because what we do is we manage the heat pretty well here, keeping it turned down to, you know, down all the time during the winter. And I did like the idea of the curtains. I thought that would help. And, you know, the downstairs is all efficient was because when they did the upgrade. But I think that at the time you made choices about what you were going to do here. So was anybody here when that happened? Because I did not live here then. Yeah, because I know someone was on the committee, but it wasn't on the committee. I wasn't out. Yeah, but we didn't. But I'm assuming because I've been through this process before for another town that you probably I'm assuming chose not to insulate the upstairs or third part just because of the cost and the historic value of the building, what they were going to do. But so this because I feel like it was low hanging fruit because we don't use it that much. I mean, this can be empty for, you know, weeks, months at a time in the winter time, I mean, except for the select board, and we could actually move our meetings to town hall to an office during the winter. We wanted to to keep it even cooler in here. But so this wasn't a building I chose, but also because you're already paying a bond on it, which you haven't paid off yet. But doesn't mean we can't do one. I think we know the answer. That's the thing is it's free. So it doesn't hurt to get that information. We don't pay anyone. And I'm not sure how full the energy audit will be. Yeah, they're gonna do the full lower door test or anything. I hope so. Because that that's definitely I don't want that. I was gonna say I hope so. I want that done. So I could talk to Harry about adding another building. So that's why I don't have a problem with it. I just didn't I know I didn't have the money to deal with it at that point. But because we had bigger priorities, I felt that we're sucking up way more energy. But I'm happy to put it on the list or can you apply to have an audit and see what's possible. I'll see it, but we can still add it. Who knows, they might find that one big hole is a good plug for a thousand dollars. You never know, right? Never know. I'll ask Harry. And so in since we have such a strong administrative capacity on the Merp side of things, which we kind of usually don't with energy committee stuff, but we have, you know, town manager who can help help us keep track of the buildings. We have Harry at T work who can do grant writing. The energy committee, we can share news about this. We can tell the town, hey, these buildings just got an energy audit. And then that storytelling provides leadership that reminds people that we're all working towards that same goal and falls under community outreach, which again is where we live. So that would fit us perfectly. So that was kind of where we were seeing ourselves falling into that also under the Merp funding. There's four thousand dollars separate from that five hundred thousand and that four thousand is for community capacity building. So like community outreach stuff, think advertising for events or buying food when you have a speaker. And we were hoping that Harry would come visit us at the energy committee and talk more about that piece of things possibly in April or May, depending if we meet tomorrow. And so you all are also welcome to come to that if you want to expand just the conversation and talk more about what that program is. And you can reach out to him at any time. He's paid to deal with this. So so use him as much as we can while we have him. That's okay. This this is the program was before the legislature a year ago and we voted here to endorse that or to encourage the adoption because that was funds that would be available to towns for addressing climate and infrastructure resiliency needs. So this is the result of that. If I understand correctly, at least the four thousand dollar grants, there's no copay. And I'm not sure about the bigger ones. Yeah, the little four thousand dollar grant is not competitive at all. It's pretty much you just it's for each town. They blocked it off for each town. So basically, if you get the four grand, you use it for energy stuff. So just work it out with Harry. So work it out with Harry. If it's something, if he'll write it and he needs me to do something, let me know. So yeah, we'll have to talk a bit with the energy committee. Well, I'm just saying you guys talk amongst yourselves. Let me know. I won't write it, but if he will, he will write it for us. I'm saying if he'll write it, let him write it off. I'm happy to sign off on it. And we'll definitely check back in when we have a solid idea. It sounds good. So that's one of the bigger, like, bigger things going on. And that's it's across the state of Vermont. You're going to hear about it a lot. And luckily, you have an energy committee here to inform you. So and then we have lastly regional collaboration. And this comes out of a question that's been circling for a while, you know, like, can the energy committee really have the capacity to deal with meeting all these goals? You know, we're so far behind that we're laughing at how far behind they are. So if we were to like, you know, and we're also really a group of realistic people. So if we're to realistically think, if we were to really boogie and meet these goals by 2025, how much help would we need? How much funding would we need? And so this conversation we're talking about, like, maybe we hire a shared energy coordinator. But before anybody signs off on that, we need more information. Is this cost going to be give us a benefit? So that's what this conversation is about. And VCRD, Vermont Council on Rural Development, they that proposal I sent last year that we all signed off on here, they accepted that they approved it, and they want to work to give us administrative assistance to facilitate the conversation. So a moderator, help us plan, give us a Zoom platform or however we need. And so that's happening now. I've chatted with Laura a bit, and we're confirming which towns are going to be involved in the discussion. And we expect it to be running from like late spring through summer. And then by fall, we should have like a written summary of what we learn. And so what everyone here can do is think of like your questions, you know, like, what do you want us to get out of this conversation? And really just like, don't be afraid to think big. And because we have right now we have a tension from a state organization, the Regional Planning Commission. And if we can give them feedback about what we really need, then we'll actually, you know, be in their ear, we'll be the bug in their ear. Same as if the state has all these goals for energy for 2050, that they would be offering, you know, how do they think small towns are going to get there? You know, they can't, we can't dump it all in the backs of all these energy committees, you think that they would be funding or smart enough to realize that they need to fund something or with these mandates needs to come assistance and goals and, you know, something better, because you're right, I mean, you guys are have jobs and have lives, it's hard to dump all those. Nicole, we have to meet this by 2050, it's on your shoulders, you know, so it is interesting, I think to me that, you know, if the state wants us to do this, we need a little more help getting there. And it's like a noted problem, you know, like the policy came down. And as you know, like, we're kind of the first wave of folks like we're among some a few other states in the nation, who are really like coming through with this policy first and trying to implement it. So we're coming up with these, you know, we're like, oh, we didn't think about that, all this administrative burden. But we're not the, this is having like across the country. I'm sure. In like Denver, they're hiring people within their city to do like sustainability coordination, there's like an air pollution controller. Wow. Pittsburgh, they have similar roles coming up. Salem, Massachusetts, they have like a community coordinator to help people weatherize that they're hiring, like they're giving people money. Yes, wow. And there's also part of the conversation is that small rural towns, low income, are being left out of the conversation. They're not even being considered as we sell these cities and higher income rural towns, getting the assistance. We're not even like making up a peak. So the fact that we're saying that there's a problem, we're a little bit ahead of all the other rural communities who haven't identified it yet. Wow. And so this is like, you know, if it's uncomfortable, it's because we're among the first. Yeah. So thank you for looking into that. Thanks. Whether I just spoke of weatherization, there is a group in this area, CVCAC, that does it if they're made aware. And there's an application process. It's available to every single person in the, I want to say Windsor and Orange County, basically. It's already there, but so nobody is not very medical or using it. So that's the one thing. The second thing is the elephant in the room. I see no numbers on how many megawatts Vermont is using. How many megawatts are they going to need? How are we going to get those billions of dollars to increase that infrastructure to put that power where we want. And maybe I'm all washed up, but nobody is, I've been here, only the 30th person I've asked that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Numbers, please. I'm a numbers guy. Give me some numbers. And nobody. I sat down here with the senators and the representatives and nobody's got those numbers. They kind of, yeah, okay, okay. They have them, but they don't want to release them. Now, that's exactly right. Because it's going to make your head. There's a recent series from the public service board that's happening now. The last meeting in the series is this Wednesday. And that's actually a time when you can ask those questions and at least get some sort of response. And that definitely like those more like regional and national questions about our broader energy use. That's also part of what I think we need help seeing and also having people advocate for us. Because again, like we keep getting left out, like we have, okay, a solarization campaign. Everyone puts solar panels on their roofs. No one has battery storage. So next time there's some sort of winter weather event, all of our energy is getting trucked out of Vermont. We're still left with, you know, the dirty energy, you know, oil, gas, and, you know, the others. Yeah, no battery storage. I never thought about that. Yeah. Tesla wall. And I know some people have them and they work pretty well. Yeah. Two to three days on this one house. So I think, you know, when I hear what you're saying, I hear like energy resilience, like how are we going to, you know, like maintain the energy levels we have now if we're adding to the load, especially in this region. And also part of it we don't really talk a lot about is conserving energy. You know, like part of it is like, yes, we'll have more with electric vehicles, electrifying our heat sources on all that. But also like we don't really talk about conserving, you know, if when there's a winter storm, what if we all decide we're just going to cook on one burner instead of everyone cooking in the oven after oven after oven? What if when there's a winter storm, we all decide we're not going to take a shower tonight? We'll just let our hot water heater rest. I know like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not going to take a shower. So I think conservation is a really important part of the conversation, as well as our broader grid. Can you reach out to Milano? What's that? We reached out to Milano or try to get in there and talk to someone about energy. No, they're the big energy consumer this time. They're a huge one. And they have, because I've done the work there, they had a conversation about a battery, about the size of two tractor trailers, so that they could operate because of their business. If the power went down, they needed to operate. They still needed to operate. So they didn't do it, I'm thinking it's probably a cost, but maybe you could get some more information from those folks. Because I know they're also very, very good at looking at new machinery that is energy efficient. Yeah, you might be able to get some information because they use so much. You might have some information for you. Definitely. And when we kind of bring it back to the discussion about an energy coordinator, I see that as something someone who's paid and professional would do. And like me as a volunteer, like, sure, I can call them and reach out and represent the energy committee. But like, wow, that's just a lot. It's put in a lot on my plate. And so as I keep having over the years, like people come to me and say like, hey, can you do this highly technical, skilled thing? Can you interact with this massive organization that's really intimidating? I'm thinking like, man, I need some backup. Whether someone at Teebrook has an assigned position and I can call them when I need them or if they're the person actually doing it. That's really what that conversation is about. Dave, what was the organization you were talking about? CV? CVCAC. Central Mock Community Action. Oh, okay. All right. So I feel like there you go. I feel like Nicole had done that once on one of her Facebook posts. You know, what were you doing though? Something Wednesdays or? Oh, that was button up Vermont. That was through Efficiency Vermont. Oh, okay. I'm not sure if we've promoted that specific program. But again, a coordinator, you know, just the concept of an administrative authority. No, I'm just curious what we're putting out on the website or doing something on Facebook. So it's Central Vermont Community Action. Huh? Committee. Committee. Oh, okay. Sorry. I missed my last letter. Okay. And are they the folks that have that office by the school in Randolph? I have no idea where they are. It's online. I think I had to do it was online. I thought they had an office in Berry. There's some energy commission place that's out of Berry. Yep. All right. I'll take a look and see if it's something we can promote on, you know, Facebook and front-forward form. If there's, you know, people is availability there for them for homeowners for assistance, that's free. Then we'll get them, you know, get an application. Yeah. Those are the kinds of things that we might be able to use this $4,000 grant for to get, have people come from Efficiency Vermont and have people come from this organization. Do you know that this is available to you to help you winterize your home or weatherize, you know, all of those kinds of to bring and just have some basic. So how are you going to keep warm this winter? The basic problem with 99% of anything in this world is lack of communication. Well, right. So I don't know even, I mean, even I'm saying something to you, you'll say it to somebody else. I see it. If I see someone who is having trouble, did you get your house weatherized? I don't know how to do that well here. Call these people. If your income is a certain level, it's free. They come in your house, all of a sudden it's warm. One of my neighbors had that done probably four or five years ago. It was a central Vermont, whatever it is, the acronym, but they came to her house a few years, quite a few years ago, and actually installed the heat pump and everything else. Nice. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll look to and see if we find the information or whatever. Well, you know, we could put it in water bills, we could put it in things like that. And we're good at getting the information out on Facebook and front porch forum and stuff to share with people. So I know from the school that we, this region is one of them. What's the word that's not, not the word for, but we are more income group of the state. Yeah. We have like a 49% of the family's, right? For like a loose lunch. Yeah, exactly. There you come level. We'll take a peek. So we should be accessing some of those things. Yeah, certainly. And, you know, sometimes when we've advertised a bunch, it has just a matter of people just not taking advantage of it. So well, it's also like it kind of exacerbates itself because it's like we're low income. So we don't have the resources to have a coordinator to share the information about all these wonderful programs. So everyone just stays, stays under the rock, you know, and it's, you know, it's odd to be like nowadays, we don't really take the value of like just a person, just a point person, which I was trying to streamline like lean production efficiency. I think we just need a person or even just a better network between towns. I'm not, you know, we want to do that with the towns and towns to chip in the fees to pay for these people. But I've been to several meetings where efficiency Vermont doesn't charge a company to come in and do a large or small evaluation like we just did the temperature bear on the lighting. Maybe if I realized you were very busy, but if someone could approach efficiency Vermont, CVCAC, and I don't know who else, but a group to say, okay, you guys need to get together with somebody that can push our programs. Yeah, and maybe that's something that Harry's going to do at Two Rivers is to, is to do that. So he's certainly been good at disseminating that information so far. I don't know what they're doing, but they did ARPA money, but somebody's got a pocket pool somewhere. Somebody of us. And I think maybe some feedback from this discussion, we might be able to give direct feedback about Harry's role and say like, hey, you know, where we're talking about how what else we need help with, can we just put that into his role? Right. And that might solve the problem there. Absolutely. Yeah, sorry. But just having a, you know, more professional conversation and have a written summary, I think that'll help us all move forward with that discussion. Sure. I think it's great. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, so that's the rest of this stuff. Energy stuff always brings up a lot of conversation and thoughts. So I appreciate everyone's time. Is there anything else, any questions for us or anything we just should know before I get out all? What's the meeting tomorrow night? The meeting tomorrow is five 30. It's supposed to be here and we're going to review these goals and confirm them. Okay. I thought you said somebody from T work was going to be here, or is that a different week? We're thinking like maybe April or May. Okay, so that's not tomorrow. That will be, yeah, the next meeting. Once we get ourselves together, then we'll check in with them. So again, like you said, we could talk about this all evening and just get stay punctured schedule. But a few of the questions that I had written down, you know, I'm kind of more of a like, how do we approach this like best bang for a buck? Get most people involved quickly. And, you know, I know that we are going to be told that we have to do municipal audits for a thing. But, you know, when we talk about the municipality, we're talking six buildings, 12 trucks or 12 vehicles, right? It's a very small, small, small, small footprint of the town. And the best bang for the buck is, is residential, right? I mean, so how like Dave Sains, I think a lot of it is, you know, you mentioned Vermont Climate Council money. And there's various different other identities right now that has money or programs or things. And I wonder how we can incorporate that so that we can get the information out to people. Because most people don't know that you can do a lot of these things. So I think maybe tasking the committee with is, how can we get that information? But one, can we let's pool all the information that makes sense for our town? And then how can we get that information out to each individual resident? Like, could we put something in a water bill when we send it out or different things? The one that keeps coming to mind is we're going to be going through tax re-appraisals over the next year and a half. So is there something that the Energy Committee can partner with the Listers? And while we're in seen houses already, is there an opportunity to, you know, do your Lister duties, but at the same time, leave a flyer or something, leave something with energy efficiency or, or help them tie them to the person that could give them an energy audit or, you know, like, so because we're going to be in these houses over the next year and a half. So it's an opportunity to say, hey, this house I'll make it up is built in 1890 and needs a lot of weatherization. And then you could target mail them stuff. Well, maybe that's about $4,000. Yeah, the mini grants, you know, that might be something for the Energy Committee to think about as like that community capacity is like, hey, we're coming up with this, you know, we're coming up to doing these audits and we'd like to partner it as a means of better communication. Because it's the only time in our lifetime here that, you know, as a government identity that we're going to have the opportunity to be in people's houses to actually see what what they have and don't have, right? So it might be an opportunity to say, or talk to them about, did you know that you could get these windows replaced or this $4,000, if you could use some of it to create a flyer that we give to the contract service and I'm Rick, if they're willing to drop it, I mean, they may be willing to leave it while they go inside and do an inspection, they may not, but we could mail them with tax bills or we could put them in, you know, put the information in, you know, town report, but mail them with tax bills, we would do inserts and tax bills. So maybe the $4,000 if you get it could be used to generate a flyer that's good for, you know, a year or something, like with contact information, maybe that's something. So yeah, maybe Henry already has it all together. We do have vital communities does put together a flyer that has all of the like phone numbers you can call to get information. Something that flyer is missing is federal and state tax credits. But between that flyer and our two other flyers for federal and state tax credits, I think we do have it all covered. It's just about getting it in people's hands in a way that they can understand it. Yeah, because we do mail tax bills in July. So I mean, that would go to every homeowner. And then we could target by, well, if it goes to our building owner, it also goes to the owner, so the landlord as well, if it's an apartment building. So if we got into tax bills, beginning of July, that would be getting into, I mean, you want it in the landlord's hands, not the renter's hand. So I mean, I think the, and the listeners may be willing, well, the listeners won't be in there, but the contract people for NEMRIC will, they may be willing to leave a flyer, they may not. We've already signed an efficiency Vermont, it's really like the best for for having like all the rebates and everything and all those flyers, like a full packet of how to take care of your house. Like all that information does exist. And we definitely could pull it together and use it in that manner. I think it is possible. It's just gotta be tactically tastefully done because you know how it like, if you get a flyer that's got a lot of information on it, you're kind of like, yeah, okay. But if you have something that maybe it's more targeted, like one or two things that you could do in your house, you know what I mean? Because if you give somebody something that's got 15 options on it, they're more or less to tune out that information piece. Rather, if it was more about, I don't know, the energy committee makes up here, the top three things we'd like to see residents doing. It might be heat pumps, it might be window replacement and insulation or something. At least if you had those things, like did you know, you hear our contact information to get, you know, new window, free services or A4 to A5 for free. So people just so that they can really look at that. If they know it's not going to cost. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely see what you're talking about. I think that is a good opportunity to get, like you said, hit every house. They're going to represent them anyway. Yeah. Yeah. And we had to have our hot water heater replaced a few years ago. We had had an oil one for 15, 18 years. And we went with an electric one, but I looked up on efficiency Vermont. It's like, okay, here's a bunch of them. They're really good. And we've got a $900 rebate. You know, actually when the, when the plumber went and picked up the, the hot water heater, the rebate was applied right then and there. So it's not like we paid it all up front and then we waited for a check to come back. So boom, he just took it right off the, right off of there. Yeah. We have two, two outreach events. Plus we plan to be at the forward festival. So as far as like getting information out to people, you know, aside from like going right to their house, leaving it on their door or whatever, we will also be like, we're planning on having two like distinct outreach events, plus the forward festival. So we could also get some of this information out at those times too. The legislature in Montpelier is very, very aware that it doesn't do any good to say something is free and people have to have the money up front. And there's a legislature, two pieces of legislation going through right now to supplement all of the weatherization funding that they put forward that are supposed to quote front load the resources for those on the bottom end of the, of the economic ladder. So if you can't afford to take out a loan, that's, that's a real issue. And yeah, and none of this is too, you're absolutely right. We somehow need to get beyond this room, but we also need to the power of the symbolism of the town taking action on the properties we do have is also a motivator for the rest of the community. This is important. Definitely. And you know, it's interesting how you mentioned Chris, how you, you know, like small building stock focused on the residents, because I said that to someone a few weeks ago, like kind of that exact thing, like we have like what a few buildings, we have a thousand residential houses, right. And over in Barnard, the energy coordinator they have helped them allocate some of their ARPA funding so that residents can get $2,000 from that directly from the town of Barnard, ARPA funding, and all they have to do is be weatherizing their house. So that was something that the town energy community was able to go right to the residents, give them that upfront cost. And I mean, that's just kind of what we're talking about how to make happen, get these residential homes weatherized. Lenny, did you have something like your hand was up at one point? Yes. I have mentioned something. Oh, I'm getting an echo. Sorry. And being a loan officer, I have mentioned this to some people who are coming in for home equity, lines of credit, and they're older and they don't have access to like communication. And my worry is that some of the people who could really benefit from this, how do we reach them? You know, there are people who are not, who don't get around very much, who are definitely not computer savvy who, you know, how do we reach them with this information? You know, if we're talking about reaching the citizens of Bethel and getting them on board, we are thinking about, we just need to think about ways to reach those people that are not that accessible and who could really benefit from this. Yeah, I think that's why we talked about putting it in tax bills, because some people that maybe don't get the Herald or don't do foreign forum, it'll come in the mail to their house. Okay. Is that good? Yeah, something like that, something where they, yeah. Because if they're going to escrow their taxes, they may call you anyways. I'll give you a stack. So a few years ago, we also did a program with vital communities focused on mobile home residents where energy committees volunteered to kind of be like ambassadors about those programs. So if someone wanted more information, they could drop their name into a survey with their phone number and Scott on the energy committee, he followed up by calling them. And so he'd learn about their specific, what they needed and connect them with the specific program that could help them. Well, that's nice. So maybe we could have something like that. Well, that's nice. Yeah, it's nice of them to do. And that's, that's more like personable and really like helps people when they can just say, you know, like, I don't know what to do. This is and have, you know, an energy committee member possibly guide them to the right path. Yeah, I can see Scott being really good at that. I crazy idea thinking completely out loud. What if we were to hire a couple of college students this summer to go door to door. That's, you know, a way, you know, we want you to know about these resources that are available. Yeah, my college, it has a environmental studies class and put that on their curriculum. They have environmental law, they lost it the way they go without us having to pay them. Well, we got that $4,000. It's learning, it's learning. Yeah, it's learning. But you know, the door to door campaign is the most effective there is. And down in Charlotte, they hired some interns to help with the solarization campaign. It is a good way to boost your capacity when you have limited resources. I heard you say it was 10 of seven, so I should go. If you want to get home before dark, David, he's got his clock ticking over there. I can hear you here. He mentioned the clock he's done for up to the night. Thank you for coming. Yeah, thank you so much. Everyone's welcome to come to our meetings or just reach out anytime. And I see, by when you're looking at this stuff, do you look at what it's going to cost the home owner to do this? And when they get done using just like solar panels, when Green Mountain started giving people the advantage of having their electric built with solar panels up, you are responsible for the destruction of the solar panels when they die. Yes, which cost them more than what they saved. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good to know. Because you've got to look at both sides of it. Maybe you can get a darn good deal here. You've got to reach the budget, that's for sure. Maybe later on be the wrong thing and you're going to have to get rid of it. Yeah, that'd be something to look into too. I wonder how the recycling industry is going to evolve. Yeah, it's going in the desert right now. Humans are not doing anything right. That's where it goes right now. It goes to the cold in the desert. It's going to be hard. The wind power. Thank you, Nicole. Thank you. Yeah, stay right there. Stay right there, Bill Rods. Yeah. Mind the lithium from those things. Right. Just them in the next thing. Thank you, Nicole. Thanks, Nicole. Drive careful. All right. We'll turn it over to public comment. If anybody has anything that's not on the agenda item this evening. I realize you guys are running late in the walkway here, but I just wanted to quick mention and thank the board for it's kind of a town meeting critique visit. I think because of the continued transparency from the board, Reese has helped with town meeting Ram this year and the way it's run for the last few years. So I want to thank you guys for continuing that good practice. Thank you for running the show. You're welcome. You're the heavy lifting. We had a few hiccups, but it wasn't. Oh, it was good. It was colorful, I guess. But so if any, the town meeting committee had been dormant over the last two years, of course, because we had no town meeting. And I take responsibility for not getting that fired up before town meeting this year. Victoria was really the backbone of that committee and the driving force behind it. No excuse on my part. I should have been there to pick that up and go with it. But we have met since then on Thursday. We invited Theresa in to get her feedback on the meeting. We had a lot of good discussion. So I just want to let you know primarily that that committee is becoming active again. Myself or someone from the committee will be reporting to you throughout the next coming year. A couple of one exciting thing we're hoping to bring in some workshops during this time for town discussion, not only on town meeting, but other issues in town to try to get that town meeting feel. I think the discussion on the ballot, Australian ballot item, I thought that was fantastic. We had people expressing their views for and against civility and people on myself hearing reasoning for and against saying that's great. And other sides saying that makes sense. So that was fantastic. So I'm hoping that the people there who think we're coming is antiquated will hopefully take a little bit of that away and realize that it's more than just the vote and the whole concept of town meeting goes farther than that. So just want to let you know that we're working. There'll be you'll be hearing things coming out from the committee in the future. And if you do have something from being there town meeting that either bothered you or you know something you think would work better, contact me. I think most of you might have my email, my in the old Bethel town phone book, my number's there and still active. So so call me, get some information. Theresa, if you can't reach me and we'll get it. But again, thanks very much. Were you thinking about with Rebecca? I'm going to say her name was wrong. Is it Clark or Day or Susan or Susan Park? Okay. Yeah. You had mentioned that Chris about her. And yeah, I don't want to get too far down the road because it hasn't come to fruition quite yet. But Rebecca is working with her for two other towns who are having the same discussion about Austrian and ballot. And they're working on a workshop presentation for those two towns that we can incorporate if we want to. That'll be something the committee will set up and you guys won't have to be involved. I will be knowing about it and more or less giving us the okay to go that way but use the town or the town hall or whatever. But yeah, that was exciting to hear. Yeah, it was. It was interesting. I think it'll be some good tools. I think overall, from seeing the school meeting the night before and the town meeting the day after, again, haven't had the meeting in a couple years. And first you have the organization of the town meeting, which I think overall went really well. And then we had a pretty good collective amount of individuals that not just came to the meeting but were there earlier than normal. There was a large group of people that were earlier there. Nine o'clock, there was a lot of people there. Pies help. It's not like, usually you're like, okay, it looks like they're coming in, so we're gonna wait like five or 10 more minutes. The majority of the people were there and they were mingling and talking and eating. And I think that was really good. So however we can try to tap into that and sustain that, because it's fresh and new again. I think making it exciting, I think would be good. However we do that. Yeah, well, Tres sent me an email today with some really good suggestions for the next year. So yeah, and if you people watched it, it seemed to be a good variety of different people from different walks of life, age-wise or whatever. Working, not working, retired, whatever. It seemed like it was a really good blend of individuals there. So however we can keep people tied in. And I'm good. I don't want to go on about this, but we say it's pure democracy because it's your vote, you're there. But it is a representative democracy as well, because even though we will never get every resident in town there and just like we'll never get every resident to vote, but it's an excellent cross-section. I mean, there are people there from all spectrum of life that participate and put their vote in. We had a question. Roughly how many were there at the town meeting? We had 165 checked in. 165 checked in. That's almost as much as the number of people that went in, while we went in and voted. So that's the way. Yeah, 202 voted and 165 were present or checked in at some point. I was saying they stayed the whole time, not checked in. So there's so many people difference. And then to put stuff into vote. By voting for it, you're not going to be able to change like one of them stepped down, but then he ended up taking another position. You wouldn't be able to do that if you're voting on them. Well, they would have had to put in their consent of candidate form in advance. You're speaking about Paul Valley. Yeah. But if they don't go to a meeting, they don't understand it and they don't know anybody they should do it to. Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought it was nice. I agree with Rick. There was such a wonderful conversation. Nobody got upset. Nobody got. It was just nice that everybody got to say, and there was so many wonderful things that were said. I mean, we had a gentleman there who lives in Bethel, who grew up in East Germany. And then for him to stand up and talk about it was like, wow, you know, I never thought about that. I just thought it was such a nice cross-section of people and that everybody, you know, just was kind of like a great conversation and then made you really think about everybody's point of view. Because we've had some heated words. I thought it was nice. Oh, yeah. And so I remember the earlier days of how it's, yeah, there was some heated words. Yeah, that was nice. But again, you guys have a lot of work to do. Thanks very much. Thanks Rick. Take care. Thanks, Rick. The only thing you missed is you didn't have you gathered. I noticed that. You're right. You didn't have to gather. That's the first thing I said to Theresa. I can't agree, but I forgot. Yeah, that's it. So Owen had his hand up. Hi everybody. I am here representing the Equity and Inclusion Committee. And I wanted to say thank you to Rick for your facilitation of town meeting. And I think it was a really exciting robust debate about that article. I also thought that it was really wonderful that you read the Declaration of Inclusion out loud to start off that meeting. I think that really, that was a big moment for me. It felt like a shift in how we think about inclusion in our town and really like the forward vocal expression of that intent to be inclusive. It meant a lot to me personally. I also wanted to welcome Denise to the Select Board. We're really excited to work with you. And thank you for your service. And then lastly, I just wanted to remind everybody of the equity or excuse me, the Bethlehem University trainings that the Equity and Inclusion Committee is doing. One of them is Tomorrow Night. It's about the history of slavery in Vermont and the meaning of Juneteenth. That's going to be online via Zoom from 6.30 to 8. And then we also have a training next week on Monday around supporting our community members and residents that are transgender and non-binary. And then at our usual meeting time on the last Tuesday of this month, we'll just be doing a meet and greet to talk about what the Equity Inclusion Committee is and hear from constituents about their needs and thoughts around the issue. So hopefully I'll see some of you there. That's all. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Owen. Sir. Any other public comments, Dave? You know, I was thinking after our town meeting about who we brought up and talked about civics and inclusion and whatnot, a lot of that. And I'm wondering how we as a board appeal about having a student, a high school student, sit here with us. They obviously wouldn't be able to vote, but to be part of the conversation. Because that would include another group of people learning. I think we should have a semester of civics in high school anyway, but we don't. So I guess my question is, how would we feel about asking a student to be part of this board? It seems like if you reached out to the superintendent or the principal of the high school, that they may be a social studies or history or... It seems like one of the teachers would be able to recommend a student that they thought would be good. Or maybe do they still... I'm like 110, but do they still have student council? Is there a student council person? You know what I mean? Or a member that could... I did reach out to the school at the beginning of this year about if they had anybody that would be interested in being a part of the select board or the school board and did not get anything back. But I could reach back out to find that out. Well, I was asking us to make sure that we're okay. Well, I think the thing is you might be okay, but you may not find the person, you know. Well, we tried on school board. We had two people who showed up, two months in a row and never saw them again. Yeah. And that's what happened last year, school board meeting up until June. There was two people that were coming, but then they found the student council. I would hope that there's somebody that's in this employee, the staff that sees that one kid... Yeah. That is that kid that would come. And because he's interested, he is interested. Yeah. No, I think that would be... I don't know, wait. Hello. I think that would be great. At least I mean, I do. We did... That was one thing that the town meeting committee talked about too was outreach and explaining more about town meeting and just how town government works and trying to get that information into the schools. So that may be something too that they end up expanding on. There used to be a program through the Secretary of State's office a long time ago, and I'm not sure if it's still around. I could find it, but it used to be. And it was something that you could go into the schools and give it to people. It's a class. No, the Secretary of State's office, when it was Debra Rathaway, it's had a nice approach. To learn about that. Yeah. The guidance counselors might be able to... Be able to... Guidance counselor. Ping somebody as well, because they probably have more one-on-one with a guidance counselor. Sure. That's a good point. Yeah. I can follow back up to find out if they have anybody that's interested. And then maybe we, as a board, if they do have people interested, maybe we can talk about it and see if we want to bring some on it. I know when I brought it up to them, they were also looking for, and I'll probably say the wrong identity, but for the, I think they call them monitors at the Capitol building that runs on. Pages. Pages. Sorry. So, but they, I believe they didn't have anybody that wanted to do that. So, but I can follow back up and see if they have any interest in anybody that wants to be any part of any type of government. I'll list up. Yeah. All right. Anything else? No, something on there. See anything? So, we, we will move on. One thing I kind of noticed after the fact that we approve the agenda, would anybody on the board have any issues if we move the rules and procedures to the first thing that we do, rather than do a bunch of things and then do the rules and procedures? I just copied it the same way I did it last year. I whipped out March 20 last week. I should have caught that. I did it before. We did the rules and procedures. If we move the rules and procedures first. No. Because Dave has some. Yeah, we can do anything we wanted before. Because Dave had some questions or comments. We give her that. So, this must not be as objection. We're just going to move the rules and procedures piece of it to the beginning. So, the only thing on rules and procedures, so, so the rules and procedures is a few things. So, I mean, we conduct our ways as Robert's rules of order and the open meeting laws. So, those are things that we won't be setting or changing law, but we do have procedures here as a board. So, like, things that we had last year, Denise, would like to limit public comment to three to five minutes per person. So, let's say if we ever got in the situation where there's a hot topic, where a lot of people want to speak, but it also gives the board still the way to extend by a majority of a person's time. Thanks, Mary. So, those are some of the things that we adopt adding above and beyond. One thing that has come up a lot with Thrice is the motions and seconds thing. So, currently the way our rules and procedures is that a motion is made, but it's not required a second. So, as a board, do we want to just do motions only with no seconds, or do we want to amend the board rules to have a second? I like leaving it as is, we can still second. I think when we talked about this in the past, we talked about the fact that the motion being made, when a second is made, it sort of gives an indicator to the rest of the group that, okay, there's at least two people. So, if a third person's ready to vote in the same direction, then you're passing it. And so, it's kind of a litmus test, but I like leaving it as we don't have to have it, and yet we still can have it so that we kind of have that feedback loop to each other of Dave made a motion, and I've seconded it. It kind of indicates to the rest of you, this is direction it's moving in versus not knowing, right? And so, by leaving it the way it's written, we allow ourselves that flexibility. We don't need to have a second. We're not required to, but we still can. There's nothing saying we can. My gripe has only been consistency. If I'm taking the minutes in one motion, there's one person and nobody seconds it, and then the next motion, there's a motion a second. Frankly, it makes it look like I have bad minutes. So, it drives me crazy. I'm like, it's actually with the pattern. Are you either going to do it one way or the other way? The minutes should only report the mover. Well, I'm just, yes, but as someone who's... Yeah, if there is a second. There's a second that's going to be on there. Listen, we've been doing this live. So, that's all. The only great, that was my only issue, is just being consistent. I don't care how you do it, Dave, because yes or no, but... My curiosity, and I just came to this slow brain, was someone made a motion at the school board, and it didn't get seconded, so it died. That's the only thing you might want to think about. If you don't have a second, and there's only one of us that likes it, if you only have to have a motion, then we all have to vote. But if we have to go second, and... It's dead. Yeah. It's dead. Oh, I see what you said. And nobody seconds it, it's dead. And I would say if we're leaning towards having consistency, then my preference would be that we do have a second, because I think it is kind of a nice way to know where we all are. And I think we're, and I don't know, I don't remember the rules for, maybe they didn't have rules back then, but when there was a three-person board, obviously, if you made a motion a second, then that was the majority of votes. Oh yeah, I don't know how they would have done that. With the five-person board, I think you can have that second and still not have the majority vote in it, right? Where the three-person board, you kind of walked in at that point, right? Right, yeah, made it. So I don't know, that was the only thing that stuck out to me was... Teresa's always... I am on you about that. Honest about that. So coming around the gate, do we want to amend it to say that we would require a second? It sounds like Teresa would like us to go one way or the other, either make a motion that doesn't need a second or make a motion and require a second. So to be consistent, what would we like to do as a body? I hope for a second. I hope for a second. Second? I second that second. Second the second board. Third. Yeah, I... So maybe you're good with the second. Second seconds and... So we're just gonna say require a second. In terms of discussion, I would just point out that one of the reasons sometimes for putting something before the body is to get a recorded vote. Right. And if there is just a motion, it does not die for lack of a second, but it does require then a recorded vote. And sometimes that's important to know. But a second still gives a vote. I think if you have no second, the recorder could say one, four and four against and be correct. Well... Yeah. I'm just... I think you could get... You could record it that way and you would be... Is it tough about it? Right. I'd have to look. Like, can somebody ask for... I was just thinking like, with the Robert Rule of the Order, can somebody ask for a majority vote even if it's not seconded? Probably. I would have to look. I don't know. The man asked left. Just left. Yeah. I'd have to look. Because there might be something in the rules that states like you could ask for. Like a board member could ask for a majority vote. Or you could just say to the chair, hey, could we just get a consensus or how do people feel about it and kind of walk away with a consensus? But... So I guess you could put it into you know, number five, we could say motions made by members of the body require a second. However, any select board member can ask for a majority vote. I think there's somebody that said... It says a motion will only pass if it receives the votes of a majority of the total membership of the body. Right. But there's something here where a member can read it today that can request a roll call. Oh, that's right. Yes. So even if your motion didn't, you could request... Where's that at, Dave? Somewhere in here. Yeah, I remember reading that as well. Isn't it... Is it number... It's number four under meetings. E4, it says. Yeah. Member of the body, blah, blah, blah. When the meeting is made and is able to hear and be heard through the meeting, whenever one or more members attend electronically, voting that is not unanimous must be done by a... Must be done. I read that you can ask for it. But... I could also look up Robert's rules and let you know. Yeah, number seven. Is any member of the body may request a roll call? Oh, there you go. When one or more members... So then we have a mechanism in there. We don't... Okay. I don't know if I can add discussion point or not. But in my years of experience, at least having it in the record that it was moved and not seconded shows everybody that it was heard. And that's important. Yeah, we would definitely do that. I agree with that. If somebody made a motion and there was no second, I totally agree that we put it in the minutes. You're right. But so it looks like number five and seven work out. So if we put five in there, that will state that... We'll just remember it works. That it does require a second. So restrict out... Do not. Do not. Yeah. And then bullet point seven allows the body. The member to request a roll call vote. Sure. But it still... It still kind of almost talks about that somebody's attending electronically. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, but you finished with seven. A roll call vote is required for votes that are not unanimous. So if you say all those in favor say aye and I don't say aye, this says we now need a roll call vote. That says only if one or more is attending electronically. So that's why I wonder like this. Does that become part of this? Any member of the body or maybe... I don't know. I think it's a separate... Any member of the body who require request a roll call vote. Period. Added the addition. Yeah, I think that's an addition. That's been a newer evolution. I think so. Okay. So... This is the way I would read that is... At any point in time, anybody or any member of the body can request a roll call. Let's get one VSA 312A2L and then we can read it. Dave really wants to be here late tonight. He does. He's working on it. I don't have to work. I don't have to work. Yeah, the thing too is you got Paul's name on the sign sheet. I know I did because this is what you adopted in 2022. Oh, gotcha. So it says if you're going to read off, I would have updated it. Okay, sign it. Does it... Dave, Eddie had the same question what he called me today. Exact same question. And Dave, Eddie has a couple more. Or you bought this thing. He has a couple more. Okay. Do we need to vote on it? Yes. Once you do the whole thing, Dave has a couple of edits. On C, organization, paragraph three. But we haven't voted on the... Are you going to vote on them singularly or the whole group? No, we haven't voted on the amendment to number five yet. I think you could just do the whole thing as once. Yeah, we could do the whole thing as amended at the end. If we... So everybody's good with number five. Yeah, that's what we did last time. Okay. All right, Dave. A majority of the members of the body show constitute a quorum. If a quorum of the members of the body is not present at the meeting, no meeting shall take place. I'm suggesting that that says no action shall happen. Right. Because we're... No meeting... Depends on how you interpret, but I interpret it as, okay, I'm not all here, go home. If there's three of us, if there are two of us here and we got something to talk about, we can talk about it. So we can't decide anything, but we can talk about it. So you wanted to say is not present at a meeting, comma, no action may be taken. Yes. Because you don't need a quorum to start a meeting. You just need a quorum to do action in a meeting. What's the open meeting law say? It depends on... About meeting... If three or more of us are in a... We're talking about no quorum. You and I can just talk on the street about all anything we want and not tell anybody we're talking about it. Okay, okay. If three of you were at a energy committee meeting, you're not there as a select quorum. So you can't make a decision about anything. It's still three. That's a very... That's a majority. I'll go home. It's not a warn meeting. So yeah, and you're there. I'm just trying to... So I'm a member of the Janku public and I wanted to come and say something and that they're... Well, they would know. Well, okay. There's no meeting. So they need to under... So we would need to make sure that that person understands that they are not speaking to the whole board. Oh, absolutely. I think the majority of the time, we know in advance if there's a quorum, so we would just reschedule. But if someone, you know, Lindley forgot, say, for example, and didn't show and you didn't have a quorum, then we could tell... Then we would definitely tell people. Because this is a legit meeting. You're right. I just ran it, I think. Yeah. Of all the options, technically. The implications. Yeah. The quorum of the... I'm just teasing you. No accent. So the open meeting law says, the law applies when there is, one, a quorum of a public body. Two, involved in a discussion or taking action. And three, the subject matter of the discussion. Is one over which the body has authority or responsibility. That's the way it reads right from... So it requires a quorum present. Yeah. See, that kicks it all. So it says, the law applies when there is, one, a quorum of a public body. Yeah. Two, involved in a discussion or taking action. And three, the subject matter of the discussion. Is one over which the body has authority or responsibility. It's interesting that it doesn't say duly warned either. Like in your case, you can't. No, it doesn't. But that's interesting. Well, that could be. Even though it has to be. You'd have to meet all three. So that kind of takes that into consideration. You had others, right, Dave? Yeah, I got Dave as a handful. I got two more, but Chris covered one of them. On in E, meetings paragraph four. As, that's where we are in this time. Second line going to the third line. So long as the member identifies him or herself when meeting is convened. I would think it would be appropriate for us to change him or herself to themselves. We should ask Owen if that's the right. Sure. Would that cover everybody, Owen? Raising Owen. That works. Huh? Yeah, that works. Okay. All right. Is that what you are? Are you happy with that? Yeah. So you're just saying strike him and her input with themselves, right? Because I feel. Is it them or? It's inclusive of every. Any. Just a step to see them. Okay. So they can walk and talk and breathe. Yeah. So themselves. So they don't have to walk. Okay. And they don't have to talk. They don't. Okay. They do have to breathe. You do have to breathe. Breathing is essential. All right. I feel like you had one more. Oh, I thought you had another. No. Yeah, there was a Denise thing. Okay. Oh, yeah. So did we have any other suggestions or amendments to the select board procedure? So I just want to make sure we have the right corrections in here and then we can just make one. Yeah. So an agreement on that first one. Yep. Yeah. I'm just going to read back through and make sure we're all on the same page. So under. Under organization. We have number three, which will be amended by adding. By removing. By removing. No meeting will take place to. No action may be taken. And then on paragraph five under organization, we are striking out the do not. So motions made by members of the body require a second. So we're taking out the do not. And then under meetings paragraph four, we are replacing him or her with themselves. And I think you can just do one motion to adopt the rules of procedure. As amended. Yeah. I mean to adopt the rules. Are we talking about here? Those are procedures. Those are procedure as amended. Second. Okay. All in favor. All right. All right. All right. See if I do the first and the second. Yeah, I do. It's consistent. So we are good with that. So now we'll get into. So some of these things needs to this designating. So a few things tonight is designating, you know, the source of media that we use, the paper, the spots and physical locations of which things are displayed for meeting. Meeting notices. And it's a fire by statute that they do it. And then yeah, okay. So the first one is to make a motion to designate the Herald as the new newspaper of record. So moved. And we've established that one is better area. I mean, Valley News is probably the next option that is not as regional. So, okay. So all in favor. All right. And then behind that is the motion to designate the town clerk's office, the town manager's office, and Bethel Public Library as physical locations to post meeting notices. So moved. Second. Hey, all in favor. All right. Yeah, to quote. I was just curious that it's always, I've always wondered that the town manager's office and the town clerk's office is the same building. I've often wondered that too. Two separate entrants. I know. Two separate entities. I've wondered the same thing. But everything is on that end of town. Do we have anything up where is it? Great, just a library. Just seems like the wish to me that we're missing somebody. We're missing some people. It's hard because we don't have access to. I mean, you can't guarantee that. So if we did it at Mascoma, then, but there's people that don't bank there. And then if you do, I'm not sure, the post office doesn't, I'm going to leave allow that sort of thing. Right. So you kind of your options are limited. That's why we put it now on front porch forum and have it on our website. And so people can combine the agenda. But I agree. I thought it was weird when I'm like, it's the same building. I thought it was weird. But if we had another place that was open, it would, because I'll be honest too, it takes up a lot of space. We need like an entire bulletin board. By the time we post all the zoning stuff and all the meetings, and I mean, it's a lot of space to ask someone to give up to as well. We have an outdoor board on Richardson's store for a while. And I don't remember seeing much town stuff on that. Mostly people, sale or sale, but it wasn't much town stuff that we're posting here. Yeah. I wonder if that's where the post office is again. I know, I know that they don't allow for profits to post on there. So you can't advertise on there. But the bulletin board there is fairly empty most of the time. So I just wonder if they would be open to that. Yeah, it might be. Maybe that maybe being a federal entity, they are excluded to only not a public store. And we do, when we do supplements, like bonds have to go in five places. I think that's a place that we use. So we can ask. Yeah, maybe the capacity is the issue. Yeah, it could be. And in the meantime, we could still. We can always add them. We can always add or just do it. So I'll ask. I'll ask. We could always get in our car and go to everybody's house. Good. Don't put them in the mailbox. That's right. Oh, yes, that's against law. You know, that's right. Tampering. Okay, I'll ask. All right. I get a vote. Who best to. And then typically we have one board member who will go in and sign all the weekly AP and payroll pieces before I don't want to say we blindly signed them at select board level. But we do like usually one of our colleagues will double check everything. And then and then we sign at the meetings. So it takes. Takes a few minutes. Paul's done it. I don't know. I did it. I've done it for you. I did it. Why? You did it. Done it. Probably 10 minutes or so. And 15 minutes. And two minutes. How big the pay order is. Paul got really good at it because he did it all the time. So we saw the vendors. He knew who what payroll was. So I think in the beginning it's going to take somebody a few minutes. But once you get going, you know, Paul always kind of knows what to look for. So I think it's like anything. Once you get going, you'll be. Pam tried really hard to foil me. She had things in incorrect orders. I had to ask some questions. She tried hard. That's right. Is that a once a week thing or? Yep. We do AP one week and payroll another week. I know Denise said you might be. Just. Yeah, might be interested in doing that. And it's so. But yeah, it's once a week. Somebody does AP or one week. It's AP and one week. It's payroll. This week. It's payroll. And yeah, I just I just did AP. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's Paul was like I said, he was. He had it. How many years did you do it? Paul all six. Yeah, right from the get. I'd be happy to talk to anybody who wanted to go over, you know, what I did or what, you know, doesn't take very long. You spend more time visiting than you do working on. The other stuff. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Paul had mentioned that to me a time or two. If I would be interested and I said I would be. There you go. Don't have to tell Dave. I'm motion. I move to authorize Denise. Second. All in favor. Aye. I wanted to move to nominate Paul, but yeah. And then let's see. Next up we have is the resolution to warn and hold a special town meeting to vote by Australian ballots. So that's regards to the bond. Yep. So good news was obviously the bond, you know, blew it. I guess. Thank you so much. Yes, that's Chris. I text him to say, Hey, did you happen to see the votes? He calls me. It's like, you know, I'm like, thank you so much. I just lose your chance. Yeah. I heard that I could hear Pam giving a hard time in the background. So we'll have the revoked or the actual vote on April 18th at the town, at the school, excuse me, and for the water bond. So the resolution is clear on we have to call it a special town meeting. So it gives you in your packet, you had the resolution to warn and hold special town meeting to vote by Australian ballot on issuance of general obligation bonds or notes also showed you what the special town meeting warning looks like, which is very similar to what you saw before. And it's the same wording. Obviously the Australian ballot is the same wording except for at the header says special town meeting warning. So we will need a motion to approve adopt the resolution. It's sad to me that we've got to the point where we have to have seven pages of legal mumbo jumbo to say what about it? I know. I'll second that. It'll only get longer as the time comes. All right, it's all in favor. All right. All right. So you have to sign this and then I have to put it in the newspaper. So here we go. I got a, can you sign it and pass that around here at the top? So thank you very much. Apologize again for the screen. So I'm going to work on beating my 200, only 202 people voted. I want more than that this meeting. So I'm going to be like spreading the word. Yeah, you need a second motion. I just not as you technically do, but I want one in the minutes just for the budget meeting warning and Australian ballot. Since they're two separate, the Australian Special Tax Meeting Warning is here. We're going to door to door. No minor. Grace, you're going to go door to door. No minor. No minor, but it's okay. E-Bike. This is the matter of principle now. E-Bike. E-Bike, that's right. Dave Aljugade has an E-Bike. So, and then we just need another motion. Yep. We're the special town, media, the morning and the cost of the ballot. So much. Second. Okay, Ellen paper. Thank you. Don't forget to send that to a design. Newspaper of record. Where are you? This is just reminding me that's all right. Now that they are official. Yep. It won't be on it. Right. And the next two is we had some work that we bid out to week ago. So, yeah, we could do a go that. Trees wants to go over. Yeah, I do. So we, as I had said to you before, I had a couple of projects out. So the Christian Hill road project, we did it in two pieces, obviously. So dirt work is one bid and then the paving was a second bid. So we had, I put in your packet the bidders and where they came in and any notes that I made. Obviously somebody had an incorrect bid sheet and you can see the price. So you can see all the prices, excuse me, for the total bid as well as how much it was. And I broke it down by pricing. So the only big, the only difference really, which seemingly is negligent is the type of stone used for the underdrain. But so the low bidders would be for this would be WB Rogers for $25 for the dirt work and pike for the paving for 231. 337 50. So once it's awarded, we'll get probably get pike and WB together to work out a schedule since we have to maintain once pike comes in. They is the word reclaim. Yeah. As they do the reclamation, they come in and take up the pavement. So once that happens, then you want WB to start and then in WB finishing and pike paving, the town maintains the road. So we want to try to tighten that schedule up as much as we can. So we'll put the two of them together to work that out. What is the question? What does bike do with the reclamation? It goes into the road. It's right in the room. I guess the question I had on that. And I think I brought up to before. So the Christian Hill project. So if we award both of these, how does that compare to the budget that we had set? I think that we, I looked back after, and I think we had around 400. I think if I was, I did go back and eyeball it. So together we were under what we thought, I know I need to add. I'm going to make a deal with WB Rogers. I want to do add another culvert that we didn't do as part of the base. There's a culvert that you and Morgan talked about. Dave to add that. I also, excuse me, have Richard and. Aaron Perez of rural water coming tomorrow. And those come tomorrow. We'll see. And there is, we believe the water line crosses Christian Hill. It goes up like Christian Hill comes like this. There's an old part of Christian Hill and the water lines there. And then we believe, or we know what crosses. We're going to try to figure out where, because once we have it open up, we'll replace that piece of water line. It's got to go across roads and. Exactly. So, um, there, Richard was in today pulling record drawings and looking, and he had locator. Excuse me. So we had locator one type of water pipe. Well, that's who's coming tomorrow on rural water because. I don't know, but the bottom line is that, or the problem becomes is that we believe cherry lane is plastic pipe. So it depends where the connection is and all that. So, but we do have some maps. And Richard was looking at, at those today. Cause. So if we're going to dig up and do this to Christian Hill and then say cherry lane becomes part of our net phase three. I don't want to look like a fool by cutting into beautiful pavement. You know, in five years or less, less than five years. I don't want to do that. So we'll locate that as well. And then the grant that we've got for Christian Hill. Was that to 175 or was that the new 200? We had 200,000. Okay. So the new grants are over 200,000. Yeah. We had 200,000 for paving. I think our match was to, was 25. So we were pretty close to covering all of the paving. So that, that 200 will. Go towards the budget at 400,000. Yeah. The, the basically the grant we got is almost going to cover our paving the whole paving. The state just changed the pay. They call them paving grants, but they're. Yes. You can do some other things on paving, but they're normally $175,000. But due to the inflated costs of things, the state just put out late last year. They switched it to doing 225 now. To cover that. So I didn't know if ours was, I think we got on the old one or if they did what, but it sounds like we got the new one. We got 200,000. And then we had pony up 25,000. So it actually almost covered the bid. So. Which was. How to rate about that. And then two, obviously when I say we're going to award this bid, you know, the way it is WB, we all have some questions about what's really under there. So we are hoping that we don't have to put in all 2000 linear fee of the under drain. So there may be some savings there, or maybe we roll that into additional gravel, but it really doesn't. So I've heard every story. I swear about, you know, what's up there. It's ledge. No, it's clay. No, it's it. We aren't going to know. Once it comes out, once it's up, then we'll be able to see and. And the road foreman will work with, you know, WB and pike to say, okay, here's some places we maybe need to box out and do some work too. So. I can give you a couple of places. Yeah. I'm sure. And we'll be able to see it. That's the problem. That was done. They did the. They didn't do it. The way they do it now, they took the, they reclaimed the pavement and took it down there. They mixed it with something else. And then they put down a. They did an alternative treatment like that. That lasted as long as any pavement I've ever seen. And sit her in the road. So. I can give you a couple of places. Yeah. I'm sure. And we'll be able to see it. That's the problem. Right. That was done. They did the. They didn't do it. It was fine. But it's not. It wasn't. It was fine. We've never seen an sitter in the road. The trucks that run that road. Yeah. And that's the other thing is the reason this is little more is we're going to put down. I believe those five inches. Or the pavement for that. So. Compensate for it. So a normal town road is four inches. When you get to the state roads, there are like nine inches of pavement. So we're doing five. I heard the interstate was 14. Well, maybe. No. Yeah. driving up the barrier and if you missed that passing lane it was it was down there. So the idea is for us within reason is to fix the drainage issues that we have on that road because a lot of the reason why the road failed now is because of drainage. There's so much water. So reditch it if there's any soft spots in the road within reason we're going to fix those or not we Rogers would fix those. So we hope to have a lot better product this time around that will last longer. So but there's there's a lot of things up there. There's ledge. There's someone said there's a spring that runs through there. There's a bunch of different next road hill there is. Yeah, there's a bunch of different things. Someone else was like mysteries play up there. And then I'm like and then someone else is like are you going to blast or let us hammer out my new with its ledges. So there was a so I guess I'm just wait and see. We'll know what to find out. Yeah. Yeah, the road will be open for one. You know, obviously we can't divert rock of ages. So there and which everybody knew we were very clear. I was very clear about that pre bid. So hopefully homeowners will divert because you know how don't you last a lot longer because we had Irene came down that way. They did. After it was really there. I didn't come down there almost nose to tail. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. All the garden trucks. Yeah. And then the extra one they had that came off the top of the hill in the interstate to get it go up on the interstate. Yeah. Yeah. So they were just yeah. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. We should have got some FEMA money for them. Should they should have just like they should have for sandpile. So we so we'll need two motions on the pit on the pike one all sustained from voting on it. However, I don't normally vote on it. Anyways, unless there's tie, but if there happens to be it happens to be a tie, you guys are just going to fight it out. Do get out. So pair of teams and do a part one approved WB Rodgers for the amount of $138,375. So I can pay on paper. Right. Right. And we just need one for the payment portion of that. Move to approve pike for the amount of $231,337.50. Don't forget. Right. Second. All right. So we're good with those. And then the last one we have is the right road. Gilead road. Yep. So, so I had so it is the Bellavance land works for a price not to exceed $35,256. I spoke to Brock of Bellavance and we talked and I'm gonna get back to him this week about the Culver install. As you can see, it was just a huge number. And I called him and said, look, I may pull I could pull the whole bid because I have $25,000 in grant for this project. I said, well, I'm gonna, well, the town will grade it. We're gonna have to cut back some of the work. Are you still willing to work with me? He was like, absolutely. And I said, can you take a peek at your Culver work? I said, it's really interesting. And he then he emailed me back after we hung up and he's like, Hey, can you send me a copy of my bid sheet? I want to look at my numbers and make sure I didn't like I work on over here if I didn't, you know, put a different number in. And I told him, I said, look, this is what I have for grant. I'm not saying I'm gonna cut you to that. We'll see what the work is. And it's not in with everybody else. But we need, you know, we'll talk about that price. So he was very much open to that. And I think it'd be nice to have somebody, you know, that number just way out. And once I sent him the bid stuff, he was that's I actually I sent him this tabulation. And then he emailed me as like, Hey, can you give me a favor and send me my bid sheet? And I'm gonna look at it and I'm gonna give him a call this week. So well, I will work with him. So that's the max. But obviously, I plan on taking some stuff out of the bid. And I told him that. I said, I don't have the money to do all this. And he was fine with it. So we'll negotiate a price with him. Not to achieve. Yep. Yes, sir. So out of that. So we're eating 10,000 higher than like I said, no, I just said I'm not going to I'm going to take out the grading. There's 2,800 and he's looking at his $9,500 price. I basically I'm just I'm saying I needed a price for the motion. But I already told him I'm negotiating out some of this work that I only have 25,000. It was in your packet. Yeah, I don't know what you guys are talking about. Third, you can't see that. That's too small. But what I got was this one. Oh, I, there was two. Yeah. I was wondering what you were talking about. Because I'm like, that's not adding up on my own. I only got one. Oh, Denise only got one too. Yeah. Must be when I was photocopying. You two are the only ones I slide it by as I say, because I'm sitting here going, well, these numbers are definitely not the numbers. These are from the Christian. Yeah, I was sorry. And you're talking about I'm like, well, how's she talking about? Yeah, no, sorry about that. I was photocopied. So once we take out the grading, so there, so we're at 35, I'm taking out the 2800 and I told him he has to look at this number. Okay, because I told him I said, look, I only have $25,000 to do this project. I'm not saying I'm going to cut you all the way to 25, but we're going to look at these numbers. But I said, that number is out of whack. I sent him this bid and then he emailed me back and said, Oh, boy, trees, can you send me my bid? And I haven't spoke to him since. So I needed a number for the motion. But I've already told him I was taking out grading and that I only have 25,000 to do the project. So I'm going to cut him back. But he was the he was the low bidder. Well, over won't you take out that one because they didn't have a signed contractor page and they didn't their references were I have employees that have done other projects. Well, wasn't the question. So anyway, so yeah, sorry about that. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, now we're on the same page. Trying to figure out when I was kept shuffling throwing them, they double sided on something. Yeah, I've never seen that anywhere. Oh, no, I just have moved to approve Bella Vance Landward's for an amount not to exceed the price of $3,535,256. Like 3,500 better. So that's a second. It's feeling good. Was good. All right. All in favor. Town Manager's report. So I was talking about this for a few minutes before the meeting started, but just to reiterate it. I was speaking today to Jason Booth. He's the one of our engineers from Aldrich and Elliot. And by October 2024, we need to do a waterline service line inventory. We are eligible for, you know, 46 or $56,000. So we can hire someone to do it. And it's a grant and then basically you do the work, you pay the person, they give you the money. And so which is fine. I talked to him a little bit about it today. I'm gonna have a longer conversation tomorrow with Richard. But then he said there's a next step. The next step is that the EPA is going to require service lines that are galvanized to be upgraded. And he isn't sure about the money, but there's money attached to what he thinks that's coming from the EPA. And my comment was aren't they in for a legal battle? Because our ordinance and I bet you everybody else's water ordinances or a lot of them say that after the curb stop, it's the responsibility of the homeowner. And he said he did not know yet the language is not out there, of course, to say, are they going to have the homeowners replace it and then give the homeowner the money? Are they going to give the town the money to have us replace it for the homeowner? And I'm like, Oh, great. So he said he didn't know for sure, but that was coming down the pike. And I'm like, you know, is that going to be, well, you know, my concern is if we're going to move towards face to reach. I know what mine is because I just did mine. Yeah, a few years ago. So I know that's what mine is. That's what I say, Jade. And so he's saying that part of this, they can't make part of the service line inventory. Well, what they, I bet you what they, they could do, which would be just as ugly would be to give us a pot of money for people to basically to hire a contractor to offer this service. I could just see it's going to be, I can't see how they it's not going to regulate that. So I don't know either. I think that they they have to be smart to realize there'd be a legal battle. So I don't know what the wording will be. Well, just Dave, Eddie, as a citizen, I'm really concerned about what's going on in my failure, like the Affordable Heal Act that I have crashed and burned for two years. Yeah, because they didn't have all their eyes dot and T's crossed. They didn't know what they were talking about. So because they didn't know all because Dick was talking about it before I get passing and then being in this kind of bubbly hold for two years and and but one of the things he also had mentioned that I have not had a chance to look into yet. I'm not sure if any of you are aware of that aware of it, but he had mentioned about developing and how they're working with activity. So the towns would have to apply for an umbrella permit for the developers. And you know, to me, that just screams unfunded mandate because I don't know what that would entail. How much it would cost? Who would we pass the cost on to? But I was going to ask you, Dave, are you familiar or anything familiar with Act 250, this Act 250 umbrella permit? Never heard of it till the town meeting. Yeah, so I was ready to raise my hand, but I was like, I'm just going to wait and ask. But so I'm going to reach out to Dick McCormick or not Dick McCormick. I'm going to Google it and figure out what it is and what it entails. And then if, you know, right to Dick and or Kirk, and if it's... Yeah, I don't understand what he's talking about because Act 250 right now does not govern renewable energy products. No, he was talking about development in general when he was talking about the housing industry. And if somebody wanted to come put in a big housing development, then he's saying instead of them going through Act 250, so they could fast track it, we'd get, I never like that. The town would get an umbrella or a van that would meet certain criteria. I don't know. But to me, it was like more money in time. Act 250 is a double-edged sword. Yeah. It's good and it's bad. And that's that's the tricky thing with it is it's it's thorough. But it's very time consuming. And so there's arguments for both sides of it. Well, I'll reach out to like Kevin Geiger, maybe or somebody and ask them if we'll figure out what this Act 250 umbrella permit is. I wasn't sure if any of you had heard of it. I had not. And frankly, I don't think I want to know because that could be really time consuming. And what's the cost and none of the things I like. Our time and our money. Now, is that everything else is in the report? I think we've covered it. Okay. The internet meeting dates. Oh, yeah. I guess I didn't know about that. All right. Sorry about that. The. Okay, so I'm going to be on vacation from April 27th to May 9th. So I just want to put this out there. Either we could either skip or reschedule the May 8th meeting, we could reschedule to May 15th, or we could, you know, I'm thinking as we wait a little bit longer in April to see what our schedule looks like, because you may be, you know, we may say, look, we don't need that meeting. There's not much there. So we could just do our regular one meet, we could do a meeting in May. And then I know Chris has a conflict with our June meeting 26. So if anyone has conflicts with that meeting date, let me know. Otherwise we'll run it. Someone else will just have to act as chair for that meeting. But if there's other people of conflicts and we're not going to have a quorum, we'll reschedule that meeting. So maybe we'll just address these as we get closer. But I just kind of wanted to put it out there and just to throw it out there. May does have five Mondays. So OK, so we can always you know, do this. Yeah, the night meet the third instead of the second or fourth. Yeah. So you know, could yeah meet on a different Monday. Yeah, I'll just keep an eye on it and see what your agenda is going to look like, because I just at this point, I don't know. And obviously I won't the week before if I'm out, I won't be able to do an agenda schedule. So we could do. Oh, you said you're gone from April 27th through the night. OK, yeah. So you're going to miss the first two Mondays, right, which we don't normally meet the first Monday anyways. And I will say normally I do say I should try to have that one for you. I know nobody. No. I don't think so. And normally I am plus two. I wouldn't have time to do the agenda. So we can work with you and work for a while. Huh? Take my computer. I mean, we could just do one meeting. That's what I'm saying. I know at times there's some things slow down or that the board. So and it may be that. OK, that's why I'm just saying is I just want to put it out there. Let's revisit it in April when I have a better idea of what's coming and then maybe we will have to meet back to back. But may having five Mondays, it seems like it would make sense to do the third of the fifth yeah, Monday and just bump it, bump it all back a week. Yeah, but that and that may goof up too many people too. Is the fifth memorial there? Good point. They don't care about holidays. Oh, I don't either. We're here. But so let's just if you don't mind. Right. The third and the may third and the fifth week. So may be the twenty eight. Oh, the third and the fifth week. Yeah, because you said that's what I was going to say. Yeah, 29. So the 15th and the twenty ninth. That's what that's what I was so why don't we just take a look as we get a little closer? Yeah, because I could reschedule that one to the 15th and then you could meet as usual. I mean, we still have one, two, three meetings before we write to make a decision. That's what I'm saying is let's wait and see because you may need to move and you may not. So you may just be able to skip a meeting. We can just load up the one before and the one after it. Look at Dave. He's giving you the evil eye. You get one freebie day. I think of that. I'm free. I have to stay late. Yeah, so let me just see. And you're already here. Minor, too. I mean, I could put together an agenda before I go and it could just, you know, Chris would have to fill into it if there's something extra. I could, you know, something like that if we had to. And then we will I should be that point driving home. So we'll see. Have you on speaker call? Yeah, I don't think you want to hear. I've done it. Carmen and yeah, I could see. Yeah, my husband would have to be you know, gagged because he'd be like saying things. So no. Sorry. Yeah, then Chris again. So let me know about the in June because he's going to be gone. I just want to make sure we're going to have a forum that night. So and just do without me and someone will be ready to be chair if if we have forums. And that's what I told you the vote. So obviously cannabis is passed. So the only ones up for a vote to rescind in this case would be cannabis. People have 30 days. So but because it's Australian ballot, so. But at this point, I haven't heard any rumors about that. So when. When would we have to establish a cannabis board? Is that once we have somebody that wants to put in a retail space and they've been approved, then we would that or do we have to immediately establish a. Well, we're going to have to consider whether or not we even want to do one. You don't have to do one. OK, I thought you had to know the state will. Then I think what happens is if you don't have one, everything goes to the state. But then what do you what do we have power over the only thing that you really are going to be able to do is to make sure that the permit adheres to current zoning regulations, but they're going to have to get a zoning permit anyway. And it has to be inside. Yeah, I mean, it can't be outside the commercial zone anyway. It can't be outside it where retail is allowed. So retail is allowed in, you know, certain districts. So you can't zone it out, which we didn't, but people will have to get a zoning permit. But the day after the vote, someone from the store did call and they said, can they move forward and we just ham reminded them there's a 30 day vote to rescind. So, but. OK, so we'll just take that as it comes up. Yeah, so I haven't had a chance to go back to the level to see if they've done any more updates. But I'm not sure. I mean, if we do it, I would assume, in my opinion, the select board should be the cannabis control board. You're already the local liquor control board. You know, we have some authority there that I don't see any authority that can have this control cannabis control board. They're going to just they're going to be puppets. Yeah, they don't have it. No, and you don't really have a lot of liquor lights. So if you don't really have it, you just want to take care of anything we can do. Right. I mean, it's similar to liquor lights because back in the day, you used to actually get reports from the local liquor control agent that if somebody had gotten trouble or they, you know, for something you were you were you were told about their violations, but not anymore. So it is it's kind of one of those things that seem like you're no longer like sign this, do that. And we get a hundred bucks for the zoning for the excuse me for the cannabis permit. But so we'll go over the fine rules and you can decide whether or not you even want to form a cannabis control board. What's the age to purchase cannabis 21? So. OK. We had a select board minutes from the 27th of February. Chris, I have a couple corrections. OK. The next meeting I said in there was the 10th of April. And that's not right. Change it to 313. And I did not put a sentence in about a journey. Do not know what time we adjourned, but it was. Is this the 27th? Again, the right one on the 27th. I amended it. I put in the motion to adjourn. Oh, I was just looking at the minutes that that you sent me. OK. But did you catch the motion to adjourn and the next meeting date? I didn't put it in here. But yeah, I did see that it was incorrect, but it didn't matter because we normally met when we met. I did see that it was wrong, but I didn't I just took it out because. I think people knew what schedule we were on, but yeah, I did. So the adjourn time is in there correctly, but there's no mention of the next meeting. No, right. OK. And. And do the rules and procedures to tell us that we need to have the next meeting date? I don't know. I'll have to go back and look. Normally, you don't put it in there. All it says, I thought it says that we meet on the first. Yes, I get it. Second, I think we're good. Yeah, it's got the end of the and then in Denise was present and her name isn't on here. We didn't have her. She told me that today. So we had and you were sitting right next to Rick Benson. So I don't know how I. So I'll add Denise, so I'll have to amend the minutes to include Denise. OK. Anything else or just need a motion to approve the meeting minutes as amended? So move. Yeah, in favor. All right. And there were a couple of other communications in there, the R.B. Recreation Committee. And there's that. And it was the finances for the February. Oh, Dave, look at that. I have seven fifty six. We're not done yet. Oh, we're not. I've heard most of your journey. I have another question. I don't I can awful them because I can ask you in the office. Sure. Yeah, I'll be there. I have. Steering Committee Monday night or no, today is Monday. I have second meeting tonight. Wednesday night is Steering Committee and Thursday night is planning commissions. I'll be in Bethel three nights or shoot me an email or whatever day. Well, yeah, I did put some notes. I told Denise about the budget status report and did tell her that any questions I do try to hand write some notes on there. Things we've got. The are we going to discuss the sidewalk replacement or is that are you guys in the equipment committee going to decide that equipment committee will decide and then bring it to the select board. So they actually tested out something because the Equipment Committee was kind of torn amongst themselves. So just so last week they left North Main Street and they someone had brought in a skid seer. And so what they were doing was they went through different parts down to see where it would fit, where it wouldn't fit. And there only was a small section. Morgan said where it wouldn't fit. And he's like somebody could totally shovel that out. Where the rest of the shop to my place at W and because they also had another there was a tractor option, but it won't fit under the awning of the store. Richards and store. So they are looking at it. So right now I spoke with AJ on Thursday and had asked them to go through and make a list with all the equipment, like what's wrong with everything that when we sit down and have a meeting with the Equipment Committee, they'll have stuff in advance. They can keep tires, decide, you know, look at a few things. And it may be that the cost of equipment is just it went from like this to this. And I do believe that we're going to end up we're going to be making an equipment payment on something. And we've talked about that before saying that the money for setting aside just this rate is not enough. It may be that we make a down payment and then we have a loan payment for a piece of equipment because the age, the way the things were purchased and the kind of the way they're staggering out is you have the loader, the backhoe in the greater, like in a clump. And that's that ain't good. So basically they weren't so the Equipment Committee started pushing them back. Well, they've also you had the problem is you're making you're dealing with what you have at the time and trying to make some judgment calls about what we can what can last what won't last and what maybe just needs some money done to it. And the fact is just that the maintenance or lack there of and some things that have happened to the equipment. It's just kind of blew me away. I was up there at the garage the other day because I'd asked him about the sidewalk stand. They were saying the loader needs new tires and they're five grand apiece. Isn't it nuts? Are you kidding me? I mean, like it's crazy. How do you get five thousand dollars into a tire? I know. And and it's funny because one of the same tire overseas would be four times much. Yeah. And we talked to A.J. and I were talking about it because when we meet the Equipment Committee, we talk about this schedule all the time. And A.J. had made some phone calls and he's like, trees, the numbers that we had in there. He's like, even in this last two years have gone. That truck went from here to here. And, you know, and we had added more money each year to add to the equipment. And it's just. It's not sustainable to that rate of that. And then right now they're telling us that we should order an next truck that we probably won't see for maybe three years and we don't have to accept it, but at least get an order to get in the pipeline. So it's just an interesting or sad, you know, situation right now. I think we've got to have a real I mean, I don't know, obviously, I think it's up to the select board to put it out there. I would say, OK, you think you figure out how much money we need and we'll put in the budget rather than borrow. Yeah. I mean, we've got one and a half percent on the on the Sand Hill job, but that's that's going away quick. Oh, absolutely. That industry is already more. Yeah. And it may I'm not even talking about this year. I'm talking about maybe in the next, you know, three to five years. But that's still going to go up. Oh, yeah. No, it's tough to know. I agree. And that's one of the things that one of the reasons that what I had said to AJ and Morgan was you need to make a list of everything that you think is wrong with each piece of equipment. And then let's look at this. And AJ was calling to get some more updated pricing to kind of look at it and say, OK, what are we, you know, going to do here? And how are we going to, you know, it's always think right, you have this this much need, this much money. So I'm hoping to have the equipment committee together in the next couple of weeks. I'm waiting for AJ and Morgan to gather some information and get it to the equipment committee so they can digest it and then get everybody together. But it's difficult for sure. Yeah, it was it was disheartening to see that last snowstorm beyond me, there's people that are in their 80s, they've already had need of an ambulance and the snow is this deep and nobody's going to have to plow anything yet. Also, I plowed our road, which is after I told that you can't do that. Well, come out, stop me. Yeah, because there's a need. Yeah, absolutely. And we also, yeah, because we were also down a person. I know. Yeah. So yeah, so we were it, you know, I don't know what our exposure is, if we're obligated to clear the road and Bob Dean hips over and an ambulance can't get there to save it. The fire department would have got about, I mean, but you do what you can. I mean, in that case, I understand when you have, yeah, and we were out with the greater. So I mean, I think at that, I don't think our liabilities any greater than it is what it is. I mean, we have no other person to draw, you know, you're down a person, you're down at that point, we're down the international. And I think the freight liner work, you know, was on and off. So you have. Okay, I'm just saying, but no, you're right. I don't, I think it was very nice. I didn't realize that you bowed. So thank you very much. And so nice people will do that. We hadn't made it to the top of Sugar Hill yet. And that was a conversation I had with Morgan and one of the guys who looks at the top plowed down and I said, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you needed to do that. So no problem. But again, we have somebody near the top who may have needed an ambulance and that's private road down to that date. More than halfway down there, the private road. Right. But the person who that, you know, someone who was older that lives up there is on Sugar Hill, not on a private road. So, but the person at the top who has a private road was one who was kind enough to plow down. So well, look at all those people in Tahoe that have 10 plus feet of snow, but they've been trapped up in those mountains for weeks now. Very scary. We couldn't get out. But it's. When you couldn't get out Finley Bridge Road, couldn't get out of a garage. Oh, okay. Couldn't get out of a garage. You'd better run. I get all the stuff. It didn't matter. All right. All right. Any other business come before the board? If not, just entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All right. All right.