 I guess what I would suggest we, we call the meeting to order, we'll start with a public hearing and, and see if anyone else, see if everyone else shows up if that's okay. Yes, sir. We have some amendments to the agenda. Right. Right. So we have the one about the renaming the road, right. I'm going to lane. Yes. There's going to be correspondence and also we need to have a discussion about my conversation today with RB tech. Okay, and I need to have a conversation because I've been getting emails from my kill wants to meet with me personally. Is that something that we have to discuss at this meeting. I would prefer only because he wants to hear from me. I don't know. I'm reluctant to meet with him by myself. That's what I'm saying. So I want to talk about it at the select board meeting. Okay. Sarah. Yes. Or Peter Dexter would also like to have a moment at the end of the meeting or sometime for a public comment, if that's possible, or the beginning, or the beginning. Is this is this a public comment about the zoning regulations or about some other just a general comment. Okay, that's fine Dexter. Well, just a couple of minutes. My comment will be just one minute or less. Okay. Well, I would, I would suggest we'll, we'll see if we can zip you in before the fire department at 530 is that okay. Yeah, thank you. We've got the fire department, then we've got an executive session. You might be here for a while. Okay, so with that, we have Blair. And so on, I believe, is that correct Blair. I've had 53. You're muted. You're gone. They didn't like that. That's interesting. So we do have, we do have Dexter in the office. We have Shelly. On the zoom. Shelly. And other than that, the select board and during the crowd are treasurer. Welcome everyone. Thank you. Please don't let me forget the. Let me write down here. Okay, so I'm going to call a public hearing on the updated middle sex land use and development regulations. And I'm going to go back to that. I was going to suggest. Depending on who was here and what their concerns were that we quickly grow through. And I mean, quickly. The major changes to the zoning regulations and I was going to use the. PowerPoint presentation. That the regional planning commission. So that's what we. Used for our previous hearing just because that gives a good quick outline. Of what the major changes are, but I don't know, Shelly, do you have any, any particular questions or concerns before we do that or Dexter. Nothing from Dexter. Nothing from Shelly. Okay. Thank you. So. What did we determine about putting up on the screen, Sarah? Can we do that? I also have it up on my iPad so I can just read it. I mean, it's pretty simple. Yeah, why don't we do that? That's better. So I'm gonna go through this pretty quickly. Stop me if you have any questions or concerns. So the goals of the amendment to ours earning regulations are as follows, to clarify, simplify, modernize and align. Those sound like pretty good goals to me. They then outline the process, which I'm not gonna go over. They talked about public input provided by surveys and then they get to the proposed changes. And one of the most significant changes is to streamline the permit process, merging the functions of the Planning Commission and the ZBA, creating one design review board. And I believe we have already done that, haven't we? Yep. It's just that it's also incorporated in the zoning regulations. So that is the done deal. If anybody has any questions or concerns about that, we can talk about it. It gives an outline about how that streamlines, streamlines the permit process. Administrative permits are permitted by the, now permitted by the zoning administrator. Site plan review is provided by the DRB, the new DRB and conditional use is also permitted by the DRB. So there is no longer or will no longer be a two-step process in the permit process. The existing town plan says that we want to encourage small-scale commercial development in the Village District and maintain the historic village as a commercial, cultural and civic center of the community. The proposed change is to increase allowable uses to include accessory buildings, galleries, videos and museums. And also, as I've already mentioned, streamline the permit process for more uses. The town plan says allow for growth in the area west of the village and north of the interstate that complements but does not detract from the village and avoids strip development. And the proposed change is streamline permitting for light industrial, professional offices, garden centers and recreation facilities and allowance for accessory retail in the mixed use district, which is that area. Town plan says target the mixed use in Village Zoning District for new housing, including a diversity of housing types. And the proposed change is reduce lot sizes and setbacks in the Village District, streamline the approval process, which again, we've already talked about for small-scale multi-family dwellings, three to six units and seven or more units would still require a condition to use. I'm running out of breath here. Here we go. Permitting, excuse me, town plan says make permitting process for home-based businesses clean, easy and affordable. Ensure childcare centers are permissible or appropriate and make the permitting process clear, easy and affordable. And again, that's covered in streamlined permit process which we've already discussed. Town plan says support agricultural enterprises while preserving natural and agricultural resources, fragile features and the scenic and rural character of our community. Again, clarify the state exemptions for agriculture and forestry operations, specifically allow farms the ability to diversify their operations and increase their ability to market agricultural products by defining a permit process for accessory on farm businesses. Town plan says examine the town zoning map and update as needed. Zoning map should be should respect the areas identified for conservation. Prepare for future flood hazards and keep new buildings, utilities and other infrastructure set back from streams and rivers so that the flood flows are neither restricted nor diverted to the detriment of others. And the proposed changes limit new buildings in the flood plain to reduce the risk of flood damage by clarifying flood regulations to prohibit new dwellings in the flood plain along with a prohibition of new buildings. Reduce new industrial development near the flood plain by converting a portion of the zoning district designated along a portion of route two. And if you are concerned about that on the town website you can get the zoning regulations which include the map, which shows that. Town plan says encourage economic development that will provide good paying highly skilled jobs and desired services to town residents. Allow smaller, the proposed changes allow smaller lots, one half acre in place of one acre to allow more industrial development in the industrial district. Town plan says increase affordable housing options in Middlesex ensure that accessory dwelling unit provisions in the zoning code meet state requirements, target mixed use, medium density residential and village zoning district as targets for 80% of new housing including the diversity of housing types. And the proposed changes increase the flexibility of property owners to add more affordable housing by allowing accessory dwelling units up to 1,100 square feet. Current regulations only permit such units to be up to 600 square feet. Town plan says to help maintain Middlesex forest and fields development should be planned and carried out to ensure the continued use of forest and avoid fragmentation of identified forest blocks and connectivity. The line is owning regulations to reflect this goal. This could include a change to developable areas as well as enhance resource specific standards. And the proposed change is to include specific natural resource protection standards in the subdivision review process that is limiting development near streams or wetlands protecting important habitat areas and avoiding development on steep slopes and ridge lines. And again, in the draft document which is on the town website, it shows a map, the areas where they're proposed to be those changes. And that is pretty much it. That's a quick executive summary of the changes. Again, the entire document is available on the town website all 98 pages of it I wouldn't presume to go through it tonight needless to say. But if anybody has any feedback or any thoughts about those draft regulations, please get to the select board as soon as possible. Our goal is to have these zoning regulations voted on at town meeting next March. If the board decides to make any significant changes to these regulations and we did not do that after the planning commission presentation, we wanted to wait till after this hearing. If there are any changes then it's likely we would need to have one more public hearing but we have plenty of time to do that if need be. So with that, anybody have any questions, concerns, issues? Yes, Victor. Yeah, I was wondering like when you were talking about the town plans support agricultural enterprises, preserving natural and agricultural resources and then it says over on the change, clarify state exemptions for agricultural and forest operations. And I think that seven nine is what they were talking to is any, do you know, or does anybody know what the clarification is? What that says, as far as four, three, go. What I believe that it does Victor is just bring our zoning regulations in alignment with the state regulations but I don't have the whole document up in front of me. Okay. And the other thing, the second thing I had was I think you stated there, it's in the part about regulating where something can be built as far as wetlands, ridge lines, 25% grades, wildlife. Yep. Okay, so that's fine and I kind of understand that but I think Shelly is still here but how do you get, how do we get that? I don't think that our listing highest and best use quite fits some of these programs that are some of these restrictions and regulations. I mean, I don't think you're gonna solve the problem here tonight. In other words, if you can't, you know, a lot of some of these properties they've got is building lots and you're not gonna be able to build on them so they shouldn't be assessed as much. What do you think? What does the board think about that? Well, I think if you have, let's say for instance, and I think we've basically already done this in the flood zones but I'm gonna use the flood zones example. Let's say you have a property that's in the flood zone and you wanna build a house on it. Well, you know, we're gonna tell you it's unbuildable, right? So does that undoubtedly reduce the value of that piece of property? I would say it does. Okay, all right. Listers would need to take that into consideration. I mean, any of this stuff of work, if we're making a change which either A increases the value of a piece of property or B potentially decreases a piece of property then the listers need to take that into consideration absolutely. Yep. And yeah, that's all I was asking about. And then of course there, I guess I could ask Sandy, but, you know, they had a couple of subdivision hearings this summer and I won't go into detail on who they were but probably we all know. And there was a lot of discussion on the, as far as the planning commission was concerned, is this a large subdivision or is this small subdivision? Is this okay or is that okay? I mean, a couple of the lawyers for the subdivision, for the people that were trying to get a subdivision and I don't mean this to be sarcastic or accusing anybody of that, but it seemed like they didn't have, they didn't understand their own regulations or they didn't have enough regulations in to see whether they could give a permit or not. And I was wondering if these new regulations perhaps put clarity to that so that, you know, they can decide in a timely manner and whether they can give a subdivision or whether the people have to wait another 40. The good news is, the really good news is it's just gonna go to the design review board. So it's gonna be one group. And when I read the regulations and I did it the other day and I don't have anything, it sounded pretty straightforward to me what was a minor subdivision and what was a major subdivision. But regardless, they both go through the design review process. And I think the only difference is that the major subdivision requires a site plan review, which probably it should. Right, okay. But I think it's pretty clear. I mean, it's not gonna be, in the old days, one board of the other would get the permit and there was confusion about who was supposed to get it and who was supposed to hear it and what the appeal process and all that does. The one of the purposes of this whole design review board is that it's all in one room and one place with one group of people. But it's the same group as the planning commission in a lot of cases, right? Yes, it is. It's have the same people. So. Point of clarification, it's not a design review board, which are very different things. It's development review board. I'm sorry, development review board. I must apologize. Yes. That's it. We're not getting into designing buildings, I hope. No. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. So I really would encourage everybody, it takes some time, but I would say you're probably 40, 35 or 40 pages of real meat to the zoning regulations, where they talk about what's allowed, what are the setbacks, what are the, you know, all the stuff in the different zoning districts. That's really where the meat of it is. And it doesn't take that long to go through that. And I would encourage everybody to do it. And if they see anything or have any concerns, please let us know. And let us know ASAP too. Don't call us up the week before town meeting and say, hey, I'm concerned about this or concerned about that, because by then it's going to be too late. Okay. Everyone's good. Okay. So we are a little ahead of schedule and Dexter, we are ready for your public comment. Now I can take 10 minutes instead of one minute. Oh, no, no, no, I didn't say that Dexter. Well, I'm Dexter LaFavre. I live in Middlesex. I'm running for state Senate. So I came just to go and visit every select board in the district, which is all of Washington County plus three towns, which are Stowe, Braintree and Orange. So I'm just coming out, introducing myself. You guys already know me. So I've just given you the happy news that I'll be on the ballot or I'm already on the ballot, I guess. And just mentioned that my platform consists of three basic things. First being to try to make Vermont affordable, especially for lower income people. It's a hard place to get started if you're a young person. It's a hard place to finish life if you're on a fixed income in an elderly or retired person. The other thing I'm going to try to do is bridge the partisan divide. I'm running as an independent with endorsements from both Republican and Libertarian party, but I intend to stay true to my independent spirit. Some of you are familiar with that and be able to bridge the divide between parties. And the third thing for me is to really promote sensible policies, most specifically with regard to energy, for example, and that comes back to affordability. We've got energy policies, such as the efficiency Vermont program that charges a 6% tax on everybody's electrical consumption. And that's really a regressive tax disguised as a fee. And that sort of thing really hurts the Vermont economy, hurts low income people, and is sort of policy that I think could be improved and something that's much more sensible than that. So also areas of healthcare, education and environment are areas where we can improve our policies that just do better moving forward. So that's it. I hope I didn't go much over a minute. Certainly didn't go 10. Happy to take any questions. Flaming arrows. Oh, thank you, Victor. Dexter. And I've got Victor on the brain tonight. I'm sorry. Dexter and good luck. All right, thanks. It's important for people to run for public office. So good for you. I know the drill. I know you do. All right. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. All right guys. Thank you. Yeah, you too. Okay. So next on the agenda is the monthly joint meeting with the middle sex fire department, monthly update from the volunteer fire department and preparing for public hearing on October 4th, re-transitioning the fire department from a separate 501C3 organization into a town department. Action unlikely. I did meet with the president and chief of the fire department last night just to have a quick discussion of what we anticipated at the public hearing. And that meeting went very well. I'll let them speak for themselves. But we're optimistic and excited to move ahead with the process. So with that, I'll reckon, are you gonna, are you speaking Jeff or Eric or who? Yeah, I'm speaking. So, yeah, from the meeting, excuse me, from the meeting last night, first off, I haven't been sick. I've just been traveling. The meeting last night, I thought went well. I think we solved what few questions we had. We are gonna bring it up to the members tonight to discuss it. And of course, we got to get there, final approval, but I think everything, considering that for the most part, nothing really changes. I don't really see any issues, but we'll talk about it at the meeting tonight and then we'll get back to you on that. As far as our monthly updates and other, really busy month of four calls, just like last month, engine six went out twice. I mean, the engine one went out twice, engine six didn't go out, tanker one went out once and rescue went out once. We do have a total of 44 calls so far. On the 29th of August, we had a fire alarm activation at red hand, always a fucker factor. It ended up being a thoughts alarm, but engine one, tanker one, rescue one and six responders responded to that call. On the 1st of September, there was a call for a vehicle fire on Notch Road, ended up not being a fire, it was just oil leaking on an engine. Engine one and two responders for that one. On September 2nd, on Lower Sunnybrook Road, there was a call for a possible structure fire. The caller waited about 25 minutes before calling in on that one. And reported that it looked like smoke was coming from the back of a trailer. Nothing was found, no equipment, responded. Two responders did go up and check it out. And on the 7th of September, on Route two and Lower Barnett, there was a grass fire reported. P-8 responded as he was driving by, found nothing, canceled the response. So no vehicles responded, but six responders did respond to the station. As far as training next month, we're doing fire extinguisher training. And as far as purchases, we have ordered the airpacks. We did, but when the original bid came in, it was for 45-minute tanks, I didn't catch that initial looking at it. We used 30-minute tanks, so we changed that to 30-minute tanks that did lower the amount sum, which we ended up adding four more masks. So we can issue a mask to each person on the department. So they're carrying their owners instead of having to swap masks at a scene. They'll be maintained here in the fire station with their fire gear. We also needed to get some high-glass inserts for those that are visually challenged for farsightedness. And then we are going with the lithium battery packs. There's no extra charge for the lithium batteries in the kits themselves. We did buy two spare packs, in case we happen to need those as a scene, and we had to buy the charger or the recharger. That saves us a lot of maintenance on the airpacks, which would require changing batteries every six months. It also changed a lot of waste with the batteries that we'd have every six months. So we felt that was a better route to go getting those lithium battery packs. As far as FAST Squad, there were eight total calls, and those are all medical calls for the month. Any questions? How far out is the equipment? Pardon? How far out is the equipment? You said you've ordered it? Yeah, we did a mask fit on Tuesday, and so Reynolds is working on when the new packs are gonna be arriving. Did the total amount still stay under the 70,000? So we hit the 70,000, and we went above that $488, which will come out of our budget. Actually, it's gonna be $250 more than that because we added two more eyeglass kits because I forgot somebody got glasses and somebody else I didn't count. So, but that'll come out of our budget line. Okay. Questions on anyone? Okay. Thank you, Jeff. And again, let's keep the good friendly spirit going through the public hearing and on into the future. Well, yeah, especially on into the future. I'm really enjoying our open conversations that we're having about the department. It makes things for our planning and going forward a whole lot easier. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Good thing. Scott, you got here at the last minute. I guess so. Sorry about that. For once in our history, we're a little bit ahead of schedule. Yeah, that's always good. I don't think there's any surprise news that you need to be concerned about. Ah, Cincinnati business meeting anyways. Yep. Okay, perfect. Wait, before you get off this fire department thing, if Jeff or somebody has that, Scott, could you ask Jeff to send over those statistics because he rattles them off so fast? I'd like to put him at the bottom of the minutes. Yeah, he can hear you. Right, Jeff? Eric, Scott, somebody. Yeah. Thanks. That'd be great because we'd love to include them in our, we'd like to include them in our minutes. Okay, thanks guys. Have a good evening. Thank you. Okay, we do need an executive session, correct? Correct, Victor? Eric? Victor, you're on mute if you're talking. Sure, we need an executive session. Okay. Just to be clear, are we meeting an executive session for the reasons stated in the agenda? Yes. Okay. Okay, so would someone make that motion, please? I make the motion that we go into the executive session to discuss as stated in the agenda. Those attending would be the three select board members present tonight, the road foreman, Eric McChivier, and Sarah Merriman. How about the treasurer? You have a better idea if you go. Well, what about the treasurer? You didn't mention Derrinda, don't you want Derrinda? Oh yeah, okay, sorry about that. Do I need to be there? I don't want to be there. All right. It isn't gonna hurt for you to be there, Sarah. Oh, okay. Yeah, so the motion is we're including Eric, Sarah, and Derrinda, and the select board. Mitch, you're out for a few minutes. All right. Sorry about that. Okay. Okay, knock them out, please. Well, no, first you have to vote. Sorry, is there a second? I'll second that motion. All right. Thanks, okay. Thank you, Randy. All right. Do you guys gonna vote on it? Then just give me two minutes to get rid of people, okay? Yeah. Those in favor? You have to vote. Vote. Vote. I don't know, we have to vote when we come out of executive. No, no, no, you vote to go into executive session. That's executive, yes. Then I put people to vote. Okay, all right, all right, all right. I'm with you. So now can you vote? Mitch is still there. Peter, you vote in public session to go into. Okay, I'm sorry. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Okay. What do you pose? Okay, that is now 538. Okay, do it. Okay, so I will just report that in executive session, we have successfully hired a new member of our road crew. So we are up to full road crew capacity for the first time in a long time. Do you wanna say his name? Sure, fill in his name. Eric. Richard Dudley. Of Middlesex. Correct. Yes. And he starts October. Third. Third, okay, thank you. Okay. Moving right along, highway report, update on center road paving status of possible high read. We've covered that action possible. What have you got boys? What's the start? Go ahead. No, just they're gonna start on center road Thursday morning doing the milling and then he wants to get onto the paving right after. So I would imagine by the end of next week he should be completed. Wow. So you're saying starting on center road in two days, right? Hutchins, and that's Hutchins? Yeah, the 22nd. Now, do they, they don't take the lines on the road, right? We have to have someone come in and do that. That's my understanding. Yeah. Is that correct, Vic? They can contact traffic, traffic shop and down on the very mountain road and they'll probably do it for you. They did it before, but then we're gonna grind it up. We lost a little communication there. Yeah. And there's no, the ditching is all completed. So once that's done, it's everything done. Nothing to do to the guardrails, nothing to... Well, we'll see what the height is of when we get done some of the guardrails. We might have to clean underneath them, but we have the tool to do that. Yeah, okay. Do you guys have plans of posting anything unlike front porch forum as an update to the town folks I did already today. I haven't seen it come out yet, but I did this morning or this afternoon or whatever it is. Thank you. Yeah. That should come out tomorrow. They don't want to talk too far ahead and they'll forget. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it'll be, what it'll be, but our intent is to keep one lane open at all times. So I mean, there may be times where they have to block the road off for a couple of minutes, but it shouldn't be long, right? Yeah, they're going to have their own traffic control. So there might be a little bit of delay, but that's about it. Okay. The delay will be well worth it. Yes. Yes. And the update on the truck is we're expecting it in a month, we hope. By the end of the month, we're supposed to have it. Yes. That's what I was last told. The end of September. Correct. Okay. And you're all set. You're all set with the note. Are you will be? Nope. We have to ratify. I was going to do this during the treasurer's portion. We got to ratify the action that we took the other day, plus we might need one more motion, which I'll discuss when we get to it. Okay. Fine. So how did we make out in the torrential rain? Did we have any serious damage or just... Not anything serious. We did have a lot of minor washouts and we spent the day cleaning those up. We still got a little bit to do on McCullough, right across from where Vic is, his driveway. And then down below, I put some stone, but we're going to have to put some more. So... Well, Victor's tough. You don't have to fix the road for him. Right. Yeah. I don't go anywhere. What's that? Tell him about the freight line, please. Yeah. The freight liner needs an oil pressure sensor. It was showing that it had no oil pressure, but I believe it's the sensor that was bad. Floyd from Buzzy's garage came over and looked at it, hooked up to the computer. The part came in. He was going to change it out yesterday, tried to do that at our shop, but apparently the sensor is buried behind the starter and a bunch of other things. So he has to take a lot apart. And so he wanted to do it at his shop. We tried to drive it there this morning, but the computer would not let it because of the sensor being bad. So we had to have it towed there. None of the sand. We're all done sand. Yep, all done sand. We're shy, probably just 200 yards of winter sand. We ended up ending it out yesterday afternoon in the torrential downpour. We were close enough, we're in good shape for that. Let's see, oh yes, we're gonna have to look into getting a salt shed. In the past, we've gone down to Newtons and bought our salt from them and had them load our truck. That is not an option this year. So we need a place to store it. The state has grant money out there for salt sheds and the deadline for that grant is October 7th. So I've been working on that. So how big a building? How big a building do we need? Well, I figured one of those canvas style covers a 30 by 32, which would hold 200 ton. And that's what we go through in a year. And that would leave us some room. So if we end up in the future getting bigger, we have that ability to do so. And how long do they say those things last? Assuming a tree doesn't fall on them or something? Well, from what I've heard, 25 years for the tarp and 50 years for the frame. Well, it seems to be what everybody's doing from what I can around to say. Just on a pavement slab and then concrete blocks for a small wall. Does the grant cover 100% of the cost or only 80%? 80%. And do we have any idea roughly what the cost would be? I've got a quote from one company and we're right in the neighborhood of Sicily. I've got a quote from one company and we're right in the neighborhood of $60,000. And is that fully loaded? That's the asphalt base and concrete block tarps, everything installation. Yeah, and I have another company that's supposed to be getting it back to me on that as well. Hopefully by the end of the week. And what's the timeframe when we have to do it? Okay, that's it, Dave. This year. Yeah. Okay, they won't let us get away with a tarp for one year or any of that stuff. We just have to do it. Yeah, I mean, we really need to have it under cover just for stormwater runoff and everything else. Oh yeah, I understand. Okay, well, keep us posted. Here's our first big unbudgeted item for this year. Hopefully that's it. No, it won't be it. Eric, how competitive is that, man? We can get that grant, that'll be really good. That makes a big difference. So yes. Have you talked with anybody about how competitive the grant process is for that? I mean, are there a bunch of people going out for it? I don't know. And I don't know is there's a cap either. It's part of the stormwater mitigation grant that's out there. And one of the items on there was salt sheds and sand sheds. I don't know the competitiveness of it. I just know that I gotta get the paperwork filled out and to them by 1 p.m. October 7th. Yeah. And you think that that's manageable for you? Yeah. Yeah, I've been working on it in between running sand. So we should be okay. Thank you. Well, let's hope we get the grant fingers crossed. Yep. Anything else, please? That's all I have. Yep. No. Okay. Thank you. I think that's enough. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Have a good night. That's not a problem. Isn't it unbelievable that they would hide that sensor behind the starter? Why can't they just put it on the side of the block somewhere? Don't know. I don't know. I know. Okay. So I guess we're all set, Eric. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Have a good evening. Yep. I'm considering the Lister's request under errors and omissions to correct the information parcel loan by Sarah Seidman action likely. Who is speaking about this, Mitch? That would be me. That's your Shelley. I'm sorry. Yes. Hi, Shelley. Hi. This is on the Seidman property that was subdivided back in 2021 and a homestead wasn't accepted by the state when they filed their taxes because the property ID and spam number change in error. So we put that back to the original number as it should be. And at the same time, we changed square footage of the garage because there was a mistake on that also. Okay. So it really doesn't affect our grand list except in a very minor way, but the square footage of the garage. Right. What it affected was their homestead when they filed the taxes. So we have to do a new property tax bill form. Right. Okay. Okay. Any questions about that? How about a motion? I move that we accept the exception on the listing for Sarah Seidman property or the Seidman property. Okay. Randy, you'll second it. I will. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Anybody oppose? No. Okay. Thank you, Shelley. Thank you. When you guys come in to sign the orders, you're gonna have to sign, you're gonna sign the errors and emissions too. Okay. All right. Just FYI. Is that ready for tonight, Sarah? Yes, it is. Okay, I can get that. I'll run it right down to you. Okay. I'll be in in the morning. So, Wicker, you can stop. There are only three of us who can sign. So we all need to sign. So you can. I'll need to sign. Okay. Perfect. Treasure's report. Miranda. Okay. Well, the first thing is I wanted to let everyone know that we did the audit on Wednesday. They came in, finished up everything. It went very smoothly. We had no issues this year. She's compiling the draft version and should have that to us in a couple of weeks. And I want to just publicly give Cheryl a lot of credit. She had a lot of stuff put together for it and it certainly made a difference this year. It's amazing how having a real bookkeeper makes a real difference. Set that right on. Makes a difference all the time, but at a lot of time it especially makes a difference. Yep. Yep. Certainly is. So that's the first thing. That's part of the good news. The other thing is we need to ratify. I sent out an email to everybody the other day when I realized that we weren't going to have the truck by the time our loan quote was going to expire. So I did get the authorization from three of the select board members to authorize initiating a note for $200,000 for five years. So I need a motion that says that you authorize Darinda to, you want to ratify. I don't know if you have to put this in a minute that you have to ratify this, but authorizing Darinda to move forward with initiating a $200,000 note for five years at the rate of 2.79% for the purchase of the new Kenworth truck. And the reason we were doing that is it was anticipated interest rates were going up. So by doing this we saved the lower interest rate. That's right. A change of a 1.25% or something close to that. Now. Yeah. So good catch Darinda, thank you. Yep. And while you're at it, I think you might want this as a separate motion should you decide to do it that we have to sign this note by the 30th and we will not have another select board meeting prior to that. So either three select board members will need to come in and sign it once I receive the paperwork or you can make a motion giving the chair the authorization to sign on behalf of the board. If that would need to be a motion put into the minutes as well. I would just have soon have three of us sign in if we can. I think we should be able to. Yeah, I can make sure I make a trip down here to sign. With a little, you know, with a few days warning, I think it should be. As soon as I get the paperwork, I'll let everybody know. I mean, I don't even mind driving it to everybody's house. That isn't the problem. It's just, you know, it's going to be a quick turnaround. Drive it to my house. Cocktails will be served. Okay. For everybody to provide the cocktails. No, I think we can, I think we can, I think we can make it happen. So I don't think we need that motion, but we do need a motion on the note itself. If Victor or Randy would make that motion, please. Yeah, so I'll make a motion to ratify giving her into the authorization to enter into the agreement with the five year note for $200,000 for the new dump truck. Second. Thank you, Victor. Can you guys tell me the name of the bank you're doing this with? Community Bank. Okay. And the rates 2.79% if you didn't get that. 2.79, right? Yeah. And it's a straight up 200,000. Yeah. And hopefully, hopefully we don't, depending on what the trade in turns out to be, we don't have to spend all that money. So we're going to be paying some of it back. We hope, but that was just to provide a little hedge just in, just in case. I forgot to ask Eric, did Eric get a hold of you, Berinda, as far as that guy coming over to tell us how much they're going to give us for the truck? No, he didn't mention it to me. Did he, did you mention it to him? The day that I called you and spoke to you that I had asked him if we knew what the trade in was going to be and he didn't at the time, but he was hauling sand that day. So he couldn't stop to do it. That's why we determined this was the best thing to do is just take a stab in the dark. Oh, we still need that number. We still are going to need to know what it is. Absolutely. I'll follow up with him tomorrow. Yeah. It's not any urgency because we're going to have enough money to cover it, I'm sure, but it was just our way of saving that 2.7 million percent. Yeah, and originally we were thinking it was going to be like 60K and this, we cut that in half for the loan. So yeah, it feels pretty comfortable. Yeah. So we need to vote on that motion. Do we need a second? Didn't the director second it? Brandy made the motion, second it. So all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Anything else, Dorinda? I think that's it for now. That's great news on the audit. I mean, as much as it seemed like everything was going fine, you never know until I come in and pick up all the stuff, whether it's really going fine or not. Yeah, no, she said that. I mean, she actually wrote me a letter the next day and said she enjoyed her day here and that everything looked really good. So. That's a little different than our experience. And two years ago? Absolutely. Wonderful. I think this might be a good time to talk about my conversation with RB Tech, okay? What do you think? Sure. Okay, because in the past, this is when it's been brought up under treasurer's issue. So I got a call today from Brittany at RB Tech. She says that the town needs to sign this contract with them by the end of the month. If we don't sign it by the 30th of September, that RB Tech will start the disengagement process. And the disengagement process means that they pull out all their antivirus software, their perception pro, their proof point, which checks, I guess, spam for spam and also the unified cloud, which is our wifi. As well as the Veeam, which is what apparently is RB Tech's server backup. And speaking of server backup, Brittany said that we have been riding on a lower rate for the past year for their server backup. We are currently charged $75 a month to back up our information on their server and RB Tech has elevated those rates to $145 a month. The issue, I asked her why we haven't been receiving these contracts and she said that it has been RB Tech's practice to automatically roll over clients every year in their contracts. And I guess this year they quit that. So the last contract we've signed with them was 2018. And now they need a commitment from us or else we're going to go through this process of disengagement. Once we are disengaged or once we go through the disengagement process, we will have to pay a fee to reengage, which I'm sure will not be insignificant. Meanwhile, RB Tech will provide service calls for us at the non-contracted rate of $200 versus the contracted rate for municipalities or nonprofits, which is $130.50 per hour. That is all bad news and totally unacceptable to me. They know and we know it's going to take us three months at least to do a good job of considering other providers and we can't allow them to disengage everything. I don't know how we handle it. I don't mind calling Ruben and telling him that and telling him we want a three month or a six month contract or whatever we have to have. But that's A, a lot of risk to disengage all that stuff. But B, it's scary because we need those services. We can't have them pull a plug on all those things. Well, I asked Brittany and you may have better luck talking to Ruben. But I asked Brittany, I said, do you guys offer like three month contracts? And she said, no, you can sign a one year contract, but we require a 90 day notice if you're going to withdraw. So if we sign a one year contract, we've got to give him three months notice saying, we're going to be out of here by the end of January. And so FYI. Well, that isn't so bad actually, but we have to have a contract. So let me, at the end of the month, Jesus, we don't even have another meeting by the end of the month. What's the point? Well, and so one of the issues that I have with this is here they are, they don't issue this contract until, you know, a week into the month, they give you two weeks to basically hold you over the barrel and say, sign this before the end of this month when they themselves have not issued a contract for we're working into four years now. You know, you said 18 was the last time you signed a contract for three years, whatever. It doesn't sit well with me. Doesn't sit well with me either. And, you know, they know they've got us over a barrel and they're sticking the sword in and twisting it, but the bottom line is unless people have changed their mind and there are only three of us here tonight, we know how to render fields. I think we made the decision to go ahead with this process. So we need to figure out how to do it. We could sign that one year contract and immediately give them 90 days note. I mean, here's the question. The question is, if once we give them that notice, they're going to pull out no matter what, then we've got to wait till we get through the search process and then make a decision and then wait three months. So likely it's six months away before we would be able to leave. About the search process, you guys asked me to go look for other IT firms. And so far, people are either with RB Tech or they're with Tech Group of Burlington, which I think is one of the ones that contacted us to try and did a cold call for us several years ago. So the bottom line is also there just aren't that many certain providers around here to do what they do, which is have an offsite server, you know, et cetera. Oh, I know. I want to note too that we might have signed the last contract in 2018, but we've been receiving increases every year. We were doing 676, then it went up to 705. This month we got billed 735. So they certainly have been changing our prices along the way. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. I mean, what I am, I mean, the money is important, really important. But what I'm concerned about is that we don't seem to be getting the service we expected and wanted. And, you know, I'm going to tell that to Reuben right from his face. I mean, we don't like these random rate increases. We don't like the fact that you don't seem to be looking ahead and creating a plan for us for our IT stuff. You just tell us it's our job to react to these emergencies as you bring them up and then you don't give us any time. I mean, they call us up, they keep saying we need a new server. Well, where's the quote? Where's the plan? Where's the, I don't know, it's frustrating to me, because that isn't what I expected. Right, the interesting thing that Sarah heard, and I'll share this because she shared it with me, that one of the places she talked to, they said the problem was their technician. Once they got a new technician working on their account, their problems seemed to go away. I don't know if that's an issue or not, but it's just food for thought that if you're gonna talk to Reuben. Well, something's gotta change. If it isn't the, and the technician is certainly the head of the spear. So, yeah. Since we're 10 days from the end of the month, I don't know what you wanna do. Do you wanna schedule a special meeting after talking to Reuben? How do you wanna handle this? I would like to have the authority to sign the contract with the understanding that we can cancel it with 90 days notice. I mean, I don't think we have any choice. I think they've got us. So, I don't think there's anything to talk about there. Then we can decide if we wanna get a proposal from these other guys. I think probably we will. I'd like to hear from RB how they can change things, if they can change things, or what they can promise us, or, you know, we're just gonna work our way through the process, but we have no time to do anything between now and the end of the month. And I don't want them to start throwing switches on the first day of next month. I find it hard to believe they would do that, but maybe they would. I'm sure Brittany's just spouting the party line. I mean, she has no real authority to negotiate anything I don't believe. I agree, and she said that, you know, if there are any questions, she can call, she can invite Rupert to, no, Rupert Rupin, Rupin to talk to the board or whatever. The point is that I was just asking her all these questions because I knew that the meeting was happening. I wanted to know what would happen if we didn't sign that contract. That was the answer. And you have a copy of the contract, right? Somewhere. I sent you guys all a copy of it, probably a month ago. We looked at it in the last, it was on the last meeting's agenda. And that's when we decided to- I'm sure I've got it. I just want to make sure that that non-gay cancellation clause is actually in there. Well, it's probably- I mean, unless, I mean, if people want to have a special meeting, we could certainly do that. I think we're all sick of special meetings. And I don't think there's anything to talk about really, except we have to do this and then figure out what the next step is. Sarah, did they say how long the disengagement process was or did they explain that process at all? She didn't. That's why I said to her, like Peter says, she's not, I don't know what Brittany's function is there, but I said to her, what happens if we don't sign it on the 30th? And she says, well, we start the disengagement process. And I said, well, what's the disengagement process? And she said, we pull all of our stuff off your systems. Well, what, you know, so then she just listed anti-virus, perception pro, proof point, unified cloud, wifi beam, and then removing us off the server. So that was, I think for more technical explanation of how long that takes, you'd have to talk to somebody who does that. I don't think Brittany does that. So the other thing we could do is Randy, you and Phil and I could have a conversation with Ruben if you'd like to be able to ask him those questions directly. I'm not trying to short-circuit that process. I just think we need some kind of guidelines about whether we can agree to sign the contract or not. Because if we don't, if we don't, we're likely to be in a bad place as of October 2nd. Well, I find that's true. We can ask the questions and say, and if he says nothing's gonna happen for 15 days, then we can wait till our meeting. And if they're gonna start, if they're gonna start turning stuff off as of the first, we need to act. I think in general though, that you would think if a good customer that pays their bills that have been with you for probably close to eight years or something that the owner would have reached out and said, what's the problem? Yeah. I mean, I find it hard that a secretary calls and says, we're gonna start the disengagement process if you don't sign this by the 30th. And I'm looking at the contract right now and under section eight, the termination of perception management services program, bullet point G, it says that the client may terminate this agreement within 60 days with prior written notice to RB technologies for convenience or good cause. So there's a 60 day window here that it asks for underneath the termination clause. Again, eight bullet point G. And again, I'm just scanning this section really quickly, but it looks like 60 days is the number. It's gonna take us 60 days to make a decision what we're gonna do. I mean, you know, if someone's really gonna come in and give us a proposal, they're gonna need to come in and spend the time of through all our servers, figure out all the stuff. I mean, it's not a small, as much as we're a small organization, there's a lot of moving parts to our RIT system. And unfortunately, Phil is here tonight. He has a better idea about all this than I do. But I mean, the question is, the question is, why don't we do this? Let me talk to Ruben tomorrow and see what I can come up with from him. And then we can decide if we need to have a special meeting or not. But my recommendation is gonna be that we sign the damn contract and continue to pursue other options. And then we can give them the 60 day notice sounds better than 90 days. It's gonna take 60 days to get everything organized anyway. And Sarah, the other thing that I'm looking at here that kind of draws my attention as well is, and I'd have to see the old contract to understand it better, but there is in this new agreement, there is an auto renewable per the terms of this service agreement included in this contract as well. So, that whole conversation about this being a new policy, it looked like they're doing the same exact thing as they were before. Maybe they just had to redo that after. Now they're bothered to deal with the contracts and now they're looking at them for whatever reason. But shame on them, that's them, not us. And I'm sure I remember that there was language in there that from time to time, they can adjust the rates. And the new billable rate according to this is $200 an hour. There's no mention in here of, at least underneath that table that talks about a discounted rate from the municipality. I don't think they gave us a discounted rate. What you're doing is... Well, I asked her, I said, if we let this contract expire, what happens if we call RB Tech and when something in our system fails? Will you still respond or not respond? She said, we'll still respond, but it will cost you $200 an hour, which is what we charge our non-contracted clients versus the $130.50 for a nonprofit rate. I have the feeling that that nonprofit rate is lower because if you're a client, because they probably work on you virtually. In other words, instead of coming with their little toolbox to your place, they work remotely, which is what I think about. All those things, I mean, it sounds like they've got the wrong rate in their contract, who knows? But, we need to pay attention to that contract and... Peter, I just sent you the agreement. It's got, as you, it's, of course, it's nothing is in paper, it's nothing to print out. Everything needs to be clicked on, including a PDF. So the PDF is built into the agreement. So when you click on that hyper, so you'll see it. But on page two, Sarah, if you're looking at that, the page two, the rate structure that they provided in here, that $130.50, that is only for the first two hours of service for the month. Okay. And that's charged as part of the monthly fee. And didn't we increase that from two hours to more than that? Yes. Also, I have to say, I'm really confused by the terminology. Is the perception monthly agreement, is that separate from what we're talking about, or is that part of this contract? I mean, I don't know if this perception is something else, is that a software agreement, or is the perception actually what all of RB is providing for us? I think the perception is their ability to work on our system remotely that they install. But I'm not sure. Well, it says here too, that the perception is audiovisual defender managed antivirus protection. And there's a bunch of different things in here that are contained underneath this perception management services here. Right, that's their monthly bill to us. And then we get so many hours, everything that's not covered under that perception agreement, they then send us an overcharge bill. So like for this instance for an invoice here that's dated for September 12th, it is computer consulting, which is their perception monthly service, four and a half hours, and we're paying $130. And then so then we have adjustments where they took away two hours from our build up and took away $260 and we only paid $325 for the monthly charge. Cause we had two hours left over, I guess from the previous month. Yeah. Also, I don't know why I'm getting these contracts. I have no ability as a town clerk to sign them. I mean, that's not really my job. That's Ursula. No, that's not. So what's your pleasure here, guys? I hate to go, I hate to get too far ahead of our skis when there are only three of us here. Well, I feel like we need clarification on their billing rates in this contract because the rate that they're quoting, Sarah is different from what the contract says. I think that there needs to be a conversation with Ruben about the issues that we're having and make it perfectly clear that we're not happy with the service that they're providing. I do agree with you and I'm not happy about it, but I hate being held over the barrel. I think they're doing it on purpose. If that 60 day clause for convenience or good cause is what we have to use to sign an annual agreement and then get out of it, I would wanna make sure that we comb that over to make sure there aren't any like significant penalties for doing so, but that- I would encourage your good of contracts. You read it, I'll read it. You know, why don't we do this? I'm gonna have a conversation with Ruben, Randy. I will call you after that, Victor, I'm happy to. I actually can't call you because then it's a meeting. We would have to have a special meeting, but I think the bottom line is unfortunately we need to sign the damn thing and then get on with the process as quickly and expeditiously as we can. Well, I certainly think you should sit down and talk to Ruben again about the whole, you know, everybody's, you know, lack of the confidence in what's happening here. I mean, they've only, we had him come in, I don't know, it must be a month ago now. He came in on a Friday when nobody was working and, but everybody's computers were shut off and he tried to install the new Windows program. He says, well, I'm going on vacation next week, so I'll have to do the other ones when it gets back. He hasn't done anybody else's yet and that was a month ago. It's like there's no follow through. To the extent you are the person who has, you know, for lack of a better word, had most of the interaction with them and most of the issues, I would like to have you be part of a meeting with him. I'm going to have him come over. We can sit down with him. Randy, you can come if you want to and really hash this out between now and the end of the month about whether we're going to sign this contract. But the bottom line is guys, I don't think we have any choice but to sign the contract. We can't go without our computers. We can't go without our email. We can't go without proper backups. We just cannot. So... I agree with that 100%. And I also don't think you're going to be able to move to a new company within three months. So... I don't either, Dorinda. I think it's going to take them a couple of months to even get us a proposal. Then we've got to review it, ask questions, blah, blah, blah. You're going to, you're a long ways out. If you could do it in six months, I'll be surprised. No, I don't disagree a bit. So I'll make the motion to, you know, after that meeting with Ruben to give Peter the authorization to sign another annual contract. And at the same time, I think we need to start looking at other options. Continue to look at other options. So anyway. So Victor, you'll second that? I will. Okay, all in favor? Aye. I will call him tomorrow and I'll report back. Dorinda, you're generally going to be around? For the most part, I'm around, yeah. Okay, well, I'll see what his schedule is. I'm pretty much around the next two weeks. So I should be able to... I mean, he basically should be able to accommodate our schedule, for Christ's sake, I would say. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Friday, I won't be around during the day Friday, but other than that, I think I'm around. I'll be around. Okay, well, I won't put you on the hook until I talk to you. If you give me enough heads up, Peter, I'll try to make it as well, but I don't want to hold it up for me either. So... Okay, so when do you usually get back to town at the end of the day, Brandon? My schedule, if I know ahead of time, my schedule except for Wednesdays, I can be fairly flexible. So Wednesdays is tough for me, but other than that, if I know ahead of time, it could be a midday meeting for most days. Okay, okay, but is it better to do it at four o'clock in the afternoon, just saying? Yeah, that's fine, it's easier, but... Yeah, okay. So do we want to take up this next item or do we want to wait until we have a full... No, no, no, no, I need an answer to this because we're now getting, people are just sending in letters to the select board saying we're going to ask for $2,000 at the March 7th, 2023 town meeting. And I've been promising them that I'll get it back to them about whether or not you're going to go back to your old system of requesting for petitions for anything over $250, or if you're going to stick with the last year's thing. I've gotten a few calls too, and I just said to them, I said, guys, these are due the end of the year. You've got three months. Don't put it down to my head about when we have to make this decision. I think it's a little, I mean, I understand they want to know and I understand they're anxious, but I don't know. Are we just going to say, okay, we're going to do it the way we've done at the last few years, or are we going to say, no, we're going back to the old way? How do you guys feel? No, we're going back to the old way. Randy? Yeah, I'm fine with going back to the old way. So my only, I don't mind going back to the old way. My only question is, which I think I brought up before, whether that $250 is the right number. We've had that $250 for ever. Well, just to, you guys can take that up next year. Right now, I mean, that 250 mark is, I mean, my advice is I have to do the same question. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sarah, but that 250 is a magic number, right? Where anything 250 and below is kind of grouped into that special articles. And the minute it goes into the 251 category, we start getting into individual. Once you get to anything over 250, requires a petition signed by 75 middle sex voters saying we want to see this. And then it gets its own separate article on the warning. Right. Yeah, so I think that 250 just stays where it sits and right, the question that you guys are dealing with is should you, you, you, the board imposed a COVID requirement last year that as long as those special articles, no one is asking for more or better than they did the previous year, or if they are not new organizations, they can just write a letter to the select board asking to be level funded from the previous year. And it'll go on the, and the town meeting warning. What you've always had in the past is that if it's anything over 250 bucks, you have to get 75 signatures even if you're making the same requests that you have every year. Right. I'm in favor of that. I'm in favor of that. I'm not, but I'm only one of three. So I'll make the motion. I'll make the motion to revert back to the old practice of anything over the $250 is required to have the, did you say 75 person? It's 5% of the registered voters. Okay. So 5% of the registered voters. Victor, you'll second that. Second that. Okay. All in favor? All right. I'm opposed. Anyway, so we've done it, I guess. I don't guess we have done it. So you can tell them, Sarah. Okay. Thank you. Paul, let the chips fall where they may. Yeah. Okay. Changing the road name, Mitch. Yes. Yes. I have requests from the folks who live off of a little spur on French road to name their private. There's at least three addresses on the road. So it's supposed to be named a private road. It hasn't been for some time, but I'm addressing that now. They've requested Luna Lane, L-U-N-A. I've gotten the okay from both the state 911 board and the post office. They both said it's great. Who's Luna? Do you really want to know? Yeah. I think it's the name of the dog of one of the residents. That's a better excuse than most. Okay. Are all of the residents on that road in agreement? Apparently they've all indicated they're fine with that. I don't have anything in writing, but... But they've indicated to you that they don't have any objections. Correct. Well, looking for Luna Hill. Luna Lane. Luna Lane. Okay, Luna Lane. Let's make sure we get the name right in the road sign, right? Luna Lane. Yes. Is there a motion? Gentlemen. I'll make the motion that we allow it to be a Luna Lane. Second, Randy? Yep. I know I'm working you guys hard, but I don't have any choice. Follow up the favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Luna Lane it is, Mitch. Thank you. Thank you, folks. Approving minutes of the September 6th meeting. Motion please. I'll make that motion. I'll second that. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. We've approved our minutes. Approving the MOU with CB5 are action likely. I talked to Rob. He says it's fine. Actually, the part that he had been waiting for is supports the town's position. So he recommends that you sign it. Make that motion. Second. Victor? Second, Peter? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Maybe we should only have three people on the select board. Just, they can see how it happens. We're zipping right along here. But Peter, before we move from that, I believe we held a check for that too. Can we authorize the release of that check? Yes, we should. Do we need a motion to do that? I don't think so. We've already approved the check. We were just holding a pending approval of the MOU. Okay. So, everybody's in agreement with us on that? And they're in his pocket right now. She's ready to send it out. So, yeah. We can send it out with a signed MOU. So, who needs to sign the MOU, Sarah? I'm looking at it right now. Just chair of the select board. Okay. We'll be down in the morning. Okay. Okay. Orders, we've talked about the orders. We all need to sign them. Discussion about structuring the FY24 budget discussion. Is that you, Dorenda? That's me. I put that on. Oh, okay. I just wanted, this is a select board assistant question. Do you guys, a lot of times you've had people come in, you know, various, the conservation commission, the planning commission come in and make their pitch, or do you want to, do you've also in the past that you don't like that? So could you just tell me what you would like? Can you elaborate on that a little bit? I don't understand. Sure. So usually what the board does is they have, for example, the fire department will come in and deliver its proposal for the FY24 budget. And the highway department will come in, you and Eric. Sometimes they've asked the conservation to come in, the commission to come in. Or, you know, the cemetery commission never comes in. But the planning commission will say, you know, we need this much for consulting. And a lot of times the board has had people, groups come in or representatives. That kind of went by the wayside during the pandemic. So I guess my question to you is during this budget, upcoming budget season, which begins, you know, pretty much pretty soon, do you want that? Or do you, would you let, or could people submit letters or do you want it just from the highway department and the fire department? Or how do you guys want to, what do you want to do? So my take on it is, you know, whatever the number is, 90% of the money is between the roads and the office. Yeah. And to the extent that this is likely to be the first year in the new world with the fire department. I think it's good for them to come in and present theirs. You know, their budgets are pretty good, Sean. I don't think we need to, I don't think we need to meet with the planning commission or any of those other groups. They can send us a letter. And if we look at the letter and we have questions that we want to meet with them, we can meet with them, but I don't think we need to. All right. I agree with Peter. Yep, that's great. That's all I need. Let's make it the office, the fire department. And the highway. The highways. Okay. And also I have some correspondence, which I also sent to you, but I want to get it into the record. Okay. Go ahead. That correspondence is from the school district. I think I said you guys copy, saying that they, that the middle sex representative, Dennis Hill has resigned from the Washington Central Unified Union School District. And there needs to be an appointment. And they were looking for, they're looking for an appointee. It's unclear from this letter who does that appointing. I think it actually might be the select board. I don't think so. No. Why would we be appointing somebody to the school board? Well, yeah. I don't know. Does it make, I don't know. Does this letter serves this notification to the select board of a vacancy due to the resignation of middle sex representative, Dennis Hill, the appointed replacement will serve until March 7th. The new term starts at that point. So yeah, maybe it doesn't. I don't know why they're, they're notifying you, but anyway, I guess I'm getting confused by the boards. I mean, I think it's up to them to recruit their new member, not us. I mean, they're asking us if we know anybody, I would say if we know anybody, we should be, we should be reaching out to them. This is important. That's, you know, that's more money than the town budget right there. We need to be well represented. Okay. Well, there's official notification in a minute. So if anybody, if anybody wants to show up for middle sex, that would be a good idea. Yeah. Can we, can we circle back to that, that other budget conversation? So as, as part of the budget committee, I know one thing that's been on our, on our plate is circling back with the various groups for the CIP. And I think the remaining, the remaining folks on our, on our agenda, we're meeting with the planning commission and their next meeting. Which I believe is. Wednesday. What's that? Wednesday. Yeah. That's, it's coming up. I'm not, I can't remember the date. Any commission? Yes. Wednesday. So we've got representative going there to kind of talk through that CIP process. The next step after that is to circle back with the select board and bring that process full circle to the, to the board in an effort to try to work that process into this next year's budgeting cycle. Hearing the conversation around not folks that used to come to the board with their budgets. I'm wondering if the budget committee plays a role there and what the board's feelings are there, how that process typically goes. I haven't, I haven't been part of that. And I know the, the budget committee prior to this has played a very limited role, but is that, is that an opportunity for us to help the board in preparations for the, for the following year's budget preparations? The answer is yes. I would hope, I would hope at the meeting, I mean, so from some of these organizations, we're going to get a letter or a report or a request or whatever we're going to call it. You know, we're going to review that request. I would suggest that the budget department, the budget department needs to be part of that. And also obviously, if any of those capital items are in this year's budget, they need to be presented. If they're out in the future, they need to be presented just because we had them, we need to get them to the plan, but they're not part of the, they're not part of the budget. Right. Yeah. So it's really two separate pieces in my mind. It's the proposal for the, for the next year's budget. And then the CIP process, which, which does include when, when they put that together, did include, you know, town government folks, select board bookkeepers, treasurers, all that kind of stuff, which I'm sure has limited items on their agendas. But anyway, that's something that, as we put together future agendas and we start coming into this, we need to make sure that we include that as part of the process. Yes. And also, also the other thing I would say to any of these groups is if they have some special things like some special project or something above and beyond what they usually spend, you know, I would encourage them to come and present it to us rather than just send us a letter. But if it's pretty much a pro forma, you know, renewal of their existing budget, so much for advertising, so much for mailing, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it's a few thousand dollars. I don't think we need to, I don't think we need to meet with them. We need to review their request absolutely in compared to last year's requests and all that. But I don't think we need to. Yeah, those one offs should be able to be handled through that the capital improvement process. Hopefully folks are gonna get into the habit of actually filling out that form and going through that process where it'll come through and hit both the budget committee and the select board as a whole. So I think we've met with everybody but those folks. I think the cemetery folks, the planning commission are the last on the list. Like you just said, the cemetery folks didn't seem like that's a real big thing where they're gonna have anything come through. So anyway, I thought that we should just kind of throw that out there, get on the agenda and give you guys an update as to where we were coming into this. So it seems fitting. And the other thing I would say is, generally earlier is better. We don't wanna get in the holidays but we always get pushed back from people saying, why are you asking us for next year's budget in the month of October? But we've got quite a bit on our plate for this fall. So spreading out the budget process is a good thing. Well, I suppose that asking the budget, the fire department to come in in October, that they won't like that. So. Oh, they're in the new friendly mode and we're in the new friendly mode. So- Well, I'm gonna blitz everybody tomorrow now that I know how it's all gonna structure and get the process rolling. Okay, the other thing to remind the budget committee is they definitely have capital things in their plan, I know. So they have to remember to do it. Have you met with them, Randy? It's a budget committee met with them. Who is that, the fire department? Yes. Absolutely. Oh, okay. So they're all set? Yeah, we've gone through the process with Eric. They had, most everything that they had listed was already contained within the plan. So there weren't any new additions. But definitely had that conversation and the budget committee did update the plan showing the allocation of the $70,000 for the airpacks and whatnot. So yes, that's all been current. Yep. Okay. That sounds good. That makes sense to you, Sarah? Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. One other meeting. You got money, if you want money, ask for it. Well, we have a thing to think about too and all Shelly's here, it's a good time to mention it. We outsourced our listing, our praising last year. I think we're gonna have to spend some time with the new listers because A, I don't think, I don't know how they feel about taking over that responsibility of going out and appraising the properties. So there's a discussion, do we move forward another year with having an outside service do it or the listers themselves? And also, I don't know if they'll have a fair idea of their needs or their portion of the budget. And wasn't there, isn't there a significant software expense that we're anticipating for next year? There was at one time, but again, I don't know if that's still in the works or not. And I don't know if Shelly or anybody is aware of that at this point or not. Yeah, okay. Well, maybe we should meet with them sooner rather than later so we can start the ball rolling because it sounds like it's homework to be done. Yeah. Okay, so the other quick item I have is this disgruntled landowner up on Bear Swamp who now wants to meet with me personally, discussed the last meeting. And I don't think that meeting is gonna go well and I'm not excited about meeting with him. So I don't know how we do that, whether we tell him that he needs to put himself on the agenda and appear before the select board, whether we ask him to meet with our attorney. I don't know how we handle it, but I mean, he's not gonna lie, I'm not gonna tell him anything different than what I told him at the meeting and he's not gonna like it. So I'm not very sure. I don't think a one-on-one meeting, hearing what I just heard, I don't think a one-on-one meeting is warranted. No, no, no. And you know, whatever he has to say, he can say it to the whole board. So I'm gonna tell him he needs to put himself on the agenda if that makes sense to everybody. Makes sense to me. You know, I didn't hear it personally but I don't understand why he would demonize me and when I had really nothing to do with any of it. Well, he... Guys, I'm gonna just really caution you. This is just, remember, this is a resident of our community and if you, I would just keep it very professional. No, no, no. But all I'm saying is the professional way to do it is to have him come and meet with the board. Okay, and we've got that in the minutes. Don't include any snarky comments in the minutes, but we all heard the way he behaved himself and I don't anticipate it'll be any different and I'm reluctant to meet with him. So I just wanted to tell you that and I will tell him if he wants to speak to me, he can do it at a warrant select board meeting. Okay. And then we can decide if our attorney needs heaven forbid needs to get involved. I hope not, but he's got a chip on his shoulder or as they say, you know, what's the definition of a well-balanced politician a chip on both shoulders? I don't know. I'm not looking forward to interacting with him. I can tell you that, but I will call. Okay, that doesn't need to go in the minute. Anything else? Everything is recorded, everything is recorded. I know, that's all right. Anything else for tonight's meeting? I got a question, Mrs. Shelly. I'm meeting with the state on something on some current use issues that we're having on Thursday. Did you want me to bring that up to them to see if there's a program out there? I mean, I don't have a problem going out for the reappraisal as long as I have the proper training. So I do it right for the residents, but I think there might be a program out there and I can run it by him and see if there is. Well, the question I think was, and I can't remember exactly what I understood was it was a major upgrade to the software which is basically handles all this listing process and all the tax records and all of that and that it was a big expense for us and it got put off for a year. So the question I have is that question, first of all, are we looking at a big software expense coming up next summer for a mandatory upgrade to our system in terms of whether you guys do the inspections or we subcontract it. I think we need to have a conversation about that, but it wouldn't hurt for you to ask what training they have available and what the cost is because if we are going to take it back over ourselves and if that's what you guys are recommending, we've got to make sure you're trained, right? I agree. Yeah, I'm remembering that software upgrade was a significant amount of money, either $15,000 or $30,000. I couldn't remember if it was half of it or 25. I can't remember, but it was real, I remember it was real money and they came to us, the previous listeners came to us and said, this is something we need to do now, we have no choice and then it got put off. So I think we need to know in our budget process whether that's staring us in the face or not. So, Shelley, if you can try and find that out, that would be great. I'll try to do that for you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, anyone? Happy fall, the leaves are changing, the rain's coming down and here we go. We're glad you're not on the road crew, they had a big day today. Great. Thank you guys, have a good night. Okay. Bye bye.