 public comment this is comment on anything that is not on the agenda and keep in mind this is for a quick update or something you'd like the board to put on the agenda at a later date that is only a brief statement. I've got maybe one quick one just as a zoom thing and that's we use the owl it's just we're gonna keep folks muted for the most part if you can mute yourself just cuz that's where we're getting some of the echoey feedback stuff we've had the last couple of meetings so if you're muted it's not because we don't want to hear your voice it just prevents that feedback loop if you can unmute to pop in or raise a hand or anything like that that'll help help out with the sound quality right we have anybody on that item seeing anybody let's move to approval of the agenda I'll move to approve the agenda second those in favor hi hi opposed motion carries consent calendar we have some meeting minutes some warrants and some cemetery plots those things just go together so well we all wind up and see at some point right correct just not tonight please I'm not sure that we all end up and see well that's true some of us yeah find up on a mantle piece or whatever I move approval of the consent agenda a second all those in favor opposed motion carries next up is to consider the Kimball Public Library Coupelow grant question so this is one that originally came to you in October I think it was with a grant request there's a $20,000 historic preservation grant that you're asked to authorize the application for which did but the question that still remains from that is this is a an estimated $200,000 project and so obviously it's $20,000 or or a few thousand shy with just the grant and so there was a proposal from the KPL trustees at that point for the use of some McNair funds and then the use of some town capital funds to make up the rest of it so it's a $20,000 grant you have $40,000 in the pledged funds and the remaining 140 would come out of the capital funds that we have in our facilities reserve and that makes the 200 and this would do the cupelow repair that's needed fix the leaks fix some of the copper cladding and and be a longer term more durable fix to some pieces that have been discussed for years and years and so $20,000 grant doesn't usually drive us forward but this is a project that's been in the in the water supply for a little bit we have that money in that facilities reserve we've got about 203,000 in there as of the other day that's after the transfer for this year so there's the money in there to do it is in that capital plan for fiscal 22 so we were thinking we would do it the only challenge might be is that if we do this at the 140 there are two other projects in there that we wish wouldn't have enough to fund with the remaining 63,000 bucks so we either have to figure out where that extra revenue that was anticipated comes from and make sure we go get that or we'd have to maybe re-scope some of those things or because of the timing the difficulty everybody's having finding anybody to do the work you know some of these other factors beyond our control because of COVID might push those timelines out anyway so we do have time that we need to make adjustments that then trickle into the next fiscal year and this is a capital planning going out we can do that the big project that remains after this planned for 22 is repairs to the skylight some of the leaks here at the town offices that's about a $75,000 project in that capital plan so we'll just have to make sure we can figure out how to either make that work or where it goes but the money's there this project was planned and so just you're ready to move forward with it at this point so when we did when Chandler came in with their request for the roof and whatnot we challenged them by having a conversation about us coming up with half of it at the town level and then doing your capital campaign to come up with the balance so seeing that Robin and Amy are on is that a realistic approach I'm going to defer to Amy on that to at least to start sure my point of view here is that unlike Chandler Center for the Arts where the building is owned by the town but it's managed by the non-profit the library is in fact a town and building that's managed by elected town officials so to me it seems as though it's the taxpayers' responsibility really to pay for the maintenance and repairs that the building will cover I've been able to get a ton of grants for the past 20 years that certainly helped me throw the cost on really fingers crossed for that $20,000 from the Division for Historic Reservation and but I think information that was not included in that type that we received really shows that the taxpayers have not been asked to pay for a lot of the capital improvements that have been made on the building I think I have information back to 2009 which I'm happy to screen show with you so the burden on the taxpayers has really been quite white well there's um if you want to single out the budget you could say that but if you look at the entire program around the library I don't know that it's been light and Chandler has had funding left to them they've had different fundraisers and whatnot and yes there's kind of a separate thing there it's kind of a mix but there's some similarities you can draw to the library too there's you know kind of folks that are focused on and supporters of it and whatnot so I'm just wondering you know similar to other entities and other you know um separate types of focuses has there been any thought about doing any type of a capital campaign to help fund this versus putting it down to the tax dollar I do not think that the trustees have thought about using a capital campaign for repairs to the building as it exists now we have we have certainly had conversations about capital campaigns to do what Chandler did to their building which was significantly expand and improve many parts of it but this is this is so I sat on the Chandler board for a really long time and I would say that this is this is a maintenance issue of a building that the town owns training when when Chandler did their capital campaign it was not for maintenance issues on the basic building it was more for they those issues were included but they were not necessarily but they were a part of a much larger vision for the building the library is asking for maintenance basic maintenance of the building that will preserve all of it you know if you've got leaks coming down from your ceiling that's going to mess up a whole bunch of stuff going forward and make make many things difficult so we don't know about the $20,000 grant at this point what is the date that we get that information the um whatever the panel is at the state level that makes that determination needs this month I'm not sure exactly why that happened so hopefully could I ask some questions Trini sure go ahead that some of the figures we got previously looked like it the cops jumped from roughly 160 to 200,000 to replace the blast that was broken was there more that brought it up that much than just that so really that's kind of a contingency but it's because of the nature of the project it's hard to say what a contractor is going to uncover once the whole cover shooting is removed and as you all know the cost for material and for labor has gone up so in the time that I've been pursuing funding for this project all we've seen is increases so that's that's kind of our budget yes um is there any chance of other grants is that basically the only thing that would apply the one who's I haven't found any other grants that are applicable that is there any chance of the trustees allocating more from Kim will come yes I don't know what the trustees would decide as a whole I know that you know that we are more than willing to support this as an endeavor but the the funds that we have like the mcnear funds we there's a broad swath of things that we need to do with those pat you know that meet the the requirements of the people who gave us the funds to begin with I'm not sure I feel like we have the information to make this decision tonight it sounds like we have a scope with a very high contingency value in it we don't know if we have a $20,000 grant coming from the state or whether we'll be what value the town will actually be asking to be committed here and I believe that pat is right that there are other grants there's foundations there's a variety of things out there in the state that help pay for these things we look at the fact that we only have a couple hundred thousand dollars in there and we have some other buildings that need work on them I think you know when we look at this if we don't know what the scope is or close to what the cost is going to be or other funding sources to it we could be asked to commit almost the entire fund that's sitting there to do this project believe me may I may I ask a question please sure come um Robin you suggested that there were contingencies or I don't know if they rose to the level of restrictions on the McNair dollars but can you speak to what those contingencies might be with respect to that bequest I do not think that the bequest was intended solely to fund one project Tom I think that that there were a number of I would don't know that I would describe them as contingencies rather than intense that the you know the intense of the money the intent of the money that was left is relatively broad the trustees know that the building is part of that but but I don't think that the I think if we go back and look at the the money and the the requirements around the money I do not think that fixing absorbing all of the cost of fixing the cupola would be within the spirit of that money there's a lot that the library has done with that you know particularly during COVID to continue its services and outreach to the community and its service to the people that that need us right you know right and need the services that the library provides so I would like to um ask I guess in what regards the library has one I guess why there's a different expectation about repairs to the library than there is day to the post to the school um and last I mean I could be speaking from experience and I will admit that I'm not aware that I didn't did fundraising or performance um or did a capital campaign in order to see that the pool was prepared so I guess I'm wondering why the library the expectation on the library is different I think there's a big difference there Amy in that the pool is part of a recreation program which is managed by the town completely the library is not managed by the town completely it has a select it has its own board it has funds that have been given to it to help in a variety of ways and it's eligible for a lot of grants that other infrastructure is not eligible for so there are some recreation grants out there they're a little bit different all we're doing is trying to figure out is have we looked at all the possibilities for grant funds and other ways to pay this besides putting it on the property tax of the people that have property in Randolph so I would like to make the point that the library is completely under the control of the town in that the voters in Randolph elects the library just to use this the way they elect the select board so this is not you know private foundations it's not a private non-profit we are a municipal entity just because there is a separate elected board that manages the library that's not and I mean that this is not a municipal so I sometimes I think that even after more than 20 years that the library was pulled back under the town umbrella before my time it operated as though it were and it's still it feels sometimes like that narrative still hasn't shifted I don't mean to hammer on this but we're a municipal library so we belong fully and entirely under town government with a separate elected board and I would I would I would echo that and say that it is substantially different well it is different from entities like the town pool in the recreation department and all of that it is also substantially different from what Chandler was historically the Chandler board of the Chandler board which I joined I can't even remember how long ago was different from the board that maintained the building and it the merge to have those two groups come together was dicey and happened at about the time that the building was in such disrepair that they needed to do something I I think that the town would not like to see the library hit that space of of disrepair but it's you know it's a town building and and I think we we have an obligation to maintain it we do not ask the town for a lot in relative to you know outside the regular budget we maintain the department you know our department funds fairly well you're pretty well I think this is a need I don't think anybody's denying that it's a town building what we're saying is or what I'm saying is I don't believe we've researched and looked at all the funding opportunities that are out there to know that this has to come back on to the tax dollar I believe there's other grants out there and that we should be looking for those and researching them looking at some of these foundations that invest in these types of buildings and seeing if we've really exhausted opportunities to come back on to the town dollars yeah I I have a lot of faith in amenability to research those opportunities but if that is the direction of the board you know I don't know what else we can do about that I would only point out that the longer you wait the bigger the damage comes you know the the cupola is leaking and so that spreads down into the rest of the building and so if we don't do something soon then the cost of it aside from inflation and all of that the cost of that is just going to increase any or oven it's just something we can decide in january and you know at that point whether you have the grant or not because it has to be decided now um you know just just the closure and knowing whether we can go ahead with the project of course I'd like a decision tonight but it sounds like there are enough questions for some of the select board members that we will buy at our time. I would encourage the look again to see if there are other options it might be available to take care of some of the funding. Who did this project and overseas the work? So because of the nature of access to the area the plan is for it's not being built it's an assessment right it's a baseline estimate by Keith Schumacher from the Association to assess the condition of the fund. When we have the funding secured then we'll have the opportunity and we'll have to be in the position to RFP it invite contractors in to come look it over because it will require kind of a lift truck but then to get up there to put together the proposals and make a decision with guidance from his preservationist. So I think I'd like to add something here I mean given the time of year the unlikeliness that we're going to find anybody who's going to work on this before spring I think we probably at this point you know I don't see any reason to believe that we wouldn't have some time here to discuss this a little further in january because it's pretty unlikely you're going to find any contracted it's going to put you know a new cupola on there here between now and say may so it seems like we've got a little time to research all these opportunities you know is there is there more grants you know maybe that could happen so I think it's you know I think it'd be kind of prudent here to just like put this not on the back burner but just set it aside for a month or two to kind of see where you know things could go and by then you may know whether or not we have this other grant and maybe there's some other opportunities I'm not sure I think you know training could be right there could be some foundations you know the Vermont community fund I know has done projects like this in the past so I'm assuming that you reached out to those kind of things I'm not saying that you haven't but I'm just wondering if there aren't some other opportunities here and like I said given the project I don't think we're going to be able to start any construction until spring and Amy before you respond I'm having a hard time understanding you I'm wondering if you're a little Ben with challenge and if it might help if your video is off while you speak I guess I would like to hear clearly from the board what what your pleasure is as a group relative to this I'd like to understand better what the scope is and what a good estimate is of this and then look at once we know what that is also know what the project delivery model is for this you know if it's a town building and the town should be paying for it it should go through the same process as the rest of our town buildings go through and not be which means it goes you know it's bid out by Trevor and we oversee it as we would any other town building but I also want to see us looking at other funding that might be available to help pay for this you know the historic folks just got a huge slug of money through the HUD bill so there's a bunch of there's all kinds of opportunities out there right now with funding for different pieces parts floating around so I think there's opportunities out there that may not have even been out there a few weeks ago that's possible that's that's good to note maybe so if you see any of those opportunities could you please send them right away yep they just came out from the Liga cities and towns but funding for work on historic buildings is often kind of fussy so yeah I think sending that to Amy would be super helpful so that she could at least look at it and see how you know see if there's anything that wasn't available before when does the board come back to you just the library come back to you with this how long will it take the library to put it together our next meeting is in January I think Perry's correct that you're not going to find a contractor that's going to get up there in the winter months I don't think it's I think finding a contractor who's willing to come out to go up there and provide us with a detailed scope of work I don't think anybody is going to be willing to do that which is why the model that I'm looking at incorporates the bidding process with with developing the scope of work so you're doing a design build build design bid build project I don't know that that's really an accurate description of doing repair and restoration for historic building so Amy have you sat down with Trevor to make sure this new model you want to do and how you want to do this is compliant with the town's procurement policy so for projects over I believe $10,000 we have to RFP it right but do we have a I don't believe we have a design bid build policy for the town well certainly we're seeing looking back the procurement policy but I don't require there being I don't remember there being a requirement to have a detailed scope of work before putting the project out for RFP well you got to have something to base your bidding on and on and your evaluation on yep absolutely and you got to know what your scope is to be able to get a an estimate so it is it is after all a request for proposal and I think an important actually a vital part of this is going to be hiring the right historic preservationist to help us make the best decision about the scope of work proposed maybe it's more than a one-step process it sounds like you need somebody to come in to help you design what the scope of work is and then bid it out for a contractor that can do that work because whoever does your design of your scope is probably not going to be also doing the work well I'm I've settled on this process based on guidance both from the preservation trust and from the division for historic preservation um they certainly have way more experience can I do about how best to go about getting the right work done the most effectively I am not a project manager by training I'm only a project manager by necessity and this project is certainly different from any of the others that I've done at the library so I mean very heavily on the expertise that could be available from the preservation trust and the division so my concern is that I'm hearing a lot about what you have done and what the board of the library has done but I'm not hearing very much about how you've interacted with uh town hall and the rules and requirements of the town for procurement and all that so I think we got some work to do there to to sync those two up also because the those have to be you you're a town building and you want the town to pay for it and it's a town project it has to follow town policies and and procedures um so I think this is a project that's not going to get a decision tonight I think it's got some ways to go some information that's needed um and you know we've got a full agenda I think the best thing to do is for there to be a discussion between Amy and Trevor on how to how to move forward with this project how we scope it what it looks like what the steps are and then looking at other funding sources figure out how we maximize available funds out there without coming into the town's reserve did I miss that anybody anybody have any other questions they'd like answered on that before it comes back hearing none I will also offer that when you're having those conversations if you'd like me to be part of them I will make time available rather than just put all the demands out and not be willing to help you thank you thanks for that training and again if you run across the particular FED projects with preservation grant money available please do let me in the right direction okay I'll find that our email that I got the other day and ship it off great thank you great great thank you thank you can I just say that I think we all want to get this project done it's something that needs to happen and I think we all want to get it done but in the best way that works for everybody agreed then let's see what we can do shall we next up we have a discussion about a sustainability coordinator idea and before we start this conversation I just want folks to know we got a lot of data that came to us at the 11th hour and I don't know if everybody else had time to read them all digest them and try to figure it out so another topic that I don't believe we're headed to a decision point tonight but just more of an understanding of what the request is and what the potential options are and how we move forward doing some type of a evaluation and you know try to come to what works for the town and so with that I'll let Trevor kind of give the background of it and we'll see what we can hammer out tonight yeah I think that there's that broad summary of this was an idea that came up this time around at least through that work session in November it was in there with some of the other options such as the weatherization elements and a few others and then at that point it was talked about kind of in concept and one of the one of the needs is to better refine what the scope would be even to feel farther down the road a big decision of what when how there's a lot of I think I'd refer to it as meat to put on the bone at that point and that still needs to be done I think there's a lot of folks heading in different directions trying to collect different pieces and at some point those disparate efforts we should probably start to pull together into one coordinated framework so then we can evaluate what is there a model that is best for Randolph what is that model what does it take to get it done so this is intended to be a general conversation about um do we want to explore this idea what are some of the things we want someone in this position to do what are some of the models um that we may have already heard about that we want to consider running down and really start to fill in the details as to how they work you're talking about a multi-town coordinator there's a few different ways to do that from the existing models like the expanding say the two river program in some way by I don't know having another coordinator at that level something that we run a little more on our own which requires interlocal agreements for example um some of those pieces and knowing what some of the options are will help us better refine what it is you're making a decision on or pitching to voters to make a decision on um right now I think there's a general sense of this could be helpful um across a variety of ways to um to to implement some projects that might be out there and so knowing you know what those are what this would take what it entails and then we can start to fill it out so it looks less like um it's like a snap together skeleton kit that's still in the box we know we want to build something from it but all the bones are aren't labeled and they're still in the box we're going to start to snap together so it looks like a body um we can then maybe animate and move forward okay tell me just to to update people on what I um committed to at the the meeting that Trevor just referenced with the energy committee the middle of last month I did reach out to uh Peter Gregory at T ROC to try to learn a little bit more about how the seven town work that uh their staff member Jeff Martin is doing on in an energy coordinator role how that was working and how uh we might be able to put together a three town or potentially if we rolled Bethel into it four town um collaborative effort to work with T ROC in an energy coordinator role he suggested first of all Jeff Martin who is currently serving in that capacity with now seven towns in the T ROC coverage area is presently on family leave so um his role is a little bit diminished by that right now while he's on family leave um what what Peter suggested to me is that we get some consensus among the three or four towns that might be interested in moving forward with some kind of energy coordinator uh relationship with T ROC that we we uh get agreement on that and then he agreed that it made sense to set up a meeting with the T ROC staff between representatives of the four towns to talk about what that relationship might look like and how it might mirror uh the seven town relationship that T ROC currently has via Jeff Martin moving forward the the the information that we received today through Gary Durr via Stephen Bauer at T ROC that Trini just referenced a few moments ago sheds a good deal more light on what that seven town relationship looks like and how we might model that moving forward the the concern or the I don't know that I would raise it to the level of a concern but the the I think Randall's interest needs in this needs to be how can we move forward the most expeditiously and is a four town relationship the way we want to go or do we want to possibly explore a relationship with T ROC that initially just focuses on providing energy coordinator an energy coordinator role to to Randall's and then maybe broaden it to the other three communities as we move forward or what but in any event T ROC is willing to convene a gathering of interested towns to look at some kind of energy coordinator role flowing through T ROC to us moving forward I think the other option here Tom is to contract for the service and so the ideal position is for this person to work themselves out of a job when you hire an employee then you would even need to do it as a limited service position right so it has an expiration date or a temp type position where it's like well you know we'll use you until we don't need you anymore for you contract with somebody to actually do certain tasks for you you know in a scope of work with deadlines and deliverables and all that I honestly think contract the type of work we're looking for here if I understand correctly is for somebody to come in and look at efforts the town could undertake so they're defined tasks you know whether it's completing an energy audit of our buildings or using ones that have been done already you know looking at you know heating fuels so what are we're doing there those type of topics but it seems like they're pretty well defined deliverables that we're looking for this person to do on the scope of for the town which could be high you could hire somebody in so they have a deadline and you control that a little better so I'm not sure what the best model is and that's some of my concern here is I haven't really seen a scope of what we're looking to get out of this effort Trini I went with Gary Durr to the brain tree select board meeting yesterday to throw out some information and talk with them making sure they knew it was just the energy committee talking with them and not committing the town to anything they seemed positive wanted more details but when more we talked about it their chairperson Megan O'Toole made the comment that I think Randolph could have enough work for a person to do and just Randolph and the more I've got looking at this position myself I think it could easily be a full-time position where is that where is the list of work where's the job duties that we want this person to do I mean we've seen these other job descriptions for other entities well where's the Randolph list what do we want somebody to do in Randolph what are the goals what are we trying to achieve with this you know it's easy to say well they have one and we want to do something similar but kind of where's I haven't seen the framework of what we actually want out of this other than looking at what other people have and you know I'm if you haven't picked up yet I'm very specific to what Randolph needs like what do we need what are we trying to get out of this and what's our best way of achieving that well I can speak for myself the three areas that I'm looking at are weatherization transportation and generation and I think it should be both what the town buildings need which is just the town buildings town equipment it's just a that's just a small part of what the whole community needs I think I think we as a town should be responding to not only what our buildings need but also what we can do for the taxpayers in the town so that they're more energy conscious and we meet the state requirements that are coming up was interesting mega no tool works for the agency of natural resources which I didn't know apparently is involved in climate change issues through that agency I think there's plenty to do we're in the preliminary part of defining what that is but I don't think that rules out doing it just because we don't have it defined at the second meeting that we talked about um Trini if I if I may react to that I think we need and I said this at the at the energy committee meeting joint meeting that we had last month I think we need to be careful at biting off more than we can chew all at once for lack of a better way to put it and I I think if we focus initially on what we can do in town-owned building buildings and facilities to achieve better energy efficiency that should be the first phase of our our focus and then moving on to assisting residents of the community with moving in that direction should be a second phase but I don't think we should swallow this this issue whole and um and I would suggest that anything we put forward to an energy coordinator whatever that position might look like and however we might define it if we choose to do so moving forward that we focus first on achieving energy efficiency in town buildings and then uh and and then move forward with a broader agenda I agree with that Tom completely and that's part of my issue of of hiring an individual just for the town of Randolph and I and I don't doubt if we said to somebody your job is to go out and get everybody to get off fossil fuels and weatherize their house and go you know put solar panels on every so many square feet that they have that would take a full-time person my uh my challenge with this is that we're not going to be able to take it all on at once and how do we do something so we can show successes and get people so that they are interested and want to participate if we just keep cramming it at people we're going to get the same reaction we are today so you know I think the multi-town model is good I think the two rivers model might be is worth looking at and I also think the contracted model is worth looking at um where we define what we want how we get it a date by which we get it um and have some level of control over what that looks like I will say that Peter Gregory when I talked to him at TRORC did suggest that um they might be open to a one-town model they also he also said that that they would be open to a multi-town model so they might be one of the entities we want to reach out to whether it be with an RFP or whatever um uh I mean Jeff Martin was the former energy at TRORC was the former energy coordinator for the town of Hartford and so he has significant experience at the individual municipal level in in in this energy coordinator role it um it it seems like at least TRORC shouldn't be part of the mix at least in terms of our considering this um totally agree um and I think there's some contractors I think we have some individuals in town that have done some work on this type of stuff that might be interested in coming in in some limited scope whether it's as a contractor or you know the state we hire limited service positions so it's a you know an employee but it has a sunset date or a you know task oriented position that when the tasks are done they're done um you know I think I think there's different models and I'm wondering how we get to that so do we get to a menu of options for the select board to decide on with using uh maybe uh a member or two members of the select board and a member or two of the energy committee to put us together a comparison of and this is the type of work we want to get done here's phase one here's phase two here's our options of how we could do it this is what it would look like you know if you hire an employee this is about the wages this is the benefit package this is the cost of that or you can go with a contractor at two rivers would look like this you know I'm I think there's there's a lot of options the data that we got the job specs were good um that we got they're generic you know they're not really you know sort of what does the work scope look like for Randolph you know even if we go emerge with some other towns we still must know this is what we want somebody to achieve in Randolph you know gary isn't there a energy audit that's been done of the town buildings a partial one done a number years ago years ago um and uh when we were at a meeting with Pat and myself and uh and in the brain tree uh group they they did a full one several years ago and they've already acted out they have solar panels on on town buildings and they've done some insulating work so they've really done a a good job um and they are I don't know if I'm repeating myself but they wanted to meet with these other other three towns um there was two other actions the energy committee took from the meeting on November 18th um one was to get a hold of these other three towns uh which Susan largely did with with my help and I had the action to get a hold of ultimately uh Hartford to see how they uh uh generated their action plan Susan could you comment on is there a question Tom no no no go ahead Susan do you want to comment on the other towns you contacted it just a minute before that happens Susan just a second so we don't have a full audit of all our buildings because I want to understand there's like a partial so we don't even know what the scope is of what we want somebody to do correct correct so maybe we're way ahead of ourselves and what our first item ought to be is to find somebody that could come in and do an actual audit of of our buildings correct well efficiency Vermont will will do a walkthrough visit and if it's required and it probably will be they will recommend someone to do a full audit I don't think we want to stop with them I mean they're not going to give us the level of detail we need I think we need to look at if this is what the direction we want to go then I think we need to bring somebody in that's going to do an actual audit and give us a task list well they would recommend efficiency Vermont will recommend someone to do a full audit Trini I just want to point out that if you look at the the TRO RC model that Jeff Martin is implementing for the intermural inter municipal regional energy coordinator position there each of those seven towns has a totally separate agreement with T-Roc in terms of the level of services that are being brought to them and so on so so I think we need to consider that in the mix of describing what we want as well so some of my concern Tom is that I have received a fair amount of comments and calls about this to say if we're going to hire another person the town is this really where the highest need is when our roads didn't get graded this year when they should have then we have you know they there's a list of issues and so I'm not sure that I'm at a place where I understand the scope of what we want somebody to do for us and I'm convinced that that need is much higher than some of the other needs we have to potentially add staff to the town roster and I haven't got my head around the duties and the deliverables enough to know that that's really an employee position versus maybe two rivers should be adding this on and putting an allocation out to their member towns like they do their dues to achieve this for all their towns or is it a scope of work that we put out to bid and hire somebody as a contractor to come in and do for us that's where my struggle is you know we how do you balance all that and I just don't feel like we have the information and the I don't anyway to understand what really what's there and that I can justify that this is the highest need for the town for an employee or that type of that's where I've got a disconnect and I'd like to say right now that I agree that I think our first step on like Thomas said earlier about having this be a a position that would address the town building needs first and then look at expanding it to the rest of the town I think that that makes sense that we really keep this as limited for now there's plenty of work to do with just town facilities but I'd also want to say that I think there's a real difference between this putting money into this as to putting into money into other town positions and that you know one of the pieces here is that this position really ought to pay for itself and so you know we should be saving money while we do this and I think because of that that does make it a higher priority than maybe some of the other things that we would love to spend money on if we really saw significant returns on our investment here I think that would be make we'd make it really worthwhile for us to move ahead on this pretty pretty aggressively but I'd like to see more about what what those numbers look like to see if that really does make sense the other opportunity is there Larry is to structure a contract for those services by which if we're going to save all this money the person gets paid by some ratio of how much they save the town in actual dollars well I I did get a hold of Hartford and I talked to Laurie Hershfield there and she leads the planning department and all the work in Hartford was done under her her planning department and she started over a decade ago with your very point say how can we put out this contract and save money she got some free solar panels through nowhere solar that led to saving this money next year she had another probe so over a decade she built up confidence that through saving money that they ultimately signed the select board signed in Hartford a deal that they will be by 2027 the town will net we net zero emissions and in the whole community by 2030 by saving hundreds of thousands of dollars that's how they would it and I that's what I propose we do let's let's let's figure out the fuse what I think we really need a lot full on it uh and and men uh figure out what we need to do and how much money we can save and and that saving is calculable we're not going to solve this tonight I think we've put forward quite a few items to think about do we have a couple members of the select board and a couple members of the energy committee get together and bring us back up matrix or a better look at this or how would folks like to move forward with this find an energy committee I think the first thing to do is clearly to get a full scale by whatever means possible a full scale audit done energy audit done of all of the town on buildings so we have some real data to base our next moves on and Gary I don't know what you know you've indicated that there have been partial audits done but I think the first thing we need to do is get to full audits and really learn about the scope of what we're trying to tackle here absolutely so Tom should we test Trevor with getting somebody on board to do those audits for the town because they're going to have to procure it hire somebody get them in here I mean I don't believe there's anybody out there waiting to do this for nothing well you can call up a patient to Vermont and ask for this going to point us to somebody Gary they're going to point us to a contractor that we're going to have to pay but we still got to procure it according to the town's policy and so I'd like to just see Trevor okay work on that and he needs to you know he can coordinate with the energy committee he can do whatever is needed to do it but I agree that until we know yeah volume and the Trevor do you happen to know if through VLCT there might be a you know a kind of a recommended group of potential energy auditors that we could conceivably reach out to or perhaps to energy efficiency Vermont yeah I think we'd like to structure it in we do we go out there and try to I think grab some of the energy audit RFPs that have already been done in other places turn one into into sort of our own model it's focused on some of the things we can throw in there and then we'd look to do sort of two pieces to that one would be kind of a general posting hey we've got this project going on the other thing we might look to do is to get a list of contractors from somebody like an efficiency Vermont I don't if the league does it it's something they've added fairly recently but efficiency Vermont's list of contractors and then we'll sort of invite anybody on that list more directly so we've covered both sort of the open ones which are also you know probably likely to appear in that contractor list too but we'll hit it from both ends and we've had pretty good luck with responses for everything that we've had to get out that way from paving on through the to the tax anticipation note for example so we would use that model and not look to reinvent the wheel as I've seen the audit RFP so we looked to find one from somewhere that we could then adapt that matches our policy and has a nice structure to it in terms of what we need so Trini are you looking for a motion here to direct Trevor to formally start exploring energy audits across the board in terms of town owned buildings here I will make such a motion I'll second that a motion and a second on the table all those in favor no time for comments oh no discussion I had a that's my comment did you have a comment Pat I did that one I agree with Larry and Tom that yes we start with the municipal buildings looking at those but we've been doing that off and on for 15 years and have a god I mean so I'd like to see plans at least for the longer term to have a more concerted effort to really get looking at town buildings is great but that's just a start of what we need to do understood but the town buildings is what we control we can't mandate businesses we can't mandate individuals nobody's time yeah well sometimes you got to do sometimes we have to do it through leadership and showing that this is a focus and here's the benefits of it and you know I would hope that once we know what the audit shows and what work we have to do that we won't just sit quietly do the work and keep it stifled we ought to be announcing it you know here's the efforts we're undertaking here's the amount we've saved here's the the impact of the decisions we've made based on the data we've gotten and the changes that we've undertaken also I I think to address your concern Pat on an interim basis at least while we work through this process specifically relative to town control the known buildings the energy committee can continue to pursue its publication public education efforts and so on relative to what residents can do to make their homes etc more energy efficient looking at converting to pellet fired boilers whatever it might entail the energy committee has embraced that role and there's no reason they can't continue to move forward with this while we tackle the issue of town owned buildings and get them on board and then let's get that done and then we can move on to what we can do to assist residents with their own endeavors moving forward so it's got to be an incremental it's got to be an incremental approach we just don't have the resources the the funding the resolve right now for it to be anything more than than incremental I agree with you Tom and but I think we we don't do a good job of bearing the information of our successes we tend to just take them and run on to the next issue so some of what this topic is is changing behaviors and changing thought processes so you know we all tend to look at the an issue and say what does this mean to me or well how does this impact me so if we just do these changes quietly and go along we're not publicizing anything for people to see hey you know the town did this they did an audit they looked at the heating system in this building it was costing them X they changed it to this now it's costing them whatever and they're saving this impact so I I have a question if that's all right this is John Pimentel so I imagine you have you know two months from now you have an energy audit in your hand what what what do you do with it with it then who's going to be the person or the individual or the entity to take that information and roll that into an executable project or plan to to make improvements in the town you know we've had we we've had energy audits in our hands before and evidently it hasn't gone anywhere I think the town should do as you recommended a few moments ago training is to get several individuals from the select board along alongside the energy committee and fully flesh out what the opportunities are with getting an energy coordinator either at T Rourke from which Randolph can can draw expertise or have one work within Randolph itself in a portion the cost across the four towns that would be interested in in getting expertise from that individual yeah John thanks I think we need to get I think you can do the energy audit in one of two ways you can tell them just tell me what you see or when we develop the scope of work for it it could be an energy audit with action items so you know I'm all for letting a consultant do the work for me and give me what those action items are what action items could Randolph take by building that would make improvements you know and what and what are those and then I think you got to get the energy committee and some select board members together to say here's our goals here's our priorities now how do we do it if we have a staff person this is how it looks if we have two rivers this is how it looks if we bid it out and have a contracted employee or consultant do it this is how it looks so you're saying that the select board to make the decision on which way we go forward so are you saying that you don't think it's worth pursuing this energy coordinator model at this point I think that we don't know what we would have them do at this point because we don't know what the results of this energy audit are I think you're right we've done partial energy audits of buildings hit or miss over the years but we've also done improvements and done some work on those buildings so I don't believe we have an actual list of what the duties are or what act you know what items we would want somebody to do because we don't know what we need actually we do have a list and and Gary has that list and it's based on the job description for the individual the energy coordinator at T-Roc and it's it's it's actually robust and and and and quite encompassing so we have a list for the town by building of what we want to achieve nope we have a list of what this individual could do for the town which would include conducting an energy audit putting together a plan to then make improvements within the town working with the town entities to to make sure that these plans move forward and don't and don't die on the vine treating what I did is I took the information of the job description actually he worked work from with T-Roc and I can read off quickly you know a few things under so Gary I think that's the data we got at the 11th hour today I've summarized it I still believe yeah so we've spent a lot of time on this topic and the board has voted to do an energy audit of all of our buildings to get that information and we're moving forward to that and then I I believe the discussion went in the direction that we needed that information and then to look at what the different models were we could move forward with to achieve what comes out of that audit and so unless there is a select board member here that would like to take this in a different direction that we just voted on I'd like to move on to the next item and not hearing any I'd like to thank everybody for that conversation uh and hopefully we'll get of RFP out and get an energy audit going and the energy committee and select board can continue to work forward to figure out what we need to do with our town buildings and then if there's a scope bigger than that what that looks like and and how that moves forward thank you next up is a discussion on budget committee the timeline and the process yep you folks had asked me to just map it out really quickly at one of our previous meetings so we sent a memo out today and I apologize for late delivery but it's pretty simple straightforward one looking at the process for committee expansion from three to five members from it was the year before last you know basing this same effort on that what we would do is at that first meeting in January bring essentially what the the two articles would look like that should be the first one is the one that authorizes the expansion from the five to seven members that 20 20 action to go from three to five included some other things in the committee scope so if you wanted to to bake anything else in one of the ideas between going from five to seven is to bank in some of the capital budgeting review processes so that could be part of the article it could just be kind of an implied piece of the workload that's left out of it but we'd be able to write that up for you see what an article will look like and then the second article that goes with it just after it would be to fill any vacancies and so what you'd be looking at process wise would be there are two that expire I believe at the end of this year and then there'd be two new ones if voters approved the expansion and so we'd be looking for that it helps to know there's a question in that first bullet under the article we talked about a system where we go from five to seven and then at some point the two new members essentially those positions expire after there's a familiarity with any new workload stuff and we we go back to five so it's whether or not you bake that in or you go up to seven and leave it there unless or until there's some other action and really it would be that's how we build the terms depending on which way you go with that a little bit easier if you build it into a it stays at seven until acted upon but I don't think it would be too hard to figure out either way which way to go we put in there at this point the deadline to Warringtown meeting for 2022 is January 30th we'll probably have the warning set before then I would imagine to allow for time for any of the the stuff that can come up as part of that process and to make sure that we're able to get it done as well as possible and then you go on to town meeting it looks like it's a Saturday February 26th it's run on the outer edge of that three-day limit statute but it still makes it and then February 27th and beyond if it's all approved by the voters you've got a seven member budget committee that will assume some of those capital functions and then we can talk from there about what that meeting structure what that budget timeline looks like it's a good time to to revisit maybe what what that timeline is what type of information the committee wants presentations any model changes were after that might be an opportunity to do that and when I say model changes just in terms of if they the review process is something everybody's good with we can stick with that if there are any changes to it we can make that you know if department heads are are wanted on a particular evening for example to bring them in to talk about what they do operationally we may want to consider if there's some benefit in a joint select board budget committee conversation in the fall say that's about setting budget goals and priorities and everybody has had a discussion about which direction we want to head every year and we can build budgets with that in mind as well so we can identify some of these things to research with a nice long timeline or not racing up against any town meeting warning deadlines so those aren't necessarily part of what we're doing for town meeting but just some things to consider as we're we're kind of caught in natural transitional moment anyway with or without the expansion that's the basic timeline process is fairly straightforward there isn't there isn't too much in there if we knew you were going to add it if you wanted to put it in to the town report in some way as a what's this article mean what are we trying to do other opportunities to to maybe explain the idea of needed we certainly have those available to us along the way I think I'd like to say that I think it's really premature to consider expanding the budget committee in regards to add the addition of possible capital planning duties like it seems like this isn't going to be a dramatic increase in the workload for the budget committee and so first I'd like to say that even that fact I think it makes sense for the budget committee to see how it goes for a year and and see if it really does increase the workload so much that it requires the addition of personnel rather than go through all this trouble and and the other thing is if there even if this does require a significant amount of work it's it's not clear to me that having additional members is going to make it less time consuming for budget committee members it just seems like you know budget committee members are going to want to be involved in this process and that means presumably all of them and so it's just going to be more people spending spending more time on some additional topics it's it's it's not really clear to me how this is really going to help uh so we have Jerry with us um any thoughts on that Jerry um I'm sorry there's a little background noise but um that was a lot to absorb but it sounded like generally I I get it and I think I am aligned with it all I I'm open to expanding to seven but I think the goal should be to make it short term make it a transitional thing and I agree with Larry that there's not any guarantee or likelihood even from a process standpoint that we're going to be more efficient by trying to take on more people and to these additional duties so I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other I think I've expressed that before um if my biggest reservation when I hear Trevor talking about it is how in the world are we going to explain this to the town the most of the people in the town their eyes click glazed over just hearing the name budget committee and we're talking about a pretty complicated process um so a lot of it is trust is uh how we sell this and the only other concern I have is that um I hope there's some way that those people who are on this budget on the capital planning committee currently don't feel disenfranchised disgruntled that they can participate um for the first time running for office which is intimidating for some so it's a difficult thing to navigate for that but sounds like you're on a on a very good track thank you for it so Jerry to clarify do you think that we should um like we should add positions onto the combined capital planning and budget committee as a transition so they would what maybe we have two you know multiple positions and in a year and only one of them gets one of the positions is up for re-election how would be how do you see that pleasing um I think I would suggest there's no need for it to be an odd number I would suggest that we create up two more positions that could be filled or may not be filled depending on who runs at that town meeting so that increase at the seven and just have it a way that by attrition there would only be five members starting in two years we could always change that so but that would be the plan and so it wouldn't be that those specific positions ended well maybe it would but the point is that it would be through attrition so if I understand how we got to put this out we need to have if we're going to say we want to expand them the town voters have to vote to expand the budget committee by two positions right from five to seven and those positions would have to have terms on them that allow them to rotate into the election cycle so I think we do have to say these positions are coming in but they're going to be phased out if we don't want to stay with a seven member I'm almost thinking either we stay with what we got and they can run for the feet and get them or not get them or we expand a seven and allow them to run to take some of the additional positions but to have them be for a few years and then phase in and whatnot I think is going to be pretty complex to explain yeah oh yeah I agree it's a bit cumbersome you could make it a one and a two-year position so they phase out it's not both at the same time and they can be interchangeable with other members of the budget committee like right now in March people from the capital planning could run for the two open seats one of which is open and one of which is going to be a member who may or may not run so is that a if we create two seats versus we have two seats that are one that's completely open and one that may or may not have an incumbent aren't we giving kind of the same opportunity for members of the current capital planning committee to get on the budget committee as we would if we created more two positions specific for them that's true if you discount the the power of an incumbent so to the extent the incumbent is likely to win that would be against that argument but you're you're exactly right technically I guess one of the things I'd like to point out is that we we increased the size of the budget committee from three to five recently and one of the big motivations for doing that was that the budget committee could have a quorum even if one or two people were still absent and and and get some and get some and just be able to get some work done even if they did have a quorum because three people is pretty small and if you're you're missing one you've still got a quorum but if you're missing two then you can't but if you only have two out of three members it's still hard to get stuff done anyway I guess making it making it five seemed to solve that problem but if the bigger the committee you know now we might start to get into that problem again where you know we have trouble getting everybody on board to show up in a meeting all at the same time the bigger the group the harder it is to schedule meetings right now with the board of abatement we've been having some really hard problems i'm getting quorum because the board is so big and we need a lot of people to show up just to get a quorum so it's another thing to consider that the board can actually be unwieldy as it as it gets too large too I'll agree with that because I think all these committees and all these different boards are struggling to find support and to get people involved so I have my reservation about expanding it but maybe the solution here is to expand the scope of the committee without expending the membership knowing that we have at least one seat kind of being wide open and another one that's up either reelection or will be can I can I ask that whoever is uh has all that background chatter unmute I mean mute excuse me that's me I'm on mute sorry the conversation sounds like it's coming around a consensus that there are enough seats on the budget committee and adding the duties of capital planning to this committee does impact another committee that we have out there but those members would have an opportunity to run for at least two seats that are opening up on the budget committee sounding like the direction I'm fine with that so either we need a motion from the board to go forward with having an item on the town ballot to expand the budget committee to seven and elect two new positions plus the two that will be up for election this year or we're fine with the way the committee is now and changing the scope of their work to add capital planning to it which is actually part of budgeting the second option I don't think requires you to do anything formal I think we heard that Larry's in favor of keeping it the way it is and letting it roll which requires no action tonight kind of siding on that one Tom Perry Pat I'm uh in agreement with Larry I am also I'm okay with that looks like we're going to let it be the way it is change the scope of the committee a little bit and let things roll sound good Jerry all right next up is to consider a rotary club sign application it's Josh I'll handle it we gosh is out today we're not sure if he's going to jump on or not essentially there's a proposal from the sunrise rotary as you put two of the round rotary signs at different spots entry excellent points one on 66 by the green mountain gospel chapel and the other one on 12 over by we've got the current Randolph signage on the castings property the way the sign ordinance is written um requires the slick word to weigh in on on the design these round signs are about 30 inches in diameter and the recommendation from Josh as our sign officer at the moment is to approve them but to try to make sure that the one on route 12 is co-located with the existing sign that you don't have them clearing up the area or or any blocks to the extent possible then if not try to try to co-locate them close together so they work in harmony and it's really about making sure they can both be seen are you in sunrise so sunny's here too it might know more about the the rotary perspective on it I don't know if I missed anything from from the application so it's before you for approve the design and then the recommendation from staff is to to require the the installation either on the existing sign or as close to as possible on the route 12 end of things it's uh no cause to the town uh and we'll build the installation it's the right price for us right now any questions from board members no if not I have a comment I have a comment it looks like it looks like the way our sign ordinance is written that any group of people could do this right oh yes yeah there's no restriction all right is that what we really want to me I'm not just on this particular issue but well that's going forward is that what we want is people just putting we can't discriminate we're not allowed to discriminate that's why the new side marines is in place but I think the group wanted to do this we had lengthy conversations about this before we sent the sign ordinance off the select board and what you're reading or what you have for an ordinance was based on information that came from precedents that were set through the legal um challenges the sign ordinances so we adopted what was recommended to us and so yes any group could request the same thing I have a quick question um uh Sonny Sonny will this sign include um a time and date for when sunrise rotary meets it's not quite clear to me I've seen these I've seen these signs all over you know not just from odd but in other states as well where it might say you know Monday morning 7 to 9 a.m. that's a good question talk that's a good question and uh we decided not to put the uh location and dates along with the sign one reason uh most motorians now have an application on their mobile phones that tell them where the club meets so if they come into town they'll know exactly where to go so we just did away with that extra sign down at the bottom yeah yeah and just to be clear um from what you've said probably if we had a colonists club or the lions club or the evils club wanted to do this same thing they put under the current under the current side ordinance too correct yeah and there's there's a lot of discussion there about content control and things like that but yes that's that's true right right that's right I have a couple questions what one is um under under what conditions um can the select board decide that we don't approve the sign like what what could be based that decision on it sounds like given our sign ordinance perhaps we don't have a lot of leeway that's about that perry or trucker you want to take that driver i'm trying to get to the side ordinance real quick yeah man there's basic things like you know it can't be offensive okay so you have to kind of look at that but there's this there's a lot that goes into this thing from the legal action standpoint here now we're you know we as the planning commission we discussed this over I think four or five meetings and tried to get pulled back to this and I think at the time we might have actually asked to get some legal opinion on this and so I think what you know what we have in front of us and we as a select board adopted this um you know a while back here uh those are questions you haven't you've asked them to go back and you're going to have to readdress this and rewrite the sign ordinance yeah I'm not I'm not saying that we necessarily need to rewrite or revisit anything I guess I just for my own knowledge I'm curious like you know what's what's the select board's real role here we're tasked with with having to approve this but what's you know upon what criteria could we say yes or no especially no like if we say yes obviously then everybody's happy right but if we say if we were to say no upon what basis like could we possibly do that if we wanted to so a yes doesn't necessarily mean everybody's happy right it could not be um and I don't know that there is criteria upon which to say no I think if I read the ordinance right it's pretty basic um but I also believe there was guidance on this that came out of two rivers oh yeah for what we had you know and um and so they're not normally uh Josh uh has the authority to prove uh signs you know as the the sign officer and why he sent it to the select board uh I I really don't know except that you know it may be maybe a question whether it should be mounted uh on the current uh signed you know coming in from log 12 or mounted separately and maybe that's why he wanted to let the select board know that there could be a question there for the select board to decide as far as meeting the signed ordinance it does meet the sign ordinance uh right now uh we don't have any voterry signed at all uh for this town uh for all of Vermont uh almost every town in Vermont that has a rotary club has a rotary sign you know to tell the public that there's a rotary in town uh Randolph is very fortunate uh except for Burlington uh in Vermont we're the only town that has two rotary clubs so so sunny is that is that really the whole point of the sign is just to basically announce to the world that there is a rotary club in town absolutely okay um I guess the other thought I had was that if if we are potentially opening this up to other groups wanting to put up their own signs that I wonder if it makes sense to mount this sign on the existing sign um because if if other groups want to put up their own signs then we're going to run out of space pretty quick and I think that's part of what this is Larry is looking for permission from the town because it's going to email it to a sign that the town owns and there's a specific provision just looking quickly it's referenced in that in the item form but in 207 f1 um these types of welcome signs come before the select board for approval of the design so your hook comes through this pretty particular section for this type of sign when they're used as as welcome or entry exit signs so I think Josh is pulling it from a later section of the ordinance but looking back through it there aren't really a lot of standards for um here are the conditions under which signs won't be approved there's some some you know some of the standards related to dimension location some of those things but I think if we got into a content type of of issue it may be looking back at that guidance from two rivers or BLCT or others and then applying some kind of common sense standard we almost I don't know if anybody saw the article on license plates and vanity plates um we might have to make a determination in individual basis as to appropriateness and then there's an appeal process in the ordinance that an applicant could avail themselves of along the way as well so it's it's an imperfect model and that it's not as clear as as here's what's a yes and here's what's a no but there there are some ways to navigate for sure if you look at other towns uh northfield is a good example they have their welcome sign just after the gas station going into northfield and just below on that same sign is is a road a emblem there's a lot of towns that will do that I don't think you're going to have a lot of people rush in trying to put a a sign on the current welcome sign you know on route 12 but you know that's my own opinion but this is just the emblem of road to be correct yeah that's all this isn't saying the rotary welcomes you to randoff no who doesn't it'll be attached to the side of the current sign and not on the sign so I'm not sure that I agree with josh's determination and maybe I'm missing something that this is a permit for a a sign intended to identify or welcome to the welcome the public to the town yeah it probably hinges on the the first part of the sentence a permit for a freestanding sign it's freestanding sign intended to identify and or welcome the public to the town but it gets yeah the later part of it makes it a little bit muddier but aren't you identifying the town not a club in the town yeah I was going to say if you read it I think yeah I can read it as a sentence where it's you're identifying the town it there's some other marker other than the civic group and that's where it applies as opposed to applying it to a sign by a civic group at a welcome point that makes any sense and so yeah it gets into the interpretation of really that first sentence and I don't have any problem with this sign I just I'm not sure that it requires select board approval form to put it up almost looks to me like josh could have done it on his own because it it's freestanding it's not being connected to our sign if I read all this fine details right Trini there's there's two options either could either put it on the same sign as the welcome sign to Randolph attach it to the little left side of that the other option is to make it a separate sign away from that sign and you know whatever the slide board would like us to do on that Trini if I may I think the better option is to attach it to kind of a common sign because otherwise we open up the door for this proliferation of signs you know whether it's the Lions club or as I mentioned earlier the Kiwanis club or any other fraternal organization in town the masons whatever it might be it kind of feels like I mean I don't need to be flipping here but if you think of a NASCAR right they have all their logos on their car right and it's all there I wonder if it doesn't make sense to consolidate all of these organizations such as Rotary into a common welcome sign third thing and that would be adjacent to the welcome sign it comes in right yeah certainly certainly but I just wouldn't want to see a proliferation of individual organizational signs getting I don't I don't think that's likely to happen but you know you could have a couple organizations here that might want to do that so yeah I mean I wouldn't be opposed to having an end having you know having it on an independent post or structure adjacent to the welcome to Randolph sign yeah so you know in my opinion is if the road is going to construct something that allows some other signs to be on it um you know I'd be okay with that yeah yeah you know I don't necessarily know that we would get any other organizations that would like to do that but in case we did there'd be an opportunity to yeah no so I think if you're going to allow them to put it on the town sign it requires a motion from the board if they want to put up their own post with their sign it does not require action with the board and we may have been sorry Trini and thinking about talking with Josh too sometimes what we'll do when it's this type of language that could be conceived as a coin flip if there's another entity to essentially at least pull about which way to go with it sometimes will elevate it so it could be if it's unclear in the language we talked about this a while ago and it may have been we've had a few of those where it's headed to the PC or the DRB or to the select board just to say hey we're not necessarily sure what it is so let's take it to the next step in there and get some try to get some clarity and we all talk about it and agree the sign officer does it in this case and the select board does it in that case so if you go the other way it does give us the clarity too um that sometimes we'll seek when the language is maybe not as clear cut yeah I think you do have a little bit of an issue here Trevor because um the land that this sign is on is in a there's an agreement between the property owner in the town to allow the welcome sign there so we probably ought to make sure that that also allows a rotary sign in that location it doesn't say it's only for town of Randolph welcome sign or whatever so I I think that's the first piece of it I do believe that it's cleaner if the rotary sign is attached to the town sign for this one and I don't believe we're painting ourselves into a corner where if six more come in we can't say okay we now need to do something different and put up a different structure for those signs or to add something onto our sign to support that type of thing so I you know the probably the the best way for us to handle this and not delay it is to take action that allows this to go on and be attached to the town sign as long as the lease that we have or the agreement we have with the property owner allows that I'm fine with that and then down the road you know if it becomes an issue we can address multiple signs and then we have to create a post okay so that's good to me I will make a motion that that we um authorize this as it with attachment to the current town sign pending pending review of whether the lease agreement allows that second that those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries next up we have to consider authorizing mailing post cards for absentee ballot availability for town meeting in 2022 this is a follow-up to something else we did the last meeting we were talking at that point about whether or not to consider mailing the absentee ballots but then in the discussion kind of uh hit on the idea from I think it was last year about mailing the post cards that then talk about availability of the absentee ballot when we return to request one that's the proposal that's before today emory's here too um we can talk about it as well as the election officer the action item sheet sort of details that we would do the postcard system to be paid for at this point unlike last year at this point we'd be paying for the 3000 to 3500 dollar cost which would put us over budget in the postage line for that for that particular department last year the state did reimburse for those costs maybe something like that comes up especially if case counts and some other variables continue on a certain trajectory we're in back in a mode more similar to last year we don't have that assurance or any sense of that happening so this would be something we pay for but it does improve that level of access um uh for folks who maybe can't make it um on the actual election day and it does follow what we're doing and then if it's the kind of thing that you want to go forward and do again this year we've got an opportunity to then program this cost in for fiscal 23 and beyond it can become kind of a standing operational um cost that we carry in that particular line and we're we're not through that cycle again with that I hope I missed anything in that summary but no actually well you do have three options before you there's sending out all absentee ballots then there's the middle ground with postcards or there's actually not doing postcards at all and focusing on advertising and saying that all they really have to do is call me and you can get absentee ballot I would recommend the middle ground to postcards my predecessor estimated that sending out all absentees for 10 many days would be around 10 grand that was a rough estimate but it would be much cheaper to do postcards um from what I recall from last year people seemed to respond well to the postcards they liked that it was pretty straightforward to them all Henry do we have a sense of of how many people requested absentee ballots via the postcard last time we have an exact sense in fact all right we know how many people created and requested absentee ballots we don't know if it was because of the postcard right because some people don't do it anyway that is correct yes so there were 953 absentee ballots requested 784 were returned and a total of 926 people voted for town meeting day last year so so we don't know how effective the postcards were in terms of getting people to vote no if Joyce were here if you could talk about prior years but I can't speak to that because to me that would seem to be the the critical piece of information right if we if we know that sending out postcards increases voter participation by some significant amount then we might easily be able to justify the cost or if we knew for conversely that that it didn't affect voter turnout then it would seem to be a waste of money it would seem like it would help us to make our decision if we had a little more information about that I do know my predecessor said that the number total number of people voting last year was commiserate to previous years if in person about 900 people voted in person in years prior to covid I can say that about 100 a little bit more than 100 people voted in person largely I would assume most of those people voted absentee so we have 900 dedicated people that like to vote whether it's in person or by absentee about 25 to 30 percent of the registered voters would have expected the outreach to produce more voters yeah things like given years past that's been about the number of summers between 900 and 1100 or so so yeah I would echo cover sentiments that we don't quite know what's going to happen in the next few months covid-wise and I think that's the the crucial question if I'm not convinced that the postcards did anything to drive up participation I would have expected that number to be higher than what we've seen in prior year voting yeah that would be my expectation too and I wonder if given the fact that we have other ways of reaching the public besides postcards if that that don't really cost anything such as through various Randolph oriented Facebook groups and our front porch forum whether that's you know the way to get the word out I'm going to agree with you that on that I think that that probably is just as effective and probably more cost effective in spending $300 million postcards because you know we do have a pretty strong group in the community who are front porch forum readers lots like you said there's a number of different Facebook Randolph groups so I think that we can effectively reach majority of those people and I also believe that everybody who wants to vote knows how to get an absentee ballot and you don't necessarily need to prod them so yeah if it seemed like there was a really strong response to you know the postcards in the in the past um you know if we all of a sudden saw a big jump in the number of people who were voting absentee on the year that we did issue the postcards then that would seem to be good evidence and and if that number was big enough it might be worth it but given the fact that we did not see that it's it seems hard to justify spending this money I agree with you yeah I would agree with that as well so we could look to build then kind of a marketing model then and think about you know front porch forum uh even a newspaper ad is is more cost effective than in the 32 it gets a different kind of demographic we've got our website the town report might provide an opportunity to do a little extra outreach but we could uh could try to build around that I guess and think of some other ways to be out there I think it did help that there was some universal mail-in and I think people have gotten more familiar comfortable I think it's the next idea that way if you'd incorporate something into the town report you know maybe there's a you know goes on the front page the secondary page in there or some little insert that could go in the town report that might be as effective okay sounds like we've identified other ways to do the outreach um that's hopefully will get us a better it would be nice though to have the data shortly after the election of you know going this other route and not issuing the postcards what does that give us for turnout you know how many people it would be nice to know shortly after the first part of March you know maybe by the middle of March how many people requested absentee ballots and how many people overall voted so we can see if maybe reaching out this other way got the word out better and got more people to participate it's also possible that the that we had about the same amount of turnout but they weren't the same people maybe there were folks who voted for the you know for the first time or who are infrequent voters who voted because they got a postcard and the people who would normally vote at town meeting um you know who actually like to show up at the polls maybe they just didn't didn't come because of the pandemic yeah it's hard to know without actually running the the databases of the voters against each other yeah well larry if i may ask has there been any um do you have any scuttle putter has there been any uh preliminary discussion among legislators as to whether they might continue the voting protocols that were in place for 20 and 21 or 21 especially in the coming year depending on what happens with coven in other words doing away with town meetings moving to australian ballot those sorts of things i haven't seen anything in recent months um concerning voting yeah yeah it feels like we're just it's such a moving target right now with omicron and delta and in the the surge in vermont um you know it seems like it changes from week to week and who knows what we're going to be looking at come 2022 right i mean the only the only thing that that i know is that it's it's now state statute that the general election in november um everyone gets a ballot that's permanent um but that does but that's not does not apply to the primaries and it doesn't apply to town meeting okay everybody gets a ballot in the mail yeah that's right right in november right okay i think we have a decision on this one um so let's move on to considering the town clerk's request for uh regarding salary is emerson still there yep emory's still here you've got a letter from emory in in packets that outlines the request this is a budget neutral change and that just reflects what's in the agreement currently it does bring him up into line with our department heads and leaves him a little bit behind some of the statewide averages pulled from the vlct stuff so it's movement and then get a direction towards that the the initial rate was and many respects probably artificially low um so it does help make up the ground from from that starting point that's based a lot i think on the position he's in prior um i'm sorry the position he's in now with some of the responsibilities and the changes there um so it it certainly fits there's no there's no budget impact and it does provide us um you know it changes that baseline in a way that i think reflects where we're both want to be at and where we should be at in relationship to our peers and with him as a department head level employee of the town so the the request is for to go up from 42 000 to 52 000 effective immediately or at the start of the next pay period to make it easy i think start of the next pay period yeah because we'll be paid this week so it'll be the start of the next pay period and then because it's half a year it's still it's probably not even um it's less than we'll still save money in that salary line because it'll be across the six months moving moving out early December to June 6 i think so how how was the original initial salary set how what was the procedure for that that was the amount i was hired on for as the assistant clerk in February for my training oh so how come when when emory adopted the new position he wasn't automatically increased why did he retain the the salary for a different position because it's the clerk treasurer's job so he addressed the salary of that position so my guess is he just continued on and because it didn't get brought forward it didn't get addressed for my personal ethics i believed i should have given myself the traditional six month probation which i did plus a little bit more so probation we get to fire you if you're not doing a good job i don't think you had that right for actual probation period just to be clear anything more about letting myself get settled in the position it also makes note of the fact that with some of the other changes organizationally there's going to be a pretty steep learning curve to come up in skill set particularly with the treasurer pieces of the operation that may have been supported differently through the finance department but as there's transition there there's sort of a need for everybody to kind of stand up as quickly as they can and really fully expand so it it does i think at a certain level account for the fact that there's going to be a little bit of stretching and growing that's going to happen while we're in this period most somebody do comes in well anybody have any questions comments or motions on this all right move to uh improve the town clerk treasurer's request one second back uh motion and a second all those in favor hi hi opposed motion carries next up is continuation of temporary payment process for firefighters it's the most wonderful time of the year one of the two it's that by annual event where they're due to be paid the December payments all three fire departments the June one that we had together last was just the village fire department the question that's been before the board a few times now and in there's a larger sort of policy question about paying by direct deposit versus a hybrid system what you've done in the past while there's a supposed to be an effort underway to resolve some of these bigger questions is i mean functionally what it is is you're suspending the personnel policy section that would apply and require direct deposit and then for it works out to be about it was 10 firefighters in this last round for this a period i think they were all village and center and i think everybody out in east randolph is on direct deposit at this point and so we've just uh essentially the board has suspended that provision with policy and we've made the payments in accordance with what we've done historically the 10 checks were at that point now we we did process payroll this week with the 10 checks cut and printed so sort of anticipating that there'd be an action element we're not at the end of the policy conversation whether the longer term decision and sort of taking a bit of a gamble that you would improve another continuation of that policy suspension and so we're really just looking to formalize that and then to put before you to consider whether you want to do it just for this time each time has been i think instance specific so this is the third time you've you've done it if you go forward and you approve it so do you want to do it once and then we'll come back in june if there's still nothing there and maybe use that as a way to motivate the effort through to completion or do you want to just sort of say at this point until there's some sort of resolution we'll leave this provision in place and then in june it goes down to that payroll period something like four checks maybe but it's across that smaller base so it worked out i counted them up in the payroll it's 10 of the 58 firefighters are receiving a check and of the overall payroll run it's 10 of 88 payments processed across categories so it's it's still a pretty small less than one in five at the most robust number but but they are hanging out so it's before you to consider the suspension and whether or not you want to make it kind of a running thing or we'll come back to it june so in the fireman's policy it does allow for paper checks as well as direct deposit in the policy that's coming as a staff labor perspective it's there's there's no real impact of of this system i don't know that we want to expand the number of checks but it wasn't noticeable in terms of when michelle ran it was changing the stock in the printer and changing it back treating will that in the new what's coming to us will that be just for the people that are doing it now or would anybody be able to pass for a check the policy allows for them to be paid by check or direct deposit so it's anybody who's a member of the fire department the the way it's differentiated is the policy that's for the firefighters is being developed with the intent of showing them as volunteers not town employees and so the policy that's being put together is to give them their own policy to follow versus having to fall under the policy as an employee questions action i think i'm going to make a motion that we allow the current policy to stay in place and i think i'm just kind of safe or an indefinite period so we don't have to revisit this again in the future so the current policy is direct deposit only no i thought it was direct deposit or wasn't an option that's in the draft policy that's being the policy oh i thought it was okay so i'd all right well the current practice has been or checks or direct deposit okay so i guess i'm sticking with current practice then there you go i'll second that to a motion and a second all those in favor okay i opposed stained motion carries other business at the five or six items oh sorry other was wrapped and i jumped ahead on you to answer i have another business question we ever look into whether we should be raising the cemetery's cost the bought costs and the maintenance i think that came up before you were here yeah i'm gonna say it's not an effort we've undertaken since April but i can look to see if there's anything not in what that would require i think wasn't that going to randy garner somebody maybe adult was going to talk with randy we had this discussion before we did have this discussion but the cemetery committee didn't think it was their job to look at those rates um if i remember what their response was correctly uh and i believe adult was going to push back on them that it was i think that's where we left it by the cemetery maybe even randy visioner pretty much isn't there yeah yeah it's just functionally it's right under maybe you're always pretty lost it's a deal yeah this is a year in which we did 40 i don't know 40 plus barrels i think we ended up at an enormous year a regular year the average summer on 15 so you think of where that capacity went created strain throughout the the building and ground system some of that was pent up covid some of that was like they had a run in the fall it's the folks who passed away of various reasons and not covid related not sort of pent up demand just tragedies and natural passings and a series of things like that would be nice to see how we compare with other places the league used to i think collect data like that i don't know if they have for years but we can we can see they used to be that they you'd have the salary survey would be one and then this other set of costs so you can compare design fees and cemetery fees i don't know that they've done them for a while though we can look to see if maybe they have them just missed it somehow okay the same on rainbows yeah thank you any other items under other business hearing none grants there are no grant requests to consider one of the things i want to try to do is actually create a master list of grants that are out there both applied for open we've got a lot of things floating around in different places and it would just be nice to be able to see them kind of in one spot and know what's where and how and when decisions are made and in right down to when when our reimbursement timelines and stuff like that especially as we're and bringing new people on or people in new roles so that's on the to-do list so when we'll get there but you keep that moving forward we always know where we're at managers report when our in our packet we have a list we have letters from our committee members is that just for us to look at right now we're not discussing tonight yeah we put those in under the managers report just to say here's who's already in one of the things you had set up when you talked about scope work in those pieces were committee and geographic um you know certain levels of representation among there so we've got some candidates that are interested in qualified but we put the posting out there a little bit longer to see if we can meet those goals it doesn't impact the overall timeline for proposing to do we're unlikely to convene and meet probably before the end of the calendar year anyway with some of the holiday and other stuff going on so we should be able to do that in january a point and hopefully get everybody up and running and i think at that point even if we don't have some of the other markers yet we may at least want to start the process and see if we can augment it as we go and bring people on or figure out how ways to cover some of those other perspectives throughout throughout the process that way we can meet the overall end goal forget if it was like a made kind of a timeline but you have everything in there so you can start looking at it considering it see who's put in most of the hits i think have come from the front porch forum postings and so we went back out there just to keep that rolling i saw a quick draft of the audit so i think we'll be able to do that on the third keeps for sure that presentation there was an off chance we could have squeezed it in tonight but it was tuesday at five thirty and at that point we had already posted everything around town so it's it's being done clips helping us out with that which i'm very appreciative for and then just trying to get it across the finish line we're not participating anything in there that would be really very interesting should be a very boring audit which is exactly what you want to hear and then the only other one was not having been through the process before and i talked to tim angel the other day the randolph center fire station property tax exemption because it's been one year for the last couple years is that something the board has put on the warning or something that they've had to do by petition and then just in asking now it's more about they've got to do a petition they've got plenty of time that starts sooner but not remembering what the we're not knowing in my case what the process has been um and which way you wanted to do it and then whether it's a the range is from the one year we do currently to the five years in statute but not necessarily that you got to determine that piece tonight but just something to consider at some point we have to set budget hearings it looks like they've been done december january like one year they were maybe done both in january i can't find a good document that says what's expected in terms of those just just that they've happened at different points i don't know if we want to set dates need to set dates um from my perspective as the one trying to pick it up and area it across the the goal line january certainly gives me a little more time to get familiar with the the components and then to to add some of the pieces we we've talked about are some of the things we know have changed we'll have our property and casualty insurance rates for example update those we'll know what the health insurance rates are and what our mix is likely to be there may be some refinements there we've got some salary adjustments between emory staying and new employees and some things just to make sure we really got in there so there'll be some adjustments to the version that the budget committee last saw just through the nature of things we'll need to set those here and and then we're going to highlight what some of the open questions might be particular to other areas that we need but it helps me take some time with it's like trying to get inside clipped sprain and then figure out how to navigate around and when your brains may be wired differently you gotta get yourself oriented and then figure out how to do it so it's all there i just have to learn the pathways well that would give us time to make changes yeah yeah we're really up against that january 30th deadline and i it's nice to be about at least a week to 10 days prior to that with everything to do this time to kind of proof it go through it get it reviewed if we need to and then you can make adjustments up to that point but if you've got something you don't like or an error in the past the 30th then it's where we might be stuck with whatever it is or looking for some other kind of adjustment but it's getting compact but there's nothing wild or crazy in that fact no replacement of the managers car with a and all electric sports car but yeah but it seems pretty vanilla no tree we put a random center fire department on ourselves right the question is for how long uh last year we leave the signatures for them and put them on for a year yeah we did that a couple years well that was because it was voted on in town meeting three years ago it was taken off the five-year schedule and it was put on a one-year schedule correct you want at least for tonight just say that you'll you'll put it on again in some form so they don't have to petition and then that still buys some time to think about if it's one again like i said the max is five you can go anywhere between one and five really stick with the one it just gives them some sense of what the process is going to be is there any reason not to go back to five years or two years the whole board to go down to one was because they wouldn't get into an agreement with the town to give us what we needed to get the insurance in place right and you and I went and had that great meeting with them and yep ended up with an agreement um so I think as long as the agreement is still valid then there's no reason not to go to a whole new year yeah I mean that's that was my understanding too so I would be like you know happy to put it back on for five years so we don't have to keep revisiting this I'd be willing to go out as long as the agreement's still effective yeah okay that's there's three years left of the agreement then there's three years that we put out yep all right so Trevor not only that that sounds fine so it's yeah that sounds like a a good idea and if they want to extend the agreement then you can give them five years yep okay that's great thank you any questions on the managers report if not a motion to go into executive session so all those in favor hi hi hi post motion carries and we will take a five-minute break while everybody clears out and