 It's 7 o'clock 3 on Monday the 18th of September and I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Waterbury Select Board. The first order of business is to approve the agenda. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I needed to know if I could add. I'm sorry. Let me remember now. It came to me today. We have a new zoning administrator. Thank you for that. And he is our 9-1-1 coordinator. We'd like him to be, but we need a motion from the Select Board. The VTE 9-1-1 board requires a copy of the Select Board minutes or a letter. So if we can add it to a consent, I can use those minutes. So it would be to appoint Mike Bishop as the VTE 9-1-1 or excuse me, E9-1-1 coordinator. E9-1-1 coordinator for the municipality of Waterbury. Yes. All right. Do I have a motion to accept the amendment? Seconded. All right. Moved and seconded. All in favor of the amendment? Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. The amendment is now in under the consent agenda to have Mike Bishop, our new zoning administrator, to serve as our E9-1-1 coordinator for Waterbury. Any further discussion on the agenda? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The agenda is approved with the consent agenda items as amended. All right. Now is the public time for anyone to address any issue that is not on the warrant agenda. I would ask that you keep your comments to three minutes if possible and if it requires further discussion to bring it onto the agenda in the following meeting. Any comments from the public? Hearing none. We'll move forward. We have an entertainment permit request from old stagecoach in. The permit, entertainment permit request is in our packet. Kristen would you mind coming forward? Thank you. We've got consent as a motion. I feel like we'll go back together. As long as you feel good for the minutes. Yeah, I just want to make sure we have the consent. Okay. Kristen, have a seat. And please put your mind introducing yourself and state your business. Sure. My name is Chris Abadish. I'm the owner of the old stagecoach in and been talking with one of the bluegrass groups that plays at propig frequently about having them play bluegrass one evening kind of intended site would be them on our porch with audience on our patio that's kind of in the parking lot. I put several dates on there just because I wasn't sure what date would work for everybody. And also if we get the approval to see if I can't find maybe Katrina's Celtic group or somebody else a singer songwriter or something to just a few evenings before it gets too cold as our first little attempt to have something fun. But five to seven p.m. So it's over before anybody's trying to go to bed, whether they be our guests or the neighbors or whatnot. You know, in either if it's the bluegrass group right now at propig, they have a little PA with an eight inch speaker, you know, they're right next to the houses right there on Elm Street. It hasn't been an issue yet. So similar setup with them. And if I did get other groups, again, whether it's Celtic or acoustic or what not, it would either be truly acoustic or similar small footprint. We're not doing a big concert. It's just something to kind of welcome people as they arrive in the evening or sit down with a cocktail on the patio open to locals as well, just like our patio and pub is. But yeah, so something small, not we only see maybe 20 25 out there anyway. So wouldn't expect anything bigger than that. And have you had the opportunity to discuss this with the Wells House apartment's residents with a couple of them? I've got Tony's number. So I'll talk with him more generally. But there's there's a few that I see every day when I'm out walking the dog. But I, you know, other than talking to Tony, I'm not sure how to get it to everybody. And again, that's part of the reason I also want it done by 7 p.m. So that, you know, there's no nobody who's who's trying to go to bed and still disturb by it. Yeah, well, alcohol be served and do you really have a permit? We do. That's our part of our licensed area. So yeah, the local beers and what not that we already serve in our pub. Other questions from the board? Answered all our questions. Make a motion to approve the entertainment permit for old stage search and that's presented. Seconded. Okay, moving seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any extensions? Congratulations. Thank you so much. And I wish you're doing this when I was playing shows. Love that. That's what a paper was. Can you step by tomorrow, Chris, and we'll settle up with the absolute red dollars and I'll grab a copy. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. Next time we're the agenda is the zoning by law update. Because you all are so excited. Martha Statkus, who is chair of the planning Commission, sends her regrets. She's away this evening. This will hopefully be more competent than the last time I tried to do this. These are flyers for the upcoming walking or Mike, maybe you could do a drywall motion open house on October 5th. I will say in general, I've been returning to planning commission meetings, the group with support from Neil on staff and also the work they're doing with SE group is moving forward. Karen, I didn't preview this ahead of time, but oh, let's see. This is why does anyone have the one with the little URL at the bottom? Tom? I do from Neil. Yeah, I need the bit. So yeah, my original had the it's tiny URL slash water write BT. I'll get my computer. I thought this was going to be the flawless tech one. Let's go to your URL. So that I was going to ask if Karen could go to it on the screen just to show everyone, which I did not prep with her at the time. Give me an email or text it. Yeah, you're fine. It's a they make it a short. So you literally going to type in short URL slash water very and it's going to come up. I just got to make sure it's just like short. Where am I typing? Okay, hold on one second. Any browser? Is this going to show? Yeah, this is great. So, well, www.tinyurl.com slash water very zoning update. Yeah, you're a rock star. So then if you go back to the zoom, so sorry, this was more intensive. Nope. My meeting far left, it's there. And then the magic share screen green. And then that one looks right. That's all I see. And it's here. Lisa, you're looking at that the whole rest of the will stop. I can't do this. I really feel so bad. But anyway, so folks can see if you click on so sorry, phase one. This is one just noting that this ultimately is going to be a long term process that includes both this is the portion between the Winooski River and 89 but also the group wanted that phase two information on there. So that folks know like, if you live out on 100 on the other side of 89, they will get there. But this is really this phase one. We can keep scrolling down mostly timeline. And phase two is going to be addressed next year. Actually, you can try timeline. So this is really what I wanted to just highlight tonight. So just to say the planning commission imminently should have the release of the full draft for everyone. As was noted, this October 50 from five to seven 30 is a chance for the public, I would say to more informally provide input. You'll see we have two planning commission public hearings are hearings moving into early 2024. But part of the goal of the walking tours for folks to be able to come along, ask questions, you know, in particularly like property owners and residents may be along this area who questions about like, what does that mean? What would this look like in my neighborhood? So this is really a great chance to be able to do that. There's going to be two of them for the different zoning districts. But this is the first one. I'll be there. We'd love to see anyone who's interested. But also this website, which we don't need to do a more in depth analysis now other than as Tom just said, he put this on the town's Facebook. It's on the main municipal site. But folks can this whole website gives additional updates about the goals of the rewrite, the different districts being covered, the types of uses. So mostly again, just for all of us to know this is the proposed timeline. I know we've all talked about the interim bylaws and wanted to make sure, you know, this has the goal of having those new bylaws ready to go in time. And I think just in particular being involved early helps so that when we're getting to those public hearings, we're all on the same page. Not everyone maybe read zoning for fun. So I would say mine is this is the like friendly like if you have something you're going to disagree with personally, I would love for us to like have those conversations now while we're having a walking tour in the neighborhood to that by the time we're getting to planning, mission public hearings in our public hearings, it's something we all feel really good about supporting and ultimately adoptive. That's all I have as my liaison soapbox. But I would say that like kudos to the planning commission again, who have been meeting every working for all this with Neil and so excited to have some more user friendly things to go through. And even I definitely need to still spend some time really sitting down and just making sure that I go through things and kind of surface anything I want to ahead of this. You're a star. Thank you Karen. Thank you. Questions from the board? All right. Thank you, Alyssa. And I believe there's no action that is being taken by the slide boards. As of yet, me. It looks like in April, the next one. Begin becoming informed now and anticipation of our future. All right. Any questions from Lisa or anyone else in the Zuma Sphere? No. Good. All right, let's move on. RWR funding request for the Stow Street Alley. Todd, do you want to give us an update on this? Sure. Karen was before you some time ago and the board in essence deferred the funding request. She's nearing the construction phase of the project. So the funding request is more urgent for her. Karen and I had some conversation and traded emails about the ability of the town to maybe eliminate the request or reduce it by virtue of us doing some of the work. And her answer is that there is a couple of different owners. She's got MLUs with them. Those MLUs are not with the town. It's pretty precise, you know, handling brickwork. It's not not work that we can really do or have experience doing. And we're also busy. We're behind on all our paving. We found like sort of caught up on some of that with the flood. So it's not it's not really work that falls into our wheel hubs. Maybe we can assist maybe with some of the hauling away at the debris and some costs like that. But in general, it's not a good fit for the town to take over. And she's got a sign to contract with the employer landscaping to do the work. So no way to conflict with that as well. But just to know, I'll have to understand from voting this. I am on the revitalizing Waterbury Alley Fundraising Committee. I'd be glad to answer any technical questions that I might be able to. OK. And I'm here representing our W. Would you mind stepping forward? I don't know. You know, just that I mean, the project is big. We've been working on it for two and a half years. We have Ian. I tried to do the asphalt removal, the bricklaying. You have a lighting design person. We've got we've got everything pretty well lined up to go. So we just need more funding. It's over half funded already. So it's very, very likely this will happen. And when Karen presented last time after some discussion, I brought up the fact that the funding for ARP is really designed initially for recovery from the pandemic disaster. And I wanted to know to what extent this project really would create some type of economic impact and recovery for our downtown locations. And I don't know, can you address that? Yeah, I mean, I've been on the RW design committee and I've cleaned up that alley for years along with Jack Carter and other folks. I was called a ghetto alley. It was pretty bad. And I think that the town deserves that. I think the retail shops deserve having a nice space for people to grab a bagel, sit in the alley for I think it's just overall good for the economy of the town. And as bad as it looks now, they will be a highlight for attracting people to the town. I really do. I mean, there are certain places in certain towns that you go in and it's a wow moment. And I think I think the alley will be that. Another question is that if I looked at the budget correctly, even with 20,000, you don't have a complete you're not fully funded. And so I'm wondering what this would allow you to do and how you intend to make up a further budget. Right, I can tell you, I mean, we have a fundraising committee together. We're targeting, you know, particular foundations, grants, individuals of the Waterbury community that would contribute to that. That is pretty much our plan. We also hope to have another crowdfunding. I mean, we've already raised at least half of the money, which is pretty significant, but it's, you know, when we first got into it, we were thinking, well, 90, 120, it's much bigger than we could imagine between to really make something of it to make the gateway what we want it to be. The lighting design is is pricing with, you know, some of it's just the liability, making sure it's a safe place to be well lit and also a place for artists, for makers here, for different people of the community to actually present, show their craft, share it with folks. Are you waiting? Will it be done in phases so that some of it can be done before it's fully funded or are you waiting until there's three phases? The first phase is take up all the asphalt, the weeds. We've already taken out a tree and some shrubs and some other things, move the propane tanks out, done a lot of work. So the first phase is basically getting it paved. The second phase is planting benches, trash receptacles. The third phase will pretty much be more of the lighting, the other design features that will go into it. So it's fully, I think we hope to have it paved starting next week, maybe the end of next week. That's the big piece of it to get it done. It will clean it up and look beautiful. I think it's going to attract more people that would like to, you know, help us find ways for it. It'll just, it'll be black and white within a few days. So if we don't have money, we don't, we just won't get to, you know, phase three. OK, I have, I guess, two questions. The first one is there are other municipalities who have done projects similar to this one. Barry is a good example because they have several alleyways that have the archway and the granite benches. And I can't speak on the economic impact of their alleyway projects, especially the one next to the AR market and stuff like that. My concern is that we're being asked to spend money from an account that doesn't replenish when we spend it, it's gone for maybe some economic, positive economic impact. And that is a little bit of a game in my personal opinion. Close to you, Amanda. Well, I guess it's better. The question or a statement? Yeah, I guess. I respond. The question was, yes, sorry, the question was, do you have any like actual real fungible examples of projects like this, having positive economic impacts on communities? I can't say that we have no statistics or results of like what happened in Derry. A number of it's a collaboration of a number of people. The Rotary, Maker Sphere, I mean, senior citizen, it's a huge group of people that are working on it. A number of them are business owners who are feeling that that alley is an embarrassment to their institution, to their Stoast region in point is a good example. That may be the answer if the local business owners are interested in funding it. Right. Better than us. Right. And I think, you know, Stoast Street is is a special place when the garland's up and it's lit and it's looking great. And then you take a turn and go down that alley and go, what's this about? So I don't have any statistics to share with you. I think there's just an overall feeling in the community going back to the days of Jack Carter that this is a little bit of an embarrassment to Waterbury and that it needs to be cleaned up. It needs to become a happening place. And I think it will enhance the village, the tap and I think it will benefit. The one piece I'll add is the town will not own it. Right. When it's done. We're not even we're not even clearing style in the winter. We agree that it's essentially going to be closed off just because clearing stuff in the space is tough for us. So it's a it's a one time expense, but it's a mess. And so an improvement perpetuated doesn't necessarily obligate us to spend money on it. Yeah, I guess just speaking for myself initially I've shared some of Kane's concerns about competing interests of this. There are of course a number of flood recovery initiatives that we want to undertake that are going to have long term impacts that we can, you know, document. There's some question as to whether that might take priority over something like this on the other hand, this is a project that's been going on for a long time. And I see that the merchant community of downtown Library is really behind it and has sort of singled this out as a priority for economic development in town. So I'm leaning towards a positive outcome. I agree. I think you know, even if it's anecdotally that a nicer, more welcoming space is going to draw people and keep people, I think, work. The time is really interesting to look at with the Phoenix opening and seeing people in the alley. I went to an event and there was, oh, sorry. But regardless, people are there outside who are coming for events that spaces is drawing people from other towns to. So I'm just like thinking about the impact of storing those businesses there, which would be positive. We also know that public art has really positive outcomes in towns and I think it is a boom to our local businesses, which did suffer greatly in COVID. I also want to remember that the ask is 20,000, but if we're unsure as a group about that number, we can partially find a request to if that feels more amenable to everyone as a group. So that was kind of my thought that went. So yeah, so I'm feeling positive about saying yes and also flexing on the impact. Mike, you can speak to the issue of the role of standing for voting if you want to. Well, I wouldn't be on the fundraising committee if I didn't think this was a very important project in town. I think it has economic vitality. I think this is unlike the Phoenix because there's so little stuff. I think this is going to be a really nice space which is going to draw people into town. It's already been highly supportive. We're just going the second round, the second half of rounds, we're going really after big dollar donors. We're not looking at the, you know, a dollar paper, but it's a hundred dollar paper. We're not looking, I know I already have a hundred dollar paper in, but we're, you know, they're looking at now, you know, minimum of a $5,000 investment, you know, and ideally we would like to have five $20,000 investments and we're going after institutions and individuals who can do that. And I think it's a very positive thing in town. I think it's a place where I don't see the Phoenix area as a real sitting kind of, I think this is going to be, you know, if you, I wish I brought some of the pro forma and stuff like that, it's going to be a very nice space and why we have a $200,000 budget versus. Would it be advantageous to you for the time to put up a matching funds as in we'll match $20,000 if you can, is it? Oh, I don't think they would have a problem. So I know they're going to make, get $20,000. Absolutely. Yeah. That's an easy call. We have to get a hundred, you know, opposed to a hundred. Yeah, can you match that? No, just kidding. Well, we could, but that's not your one. It's not your one, it's not your one. The fundraising team feels very confident that this is something the community really will support financially. No, we just don't want to be chasing after a lot of small donors. We want to get this done quickly by big dollar donors and we think this is going to be a marketing place for downtown. Elizabeth. I apologize Julie, because I know this is probably more of a caring thing, but can you just outline on the MOU, it's for public access, right? With the two property owners? Yes. So once the improvements are completed, it's for public access. It is for public access, correct? I guess just for me in terms of framing, like yes, we're recognizing this isn't municipally owned, but it's creating public infrastructure and public access. So to me, you know, same thing. I think we all want to be responsible stewards. I think we're recognizing that this is investing in our community infrastructure in a different way than investing in bridges, which we did to the two number four hundred thousand dollars for really that like core municipal infrastructure. But to me, you know, I'm thinking back to our conversation with Rotary and the investments they put into Rusty Parker Park and what an asset that is for our community now. And Tom put numbers to it of how much investment from those community volunteers really made that possible. So to me and ask that's in the budget of 10% of the overall project cost, which I'll be, I thought it was gonna cost too, but this is a way of showing our public support for again, what hopefully would be a community asset. I think there's a way to match and leverage it further or just recognize that like, this is the investment we're comfortable making, but if things are gonna cost more, I think it's a real boom that R.W. and others are willing to do the behind the scenes fundraising to make that happen. So those are the reasons I will support it. What are the discussion? I like your matching idea. Do we have motion? Can I ask a question? Sure, it's like just a text there. Why now are we after these big dollar donors? Like I had the friends in the Waterbury Library come to me today and asked me for a voter checklist for a campaign. I don't remember getting a postcard about this project in my house. Asked me for a minute. It's coming. It's right at the point we're just- I'm not a big dollar. No, and it's very targeted to, because we don't wanna be after 100 different donations. We wanna try to get away with five or 10 or 15 big donors. But I think that's my question, like why aren't you after the small dollar donors? We have already done that via the brick campaign, the $100 bricks. So they're already invested, people, small people already, but like me, I know I missed the first round and I was totally upset when they reopened it up. I was very happy. And I think that's part of the reason why they got the money is because there were a lot of people who invested in $100 bricks. They wanted to do that. So we don't wanna go after the same. Right, we don't wanna kind of go after that same market again. The other piece I would add to Karen is, RW I think does that for its general operating, not for this. So I guess I would just say like, I know friends at the library do a lot of general things and just from having worked at RW, I think some of that is just generally supporting membership in RW, which does a lot of projects, not just this one. So that, I think the goal of that is to be more term-wide too all the time. In other words, I don't wanna target the same people. I mean, we're at a TMP three different times. I'm sorry, we ran the brick supporting campaign three different times because people were like, wait a second, I think it's a viper. And I think we just felt like, the people donating $100, we just didn't wanna go after them again. I just think it's old after a while. But they probably wouldn't refuse your money if you want. Yeah, if you wanna make it, I agree with you. I'm sure they'll make it. We have a motion. You want me? Well, I move that we approve the RW, the Alley Project Request for $20,000 of ARCA funding, encouraging the Fundraising Committee to leverage the funds by using it as a map or a challenge in your next fundraising round. I second that. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all the members say hi. Hi. Any opposed? Abstention. I'll go first. Okay, congratulations. All right, thank you so much. All right, the next item is to set the dates for the international meeting regarding the international meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night. Bye. We're gonna get off with Colbert. Thank you. The intern. Who would like to eat out of Waterburn Town Charter? I'd say the intern. I'd say the intern. I'd say the intern. I'd say the intern. I wouldn't have been surprised if I had to eat out of Waterburn Town Charter. All right, let's try this again. Set dates for the informational meetings regarding the charter vote. And could Tom, you or Karen remind us of what the proposed dates are? Go ahead. In my last email, I proposed piggybacking Alyssa's desire to have one on a select board meeting night. We would have one on Monday, October 30th, and then a second one on Monday, November 6th, which is an already scheduled select board night, 6th. So a cabbage night, and then the 6th. And then sticking with the charter vote on December 5th. Yes, and I lost the, yeah, well I had to because that's your motion. So that's the day of the vote. And then December 6th is a? December 5th. 5th. It's a Tuesday. It's a Tuesday. So it'll be all day voting. I intend to do it here. And the 5th would be strictly an Australian ballot vote. Because there is no public meeting to be had, if it's going to come to the municipal offices and vote between 7 and 7. Correct. And can vote early. Yes, that's correct. And I'm very happy. They don't have to be here and be available on that day to ensure you're part of the vote. Yeah. And so then we would open up the meetings on October 30th and then again on the 6th, starting with the informational meeting. Yeah, the fact, the times were in question to me if you wanted to make your regular meeting, the informational meeting, have one in advance of. That's, it's really. Because October 30th is not a select vote. That's correct. October 30th is not a regular select vote. Are we going to wear costumes then? Yes. Yeah. Of course. I know. I know. I know. I'm losing. So the 30th or the 6th, and when would be the vote? The vote will be on Tuesday, December 5th. I like the seven o'clock time frame because it gives people a chance to assume they're maybe working and get out at five. They have a chance to do what needs to be done, they get themselves fed before getting here at seven o'clock. So I would think seven o'clock would be something that people are aware of in the work. I agree. It doesn't interfere too much with their carriage night activities, I know. Okay, do we have a motion? I move to have a charter informational meetings on the 30th of October at seven o'clock, November 6th at seven o'clock, and a vote on the 5th of December for the charter. Second. Moved and seconded, any further discussion? Very none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. That is all. Karen, do you have a chat? Yeah, it's actually old Lisa wants me to send her a link. Lisa, I got that. Okay. Next on the agenda, we have a fire protection contract more with more talent at Vermont. Can you give us a little bit more information on that? Yes, so the town has had an agreement with more town for many, many years, date back, since essentially as far as our records go before the time of Bill Sheplick. Well, Sheplick, it's never been written down. There's never been a formal MLEU or a contract. So I'm simply taking the Duxbury version, modifying it from more town. Have they been paying us? They haven't been paying us. Without a go. There's been a split court meeting each year and that's it, and Gary Dillon has gone a few times. It's for this, and I've got the area here. It's for that limited area of more town. Cobb Hill Road along Route 2 from the bridge, on the Manuski, down to the former landfill. I'm not sure if there's some conversation over the years about expanding it a bit, but more town hasn't been interested in that, I think because of the cost. Is this cost the $3,525 for the year? Yeah, it's a pretty limited area. Is that an equitable payment based upon the number of residents served compared to the number of other residents served or maybe it'd be better to do it? I think it's pretty equitable. It's not a lot of calls from this area. It's closer for us than them. So I think it's a pretty fair agreement for both of us. I think the Duxbury one is a little more of a challenge. Yeah. And what's the inflationary addition? Typically just based on the CPI each year. At least that's the hope going forward. There was a long period when the contract amount didn't change. Right. So I'd just like to pump it up each year a little bit. We'll be fair. And is this just a one-year contract? Just a one-year contract. We'll be going back to them each year. Right, and the reason the Duxbury one, I think is a little bit of a challenge is theirs is based on percent of their grant list. Our list is their list, so we went and did the data analysis and he's got listing of properties. But the area of Duxbury recover has not been growing as fast as Waterbury's grant list. And so the percentage naturally, their numerator is flat and our denominator gets bigger. So it's not a big issue. We don't gain, I think, quite as much as we should. But I went back, I think, a decade in the last, our grant list has grown double the rate of theirs. So if we had gone and used that multiplier, our contract would be a few thousand dollars higher. It would be 50 thousand dollars higher. But nonetheless, it's something that I want to modify a bit going forward because you try to let out another decade and it gets bigger. And when are we going to take a look at that? Or is that going to turn? Typically that's December. But that board is pretty conservative and there's been some issues getting a contract signed in the past. Sounds fun. How does the rest of Moor County pay for their fire? They have their own fire department. They have their own fire department? Yeah. It's just too far, it's easier to serve from the ordinary, that section. Right. Well this looks good, too. And the chief has looked at it and approved it? Yeah. Any other questions about this? I make a motion to approve the fire protection contact from April 1st, 2023 to March 31st, 2024, as predicted. Seconded. Okay, moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The contract is approved from our standpoint. Do you want to take one and pass it on? Yeah, I'll start by signing this one. And thank you for saying that because I always forget. As I've already started there. That's great. You have it. I was hoping actually for the interaction. If Danny, if you could just log in to the Google Doc on that computer. Just because the comments don't print. Yeah, no, that's great. I also have plans like a PowerPoint. Absolutely do not have the capacity for that. You can swing it. Oh, this one, I've got it. I don't put it on the screen for everybody, but I'm glad. Yeah, no, you're around. I'm just looking at the time or approximately five to seven. Five, or maybe even eight minutes ahead of schedule. So that's nothing wrong with that. If it take eight minutes for me to remember what I was. Yeah. If you can't remember, they can pull it back. Jamer, I found Roger. We love security. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm trying to work out. Sure. Okay. There you go. I was going to ask that. Is there an informal banner? A select banner? Is select one, one words or two? And can we make a choice? This is a total conversation. I know, I know, and I just want to be on set. It's actually inconsistent all over the language. At least we're consistent with this. You've read it as one word. I've read it as one word. Select one word. And I think it'll be us who does it, too. I'll say two. I'll say two. I'll say two, but my fans don't think it's that. I think this one. Both of us have a problem. We have to share, that's not. Okay, I'm sorry. I wasn't telling you. Well, should it technically be hyphen? Will we put this through a box? Parking lot, if I ever see one. Who's in charge? Who made up select one word, like, and... Is there other words for just select one? What do you still like? Right, school board and two words. We're not choice, we're not product, we're on select. Yes. Thank you all for watching. Maybe the prime word or the research. How do I move down this for you? Is there a little bar or something? Just, I don't, what's your name? I don't know, you do, do you? Yeah, whatever you're doing now. Toothing, right. Scroll, I don't know. So... Okay, by the way, we have moved to the after-action report that Dan was going to present. So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna try to summarize a little bit of what is being shared on the screen, largely because it's a whole bunch of notes that still need some work in synthesizing. It's a lot of folks' feedback. And so I'm sorry it's not visually super pleasing, but just to give an idea of what's happening, we talked about a few different areas, including preparedness, so not just the response, but how, in what ways were we prepared and how can we prepare better? And so some things even right off the top is we're a little bit more aware of the supplies we might need, and so wanting to think about, in particular to talk about a committee that might be formed, how can we think about a list of supplies, research what expires, what would stay good in say a decade, and then work with some staff to talk about where they might be able to safely be stored. Thinking about our emergency management plan is for a large-scale emergency, it's for multiple types of emergencies, and so something we've talked about is how do we consult with our emergency response manager and use what already exists and then adapt something for a natural disaster, specifically a flood, so that we can not just say, oh, it's once in a lifetime or once in a generation, but that this is likely going to happen again and it might look different, but how can we be organized and prepare with a flood-specific plan? And so we've got a lot of information on things that went well and things that need improvement. A lot of the improvements started with contact when we're talking about preparedness, of thinking about who do we call and how do we activate communication among the town, so finding a really good phone tree for lack of a better word, as well as utilizing existing communications we have, such as the website, and then utilizing new forms of communication like the Facebook for the town that Tom's got up and running, as well as working with Karen to talk about, do we set up like a newsletter mailing list or a text chain, a way that schools have for emergencies or snow days, things like that, so it'll take some exploring and I think this is where that committee can be very helpful on what's doable, what's affordable, and what's gonna be efficient and thinking about multiple ways to do it and who's gonna be responsible for doing those things when they come up. And then similarly, some things that we had and can refine are the sign-up forms for both volunteers who want to help and people who need help. And again, I'm excited about a committee of people dedicated to this because they can use the feedback from the folks who used it and clean it up and get it ready. And then if we need to make some tweaks, if and when an emergency comes up, it's already there, we have the structure. There's a whole bunch of that, but. One thing I just wanna add, Daniel was so really quickly sort of developed a 211 system for Waterbury on the fly and I thought it worked really well and when we started getting to 211 data, we didn't really learn anything new. It was mostly people who reported to both. Now I'm sure we all read the article about the 211 system and what worked and what didn't. But I guess I would argue everything I've seen from the state of Vermont is that in the IT world, they seem to underinvest in my judgment. Go back to Vermont Health Connect and we'll recently look at the Department of Labor and I look at 211. But I think this last flood, we controlled the run test by making our own system and so I think we're better off building upon that and maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised that the state will get a little more efficient at it. But that's just my recommendation because I think we can control our own destiny here pretty well with some of the things that you've stressed it. Thank you. And another piece of that preparedness and it might not come, there might be some research and communication to be done before another event, but also having on our radar for when another run happens is getting in contact with someone at the state and asking what method they're using because we were getting kind of nice messages about whether it's 211, whether it's some app that we didn't hear of for three weeks later and then we're told it was really important. So it's not trying to stay in touch with the state and as often as we can so that we can encourage folks, even if they come to us to get the help they need, what does the state get or require or what does FEMA get or require that they do? Yeah. Just to ask a question, was the state's plan to, they told people call 211? Mm-hmm. You call, I'm, my basement's flooded, I need help. What was their plan to deliver help or respond to that or was it? Speaking not as a state representative, I don't know that there was a plan. I know one of the pieces of feedback that has been conveyed is that there was challenging messaging where folks were very strongly encouraged to report to 211. My understanding is some of that was to in order to be able to document adequate amounts of damage to hit necessary thresholds for counties and states. So I know there was a big call to 211, call to 211. The feedback we heard both imminently in our community and I would say candidly through broader discourse was that folks called and did not receive any help or certainly did not receive any help in a timely fashion as was noted by the time that was distributed out. It had been two weeks which in a quickly evolving landscape like that essentially we're starting from close to zero because folks may have been different, but I think that would be a great question for us to ask staff, I certainly can't answer on their behalf. And to Tom's point, I mean, it does create sort of a vitricated system. So people say, you know, I already called, I already asked for your help. They don't know that maybe they're talking to the town now versus the state and it's a, there were three 211 emails that during the flood that were sent to me, Bill Woodruff and Gary Dillon because we were on the red cement plan. So we should one put more people on that in the future. The challenge was because 211 was new, one of those emails was missed by all three of us because it was in the midst of everything. You get 100 emails a day and no one called and said, hey, we're doing a 211 data dump, check your email. So I think the state's gonna get better and I think the state's gonna work from this, but I also think this is one of those cases where local control can serve us pretty well. And I think that the messaging is the point. And if we know that 211 is for data collection, we can message that to our constituents and say, we are here to help you and respond to you. And the state needs to collect the data. So also call them, but maybe that's not your first priority. Your first priority is calling us and getting help. And then we'll remind you to call 211 and report what happened. So that's part of this, I think. And could the reverse also happen if you received 30 calls in a day? Could you take that data and just send it to the state and say this is calls we got? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if it needs to be a landowner or I don't know. I just want to know if that literally goes here on the Zoom and was equally involved in all the imminent response and just wanted to give space in case you had anything to add and just to recognize it. Do you have any questions about the 211 stuff? Yeah. Okay, so just a couple of things. The big picture, which we don't have to cover now. And I imagine as folks, we all learn more about emergency response. We'll get more involved with VOAD. I have attended a couple of their meetings. But Vermont VOAD is supposed to be the statewide organization that kind of leads best practice for disaster response. Every state has one. Vermont right now is pretty non-functioning. So the national VOAD, which is called Volunteer Organizations Active and Disaster is putting in some people to help get Vermont stood up. It had kind of gone dormant after Irene, I guess. But the way I think the kind of disaster organizations look at this is the state VOAD agrees on a protocol. They work with state emergency management to communicate that protocol out through town-level emergency ops people. As you've all pointed out, that didn't necessarily happen. But the protocol that I think people thought was happening is that the disaster response organizations use a software called Crisis Cleanup. They use it everywhere. It's standard practice for them. And they were using it. 2-1-1 was feeding into that software. So when people actually did make an ask for help, it did go somewhere. But the state, again, I've had probably a dozen conversations on this. I don't think the Emergency Operations Center knew that that was the plan. And so they didn't tell other folks. But that data was going into this Crisis Cleanup app. Just the only people who knew about it were the national organizations like the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, all the big national orgs that were doing cleanup in almost every other town. So it was really kind of a combination of a lot of assumptions made by these big organizations that this is how everybody does it, because it is how most other states do it. And then the combination around the state decision to tell everyone to call 2-1-1 when 2-1-1 was not staffed or funded at the time. So we could all point fingers in a lot of directions. I think for us, like Danny you nailed it here, we have to have some kind of data collection whether we're using the Crisis Cleanup app or something else. And the state has to tell the Emergency Operations folks what the plan is. Thanks, Liz. I agree with what a lot of you have said. I think the point of 2-1-1 and I don't necessarily agree with it is for the designations for federal things. I think that's a real key thing because they want to see federal monies come into the different counties and they need those counts instead of 2-1-1 being an in-depth thing to help people. I think it's really behooves us to have some sort of a local system like we sort of developed here. And it's not to say we shouldn't be encouraging people to also contact 2-1-1, because those numbers are really critical. So we do get funding from DC. Tom, I'm sure with a lot of highway kind of projects, we didn't have so much road damage and infrastructure damage as other communities, but the communities that had, they really need that money and you need to get those numbers. But I think having an internal system, and I don't know, maybe if we develop an internal system, it could be a model for the state to multiply around the whole state of Vermont, other communities. But I think what we did was very exemplary and I want to applaud Liz, Alyssa, and Danny for really doing great job. Oh, we're not literally applause and team effort. Yeah, there were a lot of people who were like, tell staff who did all the things. Like the whole public works crew and part of your department never had a vote. Thank you. So there's more and again, I think some of this is important to maybe get into a little bit of the details now, but some of it it may be more high level and then the work will be ongoing as we move forward with preparation. So the next phase identified was early warning or like during the event. And I genuinely think that my personal feedback and others, but is that we underestimated what was coming. And I think that impacted the way that we started with communications, the way we kind of got the ball rolling. And so some of the suggestions were like, can we research the accuracy of state flood forecasts and be better prepared so that if it looks medium, we know it could be higher than that. So that could be some of the potential. Right, exactly. And so I'm from Florida and we played that game for a long time of like a hurricane's coming. Do we pretend that we know it's gonna turn because it's been turning every year for the past 10 years and not get prepared? Or do we get called overreactors because we're prepared and then it doesn't come. And I think the town of Waterbury would rather be prepared for a massive emergency and not have one that have one and not be prepared. So some of those things we can do in the meantime. And again, we talked last time about some of that emergency management training for the slack board. And it seems we're all in agreement to move forward with that training so that we're better prepared as individuals. Talk a little bit about what early warning can look like with mass communication as we talked about above and identifying some key both groups and individuals. I'm just on my page too, yeah. On your page too. Yeah, surprise. Like EFA, the slack board, the primary school, Peter Plague, who helped with emergency shelter, our state representatives. So thinking about folks to have already on that list to get in touch with to be prepared ahead of time. On the previous page, there was a question about or a statement about put the bucket out for money for fundraising. I was just wondering, because I was sort of under the impression that Peter agreed to have the good neighbor fund actively involved with helping people out on a financial basis Indeed, good neighbor fund does, however, have a board that runs it with certain bylaws for what that fund can be used for. He's also kind of one guy running the show and there's a limit on what. And he was literally physically housing people, feeding people, going to people's homes. And then when we look at the model that we have at has been now replicated from Irene, it's a larger group, a committee dedicated to this purpose, funding that with much less, much fewer restrictions in what it can do. And so it's just a better and more wide ranging model to be used, and both are needed. It's not an or. I think both are needed and they're run in different ways and serve different purposes, so. Excellent. Yeah, please just raise your hand and talk, because there's a lot to go through and so I want to just kind of keep track of you. Early warning and during the flood was that sort of that next period. Oh no, that's what we just talked about. Moving on to next day action. So we saw the model of early and often having meetings, including EFUD, it worked really well to kind of go every day for a week and then reassess. So kind of having that model in mind as we move forward. Having, I think again, the committee having a response team sort of in place, hopefully ready to either come in and be available or help the rain go long so that it's not starting from scratch the way that we sort of did. Where are we next day? And having that sort of model of like whatever it is, binder, notebook, Google Drive, that is hopefully gonna be fleshed out with the committee. And then thinking about what we did. Luckily now we have this beautiful municipality setting up HQ, working with town staff to think about conflicts, can we set up how long, where do we store stuff, what's the stuff out of storage, ready, all that logistical. And then going into the next week, second and third week, thinking about connecting to state leadership, working with other municipalities. I think over the first few days it was really crucial that we're focusing on our geographic area. We now have a better map. We've got the grant list. We've got like really thinking about different areas that can be impacted, which we were cobbling together at the time, but starting with our direct Waterbury constituents. And then one capacity is there to start reaching out to some of our neighboring towns and districts who might not be getting the help they need. And then connecting with state leadership. And then moving into. Can I start with the reaching out into other towns? I saw Tom's note there about the MRU. And I agree, but I feel like Two Way Street is probably not the right way to put it because a lot of our neighboring towns don't have the resources that we do. And so maybe like a lend lease would be more, a more accurate way to put that. I'm not saying I don't think we should do it. I feel like it should be a bit more formalized. I agree. For a matchup and not for their benefit. Right. Oh, string, sorry, I didn't hear it. That was, that was my. Yeah, I was making a note. Sorry. Yeah, and not just even if it's, I mean, doing some outreach, some volunteers, but also just contacting this left board and saying, hey, here's the Google form we have. Do you want to make a copy? So you can have volunteers sign up or we even reaching out, you know, once we get a newsletter or a text chain and saying, like, Duxbury, you're interested in having this kind of thing. So what we're there as capacity to do so, but. And one thing that sort of struck me was that Duxbury was particularly impacted because a whole section of their town got stranded because they were flooded at both sides and the bridge was their only access to the outside world, so to speak. And there was an issue with the, with Winoosky Street. So I do feel like we are sort of tied to Duxbury, particularly in a situation like this. There's some high level issues as well. So thinking, Tom's had some ideas about, you know, maybe some MOUs with other towns who have those, the backer trucks and getting together and saying, okay, if we have an emergency, we can borrow it or if this town has an emergency, you know, just working together so that we're all not trying to A, fight for resources or B, scramble when the time comes, but we know who to call and that they'll be ready to help us when the time comes. Gary was talking, or no, we wanted to talk to Gary about maybe purchasing some pumps, thinking about, again, what supplies, what equipment can we have to make ourselves ready but what's, you know, worth the investment versus borrowing from other towns. And then, yeah, again, constantly talking about and working on mitigation for the future with lots of ideas and insights. So I think that's sort of a large overview for those different segments of what a disaster looks like time-wise on a timeline. And the way that I've been thinking about it is when the committee is standing up, that's focusing on a volunteer response to a flood or natural disaster. We can parse out what of this belongs in there and then we'll then have distilled what's really supporting our town staff issue and can start knocking them off. I mean, I know you're already working on some of that stuff but that'll be clear to see so it won't maybe feel like as overwhelming of a chunk of work to do. Again, a lot of that was pretty high level but I think that's kind of what maybe everybody wanted to hear and then Liz and Alyssa, if you have more, you feel like it's important. Point. One thing that's always dawned on me, I know there's a segment of our population of Waterbury that are not electronically connected. I think we did a good job reaching out to people but I think there could be, we could have disasters. We're not gonna have any internet and cell service or whatnot. We really need to be planning for those contingencies. Thanks Mike, that's a great point and something I did leave out was door knockers. We had two rounds, first during and then Liz led another round of door knockers. So that was a part of it and Liz might be able to speak more if there's more to it but I think we'll be more prepared next time around because of working off the grand list and getting that right collection. Thanks for bringing that up. I found that interesting actually because you put together those numbers, the big numbers and then people ask what the numbers were for. They don't have a number but I don't know why I got a number. And Liz, you had mentioned at some point during that two week period that cell service was really poor, particularly I think in the village and the center. Do you recollect what the issue was and do you have any ideas on that? It happens in almost every disaster, right? I mean, I think we definitely did a lot of research on this after Irene around what kind of coverage is here and whether there will ever be any more and I think the answer is kind of no, right? But what happens is that circuits get overloaded. I mean, Mike's point is really on point for that around we will, no matter what if people are directly affected there's a lot of need to drive around and go talk to people directly, you know? But the, I mean, I think I know Danny covered it there. Like we wanna do better on data management. It is so hard to kind of take what's happening in the field with what we're getting with data, you know? And so that I'm really proud, you know, like I don't think without Karen and Woody, right? And I just gotta give a shout out to Kane who like put shoe leather on every single street. We would not have been able to say, we know right away the streets that were flooded, the houses on that street that were flooded, right? That was because of local knowledge. But if you didn't have that kind of lived experience in your town, you know, like if people didn't know the town really well you would have to just go door to door to find out. And that's like people now, they're not very interested in talking to us. I definitely think we're going to have to do direct canvassing to find out what that is now. They don't wanna answer the phone. But also we had endless numbers of like calls dropped, people being up in the center or, you know, being out on route to not be able to get calls through. It is just normal disaster stuff. You know, so back to Mike's point about there is gonna be a day, you know, when we can't, when circuits are jammed or whatever. This is, I remember this. Gary has like a, almost like a designation on his cell phone because of his emergency management role. And so allegedly his phone gets priority service over all the rest of the slow liars. So maybe there's enough of those phones in Waterbury specifically with the emergency response being right here that it doesn't impact your service. I mean, it's nothing, I know it's because I was on my cell phone the way all of you were. So. All right. I mean, cell service depending on your carrier is bad in Waterbury Center anyway. So. Real disaster. Yeah. If there's a disaster up there, nobody's gonna know. Yeah. Yes, Melissa. I think I guess I would say the only other in terms of after action is just acknowledge a lot of what we've talked about here was the volunteer and stand up response. And I just do think it bears repeating as we are the select board and the legislative body. I know Thomas actively working on the FEMA reimbursement and kind of where the town stands financially and otherwise, but just to say I think we're not there yet, but at some point we're gonna wanna look back and share with the community what we did and what it costs and what that means for them as taxpayers, I think we recognize it was the right thing to do when we supported doing it. And most of it what is gonna be reimbursable and be a non-issue, but I did just wanna say that feels like a piece of after action that is different than I'm sure Tom will bring to us when the time is right. I do like to put it in your particular spot. What do you mean? Part of what? We could put it in the part of what I'm showing. But as I know, it's the first thing when I met with him he said he was thinking about as I'm the manager and I'm thinking about the budget. So I have no doubt people forget about it, but I just want to acknowledge, you know, for us and for the public that I think that is something just to say that. Well, I can tell you, I spent all of today, I probably spent 20 hours already just pulling together the numbers and trying to get it into the right format for FEMA and getting all the backup. As of today, I'm poking at 150 grand in costs. I don't know, you know, there's some of that that could be rejected. You know, the rest would be reimbursed and the others will get 75%. So it's pretty substantial dollars. 60 of that was the dumpsters. Another 20 is due to the minibus. I'm sorry, what was the second piece? I didn't see the thing. That's cheap. 60 for the dumpsters, 20,000 for the minibus. These are the minibus. Thank you. Are you going to try to get the funding to pay back the accounts that lent us the backters? Yes. Do you know how much that was? Or you may have input that yet, and then going through all our invoices, getting all the backup, filling out the forms. Fill them out, and we'll go from there. And how about just the overtime of the state municipal workforce? That's all part of it. Well, thank you for your investment of time on that. All right. Any sort of things on the media to do this? No, I wanted to close out the... After action report, by thanking Danny for this, because on whatever day one of committee it is, I can just hold this up, and I'd be like, oh, half your work's done for you, so do the rest. I don't know how long it's gonna happen. But just on that, is one of your tasks to sort of develop a manual or a guide? It is on the list, yep, a guide for whatever happens. And then we're supposed to differentiate between the emergency handbook and the natural disaster handbook. It would be two different handbooks. Yes, I did wanna ask if we have put out a call for people to join that committee yet? No, I need some language came in, Roger put the task on me, but I didn't find the time this week. I need some sort of, yeah, I need some kind of quick object. This is our objective. So that I can put that on their website, because obviously when I put up the call, people are gonna email me questions. You want to put a job description. All right, yes, I will put a job description together for you. If you go on our website, you look at the housing task force, when almost every board has a nice little blur on the page. Okay. And that's on one of my sticky dots, because we also had some of the from the Conservation Commission, so they've asked me to do that too. So I'll do those in tandem when we get that ready. Okay. Our next meeting will be October 2nd. We probably will need a little bit more time for nominations, I would expect. Maybe when we get to our next meeting agenda, we can figure out when we want to close that, or if you can close it right now if you want to. One more time, Roger. Yes. I'm just thinking about when we, yeah, we're gonna get this out. And then we're gonna say, please respond by a certain day so that we can evaluate the responses and then figure out who gets the nod. I think I'm gonna have a little quick by the second. Yeah, if that one's a little, so I would say second meeting of October would probably be the best. Yeah, 16th. Well, that might be, but that's the one time we'll be up. Right. So that's actually a great night. That's, I don't think, right? Unless you need time. I mean, a good time consuming tasks for that agenda, or maybe we'll be really quick, but I'm anticipating so many folks interested in volunteering that it could take all night. Roger. Yes. That brings up something that I continually need to remember to bring up and forget and perhaps put in a parking lot or maybe meet with Tom later. But a process by which we nominate folks for committees is something I think we're lacking. We do it a little different for each committee and each task force, and I would love a written procedure and I think we might be late on it for now, but I nominate myself to make a draft to send around folks and get your input, but I think in terms of equity and fairness, we kind of go by a whim. I mean, I think we put a lot of thought and heart into it, but we can't point to anything and say this is how we chose you and not you, and I think that would go a long way for just a little legitimacy and also for people to understand why they were put on boards or not. I was gonna say add to that, should it be committee by committee because for example, a conservation committee, you want someone with experience, with conservation or with nature or any number of things that you probably wouldn't share with the WREC committee. Well, I was thinking less specific, like a job description and more process-oriented, meaning provide, some people just say, I wanna be on the committee, so provide five to 10 cents, whatever, two to six paragraphs too much on why you wanna join the committee and what relevant experience you have. We request that you show up to the meeting unless you have an emergent or prior obligation and then whatever because I don't, which is not super consistent and I think if they're all semi-formatted in the same way and then maybe we think of some points by which to judge like prior experience, you know, whatever it might be. Yeah, so Karen and then we'll... Well, I just wanted to state that in my conversations with Carla, you all have been, have the distinct privilege of having a lot of people asked to be on committees previously, that wasn't the case and I think they shied away from applications because it just further pushed people away from volunteering. And it doesn't even need to be a form, just like here's what to include in your email and we expect you to show up to the meeting and... I agree. It was, you know, I put it out there and you're right, some people just wrote, I'd love to be on the committee and other people send me biographies. There were three pages long and it was up to all of you to sort of get it all out. So I love some bullet points but keep in mind that we don't want it to be so involved that it comes to all of us. Don't make it so long or it's hard to get all of it. I wouldn't. All right, so since you self-appointed yourself, would you care to come back to us on the second with some draft on that? Sure, and I'll try to email it before then. Sounds great. All right, yeah, stop. So just a couple of things because I've had this conversation many times in the past. Seems like the world sometimes goes in ways where you formalize it and then 10 years goes by and another board says, well, it's a little too formal and maybe we should go back and make it easier. To the extent you formalize it, I just want to encourage you to the most important question to ask is can you meet, you know, the second Wednesday of every column on law? Just the biggest one. I'm dealing with one for you. One other piece I would suggest is that the select board now has committee liaisons and so maybe you don't need to have people interview with the full select board. Maybe you could take the recommendation of the committee liaison to streamline the process of it. Especially if you've got situations where it's so someone on the committee is already just in your appointment. You need the re-appointments? Yeah. Thank you. All right, thank you for that. Any other further comments concerning the after-action report? None? Let's move forward. Road closure on Bidwell Lane, December 17th, 2003. My understanding is that the forecast, the rain gear or the land in that area on that date. You know, this is one of my favorite things. This is one of my favorite things. I love it. If there aren't hand-drawn maps, it's like we're committing a little sad. It's like we're being in a little sad. Who wants to address this? Where did you go? He and you in the map. I do have a map. Everyone has one? Everyone's got it? Okay. Everyone has a map? Yeah, I do have a map. It's one to one. It is nicely drawn, it's a scale. Real-life rain gears. Real-life rain gears. Road closing would be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the 17th, which is a Sunday. And it's just to the park? It's just in front of Stoastry Cafe, in the bookstore, yeah. Bookstore in the cafe. Yeah, it should be anonymous, yeah. There's a whole new park around there. So, what's everyone's question about this, Alyssa? Well, I was gonna acknowledge that I'm friends with Katya and also young at heart, so I've attended the past two years. There doesn't seem to be any traffic or otherwise input, so I'm happy to make a motion to approve the road closure for December 17th as outlined. Move in second and further discussion. How many of you are about to raid the area? Two, and they live up in the Northeast Kingdom, almost on the Canadian border. Oh, Vermont, right into your farm. They have an Instagram, which anyone can follow, if you need Christmas cheer throughout the year. Yeah, and you learn all about the antlers. They're like soft and lovely. Yeah, they're velvety during summer and they really are old. I really enjoyed the show, but a trailer is, I think it's fine. Yeah, I wanna go to this. And they have flying demonstrations too, or is that old? You should ask, rather. Is that a condition of a movie? Flying them to fly. Do they fly that in manure management? That they do have, they do have. Well, you don't need to close the road if they can fly away. Okay, thank you, I'm off. We have a motion, it's been seconded, I think it's been discussed. Further discussion on this? Hearing none, all members say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any extensions? Then here, we'll be here and fly. To protect this from traffic on the 17th of December. Okay, emergency management training. Tom, did you find those links to the training? I did not, and not at the garradilla. Oh no. That being said, it appears that, I wanted to ask Mike, Mike said he had done some online training, was it a video you watched, or was it a Zoom, what people did the training be a Zoom? Little of all, it was a little higher, and it was actually not too bad. It would probably be more effective in person, but I don't know if they're even actually in person, you know, in sessions like that. It appears they are. They are. It'd be great if someone could come in and do a session here. That was my recommendation. How long does it take? Well, go online, you know, they can probably tailor it to something that we need. The online thing is, it's long, it's four to six hours, I think. That one shot? Yeah. I think you could take it in different pieces, but it's long, you have to dedicate a date to doing it. What's up with my levels? Well, would they come in, I think they could streamline it to a more dedicated thing that would be good for select boards, and I think they could probably do it in a two to three hour session. And if that's your pleasure, I can reach out and figure out scheduling. They used it pretty good, because I know when I, you know, it was older in COVID where nothing was happening, but they also agree, they say if people lose out they're not happy meeting person, you know, in fact. So if it's back, I would say, you know, it would be like having a select board meeting. And would the emergency management director join us for that? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. I'm sure he's been through it. Karen. Didn't we do, we had one once, yeah, okay. And then the following one, so we were supposed to have a second one. So I don't know if this was a training under the BARB FAR emergency management error. We did what I believe was turned a tabletop exercise, which with a wooden from the state. And I just remember the premise of that was that a disaster had happened and BARB FAR was camping in the Northeast Kingdom with no cell service. Because of course our immediate response was, oh, you just called BARB, anything was barred and built or camping in the Northeast Kingdom. So you had Karen and it was revitalized and moderated. The type was invited to participate for like the business side. So that's why I was there. I think the next one was supposed to be like role-playing, which would be all- I was gonna say, I wasn't at the state, folks, but it was a hypothetical practice more than the like. It sounds very personal. The regular training is much more... Dry? It's dry in some sense, but they have practical stuff that really brings it all to life. So it's not... I have an interest in it, so maybe I have a little different perspective, but I think all select board people should have some sense of emergency management training. It teases out the roles and responsibilities. Yeah, exactly. That's the most important thing to get at. Because I kept on kneeling Gary. I said, why don't we have a more in-person, kind of like where we have all of our equipment and stuff like that. And he says, I just react the kind of things when they happen. Gary's just a different sort. He's good at what he does. He knows everything. What? He knows everything already, so he doesn't need us. But a lot of people, to me, emergencies, as we have seen, it's a sum of a lot of parts. You have to have a lot of people. And the more people, just let us say it, Bob Farr and Bill Shepplicker up in the Northeast Kingdom, you have to figure out if Tom and Karen and something were somewhere. Yeah, what happened to Gary is the way. That's one of the reasons why, because when I was dealing with all the stuff of my mom that I told Barb, I said, I don't feel comfortable being the emergency management director because I'm having all this stuff going. I could be out of town. If something happens, I just don't feel right about it. That's why I think I'm calling the emergency management director. For those reasons and all the others, if you wouldn't mind just finding out what the options might be for more of a two hour, I think. I guess my suggestion is we're gonna hire someone to staff Cain's committee. I shouldn't say Cain's committee, but I think it's gonna be. We don't have to talk about it. We should probably wait to have that person here. Yeah, I think that I knew. But nonetheless, we'll get it started and get some dates out there. Yeah. Okay. Can we get informal motion and involve snacks and food? Yeah, at whatever type of thing I get to train. It's too hard. I think that's exactly what I'm saying. Rural. We need to, uh, cops go run. What happened to all the snacks back there? Yeah. That's how it happened. What the type of things, you know, what we can, uh, I know they're going, but this is a huge surprise, but. Maybe this is like bringing like oranges to soccer. I'm just saying if we want to select war, it brings snacks. Yeah. We'll do it. All right. I think that takes care of the emergency management training and we're on to the next meeting agenda. International. Thanks. All right. Do you have a copy of that? Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple here. Okay. If people are gonna, yeah. Yeah. We're doing an international copy. I do think that's what it is. Why the digital one? Do you want my done? Okay. We're happy. And I'm sorry. Here's a whole stack of what's for tonight. And Ken and Danny. Oh, we can sign the thing. Other way. Thank you, Roger. Sorry, Rich. Well, okay. So what we've got is a fairly light consent agenda as of yet, but that could fill up. And then crew. This is the RWs version of the longterm recovery plan, post flood recovery. Does anyone know anything more about this or why it's on the agenda? Liz is still here. And she might be the best person if she's listening. Otherwise I can fake it. Liz, are you still there? Is there a name? I'll get a beer. Oh, yeah. No, it's Liz, okay. It's the best one. What do you need? Do you want to give us a heads up about is crew coming to the next meeting when it's on the agenda and who might be presenting? Yeah, it'll be Bill with me. But Bill wanted to be able to be there. Okay. How much time would you like about? Whatever you guys want to get up. Right now you have half an hour, 30 minutes. I mean, that's plenty. I don't have lots to talk about, but hopefully we'll have done some stuff by then. But yeah, you can move it down to 20 if you need to, or you can make it there. Okay, well, we'll leave it there for the time being. I don't see a lot of pressure on the schedule. That's okay. Cool. Okay, all right. It's gonna make a respectable shuffle like in Flator Joe. Oh yeah, we forgot. We're gonna go to the Shelf one. We're gonna go to the Shelf one. I thought we could get there. 20 but there. Next. Thank you. I wanted to go by chair and make this dress. Okay. And we wanted to share this. Understood. We can put maybe 10 minutes for the committee application process if we want to do that. Okay, that can probably go towards the end. There are other guests coming. Okay. 10 minutes for the committee application process standing presenting. And road salt use. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll listen. No, go ahead. This is a different one. We'll be ready on road salt. Ready on road salt and you've got, right now you've got a lot of time. Yeah, I think that's just the guy. 45 minutes. I don't think you need 45 minutes, but I. Chris is here. I was gonna say, but I don't like that fact. Thank you for doing that. But I do think it's not the easiest conversation necessarily. Okay. So 20 minutes. Now I'll listen. It was partially a question, Tom, or a conversation around, if there was anything around the charter, I know we're not at this point into the public meeting thing, but I know we have talked on and off about the policy for local option tax spending, which is not explicitly in the charter that might be asked about. Do we need to do additional deliberation as a board or consultation? So you had a track policy. I presented it a while back. I can refine, I'll resend that. We can refine that over the next few weeks and if the board should form, should it's on point before the legislature has the charter at least formally adopted? Right. I was like, I feel like maybe at least we revisit, I mean, or our board. Absolutely. I'm totally with you on that. I think the more clarity that the slight work can have on our intentions on how this money can be spent, the better off we're gonna be in all of these meetings. Also, if you're not here this 16th, at least we started. Okay, let's put it on there. Hello. 15 minutes? Sure. Mike, this is a little bit, I don't know if it's another parking lot issue or if it's something we want to at least discuss. I know there are various times that have come where the select board people, we have had these erroneous scam emails and stuff sent to us. We've all gotten those. I remember, this is early, probably, I don't know if it was pre-COVID or it's early in COVID. I had discussions with the Attorney General's office and they said, especially, because now there's coming where there's a ton of, especially senior citizen scams that are showing up, flood related scams that are coming up. You know, the Attorney General's office. Some of us hit all those boxes. Right, exactly. The Attorney General's office can provide a speaker to come, I don't know if it's for a select board meeting, but say outside of a select board meeting have like just an informational meeting on scams by the Attorney General's office. I think that it's very timely now with the flooding and just, if you listen to the news, all these grandmother scams are starting up again now too. So I think it's just timely. I don't know if we have to discuss it at a select board meeting or if we just want to go ahead and do it. I'm from Forge Farm. There's a guy. I think his name is Bill April. He posts about a scam like every four days. Yeah. I think he might be AARP, I'm trying to remember, but he does it a lot. I was talking about the senior center, like who else, because if he did workshops or something like that, because I think, like he said, maybe a community thing. But the Attorney General, I think having to steal is there are a lot of senior citizens that are just asleep at the switch. I don't mind, my mother-in-law almost got scammed out of $5,000. For some, I'm really good at this point. I'm a digital native. I grew up with email and I think some can be convincing. I think we got more or some are less convincing because our emails are publicly available, but that's separate. They're smart, but I think it would be a good public service to have something. This is not a select board meeting, but just to have this as a resource for community members. So would you like to take that on? Yeah, I'd be glad to contact them. But they said they would be glad to do something, but I think it was early in COVID and I said, you know, at that point we had a lot more things to do. You know what I'm saying? Who? Library. Library. Yeah, a library. Library. Library. Library. Yep. Yep. We did all these, too. I'm gonna tell you how many of these. Okay. How's that? Anything else for the agenda for October 2nd? At this point, we can certainly add things as they come up. Do we want to take a look at the MSPL and see if there's any? Yeah. Sorry. Cameras. What's the camera? Oh, the cameras. Lieutenant Lin. Yeah. How did I find that? You had no loitering ordinance. Yeah. How did you? You said cameras for surveillance. You were talking like $10,000. I know what trail cams cost. And I know you're trying to get a pretty damn good one for $500. Yeah, but if you go up to your trail, pop the SD card out. No, you didn't tell me what. No, I'm kidding. If you're gonna have a camera for security, it's gotta be continuously recorded to be of value. So it's not just the camera, it's the data storage that's expensive. That's kind of what I thought. And then one of the real challenges with cameras is if you're surveilling, surveilling's not the right word. If you're recording in public place, parking a lot, however. Things happen in public places that are not illegal, but nonetheless, someone's gonna want the footage. There's gonna be fender-minders. Someone's gonna call the town hall and say, hey, I got an accident. I take the footage. Someone's got to retrieve it. It's the time to manage it all, too. That's a bit of an issue. Yeah, I actually been thinking of, a fair bit about that meeting that we had with Lieutenant White, Chuck. And I sort of, after some thought, came back with a different conclusion rather than being passing avoidance against loitering or public cameras. It was more about the restorative justice, which was mentioned briefly during that meeting. But it sounded like maybe he needed more orientation towards it, and we needed to know whether there's actually any restorative justice service that we can access. Because I think a lot of it really has to deal with. His point was that we have juveniles out late at night and maybe up to no good. And having one of those 17-year-olds who was undoubtedly one of the people we was talking about, at least last year now, was at college, but I get the point, but I think how we deal with it is something that we might want to consider before going forward with any of this. And I think restorative justice is a good model for us to consider, because it really is about helping juveniles understand what the impact of their actions are, how it affects the community, there are victims to crimes, there are real people, and there's a process that you can go through to help people come to a new realization about how their actions impact the world. And I think we'd be better served taking that approach than the observation or giving them the teeth to arrest kids That's why I'm just gonna stand on this. You have to be arrested to be part of the restorative justice program? You can be referred by the police without the rest. I didn't spend a lot of time in restorative justice, so thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, there's about it, some ones are dead. Schools use it for truancy too. Okay, all right, okay. I've been thinking about this since I'm meeting a lot too. And then I tied it in with ordinance enforcement, which we obviously don't have, right? And I kept landing on the conclusion of a constable over and over and over again. And I even went as far as to look into salaries of constables in Vermont, they're not that expensive. And combined with the current police presence, we can now enforce our municipal ordinances. We have another pair of eyes, they don't necessarily need to be armed, there's nothing in the rulebook that says they have a gun. So they can give out speeding tickets, they can take it for ordinances, they can stop 17 year olds from skateboarding on private property, whatever. But they're not necessarily, it's kind of riding the line. They're not another cop, right? It's a different position entirely. But it wraps up a lot of issues that I think we're having right now into one nice, little package with a bug, it's like the solution. Alyssa. I just wanna acknowledge in the spirit of, I think these are all really important conversations. I'll say that personally I agree with a lot of what you just said, Roger. I'm wondering about for like the 16th, if we try and get someone from one of the local restorative justice practices that would have you here. I know Tom won't be here, but it'll be Christmas. A guest speaker could be something you could watch out for the fact. I know the director of the Long Failure Center. So I wonder if we could invite them to come to a meeting and share, or if there's a community that's using a console that could serve as a model, but just that in the same spirit of that previous visit we had that we would be gathering additional information about what services they offer, how we might engage them again to kind of, maybe building out the parking lot with a list of more ideas, but then maybe being able to more comprehensively make choices as a board around what package of things we think would be the best for the community. Okay. Thank you. And I agree with a lot what you said, but the cost of a constable and the salary is just a small piece of what the true cost of a constable would be. It's the training, it's the facilities that they're gonna need to house themselves, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not just, you look up what constables are paying around the state. That's why I think one of the big reasons why we ended the Waterbury Police Department because a three, four person police department was just very uneconomical. And it's either people wanna pay for those services via their taxes, which they all complain about or I think what we did was a smart thing is have the state police, maybe we need more to pay the state police a little bit more for some better coverage. I don't know if we can just have like a town enforcement officer, I don't know if that's a level. It's a level that a constable is a lot, I think a higher level. One other piece on this is that Lieutenant White indicated that officer May is joining us this week. I saw her in Waterbury Center this morning. I saw a female state police officer in Waterbury Center. So I said, problems ahead. Good choice, chance to bet. And Tom, you were talking about trading some time around and you're going up a little bit, is that? Yeah, if they'll have me, right along sir, always good. Right along sir, always good. If they'll have me. I'm not the state police, I have strict rules about that. Murdoch. Yeah, May Murdoch. So do you know if that's feasible? It's on my list to check. Okay. All right, because I think that also could help inform this discussion. Right. So what's her attitude about this? What does she think she can do about this issue? What's her approach, that type of thing? We'd certainly welcome her here, but you'll probably get a lot more information if you do it right along the way. And then the other piece is when I read our contract with the state, we don't have any authority to necessarily assign tasks or priorities. I make requests all the time and they're pretty darn good about trying to honor them. But a real goal of mine in the contract is to somehow make it a little bit more local. It might be nibbling on the edges in very small ways, but it'd be nice to try. Are you responsible for her for showing right outside my street? Ah! You're the first one left. I told her. Don't. I have to speak. Don't speak on Naples Street, guys. Okay, so we have a request for someone from Resort of Justice to come on the 16th. And you might be able to give us an update on the second, Tom, on how should we trim it? Public safety? He's distracted, so I don't know if he knows what he's thinking. So many of us. Well, is this not going to be a lie? He may or may not know. Okay, that's what you're talking about. I was just thinking, I was putting in note about the Restorative Justice Contact. Oh, yeah. Maybe you'll firm that up with Tom in advance of the meeting progress. That's what I always do. All right, I think we've spent enough time with the parking lot. One more suggestion. So since I'll be out the 16th. Yeah. I suggest that's a good meeting to talk about the future of town meeting, which was a discussion item at town meeting day, but it hasn't been up in a while. Oh, okay. Because you're not here? You don't need me for that conversation at all. You're gonna have to get his input after we scratch each other. Wow. Scratch and sniff. Scratch and sniff. The first international select board scratches. So that's for the 16th as well. All right, I think we may have run out of things to talk about. Card lift. Second. All right, hope there's that. All right, bye.