 yet it may be in the old Village Charter. That's probably something that we can work on, but again, you have to be careful about how it's written because people have a constitutional right to have firearms, and whether they have a constitutional right to fire them in any given place or not is a different question, but that's something that we can look into. I understand that. With regard to the ordinance, just so everybody is clear, it's something that we can look into, and if it's something that the select board decides that they want to enact, if a lawyer tells us that they have the authority to do that, I just want everyone to know it's a month's long process before it can happen. It's not going to be something that can be passed next meeting and be valid the next day. It takes about between the, from the beginning to the end, it takes about three months to pass an ordinance. So I just want you to be clear that it's not going to be overnight solution. I understand that, and I appreciate you guys looking at it. I mean, I grew up in Vermont. I understand our rights, and I'm well versed in it. My father brought me up hunting. I totally understand it, but I think there's just a little bit of concern when we're so concentrated here that people would act in that way. And again, you can't write a law for everything. I do appreciate the fact that you followed up with AOT and Teresa and Tom, and it sounds like things are good in the other hand. And I know Kelly had brought up before too, that we do understand those people will probably move on, and it's, you know, there's programs out there and we probably need much more like you said, but I appreciate what you've done so far. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know if Kelly is on and wants to say anything or if she's- Yeah, I'm on. And actually, I just wanted to ask a follow-up question to Bill. You said it takes three months. Are you talking about if you can find the previous ordinance that the village had, or are you speaking to starting from scratch? No, if, let's say I had the ordinance to present the select board tonight, they could pass it tonight and it won't take effect for 60 days from the time they pass it. So it's not on the agenda tonight. They wouldn't be able to do anything until the next meeting. And then even if they passed it, it takes 60 days before it's effective. And then like everything in Vermont, there's also a provision in there that allows people to petition a town meeting to overturn the ordinance. And that petition would have to be filed within, I think it's 44 days of the ordinance being passed. So, you know, it's a couple of months before it can be effective. That's all I want you to be aware of. Okay, and that's provided you can find the old one. And if you were to start from scratch, then we would look at a longer timeline. Well, I mean, if it's something the select board wants to do and they told me, you know, find out if we can have an ordinance that prohibits shooting in a particular area of town and we want it for the next meeting. I think I could get that information and have something drawn up by the next meeting. So that's a couple of weeks and then it's 60 days after that. So it's two and a half months. I said three a minute ago, but... Okay. Bill, have you heard any information about, I'm just curious to know if the state has any definition on unders, like squatters, you know, gaining to people that just come on your property and set up tents and decide they're hanging out. Whether or not there's any laws pertaining to those, like to... I really don't. I think the only reason why the state got involved in this particular case is because it's state property. The right of way is owned by the state. So it's just like us with that growth field. They own the property. They can go in there and say, you know, we're issuing an order of no trust pass and you need to leave. But if they were on your property, I'm not sure. I don't know the answer to the question, Chris. Yeah, you alluded to the problem, simply picking up from there and going somewhere else. And I'm wondering if there's any information pertaining to possible squatters and what rights citizens have, landowners have under those types of rules? Well, I'm pretty sure landowners have pretty good rights assuming they exercise them in a timely basis. If you let them stay there for, you know, years, then that's when it becomes problematic, I think. But if you wanted to get somebody off there right away, you might have to take legal action to do it, but you could do it. And I don't think it's any mistake that these people ended up on the OT property either. I don't think you're quite as ignorant as people may come out to be, I guess. That's the right word. Anyway, that's... Anyway, that's the right word for that. So, okay, so we'll move on to select board items then. If nobody has any more comments pertaining to the homeless encampments, I think the information's been given and keep our fingers crossed and hope that the problem gets solved. Thank you people for joining us and talking to us. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you, Sam, Chris. Yeah, good night. Chris? Yes? Hi, Chris. There's a caller on the line ending in 9998 that I don't have a name for. We're listening there, 279... Well, 802-793-9998. Can you tell us who you are, please? Acknowledge. Let us know who you are, please so we can put you on the list. So, we have a 9998... Hi, can you hear me? Yes. This is Hadley Lyskovsky from the Valley Reporter. Oh, Hadley. Should have recognized that number. Put that down, Karen, so you know it. Thanks, Hadley. Yep, no problem. But we're good everywhere as else. And Dan McKibbin, you got him down, right? Karen, okay. And I'm with the Rotary Club in case you don't know. So, we can talk to John Ringer about jumping on our three committee. How you doing this evening, John? Good, well, thanks, Chris. How are you? Good to run down as to why you're so excited to be on the first committee. Yeah, sure. So, I know Jane Brown who mentioned an opening on the committee to me, I guess, a couple of months ago now. So, it went to one of their meetings they had. My interest stems from my undergraduate degree is in forestry and I work in the environmental space currently in corporate sustainability consulting and would love to get a little bit more action with trees through this committee and work with them on some of the planning and projects they have going on here in Waterbury. So, it's kind of a personal interest standpoint. And in terms of a personal side, I've lived in Waterbury for eight years now. My wife and I live up off of Neyland Flats on Huntington Drive. And yeah, just want to get more involved in the community and let this a good way to do it. Can you tell us a little bit about your forestry class and how that helped you out and what you learned, perhaps a little bit about that background? Yeah, certainly. So, again, studied forestry at UVM. A lot of that is in focus at that time was in silvicultural management. So, essentially using natural, mimicking natural processes and the way that you're managing forests. That's more of a forest-based, natural forest-based approach. Obviously within the town, you're more looking at single tree type species and situational plantings. So, I think some of the areas there that are more pertinent around pest management, I know the committee's been working a lot on planning for the Emerald Ash borer, discussed that our last meeting. You know, I'm also interested in exploring as people move through our area. You know, we have one of the busiest state parks here with Little River. So, looking at ways that we can help ensure that pest management, firewood isn't moving in and out of there. That could be negatively impacting the trees within Waterbury, Waterbury Center. So, my experience is a lot around and education is a lot around identifying those challenges and then potential areas for improved management and then creating plans to do so. So... So, as part of the forestry, forest wizard, I don't know if there's a similarity in any type of arborist training, right? Yeah, so I actually worked as an arborist right after graduating for about a year. So, have some hands-on experience with tree cutting, tree pruning, and then identifying the best species to plant where and when and what they're, and the pros and cons of those species, depending on what you're looking to do, whether it's moist soils, sandy soils, and what you're trying to achieve in that area. Any other board members, any questions? I was like, you're pretty qualified. I know from past stories I've covered the emerald ash borers are a pretty big problem. I know some other committees and other towns neighboring us, like Mortown, are pretty active in doing research with that. I'm blanking on his name right now, but his first name, oh, John Hogan Boom, he's pretty popular and he's really, he's really good in that field and the tree research, but yeah, it sounds like you know what you're talking about and you sound really qualified for this position and interested. Question three that's kind of lighter than Chris's, is what's your favorite kind of tree? Yeah, I grew up in the state of Maine, so I have to go with my home state tree, which is the white pine, but close second stuff on the sugar maple, so. And Katie, just to remind you, and John probably knows too, but we did a street management plan to just inventory all the street trees and identify the ash trees that we have in town and we have a management plan in place that we're starting to work on and that's some of the things the tree committee is kind of doing as well. So we have taken some steps with regard to the emerald ash borer as well. Yeah, that's right. I think they worked with Red Star Forestry on that management plan. And it's, as you said, Bill focused on town owned land. The last meeting there, discussion around engaging with, you know, businesses like Shaw's that have ash trees on their property that aren't within that scope, but providing them some of the information. Good Bill, Bill. Can you fill us in a little bit, perhaps on how the tree committee, if at all, deals with like trees that are in town rights of way that are on people's property, what right they have to enforce trimming back. That's really more the tree warden's authority, Steve Watts Beach is the tree warden for the town. The tree committee is more of a policy setting committee to try to identify, you know, how trees can be used in the beautification process, the emerald ash borer, as far as the street trees are concerned, we have a fair number of them to try to plan, you know, what we do, what we do next, but people who have unsafe trees or nuisance trees, if you will, that are potentially in the highway right away, that's more of the tree warden's issue and Steve would be involved in that. That's good to define those different. Yep. Yeah, anything? Sounds like John is a well-qualified man for the position. Yeah, seems to have. Having said that then, we won't belabor John tonight, and if somebody wants to make a motion to nominate him for a term of what would that be, Bill? Chris? Here, oh, Carla, you're there, okay. The term is a remainder of three year term to expire on April 31st of 2023. April 31st? First. 31st. 30th. 30th. 30th, okay. So somebody wants to make a motion to approve John Ringer for tree committee for a term up to April 30th, 2023. I move to appoint John Ringer for the remainder of a term that expires April 30th, 2023 for the tree committee. That's all second. The discussion, comments. Last chance, John. All those in favor of approving John, say aye, please. Aye. Aye. Welcome aboard, John. It's good, thanks, everyone. Okay. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ordering, club, entertainment, permit. To you, Dan. Yes, we submitted a permit for an event we've scheduled this weekend provisional to select board approval to combine effort of the rotary and revitalizing water very intended to focus just on our community members for not trying to draw people in from afar. They took a strict attention to the state guidelines as they pertain to events like this. This event can be composed of two elements, a market following the farmer's market guidelines and a drive in concert type event following the ACC guidelines for drive in events. So as you are probably aware, we've run four drive-in events so far in the summer, very successful from our perspective. And the rotor is going to run this the same way. We have reservations, free reservations to get a designated parking spot or a walk-in spot on the lawn and it will be held in the Pildner Park. The market will be for peasants and food. We have sort of between 15 and 20 vendors there. That could be very controlled, the only traffic, we're going to limit the number of people going in at any one time. We're going to have sanitation stations set up, we'll have a Portolette set up, trash we're going to be on top of. So we've really put a lot of attention into controls both to make sure we avoid crowding and to deal with sanitary issues. So our request is for the select board to approve this and let me know if you have any questions. Can you remind us of your days that you'd like to get the sheet here in front of me? Yeah, it's this Saturday, potential rain date on Sunday, although the weather looks good, so it's most likely going to happen Saturday. The market will open at 4 p.m. and go until 7 p.m. The concert is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. And we're going to have the band still kicking, performing on a flatbed truck parked at the back of the furthest back lot at Pilgrim Park. Right now your permit request is just for the... Just for, just it's just for Saturday with a potential rain date of Sunday. Just... Yep. Dan, are you going to have food trucks as well? Yes, we have three food vendors planned. Okay. And you'll have members there that are kind of monitoring as far as the whole social distancing masks and all the other requirements, right? Yes. So as you've probably seen in our promotional materials, we're re-emphasizing the fact that people need to wear masks unless they are in their designated pod area and we're going to have people staffed, checking people in, directing traffic and keeping people in their area. Obviously the biggest area we want to avoid crowding is in the market. So we're going to throttle people, limit the people going in at any time and keep them up at a six-foot distance if we need to. I remember back when I was on the DRB, Dan, that it came up once about the hours of outside performances that are held in Pilgrim Park. Is this similar to the hours that would normally be in a music in the park situation? Yes, it's going to end by eight, which is earlier than we would... Yes, it's definitely within that timeframe. Great. That's my only concern. Were there any problems in any of the past events that you had? Did everything go smoothly with that? Everything went smoothly. I think that we had an opportunity to have more local people to just... It was not a problem, but we could have had more people come to Farrer's Field or the drive-in we did at Pilgrim Park. But in terms of logistics, it went fine, people stayed in their areas. Our main goal for doing this is a positive experience for our communities and I can see Karen has now joined us and we've been joined at the HIPAA plant. Karen, want to add in on this at all? No, I suspect Dan has done a good job. We've really enjoyed partnering with the Rotary Club and we're just really looking forward to creating a safe community event. There seems to be a real desire by the community to get together in some way and we have been meticulous, follow rules and regs that are set by the state to make this happen. We're looking forward to it. Please come. Yeah, if this is successful, do you think you... I don't know if there's enough time left in the season, but do you think you would try to have another one? Not this fall, because quite honestly, I'm already worried about the market. It's gonna be too dark at seven o'clock at night. And so I don't see that, but this is a format for COVID-19 related events. Across our fingers, we can actually create our regular events in 2021. That's I think what Dan is hoping with NQID, what we're hoping with the Arts Fest. This partnership's been really valuable, I think for both of us as ways to work together going forward. And the Rotary doesn't have any big events planned. We're doing things like a turkey collection part of Thanksgiving and other community service. We still don't know what we would do for like a Santa event like we do each year, but certainly anything we do is constrained by not getting people crowded together. Well, even though my workload doesn't allow me to participate in these types of things, I, you know, when you talk about doing these things, all I think of is community, you know, and that it's just a great effort for everybody to bring everybody together and just let everybody know that, you know, there's people out there that wanna participate, wanna care about each other and makes living here in this state so desirable, you know. Great. And Karen, is this an event that people have to register for before they come? Yes, for both market without registering, which I said we're gonna control that, you know, the population going through there. To attend a concert, people must reserve ahead of time. We've had a good turnout, I don't know what the number is out of them. Today, the order of participants were reserving pods in the parking lot, as I heard. And yeah, but yes, they need to reserve spots. Thank you. Anybody wish to make any other comments? Take a motion to approve the entertainment permit for the Rotary Club for Saturday, you know, with a possible rain day of Sunday, the 12th and 13th. I'll make that motion. Second. Second it. Any further discussion? All those who wish to approve, say aye. Aye. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Karen. Thank you. Locke. Okay, the big topic for the night, ATV discussion on Woodard Hill. And a few people on the Zoom with us tonight that probably want to weigh in on this a little bit. But before we do, I think we'll let Bill take a stab at it and give us a little bit of information and background on it. You would, Bill. So the legislature works on a transportation bill every year or so in their biennium. And it's a pretty broad bill that touches on capital projects, budgeting, financing, highway projects, both stayed in local. And then it becomes kind of a catch-all where other issues are addressed. And I know there's folks on the meeting tonight who probably operate ATVs and use them, but there was a change to the state law with regard to ATVs on municipal highways. The old law was pretty clear that you could not operate an ATV on a municipal highway unless there were certain conditions met. And one thing that was pretty clear was that an ATV could not be operated on a public highway that's a state highway or class one, two, three or four highway unless one of the following applied. And the first thing that was listed in the past was the highways not being maintained during snow season. So most of our town highways that are class four town highways are not maintained in winter by the municipality. And therefore ATVs were allowed to operate on those roads. So Wood and Hill in particular is a road that I think most of the people that are on tonight are concerned about. The new law says an ATV shall not be operated along a public highway, except if one or more of the following applies. And then the first application is the highway has been opened to ATV travel by the legislative body of the municipality where the town highway is located and is so posted. So right now under the old law, if the town didn't maintain a class four road in the winter or for winter travel, that road was automatically open to ATV travel. Now any highway can be opened by the select board to ATV travel, but it takes an affirmative motion by the select board to do it. So my recommendation for tonight is for Wood and Hill road that you should open Wood and Hill road to ATV travel. If you approve that motion, we'll have to put a, we'll have to post the road and tell the public that it is open for ATV travel. I think you can limit it if you'd like to winter operation only, but if you want to allow ATV travel on that road all year round, you can do that as well. And I think even under the old law, if you really kind of parse it out when it used to say on ATV travel shall not be operated on the highway unless it's not being maintained during snow season, it didn't say then that you could only use an ATV in snow season. It just said that road, if it's not maintained in snow season can be open. So anyway, my recommendation for Wood and Hill road is the select board. And you can just do it by motion. That doesn't require an ordinance. You can just make a motion to open that road to ATV travel and I'll stop there and let you ask questions or ask any of the people that are on the meeting if they have concerns or questions to ask. But before I open it up to comments here, I just want to clarify one thing. When you say the road's not plowed during the winter by the town, by the municipality, ATVs can be used. ATVs can be used only during the winter or because it's not being maintained, it can be used year round by ATVs. That was the old law, okay? Old law said an ATV shall not be operated along a public highway except if the highway is not maintained during snow season. Now, the way that's written, I believe somebody could have gone up there with an ATV any time because it just says if the road isn't maintained in the winter, it's open for ATV travel. Year round. Yeah, that's what I would assume. That's what I would assume. But that provision has been wiped out. So whether it's maintained during snow season or not is not an issue anymore. What it says now is an ATV shall not be operated along a public highway except if one or more of the following applies. And in this case, the only one that we're worried about tonight is the highway has been open to ATV travel by the legislative body of the municipality where the town highway is located and is so posted. So you can open Woodard Hill Road to ATV travel just by making a motion and doing it. Where I have now to put up a sign that says it's open and whether you want to open it all year round or not, that's your choice. I think you can now limit it if you'd like. I'm not necessarily recommending that but there's a clear that I want to talk, I'm sure. I want to listen to the people that want to talk to us about this and we'll make a decision as to how we want to structure it. So who wants to go first, please? Chris, I'll go first. It's Rob, Rob Sylvia. Can you hear me okay? We can. All right, so first thanks for throwing this on the agenda. I'll be clear, I'm not a Waterbury resident. I'm a resident of Duxbury, but I co-own with my wife and I with another couple of camp on the Eldridge land at the very top of Woodard Hill extension. We lease the land from the Eldridge company. So Bill's already explained kind of in a nutshell what's happened, which has affected just from my rough numbers, nine camps up on Woodard Hill and six land or camp owners up there. I'm not speaking for the other land owners or camp owners, this is just in regards to the camp I own with the Boudros. But as Bill said, July 1st, H942 or Act 121, I provided the select board with a copy of that and that's the highway transportation bill that Bill mentioned earlier, as well as just a quick, just a Google map and a tax map for reference to see what we're talking about. Skip over the H942 right to page 33, 37-ish. That's where the ATV law comes in and that took effect July 1st. And to be honest, I was kind of embarrassed. I'm a police officer in Chittin County and that law kind of snuck up on us. I learned it changed from the game warden not because of an encounter, but just as a friendly professional conversation. And so word spread very quickly. Myself and the other camp and land owners up there, we don't use ATVs as kind of a recreational activity necessarily up there. They're really a matter of necessity and utility, let alone winter, if you can kind of define when winter really happens in Vermont, but really all year round for a variety of things from hunting to bringing supplies, tools and a variety of other things up to the camps themselves as well as just to transport people. So this new law, as Bill explained, has somewhat crippled us because the only current way to travel to our own camps or land right now is by vehicle. And that's never happened. We've never been restricted to just vehicle. On a quick side note, that has its own pros and cons of driving a vehicle up a class four road incessantly, especially when we're talking about the visitors and owners of the land, how many trucks or cars would go up there. That's a separate side note that what potential damage could be done. But in any event, I asked that this be put on the agenda so that we could do what Bill kind of suggested, which was to just in regards to Woodard Hill and actually it's Woodard Hill extension as well. There's a total of about 1.8 miles from the bottom of Little River Road up to the top of Woodard Hill extension that we're talking about here in total. There's only within that 1.8 miles, there's only about a half or less of a mile that really is the portion of the town road that would be traveled on, if that makes sense. And you can look at the map and see the rest of it is on private land and the town road ends. And again, without speaking necessarily for the other camp owners, but it's a very friendly camp community up there. We are all on a very much first-aid basis there. And for anyone that travels on other people's lands, if we already don't have verbal permission, we all have written permission to be on each other's land. So that's, those things have been addressed by us well before this law took effect. So really we're asking the select board to do what's been going on well before my time as a camp owner, which has been decades just to allow us to get to our land and our camps by ATV. And that includes Woodard Hill and Woodard Hill extension only. You're talking all year round, right, Robert? Yeah, we are talking all year round because for example now, certainly we don't want snow to fly or some may, but it's pre-season for hunting. There's scouting, game cameras, people hiking. We have people that's no shoe from some of these camps in the winter, but we also have a lot of activities that take place outside of the winter months. So Robert, you'll have to refresh my memory. I haven't really hunted that much in Vermont in years. Just getting too crowded for me. So I go way up north there in northern part of Maine. Fish and Game doesn't have any regulations about using ATVs for hunting purposes. I thought there was guidelines or restrictions on ATVs as far as maybe it's accessing state land perhaps. Yeah, I mean, the most notable that sticks out from the legal side, as far as game wardens are concerned, certainly no one is allowed to drive on state land at all under any circumstances without the permission of the state. That's a crime. That's not a motor vehicle offense. It's actually a sightable criminal offense. So as far as, again, I don't want to get into the state lands if you will, or the kind of like you guys mentioned earlier in the meeting about state land near the highway versus municipal land. The Little River State Forest is a separate issue with their own rules. This we're talking specifically just the roads themselves, which are municipal roads that ultimately lead to private land, which some of those folks are on the meeting tonight. But there, as far as the game wardens and hunting rules, no, there's hunting as far as like shooting from an ATV, but those are specific hunting related, not operating rules, if you will. So do you have any concerns that if the select board approves this tonight, that, I mean, you guys got your own little gig going now, but if we approve it, how do you feel about possibilities of every Tom, Dick and Harry being able to go up there with ATVs outside of your ring of let you, you know, use typically associate with any concerns about that? There has been in the past, and I don't want to, again, want to speak for some of the landowners. The short answer is no, because we're so close knit, there isn't very much that happens on the hill that we don't really hear about. There's some game cameras up there for security purposes. There's also one gate currently existing that blocks the road on Woodard Hill extension on John Farzland, which ultimately leads to my camp. And there's been some recent conversations and I believe approval of a new camp owner there. We putting another gate a little bit lower down the mountain. And so far, those have been really effective because we've had burglaries of camps in the past that fortunately we caught the perpetrators. Some of the other camps on the lower side of the mountain have had issues, but from our perspective, no, we contact the game warden just like you saw one of the folks in town contact the state police because of a shooting incident in town. We reach out to the game warden if it rises to that, but fortunately, we've been pretty lucky. And if between the nine camps on most weekends, someone's up there. So you kind of know what's going on, but again, I don't want to speak for everyone. Here you, Lindy. Got any comments? So this is Lindy. Hello, everybody. Thanks again for getting on the agenda so quickly. So, and George may say this, George, who's on there is George Wells. He also owns a camp up there. I believe that's George Wells, I should say. He also has a gate. So we've been able to, as Rob mentioned, we've been able to block some of the land. And the other piece too is we're not even certain that those folks didn't drive their vehicle up, there's an assumption that they're accessing the camps by ATV and it's probably, it may even be by truck or car. So that may or may not be an issue as far as the ATV access, but we agree with the position that Rob has around access year-round, in fact that I don't think that it's the traffic on the hill that much. Hey, George, Gary. Yeah, this is George and I'm in total agreement with both Rob and Lindy. I think it is a close-knit group up there. I don't think we'll have any problems with outside travel, the non-landowners or camp owners travel. I'm certainly in favor of it being posted by the select board for travel by ATVs. You know, it doesn't necessarily say in the law where the sign has to be. We can put the sign up the hill in little ways. You know, we don't have to put it right on Little River Road with a big arrow saying, you know, we can put the sign up the hill. I think it's important for these people who have had this historic use of this land to be able to continue to use it without having to worry about this. There's certainly nothing that we would enforce, but I think that they're all conscientious and they want to obey the law. And I don't see there's any reason why we shouldn't go ahead and make a motion to open this road for ATV use. And for now, I would just limit it to this one. We have other class four roads around town. You know, and I think if people are needing to use those for ATVs that they'll let us know. I would not recommend at this point just doing a broad brush for every single ATV, I mean, every single class four road that we have. On that note, I want to apologize on town's behalf. It is a class four town road. The town is responsible for certain portions of that road maintenance. And for one reason or another, budgeting problems and time problems, the town hasn't had the available time or the money to perhaps take care of certain aspects of that road. We spent a lot of money on that road, Chris. No, in the years past, we have done a lot. There's no question, but I was contacted earlier this year now perhaps at least making it passable for vehicles because I guess it's getting pretty tough up there. And that road is tough to begin with. It's like a gutter. Anybody, if any of you other people who've ever been up that road, their shoulders should be high on either side that just won't allow a lot of the water to get off. And consequently, the road takes a beating. We were flush with all kinds of money and revenue. We could maintain it perhaps a little bit better, but that's probably another good reason to open it up to ATVs because it allows people to get up there, even if they can't get up there with full-wheel drive cars or trucks. So if there's no more reason for comment or discussion, somebody make a motion to approve the use of ATVs on Watered Hill and Watered Hill extension exclusively. I make a motion to approve the use of ATVs on Watered Hill Road, 12 months of that of the year. Second. Further discussion? Looks like there is none. All those who wish to approve that motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Hey people, you're off and running. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. You got any idea, Bill, when the sign could be popped up there or is it legal to jump on it now? They can use it now. No, they can use it. We'll get the sign up as soon as we can, but don't wait for the sign before you go up. Okay, people, enjoy yourselves and be safe. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, good night. Good night. Okay, permit for Disposed Junkyard. We're there again. Yes, it's that time again. And just make a lifelong permit on that one, huh? Well, it's a pretty big zoning, so I don't think we necessarily have a permit except for this one that you get to approve every three years or so. Anyway, Steve is here on the call. Steve has been working with the state as well as Donna and Clem, and he wrote the permit with the conditions that were sent out to you the other day. So why don't I turn it over to Steve and you can take us from there, Steve. Okay, sounds good. Thanks for letting me join in and everybody hear me all right? Absolutely. Great, okay. So let's see, Donna Despo was, can you hear us, Donna? Maybe, or Clem, are you on the call or the video at least? Maybe if you unmute, you can let us know if you can hear, if not, I'll just keep going. So every three years we do this process. It's a process that's required by the state salvage yard program. And so we do our review each three years. Typically I do an inspection. I meet with Clem. I walk the salvage yard. We review the findings and conclusions and conditions of the previous approval to see where there may be issues and then we schedule it for your meeting. And the biggest issue that I've talked to Despo is area along route two, which is a safety issue. They've really been very cooperative this go around. So I want to commend them. Historically there's been a lot of use over the last five, probably five years or more of an area across on the north side of route two. It's be trans right of way. And that area, the use of that area by the salvage yard has discontinued now. They've moved all the trailers. It was a real safety issue with material being offloaded, brought across route two and so on. I've had some comments from Harry Shepard who lives down I believe on Jenny Lane and has raised some concerns about the safety. So Harry as you may know is the public works director up in Stowe as well and alternate member of our development review board. So I'll cut right to the chase. Have you all had a chance to look through the narrative for the certificate of location? What I can do is just summarize the conclusions and the conditions. Maybe that's the best way to approach this. And then if you have questions, you can ask me and then Donna or Clem if you have comments or concerns I've talked to Donna today as a followup. They received a copy of this on Friday when I reviewed it with Bill, got Bill's incorporated Bill's comments and then sent it over to Donna and Clem for them to review. They've reviewed it and I can't speak for them but Donna said they did agree to go along with the conditions of approval. So there are four basic conclusions. One has to do with the placement of waste material and there really is not that much in the salvage yard. There was a time three, four years ago where there was accumulation of debris and I like to commend them. I think they've done a good job. The biggest issue we'll get to that a minute is there's a mobile home in the salvage yard that is collapsed that needs to be removed. So placement of used tires is a project that they're currently working on. There's a stockpile that's at the, it's really towards the western edge of the salvage yard. It was a huge stockpile. It's been reduced fairly significantly. A lot of these tires were washed downstream during tropical storm Irene. There was a condition that we developed after Irene to place a fence along the edge of the 100 year flood plain to contain these tires. It has a gate and so there's a requirement that that gate be kept closed when there's no activity in that end of the salvage yard. So they've agreed to do that. They're currently working on tires that are going to be picked up. They're getting two semi loads picked up in the next five, six weeks, maybe less time than that that get recycled in Maine. So the salvage vehicles, there's an area three, which is at the west end of the site that's in the 100 year flood plain. And I'll mention there's an act 250 permit for the salvage yard. And we try to make our certificates of approval consistent with act 250. And we work with Vince. I won't try to pronounce Vince last name but he's the salvage yard expert with the state. He's done inspection. He and I have been conferring. So there aren't supposed to be any salvage vehicles in this area three, which is down in the 100 year flood plain. There are some down there now that climb is in the process of preparing to ship out. So he's agreed to get all those vehicles either shipped out or back up in the main part of the salvage yard. And then the last one, well, I mentioned this mobile home that has now collapsed and really is a hazard. So climbers agreed to remove that. I would assume the majority of it will get land filled. So there are also the area in front of the salvage yard for those of you who go by that area to the left of the main entrance is supposed to be only for vehicles that are either being marketed that are in running condition or customers that come in and park. There is say a large loader, old loader there that's there that is no longer I believe operational. I'm not sure about that, but so I've explained that needs to be removed. There's some equipment, there's some old boat. So they have agreed to remove all that material, get it into the salvage yard or remove it from the site. So the conditions of approval all relate to these conclusions. I won't read all of them, but as I say, they've basically agreed, we're gonna do a 60 day inspection, which is basically just a meeting to meet with Clam and Donna. And as I mentioned or Bill mentioned, we don't have a zoning permit for this site. So we don't enforce this through zoning. We would work with the state if there are compliance issues and generally we try to get voluntary compliance. So we'll do another inspection in two months and then if there are any loose ends, I'll work with the depots and with the state if necessary to get any loose ends taken care of. So Bill, do you have anything you wanted to add to that? No, not really. I think you did a good job of summarizing. I think that having the inspection provision in there is a good thing. And like everything, things need to have a look every once in a while. And I think a lot of the issues maybe that Harry brought up can be solved with this inspection that you have the right to do with this new, if the select board approves this new permit. And just to be clear, Steve, there's no zoning permit because this use predates zoning, right? It's grandfather. There's no, we can't regulate it through zoning. That's correct. It's a preexisting non-conforming use. So that's my understanding. We've talked to Dean about this. And that's true. They do have a license to sell vehicles, a dealership license. So I think that's important to understand that vehicles can be marketed, especially those in running condition. And that's a pretty significant part of their business selling affordable vehicles. So I think, Chris, what we would need, if there are questions, that's fine. What we need is a motion to approve the certificate of approval for location of a salvage yard. And then we actually need to get the board to sign it. Carla has prepared that certificate. So we'll need to either with the orders or something. And then that actually gets sent to the state because there's a parallel process with the state for licensing. You have to follow up with the state, Steve. Well, the depots actually do that. Once it's signed, we give them a copy and they forward it with their materials to the state for their state approvals. A motion to approve the certificate of approval for the location of a salvage yard. How you would put it. Sounds good. The Despo residence on route two, open. I'd like to make that motion. Sure, I'll make that motion to allow the permit for the joke yard. Second. Second. Beating Beach, Mike. That's okay. I do want to amend that motion to make it contingent upon removing the vehicles out of the 100 year floodplain. I assume that would be amicable to that motion, to that amendment. The issues with that, Steve. No, that's fine. That is consistent with the conditions in the narrative. You want to re-second that, Katie? Re-second. Okay, any further discussion? All those who wish to approve that motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, the despots are off and running for another three years. Okay. Wish them luck. Thank you. Okay, next on the list is a discussion about salt and sand use. That was one that I hopped on there again. I want to kind of refer back to our discussion at town meeting and Mike questioning to the public as they sat out in front of us there during town meeting as to whether or not they wanted to see a policy pertaining to salt and sand use. And I don't know if you people want to agree, but it seemed like an overwhelming concurrence that they did want to see some form of policy and winners fast approaching. And due to many other issues on our plate, we haven't been able to address this and may still not have ample time. Sounds like Bill wants to say something here. Go ahead. Just to refresh everybody's memory because Katie wasn't technically on the board of the time. I think she was at town meeting, but I have a minute here. It says Chris Vien's asked the residents if they believe that climate change is a concern. The residents responded with a resounding yes by raising their hands. He stated that our carbon footprint and pollutants are a huge problem. Vien stated that he has been pushing for regulation of salt and sand use on the town roads. He asked for a show of hands as to the residents acceptance of regulating salt and sand. The residents were divided by a show of hands, which simply means we didn't count the hands, but not everybody put their hands up when you asked about climate change. It was not quite everybody, but I don't think that said that they wanted a policy. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't have one, but I just wanted everybody to understand what is recorded in the minutes of the town meeting, which is what I just read. With that being said, the rest of the board members were there, and I guess what would be your take on that? And is there a stomach to policy to reduce salt and sand use? I'd be interested in learning, A, how that policy would be implemented, and B, what our role would be? Would it be one of education, or would it be one of enforcement or both? I mean, obviously there has to be decisions made by someone that we're gonna have to tell people when they can and can't salt and sand if I'm hearing you correctly. And I know that I would not be the most, I would not be the most knowledgeable person to be able to go up to our dump truck driver and say, this is when you need to salt and this is when you need to sand. So how are we going to do that? Well, maybe the first question I should ask is, does any of the rest of the board members see this as being an issue? Either environmental issue, degradation of our roads and bridges and infrastructure issue, impact to our budget issue, or any of the above? I'll say yes. I'll say yes as well. I think it's well noted. You're seeing a lot of communities in the Northeast, at least sections of their town are going to a no salt or limited salt policy. I think a lot of it's education of the community. It's as Chris has kind of talked before, people slowing down, especially when conditions mandate, but by applying less salt has so many environmental implications that will improve the environment, especially in areas where there are sensitive areas applying no salt. We don't want to endanger people, but people are complaining right and left about people speeding in our community. This may get some people to slow down. And so I think as a board, yes, as Matt says, we probably still need a little bit more education on to formulate an exact policy on what we're gonna do, but I think I personally have the will to do something in this area. So on those comments, Micah, I'll make a couple of comments myself, two things. I've learned through witnessing people that people, the last number of people are opportunistic. We're all opportunistic in nature. The vast number of them are opportunistic beyond reason until they can't be any longer. Until a line is drawn in the sand where this is it, this is the limit, we're not gonna allow you to go past this point without some form of repercussions. The other thing is I wanted to make a note or let everybody, remind everybody of is that when you get elected as a legislative body as an individual on the select board, the reason I got on the select board was help was to try to help an institute change and maybe get things done that previous boards either haven't addressed or failed to recognize or whatever. And I think it's the duty of any elected official once they're elected to make a difference. And if things like this come up and other issues and nobody wants to act to change because you're afraid of rocking the boat at all, then I kind of question why any of us even bother to get on these boards or become elected officials. I know it's a tough topic. There's controversy about both sides there as to people's safety and then their expectations to drive like hell during any conditions. I was on the interstate the other day thinking about watching people drive. Again, I have a CDL, I do the speed limit. Was a state trooper at a U-turn. And it's amazing when you watch people react when they come on to that trooper, now they get real religious just a few seconds until they get by the trooper far enough so you can't smell them anymore. And the foot goes right back on the pedal again. They have total disregard for the law. They just don't want to get caught. And it gives you an idea, a sense of what people are about. And again, it goes back to what I said earlier about being opportunistic. So I'll stop talking and the other board members make some comments. I mean, I would agree that I would be interested in learning more about this and possibly inviting Celia in to talk with her about and see what she would think about implementing something about using less salt this winter and maybe having her talk with the rest of the crew and get their feel for it because they're gonna be the ones that are actually doing it. As far as the comments of, you know, you're gonna receive backlash, you know, either which way you do. I think that's, you could say that about any decision that we make. But I mean, you can just try about anything, I guess. So, you know, I say why not and then see how it goes. And either way we're gonna receive input from people so it's gonna be helpful either way. I think that if you're going to pursue this issue and I'm not objecting to it at all, I appreciate what Matt said at the beginning. There's education that needs to be done. There also needs, if we're gonna have a policy about this, it needs to be a policy that's written that doesn't just say use less salt and sand. You need to be specific if you don't want sand to be used on flat roads, you need to say that. But I think the issue is really more sand than salt and I think that salt is, if you talk to the people who maintain the highways around here, that salt is something that you're probably seeing used more now because we're not having winters where it snows at 20 degrees and it stays at 20 degrees for days. And, you know, you can just leave that snow on there. We've all driven in Vermont long enough to know that if it's a cold snow, you get a good traction, you can go up the hill even without sand on there at all a lot of times. The issue comes at the stop lines where people are putting their brakes on, they're coming to a stop and that turns that snow into ice. But now we're getting lots of flush on the road. And, you know, if you leave it there, that can be very treacherous. So I think that this is not a simple solution. I think it, frankly, is a lot easier to say we use way too much sand than it is salt. I understand that salt has a deleterious effect on the environment, on the water, on the vegetation along the roadsides. Sand isn't much better for it. From my perspective, when you're talking about brooks and the like, fish and invertebrates in the brook, they weren't gravel. They don't want to be buried in sand. So I think that having this conversation is something that we should do. Maybe we asked somebody from AOT to come in and talk to us about it a little bit. I don't have the expertise to simply write a policy that says this is what we should do. And in the end, it's going to be up to the driver to implement the policy. And that's where the rubber meets the rope. You know, back 25 years ago, we were buying computerized salt sand dispensers. It was all calibrated with how fast you went and everything else. And like it or not, there's a switch on those things you can turn them off. And people said, well, you know, I mean, Blush Hill is kind of the obvious example, but we put more salt on there than probably any calibration on a computer is going to let you do. So if it can be overridden, that's a concern. And we have to talk about how we're going to deal with that aspect of it as well. I mean, the hard truth of it is, if I had my way about it, I'd just cut the salt and sand budget X amount and then they would have to curb their use. But that's not going to be accepted by the rest of the board or perhaps even you, Bill. It's a hard way of making people learn, but it's the smartest way of making them learn. I think that that's not an unreasonable thing to do, cutting the salt and sand budget. But I think we have to do it with a conversation because, you know, as I've told you before, you know, we don't, line items are there to try to guide and give the department heads an idea of what they can do, but overspending or underspending happens on conditions. So it's still, I don't have a problem with cutting the budget if that's what you want to do, but we still need to have the conversation. And I think simple things, if you don't want sand to be put on flat roads, then we need to just say that, you know? And we have to define what a hill is and what a stop area is. And, you know, where I live on Ripley Road, it's pretty flat. There's a dip right after my house. You probably need to salt it going up the snow, I mean, sand it going up the snow road. But I think as much as we can be specific, it doesn't mean that if there's an ice storm, you know, and it's all glazed over that you don't put anything on there. But in general, I think you need to, the board has to talk about that, you know? I think you can pick off the obvious things. Should we put anything on Neal and Flats from the Davis farm down to Harvey farm? Should we do anything to that? I think probably if you have a snow storm and it's, you know, 30 degrees, you probably want to get that slush off the road and you want to put salt on it and get rid of it. But if it's a cold, snowy day and it's 15 degrees and it's snowing, plow it off and leave it. And I think those kind of conversations are the better ones to have. We can, that's probably the low-hanging fruit, those kind of discussions with the road crew. So I don't mind having those discussions. It's just, if nothing changes, how do you deal with that? In other words, they refuse to change their ways. I don't know if it'll be refused. So let's just say what I just described is something that the board wants to do. It can be put in a policy. That can be written, you know, under normal snow conditions on flat roads such as Neal and Flats, Guptler Road, you can name a few, give them some examples. Three that come right to mind, yeah. Just give them some examples and say, you know, if the temperature is such that you need to salt to be able to clear the slush off the road, because obviously you don't want slush freezing up and being left there, right? You want to plow that off, you want to melt that. But if you want that, I mean, I can take a stab at writing something and presenting it to the board and talking to Woody and Alec about it and seeing about those kind of things. And, you know, we can do this incrementally. It doesn't have to be, you know, the perfect solution right away. But, I mean, I can write something like that if you'd like and you can see it and then you can react to it. So I want the board just to understand one thing. You know, I've seen examples of sand over bare, literally bare roads. I've taken pictures. I've got them on my cell phone. And how I acquired those is not by chasing our trucks around and looking for them to violate things. That's not who I am. I travel these roads all the time because I work for a lot of people in this town. And just by circumstance, I happen to come across these things and just, I understand their job, but then there's times when it's like, you got to be kidding me. You're wasting tax dollars, looking our ditches and building up the roadside with wasted sand, and there's no reason for it. Those are the things that get under my skin. And those are the things that I, you know, want to try to make change on along with, you know, trying to help the environment and save our budget. So I'm not out to get these people by any stretch. That's not my goal, never has been. Anything I've been pushing to help our infrastructure problems and help get us back to a manageable position. But I just, I see some need for a little bit more control over how our products getting used. And that's all I'm, and to get people to start to learn how to thrive being a Vermonter during the winter. Well, if you want to control that, the first thing I think is to have something in writing that can be pointed to. So let me take a stab at writing something that I just described. We can look at it at a future meeting and you can react to it and go from there. I agree with what you're saying, but I also would like what you said before. I think we should have someone, whether it be at a select board meeting or just some information from people from AOT who are experts in this field, commenting on, giving us an idea on what are good protocols because they're grappling with this probably around the state and they could probably help us get a good template on what we could use in our roads. I think some of the roads that you mentioned are really good, the flat ones are probably good ones to avoid, but I think a big part is gonna be educating the road crews. And I think, I know people who are plow drivers and not so much in our town, but plow drivers tend to be creatures of habit. They do things like they've always done and things really I think have to change. I don't think it's really Chris's way of just slashing the budget is the way to do things. I think we have to have a plan way on how to control our salt and sand use. I think it just needs to, so I need more information to make a decision to say cut the budget. Okay, well, we'll bump it to another meeting and Bill, you can take a stab at the draft. Okay, thank you. Anodors items and the animal control officer that's coming about again. Yeah, so we talked about this several months ago now. I advertised and we had no takers. The animal control officer's position and the health officer's position are two positions that are pretty thankless positions to have. I don't know if you know it, Chris, have you been contacted by the health department? You're the health officer in town now, you know. Hey, that's what my wife tells me, yeah. Yeah, I did get the letter. Yeah, so Bethanne Mayer was the health officer and Bethanne, if you know her, is a very conscientious person, wants to do a good job and she did a lot, but the state, and I'm gonna blame the state here with regard to health officers and I know I'm off subject a little bit, this is ACO, but it's the same kind of thing. So health officers need, they're agents of the state appointed by the select board. They don't get any pay from the state. We don't get any pay from the state, but they are supposed to enforce the state's health code. And the biggest area of contention and issue is dealing with complaints from renters about substandard housing. And I've been the deputy health officer for almost as long as I've been here and I've been in my share of apartments and it's not a fun job and it's not an easy job and it's hard to get resolutions to these problems. I do it, Chris, the only time that it's gonna fall to you basically is if I'm not here. So when I was on vacation in Maine for the last two weeks of August, if there was a health officer issue, it would have percolated down to you. And I don't know if you've got the manual yet or not, but in her resignation email to me, Beth Ann just said she didn't wanna be appointed again. And she said, you know, I got into this because I wanted to try to help with housing in Waterbury and the system that we're working under now just doesn't allow anything to be done efficiently. And it's always the landlord says and the tenant says and you're in the middle and it's a fight. And for all that aggravation, we paid her $100 a month, $1,200 a year is what she was paid after the town meeting every year. That's what we've been paying the health officer for as long as I can remember $1,200. The animal control officer, we don't have one right now. I have taken several complaints over the past week and a half since I've been back on vacation, from vacation, all involving the same issue. Fortunately, it's just one issue, but there was a pretty serious situation on Saturday and we don't have a dog officer. So we've got an animal control ordinance, we can write tickets, we can impound dogs, but we got nobody to do it. And I talked to the former dog officer, Peter Tumel, today, and I'm gonna reiterate what I said at the meeting a couple of months ago. I think we need to offer a stipend for the animal control officer's job. I threw out $500 a month the last time we talked, $2,000 a year, and that would be just for the person to answer the phone, take calls, get called in the middle of the night, deal with those things. And then on top of it, I think there should be an hourly rate when they have to go out to respond to a call. After certain hours or just... No, I mean, I think that, you know, if like on Saturday afternoon, I got a text on Saturday afternoon from somebody at three o'clock. They told me about a situation that they had witnessed. It was an attack. They said it was an attack. A dog attacked a woman who was running. They gave me the woman's name. I was able to track her down. Fortunately, the dog did not bite her, but she was terrified. She was running on the road. The dog came running out of his driveway, chased her for, you know, 500 feet probably, bearing his teeth, snapping at her, running around circles around her. And, you know, she was pretty afraid and pretty upset. I don't blame her. I'd be in the same situation if it was me. And then, you know, today I wrote a letter to the dog owner. I'm not the Animal Control Officer. I don't think I can issue a ticket on the Animal Control Ordinance. But for that kind of stuff that I did, Saturday and today, I think that would be covered by the stipend, but if I end up going out to pick up that dog and spend two hours of my time going out to do it, I think you should pay them an hourly rate to do that. And I don't think that you're gonna get anybody to do this job just because they wanna be a volunteer in the community. I think those days are over. I think that, you know, dealing with animals, and in particular dealing with animal owners who don't care to take seriously the rules, you know, I don't think many people wanna do that. And the only way somebody's gonna do it in my opinion is if you make it worth their while and it becomes, you know, not a job necessarily. I'm not talking about giving them vacation benefits and, you know, retirement benefits and health insurance, but I think you gotta make it worth somebody's while to do this, and if you don't, we're gonna be sitting just like we are now. So is this another case where education is the key? I don't think it is. Well, I think education is the key and that's what I tried to do in the letter that I wrote to the dog owner here today is, hey, we have an ordinance. This is how you violated the ordinance and I could, you know, two things right away. One, your dog wasn't leashed, not under your control. And then two, it acted like a vicious dog. And, you know, I think you were involved in a vicious dog hearing once, Chris, when you first got on the board. But we can't even do that without an animal control officer. Unless there's somebody to enforce that ordinance, you know, we had the situation on Randall Street, which was the impetus of the last time that I discussed it. I got involved in that. I think I kind of split the baby. I wrote letters to all the parties there and I said, you know, you gotta, both of you are at fault. And fortunately, both parties both kind of said, yep, we agreed to understand what we did wrong. You know, I don't mind doing it, but I got a job to do as well. And right now, there's nobody else to do these things. So I try to step up and step into the gap, but I can't really, I don't wanna be the dog officer. I don't wanna be going out and picking up dogs. And then the secondary issue is, you know, if we get a dog officer and they start picking up dogs, the next question is, where's the kennel? You know, we don't have a kennel in town. The guy that we used in Morrisville when we last had a dog officer, I think he's retired now. So, you know, do we do it still does? If you go over by the old Percy bus barn out there on the road over to, you know, the canoe launch, they've got a kennel out there, you know, chain link fence for the concrete pad and a little shelter and whether that's their primary place or a place where they put a dog when they can't get a dog into a kennel, I don't know. But, you know, you don't need it until you need it. And I'm just concerned that one of these days we're gonna need an animal control officer, and we don't have one. Are you seeing a aggressive uptick of issues or is this just one- You know, I don't, but I think that when we had an animal control officer, I believe that person got called. You know, I don't know if they got called every week or certainly didn't get called every day. The ones that come to my attention are the serious ones. There's no, you know, so if there's barking in the night right now, people just kind of put up with it. There's nobody to call. They're not calling me in the middle of the night. I don't know if they're calling you select board members, but it's when there's an attack, when there's somebody gets bitten, you know, and as a health officer, I mean, I think it was about two months ago someone was bitten by their own dog, but they went to the hospital, they had to get medical attention, and the law states that if a medical provider treats a dog bite, that they have to call the health officer in that town. So they got in touch with Carla. Carla told me about it. I investigated it was the person's own dog, so that's okay, but if it was the next door neighbor's dog, I should have been getting on the phone with the dog officer and the dog officer should have gone there and paid a visit and dealt with it. And that's the part that's not happening now. And I know $500 a month sounds like it's a fortune, $6,000, yeah, it would make our budget go up, I don't know, $5,500 or whatever it is. I think we have some money in there for a dog officer now, but it's kind of like the health officer, $1,200, $1,500, something like that. But if we advertised and we could offer $3 or $500 a month, plus an hourly rate, plus the expenses, you know, gas and you might get somebody who's a little conscientious, who's willing to do something for their community, but they're not willing to put up with what you gotta put up with being a dog officer for nothing. So I'll tell you this, I don't have, you won't get any objections from me about spending this extra money. Where my beef is, is that there's limited teeth, excuse the pun, but limited teeth in our right to be able to, you know, without going through a damn lengthy ridiculous process of making people responsible or pay fines or whatever it is, like you gotta go through an act of health to get them to become responsible for people when it comes to ownership of their dogs. It's a pretty good ordinance. And yeah, there's due process. I mean, you can't take people's property away without due process. You have to give them the ability to appeal, but I think our ordinance, and Charles is on the line, I think our ordinance is pretty tight and can be effective in dealing with issues. And, you know, you have to have the right person with the right temperament because they have to be, you know, they've gotta be able to be willing to, you know, deal with a dog who might be a little bit aggressive and then they've gotta deal with owners and some owners are very, very conscientious and concerned. And there's others just like there are parents whose dogs never do anything wrong. And then there's others who said, well, you know, that's great. I'm glad you have an ordinance, but I'm gonna let my dog run off leash and, you know, they end up getting their dogs picked up. With the dog ordinance, it's, you know, it is in some ways the easiest ordinance to really enforce because if you pick up somebody's dog and they want their dog back, they gotta do what they're supposed to do. They've gotta pay their fine. They've gotta do those kind of things. They've gotta get the dog licensed. So I think that it is an ordinance that has some pretty decent teeth in it. And, you know, whether we need a dog officer who's out patrolling and, you know, kind of looking for trouble. That was gonna be my question to you. But I think that, you know, we have a rule. We have in the ordinance, it says if your dog's in the park, in the back row field here, it says your dog's gonna be on a leash and your dog can't be on the playing fields. Well, if the dog officer drives by on Main Street and sees somebody throwing a Frisbee to his dog and they're on second base in the softball field, I think the dog officer ought to go in there and say, you can't do that. See the sign over there? That applies to you and your dog, you know? There are other people who feel, we should just have a dog officer that answers the phone. If somebody calls about a dog that's, you know, aggressive or calls about a dog making noise at night. I think it's up to the select board to define how much aggression, if you will, how much responsibility. Do you want them to be intervening in every instance? Probably not, but I think that on municipal property, if we go to the extent to write an ordinance that says your dog, if it's on municipal property, has to be leashed and has to be treated in this certain way, I think that they should deal with it. What about dogs that are just running loose on some of our back roads there that I see constantly? Yeah, well, they're- Are they allowed to deal with that by- Absolutely. If a dog is running on, you know, kneeling flats, often just up and down the road, if the dog officer's called, and if he can do it or she can do it, you know, they're supposed to pick that dog up. They're supposed to take the dog, take it to the kennel, and then contact the owner and write a fine and say, you know- Well, remind me if I'm wrong, but I thought we had issue with Peter doing that. No, or what was the issue that we had with him? The only issue that I- Someone beyond his criminal- Karla can interject if she wants, but I think Peter did a pretty good job of being a dog officer most of the time. There were times where I would hear from people who were walking their dog on the street, that he would come up to them on the street and tell them that they were doing something wrong or right, but in terms of picking up stray dogs, that's kind of one of the number one priorities for a dog officer. If there's a dog out there off leash and off its property, they should be picked up. I'd love to see that because they're- Because they can, you know, they're hazard to traffic. They can worry and be a hazard to wildlife. They can frankly be a hazard to me when I walk down the road. You know, I don't enjoy taking a walk and coming up on a dog who I don't know and it's nowhere near its home. That doesn't make me happy. Matt looks like he's busting at the scene wanting to say something there. Well, yeah, a couple of things. So when we put out the last ask for people to, you know, have this job, remind me again where it was posted. Was it a front porch form? We put it on our website. I think I put it on front porch form and I believe I put it in the newspaper. Okay, so one of those media sources doesn't exist anymore. So I'm wondering if we can broaden our reach that way. But then also, you know, some people might be interested but not necessarily know everything it means to be a, you know, maybe they just like dogs and they're saying, oh, that could be a little side gig I could do. But then again, I don't know how much I really know about doing it. And I think maybe it comes back to the education thing. You know, looking at like job listings, I'll see words like we'll train the right candidate or, you know, maybe there's some way that we can reword this thing that makes it. Sound like a little bit more of an opportunity than a sentence. Yeah, you know, if you get what I mean. Yeah, I understand, you know, and I can try that, but are you in favor of some greater remuneration than we've been providing or you think we just need to try that once again, get somebody to step up to do this for, you know, $15 an hour when they get called. It's in giggles. Well, considering I've been on this like board for two years and I've seen what, three animal control officers, you know, or, you know, it's just, and the, you know, the waterfall of responses you got on the last one was, you know, we got to do something. I don't disagree that we really do need someone in this position. I see enough of it. I, you know, I like dogs. I think they're great, but if, you know, if I'm walking down the street and somebody's dog comes at me, I get scared and I don't want to have to hurt someone's dog just because they're not paying attention. And, you know, it boils down to disrespect for me for other people, you know, people's lack of respect for other people's rights. That's what really gets me. It's this, it's the same type of person that goes down the walking path with their dog and then picks up their poop and then flings the bag in the bushes. It's, I think what Bill's looking for is a resolution or some type of a consensus from the board as to whether or not we're willing to spend some extra money to acquire this person for this position. And I haven't heard from Mike Bard yet, but Katie's shaking her head, yes, so. I was just biding my time. I was hearing people talk. Bill, was there absolutely zero response to all the ads? Yes. Okay, so not even someone inquired, but no, I don't want to do this. No. Okay, you know, as I think everyone has said, I think this is a position that we definitely need, but I also probably don't want, you know, we probably, as I think Nat says, we need to train people because I don't want this to be, you know, the- You've got to get somebody willing to be trained before we can train them. Exactly. But I don't want also this to be so, you know, someone's walking their dog and they might have their dog off leash for two seconds. And it's like kind of a high of a chance to write a ticket. You know, you know, I want someone who has some good judgment, you know, and I think someone who does have an appreciation of dogs, but I do think, as you said, we need to probably put some more money into this thing the little bit of concern I have is with all positions in town government, you're going to see everyone's going to want for every position, you know, a chunk of change, you know, no one wants to do anything for free anymore or no one even wants to do anything for, you know, what they perceive is such a nominal amount, it's not even worthwhile doing. And that's gets to me, that's the scary part is I'm a little bit worried about that, but I don't think we have a choice with the animal control officer because I don't want Bill spending his time, you know, running around chasing dogs around, you know, that's not what we pay Bill the big bucks for. You know what I'm saying, I want, you know, we need other people that can do this to have the proper skill set to do this in a very efficient way. And as we see, we probably have to pay people, you know, I'm sure we're not the only town that's having to do this, but I'm for paying a higher rate, you know, to get someone, but just that if we as a board and you as a town manager set some good parameters that they'll work by. What was the woman's name that volunteered for the last position? She was from Duxbury, right? Yeah. Was the reason she left is that the job wasn't described correctly to her. I think I remember that over the amount of hours she had to put in was not made clear or... Her name is Annie McMahon and she runs a kennel in Duxbury. Okay. She expressed that it was far more work than her predecessor told her. Okay. She didn't have time. But if you remember, we had Peter Tramal and then when Peter got done, we had a guy, I can't remember his name, Carla, but he was... Oh, Zeptown. Zeptown. No, no, no, before him. Oh. If somebody was the ACO and the health officer, he was... Oh. You know what I mean. Rob DeBrowski? We had that one guy for a very brief time and then we had Zept stepped in and when Zept finished. And, you know, Zept was kind of what Mike refers to, you know, the old fashioned kind of animal control officer. He knew people, he likes dogs and he responded to complaints and, you know, he did a lot of work on the telephone but there was not a lot of... He certainly did not go around looking for problems. And I'm not saying that we need somebody looking for problems, but when the problems arise and especially when they're big ones, we need to be able to get it handled properly so people can feel that they're safe in their own communities. And then when Zept got done, this woman stepped up and I think Zept told her, Carla, right, that, you know, there's a few phone calls every once in a while and I think Zept got a lot of phone calls and kind of triaged them and didn't take a lot of action. And I think she was a very different kind of person and decided that she needed, you know, that she was being called a lot more than Zept indicated. But clearly, you know, if we get somebody interested we'll do our best to train them properly and we'll do our best to have somebody who's, you know, not only somebody who's gonna enforce the dog ordinance but who can be a good ambassador for the town. You know, we want somebody that people respect as well as, you know, somebody who's just gonna, you know, be out there cracking the whip, so to speak. This is a huge people skills type person that is necessary because you're dealing with, I know from dealing with this in the housing issues you have to be very tender and dealing with people in situations, especially a lot of dog owners are very emotionally charged and you have to have the skill set to be able to diffuse that, to empathize, but enforce the rules and regulations, you know, and people need to know that but the right person, you gotta have a good person to do it. Yeah, I was like, you're the man, Mike. Yeah, maybe my wife. She's just... Did you have something to say, Katie? Yeah, I'm for upping the cost a little bit and Bill, if you've come up with like an ad or something and you wanna make some paper copies, I'll go around town and hang them up at some businesses or whatnot, telephone polls, you know, try to get some other advertising going for free. We'll pick up somebody here along the lines. And I see Lisa Scalodi is on the thing too. I'm wondering if we could get a plug on the roundabout that I think she's involved with that. Headline dog, dog watcher wanted, control wanted. Hi folks, for the record, I did have this on the roundabout before. We posted it and we shared it and Andy McMahon is a friend of mine. I know she sent the posts that we had around to various people in the kennel clubs and other sort of in the dog community. And she actually then emailed me a couple of times and said, have you heard anything? Are they getting a new dog officer? I know that it was something that she was concerned and she was hoping that they would find someone else because I think she knows, having done the job that there's a need for someone to do it and it was beyond the time that she was able to give it and she was hoping to try to help spread the word to try to catch someone's attention to do it as well. I mean, I will have this in the story that I do, I'm sure Headline's gonna have it in her story as well. And these are things that we can all share around with people too to try to get some attention on that as both an ad and something that's just in the news. No? You know, I'm friendly with folks through one of the sportsman's groups that I'm involved with is the Vermont Federation of dog clubs. That may be a real good because they're a whole dog network and if I could get something from Bill with maybe a new revised ask on what we're looking for, they may be able to circulate it among their membership and maybe we could get someone fairly close here in central Vermont that might show some interest because they're all real good dog people. Bill? Yeah. Previous advertising to the salary range? I don't think so because the board said no, the last time I brought this up as far as, you know, paying this stipend. So are we okay with $500 a month plus the hourly wage rate which is probably in the $15, $18 range or do you want $300 a month? I mean, neither one is in the budget right now. We're gonna go, we're getting toward the end of the year so we'll probably come close to what the budget was. I don't have the budget in front of me, but I need, I do. I mean, it certainly could be changed down the road, right? Yeah. Okay. Oh, I don't mind, I mean, I don't mind $500 a month then some form of reasonable hourly. The objections from the rest of the board. Do you have a consensus on the board? Yeah, I'm good with that. To the means we can get the problem under control then it's worth it, I guess. Give it a shot. Don't know until you try. That's always been my motto. Okay. All right. So we'll jump to our next item here and try to get through this. Economic Development Director, MSU. Yeah, so Karen Nevin from RW is on the board. I'm not sure we're gonna deal with the MOU tonight. I, while I was on vacation, Karen reminded me that, you know, the MOU, which we had when the Economic Development Director's position was first created, it's been updated and signed a couple of different times since the original one, but one that we're operating now hasn't been updated for a couple of years. It still refers to the old village of Waterbury. So Karen suggested that we should have a new MOU. The big thing is that in the old MOU and in the current MOU that we're proposing, the select board had agreed in the past and I think it makes sense to continue this that we would tell RW no later than October 1st in any given year, whether or not, we would tell them by October 1st if we didn't wanna fund the position the next year. So if October 1st goes by and we don't say anything, the presumption is that the Economic Development Director's position stays in place. I was on vacation when Karen sent that to me when I got back, I finally got to it late last week on Thursday or Friday and I sent it to Karen and she sent an email earlier saying that she might need a little bit more time since her board hadn't seen what I had proposed to her and what I sent to you. So where are we, Karen, from your perspective? Exactly there. Our board met this afternoon and they know that we're reviewing the MOU but they haven't been able to look at it at all and we can't ask them to approve it until they've seen it. So yeah, I popped it over to you, Bill. Didn't quite expect it to land on the agenda tonight and what I'd love to do is table it until October. The board meets again in October 8th. I think I can look at the calendar second Tuesday of the month at which point our board will be able to review it, approve it and then come back to you and have you approve it unless you wanna review it with your select board and have, you know, get off the authority to sign at some point but that's where we're standing. We're not ready to sign, seal and deliver it yet. Yeah, that's fine and did I send it to the select board? Did you all get it? I honestly don't recall seeing it, but maybe... Okay, maybe I didn't look good, you know. I thought I sent it, but if not, I'll send it again. Nobody remembers seeing it. I don't remember, but I've been away this week, you know, dealing with some other issues. Well, it might be the thing that I took home with me and said I'd send it from home and I sent it from home. So maybe that's my fault. I'll get it out to you. I think it's pretty straightforward. It's very similar to the old one and it's got some language changes taking any reference to the old village of Waterbury out but we'll move on and we'll bring that back up the next time. I think it's pretty safe to say that especially given where we are with COVID and the continuation of Main Street, our W has been very instrumental in working with our business community during the Main Street Request and Program. We have a grant that we're getting from the state and we're using that grant money to pay our W for a lot of the business work that they've been doing. So my guess is that there's no desire on the part of the select board right now to exit this out of the budget, right? No, there's been conversation in the past as to just how long this particular position will last but I don't know if we're there yet. Yeah, so for right now, Karen, I think you can tell your board that we're happy with the relationship right now that we plan to fund this program and this position through 2021 and then we'll get the MOU just to kind of codify everything so we have a blueprint to follow going forward, okay? Sounds like a plan. Okay, great. So we can move on to the birds, Chris. Sure, let's move on to the birds, that you as well. That's me. Sorry, your last thing on your agenda but hopefully I can make it quick. I really wanted to share this information with you. I emailed it to you today. I'm sorry, I wasn't a little more proactive in getting this information to you before than this. Our W out of the Main Street budget had some money for some public art and our design committee's been working to come up with a plan. Steve Lachbeke has been part of that planning and the committee decided that the bird sculptures that had was the runner up proposal to the railroad bridge project was something they would love to bring to town. A lot of people loved it. It had a really high response rate in our voting for the train versus the birds and they're fun, they're welcoming. So we attended the EFUD meeting about two weeks ago and asked permission to put a couple of the birds up at the parking lots in town. This is tying it to the Main Street reconstruction project and the funding that we're getting from them. So we're gonna put a bird at the 51 South Main Street. We're gonna put two birds at the Elm Street parking lot and then we've got two other locations in town that are actually more town owned than EFUD owned. One is on Bidwell Lane, looking at the parking lots on Bidwell Lane and the other location is the corner of Main and Stowe Street. There's a planter there. If you, I have a picture, if I were able to share the screen, I could show you what a picture of the birds look like. The artist is Tyler Vendett-Thwally. They're fun, they're welcoming, they're fully paid for through Main Street and revitalizing Waterbury. We've also designed a installation system so that the birds can be removed easily. They'd be put on a pole that's between seven and 10 feet high so that they can't be reached easily, but they can also, and the pole is put in a cement bucket that's inserted into the ground so they can, whole thing can be removed if necessary. We're really excited about it and we just really wanted to share with you. We're not asking for money, but we're hoping that these two additional locations in town are locations that you approve or agree to. We're hoping that we'll be able to put them up this fall before the construction project is finished. The idea being along with this beautiful reconstruction project that will finish soon, cross our fingers. We wanna make our town welcoming and investing in public art in our community is just one of the ways you can really show visitors and people that you are investing in your town, you're investing in your community and you wanna make it welcoming. And putting the birds at the parking lots will just mean it's gonna be a surprise. It's gonna be something unexpected, it'll be fun. It should make people smile. So that's the project. I'm hoping that you will see your way to supporting it. I'm happy to answer any questions. I looked at the painting or photo there that you sent us there. I thought they looked neat. I don't have any of them. They're fun. They're gonna be a couple of different colors. The birds are gonna be 3D instead of 2D. The sample bird we have is a 2D bird that was intended to be, it was the demonstration for the railroad bridge. And so those would evolve in flat. So we've asked him to design 3D birds so that you can see them from all different directions. They're gonna be tucked in trees. I mean, they're still three or four feet big. They're also, by the way, incredibly lightweight. They weigh only about five or six pounds each they're made out of aluminum. Just wanna say I really like this model. I think it's great that you're doing it without public monies. Not that I even think that, you know, the board might even have some tolerance, but it's always good to hear that groups are doing some outside fundraising to bring some needed projects into the community without always just asking for the taxpayer dollars. I think that's very noble. And I think it's a good project. Thank you. I'm just gonna say to you, you don't wanna keep making it too welcoming here because we'll never get any peace and quiet. At the same time, Chris, we make it just welcoming enough for people to come into town and spend their money at our businesses so that they stay open and it continues to be a vibrant community for everybody. I know, that's the goal. Because that's my job, revitalizing Waterbury. Who knows for your efforts, absolutely. Yep. Okay. So if you feel good about this project, I don't know if you need to do anything. I'm working with Steve Lachbeke. He's working with Woody to just give us some help. I'm not asking Woody to do the installation, but we're just making sure we're not making any mistakes in the process. And just so you know, when we met with EFUD, they were very, very clear. Our original plan was to install these birds on buildings and they were adamant that we don't do that. We didn't wanna create problems with any of the historical buildings in town. So we redesigned the project so that these birds are on poles and will not affect any of the buildings in town. Yeah. Yeah, I think since these posts with the birds on them will be put into property that's owned by the town by way right away, that the board should make a motion to authorize the birds at the locations on. You said Bidwell Lane and Main and Stow Street, right, Karen? Correct, and we haven't quite nailed down the Bidwell Lane locations, but once we've decided, we'll let you know. It'll be associated to the parking lots. Okay, and the one on Main Street is right there near the Blackback Pub, that planter. It's gonna go in, there are gonna be two on the planter beside the building. Okay. Perfect, thanks, Karen. Thank you. All right, you got one more, Bill, and then... Did somebody make a motion to do that, Chris? VLCT, cannabis update. You need to... Did somebody make a motion? You need to vote on the bird thing because... Supporting our project. Oh, I didn't realize we got never voted for it. Sorry about that. We need a motion because we're actually putting it on public property. So... Might be a motion. Yes, I make a motion to approve citing the birds as presented on the municipal properties. Second. Question? Thanks. All those who wish to approve, say aye. Aye. Thank you, everybody. Have a good evening. Thank you, Karen. Thanks, Karen. Sorry about that, Bill. I figured because it wasn't taxpayers were not there for whatever reason. It went over my head. I didn't realize we needed a motion. No problem. Okay. So... VLCT legislative action alert went out today. You may or may not have received it in your email. I did not get a chance to send it to you today, but I will. I'll email it to you tonight before I leave here. But you all are aware of the fact that... Vermont is moving towards a tax and regulated cannabis market in Vermont. And there's a bill that is... It's ready to go right now, S54, Senate Bill 54. And it's actually in conference committee right now. So that means there's two competing bills that have passed. One has passed the Senate and the other has passed the House. And now they're trying to iron out the details. And whether we like a regulated marketplace, taxed and regulated marketplace for cannabis in Vermont or not, that should seems to have sailed. We're gonna have one. So I'll just quickly read this to you. This was sent out by Karen Horne from VLCT. But it says that S54 that creates this bill is in conference committee now. This week, the conference committee must resolve the differences between the version passed in the Senate and the version passed in the House. The remaining issue, the one that they're kind of fighting about is whether or not local governments will have taxing authority over cannabis operations. She goes on to say that almost every town in Vermont will have some type of cannabis operation, whether it's in the form of cultivation, manufacturing or retail, something's gonna be going on in almost every community. The Senate bill that was passed earlier in the year, potentially last year, I think it was earlier this year, the Senate bill proposes a 2% local option tax to be assessed across the board in every municipality. So there are 16 towns now in Vermont that have local option taxes. So if you go to Williston and you go to Walmart and you buy something there, you pay the Vermont sales tax plus you pay the 1% sales tax to Williston. You go to Stowe, you pay rooms and meals tax, alcohol tax there. There's only 16 towns that have a local option tax. We get a little bit of that local option tax money through the pilot appropriation, but the towns that have that local option tax get about 70% of the revenue that's generated from those. So the Senate bill has passed either a 2% local option tax that is assessed on local cannabis tax revenue that's shared amongst all municipalities, not those that are just hosting retail operations. The House has no tax on it from municipalities, doesn't give municipalities the authority to tax it outside those communities that have a local option tax. So the request from VLCT is for communities to contact their legislators, especially the legislators in the house and ask them to make provision so municipalities can share some of these taxes. We will deal with some of the problems on the local level. We don't have our own police force, but just like alcohol and other things like that, there's gonna be issues that get raised from the fact that we have this now in our communities. So the first question is, do you want me to contact the legislature and advocate for assessing this local, this tax that all municipalities will share with? The revenue won't come to us directly. We won't have to do anything. We won't have to pass a bill or pass an ordinance. We just have to advocate for this tax. It will be a tax that's assessed by the state and then the state will share that revenue with municipalities or you want me to be silent on it. And if you want to be effective in this, some of you should call Tom and Teresa and other house members that you know as well. So I know it's kind of last minute, but this just came today. So I thought I'd put it on the agenda or at least talk about it briefly. It wasn't on the agenda, but I'd like your thoughts on it. I'll let the board members comment first because they're not gonna like my answer. Well, I've been following this issue. It's been pretty substantially covered by Vermont Digger. And marijuana is here. There's gonna be cannabis cultivation, it's legal. There are gonna be places. I'm not saying it's all that great, but we have alcohol, we have cigarettes. They're regulated, I'm a believer in, if it's regulated and regulated properly, it's no worse than alcohol. Not that alcohol probably has some bad things. And I think we need to be kind of in front of this whole thing. I'm very much in favor of the town participating in income derived from cannabis sales. I think it's, I don't think by not doing it, it's a very principled thing, but it's a good revenue source and that's all I have to say. The, just let me finish reading. It says that if the house version passes in order to get any revenue from the cannabis retail market, the town would have to pass a local option tax and that tax would have to be on all businesses in the community. I know when this issue first came up, and I'm not speaking for Mark Fryer, but Mark lobbied against having a tax on cannabis. And he said, you know, why should that be any different than any other business in the community? We're not taxing them. The statement from VLCT just says this, if the house version passes, your town will, and if your town does not have a local option tax, that's us, it will receive no revenue from hosting a facility in the new cannabis marketplace. Your municipality will need to adopt a town-wide local option sales tax that would apply to all businesses, not just cannabis operations. So, you know, I think you can go either way on this. And I have not been a strong proponent locally of a local option tax. I think that there's issues. It's just another way to get money out of people's pockets and the businesses locally, you know, have to collect it, send it to the state. We don't do that now for anything else. So I think you could make an argument that why should this be singled out in tax locally when we don't tax anything else? But I just wanted to make sure that you knew what the issue was. And Mike has stated the support side rather eloquently. Well, Bill, maybe, you know, if we have to have an option, you know, I thought there was something in the bill where they were talking about fees. And I didn't know that we would have to have an options tax to, you know, because that's where I think the house and the senate differ. We don't, Mike, you're exactly right. What I'm saying is if the senate door passes, we don't have to have a local option tax. We don't have a local option tax, but we would get some revenue from the cannabis market. If the house bill passes, we don't get any revenue from the cannabis market. And what I was saying before was, Mack Friar a couple of months ago asked the question, well, we don't tax any other business. Why should we get revenue from cannabis when we don't get revenue from, you know, selling food at his restaurant or selling a shirt at the Stowe Street Emporium. So what he was saying was he was in support of the house bill, just leave it as it is, we don't get taxed from any of these businesses. The senate is suggesting that local governments ought to get some money from this because there are gonna be issues that they have to deal with over it. So that's where we are. Well, that's where I kind of like agree with the senate bill. You know, I would love to get some money, but I'm also maybe not so much in agreement of having an options tax, you know, taxes or taxes, you know, and I think taxes are just gonna dissuade people from coming to Waterbury. So I don't think another taxes is going to be a good thing, but, you know, I would love to get some money from the marijuana market, that's my opinion. Yeah, I think that if we're not taxing things like alcohol sales in town, that we, I wouldn't want to get behind taxing cannabis. It just doesn't, it kind of seemed like the same thing to me, whether you're going out and having a couple of beers or using cannabis, it's a drug. We don't make money on it right now and it seems like it would be overly complicating things to make money on just that. Okay, that's both sides of the coin. I gotta step in and say something. I think, okay, I think I'm along the lines with Nat and with Mark, if we don't already have an LO team, then I don't think that we should get into it and you're right, if we don't already tax, you know, other sales, and why would we start with just this, so that's my opinion. I think it all makes a difference whether it's the House to the Senate version that winds up prevailing. So that's gonna make all the difference. So the Senate bill, as I understand it, and I don't have it in front of me, they're proposing two different things. One is there's one version that they're saying let the municipalities tax it. So that would be like a local option tax. There's the other option in the Senate bill, if that doesn't get enough traction, the Senate is saying that if there's not a local option tax, we'll just tax it at the state level and there should be a mechanism that the state shares some of that revenue with municipalities that are hosting these facilities. Now, I think if the state does that and they're willing to send us money, we're not gonna say no to that. What I'm hearing Nat and Katie say though is if the option is that the community has to actually establish a tax on the cannabis that you don't think we should do that. Did I get that right, both of you? That's clear from what I was saying, yes. Okay. And then question, can you make that clear? If we house a business that grows it, we get something out of that? Again, I don't have the law right in front of me, Katie, but the Senate bill has, they're arguing about whether it should be nothing at all or whether it will be the state's gonna tax cannabis. The next question is, okay, if the state taxes cannabis, are we gonna let municipalities tax cannabis? And that's what you and Nat seem to say that you don't wanna do. You don't wanna single that out. But there is a provision that some people are pushing to say we'll just raise the state tax a little bit higher and we will share that revenue with municipalities that host cannabis facilities. So if that happens, the money comes to us kind of automatically, we didn't do anything to get it. I like the way that one sounds. Chris, besides saying that you don't think we should allow cannabis, you wanna add? I guess, man, you wanna hear the truth? I think, I hope this thing seriously bites the state and it does. I've never seen anything that unmotivates people like marijuana does. I'm in the construction industry. I talk to a lot of people who have employees in the construction industry and has nothing good to contribute as far as I'm concerned. It's just another degradation to societal downgrade. And I don't want any part of it, so. So you're not interested in allowing municipalities to collect the local option tax then? That, I mean, that's the issue right now. I understand your personal opinion and I don't find myself too much in disagreement with what you're saying, but that's not the issue that we're talking about tonight. So- I don't want any part of it. I would be ashamed to take the money from- Okay. Something so ridiculous. All right, I think I've heard what Yvonne had to say. I know what I need to do now, which is just sit back and let them figure out what they're gonna do and we'll go from there. Sit back and have a beer, Bill. Okay, Katie. 10-4, they'll be passing out joints to every town for it to try to lobby us. Good for them. There's no shame left in the bar. Okay, are we done? I am. Okay. A motion to adjourn. So moved. Thank you all. Good to see you all. Thanks. Good night, everyone. Hey. Good night, everyone.