 As chair of the Rochester Select Board, I find that due to the state of emergency declared by Governor Scott as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and pursuant to addendum six, to executive order 01-20 and act 92, this public body is authorized to meet electronically. Let me admit somebody else here, there we go. And in accordance with the statute, there is no physical location to observe and listen contemporaneously to this meeting. However, in accordance with the temporary amendments to the open meeting law, I confirm that we are providing access, public access to the meeting by the Zoom platform. And all members of the board have the ability to communicate contemporaneously during this meeting through this platform and the public has access to contemporaneously listen and if desired participate in this meeting. And you can log on to the meeting by looking on the town website or looking at the publicly posted warnings for the meeting or contacting the town clerk to get emailed an invitation. So there you have it. And here we are. And does anybody have any additions to the agenda at this time? That's fine. Go in once, go in twice. All right, we have enough on there to go. We'll start with the meetings from the minutes from the prior meeting of November 9th. And I saw, they seemed like they looked pretty tight to me. I moved to approve them. Second that. Yep, all in favor. All right, all right. So I have, we have, okay. Orca media is on recording this and it was, I think that in the interest of making sure that everything is open, we need to know everyone who is in attendance at the meeting. So I can see, we can see pretty much everyone there except for one phone number at 746-8638. Would you like to identify? Hello, hello. Who's, I'm calling from. And I like your beads and your hair. Well, they're, they've got to get in the room. We know that much. Who is, who's called in from 802-746-8638? Keith Balecki. Okay, cool. Thank you, Keith. We just need to, that way we have a record of everyone that's in attendance at the meeting because everyone else's names are pretty much assigned with their pictures. So I guess we'll start right in with Jones updates. Okay. Okay. It'll be quick. I filed for the NRCS emergency watershed project reimbursement just today. Frank came in and signed the reimbursement form. So that's been sent in. Next, I think several of you got this email but you may have not had a chance to read it yet. This came from two rivers and they're offering some information which I think might, might be used for, I think somebody needs to mute themselves. Anyway, in the event of COVID affecting the ability of any members of the road crew to work during the busy season this winter either due to needing to quarantine for two weeks or themselves getting sick. I hope none of that happens. When the invent it does, one of the things that towns are starting to talk about is signing mutual aid agreements with other towns. So if they're short manpower during a busy time snowstorm or something that they're able to call on whoever they have a mutual aid agreement with and of course it goes both ways. So that might be something to consider and there were a couple other things. So that seemed to be the most useful one to think about. So if you'd like, I'd be glad to read through the material that FERC sent and summarize it for you and see if there's anything you want me to follow through on working with Cooter or with Frank or whatever you would like me to do to put that together. Yeah, that's that proposal, you know, to have communities integrate with their neighbors. I mean, I think that's definitely aimed at some bigger communities around here. I think they have what a two-person road crew in Stockbridge, we have a three-person road crew here is it and Granville and Hancock, they contract it out. They contract it out. So it's, I think that are more than interacting with neighboring communities would be more likely to, you know, make initial contact with some of the larger companies that deal with the winter maintenance, just, you know, cover ourselves in the case of a real breakdown in our road crew. Yeah, I think we'd have better luck coordinating with some of the local residents than the neighboring towns, just my thought. I know, Pat, you're involved in that kind of activity. What's your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that we have lots of infrastructure independence in this valley, you know, Harveys is always ready to lend a hand and we are too, like we did with the sidewalks. Yeah, I would not want to impose on Stockbridge and probably would think we asked too much. They got quite a few roads anyway. Yeah, it might not be another town that's as small as ours or small, but anyway, if you feel you've got other, you know, ways to do it, that's fine. I mean, it was just. Did the same purpose applies though to have that conversation now and it's not in the middle of a snowstorm, just to put people's I did actually have a short conversation with Ray Harvey about this this morning when I saw him down by his garage there, just to throw that out there. Yeah, at least if you have a plan in place, so that if something does happen like remember has to go on quarantine, you're not scrambling to, you've got something. Definitely worth kind of conversation with Cooter about that. Okay, okay. No, that was good that they brought that point up. Yeah, it was a good point. So excuse me, that was two rivers out of Quichy that brought that up suggested that you contact other towns for mutual aid, but you're feeling it's better to contact local contractors, right? That's kind of just seems to be the sense. Yeah, I wanted to make sure I got that correct. Thank you. In the past, we've always had lots of wonderful mutual aid with the local contractors when we've had storms and floods and everything else has thrown at us. So I'm sure if it was just the simple snowstorm, yeah, they'd be there for us still. Okay. All right. What else we've got, Joan, is that it? Yeah, that's it. All right, well, thank you. I guess that kind of touches on the highway line. We don't have anything specific other than all the sand and salt is in and plows are on the trucks and we're ready to go. I guess we should make sure there's masks in the trucks, I think there are. We have a bunch of stuff in the new business section starting off with the approval of a class four highway winter maintenance application agreement. This is would be the second time around for the Kenny Beatty up on Oak Lodge Road where it heads into Granville and his property there. And we approved this last time. And I have not been aware of any issues or problems with that. So you guys have any input on that or? No, I've actually had the chance to drive the road a couple of times this fall. And it's in relatively good shape. It is being maintained. And so, yeah, I think that we can stay the course. Yeah, so I'd move to approve that. All in favor. All right. All right. And they can see on the cemetery commission. Nancy, can you speak to that? I can, since I get back here. Can you hear me? Yeah. Java hovered after. I don't know how many years. I'll bet she's been on there for 35 years. Has decided it's time to do other things with her time. And so she resigned as of the 30th of October. Her term extends to 2022. So we're looking for an appointment to fill her spot. Until the next town meeting. And at that point, which is March one. And at that point. We would vote to fill her term until. 2022 when we would be looking. To have an appointment for a five year term. Do you have any suggestions? We're looking. We don't have any that we're going to discuss right now, but we are talking and we are looking. For an appointment. It's a little quiet down there right now. So we're okay. All right. So that'll be, um, pushed on to old business for our next meeting. Right. It will be on. To be appointed. Be continued. Okay. Cool. We'll be coming to you for an appointment. Yep. Yeah. Once we find someone. So, um, I just really want to thank Java for. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I see at least 35, you think. I don't know. I don't know for sure. But if I just said for many years. She. Decades. I'm sure she's been on. Many more than 35 years too. And over 30 years, should I say. You can say that. Yeah. Yeah, sure. We'll probably come back at you and say it was X number of years. Yeah. She has actually, I mean, she's been a valuable part of it. She's been doing it for over 30 years. Um, And I think she feels that it's just time to make a change. So we're grateful for her service. All right. Um, So, um, town meeting is coming up and, um, with the, um, Our, our life of zoom meetings, it looks like we're going to need to adopt an Australian ballot. For the town meeting and Frank, you've been doing a bunch of work with Nancy on, on the, the. Rules about what's allowed and what's not and what, what can you tell us about? Well, for, for open and dude, I'll just work. I've put together a little thing and I'll just read it. Um, in response to COVID-19, the Vermont legislator. Uh, passed acts one 62, allowing towns by vote of its legislative body, the right to adopt the use of Australian ballot for any town meeting annual or special for the year 2021. The general subjects, the law enables towns to adopt. Our election of officials, all budget articles, appropriations and petitions. So that's basically the jest of what they've done so far. So we as a town have to adopt. Uh, if we want to vote by Australian ballot, which I think it's the only way we're going to be able to handle it down the road, um, For town meeting. So I framed it in the form of a question. If you don't have any discussion on it, or if anybody wants to ask anything about it. Um, they can right now. Fire away. We basically are just taking the first step because there, there's it's ever changing and they're really swamped at the. Vermont League of cities and towns right now, because every town is in the same position as we are. So Frank, I have a question. Um, if we voted by Australian ballot, um, would we not have any meeting at all? Or would we have to attempt to have some sort of as a meeting via zoom? We still have to have. A pre town and we still have to have a town meeting. Virtually. But we don't know how that's going to work yet. And we don't want to put too much out there. So we're just going to take it one step of a ton at a time. And I think in December, we'll have some better answers. So our, what we need to do tonight is just adopt the, uh, the idea of the Australian ballot for. All our election of officials and that. We're going to have a vote on that. And I framed it in the form of a question. If you guys want to vote on that right now, we can do that. I second that motion. Okay. Um, you all set with it, Pat. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Shall the town of Rochester by vote of its legislative body, please. Okay. Okay. We'll have registered voters by Australian ballot for 2021. And that's basically what it is. I would, um, Move. We adopt that. I can second that. All in favor. All right. All right. Um, so we'll have. Definitely more information to share. Um, We won't have the option to just stand up on the floor and say, I, you know, I nominate so and so for this or that we're going to have to make it clear to people that if they want to nominate someone, there's got to be a, they've got to do that ahead of time and get them, get them on that ballot. Right. Well, Go ahead, Nancy Frank or do you want me to. I don't care. You can or I can. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. So I think that. So the local seeking office is going to have to complete a consent form. Um, and have it into the town office, to the town clerk. Uh, no later than that, believe it or not. The six Monday. Before town meeting, which is somewhere around the 18th. Yeah, I think that's what it is. So it applies to anyone seeking any office. So no, you don't have to have any signatures. You just have to sign the consent form. Yeah. So anybody that wants to run for an office will have their names printed on a ballot. That's about as much as we know. So my question is, I also have a question. If we're voting by Australian ballot, am I right in assuming that you're going to on that day go I thought we do not have any of those facts yet. OK, so you don't know where you'd be going to vote and all that kind of stuff. You do not know that. OK. You don't have that down yet. All right. So I think a lot of questions that we have. This is just the first step of laying this procedure out. Every day more information comes in. And the governor and the legislature are still making changes. So if I said that you voted to conduct town meeting by Australian ballot and we'll be spending the next couple of months working out all the details is how to do that. That's about one month. Yeah, we'll have it done in December. It'll have to be finalized by then. We have deadlines. Yeah. So that basically covers this next item on the agenda, the social service agency requirements for appropriations for town meetings. No, that's we need to get that information out to them. I think the majority of what we have voted in the past are already in. Yeah. And the one key here is our policy says, if you're not looking for any more money or any less money, you don't have to have a petition. But if you are going to petition the town, if you're going to look for some more money or it's a new petition, then we're going to require, we're not going to waive the requirement for a petition. OK. And you say most of the agencies that usually are supported have already. We've already received them. I think they're all in except maybe one, right, Nancy? I think there's only one still to come. Yeah, I think there's only one left. OK. Should be an interesting meeting. How many people can you fit on a Zoom screen? Oops, I said how much do you pay for Zoom? I'm not sure how we're going to deal with that yet. How much do you pay for Zoom? They'll get you as large as you want, but you might have to put more money for it. I lost my screen all of a sudden. That's weird. Oh, we see you. I know, I can hear everybody, but I don't know where the picture went. Go down to the bottom here. Go down to the bottom and what do we do? Where it says stop video. I don't see anything that says stop video. I'm very bothered. Pull all the way down near the mute button on the right hand side. Open support chat. I don't know. No. You can you can hear us, though. I can hear everybody. I don't know what happened to the picture. I'm sorry. That's weird. You know what we look like mostly. The next item on the agenda is we've got the mowing contracts for fiscal year 22. I'm curious, is this just a reminder to us that we've got something in place for that next year, or what's up with this being on the agenda? Yeah, the mowing contract expires next year. So we were thinking with the budget and finance, we might want to keep that in mind. But we have, he is contracted through next summer, though, I believe. Yeah, through November 15th of 2021. So it's just a reminder. OK, yeah. Hey, one more thing, Dune. Wait a second. Frank, Jeffrey was saying something there. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize. I'm intending to take a look at the potential of mowing electrically. I'm seeing some products on the market, some of those zero radius turn of a good steer loader, or type turning mowers. I see that there are a couple of those out now from Ryobi, and there's actually bigger equipment for ag use. I would be interested in assessing this to know how many acres the town mows so we can determine whether the batteries in these pieces of equipment will actually function for what our needs are. And how long, it sounds like you do multi-year contracts? Yeah, we have been doing two, I think this was a two-year contract in the mowing, and I think we have a, three-year contract for the sidewalk mowing. So in terms of... Now, something to think about in terms of putting this out to bid is, and again, we need more information, and I'm going to do more research on this, but thinking about putting it out with a specification as to the type of equipment to be used, or if Rochester put it out with its own equipment rather than having the equipment provided by the city. It's provided by a contractor, I should say. It's great to know that this, but until 2022, because then it'll be easier to work out the analysis and figure out whether it works for the town. I think that's a great idea. If you remember, was it last year at town meeting, we voted to, what was the thing about climate change, and that we were going to place all the decisions to be made with climate change in mind? So this definitely falls under that category would satisfy what the voters voted for them. Again, it's a consideration. If I can find out how many acres so the town mows, then I can start looking on the equipment is well married to that job, and then we can start looking on dollars and structures. I think by going into the office and looking at the tax map, you can get a pretty good idea of the. Okay, so that's not spelled out in the contract with the. Not by acre, I don't think it just specifies which graveyards or which septic field or what have even, you know, ball field. It doesn't, it's not split out by acreage. I don't think so. Okay. Well, maybe take a little bit of. Got a measurement going out there to see, you know, what that is, because I'm sure that that's how they're going to, that is how they equate battery capability to the job. I'm sure it's all listed in the tax map and probably the listers. Just to give you an idea, Jeff, the park is just over two acres. Four acres. Well, the original, the big part is two acres. It's got to be more according to the Google map. Well, I think it's, it's supposed to be four. Well, probably used to be. We'll get a tax refund. It is actually surveyed. Yeah. We have a survey. Well, that's what we, the guy at the laws told me, because he had it gauged for how much we were going to put on the park. Well, I know driving an electric car. It's awful quiet on the green one on the park when mowing's going by and all you do is hear the crass blowing. Well, speaking of the park, I just want to mention that since I've been the only person on the park committee for the last several years, and the park committee was, has always been in charge of putting the Christmas tree up on the bandstand and my physically can't do that anymore because of my medical problems. So I have, I hope it's okay with you guys, but I talked to Norm Christiansen, who's head of the rec committee that I'm on and, and they agreed to take it over and, and put and do as long as I would like just organize it for them. They will, they will put up the Christmas tree. It's all been organized. Yeah. Nancy has been talking to Norm about it, but I didn't know if I was supposed to run it by the select board or not. I'm sorry. I forgot. Now it sounds like a good job of taking your, your responsibility seriously and, and making it happen. Well, I've been doing it for so many years and now I can't and I, I want to make sure it still happens because I think. Good delegating Martha. Yes. Well, Norm was willing to do it. So that was great. Nancy's going to help. Just one more note, Dune. I did talk with magic brush today about the painting and he's going to get in touch with me in, in around 10 days and, and we're going to meet and look over the buildings. Okay, great. So we'll get some kind of idea of what we're looking at for money doing that. And he also has a couple of lifts that he will be over. He said he had another job in somewhere in the valley here that he will have one of those lists here. So he will deal with the flagpole at that time. Yeah, we deal with maybe painting some tar on the library roof or at least. I don't know. I was, I was up there looking at that today. I actually took some pictures of the windows just to see what, what was up there. And I, I got to find out which ones they got problems with. I know there's one is pretty, that I looked at is pretty bad, but the others look like they could probably go for a while. And I, I was wondering why they couldn't go up on a ladder on the side towards the pumpkin patch there. And if the leaks on the backside, you know, it's on the south side, I guess. So I don't know where it is or anything, but, and that is a metal roof on that too. So I don't know what the leak is doing, but where it's coming from. So might be around the chimney. Who knows? I don't really know the chimney. Yeah, I don't. So we'll dig into that more later. I don't know. Can you get into the attic to see from below where there's damage? That'd be a, might be an easy way to start looking for that leak. I think somebody already has a, I think, and I was going to talk to Larry Strauss about it to see, and I'll go from there. All right. Thank you. So the sidewalk plowing that was also on here just as a reminder that we've actually got another two years on that contract, I believe. Yeah. So am I correct? Both the mowing and the sidewalk plowing contracts that are current are in existence through 2022? The sidewalk is through 22. I think the mowing is just through 21. 21. Okay. Thank you. Wow. Made quick work of that. Is there anything that anyone else would like to speak about tonight? I'm just going to mention, I've heard from two Rovers, Otakwichi Regional Commission. They have scheduled the first of the Tritown, Hancock, Rochester, and Pittsfield Municipal Energy Committee meetings. So I will attend that. That's like a 430, 430, 630, I forget. I'll attend that. And thanks to Joan for getting me the information about the EV chargers. And Jeff, if there is any news from that meeting, if you wouldn't mind emailing it to me, I could put something in the Herald to keep people informed about the committee meetings. Okay. Okay, thank you. News at ourherald.com is the email. I think it's in the Herald already. Thank you. Okay, thanks for taking that on. And I saw that the meeting you were going to have with the walkthrough and buildings, you guys put that off. Yeah, that was scheduled for after the recent COVID amendment. And that it really bars Efficiency Vermont from making those site calls. Doesn't keep their contractors from doing it, but it doesn't allow them to do it. So I'll just monitor the situation and they open that back up. Great. I'm asking them to find if they have any expertise in pumping, because that's where a lot of our electric energy uses sewer and water pumping. So the biggest ticket items. I've also started, but I'm going to redo the CV oil tracking that I set up to be on your fiscal year. That was a real dumb move to set it up a calendar year from my end. But I'm going to set that up and try to address your request for some forecasting to end of year. For what? Good. Any algorithms I might come up with might be to give you a tool for forecasting. Hopefully get this thing set up as a system that you can use for management. That'd be great. And budgeting. Yeah. Yeah. And budgeting. And also, there was a time a few years ago, and it's kind of fallen by the wayside that we used to walk in rates for fuel with CV oil. And then it fluctuated so much, some years you were happy and others you weren't. So perhaps if we have this record to look back on, maybe we could do some tracking and get down to doing a little bit of shopping and negotiation for some ticket items. Yeah. For that tracking to be really good, what we need to do is normalize it for heating degree days across the year. So that we can, you know, we don't want to be looking at, although we're looking at the hottest years pretty much on record. So yeah, I guess it's not likely to go down heating degree days too much at this point. No. Jeff, the three towns that you mentioned that are in this tri-town, it's Rochester and Hancock. Did you say Pittsfield or Stockbridge? Pittsfield and Hancock. Okay, that's what I thought. I'm sorry, I wanted to make sure. Thank you. It was offered to Grandville and Stockbridge as well, but for whatever reasons, those towns don't have them are not participating. Okay, so Rochester, Hancock and Pittsfield, you're going to attend the meeting. Thank you. All right. And if I'm stuck quarantined, then I'm going to look to Frank because he's our alternate. Don't get quarantined. Trying not to. Yeah, me too. I'm about as socially isolated as they get. All right. Well, I guess the next item on the agenda is to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. Everyone happy and safe and not crowded, I guess. Going to camp. Going to camp. I hear it's hard to find small turkeys. Everybody's one for small turkeys because they're not having big crowds. I solved the whole problem of getting a turkey TV dinner to eat by myself since I'll be by myself. Very exciting. Turkeys over 10 pounds are now 39 cents a pound or a shot. Yeah, the turkey farmers are getting hit big time. Cranberries, probably sweet potatoes, everybody. Reminding me of when I used to have as many as 25 people for Thanksgiving years ago and my sister and her family and a bunch of people used to come. Probably 10, 15 years in a row, I used to do that. But wow, I couldn't do it now. Do we have any employee issues we need to discuss? I have a little bit of a conversation we could. Yeah, we can move into executive session and talk about that a little bit. Do you want? Yeah, I think we should. Yeah, all right. So I guess we're going to say goodbye and we'll enter into executive session to discuss the employee issues. And thank you all for coming. Okay, thanks. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.