 I'd like to call the September 11th, 2018 Governing Board meeting of Central Vermont Internet to order. Before we do anything else for the sake of the camera, could we do a quick round of introductions around the table if you want to? Yeah, so it's a name in town. We just saw Steve Whitaker from Montpelier. I'm Becca Schrader on the clerk. I'm Alan Gilbert in the Mr. I'm Bob Cline from East Montpelier. Michael Berman from Plainfield. Phil Hayek from Middlesex. Jeremy Hansen from Berlin. Scott Massage from Calis. David Healy from Calis. Ramish Schneider from Williamstown. Andrew Gilbert from Cabot. And gentlemen, it looks like we'll have room if you want to come and join us up closer to the table if it feels more comfortable to you. Especially with the laptop and the lap, I've lost laptops that way. So just before we proceed to quick announcements, bathrooms are through that door that has the exit sign above it and downstairs through the hallway and on your left are two bathrooms down there. If anyone needs the information for the username and password for the internet, I have it here, I'll just pass it around and make sure it gets back to me over to our clerk's portfolio. There are some people who do not cross. Okay. Additions are changed to the agenda. Okay. I would like to put forward, because of this constant, we've had this issue come up about the open meeting law and in particular Mr. Whitaker making some complaints about how things are being handled and quite frankly, one board member, I'm kind of confused about what's being asked for, what has been provided and what hasn't. Okay. I was wondering, I mean, if we could take ten minutes to, and we still have to find out. Sure. So let's do that right after the Berrytown delegate update. So we'll say open meetings. And I'd like to propose we put on a possible executive session if it passes the number of votes to discuss pending or probable litigation. Okay. So hold that thought for a second. The reason that gets complicated is because I'm going to leave about halfway through this meeting. I do not have childcare and as a single parent with two kids without a babysitter for today, I'm leaving at about probably 730, 745. So that executive session would typically go at the end. And while you are all, I encourage you all to have a discussion of such things. I would kind of like to be there for that. You can put it earlier. Yeah. I'd say we take a break. You know what? Okay. Does this cover the open meetings discussion that Brown was talking about? It's bigger than that. What I'm talking about is part of that. It could be. But it doesn't need to be. What you're talking about really should be done in open session. Well, yeah. Some of it will be in open session. So I would say combined. Okay. So let's leave that meeting, that discussion of open meetings until, so we'll do the, I guess we'll do the executive session. The executive session right after the, right after the Berrytown delegate update. And what I would like to do is I would like to move the budget 2019 item immediately after that open meetings discussion. So it's 725 item. And then the vision and mission statements. These are things that apply to things that I need to take responsibility for. So I want to make sure that those get taken care of soon before I take off. Does anybody object to that sort of reordering? So let me reiterate what we're talking about. I'm talking about doing Berrytown delegate update. That's me. Followed by an executive session. Followed by open meetings discussion. Followed by budget 2019. Followed by finalized vision and mission statements. And then USDA role broadband and so on and so on from there with roughly the same timing if we can manage it. I don't think that the mission statements and the vision statements are going to take as much time as we budgeted because I think we're in the homestretch here. That same, okay? Okay. One of the things that may come up if we have motions later because we have some alternates sitting at the table too. Just make sure that if you're an alternate, please, please don't vote. Appreciate that. And if you're the primary, if you just sort of want to keep a close eye on your alternate so that we don't get ganged up by the Kalis folks. I know how you guys roll. Throw a monkey wrench into it. Okay. Public comments. Anything for commentary on stuff that's not on the agenda? I believe my comment will be covered in the requested ad. Okay. Anybody else? I had a meeting with Belco this week. And I know David has been trying to arrange for a meeting with Belco. I learned a few things that might be useful to share, but it doesn't have to happen now. So if it's not related to a thing on the agenda, we technically have 10 minutes if you want to have at it. I'll take much less than 10. So Belco has an extensive fiber network in the state. Most of it, these are things I've learned from them. About 80, I believe about 85% of their network is located on either transmission or sub-transmission towers or poles. And the rest is on distribution poles. The distinction is important to us because fiber that's on distribution poles has or any cables on distribution poles can be in the communication space. Instead of the electric space. And so if it's in the communication space, entities such as ours can access it. If the fiber is on transmission poles or towers, we do not have the legal right to access it. It's considered entirely electric space and only electric utility workers or proof contractors can go there. So that which they have on distribution space can be potentially utilized for fiber as a home. That which is on the other space, the other towers, the transmissions and sub-transmissions can be utilized potentially by us for transport between points. So that distinction is important and knowing where these are and where these aren't is really important. And they are very protective of the maps that show where these are for security reasons. Not just security for Belco, but security of the electric infrastructure against attack and such. They will share those maps with those who have the need to know provided detailed non-disclosure agreements with them and limited the access to very few people in an organization. So there is potential to see these maps later, but not to publicize them, not to share them with the general public, and not even necessarily to share them with our whole board. Those are two things all right. They are keen to have this fiber utilized for the public good, motivated both by their general mission and their owners who are all the electric utilities. And also trying to monetize these tables because they put a lot of money into them and they are not very well used. So they are reaching out to ISPs and that's why I ended up with the need to find ways to utilize them. We are looking for suggestions and have a few that are particularly aware of the department of public services' desires and are hoping to ease the department into Carbridge Co and serving the NSERF, Carbridge Co's replacement. And I guess that's enough. Any other public comments? Okay, very time delegate update. We have one. Sadly, he had already scheduled a business trip for today. His name is Josh Jarvis. He is the CTO of, I don't have it up in front of me, but another tech person. So we'll be able to bring some hopefully good skills to the board. So, executive session. The way this has to work is that before we can go into executive session to discuss a legal matter, there is a couple of things we need to do. First of all, we need to find that premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public body at a substantial disadvantage prior to considering going into executive session. So this is a two motion to process. The other thing that I think we need to know in order to properly discuss this is a little bit more of the generalities about the potential litigation that we're talking about. Who would be the complainant and who would be the defendant and such. I think there's, we need to have a little bit more detail because I'm hearing about this now for the first time. So, I'm going to make a motion that our discussion, that we need to go into executive session to discuss this legal matter because premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public body, since we want internet at a substantial disadvantage. I'm not seconding that. Okay, so anybody seconding that. Okay, discussion. Yeah, I, who, what, why? I mean, I mean, why would we go into, what are we going to be talking about? I can't have a finding on this. Right, so I'm going to need, yeah, I'm going to need more information before we can actually find that people would be at a disadvantage. I just want to point out that you can't say, you can't go into an executive session for a legal matter. You have to be more specific. It has to be a contract, contractual matter, labor-relation agreement. It has to be a civil action. It has to be prosecution by the state. It has to be, I guess, agreement. Hending or probable civil litigation to which the public body is or maybe a party. Okay, so we're talking about a civil action. Okay. I think so. Okay, and then we also have to determine what the disadvantage to us is going to be if there's premature public disclosure. Right, which hopefully this discussion, we can suss that out. Okay, where is that requirement? It is in one VSA 313. Yep. Can you open the email? The board of suit. Yeah, help us out, Steve. No formal or binding action shall be taken. There's nothing about premature disadvantage. Anything under A? Okay. Little A1E, pending or probable civil litigation to which the public body is or may be a party. Okay, I'm reading the guidelines from the Secretary of State's office and as a select board member who's gone through this countless times, I'm telling you that we have to find a premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public at a disadvantage. If we cannot find that, we cannot go into executive session. We'll stop. And then I agree 100%. If you read, if you start at the top 313, you'll see that this particular reason is one of those that's included under the body that needs to find the substantial disadvantage. So I'm going to repeat. What are we talking about? We're talking about potential for one, the communication district being sued related to public records requests that have not been adhered to. Okay, sued by who? By me. Okay. And secondly, the district's potential to file litigation for public records against other municipalities who are not providing them. Okay, so my thought here is that we are, unless I've been misinformed and missed several meetings, we are not, CBI is not party to pending or probable civil litigation against another party. That's something that we want to explore as another agenda item and we've found that that is something that we're going to do. Then I think we can go in executive session and talk more about that. The first item, though, I think that's probably the more interesting one. And so the question is now, does the body think that we need to go into executive session to discuss this? Because if we do get going to executive session, though, I know one person sitting at this table at these tables who will not be here. And so, yeah, I kind of having that same sort of reaction, that sort of puzzled look around the table. Anybody want to have any? What did we fail to do? I think, yeah, at this point, because I'm not going to, I'm not going to vote to go into executive session and talk about a public complaint about an open meeting while met. That's not executive session material. If there's a complaint to be leveled about the open meeting while it gets leveled in open session, and we get a chance to hear it, and we get a chance to hear it the other side, you know, as a board we get a chance to hear it the other side. We did that at the last meeting, and now it's escalating to probable litigation. Well, I don't know. But you're not going to get invited into a meeting involving private possible litigation that involves you as a complaint. But having said that, listen, I just as interested in hearing, I have not heard, so I don't know what people think's been discussed, but I've been to these meetings, I have not heard from your side, and I have not heard from the board's side. So I honestly have no idea what's going on, other than the fact you have alleged that there's open meeting law violations. No, this is public records, not open meeting. All right, well the public records, I'll take that. And it was raised several meetings ago, the specific requests that were made, and copies of the disposition were sent to the entire board, and it was raised again at the last meeting saying this appeal to the head of the agency has not been adhered, responded to in accordance with law, and I'm going to leave it to y'all to figure out what to do about it. What haven't you received? A reply to an appeal to the head of the agency. What haven't you received from the board? That would cause you to say there's been an open records violation. Records that were provided to David Healy from Washington Electric Co-op. Who's David Healy? Oh, thank you. No, I just wanted to be sure. Well, I mean, you're just, I gotta say, I don't, I've never seen any disposition in this first time I've heard of this too, so this is just really, I don't remember you asking for records. Yeah. Okay, well, everyone was copied with the appeal to the head of the agency? I never saw it. In the email? I never saw it. Yeah, I never saw it. Okay, during a meeting, you said, could I get a copy of that? No. And then nobody sent it to you? I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Well, at the last meeting, do you recall me saying that the chairman has not responded to an appeal to the head of the agency? And that the governing body needs to deal with that? Because we are municipality trying to build a credible and accountable organization. Okay, so what is it that you haven't received? The data or a response to the appeal to the head of the agency? What date have you not received? Polls and lines, Washington Electric. Is it in the custody of Central Vermont Internet? That's debatable. If one person has it, I got my bank account information. That's not in the custody of Central Vermont Internet just because I sit on this board. So I know that's going to an extreme to make it up. Washington Electric gave it to David. He lived under the auspices of Central Vermont Internet. The caveat that I would not redistribute. But there's nothing in writing. So what Jeremy and I decided to do is to send the data back to Washington Electric so it's no longer in my possession. I think the request, though, was that you did have it and you didn't give it to me. And when sort of an appeal to the head of the agency is filed, the head of the agency has a five-day legal obligation to respond. And I wrote back to Jeremy and said you didn't respond in accordance with law. And if you're saying that the record has been destroyed, that's a whole other issue. But you need to get this right. I'm going to read my response. I gave a response. Here's my response. It is my opinion that the records David were evaluating are transitory in nature. That is, they were passing through. And given that there are no further records in the custody of Central Vermont Internet pursuant to your request, I don't know how I can fulfill your request. But that response does not comply with law. And I would also say, though, if you go to 1VSA 317, which gives the exemptions to the over-meeting law, it's under number nine, trade secrets meaning confidential business records or information, including any formula, plan, pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound procedure, production data or compilation of information, which is not patented, which is commercial concern, makes efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to keep sacred and which gives its user or owner an opportunity to obtain business advantage over competitors who do not know it, use it, accept that disclosure is required by 1VSA in section 44632 are not exempt under the subdivision and connect 1VSA to that. Thanks for that. But neither Washington Electric nor David invoked that exemption. Well, if they do or don't, they may be late doing it, but there is an exemption. It didn't perceive the appeal. The appeal has to be responded to in accordance with law, or we are outlaws. Okay. So I want to point out the interesting and unenviable position that we find ourselves in where we have a member of our governing body, an alternate, actually actively seeking to sabotage the day-to-day activities on a rather technical issue. We don't have to go there. We don't have to give a scribe. Oh, of course. He's got a right to make a request. We have a right to react how we care. Of course, but then I'm getting, but my response is getting mischaracterized and I'm being said, I'm being told that I'm somehow failing in my duty. I'm finding that you would fulfill your obligation. Okay. So the question on the motion on the floor is that are we going to, are we finding that premature public disclosure of this discussion warrants an executive session? Further discussion, we can keep having it, I guess. Question. If we do both for a second session, who will contender? The board can decide who they invite to the meeting. So the question before us is, would the public finding out prematurely about Steve's antagonists, Steve's attempts to get information that no longer exists, according to a particular set of rules and timing that he deems not have been met, would them finding out, do them harm? Would CVI harm? Do us harm. Premature public disclosure would do us harm. I would argue that it would, because if this were to get into Vermont Digger with him doing a quote to Vermont Digger about how unresponsive we are too much out of the gate. This is open session right now, so we've had that discussion. So yeah. I would call the question. Is everybody ready to vote? Sure. Was there a second? There was a second. So I'm going to restate the motion. I made a motion that we find that premature general public knowledge would clearly place the public body in terms of my internet, involved in a substantial disadvantage in the discussion of this probable pending civil litigation. Am I allowed to ask a question? We're still in discussion. I'm not a voting member, so I don't know how that works. No, no, no. Calling the question is a motion that was not seconded or voted on by two-thirds majority. You just asked if everybody was ready. No, I asked if everybody was ready, and I didn't hear anything, and then Becca asked the question. All right. I misinterpreted what you were listening for. Okay, I have two, one comment and one question. First, the only public records appeal that I have noticed of from Stephen that went out to everybody is an appeal to the head of the agency, which was for the minutes of the May 5th meeting, which we resolved. Correct? Correct. There's a second one. I don't have that. The first one was not responded to in accordance with law either. It was remediated. It was remediated? You got the minute. There's still a requirement of what have the response gets supplied. You know we can't go back in time, right? Okay, but that's not what you're... Correct. That's not what the litigation would be over. I don't want to waste my time proving that you've been harming yourself. Can I then also ask my question? Okay, so then my question is, as my understanding is that part of my job is the custodian of the records of Central Vermont Internet. So am I personally liable for this and I never received the request? So this is probably a question to be asked within the executive session. Okay. I can do that then. Talk about the details. If I'm included in this. The question was full word. So I think we're all ready? Okay. So delegates only please are alternates filling in for delegates. And if we can do this by a show of hands, I think that would probably be better. So how many people find the premature general public knowledge would clearly place CVI at a substantial disadvantage in these discussion of legal proceedings? Two, three, four, five. So against five. Wow. What's that? To fails. To fails. So I'm not sure how we approach this because quite personally, I don't think I don't have heard anything that tells me that the board, either through the chair or through the clerk, has failed to respond. You may not, it may not have been 100% by the letter of the law that you can take that report and they'll giggle about it. So I Point personally, I think the board has lived up to its obligations. We certainly we're beginning. We have problems. Absolutely. The exact letter of the law on some of these, especially the meeting law. It can be a bit cumbersome and it can trip you up at times. But I will also say that I think we have definitely stayed within the spirit of the law. And we've tried to accommodate them all request. And I would ask if you wanted to. So I, I, I don't know whether we need a motion to sit here and save the board and think that this has been responded to appropriately. But if there's a motion to be made on that, I would be happy to try it. So given that we did not find that premature general public knowledge. We cannot find that we can enter executive session. So what I'm going to suggest is we go on to your agenda item, which is about open meetings and I think by extension public records. And we can have a more general discussion of that. Well, that would go I guess open records along the public records long because generally I was mistaken. No, I'm, if it's the board's pleasure that it be done in open session, then regardless of the rep, reputational risks, I'm okay with that. I don't see anything wrong with us staying true to the open records law and staying with the exemptions as a law. And we, the document described seems to be pretty obviously falling to that number nine. We're not up to you to invoke exemptions. That's a question that please don't interrupt me. We all get a chance to talk. I personally would make the motion that we just move on from this. I believe the board has responded appropriately. Well, you put it on the agenda. So now we have order. So we have a motion by Rama that we move on from this item. Is there a second? Is this a motion to table? Was that what you're asking? I guess it would be a motion to table and definitely sure. Yeah. Motion to table. The easiest way to move on. So it was your agenda item to open it up. Point of order. Is there a second? I'll second it. So now we can discuss it. So there's a discussion about whether we should move on from this open meetings, public records discussion. Yeah. I think we would benefit from having an attorney such as Jim Barlow here, a member who has worked for the League of Cities and Towns and really does know the open meeting law and the public records law. Okay. And he's not here tonight. I haven't heard if he's coming or not. And I think we're at a disadvantage because I don't think any of us is an attorney. And I mean, I know a fair amount about public records and open meetings, but I don't want to advise the board about what to do with something like this. That's putting yourself in parallel actually. Okay. Actually, there's no action for the board to take here unless this is really the chairman's obligation, the head of the agency's obligation that has been faulted here. I'm trying to inform the board such that. Point of order. It seems to me that the chair should recognize the speakers in this meeting. And he's given a tremendous latitude to all the alternates and delegates throughout the previous meetings. But I believe that it's proper, especially with this discussion, that we respect the chair and ask to be recognized. Thank you, Michael. Not to mention our procedure policy says that when there's been a motion in the second, only the voting members should be participating in the discussion. So while I think it's appropriate to hear what Stephen has to say about this, I want to hear from the other board members, the voting folks, about how I should proceed. I read you my email. You understand some of the context now. If I ought to be doing something differently, I am totally happy to take direction in this case. From the context I have and information I have, I think there's any advice that we can make in terms of corrective action or other action that should be taken. I think that tabling it or putting it aside for now is just as appropriate. Okay. I have just a clear opinion. You seem to be responding to what was told to us in the last meeting. We were presented with that information as if it were transitory passing for what was not for public knowledge. And therefore should not have even been an issue. So it was an appropriate response that you are. So we just wait for a shoe to fall? I'm just waiting for the other shoe. I don't understand what's going on here. This makes no sense to me. And I'm very frustrated right now. Yeah, don't smile. Well, I'm not allowed to talk to explain it to you. But it seems to me like there's something else going on here and I don't understand it. And I'm a little frustrated by that because I'm a pretty straightforward person and I don't deal with obfuscation very well. So I guess if everybody thinks we should table it, I can go with that. But the uncertainty is going to kill me. I don't know what's going on. I think it's okay for me to table it tonight. But as far as I'm concerned being the data guy, I think we ought to have a policy, a developed policy on when we do get data, how we handle data, whether it is or isn't exemption from one of those things should be explored. But all I know is that we ought to have a clear set of footing about what we're doing with data when we get it and when we create it. Because the other thing that's going to happen is we're going to be creating a lot of information, whether internally by us or by a contractor, who's going to help develop the deployment plans and engineering. So we should be pretty clear about what is and what isn't available for distribution and what format is available for distribution. So to that extent, I think tabling it tonight is a good idea, but we better be moving towards some sort of policy description of what it is. So we all know where the parameters were working within. So I think I'd like to hear from Stephen now if you could give your kind of maybe a three minute condensed version of what we should be considering here. What would you suggest that we do moving forward from your perspective? From the 30,000 foot level take the letter, not the spirit or interpretation of the spirit of the law as a foundation principle of this municipality and that we do not cut each other's slack based on whatever information we do or don't have. That the law is very specific about what is to be included in a response from an appeal to the head of the agency. And without getting into mincing statutory sections, I can assure you it has not been met with. So let me ask you this. If I quoted in my response to you, if I essentially took Rama's very clear description of we're invoking this, whatever, and I hand that to you, what are you going to do with that then? Actually, it's not your data to invoke an exemption for. Rama's exemption claim could have been potentially claimed by Washington Electric, but cannot be claimed by this because we have not, our policy committee hasn't chosen to characterize any records held by the district. So what I'm hearing here is that it doesn't really matter how I respond that we're still going to be in some sort of bad situation and that you're going to press on legally regardless. Does that sound about right? I'm going to make sure we get it right, yeah. And I'm hoping that we can do it as a governing board. But this is what I'm asking. Stephen, tell me what it is that we need to do to sort of be able to dial this down a notch. We don't have the data anymore. Tell me how to proceed and be as specific as you can because I'm going to write this down. We have it on video and I want to know how to do this right. Hey, John. I believe that if the claim is made that the data no longer exists, it triggers. And I put this in my email to you. It triggers the issue of whether we destroyed public records. Please be clear. I asked a question. What should we do so that we can be on stable ground? Is there an action that we can- I can't advise you as a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So we as a public body can't make determinations as to what records we will hand over to people and what we won't. That's all set by law. And I think really what we stumbled into is a disagreement about whether Washington Electric could claim that those records could not be disclosed to anybody and whether that was correct. And if it wasn't correct whether we can claim that we do not have to disclose the records. So that's why I'm thinking it would be really better to have somebody who's more versed in the public records law before we try to parse this. I think the second problem is I don't think the open meeting law gives the board the authority to override the head of the agency. I shouldn't say the open meeting law, the public records law, even if we do disagree with what Jeremy, the head of the agency, did. I think we can talk about what he did. But presumably Stephen's next step, his recourse, his redress, is to sue the municipality, to sue us. I don't even know if we can technically override what Jeremy's decided. You know, we could advise him that was really done. You shouldn't have done it. We're David. That was really stupid. I mean, we can do that, I guess. But I don't think we can actually change unless Jeremy wants to change what his response was. And at this point you can't change your response because it's over with. It's done with. So I'm just kind of stuck. I don't think there's anything else that we can do other than wait to see if Stephen is going to go to court and file a suit against the municipality and then we'll see the grounds on which he is claiming the Public Records Act was violated. I would, and that's why I'm supporting the motion to table this because I think we're stuck. I don't think we can do anything else tonight. I don't think that, I'm not asking. Is there a timeline of when this stuff happened? Absolutely. I mean, some of this happened before I existed? Perhaps. Wow. Well, as far as you guys are concerned, anyway. So Stephen sent David a public records request Wednesday, July 18th. That was my birthday. Happy birthday. Late. Okay. And this was because David had said in a meeting that he got this information from Washington Electric that Washington Electric said don't share this with anybody, not even the board. They didn't say that. They just said don't share this with anybody. Not to redistribute. Not to redistribute. Okay. Well, that kind of includes everybody. Okay. So then July 20th, David responds to Stephen and said he's returned the files. I'll read this. I've returned the files I received from WEC back to Bill Powell and deleted them from my hard drive so I no longer have them in my physical possession to be subject to your public record request. I believe that there's an urgent need for clarification of the public records law and the, quote, possibly proprietary data from a public utility. I did not feel like I should be in a position of violating the agreement I made with Bill that I would not redistribute. And did you return or delete those files in response to his request? Or did you do it before he requested? After he requested. After. Okay. And so then Stephen sent, the same day Stephen sent me an email about this. He said, hereby appeal the denial of my public records request for WEC Poland line GIS files as appended below. And he essentially gave me the email chain. I responded to Stephen on the 26th. I said, it is my opinion that the records, David, were evaluating our transitory nature and given that there are no further records in the custody of central from my internet pursuant to your request. I don't know how I can fulfill your request. So this is July. Will you read or your follow up response to that? Did I have a follow up response to that? Or no, my follow up response to you. Sure. Jeremy, we can take it up at the August 2nd meeting. But in my opinion, we need Council ASAP as David is not allowed to destroy public records, regardless of whether he wants to claim their exempt. The policy committee is not scheduled to meeting yet and should do so. And that was same day, July 26th. Can I ask a question? I guess we'll get back again. That portion of the statute that you read seems to say if we are given information on a proprietary basis that we're not to, you know, saying we're not sharing, are they then considered protected from this? So when I was reading from one BSA, Section 317, I don't know what you call it, the following public records are exempt from public inspection and copying. And I read number nine on that list. That was the trade secrets. And it doesn't say anything about who created the data. It doesn't say anything about who owns the data or anything about that. It just says trade secrets, et cetera, that are exempt from public copying and inspection. And we're talking about the data that had the polls that Washington Electric, which is proprietary data, isn't it? There's a question about that. You know how Power Out makes that data available every year for free to everybody? Yeah, well, okay, yay, Washington Electric doesn't. They're a different company. They're different organizations, so they make the decision not to. That's what they said explicitly to you, do not redistribute this. So technically, the board didn't have that information. You had that information. I'm a member of the board. But as Ron pointed out, he's got a bank account. Okay, I've got a car, but that doesn't make the car and the boards. But I made the request under the auspices of the board. And they asked you not to. And so, Steve, if you can answer this question very directly, I will try to be very succinct in the question. You are trying to get us to make a policy decision. You're not necessarily trying to attack us. Correct. Okay. And now, since we are quoting, may I quote the statute. If the custodian considers the record to be exempt under the provisions, the custodian shall so certify in writing, such certification shall identify the records withheld and the basis for the denial. A record shall be produced if, within three business days, if certification shall include the asserted statutory basis for the denial and a brief statement of the reasons and supporting facts of the denial. So that's under the first claimed exemption, which didn't happen. Second, if appeal to the head of the agency, that's Jeremy, the head of the agency shall make a determination with respect to any appeal within five business days after receipt of such appeal. If an appeal of the denial of the request for records is in whole or in part upheld, the agency shall notify the person making such request of the provisions for judicial review of that determination under section 319. This is where we stray. So because this email didn't include the information. Nor the avenue for appeal, which are both explicitly required by law. You can't answer the appeal if there's no records. I said you might need to answer for why we destroyed records. We don't have an approved records destruction schedule. You asked him to appeal. He can't appeal if there's no records. No. Yes. I'm appealing the denial. The denial, the existed, the records existed. My understanding is that if people are looking to have a firm policy set up so that we will abide, we will make sure that we abide by open records and public media requests in the appropriate way, which is fine. And I don't disagree with that. I do take the open meeting on the public records. They exist for very, very good reasons. That if what's being asked for is policy development on that, I'm going to, I will move to amend the motion to table to instead direct the policy committee to develop a policy on open record, our public records and open meeting. I don't know what here, I don't know why. That data collection is... That was done two meetings ago. I'll point out. What? That direct the policy committee to deal with this. Ellen, it would essentially be directing the policy committee to state that we will obey the law. Which we're going to do. And I don't think we should even suggest that we don't want to obey the law. It's understood that we'll obey the law. I mean, that's not really in question here. But the question really is whether Stephen was given the accurate information that should have gotten upon the denial of the request. Is that correct? Correct. And it implicates whether or not we have to deal with the issue of destruction of records. Again for the policy committee. So I'm going to ask everybody, I'm going to take Michael's advice here. If you want to speak, a hand goes up please. I'm going to call on you, then you get a chance. Outbursts, I'm going to call a point of order. And then if this doesn't happen, then we're going to call a recess. And then we can start going from there. Because yeah, I would actually kind of like to go home. But we also have lots of things to do. Because I'm here to do stuff. I'm not here to mess around, right? I'm not here to mess around. So does anybody else have any thoughts or feedback about the motion on the table? So Rama made a motion. I didn't hear a second. John. Did you repeat the motion? I don't know that I was here when it was made. Sure. Rama's motion was to table any further discussion of the question of public records. Because there was a much larger discussion that happened. I'm going to say much larger. There was more discussion that happened before it came in, John. You seconded the motion. I did. You did. So are there any other comments about the motion on the table? That sounds like somebody's ready to vote. Okay? So if we do a show of hands here too, I would like to see that. So all in favor of tabling this indefinitely, please raise your hands. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Okay? Opposed? Abstaining. Okay? That's 11-0-0. So unanimous. Let's move on. Budget 2019, tentative revenues and expenditures. It came to my attention in the email that's part of my report that I'm required to produce as of the agreement from the last meeting, that I'm expected to produce a report describing what it is that we're doing. I also need to include a budget for the next year. So hey, we got to make a budget. So given that we don't really have much to work with, something that the Business Development Committee worked on a little bit was talking about what are some of the things that they would need? What are some of the money items imminently coming up that aren't like buying fiber or paying for an engineer? And so these are completely, I don't want to say a random, but they're aspirational numbers picked out of the air. So Jerry mentioned to me that they reported back to me the Business Development Committee found that they thought that we should engage external business development services to help us writing a business plan in addition to some other stuff. And I was not there at that meeting. So for anybody that was there, you'd certainly weigh in more. And Jerry sort of picked a number out of the air and said $250,000. I don't know if that's actually how much it's going to cost. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's less. There was also a discussion of if we are going to have a treasurer doing treasurer sort of work that we ought to also pay that person. And so I picked a number out of the air and I said $10,000. Maybe it's more. Maybe it's less. I'm putting these out here as line items that we can discuss and hopefully talk about tonight. Are there going to be expenses doing fundraising? Are we doing mailers? Are we going to let people expense their mileage if they're driving door to door? That's a PO box. So it's for an 11 by 11 PO box at 11 by 11 inch PO box in Montpelier. It's $450 a year. These are things that if we're going to have a mailing address, that's a PO box, we should probably pay for and have in our budget. Furthermore, that's the expenditure side. And how do we raise that money? $250,000, it looks like $260,450 from what I have so far. A philanthropic donations. That's a pretty tall order. Yeah, Dan. Yeah, having been at the meeting, the $250,000 was the goal and that the assistance of a business development expert would probably be required to help us achieve that goal. So it wasn't that that was going to cost us. That was the aspirational figure for... So that was how much we were hoping to pull down in philanthropic donations for 2019. Tell them I'll reach a donation. Okay. Wow. I was like, I'm in the wrong business because I can help somebody write a business plan for that much. Okay, so because I'm supposed to produce this report, which should include a budget, at the next meeting, I would love to have any feedback right now about what I should have and specific numbers right now. If I don't get specific numbers, I'm going to just have to guess. I don't want to do that. But we will vote, we will make the final decision on that budget, on that report, at the next meeting. So we can sort of tweak and iron out any details at that next meeting. But I want to have a better idea of what we're doing right now. I think that we... And I'll couch this in the broader phrase of the executive session topic that we won't address tonight regarding other litigation of municipalities to get the data we need to do our plan. But I think we need a legal budget. It's not going to be reasonable to expect Mr. Barlow as a board member to do free legal work. So I would suggest probably $20, $25,000. Okay. Just for your suits. So, I've added a line item for legal costs in the amount of $25,000. We can debate the finer points of that later. Ronald? Yeah, the treasure $10,000 seems on the high side for treasurer needs, especially right now down the road that could be very different. Okay. So pitch me a number. I would have that. I would even say there will probably still be comfortable in the high side. So we can budget for these things. We still have to authorize any payments anyways. This is a budget. So if we come in at 50% of that. But I'll tell you, you have to present something like that and a $10,000 budget for a treasurer to the Williams Town select board that they're going to start. I don't have to present this to the Williams Town select board. Well, I do. I do. And they are one of the member districts. Right. And I am representing the town of Williams Town. So if they dig their heels in, you're going to see me kind of dig my heels in. I talked to one of your excited constituents today about how excited they are to have fiber come to their house. Most of the constituents are. Yes. I would add another, in terms of doing a survey of the member communities between $10,000 and $15,000. Survey of the member communities for fundraising? For everything. Information and fundraising. Okay. And how much? So this is wish list. These are probably all going to get axed. I think we need an engineering firm to start writing, designing a plan, designing a network and identifying infrastructure that needs to be built, or at least. So do you think we're going to get, in 2019, so this is more of a general question to the board, do you think we're going to get to the point where we're going to be doing engineering of actual fiber? Oh God, I hope so. We'd better if we're going to survive. Give me number. I don't know. David, you had a number of engineering from talking to vantage point? I didn't get a number from them. So, I mean, so as I understand it, with engineering and all of the costs per mile, like I said, way at the beginning, about $30,000. I don't have that broken out into what the engineer is versus what this or that is. So can I say construction and engineering as a line item, and then we can say 20 miles and put it in there as that much? I don't think we'll, I don't think that's the best way to approach it. No, I don't think we should go by the mile. Then somebody needs to own finding this value out. So, I'm just going to leave it as a blank right now. My business has a business model. It's a spreadsheet with seven different sheets and a book with seven sheets and hundreds, if not thousands of miles, all to this point. They're not all for this coming year, but I think the approach we're taking right now is not practical because there are going to be way more than, let's say, 1000 miles. And we're not going to have time to discuss the miles to do it. As proprietary information and protected and exempt and whatever language I'm supposed to use, I might be persuaded to share some of this with a member of the board. Can you and I meet, because I have to produce this report, can you and I meet one-on-one and we can sort of pick out parts of that? I don't really care about your data as much as having the line items, the templates. That's my point. And then, of course, this is more to the actual execution of the plan as opposed to the planning of the plan. So some of our items are not going to be in my sheet, but that's where I might be able to make suggestions. But we also could go to our sister, you see, if I were to ask them for some of their early lines also. We're out there trying to reinvent this wheel. I don't think it's necessary. We're going to make it our own, but we should start with something that's already there. Okay. So I really like that idea and I would definitely appreciate your offer of helping with that. I had a conversation with Irv Tomay this afternoon. We actually kind of touched on this. And one thing he made me realize is that what we're trying to do now is something they ever did because he said they were basically joined at the hip with Valley Net almost from the beginning. So they weren't doing all this stuff themselves. They hired a firm to do the engineering, to do the construction, to do everything they had to do to create the network that they were envisioning. So I think down the road, this budget is going to be really easy. It's going to have one really big line item that's going to say to canyon telegraphy or whatever. And it's going to have a lot of money behind it. And then we might have a few line items. So I think what you all you have to do now, Jeremy, is just really throw some darts on the wall because I mean, we don't know. We don't know what we're doing. So maybe we can combine this where I will put together some kind of aspirational budget. I'll send it out early. Everybody can take a look at it, bring your comments to the next meeting, and we'll just finalize it. We'll make five or six big items. So we will have something that will say like engineering and construction, and it's just going to be a big blob. But I will use inspiration for later, more detailed budgets from what Michael and I talked about. Does that sound? Sure. Just for clarification, I agree with that. Because I think we're going to have to have a partner. We can't manage doing this. To me, the emphasis then is, I'm going to make what the answer is, that the monies are, it's business-developed fundraising and communication up front are the more priorities to me. And then, yeah, there's some magic, big blob that you're going to eventually give to somebody. But that's... Later. Yeah. When can we do that? Unlike, I would assume our first, if we issued it, if we look for assistance, the first thing we do is like an RFQ or RFP for somebody just to do the design work or an initial proposal, even so that would be lower money that we can put into an initial fundraising thing. I've got consultants jumping at the bit already contacting me like, we're going to do this for you. Yeah. Just a thought. EC Fiber's current budget, which way more than we're talking about here, is underway. So if you want to look at it, or any of us want to look at it and see what categories they have assigned to this enterprise, I think that would be better. Cool. Okay. Anything else about the 2019 budget? I think I have my marching orders. Appreciate it. I guess at one point, we had brought up that the finance committee, actually we had said that we were going to suggest that we'd actually been put into it, but I would suggest to my fellow finance committee members that we kind of drop that concept and let you, because we've seen, you know, if we get in the way now, and again, I mean, if we don't raise the money, we can't spend the money. So... I'm just going to leave that one. Anything else about budget 2019? So we moved up a finalized vision and mission statements. So I'm going to go back and make sure that I have this in front of me. So you'll notice on your, you know, I'm going to go back and say, you know, so you'll notice on your agenda that I actually put the draft mission statement down at the bottom. I changed the, that we provide to providing how that's okay. I'm going to see back. Governing Board draft minutes. Okay. So, mission that we got to with our little whiteboard exercise. We will provide central Vermont universal access to affordable, reliable, secure, public communications infrastructure that adapts to future community needs. The vision was central Vermont will become more resilient as residents and institutions have access to economic, cultural, and educational opportunities through high speed internet services. So if there are things that we need to change or add, or this is the time to do it. I was educated last time we talked about this at the end of the discussion that I was going to try and just smooth this out a little bit and try and have it with a smoother voice. So I've come up with something here and I think there are enough paper copies for everybody. And I thought the work we did was fantastic by the way. You know, thinking back on it was really good how we all got engaged. But I just thought that the language could be massaged a little bit. So at the top of the page, what you're going to see is what Jeremy just read with submission and then the proposal of what I think it could be redone into and maybe make it a bit more person-friendly is down below. I don't think substantive or any different. And if anything, I think the people who are going to be involved in marketing and fundraising should be the ones who really have some hard decisions about which language they think is better to use as a sales pitch, frankly. Because we're trying to communicate what we're all about and whatever does it most effectively is what we want. I'll ask you about the vision. We're going to include means. Ask one of the goals. And of course, it's a lot of what we all believe in that and I may get behind it but I'm questioning whether that means that we are going to subsidize broadband for people with less earnings or are we going to how are we going to meet that goal and vision? Yeah, I have thought about it and that's why I put it in, frankly. I think it's something we should be striving towards. And I think, actually, when you talk with AC5 or people, they think they're kind of doing this by the rate structure because they're getting a lot more money from businesses and institutions than they are from individuals. So I think what they think they're doing is they're trying to help individuals with lower rates than they would otherwise be able to get. I think we can do that and maybe we could also down the road look at some sort of structure that's income sensitive. That gets really complicated. I don't think we want to go there yet. We'll be designing new property tax systems and I think we want to do that. But I think it is a good vision to have because I think it's a real issue for people. I believe in that. Would you like to make a contribution to support a program or are we going to subsidize it? Let's start the ball rolling. I think I'd like to make a motion to go with the new wordsmith version of the vision of it. Hold on. We need a second. Do we have a second? Second by Phil? I think it's premature. I think it's excellent. I think it's a good rewrite of the one we reached last time and I think there may be other items. I have one item that I'd like to add in but there may be other people with other items and we may not be quite ready to vote on our mission and vision until we have a discussion. Well, we have. This is typically the way that we have the discussion as the motion happens first and then we've done things inverted a bit. We technically have 45 minutes to discuss this as the agenda item. So I'm just encouraging everybody not to rush to vote for this point yet. Oh, I think it's good. Can I make one second? Our business plan is going to evolve out of the mission and vision and one semi-controversial topic is what technology will be used to reach these goals? And I have a fiber company I've got no problem with going for fiber fiber is wonderful but it's incredibly expensive and if we're talking about universal access we may want a hybrid system that includes fixed wireless and so it wouldn't hurt in my mind I I'm not sure what's the mission of the vision at the moment but we could include a phrase like technology neutral or using whatever means necessary or some qualifier that allows our mission to not be exclusively fiber I just like to hear discussion on that. I don't see any, I don't see that it's exclusively fiber. Okay, so I think I believe that it's sufficiently technology neutral the way it is. I hear what you're saying but I think it by specifying fixed wireless okay but secondly I ran the idea of locally focused was new and it created ambiguity in my mind so I propose changing the word focused to owned and governed locally owned and governed that's a good idea I think okay, so but I think if we can discuss these and we'll sort of try to assemble these all at the end into one big amendment if we can, Brahma? I just want to say, you know Alan, nice job my preference is for gravity so I actually prefer the original draft over the proposal of the amendment just based on gravity it just it's a styles stylistic point. Additional thought is that this whatever we wind up with won't be our final mission we will two years from now, four years, five, ten have other ideas I will have different board members too. Yes We just have to find some more people in Cabot. Who's your Oh great Any other thoughts about this language? I had the locally focused thing written down there too because that was not a particular phrase but I do like the locally owned and governed. I think the vision is a bit more of a total rewrite and I kind of like the first one better. The second one is fine though. I'm happy to vote for this to move us forward and like Bob said if we need to come back and say you know what this is not working. We need to totally do this. Do you know what you don't really sort of threw me off about the original I look up the word resilient and resilient actually means to recover from a difficult position and to bounce back and to me that's a negative. I'm trying to think what's the difficult position we're in. We don't have something we'd like to have. That I really like opportunities for people of all ages, means and interests I really like that he's included that I think it states flat out that we are interested in the technological gap and addressing that and I think that that's really important as a municipal organization with a fairly high poverty rate in the rural area. So I would thank you good for adding that in and I would be loathe to lose that explicit statement. Otherwise it's good. Okay. Yeah. I'd like to explain the first sentence where it's needed in the mission. We envision the high speed highway. That was my attempt to say we're going to have really fast speeds and we are net neutral. High speed highway alludes to concrete and it's very difficult to find anything in there that points to the technology network that we're talking about building. So I would propose leaving the word high and changing the word speed highway into performance network. High performance network. Temperature check. The highway is in the public mind as an image of how the internet functions. It's an easily interested concept that is very broadly accepted as a perhaps not wholly apt but understandable as an expression. I agree with you that that is kind of out there. I think the only difference is taking digital because we usually refer to it as a digital highway. Take it from where you have it, put it in front of highway and it kind of gets to what you're talking about. So we envision a high speed digital highway where traffic flows freely. Anything else? Yeah I guess the word phrase our goals because our goals would seem to me to be more of a mission statement. And I think what comes after the words our goals are a vision statement. I just think that those first two words we will help grow the vision economy. Something like that. I don't know the exact word. I think just changing it to we will. I mean that's some clear action. Or yeah I was about to say there's a passive voice way of saying it that might be more palatable to people but it just makes it unclear. Because I also think the last one, sorry, you've got to say it before I start. The more the passive way of saying it would be to turn the flows freely comma. That's the word our goals are. And so we envision a high speed digital highway where digital traffic flows freely comma to help grow the regional economy and broaden opportunities. Or how about comma growing the regional economy and broadening digital opportunities. That's good. See what that all one says. Yeah, growing the regional economy and broadening digital opportunities for people. They're by enriching so we get that growing broadening enriching. So that's also nice like present tense. This is the kind of sentences we would write to Apple everybody. Just check the spelling. Okay. I prefer two or three sentences for the same thought. I think it shouldn't be a long run-on sentence. It's a style. It's not a run-on sentence. It's a complex sentence. So who likes the complex sentence versus the breaking it up? Yeah, in deference to the words with I would break it up. Now we're going to defer. I'm going to defer to the marketing and communications. The marketing people are the ones I want to hear from. I frankly don't care where I sit. They're going to grab taglines. When you do the marketing communications you are this is what you want to say and your letterhead at some point we'll take bits and pieces but it's not going to get quoted except when necessary for legal documents because you're trying to frame things. You're not trying to parrot them. What can you most easily remember if you had to give an elevator speech? Would it be easier to have it lined up in three sentences? Specific items? One sentence that flows? High-speed digital highway does get remembered. What it's going to lead to depends on whether you've got people in government social services listening or whether you've got people in business listening. That's vision in four words folks. Our internet won't suck. You probably don't want to put that on a flyer though. It's a compound word that says maybe five words. So we can put that on the bottom of all of our literature. Our internet won't suck. That can be our motto. Somebody can go work on that. But seriously, the way I have it here is combined into one complex sentence if somebody has a different proposal or something that we can work with. Otherwise, it's going to be in the sake of expediency. Can you read it for me real quick? Definitely. I'm just going to read the vision for now. We envision a high-speed digital highway where traffic flows freely growing the regional economy and broadening digital opportunities for people of all ages means and interests thereby enriching the public and private lives of our residents. Perfect. The question is to adopt them as presented. I want to talk about there's a minor change in the mission statement. I think we agreed to, but I want... Because I'm going to make a motion to amend the previous amendment. I'm sorry, to amend the previous motion. Thank you. And then we will vote on that, and then we'll go back and we'll vote on the amended motion. Is that clear for everybody? So I'm going to move that we amend the mission to we will provide central Vermont residents, businesses, and civic institutions with universal access to a reliable, secure, locally owned and governed digital communications network able to grow to meet future community needs and the vision will be we envision a high-speed digital highway where traffic flows freely comma growing the regional economy and broadening digital opportunities for people of all ages, means, and interests thereby enriching the public and private lives of our residents. This is where someone seconds. Second. Okay, so a second from Phil in the comment. Yeah, just one comment, just in terms of trying to keep the language somewhat consistent in the mission, take out we will provide and just start with providing which I think is the way you had done it in the original, but just to I don't know, flows better to me providing central Vermont residents businesses, and civic institutions. So if I hear consensus on that, then we'll just sort of parliamentarily friendly amend, which is not actually a thing, by the way. Is everybody okay with we will provide and go to providing, like I had in the, okay, so we don't have consensus. Okay, okay. Would it work to say to provide? Yeah. Does that resolve anybody's concern? So mission to provide so that would be more like that form. Okay. The reason why I like that we will is it very specifically states what we Vermont Central Vermont Internet will provide. So I mean, that's why I prefer that we will. It's not something I'm going to go to the map side. I agree with him. I prefer we will. Okay, so here's what we can do. If somebody wants to make a different recommendation, we're going to defeat this amendment and you'll propose a new one. Okay. And we can then circle back around and we try again. Yes. We can and you're trying to kill Becca. She's down already. Excellent poker face, but this is where town meeting gets fun and the moderator really earns their lunch. Okay. So any further discussion about this amendment to strike all and replace with what I read? We'll find out. Okay. Hearing none, all in favor of amending the original motion to what I just said before, say aye. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Now, the original motion is now to adopt these two things that we amended to be our mission and our vision statements. It was already moved. It was moved and amended, so now I'm just sort of restating what's going on. It's all good. It's floating out there, that motion, not moving, any further discussion about the amended motion? Great. All in favor of adopting the amended mission and vision statements, signified by saying aye. Opposed? Abstaining. Unanimously passes. Thank you, everybody. Looks like I have a few more minutes I can stick around before we have to go. All right. So USDA ruled broadband comments on this. Yes. So I had come across a request from USDA who's set up a USDA rural development who has set up a website specifically for rural broadband connectivity issues. And so I had suggested to Jeremy that we might want to they're looking for public comment, and so I was suggesting that the board might want to make a public comment to submit to that website. And I can pull that up to be more specific. What do they want to comment on? Okay, so let's see. It's a client's advice, right? Okay. So USDA will be analyzing multiple factors as it sets up the e-connectivity pilot program to make the program effective and accessible to all rural Americans. To best bridge the e-connectivity gap in rural America, USDA wants to hear the thoughts and needs of those individuals living and doing business in rural communities. Only through your participation can this program succeed in making rural America great again. So please share your, it's from the government. So please share your user and server service provider feedback and insights and ideas on the many factors we're considering, including, and then there's, so there are separate responses sections for rural internet service users and rural internet service providers. And so under the users some of the questions they have is how affordable and reliable should rural broadband service be? What time of day do rural residents and businesses most need to use high-speed internet? How fast internet connectivity is needed for business management, e-commerce, farming, ranching, education, and medical health care purposes in rural areas, especially for large data transfers and real-time communications. And then under the internet service providers, it says what tools are available and in use today to check if the internet is accessible at 10 down, 1 up speeds at households in rural areas. Which types of broadband technologies are most applicable for various types of rural areas such as cable fiber, mobile wireless, fixed wireless, and satellite? How is the best way to prioritize rural broadband investments in terms of evaluating lower costs in shorter times to complete construction need for government financial support and other factors? So if we fill this in, we'll get a million dollars? Absolutely. So I think the larger question is the federal government for better or for worse is asking us rural ISP what is it that we could use from them? And so seriously, if it's that's the sort of thing where if we're asking for the things like the grants or zero interest rate loans or deferred interest rate loans to get us started these first three years that can make us be able to transition easily to municipal bonds. Once we get to municipal bond line EC fiber just issued another what? $3.4 million? $8.3 million. And so they're on trajectory to build out all of their member towns. So I think we can do this but the thing that's hard for us and EC fiber told me from the beginning that's going to be hard for us is getting the money to start. So what I would like to do is not word Smith the letter I would like to either delegate one of us to just draft the letter and submit it on behalf of the board to that sort of idea and just to say that the idea that we need some money to start and that can be in the form of like a low interest rate or zero interest rate loan and especially with deferred payback maybe like 36 months or something like that. They do but that's unfortunately drips and draps and maybe not appropriate for what we're hoping to do. Yes. Are there grants maybe we want to ask for more money to go towards municipal and cooperative entities. Maybe we want to ask for more low interest rate or deferred loans. Low interest rate deferred loans is definitely a good way to go because that's going to sound better to a larger population than grants. People don't like the word grants. They like the idea that you're going to pay it back even if it's a zero interest. At least we're making the effort to return the money so perhaps some other organizations could use it as well. I think a loan suggestion is a very solid one. Mr. Chair, are you volunteering to work on that? I'm volunteering for that. So maybe it's like a revolving loan fund? We do this at the state of Vermont. They are. They get you hostility and they're very helpful to the small businesses that need them. Can I also write in there that I would like to see them prioritize some funding or have some specific funding for municipal and public and cooperative entities? Yes. The USDA supports cooperatives in a big way now. They are entrenched to be sometimes able to block municipalities. Municipal and public entities is what you're saying. I would make cooperatives out of that. Fair enough. That makes sense. One more point. The cable companies in particular mitigate heavily against municipalities getting funding. I know. So I think us taking a stand and putting it out here and maybe putting it out as a press release or something just to let everybody else know that we're commenting on this. I think collaborating with EC Fiber, they will have better facility with the phrases that are going to hit home. And maybe either file a joint letter with them or collude on content. So maybe I'll just, I have to chat with Carol about other stuff anyway. So I chat with her and see if she's submitting a commentary to that. A couple other things. Focus on the scalability of Fiber. Not these 10-1 solutions. Move away from census block allocations. Invest in local, not ILX you've already covered. Pole make ready, I don't know quite how to phrase, but we need all the help we can get on forcing the pole owning utilities. And more so in states that aren't Vermont. Or it's even worse. It's away from census block. We're actually has been some recent FCC rollings that are very favorable for us for making it ready. That's right. You sent me that email and Google Fiber particularly really liked that. Because we have our own pole rules already we're not followed up. We're not covered under that federal pole make ready. But didn't the 248A rules allow for connectivity to the poles? No. 248A is towers. Our pole utilities need a lot of work in enforcement. The board has ignored a directive from the legislature in 2011. Your colleague, current commissioner of public service. Okay. Any other massive thing that I'm missing? Yeah. Do we have a name? Are we sent to Vermont Internet? To the press release thing, if we don't have a name or a good name we probably shouldn't be issuing a press release under our name. So this next thing, the certificate of organization, we are in some way sent to Vermont Internet. I think we're maybe eventually doing business as something else. So it wouldn't be wrong to be out there calling ourselves sent from my Internet. So let me just go over what I'm hoping to include in the letter, and I will send the letter and then I will CC, I will send it to all of you as well. What I'm not going to do though is send it to you and have all of you give me three pages of comments. Sorry, I don't work like that. Unless we're writing a vision and mission statement and you saw how that worked out, which was well but it took a long time. I want to talk about low interest rate or deferred loans to get to that sort of municipal bond sweet spot. You could say seed money too. Sure. Sure, but I'm saying just have them consider creating these opportunities. So seed money, prioritizing municipal and other public entities. I need to talk to EC Fiber to see what they're weighing in on this. To talk about the scalability of Fiber, and I made myself a note here, the bigger picture of not just focusing on 10-1 that, you know, they're thinking small. We need to think much bigger because we can. Totally possible. Get away from census block kind of districting and doing grants based on that. And then poll make ready rules making sure they're amenable to ISPs. How about preference? You did say preference for community as opposed to incumbent lacks. Yeah, prioritize. And the reason this 10-1 is they are protecting total properties. Of course. Just on the poll make where it is, that's federal or is that state law? Yes. That's five is just wondering about the appropriateness of that being in there, but I guess if the answer is yes on that question. It probably would have less impact on us, but in terms of us imagining ourselves in another state where the state rules aren't as flexible. I think one way I can imagine they could condition any grants they give to an I like in Vermont on their full cooperation for people like us. Okay, I will include that. You had some, you had a meeting too Becca? Yes. I also met with Ben Doyle who is the director of community and economic development for the USDA rural development state office and I say state because it's both Vermont and New Hampshire. And he said that there is a lot of you know there's a lot of stuff potentially out there that we could do a couple of notes that he made were one that they cannot do because they've done a grant to VTEL. They can't, if we, if our area overlaps with them, they wouldn't be able to do anything that competes with VTEL. And he also said that he had worked with Michael on the Kingdom Connect so and he said that he was a really valuable resource so. An important point there and we need John and June to take on state government advocacy is we don't know where VTEL's coverage is. They can say we cover everything and therefore we're not eligible and without a propagation study to know exactly who's got coverage where we're powerless to challenge the fact that VTEL is preempting us. But that's so coverage is defined USDA says where they're covered according to. But they don't know where VTEL's coverage is. But if they're going to give us or not give us grants they need to be able to tell us where it is and it isn't. And so USDA has a map one of their GIS experts has a map saying these census blocks are covered. Even though they're not. Even though they're not. So this is something that I talked to folks Clay Purvis actually said middle sex is a perfect example of this where they had a census block and they stretched out to the what the eastern side and ran up a road and they happened to get a handful of houses in there they ran cable. They said they were good. And they didn't go to basically the Northwestern quadrant of the town. There's no coverage there. So. Anything else there? I should probably go. So I'm going to leave this meeting in the very capable hands of this guy. I'm going to get going. Thanks. I look forward to thrilling minutes. Any email. Before we go on does anybody want to take five minutes stretch break bathrooms anything or should we just power add? So Becca looks like you're next with certificate of organization. Yes I did receive the certified vote from Roxbury and submitted the packet. So. That should be good and they'll be sending out the notification to the towns. When was it started? Last week I think. Does that mean our probation period has now started? It will start whatever date the person the person of the Secretary of State's office marks it filed. What's the timeline from then? As far as when the public can get to six months. Six months. Any questions? Comments? Finance committee. So the finance committee feel free guys to share the time if you need to. So we met on the 27th of every day of the week. That was August 27th. And we went through a number of things. I mean I won't go through. I'm kind of using the minutes to go through some of this because when I was doing this we were taking notes on this. Taking notes on the things that we wanted to make sure that came back up to the full board. So the first thing was with the charge and I guess here we're just looking for a little confirmation from the full board on how we used the charges. Oversight of funding was being interpreted as ongoing review of the organization's finances. I don't know if that's taking an over-exuberant view of what oversight of funding was meant but we should clear that one up. The committee is assuming that the phrase bank account research includes a more expansive statement that includes any financial institutions. There will be, I know in the business development committee, I noticed that there was a lot of discussion about the finances there too. We had discussions here tonight about it so Aaron, you know, money is coming up. And the committee is looking for more precise guidance regarding what is meant by compliance and the phrase preparation for audits and compliance. Now there are because there are some compliance issues as I remember our discussion there are compliance issues that fall outside of the realm of finances and you know, would we be responsible for general compliance or just strictly financial compliance? I don't think any of these needs to be really answered right now. I mean if you accept what we're basically interpreting as you know, we can move forward and I don't think you'll see anything stopping that. Oversight over funding the committee feels we need a set of policies and procedures for financial checks and balances and we're suggesting from the finance committee to avoid any clash in policy that the policy bylaws committee develop the policy with the finance committee and then the finance committee will develop the procedures required to input the policy. Like the policy could be something that's really simple such as you will make sure that at least two or three people are involved in any check rating scenario or checks above a certain amount will be signed off by ex-people you know, those sort of things and that exactly. For instance if you said there'll be no less than three people involved in the bill paying process. Somebody to okay the bill somebody to verify the bill and then somebody to write the check for example and I'm just pulling that out of thin air then they go back to finance committee can sit there and say well you know the treasurer is going to be the one writing the sign, you know signing the check so we need to set up a process so they will okay the bill, somebody else is going to review them and they will go to the treasurer ostensibly for signing. We discussed various bookkeeping software that may be used and I think that falls under our purview I would suggest also that we let the treasurer assuming we do that we also be willing to work with the treasurer especially if they have experience in this sort of area on what type of software is going to be best suited for our needs. The question was also raised as to what AC5 or another municipality is used to school districts they use the what's the name of that one it's a very that's a really big heavy duty and maybe someday we need it I don't know maybe we need it from the get go but you know it's cheap bank account research we reiterated the bank account research being interpreted as financial institution research and we started to gather up common questions that should be asked across the board and we're looking at a financial institution to use and right now I think it was brought up at the finance committee that our initial needs are going to be fairly simple we're going to need a checking account right now we're not at the point yet obviously where we are concerned about bonds and all that stuff yet but it will come and that's why having a treasurer in place to help build the stuff up in the get go would be very helpful so if there's any more guidance as far as specific questions I do notice we got quite a good list from our good friend for more which is good though you know going through it and it just may be to figure out just a set of common questions that are going to be asked so that you get the same answers it doesn't mean you can't ask more but at least everybody gets asked at a minimum a set of the same questions preparation for adult audit audits and compliance so in the legislation involving the CUDs there's three specific areas that really apply very specifically to finances one is the audit which basically says once we become operational and that's a question too at what point do we consider ourselves having to become operational that's a line we have to define because we don't but when we become operational then we become responsible for having an audit done for each year of course I don't see any need to even if we became operational today I don't see I personally don't see that anybody is going to beat us up for not having an audit for 2018 I could audit us right now so no audit right so but audit compliance will come into place the fiscal year it runs from January to January 1st to December 31st for CUDs fortunately or unfortunately that's the way it is in 3075 in the law section 3075 deals with the budget but we found somebody to take that off our hands this time around so Jeremy is developing the rough budget presumably that would come back to the committee to be working on in future years it was also a question raised of insurance and what types when do we need it the committee felt as important in the mirror while this had to do with the budget reports on it's going to skip that part because we've already the committee believes it's important that the CUD board and the finance committee agendas and schedules must reflect the required reporting dates in other words we make sure that things are brought up in a timely manner so that the businesses are taken care of the committee was wondering about the necessity of filing IRS form and I contacted people so I secretary of state's office state auditor public service department tax department state treasurer public service that I already said basically everybody refers back to the public utility commission did email me back saying they were busy actually what I asked my son to email just asked me for any guidance they had on hand as far as filings or financial requirements that are required of us and they did email me back saying they've received the communication and they are looking through what they have secretary of states had one little sparsely populated web page that had some real general information that you could get better on just reading the legislation we're going to work out we're going to try an 8 a.m. meeting in the round table we had some questions come up so one question was to when a CUD treasurer who's also a finance committee member would have to recuse in social discussion or voting the possibility of making the treasurer an ex-officio member of the committee but no recommendation was developed and we don't have to have to be a member of one of our committees you don't know so the treasurer who cannot be a board member could be a member of the finance committee and then we have to think about what an accusal the extensions need to come in or a simpler way is just to make a treasurer ex-officio member of the finance committee that gives some equal input with everybody they just don't get the voting power which is what would happen anyway the treasurer is the ex-officio member of the finance committee just seems like the shortest between two points on that one we also as was mentioned earlier about the treasurer salary we were we did ask Becca Trader to recuse herself and she did move away from the table while we had this discussion at the finance committee and it was just discussed and the committee does recommend to the full board that we pay the district treasurer and we just said an appropriate sum and the question was raised as to how this proposal for the treasurer's position applies to others such as, you know, paying other paid staff, business consultant, other things that have come up and the finance committee felt that in this situation the committee's charge related only to finances and the treasurer so we just left it strictly in the treasurer and that's so I guess the unless there's questions about other things, my questions are more do you feel that we're interpreting our charge correctly? Comments? I think it would behoove us to have a maybe an annual calendar so that we're not surprised that a report is due to the townspeople on October 21st and other things through the year having to do with compliance, reporting blah blah blah and I realize we're kind of in a learning space and some of these things will be a surprise but ultimately we should have it down kind of significant events yeah that was a great report, thank you I didn't hear anything there that sounded like we needed to take action as a board yet that meeting really focused on getting a common understanding of the committee for the charge and then we went through those and I took the charge and when I set up the agenda I broke it down for the three separate sections and we developed a starting point for each one of those if there is direction as to where you would like us to focus because one of the things that we are going to try to do is to keep to an hour meeting too so when we do our finance committee so I don't know if it will work but we'll find out that means as a committee we're going to have to be very focused on what we bring up at any given time or we need to as a committee we make our schedule one to the other so there's a particular point of focus at this time that you would like us to work on I would be more than happy to keep that as a priority on the agendas because did the minutes go out to the broader group or did they they'll find it yeah I think they did was it attached back to something else it was there were two things it was the business development agenda and the finance committee minutes and then the agenda for this meeting included the agenda and the email for this meeting included the agenda for this meeting and the draft minutes from the business development committee I had the meeting I had the warning for the meeting agenda and I had the mapping maybe it's buried in further emails so let's see um yeah that was sent out on September 5 got it follow on being that the discussion at the development committee is we're going to try to be beating the bushes and get some C money in place quickly to get some PR done an engineer or a plan written I think it's important I first had talked to a bank I agree that it's better to use a credit union now that I understand the politics there I think a priority means I think the committee the governing board should consider tonight authorizing being that the certification will come back from Secretary of State that and a couple of the finance committee who are going to be signers should be authorized to go ahead and open a checking account because we're going to need a place to put any money that comes in and time is short and we don't meet again till mid-October the part about the signers I agree 100% but one of the signers should be and I'm working under the assumption that we elect a treasurer tonight may or may not be but one of the signers actually has to be the treasurer otherwise there's no sense calling him the treasurer because he can't break any contracts for us and then we do want to have at least one other signer we could even have a couple more that doesn't occur I think that goes to the comment that you had on referring to the policy committee the developmental policy on checks and balances and procedures that whole question I mean obviously the treasurer should be the primary check signer the question too about how we want to operate do we want to operate like school districts and or towns where we have a warrant that's developed that's presented to the board the board votes on that which is the authorization for the I see you grimacing treasurer to then cut the checks and sign them so comment? I just think that would be really cumbersome for a lay board that meets once a month to get every bill paid on time I think if you put two signers so that it requires three authorized signers where any two of them can make a check there's enough check and balances but the policy committee could come up with bylaws on that or something but I would ask them to be more general because of the specific specificity and I understand because I was not used to dealing with the school board one of you too so I would rather be told how many people need to be involved in the process and let the finance committee decide how to work that through two signers for large checks that's probably a not-probably that's a good idea I don't know what we're going to call large at this time I would suggest though we need a minimum of two people I would say to refer of the three one person to okay the bills one person to review the bills one person to okay the warrants which is basically reviewing the bills and then one person to sign so if we're working, if we have an elected treasurer the treasurer is going to be generally signing the check unless there's exigent situations but see what, because I know what happens when you talk about the one month cycle that's true and we had a lot of trouble I know at the old launch supervisors we had to really work hard to get things into a schedule so we weren't paying all the whole bunch of little literally literally late payments they didn't add up to much but they were there and they constantly annoyed me so I annoyed other people, we worked very hard to get into the cycle and you can't do it on a monthly basis you need to have somebody who can get down there at least probably a bi-week basis to keep up with bills to make sure that you're not paying interest on credit card with late payments I think it's sufficient to see a monthly report at these meetings of what checks were paid and have maybe a five or ten thousand dollar threshold that requires two signers but can we just get an account open or all these rules have to be decided in order to establish the account with the signers you have to but the threshold for two signers could be done subsequent but they're right, we have to as a board because the bank's going to want to see the minutes for the meeting resolution that's why I say the minutes normally we include them so do we need to take action on that tonight? We don't have money to open an account so it seems like I can't make a motion but I can recommend that we that somebody move a resolution to authorize the finance committee to open an account at one of the credit unions within the next 30 days anyone want to make that motion how about I'm going to make just take a point of personal privilege here and just say what what one of the things I notice looking at the minutes from the business development and finance committee one of the things that's really going to be hard to come by for this for us at this stage is going to be time we're impressed on time I cleared out a lot of my volunteer time I think this this organization has taken a very high priority for me because I want to make sure you know we I want to make sure that we swing so the reason I bring that up is I'm going to suggest a different approach rather than say the finance committee to say the finance committee chair and the treasurer but now we're getting ahead of ourselves because we don't have a treasurer yet so I actually if there's a way that we can come back to that after we have a treasurer I don't know if my fellow committee members care about it or not I'm just suggesting me because I have really cleared out my volunteer time I'm ready to go out and do some of this work you know it's it's part of what's needed so I move that the board appoint a treasurer of Becca well we're in the middle of a committee report oh I thought that was done well we're kind of still moving around that's fine do you want to make a motion to table this agenda item until are we tabling or are we passing over until the question of election of a treasurer is completed and then we return to it we table further consideration of this issue until after the issue of election of a treasurer is there a second? any further discussion? all those in favor? aye motion passed so we'll let this sit for a minute the next thing we have actually is the business development committee do we want to do that or do we want to skip over do the election of a treasurer issue and then come back and resolve any preference? skip over so election of a treasurer who's reporting on that is that from your committee that's a board action I mean the only thing we did because the presumptive nominee for election of a treasurer is Becca as we did at the committee where she recused herself she physically moved away from the table and we discussed the salary issue there so I guess at this time I'll entertain nominations for the position of treasurer I nominate Becca Schrader for the position of treasurer do I hear a second? I have further nominations then the only question that was the whole issue of alternate she's no longer an alternate right? I have the email here from Bruce Johnson town administrator for East Montpelier I turned in a letter of resignation that East Montpelier select board met yesterday and your appointment as alternate East Montpelier representative to the central Vermont internet communications union district was rescinded as you requested at last night's select board meeting very confident that's a bold move is there any further discussion? I'm sorry again are there any further nominations? thank you already nominated hearing no further nominations I'm going to declare the item closed and ask for all those in favor to say aye any opposed? hearing none can I ask the secretary? no we can't yes I have a question what does a treasurer do? the treasurer is at least Graham's committee has discussed it right now takes responsibility for receiving any funds on behalf of the district when that should occur and then also preparing for expenditures that are offered is this according to the statute or according to the policy of this collective group? personal opinion and then I'll recognize you I think it's a combination so we've heard a recommendation to refer to the policy committee the development of some guidelines check some balances which I think also are going to somewhat determine what we think the role of the treasurer is I think some of that's outlined in the authorizing language for the CUD so my my sense is it's a little above and I don't know, Rama did you want to comment? yeah well pretty well defined in the statute so there's no real guessing here it's section 3069 it basically says the treasurer shall has the exclusive charging custody of the funds of the district and shall be the dispersing officer of the district when authorized by the board treasurer may sign, may burn doors in the name of the district all checks and orders for the payment of money and payout and disperse the same and receive therefore treasurer shall keep a record of every obligating award in that book can correct books of account, treasurer shall render a statement of the condition of the finances of the district in each regular meeting of the board and we can remove the treasurer at any time if the treasurer has had our pleasure if we start to extend that responsibility I think we need to be aware that one of the reasons that the finance committee wanted to bring forth the idea of trying to come up with money to tell you the treasurer was it takes time it takes time and effort so if we start to expand on that by policy we need to I believe make sure we involve the treasurer in that discussion so that the treasurer does not feel that she's been overburdened by the request for work from the board yeah I think that's I think also there's a point where as I said we become operational we actually have money flowing in and out we'll have to consider a bond for the treasurer and also some protection as far as the liability I think so you were elected are you accepting seeing as you resigned and we already have an altar anyway congratulations thank you it does raise the question about taking minutes are you continuing to do that or do we need to find a replacement for you um I think for now I'm good so having one point that I think that now is a good opportunity to now that because this is a statutory office of treasurer with statutory obligations I would like to ask and request that the body make clear that Rebecca is now invited if not obligated to call the attention I'm concerned that we went six months before we got filed for certification and now we're on six month probation that shouldn't have happened uh in effect I believe probably Becca may have been timid to challenge the chair for not following through to get those certifications in time but it was a huge surprise disappointment outrage to some of us that we've lost six months towards getting off probation and now you're duly authorized under statutory obligations to call that kind of stuff to the attention of the board if any such delay is happening that you're relying on but another officer or chair for you should not be timid about that okay um so let's go back and take up the issue that we were discussing with the finance committee and somebody help me out where did we leave that we were we now have a treasurer now we're about the bank account oh right we need I'll make the motion if you move that that Rama and the treasurer work to secure our initial bank account within the next 30 days can we go with positions the chair and the finance and the treasurer should we have a third signatory oh just I'm sorry open account we'll come back with need because we still don't have any money to put in okay so it's removed and seconded that the finance chair and the treasurer be authorized to pursue opening an account I'm sorry who was the second oh was it David yeah sorry any further discussion um I did hear somebody mention credit union so is there expectation on any particular type of financial institution or are you leaving it because I'm going to sit down at some point with Becca and we're going to figure out where it started and where it goes so is there any particular starting point that the board wants us to use I think we should wait heavily towards non-profit or member owned or community based that doesn't exclude say Northfield bank but I think credit union should be weighted a little more depending on what they offer as far as we can get like an introspective account from Northfield credit for the Northfield savings and we're going to have to pay $500 a month in fees to the credit union obviously we're not going to go with the credit union but I think that it should carry more weight having been through this recently with another non-profit credit unions have a particularly nice arrangement for non-profits at least the one I'm dealing with it's say the credit union and the so a lot of the fees are weighed so I would recommend that again they're cooperatives, they're member owned and they are all localized which gives them a great deal of more security actually in times when many commercial center banks are looking a little bit interesting that it more reflects I think the values that we've already accepted for our vision and statement and we recommend that I think one of the recommendations I haven't been in any institutions we start dealing with is potential user of our services as well right any other comments do we actually need a motion to direct the finance chair and the treasurer to make this a focus or can we just stand in agreement having not heard any opposition that should be a primary focus for the if I heard Rama ask for a resolution in the minutes to take the strike that was for the signer and if we're going to have me on there as a signer yes we will need a resolution the treasurer is already authorized to be a signer so I'm just going to help locate and okay between the two of us we're going to reach consensus on the type of account do you guys want to be involved in this by the way I'm sorry I shouldn't leave you out of this did you just ask me if I want to make a phone call yeah you do I think the two things are the ease of just make it as easy as possible I think we also do have a fiduciary responsibility to the organization when we choose which bank or other institution to go with so that would be the only the only other caveat I would say about choosing a bank or institution when it comes to a signer it's fine I think you want to be careful making sure the signers can have easy access when somebody calls up and said we need to have this check signed or a second person go over it or something like that that can be a real problem if you have somebody from far away who can't get there or somebody who's sick I think we don't want to get in a position where somebody has an illness or has to go away for a family emergency and we don't have anybody to sign checks no I was just saying have we not had a resolution to so I'm the chair of the finance committee not yet we're about to do that then if my other fellow finance committee members I mean we're not going to really be expected to be able to have a meeting until early next month or very late this month yeah I can't meet until the 27th and the 20th right so if there's no big rush on getting this done that will be that could be the first focus point on our agenda is to sit down and talk over as a committee the finance institutions that are one or more that we want to approach and I would get back in myself some marching orders it's fine I found out what EC Fiber is done for banks so I'll throw that in the next room we meet too so it sounds like we'll defer action on the resolution until the next meeting welcome back with the recommendation is there an account no I don't think there's any problem for some reason you like we felt that whatever the institution was wasn't meeting our needs or we found a better deal of yeah no I don't think there's any issue not at the start but later the longer we put it off it becomes a bigger issue can I suggest that we authorize subsequent to the finance committee reviewing the research they've done we authorize them to then act and get the account open so that it doesn't have to wait till 2nd Tuesday of October to get rolling is anyone interested in making a motion we already have one out there we have the finance chair and treasurer are authorized to open a bank account did we get that? yeah so all we've done is you've agreed to run it by your finance committee first so everybody's happy with that the finance committee is happy with that there's two of them I saw I didn't see thank you no further action I am going to assume for now the treasurer is an ex-officio member of the finance committee non-voluntarily participating that's why I made a comment Rahma made a good point we're all volunteers we have set up these committees I want to give the committees as much running room as they can to do things because we can't possibly do everything in one meeting a month good point one of the issues that we talked about a little bit in the committee when we were asking ourselves what bank or credit union would we make it go with was we had a bias we recognized a bias for local and community based and part of that was that we thought that was the bias of this group in general not just for banking but for buying widgets or whatever else we might need is that true? on that note may I introduce a book that's right on point to this owning our future the emerging ownership revolution it's basically going right to the heart of what we're up to here basically redefining our priorities around capital is not the dictate but our needs are the priority so it's Marjorie Kelly journey to a generative economy so you'll give us a full report on that we're going to move on business development is there somebody we didn't vote on that motion it was an open motion oh it had the motion but we never had the vote thank you not but is there any further discussion so the point this is why well no it's just the one last fine point do we want to just for now lead the treasurer as the only signatory or do we want to include somebody else on there because if we want to include somebody else right now we do need to have that very specifically stated in a motion may I amend the motion so that not only does the chair secretary the chair of the finance committee become work with the treasurer to open the account but also is designated a signatory of that on that account do we hear a second on the amendment any further discussion on the amendment hearing none I'll call the question all those in favor say aye any opposed motion passes the amendment passes now on to the amended motion any final discussion hearing none all those in favor any opposed motion passes business development you're done now yes there's only one thing we've already made a decision so you're just telling us well we didn't quite make a decision we brought a compressed decision who would like a decision tonight the problem alright we'll skip some of the other side things which already came up tonight one of the things we were asked to do was to draft a potential names for the organization so we agreed on six potential prefix suffixes to recommend the committee after some decision that was sort of like the one we did with all the whiteboards the last time so we believe one of the three starts of the name would be either CV slash central Vermont OR Onion River because it turns out all of the towns are either on the Winooski or tributaries of the Winooski and or 802 as the prefix and the suffix would be either Fiverr or Net and we got that far saying that this was a question now to bring back to the board and say how would you like to combine these so that we have a name that everybody is happy with most people most people are happy with well ok how majority is happy with do you have a recommendation we were leaving it open to discussion it took us a long time to get to that I'll get the ball rolling I recommend Onion River Fiverr I just believe that Elmore falls into the Elmore River not the Onion River Elmore is actually on the upper part of the north branch and we'll leave as an jail house part of the jail branch you know I don't know listen I've watched your judge meeting on Orton and I understand where you were thinking with it but personally I thought Central Vermont was a much better fit Onion River seems to geographically compress the area but that was mine so Central Vermont Internet the way it is now or somewhat modified well they have Fiverr you don't have internet there at all I'm going with their suggestions wasn't there something Central Vermont Internet can I ask you what's wrong with Central Vermont and why not Internet it's the term that this is go ahead you're talking about marketing clearly and simple something catchy that tells we may be offering services that are broader than Internet point-to-point connectivity dedicated circuits etc so I've been a consistent advocate for Central Vermont Fiverr or CV Fiverr but we may it doesn't preclude using more than Fiverr it would be Fiverr between your fixed wireless access points but that's not our primary that's not what we're going out we're here because we don't have internet I mean I guess that's my fundamental question we're all here because we're underserved for Internet services why not just state the obvious and say we're out here I mean again those are ancillary they're not I'm going to recognize Mike so Internet is not what I provide to anybody the Internet is the Internet it's all a connection collection of networks but you provide access we divide broadband onto the Internet that's so broadband would be a better word a bunch of people in the previous meeting didn't like it so networks works well Fiverr works well I think Internet's not the best I guess I just my concern is that the average person doesn't we're too geeky and again if you're going to go from a marketing perspective or if I'm going to tell anybody in town I need Internet that's just how they say it they want Internet that's what we're here for you know what my customers say my wife thought it's not working right well sure that's even smaller it's always going to run up against that problem I understand the simplest that makes it easy is CVNet because that becomes quick and easy it doesn't require too many syllables and it's memorable it forfeits the affiliation and the success story of our sister E.C. Fiverr I think the national press that E.C. Fiverr has gotten the success, the recognition in the bond markets we would be well served to align ourselves with that success model how would they feel about us aligning ourselves and doing that I think they're flaring I think so too we just go with the we're rich we're rich any other comments, discussions you said you are looking I'm sorry Internet to us the word just doesn't contain fast it's the word that indicates what it is that we're selling I like CVNet I like CVD Fiverr I've never seen CVD Fiverr but not central to mind it's a mouthful you are looking for board to take action we're getting close tonight we'll give us the final authority it would be nice to open I'll make a motion then Lisa start it now is this a doing business as or is this going to be our official name I think it's going to be a DBA this is a DBA so I move we use CVNet as our DBA motion's made in a second for the discussion I'm going to go with the Fiverr so if people know I'll be voting against this so it'll be called CVNet as a DBA for central to mind that way you can move the question if I could vote I would vote against it of course the use of the initials EC Fiverr the EC part stands for and that's why that all fell down to EC Fiverr so there were good reasons for it was just a bit too much of a mouthful motion a second we've had some discussion this is motion for CVNet against that so I think the easiest way is I'm going to call for a vote and we'll see what happens and if that fails we'll move on if I may suggest if somebody has a different view they move to amend the motion they move to amend the motion and then we can we'll find out Michael so I move to amend the motion to name or doing business to CV Fiverr second that so we have a motion to change the set the DBA as CV Fiverr as an amendment to the original motion so it's a motion to second is there any further discussion now remember we're voting on the amendment so it's a CV Fiverr all those in favor say aye aye I think we better do hands one two three four five six all those opposed so it passes the amendment passes so we're now going with uh voting on CV Fiverr so is that 6-4-3 against motion as amended is to vote on CV Fiverr as a DBA any further discussion all those in favor raise your hands opposed it hurts if that passes so it's going to be CV Fiverr I got too many notes here that's a DBA that's a DBA okay yes register all these he was going to yes he was going to whether he did or not he sent an email he didn't want to lose them in case yeah sure I have I was watching your meeting I was sitting there thinking about heading over tonight I can sell you that we asked him exactly we asked the man who was going to show up and we knew it was more than two days okay we can tell we're getting tired you think let me figure out where I am on my agenda review of back burner items well did we finish the report there were a bunch of other pieces which are in the written thing one of the probable ways of which was mentioned earlier one of the key elements earlier was we realized in terms of business development we need some starting capital that was where we said and this is actually going to be something that the whole board will have to be involved in now that we have at least the preliminary status of a not profit registered with secretary of state we are going to need some running money to develop whatever we want to do we've been a highly volunteer organization we're burning people out of the left and right which I grateful for there are and one of the things EC5 was able to do because located in Windsor was able to tap into local beneficiaries in order to get their initial operating capital so all of us knowing that we're in different towns with people especially those in the more rural towns who have the greatest need should be able to think about people that could be hit up now that we're a tax exempt source rather than trying to say we're going to be going for bought money or no interest loan money on the start-up stuff because there's a bunch of research development work etc that can be amortized in a later date but we're not there yet and it's to begin to start beating the bushes if you will and that's where we came up with the total of $250,000 we as a group will but anybody who would like to sign on to assist would be certainly welcome we'll be working at drafting a prospectus on what will be done with the money so that it's not just give us some money because we're nice guys and we'll someday deliver fiber but there's actually the beginning of a business plan for what to do for this this is what we ended up talking about it has not proceeded beyond that it was only last week but that was where we ended up with one thing we didn't attach to this was the matrix on organizational structure options I think it would be good to send out to everybody on how this organization possibly could work different methods we didn't get very far on it he presented it I wasn't sure that was a decision that we came to we didn't come to any conclusion but it was a nice discussion about what are the options we have as an operating entity how we go about business that may be have to come back to the board as a discussion just like we've been doing the vision and vision statement so is that something the committee will probably revisit at its next meeting and then bring it back good thank you interest of time we'll try to move on review back burner items assignment committee tasks I know we've got a few I'm going to take the second part of this first we have a few things that came up that are going to go to policy committee and I guess who else here is on anyone else here on policy besides myself and Alan? Jim I'll talk to Jim and then we've got some of these items and see if he can pull together a meeting of the committee I think I have to look back at my notes there might be another piece that we need to look at were there other or any new items that were being assigned to committees coming out of this meeting I think there's some direction that we know finance has some places that they're going to go to meeting anything else that we need to revisit or think about we had wanted the policy committee to come up with guidance on the finance stuff I'm going to say this so much better than me but have they actually been tasked with that yet? Jim I wrote that down tonight that was what I was referring to coming from his presentation on the committee because I'm also on policy I'll talk to our chair and get that rolling we don't need a motion for that then I think we're fine other back burner there's some of the back burner issues that are listed down below outreach to other towns and I don't know I have no idea where we stand if we've done any of that or if that's just kind of sitting there as a placeholder so it's back burner it still stays on the back that neutrality is we've discussed before possibly having someone come and talk to us about that and again that might be something for the next meeting I can talk to Jeremy when we do the agenda um relationship to Vermont telecommunications plan anybody any of the committees anybody working on that that's something that we need to be not tonight but we need to be we probably should spend half an hour at one of the agendas on it with having someone come from public service or just an open discussion looking at the statute and figuring out how do we fit into it and how can we do our part of it, our region because it's clear they're not doing it and then the final one was callus pilot which I know has been mentioned in the past but it seemed it seemed to me that was just kind of up in the air discussion of a place that might work but I don't think we've gone any farther with that as far as I know and I think we need a whole lot more information as we go forward before we actually even start to consider those kinds of issues so is there anything else that should be added to the back burner list are any of the committees or subcommittees thinking about who we might partner with to business development to provide the services yeah and there have been a few of them and I'm not sure where that is I'm not sure it's actually in any kind of discussion phase yet but where's the there was some discussion in the business development on that which revolved around the idea for people in business there is an old precept that you don't let somebody between you and your customer so the decision you know with EC to basically be a funding mechanism for ValiNet was one way of handling it we don't seem to have a similar function up here and we have a lot of providers that nobody really likes already so you know we then have to reconsider what is the best way we consider that partnership emerging and how would it be done so that is an area we will be having further discussion with but I think it's something that was very easy for EC Fiber to get into that relationship but in essence then they become the funding mechanism for ValiNet which it may be what we want to do here but it may not be good are we at the point where we want to start mapping out a roadmap time frame like how long is it going to take to get various steps of this process set up so that we can start thinking okay we are looking now way 2019 before X can happen just to organize ourselves a little bit anybody want to try to answer that I don't know that we are far enough along to really start to even put a timeline together at least that's my opinion I think we are going to you know what happens when you are starting up an organization like this you spend a lot of time first getting that groundwork and as soon as that groundwork gets set up things just start to happen yeah you reach a point as long as we have done our homework we have laid the groundwork it's that whole foundation thing it's not the foundation build the best house in the world it's going to collapse on you so if we do a good foundation and we'll be you know I want to matter I suspect by the time we get through dealing with the finances getting our filing set up and figuring out who to start tapping for money that will be often running that's my guess it will be often running pretty clearly I like to phrase punky you know punctuated evolution and to just reach this point where all the boom it's going to take off first we're building a house and we haven't heard the roof yet because we weren't prepared for that well the suggestion was made about a calendar of significant events which I think could also address some of that as we start to move forward not just the regulatory kinds of things or statutory kinds of things that we need to address but that also becomes part of the business plan put those things in a word that says making sure that the horse is out front and the cart is following but again I think we're a little premature on that right now we might be able to make a calendar without a calendar maybe make a to-do list an organization all the steps we imagine and continue to evolve it but all the steps we imagine need to take place put them in a certain order that we think they'll follow but not assign dates to them quite yet and not resume anything else under this item as a secondary issue I know it's central Vermont and all of us think that going to evening meetings is a fun way of spending our time but can we have some discussion at some point whether three-hour meetings are really appropriate to get at this time of night is like really hard to keep functioning and I would like to find a way of making whatever we're doing a little more efficient in terms of passing actions off to the committees and having a brief report and then go on because we're spending too much time spinning our wheels yeah I second that you know shoot for two-hour meeting two hours we also as we get more into production we need more frequent meetings but shorter but okay approval of the August 14th meeting minutes I'm assuming you have read them there is a motion is there a second second any discussion corrections comments all those in favor all right any opposed I'm abstaining I wasn't present so can I just request that we get use a Google calendar figure have assigned to one of the committees the task of sorting out whose email address we're using where the calendar is who's going to get the Google Drive in order with subfolders etc I think that's too much to shovel more on our uh treasure right now so the email address probably should be more than one person checking that uh that's the different layers in a Google calendar can be color coded for the different types of activity so that in one view we can see every cb fiber activity cast forward the whole year volunteer I can do some of it but I don't want to be the only one doing it now that we've now that we've picked a dba and we currently have a registered URL we can probably open a separate Google account although we have to pay for it they may um and then have set up the appropriate email addresses for you know info etc put all the file system under that so I think it's a web page and all that do we want to assign that to somebody business development committee policy committee who would Elliot yeah I hate to assign stuff to people who aren't here I love it I think Jeremy would be there yeah let's go I'm going to take that as a suggestion for the next agenda let's try to have it up by next meeting it's not at all done so it could be a committee report six months now we've got a Google drive it's just so chaotic you can't find it somebody refresh my memory where we stood on the minutes we have a second we have a motion did we vote yes we did let's go okay we're getting close to a journey I know Jeremy likes to close with this round table exercise so in a word or two comments you want to go first or should we start it at the end work forward round table a couple of comments we have to cut down the time as much as I understand the need to get things done and spending time together for three hours by the end is just a killer yeah yeah yeah the last the last 30 minutes so it's been a little rough yeah okay everybody's just going to say I started it listen I just want to say I can be pukedacious especially when I'm advocating something people should not take that personally here I know sometimes that's presented in a way that makes people want to take it personally but it's not it's meant to just advocate a particular idea and I want to work very closely with everybody here everybody without exception whether I agree or disagree on specific topics okay I just want to I think we've been making progress and pleased that we can take actions at these meetings okay good the little white box that went around most of you figured out what it is it's a simple answer your one yeah I'm logging the thousands of them as admin and admin it's this that's what I said on the bottom yeah but the reason I passed it around was to show you how simple the consumer device can be that little device cost nine dollars what now you can buy two hundred dollars but that's all you need to connect to the fiber thousand is that symmetric on a passive optical network it's not a wifi yeah it's just the it's connected okay I'm going to bring some coffee for Dan next time I think the best suggestion of the night was yours David about empowering the committees to do as much of this work as possible I think we should work hard to find somebody to do a lot of our work like EC-Fiber did I think this job is going to get so much more rewarding and efficient for all of us I think we're really going to be proud of what we've done yeah we got to do that but there's got to be somebody out there who really wants to be successful with us to really work with us to do something really positive, good judge sort of what? right Steven build capacity and local jobs yeah Becca I just appreciate everybody's support and patience as I learn how to do some of this stuff are you kidding me? I will be adjourned second all is a favor all is opposed