 All right, we'll call the meeting to order 604, 605. Anything that needs to be adjusted on the agenda? Yeah, Mascoma Bank is gonna end up going to the next meeting. Our lawyer's working with Mascoma on changing some language he didn't like in the loan. So we'll delete out the Mascoma Bank piece. Anything else? Not that I'm aware of. Okay, just need a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So moves. Dave said, says he's waving his hand, he's seconded. Second Dave, okay, all in favor? All right. All right. Heard yourself Dave. Yeah, we have one appointment. So we have Scott Putney here to talk with us today in regards to the energy committee for the White River Valley Energy Resilience Coordinator. So we'll let you, yeah, you can go first. Get you in and out, quickly. Special? No. Bottom line is, I'm here because of high-ranking. Basically it's a group of people who are trying to get a balance together to hire somebody to help do the numbers, try to get grants and that sort of thing for the talents. The model they're using is one where the wealthier towns, Woodstock, Norwich, Bernard, some of those towns got together and hired one. And so there is a model for that type of thing. And I believe that it will at some point save the town money and help it. I'll try to answer questions. Actually, Nicole who was the head of the Bethel Energy Committee got done and it turns out she has transitioned. So she's the head of this group. The group is being aided by two rivers on a voluntary basis and vital communities. But she is the volunteer head person. And basically it kind of fell into my lap when she left, there was only two of us on the thing. So I'm trying to keep the Energy Committee alive just so that you know, we've actually added three people and Jean comes very early. So we're making progress. Yeah, this is what we're just pointing. I've noticed a little bit here. That's great. That's great. And Nicole, at one point we had two law students. So Nicole and the law students kind of went down this rabbit hole of trying to put things into the town's rules or documents, which that wasn't my thing. My thing was trying to help poor people and get information out to people. In any case, the reason I'm here is what the Bethel Energy Committee as a group would like to support that town of Bethel joining this group of other towns. I believe there's six that are kind of committed. Three that are maybe committed. And then there's another four or so that haven't seen to show any interest. So the big push is to try to get some money into for this coming fiscal year. What would be really great if the town would allocate some money in the budget for this going forward. If not, we'd like to have you put it into a vote at town meeting. So if I get this right, it looks like if the active towns participate, our share would be 12,290. Well, of course, depends on who joins. It's just like herding cats. Yeah, it is. Basically trying, nobody wants to pay more and Pittsfield doesn't have as much many people or as much money. And so they try to do it by grand list. So they divide up the grand list by all the towns that are in and that would be your share. Randolph is the biggest town. Bethel is in the middle. And then Pittsfield and Stockbridge are less. I don't know if you want to put the towns up there you can, but. I have to, do you want to see the PowerPoint? One of the, there was quite a few questions in other towns, Randolph has been for their select board, Brookfield has been before their select board and someone has been before South Royalton select board. A lot of the, and I realize all the towns are strapped because of the floods and just general town things. But I think in the long run, it'll save money and keep us ahead of things instead of trying to do it ourselves. So I don't know if you have any questions or anything that I can. I have a question that, so I know that you guys were two rivers was acting in just an advisory capacity you're just kind of attending the meetings and. Yeah, they try, they're basically trying they're helping us come up with what if we hire somebody as a as a two rivers employee? Yeah, because they said I had a, I had a back and forth with them a little bit just saying that obviously if you, if towns agreed for sure to pony up the money then they would bring on more staff. They also said that depending how many people joined they may be able to manage some of the stuff excuse me in house now and they are bringing in new staff at the end of the month of this month or next. So they're already staffing up without our dollars and but they did say that they would be willing if a bunch of people joined to stop, which would be nice you need to house them somewhere. We don't have to roam. And again, you don't know how dealing with one select board try to deal with six or eight. And everybody doesn't want to pay more than their share and what are we going to get back? I look at it a little differently. We share a school with South Royal and so if South Royals and it gets $12 more than Bethel, fine, Randolph who has people go to work up there and we need Randolph in the hospital. If they find a way to make the hospital better we all benefit. So, and again, at the end of the day it all washes out but it frustrates me that each town says, well, how much am I going to save? And all that sort of stuff, which is impossible to figure out. It's just hard like you said because money is so tight. I mean, we're looking at leasing options. We're looking at 12 and a half percent of our ERAF which is our share of all the flood damage that we had. So we're looking at paying 12 and a half percent of that. And like I said, so it just, our health insurance premium just went up. And so coming out of the gate, I mean, I always attempt budgets at level funding and see where I can get once I start, but we're coming out. It's a tough year. I totally understand, but one of the things is there is money out there today. There is. By the time we have another election I'm sure those numbers are going to be cut or slashed. Yeah. So again, I'm just trying to explain again, as a group, we support the idea. Absolutely. No, as you should. You wouldn't come here to say, you don't support it. No. So it's interesting. I know I read through it and I'm sure this report has questions for you. But just an example of things, we've talked a million times about what if we put curtains up in here? Plus you can't because or whatever. Window addresses would work. Yeah. We talked about that. And we did, I've actually applied for, there's another through the Merck because we've got the 4,000. So I've already applied for the other grant that's open for the town office as well as this. They just haven't scheduled our energy, what's the word I want, energy officials. They're preliminary audit, thank you. So, but we have done that to open up because I guess you can get, if our memory serves, you can get up to half a million. So, and you certainly. So you use the 4,000? No, this is beside the 4,000 because you qualified for the 4, you were able to apply for another one, which we did. Well, and that's, and again, that's those, but those are things that with each town doing those things, if we did it as a group. Right. And each town is doing this and we're fighting against each other instead of working as a team. Yeah, I got one. And that's the whole goal of this. And again, speaking for the energy committee, we would put our, if we were in charge of the 4,000, we would put it towards this campaign to take. And again, I don't know if it was the last one year, two years, that's the thing that I think is the thing that we need to worry about. You get into this, but it takes two years to do it. So now you're doing it for two years and that sort of thing. So, if you've got any other questions, I'll try to answer them. Two, yeah, two quick things. One, our energy committee has said we would give 4,000. So have seven of the towns that said they would take their merp $4,000 and put it in for this first year. Is that, is that if their select boards agree or? Well, yeah. And it's if their select boards agree to go into the program. Okay, perfect. So that's $35,000 toward the total for the first year. We can do that because it's a pilot program for the first year. And the other thing is with two rivers, there were a number of options available that the committee looked at. And the committee looked at the option of two rivers managing the program, but not housing it. Because if they manage it, it costs 80% or something that becomes their overhead cost. And if they don't, they charge us 10%. So that we then added that into the salary. So 80% if they house them, 10% if you house them somewhere else. Right. And so this proposal is for the less expensive. And that person could be literally housed in a town or that person could be housed out of his or her home. But the point is that we've, all of the different options and so on and so forth that we looked at, and there's a little bit different from what two rivers ordinarily does. So it's not just about grant writing. It's also about recruiting, training, broadening it out so that individual citizens in towns have educational opportunities and can learn and so that everybody saves, not just the town budgets. That's great. Up there and paying the extra is a far better thing than have a corner of the town hall where these people work in Bethel or Randolph or whatever. It's just kind of, it's all centralized. So this person isn't trying to go to some other place. And they also deal with most of that extra is they're dealing with the social security. They're dealing with all the insurances. They're dealing with all that sort of thing which they've already got the infrastructure. That's included in 10%. But again, I still think it's, I think it's better to have it right there. And what? You may have them housed at two rivers. What's that? Are you saying it's better to have them right there meaning housed at two rivers or not working remotely? I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. Well, again, I think having at two rivers instead of having it at another location. Yeah. I mean, the person gonna go to the other so he doesn't have to pay. You don't have to pay for heat. You're gonna have to pay heat to eat one place or another. I see what you're saying. I'm just, I just think it's nickel dining again. And I don't see the additional benefit to save the money. That's my personal opinion. So again, I don't know if you guys, you guys obviously don't make a decision now. But again, what I would really like is a line item in the thing that you don't use it, fine. If you do, I mean, you still have control over it. And, but I think the problem is what they're running up against is they can't get enough through town meeting and whatever and obviously this money wouldn't be spent until the next physical year. And so if we wait for another year cycle or that much further behind and so the goal is to at least get some sort of support from the select board. And if you read this thing that talks about questions from Randolph and South Royalton, I think they pretty much answered them to the best they could and probably a lot better than I can. Thank you. I mean, I think, you know, I guess my opinion that a few things would be, you know, the first part is, you know, testing the waters to see who is an active member and who isn't an active member to see how. Well, that's kind of a chicken budget advice. If Randolph and South Royalton and Bethel and Braintree and Pittsfield wait to see who's in, somebody's got to commit something. Yeah. Even if it's not money. Well, I mean, there's just so many layers to this. There's the, you know, who pays for what portions of it. And, you know, if somebody like all of a sudden like a Randolph site, not to do it, they're a third of the pie, right? So then, and then let's say everybody wants to do it, right? Then there's the discussions on what are we actually getting for our money, right? Like, so if you're going to put in X amount of dollars, what are you going to get out of that? That as a business. Well, that's really hard to quantify. It's impossible to quantify. But for example, Rochester just got a charging thing that they, their committee went through a bunch of hoops and I guess basically they ended up getting green mountain power to put it in there. But that takes hours and hours of stuff. So if one person is, we're talking about trying to put a charging station or two in the parking at our meetings and hopefully we'll have more information to let you guys know. But just so you're going to retire in there, that's something that we're trying to figure out. Well, I guess what I'm saying to the committee, my opinion, everybody else can weigh in too, is, you know, if we are at the point where we are ready to make a financial commitment in this case to hiring or being a part of a hiring of an individual, then I think that we need to make sure that we have the information, not just what's in here, but where is that money going? And what is that going to get us in return? And that has to come in many different shapes. One is, you know, if you're going to hire somebody for $100,000 a year, then I would expect that person to do $3 million worth of projects a year, you know? So, and then where would those go? And like you said, one project could take a lot of time. So how is that going to be shared around eight to 13 members? And then I think you have to go even farther than that. I mean, not just what the state goals are here, but at the end of the day, if we as a town commit a certain amount of money, what does that get us? Not a charging station or window dressing or whatever, but what does that actually get us? Like, how far does that put us ahead on greenhouse gases and temperature and stuff like that? And I know the answer is, we don't know. But if we're going to make a financial commitment, I think we owe, and I'm not saying, I'm saying if you're going to go to put this on the warning, I think you have to be prepared to answer those questions. And so, and I think one of those questions is almost can't be answered, that you need to start thinking about how you're going to answer that question, is if we spend all this money 30 years down the road, what is 30 years going to look like in this town? Well, and that's the answer that nobody can get right now. Nobody can quantify the answer. It becomes, well, we need to do our best part for the environment and this and that, but what is it getting us? If we spend $300,000 over 10 years, what is that getting us? What is it going to look like? Is the temperature going to be lower, higher? What's it going to look like? What's the doubt? I think that the climate change is really, is really kind of a secondary thing. That's a goal, obviously, but that isn't a primary thing. The primary thing is to raise, to save money over time, instead of just throwing the money out the window, hopefully with help, we can get educated about all these different things as far as the charging station. If we've got a charging station, will that or won't that, will that help the rest of the sandwich shop? Will that help anything else in town? I don't know, I don't know the answer. I can't quantify it, but that's something that might bring people to town to come, they charge. It would only deal with it if we can actually show a profit or at least not a loss, but all that stuff takes a whole lot of time and energy. One of our new members is working diligently on that. Basically, it's basically set up right now so that you could have a charging station. Actually, I could charge my car there tonight, if I had a deer with it, but my point is the infrastructure is there. The problem is, how did it get the money? It used to when we did this before, it was a credit card thing, now they have apps and all this sort of thing, so the whole thing has changed, so we're looking at that again, but that's the hard part, is how are we going to make money? We've got a little bit of time. What else do you get? As you get someone who begins to take a look at the town in terms of its energy expenditures, its climate greenhouse gas emissions, begins to look at what we have to gain by doing X, Y, or Z. We have somebody who's dedicated to those applications and those grants, not just applying for them, but managing them when they come in. We get that whether we have a flood event that takes our staff away from doing that kind of thing, or not because we now, for $12,000 a year, we have somebody dedicated to doing that. We have towns that have done this in the past in other configurations have found that they have saved enough money to pay for the initial outlay. Towns for mom? Yes. So in two rivers. So I'm not going to guarantee that, but you're asking for deliverables. Those are some of the deliverables that have been identified. The deliverables are that there would be a regional view in terms of small towns right here along the White River. That are, a disadvantage with two rivers is that they have so many towns that we get a very small piece of the pie. With eight towns, we get a much bigger piece of the pie whether we're, regardless of how it's, how we're funding. And the funding scheme in this proposal is for using the grand list so that towns are charged according to quote, their ability to pay. The, we are, so those are some things that have been proposed. What being asked for tonight is not, is Bethel willing to be one of the towns? We can't come up with a specific dollar amount until we know which towns are going to be in the game. And, it's a car for the horse or the horse before the car. And this has been, and these conversations have been going on for a year and a half. Yeah. And that's, so we're at the point of saying to the towns, okay, it's time to say, are we going to move forward or are we not? I know you've already looked at all the town things, but have you done anything to improve the energy things? Let's talk about redoing the town garage. And I know you're supposed to look into energy efficiency and all that sort of stuff, but if you've got this one guy that knows about energy efficient grants that may you could apply for if you put energy efficiencies into your building, it might save you some of the cost of building the building and also saving you the helping the climate change and saving you money going forward. No, obviously we would do that. I mean, when we do projects, I did one of the town office and you register with efficiency Vermont and they can help you with that as far as what you get for grants and what's there for savings. And of course that would be part of the RFP of building it. We understand there's now a residential building energy standards as long as well as commercial, but just to clarify a statement that you made, Jean, when you said that the grand list is our ability to pay. I think that's kind of a little bit, maybe not a true statement in the sense that, or it's a misleading statement in the sense that the grand list is a grand list, but the people's ability to pay is not necessarily based on the grand list. I mean, that's obviously what drives the taxes, but the more we raise the budget based on the grand list increases people's taxes. So I think somebody on the fixed income just because we have a grand list that's increased doesn't necessarily make it any easier on them in terms of comparing town to town. Yeah, it's the only way to really do it. It's a way. Like a per capita. Well, there's per capita, but per capita is... Yeah, that's what you... In the conversations with the committee, the committee said... Quite a few of those different options. Yeah. Grand list seems to be the simplest total population. I lost my train of thought. But if you look at different town, the average income of different towns, actually Bethel is not one of the highest ones. No, our median household income grew after the census. Theoretically, Pittsfield has got a lot of property but not many people. So how do you even it out? It's hard to be equitable. I know Dave Eddy has a question. He's online. I was wondering if the search committee for this regional manager has done much work there because you're going to be looking... You're going to pay a fairly substantial salary, which unfortunately in this mode of time, you'll get probably 90% of your applicants won't be qualified. And then you're telling what they're going to do if they're going to be seriously qualified. So is there anybody out there just waiting to come fill that slot and work for us? I mean, that would be my question. Here, we want 130 grand and we'll go... The first guy that says, yes, you'll do it, we'll throw that money in his lap and this is what we want and hope the hell he does it. Well, I think that's another good reason to go with two rivers is that they would be the ones that interviewed, the ones that would hire these people. And that makes it a little bit more expensive. But two rivers says K-1000 budget. That includes 140,000 some odd dollars for salary and benefits. Two rivers is the quote employer. So it would be not that they're going to necessarily be set loose to find the person without any input from the steering committee. There would certainly be that kind of input. But two rivers is the employer. So the 10% fee is them being... The 10% fee is for they're doing the hiring and the firing and the supervision and handling all of the bookkeeping and the payroll and all the benefits. That whole thing is being done by two rivers. Are there people that'll do it for that? That's what they're hiring for right now when they're hiring planners. I have a question. It says pilot year and second year. Is this just going to be a two year project or is this something that's going to continue on that taxpayers have to pony up every year? Two answers. One, we can never as a town talk about more than one year because of the way that the budget goes. But the first year we're talking about using the $4,000 from seven of the participating towns that have already told us that their energy committees or their boards have said that they would do that. That's $35,000 off the top. Seven times four is 28. Sorry, I'm a math guy. He's saying 11 towns times four. I just heard seven. Oh, seven. Seven is seven. Okay, so 28,000. That's the active town, seven. But that's only if the board's agree. Have you had any select boards agree yet? Come out and say they will definitely put this in their budget. It's what you're, you're doing. And the bottom line is we're trying to get answers. Yeah. We don't have, we can't definitively say this is what's. It's hard too, because it's just the start of, I'm just started today working on budget. So by the time we, you know, if this, you know, we put everything in it first to see what sticks and then see what the budget looks like. And then they can start going from there. So I think it's hard to commit or so early because we haven't, you know, our first budget meeting will be the 13th, but we're also later on the agenda, we're talking about policing, which is a big, a big number for us. I totally understand. I know you do. You're good with money. Yeah. I mean, the, whether a second year is hopefully it would go for more than that, but towns and the experience with a consortium of towns down in Sharon and in that area that did this several years ago, they had one town back out after a couple of years and another town came in after a couple of years. So it's a, it's an ongoing program. But it wouldn't have been honest or fair for the, from the committee's perspective to say, oh, it's only going to cost you $12,000 a year. Well, no, it's going to cost more than that the second year. And thereafter, but every, but obviously towns are going to decide whether or not at the end of the day it, it turned out to be worth it. That makes sense. I mean, if you had some people that don't participate, then you're, I get what you're saying here. So it shows like your 12,000. Okay. So you do more. So 12,000, if those people stick 10,000, if more 8,000. So yeah, I get what you're saying. So, so the, the other thing to consider is that we are experiencing increasing costs of energy and, and no matter what we do, one of the reasons for acting on climate change is to, at the end of the day, reduce energy costs and to make the town more resilient. That's a, and, and, and by assisting low income members of the community and so on we, everybody, you know, costs go down. Yeah. Linley, why don't you go ahead? Yeah, I have two things, one's a comment and then one's a question. The comment would be maybe for Jean or for Scott. Jean, you mentioned that the towns that have done this sort of consortium model have seen savings. Can you request from two rivers to see what those numbers look like? I think whether it's to the select board or whether this goes in front of the voters, that sort of data would be really vital to be able to answer some of these questions. And then the second, you might not know the answer to, but I'm just kind of curious in terms of the role of this individual, I've heard mention of sort of grant writing and maybe grant administrating and sort of thinking creatively about the cost of this and sort of the, the ultimate cost of this, not just to the individual towns, but maybe to the overall consortium. Is there an opportunity, because often when you write a grant, the grant writer writes in a piece about grant administration and so part of the grant is actually funding their time to do the work of the grant and if that could be, if in fact, let's say they write a grant for the consortium, maybe some of that cost goes towards the pool to lower the cost for the entire consortium, but also if they write a grant for a specific town like Bethel is replacing the town garage and they write a grant and they get a grant towards this end to do some of that work, could that offset some of the cost towards Bethel. And so it would just be interesting to me to know a little bit more about that type of capacity within this role and what's allowed or not allowed, you know, two rivers might come back and say, that's not how it works. That would go towards our overhead or they might say, that's not how it works. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. That's not how it works actually. We can write that in and then it becomes a way to lower costs. And obviously, again, we can't know this year to year, but if that's sort of in the thinking, I think that that could become a selling point for this model. I can ask. I assume that information is available. I don't know how. How guarded it is. And again, we don't know what we don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if there are grants to help pay for this person's work, as you mentioned, but again, we don't know what we don't know. And again, every little, every little town trying to do this on their own. And it's great. It's a free volunteer work, but it, it's, it's not very efficient. And that's why, that's why the committee. We're going to continue doing our thing, regardless of what you guys want to do. We just want to use, we want, we support this. Because we think it's, I think at the end of the day, it's going to benefit the town. But we can't guarantee that. And the proof will be at the, it's when we're done, but I strongly believe the town will be better off for it. Right. Well, we can, we still have some more time. We have. And for more meetings before we have to finish up our budget. So we'll have some opportunities to talk about that and see how our budget comes along with shapes up there. I can reach out to two rivers to find out about the numbers. That way you don't have to, that way I can just find out in the next pack. I just made a note to figure out they have. I'd be interested to know what these other groups, they've done it for a couple of years now and what their actual payback is. Yeah, I'll see what I can get from two rivers and I'll forward it to you if they have numbers. Is two rivers doing the other groups? You know, I knew the rivers. The other group, the person was actually a two rivers employee staffed at two rivers. Is that Harry? Yeah. Okay, I can reach out. Not Harry. Not Harry? No. It's fine. It's not Harry. Okay, I can find out who it is. I'll message him and find out. I know you don't always enjoy the technology part. So I'll let you know what they say. I digress a little, but it seems like I looked at the town report and we do not have a representative to two rivers. Yeah, we do. Yeah. So all right, I'll get the, um, I'll get that number. I'll find out who it is. Okay. All righty. Well, thank you for coming out this evening. Yeah. I don't know. We really didn't decide anything. So they're going to want to know. What we, what we did, and I guess it's on, are we presented? There you go. You presented. And I know as much about what you're going to do as, as much as we're going to say. We need to do more research on. Include. Uh, what have been, what has been the prior experience in terms of savings. Um, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what more. The meeting or whatever. But if you and I sit down and regurgitate the meeting and make a report to the group. It's a, it's a kind of a volunteer group that's trying to do this and instead of holding them up. So that work. I just want to make sure that we get. Recorded. Um, I don't know what the questions are. And I hear them about deliverables. Well, I think, I think there's a lot of questions. I mean, I guess it depends on how long we want to talk about this tonight. I mean, just, I personally would have, I have dozens of questions in regards to this. And, and I don't think that you probably will sway me into this decision. Unless you expanded this role. Being. You know, I think for a small town, I mean, you know, you know, I've been in the city for about four weeks. I've been in the city for about six months now, I've been in the city for about six months now. Six, that's all we manage. Six buildings. One of which is the school, which manages itself. And they have their own coordinator that does. That does. Um, structural enhancements and all through the state. So that really brings it down to five. Vive. One of which is the rec facility, which really doesn't work all the time. You know, so we're, we're really, you know, what, at the end of the day, person to manage four buildings that, you know, maybe over a 30 year period you're going to do some enhancements to four buildings. So I guess, you know, again, we can go through this all night. I don't want to, I don't want to argue, but I'd like to add five because basically the school's budget is actually more than the town budget. So any money you save at the school basically saves the town money. Whether it comes out in the school budget or your budget, it still saves the town money. So I would include the school. I'm on the school board. We're already 10 years ahead of the town. We're already doing energy efficiency things at the school that we're not doing at the town. The school operates completely differently. They might, it's not even on town land school, school, they don't own the building, you know, it's its own identity. So what I'm saying is, at the end of the day, we could make suggestions to the school, but they do their own, they're going to follow their own rules. And everything that they do comes from the state. So it's, you know, it's, it's a different path to get there, but it's not, not town related. So I guess, you know, at the end of the day, we're managing five buildings. So I mean, what, how much energy project projects are we going to do in five buildings? Or they're, so what would, you know, if we're investing this kind of money, what is our payback? Not just on project wise, but if we did all the projects we want to do, what does that look like? What is the payback at the end, other than saying that we're being better stewards of the earth? I mean, what is our actual payback? So I mean, if, if you and I are contributing money to this, what is our actual payback at the end of the day, 20 years, 40 years, 60 years down the road, I think that, you know, we got to have those answers. I mean, they're all great ideas, but what is it going to look like once we invest their money? Maybe our money's better tied up if we took $13,000 a year and kept it locally and we did little things in town. Maybe, maybe we get more out of it. I don't know, but I just, I think, you know, and we need to know the commitment of our neighbors. I don't think any of us wants to get, get full steam ahead into this and, and not know that Randolph's not on board or Royalton's not on board. So, but we can go, we can go all night on this because everybody's got their own opinions. And just because we have opinions doesn't mean that we're not, you know, we're anti climate people. We're, you know, we look at things a little differently. That's all. If we do nothing and if we do nothing, we all go down the tubes. Because of what's going on in the climate. And, and it's, I'm not saying make a decision tonight, but I am trying to say it's not just about the dollars. There is an investment in the planet that must be made. And we hear that all the time, Gene, but nobody, nobody will do it. Not on the world, not, not in the United States or any other country will tell you exactly what you're going to get once you invest this money, Gene. This is the question. Now, everybody is panicking because we're all, you know, the world's come into an end and we need to go do all this, but nobody is telling us at the end of the day that when you take the greenhouse gases, which are such a small component of the overall atmosphere, and Bethel is a micro dot. What are we actually getting out of that? Right? What are we getting from that? I think that's the question you need to ask yourselves when we're going to, you know, we're going to go into a tight year again, where everything's going up. Inflation is running rampant and we're going to have to go to people and say, we need another penny because we want to, we want to put this coordinator position together that we don't even know what's going to come out of it. Right? I mean, I think we have to be. We've spent a year and a half trying to answer that question. We have given you deliverables. We have a job description. We have shared that. We have done well. I think the answer is on the table right now that no other board is committed to this. That's correct. If this was such a dire thing. Because we are in the process. Somebody on this sheet would be committed and not a single person is committed yet. Not one. This is the part of the process with, they've gone to other towns and we have, they have the same reaction that you do and we'll try to get the answers. But we want, we'll, I'll try to get as many answers as I can and we'll be back just to, but they're whatever. I, I got a plug in car. I get 78 miles per gallon of gas that I use. I'm saving money and whatever. I'm a believer I'm just from my own experience. My insulated house cost me my height and with my solar panels cost me $300 a year from a heat and electricity. I don't know why that can't be expanded to the town. And I, I think the sooner, the sooner you start to pay back, the better it is. That's my, my feeling. But anyway, I'll reach out to two rivers and, and see what we can get I will try to get as many answers as I can. Well, I'll let you know what I hear from two rivers. I'll send them an email. So, and what, and when I get an answer, I'll forward it to you. I'm happy. Okay. We appreciate you coming. So, all right. Did Linley or Dave, did you guys have anything more? I could, I could go with you, Chris. We could talk all night. There's, and I guess my first, my biggest comment is we've already got monies that we need to spend. We have the Sand Hill project. We have our e-wrap money. We have the town garage. We have things we have to spend. So, you add this extra penny on and I don't know, is it the straw that breaks your camel's back? I don't know that answer. And as far as needing a $140,000 person to get to what is most energy efficient out there for our construction or whatever, I went to trades and I am bombarded constantly by people who want to sell me the better, best, new, energy efficient quality items, whether, and I'm an electrician and electrical stuff, heating stuff, plumbing stuff, those guys are all out there pushing their product. So, while I agree that we need to do something, I'm not sure that what we're talking about is what we need to do right now. Thanks, Dave. Linley, did you have anything? Okay. All right. So, like I said, we have, I think, what, four more meetings? Yeah, we may have a special budget meeting. I can't remember. I have a, we're trying to arrange with the fire chief for this week and the public works, which is the bigger portion, listers I can kick out. I mean, I can kick out a bunch of the budget in a couple of days. We'll have four more board meetings where we'll be talking about everything and the budget and we'll have at least one budget informational meeting. So, there'll be plenty of opportunities for people to see the full budget and as well as expand on certain items in the budget if, you know, if there's a need for it or an ask for it. And there's also, there's other ways of putting things on the warning too. So, just in case that... If nothing else, if we can't get it done this year, it would be nice to at least have a, what do you call it, a poll. God knows we don't have enough of them. Right. So, see what people think, down-needing or something. You could, the energy committee could do an exit poll so that we're a little poll that people could take. You could work with the town clerk about that to see if people want to answer. I'm sure the townspeople want the same answers that you do. Yeah, probably. So, but it's, but it's still a way to do it. Yep. All right. Understanding is the town and the take action on energy. It was a non-binding resolution several years back. My understanding is that it's also in the town plan that this board is adopted, that we should be active. Not specifically how. No. That's, I think, I think we're at that point now. But anyway, I don't want people going any later than you need to. All right. Great. So, we will move from this conversation to the public comment. So, if there's anything public comment that wasn't on the agenda this evening. Now's the chance. So, I'll look online first before in person. So, Paul. Hi. Can you hear me? Yep. Nope. Okay. Hey, just a couple of things. Good to be back. It's been a couple of meetings that I haven't been able to be there, but things are looking good. I want to thank everybody for their good vibrations and well wishes and everything. And I want to congratulate Gene on the window dresses project. Seems like it really has a positive impact on the folks in the region. And it's good to see Dave back. I'm sure that's just cranberry juice he's got there. But it's good to see him back and active too. So, thank you. It's been a little while, but I'm glad to be back. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul. Anybody in person that isn't here for an agenda item that may want to speak now? I'll hold you peace. Okay. So we'll move off of public comment. And we had at the last meeting, we had some citizens that had come to the public comment piece that kind of talk about some of the issues that we have in and around town on various different things. And as a town, well, of course, some of those issues are easy and some are much difficult to deal with. And we said that we'll be talking about our budget. And when we go through the budget, we're always analyzing what's working, what's not working. So policing was going to be another discussion point coming into the budget season on what is our options. Currently, what we're doing is it working? Is it not working? And then what may be our options? So I guess tonight was kind of starting that conversation of, you know, I think we all can kind of agree. Feel free to, if I speak at a line, board members, but it sounds like that we've really tried hard with the Constable end of policing. And for many years in our small community that the Constable worked out fairly well. And maybe some of that was situational because, you know, we had a unique resource that we could share with other towns. And we did have kind of an individual or two that were in and around our town and some neighboring towns on, you know, what we'll call a more full-time basis more often. And then, you know, a couple years ago when, you know, the labor force in general started having struggles as well as policing, it became very difficult for us to fill the hours and the commitment that the board had made to the townspeople, which was seeing a 20 hours a week commitment of having some type of enforcement out there, that speeding or, you know, being seen or other things. Last year we had looked through some options so at that time, and over the years anyways, just to back up, I mean our Constable budget I think, you know, six years ago was like $15,000. So and now we're just under 60. So we're, so we have grown that over the last few years and some of that has been just the budget wasn't realistic. Some of it was, you know, the cost to have an individual cost more just like any other job out there right now pays more. And then last year we started talking about, you know, we're not getting the commitment of the hours because our two Constables that we have are needed elsewhere. So they have full-time jobs and both of their identities are shorthanded. So any overtime, it used to be pretty much they'd come to Bethel to do overtime. And now they don't have the time available to come to Bethel and do overtime. And last year we paid kind of on the low end of the pay scale, actually below the low end of the pay scale. So last year what we tried to do as a board was let's raise that up so that we could maybe entice them to want to come and do some hours, which I think has made it more enticing, but at the same time I think their commitments are elsewhere. And so I think at this point the Constable into things for us is not working. And it's no fault of trying because we definitely have tried different ways of doing it. But we're just kind of in a different time where nobody can get help. And if they did get help, they're going to go probably to a full-time place where they can get full benefits and full pay. And I think the days of finding that unique person is probably over unless you happen to have one. So at this point it's kind of what do we do as a community to validate our commitment that we made to the town or that the town's individuals had asked for years ago when we had done some polling. So really at this point our options are going to a full-time person in the town or going to having the Sheriff's Department do some work in the town. And we talked about this last year and the reason why we steered away from it is if you have full-time commitment in your own town, so for years when I got on the board everybody would say, we don't want a police department. That's the last thing we want, right? So we want to keep it small, keep it in-house but small. And the challenge we've got to the point now is nobody wants to come and do part-time help. So we'd have to go full-time somewhere, right? But the difficulties as being a town is if you go to a full-time then you start having to pay retirement and benefits and it gets very expensive. At the same time we don't really have the infrastructure to house a police department person full-time. And then it comes with a lot of liability and a lot of training and a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that just towns, you know, we're talking about an energy coordinator but I mean we have one individual that is the, you know, the waterhead, the public works head. I mean so then you would have to be the police department head and we just really don't. It's kind of almost, that option's almost not there. So I think that's a true statement. And to just say as I came from a town where I did oversee a police department and you're talking building with a Sally port and liability, here's an understatement. I won't tell you how many times we had to go to court and just it's difficult because you currently as a town manager, I don't have time to oversee a police department because to do that you have to make sure that that person has to be trained and there is very specific regulations. The Vermont criminal justice training council has taken that over and I did, I do want to just say too, I already talked to the current commander of the state, police barracks, the lieutenant there and he's, he doesn't have time. He said I got people working doubles. I can't take on a contract. So the option for Bethel is the Windsor County Sheriff or as Chris said, bringing somebody in which, oh go publicly on the record as saying I am not in favor of that as a person who's overseen a police department until you do it. You don't fully understand the commitment of time and liability that it opens you up to, at least with the Sheriff's Department, if you're to contract then you're basically transferring that liability to somebody else. It's their responsibility to make sure their officers adhere to all the state statutes and have all the proper training and all that certification. So I think at this point what we're kind of starting to talk about is it seems like the identity to be the best option is probably the Sheriff's Department and then there's different options inside the Sheriff's Department of what services that they can offer us and I think that's kind of where we, in my opinion kind of where we start the conversation is if we do want to go to the Sheriff's Department direction, which it sounds like it's probably in our best benefit, how do we want that to look like and we've started to talk with the newly elected Sheriff from Windsor County. We talked to them last year, we did some stuff and some some things, but last year things were up in the air because you know it was a new, there was a bunch of new Sheriff's in the area so they didn't know like are they going to be taken on this and this was you know people were leaving, people were coming, so now it's a little more stable to kind of know what they have to work with. So it seems like there's kind of three options for us at this point and two of the options are a little tricky because they they use the term full-time in both. So the first option would be you know do we take our current budget, do we take our current budget or maybe with some slight modifications and and have the Sheriff's come in for that amount of money. So just make it enough. If we have a $60,000 budget, you know option one would be increasing it to like $65,000 which isn't a drastic increase, but that would provide services like 12 to 16 hours 18 to 22 of dedicated. So what that would be is they could come in as a Sheriff and kind of give us the service that we thought we were getting with our constable so that 18 to 20 hours a week of service so that might be you know it might be one day of patrol one day or half a day one day or you know that type of deal like what we thought we were getting. Plus they'd give us 12 to 16 hours a day and basically on call for an additional 12 to 16 hours a day for that price tag so for $65,000 you get 18 to 22 hours of dedicated patrol and then they would deal with calls for service between 12 and 16 hours a day so for the $65,000 he gives you like four options. One you cannot afford. The law enforcement web is okay. Sure. So the cameraman if you didn't hear that is changing batteries so we're going to take like a 15 to 22nd break. Get your popcorn because I wanted to clarify what his um he uses the term you know his service calls for service so I was trying to make sure I understood what we're talking about. So some of the and hopefully I'm not going to confuse you but it's confusing so when when when we say like the dedicated hours that's kind of like what we think we're getting with our constable right now right or what we signed up for the things that but we also right now Bethel takes for granted the other coverage times so other coverage times means when the constable isn't on duty then the callouts go to Vermont State Police. Okay. Now what gets tricky is when you when you get the Sheriff's Department involved is not to say that you don't get coverage if you call in a non effort but they if you have coverage through them then certain callouts go to them so so now like we we just kind of always fell under the umbrella of VSP so now if we went that direction that they would also have to field some of those callouts during certain hours so like it wouldn't necessarily be VSP responding like like we you know for so long we just kind of just have taken that for granted that you know we call and yeah if Oscar is not on VSP comes right so that's not so much now so that's so short so that's the tricky thing so that if you go the Sheriff's Department or another identity those callouts then go to the Sheriff's Department so is it necessarily go to VSP so so sometimes where he says we're going to dedicate you that say 20 hours but then they'll say then we're also going to give you 12 to 16 hours of callout time so that's where it kind of gets tricky because it's not to say that you're not going to have coverage but it gets a little messy but you're going to have more coverage than you have right now well yeah yeah so so so i think option option and this is law enforcement this is non-constable which is a different it's a different animal right well it's actually not a different animal for you in Bethel well actually it's not an animal at all so you voted as a select board to give the constable police power within your town it could be different if you had not voted to do that but since you had voted to do that and he is a police officer but if you're right though if he hadn't if you hadn't voted to give him police power you're right it would be a totally different animal so let me just get through the option so the first option would would basically do the hours that we think that we're getting or want to have wanted to see to date the second option is what you know we start using the word full time so full time can be tricky so full time you know is you know in full time is is usually in that 30 to 40 hours a week time time frame so that would be for the most part somebody that would be in town for six to eight hours a day every day and the calls and that bumps up so that you know that's like a hundred thousand dollars a year to have we're calling it full time and then there's the because you get tricky with the vsp in the call outs and all this stuff then there's the true full full time full time which means no matter what happens the sheriff's department is coming okay which that is because then they have to dedicate more resources for that 24 hour period then it becomes what you know true full time 24 seven which is a lot so it bumps up bumps up quite a bit so yeah 40 is 125 000 and a dedicated 24 seven patrol year round is over half a million so the the tricky the other thing that we have to yes the other thing other than money what we also have to think about is currently the constable serves two roles well a couple different roles but two main roles which is you know doing enforcement out there as well as animal control so if we did go away from the sheriff's department we then would have to figure out what we're going to do for animal control wise um because you would still have to find a person to do animal control um which I don't know we didn't even looked into that yet well we budgeted for it at one point but yeah because the sheriff's office I don't believe is going to do that so you basically get a dog capture so that that's Becky animal control calls realistically do we get is that something that happens that frequently yeah you'd be surprised if your dog is barking and your neighbor doesn't want to talk to you so your neighbor yeah so people yeah so people the cows or whatever and if people yeah if if somebody's dog bites then obviously the health officer gets involved and it can be and it can be the copy us if someone has a stray I have a motto leave it alone and it will go home but if somebody picks up a stray in the jurisdiction in the town of Bethel then they take it to the hospital then that costs us money to go to the animal hospital but you'd be surprised um and it's not that we have to intervene a lot but there are quite a few phone calls about their neighbor's dog being a quote-unquote nuisance dog but so it's it's it's funny it's like anything it comes in I mean we could we could and should get the information from Oscar of yeah yeah how many how many calls a year does does he get on that and my guess is probably sporadic you know you might have a hot week and then nothing for a month yeah so it's true did Bethel for 37 years and I've known of one right and he didn't even come out yeah they were like wow yeah it's you know we get all the calls but it's definitely something that we have to we would have to deal with as a board so we would you know go to a you have to budget an appointment for for an animal catcher um which would typically come with some sort of stipend oh absolutely yeah an hourly rate or kind of like a a health officer type deal so yep the tickets that get written in Bethel for speeding or other offenses is there is there a percentage that comes back to Bethel yep so it actually kind of makes money for the town very small yeah because the state gets the majority and now if he writes if the if the officer's writing tickets on a state highway the money all goes to the state but we get a small percentage of the tickets that they write once it goes to the state and because the state keeps their share and then we get so no it doesn't it doesn't work like I mean does it offset but it's it's piddly really not worth thinking about it at one time we had figured out that if our constable was on duty 20 hours a week and uh I can't remember how many tickets it was over the course of it but it was like $1,200 a year ticket revenue so it wasn't wasn't really a whole lot to even explore on and and it really not something that you budget for you know I mean but a few years ago you could in another town we contracted with Addison County Sheriff and they were making their money in tickets but then the state changed it and then so now they get a higher percentage the other thing too about going to a situation where you contract would say the Windsor County Sheriff you do you can take advantage of other programs as you all have seen um Royalton police or Randolph police or somebody in a district where you were or a town you were surprised to see them in they're most likely participating in like click-it-or-ticket or different programs like governor highway stuff governor highway safety programs that the sheriff's office could participate in so what happens is sometimes you get a little extra coverage in your town because they're participating in a program which gives them points they used to give you cash now it gives you points towards equipment so there are some benefits to going with a large organization because as a constable Oscar was able to participate at one point but we had to go through the Rowland County Sheriff's office and it was a whole thing and um so sometimes you do get a little you know bomb in your coverage and when Teresa and I did talk with the sheriff last year um he did acknowledge that if if we were a sheriff town then then it would come with some of those caveats like you know he would be able to use some of his um regional money in our town as well so you know make it up if we went with 20 hours a week for 65 thousand dollars a year that we'd probably see them a little bit more than 20 hours a week because they would do some of their other you know um governor's safety council money and things like that that they would spend in in our area as well so I also think that just from experience when you see that um the term that police officers like to use and as you're just flying the colors so I think that because Bethel has been with with such limited constable hours for so long that if you do contract with the sheriff and you start the first year you say okay the first year we're going to do the 65 thousand and then we'll reevaluate how's it going how do people like it how do we you know and then maybe the next year you decide okay we want more we're happy with this or whatever the good thing that happens all of a sudden is now people realize that you have contracted with somebody and they see the cruisers now so they see the sheriff department sheriff's department in your town so I think there's a lot to be said for just you know flying the colors just seeing the cruisers in town it does curb some behavior because all of a sudden there is a presence so you've gone from basically nothing to something so all of a sudden people are in town you know 20 hours a week people really notice that especially people who maybe are doing something wrong and so they're looking for the police so there is speaking of cruisers we wouldn't have to have all the maintenance and upkeep on our own cruiser plus we have our cruiser budget for that current budget of 65,130 and subtracted the $8,000 which we use for signage like buying the speed lights or the the speed dollies etc then we basically have a 57,130 dollar budget true budget that we spent on policing or we haven't spent and the other thing too is if you decided to contract with the sheriff he could start before July one he's because we have spent only in salary we've only spent $2,500 out of the $29,000 budget he's willing to pick up hours um to so we could use we could start sooner and we could you know my thing would be we would want the right to ask for some targeted and I think and then I think at the community we kind of need to figure out exactly what is it that we want within their you know control what is it that we want them to do for us right so and I think I think looking at this list I mean I think what Therese said makes a lot of sense of you know do we start whatever do we start with our budget give them some time and then we could build it over time but looking at it I guess my opinion would be is if we if we just did the 20 hour week thing which is our current budget I think what you're going to see for the most part is more or speed enforcement but not not much of that community feel to it and I and I would say we probably would have to get to more closer to a 32 hour we use that full time to actually do some of the more indirect uh practices of you know dealing with other individuals that may be a problem that aren't speed related um I mean you know so so trying to work with some of those I think you need kind of more of a yeah a fuller time individual that can be seen and you know people will build some trust in and even if you start with option one and you have 18 to 22 hours you still get that call for service between 12 and 16 hours a day so you still have more coverage and I think it just makes shock to the system to see a cruiser that can't say what we know we're looking for is that call out because I had called and spoken to the Vermont state police many times they know our area these people yeah very well and they do not come they do not follow up they do not call you back yeah there is no policing effectively in my area and I know the crimes are not the great train robbery that I'm out it's property crime a lot of the time it's not they're not stealing the car out of the yard yeah yes yeah people are certainly trying yeah um but it makes you feel unsafe in your own home I understand that feel unsafe about your own property it's very frustrating when you work really hard to make your property something and someone comes despite no trespassing signs and destroys it yeah and you can't get any help and it's true because you're right I'm a little bit familiar with your area and your neighbors and so one of the issues with the BSP is is he you know was very honest Lieutenant said I've got people working double shifts during the week and I think you're right is that sometimes it's you know they are in constant triage mode and and and it's unfortunate and it doesn't make it right that you're not getting the service you deserve but you're right I think call out is important and I was happy to see that he'd included that in his options and it would be interesting in my mind to see if you started with you know option one and had the call outs and you started the 65,000 and if people are really happy with that and support because you know not everybody wants to see more and then next year you go to the you know if people are really happy with these day we are or then you do you go to the hundred thousand it's kind of hard to go from 57,000 to 100 grand knowing that you know our health insurance premiums just went up and all these other things that we're going to be budgeting for are are coming at the same time and but you deserve about the residents deserve coverage and you deserve to feel safe in your home and so I think it's and I think we got put a number in the budget for sure and we have you know every town's got the same things going on but you know I think you have the regional issue right which is you know the things that we're seeing around the state which you know which are a problem with drugs and and things like that and then we have the you know in our community where let's say you did have a individual that's out there 20 hours a week right at least with a presence you know it will deter some behaviors right but I think where we've gotten right now is with no presence right I mean it becomes a wild frontier right so you know I think as a community we just got to kind of figure out where we want that bar at like you know where do we want to start and not nothing against the sheriff's department but you know we've never used them before so you know we could we could get the Cadillac and roll it in the town and find out that uh this is definitely not what we thought was going to be or you know I mean so like do we do we start small and go big do we do we go big and hope that we signed up the right person you know I mean because because we're limited we don't really have many options you know that is kind of the nice thing about the sheriff's department is you I'm not sure if you'd get the same person every time either you would and I think you said that you would establish kind of a local or individual yeah but you know maybe two people that are dedicated to so that we know they know the usual people in town and I think the people that wouldn't be happy to see the police in town are the ones breaking the law oh absolutely nobody's a bank law going wow I wish they weren't around yeah I think you see too sometimes it's the long-term Bethel resident sometimes who are they've never needed it so I think for them sometimes it's you know but when you need it you need it to be there but um and I know I think there's a lot of people flying with well no registration and no inspection and it's fine because you know and there's no doubt about that as far as that goes and I know when we we haven't we haven't Teresa and I really had well last year we sat down with the sheriff for a couple hours and went through a whole discussion thing um at that point he told us if we went with just you know just some patrols um like the 20 hour a week tight deal that it would probably be one or two different individuals in the region that would pick those up and if we went to more of the full time saying then that he would have one individual that would be dedicated to your area doesn't necessarily mean they live in Bethel they might live two towns away or three towns away but they would they would beat your person um but just said it Kiri oh I'm tickled to death being a North Main Street resident I'm tickled to death that you're doing anything about as you all know everybody knows on North Main Street for years um the law is being broken multiple times a day seven days a week doesn't take a break for nights days whatever and just the traffic with no mufflers at three o'clock in the morning all of that and it's been going on for well I've known I've known a person since he was little and now he's in his 30s and um so it's well over 10 years it's constant law breaking and nothing has been done I think that every and so we have the same problem right any any any money you put towards it would make me happy thank you thank you I'm curious Jordan since you were here recently you know on the 22 hour a week you know start at the 65 000 with on call of 12 to 16 hours a day um there was someone else at the meeting who you know obviously it was hitting at the time saying that even care if it was a million bucks he'd you know support it but how do you feel about starting at something like that or you really feel like um that it's 32 hours or 40 hours or nothing or how far does that get us does that get us just sitting on Main Street and being there you know grabbing the speeding calls and and registrations and mufflers but they they the state police know all of the all of the participants it's it's been tall man and then it's been it's been literally years I would be happy with just a plastic a car that looks like a police car sitting in my yard yeah traffic enforcement does yield the significant amount of drug busts there's no doubt about it I mean there's so many drugs on the side of the sandwich shop and Dave had to stop and call on the state the state police stopped for a sandwich and that's the only reason that he even had anything to do with it but yeah I mean they're doing it on the side of the roads they're doing it everywhere and nobody's doing I mean could it please make them a little walking into show with no shoes on because you're so high and and nobody's gonna say a word yeah it's insane it is insane and I think too that unfortunately um and this is my opinion as a resident of another town it's scarier now I think there was a day when you would have confronted somebody back in the day some Denise would have been like hey but nowadays you think twice before you do that so but anyways we'll um and I think that's kind of where our conversation with our community needs to go it was you know we have to understand that there are probably going to be some behaviors that that regardless of what we have for a presence we may not be able to fix at our level at the town level because you know people's hands are tied or or or the judicial system they they get booked and they're back out eight hours later and they're doing the same thing right I mean the guy that was speeding through town that we just had the issue over the weekend right I mean this guy is in and out all the time but at these places and he just continues to do what he's doing so so I think what just so that we don't want to say waste waste resources or money is I think we need to figure out is what what is exactly that we want to get out of this that is realistic right so um obviously speed and and other things that come around with vehicle enforcement sounds sounds like sounds like that is and it kind of sounds like from people that I've talked to and you guys tonight that we also want that individual to have the capability of the know and be able to do more things behind the scene so um then just targeted patrols you know or um you know if all of a sudden we have an issue on a road maybe that individual could pay a little more attention on that road for some time or or if we have an issue at a store they can spend a little more time in the downtown or those are things you can work out in the contract I mean I've signed contracts with with sheriff department we're not here but in other towns where they say basically you give us some money but you have no say over what we're going to do so in this contract obviously we would want to have a caveat that we would be able to request targeted patrols for for gauging and different you know different roads at different times saying look we've got a because we also know because we're the town we take the phone calls so at least we could say look we have a problem on north main street we have a problem on christian hill we have a problem on gauge and so that people that you know they can do it and I think if people start seeing um a sheriff on a regular basis they're going to be surprised because obviously we have not had the ability to provide that and I think one thing that I was kind of thinking about maybe the next step and Dave and Linley you guys feel free to jump in is at this point it's kind of sounds like as a board and a community that we are looking at putting the constable thing to bed and let's see what our options are with the sheriff's department and maybe we don't actually know exactly which option fits us the best but if we do feel that the sheriff's department is is the direction that we want to head in is and we have some sort of commitment from the board and you know that that's the direction when we're going is we could get the sheriff to come and do one of our board meetings here and maybe better well one I think maybe we as a community can talk to him about the issues we're having right um and then maybe based upon his options he can kind of tell you what you would get you know X amount of hours he might just say hey 20 hours you're just going to get speed enforcement that's pretty much it or or if you go to 32 hours then we can spend an extra 10 hours a week just being in and around the downtown or or dealing with some of these pet projects that that might need to be dealt with um or he might be able to tell us and say listen we are having this issue in every community and this here is an issue that we're trying hard but we're just not solving you know or just so at least we could hear from him because you know so then can you request him to come into the next meeting well I can I think Teresa and I can we talk to him often indirectly so I think we can um I can email message him and see when his if his schedule fits one of our meetings coming up and we could talk about that and and then we could probably put it more on the discussion could be more you know discussion with you know Windsor County Sheriff you know in person type deal also just keep in mind he's going to be selling you a service well yeah so let's let's just the $525,000 option is probably off the table so you know I don't even know how to make that work in the budget yeah I think so what so I mean yes speeding stuff when the people with registration and no muffler is annoying but it's follow through that's why the middle option obviously the top option we can't afford that that's kind of sky yeah but the middle option is attractive to me even though yes it is more money because I want some every time I speak to the state police it's somebody different you never get the same person yeah and there seems to be turnover you don't even I had one at one point I had his text I could text him and I frequently was texting him game camera photos of a legal shit on our road and then he moved on or you don't know and so having the same person and having follow through I think that's follow up so that when I report something's been vandalized or stolen from my yard even if it's not that there's someone who is going to pursue that follow up with me to say look I looked into it this is what we're doing about it instead of it just going into the ether and there being no consequence I think that goes to Jordan's point about having you know the same person or a couple of people coming so you establish a report with them so they can say listen Becky I realize they stole your garden oh but here's this is low priority today I'll get to it but this is where we're at you know what I mean so at least he's you know exactly kind of comprised and I mean I think it makes sense everybody needs to be comfortable with with um because that's how they do their job as people are comfortable with them and they establish a report then more people are going to go to them and say hey you know what I heard about this who's doing what we know where they're doing it yeah we have game cameras on the like and you learn how it's on my road I for two years I had a picture of every car that went up and down that damn road and pictures of people doing illegal stuff and only one time did they actually do anything about it and was when one of the less unsabre neighbors had their two-year-old hang out the window not in a car seat you know they did with one go and slap him on the wrist and that was it yeah and unfortunately Chris uh you know Chris makes a good point about some of this is just beyond the purview and if you spoke to any law enforcement I think it was a problem and no I mean if you spoke exactly if you spoke to any law enforcement officer there's so much frustration Oscar and I had a conversation about this a couple of weeks ago he had a case he put a lot of work into and then it just didn't go anywhere and he was like you know he's like they just let him out or they just give him a slap on the wrist and and it's been and it and it's just as frustrating for police officers as it is for the rest of us but but I can certainly reach out to Ryan and see what his schedule looks like Dave or Linley um do you guys have any anything that you wanted to add to it so it sounds like at least at this point that we'd like to pursue the option of of um the Windsor Sheriff's and at least make the commitment of having him come out having him come out and um see us and uh we can kind of tell him what we're facing and he can kind of tell us maybe he can tell us more what service might fit us I can't decide if Dave is waving or trying to flip somebody off so uh I had to find a more relaxed place to sit my shoulders of course anyway I think we talked you talked about $57,000 in a uh slot in the budget that's not being spent when you're talking to Ryan maybe we could uh plug him in for a test drive yeah I see yeah with it exactly with the money that we haven't spent now and he is offered to do that and maybe I don't know what that how that which option that would fit or whatever but it would be nice to know what he could do with that money between now and July I want right yeah I think he'd probably give us like a per hour price so I could crunch the numbers and say I have X amount of hours left in the budget between now and July 1st and and then he could probably you know and Oscar could stay during that period of time or you know work out a couple of months or whatever um works for Oscar the select board or whatever we end up doing with the constable position but he could supplement those hours was the offer that the sheriff made was to supplement the constables hours so we could definitely um obviously easy math for me to figure out what we have spent what we're going to spend and and leave him that and then he could tell us what you know what we'd get right and as far as I don't think uh not to take anything from the downtown because they have their fair share but the majority of the um crime that I know about is not in the village so we need that officer out in rural Bethel yeah absolutely yeah and those are also um you know when we talked to Ryan um the the sheriff before he had mentioned you know that you know that you can sit down you know if he had a contract with you you can sit down with him periodically and you could change your approach right so if if your approach let's say is really uh we're having a lot of speeding in town and you really want him to dedicate service on getting the speed down right we could do that for period time and then it could be hey we got these two things that are going on on these rural parts of town you know they could spend a little more time doing that so I think and that usually would come through the direction of the town manager but you know that there are those options that we can kind of direct them like these are the issues that we're having currently could you could you try and snuff those out for us what's the um totally having a brain cramp what is it that somebody I just said neighborhood watch I would be curious to see if that's something that the sheriff would also you know I can help establish yeah could he help establish a neighborhood watch that might help him that's something I could ask him as well we did that on North Main Street about 10 years did it work for health no absolutely absolutely not not whatever but I think that you know the neighborhood watch is really meant to report back to the law enforcement what you're seeing right happens yeah but I do think first of all I put more money in whatever you got to do but having somebody get a ticket for speeding on North Main Street whatever whatever no or a defective must just so it doesn't take but it's about three times and the locals will know you know there's somebody watch they'll know and so maybe at least they'll slow that hell down a little and maybe not be so open to just driving up with their their car falling apart shoveling today and this going up got this thing and his his muffler was dragging down to in his sparks flying and today figure how much that whatever the point is 11th but oh the 11th yeah so I can so our next meeting is on the 11th so we'll see if maybe we can get them lined up for the 11th just to have you know anything and one last thing I'm sure you've thought about it but it seems every day you look in the paper all these towns had the same problem do you guys talk to each other yeah say can we can we do something yeah actually had a nice conversation with the town manager in Randolph when they were recently because you know imagine that all of a sudden you have a full police force from Orange County the Sheriff changes and you got nada with a very the 24 hour notice everybody's gone I felt very bad for Trevor as they were scrambling and he and I had talked and then of course you know everybody floods but we had talked about seeing about something regional and and I will say to you I've been in the business a long time we've been talking about regional fire departments regional police for a long time and but and maybe that will eventually come to fruition I know the vsp is trying not to pick up a lot of town contracts because they want towns to get sheriffs and they or have patrols and or have to beef up their own departments if they have them because that's what they're looking for because like anyone else they're you know nobody appears to be running out to be a police officer nowadays so so what are we um we'll try to get Ryan to come the next meeting the sheriff yeah we'll put this back on for the 11th yeah assuming we're getting calm I'll ask him I think what I'm hearing from last week in their last meeting in this one is that the town is looking for an increased police presence that that has some teeth in it yep absolutely I've lived with this for years right next to my house I know right my bedroom I could what up for years like I deal I can deal with that but what's really scaring me is these people shooting each other and and somebody's really going to get hurt and I don't care if they shoot each other that'd be great but I'm afraid you're going to take something that way right yeah and that's that's the part that scares me and I said it at the last meeting and you know unfortunately we're not going to be able to solve the issue here in Bethel however I mean some of the decision makers that do have a hand in solving some of these issues two of them live in this town so you know feel free to express these issues you're having with enforcement law enforcement or lack thereof or judicial laxative deal with your legislators because they have they vote on all this stuff they I mean um and we're fortunate to have two individuals in our town that represent us in two different ways and they and when they're in mob fewer they should be yeah bringing this and saying listen yeah listen the drug activity is out of control or the users are out of control and because of the users now we're having gun violence and other stuff and uh breaking into houses now and I mean it's just it's getting out of hand and it's because we've gone to such a soft method of enforcement in the state and that and that is directly mob failure and and I think you know the more that we you know myself include we have issues we should call them and say listen these issues were happening yeah um and you know and unfortunately we're only going to be able to solve maybe a small portion of what we really want to solve but yeah we've had so you have senator mishormick and representative Kirk White and you can get their contact information right off the legislative website North Main Street's contact actually gets set up on one porch and watched the trades go on I mean it isn't like they don't know and haven't been informed well it's on christian hill but their hands are tied too well they're not I mean they have to go and vote and they have to try to vote and and they're the ones that establish the policies that you know and every community is dealing with us and I was watching the tv last night not that it was a big surprise but they were talking about how you know holiday shoppers are avoiding uh church street while surprised I mean I mean did you did you know I mean all of the all the communities are being affected one way or another and and uh you know I know a lot of them want to make us try to figure it out ourselves but the things is we're we can only do so much right um I mean if it was up to me I'd go door knocking and get everybody tonight but but they don't unfortunately let's do that so yeah I think that that's what Kevin Geiger from Two Rivers was saying at the last meeting was you know Chelsea, Corinth, there's a lot of small towns smaller than us that are having really bad problems as well well as Burlington safe space that got made so they could test their heroin and get used queen needles that's voted in Montpelier and there are tax monies paying for the needles and the test kits for the heroin I know it's crazy and that's why I say those those are things that are directly related to our legislators right I mean they vote on that or don't vote on that right that's uh I mean it definitely feels it's not like drugs are new in this area it's not even like half the people in our area that are dealing with them are new but there does seem to be an escalation in violence and just how scary it feels because it feels like the people using are perhaps more desperate more unpredictable the it's not even just the people who are dealing it's the people who are then coming to partake and that they are potentially more desperate when you see them walking up and down a world past your house with a you know and they look scary and you know that if they don't find other means to feed their habit and they get desperate enough they're unpredictable and like I'm home alone and I think all day a lot of days and it's hard to because I think that without any police coverage and and I would say this in any town that people become emboldened yes because you know so I I do think that there's as I said earlier there's something to be said about flying you know showing the colors and having regular patrols I do think that that alone does help deter some but certainly targeted patrols is definitely what what's needed to so so we'll we'll try our best to get the sheriff lined up for the next morning schedule looks like we have our two meetings in December back to back the 11th and the 18th because we move the holiday meetings yeah I mean a Christmas issue so I know I know we didn't think there'd be a very good turnout so so we will we'll put that together and hopefully we get some more information on that yeah so certainly um you know it's like we're packed it if you have any questions about minutes or that sort of information or you know call we answer we talk to you and uh so just kind of unless anybody has anything else on the board moving forward we have the update to it seems like it's forever but these things definitely take a while as our July flood report did that help you jean you wanted a spreadsheet so I tried to give you a spreadsheet so you could see all the uh no north main was north main and thinly seriously thinly bridge on the whole oh geez really it must be that could have been I had a separate sheet that one's got its own sheet I think it might have I have a period well it's a spreadsheet with multiple tabs and I wonder if I just didn't find one so let me just see dang thought I hit every one you know there's pee vine and north main had two piddly ones and then there's a lot of resume oh and I want to look at that wood one yeah so thinly so I mean that would have been thinly because that's yeah so I don't all have you're right it's not here well it was it was it was interesting for me to just kind of get the big picture yeah there are 70 different places I don't know if I don't have thinly bridge on there then at least 10 more so there are that many more but uh I think that's an important yeah well I'm a big picture person but I just think it's important to be able to say look it wasn't yours this bottle is not the only one in town uh but then we dealt with exactly a further question that I have in terms of the whole thing is do you know what it's going to ultimately what's the out of pocket it's going to be for us not right yet um we're wrapping up I think that we once in the next couple of weeks or so I think we will have paid out over I mean I could give you an estimate but I'll have hard and fast numbers pretty soon because the um all contract work is done except for show yeah so I'm just waiting to pay a couple more bills we'll pay out um ultra getty and then WB Rogers and then I have an estimate I know what obviously I know everybody's bid price was so I have so I could come up with an estimate but I'll have a hard fast number here pretty soon I had to guess we're probably you know guess probably in the somewhere in the 80 to $120,000 but we're not talking about four or five million no we had um I think we had original estimate was that we had around I think including camp brook about I think my original out of the gate estimate was about two and a half million but camp brook took up about a million not a million of that which that's federal highway that's damages versus right yeah because you have to take a look at the damages and then usually yeah then we pay 12 and a half percent of that but I think that Chris is I think I think we're somewhere around because he's been calculated because he's overseeing the word but not as high as a million and a half we're probably below a million and a half so 12 percent of that so I mean that's probably where we're landing yeah so I keep thinking in my head we're probably in the you know hundred hundred fifteen thousand area maybe yeah and we've been I think that'll be on our us yeah right that's because I was meeting with another town and then we're talking about having three million dollars worth of expenses well you're lucky in Bethel because you have passed the extra zoning regulation so you pay 12 and a half percent towns that have not done that pay 25 percent so um there's a difference there Chris has done a really good job overseeing the work so we've kind of um spread out and obviously estimate high when you first going into it because you know you're trying to get what you have and by the time with a constant rain what was three inches deep but it depends on what FEMA's going to cover and not cover um like we saw with one culvert that we had it was in such dire condition that they're like hey you know we're not covering that you know so you could be in another community where maybe a lot more is not getting covered yeah or um you know there's a lot of things that we had a hard date that we had to report to yeah and after that hard date even if it was blood repaired they're not paying for me was to say we had a time manager yeah I forgot and for towns that don't yeah I mean it's hard it's a lot and after there were some towns that were a month ago we're just bidding stuff yeah like not alone doing the work but you know but I'm just okay I'm just but yeah and the news is I hold fingers crossed because we're bidding out Pinello bridge we have been paying off in advance the ERAF on that so I was I had calculated our last ERAF on that hopefully that the fiscal year we're currently in was going to pay all of our ERAF for Pinello which means which was from April 2019 that's that 1.1 million dollar bridge to one house where it seemed to be building so um that's going to go out to bid this winter and get installed next year so the so what I so as of this budget we pass this budget if say it's 120 thousand then we're going to try to spread that we'll spread that ERAF over two three tax years to try to so basically we carry our out of pocket in a capital fund but we'll end up having to spread that over a couple three years because we didn't get ahead because of Pinello bridge so um so I mean it's probably likely that in the next you know over the next three budget cycles we're going to see a 40 thousand dollar a year for three years of place holder ERAF yeah which is a little which is about what we've been budgeting the last few years yeah and I'm feeling like we should just keep budgeting for ERAF even if we haven't had a lot just to get off here since it seems to be 2019 what I said about yeah I mean we do inside some well we do do capital I mean we have capital road expense obviously and then of course we had the ARPA money so you know it's so it's it's there but and um federal highways was good I mean it's out of pocket for us up front and then we get reimbursed but they did push through a grant for us for just over 700 thousand so that I can do a requisition we're going to pay J mcdonald this week so I'll be able to do a requisition next week to try to get some of that money coming back and I have one full FEMA project in out of multiple but it's it's one in and hopefully that we start to see some money because this the federal government pays you their share as you can imagine not quickly but the state will not pay you a dime of their 12 and a half percent until all your projects are done so it takes a minute you know we don't get our money back so most of the work in the field has been finished and now it's a lot of behind the scenes getting paid making sure that we have all our eyes dotted and t's crossed you have to go back and take you have to take photos of everything before you have to take photos everything after you have it's a the paperwork as if you were at the last meeting you saw there was a stack on my desk and and that's not even done yet you know that's just part of it so it's it's I already say not it for the next one you just have to say that you want I mean I'm not getting on top of my normal job I've been putting probably 15 hours a week into it you know on top of normal so it's because you only because you found out that the guy in the other town's getting paid a percentage of the work we need to do a lot more work you know but it's it's just a lot because all the all the hoops you got to jump through and it's just it's amazing how much goes into this stuff not to mention then you're dealing with multiple different contractors and every contract is a little different and their timelines and yeah and it's them stuff not getting stuff and and it's difficult too because when in 2019 I think I talked to a dozen people and nobody would come and do would come and oversee the work and that's when Chris stepped up and said he would do it and um but it's hard to find people to come in and do that because it's it's another part-time job to to come in and I mean you could find somebody you could instantly go get a an engineering firm that'll come in for $200 an hour yeah and will you know and you'll you know if you did a million and a half dollars with the work you probably spend quarter million dollars worth of overseeing right yeah so nice trees ponied up quarter million but then you'd say for the next but that's I mean there are people that would do it but then it's like that's just ridiculous like what like really like what would you be doing but yeah but unfortunately there are some towns that do that right they don't have an individual or or um or don't know or and I don't know if that's cat z so they get 100% or if that's an event well yeah or if it's part of the expense I mean I think with trees and I we were we got it thrown to us in 2019 so you know we learned to swim that day and so this time around we already kind of knew like the things that before that we fell down on and you knew the things you had to do we knew like we were out there the day after the storm already serving damage we knew like we need to do it quickly where before we didn't know until we thought the FEMA person was showing up you know the what yeah because I mean I mean even some of those things like the in 2019 you just assumed that the FEMA person was showing up right so but we learned that that's not what happens now this time around we're out there surveying and then other towns are going yeah we're still waiting for the FEMA person like well they're never coming so you better get out and then to be said for that because the gentleman Carlos our local PDMG was like so do you want do you want a FEMA site inspection I'm like no no no no well let's keep we're going and then the good news is so you can just keep going and getting your work done but there are very strict timelines about you have emergency which basically I can get a vehicle in and then after that it has to go all everything stops and it all has to go out to bid and but then you have they've reintroduced this new term where you can go from emergency work to emergent work I'm like I'm gonna play that card a little bit because oh it's tough to try to just the whole levels and it's changed the process has changed from 2019 to 2023 as you can imagine the federal government and it's it's quite cumbersome more than it has to be but there is a the state has some software that we don't have that once I get all my documents done I said I'm coming for you because I want that for not just us for every town it just we're out there you know a slide rule and abacus and a piece of paper and writing down damages and they're coming with a taking a photo with their tablets and they're putting in dimensions and they're getting pricing and they're getting I'm like what like I have to do this you know like no way so I have already told like three people at VTrans in two words I'm like I want this and we're coming for it because it's it would just make it so much easier the way we do it then you get all this information on paper and then we comes back to the office and I put it in a spreadsheet that's the same that needs to go to your legislator and say look that's something that VTrans should provide for you I'm gonna fight for that I'm not I'm not I'm not saying you that's something that VTrans should be doing it and they yeah I think they just have to get permission from somebody up above because the local guy wants to give it to us I didn't even know it existed till he told me I'm like what and then somebody showed up at one of our meetings and I'm like I think the challenge the challenge with it all is is as a citizen yeah immediately after the event you see work being done right usually that's kind and then and then it like like you you see immediate work and then you see nothing for a period of time and then all of a sudden you see a lot of work again and and and it's just the whole red tape bureaucracy to get things done it's like I would say that Teresa and I knew every step when we need to do it and it still has taken us over four months right I mean it's such a long process yeah because you have to bid in a certain period of time that they want to see you bid and if FEMA comes back and they can audit you for three to five years so you don't want to cut any corners because I don't want someone to come in you know three years from now and say oh you didn't warn that long enough or you didn't go through the right process here so all of a sudden you're in payback mode because you're trying to do the best you can for every resident but at the same time there's just legions of red tape I mean imagine the you know IRS on alcohol and you know this is what you're dealing with with the you know it's with FEMA it's just it's so much it's really I think they make it that difficult thinking that maybe the town's just foot the bill and they will submit the paperwork and it you know I think one thing that we do need to look at as a town I mean we all have our opinions on on you know the climate changing right yeah but one thing we do know what here in Buffalo is that about every four and a half years we have an event right I mean it's like clockwork yeah and I do think that one thing that we should look harder at being you know that we are you know a corridor town is you know more resiliency projects to try I mean FEMA is a little bit of a blessing because again you know you're doing work for 12 and a half percent but there are there are some problem children areas that would be nice to address those before we have an issue and and again I can't say it enough that some of the reasons why this wasn't a five million dollar event this time around is because we had learned where some of the problem areas were that were going to happen again and we were able to have some people on call in those areas so when they saw uh some of the main culverts plugging up on Camp Brook that's people were up there pulling that out you know we had an individual like we said before down down the road from the trailer park that alleviate that so we didn't have the whole trailer plug uh part flood out this time so I think we but we haven't really addressed what the you know long-term solution with those areas are right and I think some putting some money towards addressing what that would be you know going forward on some of those and and when we do this FEMA work at least the two times I've done it I would say a majority of the places that we're doing work are places that we didn't do work the first time right I think a lot of the work that you did in 2019 I think there are some places that you're like oh well we'll do that again and we're doing that again but I will say that a majority of the work that we have done are in news sections like maybe maybe like oh I'm going to use um I'm going to use Ringe uh road as a perfect example so in 19 uh we had a lot of destruction on the higher up parts of of the mount so we had reditched and stone lined those well can you imagine what happened this time around the areas that we didn't do on the bottom blew out right so those would be examples of things that we probably could do better um with you know grant money and and doing storm water management on some of those areas and we and we know that we have some some culverts and you know things like that that are problem children or some bridges and you know or armoring of wing walls and bridges and things like that that we know about that you know we had a pot of gold we'd be doing tomorrow but um I think that's definitely something that you know the town should look at because you know all these towns right through the valley are the ones that get hit hard every time from here down the Ludlow get hit every time you know and we currently all the water funnels through Bethel so we currently have one hazard mitigation grant going on for Cleveland brook and um or not Cleveland brook excuse me Gilead but um but yeah it's just a matter of keeping her eyes open and applying for grant money same thing we do um but yeah I'm glad that the spreadsheet was helpful to you did did you have anything else on town managers report oh just I let you know that you all had a question about uh D tree about cool and she said that she has had businesses and residents donate money to pay for families and need to get pooled passes and lessons he said she's never had trouble that she's had a local business that reaches out and says hey if you have anybody let me know and she calls and says hey so she has a couple people that she can always turn to so if if she knows someone um you know has a need she said she's always been able to make sure that that's not information that she takes oh no she's done like a whole like binders you know the woman will just whoever is a new person for you what the town managers report or the for the minutes I didn't see either one of those there was a oh I guess you two didn't get a copy huh how's that yeah I did they were in my I don't know I'm sorry and I voted you know but I can tell you there is when you were reading to them like I remember getting I didn't get that I don't know I I know there's a correction to be made on your minutes um update on July flood it says a schedule it's currently says a schedule for the pond road culvert it's not pond road cover it needs to read a schedule for the culvert replacement near pond road on camp brook road is not yet available so I do need to make that edit um okay so do we have any other edits with the uh meeting minutes Lindley says no Dave fell asleep Dave fell asleep just kidding Dave we're just thinking all right just need a motion to approve as amended so okay were there any other communications um yeah let's see somebody's I didn't get and I made your packet so it's my fault I'm sorry I don't know yeah somebody all I had was the um the energy coordinator piece and the grant for good I wonder what I'm doing okay yeah so you got the grant for equity inclusion town town you got the 700 and town meeting information yeah there really wasn't much stuff in there if that was really it and then in the flood yeah so it sounds like you so you just don't get the minutes the energy committee meeting minutes were in there yeah I didn't get that I don't know and um but that's it there's a spelling error on the energy committee Scott Putney is an EY but somebody else but no that was it so any any other business to come before the board now it's done we'll see anything out there all right just need a motion to adjourn Dave moves second okay we'll have a good night everybody I hope you feel better Dave let us know if you need anything we'll do thank you yeah take care bye Lindley bye Paul