 All right, let's get started. Call the meeting to order. Public comment for items not on the agenda. I had one thing I wanted to say. I don't know if anybody else saw this in the paper, but I saw in Saturday's paper the unified school district put out bids or a soliciting bids for temperature monitoring systems for U-32 Berlin, Eastmont-Killier, and Rumney. What about Callis and Worcester? Not on there. Well, so it made me a little curious. I did shoot dot nail or an email just this afternoon, but I haven't heard back. So I thought it was kind of weird. Yeah, the schools are closed. Say what? You don't need them at Callis and Worcester if they shut them down. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Right, well, that right now would be a huge mistake to shut down the local schools where you can keep a better handle on things. It would be just stupid. I mean, it says the RFP is available, and bids are due by July 24, which already passed. But I didn't go so far as to pursue that, but it just made me wonder why Callis and Worcester weren't included in that. Good question. So anyway, that's my public comment. OK, well, let us know what Dahl has to say. OK. All right, additions or changes to the agenda? All right, Madam Treasurer, you're on. All right, I sent the tax rate calculations spreadsheets last week. They come to a logical conclusion, I think. Does anybody have any questions on any section of it, or should I just go very quickly, page by page, in a summary? OK, I was just going to ask Cliff to call it up, so he has. No, I pulled up the wrong one. Hang on, sorry about that. Let's try this again. My mouse is just gone haywire since the latest Microsoft upgrade, click on something, and it grabs something else. Huh. And I click on something once, and it triple clicks it. It's just very strange. Well, maybe while you're doing that, Sandra could just give us an update on how the audit went. There you go. The auditors, whoops. So we can go through this first. The audit was as good. It's still ongoing, by the way. But it was so far so good. On page one, page one is a recap of the financial decisions made at town meeting. So the total approved expenditures is the total of the highway budget, the general government budget, and the articles that were voted in. The next section talks about our projected income from non-taxable sources. And we project in excess of $307,000. So the way we figure out what we have to raise in taxes is to look at what the voters approved expenditures for, minus what we project to get in income. And the difference is what we need to raise in taxes. In this case, it's $1,520.84. So there you go. The next few pages. $120,824. Did I say $1,520,824? OK. So the next few pages are just your backup. It is a recap of the budget and expenses right out of the town report. I do this. We archive the tax rate calculations per proper auditing practices. So they like to see why we did things and what we based it on. And our fund balance at the end of the fiscal year was better than it was at the last fiscal year, right? So far. It's an unaudited fund balance, but it looks like there will be very few tweaks. That's what it looks like right now. OK. So Cliff is scrolling through the proposed budget and expenses right out of your town report. There's the proposed income report. And we're going to hop on to page 2. Page 2 talks about how we raised that $1.5 million. And how we do that is we divide it by the FY21 grand list. And as of July 10, 2020, the grand list was lodged. And it was $2,034,468.09. This grand list is higher than an FY20, which is a good thing. And it reflects several variables. But principally, there were six new houses and one with a corrected land value, which came in at over $500,000. You mean six new houses or just six transactions? Six new newly built houses. Probably over there in Dragonfly Lane and some other houses as well. So we divide the amount of expenditures or taxes to be raised by this new grand list. And that gives us the town's basic tax rate. So when we divide that, we don't quite raise enough in taxes, even though we've gone out to four decimal points. So I've rounded up to make sure we collect a sufficient amount. So we're over by $100 or so. So the tax rate or the proposed tax rate, or maybe I should say the suggested tax rate, is 0.7476, and it will raise $1,520,968.34. So it's the tax rate multiplied by the grand list. And that's how we know how much we are going to generate. Yeah, very nice to have you on. The next couple pages is the grand list. This is the bailiwick of the listors. And to get to the whole page, I want to go to the bottom and hold for a moment. Hold on a second. Right at the top, whoops, yeah, right there. Right at the leftmost column, you're going to see the number that I use, that $2,034,468.09. That is the adjusted grand list. And if we popped up a little bit, we would see that that grand list was affected by the veteran's exemption. It was affected by contract, the non-contract exemptions, current use, and so forth. So the grand list is a reduction of what we see in the values of the parcels around town. So that's the number I use. Now we can flip over to page. Sandra, we have $40,000 in veterans exemptions. Is that right? The town has voted to allow every veteran a $40,000 exemption. The state automatically allows $10,000. So the way that works is this, if a veteran has a house with an assessed value of $200,000, only $160,000 is taxable. The other $40,000 is picked up by the other parcel owners or taxpayers in the town. That's how that works. So the $40,000 applies to the total value of their property, not every $200,000 or every $100,000. Correct. It is a reduction of the assessed value. So it in essence creates a lower assessed value. But that has to be made up. Right, right. So we're going to get to what is behind here now, Cliff, is what the blister sign and what the town clerk signs as to show that the grand list has been lodged. It's a summary. Oh, Cliff, I forgot to mention that Katie is going to do our minutes from the recording. The next page is the veterans page, Denise. And that veterans page shows that we have 10 veterans. We have the list behind us, which is also confirmed by the Veterans Affairs Office in Vermont. And you can see that we need to raise $3,000. That assessment removed $3,000 off of the grand list. So how do we do that? We divide that $3,000 by the grand list. And we come up with 0.0015. And 0.0015 has been rounded up a titch to make sure that we collect enough in taxes. And you can see that we've collected $51.70 too much. And the backup behind that is our grand list, the list of veterans, and then the spreadsheet and transmittal from the Veterans Affairs Office confirming that. Hey, so you know what? Roger's a veteran. Do we get a break? You might. He has to have a certain amount of disability. Oh, OK. And I don't want to misspeak what that percentage is. OK, never mind. But here's the guy. If you look at that email, Ed Burkart is with the state of Vermont. Yeah. I don't know if I should go next to them, I do. Hey, Rose, you got to mute your computer. We can hear Greg. Oh, sorry. And then we have page four. And page four talks about the non-approved, non-homestead contract exemptions. And those exemptions are the Atomat Community Club, the Calis Recreation Association, the Co-op, the Aldridge Memorial Association, the Calis Community Recreation Center, and Maple Floners Community Center. So by taking them off the grand list, that leaves $10,000, roughly $10,000, to be raised in taxes to make up the difference. So they're all non-homestead parcels. So we don't need to make up the property, the education tax portion. But we do have to make up the non-homestead tax portion of that assessed value. Do we have to make up the education portion of the veterans? No, we're just making up the portion of town taxes for the veterans. Thank you. So here we have it. What we're chasing after is $5,882. And we're going to multiply that by the non-homestead tax rate set by the state of Vermont. And that's 1.7028 this year. And so the amount of taxes we need to raise is a little over $10,000. So that sets up the calculation to figure out what tax rate Calis needs to have to collect that money. So we know we need to collect. And so we're in the second part of the calculation. We know we need to collect a little over $10,000. And we do the same thing. We divide by the grand list. And rounding up to make sure we have collected sufficient taxes, the tax rate is 0.0050. So what we have just gone through are the three components of our own town's tax rate. The base tax rate for Calis, 0.7476. I've said that right. And then the two additional tax rates that show up on the tax bill as 1. And so here is our list of exempted properties. And what was the veteran's amount again? Her veteran, it's $40,000. No, I mean, what was the rate? 0.0015. 0.0015. Wait, did I say that right? That's what it says there. Yes, 0.0015. So the recommendation that I bring to the board for the 2020 town tax rate is as follows. The town tax rate at 0.7476. The combined local agreement rate of 0.0065 made up of the addition of the veteran's exemption rate and the non-homestead contract rate. So the recommended total town tax rate is 0.7541. The effect of the change in town tax rate from 2019 to 2020 is $74 in additional town taxes per $200,000 in assessed value. So we're looking at a tax rate for FY21 of 0.7541. Correct. Which includes the veteran's exemption, the non-homestead contract rates, the town tax. OK. So that would be my recommendation based on the calculations that I have presented to the board that would raise sufficient monies to cover the expenditures that the town voted in town meeting. And then, Cliff, if you want to scroll down to page 6, page 6 takes the 20,000-foot view. And it looks at our tax rate plus the educational tax rates this year. So the homestead tax rate is 1.8574 up from last year. The difference between the two tax rates is right up at the top. And what that results in, the combined tax rates result in $159 in additional taxes per $200 in assessed value, of which $74 is the town tax increase. Right. So the rest is the school tax? Correct. Does anybody on the board have any questions? Sandra, you said it results in $154 per $100,000. The combined town and homestead tax rates result in $159 in taxes over last year per $200,000 in assessed value. So why do they call it the homestead tax rate, not just the school tax? Oh, I can't tell you that. I don't know the answer to that. But the homestead tax rate reflects the rate for folks who live in the taxable parcel as of April 1 of the year they are filing taxes. The non homestead tax rate, that's why with our contract exempted properties, we had to pick up the non homestead portion of the taxes that otherwise would have been collected from those parcels because they're not owner occupied. So when you send out the tax bills, you usually include something. So to try to help people understand what's the town portion and what's this education? Not always. And this year it's going to be difficult. Not always. I mean, I can. We can. But I think that I could put. I thought we usually sent out like a quarter or third sheet of paper explaining a little bit about how we came to this calculator. Sometimes we do. We did one year when the increase was felt to be very high and the town wanted to demonstrate that it was not our budget that created that increase. Do board members, do we want to ask Sandra to do that this year? Well, I like the last page right there. It's in front of us, page six. Yeah. It says that all. Except for it's not really clear that the homestead tax rate is the school tax. Well, we could put in brackets next to it. Yeah. Well, it said it's a 2020 education tax rate. I mean, it's hard to educate people on this point. We could say homestead tax rate, property tax. Can we say education tax? Why can't we just say what it is? Well, you put it in brackets beside it. It's called the tax rate, brackets, education tax. Right next to homestead tax rate. We just put in parentheses or brackets. Or school related taxes. That's simple enough. Well, it's all on a spreadsheet at this point. So we could say, you don't want to say property taxes, which is actually what it is. But we can say the education education tax on the right afterwards that will fit. Yeah, that would be that. I think I like that idea on sending perhaps this page with the property tax bills. So when I mean, the grand list got lodged a little bit late, but not significantly late. When we set the tax rate tonight, when do you anticipate tax bills going out? By the 15th, I'm thinking of August. And when that would put it, we cannot make a due date less than 30 days from that date. So that would put us with a due date of Tuesday, the 15th or Wednesday, the 16th. Yeah, OK. So by the way, the grand list was set remarkably early this year. Last year, they gave me the grand list on July 30th. So this year was the 10th. Yeah, well, I think last year they were having some growing pains with the new system and stuff. So I think they got it down now. Yeah, they did a great job. Yeah, they did. All right. Any more questions for Sandra? I have a question. Let me see. Is my microphone working? Hopefully you can hear me. Yeah, go ahead. I'm just trying to understand. The homestead tax rate for 2020 is higher than the non homestead tax rate for 2020. And that carries over from the pattern from 2019. But the consequences on the non homestead results in a higher additional tax for 200,000 of assessed value. Let's say it really is the numbers. The non homestead tax rate increased a bit more than the homestead tax rate. So the homestead was increased. Let's see, 85, 74. OK, I see it. Yeah, jumped up about 0.04 for the homestead rate and about 0.05 for the non homestead rate. OK, that explains it. Yeah. And the non homestead are the ones that we exempt? No, non homestead is the tax rate applied to parcels where the owners do not reside in them. So they would be your second homes. OK, so your apartment houses. Is there a way to explain is there a way to put in something in parentheses again, explaining what that is? We have a lot of information there. Or just maybe where where you say effective change in non homestead tax rate. Can we explain what that means in like three words? It's it's part time residences or something. How long is this page that it cannot be a clip? It can't be more than a page long. Right. It just can't be. We also, by the way, we also put this up on the website. I know, but when they get the tax bill, it's good to have. It right there. Yeah. There's a little extra real estate on the page. It looks like there is. I did. I wasn't sure. But well, here it is right here. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, John, what did you want? So you just this conversation has prompted a question in my mind. I'm thinking about the the the city folk that are fleeing the covid concentration areas around the country and many of which are coming up here. We all know this and it's more than anecdote. So if these folks own a house that's quote unquote a vacation home when they only come here to summer or whatever, but they're really now up here full time and they're remotely checking into their schools in New York City or God knows where. What is the tipping point where we should be taxing them or the state should be taxing them differently? They have to declare residents one place or another. And so that typically requires a certain Disha of residency. Where do they vote? Where is their driver's license? What state do they have a driver's license in? Join the meeting. OK, so they're able to get those types of things. Really, voter registration and driver's license are very where they file their income tax returns. So there would be several points. I'm sure there are a few more that don't come to mind right away. But that we you would look at to see if they were actually could could be considered. Residential, but at this point, the grand list is set. Either they have declared in their income tax return, their Vermont income tax return that they are full time that they are full time residences as of April 1st, 2000, excuse me, 2020. They haven't done that. Then they have until October 15th to do that. But again, they were filing. They they get that homestead tax rate only if they can file a Vermont income tax return. So they may be up here for the next six or seven months, but they would have likely missed that deadline. OK, any other questions for Sandra? All right, I would make a motion that we set the town tax rate. I think I wrote it down as point seven five four one. That is correct. And then you want to break it down to the three components. So the three components are point seven four seven six for the I guess I don't know what you call it. Is it down tax rate? Huh, for the town tax rate down tax rate point zero zero five zero for I guess their non profits. Or the non homestead contract rate and point zero zero one five for the veterans exemption for a total tax rate of point seven five four one. Anybody want to second that? Yep. OK, any further discussion or questions? All right, all in favor, Cliff. Hi, I'm John. Hi, Rose. Oh, shit. You guys unmute Rose. Hi, and I'm an eye. So the tax rate has been set. Thank you so much, Sandra, for such a great presentation and helping us understand it every year. You are very welcome. Cliff, I don't need to stay on for your decision on how you want to deal with that woodchipper loan. But at some point, if someone could just let me know how it is you want to manage the signing of that document. The bank have the document right here. The bank wrote an email to me. I don't know if she copied everyone, but she is fully satisfied that the board just wants to motion or to give authority to Denise by motion tonight to sign on the board's behalf. That would be fine for her or she would send the document electronically with a doc you sign and everyone, including Judy and myself, sign that way. And she's happy with it, either way. OK, and you said that you're still in the audit audit mode. Are they coming back? The they're going to try not to come back. So the audit really starts about a week before the auditors are in the office and I have worked with them extensively from last Thursday to the twenty-third when they were in the office. We worked all day. He is hoping that he does not have to come back. I think he has everything that he needs and they will be following up with requests for more information over the next week or two to complete that audit, as I understand it. The good news is we made budget adjustments while the auditor was in the office and he is thinking that there aren't going to be any more, which means that we're going to be very close to that June unaudited fund balance number going to maybe be within five to six thousand dollars of that number. So we're starting out the FY 21 fiscal year in a very strong position. I think we're going to be able to meet out cash flow needs on all fronts and grants and so forth. I think we're going to sail through. I got some very positive results from my delinquent tax people. They're trying hard to get that money in by a August 15th. And they know November 16th is when the tax falls because that's the last two days, twenty, twenty taxes. And that's that is at least in the last two years, that is the trigger for sending the private affairs, uncollected taxes to collections. Right. Oh, I think that's a good practice. It's very effective and my folks all know it. Everybody is running in place to get cleaned up. Good. It's good for everybody, especially them. It really is. It's it really is. I. All right, people get off the schedule, but it happens. Yeah. All right. Anything else for Sandra while she's here, folks? Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Enjoy your day. Mosta. Have a good night. You too. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Very good. Well done, folks. All right, Toby, I thought I saw your name up. There you are with sheep. Are you a sheep farmer now? Nope, just. Very funny. All right. You have any updates for us? I spoke to Montpelier that was not their sign, radar sign. It was the cross Vermont trail people that put that sign up. And I have not been able to reach them. So I have no answers on what that particular sign costs. But it is a solar sign, just like the one that I showed you. Right. I think John might have been doing some poking around and found other places to get these solar powered signs. John, do you remember it? Was it you? I just I just googled the term whatever it was last meeting and found them within within a range of what Toby said. Actually, I could find them a little cheaper, delivered with free delivery online. Yeah, there's many vendors out there. That was just one that I found that seemed inappropriate. Now, we talked about and I was I'm still confused. We talked about having a solar sign that would be mounted but could be moved around town. Is that am I remembering that right, folks? That's correct. So the signs that I showed you are mounted to a pole. You can take it off the pole and put it on another pole anywhere in town. Okay. So with with trying to get a state permit, we would have to get a state permit for this. I know that. So are those considered like a temporary permit that we'll have to constantly renew or? No, you'd have to. You'd have to establish a permanent right of way permit to put a sign up in the right of way that you could then put the sign on. And it's okay to move it around. I would think so. But I guess my sense is you guys want to put them up permanently in East Calus Village because that's the issue. Well, it's the issue there. I mean, we've got I have I have to contact the school and see about if they would be willing to purchase one for the Lightning Ridge Road area because that's a problem every school year. And then it's been requested also to put one on the county road. The other option or another suggestion that I heard from somebody was to put a stop sign. And I think we've talked about this before a stop sign where the pavement hits the dirt in Maple Corner. Ooh, I like that. That's a great idea. Yeah. And that would maybe, of course, that's not going to keep people from flying down where it's 25 right on your bumper honking their horn. But it would be a cheaper fixed temporary, you know, see how it works. And we only really need it in one direction coming down the hill because that's where they fly. Right. So I mean, there's one from Kent Hill Road where you turn onto County Road. So this would be at the bottom where the pavement hits the dirt. What Kent Hill Road on the county road? What? Where, you know, Kent Hill Road on the right road, Kent Hill, you come to the end and Maple Corner store is right in your face. Oh, that's Kent Hill Road there still. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you have to stop there to turn left or to turn right. Yeah. So a stop sign could work. And it would be cheap. That's a good idea. We'd have to do a traffic ordinance, of course. Right. Well, we were working on that. Remember adding updating our traffic ordinance. So we could actually, who has that now? Toby, do you still have that? I don't. Okay. So let's make a note in the minutes when Katie's typing up the minutes to dig out the dig out and dust off the traffic ordinance, because there was issues, I think Rose found issues in it where road numbers didn't match road names or something. Do you remember that, Rose? Yeah. I have the last copy saved on my computer from where we were working on it. Okay. So let's get that. Let's take that back out of the file cabinet and revisit it. If you want to send it around to all of us, Rose, including Toby and Alfred. Yep. I think there were just some road names that needed to be double checked and fixed. And we can add a stop sign at that, what we just talked about, where the pavement hits the dirt road in Maple Corner. Toby or Alfred, do you have any thoughts on that stop sign issue? I think you'll have a really contentious hearing if you try to do that. Really? Why? I agree. Why is that, Toby? People are just used to driving down that hill and coming to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill before they go through Maple Corner is going to, people don't like change. Well, that's what hearings are for. They can convince us not to do it. Well, no, I'm just telling you, that's what I think is going to happen. And just be aware that when you do that, that's what's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. Toby, getting back to the speed warning signs, there's a special bracket that was mentioned that would mount to the back of that unit to allow it to be removed from the post and placed on another post. Is there a special bracket required for each post? Or is it stated? I think so, yeah. Essentially, it's a quick mount. So essentially, the traffic sign that we've been looking at has a couple of clamps on the back that are meant to go around a round pole. I think Alfie and I could certainly design some kind of quicker release kind of unit to make the interchange more friendly. So I looked at the mounting bracket itself that they sell and I'm not really sure that's the answer. And is that the one that Alfred mentioned that the post or something is designed to break off or bend or something if somebody hits it? Well, we would be using the regular traffic signs that we use, it has an anchor in the ground and the post goes in it and it breaks off when you hit it. So we have plenty of those. It would mount on one of those and we can probably adapt some way to make it an easy exchange. And then depending on where you want to locate different locations, we would just put in a new post and move the sign depending on where you want it to go. It's probably easier to move than that trailer we have. Well, and if we do this stop sign thing and if the school would have some money, we wouldn't need to keep moving the ones on 14. They could stay there. Well, again, so the thing about 14, if you're going to apply for a permanent location, you probably want to plan on permanent signs. I mean, like in Woodbury, it doesn't make sense to try it. I mean, my thought originally was to get just one and try it around town, which is all we have right now with the trailer and see how effective it is. If you want to put it in East Calus Village on the town, I mean, on the state right of way, you're going to have to get a permit to do that. And you might as well do it permanently if that's really an issue that you want to solve. What does the board think? Should we do it permanently in East Calus and try that getting the stop sign thing? John. I'd like them permanently East Calus. I had my mind changed last minute during our discussion. We're saving money from what was authorized for the wood chipper to the tune of around $5,000, $4,000. So in the scheme of things, we can kind of mentally, although not reading reality, reallocate that tax effort toward the signs. East Cal—I mean, it's those poor people that live on that road. It's bad. It's bad. My friends in Woodbury who have lived there for 50 years call it I-14. And they say it not as a joke. It's bad. Those tractor trailers are just horrific. Well, having spent a considerable amount of time there, those tractor trailers, somebody almost got it. There's going to be a death in that village. Somebody coming up around that bend from the south, they come up around that rise. It was blind intersections. You don't have time. You barely have time if they're going the speed limit at 35 to look to your left and pull out into the northbound lane from by the church. And it's deadly. And it's going to happen. And I think it's a definite need on the northern travel lane down below that corner. And it should be a dangerous danger, you know, pedestrian crossing or something. I look at that situation, and I am so disappointed in AOT that they would allow that kind of a situation to go unmitigated. I think it's a massive irresponsible— they just want to wait for a dead body. I don't know why. Because that's how they just finally decide that it's a deadly intersection or travel place. I don't get it either, John. So, John, I've looked at the state police history of accidents that have happened in that area. And actually, there are few compared to what we think there are. And I can send you the data and show you the map of what's actually been a reported accident there. No, and I don't— I've not heard of any or many accidents. I've witnessed people running for cover, getting across the road and running for their lives, you know? No, I mean, I totally agree. I think people can run fast, but it's going to happen. Yeah, we don't want that. And it's just an uncomfortable thing. So, if we can get these guys to slow down before they come into town, I don't know. That would be great. Yeah, and how much would it be Toby for two? Signs, the installation, all that, roughly. Well, it'd probably be $5,500, just $6,000 somewhere. Okay. Okay, board members, what's your thoughts? Cliff? One of the questions that had come up in our last meeting, Toby's here, can address it now. We had asked what portion of the budget Toby imagined the funds coming from. Is this coming out of the General Highway Fund? Toby? Yeah, so just so you know, like last year's budget, we were about $4,600 in hand from at the end of the year. So, depending, and again, it's hard to predict what the winter is looking like next year. That really drives whether we're over or under the budget that we set every year. This particular year was okay, and we're walking away with the balance. But that's going into the equipment fund, isn't it? Well, it can, but if we spend it before the end of the year, it's, there's no balance, and it doesn't go anywhere. So, if we spend it on radar signs, Right, I mean, It's part of the highway budget. Again, you don't need a line item for it. You just need to say this is a highway related expense, and we're throwing it out. It's an unbudgeted expense, but we're hoping that at the end of the year, it will be covered by the amount of money we've put aside for the highway budget for the year. You know, there's a priority situation here. If we think it's a priority, then we should just spend it. And if we'd run over at the end of the year, that's, we've run over, but it's hard to say where that's going to go. Right now, there's a line item for road signs of about $3,000 in the budget. That would cover one sign. Yeah, that's why how we ended up coming up with the question, Toby. Thanks for responding to that. Thank you. So, what would happen then is we would just run over on our road sign budget line item. Yeah, we'd be over, but we will be under somewhere else. Yeah, John, you had your hand up? Yeah. So, and we've had this discussion before, maybe in other areas of our budget, and even our attorney Barlow has said, and Sandra had said, you know, budgets are our best estimates. In some years you come under, in some years you come over, you do your best, and it's not a big deal. Right. So, I mean, three signs are going to be $7,000, and that's not a lot of money. No. Right, but we're talking about two signs right now, aren't we? Well, but then you want one in Maple Corner as well. So, that's one that's movable to the rest of the area. You'd have two permanent ones in East Calis and one to move around town. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe. I would suggest. I'm sorry, Toby, I didn't hear what you said. I said you want two permanent ones in East Calis on Route 14, and then you want another one to move around town for, in front of Doug Lilly's house, and Maple Corner, and Worcester Road, or wherever else we've been up, where people are concerned about speeding. Right, and that old speed chart thing is just what it is. It's old and it doesn't work well. That's correct. It's not, it's not very efficient. Did I make a suggestion? Yeah. How about if the highway buys the two for East Calis village, and maybe we talk to the school, and maybe they can buy one that is mobile that moves around, because the school's going to benefit from all over town, not just in front of the school. So we could, we could approve two for East Calis tonight, and then when I hear back from the school, we could decide about a mobile one. Yes. John? I think we just approve three, get all three, and then ask the school if they'll help us out. Yeah, we can do that too. The school says no, we're going to do it anyway, so. Right, right. But I liked Alfie's idea about asking them to pitch in. Well, that was actually my idea. You plowed a school door yard still, right, Alfred? No, we sand them. Sand them, we don't plow them? No. Okay, we sand them. Rose, do you have any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think it, you know, all in all, it sounds like a good idea, and, you know, speeding and safety. And I do just want to say that I remember from the last time that we talked about this, that Sharon was worried that it was the beginning of a new fiscal year, and we didn't really want to spend a lot. So, yeah, so I just want to throw that out, that I do believe that she was concerned about spending $7,500 for three signs, but she's not available right now to talk otherwise. And I think that that's a good idea to ask the school to see if they'll help support it. I highly doubt that they will, but it's okay to ask. And, you know, we've been talking about this for three years. I'd like, it would be nice to just get it done. The people in the village would be ever so grateful. It's, I think it's the right thing to do, especially given that we've been talking about it for years. Yeah. So I would make a motion that we purchase two permanent signs to be mounted in East Calis and one movable sign and ask the school board to see if they can find some money in their budget to help pay for the movable one, which would be used quite frequently on Lightning Ridge when schools in session. Second. Okay, any further discussion or comments? All right, Cliff. Hi. Rose. Hi. John. Hi. And I'm an I. All right, so do what you got to do, guys. Make it happen. Okay. Thank you very much. So just so you understand, we'll have to apply for a permanent right-of-way on Route 14. And I'm not sure how long that'll take. I will start the paperwork. Okay. And I'm sure there's a permit fee, right? Don't know. But no, no, it's not. There's not a fee. Oh, okay. It's just, it's just a permit. It's just, you know, they got to know what we're doing. So it's just paperwork. Okay. Very good. Thank you. So that may take, we may be able to have the signs, but it might take a month to get all the paperwork done. Okay. All right. But we can let, we can at least let folks know that they're on their way. And I guess the other thing is make it a private public. If people are thinking that it's great to support the town to do this, there might be some people that would donate money to help it. Yep. Yep. Particularly people in East Calus. That's very true. All right. So I put mowing on Old West Church Road on the agenda. I had a call from Sue Killerin, who says she's a taxpayer, just like other people on that road. And she wonders if the wild chervil, or no, is it, yeah, chervil is what Peter's pulling, I think. Season is over so that the Burdocks can now get mowed. Does anybody know if chervil season is over? Well, they've floured and gone the seed. So if he pulled them, then they're done. And the seed from those locations would not be spread around because he's removed the plants theoretically. I don't know if he has. The other thing is the concern is bringing seeds, transporting seed into an area that they've been trying to free of these plants. I don't know where we're at with mowing. I have no idea. Maybe I'll give us an update. Yeah, I guess that's part of it is I don't know where we're at either. Continual mowing scheme to keep these things from going to seed. I don't know if that's practical or it's happened. I know we had some mishaps with the air conditioning. Maybe Alfie can update us. Right. So all of the main drags are done. And we've still got a few of the smaller, less traveled roads to do. But the main drags are all done. And so we could probably find time to do do Old West Church and maybe the others as well. The other four that haven't been done if that's what you decide. But we're mostly done the first time around. But we have had some some breakdowns with that mower. And we ended up putting the rotary mower head on, which works much better for just grass. So but it's it's up and running right now. Jake was out sick today. So he didn't we didn't do any mowing today. But you should be back on track tomorrow. I got a couple. Oh, okay. Go ahead. So you said there are breakdowns. There was the AC thing and a hydraulic line. Anything else? There's been several hydraulic lines. You know, it's just, I don't know, they they're wearing. It's an old machine. So there's a lot of vibration and there's, you know, where the hose is rubbed together. The the flail mower that was on the machine when we got it needs all new teeth. All the knives are about worn out. A lot of them are missing. So it wasn't mowing real well. That's why we ended up putting the rotary on. It came that way or we just No, it was pretty, pretty rough when we got it. But the use that we, you know, the half half of the distance around town, you know, took a lot of them out. Yeah, a lot of what? A lot of the knives out. Oh, we have two mower heads. Don't we have two flail mower heads that go on that arm? I believe you're right. Yes. I mean, there's there's three different three or four different implements that go on it. But I think the knives are different between the two flail heads. So I'm contemplating buying a whole new set. Yeah. And then there was also a couple of spots where I needed to be welded. But because I didn't have the teeth and I wanted to keep mowing, I just switched it was quicker to switch it out and put the rotary mower on. And that's what East Montpelier uses. They use the rotary mower. I actually saw them having it on edge and they were mowing the tree tree limbs that were sticking out into the road. And I thought it would be really hacked up and ugly. And it actually looked really good. I was surprised they were mowing. Oh, what is that road there by East Montpelier elementary along there? It looked great when they put that on it. Oh, I know what you're on. Yeah, I know what you're on. What road do you mean? Yeah. Well, I think if you're mowing the limbs as they are small, it'll chop them up and it'll break them right up and they disappear. But as you get into a bigger limb or a bigger tree, it's going to make more of a mess. And that's where you would want the flail mower because it's meant for that. So I think this fall, I mean, I'm in hopes this fall that we'll have time to go after some of the brush that's hanging out, some of the tree stuff, which would mean I'm going to have to buy that set of blades for the flail mower and also weld it. So I had hoped that because we had two heads, I thought they were identical heads that we could have one running and the other one would be getting new teeth put on it. So we always had one in the quiver, so to speak, that when the other one gets tired and needs work, we can pop the one that's just been re-toothed back on. I think that was the hope. Yeah. I know we're still getting... Well, I think the knives are different between the two mower heads or the flail heads, but I'll re-look at it, I'll revisit it. I thought they were identical heads, maybe they just put different knives on it. They're not identical heads. Yeah, I thought... I don't believe they are, no. And then there's that belly now mower. I don't know what good that is, but... Right. Well, anyway, I mean, the bottom line is that it's sort of an old mower. We're trying to piece it together the way we can to get by, to get what we can out of it, and it's working. I mean, we're able to tinker it up and make it work. Good. So we've gotten around most of the town. There's only like, there's only, you know, half a dozen of those small, low-traveled roads that we haven't done yet. So once all the hydraulic lines change, that will cease being an issue, right? Well, yeah, but you can't change every hydraulic line on it. You know, we kind of change them as they blow. Yeah, eventually, right. Eventually, they'll have them all replaced, but... So that could be a winner job. They're not that expensive. We could, whatever you didn't replace this summer, when things are slow and between plowing, there might be some... Right. Well, yes, that you can do in the winter, absolutely, but in the summer, when it's spewing oil, you have to fix it. No, no, I understand that. Yeah, I'm just thinking about it. And that's what slowed me down a little bit. So, you know, I went by, Peter still has those signs up on Old West Church, and he said they were only going to be up for two weeks. So I meant to call him before this meeting. I didn't realize the meeting started at 6.30, so the call didn't happen. But that needs to get mowed, but anticipating some backlash from Peter, and that's fine. If you... Well, if he agreed to pull the signs after two weeks, then he's not fulfilling his agreement. So I think you guys can choose to do what needs to be done, and which is mow the grass. I'm not going to print out that, but I'm just thinking what his... And that's not you, Arthur. You don't have to worry about it. We will fend this. But I'm thinking if the day that the Old West Church road in that neighborhood gets mowed, if that could be the first thing that gets mowed, and before you leave the garage, just hose the mower off so that we can say it was all washed, so there's no seed stock on it that's transported from elsewhere, and then you can hit it, and whatever seed is there was there anyway. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And then when... I can pressure wash it before I go out. When the inevitable call comes, we'll say we're two steps ahead of you, Peter, and that'll help us, I think, fend it off a little bit. So when Kate... Ignore the signs, mow it. Okay, so when Katey does the minutes... Can I mow the signs too? No. He needs them for next year. And I'm only kidding. I know. So when Katey does the minutes, what we can do or what I can do is to cut, send Peter the minutes so he knows what's going on. Yeah. Well, I mean, let's give him a little time to push back. If he wants to push back, then we can talk about it again. We want it mowed. I mean, I don't know. Twice from Killerans. We want it mowed. It's just terrible on this now. So it sounds like we're going to... I'm going to send Peter the minutes when Katey gets undrafted. You're going to put Mowing Old West Church Road on your radar for within what, the next week or so? Tomorrow morning. I'll be out there at eight o'clock. Well, we won't have the minutes done by then. I can send Peter an email after tonight's meeting and let him know. Okay. Well, I can do it this week. I can do it toward the end of the week or whenever you tell me to do it, I'll do it. Why don't you do it the end of the week so I have a chance to send him the blurb from the minutes so he knows what's going on. I don't like... People don't like surprises. Well, that's... Well, let... So Alfie will wait till he hears from you directly that it's okay tomorrow. Right. I can let Alfred know when I've sent Peter the email. No, don't send... No, essentially when you as a select board decide that it's a go, you need to tell Alfred it's a go and you're taking the responsibility. We already just... Yeah, but that's what we just talked about. Is we're saying it's a go by the end of the week. So now is it all four of those roads that we've not been mowing? Or is it just Old West Church? Where does Peter have all the signs? I was just on that road and I didn't even see any signs. I think it's Fowler, Blisspond, Old West Church and there's one other. Yeah, that's right. And that's all... Singleton Road, the fourth road. There aren't any on Singleton, any signs. But... Right, but that's the fourth road. That's the fourth road that we were... Yeah, you can know that. Yeah, I've been mowing it too, but yeah, you can know that. He's got signs on that little triangle at the intersection of Blisspond and Old West Church. There's signs down the other end as well of Old West Church. But is it all wild chervil, John? No, no. Well, chervil, you know, it's the first kind of prominent plant to rise up in the spring and we can see it. And it's the first thing to come out with a white flower. But that's long since flowered and spread its seed and done whatever it could do, so. But what about the other roads? That Alfred mentioned, is that all chervil related or is that... They were already mowed. Oh, they're already mowed. Yeah. No, no, not by us. Those four roads that the select board decided not to mow have not been mowed by the road crew. I know, but the other town roads have been mowed. All right, no, I'm just... I just want to clarify that I am okay to mow those four roads that I've been instructed not to mow prior to now. Yes, wash them off before you go. I will. I'll do that first thing in the morning before I go. Beauty. All right. Yep, okay. All right. Is everybody clear on this? Does everybody understand what's happening? So I got one more mower question. So we got an invoice to pay from the AC guy. He said a wire fell on the exhaust and melted and... That's all working now, right? Yes. Yes, it's all working good. I don't know... I haven't seen that invoice. I don't know what they charged us. He told me that he was going to work with us some on it. Yeah, so they're going to... They propose they'll pay the guy's repair bill. We just pay his travel time to the job. I don't see that as unreasonable. I don't either. That's totally fair. Yep. Okay, because that was one of the things to talk about tonight. So I'm glad you brought it up. So we want to authorize Sandra then to pay that travel time on that bill from Fournier's. Yes. Okay. Well, do you want to send it to me so it goes through my work orders? I thought you were on the email that Sandra sent out. If not, I'll forward you that email. No, I've not... I mean, I talked to Fournier's about this. He said he was going to do the best he could, but I never see an invoice. And this is the first I've heard of what he decided to charge us for it. I'll send it to you right now, Alfred. Okay. Great. Thanks, John. I'll put it on this week's order then and we'll get it taken care of. Right. And we can note in the minutes that the board agreed to pay the travel time. Rose? Are you talking about the travel time both ways or just to call us and Fournier's will pay the other part of the travel time. The travel time was $240. Right. If you take the whole, if you take the whole bill and divide it in half, that's only $227. So what's the point? $13? Yeah. So I mean, but you keep saying pay the travel time to call us. There's a difference if you say pay the total travel time, which is $240, which means more paying, you know, more than. There's two different travel. I don't understand because he did work at the job. There's hours. We pull it up. He did work. There's an invoice for the work he did. The labor and the switch and electrical supply came to $150, say $220. And the travel time was $240. I think what Rose is getting at is we would get out of it cheaper if we just paid half the invoice. That's what I'm saying. That's not what they're asking. It's $13 difference. I mean, really? No. I mean, he's asking us to split the split or to pay the travel time. Right. The $240. That's $240. That's fair enough. Right. He's not going to want to split the travel time with us. And it's a 30-dollar. No, Rose is talking about splitting the total of the bill, including the travel time. It's a $13 difference. I do that to our advantage. I mean, I'll pay the $13, you know. I second that emotion. All those in favor. Aye. All right. It doesn't much matter. To me, it's kind of like the principal because it should have been fixed before we bought it. Yeah, the principal never got along, Rose. You should have done that. Yeah. So whatever. I mean, $240 is fine. And that was what I put in my email to John, as it was technically supposed to be fixed before we got it. But. Right. Right. $240. I don't know. I mean, a wire somehow fell down afterward. Right. It's what happens when you ever use machine. There is some. It was working when it left. I was there and it was working for a short time. Yeah. Well, when I when I investigated it, there was there was definitely a wire against the muffler. How it got there, I don't know, but it was against the muffler. And that's what shorted out and blew the pressure switch. I mean, technically, that's why it wouldn't work. I mean, technically, they could have said it was it was working when it left the shop. Suck it up and pay for yourself. Yeah. So I think they were, I think they were reasonable to do what they did. They didn't get rich on that mower, trust me. A lot. Right. They took it. Okay. So I'll look forward. I'll look forward to that invoice and I'll put it on this week's order. It'll be done. Thank you. Okay. Next. Anything else on that? So we talked to Alfred about the chipper and Toby. Yeah. Can we do the tree health inventory thing first? Talk about that. As we talked about it at the last meeting, I reached out to Ashley Andrews at CDRPC, or no, she reached out to me at Pam's request. So she sent me an email, which I forwarded to all of you. So I'm just, just to let you know, I'm waiting for her to get back to me. That's kind of the end of it for tonight. Just the about doing an inventory. Okay. Is that an inventory of every tree in the right of way? I don't know how that works. I'm waiting for her to give us more information because you obviously can't do every single tree. Well, didn't you, don't we have the resilient right of way that has a lot of that information already there? We do. Well, why don't we look at that? And I don't know what the, what this other inventory is going to give for us. Well, that's what I want to find out from her because we have the ashtray inventory. We have the resilient rural roads assessment that was done. So I want to just let her know we've had these other two things done. Is there something more that we could or should do to see about the health of the trees? So it's a work in progress just to get some information. Doesn't mean we're going to, doesn't mean we do it. Doesn't mean we have to do it. Okay. You want to talk about the shipper, John? And we want to, we want to officially on the record, thank Greg for his help. Greg, they're thanking you. He said, okay, thank you for thanking me. Okay, go ahead, John. So Greg and I found a chipper down in Virginia, I believe. And does it have COVID? Yeah, it does. And so because of that went through the whole thing, it's been gone through. There are two main bearings that run the heads and they place those. It's been, looks to have been sandblasted and totally repaid. It looks brand new. That's what paint does. But what I think is important, it's not mashed up. There's not a dent on it. So it looks like it, it got some use. It's a 2011, it's not super old. It's actually got the identical motor, except the smaller brother to it, to my tractor, which is a wonderful Perkins motor. But it's a really good quality. It's top of the line chipper Vermeer. It's, and it's rated at 12 inch trunk size, which is insane. They, these guys that they deal a lot with chippers and the mechanic I spoke with, spoke with said, well, you know, you can do 12, but you should keep it at 10 or under. That's a big tree. And what else they say, if you're going to have fine brush going through it, chippers like to get jammed up. Oh, there's his ugliness. Hi, Greg. If you're going to run like you probably noticed, Alfred, if you run the brush through it, you should run some heavier woody stuff because it keeps the stuff moving through. It's like eating salad when you eat like macaroni, you know, it's keep that roughage going. I think there, well, I know the reason we decided on this machine as out of, there was another one Greg found that had what appeared to be very low hours, kind of a barn find, but it was an older machine and it didn't have all the auto safety devices. And, you know, those things are hazardous. It's why the new ones have these safety bars all over the place. So if somebody gets, starts getting sucked in a hit bar, it shuts off before you can even think to yell. So this thing has all that and it's been gone through. And this, I asked them, you know, what tends to be problematic on these? And they said, really, the only thing that tends to be a problem is these, you know, as you might expect when you have all these safety sensors, their sensitivity and when they go on and off, their settings and they have it set right now, but sometimes they go out of adjustment and you might be going running something through and it'll shut the teeth, the blades off. And it might be just the sensor needs to be adjusted a little bit. So the bar isn't touching it, whatever you're doing it. But that's really the only real problem with these things. But we got a crew running this thing and you get tired. You start moving stuff through and you get all excited. That's how it hooks on your jacket with a hole in the elbow and it's pulling you in. Oh, guys, sounds like that movie. Yeah. But in Fargo, there's a bar on it that, you know, if your body hits it, it stops the feed. This has that stop bar on it. So yeah, yeah. So what's the money? What was it? Greg, how much was that? $21,000? $21,995. Okay, $22,000. Yes, $21,995. And that included all the shipping and brought to Vermont. Dropped off in your door yard, Alfred. Yep. Come on, I wanted a trip to Virginia. No, not included. You already had one. You don't want to go there and the chipper needs to be quarantined for two weeks. It's already gone 841 miles, guys. Okay. Well, I mean, essentially that's half price of a new one because we were looking at brand new ones for 35 to 40,000. Yeah. Yep. But it's also 10 years old. So those safety, and I'm not knocking it, but I'm just going to say that those safety features that you speak of, there's so much more now. There's so much more updated on the newer ones. 10 years of technology is a lot when you're talking about safety stuff. Right. You know, and just to keep that in mind, I mean, I know we're saving money on it, but and it's not, for me, it's not about what it looks like on the outside. It's more what it looks like on the inside. Right. The blades, the hammer, the, you know, all those parts inside the motor, you know, those are the things that are going to cause us trouble down the road. Right. Well, we, there are photos that we looked at and they looked really good, really clean. Can you send those to Alfred? If it's still on the website. Yeah. Yeah. And these guys actually really go through them, Alfred, before they even put them on the market. Okay. So these guys are, they're a dealer or are they a rental place or what are they? Yeah, dealer. Okay. Okay. Do we have any, any information about what, who owned this thing? Who owned it? Was it a, was a tree surgeon? Was it a rental unit? Was it who owned it? I have no idea. He said it was commercially used. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm just, I'm not knocking it. I'm just trying to get the information that I need to help this decision because it's, it's a tough one to buy for me. It's tough to buy used equipment. I mean, I've got a yard full of it in my own house, but when we go out to work in a storm, we want it to work. I, you know what I mean? It's, it's not like mowing. I can just bring the tractor back in and stop mowing for the day. If we're out on a storm, that chipper needs to work. So that's just a fear that I have in my head. But we haven't had a chipper up until now. I'm pretty sure it's going to work, Alfie. Otherwise, I'm going to put my duck on a wine. Okay. So we'll call you at two o'clock in the morning to help us clear the brush if the chipper's not working. No problem, Toby. Rubby, right there, we too. Okay. That's okay. I'll be right next to you there. Okay. Okay. So do we want to, does the board want to authorize the purchase of this chipper for $21,995, including delivery? Does anybody want to make that motion? I will. Okay. I'll second it. And how soon can they deliver it, John? Do you know? As soon as I get to check, it goes on the truck. Okay. All right. All those in favor, John? Aye. I'm an aye. Rose? Aye. Cliff? Aye. All right. Done. Alfred, do you have anything else to update or Toby, anything else? The one thing I think of is the curb cut on the county road. Yeah, I kind of, I forgot about that. That's all right. The concern was the site distance from the south. And me and Toby went and measured it at 600 feet. Oh, okay. So there's, there's plenty of site distance there for that. I mean, I did go and look. I just don't, I didn't have any, I didn't have any measurement stuff. So yeah, I just, the record to reflect that I did go and do a site visit. Yeah. So I don't know if with that information you can approve it or not. I don't know if there's a big rush, but that was on the table. That's the one issue that was on the, on the table. Right. And I think it was Cliff who raised it based on the B 71 standards that it needed to be at least 450 feet on a road where the speed was 50 miles an hour. I was looking at the minutes from last meeting. Yeah. Well, it's, it's clearly 600 feet. And what about, and that it doesn't need a culvert? I don't think it does because of the lay of the land. It doesn't look like it. It certainly doesn't within the right of way. And if he's going to watch his own driveway out, that's his prerogative, but it's not, it's not going to hurt our road. Okay. So with that said, can we approve the curb cut and I'll get the forms to everybody to sign? So moved. Or else you can authorize me to sign it, which we've done recently. Yeah. I moved that with Denise signing it. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. John. Hi. I'm an I rose. Hi. Cliff. Hi. Okay. We'll get that out, Alfred. Okay. Very good. Anything else? I sent you the link. I sent to select board members the link to the chipper. Okay. Okay. Cliff had something. Yeah, Toby, before you go, Denise, can we talk briefly about the alarm system or if we can't change the order of things around, ask Toby to wait until we get to that on the agenda? Well, no, I don't want to hold, if the board's agreeable, I think we should do it while Toby's still on. Yeah. Right. So. Hey, let me open another beer before we start. Oh, that's why you're, that's why you're, that's why you're hurting his teeth, right? Yeah. There we go. There we go. Toby, do you got another one to spare? I do. I'm on my way. I got the 12 pack for these kind of meetings. Yeah. Oh, come on. Okay. I'm on my way. Okay. I move we adjourn until I can convene over at Toby's. Toby, just a quick question on that was it looks like we can move forward with the slingshot connection and allow for two-way communication. Which would provide us with a second line, line to the alarm system. So, right, redundancy. The question is, is can it be a wireless collection or does it need to be hardwired? It would need to be hardwired and I'm trying to get the details on that. Okay. I don't, I don't think it, the alarm system can't talk to a wireless point. Okay. That's all I needed to know to, to get RB tech. They just need to know what they had to order if they wanted to do a wireless. Before you get to that point, let me double check with Ben about, so they normally, what they're looking for is the low voltage on a, on a phone line that says there's an active telephone line. Okay. And he said that they can do that on an internet connection. I just need to find out what the requirement is so we can tell RB what that signal needs to be going to the, to the alarm system. And what, do we know what the cost roughly is for that, Cliff? Well, if we, if we are going to tap into the, this relay system that we're, we're installing for the backup, then the only additional expense will be a couple of hours of RB tech's time to do this additional connection for us. After that, there's no additional expenses. And does that mean I won't get any more calls at 2.57 in the morning? That's correct. Unless there's something else that triggers an alarm event. Okay. That first, when I first got him, I was like, oh my gosh, what's going on? And then it was just all this connection thing. Yeah. So that'll be nice. If we go with the hard phone line connection, that's going to cost a minimum of $60 a month. How many? Minimum of $60 extra a month on top of anything else we're spending. So if we do it through this internet connection, we save money in the long run. Okay. Great. Yeah, Cliff, I'll talk, I'll talk to his, uh, Seaco's tomorrow and, and confirm as best I can if that's a doable thing. Perfect. Thank you, Toby. Appreciate it very much. So can we, can the board authorize Toby and Cliff to work on this and, um, authorize them to just make this happen and make it work right? Well, that's what we're doing already. Right, I know, but without having to come back to the board again. Okay. Is the board good with that? Yeah. Rose? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Okay. So I would make that in the form of a motion and Cliff, did you want to second my motion? Yeah, I'll second it. The understanding is, is basically you're authorizing a couple of extra hours of RB text time. Right. To make this slingshot thing work. Yep. All right. Um, John, you want to vote? Aye. I'm an aye. Rose? Aye. Cliff? Aye. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Toby. Thank you, Alfred. Thank you. Okay, have a good night all. Have a nice rest of your evening. Okay. Bye. Anybody want a beer? Come to my house. Yeah, I don't drink beer. On my way. Okay. Next up, you all saw the email from Judy, things that the office have been very stressful and very challenging and probably will continue to be so with the upcoming election. You know, just trying to do, I know just going to the grocery store and making sure you're walking the right way down an aisle and wearing a mask. You know, I never liked grocery shopping before and now I like it even less. This is, you know, it's exhausting. Happen to wait for the Walmart police to come and tell you you're going down the wrong way. So it's actually the information that's continues to evolve that the knowledge of this virus and how it's transmitted continues to be, you know, broadened. And it's not looking good. It's looking like, you know, these masks are bare minimum. They do help and please wear them for your and your neighbor's safety. But it appears that like the common cold, duh, that the atomization of the virus, not actual physical droplets, but once it gets into a vapor form, going to get such a become such a fine particle, water power particle that it goes into vapor form, carrying the virus with it. The vapor evaporates or dissipates and the virus is out there floating around on its own for three hours and up to 30 feet away. So of course, the closer you are, the greater the concentration. They don't know what the dosage, you know, you need to ingest needs to be before you get infected. There are so many questions that they believe that this is why the infections are spreading as they are because people are, number one, not taking the precautions because they're calling it scandemic and all these Fox News worthy ideas of it. But also that it's just such so hard to, you know, not come in contact with it where there are other people. And the worst thing you can do is be indoors because it builds and so that keep windows open, keeps fans running fresh air into the building, but stay out of buildings, folks. I don't know. I really don't know how they're going to pull off opening schools. I really don't. You know, and a great irony for me is, and I've said this now numerous times to numerous people, the state policy right now, the law on the books right now is to close small schools which have low student populations relative to building size and relative to in the teacher student rate ratios are high. So that's the state policy and that's what's driving all this act 46 stuff. Right. Great irony for me is there are massive numbers of people moving from the urban areas and suburban areas to Vermont. A friend of mine is a real estate attorney. Sharon's not here today. I would speculate that it has something to do with the, she does real estate law in transactions, but I just one attorney I was talking with just last week, one, just one of the real estate offices she works for or does work for had 36 closings in one week. Wow. One office and it's out of control. So where are these people coming from? We know where they're coming from. Why? We know why they're coming. What are they seeking? Are they searching for yet another urban area because it's got better wind surfing? No. They're looking for very rural low populated areas with schools with low student populations so their kid can be, you know, have greater safety if they do have to go back to school. So our state policy is heading across purposes to our other state policy. That is getting people are frankly with money and livelihoods to come to the state and bring your children to repopulate our schools. Well, they're doing that, but they're going to kill the golden goose that's bringing attracting these people here. That is our schools. So just wanted to, that's my speech of the of the meeting. Just wanted to kind of put that notion in your mind. So if we ever have to do battle to keep our beautiful elementary school and it's, I think it's going to be still we may have, there may be a hump where it's still seen as too costly and we may have to just do battle to keep it open. And then, you know, with all the people coming here, we may see the population rise and be happy we kept it. I swear half the traffic I see in Calis these days, and I might say that there's more traffic than I think there is has been in previous summers a lot of out of state license plates. A lot of faces walking and running and riding bikes. I've never seen them before. Yeah, yeah, all over the place. And I'm glad they're enjoying the outs out of doors, these people and seeing how wonderful it is here. And maybe they'll change your view of the world and be less unhappy. But that's what's going down. Yeah, yeah, that's not good. So anyway, so you saw the update from Judy. I think, you know, they have some frustration. But they're working through it. We just need to be supportive. And, you know, do what we can to I think we, you know, we all offered to help if we can. And, you know, just be supportive. They got to have to do the election, which is going to be very challenging on the 11th, because the Secretary of State's office said they have to do in person voting. But according to what Judy's email said, it sounds like the low it'll be a really low turnout of in person voting. So, all right. Anything else under town office or any of that stuff before we move on to the town hall? So, Cliff, I would imagine, you know, we're not going to be using the town hall. There's no rush on this agreement. But when you're ready for us to review it again, just let us know. Yeah, we the friends of the town hall. I did the first round of edits adding in the language requested by the select board and put that in front of the friends of town hall committee. They had some more edits that they wanted me to suggest back to the board. So I'm working those in now. And then the friends will meet again, review those before we come back to the board and say, okay, here's here's the latest version of the document. Is this work for everybody? Okay, very good. So hopefully by our next regular meeting, we'll be able to look at that. Okay, now I went by the town hall the other day, see what was going on. And I saw, I think it was Brady. I think he was the only one there. They didn't have the tent set up yet for the lead paint abatement. During the lead remediation portion of the job, Brady will be working solo because he's the only one on his crew who has the certifications and licensing to do this work. And he anticipated it would take a good two to three weeks. A big factor here is the weather. Days like today, it's really problematic for him to try and do that work because he has to be wearing a big heavy ventilator. He's got some heavy equipment that he has to hoist up the lifts or the ladders. But he is bringing the lift in. It will get there on the 29th. I went by there again today and, you know, the thing about prep work when you're scraping and sanding, it's not always really apparent that a lot has happened. But if you're familiar with how that work looks, you go up close and look at it. You can see he's actually covered quite a bit of ground already. Good. He has taped off a sizable area. I think he's probably going to move around to the side closest to the secondary parking area next. I think he's done with the front area. I believe that's his plan is to work, if you're facing the main entrance, to work in a counterclockwise direction around the building. Great. And then he's going to put a halt on things for what? Yes. 10th, 11th, and 12th or something? Yeah. He's hoping to be done with the remediation by then. But whatever phase he's at, he will take a break. He'll take a complete break on the 10th and 11th and then possibly work half a day on the 12th because Judy and Barbara said they could be done with what they needed to do by midday. Okay. Sounds great. And we've paid him his upfront payment and the second payment will come due when he's done, correct? Exactly. Okay. All right. IT, we already talked about the slingshot thing for the seacoast. Yep. So RBT is going to move forward with that. By the end of this week, they should have everything set to be able to get the equipment installed. And then it's just a matter of coordinating with Grady's schedule to get the lift in place and get the antenna installed. And we will need to tap into Andy Feliz to do that portion of it. Okay. Does Andy know about this? No, I was going to ask you if you wanted to contact him and give him a heads up, just to see what his availability is for the next couple of weeks or so. Because I imagine it would happen sometime within the next two to three weeks. Or else you, I mean, you understand it and can probably explain it better. If you want to just contact Andy, I'm fine with that. Do you usually call him or email him? I usually email him and it usually takes him a couple of days to get back to you. Okay. If he's good with emails, then yeah, that's not a problem. If you usually call him, then I'd need his number. But I'd have his email address. Yeah. Well, and his phone number, if you need it, is on that master contact list that Barbara did. Oh, okay. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you can explain it because if he asks me questions, I'm not going to be able to explain anything. Okay. I'll make a note to cover that. Thank you. And the only other question regarding that system now is if there's any additional equipment, it doesn't sound like there is because as I understand it from RB Tech, if it's going to be hardwired, they're just going to run up, need to run a line down to where the alarm box is. Yeah. And we'll have to tap into John McCullough's knowledge to figure out the best route to do that. Okay. Anything else under IT? The server is all switched over. Everything seems to be working okay. Yep. Server is done. They did the final migration. Everything is functioning well. We have a temporary fix in place to do backups. It's not ideal, but at least the backups are happening until we get the slingshot solution installed. So we're getting pretty good shape in terms of our IT needs. Well, Sandra's got her new laptop. It's all set up. It's working. She can access everything she needs to from home, she said. So it sounds like we're in a good place right now. Yep. All right. Any further IT questions, anybody? All right. We're doing good. Appointments, reappointments. We had put these off thinking that we were going to meet in person and I don't see that happening anytime soon. So I thought we'd start with the easy ones first, which is the most of them are like the one year appointments. You know, health officer and animal control and all that. I sent us a list. Yeah, there we are. And most people responded, yes, please. And in my email, I said, if I don't hear from you, I'll assume that you're good. So we need to reappoint, you know, this delinquent tax collector, the treasurer. The one I forgot to put on here was the auditor. We have to have the auditor by our charter. And that's been NEMRIC. It's been Cindy from NEMRIC. That's been doing a monthly audit as opposed to Sullivan and Powers who do the annual audit. So we need to add auditor to this list. And the name of the person doing it is NEMRIC. John, you had a question? Oh, you're on mute. I was waving to a passerby. I'm out on the porch. Oh, okay. Good for you. And then they see it's great doing meetings from Zoom. You can be anywhere you want. Yeah. So does any, and I'd also like to, and I guess we have to figure out the term limit, Rose. I looked on the town website, Rose. You looked in the town report. There seems to be conflicting terms on the DRB of when they expire. The one I looked at was on the website. And there's a vacant development review board member position on an alternate, but a member. And Stephanie Kaplan has graciously agreed to step up and be on the DRB. It's just, we don't know what seat it's for. Right. So we could approve this slate with the caveat that we need to figure out for sure the term that she would be serving. And the three year terms, we just got to figure out when it ends. And this slate includes Sandra as treasurer, Sandra as delinquent tax collector, Katie as a recording secretary. I'm sure you've all looked at this. So does anybody have any thoughts, questions, suggestions, issues with reappointing this slate of people? Everybody's good. All right. So I would make a motion that we approve this slate of reappointments and appointments with the addition of the auditor being NEMRIC. And that's, the NEMRIC one is also a one year term. With Stephanie Kaplan's, yet to be determined. Right. Yeah. We have to just double check this. Is that a second rose? Yes. Okay. Would you like to vote Rose? Yes. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm an eye cliff. Hi, John. Hi, yeah, yeah. Okay. We have, I will work on some of the other putting together a list of some of the other appointments on the various boards, commissions and committees and send it to you folks. And we might need to have a discussion about some of them. But in the meantime, I'll put the, at least put together a list. So we need to approve minutes. So, Steph, can you do your magic? Okay. It looks like the first one or the minutes from six, eight. Okay. Are you calling them up? Yeah. Okay. It's my mouse is just being crazy. So sorry for the delay. That's all right. So John, is the humidity any better out there? It's awful. I should go back to the house. But I like watching the hummingbirds come to the field. Oh yeah. They're amazing. And they're hungry little devils I found out. And then there's this thing that comes out right around now and it starts getting dark called the hummingbird moth. Oh. It's a moth, but it looks just like a mini hummingbird and the wings do the same thing. Cool. Okay. So June eight minutes, I was okay with Sharon's changes. It's mostly just rewording it and making it sound like she wrote the minutes. So it's really nothing significant. It's just a rewording and I read them. Rose, did you have anything on the six, eight minutes? I think I made a few changes. You had one part where it said the motion passed four to zero. And why wasn't it five to zero? So I don't know if you want to leave it at four to zero. Does anybody remember not voting on that? Yeah, I can tell you what happened. That was the meeting I wasn't able to attend the first portion of because there was an accident out. Okay. So I did not participate in this portion of the meeting. That's why it was four. Can we click or I guess we could approve these and make that ask Katie to make that addition to the minutes because I just thought it was odd. There was five of us in attendance, but only four voted. I think she said it's here to begin and Cliff Emmons member attending at 740 p.m. Right, but we don't know when that vote took place. What time? It was before 740. Yeah, right, right. So no shit. So Katie's going to be listening to this recording. So I'm going to ask Katie to somehow make a note there that that's what happened. It wasn't that anybody didn't vote in favor of this. It was when Cliff had to leave to tend to an accident on County Road. Right. Okay. Yeah, she could say it passed four and Cliff Emmons was not present for the vote. Right. And I also would like Katie to capture the comment that Rose made just a minute ago. No. Okay. Is there anything else on these or can we approve them with changes? I make a motion we approve. Go ahead. Okay. I'll second Rose's motion. Yeah, motion to approve. Okay. And Cliff seconded. Okay. Rose, you ready to vote? Aye. Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff. Aye. John. Yo. Okay. Yo man. All right. Next, next minutes. All right. That looks like it'll be the 613 special meeting minutes. I make a motion to approve. Second. Yeah. That's pretty straightforward. Yeah, pretty straightforward. All right. All those in favor, Rose. Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff. Aye. John. Yo. Yo. Okay. Next. Moving on to 622. Rose, did you look at those? A little bit. All right. And I just added here, I want Katie to put in next to mountain security. That might be what the local company is called. But the calls that I get are from this seco security. So they must be the mothership or something. Yeah, they ended up incorporating mountain security into their business. Okay. Yeah, I just, I had, I made some minor edits. I have a question. Yes, sir. Cliff, you had volunteered yourself to set up the phones for a single button to activate 9-1-1. I'm guessing that totally got forgotten. Knowing you, maybe not. Hasn't been forgotten. It just hasn't been implemented. There's a lot of sensitivity of other people going into the inner sanctum. Oh, they can't pass the phone out to you. I think the best way to probably do it is arrange it to go down, for me to go down there a time when nobody else is there, program it into each of the phones and do a wipe-down. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Cliff. Thank you. You're welcome. No, but it has not been forgotten. All right. Can we scroll through the rest? I don't remember what else. You know, as we're scrolling, I'm just thinking, you know, I got this paranoia. I've been watching the maps of where COVID has been and it was like red down the coastlines, more or less, meaning high levels of infection and illness and deaths. And then it came through the Bible Belt across Louisiana, Texas, and then jumped over to California. Now, if you look at it two weeks hence, it's like spread like ink that's bleeding into a t-shirt. And it's running from California to New Mexico to Arizona. Likewise, Utah all the way north and from Texas north. And I think, you know, New York State, they just put the whole state when New York City is infected and upstate New York is not infected. But, you know, I would dare say that infection has come in here with all these running from it and dragging it with them. And that really, if anyone thought that Barbara and Judy might have been overreacting, it may have been, but you can't know. But I think it's not an overreaction now to be, because they have so much traffic now, reportedly are. They could, if they didn't implement these safety precautions, they could have a lot of traffic with a lot of out-of-state people bringing in infection. So I think it is, it's not wrong. It's not overkill. I think it's the right thing to do. And I agree and I think the board has been very supportive of their reaction to this for the most part. And they're very appreciative of our support and understanding. This is serious, serious stuff. You know, there's been a lot. I know somebody who just went to Florida to play on the beaches for three and a half weeks. They had this massive big wedding and now she's coming back. And there's all kinds of pictures of parties and no masks. And there was, there was a choir group, 46 of them, middle-aged older people, church choir type folks, choral group got together in this large house. They all wore their masks. They all respected the six foot distance hand cleaning, all that jazz. 25 of them got sick. Because when you sing or you sneeze and you projectile, force the vapor out and the atomization. And this was actually used to underscore that the atomized infection is real and the risk from it is real. Of those 25, 15 died. Oh my God. So a third of the people that met to do a very nice community thing wound up dying, someone unknowingly came there, one or two or three people came there who were infected unknowingly and got the rest sick, killed their friends. So this is serious and young people, they're finding in 50% of the young people that actually get sick from it, they're finding 50% of them have a remaining lung ailment as they're calling it. They don't know if it's a permanent condition. They don't know if it's eventually going to wane over time. It just takes time to clear. They don't know if it's permanent lung damage. Well, I see it scary. Yeah, another new whole kind of disability out there from the COVID-19. I know I get a lot of documentation, links to different articles from the health center. And the long-term effects are really, really something to worry about. I think the real reality is we're going to see a lot of people with COPD like long-term effects. So are we ready to approve the June 22nd minutes with the changes as noted? Yes. Okay, that's a second. Rose, are you ready to vote? Yes. I'm an aye. Cliff? Aye. John? Yo. All right. Next up, we must be into, no, we have to do the June 20, the site visit ones, right? That Rose, Rose took the site, the June 25th minutes, I believe. I think so. Boy, John's getting dark there. Yeah, and the hummingbirds, they work it until they can't see anymore. Yeah. I think they've actually just called it a day. They stopped us now. So I had a question. Rose had put in the minutes for this. This was the curb cut at Nelson Pond, that they need a right-of-way permit. Why do they need a right-of-way permit? I don't know. I thought that they did. If they're just, well, if they're clearing brush to put in the curb cut, I don't know that they need a right-of-way permit. I don't know either. I mean, you would think though, because I don't know. I thought there was oversight or... Rose, I think you raised the concern. That they would be parking trucks to do trimming or work in the road, and it might require a right-of-way permit. That was the discussion. So do they or do they not? Because we haven't asked them to do that. I'm not worried about it. So can we take that out? Sure. Yeah, I can. If the road breaks the question, I think down the road, Rose might be proven to be the right one on this. So I think you leave it in there. The question was raised and if we don't do it on the road, we can get scolded and we can blame John for sinking Rose's idea and I'll take the hit. And did your clip have anything else to add because Rose has that little sentence there? Yeah, because I mean, I took the notes and so I put my concerns in there. And I don't know if anybody else wanted their comments or concerns in there. No, I think we addressed that in that attachment that I sent with the curb cut permit. So I guess we could approve these, take out that sentence that says can insert concerns or comments, leave in the comment about the right-of-way permit. And was there anything else that we needed to address on these? Cliff? Yeah. So we've already signed off on this as a board and if we didn't put in this application and what we were going to require of them, you know, all the contingencies and we didn't put this contingency in for getting a right-of-way permit, can we retroactively do that? No, we decided on site not to require it. That's my reflection. It was a conversation we had. Rose brought concern because the narrow road and she stopped me off here, Rose. But expressed the concerns of narrow road. They'd be parking trucks, cutting brush, doing work right away, you know, along there. And she raised the question, does it need a right-of-way permit if they're doing all this work in the right-of-way? So the agreement is, is we're deleting this sentence from the minute? What I heard was not to delete it. That's what I heard, too. It was raised, but we didn't move forward on requiring it. We need to, Rose, can you reword that then? That needs to be reworded. Yeah. Okay. If you can reword it to reflect our discussion tonight, that the issue was raised, but the board did not act on it or whatever the right wording is. Right. And then take out that one sentence about you highlighted. And was there anything else? Did we know who moved to adjourn and all that? Yeah, that's all in there and Rose captured it. What was the date on those minutes? Those are 625. 625, select for meeting site visit. Okay. Because I'm going to open it on my own computer and just make that change right now. And we, and just to double check, and we're not adding, we're not adding the conditions of the permit because I attached the separate sheet, remember? Okay. And so who made that motion to approve it with those conditions? I'll move it. John. Okay. And can we just go back to the top? I want to make sure we indicated that Alfred was not there. Okay. All right. With that, are you ready to vote, Rose? Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff? Aye. John? Yo. All right. So 713, I think is the next ones. Yep. Let me get them up here. I'm going to step away for just a minute. So just go ahead and get started on the 713. Okay. Got some dark clouds moving in here, folks. Yeah. Okay. So Denise said in her note that she made some minor changes. I guess it was in people's names or whatever. See any other major changes? John, did you get a chance to read through these? No. Because there's, you know, this has a lot of the discussion around the compliance with open meeting laws. I don't know if you wanted to have a chance to go over that again before we approve these. Yeah, maybe I would. That's why I'm asking. Yeah, I did not look at them. Okay. Then I would propose that we hold off on approving these until the full board has had a chance to review them. What's that? 713? Yes. Okay. Okay. Once our chair returns. Yeah, I'm back. I'm here. Denise, we decided to not approve these right now. We want to give everybody another chance to review them because it has the section on compliance with open meeting law. Okay. Okay. So let the minutes reflect that please, Katie. Thank you. That's really good. Yeah, because that was a really important part of that meeting. Yeah. All right. And I think do we have any other ones or is that it? That's it. Yay. All right. Let me get Sharon on the phone because I'd like to go into executive session. And I'll go in the house. All right. So we have a formal motion to go into executive session. So moved. I'll second. Who did the motion? Denise made the motion and I seconded. Okay. 839 p.m. Yeah. I'm going to ask Orca to leave. Thank you, Orca. Okay.