 who starts by verifying that the agenda has been posted in three public places, right, and on the website, right? And emailed to interested parties. Harlan, are you getting emails yet? Yeah, I get it, but, you know, it's like it's coming from my brother or something. You know, I have a document to ask him about that. If he's sending in or whether, you know, I check my spam and it's not going there. No, there's nothing in here. Okay, but you're here, that's the main thing. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, all right, okay. Does anyone have any additions to the agenda at this time? Nope. Oh yeah. No. The regular? Yeah. So, all right, so we got those. Since Pat Harvey is not here, she's in Florida for another week or so, and Tom Schnabel is not on the board anymore. We can't address the minutes from the last couple meetings because we need to have at least two out of three of us here to do that, so we'll table the minutes until next meeting when presumably Pat will be here. And then, so, okay. And we don't have, oh. I was just gonna ask, when are the minutes from town meeting approved? They were in that pile also, but seen as there's just one of us here. Is it the next meeting? Yeah. And they're on the website, right? Not until they're approved. Unapproved? Yeah. Unapproved on the website or not? I don't know. No. No, they're not approved. They should be. You can read about town meeting unless it's herald. Right, that helps. All right. Well, they're not on there yet, so we'll work on that. Okay. The guest we have mentioned here is not in the room yet, so we could move on to Joan. Oh, I get to go first? Yeah, you get to go first. Okay, I'll stand up so you can talk. Just a lot, I have a whole bunch of updates. Some of these you've heard about before about updates. Bethel Mountain Road, Federal Highway Project, submitted reimbursement for the town's direct expenses. That was submitted on February 26th, and they're reviewing it now. These are expenses associated with sites one, one B, and two, which is essentially the whole number one lower, Bethel Mountain Road. The total we submitted for reimbursement was $588,710, most of which was engineering fees. The FEMA work, the work that has been completed to date for as of really last start of winter are still under review by the FEMA folks for reimbursement, and meanwhile, we'll be starting up work on the uncompleted work whenever Puder is through and whether are ready for that. Talking with Puder and he can fill you in more if you want more information on that, but there's five roads basically where work still needs to be done. To Maple Hill, Wing Farm Road, Jerusalem Hill, Mount Cushman, and West Young, and there are a couple of small contracts out that were let out last fall where the work didn't start, and also that started before that, and also, and then we won't have as much FEMA oversight on that part we will have had by then. Their estimate of how much money they're prepared to reimburse the town for that work, and then we either just spend that much money or if the town decides they wanted to do more work, we'll be on our thing, we'll do that. So we will get re-enforce for that as well, but that difference is slightly different formula. We have two upper Bethel Mountain Road projects that are in the works for the coming season. One you know about already is the culvert on Roger's Brook, which is near the Bethel, towards the Bethel town line. We'll hear in May, if not sooner, about whether our grant request to the Better Roads Program has been funded to do that work. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of $53,000, $54,000 for that. We have, I think we have a really good chance of getting that grant. And in addition, the nation broke culvert, which is the one just below Terry's house. That one, if you remember, was we stabilized with FEMA money back in 2016. And I think it was with the understanding that eventually that culvert was gonna need to be replaced. And Cricket and Kudor have looked at that recently and it's deteriorating a lot. So Cricket is just finishing up the design work. We had a grant from two years ago now to do that. And she's finishing up that design work. And the idea is that the Kudor and Cricket I'm talking about is that if the timing works out funding works out, I would apply for a structures grant to do the construction on that one and then bid out both jobs on Upper Bethel Mountain Road to get to one contractor because it's gonna be complicated with getting a temporary bypass around both projects and then also all the complications that go with flagging and traffic control. You wanna elaborate on that all? You do it perfect. Thank you. So we'll know a little bit more about that around April or May, whether we have the funding lined up and then we'll take stuff out to bid. West Hill Bridge, you remember that we got a design grant from the Green Mountain National Forest to get the engineering done and that's for the replacement of the bridge. And I've been working on the RFP and that's just about ready to be advertised might be put out on various websites by the end of the week and then I'll probably be in the Herald next week. We have to go through a bid process but fortunately it's just not an RFQ where we have to get qualifications first before we can then choose someone. And that's for the design work? This is just for design but also sometime in the past few months I submitted, it was the end of August I think I submitted a grant application to Federal Highway Administration Federal Lands Access Grant which is a grant program specifically to improve access to national forest land and other publicly owned, federally publicly owned land. And so we got that grant as well and that'll pay for construction of the bridge. So we'll sign first and then new bridge presumably we'll go in sometime next year, 2021. Also working on the annual V-Trans Highway Financial Plan that's something we do every year. It's a very fun process. They essentially go through a highway budget and we talk about what plans and needs the town has for the coming year and various other issues that V-Trans needs to discuss with towns. That would be a great thing if you're able to attend. Sure. An idea of how that works. So actually I have some. When is that? Hasn't been set yet. V-Trans will be in touch with us and suggest a meeting date so I'll let you know since I hear. All right. There are two or three things in there that both of you need to sign that are associated with submitting the financial plan and ask many questions if you have any about what the numbers say. Basically all I do is go very quick, very carefully through the highway budget that was just passed and reformat it in the way that V-Trans wants to see it. That's all essentially the same information. You've seen them many times before, didn't you? What else? Ah, it's a Mount Cushman culvert replacement. That's been in the works for a while. The design was finished by Cricket last year sometime. Construction bidding should take place at some time in April, May at the latest so that we can get that replacement done this season. If you remember, we have a structures grant to pay for 90% of the cost of what we expect the cost to be. We don't know until we get the bids in what it's actually gonna cost. And whatever partnership we'll pay for the 10% match and they'll also cover some of the cost of construction management. In the town we'll hold a contract and we'll work together with whatever partnership to put out the bid in the time comes. So that'll be happening this summer, which is nice because that's been in the works for quite some time. And then last but not least, this is more of a question and a need for information than anything else, but a few weeks ago, Chrissy and, I talked to Chrissy and Ricky Gaudette who own the house a couple of doors down from us. They have a rather serious erosion problem where their sewer line from the house goes out to the brook and what I believe connects to sewer line that kind of parallels the brook. Terry, is that right? It goes down to that manhole in the parking lot. Yeah, there's sewer line ties in, there's another manhole right in their backyard. They're a long way from the brook. Yeah, but then you can see where it comes out where there's a whole lot of erosion happening. And I walked along the length of that brook. The sewer line kind of parallels the brook all the way down, is that right? And then it angles off at some point. It got straight across to the firehouse from the manhole in the parking lot. Right, but that stretched down, I think, to the manhole in the parking lot up to where we have that sort of cave in, which is a FEMA site up here. Somebody needs to look at it and sort of tell us what's going on and whether, I think, some bank stabilization work needs to be done there because if it's threatening the sewer connection up here, it seems to be threatening the one. There's quite a way from it down there. Okay, well, you can definitely see where the bank is eroding. Right. They say they keep losing chunks of their backyard. So whether the sewer line is involved or not, I'm not sure, but it's not, there's still some issue all along this length. Jaren Borg visited their property sometime in the last year and gave them permission to rip route the bank. But as we all know, when you rip route the bank in one particular spot, it just sends the problem downstream. So I think it makes sense for us to maybe have Jaren kind of look at the whole length of it and just tell us what he thinks is going on and what kind of solutions we need to be dealing with. Is that an Irene leftover? I wasn't. Is it? Is that what it is, Harry? I think it's just, you know, it's an unstable screen to be dealing with. You know, we saw that all the way, you know, further up our palace, you know, not the hill. So, yeah, I think we're beyond any Irene stuff on that, but I'm just curious if that was part of that. Yeah. You could ask Rikki if she could take a look at it. I imagine though, maybe the thing to do is Jaren. Yeah. And just walk the whole thing with us this spring and sort of see if there's something we should be doing. This one over here needs to get fixed, that's Jaren. Right, yeah. Right over here by the, yeah. Yeah, it's more than a couple feet, all right. All right, yeah. I know Jaren's looked at it once, right? Were you part of that? No. Well, I think he needs to come back and sort of give us some more detail on what's the proper thing to do, especially in the context of the rest of the one. Yeah, behind that, that's my hall, right? The one up right up there. Yeah, just above the little house there. That's really, wow, where the product, that's all. Dean, I have a question for John. I'm sorry I came in late, but did you give an update on the breakneck project? No. No, no, I really don't have anything. All right, I've been doing some of my own research and Jaren Borg has seen that. I am with the V-Trans, Route 100 issue, because, well, not many people know, but the April 15th flood that we had has basically created a diversion in right next to my property, and I believe, and a lot of people have told me it is threatening Route 100 because basically I've got a dam there. There's an old culvert, and I have had an engineer there from USDA, I can't remember his name, the guy from White River, and he set something up. I just, that's one of the reasons I came here is I wanted an update on what was going to be happening because it was tabled last year, and now it's this year, and is that something that you can... I can look into, all I know is that the latest was we got, I think you've got the same letter it was months ago now, sometime last year, where they said, okay, we've seen the site, we'll look into it, and then they'll determine what, if anything, they would be prepared to fund, and I haven't heard a word since then. Well, from the engineer who showed up, I was there, he basically said that the remediation is only 40 feet of the stream, which is kind of a joke, but I think what's gonna happen eventually is that culverts will fail and or get blocked. I will be flooded out again, obviously, but more importantly, Route 100 will be gone. Because if you look at the stream, it's basically split out, and there's a lot of trees now that are at risk of dying because they're just under water. They die, they fall, they block the culvert, and we have a nightmare. So I just wanna keep it on the more of a priority than I'm hearing it is. Guy, come to look at the brook over here, maybe we can talk him up there. Two men, two men. Checking it out. I don't know who sets the priorities, but I'm just telling you where I think it's at, and V-Trans has already seen the issue. They know it's a problem. It seems that that coming from them would be the biggest guns in terms of pushing things along. It's an impossible solution. Like you can't do a temporary bridge there. That's one of those things where they don't wanna do it because it's so hard. Guy, that's a big project, Guy. Yeah, I get it, but it's also, I think it's gonna be down the road. I think it's gonna be the next major flood. If that happens, then they come more frequently now. Not only that, but rip-rapping that bank would obviously save my property, and I would do it in a heartbeat, if I could. Right, yeah. But there's so many agencies involved, they all get in the way, and it's very frustrating, because I know the solution, personally. But anyway, that's all I have to say about that. All right, thank you. Joan, thank you, Joan. Library, did anything you wanna speak about? We're gonna have a trustees meeting tomorrow after six o'clock, and there is a program scheduled for Thursday. I don't know if we'll discuss that later, but anyway, there are notes up around town about that program. Which is, what's the program? It is a program dealing with horses and oxen on farms years ago. Sounds like a pretty interesting thing. And the person coming is Carl Russell. Seven o'clock Thursday. Okay. Kudor, you got the truck back? Any other news from the highway world? Both their trucks are back, and we're getting ready for mud. Cheers. Cheers. Terry? Fixed one leg, got another one to go, but he might get today, so we're gonna do it Wednesday because the chance's gonna rain tomorrow. I don't want to get into your mask. I'm sorry, Terry, couldn't wait your two leaks you said you had? Yeah, I fixed one with North Shore, and we got another one down by the cemetery. All right. We had the, back on to the guest, Rachel, you're here now. We kind of skipped ahead of you, because, but now you're here, what would you like to speak about tonight? Sure, sure. It's a final report for Envision Rochester. And I apologize for being late, guys. Okay, so I've just come from a meeting over in Stockbridge, and I just wanted to update the Slack board on the initiative that we've been working on for a while now with different interested parties and stakeholders with the school board. So I'm not sure if everyone's had a chance to look at the results, but there were five different groups that came out of a year-long process, a community consensus process, and one of which was the repurposing of the school board. So that's one of the committees, but there's four others, agriculture, commerce, arts, culture, and a combined one with seniors, youth, and young families. So there's, the results are there. Whether these different committees have legs, as Pat Harvey said several months ago, time will tell, but these are independent up and running small groups now who are developing action plans. There is a site on the White River Valley calendar that will post these reports, and Vic and I are combining all of the emails for the people we showed up over since March 2019. So all those folks are going to be together. This particular community website workshop had approximately 48 people show up, which is a pretty good turnout. So- Is this the one at Pierceville that you're talking about? On the 13th of February. Yeah, so all these different, the five different small groups, they're essentially action groups. So they're identifying low-hanging fruit, short-term, long-term goals and priorities, but they're all independent and they're all doing their own thing now, and the idea is that they help facilitate what the select board's going to be doing, and the planning commission, hopefully in coordination with the town plan. And other initiatives, I'm sure, will come out of that, other partnerships. So that took a year to come together, and it's up and running now, so hopefully that will have legs, and it'll keep going. There's the commerce small group, I think is coming up with some really interesting initiatives, one of which has to do with a key question as last July, and that was about the impact on Airbnb on the community. So there's some research I'm going to be handing to Vic and that particular group that I've done that I hope will help in terms of ideas for revenue generation. So now, in my view, it's the select board's time to really shine here because you can step up and embrace some of these initiatives or come up with your own, and maybe through the establishment of an Economic Development Committee that's directly accountable to the select board, and therefore to the people, you guys can actually get some action going, you know. So. I'm going to add to that, Rachel. Yeah, Tom. Yeah, sure. I had come up with an idea. I was in part of that group, possibly expanding the grant writing position in Rochester. There's a lot of things that are becoming unfunded in a recreation area, and a lot of ideas that have come up that have percolated, and time and again, we come up the short end of the stick on the budget. And I would like to encourage the select board to possibly expand a grant writing position to include some of these things that have been identified because I don't see it getting funded in tax base. The state space, the tennis courts, et cetera. And I think if we, I know Joan's done, she's got her full hours in, and she's more directed towards roads and waterways, et cetera, but there is other grants available. And I know during the town hall meeting, you had said, you know, any volunteers out there, you know, for grant writing. And quite frankly, I think a better bang for the buck is to hire a high end grant writer to get some of this stuff taken care of. You spend money, but you make money off of that person down the road. And I want to encourage the select board to possibly look at that, a position like that because we need the funds if we're gonna continue to have these other services. So to follow up on that, I'd just like to finish if I could the report and then you guys can comment if you don't mind. To follow up on that, I'm with Dean on that. And Bethel has expanded their select board and they've hired a city manager whose responsibility is also to do grant writing. So that's a model that perhaps Rochester can think about down the line. I'm sure you've talked about expansion before. Thank you. So yeah. So I just want to focus briefly on the school board. I've been attending those meetings pretty regularly now and we have a building committee report that's in the works. There are two and we're combining those. I'm actually editing that on behalf of the school board and that will be presented to the school board soon and then that will then become available to the public. The school board is working on identifying a facilitator who could do a public gathering for them sometime in May. And that's going to be a community meeting for folks in Stockbridge and Rochester to come together and really suss out some of the options for the former high school and some broader budget questions. So that's happening in May sometime that date has not been determined yet. But on the other side of some programs that Envision Rochester's been working on with the school board, both schools, we've been able to facilitate the donation of two series of literacy books and the school board, if anyone's looked at the budget you see they're focusing on literacy in a big way. So we've been able to find a local author and these are Cutting Edge literacy books, brand new author presses. And so both schools are getting both set, series one and two. And that's a need that the PTO and the two principals identified and we've been able to fill that for them. I don't know if it has time to give an update on the community grants, but that's in the works. Him and Catherine Shankman have worked really hard on getting Rochester on the map for potential grants from the Federal Reserve of Boston. So that's ongoing. And finally, the question that I had coming from meeting over in Stockbridge is if we have any sense of what kind of impact the new climate declaration volunteer committee would have on the schools and the budget. I don't know the answer to that, but that's something I'd like to put out there just as something for us to consider over time. And I'll take any questions. That's that it. Terry, how you had something you wanted to say? Well, I'd like Dean, there's fire department grants out there. Somebody's got the time. They're quite intense to do, but they're there every year. I get a little perks from Sanders. That's something that told me. But I mean, it involves a couple of days worth of schooling all day. And then you gotta really know how to write to grants. I mean, there is grant writers like Dean said, because even to get off subject when we looked into buying our groomer, there was a guy that would write to grants for like $1,000 and he wouldn't take it on if he wasn't a good chance of going to get it. He'd be honest with you. It's just that because we didn't have hotels and stuff, it wasn't likely that we would get a grant. So I think like, had there been hotels he would have taken on and I would have guaranteed we would have got a private part of it. But there's other things. There is a course that I'm taking on March 30th in Bethlehem University. It's a three hour one day course in grant writing. I'm not gonna say I can do it. I'm interested because I see the need. But I really think that if we had someone that has, is us together, then we could get a lot done. And I think you're looking at, I'm actually gonna ask the instructor if he knew anyone that would be available, what the cost would be, et cetera. But I really think we're missing a lot of these grants by not asking for them and through recreation or the fire department or any of the needs of the town. And I really think this is an important agenda that we should consider. So I will go to this course and I'll report back. Yeah, great. I'm not gonna come out of a three hour course being an excellent grant writer, but I wanna know what the entails and who's, what makes a good grant, et cetera. And we can go from there. I mean, I would be willing to take on a recreational end of that, but I'm not saying I can do it. But I'm interested, because I think the town should be interested as well. Yeah, if it wasn't for the grants, we wouldn't get most of the big road projects done that we do get done in the grant, so, yeah. So certainly wouldn't afford it if we expand the position. It might behoove us to do that. I know it's more money, but some of that money comes back. Yeah. I'm assuming Joan pays for her salary in the grants, but I don't know. I mean. You already asked her if she had more time and she's maxed out. Right, right. So, you know, it may make sense to seek someone else. Not to replace you. No, no. In my, the business from which I retired, we used to write a lot of grants. And my experience in that is that most grants, as Terry suggested, they're targeted in a particular area, and you really have to kind of know whatever that is. There's a lot of money out there in small town grants. There's a lot of them, but they're competitive, and you have to know how to write them out. I think maybe what should happen is we should look at what resources we have in the town if you know about recreation, for instance, put a little small group of people and see if they could give Joan the support that she needs or have a little more of a grand writing muscle and priority in the town, however it was done, and find out whether maybe you should bring in a guy, maybe we can do it with volunteers, I don't know, but make it more and more important because we're getting a lot of money. Joan's getting a lot of money. I mean, that's a lot of money coming up from these grants the way you're doing it. And if you could expand that into different areas of the town's needs. So, I don't have an answer for that, except that I think it's really a worthy thing to pursue one way or another, whether it's a small committee or go hire a guy on another. But I think it's a good idea. Well, this is a conversation I have with Norm Christensen last year, and I'm on the rec committee. So, I pulled together a whole slew of resources for him, but he's struggling like everyone else, so I agree with the fellows. The more focused that could be, and there are resources out there. And Norm's definitely open to it. I mean, he's hungry for help. So, it's good to see us come full circle. It's a job of work though. I think you really need to go with some of these classes to learn and all. Yeah. I know like the fire department ones, you don't go for the day or two classes, you aren't gonna get them. But that's a lot of time. Any of something you want to say? Well, it's just to the recreation grants or to any of the grants. I think it has something to do with the strength of the committee of people that are working together. You know, probably that roster has been very successful at applying a lot of energy to grants that they didn't get at first. Actually took them two or three years before they started to get some of the grants that we have been fortunate in getting this last year, and we've gotten quite a bit of money. So, I think it takes that kind of persistence. And we ourselves have been, you know, writing grants for our own projects to help offset some of the development that we're doing that has to do with facade improvements and tax, tax codes that, tax credits that offset the code improvements that we're making to them. So, it's, and we didn't get it the first time, so we're doing it again. I mean, it's going to take that kind of thing, you know, groups being the most committed. I think it's the only way it goes. There is, I think, a lot of receptivity from the state to see these initiatives, and they love it when they, you know, see this kind of commitment. So, it's just a matter of that getting on the track, getting on track with it. And it would be lovely to have a professional grant writer at times, just somebody that we could, I bet you there is a resource actually. There's probably some, some resources out there for, you know, somebody that we can be in contact with. But it's going to have to come from the individual base, I believe. I was just thinking that one of the resources that might help you is the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and be able to give you a point in the right direction for grant writing and things like that. Well, I'd be really interested to hear back from you from your experience at the Bethlehem University, Dean, and then to go with some specific pointed questions and see what you can harvest out of that. I'm going to read, I wrote an email to the instructor. I'm looking up his name right now, last night. And I, you know, the question I come to is after this class, which is, you know, three hours one day, you know, is he or someone that he knows possibly available? And I would be an envoy if the select board deemed it necessary to, you know, explore this. I could be an envoy to ask him. We'll definitely gather information so you can find out. Okay. Yeah. Jeanette? Even if you hire a hired gun grant writer, which do not come cheap, the people, whether it's recreation or buildings or fire department or whoever, are still going to have to put all the data together, write the rough draft, because the grant writers only polish and submit. They don't, you know, you don't just say, I have this idea, and then they take it and do it all. That there's gonna have to be a lot of volunteer help in getting all the information together. Yeah, if it was easy to just hire someone to make you more money than you're paying them, that would be, I do it. I do it. I do it. I mean, they start at $50 an hour or someone that doesn't have much of a reputation. They come in along the line of attorneys fees. Oh, now you've got Joan Winderay. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what you wanted to say. I was gonna say, I do have a thing there that Julie signed me up for, to meet with the Vermont League of Cities in town. I could maybe ask them about something like that when I go to that, so I could do that. Hey. Thank you for the energy and interest to keep the topic alive and moving. Yeah. Yeah, good. So, speaking of people doing things, we have a bunch of appointments to settle after the end of our yearly cycle of municipal activity. In terms of the assistant town clerk treasurer, that's your job, Julie, to appoint someone. I presume you probably will point Becky to that again. Yes. Yep. And I would like to move to appoint Julie here as our select board clerk to do what she's doing right now. Does that sound good to you, Frank? Sure does. Yeah, all in favor? All right. All right. And Joan, you're hired. We don't have to appoint you. That's on there. We appointed Dylan Dudley as the constable to fill out the vacancy there, and now that we've come to the beginning of the year, I'd moved to appoint him as constable going forward. Second that. All in favor? All right. All right. And the... We're gonna leave the second open. Yeah, we gotta work on that one. Yeah, but we don't really need we're not required to have a second constable. Okay. Moving on to the, on the planning board, there's two people that have come up that's Sandy Haas and Julie Martin, and I don't see, I'm here to say no, so I'd move to reappoint them, yeah? Really? Yeah, they're here though. All in favor? All in favor? All right. Okay, they can always complain later, yeah. Martin, I've come here, are they appointed? Yes. Yes, so Sandy Haas and Julie... Martin. Martin, thanks. Yes. Down to the zoning administrator. I've been feeling that position and if you wanna move to burden me with that again, I'll don't take that. Okay, all right. That's your point. Terry and the fire guys, you guys do that amongst yourselves. Right. Yep. Up until now we've had the select board to fill the position as water commissioners and sewer commissioners, so I guess we'll probably continue on and in that respect, all right? I would be willing to continue on as the road commissioner if you'd nominate me for that or appoint me for that, you know, I is, whatever. I'm kind of in a learning phase here, so... Yeah, yeah. Well, do you want something? Not yet. Do you like to? Not yet, I don't need that. That ties by fire, I'm not ready for that. All right, so then I'll stick with being the on-site wastewater officer unless he's liked the sound of that. Well, I'll shirk tell you for a while. All right, okay, thank you for being here. Yeah. Annie, are you willing to be the two rivers out of Quiche Regional Commission transportation and planning representative for the town? Yes. All right. As long as you'll be my second. Okay, I guess I will, so yes, I will. That gives us a guaranteed date night at least once a month. Yeah. Okay, I moved to appoint John White as the health officer. I've talked with him about that and he's willing to continue doing that. It's not up to anyways. No, no, you're right. That's not up to 2021. I think Paula Doherty would agree to continue as the town service officer. Definitely agree with it. Just to put that in depth. And Rick, I mean, Vic, you graciously offered to continue on as the emergency management director to, in light of the current dynamic situation. Yep. Yep. Thank you. And I'm your alternative. Thank you. So I'll stay to do that. And Rob, the emergency management coordinator. That's like, you finally have some stuff to coordinate. All right, welcome to the job. Are you continue on with that? I got my red light off. Thank you. All right, okay. Not to make light of it. He is not here, but I think Marvin Harvey would be willing to continue on as our energy coordinator. But we also have now the Quintown Energy Committee that has been born. And I would like to appoint Jeff Kephart as a member of that committee. And I know there's a few other people that are interested, but at least we have someone officially on that. Yep. Let's take a bet. And there would be the Quintown Energy Committee that two rivers out of Quintia has been inspiring, trying to coordinate efforts in the valley, not just town by town. So we've had a preliminary meeting and there was enough interest showed that I think that's gonna get some legs as they put it and then have something happen. Jim Bowen had previously offered to be the recycling coordinator. So I'd move to reappoint him as that. Martha, are you willing to be on the park committee still? Yes, with one for visa, I can no longer, with my computer, I can no longer handle getting Christmas tree up and all that stuff. I'm gonna have to find somebody else to do it for me. Oh, well, you can find help. But I still plan the 4th of July. All right, all right. Great, thank you. All right, go back to there. Tim Crowley, I don't know how hard that's been for him to be the stagecoach representative, but I'm sure that he would be willing to continue on with that. So I'd appoint him to that. Vic, the White River Valley Ambulance Representative, that's still something you're willing to take on? Yes. Yeah, thank you. And we have Jim Bowen as your alternative for that. And we'll one more time around, let Norm Smith take the role as our tree warden in town and Angus McCusker as our E911 maintenance man and Nick Picuto as a green up day coordinator. And let's see, we've got Norm Christiansen is still seems willing to be our website administrator. And Larry Pleasant as a scenic bi-way representative and John White as our EC fiber representative. I'm sorry, I couldn't write that test. I'm back up on Christiansen, what do you think? He's the website administrator. Okay, town website, okay, thank you. And after that, it was... Larry Pleasant for the scenic bi-way representative. Okay, thank you. And John White for the EC fiber representative. Okay, thank you. And last but not least, I moved to re-represent our town's official newspaper with the Herald of Randall. And this, let me see here. I've been the chair of the select board now and Patty's not here in your first day, I guess by default I'll stay if that's all right with you. That's fine with me. Okay, all right, I'm not to be selfish about it but you know what, you're welcome to. I'm not gonna fight with you. All right, so in terms of appointing, as I mentioned with Vic and Rob about the importance of the current situation, we do have a statement here that the town is prepared regarding the coronavirus situation. Mason, you had something that you wanted to ask? Yeah, all right, okay. So there are copies of this here on the table and we'll have this posted on the website but here we have it verbally with widespread news coverage of the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19. The Rochester select board has decided to make certain suggestions to inform residents regarding the prudent actions to minimize community spread of the virus in our town. We've been in touch with Gifford Medical Center and the White River Valley Ambulance Service as well as the state of Vermont and have established a local task force to coordinate efforts in town, particularly as it relates to our older residents, those who are most at risk. Please regularly check Front Porch Forum, the town website and the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Community Facebook page for further updates. We should remember that Rochester is a tourist destination. Interstate travel on Route 100 together with a number of Airbnbs, local shops and restaurants means that we have a number of people of unknown origins in our town regularly. The most vulnerable residents to the coronavirus are the elderly or those with preexisting health conditions such as heart disease or a compromised respiratory system. So special care should be taken if you are one of these. We suggest that any non-essential public events be canceled, avoided or postponed for 30 days. Anyone developing cold or flu symptoms should self-quarantine at home for two weeks in order to avoid the possibility of spreading the virus into the community. It would also be prudent to make sure you have on hand two weeks of food staples and prescription medications in case of self-quarantine due to illness. A volunteer network is being organized to help deliver groceries or medications to people self-quarantining at home. If you're interested in volunteering for this effort, please contact the town clerk. As you may know, but I'll read off, the symptoms are sore throat and cough, fever, and difficulty breathing or lung congestion. And please note, lung congestion is the most serious symptom. These are the recommendations from the Federal Government Center for Disease Control. There is currently no vaccine to present coronavirus disease, 2019 COVID-19. The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, the CDC always recommends everyday preventative actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including avoiding close contact with people who are sick, avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth. Stay home when you're sick. Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw that tissue in the trash. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe. Follow the CDC's recommendations for using a face mask, but CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a face mask to protect themselves from the respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. Face masks should be used by people who show symptoms of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the disease to others. The use of face masks is also crucial for healthcare workers and people who are taking care of someone in close settings at home or in a healthcare facility. Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom before eating and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing. If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Most vodka is not going to work because, yeah. Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty. Should it be determined that you need testing, the U.S. government has released this assurance that Medicare will cover the cost of testing. Your Medicare Part B medical insurance covers a test to see if you have coronavirus. This test is covered when your doctor or a healthcare provider orders it if you get the test on or after February 4th, 2020. You usually pay nothing for Medicare-covered clinical diagnostic laboratory tests. And then we have some phone numbers of the town office and the Gifford Health Center and the town clinic and of course the ambulance is always 911. So again, this is kind of, I'm sure you all heard this, but maybe not everybody has. And if you know anyone that should have it, please spread the word. Mason. Thank you, Rob. That's really fantastic prediction. And it seemed like the official town newspaper should publish that for this Thursday. That should be just mandatory as our town official newspaper. They'll make sure Martha has a copy of it. I can summarize what they're saying here and I will bring the copy to our editor right now. I can't hear what you're saying. The whole idea with Front Porch Forum is gray. I myself am not into the Facebook thing, but I understand there's quite a bit of followers in Rochester on Facebook. Yeah, thank you so much for that. Frank, welcome aboard. Yeah, thanks. I guess. I wanted to speak about appointments real quickly. This year's annual town meeting had a good turnout. Before the meeting started, there was some conversation about some young families that were unable to because of childcare issues. But when it comes to appointments, is it possible at this stage of the game to start looking at our annual report to be able to explain how appointments come about and encourage people, since the annual report is two weeks before the meeting, to be able to think about these open positions and to actually come to this particular meeting when they are appointed if they have an interest in them so we can expand our community into these appointments. So that would be my suggestion there. Thank you. Jeanette. In getting back to this, I see you are suggesting any non-essential public events be canceled, avoided, or postponed for 30 days. The library has 10 programs scheduled in the next 30 days. So I'm assuming from this the recommendation is we postpone all of these. That's the recommendation. It's not a mandate, but it's in light of the constant barrage of information we're getting about it and the way that this can sneak up into a community that's in the high proportion of elderly people in the town. I guess it's your decision as a librarian, but that's our recommendation. And we'll be talking at the trustees meeting, I'm sure, but I would tend to agree with you. Can I speak to that a little bit? So I think one of the most important things for people in the town to understand is that this is really serious. Even with my age and wisdom, I couldn't get my children to get serious about this. They're in their 40s and they've done that. But particularly for people in my age range, it's very, very serious. And it's also, I signed the emergency room with my father while he was dying of pneumonia. It's a really bad way to die. It's very serious. And if you get it, there's a tipping point. You're going along, and you hit the tipping point, and man, you die fast. It's a very frightening disease, particularly for people over 65. The AP, the Social Press today, reported that the CDC released or planned to release a cautionary note to anyone over 65 not to fly. The administration then altered that. But the AP is standing by that original statement. It's a pretty inconvenient thing. It's very inconvenient to cancel a meeting. But several big meetings in this town have been canceled in throughout the area. So I can only say, I wish my children would listen to me more, but it's a very serious thing. And you don't want to be the person who gets lazy and somebody in the parkhouse dies as a result of it. I mean, I'm telling you, there's a pretty good chance there'll be funerals in this town before this whole thing is over. And that may sound over the top, but I don't think it is yet. That tipping point is 100% shut down in your lungs. It's very serious. It's extremely serious. So I don't want to take up everybody's time. But there's a human tendency to deny or step back and say, oh, that's waiting. They just closed Italy. The nation of Italy. The nation of Italy is closed. You know, it happened so fast in Italy. I was just going to say, at the Herald, we got a number of notices of things that normally I've never seen canceled before, like the Philharmonic Spring Concert at the very opera house is canceled, things like that. And there are things, Pierce Hall is canceled. They're basically in front of me. Parkhouse is doing it. I'm on the production meeting. We're having a production meeting tomorrow night for the Player Spring show, which could very well be. That's the first thing on our agenda, that should we do it. So I mean, we're trying to take it seriously. Yeah, and everybody should, yeah. I haven't read the notice, but two important websites really should be on the notice, the CDC website, which has that up-to-date map. Unfortunately, currently, they're off on the weekend, so they're not updating the numbers over the weekend. But anyway, so there's a national map there. Vermont wasn't on it as of yesterday. There's a case in Vermont now. We have in this house. That's right. What I'm saying is that the CDC website is not as up-to-date. The Dartmouth-Hitchcock website is brilliant. It's got really good resources. So if you can, if you can. The CDC has a whole tier of information websites, particularly what can you do, what's really, but it's a tremendous amount of information. We try to get into two pages in this thing. And it was a great thing in the Herald, written by Josh White of the Gifford, which had a lot of sort of what can I do kind of statements in it. I mean, the most thing you can do is be careful about and wash your hands all the time. But just take it seriously. That's all. That's all. Yeah. There's one fact I would add to the notion of spread. So I get a daily report from the Vermont Health Department. There's the one confirmed case in Bennington that's been news. There's 234 other cases actively being monitored by the Health Department throughout the state. So it's real. It's coming. And we have to do everything we can to slow down the spread and protect our elders, particularly. There are two people in this town who are traveling who are now self-quarantine. They're doing pretty well. There's a lot of travel in this town. There's a lot of people going through this town. So just be careful. That's all. Well, I know periodically you guys sign permits for various events. And they're always in advance. Do we have anything passing through this town in the next month? Not the bike ride, I think, is too early for that. But I know you signed very committed. Not in the next month that I do. I mean, just check and make sure we don't have anything like that. No, that's a good point. All right. It's not exactly tied into this, but we do have a liquor license application for everyone to try and figure out a way to make it safe. That's a lot of information. Yep. Yep. Now, with this liquor license approval with Max Valley Market, the town has a jurisdiction to be able to inform Max of Article 14. We have a situation at Max where the corporation dictates to the employees that they have to stick three beats on a styrofoam tray and wrap it in plastic. That is from the top, not from our local employees. They would actually prefer not to put those beats on a styrofoam plate. We're being asked to give them a liquor license and tobacco license. And I think they should be aware of our desire of our voters to do better. So in Article 14, it took me a while to get up to speed. You're talking about our climate emergency declaration? Yes, our CED. CED? Yeah. OK. Well, this liquor license doesn't have anything related to the styrofoam use there, but I could see your point. Well, I'm asking for our board to relate to the management of Max Valley market that they could do better for our town in approving their liquor license, a communication. The state. You know, Mason, with all due respect, the main intent, as I understood it, of that climate thing was to create awareness, not to get involved in any kind of harm-twisting or legal action against businesses or anything like that. And I think, well, let me finish. Let me finish. And by hanging that kind of thing onto it, you create kind of an animosity towards the idea, which is important. So I respectfully suggest that we keep in mind that we're not talking about, I don't think, there was ever any element of enforcement. It was purely a matter of advisement and to look at these things through the prism of concern. But you're talking about a whole different universe of, I think, of activity. I wasn't talking about enforcing anything. I'm saying a conversation of the concerns of the citizens, because as of now, Max does not care about putting those beads on its direfone tray. They are interested in hearing from the consumers of this community. Well, then I think the consumers of the community ought to write it all up and get it there. You can get a committee together and do something. I don't need to do that. The swipe board is here, getting an approval of a, an approval to self-liquid out of battle. You're asking the swipe board to deny something that somebody's using to stay in business, an important business. No, no, I'm not arguing with you. No, I'm not saying deny the petition. I think you're taking what was done in the town meeting, you're taking it beyond its intentions, and that's all I'm saying. No, that's all right. So I'd move to approve as well. Rachel, you want to discuss this one? Just a query. So the declares, the CED, I hate acronyms, the Climate Emergency Declaration, was not binding, and we all understand that. The point about their communication is I think the question really is, we'd appreciate it if you have a think about how you'd like to embrace that and give it some meat. Even if it's a, even if it's a male. Even if it's a beet. Yeah, no, okay. Even if it's a public notice indicating, or sometimes communicating with the businesses, because if you're proactive about it, it can really become something beneficial. I've got an idea. You okay? Yeah, I'm fine. You can think about it when you want to. I think that's going to have more effect than that seemed to Max. We'll see. I know this is not a new beef with Max in stores in general about their insistence on using this stuff. It's about communicating proactively with the businesses. And it's not a binding. I totally get that. That's why I did the amendment. And according to Vermont law, so we're protected. Okay, so anybody else? What do you think about it being appreciated? I moved to approve their application here. Second. All in favor? Aye. And we could write a little note. Well, this doesn't go to Max. This goes to the state. So it's even including a note what this doesn't really communicate to Max at all. So I would recommend that people are concerned that, even though the people that are working at Max do you go and complain to them? It doesn't matter, but it's worth a try, I suppose, to net. I personally recommend removing your produce or anything else from excess packaging, leaving the excess packaging at the cash register and letting Max dispose of it. I've done it for years. Yeah. Right on. Awesome. It's action. While she's at it, I've been using cloth shopping bags for years and I've seen more people starting to do that. I got the idea from someone else I knew who was doing it. And I think that's another thing that people can do so that places like Max, I mean, I don't know when the plastic shopping bags are going to be outlawed, but at some point they are. Soon, they're onward. So get in the habit of using your own cloth shopping bag. It's not hard. Rachel, Annie? Just a brief comment. I'm just wondering what the Quintan Energy Committee will be doing. Is there a committee associated with a select board that maybe could do some public education, or at least hold an evening event to talk about the upcoming composting and recycling, and great tips like that? I guess that more will become in this infancy, that committee. So I'm sure there will be reports to it, but there's nothing to report now other than that that the towns have agreed that they'd like to work together to work on that. So yeah, there's nothing to report. So we have a July 1st that a universal recycling comes into effect. July 1st, that's really coming fast. I just thought it'd be terrific after a coronavirus if there's some public education that's done. Because some people could use a great tip like Jeanette's Saul Alinsky 1970. Do you have something that you wanted to say, Annie? Well, just that that energy committee is coming through two rivers that is also coming through the statement dates. There is a booklet about the 90% renewable actions and the goals that they're setting, which is something that I mentioned at the town meeting. So these are practical. You saw a bulletin board in the other room there too. Yeah, so these are concrete practical ways in which all of this will be applied. So I think they're very focused on education. I don't think we have to worry about that. I think it will happen, and I think it will be announced. So I think there are people that have our interests at hand, and they're making sure the information gets to us. So it's good that we're all concerned, but I also think that the concern is coming from the top down too. Thank you. Yeah. Leaves us down to Harlan. You had something you want to talk about with the missing book. Is there any news on the last book? I have no news. Do you have anything to contribute? Just a question? No. Quite main direction to look. I'll look. Yeah, I don't have anything. We've been kind of busy with this other stuff going on. Oh, yeah. I understand that, but this is all part of it. Yeah. All right. I think that has got it covered for tonight. Thank you all for coming.