 Hey, so we're going to go ahead and start our meeting. I'm Susan Clark. I'm the town moderator here in Middlesex. And before we get going on our warning, we'll do some introductions and some announcements. I have here your select board. We have Vic Dwyer, who is also our road commissioner. Liz Sharp, sitting in the middle, is the vice chair. Randy Drury, yay, Randy was able to come because his daughter's game, they didn't make it to the... I'm really glad, sad for them, but glad for us. Glad that you're here. Jeff Price isn't here today. Peter Hood, the chair of our select board, can't be present in person, but he is observing the orca. So, and as you know, select board members are the folks who oversee our town functions and employees, they're the ones who have been working since the fall to create the budget that you'll be voting on today. I also want to introduce Sarah Merriman. Do you want to give us a wave, Sarah? I don't know if she can. She is, she's waving at us, yes. Sarah is overseeing this amazing election process today, and among her other duties, she is along with assistant town clerk, Cheryl Granfield, organized your informative town report. We also see Linda Bernier, belt Bernier up here. She is kindly taking minutes because Sarah is busy, so thanks to all of these folks who are helping out here today, and thanks also to Orca Media for being here to live stream, and also to record the meeting. I want to give a big shout out to April Davis, who is generously volunteering. She is preparing our dinner tonight. It's a big spaghetti dinner, which will be served after our meeting as soon as the meeting is adjourned. Fun fact, by the way, Middlesex's own person's brother's farm on Center Road provided the local pork in the meat sauce tonight, and there will also be vegetarian pesto and gluten-free options are gonna be available, so thanks also to everyone who brought offerings for the potluck dessert that will be afterwards. For those of you who have kids in the room today, kids are so welcome at town meeting. Just make sure they stay mellow so that the people around you can hear, and for those of you whose kids are in community connections, child care, a reminder to pick your kids up by seven, regardless of when the meeting ends, and your kids are welcome back here for the dinner, and thanks again to the Middlesex Community Fund for making the child care free. And finally, I want to draw your attention to these blue forms. They have information on the Robert's rules, the rules that we're using for our meeting, and the most important one is if you have a question, just raise your hand and ask. There is a place at the bottom for you to put comments and return them in this box up here at the end of the meeting, so if you do have comments or suggestions to make the meeting better, by all means, use these forms, and if you don't use the forms, please don't throw them out because we will reuse them next year, so return them either way. Okay, it's time to hear briefly from two Middlesex Committees that want to check in with you. Actually, maybe just one, I'm not sure, is the Historical Society here? Yes, all right, great, come on, Sarah. Sarah Seidman from the Historical Society. Hi, neighbors. I'm here with the Historical Society. It's on page 49 of your town report. For those of you who don't know, it is not a town-supported community. We are our own 501c3 organization. We raise our own money. This year, our book has been out of print for many years and we've finally got a third edition of the book. It's pretty fun reading. If you have the second edition, it hasn't changed really from the second edition. If you have the first edition, this one will have some updates and also it's got better glue, so it doesn't fall apart. I would like to, so if you want to get a book, there's a table out there, you can put your check or cash in the box and take a book. They're signed copies from me and my co-author, Patty Wiley, a co-founder. I also want to just mention that our next meeting of the Historical Society is March 22nd. That's a Friday at 1 p.m. It's gonna be at the Worcester Town Hall because we can't even use the Middlesex Town Hall because it's not accessible enough and most of our members are old and can't get in the building. So please join us. If you want to just join the Middlesex Historical Society, it is like the one committee that isn't controversial. We have fun, we look at all pictures, we gossip, you know, it's a fun kind of committee to be on. So do come on March 22nd and join us. It costs $1 to join the Middlesex Historical Society. You don't get anything for that except for knowing you're a member and you can put your dollar in the box. Thank you. Emily Vettiker is here to tell us about the bandstand. Great, thank you. One other fun non-controversial committee, the Middlesex Bandstand, want to thank all of you because you show up on average 400 of you every single Wednesday, right after the 4th of July for six weeks. And we are a committee, there's only four. We'd love to have a few join us. But the most important thing, it's not just the music and the amazing pizza and the incredible local popsicles we'll have this year. The important thing about the bandstand is you. And so on July 19th, when we came back and we danced and we stomped in water to our ankles, you, the community, were there. And instead of passing the hat to pay for the band that night, we passed it for the community to raise funds for flood relief that went to Middlesex and to Montpelia and you all put in $1,800. Wow. So that's the value of having the Middlesex Bandstand and the fabulous music. Come join us again this year. It's about you, it's about community. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. If there are no other announcements, I will go on to a quick overview of the rules we'll be using today. The Vermont moderators are asked to give a brief overview of the rules. So I've got eight items that I'm gonna go through. The number one is that we're using Robert's rules of order. It's the basic parliamentary rules for the meeting except where Vermont law takes precedence. We can't change state law here, but we can change Robert's rules with a two thirds vote if you desire. Number two, how to speak at the meeting. If you'd like to speak, you just raise your hand. And once you're recognized by the moderator, you'll stand up and you'll state your name. This is important. Even if you just stated your name like two minutes before, please state your name before speaking. We might even ask you to spell it. Please don't take it personally. It just really helps with the minutes. So help Linda out with making our minutes accurate. Robert's rules requires that all motions and remarks and discussion be addressed to the moderator. That's a little funky because maybe you have a question for somebody else. Maybe you wanna talk to the select board. Please address all of your questions, comments to the moderator, not each other. And then I can just redirect your questions. And that helps ensure that we focus on the issues rather than personalities. We have got some fabulous microphone runners with us here today. Can you raise your hands, microphone runners? Yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much. Wonderful, over here. And they will bring you a mic. It's a noisy gym. So if you're comfortable using the microphone when you're ready to speak, please do so. Number three, you have to be a middle-sex voter. In order to speak on or vote on an article at the middle-sex town meeting, you must be a middle-sex voter. The exception is if the group votes to suspend the rules for speaking. For example, if we wanted to let a person who was representing an out-of-town organization address the group. So at this time, can I just see a show of hands of anyone who's not a registered voter in middle sex? Thank you. Thanks so much. You are very welcome here. And we are glad to have you. I just want to remind you not to vote. Number four, please feel free to ask questions. Raise your hand if you don't understand what's happening or if you think a mistake has been made. You don't have to be a parliamentary expert. You can just raise your hand and say be recognized and then say, here's what I wanna do. How do I turn this into a motion? The moderator's job is to help. Number five, this is your meeting. The role of the moderator is to help you accomplish the business that you intend to do. So if you feel the moderator has made an improper ruling, just raise your hand. Robert's Rules allows for the group to vote to appeal the moderator's decision. It's a super simple process and it just ensures that the moderator serves you, the interests of the group. Number six, we can only address warned articles. So it's against the law to consider issues that haven't been warned on the agenda. And what that means is we can't take binding action under that last article, other business. So it's fair warning for anybody who stayed home because they saw the warning and there wasn't things that were interesting to them. That's why we have warnings. Number seven, you can end debate by calling the question. If you feel that deliberation has just gone on long enough and you can move to cut off debate, you raise your hand, you're recognized, and you say I called the question. Two thirds of the group has to vote yes in order to cease debate, otherwise the discussion continues. And most of the time I'm gonna tell you calling the question is not necessary. So the moderator will call for a vote when they feel that all points of view have been heard or that there are no more hands that are raised. And that just avoids us having to do the whole two thirds vote thing. So lastly, number eight, there are three different ways we can vote. Once the moderator feels that all points of view have been heard, they'll call for a vote. Usually it's gonna be a voice vote. So if you're in favor, I'll say all those in favor, say I, opposed, no, or nay. The other ways that you might expect to see voting at our meeting today are a show of hands or a standing vote. And you can always request that, especially if you disagree with the moderator on the results of a voice vote. And third, paper ballot, a secret ballot. And this is a really important option to know about if you feel that privacy on a vote is important. So any voter can move that a vote be taken by paper ballot. And if seven voters, it's not very many, if seven voters support the motion, then little pieces of paper will be distributed and you will write yes or no and you will pass it in. And our election officials will count them immediately. Not that they aren't super busy, they are. But, all right, so that's the way the meeting goes. And any other questions about process, you can ask them as we move along. At this point, we will open our meeting with a civil invocation. And this year's invocation presenter is Kate Riley. Kate just turned 18 in May, so today is one of her first opportunities to vote. Kate is a Romney School alum. She graduated from this school in 2017 and she is no stranger to Middlesex Town meetings. She attended them as a child and even served as one of our microphone runners years ago. She's now in her second year of the design and media studies program at CCB. And when I asked her about her favorite places in Middlesex, she said Mount Hunger, which she enjoys hiking every year. So thanks, Kate, come on up. It's a Middlesex Town meeting. We have come together in civil assembly as a community in a tradition that is older than our state itself. We come together to make decisions about our community. As we deliberate, let us advocate for our positions, but not at the expense of others. Let us remember that there is an immense gap between saying I am right and saying I believe I am right. And that our neighbors with whom we disagree are good people with hopes and dreams as true and as high as ours. And let us always remember that in the end, caring for each other in this community is of far greater importance than any difference we may have. Welcome. Thanks so much, Kate. I hated that she's so much taller than I am. All right, we are on to Article One. To elect a moderator for the ensuing year, is there a nomination? Mr. Coons, thank you. Jeff Coons moderates Susan Clarke, is there a second? Greg Wittchurch is the second. Okay, great, thanks. So moved and seconded. Are there other nominations for moderator? Oh dear, not trying to be bossy about this. Greg Wittchurch is the second, yes. All right, if there are no other nominations, all those in favor of Susan Clarke as moderator, signify by saying I. Opposed, nope. I won't be offended. All right, thank you. I appreciate your confidence. Susan Clarke is your moderator, which means we carry on. Article Two, to elect all necessary officers for the ensuing year, this item is voted on by Australian Ballot. So we're not allowed to discuss the election of officers at town meeting. So unless there's any objection, we'll just move on to the next article. Article Three, always an interesting one, to receive and act upon the reports of town officers. Is there a motion? An article Three. Jeff Koons moves, is there a second? Liz Sharf seconds, it's been moved and seconded to receive and act upon the reports of the town officers. So the town officers write reports and they put them in your town report. So if you have questions about the reports, especially questions that won't come up under other articles, this is a great time to ask them. If you have money related articles, it makes sense to save those for a discussion of the budget or specific spending articles. So things like the select board report, road foreman, things like that. There's a good time to ask questions about that. Liz, did you have something you wanted to? Yeah, okay. Okay, hi everybody. I'm Liz Sharf, I'm on the select board and I just wanted to take this moment to acknowledge a couple of people in town who have given a lot of themselves to make our town a better place, especially this year in particular. The first person I wanna thank is Paula Otenty, who was our emergency management coordinator for the town. She recently, I guess retired from that position and Steve Dennis is now in that role. But during the flood in July, Paula really stepped up to the plate and directed the town through some serious crises involving floodwaters and was there from the first weather report to basically weeks later and having an emergency sort of, what do you call it at the fire station, the operation center, right? And there were a couple of folks, Honeybean Barrett was super helpful and her daughter Stella were there. And it was really important that we had that committee to be available during that time. And there was an instance where Paula through a lot of management saved a very potential disaster of a giant pond that was about to collapse and potentially flood lots of homes. And so that disaster was averted thanks to quick action by Paula and our road crew. And that's the second group I really wanna thank is during the flood, the road crew really stepped up to the plate to address immediately all of the roads. I mean, all of us were affected. There probably wasn't a single road where there wasn't any damage. And there was a lot of work that was done in a short amount of time to get us of able to use our roads again. So thank you to Eric Medivier and his team. Eric, if you wanna give a wave so everyone knows who you are. And then to the town employees, the administrators of the town, Sarah as our town clerk and Darinda who and Cheryl as treasurer, there was just a lot of work being done behind the scenes. Sarah in particular was answering calls tonight and day from folks about the flood and was really on top of things, making sure she was communicating with the select board during that time. So we were aware of what was going on. And then it didn't end after the roads got fixed and it's still going on, which is all the work around FEMA. And I can't tell you how much work Sarah and Darinda and Cheryl have put into this FEMA paperwork and Steve's last name. Martin, Steve Martin who we hired to help us with that. The paperwork's still going on. We still haven't received our payments yet from FEMA. So this is a long term sort of recovery for the town. So I really want to acknowledge Sarah and the crew at the town clerk for their work and their continued work. So thank you to them. And then finally, I just wanna give a formal acknowledgement and thank you to Darinda Crowell who is our treasurer. Darinda, where are you? It's hiding. Okay, she's hiding. So Darinda has worked for the town in many ways. It says here in the book, there's a dedication in the back if you look. Since 1993, but I'm sure it was before then in one way, shape or form. And she is one of the most facetious people that I know and she has just been a real asset to our town as treasurer and just a good citizen. So thank you, Darinda, for all of your service. So thank you, Darinda. And I'm sure there's people out there I didn't thank. So thank you if I didn't thank you. Comments, questions about reports from town officers. Michael Levine. I did notice in the report, the usual five-year plan for the roads was not detailed or updated. It was a narrative. Obviously we had major changes to any plan that might have been in place. But I'm wondering if you can give us some updates on what to expect once the roads, once spring comes and there's some contract work that you talked about and other pieces and just give us a sense of what's gonna happen. Five-year road plan. Who would like to take that? Eric, Eric, come on up. You can, here, why don't you grab a microphone from, just introduce yourself. Hi, Eric and Tivir. Basically, we're gonna have to re-evaluate after all the work is done to see where we need to go from there. It's hard to say exactly how much is gonna get done this summer before we can make a determination of which way we need to go. So that's where we're at with it. More detailed question? Yeah, Michael, go ahead. Oh, he's got two microphones. Do you wanna bring one over, Tenzo? Thank you. I'll address this to you, Susan, so we don't get into a dialogue. Thank you, Michael. Good modeling. Yes, I guess the follow-up would be, I know a complete culvert survey was done. There are plans to replace culverts. There are plans to contract some of the work out for certain sections of road. The town hopes to get to the other pieces. Any details along those lines would be really helpful to us. We actually have quite the extensive work load going on where I have upsizing culverts on, I don't even remember the count, I wanna say is probably 30 plus culverts, ditching, resurfacing on just about every road we have in town. So once that's finished, we can reevaluate and move from there to see what needs to get done next. Vic Dwyer, our road commissioner. Yes, Michael, yes. We have 13 projects that are coming out and supposedly going to contract, we should be getting the contracts back on the 12th of March. We've discussed it with FEMA. That there's 13 different roads, some of them will be combined. We have six hydraulic studies out to do large culverts, such as Portal Road, Norton Road, there's two on Lower Sonny Brook Road. I believe there's one on Sidon Road. East Hill. And East Hill. And so we will be moving forward on those as soon as we get to study back. Some of those contracts will go out to state bid, I believe, because we'll get help from the state. And as Eric said, it's pretty hard to say because I don't know whether the general population of middle sex realizes how much. Eric is the road foreman, he has been very, very involved with FEMA as far as fulfilling the requirements that they have to have before they'll reimburse us. So it kind of depends also on how much work he has in that aspect this summer as to what we'll actually have time to do this summer with a regular road crew. I mean, they'll be doing maintenance, obviously, they'll be grading and stuff like that, which is very important during the summer. Also, some of the, most of the roads are supposed to get a course of gravel placed on them this summer through FEMA. So that's why it's kind of up in the air right now, but I'm sure we'll be doing, I'm sure Eric will be working every day. Other comments or questions on the reports from town officers on any topic? Yes, over here, Tonsor, right behind you. Steve Melamed. Steve, sorry, your last name again? Melamed, M-E-L-A-M-E-D. Thank you. I was just looking at the town report and I noticed the $3 million line of credit that we have that we've, I think, used 1.5 of. It might be in there, I just couldn't find it. What's the interest rate on that and is it variable or fixed? Okay, and is that in the budget? If it's in the budget, we can discuss it under budget. I don't know what the interest rate is on that. I think, Jiren, did you remember, is it four points something? Three point five. Comments or questions? Nancy Riley, Tonsor, right here. Couple questions about the emergency management stuff that was mentioned. Two things, that when the school was rebuilt with the bond that we took out, there's a room in that back hallway that was designed explicitly for Red Cross, shipping container of supplies for just such an event as what we had that would have been meals ready to eat, it would have been cots and blankets and all kinds of survival things so that we could put up people in the gym here and in case of emergency and if the town was split in two, some people could go to the firehouse and some people could end up here and that room I think now is a custodian closet and I don't think it was ever put to use the way it was meant to and I'm not sure that we can do that anymore now that the school is no longer the town's school but that I think is something that needs to be revisited. And the other thing is that we have an earthen dam pond that we had a lot of concern about during the flooding. There was not an issue that happened with it but I'm wondering if there is any thought to inspection of earthen dams and kind of cataloging where there are and if they were to break who would be affected and if this is an evaluation that needs to happen. Okay, so two questions. One is about the emergency shelter part of the original school decision. Is there somebody who can address that one on whether our select board or Chris? Yep, Chris. Yes, there's school board member Chris McVeigh. Tenzo, do you want to thank you? No, turn it on. I think if you turn it on, there. Oh, hold it. Your microphone. Yeah, sure. Run the other one over, Kimberly, that would be great. And then that would be great if you can bring the other one to Bennett. Hello, okay. My name is Chris McVeigh. I am currently one of the representatives for Middlesex on the school board. And when we merged, Middlesex wisely had a exception when we were doing, we had an easement and part of the easement was to maintain access to the building, including for emergency shelter use. That use has been incorporated into the building use policy that it controls the district right now. So there is still an emergency use availability for the run the school. I have no idea about the closet and how it's being used right now, but I do know that there's access when necessary to the school for emergency purposes. And I believe Nancy, and I'd have to go back and sort of remember or figure out the history of the Red Cross piece because that was something that we had, I remember, originally considering. I think that in the end, the decision, one was the grant funding I think ended and they didn't have the equipment to give out. And the other thing was that when you become a Red Cross shelter in particular, you're at the whim of the Red Cross. So the Red Cross could come in and close down the school and say, we're opening up a shelter here. And I think that we decided that we would still have this as a shelter available, we just wouldn't, people would have to bring their own sleeping bags is really what it would boil down to. And it would be something between the town and the school district as opposed to the Red Cross being able to open it up to anyone. That's another thing about the shelter is it's not just for middle sex, anyone could come. So currently the Red Cross shelter is at the Barry Auditorium which would have been available for people in middle sex if they wanted to use it. And we had the fire station open and I think we just didn't have a need at that time to open the school, but Sarah had the town clerk's office for people to be able to come in and charge their phones and do the things they needed to do as well as the fire station. Is there anything else that I'm missing? And the other question was about the earthen dams. I'm not sure who should have. Yeah, so that sounds like something that we would have to, as a select board, reach out to the state to see if there's something available for that kind of, you're talking about an inventory, like looking and seeing where are the ponds and not being surprised if something like this happens again. That sounds like something that we would probably as a select board have as a discussion. And if you wanna send an email about that, that would be good and then that's something that we put on our agenda if someone asks for something like that and then figure out what that might look like. And that might be something we do in partnership with our emergency management coordinator who is Steve Dennis right there. That would be a good inventory to have. Thanks, Nancy. All right, other comments or questions about the reports of town officers? Things people wanna bring up. All right, great. All right, then in that case, the question is on the adoption of the article to receive an act upon the reports of town officers. All those in favor say aye. Opposed, nope. All right, we have passed article three. Great. Article four is shall the town voters authorize payment of all property taxes to the town treasurer as provided by law and without discount in four installments as follows. The first installment will be due on or before 5 p.m. August 20th, 2024. Second installment will be due on or before 5 p.m. November 20th, 2024. Third installment will be due on or before 5 p.m. February 20th, 2025. And the fourth installment will be due on or before 5 p.m. May 20th, 2025. Except if postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service, pause. On or before the aforementioned dates accordingly. So that's in the statutes, 32 VSA 4773. So is there a motion on article four? All right, Jeff Koons moves. Is there a second? Kimberly Hagan seconds. And so article four has been moved and seconded to authorize payment of all property taxes unless there's an objection. I'm not gonna read the entire article over again. Any discussion or questions on article four? Are you ready for the question? The question is on the adoption of the article as written in article four. Again, I won't reread it without objection. Did somebody say no? No, that's just Sarah talking to somebody. All right, all those in favor of article four say aye. Opposed, no. The ayes have it. And article four passes. Okay, article five. Shall the town vote that taxes payable in installments will bear interest at a rate not to exceed 0.5% per month or fraction thereof from the due date of each installment, 32 VSA 4873. Is there a motion on article five? Lowry Sharf moves. Is there a second? I'm really cutting you guys' luck. You should say your name. I'm like, you're taxing my memory. Go ahead, say your name, Jeff. Jeff Coons, thank you. Okay, article five has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on article five? Jeff, microphone here. Thank you. I think when you read it, you didn't say overdue taxes. Sorry? I think when you read it, you forgot the word overdue. Thank you. Overdue. Oops, how did that happen? Thank you. Any other discussion or corrections? Okay, you're ready for the question on article five. All those in favor of article five on the 0.5% per month or fraction thereof signify by saying aye. Opposed, nope. The article passes. Article five passes. All right, we still have five more minutes before the budget starts, according to my watch. Okay, so maybe I will just suggest, because we vote on article six at 515 so that at time certain, so that people know when the budget will come up. So what I'm gonna do, unless there's an objection, is suggest that we move on to article seven and we'll come back to the budget at 515. Okay, so hearing no objection, article seven shall the town of Middlesex Voters authorize the select board to purchase a new excavator in the amount not to exceed $200,000 to be financed over a period not to exceed 15 years. So this is voted on by Australian ballot, which means if you have cast your ballot, you have already cast, you've already voted, although the polls are open until seven o'clock. There was an informational hearing on this on February 29th, but we can discuss this now if anyone is interested. Any comments or questions about article seven, the new excavator? I'll just make a comment that, so the town purchases trucks all the time and we don't ask you to vote on those trucks, so the reason that we're asking you to vote on this is because of the price of it, is that correct? And the terms of the loan, like, term of the loan. Because it's a bond? Because it's a loan, yeah. A loan, yeah. I mean, we get, we do loans on the other trucks too, but they're sort of built into our budget. All right. Okay, well if there's no objection, we will, no, it's a really bad idea moving on to article eight. I think maybe what we will do is two minutes early, introduce article seven, a six. And we can get into the meat of it here in a few minutes. In a few minutes. Actually, one thing I will do before dinner, before we talk about the budget, I just wanna get a quick show of hands from you, how many will be staying for dinner? Rough idea, one, two, say about 50? Oh, thanks. Yeah, okay. 50 or 60. Yeah, so if we can pass that information back to April at some point, anybody who's near the kitchen. We have about 50, great. Okay, and another thing I'll say is that as we move into the budget and other money articles, there's some great stuff in your town report. On page 41, there's a chart that indicates how much each article on the warning will cost you, depending on the value of your property. So for every $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 that your property is worth, there is an amount that each article will cost the taxpayer. So page 41, that's a handy little chart to look at. I will also tell you as we move into discussion of the budget that the select board analysis of the budget begins on page 21. The budget committee that oversees the budget, their report is on page 29. And then of course there's the comparative budget report and that begins on page 30 of the town report. And there's also a handy little pie chart on page 40 for those of you who like graphics. Okay, so great, that's helpful. What page is it on? All right, we will take up article six. To vote a fiscal 2024, 2025 budget of $1,845,508 to meet the expenses and liabilities of the town and authorize the select board to set a tax rate sufficient to provide the same. Is there a motion on article six? If you move the motion, then you'll be in the minutes just saying. Greg, which church moves? Is there a second? Daring? Liz, okay, thank you. Liz, sure. That's me reminding myself when 515 comes. All right, article six has been moved and seconded. Is there discussion on the budget? Can I just make a comment? Yes, you can. So folks, so it's been a couple of years since we've met and we've done our budget via Australian ballot because of COVID. Is this, was it two years or three years? We took three years off. Yeah, we took three years off. So during that timeframe, we had developed a capital improvement plan through some funding through the municipal planning grant. Sorry, through the municipal planning grant. And so you'll see if you recall looking at previous budgets, that there is a section here that wasn't always in the budget which is the capital improvement plan that we're setting money aside to use toward future purchases of capital equipment. So that's a little bit different than what you've seen in the past. And we do have members of the budget committee here who helped create that capital improvement plan and who monitor it and use it in their meetings and so that has been a change that happened because of the last town meeting. The last in-person town meeting. The last in-person town meeting. There was a request for sort of more transparency around what was coming down the pike. So if you'll see that on page 35, there's a whole section for capital improvement planning in the budget. Discussion, questions on any elements of the budget? Dave Shepard, needs a microphone. Hi, Dave Shepard. I was just curious in the construction budget for the roads under mud season mitigation, is that the money that we would spend just to fix problems during mud season or is it to fund the kind of work we did years ago where we were redoing sections of roads so they hopefully wouldn't be so bad during mud season? Thanks. Vic, do you want to address that? Your first option is correct. Can you say a few more, man, a few words. Would you like to say a few more words? So it's basically, Vic is correct. It's really to, you know, when you have those moments in mud season where you have to go and purchase large amounts of stone to fill something in so that people can get by, that's what that's for. So it doesn't, you know, we felt that given how worse roads are getting as the years go on that just the regular budget as it is wasn't enough and so we wanted to make sure that we put money aside for the extras that just keep happening when there's a storm or when there's, you know, an event that requires us to purchase things that weren't necessarily like originally in our budget so we budgeted for it. And so what you're referring to is that old, many years ago, plan to basically, and this was during the time of Paul Sermonera, I believe, which was to sort of remove the road, right, and put in a brand new surface of the road in order to give it a different surface that would be less prone to mud season. That is, we don't have the budget for that right now and that's not included in this. However, I will say that with the work of FEMA that is kind of happening by like, this is sort of an unlikely gift that because of these roads needing that work that's sort of being done as FEMA, as the roads are being fixed through FEMA funding. And somebody else can add more to that. Randy. I was just gonna add to that, that to put that into perspective that, you know, last year during mud season, I think we spent roughly $70,000 just to get roads passable through mud season and that's what this line item is intended to address. That material would come out of your gravel budget if it didn't come out of mud medication. So we're just kind of separating it, Dave. All right, other comments or questions on the budget? Article six, yes, Julie Moore needs a microphone. I have a couple of questions about assumptions in terms of match and reimbursement that are in the budget. Understanding that the Budget Adjustment Act just passed this past week, which includes a significant increase in the ERAF funding, which should bring down our cost share in meeting FEMA repairs. I'm wondering how that's being considered in the budget and if we've sort of budgeted more like at the conservatively meaning as much as we could have needed before the Budget Adjustment Act passed. What happens with those dollars, assuming there is additional state funding made available to match FEMA cost share? And then the other question I had was the Treasurer had announced a program to offer very low interest financing to flood impacting communities. And I'm wondering if Middlesex has pursued that in order to pay off our higher interest commercial loan. Yeah, so what Julie's talking about, so our budget actually doesn't include the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it would take to repair the roads. And so the cost share that she's referring to was originally, I think it's 25% was that the town would be responsible for 25% of the cost. But because of these extra things that are happening, we've been told numbers between three and 7% that the town might be responsible for. And so the only thing that we put in the budget related to FEMA is interest on some of these loans that we're borrowing money on now. So you're not, you don't see a huge increase in the budget because of these roads. You'll see some interest payments. The question that you had about the, sorry? Yes, we did apply for that. And so what she's referring to too is that the state has a low interest bond that we could apply for. It wasn't very much money. I think it was 35 million for the whole state and everyone's request far surpassed that. So we, I don't know if we've heard yet if we received, but we didn't expect to receive what we applied for. We expected to receive some of it. And that would go toward paying off our loan that we have with Community Bank. And we also ended up borrowing from ourselves. We borrowed from our reserve fund as well as our ARPA monies to pay these contractors. So we hope that when we get that FEMA money reimbursed we'll be able to reimburse ourselves, our ARPA money and our reserve fund money, pay off our loan through Community Bank. But keep in mind too, we're gonna be borrowing, again, we still have another $2 million worth of repairs, $2.6 million of repairs that need to get done next year. So we will still continue to draw. We'll probably have to redo the line of credit because it's a one year line of credit. But we are hoping that the town is only gonna be responsible for three to seven percent. And in that case, I think what we've done historically is potentially take out a bond for that to cover and then put it into people's taxes over time to cover the up to what 400 or something thousand potentially? Yeah, we're looking at $4.6 million of total construction costs due to the flood. So anywhere three to seven percent of that could be a couple hundred thousand dollars. It's better than the 25% that is historically mandated. I do just wanna circle back to another part of your question around what's in the budget and elaborate on that a little bit. So there's a line item in here that covers interest payments. Even though FEMA is expected to reimburse us for the cost, the money that we've laid out thus far and the interest on any loans that we bear is not part of that repayment. So as we need to move into construction season next summer, we're gonna have to figure out how that is gonna be paid for. And any interest that we pay for loans is not reimbursable. So that's the money that you see here in this budget. The good news maybe, or the hope, the hope is Eric, myself and Steve Martin met with FEMA people on Monday and they both were advocating that they want to repay us very quickly. You know, it's kinda like the checks in the mail, but I guess we can only hope. But they did say that they realized that we had a lot of money out and that they would process, they needed a few things from us, a few documentations which at the point we were talking, we could do that turnaround pretty fast. So we were hoping that we would get a bigger reimbursement. I think we've only got like $6,000 and that was for dumpsters. Other comments or questions about the budget? Yes, right over here, right behind you. Marissa Melamed, I have a question about the ambulance line item under public safety. It's a budget amount of $75,000. I'm just curious if that's a negotiated flat rate agreement with Montpelier Ambulance Service or if it's based on like number of episodes that ambulance have come to Middlesex. I'm just curious on how it works, ambulance service works in the town. All right, great. Who takes an ambulance? All right, Jeff, great. Microphone right here, Jeff Koons. So we contract with Montpelier Fire Department to provide ambulance service to Middlesex. They give us their costs that they wanted to recoup from being on call all the time to come to Middlesex and that's the number that they submit to us for our contract that we take the select board and is approved. They, it goes through their town manager and based on their call volumes and whatnot. They look at their pricing and that's how they come up with the price for it. So every year you see it goes up incrementally as everything else does, but that's how it comes up. And we can't go out for contracting. It's like, oh, ambulance company, you know, wherever. It's kind of, Montpelier is close. They got 24 hour people and that's, it's, we can't go really shopping around for that service. Does that answer your question? Can I have a follow up? Follow up, yep. So can it, if the volume was higher than expected, can it go over? No, that's the contract price for the duration of the contract. I think the contracts are two years. I'm not sure on that list, do you know? I don't remember. I think it's a two year contract, but I don't hold me to that. Jeff, do you want to just explain the mutual aid system in case people don't understand it? So there's two parts of this puzzle. The medical side is Montpelier ambulance, responds, Middlesex has a FAS squad with three EMTs on it. Any of you who want to join and want to go become an EMT, please see me because we need more. But if Montpelier is out, they have two ambulances. So if they're out on two calls and we get a call from Middlesex, then Berry City could be called. Berry Town up at Berlin Fire Station. Waterbury, it kind of depends on call volume at the current time and location in the town. Obviously we're not going to call Waterbury to the Montpelier side of the township. We would call in either Berry City because they can just hop on the loop and down or if Berry Town is available. As far as the fire side of the mutual aid works, it's mainly for our purposes, it's Washington County. So if we're having an incident be it a structure fire or something up in the interstate and we need more personnel and equipment, we have what's called a run card set up that we say activate this particular thing on a run card. Other towns are dispatched to us immediately. Likewise, we get toned out or called out to other towns when they have issues. A lot of it centers around structure fires or major incidents up on the interstate where we have to shut the interstate down. And have to bring in not only surrounding towns but also state hazmat and whatnot. So the mutual aid system enhances each town's ability to be able to fight an emergency primarily a structure fire because no town has enough people and equipment to handle a major structure fire all on their own. Montpelier can't do it. With their professional paid people on time on call 24 hours, Berry City can't do it. They call in surrounding towns just as we call in surrounding towns. So it's a way that we all work together. We all have a certain amount of equipment that we need to have in order to do that but it enhances the opportunity to get things done quicker and what's considered a rural water system, we have no hydrants, no pressure hydrants. So we're calling in, the first thing we're thinking about calling in are tankers from other towns to get there on the way. If it turns out we don't need them it's easier to shut them off than it is to get them going late. So that's our mindset as soon as that tone goes off and you may hear our pages go off here in about half an hour. It's just a test tone for the night if it actually works in the cafeteria here. So, but that's the way the mutual aid system works. We all are here to help each other. Answer questions, I saw a hand back here, yes. Grant, the microphone back there. I'm just Waldo Schneider and know the middle sex as a history of the select board really making an effort to control the cost over the years and I suspect that there's unavoidable circumstances but since it is about 11% plus increase in the operating budget, does somebody able to just summarize where those changes are? Thank you. Mark, do you want to do that for us and introduce yourself? Budget committee reports on page 29. So this is Mark Harris, I'm on the budget committee. So think of the 11.36% increase in three parts. Let's talk about the operating budget. Mark, could you put it closer to your mouth please? So let's talk about the operating budget. Much closer. Eat that microphone. How's this, better? Okay, so to just run the town. So let's just talk about the operating budget. That's the day to day operating of the town departments. That increase is a little over three and a half percent to be exact it's 3.63% to a little over $58,000 to run the town this next year. So that's kind of amazing because everybody's aware of the significant healthcare premium increases across the state. So that 3.63% increase in the operating budget for the town includes over a 13% increase in healthcare premiums. So the town departments have done a superb job in keeping the cost of running the town down. So Liz talked about earlier the capital improvement plan. Again, this might be new to folks since we haven't had an in-person town meeting for a while. So think of the capital improvement plan as putting together the useful life of big equipment like fire trucks, dump trucks, graders, excavators, and then putting together a plan on how we're gonna pay for them because they're big ticket items. So this year's budget, as last year's budget has a capital improvement plan component to it. So I'll just call that the capital end of the budget. And that increases $70,000 or about 4% of the 11.36% increase. And that's largely due to $50,000 going to what's called the asset equipment fund which in last year's Australian ballot was approved by the voters via special article because again, as Liz was talking about, this was feedback that was received from voters that the town put together a thoughtful and detailed capital improvement plan that was pretty transparent. So again, we're putting away more money into the capital plan each year than we have before. Think of it that we had a capital plan before that was somewhat informal. So we put money in a town building fund. We put money in a bridge fund. We put money in a road fund, the paving fund because we have to pave the few roads we have even though we get a fair amount of subsidy from the state. But we didn't have money set aside for replacing dump trucks, excavators and those sorts of heavy equipment items that are gonna come due here in the next decade. So again, that's 4% of 11.36 goes to capital funding. 3.63 of it goes to just running the town. The operating budget. In the other piece we've already talked about, that's about 3.75% or $60,000 that we had to put in the budget to take care of interest on the loans we have taken out and plan to take out to fix the roads as urged, strongly recommended by FEMA. So as I think Randy mentioned, we don't get that interest back. That's something we have to pay for. So we took some time this year to project what we thought we would need an interest payments. So again, 11.36% is three pieces. Running the town 3.63%, capital improvement plan about 4% and 3.75% just carrying interest on the loans for improving the roads, the emergency improvements from the July flood. Thank you, Mark. Yes, Randy. I just wanna add one additional comment to Mark's summary, which thank you, thank you, Mark, that's extremely helpful. But I just wanna point out to folks that the $50,000 that's in the capital improvement fund for this year is essentially the same as it was last year, but last year it was voted on as a special article. So the increase in budget, if you think about it that way, isn't necessarily an increase, it's just moving from a special article into the main budget. All right, other question? Oh, right behind the speaker for me. I'm so sorry, Paul, yes. Hi, Paul Sermonaro. I was in a 10-year relationship with MUD season that, I made it. On that note, there's been a lot of chatter this year regarding MUD season and improvements and efforts to make some strides towards that. Vic, you mentioned that money right now is allocated for kind of handling the Band-Aid portion of MUD season. Do we have any plans in the future to start working on these habitual offending places that reoccur every year? In the past, we've found money in the budget that we worked within our means to rebuild these sections of road. I know that as administrations change and things like that, we have different ideas. On Front Porch Forum, there's been a lot of talk about it. I appreciate the board not trying to address those things individually there, but I think this would be a great place to find out how the board and the road department plan to address these issues as they get worse and worse every year, and unfortunately, at this point, we don't seem to be making any actual strides towards improving those the way we've kind of committed ourselves in the past, and I think a lot of folks would like to know if we do have plans eventually to get on that path. I recognize this past year was definitely a big hit to us, but I think everybody, even folks who aren't here, would love to know more about that. Thanks, Paul. Is there somebody from the slick board or a road that would like to address the question? Vic, would you like to address that? To be quite frank, no, we're not. We are not. I would like to say we are. We've felt, and I think probably you may recognize when we were doing that, of course, Peter was in around when that was happening. I wasn't, I mean, I was in town, but it was felt that, yes, that did help. It did help, and it was a good thing. We do not have money set aside, but we also felt prior to July flooding that we had pretty much all that the crew could handle is just to do maintenance. And I think when we were doing like Molly Supol Center Road, East Hill down by Davy Road, it was just felt that our maintenance suffered. So if we could hire some more help, I think we would go and maybe work with the rest of the slick board on prioritizing spots that could use that reconstruction. I think that also since in the last couple of years, I mean, just materials alone have increased in price quite a bit. We did, and you with your company did do kind of a mitigation on Brunk Road. I mean, we upgraded that. That was getting real bad. I mean, Culver Hill was upgraded, but in some other roads, a border road, but I think you make a valid point that at some point we should and hopefully we will with the rest of the select board's help get some priorities, also some help from, you know, some suggestions from people like you, from people in the town that have a certain spot that they think that's really bad for them. I think East Hill is really, in my opinion, not that great and would benefit from such a program. But yes, I mean, we would like to work towards that if we can come up with some money. One of the big things is help. And I don't know if we wanna hire some more help, or I mean, that would be up to the rest of the board to do so. Can I make a comment, Susan? What's that? I just was asking, Susan, if I could just add to what you said, Vic. Again, it's been three years since we've met, and during that three years there was a lot of sort of upheaval in the town. We didn't always have a full road crew. People were moving to neighboring towns to get jobs there because some town was paying more. So we spent a lot of time working on the salaries so that we could get it and keep these people. It was a really hard time. At one point, I think we had like two people or one person, right? And it was like winter. There were some desperate times that were happening behind the scenes with the town. So really having the ability to focus on, and what Paul's referring to for some of you newcomers is that we did spend some time in Paul's tenure. Paul was the road foreman for a number of years, 10 years, I guess he said. Really pinpointing areas of the roads, of specific parts around the roads where there's streams and rivers underneath that were causing serious problems during mud season and actually spent months fixing those and putting in new fill and Molly Supple is a good example. That is really holding up nicely. You don't see mud there because of the work that was done probably eight, 10 years ago at this point. And that's what he's referring to. And so we sort of had this plan to continue to do that but then like he said, change in administration, COVID, no staffing, the price of everything has just gone through the roof. It's starting to settle back a little bit. And so revisiting that really does make sense because there's still a lot of, I mean, we all drive these roads and they can be horrible, right? But I am hopeful and correct me if I'm wrong, Eric, but the work that the contractors are doing for FEMA are kind of working on that problem, aren't they? When they are repairing major, like Culver Hill Road, when that whole road fell apart, when they rebuilt it, that part shouldn't be so muddy anymore. Is that correct? So hopefully on some of these places that we still have bigger contract work to do, we're able to use FEMA money to kind of come up with the design of the road so that it's less muddy in the future. Did you want to add something, Rudy? Yeah, I mean, they kind of summarized it, but I think being intentional around separating constructions of road versus maintenance of road, I believe that our existing road crew, their focus is on maintenance, Paul, and when construction does take place, it defers all of that maintenance. So year after year as a town, I think if we want to do more construction, we need to recognize that it should be done outside of our road crew and let them focus on the continual maintenance and not defer that. And I believe it's my hope that once we get through this, as we get through this FEMA work, a very intentional look about what the rest of the roadways look like and understanding what construction projects should be put into that five-year plan that was asked about, I believe that's where we need to be. That's where we need to go and focus our attention to as we develop that five-year plan. So. Other comments or questions on the budget? Right back here. Charles Cook. Charles, sorry, Cook, did you say? Cook, yes. I just had a question about the capital improvement line item. Is that already spoken for on a aspect of what we're gonna be spending it towards? If we're spending it towards an excavator, like we're approving that, is that money from last year's 50,000, this year's 50,000 that's gonna be used towards that, or is that, isn't that exactly what that fund would be for? Go ahead, Randy. Yeah, so that fund isn't dedicated to a specific piece of equipment, but the group of equipment as the life cycles of each piece ends, the select board needs to take a look at what is going on financially within the town and allocate pieces of that fund to, maybe it's, we're not having to go borrow $250,000 for a dump truck because there's $75,000 in that account and we can buy down the cost and put a big down payment down so we're not having to borrow the full amount. But to answer your question, it's not dedicated to specific pieces of equipment, but an overall fund to look at how we take out the peaks and valleys of spending over the course of years, depending on what the voters approve to put into that fund and then approve for purchase later on. Okay, so the excavator that we're purchasing, the money that we've set aside is not being used for, is that just sitting there right now? The 50,000 from last year and if we were to approve this, 50,000? I don't believe so. I think that, yeah, sorry about that. No, I think that's why we're going, what are we going, 15 years? That's what's on the article. Yeah, 15 years, I think that's why we push it out that far. In other words, the one we have is worth 32 to 40,000, depending on where we trade and then a new machine is around 170 to 200. And so... So I think his question is, so we haven't gone out and bought the excavator and we haven't taken out a loan for the excavator. We're asking you to vote up to 200,000, so there very well could be a time when we sit down to say, how much do we really want to borrow for this excavator and use money from the Capital Improvement Plan to put toward it so that we borrow less. That's sort of what I'm asking is, why are we spending money and then we're spending it again. You know what I mean? You're asking us to prove it twice. And in my view is how I see it. You're asking me to put $50,000 and then another 200,000 and I'm curious if it's not going towards the excavator. So the vote on tonight's article to allow us to go out and borrow up to that amount. I understand. It's not that that $200,000 is put into the budget and we're passing that $200,000 for this as well. So I totally understand where you're going and as the town puts forth this, we will evaluate what's in that fund and what's able to be pulled down off from a specific piece of equipment as it comes up. So even though you're approving up to that $200,000 which is the full purchase price of an excavator, it does not mean that that's what's gonna happen when the purchase comes around. Okay, so we'd spend from the asset fund first and then borrow what's remaining is kind of what you're maybe getting at? If that's what makes the most sense for the financial picture at the time, yes. Or we may take a piece of it and say, okay, the excavator's gonna cost $200,000. We're getting a trade-in of 30,000. We have 175 left that we have to pay or 165. Let's use 50,000 from that and now our bond is, or now our thing is down to 110,000 that we're borrowing over 15 years. And so that 200,000 that's on here is not in your, that was voted on by Australian Ballot is not in the budget because it's not 200,000 that we're spending, we're borrowing and what will be in the budget in fiscal year 26 is the interest payment on that. So we as a town are required to ask you based on the fact that we're borrowing for 15 years, we're asking you permission to do that. Does that make sense? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And Mark has something. I just wanna respond and clarify further. Mark Harris. The asset, I'm sorry, Mark Harris, yes. From the Budget Committee again. So the asset equipment fund is designed to be a long-term fund. A lot of towns in the state years, in the past five years been the same situation wherein they don't have a capital improvement fund. If they need to go buy something that's big, a piece of heavy equipment, the full extent of that is borne by the taxpayers usually right away when they buy the equipment. Some other towns have had, have put money away. Eastmont Pillar is a prime example. I think they found a million dollars at one point. They just found it and put it in their capital equipment fund. We should be so fortunate. So I think the intent of the capital funds are to grow them, not to spend them right away, but to give us options on how we're gonna finance heavy equipment in the future because I think I mentioned before, there are some big ticket items coming, replacements of fire engines, more dump trucks, other things that are on the capital asset plan that need to be replaced. And rather than emptying the fund each year, we'd like to make an attempt to grow it at some point and let it gain some interest so we'll have a further safe harbor against expenses in the future because we know everything continues to go up. So I just wanted to clarify, yes, it's gonna be used for heavy equipment. It, part of it might be used for this particular purchase but the intent would not be to empty it to zero in the near term. Thank you, Mark. Yes. And what, and in terms of what Mark was saying about the capital improvement plan, so typically, especially over the last many years, interest rates have been so low for borrowing that we didn't think about, like he said, sometimes actually pay, they build their capital improvement plan and then they pay from their fund to purchase a large equipment but because interest rates have been so low, it was easy enough for us to just borrow for our equipment. Now interest rates, as you know, are going up a little bit and there are towns that sort of might do a hybrid version. They might say, okay, well, I'm gonna pull from my capital fund to buy our dump trucks but we'll borrow for fire trucks or something like that. And I think that what our plan right now is really to use this fund as a way to bring down our debt. So we'll continue to borrow for the near future to have that model of borrowing for equipment but to use this fund to make that borrowing less. Thank you. Especially when interest rates are much higher than they historically have been. And we might say, oh, there's one of the trucks that might cost $70,000 or something like that that typically we might have gotten a loan out. We might say, oh, interest rates are high, let's go to our capital fund and buy that pickup truck or whatever that costs a reasonable amount that we wouldn't need to borrow because we have the fund. All right, other comments or questions on the budget? Article six, it's a really rich conversation. It's been three years, we're catching up a little here, family, others, are you ready for the question? Looks like we are. Article six is to vote a fiscal 2024-25 budget of $1,825,508 to meet the expenses and liabilities of the town and authorize the select board to set a tax rate sufficient to provide the same. All those in favor of article six say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. The ayes have it and you have a budget. Two things I wanna say. Number one is that there's some empty chairs up here and I see some people standing in the back and I just want a little matchmaking to happen here if anybody needs a chair. And we are gonna move on to article eight in 60 seconds and in 60 seconds I would like you all to stand up and touch your toes. 60 seconds, that's all. This isn't like conversation. I'm gonna break, so maybe we'll switch over to the next part. I'll serve in here. Okay, that was 60 seconds. That almost fell. Time to settle back down. No takers on these chairs, which have like fresh untouched twix bars. We have done some serious work here, folks. Thank you, everybody. All right, we are on to article eight. Article eight, shall the town allocate up to $65,000 to pay for the design phase of a potential Middlesex Town Hall renovation? Is there a motion on article eight? Chris McVeigh moves. Chris McVeigh moved, is there a second? Scutter, Parker, Scutter Parker seconds. Article eight has been moved and seconded to allocate up to $65,000 to pay for the design phase of a potential Middlesex Town Hall renovation. I believe Liz, would you, the person who went to address this, all right. Hi, everybody, I'm asking, we're asking for more money again. So again, this goes back to three years ago at the last town meeting that we had and Sarah, our town clerk had been lamenting during that public meeting about the state of the town hall. That conversation and voters asking for more transparency in what was coming down the pike in terms of big expenditures led to the capital improvement plan, which we've just talked about. And that further, after doing a capital improvement plan through a municipal planning grant, led us to sort of our next step, which was after doing the capital improvement plan, we learned more about the town hall and determined that we wanted to do an architectural study of the town hall so that we could understand what we're looking at in terms of whether or not it made sense to renovate it, to rebuild it, or to just have a whole new building altogether. So we applied for another municipal planning grant and worked with Vermont Integrated Architecture who presented us, you'll see, if you came into the hall, you'll see that there are some schematic, there's a design that, VIA, that's the Vermont Integrated Architecture, put together as a potential renovation of the town hall. And that is sort of the first phase that happens when you're looking at making a major change like a renovation, is that you have a study, an architectural study, so we had very basic, architects came in, looked at the building, determined that it was actually quite sound overall, but that there were a lot of deficiencies that the town hall has. So some of those deficiencies are that the vault is overcrowded, it can't take any more space, so a new vault needs to be added to the building. There are plumbing issues that prevent the building from actually being used as a community space, so you can't have more than just a few people there at a time or X number of flushes per day. It's true, the building is currently not ADA accessible, you'll hear Sarah said earlier, Sarah Siemens said earlier that they can't hold the Middlesex Historical Society meeting at our town hall because it doesn't have ADA accessibility. So if you see, we have a slideshow and pictures on the What's Next Middlesex website so you can actually see what some of these problems are, but you can't really get a wheelchair in because there's a big, well you can't even open the door, first of all, so even if you were in a wheelchair you couldn't get in, and then the elevator often just will randomly break, and so people might get stuck in the elevator. So that's actually a pretty major problem right now. The building is certainly drafty and not weatherized. Currently the heating system that we have can no longer be serviced with replacement parts, so it's just sort of hanging on until it breaks and then we have to figure out what to do with it. And our electrical systems are outdated and at capacity, and again, oh and there's also the radon levels in the vault that are higher than it should be. So there's a lot of deficiencies in what the study did was come up with, and there were a group of three core members, myself, Sandy Levine and Dave Megida who are here today to answer any questions that you might have on this, but the three of us work together to hire a VIA and then also to meet with VIA on a regular basis and coordinate all the work that VIA did to come up with this schematic design, this basic design. And what we determined as a group, and there were other groups involved too, primarily the people who work at the office were very much involved because they use the space and so they were in with all the meetings as well because they gave us feedback on what they needed. And then also the energy committee, which is interested in the whole piece around clean heating systems, heating and cooling systems and the weatherization piece of the building, and then the historical society as well because there's a, in this design, there's a little space for them to put their pictures and their things that they might wanna put on display, like display areas. So it doesn't fundamentally change the footprint. This design doesn't, this renovation doesn't change the footprint in terms of the space, the size, but what it does is it reconfigures it and it adds a vault. There's a little bit of space that's added and there's a small little sort of food pantry essentials closet on the outside where we could have it available to the public as potentially a food shelf for folks. And so this, so that study happened, right? And we've been educating the public about it. We had a couple meetings where people could attend. We had a couple, we had some really good turnout the other day at Town Hall where we did tours of the building so that people could see what problems we were talking about. And so we decided as a board, so we had a couple of choices. We were like, okay, we know that this will roughly cost about $2 million, a little over $2 million. And so we could just go out and ask the voters for a bond for $2 million. Or we could really see if the town is interested in this. So this is why this article for $65,000 to pay for the design phase. And I will say Dave Megida also really pushed for having more information that we could present to the voters as opposed to just immediately saying, okay, if you guys wanna do this, this is how much it's gonna cost. And so this design phase of $65,000 is really getting into the sort of nuts and bolts of what would actually happen to the building in terms of its renovation. Like, you know, would this, the architects would go in and say, does it need a new roof? You know, what would be done with the windows? What kind of insulation would be put in? You know, what heating systems, that kind of thing. So it really gets into the much more detailed design development that we can then get a more solid number to be able to present to the voters. Let me back up to say one important piece of why this is happening now is this has been, literally if you go back to like town reports from more than 20 years ago when June Lakin, who has since passed away, that the town talked about a town hall renovation, right? And so, you know, these are deferred maintenance that we've just, it costs money, right? It costs money and right now there is funding that's available for work on existing buildings only in the form of the Municipal Energy Resilience Program, otherwise known as MERP, which towns, municipalities can apply for up to $500,000 to help pay for things like weatherization, windows, heating and cooling systems, all the things that would happen during this renovation and this money has a limited timeframe to be used and so this is why we're bringing this now and there is a sense of urgency because of this grant. So we are at the point in this grant where we are having the towns before they can apply, the grant isn't open to apply for yet, but before the towns can apply, we have to have an energy assessment of the building, it's called like a level three energy assessment and a technician will come in and review, they're doing the fire department because the fire department also needs a new heating system and they're doing the town hall and these are free assessments and those are actually being scheduled right now so I believe that this grant opportunity will open probably by the fall of 2024 and has a timeframe for which it needs to be spent. So there is a certain level of urgency in if this passes, so if this passes tonight, the 65,000, we will hire VIA to work with us to complete this development study, then we will know how much it's really gonna cost and then we will present it to the voters in November as a bond vote. Now I wanna just make clear what it means by a bond vote. A bond vote is where we ask the town, can we spend up to a certain amount of money? So we're not going out and getting the bond right then and there, we're just asking you permission to get the bond, which we will then be able to assess how much are we really gonna need to bond out through the Vermont Bond Bank because we know we'll have Merp. There's also some, there's other fundings that are available. There's, I don't think I have it here. There's, well there's historic preservation grants because the town is considered a historic, that's not much though, I think that's like $20,000. But there also are ADA grants for municipalities. And I think that's through like a, not CSBG, I always wanna call it CSBG, but it's a block grant. But the block grant is often this particular block grant is often given to sort of communities that have certain poverty levels which we don't have. It doesn't mean we can't apply, but it means that they give priority to lower income communities. And so, but because it's an ADA, we can apply for that. And that could probably be a helpful like 80 to 100,000 that we might be able to get for the elevator, the lift. And then the other thing that we're really gonna be pursuing is community members. So there are people in middle sex who may be interested in making donations to a fund that would help cover the cost of this town hall renovation. And we're gonna be putting together a committee to talk about how we can actually do fundraising so that less of the burden is on the taxpayer. But imagine if you gave a donation and the photocopier was named after you, right? Okay, that's what we're talking here. Like you'll get a special something, you know? So anyway, there's this, we're in the very preliminary stages of this, but we have done a lot over the last year. We've made more progress in the last year than we have in the last 20 years on this project. But really now is the time because of this MIRP funding. And if this doesn't pass, we will probably still, we will still pursue some of the MIRP funding. But one of the problems is that you may find that, oh, yes, we'd love to weatherize the town hall and apply for MIRP funding. Oh, but the roof can't handle it because of the snow load. And so weatherizing would, we'd have to then replace the roof. Well, we don't have the money for that, so we can't do it. So this really is a perfect opportunity to capitalize on these grants that are available that are probably in my life, like once in a lifetime grants that are available. Comments, questions about article six, $65,000 to pay for the design in the back corner with the glasses. Randy Hartward, one, I wanna thank you guys for having that information session about the town hall. It was really well done, lots of preparation. And I think all of the work that was done was quite prudent. And I'll put in my encouragement to people to approve this. But I also just wanna clarify because it keeps coming up in comments. Whatever you're asking for when you're asking for money, I'm just clarifying, the town has a budget and everything you do has to fit within the approved budget. And you're just asking for how that budget gets spent at times, but we're not ever talking about increasing on top of the budget some particular expenditure like this. I just wanted to clarify that. This $65,000 is in the special articles piece of the budget. And if it passes, that's where you get that, am I right about that, the 11 point something percent, or no, that's on top, then on top that are the special articles, right. So you'll see that with the special articles, does it say that, like what it would come to? This is additive to the budget that was just passed. I think being super clear about when it's additive and when it's something you're asking for that's part of the budget would be really helpful. Anything moving forward in the special articles here is additive to the budget that's been passed. Yep. But I just want to make it clear that on page 36 of your town report, so prior to 36 is sort of the operational piece of the town. Then there's a thing called special articles which is what we're talking about here on the floor. And so that town hall design is in here. And so then at the bottom it says total budget plus special articles. If all of these special articles were to pass, it's a 15% increase. So if this doesn't pass, it'll be a 14%, or who know, I don't know what this is. It'll be 11%. It'll be 11%. So this is in there on this page. Thank you. Oh, great, next. Hi, Molly Walner. I just had a couple of questions I didn't, I wasn't able to listen in. I know you guys had an information session on this. I did watch the video of the tour to understand better. First question was just about, it sounded like the vault needed more space, which it sounds like a storage for really important documents, I'm assuming. Yeah, so we're required by law to keep certain documents in the vault, like the town land records. So even if they're being, so we're slowly digitizing our town, but you still have to keep the hard copies in the vault. And so the vault itself can't be expanded, but there's a sort of a second vault in the design that's put someplace else in the building. Okay, so even with digitization, we need additional space. Yeah, and we'd have to rent, we could potentially rent it someplace outside, but people do still come in and not all of our records are digitized. I can't remember if that's true, but are all of our records digitized, Sarah? Just a second, Sarah, we can't quite hear you. I'm gonna run a microphone. No, you're walking away from them. She's chasing you, go Tenzo, go, go, go. Wait, wait, Sarah, they're right behind you. Hi. Hi, Linda, Sarah Merriman-Tangler. The records are digitized and they're going back to 2001, but the legislature has failed to catch up with the idea that we're moving into a digital age, so absolutely everything needs a paper backup. I still print out indexes, indices, land records, and it does fill up, and I got a teeny, we need a little amount of space left for some land records. I don't know what I'm gonna be doing after that, so. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you. And then my second part to that question is that if we approve the $65,000 tonight, the renovation price tag, my understanding, is around $2 million, is that like minimum, or yeah, I guess is that minimum, or like the nice to have kind of, or because obviously we all know cost of everything is going up, so I'm just trying to understand like, does the $65,000, if we approve, give us maybe a range of options to go for, or is the $2 million kind of like baseline and then from there kind of thing? Yeah, so $2 million is in today's dollars, and so this won't be happening today, so the price could go up, but it is the design phase will allow us to get a better understanding of how much this will really cost. It could be less than $2 million, my guess is it will be more than $2 million. Dave, do you wanna make any comments about that? This is Dave McGeeta. Hi, I'm Dave McGeeta on Center Road. The answer to the budget question is during the design development phase, which we're gonna be going through if this is approved, the budget will be tested several times. It's going to go up on some things, it's gonna go down on others. I think we're now at $2.2 million. Something about that. This will be confirmed and it will be very transparent to the community, and we'll be asking for additional input if we have problems here or there. I do wanna mention one thing though. The items that are identified that Liz was listing, the deferred maintenance items, those will not go away. They're gonna stay and need to be done at some point. If we do it piecemeal, it's gonna be a lot more expensive than doing this whole renovation. And I think also with the $65,000 that you mentioned, so the passing of the $65,000 is really our request to you is do you want to move forward with this, right? And if this doesn't pass, that means that there's no renovation of a town hall or at least right now there isn't. Will there be maybe some things that need to get done? Yes, like Dave said, deferred maintenance. We're gonna have to have an elevator. We're gonna have to have a new heating system. We're gonna have to have the plumbing. What we really wanna do is create a wonderful community space that people can use, right? There used to be a time when you could use the school and it was really easy to just go in and say, hey, I'd like to have a knitting class on Wednesday nights at the school. You can't do that anymore. There's just a lot of rules that prevent people from feeling welcome and comfortable in the school because it's not our property anymore. And so we would like as a town to have a space where we can have, I mean, we used to have birthday parties there and engagement parties and the Halloween, I don't know if you guys remember when your kids were little, they would have a Halloween party there. And this would offer the opportunity to have not only some private spaces for work to get done, like if someone's coming in and doing a tax, having some questions about their taxes, there'll be a space that they can sit down with someone so that people aren't overhearing their conversations. There'll be a space where Sarah does all her land record stuff. There'll be a meeting space for up to 40 people. We'll never be able to have town meeting there. That's a given. That's not what we're aiming for. But if there's people that wanna have a yoga class or something like that, there will be a space for that. And we want it to be a welcoming, you know, modern and efficient community space. And if this passes, that's no guarantee that the bond is gonna pass either, right? So if we do this design development, you're basically saying to us, we believe in this. And you know, if it comes back at three million, well, we may change our minds and say, no, we're not gonna do this, right? But I think that what we really wanted to do was get your permission to move forward with this to know that this was a priority for the town, to have a safe and efficient and modern place for our workers, our employees, and for us as the public. Other comments or questions on article six? Sorry, eight. Yes. Oh, sorry, you're waving to someone else? Chris McFay, and to follow up on this comment about the school not being a welcoming place, I encourage you to make it a welcoming place. And it is by policy, supposed to be a welcoming place and by easement for middle-sex residents must be a welcoming place. So assert your right to do that, please. It's really disheartening to hear that it's not and should be. Second is, can we have some clarification? VPR tells me our town clerk's name is Susan Merriman, not Sarah. Can we have some clarification, please? It's a meld between Susan Clark and Sarah Merriman. The best of both worlds, I'll say. Thank you. Second is, can you give us a timeframe in terms of if we pass this, and I hope we do, how soon we'll have this study done and then how soon we'll be looking to deal with a bond because the town hall, from your description, it sounds like it's getting cranky and old, kind of like my old neighbors, the Merrimans, and they could use a do-over too. Maybe we'll include Sarah in the bond, but it really would be helpful to have that timeframe so that we can move forward. Yeah, so I don't have necessarily an exact timeframe, but we'd be looking at how, if this passes, I'll call the IA tomorrow and I'll say, please put it on your schedule. Okay. And so I believe because this is a budget item for July one, they would probably schedule it to be around June or July that they do this anyway, so that we would have access to the money to pay them after the July one budget. And then we would be presenting it, we would have a series of public meetings, more opportunities for people to come and visit, but if this passes, this will also be an opportunity for sort of those, I don't wanna say last minute, but if you're looking at the design and you're like, why is this here or the food shelf isn't big enough, like this is when that happens. Is that right, Dave, in this development phase? And it might be that the energy committee says we really wanna make sure that they hear from us about our recommendations for what kind of weatherization goes on or what sort of heating system goes into the place. So then November, the November election when we're gonna have the most people, right? Because that's a really big election is when we would potentially be asking for a bond. And then, so bonds are given out in the spring and in the fall, they're only like twice a year through the state, so I have to go, I've met with them already to talk about this, but I have to go back to my notes to figure out like when we could actually pull on the money. But I think we'd be looking at 20, because of the MIRP funding as well, 20, what are we now, 2024? So again, and contractors, right? Finding contractors to do this kind of work. We'd be looking at hopefully 2025, like the spring or summer of 2025. Can I combine my last two questions? One is, do we have to fix the elevator to be compliant with the ADA, first off? And second is, you said the heating system at the firehouse needs to be replaced. Why is that since the firehouse is so new? It's not that new. Jeff, do you wanna talk about that? Microphone for Jeff Coons right here. It's an on-demand boiler system and the life expectancy of those about 10 years were at the 10 year point. Designed obsolescence balance system. And we're also looking at, just so you guys know, some of you may not be aware that there's a fire station bond that is still, that we still pay on every year. And we might be able to get somewhat creative with the Vermont Bond Bank to not have too much of an overlap, if at all, with the fire station, because there's a few years left of the fire station. I wanna say there's like four years left. And so that the transition would be, and I can't tell you, and we don't know how much it would cost per voter to put in two million. I can't tell you that number now. But it might be a nice sort of transition and less hard on the voters to move into the town hall bond once the fire station bond is over. Other comments or questions about article eight? Yes, one more here. I think this has been- Your name? Oh, Charles Cook. Charles Cook. I think this has been answered previously when you pursued what you wanted to do with the town hall. But just as a consideration for here, what would be building a new town hall is at a cost that we've already figured out if we were to renovate- Renovate? Dave Megida. She's right. The budget, we presented several different options to the select port to renovate the building, to renovate the building with an addition or to build new. And the goodness, there's not all bad news about the town hall. There is some good news and structurally the building is very sound. That made a renovation very attractive to us. The difference between the renovation and the new building is at least half a million dollars more for the new building. And the Merp money, it can only be used for existing buildings. So that is potentially, depending on how much money and how many towns are applying, we could potentially utilize an entire $500,000 towards this that you wouldn't be able to do with a new building. Randy. Were you done, Dave? Okay, ready? Actually, this is for Dave. Dave, can you clarify as to whether or not that half a million dollars if purchasing a new site, a plot of land for a new building, was included in that or not? No, the purchase of the land was not included. That's just a new building. Vic. Dave, did they consider selling the existing town hall what that revenue would do to the cost? No. Other comments or questions on article eight? Right here. Thank you. I'm the Quebueno Energy. Sorry, your name? Enrique Bueno, Energy, Middlesex Energy Committee. If there are any renovations that you wanna do and any weatherizations that you wanna do, it's vital to have a roadmap. And what this budget is going to provide us is the roadmap to what we have to do and how to do it best. And we will also provide the basics for going out and bidding with the contractors. So this renovation is vital for the people that are working there. The radon is not confined into the vault. No gas stays in one place. It goes all over the place. So our previous town clerks, they all contracted cancer, most likely, from being sitting there in that environment. There is absolutely no ventilation in those offices. So the old new renovation considers adequate ventilation, which most of our buildings don't have. So that is one of the main issues with that, aside from also the flexibility on the flow of the people working there, of the way they are storing our information. At this point, if you go and do the tour, you see that our information is being stored all the way, I mean, all over the place without any kind of safety. Anybody can basically go and fish into our private files and get them. So all these things are gonna be considered into the renovation. And the design phase is basically what gives us the roadmap to do the whole thing in a proper way, because any patchwork is gonna cost us more. Patchwork and weatherization and renovations, they are just stumble blocks to the final work, because most of the time, when we do patchwork, it's going to be a road block into the final process of doing it. So at the end of the day, that's why patchworks will cost us much more. So I think it's vital, this project for our town and for the people that are really working there. Thank you. Other comments or questions on article eight? One over here. Steve Melamed, I just wanted to point out to all sex voters that are on page 41 of your report. If you're curious about how much this is gonna cost you in your taxes that kind of outlined it for you, and that's gonna be true going forward with all the rest of the articles. Thank you. Yes, that's a really helpful chart. Yes, I need the microphone right over here. Deb is calling the question. So that is a motion to end discussion. Is there a second? Sorry, Chris McFay second. So it's been Deb Wolf. So the question has been called, it's moved and seconded. So we are now gonna vote on whether we wanna end debate. So if you would like to end debate on article eight, signify by saying aye. Opposed, no. I'll call that two thirds. Okay, so we are ending debate on article eight and we're gonna go ahead and vote on article eight. Shall the town allocate up to $65,000 to pay for the design phase of a potential middle sex town hall renovation? All those in favor say aye. Opposed, no. No's were heard. The ayes have it. And article eight passes. Sarah, do you want a microphone? This is why we get these why are you microphone runners? Hello, I just wanna say that polls are gonna close in a half an hour, okay? Also, could I see a raise of hands from the Board of Civil Authority? Who is here in the Board of Civil Authority? You will not be going to spaghetti dinner tonight. You will be counting ballots in the library. So, fast up. Fasting. So if you want to cast a ballot in the election today, you have 25 minutes to do so. All right, so we have moved on to article nine. Shall the town voters appropriate the sum of $2,500 to the middle sex conservation fund? Is there a motion on article nine? Mary Skinner moves. Is there a second? Julie Moore seconds. And you people are being bad. You need to like not tax my brain. You have to say your names. All right, so article nine has been moved and seconded to appropriate the sum of $2,500 to the middle sex conservation fund. Is there a discussion? Anyone from the conservation fund want to, no? Guys, feeling good, okay. We're ready for the question. All those in favor of appropriating the sum of $2,500 to the middle sex conservation fund signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no? The ayes have it. Article nine is passed. Okay, and a reminder that in the town report, all the reports from the organizations asking for money in articles 10 through 17 appear in order in your town report, which is like so super handy. You can just go flip. So thank you for the people who created the town report. This one starts on page 67. Article 10, shall the town voters appropriate expenditures of $850 to support the Central Vermont Council on Aging? Is there a motion on article 10? Nice and loud, Sarah, your name. Sarah Seidman moves article 10. Is there a second on article 10? Dave Lawrence seconds. Article 10 has been moved and seconded $850 to support the Central Vermont Council on Aging. Is there discussion? Needs a microphone. I can just say that I'm almost 64 and I have to figure out Medicare and I called and made an appointment and she was so smart at explaining something that I had absolutely no ability to digest. So it's a great organization. Other discussion on article 10. Ready for the question. Shall the town voters appropriate expenditures of $850 to support the Central Vermont Council on Aging? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. And article 10 is passed. Article 11, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $4,500 to support Central Vermont Home, Health and Hospice? Is there a motion on article 11? Kim Bulldock moves and Mary Beth Demansky seconds. Article 11, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $4,500 to support Central Vermont Home, Health and Hospice? Any discussion? We will vote. Shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $4,500 to support Central Vermont Home, Health and Hospice? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The ayes have it. And article 11 passes. Article 12, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $3,580. See that right? $35,000, I didn't say that wrong. $35,580 to support the Kellogg Hubbard Library. Is there a motion on article 12? Sarah Seidman moves and Sarah seconded by Mary Beth Demansky. Article 12, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $35,580 to support the Kellogg Hubbard Library. Is there a discussion on the library? Sarah, Sarah would like a microphone. Thank you. Is it on? Yes, yes. I am your Middlesex representative to the Kellogg Hubbard Library. If you turn to page 69, it will give you a report. Many libraries are owned by the town. We are not. We are a 501c3, so we're partly supported through the towns. Montpelier pays the most of it, but each of the surrounding towns pays their share. And then we raise money through our endowment and also through fundraising. So you'll find some information there. Our overall budget's about a million dollars. We have 13 employees. We suffered almost $1.5 million of damage in the flood. None of that is being paid for in this request to you. This is our request for our operating funds. We have the second highest, what's the name for it? The second highest circulation in the state in the Kellogg Hubbard Library. It offers many, many programs. I urge you, if you haven't been there, it's not just books. It's audio tapes. It's places to get in out of the cold. It's public bathrooms, which Montpelier suffers from a lack of. It has high-speed Wi-Fi. The renovation that we're going to do to help restore ourselves after the flood is gonna have some great improvements like private meeting rooms and air conditioning system. If you've ever been in the library in July, you'll know why they need air conditioning. So please, I welcome your questions and I urge you to support this library. We could never, ever afford a library of this caliber on our own. Comments or questions on Article 12. Hearing none, we will vote on Article 12. Shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $35,580 to support the Kellogg Hubbard Library? All those in favor say aye. Opposed, no? No. No's were heard. The ayes have it and Article 12 passes. Article 13, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $4,000 to support the Montpelier Senior Activity Center? Is there a motion on Article 13? Mitch Oczewski moves, is there a second? Nice and loud. Eric Benedict seconds, Article 13, to authorize expenditures of $4,000 to support the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. Discussion on Article 13. Move on to voting on Article 13. $4,000 to support the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. All those in favor say aye. Opposed, no? The ayes have it and Article 13 is passed. Article 14, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $2,500 to support the North Branch Nature Center? Is there a motion? Jantron. Jantron. Moves, Article 14. And nice and loud. Susan Sussman seconds. Jantron moves. And would you like to spell your last name? She's doubting that spelling. We'll circle back. What's that? Jan? Jan moved. Yes, moved and seconded by Susan Sussman. We'll go down in history, thank you. Article 14 has been moved and seconded. Any discussion on $2,500 to support the North Branch Nature Center? Hearing none, we will vote. Shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $2,500 to support the North Branch Nature Center? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? And the ayes have it, Article 14 is passed. We are on to Meals on Wheels. Article 15, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $10,000 to support the Waterbury area senior centers, Meals on Wheels program, which serves the residents of Middlesex. Their report is on page 72. Is there a motion on Article 15? Eric Benedict moves, is there a second? Joe Logan seconds. So Article 15 has. Loga, L-O-G-A. Joe Loga, thank you. Article 15 has been moved and seconded. Is there discussion on $10,000 to support the Waterbury area senior centers, Meals on Wheels? Questions, yes. Wendy, there's a microphone for you. It's on. Wendy, I just want to say I looked in, it comes out to $12.95. So it sounds like a lot of money to send to Waterbury and we used to discuss this a lot. Anyway, it's $12. Other discussion on Article 15. Questions or comments? All right, hearing none. Shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $10,000 to support the Waterbury area senior centers, associations, Meals on Wheels program, which serves the residents of Middlesex? All those in favor say aye. Opposed, no. No's were heard. The ayes have it. Article 15 is passed. Article 16. Shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $1,500 to youth first mentoring? So there are motion on Article 16. Deb Wolf moves, is there a second? Jan Turan, seconds. Article 16 has been moved and seconded, $1,500 to youth first mentoring. Discussion? Yes, Jeff, right here, the microphone's behind you. Jeff Coons, in the past we've gotten how many Middlesex people were served by this. Also, from reading the description of it, it seems like the $1,500 goes purely towards administrative costs, and there's no mention of how many actual Middlesex youth. The last time we had town meeting, there was a mix of Middlesex and Montpilier youth going from our portion of this. So I'd like to hear as to how much of this is actually administrative costs, because I don't think the mentors get paid at all, and then how many actual Middlesex children are involved in this. Is there somebody here from youth first who would like to respond to that? Deb? Deb? Yes, there's a microphone right behind you. Thanks, Tessa. Hi, Deb Wolf. I have been an advisory board. Closer. I've been an advisory board member of youth first mentoring, previously known as Girls Boys First. We've recently changed the name to be more all-inclusive. We have about 18 mentor pairs. It's true. They're not all from Middlesex. They're from Montpilier, East Montpilier, Berlin. We have six mentors and mentees, including Mary Beth Demansky, who may speak as well. When you say administrative costs, the 1500 is going towards operating costs. We have about a $68,000 budget to run the program, and we do have to pay our director to run the program. So yes, this is going towards operating costs. I wouldn't necessarily call it administrative costs, but she's got to screen the pairs and get them together with activities. And I wonder if Mary Beth wants to add a little. Also, we're always looking for new mentors, and if anybody's interested, I have some brochures right here. Mary Beth Demansky. Thank you, yes. Can you hear me? Yes. I have had the pleasure of being a mentor for 10 years now with the same kiddo. It's an amazing program, and I know when you hear that number, like six mentors and six mentees, it doesn't sound like a whole lot. Since COVID, we did take a dip. At one point, they were 33. Wendy could probably speak to that, like 40, like 40 pairs. It definitely, the program did lose some kiddos and mentees during the COVID time, and it's coming back up again. Mentors, of course, don't get paid. I mean, it's great why you get paid with kid time. But there is a cost for, there's an administrator, there's a person who runs the program. As Deb said, they have to do screenings. They do all kinds of trainings. Right now, we're in the middle of doing three separate sessions about career goal setting for kids that are more like 12 and older. We're meeting in Kilicubber Library in the Hayes Room and having other software they had to buy. The kids have laptops that they could use for doing these programs and trainings. If a mentor has questions about how to deal with a problem for the child they're seeing, they call the person who runs the program right now, Sally Russell, and she's doing a great job. Wendy did it for forever and did an amazing job. There is gatherings where mentors get together with other mentors so we can compare and talk about, what things do you do with your kid? What works? What problems do you have? How do you deal with it? So the program can't just run themselves. We have, it takes somebody to be able to be behind the scenes and figure it all out. And it will just also point out, I know we want to watch our dollars too, but this costs for a $300,000 house at $1.92. So if your home is valued at $300,000 it will cost you $1.92 for the year. So cheaper than two hours of parking if you're putting the money in the meter in Montpellier. So anyway. Thank you. Other comments or questions about article 16? Wendy, yeah, the microphone coming up behind you. I just want to say that I did run girls and boys first mentoring for 23 years. I was in the co-op in the last month or two and I ran into a parent whose kid is 20-something and that mentor still gets together with that young man like regularly. And I can tell you that that's not the only story. Not everybody who's in the program is a success. There are definitely kids that don't, but given the state of the world right now and all the mental health issues that everyone and especially our young people are dealing with, you can't find a better situation or a better program to support kids. Hi there, Chaya Lichtig. And I just wanted to mention that at the moment a mentor is providing a very direct form of support to the children of middle sex as an assistant to the rumny play. Completely taking her time also in excess of the amount of time she's supposed to be spending as a mentor. And she's been a huge asset to us and to not just the child she's mentoring but many, many middle sex, rumny students. There are comments or questions about Article 16. Your name, nice and loud. Close enough, Linda? No? C-H-A-Y-A-H-L-C-H-L-N-A-S. Nice, yeah, that's good. Are you ready for the question? Yes. Yes. Article 16, shall the town voters authorize expenditures of $1,500 to youth first mentoring? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? The ayes have it. Article 16 passes. Article 17 to see if the town of middle sex will appropriate a sum not to exceed $4,242 to support the following organizations pursuant to 24 VSA 2691. This is a list of 18 organizations each asking for $250 or less and their reports are on pages 74 through 91 and unless there is an objection I'm not going to read all 18 organizations. No objection? Okay, Article 17 is their emotion. Landis Maranello, Kyle, L-A-N-D-I-S, hyphen. Keep going. Is there a second on Article 17? Somebody with a shorter name. Lowry Sharp, great. All right, Article 17 has been moved and seconded. Any discussion on any of these articles, any of these organizations, there's 18 organizations listed here. Article 17 to see if the town of middle sex will appropriate a sum not to exceed $4,242 to support the 18 organizations listed. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no? The ayes have it and Article 17 has passed. Okay, here's a juicy one. I don't know what this means. Article 18, shall the town vote to eliminate the office of Constable pursuant to 17 VSA 2651A subsection D? Is there a motion on Article 18? So moved. Okay, and is there a second? Jeff Koons, Mr. Safety wants to get rid of the Constable. I can't wait to hear about this. I just said to Randy, I don't know what this article means. Okay, so Liz has moved and Jeff Koons has seconded. Let us help Linda out here. Article 18, the town vote to eliminate the office of Constable. Sarah's gonna talk about it. Sarah would like to talk about this. Give the lady a microphone. So for most of my tenure, my 11 year tenure as town clerk, we have not had a Constable. And the reason why we haven't had a Constable is because the laws changed certainly before I got this job where you have to be a fully trained police officer. And if you're not, and I try, Alyssa's nodding because I tried to get the sheriff's badge. She's gonna try to stick it on her husband. He wouldn't be a Constable. And if you're not a fully trained police officer, you have to work under the guidance, the constant guidance of a fully trained police officer. We don't have that entity in our small town. And I wish we did after this recent dog situation, that would have been really nice, but we don't have it. So, we are in violation, we've been in violation of the law for about the past nine years. I've hit up various law enforcement officials. Exactly, you know, it works out. So, to be legal, we need to eliminate this position. I'm sorry to say. And if anybody else has any bright ideas, great, but I don't think we should be in violation of the law. Other discussion or questions, Larry? Microphone over here. Thanks, Larry Scharf. So, what would the Constable do if we had one? Microphone to Sarah. Front porch forum story about dogs running around on French Road and McCulloch Hill Road. And we have had problems where in that situation, we needed to send two people in town to deliver a notice of official notice that they were going to have to face a dog hearing. In order to do that, I would have to hire a sheriff. The sheriff would take two days to process, and that would not give us enough time to warn the dog owners. So, what we did was we sent Vic and Dr. Penny to unthreatening, get strong-enabled men to go down the driveway and deliver the notice. And we are going to have to deliver another notice on the result of this dog hearing, and that's another time it would be nice to have a Constable. A Constable would really goes well with an animal control officer, because you never know what you're gonna get at the house. That's the number one use of a Constable. And so far, you know, we just don't have a guy twiddling his or a woman, twiddling their thumbs with fully trained police officers waiting to snap two once or twice a year. Does that answer your question, Larry? You wanna be Constable? Liz. And so, I'll use this opportunity to, there was a person that I forgot to thank who would be the Honorary Constable, who would be Erica Holm, who was our dog catcher for, dog catcher, our animal control officer for many years, and she's retiring. And so, I said to Sarah, there's another person that I wanted to thank, and I can't remember who it was. So Honorary Constable Erica Holm, I really would like to acknowledge. And I just wanna say the polls are closed. So unless you're standing in line, waiting to cast a vote, we're done. Thank you so much for your incredible participation. But we're not done. Thank you. Any other questions on Article 18? Yeah, straight back here. Tony Turner. Is there a penalty to leave the office open in case there was a Constable in the future? Feels like we shouldn't close the door if we need to open it again later. And there's no penalty to leaving it open. Yes. Sarah, don't go away yet. If this was passed, how much effort would go into re-establishing the position if the town ever wanted to? Just going through this action again? Sure. You gotta be lawyers in the room, right? Someone can answer this question. There are lawyers in the room they're hiding. It's a lawyer. Kyle Landis-Marinello. I just wanna note it's momentous that lawyers were encouraged to speak at town meeting. And still no answer. All right, at least that was free. Thank you, Anthony Plena. I'm not a lawyer. So just be thankful for that. I did serve in the Senate for a number of years and I served under government operations committee. I was vice chair of that committee and we dealt a lot with the duties of sheriffs of law enforcement in that committee. And to tell you the truth, constables became kind of a joke in the committee. There were a lot of towns who don't have constables and we desperately tried to get a constable to come in and testify in our committee as to what constables did and what they should be doing. To this day we have not yet found, I'm not idle servant anymore. But we never found a constable. It became a joke in the committee. Every time we had a hard time finding a witness we say, well, we should go find a constable. So I don't think we'll be missing much by voting for this. Helo's recovering lawyer. 17 VSA, 2651A, subsection D3. A vote to eliminate the office of constable shall remain in effect until rescinded by a majority vote of the registered voters present and voting at an annual meeting. Warned for that purpose it would appear we can just undo it later. I think we might be ready for the question. Article 18 shall the town vote to eliminate the office of constable pursuant to 17 VSA, 2651A, subsection D. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. The ayes have it and article 18 has passed. Article 19, the penultimate article, shall the town provide notice of the availability of the annual report, that's this, by a postcard mailed to all registered voters at least 30 days before the annual meeting, that's where we are, town meetings, annual meeting, instead of mailing or otherwise distributing the report to the voters of the town pursuant to 24 VSA 1682A. Is there a motion on article 19? Vic Dwyer moves, what's that? Vic Dwyer. Vic Dwyer moves, is there a second? Jeff Koons seconds. So this is an article to send out a postcard, mailed to all registered voters at least 30 days before the annual meeting, instead of mailing or otherwise distributing the report to the voters of the town pursuant to 24 VSA 1682A. Is there a discussion? Vic? Yeah. This saves about $1,000, I believe what Sarah said. You're asking me, ask Sarah, where is Sarah? I'm just making the statement. Okay. Okay, let's lean right in. She ran away. Okay, Sarah would be a really good person to have because I think there will be other questions on this as well as somebody who could go, she ran away with ballots. Yeah. I think, so in my recollection at the meetings about this, one, there is an expense associated with it. I wanna say it's actually closer to $2,000 for printing and designing and mailing out. And so I think this would allow us to send out postcards and if you wanted one sent to you, you could. Or you could go to the town hall and pick one up. So it's not that I don't think they're gonna necessarily, we're not gonna have them at all, Sarah. Do you wanna speak to this? Like, will these still be available, but just not as many if we don't mail them out? Yeah. You wanna explain how this would work, Sarah? So the bottom line is that the town report is an expensive little publication and mailing has become prohibitively expensive. I can't tell you the cost of this presidential primary, how much it cost even the town to mail that. So considering that the town report is online, we put it up online as soon as possible, considering that most people, in my experience, pick up the town report in the office. Sometimes they'll just come by, pay their taxes. We can have, I would like to have stacks of town reports. People could pick them up. Sometimes they hit the mailbox. You, of course, are all good doobies. You're all very good. You've all brought your town reports. But a lot of people just trash them. So it would be nothing. It would be far less expensive to just mail postcards and say your town report is available. You can come and pick it up. And as we all know, the mail has just been lousy lately. So that was my thinking in doing this. You don't have to agree, but it's just a proposition. So save a little bit of money. Sarah, how much money? Durant, how much did we spend on mailing on the town report? I think we spent about, you know, it sounds like peanuts after talking about $65,000 for an engineering study. It's like, you know, about $800, $900, close to $1,000 a year. So over $1,000. The Treasures is over $1,000. The former Treasurer, as of right now. Right behind you, Sarah Seedman has a question for you. The two Sarahs, yes. I think that this is an important way to get an informed electorate. And I think you're going to really diminish the number of people that can take a look at this report in their home with the delayed mail service and be able to see what our town is doing in detail. It's an extremely valuable publication. As a member of the Historical Society, I can tell you we've been putting them out for 247 years or something like that. You know, we've always had a town report and I would like it to be widely available. Okay, yep, Bennett Shapiro. That was a... I'm sorry, but $1,000 seems like a bargain. Chris McVeigh? I can't stop my collection now. And Sarah, the town clerk's job is lonely, but having people come pick it up is not going to make it less lonely, I'm sorry. So I hope we vote this down. Other comments, Nancy Riley back here. Nancy Riley, could we have it as an opt out instead of an opt in? That way people who are not used to get, don't care if they get it, can opt out and it will be mailed to them and other folks who really enjoy it can still get it. That's too much work for Sarah. Sounds like a record-keeping nightmare. Sarah, it sounds like Sarah Merriman would rather kill me than allow that as an amendment. Yes, bring it. We want these mailed to our house. Oh, go ahead. So it's not like I'm going to go home and cry. Other comments on Article 19, are you ready for the question? All right. If you think that we should continue to mail these to folks, you're going to vote no. If you would like to have this turned into a postcard, you will vote yes. Article 19, shall the town provide notice of the availability of the annual report by a postcard mailed to all registered voters at least 30 days before the annual meeting instead of mailing or otherwise distributing the report to the voters of the town pursuant to 24 BSA 1682 A. All those in favor say aye. Opposed no. The no's appear to have it. The no's do have it. Article 19 fails. Article 20, to transact any other business that may legally come before the meeting. We can't take any binding action under this article, but if there are any comments or things that people would like to raise, Wendy. It works. I just want to say this is the most fun town meaning that I've been to, so it's nice to be back and see also so many young, new residents of Middlesex in the room, it's really fun. And I've been very entertained by the humor, so being the phonologist that I am, I want to just let people know there's a really fun trivia night down at the filling station on Monday nights every Monday. Yes, and that too over there on the winning team every week. And I'm on the losing team every week and it's still fun. And also that the open mic night at the local, at the wine shop next to Red Hen has also been really fun. And it's been a lot of the same people every time. Lots of guys playing guitars and a couple of one or two women and some improv people sometimes and storytellers, but it's also really fun. It's a small space, but there's a lot of talent in the room. And my last but not least is that if Christmas Day is actually right and it is possible to use Rumney Auditorium without 10,000 pieces of hoop jumping, jumping through hoops, it would be really fun to do a talent night. So if anybody's interested in sort of organizing a Middlesex talent night, we could raise money for like a fire truck or I don't know. Anyway, that's it, thank you, come see me. Other comments under other business? Yes, Adrienne. I'm Adrienne Megida and I just wanna reiterate what Liz said about thanking the people in town, the town crew, the select board, Sarah and Dorenda and Cheryl and all the people that worked tirelessly day in and day out and we have no idea how hard they've worked this year for us and I just wanna give them another thank you, even though they're not here. And the listeners, comment back here, yes. Working, working. Before somebody else says it, I just wanna point out in these divisive times in our democracy and some of the vitriol is tossed at the folks who count the ballots. I saw Sarah chase a guy out the front door earlier tonight to make sure he came back in and did things properly so that everything would be up to snuff and I just think that that's a really good observation for us to all make and I'm grateful. Thanks to our election officials. Any other, yes, article 20, yes, go ahead. Cynthia Martin, I just wanna say thank you for the great slideshow that highlights middle sex. Things to laugh at, things to cry about, just things to really enjoy. Thank you. That beautiful slideshow made by Larry Sharf and Mark Bushnell is available out in the, you can see it in the hallway as well as on the WetSex Middle Sex website made with photos from all over, from photographers all over middle sex. Thanks, Cynthia. Any other comments under article 20, Sarah? Many hands make light work. And folks, hang on one more second here. Before we adjourn, write any comments that you want to on the evaluation forms or if you don't want to write them, turn them in anyway, we'll use them next year. Thank you to Kimberly Hagan, our microphone runners Bella Sermonara, Lila Crowley, Liz Kurtz, Stenzo, Landis Maranello, Sila Brady. Thanks microphone runners, you rock. Love you, Lila, sorry. And stick around for dinner.