 right is Jeremy Hansen and Angelina Kaepern. With us also is Dana Adelaide somewhere and Diane Isabel. What are the changes to the budget or what the departments are asking? How does that change the tax rate? What we have with the tax rate is and again and I say this every time but I have to say it I'm using last year's grand list because I don't know what to use and I do expect a little bit of growth in it. Not a lot we are expecting a lot in the next year or two but for now the tax rate using what I know for the tax rate I mean for the grand list the tax rate would increase about two cents the municipal rate I'm talking about two cents per hundred from fifty five oh eight to fifty seven thirty five seven three all. Are you including all the appropriations of everything? I am including the appropriations that I know about which we know quite a few which isn't what they're asking for is an increase I think we decided it was about a $12,000 increase. We were at $68,000 without the $6,000. Okay so without the fire department it was like $68,000 in appropriations last year and this year if you know if everything gets approved we're looking at like 73,500 basis. And we do have some we haven't heard from yet which they still have an opportunity to request. That potentially could grow. We have not heard from one two three four five we haven't heard from five that we had last year. When does that end? I don't know the exact date I believe it's the end of the month somewhere around with the same date of attrition like we did. And how long is the Grange still on the their program? We had a five-year program with them. Yeah and I would say that was at least three years ago. Yeah I think we're on the fourth year. I think so too. How are you doing? Have you heard? I've heard they're doing pretty good. They're stable solid. Okay good. So with that basically the budget this year and I think that we're as in the budget if you will as in good shapes as it is because we're not buying any major pieces of equipment. We did put some extra money in on the capital budget into for the highway reserve. What are we looking at in a percent increase? For a total percent of the budget. Maybe and I didn't have that right in front of me Diane if you could do it. I'm gonna need the number I gave you earlier. Yeah what you're going to take is three million. Let's do this right so I guess. Isn't that for that first tab of your so it's going to be this compared to that and that's operating I'm not putting in the appropriations in that. Okay so actually circle the long one. Okay well I'm trying to do it fast and I'm also left-handed so I think my world is different. The world is definitely different. And I'm gonna stick with it. So to me if I'm reading your numbers correctly then we're looking at an increase of 69,000. So a point zero two three percent. That makes sense. Point zero two three. So two point three is that with that equate to that? Yeah okay that's I was gonna say two. And that's probably driven by mostly salaries wages. You mean for like the police or because? No for all of us for for police is more than two percent. Yeah. And Bill's fully staffed? He is at the moment yes. Let me look at the clock. Yeah. But he is he has full officers and that was that was another difference was last year if you remember we only budgeted half a year for the last position and now we have and Diane did the she picked mid-range because we don't at that time we really didn't know who we were gonna have. Right. And I think that's probably a safe place to stay. Yes because we're not gonna get somebody that's gonna be a surgeon who's going to be paid a lot more. Right. Our chances are we won't. Looking through the budgets I don't really see police has an increase of forty one thousand dollars. There's a four percent increase. Oh I had it right here two point three three. Okay so my numbers worked out with yours. Okay I was just checking you. Yeah. And we only went down we went down forty two thousand a capital budget because we didn't buy a piece of equipment but we are putting two hundred thousand dollars into that highway structures and equipment line. And we still did leave the fifteen thousand in case we wanted to get a new and we did well that and that was the other thing we had the new server in there which was ten and then that was I also asked for five for a study on the building which may or may not be necessary. Yeah. In the budget we have money to fix the Richardson road. Yeah. We do it's in this year's budget. It's in the nineteen budget. Yeah. And I didn't put a specific amount for the twenty budget for Richardson road. I'm thinking we're going to be able to squeeze most of it out of the nineteen budget but I felt we had enough with the money that we're putting in highway structures and equipment. And I've got to figure out how we're going to buy an excavator when we get to that point. Happy with it. Am I happy with the budget? Yeah. I don't know if I'm ever happy with the budget but but I think it's I don't see where we look what we have that is so to you know I think first of all I think the rate will probably come in about even once they're done the new grand list and maybe our revenues will use some more revenue than we had thought maybe we have some more because we are conservative conservative on our revenues. I don't see that the department heads have really added a lot of extra things. I know the police did put more money in training and I support that. Highway did add money for salt and sand. You know I'm about nothing in there is like you have to have it you know. And I think as far as the administrative budget again I don't really see other than you know the study for the building which I snuck in but and the server I believe we really need to replace the server. I did get the on mobile emails. Good. Yeah. I came through this time. Pete did you get yours? You know about a week later I got a notice that you and Pete didn't get your and it said something about and I forget now what it said I send it over to RRB to try and find out what it said but it was an odd message. It would make sense to Jeremy but it was to me it didn't make sense. We're not supposed to block your emails. I wondered whether that was that. I can't blame you. Even now I have to be careful because some of the emails I get could be turned up in the stamp. But we have had not so much lately but I've had some that I've sent to Diane or I've sent to Tom and two days later they get it and so it's like. Okay well if you're happy with it you don't think we can do any better but you think it'll dig in. Well I think that I think with the grand list it's obviously we are at this time the way we do the budgets here we're always way ahead and things could change but I don't see what we what we really have Brad that we can really get and even if we did you know it's not going to mount that much we need $50,000 for a penny. You hear anything else Pete? No. Jeremy? Entertain the motion to adjourn the budget session. I'll move to adjourn the budget session. Second. All in favor? All right. Okay okay I'll take and call the Thursday generally third regular Berlin Select Board meeting to order. To my left is Pete Kelly. To my right is Jeremy Hansen. Angelina Capron and with us also is Dana Hadley kind of administrator and Diane Isabel town treasurer. Let's see here. Additions and changes to the agenda? I do have a few things that I would like to add to the agenda. One is an appointment for the Planning Commission. Another is I've got the thank you letter prepared for the resignation on the Planning Commission and I guess that's it. Vote? What's that? Oh I'm sorry and the vote and the vote for the budget. Okay. That's what I asked that I just went right in there. Public comment? Hearing none. Hearing none. Treasury report. Okay. Right now we're already halfway through this year which is hard to believe but we've already had six months go by. So what I'm doing right now is I'm going through trial balance and I'm going by account by account. I'm just looking to see if maybe I made some posting errors which can happen and then once I've done that I'm going to go to Dana and then we look at it just to see if we're where we should be at the halfway mark and then we can discuss it with the doctors and make sure we're discussing the next few meetings and that's all I have. Okay. Thank you very much. Total licenses, permits, vouchers, and applications. I move that we approve general fund accounts payable warrant number 19G13 with checks 18753 through 18792 in the amount of $70,925.84 and payroll warrant number 19-13 for payroll from December 9th, 2018, December 22nd, 2018 in the amount of $41,712.91. Second. Any other discussion on this? Hearing none. Those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. And now we go to Linda Mullen. We asked Linda to come in because we'd like for the board to accept the budget, the final budget. I have sent you the draft and I know you've read it from your audit, I'm sorry. Where am I tonight? I think I should go and take two months off with pay of course. The audit. And so Linda came in to answer any question you might have and kind of give you an overview of where we are with the audit. And so maybe you'd like to talk to us about the fund balances and things like that or any other thing that you think is important for the board to know. We'll just kind of quickly kind of go over where you landed for the year. I won't talk about Exhibit A and Exhibit B, that's the government. That's where we take your reports that you usually see and turn them into like if you were a for profit business where you're adding in the debt and the capital assets and all that. But I know that's not what you use for your purposes. So I'll start on Exhibit, I don't know if you're following along or if you care to follow along. But the general fund ended to fiscal year 18 with a fund balance of just over a million dollars. Some of that is non-spendable which is prepaid and highway inventory and a loan to the water division I think that is. And then there's some restricted money and committed money and assigned money. So basically those monies are already earmarked for various purposes which are noted on page 39 if you aren't aware what they are. But there is 535,000 that is unassigned and available to use for whichever purpose, whether it be you know lower the tax rate or whatever, that's the amount that is not earmarked from the general fund as of the end of fiscal year 18. That money, Linda, could be the board has the authority to use it to lower the tax rate for example. In the Italian? If another purpose for that were to be would that need a warning, an article and a warning for the public to approve? So there's 5 different categories of fund balance. Non-spendable is the first, the highest order that I haven't been here is the ability for you to spend them. You can spend basically the bottom, the tops are earmarked. So the top is the non-spendable which is the prepaid inventory and one of you owed other funds. You can't touch that because that's already either spent. Then there's restricted. That's money that has been given to you by an outside source with restrictions. You can never internally place a restriction on fund balance. The town's fund balance policy considers the voters the highest level decision makers. So they're the ones who can commit funds. So if the voters approve to set aside X amount for let's just say a bridge project next year or something two years down the road and the voters approve it, that's committed funds. The select board has the authority to assign funds. And so when you've committed or assigned funds, whatever that authority was, whether it's the voters committing it or the select board assigning it by a vote, you cannot take money out of that for another purpose other than what it was designated for without going through the formal process. So for committed funds and so voters approve to commit it for a certain project or purpose and you want to use it for something else. You have to go to the voters and say you would set aside this. We propose that we change it to this. We're not going to do that project or we're not going to buy that. You see, you need voter approval. So the same approval you got to commit that money, you have to go through with the voters to uncommit it. Same with the assigned. If you guys voted at a meeting to assign funds for a project or something and you decide down the road that you're not going to use it for that, you'd have to do a formal board vote to unassign it or assign it for something else. And then what's left that hasn't been remarked is the unassigned which you can use for whatever purpose you want. So the board can make a decision. Say like they wanted to buy a piece of equipment. They could make that decision and have access to that money to use it for them? Right. It would go in. Diane keeps a nice spreadsheet of all those. And it would just go in. And I know I think you usually... You answered my question better than I asked it. But yeah. Yeah. So you guys have done that in the past where you voted on three or four things and said we want X amount set aside for this. Diane adds it to her sheet and then when it gets spent she's tracking it. So she's keeping a running balance of that. Is the recommended balance that towns have used to be a certain two times your budget or a certain percentage of your budget I guess? Maybe more of a operating. Like ten percent of your operating budget. So many of your operating. Whether it be two months or six months or whatever. Yeah. Some towns actually do have a minimum fund balance policy which they... Their policies that keep... You get two months of operating or whatever. So much percentage of next year's budget or something of that nature. But I don't see that very often but it is an option if you wanted to change your policy to have that. But now that it's really been a policy we've always been doing it. Yeah. I mean you just have built it in. Yeah right. Do you think there would be any advantage to having it as a policy? I mean not necessarily. Yeah. But you don't know what the board is going to do ten years from now. Yeah. You know if they aren't maybe as far-sighted about trying to be, you know, think of the future they might keep the fund balance a little lower or... But it seems with all that criteria above where we can't touch or we have to do it undo and that would be a little bit harder to spend for up or just the board to spend it freely because if we commit it to something we have to uncommit it. Right exactly. So by the time you get down on what's left it seems like there should be... Actually I think I mean we've got what about half of our total fund balance is uncommitted or is that the word I was looking for? Yeah. So about half and I think that's a pretty good statement of previous boards that have been able to build that up. And again if you had an emergency and you needed to tap that quickly you know you have it. And I think being a taxpayer myself I appreciate for the consistency in the tax rate because I do audit towns that try and keep it a little lower than that and then something comes up and next thing you know they have to get a loan out or you know so they've got a spike in taxes and then when they have a surplus they're reducing their tax rate so the taxes are kind of doing this where Berlin tends to be more like this. So we do have enough to cover... You create a false tax rate in a way if you use too much fund balance. Yeah. Does that answer your question? Yeah you did thank you I'm sorry I didn't ask it very well. No that's okay. So the general fund for the year ended the year with a loss of 29,000 the year before had a $44,000 gain. And we know what that was. That was the Green Mountain property tax. Yeah. Well not solely because if you look at budget well I said no. If you look at budget to actual your total revenue was under budget by 18,000 and I know property taxes was like 68,000 but you made out for it by some grants that weren't budgeted and the police department was under budget because they lost the contract for the hospital wage year. So that was some of it. And then over the expenditure side that's really where you're saving you saved it you know because your expenditures were 189,000 under budget you know and that's between you know the police department not having to staff for the hospital that the contract was lost on the highway was really under budget so between those two things and you had budgeted a loss of 155,000 and you ended up with 29 so you were 125,000 better than you budgeted. So you really came out okay. And sometimes with highway that's just not possible. Right. Weather dependent. Yeah. And then in your proprietary funds which is your water division and your water pollution fund the fund balance well net position is what you call those funds versus fund balance. The water pollution ended with a 1.5 million dollar net position at the end of the year and the water division is almost 1.9 million. And for the water pollution fund 600,000 of that is really your investment in your capital assets. So the unrestricted portion is about 950,000 whereas the water division fund more than your fund balance is actually in your fixed assets and you're really unrestricted as a negative 3,000. Right. Yeah. The water pollution fund ended the year with a loss of 30,000 which is actually pretty consistent with the year before. That was like 26,000 the year before and the water division fund was about a $2,500 profit. The year before it was 173,000 but the year before you had a lot more grant income and this year your depreciation went up because of the assets being in service so you have more expenses. And again on page 39 is really showing you where you're committed and restricted and assigned fund balances what they're for. Did you see in your review, that's not the word I wanted to say, in your audit anything that we should be doing differently? No. I mean there was no findings for this year's audit. I know there was an issue in the past with the grant reporting that's over with and no we didn't have any issues, everything any questions that we had were easily resolved and you know. Procedures are doing well? Yeah. You actually have very good procedures so and I don't know if I told you this last year but we, auditing is kind of we do at risk base. So we come in the day before the audit which we call preliminary field work and one of the things we do is a walk through when we select like a deposit at a payroll and a disbursement and we kind of find out what your controls are and follow those all the way through your system to make sure that your controls set are actually working and are in place and are appropriate and you know things are being followed and we didn't find any issues there at all. I just know in the past there hadn't been because that's a small department small municipal office. Yeah. So I mean we take that and decide how much to audit. You know we've gone into audits where we've had problems with the walk through and it's like ah you know she's had three things, we've found two mistakes or whatever doesn't leave us feeling warm and fuzzy so we have to do a lot more testing and you know and pick things that maybe we wouldn't on another audit. Well I think what Brad and I would agree with Brad sometimes in a small organization there's only so many people that can do this double control sometimes it's hard to do. We try very hard to do as good as well as we can. But the board hasn't asked me to hire six more people. Just a lot of throw that out. So we're in good shape. You are, yeah. Diane does a very good job and I think what and maybe I should have added this was a vote to accept the audit. That's what we need. We accept the audit as presented. Any other discussion? Those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. So you'll give me what you need from me. Yeah it's a rec letter and then I also have a couple dollar amounts. It was the water loan and the water pollution loan and I have to get amounts withdrawn to the date you signed the rec letter. Okay. So the rec letter will need to be signed by you and Diane and I, I think a board member. So I don't know if you'll have it and want to do that to me. I don't think I'll have it. Well I mean I don't think we're in a terrible party because I'm going to, I'll probably hit Brad up to sign for the board. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. Audits for the use of town roads or snow roads and ATVs. I don't know about ATVs. Yeah I don't know why I put that in there. This is just for snowmobiles because that's what you voted on. And I had given you the this is a sample ordinance or was modeled after the model ordinance from the league and we had talked about whether you were interested in doing civil fines and so forth and you weren't. So I've removed that verbiage. I have, I don't know if you've got my email today you had at your vote last meeting you had specified the hours of operation from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. so that has been put in. This has gone to Rob and he has blessed it. And if you were ready to adopt it it would be 60 days before it becomes ballot. Any other motion? I mean that we adopt the civil bill ordinance as presented. Second. Any further discussion? Those in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. And moving on to the conflict of interest price. Right and I want to Diane to state with that one. It's important. This is a conflict of interest policy is a model again why invent the wheel when I can just go to the league and get their suggestions. And what brought this into mind we have a very good conflict of interest portion in the charter and so I've not really brought this forward because we've already have it. However we now have some grants that one of the new requirements is that the town have an official conflict of interest policy. That's where this comes from. I don't see anything in this policy that causes me any. Does it mirror the charter? The charter speaks a little differently. It comes from a different angle but yes. And the charter isn't official enough. It has to be called a conflict of interest policy. It has to be an actual policy. Interesting. So we have state statute but they want a policy instead. Interesting. And we can opt for that ourselves. Well you have the authority for the policy. It does not. I'm not really asking for you to approve it tonight because I'd like you to think about it for another you know because it's the first time you've seen it. But that is the reason for that and I'd like you to have a copy. Well if we need it do we really have anything to think about? Well we only you know. For certain grants. For certain grants and the one where it's come up with is the grant that I've been it's been very painful with this grant for the hazard mitigation update which needs to be done. I mean that our hazard mitigation expired last May and we've been all this time trying to get the grant. We're not the only town that this happened to but it just sort of sounds like if we need the grant then that's a requirement of the grant. And I guess what I'm saying to you is that I don't see anything in that that you wouldn't approve of. Or you know could we just say could we just adopt as our official policy the language in the charter you could. I mean if you would like to do that I mean it does that's why I didn't really consider the conflict of interest policy. I believe in the conflict of interest policy because I think it's important to have in writing what you expect and the charter I thought did a good job of that. I think that has a bit more process. I mean I think that's good. I remember seeing that before too. Right. I mean I think that this would be a good it's a good policy. It kind of mirrors our charter. It kind of affirms what you meant in the charter. So did you say you remember it wasn't quickly to just trade them out? No we just say that we're going to declare we're just going to say that our official policy is the charter. I see. We're renaming our policy to be an official policy. Right. So I don't know that that necessarily will satisfy the I think that I would suggest going with something along this room. I hear what you're saying and I don't disagree with you. Did you say this is more policy? This is more procedure? Right. And that makes sense. Yeah obviously the charter doesn't address it and a lot of the charter is dealing with elected officials and appointed officials that. Really everybody. Put that on for the next meeting. Sure. Anything else on this? You may have it. I'm sending you a brain shot. I wonder when you close that if you were done. Might as well go home. Okay. Nothing else on the on the conflict of interest policy. I'll move on to the certificate of highway mileage. Thank you. This is an annual document that you sign. This would refer to the number of miles that we have in highways and that's what our grant is based on. We have not added any highways this year and we have not removed any highways this year and so this form is just saying there are no changes in the mileage but I do need to have and they only give you three spaces to sign so we'll have to sneak a space in if you sign it tonight. Move to adopt the or approve the certificate of highway mileage for the year ending February 10th, 2019 from the town of Berlin. Second. Any other discussion? Are all those in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Okay. We have an increase of how much was it on the budget? Percentage or dollars? About $70,000. Okay. In years past we have taken money from the undesignated funds and used them to reduce the budget. Reduce the tax rate? I wonder if we should do it again this year. Usually you would have an opportunity to do that when you set the tax rate in July. So you certainly could. Because basically you set your tax rate. We're estimating what the tax rate is but the actual rate is set in July by you. We would bring you the information that we have. The updated information with the new grant list total. And the correct appropriations. As well as updated revenues. So that's usually the first meeting in July because Diane's usually in a rush to get the bills out. Right after that. It seemed to me like we used to do it in budget time to try to level the budget as much as we could. You've always considered what we're trying to do is give you an idea of how the budget is going to affect the rate. I think with Diane and I the last three years where we brought it up this would be based on this budget this would be the rate. In previous times I don't think people at the treasure did not do that. Or the town administrator. So that's why I think it might be different because all of a sudden in the last three years we started doing that. Just to give you that thought. And you have used money to offset the rate a few years ago when we had the light winter and we had an excess in the surplus in the budget. Well it also had a surplus of consumables in the highway department. So I think we had like 150,000 that we used to offset the tax rate which was great that year. And that's the problem you get into. So you certainly can use, I mean we have 500,000 you could use to offset the tax rate. I wouldn't recommend you do that. You certainly could use 50,000 or something like that. But I think the time when you get into July and we have better figures for you is the time when we would be talking that you would be able to think about that. Okay. Let's try to see how that goes. I'd like to say that the grand list is going to grow to do it. I don't think so. Well if the grand list grows any amount it should take it would make it so you wouldn't have to have 50,000. I'm very interested to see what happens with the update on the mobile homes because as you remember we are having those updated and they'll be for the... I never get the year straight. 2019 or 2020. 2020. Consideration. So the actual bottom line amount for the budget is 3,000,000, 2,500,000. And that's what... In addition to that as you know there's the special appropriations which includes the fire department which is 267,000. So I move to adopt the budget in the amount of 3,000,000 2,503 dollars. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Okay. Budget passes. Thank you. That's all for me. We were hoping that you could find some more money somewhere. Select board minutes approval for 12, 6, 18. I'd like to approve the minutes for the there's for December 6th, 2018 select board meeting as presented. Second. Who's here for that one Dana? For that meeting, you all were here for that meeting. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. Brad could you add in maybe next the appointment for the planning? Yep. We will now do the appointment for the planning commission. Paulie McMurtry who you met last fall I think was in. She was appointed as an alternate to the DRV. She is very familiar with the planning commission. She served in the planning commission in Fasem and she has indicated that she would like to be on our planning commission. I have posted it as per our policy and no one else has come forward so I'd like you to consider Paulie as a full member of the planning commission. Move to appoint Paulie McMurtry to the planning commission. Second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. I'd like you to sign for Jet Barrel thanking him for his service in the planning commission. Don't really need a motion on this, do we? I don't know, I don't think so. You accepted his resignation. The minister of report, Dana? I have just a few things. First of all I'd like to remind you that a week from today, Thursday the 10th is your, the select board's public hearing on the zoning amendment update that is scheduled to go to voters in March. That will be next Thursday at 7 here and it's a public hearing on the zoning. So I'm hoping you can come. Tim wanted me to mention to you we're having a few concerns. We've given the town's policy has been to give sand away to residents and it's been a nice policy if you had needed the sand and we've had a tremendous amount of sand being used. Of course it's been icy but I mean we've had pickup trucks showing up. We've had, we put sand over in Riverton trying to help people out of there and we have it there for like one day and the sand goes missing. Someone's taking it. And it's, I guess it's very hard. I hate to punish everybody but we also can't run on sand. So I wanted you to be aware of the situation. We're monitoring it but if we start to have a problem we may not be able to do that. Well it sounds like we are having a problem. We have signs there that kind of explain what it's for. It's for you to show up with your bucket and fill it up and sand your two mile driveway or something. And our cameras? Motion sensor game camera or something like that. I suppose we could. But when the sand disappears in a day. The camera does too. Do we take another pile over there? We have been because obviously we slow that down. I mean you're just feeding the fish. But I mean people legitimately use the sand though. Well if they get the chance. Well that's the thing if you don't put it back then the folks who are actually using it. I mean if it were disappearing in a day. Maybe that's one of the ways we can lower the budget. We can just go start borrowing from a peeler. Well it has been a problem and I just wanted you to know that if we may have to curtail doing it you may hear from some of your constituents. Well I mean I think one of the troubles where is it put at the fire station? At the house. Yeah. Perhaps one of the problems is that there's no rule of control or if the people from Riverton had to come up here to the up here to get their sand. Leave a pile by the gate. At least in the police department kind of keep an eye on things until coming and going. Is that happening here too? It has happened here a little bit. I mean yes it's right out on this side of the gate where the sand is. But you know we're not monitoring it. We're not watching people come and go or what happens at night's weekends. Could you put the time on it like you know until I mean if we. Well it's not gated that's the trouble. But if you put it inside the gate. Well then you have people going into the town yard. I did have a discussion with a gentleman who said well if it's not there I'm going to go and take the sand out of the pile that's in the sand yard. And I said no you're not. Because I mean that would be stealing in my opinion. The other, it's a slippery slope and a hard one. You want to help people. You want to be able to stop and think of this. It's kind of their sand they paid for it. Exactly. But it stopped us to control. Are those Berlin Town residents necessarily? The other thing is if they're taking it by the pickup truck load they're doing commercial work. That's what I was saying. If somebody is taking all of it then people aren't getting to use it anyways. But you know a guy talked to me about the ATPs and the snowmobile trails. And he said I know who those blah blah blah are that are causing all that trouble. And I called them up and said you guys are giving us a hard time now. Because this light board may or may not allow us to build trails. So you look at the sand the same way. We're going to take the sand away because somebody is stealing it from all of you and we're not going to allow that to continue anymore. If you know who's stealing your sand tell them to knock it off. Because we're not going to. We're not going to have police. But it's just sort of a motivator to say we can't allow this to go on forever. If it is obvious, I mean Tim has spoken to people out there. If it's obvious that they're not, they're taking more than what they intended. He does speak up. I mean it's hard. The guy pulls in there with him. They're out in five minutes or ten minutes. The other issue that I'd just like to, I think it's three years ago that the mall came in and talked about the downtown designation and they hired a consultant to help them with it. And it's starting to become closer and closer to a reality. We're meeting with, Tom and I are meeting with Mike Rushman weekly now. Updates getting ready to, because once the one piece we're waiting for to be resolved so that we can apply for the downtown designation is the zoning to be approved, the updated zoning. We're waiting for the master plan. That's happened. Now we're waiting for the zoning after which the plans are to submit an application to the state for that. We've had a very good relationship with the mall but I also think that as the town we're separate from the mall and while this is, the board had supported this designation we need to be sure that we if this is what we want that we support it and we look to the future. We're meeting with the state next week to find out what things to think about in the application and there are, it's amazing but in the four years since I've been in Berlin Berlin has changed quite a bit and I think you're going to see a lot of changes and I think the downtown designation will change dramatically the face of the town for the better but I guess I just wanted the board to know that while this is being kind of quiet for a long time waiting for certain pieces to fall in place they're now falling in place and we're off. So do we get a post office or something? Well it would be great wouldn't it? Well I guess I don't understand you know but as you remember when he presented to you and I don't know I guess it was three years ago the intent was to turn the mall road into a main street for example to change the mall to be more like the stores right on the street like we grew up with you know less parking housing more housing that is a huge problem one of the major employers in town just told me they were having they had 50 jobs they couldn't fill because people had no way to live really you know and I believe that I mean it's a problem all over Vermont it's not I mean affordable housing it's what I'm going with some of these jobs on the lower echelons and so it's a problem and so this might you know there are some housing firms that are interested in maybe doing something over there but what I'm trying to say I'm not saying it very well but the town needs to be sure that they look after their own interests on going forward. Speaking of the mall how is the assisted living coming that was at the DRB last night yeah last night and the meeting went very well DRB is deliberating I can't speak how they're going to deliberate but I think it's probably pretty positive can somebody fill me in on that assisted living I have a project planned to happen over at the mall this project is going to buy a piece of land from the mall are they going to buy it or lease it maybe they're going to lease it it's on the Walmart side there's a West End flower shop as you come around the corner you first see the the garden center of Walmart it's right there and it's a rather large project they're going to have apartments for people that qualify age wise as well as a mechanism for when you no longer can be in your own apartment and you need assistance it's one of these places that you might have an apartment and you have a little kitchen area in your apartment but the main meal of the day is prepared in a dining room right in northfield and this is a company that has a few in Williston and one in Essex I believe and they've been quite successful and they've done a very nice job I think it will be a nice addition the first thing that comes to my mind is is it safe for disabled and elderly people being right next to the mall would that be a safe area? it is separate from the mall from what pictures we saw by a couple hundred feet at least the breakdown is there's 98 units I don't remember the breakdown but I think only 18 of them were for assisted lower income well I'm not sure because the building is in three wings and there's parking included I think it's under the building the parking is going to be underground and then you have the building that's four floors we do have a lot of plans Angel and I could go over with you I think it was it wasn't low income it was just one was assisted living for people who could have the same facility and then there was one that was memory care for people with dimension L fibers so that was there was 18 units for the most assisted and it sort of dropped down to 40 whatever the numbers were well it's moving along I should probably go to this meeting I mean my thought about I was worried about like somebody with dimension wandering off onto the building to answer your questions about being safe someone with dimension would be in a section that they will have monitoring available it's also one of the pluses is that it's easy for people to go shopping they don't have to drive places the other thing that they mentioned was that once you move into the least care part of it as you age you simply move from one apartment to another you still stay in the same surroundings and everything else for people who have dimension that's a big plus they're coming down with it they're going to build like a lake so I'm assuming that low income people would have their children so would they have like a walkway is it not necessarily elderly it's all elderly it's an age limit it's elderly it's not like 65 plus whatever but that is something that has been discussed having somewhere that families can live affordable housing but that's not a plan yet they had mentioned that if you wanted to tour one of their facilities they'd be glad to show you and I'm interested in going down my aunt lives in one of Massachusetts and it's really nice it's really very nice she's still on the farm and she's 100 years old is it one of theirs? it's a similar model if you can't handle that anymore you go into a different type of setting more and more care is what it is and all of these are owned by one family so it isn't a company it's a privately owned project but I'd like to stop in some time and have time to show you the plan they're really pretty nice sure so a post office sounds nice I'm not sure the town center I see things happening things are expanding the hospital will be expanding probably that whole area is right for that you look at Barry and Montpelier and people say well Berlin's got to catch up well we're not going to catch up and be another Montpelier or another Barry I think the structure will be different the layout will be quite different I mean it's so divided I'm just thinking like has Sambles been filmed? is there anything going on? I'm just thinking like a post office you mean like Staples Square next to Shaw's the state kicks them out but I mean they're in and out of there so that's moving along so I think that's I just wanted you to be aware that things will be happening with that and we will be updating you as we go along and we do need as I say to have some a little bit of independence as we go further so how I mean I have no qualms about the that one of the things that makes the mall so attractive to a lot of shoppers is simply the fact that you have parking and if you narrow it down to a street well I think that there's a lot of ideas that have been brought up and they're all just ideas now so I wouldn't go through them but I think parking is very much in their minds to preserve adequate parking the thing you should know though is that you don't see any getting around accepting when the main street becomes the main street the town accepting that street is our street so that that is really what I had for you today again the meeting next Thursday for the public hearing thank you thank you David we have a catering operation from Woodbelly Pizza they are going to cater a surprise party for Jennifer over at the surprise is going to be if we keep talking about it maybe that's not it I forgot that I left the cat out of the way they're going to be catering a party at the Grange and as it turns out this Saturday is the plan date and so they're lucky that we were having a meeting so I could talk to you about it I have no reason I don't know Woodbelly Pizza but again I have no reason to tell you not to approve it I've heard they're amazing I've had to go there I've heard really good things about that I will do some research for you move to approve the catering license for Woodbelly Pizza for the sixth second hi it's all good reconvene the slack board move to adjourn the patrol board and reconvene the slack board round table B and leader motion to adjourn the second assessment second