 You're welcome to take that somewhere else, but we have to get started. Sandra, are you comfortable talking from there, and can you comfortable talking? Yes. Oh, good. Interesting. So you've sent us two documents, but a lot of documents, and I think we all have our doc's documents here. So last Thursday, I had Barbara send you folks what I could call a tax rate recommendation package. And the first page is summarizes the backup information that goes into the calculation of the tax rate. And the recommendation is a town tax rate of 0.8062, which the effect on this tax rate over last year's tax rate, it would be to have a $36.40 increase per $100,000 of assessment over last year. That's just on the town side. So it's a fairly small increase in town taxes from one year to the next. The tax here, as you see in your summary page, is comprised of three elements. It's the town tax rate itself, which really is a simple calculation of approved expenses divided by the grant list. The grant list is up by a little less than 1% over the 2022 grant list. And it's a simple function. The higher your grant list, the lower your taxes, all things being equal. And of course, all things are never equal because your expenditures oftentimes go up from year to year, depending on, well, fuel costs, health benefits, personnel expenditure, working traction, things like that, very common sense things. So that first rate, we call it just the town tax rate. And that's 0.798 when I'm going through all of the calculations of what was approved at town meeting, the town approved the proposed total highway and general government expenditures, as well as a number of articles for fire and ambulance, for social service agencies, and so forth. All of that is factored into that town tax rate. We then have two rates, which on a tax bill are called the local agreement rate. And the one component of the local agreement rate is the veterans exemption rate. That states pretty solid from year to year. We have roughly, or we have had roughly 10 veterans last year. There were 11. And what that does, what the veterans rate is, it's an acknowledgement of service. The state of Vermont allows a $10,000 exemption of property, assessed property value for a veteran. And it also allows a town to give up to $40,000 of exemption to the assessed value of a veteran's home if the town votes it. And so at some point in the past, the town did vote for the maximum veteran's exemption. What does that mean, let's say, that the assessed value of a property is $140,000. But if you are a veteran, your exemption is $40,000. So your tax rate is applied to $100,000 of assessed value, as opposed to $140,000 of assessed value. Now, what does that mean to the rest of the town? That means we have to collect that amount of money. So that next calculation would be, how do we collect the $300,000? Because the state already has calculated into our grand list that first 100, 10 veterans times $10,000. So we have to collect then that $300,000 in assessed value that we allow as an exemption. So what that boils down to, it is spreading out $3,000 across the taxpayer, sort of the owners of property. And in this case, that tax rate is .0015, gets added to the town tax. The next component of the local agreement rate is the non-homescare contract rate. And again, this is voted on in town, meeting every five years. We see non-profit properties come up to a forevote to the exempt from paying taxes. And we have seven of those properties in town. And again, we figure out the value of them is $588,200. That's their assessed value. We figure out, what aren't they paying? They aren't paying their non-homescare school taxes. And so the town has to, though about the business, spreading out what the non-homescare school taxes would be on that assessed value of $588,200. And that's a little over $10,000. And so we spread that out over all of the other parcels in the town. And that tax rate is .0049. So this year, that local agreement rate is .0064. Last year, it was .0072. So that fluctuates a little bit again, depending on number of veterans, number of exempted properties, and their values as determined by the listers. So we have a recommended total tax rate of .8062 for this year. The state, you probably got to the last page, has set the school rates. Now, homestead rate is 1.8637. The non-homes dead rate is 1.730. So those two rates are added together, multiplied against the assessed value of any particular parcel. And that is how we raise our taxes. We're responsible for collecting the school taxes, as you know, for the district. And within a statutory period of time, after the due dates, we send them a check. That's a summary. I'm not, I think it's, I would be happy to entertain any questions or any clarification on the information that I have provided. Questions, anybody? What do you want in the minutes? Just mention for the tax rate. Yeah, that's fine. I think some of this is just for folks behind us, so they're not, they may not have the benefit of the package. Yeah, you're dealing with this. No, that was wonderful. Yeah, come on. It was very good. There you go. Very clear, yeah. So it's not rocket science, it's mathematical. And I can further summarize what we're looking at for homestead plus town tax, the effect between this year and last year of the total tax rate. That's the total town, including the local agreement rate and the homestead rate. It is $152.20 over last year's tax rate per 100,000 of assessed value. If it's non homestead parcel, it's $103 over last year's tax rate per $100,000 of assessed value. So very clearly, if you're a question that town portion of that total increase is really quite small, really quite small. I have a very basic question. What are the non-tax projected revenue? That's your grants and things like that? Non-tax projected revenue that's in the middle of the page on page two. What's that article for? Some of its friends are clients. It's by non-tax revenue. That would be your current use payment, your pilot payment. Those are payments from the state. So what the state does for every town is it provides a certain amount of money for parcels that are in current use. If you're a current use parcel, what happens with that is that depending on your acreage and the current use program you are in, your assessed value is reduced by that amount of money. So the multiplier, the variable that the state assigns for a particular current use is then multiplied by the number of acres and current use. And that amount then reduces your assessed value. So for instance, if you have a farm and the assessed value is $250,000, I'm making this real easy, right? We don't want to pull with big numbers, $250,000 of assessed value, but your acreage and current use, the variable times the number of acreage comes to $50,000. That $50,000 is then that reduces the assessed value to $200,000 and that's the tax rate. So because the state encourages properties in this program, it all sets to a certain degree, it's not dollar for gallon, but it does send the town money toward that reduction in assessed value. That is all part of the calculation of your grand list. So it is reflected in that grand list value of $2,066,000, where you're going to figure out the tax rate. So your non-tax revenues are current use payment, pilot payment, your town clerk receipts, your state aid to highways. What kind of pilot do we have, like the number 10 pond Memorial Hall and Old West Church? Their Kent Museum is a pilot. So any land owned by the, any land or building and land owned by the state is part of the pilot program. And there's two levels of that. It's just like if you had a state farm here, or and it, for instance, and the Kent Museum is another example of a state owned building that is here in Calis. So we get money for that. I did not know the state owned the Kent Museum. I didn't either until I started to work at Calis. I was surprised. It seems like such a Calis thing. And do you happen to know how our current use, like percentage of land and current use, compares to other towns? I do not know that off the top of my head. Any questions for Sandra? Donna has one. So Sandra, this tax rate, is it raising exactly the amount of budget? Or did you have some wiggle room? No, there's no wiggle room. So the proposed highway and general. So you wrote it to the budget? I did it to the budget. That's the legal way to do it. So the town voted on a proposed amount of expenses. So the select board publishes how they believe the town is best able or should best spend their money. So that amount of money this last year was $1,565,089. So if you look in your town report, you are going to see the proposed FY24 budget. You're going to see the prior FY23 budget, FY22. And there is a total. And when you look at Article 4, it says $245,372 shall be raised by taxes and $319,717 by a tax revenue, which we just categorized. That comes to $1,565.89. Now, the town report adds that up by a dollar. So it actually is, instead of $89, it's 90, which is probably the result of an Excel spreadsheet. We actually need to count on Excel for that and need to run a tape. But the $1 is not. What we have to stick with is those two numbers there, which brings me to one little item of peculiarity. One little item of peculiarity that the select board should be aware of. Those two numbers, the numbers that we just talked about, what we're raising in taxes and in tax revenue and the non-tax revenue, absolutely match within a dollar, which is probably, I think it was $0.64, to the budget proposed by the select board. However, you will know that there is a number before that that bears absolutely no relationship to those two numbers. And that's that $1.9 million number. And that is because somewhere in the editing of the town report or the warning, a revenue number was picked up off of page, I can even tell you anything. It was off of page 48. So inadvertently, somehow or other, that number, which is the total of proposed revenues, was picked up in that article 4, as opposed to the $1.5 million. So that was page 48 on the lower right-hand column. The number should have been picked up off of page 46, lower right-hand column. So it's very clear. This is the language that the town has used for many years. I have, if you were interested in it, I'd have town reports going back to the last two years. That number should be that $1.56589. It was just picked up. It's clearly a manifest error. They never proposed a budget of $1.9 million ever. They proposed a budget that is comprised of what you're going to raise in taxes and what you're going to raise in non-tax revenues. Can I just clarify? It wasn't in the editing of the town report. We printed what was sent to us by the select board. I was not working at the time, but I am one for solving mysteries. I love that. We did my husband and I do the work every day. And it's one of my greatest pleasures to figure out what the heck happened. And I'm happy to say it was very easy once I solved how the numbers didn't add up to find how these numbers were just simply, it was just picked up incorrectly. But the intention is very clear. Non-tax revenue, tax revenues, you add it up, it comes to your budget. That was the peculiarity that I thought was worth mentioning. You ought to put that in in minutes. I am beyond, I'm at a total loss of words. I know what questions were answered. Next select board. Just so you know. So do you need us to set the tax rate right now? Yes, I do. I would propose that a member of the select board make a motion to, for the 2023 tax rate to be 0.8062. And if that motion is made and seconded and passed, we will be burning tax bills tomorrow or Wednesday morning. Rose, let's make sure Rose got it. OK, go ahead, Jordan. I think so slowly. But the numbers that we were just discussing in article four were based off of the projected expenditures that the previous select board was budgeting for. But then during town hall, the voters approved additional expenditures with select board stipends, so Chris went right away. Yeah, the swim program. Do those get backfilled into an adjusted rate of that one point or I guess the 1.565? Sure. This is your summary page. So on your page one, it's titled, your page one of your backup is called Result of Town Meeting. And you see your general fund and highway expenditure number, the one that ends in the 89. And then your amendment that shows your select board stipend, Cemetery Commission, Call of Hover Library, and non-profit organizations, which also included the extra $5,000 in the town hall board. It was $31,000, but it was increased by $4,000 in the town meeting to provide Cal's Pond of monies to put what was handrails. So you also have the minutes of the town meeting behind that page one, so you can follow the discussion and see the motions made. But yes, your total approved FY24 expenditures approved by voters was $1,974,025.36. So when I say it's like all five 64 cents somehow, the XL did a number on your budget. So that is how we're raising taxes to meet a net expenditure, $1,654,308.36. So that is total approved FY24 expenditures minus your non-tax projected revenues, and your net is how we derive your tax rate. The net, the delta, that's not the sum. The delta is then divided by your grand list, and there is your first part of your town tax rate, your base rate, that's 0.7998. Would somebody like to move, as Sandra suggested? Would you like to hear Rose read it again? I think I. I move that we set the town tax rate for, is it FY24? I say 2023 FY24 budget. It's a 2023 tax bill. That's how they're referred to, even though they fund the FY24 budget. So you would say FY20, you would say 2023 tax rate. I move that we set the 2023 tax rate at 0.8062. Second? Second. Discussion? Everybody ready? OK, all in favor? Aye. Tia Animas, you have some more things to talk to us about. One, a very, one, one, very, one point, seven million point today. The Toby Talbot has really been sharpening his pencil and initially came up with a theme of damages or cost to repair. The damage caused by the most recent flood at $1.7 million. That was his first brush. He continues on a weekly basis to look at that. And it may be less than that. But when I went out to the bank, that was the best number that we had. So what I asked them was, we're going to need help. These are the damages we are projecting at the moment. What can you do for us? And what they did do for us is offer us a line of credit at 3.99% for $1.7 million with the settlement honor before, I want to say, September 23rd, but it's actually September 11th that this needs, no, no, September 25th, I'm so sorry, that this will need to be signed and formalized. So the line of credit provides the select board with a great deal of flexibility. You're not taking out a loan or you're paying that interest, whether you use it all or not, because we're not sure if we will use it all. We're just not. You will. We will work together to determine on a monthly basis, I think, how much of that line, and that would be on the select board's discretion, of course, how much of the line are we going to pull out? What are we going to pull out in August? Are we going to pull out $50? Are we going to pull out $30? Are we going to pull out $75? I haven't seen all these voices. I'm sorry, I have been ill the last four days, and I have not been able to get in and get to the invoices. I apologize for that. But what I would propose is that the select board would consider each month as we are spending female repair money on contractors and materials specific to those repairs, how much do you want to draw from your line of credit? And that we are responsible for the interest on just that money that we draw. There was a point I was going to make there. What I have, we use a software system that is for fund accounting. So what does that mean? It means that when we pull our monies, which we do, into one large account, it's what we call our operating account. Almost all of the town's monies and the various reserve funds are in that pool operating account. Now, fund accounting, the way we use our software and it's designed for this, is we account for each individual use of that money. So for instance, record preservation fund, we know we account for it every month. It's $27,000, it may not be that. The highway fund is $120,000 and each fund has a number and is individually managed through the software. So what Toby and I have done is figured out what expenditures are FEMA expenditures that we want to put in fund 97, extra FEMA fund. So all overtime is going to be reflected in that fund. We reprogrammed the payroll software so that FEMA, so that overtime is built to that FEMA fund. Materials that are just being purchased for FEMA go into that fund. Contractors that we've hired are paid out of that fund and our reimbursement will come into that fund. So why am I telling you this is because that's the tool that you will be able to use to determine how much money you want to take each month from your line of credit. How much do we have out? Is it $75,000? Perhaps you will want to draw that. And the reason why you may not want to draw it, you have that discussion, is because we have a fund balance walking into FY24 of roughly $400,000. It is an unquanted fund balance, but we're going to be close to jazz. There were very, very, very few, almost really none adjustments by the accountants. So you may want to not draw right away from your, you may decide collectively, it's not my decision. And with your collective decision, how much do you want to take out every month? Or do you want to just play on that nice fund balance for now to keep your interest rate as or your interest as low as possible? And why do I want to keep your interest obligation as low as possible? Because FEMA is not reimbursing us for that, that it is a cost to do business. And we cannot get that back. So it will be a very informed conversation. The board will be able to have a very informed conversation. You will see what your fund balance is. You will see what your FEMA expenditures are. And then you will be able to make an informed decision collectively as to what or if you will be drawing from your line of credit that particular month. So you're not walking in the dark. You have a tool. That's great. Yeah. I feel much better. Yeah, me too. I mean, yeah, you will have a really good tool. And so Toby and I have had several conversations. What we're not doing is putting regular 40-hour a week time in that FEMA column because that's already built into our budget. I mean, just to clarify that, we've got that. We budgeted for that 40 hours. Our crew is working more than 40 hours a week at this point in time. But that's not in there. We just that extra that we did not budget for is going to be very clearly reflected in that fund. Questions? Sieber has a question. I just had a question about not spending the work crew money the 40-hour into FEMA if they're working on FEMA projects. I understand we budgeted for their 40-hour a week. But the work they're doing is outside of what they normally would be doing. That's a great question. And so here's how that works. We still get to when the FEMA application is made for reimbursement, we still show every hour that FEMA work was done. And we will actually be reimbursed for that. But from the standpoint of cash flow, what do we have the money for? What is our tax base? We want to know what we're spending more than what we anticipated we would spend so the town can really be well poised and have a solid cash flow and get all the other bills paid as well. All right. Is the interest rate FEMA reimbursable? No, it is not. It is not. We asked that question early on, and that was very clearly not reversible. So that's why it was important to develop the tool. So you really don't want to take $200,000 out of your credit line and stick it in that operating account if you don't have to. And you might have to one month. I mean, that's absolutely possible. But if you don't, you want to say that. I would think that the board collectively would want to say that. Are we going to be paying it back as we go? There is no prepayment penalty on this line of credit that does let's get to the point of law here that a select board can only take out a loan for a term of one year or less on its own motion, which is what we're talking about here tonight. And this is only a line of credit open for one year. So what we are dancing a dance here to hope that we will be reimbursed by FEMA within that one year period of time. And you'll know more. We have our very competent FEMA people here right now. But there's been a meeting that our FAA, is that what it's called, the RPA? RPA has been submitted. So we are well on the way to being identified as a FEMA disaster site. We will have a meeting with a FEMA representative for all our expenditures, which are right now being collected and categorized very carefully. We'll be able to present those. And then we'll get our reimbursement. Reversement goes through the state. It first goes to the state. And then from the state to us, there's also a state component of that as well. We talked about that in our last meeting. FEMA will hit 75%. The state, as long as you wrote a rich standards are signed. I understand through the RPA that that's going to happen tonight and be certified. You'll get an extra 10% from the state. So the net to the town of unbudgeted expenditures will be 15%. However, good question here. We're going to be reimbursed for every hour of FEMA work. So that 40 hours that's not over there coming out of your fund is going to be reimbursed to us. And we should all, you could end up being in the lack at the end of the situation. So I can't predict that. We don't have enough hard numbers yet. But it's not as, it's not nail-blinding time. It's my favorite expression. It's not nail-blinding time at this time. So the FEMA disaster site status, does that increase or shorten the reimbursement period? I mean, the anecdotal woes are that it takes years for FEMA reimbursement to finalize and finally trickle through. That was not my experience. And Irene, when I was working in Worcester, once we provided our documentation, that reimbursement was very quick to come. It was absolutely not years. And it has much to do with how information is collected and organized. And I can say that Toby is doing a great job every road that he's working on has a file. Every material that goes to that road is logged in. The crew is logging in their hours and where they are. So information is being collected road by road. And when they come in, it sounds crazy, but they really actually look at the paper. Give me your file. Let's look at the paper. OK, this fist. This works. It adds up. So I did not know. I did not see. In my experience, it was not years and years. And it could be years and years because it's in a town that has maybe needs three or four years to make repairs. Because from what we understand, it's one and done and that reimbursement is they come in, you ask for it, and you get it at the end. So if it's a three-year repair period, yes, it could be several years. If it's a repair period within less time, and that's six months, eight months, you're going to be able to apply for your reimbursement. Now, according to Toby, I don't think he thinks it's going to take more than a year. But there are other maybes. I don't know. I came at the end of this conversation. I'm not sure how that might, where that falls in this discussion. Not for tonight, clearly. Moscow Woods, that's another very interesting true to site. I don't know exactly how that falls into this conversation just at the moment. Can you say we have to be under a year? Is that under a year from when we open the line of credit? Under a year from when we start taking money out? Oh, is that a year? It's under a year from when we open that line of credit. So we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I mean, it sounds like funny money, but I can kind of anticipate somehow taking another loan for less than a year to pay off this loan that we took out for less than a year if our FEMA reimbursement is delayed. Because it's just not going to match up with town meeting. And, you know, it's up to the board, of course, but it just seems that you wouldn't want to raise taxes to cover that money when you can take out a loan to pay a loan off just to get you through. You might want to not do that, because it jacks up your tax rate artificially for that one year. So follow up question to that, then. Would it make sense to wait to sign this until we're ready to take out a? You have to sign it by a certain time. They're holding that interest rate open for us. But we still have a month. Should we wait to sign it? You will sign this, and this is accepting the offer. And then you're going to put the documentation together, the formal documentation. That means all the federal requirements, and they'll get that to us. And so let's see. The interest rate will remain in the Fed for a loan closing date on the course of 2025. So we'll look at the numbers, but you know, you're going to be closing somewhere in the next six weeks. Is it possible they'll lower the interest rate? We won't know that ahead. I don't know. That's again. I don't know. You mean the feds will lower the interest rate? No, no. I was just thinking that they might, they're saying they'll hold this 3.99 interest rate until that date. I was just wondering if after that date, it might go lower. We don't trust that rate for different game services, or the bank that we deal with. This is the bank that we deal with. They have all of our loans. It really was, for all intents and purposes, it was a call. I need $1.7 million. And then there was a email and said, well, here. Here's what we can do for you. Here's what we can do for you. Now, just as a point of interest, the last loan we took out was for the purchase of a West Star, and that was 5% over 5%. So this is a loan that is much less than, oh no, I'm wrong. It's not for the purchase of the West Star. It was for our share of the East Montpelier fire interest rate. And that was 5% plus, 5% plus. So this is a good loan. What do you say, guys? Are we ready to make a motion to authorize, I guess that would be me. I think it should be there. I'd be the duly authorized agent to sign this agreement on behalf of the town. You or the road commissioners had any conversation with Toby about the scope of work that's not getting completed because they are performing on regular hours. They're separating out what they're doing. So I mean, their time card had Friday, which would have been definite over time day. They were working on putting the dump truck that's being taken back together. So that's definitely not FEMA, and they categorized it as not FEMA. But are they tabling other work? Yes. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Everything else I'm assuming. Oh yeah. They're all the other stuff they're supposed to be doing. They're not doing. Yeah. Is that the effect in grants that we have outstanding? Well, we have, with the road segments grant, I think we're still gonna be able to do those because they've asked that we, I'm sorry, it's been a really long time coming up with like 40 segments, but it has to go back to like eight segments. And so we're gonna tackle a couple of roads that needs some additional work that aren't really FEMA related. I mean, that is something we're gonna do. Mosca Woods, as you mentioned, that giant hole will be built Wednesday. And they still need to finish it off and there's some shoring down the road, but by and large, the road pieces are coming together pretty quickly. So with Kent Hill Road, there's a grant that we were actually hoping to put out to bid because we don't want it a French mattress. It's a fairly intensive and requires a lot of big rocks that no one wants to haul. So we're hoping to put that one out to bid, but otherwise we're hoping to get stuff up to snuff before winter comes as much as possible. Okay, can we have a motion? I move that we accept the... Authorize Ann. Authorize Ann Winchester to sign to accept the proposal for a line of credit for storm damage repairs and expenses for 1.7 million. Is it community bank? Yeah. Maybe back at a... Okay. I'll second. Let me make sure Rose has got it. You all set Rose? Yes, thank you. Jamie seconds. All in favor? Aye. Okay. If I didn't say the interest rate in the motion, we should probably put the interest rate in the motion. If I didn't say that, do you want to read it back to us, please Rose? No? I didn't. I don't need the motion to authorize Ann Winchester to sign and accept the line of credit proposal from community national bank and a... Community bank and a... No national bank. Oh yeah. See, I didn't write national, I just said it. Community bank and a... At 3.5% percent. For 1.7 million. Yeah. Oh, you said that, sorry. I didn't say that. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Thanks, Sandra. You're welcome. I'm glad you did something. You know it's good to have that down. Yeah, I'll take care of that. I was just going to ask, but I signed things, I'll just put them out there. Oh, you're going to take it. Okay. Here's my agenda. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Sandra. Thanks very much. Thank you, Sandra. Jake. You want to spend some money. I want to spend some money. Right on time. Yeah. Yeah, so I have a proposal for the expenditures of the rest of the money that is left in the EMTG grant after the purchase of the generator. And unfortunately, I just got notified by our radio expert that at first she said, oh, it looks good. And then realized that we didn't have power supplies for the radios in there. So I just had to change that right before the meeting and add this in. But as a summary, what we had to do is shuffle things around. And so I didn't have time to print a hard copy of this. And so I wanted to have an open discussion about maybe how we should handle this. But the general premise of this is that these are ham radios. And our proposal was to outfit five locations in town with antennas and get three radios as well as a couple handheld radios. With the update that we need to spend an extra $200 per radio, I talked with Nick on it right before this and we agreed that we will actually decrease the number of radios down to two. The number of locations down to four in town. And that also then leaves enough budget for installing a cell signal booster here. The issue with the ham radios is that only people with a ham radio operator's license can communicate on them unless it is a life and death emergency. So it is, we thought that the cell signal booster that the town hall here would actually be of benefit to anybody that is sheltering here, whereas that would be in addition to the ham radio. So the five locations we were originally thinking for the antennas was the Naval Corner Community Center, the town hall here, the East Calus Rec Center, the town garage and the school, the Calus Elementary School. And so one of those locations will have to be omitted from having an antenna installed with the new proposal. And in addition, we would only have two radios that could be dispatched at any of those locations. And so I wanted to bring that up here and discuss how we should go forward with the updated amounts. And it is the opinion of anybody on the select board that we should go down to three antennas and then be able to buy an additional cell signal booster for a different shelter. Remind me what EP-MG stands for. For the grant. It's the emergency management, I don't know the name. But with the P. I don't know. Okay. Okay, I think it is actually preparedness. Preparedness, yeah. Emergency preparedness grant, emergency management preparedness grant. So the radios are basically your thing about them in conjunction with having shelters. It for shelters and emergency operation center. And so there's a number of people on the emergency response or emergency management committee, myself and Betty who are going to be getting our hand radio operators license. So we can be operators and we're gonna have training sessions for anybody else in town that is interested in joining and getting certified. And you do have to take a test in order to and it is fairly involved to become official hand radio operator. If you're dropping the antenna sites down from five down to four, which one will you be wanting to eliminate? That is a open discussion that I think that we will, this is new information that I found out. That would be fine by the emergency management team. It would be decided by the emergency management team but we're willing to take input from the select board on that. Anybody want to offer input on that, on location? Curious how the roll out of fiber to town buildings kind of influences this. So are the radios predominantly for communicating with, I guess, other members of the team spread out around? Other members of the team but the primary goal is if in a extremely long duration power outage when we don't have any internet, we don't have any power and the cell phone generators run out of power, we will have no communication to the outside world and with the hand radios we will be able to communicate with the state, Vermont emergency management headquarters and be able to coordinate with the towns around us who have hand radios to be able to facilitate the usual aid or any other necessary helping out in a long term disaster. Do you know if Worcester has hand radios? No, I'm not aware of the surrounding communities and what their capabilities are that is on the action item list for one of the members of our emergency management team. No. We have a callous resident who's very well versed with hand radios, she's done lots of search and rescue operations from California to Vermont and she's very supportive of this. Well, it sounds to me like you're gonna come back to us at the next meeting with a new, somewhat new proposal then. Yes, yeah, and so is the next meeting determined with that date as yet? We have not figured out that yet. Okay. We were waiting to see the results of various things that happened tonight. Okay, great, thank you. I'm liking that. We will. Any other questions for Jade? So you said two radios only? Two radios, they can only be used by someone who is a licensed hand radio operator. Okay. And so it would be a mode of communication not to every person in town, it would be a mode of communication to facilitate communicating to surrounding towns and Vermont emergency management in the event of the long-term outage where we don't have other forms of communication to them. I would, I just, one of the things I had thought all along since Sunday, the ninth or whatever it was is like, God, I wish we had been able to communicate with Worcester better and probably would marry too, but especially Worcester because of the Worcester Road and people not knowing whether they could get through or not. And so I would really love to see this be coordinated more regionally. So that the, you know, if Callis is going to this trouble that we know Worcester is also doing it and would vary those two in particular. And with these radios, you would be able to pick up emergency response communications as well from fire dispatch and so forth. So we will be able to pick up that. And we've got the biggest intent, the antennas is the biggest thing for being able to be able to send and receive a long distance. And so especially down here in the valley, we've got the longest antenna we can fit. But each radio, the power supply is $200 and the radio is $300. So that we want it to be strategic and the radios can be moved around from location to location, but the antennas are mounted and wired into the facility so that way they can be dispatched to the locations where we have emergency operation center or shelters where we can coordinate communication to the outside world. Great. Fantastic work. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Is there a significant difference between having it here versus having it at the town office? Well, we would want it to be, we thought it would make sense to have it here because everything in the radio operators center would be just on the other side of the kitchen where then we can communicate with people that are running the shelter, what our needs are and so forth and where this could also be an emergency operation center and we wouldn't have to travel and it could be co-located with the actual location of the shelter. Playing devil's advocate and expecting people to take issue with 150 foot antenna being installed on the back of this building. It's a 18.5 foot antenna and it's gonna be inside the cupola it will not be visible from the outside. Oh, okay. Well, it's the 115. That's the coaxial cable to run all the way down to where the radio operator is. He subtly climbed up in there with the bats and stuff. Did you do that in these call-ins? I was like, ah. Gotcha. Committed. Well, thank you for clarifying that. That makes a huge difference. Yes. Yeah, and also the proposed location of the East Montpelier Rec Center, the antenna would be inside the cupola there because that's a historic building but we assume that we could put it externally mounted on the back of the Maple Corner Community Center and the town garage and the school we could mount it on top of the building because it's not a historic building. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Jake. It's awesome. Yeah. Marge and Colleen and Jamie. Let's talk about Curtis Pond, RFP. Please do. Yes. Colleen, you too. Come on up. Just because my ears are going. You guys love that. And that's it. Okay. Do you want to explain the issue for the benefit of these folks? Or Jamie. Well, whoever. I fell out, Jamie. I'm not feeling 100% tonight. Yeah, yeah. So the basis is we've been working in some cases the town, in some cases the CPA, in some cases both together have been working with the engineers at D&K for quite a few years because the town had hired them to do an initial draft proposal of a dam. When was the original one? 2013. The last select board went with them again and signed a contract with them to do this next phase, which was create the bid-ready drawings, engineer the dam, all the specs, all the details, and get it completely ready to go out to bid. And harvest. And through the permitting process and everything we've done so far. And there was confusion, which was really just a lack of communication and looking closely at all the details of the contract, the last select board signed. But the contract that we're currently in with D&K ends now with the RFP ready to go out. And so they provided us with an addendum to that contract to take us through completion of the construction. And so that amendment is broken into three pieces. One is 6,950 for managing the RFP in bidding process and helping us with recommendations to decide which contractor to go with and helping with development of the contract. And then there's two phases of construction assistance that they're proposing the contract cover. One is 44,100 for just a lump sum of construction administration. And then additional 38,450 for oversight of the construction process. So the total for this amendment is 89,500. Some of us when we first saw it were like, wait, did we know about this? What, we sort of thought that based on conversations with them, we sort of thought that the original contract covered all of that. But going back, it didn't. However, that sum of money was always included in the total budget for the project. So we're not looking at $90,000. I mean, we don't have final numbers on the project and every time they give us estimates they're a little higher because construction costs just keep going up. But this is not new money. However, the CPA has had some conversations about splitting this out. And I was hoping Michael would be here tonight. He thought he initially said he couldn't be and then he said he might be and he's not on Zoom. So we've been talking about having them cut this into two different amendments and initially signing a bid phase services amendment for the 6,950 and then having a larger conversation. There's pros and cons we theoretically could decide to go out to bid and invite other engineering firms to bid on the work of overseeing the construction. That they would argue and I sort of see that there's benefit to having the engineers that designed the dam be the ones who oversee the project and certify that it was done to spec at the end of the project, which is something dam safety will need to sign off on at the end. I think there's value in having that conversation. I'd like to have a meeting with them at some point in here in more detail. They laid on pretty strong the benefits of them seeing it to completion. I see both sides. We've had conversations and I feel like gone back and forth but curious what others think. So we could basically decide to sign this amendment and contract them for the remainder of the project or we could decide to ask them to split it out into two amendments and we could vote tonight or next week or when we meet next to do the first one and talk more about the second. But I guess I'd be curious if either of you want to speak to a preference and then. Well, I did want to point out that one of the, I think I'm leaning towards splitting it into two. The first one, this almost $7,000 one to get the RFP out and contracted one of the advantages of that is if we have someone lined up, we know who will be doing it and might make a difference on and what the cost is. It might make a difference on what the overseeing engineering firm might charge. Plus I think a little competition. I think if Du Bois and King think they've got it locked in already, I'd like to see some competition to maybe they sharpen their pencils and give us a better price for the overseeing project. But I think it's important for us to get the RFP, we were planning on going August 1st to put the RFP out for the day on for construction but because of this issue and with the flooding and everything we wanted to have a little more time but I would like to get that RFP out as quickly and see if we're even gonna get anyone to bid on it and know what the price is. Right now we just kind of got this number out in the air and we don't really know for sure what it would be. So I'd like to try to move to get that RFP out as fast as possible and if we just do the first part and then discuss the phase for overseeing. So that's my opinion. So I feel very much like Marge does, I think who bids it and their level of experience and then when we talk directly to them is the oversight somewhat of a formality, just have a license there, you have to have someone that's alive or do they rely on a lot of input from the engineers and if a very experienced dam contractor said, if you'd get someone for half the money that's just fine because we know what we're doing here. So yeah, we just, we really wanna go out to bed so that we have some realistic numbers and I would like to see it separated. Okay, Anne had a question. Are they amenable to doing that? I mean, I thought it was very uncrawled like the night before the RFP is supposed to go out to be like, oh, hey, so like 90,000 blaze and again, if we get a competent contractor that has all those things that they would be doing, I don't know, it just seems like an insane amount of money and I hear you saying that it was part of the overall projection, but it kind of feels like it kind of came out of nowhere. And it's always been an percentage of like back in the day when it was $600,000, then it was half that, it snuck up along the way, it tends to be point. Right, in 2013, it was like 30,000 because it was 10% of the construction cost, the estimated construction cost, which were almost $300,000. Okay, so this was like an expected cost that just we, because every time we get an estimate, it's $100,000 more than it was a year ago. I mean, it's jumping at that rate. Okay, but I just, it was kind of sprung up. You're being held hostage today. So we do agree on maybe going out to bid on that part. We just think going out to bid on a 7,000 thing that would delay it by perhaps months doesn't make sense. We want to get some realistic numbers. I always remind people, a Richmond dam went out to bid and nobody bid on it. Right. How many people do you know need a Godfather to do their kitchen and they can do it in 26, you know? So we want to know the reality of the situation as soon as possible. And to bring someone up. Jordan had a question, I'll just have a minute. Not so much a question, more of kind of a statement. I mean, I think it's important to kind of recognize to your point that that $89,000 is likely tied to a percentage of the cost of the project and that does get built into that. And that's fairly customary for, you know, an architectural firm that is going to be overseeing the construction of the house that they have designed. You know, you can opt not to have those services and then you're working with the contractor through all of those things. We're not talking about a house or a kitchen or really anything, not to belittle anything. It's just that this is, you know, fairly specialized construction. And even if we do have a really awesome contractor, nobody in the community is then going to likely have the expertise to hold them accountable to the plans. See, I'm saying, do you want, like, you have to have somebody. You have to have somebody. So you're licensed, you know, by the state. So I do agree with wanting to get the RFP out there and trying to split the services. I can see where D&K are going to add a lot of efficiencies because it's their plan and without enough experience around it, it seems unlikely that another firm would be as competitive because they're gonna wanna run through, they're gonna run through the program and the plan and verify things that D&K wouldn't otherwise do because it's their plan, it's their proposal, but there's no reason to do it. But I think what made all of us feel better, or at least on the CPA, if we felt like we were getting the best price for that aspect. And D&K is a big firm which has some added, you know, what the prices are, as opposed to retired, you know, civil engineers from the state that are acting as consultants doing the same job they did when they ordered for the state, without the overhead of a big company. So we don't know what that difference is gonna be. I wonder if in that bidding process, well, I mean, we also, I guess, run the risk of it getting more expensive. If we go out to bid while the project costs then go up and every firm is then saying, okay, well, we'll do 10 or five and a half or nine and a quarter or something like that. You know, they're all gonna be running around the same numbers. It makes me wonder if we take this opportunity to work a knot to exceed. If the dam designs are not changing but the prices are going up because material costs, operational costs, et cetera, that doesn't necessarily change the scope of work that they would be doing. Those are just the real costs from the contractor which everybody kind of understands. So, I mean, buying ourselves a little bit more time to negotiate around that, but I think working in a knot to exceed price for any of the contractors or any of the firms that would be handling the engineering because we don't know how long it's gonna take to initiate it. Who would it be, everybody else's question? Yeah, so my question is just mechanically, this amendment is for the full amount broken down into three but this is for the full amount. So, we would need another one drawn up if we were separating out the 7,000 and mechanically, could we authorize you to sign that? And so, we don't have to wait until the next select board meeting? I would hope so, yes. One other question on my mind about separating it in going to, if we decided to go to bid on the construction oversight is the optics of having both aspects of the project out to bid at once. And I don't know if that, how that would be, right? Like, if somebody's gonna be more likely to bid on the dam construction, if they're like, oh yeah, the engineers who signed it are on board, they're continuing, they're seeing it through, or is it gonna look funny to potential bidders on the dam? If it's like, oh, they have a bid out, I'm not gonna lock in construction if they don't even have an engineer. I just, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, that would be invisible to the bidder and on, why would the bidder know that both the RFP's would be out? Well, I think we were thinking that the RFP for the oversight would not go out till we have the contractor. That not slow you down a lot though. Because when I, we can't start construction to the June 1st of a year. So we can't even, we wouldn't be able to start till June 1st. So we thought of them as sequential, not, but it's not a big deal. I just worry about the optics of negotiating a contract with a contractor without having any. Engineering place. I'm just sort of thinking this through is. Yeah, and on the, the new agenda, are they lump sums or are they time materials? I can't, is that to see? I can't remember in, I don't know. They're fees, project fees. It's a lump sum. They're lump sums. Task 11 is budget amount rate schedule. So that's a potentially flexible number. So could we do this? Could we go ahead and authorize at least doing the first part and getting the RFP out and put the rest of the discussion off until the next meeting? At which point we could decide to just go ahead with Du Bois and King or not after you guys have had a little more time to think about it? That's what we hope for after and including a meeting with the engineers. Yeah. To understand the process for them. So you would tell Du Bois and King we're ready. We certainly want you for the bid phase. Maybe we want you for the other phase, but we have to think about it a little more. And I think there's other, I think they're confused on what's what at this point too. So I got an email from Michael this morning saying we got contacted by Angela Rappella who is... Are we part of the permitting phase? So that's part of the permitting phase. And she was requesting more information and Michael said so are we still under contract with you? Should we be working with this? Well that's under the contract we're getting our permits which we don't have yet. But it's creating confusion on their results. But he's also doing it because the engineer retired, Jeff Tucker retired, but is following through this process, but not all the way, because Michael's doing all the legwork. So they're in transition. The confusion for the Army Corps of Engineers is how has this flooding event affected our permit? Not necessarily who the engineers are. It's very, it's very, it's in the contract that they're gonna help us with the permits. But now the Army Corps of Engineers asking for what's, what, whether they need to take now into the flooding, what happened to the data into account to issue the permit? Does the design need to change? And that's why it's in the works. It's a huge wrench in the works. Yeah, my thinking is evolving a little bit over time and discussion, but I think I'm more and more leaning toward, the reason we went with D and K for this latest section is because we decided at the time it was more disruptive to change horses even if we had reservations. And I'm sort of feeling that way too. If suddenly they're thrown in this lurch of which pieces are we doing, which are we not? And it puts out this, I don't know, you lose some cohesion in the project. Like how much is it gonna cost to get a new engineering firm? I don't know the answer, but how big of a thing is it to get a whole new? But the engineering firm would only be for the construction, not for the design. We've already talked about the D and K for the design. The question is, can we need to change the design because of what happened to the dam during the flooding? And I don't know. And it opens, that just has opened a bag of worms because do we have to do this dam safety right now has issued a, they're issuing the permit based on the original design for before, do we need to then go back and do something more? I mean, it's just- Have you had a conversation with Michael Hildebrand? No, we haven't had that conversation yet. Well, we did, it was a conversation and the problem is it's been a very- Because we were so close to putting the RFP out, we talked about whether or not we should add to the RFP the scope of the work, removing the riprap buttress and any repair face work. And they recommended that we not add that into the RFP right now because we don't know exactly what that's gonna look like and that it would be better done as an addendum to the contract once we have a contract at some place. I feel like that's what dam safety was kind of doing too, that we were kind of going along with what we did. What it was like on the Saturday before the flooding and we're pushing through on that and then do addendums when we figure out what needs to happen. But it does cause a lot of confusion because do we need to talk to the Army Corps of Engineers and say pretend none of this stuff is happening now or going forward as if, you know. But that's the question they're asking you, isn't it? Yes, exactly. Yes, and other Army Corps of Engineers is historic preservation and now that bull riprap buttress is one more huge adverse effect. So that's a permit, we don't even have it hand and they didn't have that piece and now they have that piece and they're saying well, we have to hear from the engineer how the design's gonna change so that we can comment on how much of an adverse effect. So there's too many variables for the equation to be solved. I mean, I think it's been a frustrating process for everybody because there's so many moving parts. The flood changed a lot of things. There have been a lot of unforeseen delays and I think we all share some frustrations with the process and- We had some disappointments in timing of a permit. We were not aware of a certain permit that we needed until much later than it could have happened in time before they sent it. Which one could say did they withhold their part of the contract there. But I think we should be cautious and just think through are we, is the thought of going out to bed on this last phase coming from, like if we make that decision, we have to separate out. Are we making that decision because we really think we'll get a better project, better product or a better price or are we doing it because we have some frustrations with that? And I do want to say, I am concerned if we don't get someone lined up, soon we will not get someone lined up. But did I hear you say that we might actually have to change what we would be putting out to bed because there might be some more damage to the dam? No, we asked them that question and they said that it would be better to go out to bed with the current plan and if changes have to be made later, do it later. So why can't we go ahead and accept the first bed or whatever, the first piece of this, go out the bed ASAP. Yes, that's what. And you guys continue the discussion in terms of where we go next and come back to us. That's what I, I think that's what we all want at this point. Okay. I'm okay with that. We are afraid of losing momentum. Right, I have reservations that not just doing the contract will delay things further. I know, but I worry that with the contract it sounds like they want you to do things that we're going to be paying more for things that they've already paid them to do. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know. That's how we felt at first because we misunderstood what the original contract was. And it turns out it was in the bottom line anyway. Right. So, but it wasn't, we didn't, it went from around 30,000, as far as for the oversight, 30,000. So that part grew, but like with him questioning whether he could talk to the poor Romney engineers wouldn't that fall under permitting? Yes, it would. He just, you know, he's seeing this and saying we've just been going ahead assuming we were going to, you know, sign on the dotted line as a, you know, technicality. We've all been talking all along about they're doing the whole thing. That's been the assumption of both parties all along. And I think it was, you know, on both parties to not see this coming, they certainly should have told us before the day the contract ended. Well, they have told, they have kind of, the thing is, it wasn't very blunt. It was, yeah, it only, you know, it's in the contract and, you know, but it wasn't like you will have to pay more for the RFP. So I don't want to make it sound like they didn't tell us. Yeah, that's fine. So, okay, could somebody make a motion? Let's see, Jamie, why don't you formulate a motion for us? So it's, it's seeming like, I feel like before, it seems like we're leaning towards wanting to not sign the whole amendment. Yeah, so the motion would be to authorize you. Right, to ask to Boys and King to draw up a new contract amendment. Including only task nine. That just covers task nine. Yeah. And authorize me to sign it. Authorize you to sign it and authorize the release of the bid. Yes. When, we had August 1st, we now changed that. Do we actually have to vote on the date? How about release of the bid as soon as possible? Okay. Okay. And no later ban, September 1st, or when August 15th? August 15th. Okay, Rose. Let's do that again for Rose. Someone made a motion to authorize Jamie to ask to Boys and King to draw up a new contract to. A new contract addendum. A new contract addendum. For just task nine. For the what? For just task nine. For just task nine. Task nine is one of the tasks in the addendum. Just in the addendum. Yeah, because there's a task. This task, there was an arrangement, so it's good to identify what the document was. So we're authorizing Jamie to ask them to draw up a contract. Authorizing just task nine and release of the bid as soon as possible. And we are further authorizing Jamie to sign such a contract. Is it contract or contract addendum? This one we thought was contract addendum. Yeah. Actually, can I just clarify? They actually called it contract amendment number one. Okay. You're talking about amendment. Amendment and not addendum? Yeah. Yeah. It's amendment. Oh, yes, they did. Amendment. Contract. Just what you said, sometimes my cursor just like does what he wants to do. I don't even know where I am. All right. For contract amendment. Amendment number one. I asked you to draw a new contract. A new contract over at zero four contract. Amendment number one. And release. No, what about the task number nine? That, is it right there? No. You want task number nine and the amendment number one. Including task, no. For only task number nine. And release of the bid as soon as possible and further authorizes Jamie to sign it. Yeah. There you go. Do you want to put an end later than, as soon as possible, an end later than? No, because why would they drag it out? Yeah. Do you need to put in the resolution using the, already agreed on RP things for something like that that we've already reviewed and all that. We don't need that. Okay. So, before we both get a second, we got a motion on the table. Well, we don't have a motion on the table. She formulated a motion. I move that. You make that motion? Yes, I'm making that motion. Thank you. Would somebody second, please? Second. Okay. No. Further discussion? I just, I am also concerned about trying to like do this tough talk thing, like, you know, for to try to assert that we're on top of things or whatever, you know, like kind of just acting, I don't know what might be against our best interests in having them manage the construction. And so I want to make sure that we have a timeframe in mind for making a decision. And honestly, like, I just, you know, now that we are fully entangled with the Curtis Pond Association and the Slack board, I don't, you know, like, do we have to cap votes or like how does that, how are we gonna do that? Do we just keep talking about it until we come to a mutual decision? Do we want to have the four of us have a meeting with Michael and Jeff? Yes. I think that would be nice. I think we, to understand the process a little better. Yeah. I know because Jeff always used the language in the next phase, if you choose us. Right. I don't think it was completely assumed, but I also completely understand your point, Jamie, of the simplicity of moving right forward with them. I totally get that. And nobody wants to shoot there. And we're all in the boat together at this point. And we just want to move forward efficiently and understand what we're doing. Is it reasonable to ask that they, I guess, come to the next meeting with this split amendment so that we can have a direct conversation about the tasks 10 and 11 and, you know, express our concerns about even if this does go out a bit, there's no guarantee that we're going to get a contractor and we either need to go out to bid again and costs go up. So I'm wondering if they'd be willing to address our concerns about those last two items continuing to increase in price, even if designs don't change. And if they'd be willing to accept terms around a knock to exceed on those amounts, then, you know, I think everybody would be a lot more comfortable. And I think that plays into the conversation, the kind of the tenor of the conversation to this point where we keep running into delays. We keep running into things that draw it out and the costs continue to go up and those drag up all of the other costs with them. If they'd be willing to assume some of that risk and put a knock to exceed on tasks 10 and 11, I think everybody would feel a lot more comfortable committing to that entire numbers, that fair representation of the company. I'm just concerned that's going to keep climbing. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah, that's why. And we could incorporate that. It's going to be a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Corporate meeting that we have with them. Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it's all a good point and we'll keep that in mind. Could we have a knock to exceed? Okay. I'll put it on the next agenda and if you can't pull it together by then, we'll put it on the one after that. We have tentatively scheduled a meeting already. Remember if you said availability or we're on web emails. But there's been discussion about the Wednesday morning. Oh, okay. You should be able to do that quickly then. Yeah. We'll be able to find a time this week. Great. Can we leave this one then and move on? So we have to vote on that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. We have an amendment on the table. It's been moved and seconded. Does anybody need it to be read back? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Abstain. Oh, yes. Jamie abstains, Rose. Okay. Because we're making her. I mean, you'll work on the timing of that meeting. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Goodness. How's everybody doing? So good. Great. I can't believe all the rest of you are all hanging in here. Okay, we're on the contract with, well, we'll start with black rock cold quarry. Rose has given us a new letter of agreement. That's what we're looking for, to sign. You've all had a chance to read. This is a letter of agreement between us and black rock coal to open the quarry and charge us, allow us to put in a crusher and an excavator and all that and to charge us $6 a yard and allow us to stockpile it. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Take a motion then to sign it. And I need a clean copy. Oh, you're getting this. I brought two with Greg's signature. Oh, well, can you take those then? Are there any dates on this that say, like specify, like October 15th, for example, which is the end of the crushing period? No, except that they have to. There's no choice and we all know that. Yeah, it's elsewhere. Yeah. Okay. I'd make a motion to authorize Ann Winchester to sign the agreement between town of Calis and black rock coal as proposed. Okay. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Rose, will you make sure I sign that before you leave? Sure. Or you can give it to me now if you want. Okay, that's black rock coal. Now we have the one between, I'm not sure why you say Todd Dale contracting and TNT, isn't it with TNT equipment leasing? I don't know. I asked that question. So that was my best effort to capture what Daniel's concerned about there being a couple of different references. So we can scratch that out and just make it TNT. That's what was on the bin. It was and then the draft two that Tobias circulated. Oh, well that was just Tobias' mistake that I think. Yeah. I think they used to have the contracting and I think now they're doing the TNT. Yeah. It's like they've shifted to the two. Oh, the only other place that I've worked in there was in the Addendum in terms. Yeah, I had it twice. Contract with Todd Dale. So I'll just take that and it'll just be TNT but then leasing. Questions for Jordan on this contract. Did you write the Addendum? Just enhance things, I guess. It's very helpful. I tried to capture the tenor, the conversation from our previous two meetings and the emergency meetings that we had last week. So the figures are all based on the same figures and rates that were kind of assumed in those conversations but then just extrapolated out to get lump sums that we could include some not to exceeds and then some additional language allowing or requiring the town to approve any overages or adjustments to the plan. One of the changes was invoicing bi-weekly which was actually already in there. So I left that as is though I added remit information for the town of Calis with email addresses for the treasure because they're gonna have to get set up as a vendor. Note under the personnel section to include, so Toby had originally in their BOSHA and FMCESA which is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. So those were mostly focused on contractors operating equipment safely, commercial equipment safely. So I also added in their obligation to make sure that they are operating within the EMSHA guidelines which I think would be appropriate for them, right? Because it's- Can you tell us the rest of us? EMSHA is the Mining Safety and Health Administration and they oversee kind of extraction operations. They're gonna be participating in the majority of the activity so they should be responsible for operating relative to those guidelines. The big kind of clarification was relative to equipment. Trying to find there's that in the body of the agreement there was a representation of minimum equipment. Where is that? Article eight. So I just add a little bit of language to get to the root of what those pieces of equipment were. So that would be the one crusher out of the three to start an excavator equipped with a thumb for general material handling and the excavator equipped with a hydraulic hammer. The additional crushing equipment may be mobilized upon municipalities' written request and approval. Sounds like everybody would be on board with that at the fees that were specified in the addendum. So then I just added that fee structure to the addendum so that it's very clearly associated with the mobilization of the minimum equipment and not to exceed $3,000 in total for those four pieces of equipment and then holding the contractor to the 750 mobilization fee for any additional equipment. I have a question about the three long question. Yes. I'm going to be buying the addendum. Yeah. So is there like a definite schedule yet for hours and is there all three or are they all running at the same time? So that's a good question and that was one of the big additions to the addendum that we haven't really run by anybody so hopefully this kind of aligns with everybody's expectations. But technically the governor's executive order waves conditions like that. And so we've added terms of operations and scheduling into the addendum that sets production targets or production target dates hopefully with site organization and some hammering. So right now the state of the party needs to kind of be prepped to have one of the pressures come in. So we're hoping that that can start this week which is mostly just going to be excavators and loaders and then the arrival of the crusher. By hours of operation. Yeah. So I'm fully aware of the activity that's going on over there. I just want to know, I rent my house out for the summer and I have circulating tenants so I need to be able to tell them like. Seven to eleven. It's going to be 12 hours away. We're proposing that crushing activity and hydraulic camera operation be limited to the hours between seven a.m. and five p.m. And that's solid because there's like the 50 truck loads a day thing. There was like none today. I totally get that there's going to have been flow and I don't understand if this is going to be solid about crushing all of those hours. So the coming and going of the trucks is a little bit different because those are going to be independent contractors or town trucks that are bringing material out. So I tried to make this so that we can kind of adjust to things as needed if there's community concern or input or feedback while also trying to recognize the urgency of trying to make this as productive and efficient and operation as possible. So the operations, this is just governing the operations of the crusher and the contractor who's going to be doing the crushing and the hammering work and that right now is limited to the hours of seven and five p.m. The operation should not exceed 10 hours per day on any given day or six days per week without prior written notice and approval of the municipality. So that is the extent of the conditions that we added in there for scheduling relative to the crushing activity, which is going to be likely the most impactful from kind of a noise level. I think the trucks are pretty impactful as well. And the trucks will be, but we'll likely need to have a conversation, I think, with Toby about how we're managing the outflow of the trucks because that's not necessarily going to be part of the crushing application. So we wouldn't, or that crushing contract, right? I mean, does that? But I mean, just thinking out loud, we may not be able to answer your question right now. But like, seven to five seems reasonable for truck traffic, right? Because that's what's happening on Moscow roads. That's between us and Black Rock Coal. They're the ones who have the permit that says how many trucks a day they can have. There could be 50 truck trucks a day, but I think we just don't know yet because it's such a new endeavor. I don't think there's going to be trucks hauling out of there until there's a stop by a little material. Yeah. And I would play a totally understanding of the situation. It's just really hard for me to be able to figure out how to communicate. I got the first letter, but I didn't always have a thing on the first one about the not pressure. So I was just hoping to have more. It's brand new. No, I don't. That's why it came to me. Yeah. I mean, in our conversation, you was saying, the initial conversation, you was expecting, what, four hours a day of hammering. Well, it's going to be like a regular and then it kind of is a site. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm expecting. But then when I said, I know there's that time. So I just wanted to find out, and I never heard that there was going to be three truck pressures. Potentially. Well, I think there's only going to be one, right? Aren't they going to just be through the possibility that added it's point of need? Well, we would. So it's best to think of it as kind of like a screening process. So the first rock crusher is going to take bigger pieces of material and turn it into three and a half inch minus material. And then at some point, as the stockpile of that three and a half inch material has generated the town and road crew and the operator will have to have a conversation about whether or not it makes sense to bring an additional crusher over to make the smaller material. At any given time, I can't imagine that more than two crushing crushers or crushing units are going to be operating at the same time. There's a third one that's a lot more specialized for making much finer material that really isn't likely going to be used on our roads during the next couple of months anyway. And because of the short window of time that we have to make the material and use the material and get it applied to FEMA projects so that we can get reimbursed for the material, there may be kind of an incentive to just operate the one pressure in a much more truncated period of time to just build up the stockpile. And then you're just talking about the hauling of material out and setting a schedule for that. Kind of back to the hammering, we've been working on the assumption that we don't know a lot about how many operators the contractors bringing over for the different pieces of equipment and whether or not they can be operating multiple pieces of equipment at a time. So we knew that in the first week, they would likely want to kind of front load a lot of the hammering activity to kind of prep material so that they can keep the crushing operation productive. So that's the only reason I kind of initially steered away from trying to specify a certain number of hours a day for the hammering. That may come down the road, if need be. But I do, to your point, recognize and also agree that the trucking as the stockpile builds is likely going to have the greater impact of kind of like coming and going. And it's hard to define that in this particular agreement. Oh, that's very helpful. Thank you. But yeah, no, I appreciate you bringing it up. It's not an easy conversation. And I was thinking the default was that it was going to be all three and a half because I feel like that was the first thing we talked about. And this is assuming half and half, three and a half, and then one and a half, which would necessitate a different kind of pressure. But is this written in such a way that we are just going to wait and see what makes the most sense? So that's not to exceed numbers that were in our spreadsheets. We're assuming a 50-50 split between the materials. So the way that I tried to massage that language is that the total material fees not to exceed 10,000 cubic yards or $97,500 without prior notice or approval from the municipality. The total material fees assumes 5,000 cubic yards of each material. The municipality reserves the right to adjust these allocations as needed. So I think if we determine at some point that it's the most efficient to crush all 10,000 cubic yards into three and a half inch material, that's going to be cheaper than the $97,000 because the rate for that yardage is lower by almost half. But that's going to kind of play into the road cruise. The other thing is that it's likely also going to slow down the truck traffic a little bit because they're going to need time to produce that material out of the material that they've already processed. But that's assuming a lot. OK. Other questions on this? Yeah. Jordan, could I get clarification? Did you wait early in that? Did you say for the purposes of invoicing you are putting in the treasurer's email account? And the assistant treasurer. OK. And the physical address. OK, that's fine. Because Sandra worked very part-time and is in only maybe one day a week and that would delay getting invoices off to the road crew for them to authorize them and code them. And that would definitely delay the whole accounts payable process if the invoices are going to hurt email address. Would the road crew have anything to do with these particular invoices? Oh, now these are highway bills, right? I know, but I'm just trying to think how they would confirm, well, I guess, truck loads. Well, that's any time we determine invoices go to the road crew to authorize payment and to code it. So you went to a stack today from a menage and different pits and that came in and went to different sites. And you got this one hit there and that one there. And other questions, comments? So you've got in here that I'm the municipal liaison. We need an alternate liaison. I think that's just for purposes of who he contacts. Is that correct? So who would like to be the alternate liaison? We have Toby. We already have Toby. He's not going to be Toby. OK, we'll make it Toby. I think we're looking at the contractor's alternate is blank. The municipal side already says Toby. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Oh, silly me. There it is. OK, thank you. Anything else? Then I'll take it. Sorry, it's not a thing. I just got to where it outlines the treasurer's email. Would it be your preference to take the treasurer's email off and have it go through? Could you send an invoice to different email addresses to more multiple? We all start to take action on it. And we end up duplicating the work. So it's really cleaner if it's just one email address. It'll be a change we can make. Yeah, sure. Jordan, are you getting these changes? Yeah, I just changed it. Yeah. OK. Thank you, Jamie. So with those changes, would somebody like to move the you would authorize me to sign this contract on behalf of the select board? I know. So I'm sorry. I just noticed there are two things to sign, the acknowledgement of arbitration. So that's fine. I think if you just authorize me to sign this document on behalf of the select board. The only thing, and it kind of goes back to the trucking, as it's been discussed in all of the conversations so far, it's paid for the yardage produced. But we're not necessarily going to know what the yardage produced is until we load the trucks and the vehicles. And so I guess I'm just a little concerned about kind of the vagueness of what initiates the payment schedule and the invoicing. So if in the first week, we've got the mobilization of stuff naturally because that equipment's moving and then it's going to be performing work. And then there's hammering, and we have an hourly rate for that, that invoicing, I guess, is going to be kicked off by BlackRock. How's trucks are being loaded? We have a conversation with Todd. He measures it, and I'm not familiar enough with the process. He measures it done. Don, do you know anything about this? I do. Do you want to get into this? They're going to keep the total of the yardage coming off by the loader that is going to stop by. OK. So the whatever size that bucket is, whether it's two, three, four, five yards, that's how your total is going to get accumulated. Every bucket full dump, that's how you find that. So he'll level at 5,000 yards when he's at 5,000 yards because he'll have, if it's a three-yard bucket, that's how he's going to find the most size of the bucket. So if they're invoicing every two weeks, then presumably we'll get one every two weeks for the amount of material of which size they've crushed. Yeah. And my guess is that at 5,000 yards, we're probably going to have to make a decision if we want him to keep making just the 3,000 or just the 5,000 of the three and a half or if we want to pivot and start another stockpile because that's going to be at a different rate. And then, yeah, OK. So it's an evolving conversation. OK. So we have a motion on the table to authorize signing of this after Jordan makes the changes we've discussed. Is there a motion? I started to. I move that we authorize in a Winchester to sign the Town of Calis Agreement with TNT Equipmently saying to crush roadbed material in black rock quarry. Do we have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Yes. Is there any other material going to be coming out of the quarry with the exception of the stuff that's being processed? Like right now, is there anything shipping out of the quarry to site? Can I ask one maybe naive question? If we end up bringing in the other crusher to make the finer material, are we using the three inch minus and crushing it more to get the finer stuff? And so if we're tracking, if we're paying a higher premium for the finer material and they're billing weekly for the three inch minus, are we double paying that? Aren't they just paying for what we hollow? No, they're paying for what they crush. Yeah, that's how they're going to track it. They're tracking it as it comes off the crusher. But the invoice. If they're filling us. Yeah, I'm getting confused. The answer is no. It's a different process. So one crusher makes one product. Two crusher crushes first product into the second. So it's not using the same stock pile that we're tracking and then maybe we crush it? That's why it's more because it's smaller. And it will be because I know, like Moscow Woods, they're going to be getting into the three inch before. This stuff we're doing is ready. We have to run the three and a half through the second crusher at some point. So we'd be pulling from one of the stock bails or not. From the two-second crusher to smaller products. You're not taking from your stock that was already created. You're creating a fresh set to then make smaller. Yeah, the stuff that was at the whole seller's line. Yeah. You rotate from the stock pile and then make smaller. You start from that? Yeah. But at some point it sounds like we're going to have to make a decision whether or not we just want to keep turning through the three and a half or pivot to whatever's left in the quarry to make a stock pile a fifth of inch and a half. I think the guys just want to be able to use what they want to be able to use it for FEMA purposes. So we're going to need a mix because pragmatically by the time they get going, a huge chunk of that three inch is already going to be pulled from somebody else's quarry. So I mean, we've got plenty of roads to fill with it, but they're going to need the smaller stuff too. So do we need to sort of depend on them to come back to us or maybe the road commissioner about when we need to authorize something else that will happen from you? Yeah, we can have. So it'll be daily conversations of God, if that's your will. OK, all right, we have a motion on the table. Is there any further discussion? Everybody understand the motion? All in favor? All right. Jordan, when you get that ready, will you email it to Todd? And I guess to me, so I can print it out and sign it. I don't think I have Todd's information, but. All right, I will send it to you. Now we've got these other contracts. These are the ones that the road crew that the town would enter into with the hired road crews, with Hutchins and Morgan and all those. What Toby's done is he's just pulled the one that the VLCT template and said, that's what we should do. And you can see that it would just be right in at the scope of work and the payment with each individual. So I don't know, have you looked at this? I haven't had a chance to. OK, I mean, I assume that you would just. And this will be even for people that have finished the work, like Justin Morgan's done with Blasphondow. Did he do any work following the end of the emergency period, which was two weeks ago? He's been working straight through. So this would pick up halfway through and. I'm unclear about that one. OK, I'm clear that could be two. So that same with Donny, I just have to start. He understands it better than anyone. I don't know that we need a motion on this. That's the contract he would use. Is everybody OK with that? Probably run by Sandra for her FEMA eyes. That's a good question. But all that FEMA requires, it's not FEMA. The state is now requiring that we no longer just do a handshake deal. We have to have a written contract. Well, FEMA requires it, too. OK, so let's just ask Sandra to look at it. Yeah, FEMA actually requires a procurement policy. Which I don't know. Is that debating for new projects? Is that referencing that debating for new, like if there's a post-emergency phase when we enter the next recovery phase, any new project started requires that there's a bidding. The procurement policy is a broader thing that basically says the town will seek x amount of bids, except for in certain situations. OK, so that's, yeah. So do we have anything like that? No, I believe when you guys shortly after you were elected, we talked about an R&P policy. I thought we have one. And it turns out we don't have an R&P policy. Is that what you're talking about? I think we should probably look into writing one, even if I think it's better than not having one. Do you want to talk about procurement policy? What? Did you use the term procurement policy? Yeah, the procurement policy. So let me ask the FEMA team about what that is. They asked us last week. They asked us if we had one? They asked us one of our procurement policies. How about I email Sandra and Scott and Sharvet and copy you on it. And you can fill the bid, but I'll get the conversation started, but there'll be a request that you draft a procurement policy for FEMA related. A procurement policy for the town. For the town, yeah. Yeah, excellent. Thank you. So I guess what's going to happen is Toby will probably work on these contracts with each group and then come back to us, each firm, and then come back to us to sign them. So we'll see them come back to us at some point. Moving right along. Oh, minutes. Did we get board orders this time? No. We're no board orders this time. OK, great. We've got three sets of minutes. Does everybody have a chance to read them? And does anybody want to offer any changes? If so, I'll take a motion to approve them all. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. OK. Thanks. Aye. Now, we have, you remember last time we wanted to write up conditions in the larry or permit, which we've done. Here it is. And did we authorize me to sign it at the last time or do we need to vote on that? I think we did because we wanted to see the language. So you've all seen it now, and I'll take a motion to authorize me to sign this. So moved. Oh, not this one. Sorry. I need the yours. We have a move. OK. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Letter acknowledging coefficient of dispersion. Did you all understand that issue? Do we need an explainer to come back? No, I understand it. No, I understand it. Where do you stand up? Sorry, it's not coefficient of dispersion. It's really getting late. It's acknowledgment that we received the letter about our being ordered to do a reappraisal. All right, let's see if I can do this. So probably every town in Vermont is in exactly the same boat. You all understand the coefficient of dispersion is what they do is they compare what we listed properties for and what they sold for. If they're 20% or more off, we're required to do a reappraisal. We already, one of our first acts, as a matter of fact, was to hire and engage somebody in doing a reappraisal. So we're really all set with it. But we are required to sign this letter that says we received their letter telling us we have to do it, even if we've already filed that R-A form 308 that they asked for. So I don't think we even need I can just sign it because we have received the letter. So I just wanted to bring it up so you all know that that's in the works. John has sent us a copy of the actual form, which he sent in a couple of months ago, and they've already approved it. So we're all set on that. What about this whole study thing that the legislature was going to do to have moved the whole town to statewide? They aren't going to start the study until like December. There is a long haul process. So the town should just move forward. We should just move forward. And have we hired someone? Yeah, that was your first order of business was to hire a contractor to do the rare freezing. No problem. Thank you. All right, we're set on that one. We've got Larry O's curb cut, and I lost track of my agenda. What's next? Too much paper here. Ah, here it is. Next meeting. We're still going to have to spend a few minutes on select board reports, which shouldn't take long because the collective bargaining team isn't ready for us. Well, you are ready for us to go into executive session, but we just received. But you guys aren't ready to go into it. Because we haven't had a chance to read it yet. So that shouldn't take very long. So would you like to have the next meeting on the 14th and go back to our regular schedule, or would you prefer to wait two weeks? Based on where we are, I think we could wait two weeks. I don't see anything that we need to meet next week for. Yeah. So my only concern and your decision is that it's already been two weeks since we did ran accounts payable, and you guys did board orders. No, it's all right. So if you meet next week, it will have been almost a month. If we wait all the way to, if you skip, we're going to have some vendors who are not very happy because we haven't paid them in over a month. Yeah, this gets back to a question that I have asked before about e-signing board orders. That's going to have to take, you guys are going to have to write a policy or make some kind of motion to be able to do that. I don't know what the process is for you guys being able to e-sign. Currently, the policy is we have to sign them in an open meeting. You have to sign them in public, according to the training and went to. It's not like you can circulate them around Robin and sign them individually and then pass them on to the next person according to him. That's interesting because I thought people would sometimes come to the town office to sign them. I will tell you the previous select board used to round Robin them and sign them. Somebody would have them at home for a few days and sign them and then they pass them on to the next one, especially during COVID. Especially during COVID, when they were not meeting. And it was only since Ann took that training several months ago that she learned they have to be signed at a public meeting. That's from all the egos that he's been telling us about. Okay, so that's a pretty good argument. You're just going to be the way, I just think that if you wait, you're going to have vendors who are going to be a bit upset that they haven't gotten paid in that room. And a very anxious Sandra who does not like to be the person paying people late. So how do you guys feel about going back to next week and getting back on our regular schedule? And God willing, a shorter meeting because we're having it just one week from this week. Yes, please. I bet we could. And I won't be here. I can attend by Zoom if necessary. All right. And my goodness, that public hearing went amazingly well. It couldn't have been better. I don't know that we'd be able to, I guess we could. We could ratify the contract. The very least going into an executive session to have a conversation about what we're circulating. Just that we have to because it's not public record yet. We could potentially ratify it conditionally, I guess, but that would not be the preference. So. Conditionally? What is that? On the condition that it gets ratified by the union. But ideally it would get ratified by the union. Does that like happen before? Well it's just that the rep and lawyer are gone this week and so they won't have time to coordinate lightly with the road crew until the following next week. And so we wouldn't likely see that. Coming from them until, but I mean we can just as easily put it on the agenda for ratification on the agenda for the 28th. And then yeah. Okay. We'll also likely be ready to propose a plan forward on their correspondence. By then? Terrific. Assuming we can meet this week, which I think. So that's gonna sort of make this an extra meeting this month. I hope, I'm really sorry. Hope that's okay. Not your fault. And modern life is complicated. All right, so it'll be the 14th then, right? Anybody object? Okay. So are we likely having an executive session? Oh, right. You're not gonna be here. Yeah. Oh, that's a good. But if we're talking about that, I would wanna attend my Zoom if I was allowed to. I wouldn't wanna do it if you weren't there. Well, Zoom is there, right? Are you comfortable with that? Yeah, if you are. Well, I guess if it's just us in the executive session. We can put it on the agenda as a potential executive session to discuss, but in the meantime, if anybody has any specific questions or concerns or wants to just talk to me and we can talk to them in advance. I mean, there's nothing obligating us to have an executive session. It's just the opportunity for us as a board to discuss the contract and competence before it's official. No, I was only hesitating because when I tried to Zoom into a meeting, I missed about half of it or a third, but if we're just us, we would make sure you were there. And maybe you would have better luck at the town office. You could do it over there if that's better. Well, we have to. Is it gonna be better there? But we also have to invite everybody to be there except while we're at it. I guess, yeah, for the rest of the meeting. So we'd all have to go over to the town office and then come back. You could just go for executive session. Yeah, I think it'll be okay. I don't know that. Oh, phone looks great. Yeah. Phone looks great. Maybe phone is even better than Zoom. Yeah. Okay, let's move on to Rogan Bridge standards. If you've had enough, we can put this off to the next meeting. It could be better to do that. Okay. Except, I mean, I misunderstood. Did I hear somebody say that I thought it was March said tonight that you need that to get the additional same number to get the time working up? But is there a deadline? We were supposed to do it months ago. Yeah, I don't think it'll take long. Okay, let's do it. I've talked to Toby about it for a while today. So if you wait one more week, you're not going to see me. We're not going to wait, we're in here right now. Oh, we're going to do it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Jamie, go ahead. I think we can do it quickly. I talked to Toby and our Rogan Bridge standards are in compliance with state standards. And we have to, as a select board, sign a document that says that much. Okay, Toby. And Toby assures me that it's true. Do we have a sense of that? Huh? It is. Yeah. So, and I think, do we have that document? And here's what the letter says, if you haven't seen it. Well, we don't have that specific document. We need the legislative body certify that we've reviewed, understand, and comply with the town road and bridge standards passed and adopted by the select board on. And do we know what date? Oh, that's this. No, that's not. That's certifying that we're adopted on. Can we call it? I can find out. It'll take me a few minutes. Yeah, and certainly we can fill that in later. I mean, we, yeah. So, then we further certify that our adopted standards do meet or exceed the minimum requirements. We further certify that we further certify that we do have an up-to-date highway network inventory. Oops. We're working on it. Things have happened this summer, you know. OK. We do. And then it's to be signed, it looks like, by all of us. They were re-adopted on March 23rd, 2015. OK. They were re-adopted earlier than that. They were re-adopted last year. I believe I would want you to go go-folder just today. The one on the website is that thing. The original standards are the ones that they wanted to modify to because those did not meet. OK. It sounds like we need a little more information in order to fill this out, but we could sign it. And let Toby fill out the date. OK. Everybody comfortable with that? So I'll take a motion to authorize us to sign this. Sign the Certificate of Compliance for Town, Road, and Bridge Standards and Network Inventory. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. OK. So the date today is August 7th, 2023. Here you go. Jamie, look at the meeting minutes from early September. I guess I'm not on the interwebs. It seems like, oh. Mine says May 2nd, 2022. Really? They did it a year ago then. It was when? Was it more recent than that? No. When was that last day? I don't know if this is the letter that the select board signed in 2022. And the date they put on it was May 2nd, 2022. Alfred left at the end of September. So the last meeting that Alfie attended, they re-certified the re-adopted in 2022. Well, it's all right. We can put it in later. Just sign it and pass it around. And we'll give it to Barbara. And when we get the date, we'll fix it. Oh, my god. Curtis Pondam, anything more to report on the roads? About the what, what? Roads. Yeah. OK. I think it's fine. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Yeah, they want to help me right now. So Moscow was, no, no, no, they're going to that giant hole is going to be filled like on Wednesday. I can't even, I can't even believe it. They're like, we need up to three inch tents. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. But the, and we do need to touch base on that. If we don't want to gather on Wednesday to chat about this loop on Moscow Woods. Where are you, say where and when? It would just be at the base at the dump road where not on, where the road's falling off, but, you know, inside where it's safe. At the base, you mean near your office? Yeah, heading up dump road by fellow's road. Yep. Okay. When and where? Three o'clock, he said. Would be good on Wednesday. Okay. And we're all invited. What about a quorum if we do that? What can we do it as a special meeting? I suppose. Does everybody have too many people standing on it? I have a traveling on Wednesday, I will be there. Jamie, would you, do you want to go? I would go, but I don't. Yeah. Jordan, you probably wouldn't need to be working, right? No? It's what I'm supposed to be doing. Sure. You don't have a flexible job like me with people. I do. Just two of us, we're okay. That's why I'm trying to find out. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to, I don't need to. Yeah, I don't care either. Better, better not. I mean, I'd like to go, but I can't commit to that until basically tomorrow. So we would be able to warn it and I don't think so. Okay. Yeah, and just report to us, or one of us. Yeah, one of us will go. No, no, I don't want to, I'm actually busy Wednesday. Okay, then Jamie, one of us will go. And it's Wednesday at what time? Three o'clock. Okay, yeah, good. So we only have, and then we have a one closure on Singleton past 9.31, but we're gonna have a gathering a week from now. Oh, that's gonna be, oh, it'll be earlier, it'll be fine. So, to read me with a river, I can't remember the title, but to share it, the stream guy, as I call it, he's not an official panelist engineer. Yes, lovely fellow. It's gonna come back out again, and they're doing a hydraulic study, and we'll invite the neighbors, and it'll be a big, huge thing. And then the guys are working on Wheeler and Long Meadow, Donnie, which way? Would you go back to that? What is the meeting with Jeremy? Oh, that's Singleton, and the neighbors. Singleton, and that's when? When the neighbors, that's next Monday. I want to say three o'clock. Okay. And is that, let's make sure that only two of us are there, or we're gonna have to warn it. Anybody? Yeah, I'm gonna be there, Tobi's gonna be there. Monday the 14th at 3 p.m., we can probably be there, or we can coordinate, yeah. Yeah, okay, all right. I don't think, you won't be back. Yeah, and I'm okay, we're just hearing the report. Yeah, and so, I'm glad he's working on Tobi Hill right now because he was already on Martin. That was part of that, they had some huge damage. I mean, I've been super patient, and then migrating back over to Blashley that he's put together twice already. Put it back together again, but we're actually getting closer to having most of the roads at least not half missing. So, yay. Is there a, we keep getting emails from somebody on. Peckle? No. Blisspond, about the county road end. That, I put cones up on it today, but it's getting pretty, the washouts encroaching on the travel lanes. Is that on the, no, on Blisspond, not on the bad end, on the good end? I wanted a good end. Yeah, he's not contracted or anything. I think he kind of got his big hole. I'll have to go and look at it tomorrow. At some point, somebody should look at that. Yeah. Yeah, because he went up through the washout, but yeah, I'll have to go and look. Maybe it should be in conjunction of working on long meadows since it's right across the road. Well, they would, yeah, be tackling. We're trying very hard not to move stuff all the time, so. Hey, Rose, has Todd started to set up in the pit here? I was last there Saturday, and he wasn't, and Greg was there yesterday, so unless anything happened today. Okay. Did you talk to him last week? I did, yeah. I said it's a go, but I didn't talk to him. I talked to Tammy, his wife, and she said, great. So I'm kind of surprised. I thought he would start right away. And anything else on the roads we all set there? I think it's okay. Okay, Curtispond, Dan, anything else on that? I think so. IT. We've got a nice write up from Teagan. Making a recommendation about what we should do about CV Fiber, if you all had a chance to look at that. And we've, of course, got the report from David a while ago. Jordan, do you have anything to add? No, I don't, I don't think so. Okay. Just say what the numbers are again. But from what we're paying now, then what we'll be paying for CV Fiber? So total per month right now is 573.68. For all our phone lines and our internet, we would be switching over the town office phone lines and all the internet and we would get up to 8,009 a month. It would be doubling. However, I get the idea we can get our other phone lines, the two to the town office, the two to the town hall and the two to the town garage, cheaper if we shop around a little bit or find a different way to do our alarm system. But that has become a deeper hold than I anticipated when I started to pay into it. So I am working on that. Yeah, because for the alarm system, well, it's quite a bit actually. Because you would think like, like simply safe and all these new alarm system technologies, there would be an expansion of technologies, but I'm sure it takes a while to make sure. Well, they think cell service and we don't have the cell service. And so I'm trying to shop to the fire departments and they're kind of giving me some ideas, but I'm trying to figure out a different way for it to get communicated because they said in the event of a fire, if the internet doesn't work, they want an old fashioned phone line, phone line for it to work out. So it's, which is an extra 232 a month. It's a lot of money. Yeah. Does it count if we have two lines? Like what duration of time are we expected to be able to have power like generated or something like that? So like we have battery backups. I know we have the generator here. I don't know if that's related to that. And I don't know. I don't know. Why are you asking that question? Because as long as you have power to the modem, theoretically, you would have external communication or it doesn't take a lot of power to power a modem. So. But Seacoast just said, no. The security people said, if you don't have a regular phone line, we can't do it. We may have a fire alarm message. And we can look at other security systems, but they didn't seem open to negotiating on that front. So do you want to continue gathering information before we finalize this? Or do you feel we should move ahead? I think that it holds us up so much that we should move ahead with it. And us being the office staff. Yeah. The office staff, Sandra and Barbara and I. Or you all, when you're in situations like this and no one can do anything online. One computer at a time. Come on. It's very practical. Yeah, dad. Everyone should know. I did turn mine off. Being on time to East. Waiting is unbelievable. And if we figure out a way to not have those phone lines and do something different down the line pool, but I think it would really serve us to proceed with this. And I consolidated has done some really unprofessional things from what I gather. And it's just, it's also a public show of we have our full support with CV Fiber. We support these guys. They're doing a great job and we want them to succeed. And that counts for a lot, I think. I also think that there'll be some trade-off in not so much invoicing from RB Tech. We won't be having to call them every couple of hours and ask for their help to bring us back up. So that we can get on the server again. So between Sandra's wasted time and RB Tech's time, it'll, it might balance out. So just to say that the treasurer's time along would be huge. So what is that in, I'm trying to find this, oh here it is, telephone and internet. So they budgeted 5,000 for that, for the next year. But it's all, it's spread out in there. I couldn't actually figure out how it was in the budget. And I didn't actually get to talk to Sandra about it. Because a large might have its own line item. Yeah, Seacost has its own section, but like town garage has its own stuff and some things are in under town office. Oh, I see, so you don't know. Cause a thousand a month, that's, that really is a lot more than 5,000. Yes, it's double what we're paying now. Yeah. And is that, that includes the phone? That includes everything. Purchase or rental from Waitsfield, I assume. Do we need to repurchase the phones? I don't know where Fiverr is gonna be, the boy. I don't know. No one has mentioned that in all of my many phone calls yet. So, you think we'll have to repurchase the phones themselves? We're in a contract with Consolidated right now, are they? The only contract we have with Consolidated is on one of the phone lines, I think to this building. Everything else is not on a contract. Which means we've been paying a little bit more than we could have, but it means that we can get out of everything. Yeah, that's good, that's a little more flexibly. Yeah, so I guess if we're changing, changing the, did the quote come from CV Fiverr through, by way of Waitsfield, or was the quote for the phones still Consolidated or just, Which quote are you talking about? So the quote I put together is all research stuff. I did it and then I ran it by, I sent it to the guy who called me from Waitsfield Telecom, I don't remember his name, and he looked over it and said it matched what he had calculated for our needs. Give him what I was asking for. The higher speed connection at the town office? Yes. If the lower speed connection is already about a hundred times what you currently have, would it be worth trying to start with the lower speed one? We could, we could do that. To save that $70 a month. And then if you found it still slowed you down at all, we could bump it up. We could, RV Tech encouraged us to go big if we could go big, but I think even if we did just the regular, because these are the business lines, the business internet speeds, the ones they're offering to residents are slower than this. So we're already being offered the higher level assumption that you've got multiple machines and multiple things happening all at once. So yeah, we could go with the one gig internet for all. Was the difference between the lower and higher speed not only in speed, but also security? No, the thing that RV Tech emphasized when I talked to them was that there are a lot more security options they can provide if we have better internet. There are just things that they can do to keep us safer and to keep a better eye on us that they can't do right now. But they do love. And once we get the better internet, they do want to have a conversation with us, ideally with all of us, about what the doors are opening with their services as far as what they can offer now that we have better internet. Somebody would like to make a motion. I move that we switch to CV fiber for phone and internet. Should I ask about the one gig or two gig? Should I do them all the same level of connection or do you want to hire one for the town office? And the difference is $70 a month. Yeah, 80, 80, 80. Was that for phone and internet? Yeah. Do you want to say anything about that in your motion? What was it? Whether we want to go for it. What did you say that one gig or the two gig? Yeah. For the town office. For the town office. What's your thoughts, Jordan? They're happily skewed by my own overcompensation procurement strategy. So I'm trying not to insert those into public finance, but I think the one gig would likely be fine until it isn't. And David did say that we can bump it up if we need to. I also think that given the amount of resources that we have at the town and office that are being accessed by multiple folks remotely, so if John starts working and the planners in the Listers are working remotely on their stuff at the same time as Sandra is with their VPN connection that could bog things down pretty fast. But it's only going to happen if they're doing it at exactly the same time. And Wendy's in that mix too. And Wendy's in that mix too. So. Well, the difference is Wendy and Sandra can't be in at the same time because they'd be in the same spot and usually the Listers busy time ends when the treasurer's busy time starts. So I don't see that happening. So if you don't think if there's going to be a significant overlap, then I say we could probably get away with just the one gig. And then change it. And then change it for some reason there. Does this make, put us in the cloud or that's not this yet? No. Okay. And that's not an option at this point. I don't know. I don't know. So. I think that would be part of the RVTEC conversation. Yeah, that'd probably be part of the RVTEC conversation. Right now I don't really know how we're running like our backups. If it's like if we, I doubt we have a virtual server because we don't have the network to support it. So part of what they might propose is that we go to a virtually based server that would need a better, stronger connection to kind of support that. So I guess technically that would put us in the cloud. People want a virtual backup. I had an annual meeting with them this a week ago. I haven't brought it to you all yet because you have too much on your plate and it wasn't a pressing thing. But he went over all the things that like once you have better internet, we can talk about that. Once you have better internet, we can talk about that. So I have a whole list of things in a notebook that's a little more detailed about when and how we can onboard all this new cool stuff that we could access. And there will be price points associated with all these that again, that's why I wanted to bring him in. But hopefully getting past the time of all the flood conversations devoted, you know, all that when we had time to really talk about it. So where are we with the motion right now? I'd like to leave it open that, you know, if they, if she finds some extremely compelling reason to stick with the two gig, then she should stick with that. So I think my motion was to switch phone and internet provider to a CP fiber. Are you okay with that? So what happens to, Teagan's going to decide which it should be? Well, the presumption was that we were going to start with the lower one. But if she gets a whole bunch more information that confirms like she talks to our architect and they're like, here's reasons X, Y, and Z, why you shouldn't take the low. The motion should clarify the one gig at all locations. Yeah. And we're meeting next week. So if we, if you learn something this week, you can let us know and we can amend it next week. We can amend it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So with Steve with one gig at all locations. Rose, what do you got? That's what I got. I got it. I got it. I'm sorry. Okay. You got the one gig thing in there. All right. Do we have a second? I'll second. All in favor. All right. Bye. Okay. Agenda. Let's see. Okay. I lost my agenda again. Thanks. Motion to adjourn. Okay. That's it. Almost. Almost. First send in, you'd better tell me we don't have anything on the shed. Yeah. Okay. And obviously we can't do the collective bargaining right now. So. There's nothing on the shed thing? No. Nothing under the shed to report. Under shed the callus. Nothing to report? No. Nothing to report. And under the collective bargaining, we haven't had a chance to review the agreement yet. So we'll put that up. We'll table that until the next meeting. And with that, marathon meeting. Three and a half hours. Wow. Let's adjourn. Declare the meeting. That's it.