 Okay, so I am calling the meeting to order at at five o'clock and we need a motion to go into executive session. Before you do that, we need to amend the agenda. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Just have heard some discussion about this is Liz going to just amend it what you want to do the capital with the town update on the art piece. Yes, so we want to do that under other business. Yeah, it's no action. Right. Yeah, update. Okay. Okay. Got it. Anything else? Okay, so motion to go into executive session. I'll make a motion to go into executive session regarding confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing legal services to the select board permitted under BSA 313 a one app. Second. Thank you. Seconded by Victor. All in favor. I I any opposed? Okay, we are in executive session. So do you want anyone into the executive session? Oh, we should take. Yeah, yeah, smaller than that. To include Dorenda and the rest of the select board, I guess. Yeah, doesn't need me. So I'm going to make Randy and I guess I need this. I need to specify Rob as well. And Rob, right? Yes. Okay, so I'm going to tell you what, I'm going to put other people in the waiting room and then I'm going to make you the host. Okay. Yeah. And Oregon needs to come downstairs. She put that on a great big screen. So we're talking about that. Okay, so all right, listeners. First one is the change in the acreage of Mary Doe Davis's. She actually called us and said she had a survey and it shows on all her tax paperwork. It's point two. It should be point four three. So I double check with the survey made sure it was correct and got from the state came and helped me work on it updated in the system and it changes the appraisal value of $1,500 difference. We just had a sender new tax bill and you should have the errors and emissions in front of you for that. But just say no, but it's probably the amount of the appraisal changes. Yeah. Yeah. That's the first one. Okay. So we need a motion on that. Yes. I know that we approved the request of the listeners to change the acreage of Mary Doe Davis's parcel from point two to point four three on the 22. Okay. It's been moving in a second. It's almost in favor of the motion. All right. Any opposed? Okay. All right. The second one is the budget. Mitchell Benton was in last week working on this with me. The software that for some reason you folks thought was one cost a lot. Actionmatic is called Vermont Pi. And it's actually run to this stage. So their software is free to all the towns. Can you guys on Zoom hear that? Yes. Okay. Can you speak up a little bit? You want me to speak louder? Usually everybody's trying to be quiet now. Well, we're using the microphone on the computer. So all right. So according to Mr. Benton, because Vermont Pi is going to be taken over current use homestead and grand list this year was sales validation. I had to be in by October first, which we got in. But the other ones are going to be coming on slower. And all interfaces with Kama, which is owned by Nemerick. That's the one that we work with now. So he suggested because we're new that we hire Nemerick like we did last year to do some of the permit reappraisals and work with us. So I think you've got a copy of that also. Because what she told me is that if you do these are the same, the rate will remain the same because I reached out for her for a quote. And so she gave me last year's quote. And then she gave me kind of a blank form that I wouldn't let me edit. So I kind of highlighted it. And I checked off things that I know that we might not be familiar with because we're new. But I also put on each one at the bottom. All checked as needed by listeners. So anything that where we can do the legwork instead of paying out a lot of money to her, we will do that so that we just need her on things that we're not familiar with. But if everybody wants to review that at some point, I can I can get back to them and she worked for Nemerick. They're the ones that did it first last year. Right. So they're not willing to give us a set amount because it's dependent on hours that they work. So now we're talking about actually going out to some of the properties like we did with UVic and the ones to see if the permits are done, take pictures. So that saves that part of the work for Marla. So she does that the sketch of the other part in the system that we're not that familiar with yet. So that when we do hire, we don't have to eight hours of ages, her driving around looking at properties. Right. So for do that. The other thing is I mentioned to Sarah that we have to go out for pull for a townwide appraisal. I guess all the towns have to and that's going to be done 2526. I've already worked on the RFP for that request for quote to send out to other suppliers. Got to keep in mind again by then, we're going to have to have somebody that will interface well with our camel, which is owned by Nemerick. Otherwise, we're going to be doing a lot of input and things that don't transfer over. So that's something to keep in mind for future day. So in terms of our budget process for this year, which of course is coming right off right around the corner, I would almost say that the same as last year for them, because we're totally new last year. And I would think that there's a lot more than we can do this year. So if we can even budget what we paid her last year, or close, I would think that would be okay. Okay. And how about for you guys, have you thought about what you're talking about now? I mean, Eric, I said to try to stay four hours or under and that's what I've been trying to do since I stopped. There's a lot and I think part of it's the learning curve. We know what we're doing. And we get faster. What we're doing is going to be a lot less hours. I'm retired. I want to be a lot less hours, but I want to help. So you think the reappraisal will be 2526? Do I think so? Yearly? What year are you going to do that? Oh, you mean for the whole town. He's saying it's going to be like that year 2526. And that's because they're going to take the state Vermont taxes. He's free when we work with him. So we try to work with him. This is statewide evaluation. Right. But talking to the other towns and listers, because I never did that request for poll, so I kind of reached out to them. They said that get it in now. Yeah, so it's limited for limited people who can do that work. Well, that's it. If you wait until you're close to 25, then you're going to get the bottom of the barrel. So you're going to put put in a request request for call. I've already actually got it down and just got to review it. But that would be our budget till. No, not our next year. But it's good to know what we're what we're looking at that there's going to be no no big software bill that not have what he said. That's the Vermont pie. And it's kind of slowly taken over everything. It started this year with the sales validation but sooner or later. But it will still interface with camera. And unfortunately, our canvas to Microsoft, which is on my memory. So we definitely have got to keep in mind that if we use somebody else to do this, the statewide one is that we have to have something that will work well with the camera that we have. Otherwise, there's going to be a lot of manual impact. Just update it. Pardon. I don't know what you're doing on this. But why wouldn't we do that for next year? Instead of waiting in two years? Well, I've got my phone to go out. And so we get a duty for all the proposals March 1. So I want it in before we do next year. The budget next year. That makes sense. But he's saying why don't we do the, you're saying why don't we just get ahead of the curve? Right? Is that because of the, we have to wait for some number from the state or something like that? That I don't know. I can find out. Okay. Yeah, part of the project, they have to, they have to do a lot of work on their end. Well, they're saying it's already way out. Like these proposals, they said, if you get somebody, they're really way out right now. Yeah. So that's why I wanted to get it in so that I know that we can get somebody that's kind of knows what they're doing. We're good at it. And the other thing I think is, and you know, who knows, we don't know. But the real estate market's been so crazy the last few years, I think waiting a little span of time and hoping that things settle out a little bit before we do our reappraisal would probably be a good thing. I think all the houses that have sold, they're like up here right now. So if they would appraise all the ones around it, we'll all be in community centers. Right. Okay, so when do we, when do we need to pull the trigger on this number of decisions? So effective next July, right? So we have plenty of time, right? But I certainly think, I mean, I think that's the way we were all, we were all leaning anyway, I believe. So yeah, nice job last year. Yeah, they did very good. And like I said, it surely helps when we need the help. And I kind of put that in there just to make sure that she's not here 24 seven, we can just we can call her when we want to have her do something for us. Yeah. Okay, am I am I understanding you correctly that the two columns that you have here the number of column and then the municipality government services, right? If what if you look at it, what she what she did is sent me the one that they signed last year. And then she sent me a blank one that would let me update. So I've kind of highlighted and put in the X's. And the ones where I put in the X's on both, I said as needed by listeners, because a lot of some of what we might have never done before. So I want to make sure that we're doing things correctly. But some of it, she just might want to oversee or answer questions as we do it. And that's where I was going with that was some of them are going to be kind of like, working together, right, whether it's bringing you guys up to speed or just providing some oversight. And that's the last year. So are you so you're recommending that? So is this your meeting for the budget? Are you going to come again? Like with an actual formal? We can tell what I wanted. You guys at least see what Okay, what I'm thinking that we should do. And then you guys, let me know what you think. We'll run the numbers and find out how much we spent last year. And then I can I I've got to get back to number. And that's where I was. And I said, I want to all right, I do to you guys first. Are there are there any, I know we touched on the software and the large cost that that we were looking at for that has kind of gone away, so to speak. Are there any other items that you can forecast that might be, you know, large ticket items? And the reason that I ask is the the capital improvement plan that the that the towns implementing this year, the budget committees working on and wondering if there's anything that as you start thinking about your budget and whatnot, just make sure you keep that in mind if you can't think of anything today. Okay. I know that with the state saying that was just they would never it was because that we have heard their software. And it would cost more to have somebody else that has a different camera system that won't interface. And that's why I said at least for now, we should use them and continue to use them if they're affordable. Any other questions, everyone? Okay, all right, well, you guys let me know and we'll put it on another select board meeting, whether or not it's a work with it. All right, the budget process and we're signing that. We're signing the paperwork right now. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, may I say something? Yes. You've got the errors and ambitions up there on your desk, right? We're signing it right now, Sarah. Okay, good. Just sign it. Say, fire chief, I don't want to be an alarm. Do you smell smoke? Smell smoke? No. Is there a window open here? Oh, the wind blows through this building like I don't windows don't have to be open. I do. Somebody's got their wood stuff going probably. Sarah sounds to learn how to fire. And we have a fire chief right here. Stay with us. Moving on the roads. Yes, highway department updates on road maintenance. All right. So center road is started. I don't know if you saw that or not. Yeah. Today, finally, the new truck, I emailed them yesterday, they got back, they should be here either at the end of the week or beginning the next week. Oh, we're making road gravel in the pit with the millings that we cut from center road and the tailings from our winter sand. And we're at roughly about 1600 yards right now, probably another day's worth of work. And it will be done. So I figure probably around 2000 yards. You can put that to good use. One day you got 700. I heard to the room. No, that bills those bills haven't gone in. Have they? No. Yeah, so that was the head question. No, I think our best day was 450 something. Okay. It was yesterday as 120 buckets. They're coming back tomorrow to babe. Hope so. You know what they're, how they're going to do it? Are they going to pull McAulay Hill out and then hook then when they hit it when they go by? I don't know. I don't know the technique that they're going. I'm not sure how they're going to blend that all in, but I know they have to do a shim coat on McAulay Hill and center road. Can we have them fill in those holes before they should? I would imagine they will, but I will be around tomorrow. Total confidence. They should fill them. That's what I'm going to pave all the way over to the end of Old Brook. Right, they're going on the other side of the bridge where they originally weren't. Correct. Because it's starting to break apart. What? Okay. Anything else? Did you ever find out about, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I guess I am, but you're good at that. Our policy on social media? I did not. Do we have a policy on social media that I'm aware of? I didn't think there was, but I didn't see it. We've had a lot to figure that out. We've had a challenge, a challenge on that, so maybe we should look into that. Somebody put something on, allegedly, allegedly, put something on front porch forum that was demeaning or demonizing. On Facebook, I mean? What? On porch forum. Facebook. Oh, Facebook. Yeah, okay. Might be considered demonizing another individual. Well, we probably should have a social media policy. So who did the post? Was it one of our employees? Allegedly. I don't know how much I can say. That's probably, yeah, we should probably warn it for another meeting if we want to. Talk about that. There are plenty of companies out there that have social media policies that we can look at. It brings up the bigger question of a more in-depth review of our existing personnel policy as a whole, which we've talked about a couple different times, but highlights the need. Once again, we never seem to be able to put that darn thing down for more than a month at a time. Two months at a time. But anyway, that point is well taken. I mean, the whole social media thing is. Yeah, well, you never used to have to deal with it, but. I don't do it. Back in the old days, I don't use it anymore. Does this warrant further conversation in another meeting, this specific incident? Yes, it does, I believe. Okay. Sarah, can you put something on the next agenda? I would say if it's an employee, it's probably going to be an executive session. Ken, so this was an employee. Just be clear. This is an employee that put something so allegedly on Facebook. Correct. Okay. Great. Thank you. Come on in. Come on in. Take a seat. Is this a meeting? Yes. It's a select board meeting. Yes. Oh, the pad, the pad. The pad. Yes, I started putting stone down for a pad for the future salt shed. I'm sorry for what? For the future salt shed. So did we hear about that? I haven't heard. I put it in two days early. I haven't heard back yet. So we're anticipating that we're going to be getting something. Yeah. So we're slowly got a spot, leveling it out, getting it prepared so that. This is that big expense. This is behind the town, behind the town barrage, I presume. Yeah. So bond to gate. And then we have to get the permit. Yeah. Before we start building. Yeah, we are not at a point where we're just cleaning out and smoothing out. Are you tracking hours and all the equipment run time and all that kind of stuff? Because I think if my memory serves me right, that can count towards our match. And that was a 20% match. Yeah. Okay. Anything else anyone? That's exciting. The new truck is coming. We got a relief. Now we can get on with something else. Until it breaks down. Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Sorry. So I know we just just found a new truck. I know we had a discussion back. We were ordering the truck about warranties and extended warranties and all that. And this is the time we need to deal with that because once we get that truck, yeah, we have an implement. I think there was something done on the warranty, but I will double check it. We entered into a contract nine year. I believe nine years. Okay. Well, let's just make sure that. No, I'm pretty sure we already, that's it built into the price that we pay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. And the excavators working. Okay. No major issues. The graders working. Okay. Better. Okay. The before we move on this, the new employee class classes going well, going great. He loves it. Yep. The time sheets that I looked at this week, it looked like he was putting in more than his 40 hours. Yes, we were. I talked to during about. Yeah, we were, we were utilizing it, but we don't need to utilize it as a punch. Okay. That's done. It's a very ambitious person. Yes. Great. Would you say? Yes, it's exciting to have somebody who's so excited. Yeah. Yeah, I think my only concern. You know, as we look at coming into the winter and, and, you know, being fairly new and understanding what we budgeted for overtime hours throughout the year and how much of that actually happens during the summertime versus the wintertime, it was just something that popped into my head to make sure we're conscious of how much we're chewing up ahead of time, not knowing what the winter brings. So anyway, that's what popped into my head when I was looking through stuff. I was reading, which is later on the agenda, that class four section, I read through that whole thing and it got me thinking about the requests that I made a while back about having a sign put up on Culver Hill Road before the sharp turn after the Brett's. Do you remember that? Yeah, it was an arrow that we wanted. Yeah. I'm sorry, I forgot. Yeah, that's all right. But the reason I even thought more about it is because the, the guy across the road from us redid the mailboxes and put in a steel post, which I'm pretty scared when the person hits it, that mailbox isn't going anywhere. That car is going to be like, I just think for the purposes of safety, because literally I would say we get three people off the road every winter coming down that corner because they're going too fast and they're off the road so they haven't been on it. Speed bumps. Yes, because it would be great, I know, but it's just they don't know the road and so they just go off it and they wipe out the mailboxes. But this time I don't think they will like to wipe out the mailboxes. So. That's swept their mind. That's all right. I just, I just looked at it because it's like a reminder because we have a list of that kind of stuff we do and it's pretty good. It's getting long. Yeah. We don't have anything else to do. We can, you know, if we have some spare moment, he has a. I actually carry a book with me, but it's not like maybe I had to pay for the sign though if I was requesting it. Or am I? What's that? No, I didn't think you would have to pay for that. OK, maybe I'm thinking of some other thing that you'd have to pay for for a sign. Maybe though that was very hill there. Like a private road. OK, like a private road sign. Yeah. OK. This is an actual road sign. Yeah. This is a regular road sign. Yeah. So I have another question in that area is we know our speed signs are wrong, unenforceable, all that. Did we ever determine if we have to do a full blown traffic study before we can correct that problem? I would imagine you'd have to. As I know, I know in the past I never lived down with it. But a traffic study has to be done. I'm sorry Sarah, I shouldn't hear you. I said I don't know what you mean by full blown traffic study, but I know a traffic study has to be done. There's only one kind of traffic study that's going to pass the sniff test and that's a real one. Victor and I could cruise around and do a traffic study, but I don't think it would be, it would be valid. I mean we need to put that in our plan somewhere. Where it is in terms of priority and how much it costs and you know, it's nothing we can do, right? We have to hire an outside person to come and do the traffic study. So I talked about it with the central Monterey Regional Planning Commission a while ago and it does seem to be a kind of detailed process. So it's not only that, but I mean the ordinance does even mention certain roads that are correct. Can you hear me? The big thing is after we get it how do we enforce the speed? Well, we either just throw our hands up in the air and say we're not going to enforce the speed at all, which is pretty much what we're doing now, or we have a plan to get back so we can... The sheriff has been coming lately. According to the paycheats... Well, how do you know Randy? I've seen him a couple times and we paid some bills for him. That's right. You know, don't get me wrong. I think just having the sheriff in town tends to slow people down, but the fact of the matter is, you know, I think the word has gotten around that you can't, you know, they can't write tickets or they can't issue tickets. So, you know, what's the point? They're just giving people warnings like that. Now, it's my understanding that we're only out of compliance in certain areas, right? It's not the entire town. Correct, correct. So like that section of Shady Rill down to the main drag, we're out of compliance. Right. But, you know, coming down McCulloch Hill or Santa Road, you know, I think that we're in compliance over there. Well, I don't know the answer to that because there were two issues. One, that the signs was incorrect. But two, just that there weren't enough signs. Like, you know, there's supposed to be signs on both sides of every intersection and all that. Wait a minute. State Statue says on a the speed limit, statewide speed limit is 50 miles an hour on a secondary road. So once they get over 50, why wouldn't you hit them anyway? It's not like they don't get over 50. Certainly they get over 50 behind my house. I'm going to tell you that. But anyway, I just want to make sure I'm we're not going to make any decision about this tonight, obviously. But somehow we need to make a plan and work our plan. I mean, if there are deficiencies that we can take care of in the meantime by, by putting up some more signs, we should be making a plan to put them up. We need to, if there are areas where we have to do a traffic study on specific areas, maybe that isn't too bad a thing to do. Like if it's shady rail on a couple of other places on the road, maybe. I just want to make sure it just doesn't disappear into the fog. Can that be an Ashley Andrews question? I can send an email to her. Okay. Just curious. Yeah. I would imagine it probably wouldn't be. If she couldn't, she would be. She would know. Obesity. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Anybody? Okay. So this is when we're supposed to take our break for our Board of Civil Authority meeting. Right? There's your chair. Your chair is, your BCH chair is sitting right next to you. I know. Hello and welcome. We do have a guest. What is your name, sir? Dan Riley. Dan Riley is here. That's okay. Okay. He just has to sit through a BCH meeting. Right. I know, but if you have, don't you put people on the, or only when they speak? Yeah, the BCH meeting is up. Yeah. No, I just mean she didn't know if she'd walked into it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Can I ask you a question about this? I didn't mean to interrupt because I don't know your format, but, you know, I'm just a member of the town, a landowner, and, you know, I heard about this meeting through Mike Hill, one of my neighbors down there. I'm in that setting of the road. And so, you know, I just assumed that there'd be a good segment of the public here, but there's nothing like that. And you just introduced me as a guest, so I just don't understand that. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. So what's going to happen, Dan, is at 6.45, it's warm on our agenda, so we'll be giving a little bit. That issue is going to come up. Okay. And some of your other neighbors are supposed to be here. Yeah. Other members of the public may or may not be here, but that's when we're going to talk about that. And some of them may be on the computer. Yes. Yeah, I was just curious why I was so dead here and I was a guest. Okay. We always, we always welcome visitors. Yeah. So stay warm, it's a little chilly in here. I should probably use that term because I just like to, I don't know, use it as a polite term. I would expect there to be more members in a town here than in a board. We would love to see more people across. Yeah, people generally. All right. So you get the honor of being a guest because you don't get any. Okay, so it's 6 p.m. We'll call the Board of Civil Authority meeting to order the, are there any amendments? Okay. So the first order on the agenda is approving processing of November 8th, 2022 general election ballots on November 7th, 2022, authorizing town clerk Justice of the Peace Derrinda Crowell and Assistant Clerk Cheryl Grampfield to open signature envelopes containing general election ballots and processing them through the tabulator in town hall on November 7th, 2022. Action likely. So moved. Is there any discussion? It's been moved in a second. Okay. All those in favor? Moving. Aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Designating one J.P. to serve as official canvasser of votes. Reporting results to Washington County elections clerk Rosie Lecaire in East Montpelier at 10 a.m. Thursday, November 10th, 2022. We're at the wrong time. The time changed. Okay. What is that new time, Sarah? It is now 10 a.m. on November 15th. Which is actually a Tuesday. On Tuesday, November 15th. Is there some discussion on who would like to be the J.P. to serve as the official canvasser of votes who reports at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, November 15th. So the reporting no longer involves going over there, right, Sarah? It's a phone call. No, it does. Oh, it does. Okay. COVID's over. So yeah. Okay. All right. I could do that probably. Okay. I can do that. Well, it's supposed to be a J.P. Adjusted to the piece. Yeah. Oh, it can't be a member of the Board of Civil Authority. Okay. Well, I mean, ideally it should be a J.P. Okay. All right. So is there a J.P. that would like the honors of doing this very important work? I don't know. I think you're there. All right. Are you? Chris. Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Chris. Are there any other nominations for this very honorable job? Can you tell me what the pension benefits are? They're high, Chris. They're high. Okay. You get a cup of coffee on the third Thursday of every month. Is there a motion to designate Chris McVeigh? I'll move that Chris McVeigh be the official canvasser of votes on Thursday, November 15th at 10 a.m. I'll second that. All right. All those in favor of Chris McVeigh say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Congratulations, Chris. Okay. Now we have a big job coming up designating BCA members for the following assignments, which is election night, but it's really, oh, it's only 7 p.m. So you don't need anyone, Sarah, on call from 7 a.m. Well, Dorinda is going to be there. And Dorinda is a JP. I'm going to be there. I'm the election official and a member of the BCA. Cheryl is going to be there. She is an assistant clerk. An assistant elections official. If there's anyone else who would like to be around during the election, it would be great. Okay. So, but during the day for, since we're processing all the ballots on Monday, November 7th, all we're going to need are just would be just to talk to people about if we get a controversial situation, but I don't think we're going to have, I think we statutorily were in the clear. But I need people to go through the ballots on, on November 8th at night. So who would like to do that? I am not in town. So I am unavailable to help, but it is fun. I want to say if you've ever done it, it's a good time you get to meet with your fellow BCA members and count votes. You don't have to travel anywhere. Yeah, it's fun. I'm happy to do that. Okay, Chris. Thank you, Chris. This is John. I'd be available for that Tuesday. Thank you, John. How many, how many do you need, Sarah? Well, it would be good to have another pair. Yeah, good pair. I'm happy to do that. Okay, who said that? That was Theo. Theo, okay. And then Randy raised his hand. Yeah, unless somebody else wants to. Randy, are you volunteering? Not unless somebody else is. So Randy's volunteering. That's good. Okay, great. Thank you, Randy. So they just have to be here by 7pm, correct? Right. So what we're going to do is you're going to, you're going to document the right ends. And look for any ballots that are funky where someone signed their name and we have to invalidate them. You've done it before. I've just been reminded. I apologize. I'll be in Boston that night. Oh, Theo. All right. What about Jean? She always likes to do it, but I don't think she's here. Okay. That starts at 7. Yeah. Did we need to move? Did we need a motion for this or no? I don't think so. Okay. I just want everybody here just trying to get everybody to do it. Alrighty. So unless there's anything else that comes on other under under other business, which isn't on the agenda, we're adjourning the meeting at 6.06. Okay. 6.11. Okay. So we are back on the record in the select board meeting. Bye. Thank you. Thanks guys. And this is our quarter meeting quarterly meeting with the middle sex planning commission. Action possible. I'm not sure what the action would be, but I'm sorry, I can't see who we think Sandy's here. Are you there, Sandy? Sandy is here. Yes. Sorry. Yes, I am here. Thanks. A quick update. I know you all have a busy agenda. I think Theo's on the. Here as well. He's on the planning commission. The update, the one, you know, sort of big outstanding piece of business involves the zoning update, which is now in select board's hands, but hopefully that can get ready for a vote by town meeting. The sec board needs to make any changes it would make. And approve it. And put it on the ballot for town meeting day at this point. And if there are questions or concerns, the planning commission is available to come to a future select board meeting to answer them. If that would be helpful. And put that on as an agenda item for the select board. Review of the zoning regulations. Yep. And just remember that if you do make significant changes, I believe you have to hold another public hearing, right? Sandy. So we need to do it. Rather than later. Yeah. I think that's correct. I'm not aware that anybody has any, any concerns, but I think we need to bring it up in a meeting. People I want to take one more, one more chance to read through it and make sure it is what I think it is. And I would encourage everybody else to do the same thing. And then we can say, yep, we're good to go for town meeting or no, we have changes to make and we have to have another public hearing. Thank you, Sandy. Go ahead. I'm sorry. And the other things is with the planning commission is now taking a look at what are some new projects that we could be working on and looking at what the next steps will be. If anyone on the select board or anyone else has any thoughts about things of planning commission could or should be working on, please let us know. Some things that rose to the top based on a recent, at a recent meeting included taking a look at what, if any regulation or, or planning there needs to be for retail cannabis in town, taking a look at what some other towns are doing should, should the town have, I guess it's called a cannabis control commission similar to a liquor control commission or not. We think we'll take a look at that. A second issue was a combination of conservation and wildlife and outdoor recreation planning. A lot of our wilder areas are being used for outdoor recreation. There's trails. Are there things we can do to both facilitate that and, and manage that thoughtfully and help, help wildlife and conservation interests as well. A third issue is well is implementing the walkable middle sex study, the scoping study that we completed. That'll be some work going forward with VTrans. Hopefully we can move that project along. And then finally, and I think this is more likely a longer term project, but an issue comes up on a number of times about water and sewer in the village that if there's going to be more development in the village, I think something does need to happen either with water or with sewer or both. I know there's some look at as part of the development of the Colby property, there may be some water or sewer capacity available there and just keeping, keeping an eye on that and seeing if there's any additional work that would be helpful to do to foster that going forward. And I shared a short spreadsheet which had some links if folks have any questions about the status of any other things that we're working on. Happy to answer any questions or talk about it further. Anyone? As far as the sewers and the water go, Sandra, has anybody ever contacted Brian Redmond? Yes. He came to one of our meetings early on. I think when we were doing a town plan. And then I talked to him later when we were doing this, zoning. And he certainly encouraged, you know, there's, there are steps that town can take with drinking water and that's sort of his, his focus. When I looked at what those steps were, it was probably more than our little volunteer town can do. The state's also capable of doing some of that work, but yeah, that's part of it. He's a terrific resource. I think head of the drinking water section and the state of Vermont lives on the end of Notre Road. Yeah, right. And even the, the sewer. Waste, wastewater. Yeah, I think that, you know, it's going to be something, and I know the town has looked at it before, but, you know, it's not something that needs to happen over May, but probably over the next, you know, five to 10 years. The town's going to have to grapple with this one way or another and it'd be good to get some of that study and investigation underway sooner rather than later. Okay. I was under the impression there was quite a lot of money out there available, but that was back a few months ago. Yeah. I recall when we, when we did the, when we went through this the last time and came up with a proposal for a water system, whenever that was five or six or 10 years ago, then we were told quite strongly that we didn't have a wastewater issue and we're likely not to have one. I'm not sure that's still true. I'm sure the rules and regulations have all changed. So I think keeping our eye on that is important because that's going to be a major. The water, the water is, is relatively simple. I'm not saying it's inexpensive, but assuming we have a water source, the water is relatively inexpensive, but the wastewater can be very expensive. Anything else anyone? Okay. I think we're all set, Sandy. Thank you. Thanks, Sandy. Thank you. Have a good evening. Welcome home. Darinda, treasurer support. I don't have much. We're approval on the audit. Did you guys, I need to get back to Bonnie to have her finalize the draft that I sent everyone. So there's anybody, I looked it over, looked fine to me. I don't know, did you didn't see anything that was of any concern, right? I didn't get a chance to look at it. I completely slipped my mind. I mean, there's no urgency to that, right? Well, no, other than just to get them, get it done. Yeah, like that. So if you want to, we'll put it back on the agenda for two weeks. I apologize for that. I totally spaced on that. Okay. The other thing was we received an email from a company out of, I believe it was Burlington or someplace interested in actually South Burlington. And they're interested in coming down and meeting with somebody about our IT and cybersecurity. I don't know after our meeting with RB last week, if we are a couple of weeks ago, if we want to just put this on the back burner for now That's a good question. And unfortunately I had to leave the meeting, the last meeting before you guys discussed that. And I didn't see anything in the minutes that indicated you did discuss it. So maybe we... We did. We gave an update to the rest of the board. Right. No, I saw that. But I mean, no decision was made about whether we were going to go forward with looking for other options or that. And we do have a little bit of time now. So maybe this is a good time to talk about that. I mean, I left that meeting with Ruben. I don't know. However, I think we all left the meeting feeling better about things. I'm not saying perfect. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't go ahead with what we plan to do. What we plan to do. And I don't think it hurts to me with those people. I mean, if we're going to go through a process, we should identify it. I mean, we had a list of names. We should identify who we're going to talk to and not just talk to random people who come in to see us. Yeah. But I agree. I think that there was a list of four. Yeah. Forward before us. I don't know if this entity was on that list or not. I don't believe it was. I think it would be a worthwhile exercise if only that to talk with these folks and get various opinions on where we sit today and where we could potentially be in the future. So I would support engaging in conversation with these folks. What I would maybe suggest or just throw out to everybody is we're about to go in the belly of the beast with elections and budgets and all that stuff and maybe start a process more towards the end of the year to start doing that. I don't think there's any urgency to do it now and line them up and decide who's going to meet with them. I don't think we need the whole board to meet with them. So we should decide who's going to meet with them. But I guess I would respond to that request and say, yes, we are interested in talking to you. We'll be back in touch with you towards the end of the year or something like that. That makes sense to everybody. All of our budgeting stuff is done out of the way or something. It may be the first of the year at the holidays because we're going to be so bogged down. At the same time, in the meantime, we should have Ruben come to a select board meeting, which we talked about at our meeting with him. I don't want to lose track of that either. And along the same lines, I believe Phil specced out a laptop. He actually specced out a laptop and a server. And I guess the understanding is that RB looked at, they felt that the laptop, not the laptop, the workstation was fine. But they disagreed with what was specced out for the server. And I noticed in the support ticket this week, it said something about to let them know if we want them to spec something out. And I don't know if Phil had any conversation with them or not. And I don't know if he actually ordered the workstation. I didn't realize until he sent the email that it wasn't going to be here tonight. So that's something else we should follow up on. And I don't know when he'll be back. There was a pretty big discrepancy in the budget numbers that Phil had and what RB, what Ruben had talked with us about in our meeting. I let the rest of the board know that we were talking with Ruben. He kind of was thinking somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 as a conservative estimate. And I think Phil's number, if I remember correctly, was like half of that. So there's definitely a conversation that needs to happen around that and looking into what that cost actually is. Right. I agree. But we're thinking the server is in next year's budget, right? Yeah. So we need to, in our budget process, we need to get to the bottom of that and be able to plug in a good number. Yeah. And I think that the number Ruben gave us was sort of a shoot from the hip kind of number. Correct. I don't think he'd done any real thought. So we need to get a real proposal from him and understand what that is and also, you know, whatever Phil's thoughts are and how it's going to work. I mean, again, I just want to be careful because we're tiptoeing into the dark waters. You know, as Ruben or one of these other tech companies going to be happy dealing with a server that we've gone out and bought on our own, that's always an issue. I know. Yeah. So we need to be thinking about that also. So do you want me to contact R&B and tell them to go ahead and spec out a server? Yes. I think we need to. Because we need to include it in our budget process. And at the same time, Durand, if you're going to do that, if you would, I mean, I would say not November, but December, let's get it on the radar so we meet with Ruben so we don't forget or maybe January, I don't know. Whatever you and Sarah think is a good time to do it, but I just want to make sure we do it. I think it's a good idea to loop him in through the budgeting workshops that we do because he'll have some input on not only looking at what we have spent this last year, but talking about what the future looks like and proposals. So I think including him in one of those workshop budgets. So probably not waiting until the end of the year. Okay. Yeah, you're probably, yeah, I could agree with that. Just a reminder, we only have four more meetings before the end of the calendar year. That's what I'm saying. Okay, yeah, we're there, I guess. Yeah. Okay. I think that's it. Anything else, anybody? Thank you. Can I just ask something about the orders? Sure. I'm just looking at the time sheets. And I don't quite understand Eric's time sheet here. Isn't it just refresh my memory? Cause I think it was on this case. You have to work physically work 40 hours. Except for holiday. You guys made the decision. Okay. Holiday was included that you would allow holiday time to be worked, but not personal, not vacation. Okay. So it's still, it's off by an hour. It's off by one hour. It's off by, he had him one column, nine hours, and another column, 10 hours. Okay. So the red is correct, not up here. Yeah. And the totals, the two totals match up at the 47. The totals match the total for the week, but somehow a 10 got written in instead of a nine, I guess. So the totals came to... 47 on that one time sheet. You mean for the week? Yes. Yeah. Okay. But we're looking at the red cause then not up here. So the discrepancy is in that Friday's entry. Yeah. There's a 10 on the day, but in the total, the sum is 47 on both the week and on the, so he should be in the, that's the first week there. Okay. So we just don't see anything but fives and 10s and eights. Yeah. I don't understand where the sum of the 10 is from, but... This 10, so when he totalled that it's 47, that should be a nine to match here. Oh, oh, oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. All right. All right. That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah. Anything else? You're all set, Dharanda? I'm all set. Okay. So the other agenda item we have is warned for, for 645. So I would suggest we go ahead with our other, other business items and cause you're expecting other people here, correct? No. No, I think at least one of the family may join by Zoom. So we should wait. Oh, okay. But we should wait. Yes. We should wait. It's 645. Yeah. Yeah. So Liz, this would be a great time to put you right on the spot to talk about the... So you have in front of you, Sarah printed out. Thanks for doing that, Sarah. Five proposals that came in for our RFP for the review of the town hall. So as a layperson doing this, I'm doing it with Sandy. I'm doing it with Sandy and Dave Meghita. As a layperson, it's, it's hard to understand what you're looking at, right? You, it's, it's really hard to compare apples to apples when we're looking at this. So I have to, again, give kudos to Dave Meghita, who is very helpful and, and personally now, parsing out like what, what we should be looking for, like sort of key elements to this. I guess my, my, my first sort of comment is that this is, I don't expect you guys to come back and say we recommend this because this is not necessarily your expertise at all. But we want you to obviously have a chance to, to look at this. So we spent a couple of hours last night going over these and we have determined that two out of these five have sort of risen to the top. And what we would like to do next and in the interest of time, we'd like to do this very soon is to sort of give a heads up to the three that we don't think have risen to the top to let them know that, that two have advanced. And that, you know, this like board's looking at it. So it's, so we're not, you know, saying you're out of the running, but we as the committee of the review committee have determined two that have risen to the top. And then on November 1st, so this will have to be on the agenda, Sarah, for November 1st, we'd like to make a recommendation. We believe we'll probably be able to narrow it down to one. But we want to meet with those two because we have some questions that we want to ask them before we make a final decision. One of the reasons that makes this hard to parcel out is because they have base prices and then they have add-ons. And it's hard to know, well, we need this add-on. Is that add-on included in someone else's base price? So, but what we've, what we've discovered is that the prices range from 15 to 35,000 and where we're looking at is a ballpark of around 25,000. And so, so basically now I'm not asking you, you know, to really make any decisions, I mean, for us except that we would like to go, we would like to go forward and meet with those two as a, as a committee. Meet with those, separately those, those two that have risen to the top. And if you're feeling so inclined that you want to be involved in this process before November 1st, we'd probably have to have a special meeting with you. But if you would rather sort of trust us with this process and allow us to make a proposal on November 1st of one firm, that's going to be the best for this timeframe because they need to know, this is going to take, you know, this is going to take like three months for them to work on and they need to know sooner than later. So if we can have a decision on the 1st and actual vote on the, from the board on the 1st, that's what we're hoping for. So are you going to share with us who the top two are? Not right now, no. You want to wait until the end of the process. Yeah, because we haven't talked to the other firms and so I just don't want to do that right now on the television. And you're not really looking for feedback from us. You're just giving us to us as a foundation. Well, no, you certainly can provide feedback. If you're so inclined that you're looking at this and you say, well, gosh, like, I think all five of these are great. I have no idea why they think only two would rise to the top. I want to have a meeting about this weekend. We can certainly warn of select for a meeting vote to have to be between now and November 1st because we really would like to present to you our final decision on the 1st. Now there could be a possibility that after talking to these two that we say, gosh, we're really having a hard time deciding. We want the select board to decide. Now I will say what we may be also presenting is a couple of scenarios because there's add-ons. There are prices that we may be able to say to the board, well, we can spend 15,000 on just this, but we recommend that we actually spend an extra 10,000 on this and this to get a more thorough assessment of the building. So there may be an opportunity at that meeting for you guys to say, well, no, I think we really just want to do like a bare bones thing and spend this amount of money versus the recommendation from us that may be or may not be because we haven't talked to these guys yet, a higher amount, but we're looking at around 25,000 maximum probably that we'd be looking at. I think I'd like to hear the top two after you talk with folks. Okay. So maybe once you have those conversations, you can circulate the top two candidates at this point and that gives me a chance. I'd like to look at their proposals at least and instead of digging through six, maybe I can just dig through the two that... Yeah, they're not easy to read if you don't. And I speak from a complete lay person. I looked at these and I'm like, I immediately called Dave and I said, I need your help. I don't know how to compare civil engineering versus structural engineering versus this versus that. There's so much stuff here and what is it that we're looking for for this particular project, right? And I don't expect anyone here unless they have that experience to be able to do it really any much better than what I can do or Sandy's a little better than I am at it, but we're both sort of very much lay people looking at this using the guidance of Dave. But he was really helpful when we sat down with him for two hours. We got a much better understanding of what it was that we were looking for. So anyway, I don't know if I'm allowed to just e-mail you guys. That sounds like I'm needing... It's just sharing information. Or is it just sharing information? So as long as there's no correspondence back to you with communications around actionable items. So your process is going to be... You're only going to meet with the two or you're going to meet with the five of them? We're going to talk to all five of them, but we're only going to meet with two that we think have risen to the top. Based on... So there's a scoring rubric and based on that scoring rubric, two have stood out to us and so we want to talk to those two. We're not going to talk to all five because we don't. It takes too much time. Six? There's six. There's five. We didn't have six. Unless I've got... Who do you have there? I've got Vermont Integrated Architecture. Yeah. I've got SHKS Architects. Sanford and Strauss. Hunger Valley. Yeah. Engineering Ventures. Oh, Engineering Ventures. And Black River Design. I think Engineering Ventures is attached to someone. That's attached to VIA, I think. Okay. So they do... That's another compute scene thing. They have all these contractors that they work with that do various things. So that's not their own thing. That goes with one of the other ones. Let me see who that one goes with. Thank you. I'm sure it probably says in... Well, I realize we're probably talking about a special meeting, but I would like... This is a big deal for us. I would like to be part of the discussion with the two semifinalists. Okay. And I don't know how the other board members feel. Do we want to make that a select board meeting? I think we do. I think we... Yeah. And just so you know, too, they're going to want to... The person who's chosen or the group who's chosen is going to want to meet with the select board anyway. That's just a part of their process. Sure. That's included because they need to know what it is we really want. I'm trying to think of it. I think that's with BIA. So we'd be looking at... Hopefully, you know, we're talking two weeks, right? Until November 1st. So like this week or next week, as long as I get the okay that you guys are okay with this, I don't think we need to vote on it because it wasn't warned, but just that we're going to invite two firms back to have a deeper question and answer with them, set up the meeting, and then you guys will know who those two firms are. And we're going to probably have Dave will set up those meetings. And probably I would imagine during the day, if that works for folks more or less, Randy, you and I can probably find a time. Does that work for folks? Well, I'm just concerned that we can't do it. I don't think it'll work to do it at the regular select port time because we just have too much on our plate. So this needs to be a special meeting just to meet with these folks. But we were pleased with the turnout that we had this many people. So from a scheduling point of view, you're talking about holding a select board meeting during the day. Or are you talking about meeting on the 25th a week from today? Because that's the only, that's the last Tuesday before November 1st, which is the meeting where you're going to vote on this. I think Liz was suggesting doing it during the business day. I'm picturing during the business day because these are business people that probably not going to want to do anything. They would, I'm sure. But I think everyone would probably rather have it. Well, you know, Liz, I think you can just keep me in touch if there, if we can get a poll from the board about which day is better for you guys than something else, then we can work on. Maybe. So it's basically Randy and Liz who have real day jobs, right? So you're the ones who, I don't know the rest of us assuming assuming I'm around, which I'm not so sure that I agree with you on that. Okay, so I'll just get in touch with Dave. I don't know if Sandy's listening. Sandy, did you have anything to add? She keeps it up. No, I didn't have anything to add. Thank you. Maybe you think about scheduling it for next Tuesday and get right to your regular meeting time. And if neither of the two sort of finalists can come to that meeting then think about another time during the day that works. How long before you'd have these two, the word out for these two people that you're going to do? Well, I think what, we just want to give the courtesy of the three others, tell them first before we. So then you're going to email us through the two hours? Yeah. I mean you'll find out anyway because we'll be setting up a this is who we're going to be meeting with. So I'm still unclear about whether it's feasible to do it during the day or we need to do it in the evening. Why don't we try for the five o'clock? And if they can do it, they probably can. These aren't, this isn't hours long meeting. We just have, you know, a couple of, they're not going to be together. They're going to be back to back. They're not going to know who the other person is. Just on the 25th? So they would be back to back. That's what we're thinking is the 25th. Yeah. And I can't, you know, I'll ask, Sandy, how long do you think we'd be meeting with each firm? I don't know. Half an hour at minimum, probably? I would guess a half hour or so. And I don't know about being back to back if you can do it privately or if you've taken a session or if you need to do this in an open meeting. I don't, I don't, well, your lawyers here, maybe he knows. Well, I would think that it would fall under an executive session due to the fact that you're talking about, you know, your negotiations around, you know, future contracts, right? I think that's potentially true. I'm not, I just got on it. I'm not familiar with the nature of the, the contracts or the work. So, but subject to that, that it certainly sounds like something that could be dealt with it in our executive session. So I feel like we're getting in the habit of having a lot of executive sessions. I, we can't, we can't meet with these two people and talk to them and not, and not, I mean, then we could go into executive session to make the decision. But suppose members of the public want to be involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm saying, I don't think this should be an executive session. Maybe if any public member wants to, to hear about this, I think it's fine. There's nothing secretive about this. It's just, we have some questions about their proposals that we just want to get some clarity on for the scope of work and the cost and, you know, comparing sort of the, for our own selves, comparing the two proposals. And, and so, and then there's also apparently, you know, what Dave was saying is that, you know, there's room to negotiate, get a lower price with them if we end up wanting to go with them. So those are some things that like I wouldn't really know how to do that. But Dave could probably got us on that too. But so, yeah, I don't think it needs to be secret. And it doesn't necessarily need to be warned unless there's three select board members there, which there probably will be. Well, I think we're talking about it being a select board. So it ends up being a select board meeting. Right, right. I think it can be warned and if the public wants to come, they can come except what we can't do is have some, so no, you can't, it has to be executive session because you don't want the other firm to see a public meeting and want to just join in on the meeting because we don't want them there. Wait, if I can just jump in here. So the secret part of this was the, was the bid process. Everybody has submitted their bids and that's, that's done. You've got that. That's, no one knows what each other's bids were, right? So now you're just looking at the, you're just looking, you're just talking to them about some qualitative questions. So I can't see really why that would be an executive session. You're expending taxpayers money on this. And the bid process, the secretive part of the bid process is over. So really, if we, if we bid out for something like any of the FEMA projects, the bids are a secret, but then we go through them in public, in a public meeting and talk about which ones were, which contractor we're going to hire. I guess I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm a little confused about what this process is. I mean, I, I would, I guess what I was envisioning is, is that each, each of these two would essentially make a presentation and then answer questions. That's not, well, no, I mean, we, we, we have their, the, the two that have risen to the top. We just have specific questions so that we can become more informed for a recommendation to you. But now what you're telling me, what I'm hearing you say is that, well, no, we want to be a part of that. Like we want to have the conversation and ask questions too of these two firms. And so that's a different, that becomes a meeting. Whereas before it was just the committee, the review committee having some clarifying questions to the firms. Gotcha. So that's, that's exactly where, that's exactly where my confusion is coming in is, is, is, you know, I'm trying to decide if, if I think it's appropriate or I would like to get involved in digging into the minutiae of these, of these proposals. I'm certainly interested in looking them over, but I guess, and I'm just trying to think my way through it. I guess I'm happy to look it over. And if I have questions or concerns, I can, I can let you know or let Dave McGee to know and you guys, you guys can address them. I'm not, I don't want to make this, this process more complicated than it needs to be. And I guess if, if I'm not going to, going to hear from them about their proposal, if all I'm going to do is hear them answer questions that you guys have for them. Yeah, they're not going to be able to do this. I don't think, how do you feel about that, Randy? I don't think I need to be part of that as long as I can. I think for me, what I was interested in is, is being able to actually review in much more detail the two recommended candidates that they would like to talk with and not have to dig through five and develop any kind of questions, comments, concerns out of those two. But are you comfortable, are you comfortable giving that feedback to the committee and having them ask the questions? I have no issues with that. Yeah, I think that's, I'm sorry. I got off on the wrong, on the wrong path. So that makes sense. Because I'm with you. I want to take the time to look through it and if I have questions, I'd like to have my questions answered. But we don't need to go back to square one and have them talk about their proposal. Yeah, no, I would, I would say that is not where, yeah. No, so, so if we were to, so basically this in the next few days, Dave is going to reach out to the two, set up an appointment for Sandy, Dave and me to meet with them to ask questions. He's going to reach out to the three that didn't rise to the top and say, you know, you're, you didn't make it to the second round by our review committee. And then, and then we can tell you who those two are so that you can look at that and then we'll have our questions and you guys if you want can, I suppose, ask questions or we could, I mean this is where a special meeting came in, that you really said we really want us to have this little special meeting with like Dave, Megida and our, us as a select board before we go and make a recommendation to you, we can do that before November 1st. Here's, here's what I think, what I think makes sense is give those of us who are interested in going through these a couple of days to go through them. Assuming what we have is, is concerns or misunderstandings or feel like we need more information, I'm comfortable giving that to the committee and letting you guys develop that. And then, and then get back to us. I don't feel like I need to meet with them. I think that's going to cause confusion for them as well. Like they're dealing with a committee and all of a sudden members of the select board are showing up. I think that's a, that's a mistake as long as, as long as you're comfortable with that Randy. Yeah, I just want a chance to review the two candidates that they're recommending and be able to, to ask questions to the committee that can then relay those to the, those folks. That's all I want. And I just want to make it clear though too that at this very moment in time, you know, even if we tell you tomorrow who these two candidates are because he's communicated, Dave has communicated with them, that doesn't mean that you can't look at the other three. Like if you are so inclined to say, well, I just want to review the other three, you can because we're, we are not officially telling, like we don't want, we don't want it to be that you guys never even looked at those other three, right? That's not fair to them. And so. But I think the bottom line is, the bottom line is when you do trust the process. Yeah. Yeah. It's a matter of capacity. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm, I'm not interested in going through three proposals that have already put on the sidebar. If all of a sudden I see some, some major problem with one of the two you've selected, then we might want to reconsider that. But I mean, I'm, I'm hoping that, you know, you'll, you'll get agreement from us that that's you're headed down the right path. And we just have a few questions or concerns we'd like to have addressed. So we, we will need to know who those people are when you can tell us and when you are going to be meeting with them so we can get back to you before you're going to meet with them. That makes sense. Is everybody good with that? Are you good with that Victor? Good with that. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Okay. Well, it is now a little past the time for our bare swamp, bare swamp discussion. So you all received the correspondence from Mike and he is here with us. Correct. And who do we have on the, I'm sorry, but where that computer screen is, I cannot even see the name. So who else have we got with us? We have John Demeter, Sandy Levine, whoever John's iPad is, Paul's iPhone and Jan Theron. Oh, is there more under there? Annette. Annette Halas. Okay. Halas. She's the other Lister. The other Lister. Okay. So what I would, what I would like to do is and you've all received it, I know, but, but read into the record. The request from these folks and we have, we have Mike's, Mike's written thing. And then we have signed signatures by the other budding landowner. So I'm just quickly going to read this in and then we can start the discussion. My home is located along the 0.3 mile class four portion of South Bear swamp road. And I support the request to the select board that the town plow and better grade and periodically maintain the ditches along the 0.3 mile section that runs from the current turnaround just past 323 South Bear swamp road to the significant ledge in the road past the driveways for homes located at 399-401-406 Bear swamp road. If the town would do so without a formal upgrade to class three would be satisfied similar to what was discussed in the context of upgrading a 0.4 mile section of McCullough road in 2015. None of us seeks a significant expansion of the road and are grading better than the level done in 2021. If the work sought can be done only by an upgrade to class three as appears to have been the case at McCullough Hill Road then we would like the class three upgrade. I'm signing below on behalf of everyone who lives at the addresses identified below for me. Thank you for consideration. And that is signed by, excuse me, Mike Hill, Diane Chapin, Daniel Riley who is here with us in the room, John Lund. They just don't want to come apart. And Mike Klein. Yes. Yes. So with that I guess we're ready to hear from you Mike. Thanks. One thing I'd say is that the language here wasn't just mine. This was reflects the input of all five people. So it's true that I was the lead author but I sat around. I had talked to everybody before I met with you September 6th and so when I represented to you that this was not only was there no opposition unlike McCullough Hill where there were three people at the meeting who spoke against it, there was no opposition within the class four or anybody else but the people on South Bear Swamp Road who said well absolutely of course you know we're taxpayers we can't individually pay to improve our roads. We need ambulance service, we need services and now we have a family this year after eight years this is when I really decided to get more proactive about it. A family with three small children who couldn't get oil delivered. I pay about $10,000 in taxes a year. I have for eight years I can't get out of this. I mean and when I moved here there have been three or four changes since I was here last time and spoken I want to make sure you're all aware of them. I'm not going to talk about a couple of other changes because I don't want to because they create more heat than light but I do want you to know that the changes since the last time we were here and hopefully this is enough to get at least three votes. One is we have this petition and Peter I distributed this petition and asked my four neighbors who I tried to keep out of this to sign it only because Peter during our call said well if you, if everybody else agreed to do that's good enough for me. Peter was very clear that he could not speak for the board but I figured if I had Peter's vote that would be enough for me to circulate the petition so we did. Second is the issue of precedent was important to you all. September 6th and I respect that completely. I think we've answered that. Makala Hill is the precedent. It came up very clearly what do we do about Makala Hill and precedent and the board voted unanimously that point four models is not enough of a stretch to be considered precedent that we need to worry about. In fact if there's precedent it's Makala Hill and you have to stick with it. So I mean we could make differences that's in 1400 feet we're at 1500 feet. I don't, those are distractions. We have precedent and I think you have to stick with it. I didn't want to get into Makala Hill. I didn't want to get into East Barriswamp Road but I do want transparency. I want to understand the law. My home is my largest investment and the third change and this was a big issue September 6th was Mike you knew before you moved here that you were buying an unplowed road. That is, I said September 6th well maybe I was stupid but I didn't know so I went back September 6th and I wasn't stupid. I looked at all the papers. This road was unplowed. Nobody told me the word class 4. It's not required and you have to require to disclose that stuff. Mold and what elementary school there is and everything else but you don't have to disclose. Nor does this town do anything to disclose it. There's a sign that says it's not a through road but there's a sign on East Barriswamp Road that says it's not a through road before it goes on for a half mile to plow and grade it. Well all no through road means is that somewhere there's a dead end or there's a ledge or a barrier. I saw a perfectly well graded road and it was a perfectly well graded road until this year and I got into a little bit and asked me why I think that is and clearly people didn't want to hear it and I don't want to go into it but there's no doubt to me there's been a change this year and it's not a good change. I guess I've talked about three things. One is a petition, one is precedent, one is lack of notice. The fourth thing was I had a couple of very good conversations with Peter and Peter said look let's diffuse this. September 6th media wasn't good and there were some things that were said there that just weren't true and I don't want to go into them. If we can get the votes today without going into them I'd like to do that but Peter said let's diffuse it. Very smart move. Let's have a meeting. That's you, Peter, and Vic, and Eric. Go out there and just look at it. I can't see how anybody here is going to vote against this without having to go and have the opportunity to come see. I mean right now the road is washing down into my lawn. I mean it's a trespass frankly and that's only this year and there's a trout stream in front of my yard. I mean it's a foot deep and a foot wide and it goes on for I don't know 60 feet, 80 feet on McCulloch Hill Road. It's smooth as a pancake and you know I just it's not fair to the five people who live here and pay taxes to be treated this way. So that's I can go into more but I really hope I don't know. I would like to have a vote approving this. I think we had enough to get a vote before we had this September 6th meeting. Issues were raised September 6th and we've answered them. We've got proof that all five people wanted and nobody spoke against it and this thing's been listed publicly twice. Unlike McCulloch Hill where three people were actively against it we're not going to change the bucolic nature of this. I've bought most of the right side of the road here and I've put it in current use and I've tried to reach out to the town and the head of the recreation committee and say look if people want to hike on that they can but that person Mitchell Sucking has never responded and so we're trying to keep things in a way that's good for everybody in the town. This town has in its plan that it wants open space. It wants public access to recreation. When Mitchell Sucky because of what happened to Menach doesn't respond that's objectionable to me as a taxpayer. I think it's objectionable to the town the people who voted for the town plan who said they want that stuff. They wanted they didn't want Mitchell Sucky to secretly say to Menach yes for as I'm concerned you can break this property up into six parcels without any consideration of open space or public recreation or species impact or weapons. You go ahead as far as I know but nobody in the town fixes Mitchell's not even a lawyer. He can't get opinions like that and yet the lawyer nobody spoke up and said to Menach that's not true. So Menach goes into the hearing the only person who has said to him look you can't break up into more than three without doing that analysis. I gave Mr. Menach a way to do that to make it three still give John Christian his land back to him. Everybody would win the town would win they get 200 acres Mr. Menach would make up 500 percent profit a million dollars but Menach what he heard was that this flat land or Washington lawyer had come up and was the only person saying that the law was the law. And Mitchell Seckey sat on the panel two months after giving him that secret written opinion and never told anybody. Two dozen people showed up as interested parties at that hearing and Mitchell Seckey never disclosed yeah I'm sitting on the panel by the way I told him an answer and he couldn't give him that answer in the hearing because all 24 people said two plus two equals four not three and four is imaginary four or more you have to consider the town's interests open space public access to recreation species impact we're going to lose all those things if we continue to let go of the law and Mitchell Seckey let go of the law and then we went to court and the town had secret conversations with Howard Menach and claimed privilege over them there's nobody who's been to a month of law school or has watched you know court TV who thinks it's like privilege over these conversations with them and yet that happened I tried to meet with the town with the head of the middle sex conservation commission during the proceedings and we couldn't do it not unless we'd been ahead of time loud everything we wanted to say in a way that it could be shared with Menach so we did I'm sorry I stuck up as I did but I followed the law these four hundred acres around my house I think they were taken from Howard and not like from John Christian in a way that was grossly unnecessarily harsh to sell four hundred acres and his family home on a Tuesday morning at Auckland to where whoever could show up with cash is going to lead to all of our properties all of our wild spaces being chopped up into 18 pieces here in Menach threatened the area and look we only want four we could have asked for 18 Mike I'm just going to interrupt you for a minute we're not here tonight to talk about the Menach business what we're here to talk about tonight is your written request to us so you give us a lot of background about other issues that we're really not concerned about tonight so if we could focus on your request I think the board would appreciate that if I didn't see one as directly connected to the other I wouldn't have gone into this as I said to you I didn't want to go into that let's say for tonight that that's going to be a sidebar issue it is beyond the scope of the meeting tonight for sure so let me just talk for a minute I've carefully I've carefully read your request and there's sort of two things going on here that make a big difference in this and I have carefully read again our highway ordinance which we are in the throes of revising by the way but it is what it is as of right now and in this request there are basically two issues one is maintenance of a class 4 road in middle sex and that I think is a fairly easy for one for us we have obligations in terms of maintaining class 4 roads and we can relatively I'm not saying we can make it perfect and that it's always going to be perfect and I'm interested to hear Victor and Eric have to say but I think we can potentially restore that road back to the way it was when it was in better condition and it is substantially washed out down on the side there down the ledge and all of that but and here's the big but to plow the road in the wintertime which you also seem to be asking for that means it has to be a class 3 road which means it has to go through the upgrade process and you're asking the town to do this and I can't say for the board that we're unwilling to do it but that's a big hurdle I think for us so I know you think you somehow have it in your head that we did this at McKellahill Road even though the neighbors objected and that means that we need to do it for you I respectfully disagree with you on that I mean that was a totally different process and totally different reasoning our practice and our policy has been and it's spelled out in detail in our highway policy it has been pointed out to me through our town attorney that and he is here right there yeah that our highway policy that really what governs this process is the state statutes which supersede our highway policy so we're looking at the state statutes we're trying to understand them at the same time we're looking at our highway policy but what our highway policy says is that if a group of people in your neighbors want to make that a class 3 road which means it's going to be plowed in the winter and maintained to class 3 standards it's your obligation to bring it up to class 3 standards not our obligation and all I'm doing is reading exactly what's here I'm not making that up and the only other way to do it I guess and help me out here if somebody knows better is if you can get a petition of 5% of the voters in the town to upgrade the road then we're forced to take it up as an issue to consider it at town meeting you're talking Sir Peter yes yes it would be warned as an article at town meeting that's helpful I did not see I saw the 5% as merely as not getting us any further than what we're doing right now which is the board considering it to upgrade the law but if it will go as further than that we'll do the 5% I didn't as I said at September 6 I didn't see any reason to bother 5% of the town because all it does is get you to consider it but the problem is we're trying to follow our policy our written past policy what is it in the policy that prevents you from saying yes here because you said state statute right and I'm not I'm not an expert on the state statutes and we will certainly okay all right yes please that's somebody else speaking hold on I got him Sarah okay so anyway good evening everyone just to clarify it is true that the issues of maintaining highways repairing highways reclassifying them, upgrading them downgrading them, discontinuing them all that kind of stuff that's pretty much a question that is governed by Vermont statutes but there are some holes in the statutes and as a result of that many towns adopt what middle sexes adopted which is their own highway ordinance or their own highway policy the what I've indicated is that where we have provisions in a town highway policy that are not consistent with state statute then the policy has to yield to the statute here we I think Peter referenced a portion of the of the town's ordinance which basically sets for a public policy in middle sex at least as of now which is that for class 4 roads the town does not perform substantial maintenance or ongoing regular maintenance and plowing under the statute the standard is that the town has the discretion to supply whatever level of maintenance to a class 4 highway that it deems in the public good and I think the buzz words are public good and necessity so in a way that those two provisions may be inconsistent but in another way we can say they're actually quite consistent because the public good and convenience of the town as the public good requires it can be said to be reflected in the ordinance provision that says we're not going to you know it's in the public good not to spend town resources on regular maintenance on class 4 so that's one way to look at it with respect to a request that has come before the select board I think that that's what we have right now it's simply a request by five different property owners if I'm counting it right to do some specific maintenance work which is I guess some grading and also to do some work on a regular basis which involves plowing of the road so that's a matter for the select board's discretion there has been no request that I can see for an upgrade to class 3 other than through sort of a secondary request in this written document that was presented to the board and as part of what we're discussing this evening and so under the statutes the way in which you get a reclassification preceding going is there's only two ways one is if the if a petition is forwarded to the select board that has that minimum of 5% of the voters which we've already talked about that's one way to get the matter before the select board and just just for clarification it doesn't go before the voters it goes before the select board at a hearing it's not a town vote or anything like that the second way to get a reclassification or upgrade request like this in front of the select board is the select board can decide on its own motion that it wants to entertain that proceeding then it goes forward and it's in either of those two events it will schedule a hearing and it's basically an evidentiary hearing before the select board which requires the board members to go out take a look at the road do an inspection come back take whatever evidence from interested parties they want to hear from and then decide whether under that same standard the public good and necessity and convenience of the town whether under that standard the select board wishes to to reclassify whatever portion of the road we're talking about in this case it would be an upgrade from class 4 to class 3 in doing so it had the select board has the right but not the obligation the select board can require the petitioning parties or the requesting parties to first upgrade the road to class 3 standards at the property owner's expense prior to entertaining a reclassification designation so that's pretty much it in a nutshell and I hope I've answered at least most of the questions that have been bandied about here but I'm happy to answer any further ones or to clarify what I've already said thanks I'm sorry John's iPad I don't know the name of the person but there's a question okay he's got his hand right who is John's iPad I'm sorry yes hi this is Sarah Lund sorry I'm doing this this way because I have a little cold so I'm not there in person but I just have a question regarding us paying the expense to upgrade the road so I know that my husband I John Lund and I live at 406 South Bear Swamp so we are part of that petition that you're talking about in that portion of the road and we had looked into making some modifications to the road previously when we first purchased our property and I know it says on the website and double checking that we have to have permission in order to make adjustments to the road so how exactly does that play into what you guys are talking about with us doing the upgrade what would we need to do to obtain that permission to make adjustments to upgrade it to class three I think you'd have to be more you'd have to be specific in what you wanted to do okay an upgrade could be anything okay I'm just thinking in the sense of how you guys keep referencing that we would pay to upgrade it to a class three so what permissions what would we need to do in order to get permission to do that then is my question so I think what you're talking about potentially is two different things help me out here Victor if I've got this wrong but if a resident on a class four road comes to the town and says you know we'd like to improve the road by putting down some gravel and ditching to make the road a better road and that has happened quite a few times over the years that I can remember typically the road commissioner and the road foreman go out and meet with a landowner and agree on what the scope of work is and say yes we give you permission to do that or we will allow you to do it but you have to do this and this and that and the other but it's still a class four road it's still a class four road if you come to the town and say and this is where we get back to the snow plowing issue that we want to have the road maintained and passable a year around by the town that's a class three road so then then the process would be that you have to bring the road up to class three sanders which is a certain width a certain slope it's in the town highway policy but it's two different things and that's what I'm trying to get at I think figuring out how to do some maintenance to the class four road and make it better and make it passable and take care of the watching and improve the ditching it can't be our highest priority but certainly our intent is to do that especially on class four roads where people live I mean we want people to be able to get back and forth to their houses and have the road be as safe as it could reasonably be and I also believe by law and help me out on this Victor we are responsible for the maintenance of culverts on class four roads are we not so if there's a culvert that watches out or collapses or whatever it is that's automatically that's automatically our responsibility but not if it's your driveway not if it's a private not if it's at the driveway culvert correct correct it's only like across the road culvert okay okay I wasn't sure what when you guys kept speaking of the residents taking the standard up to a class three road if there were other permissions we would need to go through in order to make that happen because of how the website works well it's a process and the process is outlined and we can send you if you don't already have it the road policy it's a process and there's a public hearing involved and there's yes it's a process can I ask a clarifying question I'm still confused about the difference between what he is presenting with five people signing and asking us to either just act like it's a class three but not actually upgrade it to maintain it or if we can't do that they'd like a class three upgrade what is the difference between that and the 5% of the voters what happens if there's 5% that changes this I guess I'm asking earlier I can answer that the difference is that if 5% of the voters present a petition to the select board formally requesting that this portion of South Bear Swamp Road be reclassified from a class four highway to a class three highway that takes away the discretion of the select board as to whether or not it wants to grant this particular request or not it forces the select board's hand if you will and it requires the setting of a hearing to take evidence on the issue it doesn't require the select board to simply reclassify the highway as class three simply because there's a petition received but it does require the select board to set a hearing to visit the premises take a look at the road do that inspection and then come back have a hearing after hearing the evidence and based on that evidence make a decision as to whether or not this portion of the road should be reclassified to a class three at the present time you don't have a 5% petition you merely have a request from five landowners within the town five residents who are making a request which at this point it's basically an informal request and it's it's addressed to the discretion of the select board as to what they want to do about it so but if we then my question is if it gets to that level of the 5% plus the public hearing is there a vote by the public on that no there is not a vote by the public it's strictly it's a what we call a quasi judicial hearing before the select board the select board acts as the judge of the proceedings they take the evidence they they hear from the petitioners they hear from any other interested parties there has to be notice of the hearing much like there would be notice for a zoning hearing for a permit for a you know a board of civil authority hearing any kind of quasi judicial hearing it would be similar to that and the decision of the select board could be appealed to the superior court in the same manner as say a zoning permit decision by the development review board subdivision decision by the planning commission although I guess we don't do that anymore in middle sex those kinds of things but it doesn't go before the the town for a vote or anything like that I just have one more question so then this came all the way to a hearing and we decided yes we're going to upgrade this to a class 3 road is that now our financial responsibility to make it a class 3 or is that still the responsibility of these people who wanted to have it upgraded I believe that under the statute and also under our road ordinance or policy the the granting of an upgrade to class 3 can be conditioned upon the petitioners being required to foot the bill for bringing the road up to class 3 standards before the select board takes it over as a class 3 at that point once the reclassification occurs the town would treat that portion of the highway just like any other class 3 highway and you would put it on the town's funds to to pave it, maintain it, ditch it whatever you do with your class 3 roads so I have another question just to be absolutely clear about the process if a petition is presented and we have and we have a public hearing could this select board not then make the decision to put it on a town meeting ballot and say it's been requested that we upgrade this road and we're going to put it before the voters or is it still that the petitioners have to pay for it and all we're saying is if you upgrade it to class 3 standards will maintain it there's no process within the statute there's no provision that mentions any kind of involvement by way of the town meeting peter it's it's an evidentiary hearing before the select board I think that if at any time the select board decided upon presentation of a petition that it wanted to put the matter before the voters that would merely be an advisory opinion by the voters and if I was asked I would caution against it only because the select board needs to make a and admittedly it's a subjective kind of amorphous kind of determination as to what the overall public good requires in a situation like this and I could see where you would be tempted to want to get a vote of the town the entire town to better gauge what the public thinks what the voters think the public good requires but I think that potentially could run the statutory process itself which basically confines the inquiry to a to an evidentiary hearing before the select board you have a question thank you a few things one to be clear there has been a request just as much as there was at mccullough where it was an informal petition by one individual wasn't 5% and there has been a formal request by five people and we were told that if all five wanted it we'd have at least one vote but we made that request in writing despite the fact that I didn't want to involve my four neighbors for reasons I talked about and what the statute says is at that point it is completely within your discretion as the board to upgrade what we've asked for which is if the only way for us to get this plowing and this limited improvement is through class 3 then we are asking now for class 3 I had not heard the distinction and thank you Rob but there might be some difference between you don't have to have an evidentiary hearing and Rob apparently believes you can't have an evidentiary hearing unless 5% of the town weighs in you are free to vote yes tonight I don't think Rob would disagree with you I just want to clarify that's not what I said what I said is that without the 5% petition it's up to the select board as you just indicated Mike that the select board has the discretion as to whether or not it wants to entertain having a reclassification hearing a formal hearing based solely on an informal request as I indicated earlier the select board can act to do that even without a request from anyone it could be that the select board at some point says you know there's a portion of a class 4 road in town that's seen a lot of development and we need to make sure that that roads in great shape and we are going to take it upon ourselves to schedule a hearing on our own motion to reclassify a current section of class 4 and make a class 3 they can also do the reverse at their own discretion make a portion of class 3 class 4 what I'm saying is they can decide tonight based on this informal request from you and your neighbors to schedule that formal hearing it's up to them what is not up to them is once there's a 5% statutory petition filed they no longer have the discretion as to whether to say oh should we have a hearing or not they have to have a hearing at that point right now they have the discretion to either accept the request that's in your piece of paper to deny that request or to do a third thing do something else in between so I hope that's clear okay I don't think I've said tonight anything to the contrary that all I'm trying to say Rob is that you have the discretion tonight to say yes thumbs up we're going to treat the 5 people on this .3 mile section the same as you treat the 1 person on the .5 mile section of East Bear Swamp Road and the same as we treat the people on the .4 mile section we're going to improve it you don't have to make us pay you have that ability tonight no one is trying to force your hand we think 3 of you will recognize that this is simply the right thing to do I frankly think 5 of you will and nobody is preventing you from doing this tonight and if we do do it tonight we can just avoid for the discussion I would like to the other thing is we don't have to get 5% we don't have to have an evidential hearing none of that is a prerequisite to court action simply doing something against one person for actions that don't seem legitimate that in itself is enough for court action under roads versus Georgia and nobody wants to go there we simply want the right thing to be done here because it's deserved here there are 5 families here and this is not increased development Rob these 5 homes have been there for a long time and we were there without complaint until this year when things really got bad and until a family with small children moved in and literally couldn't get fuel and that did all of us saying why are we being treated so differently here and we don't have to go into the reasons but what we do need to do is have I think we need us to pay for it as well I am I think I want the same treatment as McCulloch Hill and East Bear Swamp Road can I just clarify McCulloch Hill I remember that being a conversation that we had prior to anyone doing a petition we've talked about that for years because it's a castle for the plows and I yes Sarah I just want to read the record so McCulloch Hill was a war hearing we went through the process that Rob's talking about this life war took it upon itself to downgrade five roads in 2019 and then one more road in 2021 there was a cure we made a finding and we actually I think there was a decision that was made afterward that was formal that was reported in the Landberger so it wasn't something that people just came to the board and asked them we went there was notice we advertised I know because they did the advertisements that process that Rob's talking about the board went through that let me afraid of that elbow of McCulloch Hill road wait there was a hearing in connection with McCulloch Hill yeah there was a hearing and there was a process I know because that's thank you that's news to me it's not reflected in these minutes I would like to make a formal request tonight for all the documents around that hearing and all the documents around center road because center road has repeatedly been given to us as a reason and the budget there for why well I'll be happy to get whatever documents I have for McCulloch road I'm not sure I know about center road we couldn't hear what you were saying I said I I can you know easily get the documents for McCulloch Hill road but I I'm not sure I know what you're talking about with center road are you talking about when they interstate was put in let's take one at a time so when I learned about McCulloch all I learned about were the minutes that I provided to the the board if there's more to it than that I'd like to know so if you're going to give to me informally great otherwise let's make it a formal request okay great sir so I think I think potentially where we are tonight I'm go ahead I'm sorry oh thanks so I question that and I'm not sure if for McCulloch Hill you know I haven't followed the stuff on town basis but for McCulloch's upgrades if the local people on the road paid for it like you were suggesting earlier that we would you know probably do that was your initial you know you know deduction about the likely procedure that we would have to pay for it and then Sarah Lund came in and you know she asked what that procedure would be based on her previous communications and it sounded like the town would come in and we would be and they would be discussing with each landowner for various segments of the road you know whether or not the upgrade could occur whether or not it was feasible whether or not it was you know going to ultimately be able to produce a class 3 road and so if you have to do that for 5 different landowners without a plan in mind it's very easy for you to come across a stumbling block 2 years down the road where you say well it's just unacceptable to update this portion of the road of this 0.4 miles and so the whole effort is for naught so that should be avoided with a plan I think the way the process goes and held me out here Victor anybody else's what we would look for as the residents on the road to come to us and say you know here's the plan we're going to widen the road we're going to do this we're going to do that to bring it up to the class 3 standards and then it's up to you folks to decide how you how you divvy up the cost of that if it got to that point it's not that it would be considered you know 5 individual sections upgrading because that doesn't work for anybody what I was about to say and I'd be very interested in hearing from the other board members but I think we're at the point where I don't think it makes any sense to ask for a petition with 5% of the voters to have the hearing if we can have a hearing I say we have a hearing and we do the process I mean what I want to warn you about is is we've still got our road policy in front of us and our road policy says that it's up to the landowners to pay for the upgrade so it's one thing to say we'll go through the process for the upgrade and we haven't had any testimony or anything about what the potential cost to this is we have from the town's point of view we have no money in our budget to do any of this proposed work so you know is it going to be a bond issue where's the money going to come from if the town's going to do it if the town's even willing to do it or the select board's even willing to do it I'm fine and I don't know how the other board members feel with going ahead with the hearing getting some of the evidence more information and looking at this but I don't want you to think that because we're potentially agreeing to have a hearing that we're agreeing that we're potentially going to pick up the cost of this and I don't even know what the cost is so you said earlier that the road policy is subject to the state statute state statute says it's discretionary and we know from McCullough that Vic and other landowners and Vic owns all the .4 mile stretch or one half of it .31 miles okay well it's a .4 mile stretch and as I look at the no trespassing signs there virtually all of it are okay 80% of it is you so he's got the road in front of his property and the road where his businesses are I don't have any part of my business there I don't think was he asked to pay for it in 2015 so I know I've said this before and I'm going to say it again and if I'm saying it wrong somebody please correct me but the whole the whole situation at McCullough Hill was that it was done for the convenience of the town yes we kept hearing from the road crew that they were expending extra fuel extra time extra mileage on the truck because they would drive down the road to that little short section which was in class 3 they weren't allowed to drive through that because it was close in the winter time so they had to turn around and go back to the town garage or the town pit or wherever the sand was and come back expensive so it makes sense there isn't that much work to do to bring the road up to class 3 standards and we strongly recommend you do it so with that we went through the hearing process and it's true we did hear from landowners who were concerned they had concerns about traffic and other concerns about what this upgrade would mean but that was an upgrade that was initiated by the town not initiated by residents Paul has his hand up Paul has his hand up Hey guys can everybody hear me okay yeah so I just want to give a little bit of history just with the McCullerow thing I know it's kind of seems like it's been thrown in the midst of this everything that Peter said was correct we actually cut off a half an hour worth of routine plough and sand time from our route given that we're now able to use that as the through road the second part of that is we were actually using two private driveways to turn around in which we would ultimately have to go back and fix up in the spring because those two private driveways we were responsible for causing the damage so there was some additional cost and labor and materials included in just the annual maintenance every year the second part of that that I kind of want to emphasize is that there's a lot of road number one there we do use that to go through and it also relieved a lot of mud season pressure off of center road and brook road so we actually saw those roads taking less traffic on during mud season especially center road so there was actually a lot more benefit that at the time myself and Steve Martin did not the upgrade of McCulloch road I know for a fact that it's a lot more used I know some you know residents weren't too thrilled about that ultimately though safety wise when we've had closures on both brook road and center road McCulloch road has given some relief to that other road so like I said there's been a lot more benefits of that road being upgraded than simply for a particular land owner or a financial thing there's been a lot of long term benefits for that so I just wanted to make sure that that's noted there was a lot and a lot of thought in thinking around that when we did that and ultimately we always tried to uphold for the better of the town as a whole and that particular road definitely stood by that and for the record Vic was not on the board nor was he road commissioner during that time correct correct and I wasn't a petitioner no and he I don't mean I didn't petition to have it upgraded I'm aware of that I'm asking if you were asked to pay in the same way that Dan is being asked to pay or others being asked to pay and it wasn't an informal petition why would I be asked to pay if I wasn't a petitioner I don't understand that are you saying tonight Vic that you want me to pay for this as the only informal petitioner where did that come from I didn't say that I don't understand that no well Dan is here tonight in the same way that you said there in 2015 he's not a petitioner he's not he signed a petition as a request of Peter to see if he joins or agrees he is a petitioner he is a petitioner I came here September 6 and I made the petition informally the same as what your neighbor did in 2015 it was my neighbor alright Scotty Brower so I am the equivalent of Scotty Brower in 2015 and I was asked by you well how do the other people feel and I said well I'd rather keep them out of it for the reasons I've tried to describe I've been limited to but I did show in writing that they all support this and there too I was told he's one vote I by the way disagree with that Mike I never told you you would have my vote I said I would make your case stronger as I said I believe but anyway I just want to chime in with some more facts I have a and I'll be happy to share this with you Mike so in my fight my McCulloch Hill wrote about the petition of approximately 84 91 signatures for people who petitioned the board to request the act of the McCulloch Hill wrote back in 2014-15 so there's copy here the board had to take it up because it was it was a petitioned request it wasn't something that the board did just on its own thank you sir my only knowledge of McCulloch Hill is what's in the minutes there's a lot more ok well thank you so to bring the hearing but not the hearing but the discussion tonight to some kind of conclusion are we as the select we're willing to have a hearing on this matter without asking asking these folks to get a petition with 5% of the voters I mean for me I think it makes sense to do it but I don't know how you my question is do we at that hearing have to come up with a decision as a select board right then and there whether we're going to ask the residents to pay for the upgrade or that we will pay for the upgrade when does that decision get made when you have that hearing well sat you're on mute Rob oh there you go no you're good so the way that the statute is read is it allows basically after you hold your hearing you have 60 days to file written findings with Sarah's office and to notify all the petitioners and interested parties of what your decision is so let's just take a hypothetical let's say you hear all the evidence and you decide that the public good requires a reclassification of this section of South Bear Swamp from class 4 to class 3 you would that order that order would get recorded at the town clerk's office and as of that time this section of the road would become class 3 but as part of your order you can also require that the petitioners must bear the expense of bringing the highway this portion of the highway anyway up to class 3 standards so if they did not do that then I would anticipate what would happen in the future as you've now got at least a section of a town highway that has been reclassified to class 3 but it's not up to class 3 standards which is not a good situation to say the least so if for whatever reason the petitioners did not comply with your order that you set forth in the reclassification order to be responsible to bring the road up to class 3 standards you could then later on your own motion do another classification proceeding and put it back to class 4 so that's usually the way in which it works and that's usually incentive to get the petitioners to provide the contribution necessary to bring the road up to standards and again I should add that under the statute I think Mike pointed this out before the decision to require you don't have to require the residents the petitioners to foot the bill in that way but you have the right to do that it's discretionary can I make one last comment? yes so I just want to acknowledge that I appreciate Mike bringing this to the select board and working with his neighbors but I also want to just state that I take a little bit of offense at this accusation that we as a select board are deliberately or sort of doing something to keep people not safe and that you need to be treated like everyone else in town and the reality is that most people in town a lot of people live on private driveways people who live on class 4 roads that have knowingly moved in in fact I'd love to live on a class 4 road because it would get graded once in a while but I don't, I live on a private driveway we plow it, we sand it we can't get an oil guy up there in the middle of winter it's really hard because we live on a steep driveway and I just want to say that we are a group of volunteers here who are doing our best to meet the needs of the town knowing that we're not always going to be able to meet everyone's needs and I think Mike you have the right spirit in that you are you know requesting this I think frankly it's actually a fairly valid request I know this road very well but I would appreciate it if you approached it in a way that was a little um friendlier and less accusatory because we want to do what's right by the town we want to consider this but we don't I don't want to be accused as someone who is deliberately not taking care of our townspeople so I just want to put that out there that kindness goes a long way and friendliness and not the your your immediate sort of moving into lawyer mode and making me feel threatened by your words so I just want to make that clear I appreciate your saying that so no vote have been taken on this until now there were four things you know said at the last hearing that the things that have been where I have been vilified have nothing to do with the road they all occurred before and so I did make this request because it changes in the road this year that are very specific and I was bothered but I wanted to keep it all private I said that to Peter and I would like very much to just have a thumbs up vote to this because I do see the vilification the prior vilification that has very much been directed to me and I will tell you at some point in writing so you have it it's more of a human resources thing frankly but I will tell you of it but because now it has spread to not just hurt me but to hurt my neighbors and that I will not abide by so I'm sorry if it seems lawyerly to you I have worked patiently with the town for many years to try to say well can we do this tell me what the cost would be I'll do it I was told well I did not get a direct answer so that is my concern and I'm not this is not lawyer mode this is just English this is just what I've said and what has happened to me so just to just to focus on the issue here I would like to suggest two things I would like to suggest a process whereby we look at maintenance of the class 4 road to improve the situation that exists now which I would hope could happen in the short term and I would suggest that process would be that Eric and Victor would go out and meet with you and your neighbors and agree what work they can do to improve the washout damage on the on the class 4 road to in the short run make that situation better that's number one number two I would propose and it's going to be a select board vote but I would propose that we agree to hold a hearing on this matter about the upgraded class 3 and not require you to do the petition process agree to go forward with a agree to go forward with a process is your attorney okay with your meeting because you objected to it that afternoon before it was supposed to happen last time he only objected to that because he said it should be something that happens at a select board meeting which is what's going on exactly right now so no it is common just let me finish it's common practice for our road commissioner and road foreman to go out and meet with residents about maintenance problems on Tam roads and I misspoke when I said I would agree to meet with you and I apologize to you about that but we're here right now so that's a word that's a word considerate that makes sense I think that I think John one called me and he wanted to know if we could come over and make a grading before winter and we have plans to do that we haven't done it yet I don't know if you're aware of how much we have to do and the fact that we didn't have any help for a couple of months and we didn't have a form until July 5th that's kind of put us behind and we have a road that we have to maintain up here on a center road we have sand to do or did and we have gravel crushing that we're doing and we just we haven't had time yet but I'm sure Eric if he was here would say that he was planning to do that but I don't know if that's going to be good enough for you it doesn't sound like it you're going to because that's not going to help your plowing you've gone from a class 4 will maintain it and will grade it like we do some other we don't grade every town every class 4 road in town but we don't plow I'm not aware of any class 4 road that we plow but you're asking us to plow it I am this year I mean for 8 years we didn't I'm aware of that but then this year when things got to where they are and with the difficulty we had last year with oil not being delivered that's what I did say I think it's time with 5 families there I do think it's time and so what in essence if we're going to plow it I think what Peter is saying that it has to be upgraded to a class 3 or we can't plow it and that's why we've said if that's the case then let's upgrade to class 3 so I think that that process would be handing Mike and those 5 families a copy of the specifications that the road needs to meet to make class 3 and have them entertain what the cost of upgrading that is because for one until anybody understands what those costs are I don't think that anybody can make a decision to know what's feasible and not feasible for anybody whether it's for you or for the town I personally do not support upgrading that section to a class 3 without with the town's resources at what point do we look at the fact that I have a driveway that's a third of what you guys want to maintain here I've got to maintain that myself the class 4 everybody that bought on that whether you knew or not they need to maintain that I have a driveway that length too and I'm not asking anybody to do my driveway so I just it would be a different story for me if like Paul was saying it was a through road or something like that that made connections to a larger portion of traffic lots of other considerations I wasn't around when East Bears took place or when the whole action that you feel vilified for so I too take offense to you coming to this body and projecting that on us and saying that's why we stop this from moving forward because I personally only know what you spoke of tonight I think that's the first step before we even have a hearing I think if we want to have this conversation in a further manner I think we should hand them the specs for class 3 road and don't you think all that would be brought out at the hearing though I just think the hearing is the process they should definitely have the specs they should definitely understand that the result of this may be that we say to them if you want it to be class 3 you're going to have to upgrade it but go through the follow our process you call it a hearing but actually we go out there and look at it is that correct as part of the hearing you do yes as part of the hearing you go out and look at it but I just want to back up a minute because we have over the years made an effort to grade and repair culverts on sections of class 4 road which service residents where they need access to their property not all of them but we've made an effort to do that when it was possible to do it when it was possible and when there weren't higher ranking priorities that came upon the time the big difference here I feel is that we're not just being asked to grade the road once every 3 years or once every 2 years or once a year even we want you to grade the road we want you to maintain the road we want you to plow the road all I'm saying is I understand what they are asking for but I would tell you right now ok this is a serious problem about how passable that road is and to say and agree that we would try and grade it which I think we've already agreed to that we would try and grade it before wintertime and make it better and Eric was talking about even potentially putting a truck or 2 load of material in there so the water could run off into the ditch I think it's appropriate for us to consider doing that and not say we have to deal with this whole issue and get to the end of the plowing in the class 3 issue before we do that there is a problem there right now I think we want to address it I think that's a different conversation that's all I'm saying I'm saying that's why I said this is 2 different things and thing number 1 I think we can substantially improve in the near future exactly when it can happen is going to be up to up to Vic and Aaron but there is a huge washout down that hill and it's a problem well one of the problems is that there's not much gravel in that road and you're just you're just trying to grade stones Randy, if I may just add one more thing in regards to the plowing I know that this could potentially be a rabbit hole I just want to remind the board members who have been part of that the ongoing discussion with Brian Redmond on the class 4 section leading up to the town forest and that has been an ongoing issue which I believe we have heard much of lately but they'll open that can of worms and it's going to get extremely messy extremely quickly because that has been an ongoing issue for Peter I'm thinking probably the best but they're part of 3 years now longer than that yeah so I just want to keep that in the back of the board's mind and maybe just so like you know that this isn't something that happens a lot and it's not taken lightly because there's a lot of safety issues and funding issues that go into all of these things so again to get to the chase here I think what you're hearing from us is some work is going to be done on that road in the near future before winter I can't promise you when it's going to be but it's on the list and the work is to be done so in terms of in terms of the other issue which is the upgrade issue my recommendation would be that we have a hearing and we get the evidence and exactly what you're talking about when you find out what the cost is find out what's involved whether it's the town bank for it we should go out and inspect the road and see what it is I did go out and look at it kind of in preparation for the night so I was sure I had a good updated view of what the road is but I think we do and I understand what everything says but in prioritizing where we do work on class 4 roads it should be where we have residents who need access that's a place for roads where that is not an issue does your just out of a question of do your neighbors and you have a problem with grading that road all the way through yeah I think do you want that to be a classroom let me speak only for me for me I don't want graded or plowed all the way through I like the country nature of and I think they're let me not speak for the others but I'm not seeking that look South Bears Walk Road is plowed for 1.6 months why not 1.9 that's my only point where you can serve 2.5 you gotta stop somewhere but it's only prudent to go and you know I may be getting smashed here by my fellow select work people but I mean if we do it if we agree to do that I think it's only prudent to go all the way through and make that a through road to East Bear so that you have an alternate route I've heard many people say that I can't get down East Bear so I had to go through South Bear which you can do now and you can drive through there if you have a 4-wheel drive yeah 3 months a year you can I think my point is any road that's 3 or 4 can be upgraded or downgraded anytime we can stop East Bear swamp here or here or back here upgrade, downgrade change it all to a trail if you want to you have extraordinary discretion you're doing it for the right reasons but you have extraordinary discretion and all I'm saying here is if on East Bear swamp you're going to go an extra half mile and in South Bear swamp you already go 1.3 or 1.6 why not go another 3 tenths now it's going to cost back in 2019 I said look if it's going to cost an extra X amount of dollars to plow in other a few hundred yards you get to my driveway which is you know I'll pay for that plus 50% the town would have and so it could have been a budget issue I think the problem I'm going to cut you off sorry I think what we need to do is make a decision about whether we're going to have the hearing what the next step is what did you say to that what was your response to that I was just going to say that the minute somebody takes an offer and throws it out there like that and we do it for you we have to do it for 50 other people but if the budget and it's not well it might be a capacity issue it's not necessarily a budget issue it's an equity issue there are a lot of other issues and it doesn't just come down to budget if folks that have money can afford to pay the town to come in and plow all their stuff for them but then we have half the town that doesn't have that capability I fully agree it should be equity and transparency and look we're paying a lot of money right now to really plow every month it's costing us a lot more than it would cost to simply have the truck go another couple hundred yards and pay that but the town would have saved money we would have saved money and everybody would have been treated better and I was willing to pick it up and benefit five families but that was not an option to do it didn't make sense to me that I weren't today to do the thing that doesn't help the town and help five residents I'm sorry if we got off on the wrong road in this morning I give you my word under oath there are things that happen before this road issue arose those should be a completely separate issue well then let's keep them separate and let's make this completely on its merits I have one other question about this before I know you want to quit so do I but you know Mike's brought up a point that many of us have been there for 30 years paying a thousand dollars a year for plowing you know and so this is becoming from five different families along this road that have been there for decades and so if there's any other equivalent of that in this town that the town really realizes that it's a financial burden on that set of families we do that makes it something to consider we do and we're aware of I'm not saying each one of us is aware of every situation but we're certainly aware of where the private roads are where the class 4 roads are absolutely we're aware of that I just didn't know how exceptional that was no it's not unusual at all so as Liz pointed out it's a very common it's a very common common situation it's a challenge quite frankly it's a challenge for us as a community as the community grows and as there are more and more houses on class 4 roads and on private roads and all these different things it's a challenge for us to try and manage that in an equitable and fair manner you know believe me we know we know don't think we don't know we do know well I would be in favor of having a hearing only because it's just they will get their 5% signatures and we'll have to do it regardless and there's a reason why in state statute there even is discussion of turning class 4s into class 3s this isn't like an unheard of request this is something that happens right so you know if we vote against it they'll get their 5% signatures probably is my guess they'll go around and people will say sure yeah I think that's a good idea I think they will too and that's all I'm saying why make them jump since that hurdle we can agree tonight that we'll have the hearing and initiate the process that's what I would I mean this has to be a vote I don't know if Victor and Randy are ready to support that or not or one of them is one of them is good I just you know I hate things in a perfect world I'd love to be able to tell you that we'll be down there with excavators and dump trucks and everything else and make it a class 3 road for you because it seems like a nice thing to do but you've heard from other board members tonight about all the other issues all the other issues we face and I need you to know this isn't this isn't attacked at you Mike I mean I've got friends past you right like that I would love for them to this isn't against you this is clearly not just an easy decision that we can come up with because it does continue to set precedent and the railroad people will be coming because there's all of that development coming up this is just extra costs and I read in there I could actually petition to the town and say I've got five people in my driveway I can petition to the town and say I want this to be I can give you a I can give you a place to turn around your plows I can do that and they would likely say no right even though there's five families and even though the fuel guy can't get up there but we know that we're still sex right we've lived here so you know I you know I commiserate with the families who live on that road I really do like this is not you know I personally have the same thing is just not a class four that I live on ours is not a driver um no I know I'm sorry I was just waiting for a bit so I don't mean to interrupt um but I do appreciate what you're saying though in the meantime if we could possibly get Vic and Eric to come up and maybe do a little something to the road because I would say at this point in time yes my husband did call a while back um and since then it has gotten substantially worse um to the point that my nine year old son typically would ride his bike to um the mail boxes and we refuse to let him do that now because it has become such a safety issue for him um so if we could at least get something like that repaired to where I know um that it wouldn't be a hazard um any longer and then if we if we go forward um with the hearing that would be fantastic but at least in the meantime knowing that this isn't going to be a hazard any longer okay that's where we're at right now yeah Sarah I don't know if you heard that but I think that that's where uh the conversations at already okay yeah I know it kept coming up but I wasn't sure it didn't sound like we had agreed upon that and I know when John previously called it seemed a little unsure to him too and even kind of came up and mentioned that well it could always go back to a trail which was worrisome to us um because I'm uh I I work at U32 um so I need to make it to school every day um my kids need to make it to the bus stop so that became a concern for us and why we pursued this due to the possibility to letting it go and becoming a trail or a hazard um so I don't think I'm not aware I'm not aware of any discussion by anybody about throwing the road up or down riding into a trail so I don't think you need to be okay okay all right so do we have to call a vote on it whether or not we're going to have a hearing we should okay so I move that we have a hearing to discuss the upgrade of like Liz can I just if you're going to do that I would just revise just revise your motion to say and you can I'll put this in the minutes but pursuant to the DSA 19 section 709 to proceed to begin the process for considering an upgrade of what point we need some we need definite mileage if anybody has it of that portion of the road like that so you can say a certain segment now but when I do the notices and they I'll put it make sure that we have a certain mileage that you guys are considering 0.4 0.4 okay 0.4 from the class 3 section going going west or going east going from 0.3 to 0.406 it's 0.3 watch out look I don't understand if we we're going to we're going to have a hearing on upgrading that's what she's listing is the motion for the class 3 title 19 section 709 right and she's calling it 0.4 of mile but we just got done talking I think it should be how far is it out the east hill well maybe we don't need that specific okay yeah so don't I I see where Victor's going just say for sections of Southbury small class 4 section of Southbury okay and it makes it sound like I wait wait wait Rob's turn to go ahead Rob I think if you're going to make a decision tonight to schedule a statutory hearing you really need to be made you need to be clear as a board exactly what it is you're going to schedule a hearing about and not leave it to some future date to determine which portion of this road you're going to schedule a hearing because that will require another formal vote from you you'll have to do that in another hearing so if a majority of the board is inclined to schedule a statutory hearing without the need for a petition that's absolutely fine but you should make a determination tonight as to what portion of the road you're talking about and again it doesn't have to be super specific but the point four mile section extending from the current terminus of the class three area is fine something like that and if you don't have a majority that wants to do that that's one issue and you'll know that tonight but I wouldn't vote to just say we're going to schedule a hearing and we'll figure out later how much of the road we're going to subject to the hearing I don't think that's good policy we're going to have a lot of trouble down the road not to pun no pun intended I have I second that just only because I know previously it was discussed that if it was brought up to class three standard that we the homeowners would be responsible for the cost and if we're going to extend it all the way through to eSphere does that then become beneficial to the town and we're going to have a bill for that whole portion as well so that would be helpful for us to know I am I understand what you're saying Victor but I think it's a benefit to doing it because you just said McCulloch Hill Road was a plus because it was a through road so to enforce reinforce your case for upgrading the road I would think I'm speaking only for myself right I understand you said that I understand that very well I understand no it's where Monash is already on the class 3 portion correct all the way up to the top it's on the class 4 but you can access that part through the class 3 but the part of Monash extends about 150 yards on the class 4 all was Monash it's been sold now ok so we have a motion on the floor well no we don't do we have anything 0.4 so what are you saying 0.4 that's my motion is 0.4 so we need a second gentlemen you don't have to vote on it if you second it just so you know I don't believe I can second it I think you should go for the 5% because I think two people don't even want to have a hearing so I think we should probably go for the 5% I think it's well you could take a vote if you want but it's pretty clear to me we also have a another select member who isn't here tonight ok well the motion dies for lack of a second so your goal Mike is get that 5% and we'll have the hearing I'm not sure I'm going to do that you know I came here and you know I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point ok well in the meantime we're going to do the class 4 maintenance that we promised in the meantime you're going to what do the class 4 maintenance which we promised ok I appreciate it Victor you'll get a hold of Mike Eric will why would we need Mike we know how to create a road without Mike telling us what to do ok maybe you don't need me but you want to know what Eric was talking about was not a lot of material but a little material just because of the lack of gravel on that speaker I'm happy to go either way I'm happy to be with you but if you don't want to meet him that's your discretion I just don't see the necessity at this time but if we do we'll give you a call so the other just getting to that issue if you're not going to go out there and meet with him when I went out there am I correct that there is no culvert at the end of your driveway no culvert there's a culvert at the end of the driveway there's a culvert because I was looking at how the road was the water comes out of his driveway and washes into the road no it's a reverse what I observed was a reverse is that the water comes down the hill over the ledge and curls around and goes on his land because there's no culvert there's no ditch and there's no culvert yeah and he's the one that lives down in the ditch just after you come over there's a pretty significant wash out there so that's what I'm talking about the only reason I'm thinking for me there's like a million people talking they're all muted it was mentioned that one of the other select board members isn't present is it possible for them if coming back to the minutes to vote after this or must they be present to vote they have to be present they would need to be present to vote and is it the 5% signatures we need to get or 10 because I thought it was 5 before 5% of the 5% of the registered voters okay thank you people right Sarah 75 that's the magic number all right got it thank you so well I'm trying to suggest Victor is I maybe I'm wrong I mean maybe you go up there and look at it and say no that isn't necessary but when I looked at it it looked to me like I needed a culvert there I don't know what you thought when you looked at it today no no no I would think that if Victor and Eric go up they can come up with a plan if Mike needs a culvert at the end of his driveway to rectify the issue then at that point they can reach out and discuss yeah I'll leave it up to the experts yeah no that's fine anything further anyone Mike okay thank you thank you everyone for your time and patience this has been a lot tonight good night good night