 I'm going to go back to the agenda. The treasurer we have Sarah the town clerk. We have Randy jewelry. We have my crew. I'll say your name. I'm not sure I didn't I miss you maybe Victor our road commissioner. So the first part of our meeting tonight is going to be our organizational meeting and then we will go into our regular regular monthly agenda. Sarah only adding the John Udiss and Della Donna McDonough's request regarding green up day under correspondence. Okay. Mary. Why are we appointing the chair and vice chair instead of electing them? What says appointment? Well, we're electing them. Don't worry. I just was wondering when I don't believe everything you read Mary. I think there's always on top of everything. And I said, oh, my God, she must have discovered a statute that we haven't been following. Not that I'm aware of. So I have called the meeting to order. We are now in our organizational meeting. And the first item on the agenda is the appointment of the select board chair. I move Peter Hood and I move that nominations be closed. I'll second that. I did. Okay. All in favor of Peter Hood. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you all very much. I appreciate your support. I liked Blizz's little speech last night. I was going to write it down, but I didn't write it down. So that's. That's my version of the speech. I really do. I really do appreciate your, your support one and all. Thank you. So the next is. Oh, the chair's voting status. Is there a motion? I move that Peter be allowed to vote. I'm always. Is there a second? Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? All in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Peter's going to be voting. Thank you. Adopting of Robert's rules of order. I've always been a little suspicious of this one to tell you the truth because there are all kinds of versions of Robert's rules of water that I've seen and read, but the fact of the matter is we do try and follow them. So we've always done this. I don't really know why. But anyway, is someone willing to make that motion? I'll move. Thank you, Phil. Second. Thank you, Steve. All in favor of adopting Robert's rules of order is our procedure for select board meetings. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We've done that. Appointment of select board vice chair nominations. Nominate Mary Skinner. I'll second that. Okay. And are there any other nominations? All those in favor of Mary Skinner to be select board vice chair please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. I'll do my best. Congratulations, Mary. Thank you. I really do appreciate it. I'll do my best to run the meetings when a few occasions when Peter's not there. In place. Time and place for select board meetings. This is an interesting one. So I'm going to suggest. That the motion should be. If possible in person at the town hall. And. Possibly would zoom at the same time. If not possible exclusively zoom or words to that effect. Because that's our practice. And I think five o'clock on the first and third. Two C's is fine unless anybody would like to consider changing that. It's filled. Does that still work for you? That still works for me. Perfect. I'll make that motion. Convoluted motion. I'll make that motion. Peter. Okay. Thank you. All in favor. Second. Second. All in favor of designating or saying that our meetings will be on the first and third Tuesday of the month at five o'clock. And that they will be in person and hybrid if possible. And if not. And if not remote and by hybrid I mean. Potentially offer a zoom option for our in person meetings if we can. All in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. The motion is adopted. Designation of newspaper of record. I nominate the time Thyrgus for second. Mary. Yeah. Okay. Second Mary. All in favor of the times is being designated as our newspaper of record please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. is adopted. Appointment of road commissioner. Motion please. I'll make a motion that we have Vic Dwyer as our road commissioner. And a second. Second. Sorry, who's seconded? Liz? Liz. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor of appointing Vic Dwyer to be our road commissioner, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, Vic. The mantle, I hope the mantle doesn't fall heavy on your head. It may be dark, but you can talk. Speech, Vic. Yeah, right. No. Okay, so here we go with our with our laundry list. Reappointment of the following town positions. So I guess we need to do these one at a time because they're different people for each one. So, Sarah, are you going to deal with this? Give us the names. Let's see. The first of all, I asked the anybody on the ZBA if they were interested in stepping off. I only got one confirmation that you want to stay on that was just so I'm going to take their nose or their silence as confirmation that they would like to stay on the ZBA. That leaves you with one vacancy on the ZBA. And we have two people who have written an interest to interest in the position. One is Peter Raymond. I'd sent you his letter today and Randy Drury. Do you have a chance to read those letters, I hope? Yeah. Yes. Somebody ready to make a motion? Yeah, I wanted to follow up a little bit. Maybe I would comment. And again, nothing, nothing against you, Randy, but Peter Raymond being an attorney is really, really important for that, for that board. We have in the past had attorneys, and although they're not serving as legal counsel, because they know the law and especially, and I think Peter is an environmental attorney, as was Dan Criss, that was incredibly helpful when we have an especially complex, I say we, but I'm not on anymore, but when there's a complex hearing to deal with. So I'm going to throw that out there as a suggestion that Peter Raymond be appointed to the empty ZBA position. Is there a second to that motion? I'll second that. Okay. All in favor of Peter Raymond to be appointed to the zoning board of adjustment, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, Peter has it. Thank you very much, and thank you, Randy, for your interest. We appreciate it. Budget committee considering candidates to fill three vacancies until March, 2022 town meeting. Do you want me to talk? This is because nobody ran. So now we're appointing correct and the existing members resigned. There were no, no one, I mean, Bill McManus ran for reappointment for election to the budget committee, having been appointed last year. So he's on there. Elias is still on the budget committee, but George Longenecker did not run again and Bill Dorgan didn't run again. And we had another, we had an existing vacancy. So whoever gets appointed by the board tonight will, will serve for one year. And then they might have to, if they choose to run, they can run in 2022, but we have three openings and statutorily we're supposed to have five filled seats. The good news is that we have, Randy is interested in it in the budget committee. He's up thrown in his name. So has Mark Harris, who is, I think I sent you his letter as well. And Theo Kennedy said he was also interested in the budget committee. I asked him to send a letter to the board, but he had, so far he has not sent that letter. So I'll let you guys deal with it as you want. You certainly know Theo from, from interactions with the planning commission. And also he's a JP. So I know Mark Harris from Rumney. I think he's a fine fellow and I know Randy and I would be supportive of both of those folks on the budget committee. And, you know, if Theo has the time for it, he is, he has been involved in the, he hasn't shown an interest in the capital planning process. So, you know, I'm supportive of that as well. That would fill all three slots, right? Yeah. Oh, perfect. That would be great. That is a motion I take it, Liz. Sure, I'll move that we appoint Mark Harris, Randy Drury and Theo Kennedy to the budget committee. Okay. And you'll second that, Mary? Yes. Thank you. And well, can I just clarify, all three of them will have to run again in a year? Yes, cause we can only appoint them for a year. Okay. I'm just going to figure out how we stagger the terms. I guess what we have to do is, isn't it correct, Sarah, that we assign them slots? So... No, no. What happened? Is this parking all over again? No, every, all the, the budget committee serving, or they're staggered already. So when, when they decide to run, each candidate will decide if he wants to run for one year, three year, two year, whatever is left on that term that they've been appointed. It's right now, everybody is disappointed for one year, but when they run in March, for the March, 2022, they can say, well, I guess there's one term that's, you know, three years, I'll run for that, or the two, three that are three years, there are two that are two years, one that's one year, that type of thing. So they can... Well, they basically parse it out among themselves when the time comes. If they choose... Two of them could run for one seat and we could end up with a vacancy again. But usually people are pretty smart about it. I get it. I get it. Pointing them to town meeting, 2022. Correct. The motion has been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Who seconded that motion? I'm sorry. Who seconded that? Liz, Liz made it and Mary seconded it. Okay, that's what it was. Any opposed? No, no, Randy. Excuse me? I said welcome, Randy. Yeah. Now you can come to any meeting you want. Ha, ha, you already have been coming to every meeting. Anyone could come to any meeting they want. I know. I'm just joking. I have a new chair for the capital planning committee too. Randy. See how it goes. You haven't seen anything up for that, Liz, have you? Dave? What? No, we don't need it. She's coming on April 6th on our select board agenda. And then after that, we're gonna plan another meeting. Oh, great. Okay. Okay, next on the firing line is emergency management coordinator. Is there an interest? There is not. And that's a really, that's a tough one for us because we need to get that emergency management plan updated and you need some training. Peter's done some training, but Paul attendee had all the training. So he was great, but he, and he had the certification, which I guess is now an online class you've got to take. That's painful. We don't, so Paul doesn't want to serve again. So we're kind of, we're kind of out in the cold. Yeah. So what? What do you really have to do? What's the minimum? Well, as Peter knows, you have to take that effort because exactly you have to take an online FEMA course to get certification to like 051 or 052. So you have the qualifications to validate or fill out the emergency management plan. And we need that updated every year to improve our rating with the state when it comes to, you know, hazard mitigation grants if there is some, if something happens here. The real, the real issue is, I mean, does that take a little bit of time? Yes, it does. But other than that, you sit around and wait for the phone to ring. But if heaven forbid, we have a flood or an ice storm, whatever else happens, whoever is in this position is going to be the thick of it because everybody is going to be reaching out to them. So it is not, it is not a nothing position at all. I wonder, I wonder about Eric. If we wanted to approach him, you know, he's on the fire department. Eric, what's that? Whatever his last name is? Yeah. I mean, he might be, I don't know what his schedule is like or what interest he has in that, but. Well, he's going to be on the panel as well. What was that, Randy? Sorry. I was just saying, I know that Sven Scribner is on the emergency management team for the state. And he may be somebody that has experience with this. And I do question his capacity and ambition to fill that slot, but I can at least have a conversation with him and mention that it's open. Or one of you can reach out and call. Well, I would suggest that we pass over this for tonight and see if we can find, I mean, we need somebody who's sincerely interested. I just don't want to appoint some random person or they are. But one thing, the one thing I would be willing to do is I took that online course, which wasn't that bad. And I think it was like four hours and it wasn't very exciting. I can tell you that. So I am certified to fill out and sign that emergency management plan. And I don't mind doing that. It's just updating and making sure we've got the names in the right. Right. Slots. But I need somebody who's ready to jump and run if there really is an emergency because that can't be made. Anybody wants Ben's number to call him? Just don't give it out online while we're doing the meetings, Bill. I mean, it's a big. Yeah, I'll get a hold of me. I'll give it to you. Thanks. I'm shooting him a text message right now as well. That would be maybe easy. That'd be great. So we will hopefully consider that at our next meeting. Fire Warden, Sarah? I mean, Jason's just always done it. So just let's put him down again. We didn't reach out to him. Is this just to congratulate? I reached out to Jason. Did people just don't reach back to me? My experience when I call Jason is he's the perfect person. Because I say, Jason, I'm going to light off my bonfire on Tuesday. If you have a problem, let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to presume you gave me a permit. He never gets back to me, so I light off my bonfire. Yeah, well, I mean, there aren't that many people that are not. Well, I mean, maybe we're just lucky that don't start a fire on a day as you shouldn't have a fire. I'll move it. We nominate Jason Merrill. I'll second it. For fire. So I think he kind of likes it to tell you the truth, but. I think that let the word go forth that if you don't get back to Sarah, you're going to have to serve another year. Whatever. So it's been moved and seconded for Jason Merrill to be our fire warden for another year. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Were those all eyes? I don't think I heard enough eyes. Did somebody? I don't know why. Okay, so Jason is in. And here is a new one. I feel the same way about this as I do about the special articles, but oh well, what choice do we have? So Sarah informs me that we are legally required by statute to have a tree warden. And the duties as I understand. Yes, Sarah. Yeah, not only are you legally required, but even more so with the Ashborgs problem arising in towns. It's a huge deal. So it should be someone who has a little bit of a conservation interest, who understands trees. Agreed, a hundred percent. Pertains to shade trees in the towns right away. Hold on one second. Go ahead. Are you talking to me? Go ahead. Yeah, it just pertains to shade trees in the towns right away. So that is what the statute concentrates on. So if the town of Victor or the road crew wants to take down a tree in the towns right away, you have to call in the tree warden who will know all about the statutes regarding trees coming down and why they can and cannot down and how they should be selected. Victor. Yeah. Victor, say I can't be both. No, that would not be a good idea. Yes. You don't think so? Well, because she just said the statute says that the town has to check with the tree warden before they can take down a tree. Well, Vic can move one side of his desk to the other and give himself permission. I'm going to fall in the hole. The only thing is, A, he's already involved with the road crew, which is perfect. And B, he has a lot of knowledge about trees and cutting down trees and removing trees and the issues and all the stuff that a tree warden needs to have. So it doesn't come up very often. It's come up two or three times over the years that I remember in the old days and it was usually a town resident who didn't want us to cut a tree in the town right away, which was on their land. Other than that, I don't know what's gonna come up about the emerald ash poor, but. Okay, say seven. Yes. According to the state statute, the tree warden does not have to be a resident of the municipality. How about checking with the conservation commission asking Lee Rosberg and the other people for recommendation? Yes, that's a good idea because as soon as you appoint a tree warden, the select board has to certify the appointment to the commissioner of forest parks and recreation. So that's kind of the angle there that you're looking for. Do you wanna pass over until the next meeting? I just wanna think about this again for a minute. Am I not correct that in the old days and I'm looking to you, Mary Skinner, and Dorinda is nodding her head, yes, but Gary LaMalle was the tree warden and road foreman and road commissioner, all three. I believe we just took turns rotating fence viewer, wayer of coal and tree warden. That's not what we thought. It was true at one time. I think Gary was at least two of those, not three. Gary's here, you can ask him. Gary's on this phone call. Oh, there he is. Yeah. Gary, can you unmute yourself? There he is. There he is. So Gary, enlighten us about this tree warden business. I always muted again. Wait, just unmute yourself up at the top. There's a, yep, that's it, you're on now. There you are. Doesn't come up too much in the past. You need somebody, I'll do it. Yes, Sarah. Thank you, Gary. The tree warden should be able to determine whether or not the trees are infested with this ash borer and if the landowner has successfully mitigated the infestation, the tree does not have to be taken down. I mean, a lot of this has to do with this ash borer stuff we're going to be dealing with. I'm just letting you know. So, you know, if you want to point Gary, that's great, but you know, this probably might be a little bit of education on ash borer stuff. Not a problem. Peter. What's your pleasure? What's your pleasure, select board. Danielle Fisco of the Forest Parks and Recreation Tree Person, that she will be more than willing to educate anybody that wants to ask her on the emerald ash borer. That's great. My understanding, I spent a fair amount of time talking to people and reading stuff when this whole emerald ash borer thing came up and I gather it is not particularly challenging. I mean, you have to know what to look for, but it's not particularly challenging. It's pretty obvious. No, it isn't. Once the trees start to die, but. Anyway, I don't doubt that I gather you can peel back the bark and see the little tracks underneath the bark, et cetera. Right. And those woodpeckers put that big hole in them. Those woodpeckers put the big hole in them for pecking the emerald ash borer out. That's a good indication that that tree is dead and gone. Yeah. I'm just offering that to Gary and the select board that they can use her for a resource. She's very good. That's great. That is great. So we want to think about this. Do we want to nominate someone? What's our pleasure? Everybody speak at once. Bill? I'll nominate Gary. He volunteered to do it. He's done it before and why not? Okay. Or I'll second that. Okay. Any other nominations? So all those in favor of Gary to be appointed tree? What's the right word? Tree warden. Warden. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, Gary. And thank you very much. I'm too glad you came, Gary. He doesn't look like it's going to stress him out too much. Rights filled by hope not. Rights filled beach management representative. Isn't that Jane Dudley? It is. I did not contact her. I moved Jane Dudley. Second. That was Phil. Yeah. Okay, thank you. All those in favor of Jane Dudley to be rights filled beach management representative, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Jane is in. Street recreation director. Is Mitch still want to do it? I did not hear from Mitch. You asked him and he didn't respond. I did not ask him recently. So that's an old fairness. I was still, I got thrown on some other stuff. If I could, you can pass over it or whatever. Why don't we pass over and just ask him? I mean, there's something where, as far as I know, he wants to do it, but I haven't talked to him recently either. Good idea. Okay. So we're going to pass over recreation director, appointing a Lister to fill a three year vacancy until the March, 2022 town meeting. I moved David Smith. Thank you. All those in favor of David Smith to fill the vacant Lister three year term. So what happens, Sarah is he is appointed for a year and then he runs for the three year seat or is it? He runs for the two years remaining in the three year seat. If he's interested. Got it. It's really nice that he stepped up because this is really going to really give him a lot of exposure to the town residents and stuff. So Sarah, I agree with your recommendation. Great idea. I do too. I'm losing my mind here. All those in favor of David Smith. Yeah, all in favor of David Smith. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? David is appointed. Thank you, David. Reappointing Phil as middle sex representative to the central Vermont internet board and Lowry Scharf as alternate. Is there a motion? I'm going to step away from that board. I think I've done what I can do. And at this point, they need some people with much deeper technical background than I have. Lowry's not going to be the alternate, but we are thinking of some people. He doesn't want to do it. Okay. Lowry doesn't want to do any position. He doesn't want to move up. No, I know he didn't want to move up. No. No. But you're saying he doesn't want to alternate either? He doesn't. Well, maybe he'd be the alternate, but like he's, he doesn't, you know, he's, he's chairing the energy committee. Right. And that's where his energies are. And plus he found it really hard to jump in as an alternate. Yes. To understand what's happening. There is that fellow that we thought we might try to reach out to who's a technical guy who works from home. He gets up at town meeting sometimes. Right. He talks. What is his name? Do you know Phil? No. I do. Lawrence. Yeah, I think it is David Lawrence. And he, I mean, he may be way too busy, but he would be somebody who would be a great person for that, I think. So we should, who should reach out to him? Just put something out on front porch for him, Sarah. Yeah. People like to be asked though, too. I mean, then it's harder for them to say no. I can contact him directly. Okay. And if anyone else- I feel you'd be glad to talk with him if he wanted to hear what it was all about. I presume. Yeah. Okay. So you say, so we also need an alternate then because Larry doesn't want to, okay. So we need both- Well, Liz is nodding her head from side to side. I think he might still be the alternate. Let's- Yeah. But let's pass over it until we know who the person is going to be. Yup. Good idea. Ada Croft is resigning from the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District and we need to appoint a replacement. Well, first of all, we should send a thank you letter to her. She served for a long time. I mean, I would say- It's like forever, I think, right? I mean, yeah, at least 10 years. I mean, she's been insert. We should really write her a letter and thank her for her service. I agree, Mary. And she's attended. God, I showed her to think how many meetings she's attended on our behalf. So- Okay. And that's- Oh, shit. Lorie and Matt, you need to mute. Do we need to- Do we need to have a motion to accept it or just acknowledge we're accepting it? I think we just acknowledge we're accepting it, Mary. But we need to- We need to find somebody to fill that position. A young person who's interested in the environment. Yeah. Well, let's ask the Conservation Commission for recommendations too. And post it on Front porch farm like Phil suggested for the other jobs. Maybe we should have Brzee because she's not doing the Cemetery Commission. She might be interested in that. Sarah Brzee does everything. But what else does she do? Well, I always have to ask the same people. I'm besides working. I was helping out with Zooms. Well, let's pass over it for tonight and see if we can snare in our net, as they say. Does that make sense to everyone? Yeah, but I'll take Conservation Commission too. No, that's fine, Mary. I don't disagree with that at all. And I agree we should write a letter. Appointing Elizabeth Fortman to be Assistant Health Officer. Move Elizabeth Fortman as Assistant Health Officer. Oh, second. All those in favor of Elizabeth Fortman as Assistant Health Officer, will you say aye? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? So who is our non-assistant health officer? Rob Penny, the doctor. He's the slow runner on the road. I know he's gone by your house. Yeah, he is. He does. He does. I did check with Liz and she's up for the job for Assistant Health Officer. And I think this might require some select board signatures. We'll talk about it later. But I mean, Rob's a real doctor. I mean, he's an MD doctor. And as far as I know, lessedly we've had no issues. Has he had to act in any way, manner, shape, or form, Sarah, that you're aware of? I wouldn't know. Yeah, I haven't. He hasn't mentioned anything to me. So the fire department is gonna be here in 10 minutes. Dorinda, how much time do you need for your treasurer's report? Probably not much. Okay. Well, I would say if everyone agrees, let's hear from Dorinda and then go back to the fire department when they arrive. Okay. There's Jeff. The first thing I wanted to mention was we finally got all the bills straightened out on the grant for the scoping study. And they were supposed to contact you, Liz, and tell you to draw down on the rest of it? Yes, they did. But I thought we had, I thought I was just supposed to close something out. And I have a phone call to Jenny and that is on my to-do list. And I keep forgetting. So thank you for reminding me, Dorinda. Okay. So because that's all she, her last email with me was. Yeah, and I tried to do it on my own and I couldn't. And so she told me to call her. And I need to do that. Okay. The other thing is I started working. I was down at the office working in between with the new bookkeeper. So while he was working on stuff, I started to pull invoices for the highway emergency grant. And I've been able to come up with about $45,000 in actual expenses. And probably another, I wanna say maybe 20 in payroll costs. So at this point, I'm gonna need help to figure out where to come up with the rest of this money because we don't wanna leave that sitting on the table. So remind me, it's $85,000 is the total? No, it's $80,000 and then we only get 72. So we have to come up with $80,000 worth of expenses. Yeah. So don't we get, help me out, Steve. Don't we get to charge for our equipment that we use, not only payroll, but our equipment? Yes, yes we do. So that should make up the balance of that, Dorinda, I would think. We just gotta figure out what equipment was there for how many hours and what the hourly rate is. Steve, is that how it works? Yeah, they go by female rates. Okay. There was quite a bit of time to vote it. And the other thing, which I think you're gonna have to look at probably Steve and maybe, you know, Vic wasn't on as road commissioner then. So it's probably Steve who would have a better idea. But there may be other people out there when I was going through invoices, I found some that were not marked as emergency repairs, but because they fell in that timeframe, I felt that they were. And so you may wanna look at what I pulled out. And there may be other things, I couldn't think of all the vendors that could possibly fall into this. So Dorinda on that, is there a day next week that would work and I can come in and go through some of those invoices? Sure, let's see. Let me get back, let me look at my schedule and I'll let you know. Perfect. Okay, great. We'll go to Dorinda. When's the deadline to finish that complete that? Well, we actually have till I think it's December 31st, which is another side of this that I don't know if you'd wanna get it into this budget year or if you'd wanna put it into next budget year. So that's something to think about when you submit this whether or not, you know, because the money would come in in that budget year. So the reimbursement, the reimbursement doesn't go back to when we spent the money. It's just whenever we get it, it's income. It would have to because we've certainly closed the books from 2019 a long time ago. Right, right, right, right, right, right. So I would suggest sooner is always better. I don't know why we'd wanna put it off. So let's make it a goal that we get it completed this year unless somebody has a reason, meaning before July 1st, unless someone has a reason not to do that. No. Or unless Dorinda has a reason why we gotta defer it. Well, I include her in that offer, especially include her in that offer, but... Well, I think it's more, I think you need to think about how this money is gonna be spent. And, you know, I think with the purchase of a road grader, possibly reducing the amount you borrow on that amount and... Or I know that in going through these bills, it became obvious that we were paying somebody to move our equipment all the time, possibly buying a trailer that would, so we wouldn't be paying that expense plus we could probably move our equipment more often. So I think the board should properly look at this along with the highway department and figure out the best way to spend that money. And then depending on that, you know, how do you draw down on it? Yeah. I know whenever we've, whenever... There are advantages to having our own trailer, but whenever we've looked at the trailer and looked at the number of potential moves that we do every year, even with some additional moves, it didn't seem to make economic sense in the past. But you know what? This is a good time to look at it and you're right. I like the idea of paying down on the grader. Do we, Steve, are we gonna need to pay a deposit when we order this grader? Do you know? Or do we just pay the whole amount when we order? No. We just pay the whole amount. Right, we don't need the deposit. Just as far as I know, we don't need the deposit. Okay. That's what they said today. Okay, perfect. And a trailer, a trailer, Peter's looking into that is with a municipal discount brand new is about $20,000. Yep. And Shane pointed out that, you know, in the past, I guess we, which I think, you know, looking out as a privacy, we state, we got on one stretch of ditching or something like that. And we stayed on that road. And if we had to move, that's where it costs us. But I think in the big scheme of things, there may be more moves because if we're gonna adhere to the A&R and local roads, we're gonna have to move around a little bit more to get compliance. Well, it's certainly a good thing to, it's certainly a good thing to look at. The other issue that I've had on my radar for a while is either really getting our existing woodchip or repaired if that's even feasible or if not, we need a new or good used woodchip or not having that piece of equipment is gonna be detrimental. We use that when we use it, we need it. How much do those run with our discount? Do you think, Vic, do you know, Peter? 80,000. 80,000, 90,000. 80,000, 30,000. Hey, Peter. I'm sorry. What did you say? I think Abe Lewis told me between 40 and 50,000. Yeah, if you wanna get a good one, you're up to 70, 80,000. Right. Yeah. And how do we find out? Well, I'm sorry, the problem with woodchippers is they tend to get the Jesus beating out of them. If you don't use them correctly, so buying a used one would be sketchy, maybe. I don't know. It's all that stuff to think about in it. It corroborates what Dorenda is saying, that this is an opportunity to solve a problem and not have to go to the bank, which wouldn't be a bad thing. So, Victor, I guess what I'm suggesting, just a minute, Mary, I guess what I'm suggesting, Victor, is that you guys think about this and come to us with a recommendation. Sure. Because I think it is, I mean, I'm not sure it's mandatory that we spend this money on highway, but it's likely that that's where it should go, I would think. Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct. Either one of the options of paying down the greater or if you want to get, which we'll have to discuss. If you wanna get a trailer, that would be also inventive. How do we find out if we can get the woodchipper fixed? Well, I don't know. Have you gotten involved in this at all there? Anything I ever, I saw it was, I think that, I don't know. They don't use that a lot. They haven't used that a lot recently, but the issue with it is that I saw was that they would, you have to, if that brush, if you cut that brush and it gets dragged or you put it in the excavator and it gets gravel on them, it just chews those knives right up immediately. And then of course, the things down, you gotta replace everything. But they did also have an issue with it plugging. In order to fix it, they actually had to have the excavator or something like that to pull the chute off because it's so heavy and then you have to clean it. I remember those issues, but I also remember that it doesn't meet the current safety standards. So I don't know whether it's even legal to use the thing. That may be. Now is the reason they're not using it is it has a bad flywheel and Abe has been supposed to come down and fix it and he hasn't done it. I asked Shane about it not too long ago and he hasn't heard anything from Abe. He was gonna reach out to him. I don't know. Now it doesn't work and it may be unsafe and it may be dangerous. So the combination is, I'm not interested in pouring a lot of money into something that isn't gonna be very functional. Peter, this is Paul. I could kind of speak to where the status of the chipper got left if everyone can hear me. What ended up happening is that that's definitely out of compliance with the height of the intake side, the length of it and a lot of the safety mechanisms on that no longer fall within the OSHA specs. So the last time I had worked with Abe on it was he was willing to at least put those safety modifications on but that technically needs to be stamped and tagged as being passed and he was not willing to go that far with and only do the modifications just to kind of appease the court type of thing. And are you aware that it has a bad flywheel? Is that true or is that just my imagination? No, the last time that I had Abe, Abe had replaced the starter, the flywheel was good. We had replaced the flywheel once. The problem is you cannot any longer get with that Cummins motor, you cannot get the proper starter. So you end up getting an AC Delco starter, which is compatible but not comparable to what the stock one was. So what would happen is the starter gear on that would get stuck, the motor would run and it would strip the starter gear off of the starter. And obviously along the way, after doing that a couple of times would eventually ruin the flywheel. So that could be at this point that that has happened again. Yeah, okay. Well, suffice just to say, we don't have an operational or safe chipper. So I'm just throwing that into the mix for consideration. How old is that chipper? Gotta be 25 or 30 years old, I think. That might tell you right there. Yeah. I mean, do you have any idea, Steve, how old that thing is? I do not. It's been around a long time. It's at least as old as our grader. And our grader is what? 24 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't know us pretty much. Okay. Anything else, Miranda, quickly? Nope, but that's it. Okay, Mary. Miranda, tell us about the starting date of the new bookkeeper. And can you remind us of his name? I can't remember what his name is. His name is Mark and he started last Monday. And so he has worked three days with Amy so far. They're only able to work two days together a week. So he is on, he's done three days with her. So he's doing now, they're getting there. It's gonna take a little bit. I think by next week, he's gonna start entering information and Amy's gonna start reviewing it and see how that goes. So is he coming into the office? Yeah. Wow, great. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so we're now past our time for the fire department. So I'd like to go back and bring up the fire department. We have Jeff with us. Jeff, hello. You can unmute yourself, please, Jeff. Okay, there I am. Okay, so apologies, Eric can't make it. He has a family issue popped up this afternoon. So he's got to deal with that. So you're stuck with me. Well, we're happy to have you. Thank you. And how are you? How was your, how'd your surgery go? Everything's good? Surgery, well, I'm hobbling along. My quad's dealing issues to my knee and tibia right now, but that's part of the recovery. Yeah, good luck. I've been thinking of you. So what we primarily wanted to do tonight is, and I know you weren't there because you were on medical leave, but- I was on the operating team. Right. If you could just give us a report, hopefully you've heard what went on and give us a report about the church fire. So what I have mostly is what was on the news. So Sarah reported it. They were smoke coming out of the steeple. Quite frankly, when a fire's at that point, especially in a building that old and that type of construction, it's gone. So middle sex was called on a structure fire. What we have in all the departments in the in the capital West district have, sheets, I don't know how well you can see this. These are a run sheet that, when a fire is called in and what things automatically happen and each town has this sheet and it's a standard with capital West. So two of our guys were able to show up. This being in the middle of the day on Wednesday is the worst possible time for structure fires in middle sex and Worcester and more than any place else, except for maybe Waterbury. So I'm up here in Waterbury, we're called in as well from the news reports. Waterbury ran the scene. When I got home from the hospital, there was a message on my phone from Waterbury's battalion chief, which is their assistant chief, asking about any officers showing up. So I called later that evening explaining the situation and what else would happen. So the big thing was that not only was my period there, Waterbury was there. The best I can figure that there were five towns that were there in addition to middle sex. I've heard rumors and I haven't been able to talk to Waterbury yet about the water supply. If there was a water supply issue, obviously on a structure fire like that, the big cause is gonna be tankers from everywhere. I think even Barry, on the news, I saw Barry's tower there. So, and that's the way mutual aid works. Whenever there's an active structure fire, we start calling in depending on where it is. So if it's up in our neck of the woods, Peter, we're gonna be calling in Montpelier and Worcester. If it's down in the village, it's gonna be Montpelier, Waterbury, Moitown, Berlin, and then as we need more assets, we'll be calling East Montpelier and Barry. But anytime that Montpelier has a structure fire, they're automatically calling Barry City and vice versa. So this is not an unusual thing for middle sex. We do currently have 10 people on the department. We have two applications in and we're gonna start having meetings again next month. Now with the new guidance through fire and EMS come out from the state late last week. So, and there again, that's not a unique issue to middle sex. We just cannot get people to join. People do not wanna volunteer for fire and EMS. It's not a middle sex problem. It's not a Washington County problem. It's not a Vermont problem. It's a nationwide problem. We've tried, I mean, we're up there selling tickets for the bandstand concerts. We're out there visible. We go to the school when they have their spring thing for the PTA. We're there on town meeting. We post front porch forums, front porch forum columns. We've had open houses. We just can't get people to come out and volunteer to be on fire. It's just the way people are in this day and age. I think the kind of... It's certainly not a unique problem to middle sex at all. So how many people ultimately responded from our fire department too? Two. And so I was there and I'm just telling you, I was there. So I could see what was going on, but I could not tell obviously what the command was going on and who'd taken control of the scene. But our truck was parked way back up route two all by itself with one person sitting in it and nothing happening. It wasn't within a quarter mile of the scene at all. It was just sitting there. It was probably Gary Dillon who is the chief of Waterbury and they have approximately 50 people on their department. He was directing the scene. So he probably had them sitting up there for whatever reason. Because obviously the street is real small and you can't get a lot of people in there. I understand all that, but all I would tell you is they had like a conga line of tankers going down through there. Five or six of them. And our tanker was nowhere in sight. So I don't, I just, it looked like a horrible response to me to be blunt. And to make matters worse, a couple of days later, we got a polite but firm a letter from Bill Frazier saying basically enough is enough your fire department isn't able to respond. They don't seem to be able to recruit enough people to have a viable fire department, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, we don't need to go into all the details of that tonight, but he said he also had Bob Gowan, the chief in Montpelier send me a report which I meant to share with you and I didn't, but I will just showing what's been going on over the last few years. And going back to 2015, Montpelier responded to seven fires in middle sex. We received mutual aid two times. In 2016, we responded to middle sex nine times, received mutual aid one time. In 17, eight responses, two mutual aid responses, excuse me, 17 and 18, they responded 15 times no mutual aid, 19, 13 times no mutual aid, and 2020, 11 times no mutual aid. Okay, so in a very nice way, this isn't the way it's supposed to work. So we provide mutual aid when they call us. If they don't call us, we can't provide mutual aid. He says they call, they call and we don't respond. Well, I'm not, this is what they told me. This is their information, but they were very nice. They just said, you have a serious problem with your fire department. They're unable to do the job that they're supposed to do. They have an inadequate number of people and they're not available during the daytime. He said Worcester on the other hand, somehow seems to be able to do all those things. And I don't know why that is and we can't. But and the other side of this is and I'll ask Steve to speak up. But Steve spoke to the Waterbury Chief who said basically the same thing is, this is not working for us. We end up responding to your fires and providing your fire service and we're not getting any compensation. So Worcester respond, Worcester has two people in town during the day. There's assistant chief and then one of the captain who's retired. That's what they've got. More town has, their chief is on their road department and I don't, I think they've got one or two during the day. Waterbury, like I said, they've got 50 people that they draw from, but I don't know how many they draw from during the day because during the day when people show up, it's an awful lot of people with gray hair. So I get that, but I'm just saying if you're pulling from a, if you're pulling from a pool of 50 people, that's a lot different than pulling from a pool of seven or eight or nine people. I just, Jeff, I truly, I truly am not trying to give you guys a hard time. I know you've tried, I know you've tried to recruit people. I'm just saying that I am feeling personally and I think the select board is feeling that we're getting boxed in a little bit and maybe more than a little bit. And we have promised both Waterbury and Montpelier that we will get back to them and that we will try and implement some kind of solution sooner rather than later, whatever that solution is. And whether we, I don't know what we do. I mean, do we hire them to provide the fire service? Did we hire them as permanent backup? I don't know what the solution is, but right now it's pretty clear to me and I know you might disagree, but it's pretty clear to me that we can't provide an adequate fire response in Middlesex and not just during the daytime. I mean, he said, they both said other times of the day in the evening, it's the same story. They show up and sometime later, somebody shows up from Middlesex and by then it's all over when that big house fire was up here. We had a very, very late response. What house fire was this? The one up off Molly Super whenever it was two years ago? We were first on scene. He didn't seem to think so. And again, all I'm telling you is what he told me. But the question is, the question for me is and for the select board is, what is the answer to this? Because what we're doing now is not working. I will tell you that I talked to Waterbury just like five or six years ago to see what they were charging. Duxbury. And at that time, it was $250,000 a year for fire coverage. For Moortown, they charged them for that stretch long route to they charged them $3,000 a year. We currently do not charge Moortown anything for the coverage we provide them from the NACC to about what we mean that we get called in that. If there is a fire issue, a car crash or something, we get called and Moortown does not unless we call them in. So with Waterbury, the fines that they have called up, it's usually only for a tanker. And we have been providing tankers a tanker for them. Every call that I can remember that they've called us out of in the last couple of years. Especially- And I have no data from Waterbury, so that's good to hear. But how can it be that in two years, we haven't helped Montpelier at all? Zero. They haven't called us. They gave you numbers of times that we responded, they didn't give you numbers of calls that they called us. We've gone there for both direct fire support and for station coverage when they've gone to Berry City. That may be the case, but the numbers they gave me don't reflect that. All I'm saying is and all I'm suggesting to the select board is we need to drill down on this and figure out what the answer is. And maybe it is getting Montpelier or Waterbury to help us out in some kind of formal way and we pay them some money, whether it's per call or on an annual basis or something. But I'm just very uncomfortable that we're not able to provide the service that people would expect us to provide. That's the way I would put it. And I'm not blaming you. I'm not blaming the people who serve on the fire department. I know you guys are trying to do your best, but it may just be that the makeup of our community is such that we can't, there aren't enough people who are interested in serving on the fire department. I believe there are only two or three people on the fire department now who live in Middlesex. Well, if you count the part of Morkown that's part of Middlesex then, yeah, and I mean, Doug Hansen lives a 10th of a mile into Montpelier. So he's essentially Middlesex. He can get to the state of the city. What I'm saying is he doesn't live in Middlesex. He lives very nearby and he's been a loyal person, but he doesn't live in Middlesex. It's just amazing to me that Waterbury can get 50 people. I mean, is that a larger community? Yes, it is, but holy mackerel. It's also a combination of two departments because they combine Waterbury Center and Waterbury in the one department. No, I understand, but still, that's a lot of folks. I appreciate you being here tonight. I'm sorry that chief can't be here. I hoped he'd be here, but I think what we're gonna wanna do is devote at least one or more of our select board meetings in the near future to talk about this issue and figure out what next steps are, whether we should set up a meeting with Waterbury in Montpelier, how we should do that, who should be in close contact with Waterbury in Montpelier, we should do that, who should be included, et cetera. I mean, we're not trying to close you guys out of the process. We want you to be part of the process and we value your input, but we're determined to find some way to provide better fire service. Well, when I can get back on the road again, I'll go look at run sheets, calls and see if their numbers jive with our numbers as to what we have and how much they've responded. And I think part of their thing is that they may be leaning on is that EMS. I mean, I am the EMT in town pretty much full-time. And we pay them up here emails to show up. So, and there are some of their crew members that want nothing to do with us helping them out on calls. So I think part of their frustration that they're saying is, well, nobody shows up for fast quad calls. These were just fire calls. There was no discussion about fast quad or EMS. I just find those numbers that they spattered off as high compared to the numbers that we've had of structure fires in the last couple of years. So I'll have to go back and look at our call sheets and see where we are. Okay, well, they're saying just to be clear, they're saying fires, not necessarily structure fires. So they could be car fires, could be who knows what. If you could send me that list that they sent you so I have something to go with. I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you. Other board members, any questions? Yeah, Phil. You know, not really a question, Peter. I just wanted to go on record as saying I really wholeheartedly agree with what you're talking about. I think this is very serious. I think it's also embarrassing for our town. And I think we need to do everything we can possibly do to look into this and find a good solution. We have considerable resources wrapped up in a fire department that's not able to provide a real resource as far as safety in this community. So, and it's been, you know, this has been going on for a while. There was a time when we had a really viable fire department, but that those days seem to be over. And we can't ignore this and we do need to dig into it. And I'm certainly willing to do whatever I can to help us resolve this. Okay, thank you. Anybody else, anything? So what I'm gonna suggest is that we all think about what the next step in this process should be. Do we wanna handle this as a board? Do we wanna have a subcommittee of the board meet with these other departments and dig into the issues at our department? How do we wanna handle it? My first law was this is important enough that we all need to be involved in it. I just don't know if that's too unwieldy having every trying to arrange meetings where everybody can be there. But I really do view this as an important public safety priority. So I don't know what your thoughts are. I'm gonna try and get some more information. I, we promised the Montpelier chief and the Waterbury chief that we would get back to them after tonight's meeting and let them know what our plan was. Peter, do we have Bill Frazier on the agenda for our next meeting? No, we do not. Okay. I mean, he is willing to come. I just, I mean, they're all willing to come. Yes. I just thought it was important for us to talk about this and meet with our fire department before we started talking to these other folks. I will say both Waterbury and Montpelier are willing and anxious to participate in any way they can to help us with our fire department whether that's providing direct fire protection whether it's providing training. I mean, they are very willing to try and help us any way they can but they want us to have, we're gonna be continue to be in the mutual aid program. They want us to be a viable fire department and be able to respond. That's understandable. I think it'd be helpful to get the same kind of data breakdown for Waterbury that Chief and Montpelier sent you. So, Jeff, does dispatch have these records of who got called out on different fires? Yeah, I don't know how long they keep them but that's, yes, they have that information. Well, why don't I try and approach them and see if they can get us what their records show and at the same time, Jeff, if you'd look at your records, and I'll see what Montpelier can come up with to help us also. I mean, I wanna be really sure we're looking at the right information and I wanna be really sure we're being fair. It is interesting and we need to move on but move on for tonight. But Bill Frazier did what he said was a back of the envelope financial analysis looking at our current fire department budget and debt service. And he said, including the debt service, which of course we can't really throw in the debt service but he said, including the debt service, it looks very much like they could provide all the fire service we need just like the ambulance and just take it over and do it. Now, he said that and then he was quick to tell me that they don't have a tanker so I don't know how that would work. Maybe they would buy our tanker. I don't know. But we would likely be looking at, I mean, our debt service is roughly, is roughly and I don't have the numbers in front of me there's roughly $40,000 a year, the budget's roughly $60,000, we're talking about $100,000. So that would be, I mean, we're gonna have to continue to pay the fire service on the building or the debt service on the building, obviously, which is the big chunk of that debt service, but I gotta tell you if it comes down to it and it means more money, if that means we have real fire protection, I think it's important, we have to have it. So anyway, that's very premature, but it didn't look like when I asked Bill the last time I met with him because I couldn't remember and I said, Bill, I think it was 20 years ago. He said, I'm actually looking at it. It was 26 years ago when you met with us the last time with this problem. So anyway. Oh my God. Anyway. The other thing to look at is Montpelier very, very reluctantly takes their tower out of Montpelier. Also when you're looking at calls for mutual aid, Montpelier will call Berry City in from mutual aid over Berlin who's closer. So you may also wanna look at how Montpelier's kinda saying, well, we don't get any mutual aid from middle sex, they're also not calling Berlin in. So this thing that Jeff, I'm really not trying to give you a hard time, but what he said was, I said, he didn't say they weren't calling us. He was saying they were calling us and we were unable to respond. Now I don't know what calling means. Does that mean dispatch calls us out or does that mean they call us directly? It would be dispatch and I disagree that they've been calling us. Okay, well, we'll get to the bottom of that. Okay. Yeah, Phil, you had something else? I was just gonna say, rather than do what he said, she said, maybe it would make sense to have Bill Frazier call into the next meeting and let us have a discussion with him and maybe even Montpelier's chief so that we can keep this thing moving. Should we ask Waterbury to participate in that as well or just do it? Well, Peter, didn't you just say that Steve had some information that he could share with us that he talked to the chief in Waterbury? Yes. I did have basically the same information, some of the same comments as Montpelier had and one of the key things was that they know that there's a recruiting problem. We don't have the people to be able to respond. But regardless of that, I think there is something there for a problem. We need a solution and probably the fire department can be part of the solution, but our current fire department. But I think we need to look at all the facts and Phil, to your point of Bill Frazier coming to the next meeting. I think it's too soon. I think we need to get some facts and some figures out there so that we can really see what's going on and then maybe get Gary Dillon and Bob involved in a meeting at a later date. Okay, I mean, I'm willing to go with that too, Steve. Yeah, neither one of these guys is saying, we're gonna stop supporting you tomorrow at all. So it's not like this is an emergency crisis. So I guess I would suggest we try and I'll contact Montpelier and try to get real data from them, not just the Bill Frazier's email and I'll also contact Capital West and see if they can give us what do we call it? Call sheets or run sheets, what do you call it, Jeff? He's muted. Jeff, you're muted. They would just be calls, call numbers. Okay, call numbers. Okay, okay, and put that on the agenda, put that on the agenda for our next meeting and Jeff, I would appreciate it if the fire department could participate in that as well. And I will share whatever numbers we have, I will share them with you, before the meeting. Okay, I'm pretty much sure Doug will not be able to make it because he usually works till eight or nine o'clock this time of year on Tuesday nights. Okay, okay. So he's delivering propane, that's his job. Yeah, we all set for tonight, everyone. We've got Sandy here and she's shaking her head back and forth. I think she's ready to go. So it's the next meeting in two weeks. Yes. Well, it's the... Second, it's the... It's the first, the first Tuesday in April. So whatever it is that... It's April 6th. Yep. Six. Six. Okay. Yep. I should be on the road before then, so... Okay, well, good luck with your rehab. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. I'm out of here. Okay, thank you, Jeff. Um, so Sandy, welcome. I'm sorry, we're a little behind schedule here, but we're happy to have you here. Only two minutes. And Sandy and I had a little back and forth on the subject of marijuana, and I suggested to her that it would be appropriate for her to appear at a select board meeting, and here she is. So with that, do you know all of us, Sandy? Should we introduce ourselves? I think so. You know the cast of characters? I think so. Okay. Okay. You're all famous. Okay. We're all famous or infamous. Infamous. The dark visage on your screen is Victoria. Oh, okay. So with that, Sandy, you're on. Thank you for coming. Okay. Well, I just wanted to see if we could get it on our menu for the vote next year. As you know, several neighboring towns put it on their vote and it was passed. And it was passed in most towns in Vermont. I think three towns did not pass it, but most towns that put it on the ballot did pass it. And so I'm just hoping to get it on the ballot and let the voters decide. I did put it on front porch form to see what, you know, people thought and I got all positive reviews on it. Everybody thought it would be good for business. It would bring more business to the existing middle sex businesses. So yeah, I just think it would be a win-win for everybody. And, but, you know, I mean, the basic thing is we have to get it on the ballot to even let the voters decide. Yeah. Yes, Sarah. Hi, Sandy. This is Sarah Merriman. I'm taking minutes. So you keep talking about it. Could you just say specifically what you want? Oh, it's the retail pot bill to be on the ballot next year. So what that just, just remind me, I mean, I read about that when it was, when it was coming up, but basically it's a bill where the town said, yes, we would allow you to have a retail pot operation in our community. Right. The state, the state said it's, it's legal, but each town has to vote on it separately. But then the state promulgates the regulations and rules and all that stuff. Right. Yeah. Right. So I guess, I guess the question is, and it certainly way before town meeting at this point in time, but there, there are two, there are two ways this could happen. One way would be that the select board would, would put it on the, put it on the town meeting agenda. And it would be discussed. It would be an article presented in that manner. The other way is a petition where you and other folks would go around and get how many signatures Sarah? 75. 75 signatures on a petition and that it would appear on the, appear on the town meeting agenda as a petitioned article. I don't know how the other board members feel about this, or if they're ready to decide tonight, I'd be fine putting that article on the town meeting agenda myself, but I don't know how that everybody else feels. I don't have a problem with it. No. It's happening statewide. So why, you know, go out and gather the signatures, I think, you know, we can put it on and let people vote. Steve, you agree? That's fine. So. That was easy. Yeah. Wait a minute. So, Sarah, do we need, we probably need to vote on this, right? No, you'll vote on it. When you vote on the warning, when you approve the warning in January of 2020. So you will remember, and I will try to remember, and everyone else will remember. I will not remember. You'll have to call me. That we promise to, that we promise to put this on the warning. I'll make it. I'll put a draft 2022 town meeting warning right now and at it, right at the very top. So, Sammy, thank you very much. It is, it is interesting. My, my sons and their families to live in Colorado. And we had a family get together out there. And we all decided we were going to have a family field trip to the pot shop. It was very. Very entertaining and interesting, a little intimidating. When you walk in, you walk into a room and they take, and they take your picture and they take a picture of your driver's license. So I am now, I'm registered as a legal, a legal pot buyer in Colorado, which really wasn't my intent when I went in there, but anyway, they have had, they have had relatively few problems. They have had, they have had relatively few problems in Colorado. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a good, it's good for taxes. It's good for jobs. You know, it's, it's, it's a win-win thing. We need the money. The state needs the money. So, well, and guess what? A little economic activity and middle sex wouldn't hurt. Yeah. So anyway, I appreciate you following, following up with this. And, uh, couldn't get on this year's ballot, but it'll be on next year's. Yeah. Okay. How many towns, how many towns approved it? I think it was like 27 towns approved it. Three towns disapproved it. Yeah. So 27 out of what other 240 towns, something like that. Yeah. 220 something like that. Yeah, something like that. So anyway, we're not, we're not at the end of the line yet. They'll be, they'll be there. I appreciate you following, following up with this. And, uh, we're not at the end of the line yet. They'll be, they'll be putting more next year, I'm sure. Right. We could be ahead of the curve. There you go. There you go. Thank you very much. And, uh, we, we welcome participation in our select board meetings. Before you go. I, I might just suggest that, uh, you know, there are folks out there that have no clue what this is and, and maybe putting out, uh, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how to relate to the bill that you're proposing or whatever to be added, uh, just for informational purposes for folks to read would be, would be helpful. So I know, uh, I'm one of those who know nothing about what you're proposing and, and, um, I find, um, that as I get, uh, I think that's a little bit of a rough than I've ever cared to be for. So anyway, uh, just a suggestion. Thank you. No, I think that's, I think that's good. And, uh, uh, it is, it is likely, likely, but not necessarily guaranteed that we'll be having a traditional, uh, select board meeting next year. But. Yeah. Yeah. I apologize. Thank you very much, Sandy. Okay. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. Okay. Victor, you're not, you're not brightening up too much, Victor, but you're still there. We're ready for our road commissioners report. You're muted. Turn on the lights. There he is. Yeah. There you go. You could have me out, Mary. I said that right away. There you go. All right. So thank you. Um, what do you want? The good news or the bad news first? I like the bad news first. Okay. We continue, we continue to have issues with, uh, with the trucks, uh, the, uh, the Western star had an issue with its PTO, uh, when they were fixing it, they said that they didn't understand. Uh, it was surprising that, uh, they didn't break down on the road. And I think that bill is around $2,700 if you want. And also a week before they took the truck to, uh, Waterbury, uh, we're using boot seas or Shane is using boot seas rather than to go back to the dealer because we're out of warranty. And, uh, they had some issues with the breaks. Um, the international was, uh, had some issues with, uh, the Jake break, but I guess they decided that it wasn't, uh, they couldn't figure it out right now. So keep going. And, um, that was about the, uh, the, the repairs. Um, Shane and the boys did get, uh, 30 loads, I believe it is of, uh, aggregate out of northeast aggregate for, uh, you know, mud, uh, for mud season, if they needed it stock piled in the yard. They got, uh, three quarter an inch and a half. And, uh, they, uh, Carousel, since the last meeting, you know, we've, we've had, we've been plowing and sanding and, uh, last weekend, uh, they plowed on Sunday and they did come in Saturday. And on, on their normal Friday, they remember the high winds. There was some, um, quite a few, uh, branches around in, uh, in the road. So they took care of that. Um, Another issue is on, I've heard Peters mentioned it. There's, uh, if there's, uh, uh, Shane is looking into it and, uh, because, uh, I guess Unifers charges is quite a bit. And they're looking into for, for, for, uh, I think he talked to you, uh, Peter about the, uh, he did. I think our, I think our contract, I forget the date. I think it's, Shane knows when it is. I think it's October or contract is up. Yeah. And they charge you like something like 5,000 bucks to get out of it. If you don't, and it automatically renews. Yeah. We have to give him, I, he's got it written down how many days we have to give him. Right. Right. Anyway, so, um, what is it? Foley's is, uh, right now is, uh, appears to be a much better option. And then Shane said that he, that we, uh, we talked about another option, um, but until we get back from, uh, you know, resolve that with, uh, uh, Unifers and, uh, see what actually Foley's going to do. We will, uh, wait to, uh, let you know about that. What the best deal is. I can weigh in on the contract. The last contract I have indicates that it's a five year contract. Right. And it's not up until May of 22. Okay. So that's still a way to go on it. You have to give him a 90 day written notice. Otherwise the contract, at least a minimum of 90 days. Otherwise it automatically rolls into another five year contract. Right. Right. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's it, but the savings that you could get by using one of the other providers, I guess, um, would even justify paying the five grand and just get away from them. Plus, uh, I don't think anybody over there really cares for the uniforms that are, Unifers has given that was my, that's my opinion from what they said. And the other thing is, uh, I want to, uh, It was a June 28th and August 29th, uh, or signed up to, uh, rent a roadside more. And, uh, That's proving out to be cheaper than hiring the guy to just come around, uh, uh, twice a year. And they have it for unlimited hours. And then, they also deliver it and come get it. So for about what you can get one mowing, they have the more for enough to do it twice. Of course, we do have to put somebody on it, but Shane says that's not an issue. That's where we are. And you wanted me to look into the wood chipper? Well, I guess what I think we want you to look into is if all of a sudden we have an extra $80,000, roughly, how would you recommend we store? The road department recommend we spend it. Should we buy a trailer? Should we fix the wood chipper? Should we get a new wood chipper? Perfect. Yeah, I got it. I got it. We also got a, we're also due to get a new pickup truck also, I believe this spring. That is correct. So we'll have to look in there. Would the roadside mowing, if the crews picked that up and not subbing it out, you know, by the time you figure in the labor and the rental fees and whatnot, you're saying that that's a savings overall, including the labor. Oh, you just get too different, you get to change. You have the flexibility of doing more of it because it's unlimited hours in that week's time. And then of course this was the counterpoint that we might have to ask for is somebody could run it on the weekend, which might be, all depends how it works out, but you know, you would have overtime. So I guess the only other question. Go ahead. The only other question I'd have about it would be, I know one thing that we've struggled in the past, just keeping on the town plan for, you know, the maintenance around town. And if we're stuff that we were originally subbing out and we're pulling back into the crews, what does that do for the overall plan? We able to stay on track? I believe so. Yeah. That's the thought. And plus you, you know, you're gonna get a better job. This mower does mow better than, theoretically from what they say, it mows better than the one that we hired. Although the guy with the hired one did a fair job. Thank you. I would also think potentially, and we need to look into it. We could either hire somebody to come in and operate that machine. If we had a qualified person or hire somebody to come in and, you know, maybe a retired road person who has a CDL or something and do some truck driving. So one of our guys could drive the machine. But I helped Shane discuss it with me. He included labor in the analysis and we were gonna save quite a bit of money. The only question was exactly what Randy brought up is, when we put a guy in that mower, he isn't in one of our trucks or on the back or the excavator or the grader. So we lose something on that side. That's true. But if it's a net savings and we can keep up with our schedule, I mean, we were proposing last year that we would buy our own roadside mower. And that was gonna be a big expense and it was gonna likely spend a lot of time sitting around which is not a good use of our money. If you need something for 100 hours a year, I don't think you wanna buy a brand new one and have it sit around. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Right. So Victor, give us a little update on the big item which is sitting over at the town garage right now. Oh yeah, yeah, okay. If anybody wants to watch the John Deere grader run tomorrow, I think he said they were going down on Brook Road at seven o'clock. So. Here's your chance to run that. Right there. Watch out. Look at your volunteer operators. Yeah, I thought Mary might come down and watch us. Not at seven a.m. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. But no. Seven a.m. Yeah, the salesman from John Deere is gonna be there tomorrow morning and they had the grader today but we didn't have the insurance on it as I understand until tomorrow. So they only just drove it around. They all got familiar with it. They drove it around the yard but tomorrow they're gonna take it out on the road and try it out. Now we did actually look into a cat. Shane and the crew, some of the crew went to Richmond down to Milton Cat and looked at one in the yard. It was a little difficult according to Shane to get the salesman from Cat to commit to a demonstration of the rig. He did come up and we were supposed to get a quote from him today at around noon. I did talk to Shane. I think it was like 3.30 quarter of four tonight and he did not mention that. He just told me that the other guy was gonna be there tomorrow morning, that being the John Deere guy. So I don't know. Both quotes are in the hands of Shane. And at some point here if we do get another one, we're gonna compare them and we're gonna talk about it. It appears that everyone leans towards, everyone on the town crew that would possibly be operating the graders leaning towards the John Deere, but nothing is cast in stone yet. And we'll compare those. Our goal I believe would be Vic to have a recommendation for you guys and quotes to look at at our next board meeting because we need to get this thing ordered if we're gonna have it here. Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly what Shane's plan is I would like to do. And I mean, if you want it quicker, we could have a 15 minutes flight board meeting. I think you said that, but, you know, we can. I mean, I kind of leave it up to you guys, but my understanding is if we can get it ordered by the first part of April, we're in good shape. If it all of a sudden it looks like that isn't the case, then we could have an emergency flight board meeting. Okay, we'll check in. You're absolutely right. From what I understand is 90 days. Yeah. Right. And like the advantage of ordering the thing, ordering a grader is that, for instance, if you have some add-ons that you wanna buy, some extras, that if they do it at the factory, it's a lot cheaper than if they have to do it at the dealership afterwards by a tremendous amount. From what the salesman has said. So. Okay. But we will give you a proposal and a recommendation and we'll show you the options. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Yes, Terinda. And I get a copy of that. I'd like to start looking into the financing. Of? Of what the cost is on that piece or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And then I can start shopping the financing. Yeah, I'll give you that just as soon as I get it. Okay. Are these salesmen recommending the piece of equipment or have we given them a base specification that we're looking for to make sure that they're bidding apples to apples and the pieces of equipment are in different classes or have different add-ons or whatever that. Oh, yeah. Excuse me. Go ahead. You done? As we were comparing, I was just thinking about what you said about add-on equipment and stuff like that. You know, sometimes these manufacturers include stuff in one model and others, it's an option. So just thinking about an apples to apples comparison. And we'll tell you exactly just for instance, slope grade, slope control is supposedly, it's an option with Caterpillar. And if you buy one with joysticks on it from John Deere, it comes with it, as they say. So the, it's hard to say. We have pointed out, we've done the best we can to compare apples to apples as far as the size of the grader. It has come out that it's been a little ambiguous that one dealer says, no, this size machine is compared to that size. And we're doing checks on it to make sure that it is. The other thing we're gonna do Randy, and I know Shane has already done some of this, is there are towns around that have these graders and talk to them and say, how's the grader work for you? Have you had problems with the dealer? Has the service been good? Did you need service? You know, those kind of questions. So we're trying to do our homework, homework the best that we can, but we're coming down to the wire here, so we're. And it may well be you only get one quote too. I wouldn't, like I said, I don't know if that guy got one back to us. At one point, as you know, Peter, the guy didn't even want to come. Oh no, I gave it to him with both barrels, and he promised me we'd have a quote, but. And he was. He was all bad business right up front. Yeah. I know like at Capstone, we often, especially cause this is a big purchase. You know, I know you're saying, oh, you might not even get a bid, but to get a third, to get a third bid, is if there is an option for that, another company? Somebody that we've worked with in the past, like I don't know anything about grader, sorry, but I'm just throwing that out there that making sure that we're getting the best bid. Is there another company that we can ask as well? Who are we dealing with other than Milton Kat? John Deere. Right, but is it. North tracks. North tracks? North tracks. Ultimately, I have to believe, you know, we could get a quote from another caterpillar dealer if it comes down to it. I agree. I want to make sure we have at least one other quote. It definitely, definitely seems like Kat and John Deere are the preeminent graders, and the ones that most of the town seem to have, and the ones that the state has also, right, Victor? That's correct. Yeah. So Peter, good question. What companies that we've worked with? Well, Peter, we had dealt with Beauregard equipment for the Cabelco excavator. Did we at least call them up at Beauregard to get a bid from them? I know in the past, they've been pretty competitive with a lot of their pricing on loaders and graders. They contacted them, Paul. They indicated that that grader would be a case grader, I believe. Yep. And case is not going to build them anymore. No, understood. Good deal. Okay. And then we checked out with Kamatsu and another company, but their graders are smaller than the two that were desired by the road crew. Yeah, and I think Kamatsu was nice of a machine that at the time we had been, or I looked at it last year, they didn't offer a six-wheel drive model, unfortunately. So I'll put them out. Right. So do you know of any other option other than Qatar or John Deere? No, I think that would be the only other one case would have been the only one I had in mind. Right. That I'm aware of. That's, I think that's about it then. Right, and I don't think you can move around. I think, correct me if I'm saying something that's not accurate is, I don't think you can buy either a John Deere or a cat off anybody but these local guys here because the outside, they won't enter into their territory, really. Yeah, and I think that even more so when you're talking about municipal, buying new with the municipal discount, you don't have a choice who you deal with, at least as far as municipal goes. Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Paul, for doing, thank you, Paul. Well, I have to believe one way or the other, we'll get a quote from Kat. I couldn't agree more or less. I wanna make sure we have two, I mean, we have a pretty good idea what these things cost, but there can be differences in trading values, et cetera, et cetera. I know Steve, you said there was some kind of a deal where we went from our herd grader to a John Deere, they had some special deal or discount for changing brands or is that, you're muted, Steve. Yeah, John Deere had a program where that if you were trading in a competitive, a competitor's machine, they were giving you extra money, but it's like Vic says, you're gonna have to get the things side by side and compare them apples to apples and see what their, you know, whether it's a horsepower or their weight of the greater or whatever. Weight's the big issue in a greater. I mean, if your front wheels, if you can keep them on the ground, you're gonna be able to cut deeper and, you know, and if you've got a 10,000 pound machine, it's not gonna cut as good as a 40,000 pound machine. I don't think they make a 10,000 quick. I mean, one of the things that concerns me hearing all this talk about whether or not Caterpillar is gonna even give you a bid or they're just not being responsive is, say we buy a piece of equipment from those guys and we have warranty issues. I mean, is it gonna be a hassle dealing with these guys trying to get this equipment repaired? So, you know, I think it's a good idea, I guess, that's all I'm trying to say. Yep, from what I know, Milton has a good reputation that way. This salesman seems to be an issue. Apparently John Deere fired him previously in his previous employment. It's not too hard to figure out why people quote. So, who knows, but from what I know and Vick speak up or Paul or Gary, as far as I know, those guys have a good reputation for service. Yeah, Milton. Go ahead. No, I couldn't agree more that the Milton cat, you're gonna be hard-pressed to be sale parts and service. Sales, I 100% agree with what Peter's already said. So, we've got some more work to do, guys. I just wanted to give you an update and let you know what was going on. And if you see a great big shiny machine driving around, we haven't bought it yet. Right. Yeah, the John Deere's setting over there at the town garage now. Is that the good news, Vick? Cause you told us the bad news. Is that the good news? Yes. I told you about the repairs. Everything was good. Thank you, Vick. Hey, thank you. Thanks, Paul. Peter. Yes, thank you, everyone. Okay. Considering renewal of red hand liquor license, action likely. Is there a way? Moving and who's seconding? Mary Mozen. Okay. Phil, thank you. All in favor of renewing the red hand liquor license, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. The light's getting dark here. I can't even see. Approval of March 2nd, select board minutes is their motion. Move approval. Second. Second. Okay, thank you. All in favor of approving the March 2nd, select board minutes, please say aye. Aye. Correspondents, Sarah, we had a, and Vick, you should pay attention to this and I'll make sure Shane gets it also, but we had a, John Yudis contacted me. He's helping out with the, with the Greenup Day arrangements this year. And I asked him just to send us a short, a short memo to tell us what they were hoping for and expecting on Greenup Day, which is exactly, I believe, what we've done in the past. We have a truck there to collect on a ladder, I guess, to collect trash. People leave tires there and we dispose of those tires and either do or do not get reimbursed for them. I believe we can get reimbursed for them. And then Bulldox brings up a dumpster for metal and puts it by the old garage as well. So I think that's pretty much what we've done in the past. I expect that's what we would do this year unless anybody has any thoughts or objections to that. So I'm just gonna pass that along to Shane and make sure he's aware of that and comfortable with it. And Victor, did you get, did Sarah send you a copy of that also? Wave your hand if you've got it, Victor. He's on mute. No, I know he's on mute. Yeah, I'll pass that by and make sure, sure Shane is aware of it in the morning. Okay, and just to get back in touch with me, John was willing to come to the meeting tonight but I said, I really didn't think that was necessary since all he was asking for and planning on was exactly what we've done in the past. Yeah. Yes, Brenda. Somebody has to be responsible for, and we need to make sure we know who that's gonna be for turning in the slips so we can get reimbursed. Last year they didn't get turned into Sarah. So she wasn't able to get the reimbursement. So I don't know if it's the person running the green up or if it's Sarah who really is responsible for doing this but we lost out on the $500 last year. Okay, and that's just for the tires, right? I believe so. Sarah, is that just tires they cover? It's $500 for everything but pretty much it covers the tires. We still pick up, we don't, it doesn't fully reimburse the tires. Right, last year the expenses were over eight. So. Well, what I would suggest is if it's our road crew taking the tires over there that they get the slip and they turn it into Sarah, that would be mine. That's usually the way it works. And then it's also on the receipt from Kasella. So somehow I missed it this year. I don't know why, I mean, everything was kind of, that was just the beginning of COVID and everything was a little disorganized. So Vic, if you would just make Shane aware that he needs to turn those into Sarah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anything else on green up day? Any other correspondence? Sarah? Nope. If I have two things, zoning administrator asked me if we were going to, we had previously told him that we would appoint a deputy or assistant or whatever the right word is a zoning administrator in case he was available. And we have not done that. Did you talk to Cindy? No, Sarah. No, but I have a question. If the planning commission nominates a zoning administrator, it seems to me as though they should probably nominate an assistant zoning administrator. Yeah, I agree. You're probably right. Yeah. So we should reach out to them. Sure. And Sarah had mentioned to me that maybe it should be her for reasons that she handles a lot of the stuff already. I don't know if she still wants to do that, but if not, we had thought that maybe Dave could fill in that role also, but we can pass that on. I think Dave's got enough of this play right now. All right. Okay, I'm just saying it makes sense to me to have somebody. So let's make sure we follow that. And then my favorite last thing for all of you is to get your town email set up. Yeah, mine is set up. I do have something, Peter, before we go. Oh, okay. We've got a lot of things. We got the fire department thing we're gonna be talking about. We've got our goals that we talked about and I don't even know what's on our goals anymore. There's Welch Park. We've got a lot of things to discuss. And I think that the select board needs to meet more than every other week for a while. And maybe it's just a short meeting to take care of one item and get it off our list. But that's my opinion. I think we've got so many things we can't take care of it even in a two or three hour night. Well, and I also think there's real value in dedicating a meeting, for instance, dedicating a meeting solely to the fire department. Right. That's good. Yeah. Yep. I agree. So I think as it goes along here, we should just set up some of those meetings and probably between now and the summer, for most people, there's a relatively good time to have extra meetings whereas once we... I think the Welch Park one, because there's a bunch of bills that we had to pay this month for Welch Park. Well, we're not, I don't want to get in. I've been doing some work on the Welch Park and Darinda and I've been talking about it. But yes, we need to get back to it, definitely. So with that, and you've got your order signed, Darinda, you're good? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. I would like to thank Darinda for our checks that we got in the mail. Oh, yes, our big page. Our year-long salary. I was very excited to see those. I felt like we had already gotten it. Like, it was like, it was already time again. It was time again. And the year goes by fast. Okay, well, thank you, everybody. We've got a few people we need to work on for appointments and my purposefully thought tonight was not the night to deal with our goals for this year. But I think we know some of the items that need to be on that list. And I would suggest we discuss them at our next meeting. So, to Steve's point, when is the next meeting? Are you gonna wait until the first week of April or? We could actually meet next Tuesday. Oh my God. I think having the first extra meeting in April would be good. We've had a lot this month already. Our time clerk might roll a curl up in a ball in the corner if we. Why is it that? He's one of them that needs to be a whole meeting devoted to because Sarah needs to have somebody in that office where she can take time off. I mean, there is, she's got double the vacation hours that she should have and she needs to take time off and she's pigeonholing herself by having Dave take time away from the office to become the Lister. So I think you've got another can of worms there. Sorry, Sarah, but I mean, she deserves time off and every time we schedule another meeting she feels like she has to be the one there handling it. And it's just, I don't see it working for her. I agree. Well, she's going to need to go on a book tour pretty quick. So. Yeah, and maybe to Poland. You can get her out of town for a while. She's going to Poland. She's saving her time off to go to Poland. Yeah, I'm aware of that also. So anyway, but I couldn't agree. I couldn't agree more. No, I mean, it's all falling. It's all falling on her. So, you know, I think something needs to be done there. Right. So the question is, is Dave only willing to work 20 hours a week? Is that his maximum or is that our maximum? You don't want him to fall into full-time situation. Otherwise, you then have a full-time employee with all the big benefits, retirement, the whole, you're talking a whole different pay structure. Right. So if he works extra hours, if he goes over 20 hours once, he automatically is a full-time employee or no? It's not 20. It's 30. I think it's 32 or something like that. But it's not more than once. It's so many hours per year or after so many weeks. So, so all on. Sarah, did you have something you wanted to say? I just want to say that Dave has no interest in doing full-time work. And yeah, 32 is the magic hour. So and this is, I mean, spring is going to be a very long list of seasons. So I'm planning on taking off some time in June if I can. Yeah, you can. Yeah. You can. All right. All right. All right. This is not your life. It is, but. I'm surprised. All I'm trying to suggest, guys, is to have Dave potentially cover more hours when Sarah is away, to me, might be possible. As long as we don't go over the maximum hours. And I understand he has to be, he has to be willing to do it. But it's great that he's going to be a listener. I think that's exciting. But I agree with it. Dorenda, it's a setback potentially on the other side, depending on how the hours work. I mean, just, I mean, a lot of select board, a lot of town clerks actually just close their offices for a few days a week. I mean, it doesn't have to, one week in the summer where the office is open only three days, as opposed to four days is not going to, it's not going to rock the boat too much. Although I don't know what the way real estate is happening today, that might not be the case. That's one of the reasons why I'm swamped. I mean, we're having real estate sales in this town are out of this world. They're just crazy. I had to order more flat maps today because we've got so many subdivisions, so many new maps, a house on Notch Road that was valued at 280,000, sold for 380,000. I mean, it's out of control out there. So, I mean, it's a very different, it's a fairly difficult time for our town right now. Somehow, some way, you need to and deserve to have time off. And at the same time, we need to have the office covered. So, if Dave can't do it, if there are other people who can, I don't know what the answer is, but I couldn't agree with you more, Dorenda, we need to deal with that. So that's a good thing to put on our plate. We don't want our town clerk and select board assistant to burn out, blow a fuse, blow a circuit breaker. Wouldn't be good. But I'm suggesting that we discuss, when we discuss our goals at the next meeting, that we say, okay, we need a meeting for this, we need a meeting, at least one meeting for that, we need another meeting for this, and we start having those meetings. But I don't think we're ready to have a meeting next week. I'm not ready. Neither. Okay. Anything else, anybody? Are we all set? We're good. Good. Have a good evening, everybody. Thank you. Plenty of work to be done. Thank you, everyone. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye, Randy. Bye.