 Welcome to the 233rd Berlin – 233rd Berlin Town Meeting. I'm your moderator until halfway through, and then you may elect another or not. This is the – we start with the three-town meeting, so it's not – this isn't an occasion for motions to amend or otherwise. We're here to listen to many of the people who have requested – whose organizations have requested money, and so in order to start correctly, I think it's important to know that these pre-town meeting and the town meeting itself is for residents, but we welcome non-residents. We just want to know who you are. So when you stand to talk – and we have one microphone, so you'll come up here – would you please identify yourself, and if you're not a resident of the town, say so. Would that be agreeable to everybody? Does anyone have any prejudice to keep these people from telling us what we need to know? Anyone? Okay, it's time to start. If you will join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, it's on this corner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right, I will try to speak louder. Turning to the warnings, these are articles that are to be voted by Australian ballot, and we'll start with Article 1, which has the candidate or the vacancies, which will be filled by candidates. If there is a candidate for the select board of member for a three-year term, I would invite that person to come up and speak, or not. All right. Mr. Moderator, there is one candidate, Carla Nuiso. She is unable to be here today. Okay. Can you repeat that? Carol? Carla Nuiso. Carla Nuiso is a candidate, but she couldn't be here today, so she would have spoken right there. How about candidates for the one-year term? There's two vacancies. Thank you, Moderator. I'm Troy Halson. I'm currently serving a one-year term on the select board, and would like to continue for another year on the select board. Is there another candidate here that would speak for that? Mr. Stowell, would you like to speak about? I was not running. You're not running? I am not running. Okay. Article 2 is the town budget. It asks, shall the town appropriate $4,558,000? There's a number missing there, but at least $276,000 for necessary town expenses for the period July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025. This would be a good time for you to ask questions of the select board as to their prompt presumptions and intentions. And if my member would like to speak about it, that would be good time. I wasn't going to stand up, but that last one didn't go too good, so maybe. I'll do this. We tried having a PowerPoint presentation, but as you can see, this screen is not very bright. But there are handouts on the second table there that maybe Tom, if you could distribute them to everybody, I'll give a couple minutes for those who can distribute it before I start in. Anybody else want to copy the presentation? The corn gift one? The documents, Tom? There's two other documents on the table, one on the post office, one on the land sale. Just start distributing those. This presentation's also on the website, and there's also a narrated YouTube video on it in case you'd have insomnia tonight. The budget this year was very challenging. We're all faced with the pressures of inflation and the town being particularly hit with the July flooding, which left us with a lot of road damages over, close to 30 roads being damaged one way or another, four rooms still having significant damage that needs to be repaired, one being closed until those repairs are actually made. Not knowing what the full extent of those damages are going to be, we're trying to figure in some reserves because FEMA does not cover 100% of the flood damages. They do expect a local match anywhere from 10 to 25% depending on where the actual damages end up. So trying to prepare for that, we set aside $400,000 in that fund. We're hoping is a worst case scenario for the flood damages, but that increases our budget by about 10% right there in that one line item. So as the warning stated, we're looking for $4,558,276 in expenditures this year, which is an increase of $471,325 or 11.5%. That increase over the current year budget. And we do recognize that this is a huge increase and we worked very hard through several meetings to try to reduce this amount as much as possible and to reduce the effect on the tax rate as much as possible. And we think in the end, we've come up with a very responsible, reasonable budget that preserves town services, but has the minimal effect on the tax rate as we can. Just to note that without the flood increase, the actual increase of the budget is only $71,325 or 1.7%. So we were very reasonable and responsible in the other areas of the town expenses. The next slide, FY25 budget highlights. As I said before, $400,000 of this increase is proposed for repair to the roads and infrastructure that will not be reimbursed by FEMA or the Federal Highway Administration. This includes the turnpike north collapse, which is an extended closure. The Richardson Road culvert, which we currently have a temporary locking bridge across, so people do have access. We have a culvert on Junction Road and also on Darden Hill Road. There will also be a separate article on today's warning, giving the town possible borrowing authority for these expenses. I would say it's a worst case scenario, but here again if we needed to do this to minimize the effect on the tax rate in the end. The budget does at this point include the $400,000 for the road expenses because we will have to expend those funds this year. We may lessen the effect on the tax rate by going out to bonding, but that won't be a decision made as we get closer to the summary of these actual projects starting, taking a look at the interest rates and stuff. But we are proposing to spend the $400,000 this year, which is why it's in the budget. Exactly, correct, exactly. So basically what Matt was saying was that these $400,000 is in the budget for next year because we are expecting to spend those funds this year, but when we get closer to setting the tax rate, this will give us some options as to which way to go, which will lessen the effect on the tax rate itself. And I do have a couple slides on the tax rate for the back, which I think will kind of help relieve some people's concerns. But we do hear about the school tax rate and I don't want to get into that, but we are very cognizant of that and want to minimize the effects on that as much as we can, but we still have to do our own town services. On the next slide, town employee benefits. We are looking at a 3% increase in wages for non-union town employees. This came in just under the inflation rate for 2023, which was 3.4%. I'd like to tie the increases to the inflation rate and came in just a little bit under and I feel good with that. The union, the police department union increases 4.5%, and that is based on the union contract that was negotiated and runs through June of 2025. Sir, police department is the only union employees in the town. We thought that at least keeping it near the level of inflation for that year was the best thing to do. Anyone? I think that speaks to it very well. It was a difficult budget to look at this year. That's very kind. Thank you so much. I think what Brad said is spot on. It was a difficult budget that we were looking at this year and we did have to make other cuts. So we felt that that percentage was the best that we could do at this time. That's not to say that it wouldn't be higher or different in another year. It's unfortunate that you have this style of town meeting where we cannot make a motion to improve, to increase that funding. I would like to suggest that you heartily consider paying the non-union people what they deserve. I respect your views. Thank you, sir. I respect your views and I'm glad that you're bringing them forward. That's how we can look at things differently as we go forward. So I really appreciate that. Joe, would you like to speak as well? No, I really have much to add to that. I'll give a tank of that. I fully agree with you on that as far as giving the non-union members an increase. I think later on in this season we might find some extra money that might be able to I don't know if we're not going to have the ARPA money. I think that's going to be spent even though we have some still on hand. And we have used ARPA money to give bonuses out to different positions in the past. That's still an option. Forgive me, I've been a little tired and I'm going to sit for the rest. The next big area of increases is in the insurance increases. We're figuring in a 10% increase in the health insurance, which is something that basically affects everybody. This is not unusual to the town. Everybody in their own personal health insurance is seeing these double digit increases every year. We are also seeing a large increase in vehicle and liability premiums from our insurance carry, which is romantically of cities and towns. And in some areas it's going up by about 50%. So overall for all the insurance for the town, we're going from $659,000 to $746,000 for all the insurances for the town next year, an increase of $87,000. Capital budget and debt service, capital budget I say is a fancy term for big ticket items. And we'll have plenty of discussion on this throughout the other articles this morning. But we're looking at $250,000 towards a new highway loader that is needed. And we're going to pay for this with reserved funds, funds from previous years that were not expended. So this will not increase the tax rate. Also we're looking at $55,000 for a new police department cruiser. And both of these would be to replace existing equipment. These won't be adding new pieces to our inventory. And this will be paid for with ARPA funds, which also will not increase our tax rate. Then we've also set aside $15,000 in ARPA funds to replace the town hall furnace, which is going to the point where it's in bad shape and difficult to find parts when things break on there. Part of the voting item, but take a look at where we're expecting to receive revenues from in the town next year. Each year we receive about a little over $500,000 from different sources. We receive state payments for the roads. We receive pilot payments, which are payments from non-profit and state agencies who do not pay the traditional property tax, but they still make a payment to us. Town court revenue, get a birth certificate or marriage certificate, dog license, record a real estate transfer. Some of that money goes to the town. So conservatively looking at about $519,000 this year, which is generally in my previous years. Use of reserve funds, and this is money that was reserved from previous year's expenditures. We are looking to apply to the tax rate this year, and that amount is $313,000. And the use of ARPA funds, not just for the police department and the furnace, but also for the remaining undesignated ARPA funds brings in another $115,000 revenue. Anticipating the total non-property tax revenues for the town, being close to $950,000, which is just under 25% of our total budget. Now the actual use of these funds will be decided in June when we set the town tax rate, but this is just some of the estimates we're looking at at this time. Next couple slides, a couple of the major budget areas and budget by department. Let you take a look at those on your own. That's two pages, you know, putting everything all together. What does this mean in the end? So if our town budget is $4.5 million, if all the special appropriations today pass, including the fire department, that would be another $517,000, which means that we need to raise $575,000, almost $576,000. Subtracting out the previously anticipated revenues of $950,000 means that we need to raise over $4.1 million in property taxes. Worth our current grand list of $5.3 million, and this will change. We actually go by the grand list as of April 1st, so that could change up or down. It gives us an anticipated tax rate of .7721. Our current tax rate is .7574, which gives on a $250,000 house $1,893 for your municipal property taxes. With the estimated tax rate of .7721 on a $250,000 house, the municipal taxes will be $1,930, an increase of $37 for the year on your municipal taxes. I think this is, in the end, very much what everybody wants to hear, as minimal impact on the tax rate as we can make and still provide for the town services. Any other questions? Thank you, and that is great news. We really much appreciate it. Matt? I understood on the second and last slide where we say grand list is a certain amount of the amount that's needed, which is the same set that person now made out of, so thank you for that. I guess I say, I appreciate the slide where we're saying that there were difficult decisions, and there were some hard budgets and so on and so forth. Without needing to draw attention to these things or make things political or contentious, I mean it's interesting to know what didn't make it hand. Things that you wish you could have done, that you decided not to, but it was a pressure to do it off, because what you're saying makes no sense, but I don't quite know if it's on the edges that got pushed away, do you know what I mean? So could you tell us a little bit about what is it in here or what the tax takeout to make this balance important? To the areas we did cut is I had proposed in my draft of the budget about $20,000 for a part-time economic development person to assist with the economic development commission and to be making improved outreach to the businesses in town. I've kind of taken some of this on myself, taken on this position as interim town administrator. I've been trying to welcome new businesses. I've done a very poor process so far at highlighting businesses on our town website, so please don't go look at that yet, and so I can make some fixes to that, but you know in the past we've had a very active economic development committee. They're active again and trying to welcome new businesses. One of the simple things I did with the 802 Subaru dealership and their remodeling this fall, it's a very beautiful building if you've not had a chance to look at it yet, but I sent them a letter on behalf of the town on some nice quality bond paper, not the cheap photocopy paper, just congratulating them on their accomplishment, and Dave Birmingham, the owner, he received that letter and I went to the grand opening, which was a couple months after I sent this letter, and he was very appreciative. He remembered the letter, he remembered I was the one who sent it, and he was very appreciative of that, so I'd like to continue those efforts in the future with the town. The businesses and the commercial properties are doing a great service to the town. They're really adding to the grand list, and the services we have in the town, and I want to say that we as a town acknowledge that, and we'll have another opportunity this morning to talk more about that with one particular project, you know, and I'd say we're business friendly here in Berlin, and I'd like to continue that. Another area, and I'll let Flo maybe speak on this, is we did cut some road paving this year. We cut Pine Hill Drive, which I let Flo take the heat on that if she wants to add anything to that. It's one thing that we already pushed back from this year, paving a Pine Hill Drive, and we delayed it another year, which is going to get into the issue of the options tax. I don't want to get into that too much right now, but I want to get away from deferring maintenance and upgrade to our roads, you know, and that was one calcium this year. I'm going to Flo, if you want to add anything on Pine Hill paving. Thank you very much, Tour, and I would be remiss if I didn't at this point thank Tour for everything he's doing for the town. It's tremendous, and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you. In terms of Pine Hill, I live on Pine Hill Drive, and it was a very difficult budget, and we can go into the various avenues that we had to cut. There was the funding for Pine Hill and improvements to the paving, but we decided to put that off, so it won't happen this year, and I made the joke that I hope my neighbors like me as much as I think they do, and so basically that will happen in the future, but I felt that we could bypass that this year to help the budget overall, so we did cut that for this year. Thank you. Don't necessarily care what road we don't pave, but every time we don't pave a road, it just becomes worse. We have a lot of paved roads out there, I don't care if it's Airport Road, there's over 2,000 cars a day. I think here, no, sorry, that's Airport Road. Scot Hill is somewhere around 1,500. This isn't just our people, our town residents driving these roads. These are the people from outside the community, and if you look at, I'm going to say Scot Hill, there's a lot of alligator crack, and you can't just pave it and make it look pretty, because that's only going to come back. There's a lot of sub-base work that needs to happen, and when we push this off, which unfortunately we had to, on the paving projects, it's just going to come back to be more expensive the following years, so as much as we may have helped the budget, I don't necessarily think we helped our roads. Any other questions on Article 2, the town budget? If not, let's go on to Article 3. Shall the town charter be amended as follows? Section 3.2 powers the town. Addition of paragraph D as follows. The town of Berlin Select Board may assess a 1% sales tax. The town of Berlin Select Board may assess a 1% room tax, probably. The town of Berlin Select Board may assess a 1% meals and alcohol beverage tax. D2, a tax imposed under the authority of this section shall be collected and administered by the Department of Taxes in accordance with 24 VSA Section 138, and finally D3, revenues received through the imposition of the tax imposed under this section shall be designed for capital projects within the town. One of the Select Board members want to introduce this otherwise benign subject. I think this leads right in off of what I was talking about. Pine Hill and what Joe also said about it gets more expensive. The longer you put something off, prices are going to raise and things are going to become more expensive. That was the way it was when I was at the Agency of Transportation. Any projects that we were looking at, we knew it was going to get more costly as time went on. I'm a huge proponent of local options tax, and I think it will really help Berlin tremendously. I realize that it's going to impact on all of us when we're buying things, but even folks from other towns, and I've been speaking with people who are concerned, if they live in Berry, say for example, and they come to Berlin and they're purchasing items, etc., they're going to pay the extra tax. However, there's many local towns that already have imposed the local options tax, Berry being one of them, Montpelier. It has been in many towns throughout Vermont for a very long time, and Berlin has tried numerous times, and I have said that in my opinion the fourth time is the charm. So we have tried three times here in Berlin, and I do believe that it will pass this time, and I do believe that it will truly help us going forward with the budget, with projects, and I'm going to let other board members explain as well. No one wants to hear taxes. I'd love to have a different name for this local option tax, but like Flo was saying, Central Vermont and Berlin community is a hub, a central hub for Vermont. A lot of people traveling in and out. We're using all these services. I don't care if it's road crew, your PD, EMS, whatnot. And so the infrastructure, and I'm all about the roads myself, is all up to the town residents to be paying for the upkeep. I believe that probably one of the biggest infrastructures or assets to the town of Berlin, people will talk about maybe the town center. What I'm saying is your back roads. I'm going to say probably about 80% of us live on a back road, and we should have like a back road rehabilitation program, but we can't fund it. That's the problem with that. And I guess I'll finish up by just saying I'm in favor of it, and I will be supporting it. Everybody else, when I first heard of the options tax, I was just absolutely appalled. I'm like, what are you thinking? Another tax? More taxes, honest, were taxed enough already? And then I started looking at what the local options tax actually is, and what it will do for the town, and my impact on me. And let me just kind of put it this way. So we mentioned before that we're looking to buy a $250,000 loader for the Highway Department this year. Do you want to buy that loader for $250,000, or would you like to buy the exact same make and model, all the same features and everything for $62,000? That's what the local options tax would do. Because the estimates from the state tax department is that 75% to 85% of this tax is going to be paid for by out of town residents who are currently receiving all the benefits of the town, but not contributing financially in any way to the town. All the town expenses, like I laid out, that are paid for with property taxes are only paid for by the Berlin property owners. This is a way to spread that tax burden out among everybody who benefits from those services and lessen the needed work we need to do on the town roads and equipment and everything else, but put it on this way. As far as the impact on me, as many of you know, because you've seen me there, if I go out once a week for pizza and buy a couple beers, my tab comes out to 20 bucks for that night. If passed, that local options tax will add 20 cents to that $20 bill. Definitely doable. If I do that every week, every week for a year, I spend just a little over, you know, 10 bucks, 11 bucks for the whole year for the benefit of the local options tax. Add two things. For anyone that doesn't know, we have everything regarding the local options tax on our website at the town of Berlin. The staff have done a tremendous job putting that all there, so feel free to look at that. And I'm going to do something that doesn't necessarily, you don't see it at town meeting every day or someone giving this information, but I'm going to be around all weekend. I'm very approachable as are all of the board, but if you'd like to write down my home phone number and my cell phone number, you're welcome to call me over the weekend if you have any questions, concerns, or even into Monday or Tuesday. So my home number is 802-552-802-552-4054. And my cell phone is 377-1589, and I welcome you to call. I would love to talk with you about it. And as I said before, I'm a huge proponent. The only other thing that I will add is to make sure you know that we would use those funds that we receive for capital projects, and you would know about them before they happen in terms of we would be bringing that before you. It's not that we're going to take the money and just use it for anything. We'll be looking at that long and hard, and it will be for big items, whether it's equipment, or police, cruisers, etc. Thank you. But I can reach you. Why don't you tell me your question and I'll repeat it. My name is Mr. Laurie and I am a resident in Berlin. Good. When I buy something through the mail, I get charged a 7% tax, and that's because my post office address is embarrassed. So we're already paying in that particular situation, and I was curious to know does that 1% that I'm paying ever make it to Berlin? It's an excellent question. I'll let you repeat the question too. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, sister. So the question basically is that sister pays already 7% to the town of Berry when she purchases online, and she wants to know if her purchase is going forward, if the local options tax is passed in Berlin, would that 1% make it to Berlin? So this is something that we've been discussing regarding the local options tax and where people reside as they purchase items. I planned last week to call the tax department, but unfortunately I didn't find the time. I do still plan to call the tax department and have that conversation with them. I want to just add one thing and then I'll go forward. As Tour mentioned, the local options tax will be managed through the state tax department, so it will not be additional resources at our town offices, and I think that's really good. So basically we are not totally certain, as in myself, until I speak with the tax department, but it does correlate with that we want Berlin to have its own post office, per se. We used to have a post office many years ago, and in terms of your question, I don't have the exact answer right now, although Tour may have additional information. It is something that I know that we've been researching further. Right now that 1% goes to Berry, and yes, it would be very nice if it was able to transfer to Berlin. Thank you. Anything else on the charter change? Yes, sir. It really likes taxes. I think a lot of that is from where it's going, and the big benefit of this local options tax is that it's specifically set up for improvements, maintaining our roads, which clearly we don't have enough money for right now, as we're deferring it year after year. And having some of the visitors that we have come to town, wear and tear on our roads, that kind of stuff, for those improvements and those repairs is really important, and I think that this is a great way of addressing that. And so I'll be in support of that local options tax, as well as advocating for Berlin Post Office, except for those funds that we need to repair our roads and keep our infrastructure ready. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on the charter? Marty? I'm going to come down here, sir. Sure. Good morning. So I'm Matt Levin. I'm a Justice of the Peace. And I, for better or for worse, I'm also a lobbyist. So I work on legislation for a living. So I'm looking at D3 on the article. And so I have two questions about, this is sort of a technical question. This is the language that gets to what we were just talking about, that the money, and that Theron just spoke to, that the money raised from this would go to capital projects. Clearly that's the intent. So I think we can trust you all, but that's the plan. I'm curious, though, if there's a typo in here, and I'm also curious about how this would actually work functionally going forward. So it says, shall be designed for, is that supposed to say designated? Yes. And does the actual legal document that is on the warning say designated? I'm not trying to stop things. I just want to make sure that what we do works. So that I'm not, I actually, I'm not sure how I think about this. So I'm not doing, I'm not asking this question to try to gum up the works. But I believe the intent is designated. Yes, that's what I said, the legal, I, I, I, I suspect it may be the case that in the document that some of us are looking at the town report, it may be a typo in here, not in the actual legal document. But what does the actual legal document say? The clerk is saying that the language is the same. I see you're not. Okay. But there is, you know, the, as you know, there's the opportunity to fix this. Well, if passes, we'll have to go to the legislature and there's the opportunity to fix it there. There is indeed. So for, for the, the way that you, yeah, so, so yeah, I'll repeat. So the way that the state law works in Vermont, and for that, you can speak to our legislators. The way that the state law works in Vermont is that towns are not allowed to change their own charters without approval by the state legislature. So when we pass something on our ballot, it then goes to the legislature for their approval and they can change what we voted on before they pass it, which doesn't happen very often, but it does occasionally. And in situations like this where there's a technical correction, they can fix it and, you know, perfect it is a term that's often used in the legislature. So we might need to work with the legislature if this were to pass to do that. So the second thing is related to that. While I clearly understand that this is the intent, what is the actual legally binding way, because this is not, this isn't put into a separate fund, right? It's not put into a separate account. So I understand that this is the intent, but is it up to us as the voters of the town to pay attention to what's happening to make sure you're following this intention? Or what are the guardrails here to make sure that this were to actually have, again, not suggesting that anyone who's sitting here has any other intention, but in 15 years when all of us are doing everything, what is it that's going to say to the people in charge of the checkbook? No, no, no, you can't spend it on a new improvement to the ice rink, although that would be a capital project. You can't spend it on new healthcare benefits for the police officers, even if we think they deserve it. You have to spend it on the improvements to the ice rink. What is it that's going to say you have to spend them on capital projects, besides just everyone knowing that that's what's supposed to happen? And everyone may decide it's okay, it doesn't matter, but it's just, if all that it says here is you should, we should know that that's all that it says here is that you should, and there's nothing else to actually put guardrails around. Well, I think that's why, you know, we go through the process every year of adopting a town budget. These expenses will still be subject to that, to the voter approval as part of the town budget. You know, this year I tried doing a little bit more outreach. I don't know if anybody's looked at it. You know, the line item budget, well, in addition to being in the town report here, it is on the website. The, like I said, the budget presentation is on the town website, and the future years, you know, I'm assuming I'm not going to be here, but you know, hopefully this continues to get expanded. I know this was just the first time, you know, it's kind of lame this year. I'll admit that, but in the future, hopefully it gets expanded with, you know, more people being more savvy with social media and websites and stuff can do an even expanded version of this. One thing to do different, I would like to have started this a whole lot earlier, getting the information out on the website and front porch form, and making, to bring it out to you as the voters that this is what we're looking, this is what the money we have available from the options tax, this is what we're looking to spend it on as part of the capital budgeting, and we'd like to hear from you as early as possible, not just at town meeting if, you know, yea or nay on that. That's the whole purpose of the taxpayers, yes. I think what you've done this year with the presentation is excellent, and I think if this were to pass, and it does go forward, that if you put something like this in next year's presentation to set the precedent and make it clear that that's what the expectation is, then that sets a good pattern for going forward so that people will expect to see it, and that people can look forward. So thank you. I think, yeah, I think being able to show, you know, exactly where this money is being spent is going to be helpful, you know, not just what we anticipate spending the money on, but, you know, looking for the, you know, for the coming year and future years, what we're looking to spend this money on, I think it's going to be helpful. One of the things I've been harping on, and Tom knows this ever since I, you know, took on this position in July, is capital improvement planning, and looking, you know, to plan out how we're spending these long-term projects. Instead of just picking out each year what road we're going to pave, and then pushing it off, and pushing it off again, having a long-term plan for what roads we're going to pave, what roads we're going to do, you know, other type of improvements on, what culverts we're going to upgrade, what gravel roads we're working on, improving drainage and everything, not just throwing some gravel down and grading it and moving on. So I took a huge step on this last month. I put an RFP request for proposals for a long-term capital improvement plan. Proposals were due yesterday and we did receive two proposals, so I'm excited about moving forward with that process. I know some people in the past have mentioned we need to do a better job planning for our roads and stuff. I totally agree, and I think that'll be one of the benefits of this, that we can incorporate with the local options tax, how they work together, how we're going to spend this money. I also wanted to add that I really enjoy being on the select board, and I plan to stand on the select board if everyone so chooses going forward. I had two more years in my current select board role, and I will be looking at things very closely. The budget this year, I feel that the whole board looked very closely at everything, and we will going forward if this passes. The other thing that I just wanted to add, and thank you Theron too for speaking, and also Matt for bringing your questions forward and putting that out there, I have great faith in the legislature, and I do believe this will pass this time, not to sway you one way or the other, but I really wanted to add that one of the concerns that was brought to me was that the state will receive 30% of whatever is brought in from the local options tax that this passes in Berlin. And the person that mentioned that to me was concerned that the state would receive 30%. I myself am not concerned because I look at it this way. Berlin will receive what will help us going forward, and the state is the overarching, just as Pat explained. Basically everyone needs the help right now, and the state is going to run the program for us, and there's so many programs that need assistance. So to me that 30% of the state will keep from the local options tax is well received. Thank you. Last chance on three, sir. The estimate that we received for how much we're going to receive, does that include 30% deduction? In other words, you've got a number that says we're going to get this much. Does that take into account that deduction? It apparently does. Yes. Yes. Yes. Article four. Just a clarification for folks, it was reference made to the fact that the legislature has to approve charter changes, and people may know there's a deadline each year for when bills have to be introduced, and brought before committee and go up to the other side, which has, you know, is basically passed. There is an exemption to that rule for requests from towns for charter changes. So this would not be delayed because of that deadline. They are addressed right away when they are requested by a town. Thank you, Ann. Article four. Fill the town cell. 1.5 acres of town owned property located at 108 Shed Road to Geary Montpelier, Inc. for a purchase price of a million dollars. Someone want to talk about that? Thank you. I'd also like to invite Cara Whitman from Geary Hotels, who's with us today. Go ahead and come on up, Cara. She is an out-of-town resident, so I will let you do your legal mumbo jumbo. Pre-approved. Pre-approved. Okay, better yet. So I'll just kind of lay out the premises here and let you take it from there, Cara. But what it is, is Geary Hotels is the owner of the Comfort Inn, Paintern Pike North. They are proposing to build an additional 100, approximately 100-room hotel in front of the Comfort Inn, which would be between the Applebee's and the Mabelfield Scass Station. And in order to accommodate that, they will need to move some of their parking behind the current Comfort Inn. 1.5 acres of land, which is owned by the town, part of the Town Hall campus. We are looking at, like I said, 1.5 acres of land for a sale price of one million dollars. To us, you know, its commercial value of the land is very minimal. It's unused land by the town. The sale of this land will not improve impact town operations of the Highway Department or anything like that. And the town has no future plans for this land either. Basically, this lot is landlocked because the only current access to it is through the Highway Department yard, which means you'd have to navigate through the gravel and sand piles around the highway trucks, the highway equipment to grader, the loaders, you know, the large 18-wheelers as they're delivering sand and salt and everything like that. So, minimally, it has no independent commercial value. Looking at similar lots along Payton Turnpike that have frontage to Payton Turnpike, looking at about similar-sized lots, you know, looking at about $600,000 of value. So, we think we are getting a value here. But I guess, Corinne, you had a question? Tom, I don't know if you can speak on that. Latest I heard from Green Mountain Transit, is they're looking further down from the state police barracks on that side of Payton Turnpike, unless I'm mistaken, Tom. Okay, so yeah, they're looking further down, not at this parcel of land. I'll turn it over to Karen. Thank you, Tour, and thank you, everybody, for coming this morning. Just a quick note of who Geary is. Geary is a Boston-based company. We are New England hotels. We have 50 hotels throughout New England. We have some independent resorts. We have some Marriott products, some Hilton products, some Independence. We have Choice hotels. We purchase the comfort suites here approximately three years ago. And with that purchase, there's like a truck trucking where truckers park out in front. That's the parcel we're proposing that we put a brand new hotel. We love being here. We like being part of your community. We see a need for more hotel rooms. We love Vermont. We're currently building, we're in a partnership in downtown Burlington where we're building the City Place project, which will be a 165-room Marriott hotel. We're proposing this, we're in conversations with Hilton to have a Hilton home to suites. It's an extended stay product, and it's probably Hilton's most popular product. By background, I spent 35 years at Hilton doing hotel development. So I've done a few projects in my life, and we think home 2 fits in beautifully in this community. You're underserved in terms of hotel rooms, and the comfort fills quite often, and then people leave Berlin to go elsewhere for hotel rooms. So this will satisfy the need if your new hotel rooms tax passes, there's some extra revenue there, but there is revenue, there's employment, all kinds of great benefits for the town of Berlin. So John Grenier is here with me to answer any technical questions. I can answer a big picture, but he is our engineer on the project and has been a great help to all of us. John lives in Waterbury and is very familiar with all the local requirements. So if you do have some technical questions, I would ask John to answer them. But big picture, I can answer anything about Geary, about our intentions, about our historical records and our future projects that we're involved with. My question is, where will the trucks park? And the other one is, what's going to be the access? Will there be any trucks, any vehicles coming each other over? And will the tractor trailers be sitting back there running their engines all night? At night when atmosphere conditions are such, I'm literally sleeping breathing diesel fumes, because the trucks are parking illegally around Maplefields. The signs say no parking, no parking, but they park there anyway, and nobody takes them away, but I'm breathing the fumes. I want to know where the tractor trailers are going to go and how the access to this 1.5 acre will work. Of course. No, the access will not be through Shet Road. It will actually be blocked off. So any access to this hotel complex will be directly off Payton Turnpike. Basically, very similar to this entrance that is there now to get into the Comfort Inn, it will slightly go to the south, kind of adjacent to the stormwater pond that's there that goes up to the Tesla Park charging station. So that'll become kind of the main boulevard. You come in, first hotel, second hotel, you go around behind the Comfort Inn, and there'll be a large parking lot back there. It'll be screened with trees, screened with berms. We'll set up truck parking back there because we need to replace that parking, but that location will actually be further away than, because yeah, you live right over the berm in the fence that's there behind the Comfort Inn. I mean, sorry, the Vermont Service Center. It's unfortunate that you're hearing the feeling and smelling that. This would be further away. And actually, because Gearia owns the hotel, they have a lot more power to have people not park with their engines running behind the hotel that they are at. So I think it'll be actually better managed than the gas station, which wants those people there, but they don't really have an interest in stopping that practice from happening, whereas if you own the hotel, you want your guests to be happy as well. And it's not a big segment of demand for the hotel. We think some of that truck are, they'll be going elsewhere. I don't think they'll be staying with us. And we, you know, we, we will accommodate some truck of demand, but we imagine it will decrease. But we're excited to be here, so thank you. Yes. We're just above the Wells for the town. I'm just wondering if we're sure there'll be enough water, especially with increasing droughts. I want to be pressured. There's more than adequate capacity. Well, let me tell them to start that. Yes. The public works for has, which is a charge of the water and sewer does have more than enough capacity to handle both sides, but this project and the other expanding projects could be mentioned in the town. And the public works for it is actually very excited about this project and how it will actually help the revenue lines on both the water and sewer companies. So in the financing environment today, leases are very difficult to do for hotels. It's really impossible to get financing with a lease. So from a gearing perspective, it was a purchase. It's only going to be a purchase or it wouldn't happen at all. And, and, you know, we, we did a presentation to your board and we negotiated, you know, they pushed us a little bit more than we originally wanted to be at. But we want to be here and, you know, we're, we're believers if it, if we can make the numbers work and it works for the town too. So it's a partnership and that's how we deal with it. There isn't any change to the Tesla charging station. There will be a reconfiguration because we're going to have to move some parking around. But it's encouraged by local zoning and our requirement back to 50 to have those electric charge charging stations. So they'll still be there. They might just be in a slightly different location. That would be true. Yep. When we have to move them, there will be a certain amount of time. I would hope that we could do that so that the new section was built and the new charges were in place and then the circuits would be switched over. But yeah, there will be actual downtime. I think it'll be easier. Well, the next story. Sir, is it going to be a five story hotel? Yes. Yes. I believe that is the current design. If that is true, then will Merlin need a fire truck capable of reaching the fifth story? I believe that's been reviewed by the this. No, I believe the current fire apparatus is adequate. Yeah, absolutely. That will be the tallest building in Berlin. We will not need to buy additional fire. No. Thank you. Thank you. Article five. Thank you. Thank you. Shell the voters authorized required local match for July 2023 flooding repairs in the amount not to exceed $400,000 to be financed over a period not to exceed five years. Want to warm us up on that? So I touched on this during the budget presentation. You know, this was just to give us the the slack board meeting the option of expanding these expenses out over five years through the term of a loan versus, you know, funding entirely through the property taxes of this year. You know, and mentioned some good news there with additional estate funding coming through. The benefit of this is that, you know, it spreads these expenses out over five years. The downside to it is that you would accrue interest which estimates right now today if we were execute those loans would range from between five and six percent, which would add significantly to their overall cost of the of the project. So this is not a mandate that the town pursue these loans. It's just the authority to pursue them. If that turns out to be in the best interest of the town moving forward. Yes. This means on. Be a loan. Five year loan. You talked about get a bond in a previous conversation, but you actually mean a loan. Correct. Article six shall the town appropriate four hundred and twenty thousand two hundred ninety six dollars to the Berlin Volunteer Fire Department for payment of necessary expenses from July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. So we have a lot of things in our budget. Oh, my name is Ryan Bar, Berlin lifelong resident, six year member of the fire department, currently serving as president, previously vice president and lieutenant on the fire department. We have a couple of things on the budget that are out of our control, such as our insurance rate, heating, some of the things that have really gone up without us being able to control them. That counts for roughly five and a half percent of our budget. If you there's a detailed version that wasn't included in the town report, town packet, that's on that table. We can definitely hand those out if anyone would like. They were also on that back table as you came in. Some of those things that you will see changed are three thousand dollars for fundraising. One of our goals is to do a lot more fundraising like tonight. Some other things. Heating, you'll see a five thousand dollar increase that is out of our control, communication equipment. One of the things that we really struggle with is having our communication. Our dispatch has increased four percent for the last couple of years. Again, that has continued to increase. Host testing is one of the things that we put a lot of man hours into every year. When there's a company that comes in and does our other local towns, they offer a discount for coming in. We'd like to hop on that and outsource our host testing. It usually counts for a lot of hours that we don't have as volunteers. Most of us have other day jobs. Most of us are involved in a lot more things like our chief on the select board, that kind of thing. Some of the bigger changes that you will see include our insurance. We're looking for a ten thousand dollar increase in that. Last year we introduced paying on weekends. Currently our model is all volunteer. We do have a stipend check, and last year we introduced paying for four hours per day for two individuals. That's sixteen hours per weekend of paid time. The idea behind that is to get people in-house doing maintenance things that we might not be able to do outside on our normal Tuesdays, which we show up for most Tuesdays. So that ten thousand dollars is seven thousand of that is work-ins-comp insurance that was introduced with the twenty five thousand dollars for those weekend shifts. So that's kind of just moving money into that line of them instead of another line of them. Those paid shifts will see a little decrease on that line of them as we move money from there to the insurance. Our year in stipend is our biggest increase in terms of benefits. Our model right now is that we show up, we're all volunteer, and for every two hours we get one point, and then we divide those points by that lump sum of money at the end of the year. Last year I believe it came out to roughly eight dollars per point, which is for two hours, so four dollars an hour. And so we're looking to continue to increase that. One of the things we struggle with is retention. This past year we saw I believe six people leave the department just for various reasons, and we had four come in, so our numbers are decreasing, although slightly. I think our current active roster is right around 15, which is not a lot given. Last year we amassed about 7,000 volunteer hours between the 15 people. I know that some of them, like myself and Chief and a bunch of other people in our department, have a majority of that. Chief spent right around a thousand hours, which comes out to 20 hours a week, if I do my math right. So we're looking to increase that and hopefully recoup some of the time lost in terms of monetary compensation. Our building maintenance is also going up. Last year we spent $13,000 out of our $8,500 budget. Our building was built in 1989, our Fort Corner Station and our Riverton Station in the 60s. Both of our buildings are showing signs of aging. I know the the outsides of the building, the clapboards are aging, the flooring inside is showing signs of aging, and we also had to replace a bay door, which accounted for about $6,000 out of that. Are there questions? That was Article 6. Now Article 7. Shall the town appropriate $39,886 to the Kellogg Hubbard Library? Can you come? I don't think I have enough lion item. I'm Ty Nixsa Peterson. I live on East Road in Berlin with my husband Connor and my two-year-old daughter Verona and a baby on the way, and I with Dan Green serve on the Board of Trustees for the Kellogg Hubbard Library. Something I love personally about the library right now as a mom is going to Story Hour every week, but it's such a great community resource for so many reasons, not just for readers. It serves six towns, including Berlin, and something I found really interesting is nearly 500 Berlin residents used the library last year and took out over 7,000 items, and that's not including digital items, which can't be tracked by town, so I can't look at that. But this year we're looking for a little over $39,000, which is a slight increase, but we did not ask for an increase over the last few years, so this will be the first increase in a while. And yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let's just score overall the budget, not what related damages are. Thank you. Article 9, Article 8, shall the town appropriate $21,600 to the Montpellier Senior Activity Center. Is there anyone to speak for that here? You could ask a question, but I don't know if you get an answer. Go on to 9, shall the town appropriate $10,000 to the Berlin Corner Cemetery Association. We're reminded that it's not town owned. Questions? Any representative, first of all? Any questions? A few pages later on the Historical Society Report. That's a new or a better Historical Society email address if you go to their section of the report, and we'll be doing that later. Article 10, shall the town appropriate $7,150 to the Central Vermont Home, Health, and Hospice. Ma'am. My name is Pat McDonald. I'm standing to speak about Central Vermont Home, Health, and Hospice. I was on the board for quite a few years. I'm not now, but I'm involved in two of their committees, and I love this organization. My sister and my mother, not me so far, I'm not going to it, but they've taken advantage of their service, and more recently my husband was in the hospital in Maine for seven weeks, and I called them and told them that we're going to be home, and I know that he's going to need some service. They came to my house, they told a friend of ours where to put the ramp, where to put the railings to go upstairs and downstairs, so we have, what do they call that, double railings up and down the stairs, where all the grab bars and everything, and they were amazing. I also, as part of my job on one of the committees, went on house visits with the permission of their clients, and saw firsthand the variety, the scope of the people that they deal with, the three people we met with that day were like all completely different with different problems and issues, and they were spectacular, and it was quite a learning session for me, so I'm very proud to be part of this organization, and on page 62 of the book they've got all of their numbers and statistics which I chose not to read to you today, but there's a lot of activity sadly here in the town, and they're here for us, and one more story, when we were coming home from Maine from the hospital, it was a weekend, I was very nervous about getting Bruce home in the house, and they arranged to have people there for me on a Saturday to make sure that we got him settled and comfortable in the house, so please vote yes, thank you, thanks Paul. Thank you. Anything else on article 10? Article 11, shelled the town appropriate $3,000 to the Central Vermont Council on Aging, and I believe there is a representative? Good morning everyone, my name is Luke Brackers, I am a resident of Montpilers, so thank you for welcoming me here today. I am the Director of Community Engagement at the Central Vermont Council on Aging, speaking on behalf of our agency today. For over 40 years we've been providing services to the residents of Central Vermont, 54 towns across our service area to help older adults continue to live with dignity and choice in our communities, with the primary goal of helping people remain in their homes and independent for as long as possible. So as you can imagine, we have a wide range of programs and services to meet that mission, including our helpline team, which provides information and assistance to thousands of people in Central Vermont every year, and we have nutrition programs on all of the funding for meals on wheels goes through the Central Vermont Council on Aging, and we support 13 meal sites across our region. We have a state health insurance program to provide health insurance counseling to residents, which is a great benefit for those entering the Medicare system for the first time. We also have our family caregiver support program, which provides individual support for people who are caregiving for the first time. We have social opportunities and classes for caregivers. I'm sort of just giving you a big, broad overview today, but the bottom line is Central Vermont Council on Aging is here to support people as they age and caregivers in the community. We served 70 clients and 70 residents of Berlin last year with a variety of services, and the town funding that we receive from 54 towns across the region primarily supports our helpline team, our family caregiver support program, and our volunteer services. So happy to answer any questions, and I also have some material if you would like that today. Article 12, shall the town appropriate $2,000 to Vermont through Washington County Mental Health? And there is a representative here? It's misled. Any comments or questions about these articles? I'm happy to take your comments. If not, Article 13, shall the town appropriate $1,200 to the Central Vermont Adult Basic Education? Anyone? Article 14, shall the town appropriate $1,000 to the Central Vermont Memorial Civic Center? If you take your town report, there's a written report for almost every one of these that explain what they do and would probably suffice if they didn't have someone here. Let's see. Article 15, shall the town appropriate $1,000 to Downstreet Housing and Community Development? Ryan. Hi, my name is Bill. I am a resident of Berry City, but I work over at Downstreet. I'm one of the home ownership specialists that helps people figure out down payment assistance and getting into their first homes. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with Downstreet, we create permanently affordable multifamily rental housing and own and operate 452 apartments and 85 manufactured housing lots with multiple projects in various stages of development to create new homes in Central Vermont, Washington County and Orange County as well. We provide a full array of home ownership services to over 200 households each year and sewer and grow a portfolio of 165 permanently affordable houses. Four of those homes are in Berlin and we're always interested to add more. Though our shared equity program, or sorry, through our equity, our shared equity program in Orange, Washington and Memorial County. In those same three counties, we also coordinate and provide supportive services to help our residents and local community members maintain housing stability, access, community resources and improve health and well-being. We serve over 600 families each year and finally we partner with community service organizations to support initiatives that provide housing that meets specialized needs or increases affordable housing in Central Vermont. I'm excited to share that this summer we will finally break ground on Fox Run which will add 30 new affordable apartments to the town of Berlin. We expect these homes to be available for rent in summer of 2025 with this this is our first multifamily building being in Berlin and Down Street is so appreciative of the town support for this project and of affordable housing. Fox Run is going to be in the mall area near the Walmart. These that are in Berlin and where they're located? Absolutely, so there are four shared equity homes throughout Berlin. They are privately owned by individual families. Basically Down Street provides a subsidy with the assistance of the Vermont Housing Conservation Board to make these homes permanently affordable so the down payment stays with the home and grows as it's passed on between families through sales. Thank you. Thank you. Article 16, should the town appropriate a thousand dollars to the Washington County Diversion. Anyone to speak here? Welcome. Thank you. Oh, sorry. My name is Meg Rizzo. I am a East Corinth Town resident so thank you for allowing me here. I am the Executive Director of the Washington County Diversion Program. Washington County Diversion is the oldest diversion program in the state and we provide a variety of restorative justice services for all ages from 11 to I believe my oldest person I served was 88 years old. So we have six separate programs, court diversion for adult and youth. We have a substance use safety program which is all the underage drinking and marijuana tickets for the county. We have a balanced and restorative justice program that works with the DCF involved in high-risk youth. A Tamarack program which is just under the umbrella of diversion but for folks with identified mental health or substance use disorders. And we offer pretrial services and intervention so for people who are involved with the court system who would benefit from maybe connection to mental health supports while they're waiting for court to happen. And additionally we also have a civil program for to help people get their driver's licenses back which can be very difficult to navigate for many people. We served a total of 485 people last year, 132 were from Berlin which was about 27% of our people served. So for $1,000 helps go a long way providing our services directly to clients. They have high needs and it takes a lot of time and support to get them through our program and to successfully address the issues that they came to us with and hopefully set them off in a better path. So we would appreciate the support. Article 17, shall the town appropriate $975 to circles. Circle anyone? 18, shall the town appropriate $800 to Family Center of Washington. 19, shall the town appropriate $700 to Capstone Community Action. I'm Yvonne Lori. I'm the Advancement Communications Manager at Capstone Community Action. So I'm here today just to request the support of Berlin residents. We are seeking level funding of $700 so we are not asking for an increase. But I hope to really briefly offer you some brief history about the organization, a brief summary of what we do and a little bit of how we've invested in Berlin residents in the last year. So Community Action Agencies were established by the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964. So we are celebrating 60 years of community action this year. Capstone is one of about 1,000 nationwide and one of five in Vermont. What's important about all of this is that the core funding for Community Action Agencies comes through what's called the Community Services Block Grant. So this channels federal funds through the states into our local agencies and then we use this to help create programs and services that address poverty and increase self-sufficiency. So nationally about 10% of this funding is what we use to try to leverage and support additional funds from our communities that we serve. So Capstone Community Action serves residents in Lemoyle, Washington and Orange counties as well as nine communities that are located in Windsor, Addison and Rutland counties. Our purpose is to improve the lives of Vermonters in need by providing opportunities, education and vital assistance. By breaking down the barriers that prevent people from thriving, we offer the hope people need, the dignity everyone deserves and a better community for all. We accomplish our purpose by making ends meet, which is offering like food, shelter and heating assistance. We build stronger families through our Head Start and Child Care Food programs. We create warm and welcoming homes through our weatherization and energy efficiency programs and open doors through economic opportunities through programs such as our savings and credit programs, free tax preparation, micro-business development, workforce development, which includes our community kitchen academy that we do in partnership with the Vermont Food Bank as well as our transportation programs. In our last fiscal year, we served 11,492 individuals and 6,334 households. So specific to Berlin, we've documented 308 individuals and 191 households were served. And so we're asking for support for all of the programs. And as you'll see in the town report, we offer what's called our service reports. That's specific to your town. We are still in the process of completing our annual report, which really highlights a lot of the other programs that are not featured in the service report. So for example, a lot of our flood relief efforts, our transportation programs and some additional programs that we took up on during the last fiscal year. I wanted to also mention that we updated our website towards the end of the pandemic. So we worked really hard to try to make it more accessible for folks. So that means trying to increase the visual impairment options, offering some translation services for non-English speakers who may access some of our programs. And then just also, we're really trying hard to feature the educational opportunities we share in the community. So for example, the micro business programs, our financial literacy programs. And then I just also wanted to mention another program that is featured in our annual report, which is the Vermont Everyone Eats program. During the pandemic, a lot of our farmers and restaurants came together with us to be able to offer food to folks who've been just extremely in need of food. And so we were able to not only serve the food, but help create income for those individuals who are farmers and business owners, such as restaurants of course. So we served over 86,000 meals in Washington County alone. And what was great actually about this program as you know, COVID really slowed down. With the support of the state, we were able to transform the Vermont Everyone Eats program into Vermont Emergency Eats. So we served over 16,000 meals right after the July flooding. So that's between August, October of 2023. I just want to briefly mention that our organization was part of a board for the Main Street Flood Recovery Fund. And so a lot of our fundraising actually came through that opportunity. So we're able to get out about 285 grants, some to Berlin businesses to help support them, really get back on their feet in whatever way, shape, or form that meant. And since then, we've also hired new staff for a statewide disaster case management program to offer this program to flood survivors. And so this is specific to those who fit under the FEMA guidelines, but are also, you know, the funding's in sync with the partnership of the state of Vermont. We continue to support and sustain the unhoused in our area, doing a lot of advocacy work. And thankfully, a lot of our constituents are here who make that work happen. And also, three more things. Right now, we have our Feel Your Neighbors Campaign, which is a 100-day campaign to help raise funds for our emergency food and heating assistance programs. And our goal for this year is $325,000. And we are just shy of that. And it ends on March 6. So if you or anybody has resources, we would love the support to make that happen, because obviously we're seeing a lot more need given the challenges of the flooding and such. And then two more things I want to make sure I mention is we have numerous openings in our Head Start programs. So if you know of families or children under the age of five, they could be eligible. So I encourage you to go to the website and learn about that criteria. And lastly, our no-cost weatherization program has more funding. And so we are offering folks a greater eligibility, and we are seeking more applicants for that service. So I think that's it. Any questions? Article 20 shall attend appropriate $600 to Good Samaritan Haven. Anyone to speak for the Good Samaritan Haven? 21, shall the town appropriate $500 to the Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation? At least anybody's time. Hello, my name is Abby Jenny, and I am a Berlin resident on the breakdown road. And after the July flood, I got a job. And I had never heard of this organization before in my life, so I thought I'd come here and tell you about us, because maybe you haven't heard of us either. So the Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation is a nonprofit. We're primarily funded through the state municipal funding, that's why I'm here, and through our membership dues from other business owners. And our main impetus is to attract and retain good paying jobs in Central Vermont. So the way that we do this is through a variety of programs. And we have a stack of three people that work in Montpelier. And the nice thing about us is we offer a huge variety of free services for business owners or people who are curious about entrepreneurship, much like Capstone. We refer a lot of people to you. So we work in tandem. We're absolutely free. So we also provide information about funding, whether it's federal or state. We talked to the legislature about some of our data findings. Of note this year, we spent a good deal of time with Berlin's thoughtful zoning administrator, Thomas Bedowski, who has been excellent in developing ideas for projects together. We were pleased to see the town of Berlin's Scott Hill Loop Project rank high on the annual regional project priority list. And we continue to work closely with you on this project. Apparently I'm the executive assistant. Our director couldn't be here today. So forgive me. This is my first one. And it's in my my town. So bear with me. We count three Berlin businesses as loan clients, which are supported by our office through site visits, annual technical assistance awards, grant writing support and business counseling. We offered three site tours for businesses interested in relocating to Berlin. And we hope to continue this work. Finally, we supported six grant applications for Berlin residents in fiscal year 23. And we were most proud to see a fitness center we worked with receive a retroactive grant that reimbursed them for the hard work and capital they invested in their business during COVID. So that was in FY 23. However, when I jumped on, I was working in something called the Business Flood Recovery Center because the business that I worked for flooded and I was bored. So one of the things I'm just telling you again, um, and I loved it. I loved working with businesses because businesses are people, you know, that's without business, we don't have jobs and then, you know, life is hard. So we're here to help businesses. And during the flood, we basically canceled businesses that didn't know where to go or what to do. So the way we did that was through active listening, we made documentation of damage, we prepared data reports for our partners, we prepared physical damage reports, we investigated and reported scams. We supported filing unemployment claims because those can be daunting. We assisted in outreach to experts and partners like capstone. We supported contractor referrals, transportation services, we provided translation services for some of our new American clients. We did site visits to businesses. I went to Ellie's farm and it was really, really sad, but it was really cool to meet them in person and talk to them about what they needed and then bring that back to the state and our data so that hopefully we can get some money, right? Because that's what we need. We helped a lot of people fill out the BGAP grant, which was supposed to be easy, but turned out it wasn't. We support with securing necessary documentation for folks, filing secretary of state business filings. I could go on. We do a lot. I have some brochures right over there. There's a QR code to our website. You can call us anytime. I'll answer the phone and tell you hopefully what you need to know or find a person who knows what you need to know. Yeah, so does anybody have any questions? I mean, this list is long and we've been here for a while, so I'm not going to go through the whole screen. Do you know who the CBEDC is now? You're welcome. Nice to see you all. Thank you so much. Article 22 shall attend appropriate $500 to community harvest of central Vermont. Peg Monley. Community harvest of central Vermont is the coolest thing going for people who need fresh local food, who have no money, or people who want to volunteer and do good work, or people who like we did 10 years ago, we have three pear trees and they were massive. You couldn't reach the fruit. They were overloaded, bows bending down. We put on from porch form. Everybody come and get as many pears as you want. People came. They were still loaded with pears. And then someone said, hi, I work at community harvest of central Vermont. Can we come get your pears? They took every pear in the tree. 12 volunteers came. They have 331 volunteers last year. 25 volunteers from Berlin. They have, we got thank you notes from elementary school kids. So cute. We got thank you notes from senior centers where people used our food. It's just the loveliest program. They are now quite large. They've served 2 million, 2.3 million servings so far since in the 10 years that they've been around. They start up tiny. They're now growing. They have work space. It takes a lot to distribute. All the work is volunteer except once you get big, you need a little system to support yourself. So they're asking for $500. I donate every month a little bit. You can do that too. It's a great program. I highly recommend them. If you have fruit trees, call them. They'll come help you. Thank you. Article 23, shell the town appropriate $500 to Mosaic, Vermont, formerly the sexual assault crisis team of Washington County. Hi, I'm Debbie Sanguinedi, a Berlin resident, and I'm on the board of Mosaic, Vermont, our sexual assault crisis team. These are one of the essential services in our community you don't always hear about until you really need the service. I'm also work for the Vermont Department of Health and as a nurse, and these are some of the services that we call on when we have our rough times. We have families in crisis. We have a helpline. We're now doing some work in the schools to preventive care and discussion about how do you have healthy relationships so you don't get into the crisis mode. So your support is very much appreciated. Article 24, shall the town appropriate $500 to Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. 25, shall the town appropriate $300 to Good Beginnings of Central Vermont. You have a representative here or my notes said we did. And this last article on the three-town meeting, 26, shall the town appropriate $250 to OUR House of Central Vermont. That concludes the unvoting section of this article of this day. And it's, if you need it, we could take a stretch break or we could go directly on to the town meeting. And Anne, you would like to have a moment to talk. Well, we're in a space between pre-town and town meetings, so you may speak if there must be more to do. Hopefully most of you are able to see our bi-weekly or weekly from one of the other of us updates, but a couple of quick notes. I mentioned before the Budget Adjustment Act passed yesterday, and that did include an extension of the Hotel Motel Program till the end of the fiscal year in June. Big issue here in Berlin because of Hilltop Inn. I want to note that the House version did a mega expansion of that program. The Senate version, which is what's adopted, finally brings it back to where it was before. And from a year ago, there has actually been a successful 50% reduction in people who were in that COVID program and who have now moved and many of them into permanent housing. There's always the bad actors in any human endeavor, and I know some of those have been part of the situation in Berlin, and I'm going to leave it to Ken is on the Judiciary Committee, so there's some updates on what the attempts are to try to address the issues at the mall and theft and so forth. The Transportation Bill was just voted out of committee, and you never know till you really see it, but the progress right now is this year's budget finally does include the full funding for the full repaving all the way through West Berlin, Route 12, between Northfield and Montpelier. There is a bill on advanced notice to people who are, for instance, buying homes that guess what, your home is in an area that has had flooding before. Not something was mandated. Ken and I had a bill introduced specific to, if you're renting a lot in a mobile home part, that you actually, they're mandated to give you that notice, and that is being incorporated into that bill. So that's good news. I heard the presentation by the Central Vermont Council on aging, which includes a discussion of what we sometimes call the Medicare cliff. You go on Medicare and all of a sudden you lose supports for your healthcare because the standards are different, the finance standards. I first learned about that when I turned 65 and talked with them about my Medicare choices, and finally this year there is a bill to fill in some of that gap. That is the one bill that's in there that I support, even though it will be a budget impact. I think it's critical that we address that whole in our system, and my last note, affordability and housing remains our huge concern. I'll be around afterwards to talk a lot about the education fund and what some of the details are on that and the huge increases people are facing this year, but that's not really part of the the town budget components here. So please feel free to come and ask questions. So hi, I'm Ken Goson. I'm your other state rep. Just and touched on most of it. Yesterday in our in our House Judiciary Committee, we passed out a bill for retail theft that hopefully is going to cut down on some of this, but the facts that remains, we have so many people that go to court or don't show up to court and they're still the same bad actors that keep doing things over and over. We've already touched on probably the biggest local problem that we have in town that contributes to that, whether it's over here at the mall or up here at the travel center or whatever. We're trying to hopefully get somewhere on that. The public safety issue is is my one of my number one priorities along with with the affordability. There's really not to be Debbie Downer here, but there's not really a lot of affordable things here in Vermont right now. I will say last year's devastation with the flood. I think it's over yet. I think we're probably going to get hit again. And there's never enough money and there's a lot of a lot of hopeful things that we're going to come out of FEMA and I wasn't at all happy with that. And unfortunately I still remain not happy with that. There's going to be a lot more money that's going to be spent. Your clean heat standard is going to cost I think it's like a billion dollars more if that can get 10 years to go through. Basically what we all need to do is we all need to work together and we need to find a balance that works for as many people as we possibly can in Vermont. And I don't want to take any more of your time. If you've got any questions be more than happy to answer and I will be here after. And I already said we give weekly updates of what's going on our front porch forum and the the Norfield News and and also on our Facebook pages. But I will say this is my sixth year of serving as your state rep. It has been an honor and I appreciate your support. And these people here and everybody that's involved in making all of our talents better do a tremendous job. Highway they always get beat up. They do they do the best job they can with the money as you can see. Money is always taken out of the transportation fund. That's where you're always at first and foremost and and it always costs you a lot more in the end to fix it. So that's it. I'll be around afterwards if anybody's going to anything that you don't want to ask me now. Thank you. Thanks very much.