 All right. Well, if we have a forum, so if we'll start the meeting at 6.31 first on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is there anything that needs to be amended or we good to go as we have it? I think we should just table the executive session for 2 weeks because I don't have my packet or any information to talk to you about. So I think we should just push that for 2 weeks. It's nothing crazy. Okay, so everybody gets that. Yep. Yep. Okay. Other than that, should we put on the agenda discussion about meeting? We can. Well, we got the warning. Yeah, I mean, it can be talked just like the warning, I guess. Okay. Just bring it up at that. Yeah. I'll just take note. All right. Okay, so just. Okay, Dave moved it. And second gene second it, I think first, everybody get that. All in favor. Hi. Okay, so we have budget discussions which. Thank you for the most part we. Okay, we're at a good, we're at a good place to last discussion. So I don't know any changes trees since the last one. I know we're still using our old one. The, um, I put the tax rate calculation again in your packet. And. Excuse me. And, um, I was totally lost my train of thought. Oh, and so I, I put in the library. I put in the library. I put in the library. I put in the library. I put in the library. The recreation committee and the thousand dollar request that we received a petition for from the Randolph playhouse. So when you look at the tax rate, that separate sheet that I made you up in the. Left-hand corner. There's a, um, you know, it just calls that out. So when you look at that tax rate number, it includes. So right now the way trees has it. Let's assume everything that's on the, the warning was approved. That would be a five cent increase, 5.1 cent increase. Which she shows here in her calculations. Of which 2.8 cents is between the library, the recreation department and the playhouse. So, so our budget, I guess you call the base budget that we're proposing. We're going to go back to the, we're going to go back to the base budget. The base budget is 2.3 cents as it stands currently. So I didn't make any changes to the budget itself. Cause you hadn't made any last time. And Chris, did you seek? I can see you have the hard copy there. Right. Yeah. I just took it out of your bag. Okay. I didn't, I didn't break you down further on each one of those, but it's probably about. 21,000. So you can kind of do the math on what the library and the, you know, the rec, the rec piece of it's, you know, it's almost, you know, it's like 1.4 cents. The library is. You know, 1.2 or, you know, Playhouse is like a 0.1 cent or something. So, yeah. And just remember that people have, I mean, I had no idea that petition was coming from the playhouse. And so people have until they have to have handed it into. So, you know, you know, I don't know if it's going to be, you know, I don't know if it's going to be paying by the 19th. So. You know, hopefully we know about everything that's out there, but. Is that a petition of Bethel residents or Randolph residents or both or. Bethel and Pam verified it that they receive 5% of the signatures. And. My guess is. Dave or a Paul, excuse me, is that. The governor and the city committee. And they all, maybe they, maybe they went to more than one town would be my fight hazard. A guest that probably going to surrounding town. So he passed the petition. You got 5% of the registered voters in Bethel and Pam certified those. So. So it's a one time. It seems like it. Yeah. It seems like it. It seems like it. It seems like it. They could have yep. And Lindley's messaging saying that he is on the board of the playhouse. So. That was my assumption when he, when I got, when not Pam got the petition. So. So maybe one of those to follow up on the human service. Yeah. Next year. Yeah. I mean, granted. You know, the individual didn't do anything technically wrong by having the petition. I mean, they. They probably could have easily come before the select board and gotten the same. Same thing too, but. Well, it shows their support. We can't. We can't add it to the. To the, you know, No, they'd have to stand up a town meeting stand alone now. They would have to have a town, a Bethel town resident be their representative and stand up a town meeting and ask for. An additional. A thousand dollars to be put on the human services. Number. But, but they did the petition. So it's, it did it this way. That's fine. I just. Because I think that's where it'll go. It doesn't explain much though. Yeah. No, it doesn't. They don't have that, that narrative in the town report that talks about what they do and. How they serve, you know, Bethel and things like that. That's missing. Well, it just might be an opportunity to. Educate the individual individuals. So that next year, maybe they can propose the human services and have a nice little blurb in the town. Book and. Okay. So. So as far as the budget goes, did anybody have any. Thing they wanted to add or. Or move around or talk about or. I think we beat it up pretty good. Okay. So here in non seeing none. Guess we'll move on. And then we have the draft town meeting warning. And the bond informational. So maybe we just start with the town meeting warning first. And that's changed a little bit because I had to add the. The bond vote. To it. And I did have the town attorney. Look at the warning. Mainly just to deal with, to look at the language. And I think it's a little bit, I think a little bit more of the language that. The law is not necessarily scripted vote. Language, but to make sure it was placed as he wanted. So he did make a couple of small changes. To the warning, just. Legal changes. So other than that, it should be all set to go. In a course of states. On there that, that were. Meeting in. Person. And that. Australian ballot is going to be held and that sort of thing. Chris, can you just remind us if the bond vote doesn't pass, what happens? We'll vote it again, probably in April or May. We'll just re-vote it. I did draft a mailer and sent it to Aldrich and Elliott and asked Mike to ask them to edit it. Besides a blurb in town report and besides, I still want to do a mailer just like we did for the first, that way it goes to everybody. It'll go to occupants, so whether they're a registered voter or not, it'll go to everybody. If we were to have a different schedule or something for the town meeting, how does that impact the number 17 about electing town officers by Australian ballot? We'd have to remove it. That can only be done at an in-person meeting? Yes, because you vote, because Bethel votes from the floor, they're a floor vote town, so that has to be voted from the floor. That's why we haven't voted it in the past. Right, right, I'm just, just information. Sure. So obviously I have the date of you signing it as your next meeting. So not to throw a bunch of stuff at you. So the the water bond vote. So I had a couple of questions, high level. So the first high level question is I see in the notes on the project cost summary. That that what I would call is like the the water main replacement pieces are eligible for up to $450,000 of loan forgiveness. Yep. And and currently that piece of the project is $925,000. So so I guess the way I'm envisioning that is kind of like the last one. We we we bond a higher number knowing that it's likely that we're going to have some subsidies there. Exactly. So if we do get that and then does that and then the lead subsidy. Is that on top of that? So there's the fight up to 425 and then there's the lead subsidy for for those pieces as well that qualify. I think that if I remember, I don't have my packet. If I remember off top of my head that the 425 was the lead subsidy because remember when they did the oh initials IUP that that it came out. They did them as two separate projects and one was the water line replacement. And that did receive a 50 percent lead subsidy also eligible for the same 40 year zero percent interest. The second part was the Crystal Drive pump house and that work. And that at the time looked like we weren't eligible for any subsidy. But since we met with Amy Galford, Mike Maynard and I met with Amy Galford from the state. She actually said once she saw what our medium household income was and she expected that we actually would receive some, you know, forgiveness on that section. So I think that 450 is off from the is the lead subsidy. So so I know when we advertise the last or the first piece of the water, you know, we bonded for 2.8 million. And then yeah. But then the number that we kind of hoped to actually bond for at the end was, you know, somewhere between one two and one five that we kind of people. So if we're during our informational on this one, if we're looking at bonding for 2.5, are we are we thinking that we're going to be more like two million on this at the end? Or maybe a little less, excuse me, because I think we ended up are bonded up being for like 938, I think, out of the 2.8 million. So what Amy is waiting for is Richard and I to finish our draft water budget, which I had just sent to him on Friday for him to look at. And then they need to see our draft water budget because what happens is it sounds crazy, but they look at the median household income, but they also look at how much a bond would raise the water rate. So if it doesn't, they don't think it's going to raise the water rate enough, then that actually hurts us, which is seemingly ridiculous. But that's the way it works. So at this point, I would say that out of the 2.5, I would hope to be, you know, we know we're going to get rid of the 0.5 pretty much. I would definitely expect to be less than 2 million. But until I get her the draft budget and we run the numbers, I can't really give you a better guess. And then we'll get kind of like last time, we'll get what that, if we pass that on to the rate users, then what that quarterly number would be before we talk about it. Exactly. Yep. I've drafted the mailer, so I need a couple pieces of information, and that's a piece of it that I need. So once I get back to the office and Richard gets through the budget and he and I sit down, we'll send it off and we'll have a better idea. And is that something, are we going to have to make a decision to put that on the bond vote, if this will be 100% user picked up or a percentage might go to the town actually user? Yeah, apparently we had that conversation a while ago, and I think we might have at the last time too. If we put it on the town as a whole, then we will lose any chance of getting any subsidy for financial reasons because the medium household income, because we're going to spread it so far. Whereas if it just goes to the users, that's a smaller population. So we would get more, we're going to get a better deal if we put it to the users. And luckily the other bond payment was down I think to $23,000 in change. So it certainly can be picked up by the water users, water sewer users. What would be the net increase for the water users? I don't know yet because like I said, I need to get, once I give them a draft of the water budget that you won't approve until May, she'll have a better idea. When we talked about it, she certainly felt that we would obviously qualify for the 40 year zero percent interest. And she felt that there would be some additional subsidies available to us. So, but I don't know exactly yet what that will be. The other thing is, remember, we can go through this and we need to vote it. So we go to the voters and we voted it doesn't pass and we move on to the next, you know, we just do it in another month or so. But obviously if the bids are too high or anything like that, we can always, you know, re-bid it or do it later. So. But want to make a difference if we specify that it's going to the town or to the users? When you look at this, when you look at the warrant, the warning, it doesn't really say the direction of the payments. Right. And it didn't last time either because the town, the entire town has to vote, just like they did on the 2.8 million, because it's good faith and credit of the entire town of Bethel that, you know, is going to guarantee the loan. So for some reason the water defaulted, the town is still good for it. So it's just the legal wording of the loan. I think what we had done last, or I know what we had done last time was just in the mailer itself had said how much we thought it would increase the user rate. And obviously we were low on that, or we were high on our estimate because we ended up, you know, getting more forgiveness than we thought. Now, was this looking enough? We had advertised last time between $8 and $13 a quarter increase. That was based on anywhere between 1.2 and, I don't know, 2 million or something that we were looking at last time because we didn't think that was going to be 2.8. But we didn't, it ended up coming in, you know, much lower than that. Our increase was like 4. But so, I mean, if you're just looking off those numbers, I mean, I guess you're probably in the $15, $16 a quarter based on 2 million. Yeah. And my notes from our meeting are on my desk. So, I can't give you the whole conversation that I had with her. But again, that, I think that something though, when you look at that, that item, when they're, you know, when they're going to go to vote, that that's a critical part of what should be on there for Word and, you know, who's going to cover it? Is it going to be a, you know? This would be 100% on the user. Yeah. I think it should be, you know, stated as such. Because I might, you know, somebody who's not a water user may look at it differently than somebody who is a water user. That's why we did the mailer last time to explain that. And the legal wording is the way it has to be. But that's why we did the mailer last time and explained it. And like I said, I will have more information to once I get back to the office. So, but that's the wording that we need to put on the morning. And obviously we'll address it in town report, as well as doing an individual mailer to all the occupants. So as far as the morning goes currently, and the way it stands, it's fine with me. Okay. And then do we want to have a discussion in regards to if we feel that the meeting should continue as set with time, date, and location, or if we want to, well, again, Theresa and I were talking today, and the state legislature is going to, well, I can't say is going to. It's likely, it's on the calendar for this week and next week. It's likely that they're going to pass an amendment to the open meeting laws that will allow for the town to take measures again this year and possibly next year to move the venue date or, you know, if you're in person, you can go to Australia voting if necessary, if you feel the need to do that. And there'll be some other caveats. There's a lot of meetings that are still being held 100% online that technically violate. Well, the violations, the emergency effects, I think, is through like the 15th of January. So anything after the 15th of January is what there's no extension on right now. So I guess the question that comes before us means we're on the warning is, you know, do we feel good with moving forward having our town meeting in person? You know, I guess there's a couple of things that have been on the warning for a couple of years that we can only deal with in person. So the longer that we don't deal it in person, the longer it stays out there. Or do we, you know, if the state allows, do we want to look at either changing the date or changing the method? How does the members feel currently? Thanks, Dave. Well, let's see what the lead inspector says. They might have a door open for us at any time up to that date to be able to maneuver around. So why do we want to maneuver today? We don't even know what we're going to be able to do or not. Well, we'd have to make a decision 100% by next meeting. Right, Trace? Well, you have to sign the warning. I don't have the calendar in front of me, but I think it's the 23rd we have to because town report goes to the printer on the 25th. So you have to sign the warning. At some point, I mean, there are things that you could do. Obviously, you could encourage people to social distance. There's room enough, I think, in the gymnasium for that. We could see about acquiring extra masks or just reminding people to, you know, wear a mask if they're uncomfortable. So I'm sure, you know, people will do if they want to come. There are precautions people could take and that we could provide for people. Yeah, and I was talking to Gene a little bit before we get on here and I didn't have a chance to send everybody, but I quickly went on the CDC site today to just kind of look up some of the country wide and statewide. They have, you can break down these different graphs and show cases versus deaths. So I was doing that and it looks like, I mean, even though we tend to hear about a lot of cases left and right now, it seems like, you know, a lot of different people we know are quarantining or sick or something. If you go on there, they have some pretty handy maps. Countrywide, I mean, everything is on the low end of the, what we call the, you know, since they started doing this in March of 2020. So cases and obviously deaths per day are at the lowest that they've been. But we have had some recent increases that people are getting sick. But then I was looking at the state data, the state data right now, which of course, these are reported cases, there's, there's. It makes a big difference. Yeah. You know, so, you know, right now that there's been no deaths in Vermont here. And then currently there says it's 51, 51 cases that are open of people that have reported something. So, so the data points anyways, look, look, look, they're on the bottom end of the two-year spectrum. I mean, who knows, maybe we'll, maybe we'll never get to zero, you know, with these things. But at some point we're going to have to figure out how to live with it. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I know, yeah, there's, I mean, different sides, everybody's got a different side to it. I know some people I've talked to are very, very happy and kind of I think in some ways giddy to go to a town meeting day because they haven't seen some of the people that they like to chum around with for a couple of years. And, and I think some people just kind of got used to doing things, you know, from a distance that kind of like to stay that way. So it's, I think it's going to be a mixed bag. I think it's going to be a mixed bag. I did, I just asked that question because I, there are people who, for whom the whole COVID thing would keep them from coming. And it's a question of accessibility. I think the one nice thing is, at least by having at the school, that's my opinion, but at least at the school, there is more square footage there than like if we held it here, it's, you know, you're pretty much sitting on top of each other. I think the school, unless we have a turnout, an unexpected turnout, which typically we have at the school about 180 people, 200. So usually there's some decent opportunities to spread out amongst the bleachers on the sides. And maybe we could, you know, maybe spread chairs out a little, a little further or something, you know, there might be some other precautions we can take to might be one, you know, the only thing I could think of is we typically have the chairs down close, you know, maybe there's a way we can move the chairs back a little bit. But at the same time, we'd probably have to talk with the sound engineer there on making sure that the sound carries further into the gymnasium. Well, you're also going to have a set up for us around the mouth at that day too. Well, I don't know if that's going to be out in the hallway or if it's going to be in the, in the hall itself. Yeah, all the way. Yeah, so you should have, because we usually use, I don't want to say half the gymnasium, but we use the front half. Yeah, a good part of it. In the back half, you've got some open, Boston, maybe this whole thing. And if you've got the people that are interacting in the front, the people who just want to be there, sit as far back as possible. I can't hear you. Yeah, sorry. That's a pet peeve of mine. What was the question about where are you going to vote? The Australian ballot pieces of it, but that'd be out in the front. So how realistic, how realistic is it to have distance? You know that? Well, we have pie. I don't know. Yeah, well, that, you know, ideally we could have a picnic, but not first week of March. I remember one year was really one. But, you know, then we could be outside and we could be, you know. So I guess right now it kind of sounds like from the board that we're kind of in favor of leaving it alone for now. Does that sound right? Lindley's not in her head a little bit. Yeah, okay. Yeah, of course, you know, we don't even know what's going to come out of the legislature. I would assume that they will do something like that, but you never know. Let's see what the legislature does. Sounds good. So anything left that were good with the warning and the bond informational stuff for now other than Theresa has some work to get back to us on what the rate information would look like and we'll be hosting the bond. Informational on last day of, yeah, last meeting in February. Okay. Will that be by itself or that'll just be part of our, will we have to adjourn one meeting to another meeting or is it just all one meeting? It'll just be part of your regular meeting because we'll be doing the budget informational, going over the warning all that anyways, so. Okay. All right, and sandhill update. So we had a, myself and Mike Maynard had a conversation with the two folks from EPA regarding the $750,000, so $600,000 earmark and $150,000 of our local match. And it basically, you know, no good deed goes unpunished because if we call it a drinking water project, then the EPA and the DWSRF will use that $600,000 basically kind of against us by when they go to calculate medium household income and what we're going to get for a subsidy, whereas if we call it a clean water project, then they won't look at it. So what we could, what the whole goal of that thing, the idea of the earmark was basically was to redo sandhill and stormwater. The fact that if we got waterline in it, it would have been just a bonus. So what our thinking is, is we basically, is we take the water out of it. We're still going to do the water line because we'll be digging up the road, but that won't get paid for out of the drinking water, revolving loan fund. And then we use this $600,000 plus the $150,000 earmark and we replace the stormwater, replace any road base that we need to and repave, you know, full, full two lane pave. And maybe what we can do is actually go farther up the hill. Maybe we can even make it to, I don't know, maybe to the town garage. So because of the way that we wrote the project and the way that the feds passed it through the budget, we actually were really lucky. We ended up with some flexibility. So it makes the most sense for us financially to label it as a clean water project, do the stormwater that we always wanted to do and, you know, rebuild the road, repave, which we wanted to do. And the waterline will just get covered by the $2.8 million project, or excuse me, $2.5 million project. So it's a good, you know, and obviously we know we can't use any, we have to use our own money for the match, but we knew that that it come out of the capital road budget. So it still gets the job done. We just, it's really just what we're going to call it. So if the water, water bond goes through, when would we break ground? Hopefully in the spring or summer of 23. Okay. So it would be this coming. It would be this construction season. Okay. And then do we have a certain time to have to use the Sanders earmark by? No, actually, believe it or not, we don't. And you actually, the funny thing is, you don't even have to technically use it all. They can, if you say you only did a whatever $400,000 project, the other money is there for you to go back, go back to for a future project, unless the Senate, unless the feds decide they're going to, you know, pass something and take all that money back. So it's a gamble and we don't really want to take and obviously all the sandhill stinks. So the further we can get up sandhill with the money, the better off we are. Okay. And it would be obviously part of the same project, but a separate contract. Okay. And the engineering will be covered. The EPA requires an environmental study and some engineering. So we'll also, that cost will be wrapped into the $750,000. Great. Good news. Okay. And we hit the June final audit. Yeah. So I think I made, there's a link on the website and I have a hard cop or have a hard couple hard copies of somebody wants to borrow it. If you have any questions about it, I'm not sure what I can answer tonight, but you can just send me an email or come see me in the office and I can explain anything to you. It obviously gives you the management letter. It gives you, you know, suggestions for down the road, things we need to do. A couple different policies they suggest. Oh, what else? Oh, write up about accounts not bouncing. Well, you know, you're going to get that one till the day you die because if they have to make any adjustment, that's the write up they give you, but no substantial findings. So everything looks good. And I'm still waiting to hear back from Tyler Kimberley, the auditor from a different firm for the transfer station. He came and spent a day and said I would hear back from him within by the end of December. And I still haven't heard back from him regarding the transfer station audit because he needed a couple things. But he was very nice and, you know, certainly was just trying to catch him up to speed since he'd never audited the transfer station before. Therese, when does it show the undesignated fund balances? Excuse me, I think it's on. It's in one of the first few pages, I think. And, you know, the only thing is the trick of that is when you look at it, the undesignated fund balance has the assets in it which could be or which are like equipment, land. So, you know, when I think about the undesignated fund balance, I'm really trying to think about, you know, the amount of cash. Right. And I think Lindley is saying it's on page four. Oh, thank you. Towards the top. But the last bullet point is under financial highlights, I believe, is what you're asking about. Page one. Four. Page four, okay. Oh, I see, okay. Thank you. And if I remember right here, there's a write up on page seven and eight that goes more into depth on how that number comes about. So, I know that the majority of you have a, I know Chris and Paul have hard copies just because they get a hard copy of the packet. But if there's anybody who wants a hard copy of the audit, there's, I have a couple of my office you can borrow. The one thing, I don't think they ever put it in one of these audits, but I know we had a discussion on for the size of government that we are that there was maybe a size of an undesignated fund that they recommend to have. Yeah, Fred did recommend that. And honestly, I'd have to, I could send him an email because I can't remember. I wonder if he said, I can't remember. I mean, it's actually kind of a good, we're in good waters and we used to be talking about how do we pay all our debt. But I think we're getting, we're at the point now where I think we need to start seeing is what is the right size for that undesignated fund that we should be carrying for things that we don't have to do short term borrowing. And then whatever that number is that's left over, what do we want to do with that undesignated fund? Do we want to put it in different pieces of capital funds or what do we want to do? Do you want to give it back to the tax people or whatever the choices are? So it may be a good discussion for us to have as a group now that we actually have have a rolling balance. Yeah, and we'll have to do a policy on it. But I can email Sullivan and Powers and ask him. I can't remember what meeting was about. I want to say he had recommended like three or $400,000. I could be wrong. It was a few years ago. So it was at least three years ago. So I can't remember. But I can email them and find out. And then obviously they have, I'm sure VLCT has a draft model of a undesignated fund balance policy that we could look at. Yeah, that would be helpful. It's a great problem to have. Yes. Or there could be, I don't even know, there could be, maybe there's things that we could put our money in that we could collect interest on or, you know, I mean, other than have it just sit in a fund. Well, sometimes the, so, you know, we've taken undesignated fund balance and you can put it into capital funds. Sometimes, you know, you can return it to voters by reducing the tax rate by a percentage or by, say, a few dollars or something like that. So you have options. Right. Yep. Sounds good. Anything more on the audit? Anybody have any questions on that? Jay, do you have anything on town managers report for East? That I can think of. I have it on my, let me see. You didn't have to care about wall setting up a meeting with the wall with that, with the district cap. Yeah, they haven't gotten back to me. Of course. One guy said, was we're gonna have to fall down into group 12 slash 107 before that happened. Yeah. So let me see. Yeah. So I have the easement deeds. Oh, yeah. And the international truck repair ended up being more money. Okay. Oh, there. So there is something else. That's right. So I know we had talked about at a last meeting, international and ended up being that it needed these piston sleeves so that the price ended up being higher than we then I had read to you at the last meeting and then during after the power outage or during the power outage of that storm on the 15th or 16th, the town garage obviously lost power and they had an issue with a pump getting fuel out of the tank. So we ended up, they had, God bless them, rigged up something for a few days. And then when that no longer work, they had to buy diesel from McCullough's Quickstop and we had had reached out to CV oil about having a repair person come and look at the motor. But it appears it was not the motor. It was the switch because the whole motor switch is going to be, you know, eight to 10 grand to replace, but they were able to repair the switch. And I have not seen that bill, but AJ intimated that it could be four to $5,000. But I think Dave Eddy has more information maybe or could speak to that more than I could because he was present. And I believe he dealt with that or spoke to maybe the repair man. Is that true, Dave? No, I went there. The best I could found it had power, but everything on that motor and switcher is sealed. And in no way I was going to be able to get inside that. So that's why they had to get somebody else. I don't know if you've ever seen one, but it's all bolted together, exploded through above my pay grade. They ended up saying that the motor, he thought the motor was fine. It was just the switch that isn't right or that burned out or whatever. And so he and the other thing too, of course, the age of the pump was so old that they came with some parts in hopes that maybe they could fix it with what they had because we certainly weren't replacing parts other than that because the model is sold. So I don't know the whole detail yet because I haven't seen the contractor's report yet if something shorted out or what happened. So So according to your report that the switch was the issue, but there potentially could be a long-term repair, which is a new pump? Yeah, which is the one that's eight to 10 grand. So hopefully the, excuse me, switch replacement or switch repair will last. I don't know if I haven't seen the report or spoken to AJ or Morgan about it yet. That was not what we wanted to hear, of course. So that would not be an insurance claim. That would just be a bad BS. Well, so it's around a new pump or replacing the pump that I just needed to just raise the questions about refurbished versus, you know, and there are quite genuine questions I have. I don't know what's best, but I don't know if you saw my email. No, I didn't. But I will say, I believe the pump that's in there now is used. So certainly that was my question to AJ and or Morgan was, you know, if we have to get a new pump, does the gentleman or company sell refurbished pumps? So it also sounds like the technology that we have in the ground up there is ancient. Yeah, if that was a used pump to go into the underground tank. That's what picked up my questions are. I never know whether it's better to buy something refurbished as opposed to new in terms of how does that impact the lifespan of the equipment and increases or changes in efficiency and technology and all of that. It's just it's a complicated question and I just wanted to raise it. Yeah, it'll definitely be a conversation for us to have with, you know, with a dealer, because maybe, you know, do they warranty, you know, if they do a refurbished and what's a warranty on new versus used and maybe we don't have to go down that rabbit hole. But I don't know yet. All I know is it's up and running right now. So yeah, so we're good for now. The other thing that came up was I had mentioned to you all that when Richard had and I had the wastewater inspection that there were going to be some things that changed because the EPA had kind of gone to the state of Vermont and said look, we have some rules and regulations that have changed and you need to enact them because if you don't enact them, then EPA is going to start issuing your permits. So Richard is still working on getting a handle on what those costs are going to be and what the time frame is going to be. But he also because the age of the plant is of course, you know, 35 years old, we had he had had some inspections done and there's a piece and there's a piece in there. Okay, try it again trees. Okay. The so we're still trying to get some pricing on or Richard is on the what how the additional testing and equipment are going to impact the wastewater budget. But this summer or excuse me this fall, Richard did have some different contractors come out to do some inspections of our existing equipment because of the age of the facility and you know, Tim could walk in and hear something and figure out what was off. And obviously Richard, you know, we don't have that experience yet. Anyways, one of the things there's an estimate for I think in the folder that's in my bag and that's there was two pumps that and I'm totally blowing this but it's not in front of me. So basically they have these bronze gears. And so Richard had them both inspected and one of the bronze gears was fine. And the gentleman came and did a little repair and was happy with it. The second one, once those gears get even just a little bit out of whack, it affects the way the pump runs. So Richard asked for an estimate to replace it. So we got that. And it was like $32,000. I thought Richard and I were going to swallow our tongue. So so luckily in the wastewater budget, we have $30,000 in there that we, you know, could have transferred to a reserve fund, but it looks like we're going to have to spend it to do that. So he has brought in someone else as well to look at a couple other aspects of the plant because the plant has aged. We need to get a handle on what needs to be replaced, what the timeline is. I mean, all of his new pumps are installed. He's waiting for the variable speed drives now. And our generator hasn't come in yet, but this, we don't have a choice. We had, we have to order. So luckily there's money in the wastewater budget to cover it. But needless to say, we cried a little inside when we saw the price tag. We figured 8 to 10, we had no idea it'd be 30. And there was also, when I was down there talking to you guys, I don't know, you might have gone over this when the speaker cut out or not, but there's some testing requirements that used to get done. I'll make it up once every four or five years that now need to get done once a year that's going to impact it as well. So there may be a thousand dollars more in testing on certain things each year too. Exactly. So Richard and I are going over the, I've gave him both the draft of the wastewater and the water budgets. And, you know, some of those things, because our water, wastewater permits out for comment right now. Luckily, you know, I think the majority of the other wastewater things are going to come into our next budget cycle. So we'll be able to, it won't be a big surprise like this, like this is like this one is. But it's an aging facility and this is what we're going to deal with, I guess. Just realized we missed a public comment period. There was nobody in or around, but if anybody did have anything public comment wise. I do. I understand the energy committee received a grant. Yep. It's in your packet. Okay. Yeah, it's the same one that they applied for that they came to you before about the manpower and it's in there yet. I think I said that. I mean, I think it's in the town managers report. If it's not, it should be. But yes, they did get that manpower grant. So Nicole was excited about that. Okay. Let's see. Select board meeting minutes from the 19th. We have second. Second by Linley. Paul and Weber. Okay. And other communications in there was a planning commission that I had saw. Then there was a correspondence there with regards to the energy committee's grant stuff. But I didn't see any other committee notes in there. Just that one. No, there was just the thing from Du Bois and King. That's the draft stormwater piece. It's the smaller version. The bigger ones like 80 pages long. I didn't give you that. So that one just hits the highlights. Okay. And that's part of the better connections, the money that we receive for stormwater. As I said, Town Import has to go to the printer on the 25th. So Chris, I sent you an email last Friday, I think, without the year in review. So I had gone through all the agendas and kind of sent a bulleted list. So if you see anything in there, you want out or you want in or whatever, I'm going to draft that. And then I'll send it to the Slack board. But yeah, I'll take a look at that. Other than that, once now that the budget, I know the budget, I'll be able to kick out a bunch of, you know, my portion is a lot of it is the numbers. And which I can't do anything about. So I just settle in a budget. So. All right. As far as the warning goes, have we heard about anybody wanting to run for any of the open seats? I had a conversation with someone who approached me and she may be interested. And I had told her to chat with Paul that I felt that he would, you know, it's his seat. So I suggested she reach out to Paul and have a conversation with him about, you know, duties. I think that sometimes people forget or they don't know that it's not just the Slack board. You're also on the board of, you know, adjustment board of abatement. So there's sometimes there's more to it. So I'm not sure if she's reached out to Paul yet or not. Yeah, because we got the one board seat. We have a Lister seat. I believe that both individuals for public funds is running again. Is that right? Well, it's one to replace the balance of my term and Sandy is coming up for renewal. So there's one person for public funds. One Lister. Okay. Other than that, I haven't spoken to anybody, but since it's off the floor, it doesn't mean you've known in advance of who's running anyways. Right. No, no. Well, just it's nice to organize it ahead of time or else people will dominate and second somebody that's not there or we've had those meetings. They also agreed, you know, to Paul's comment that if they were interested in running, they did understand the value of attending Slack board meetings in advance just so they knew, you know, what was coming down the pike and what you were currently working on. All right. Anything else come before the board? Excuse me. Oh, so we should, I'm sorry. Yes, we should say that obviously because of lack of staffing, the only one left standing right now is Pam Brown, God bless her. And to close the office, the town manager side Monday and Tuesday. And then Kelly's hoping to work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And so I think Pam was going to try to change the outgoing message. She put something on front porch forum and Facebook and water payments were due the end of December. So delinquent utility bills went out. And so if anyone wants to have a payment dropped off, they could just drop it through the slot in the door or they could mail it to the town office. And depending on how I feel and when my fever breaks and all that, I can go back to the office. And but right now, obviously, we've been short staffed off and on since October. And so now it's really short because it's just Pam. So anyway, so just be patient. If people need stuff, you know, it may take a week for someone to get back to you. Sorry, our new AI robots are coming in. So. Well, thank God. Sign them up in Beville. We'll take two. It was in the front page for them. And I just pass. Yeah, they ready. Anything else? Dave's looking to string this thing out for at least another half an hour. So oh, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. So anyways, I'm going to see how I feel try to answer emails possibly off and on. But thank you very much, Dave, for getting the key to locking up the building. I really appreciate that. So you're locking up tonight. Okay. All righty. Well, rest up. Thank you. Hey, Lindley, I'm pulling for you so that you're healthy. All right. Hey, Paul, motion to adjourn. Second. We'll have a good night, everybody. Thank you. You too.