 So we'll kick it off here. All the meeting to order for Monday, July 6. I'm assuming everybody had a good weekend. And now it's time to get back to business. So for the first thing we have to do always that. These meetings is to approve our agenda. Is there any add-ons or changes? Yeah, I had up Carla after the agenda went out, but I would like to discuss a mask mandate for the town. Similar to what's done. I've had a number of people in town. Ask me to have the select board discuss it. Okay. Looking where we could probably squeeze that in. Oh, probably either between blush hill, boat access and little river road speed. Or right after little river road speed or wherever. Yeah, why don't you do it after that? Yeah, those two are kind of somewhat connected. All right. And I would like to just take, have a brief conversation about maple street grant timing. Yeah. And a little bit about the. The road process itself as far as what's going to happen there, just a couple of minutes on that. And then. Consider if possible, a couple of skim coats over a couple other areas. On Gupto. And then to Mike's point there, he pointed out earlier there about the whole Corona virus, maybe at the end. I kind of put both these under managers items there. We could just. Briefly talk about that a little bit and. And some concerns of how everything. May play out. In the fall here and. Whether or not it will impact us at all purely, most of it's probably speculation, but. Be nice to have a little chat about it. So with those three changes, mask ordinance, maple street. And Corona virus. Is there any other changes? Okay. I'll take a motion to approve the agenda. As stated. I'll make the motion. As amended. We got two that made the motion about one to second. I'll second it. Katie seconds it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. We have the folks that are online. Introduce themselves. Yeah. So far we got no official and MK mon Leon and. Mish. Boreans. You have to pronounce that to me. It's Boreon is. Okay. And here's Alan Thompson. And we got another one, Walter. Okay. I'm sorry. I thought the end was a bad last name, but. Walter, how do you pronounce your last name, please? Yep. Last name is. Okay. I can only see part of it. NSKI. Yeah. It's a long one. Yeah. Okay. I'm Jeremy Hill and this is Amy Yovitz. Yep. They're coming on faster. We can keep track here. Okay. And Susan Bomer. Parks Northeast parks regional manager from forest parks and recreation. Oh, great. Great. Walter also works for the department. Oh, good. Very good. All right. We're getting a full board here. Lisa's here as well. Hadley. Okay. Consent agenda items. Okay. Simply the minutes from June 15th and an outside consumption permit for the smuggler's notch distillery. We need approval for that consent agenda. Somebody. Somebody make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make them. To approve the consent agenda item. Katie seconds it. All those in favor say aye. Hi. Hi. Public. Is there anybody here that wishes to speak at this point about anything? If not, we can. Certainly take your questions later on. If it pertains to any of the items on the agenda. All right. So we'll move on to the first one, which is the bless shield boat access. And Bill was just talking about that. Yeah. So this is just an update. The Adams is from. Bush Hill indicated that they were interested in being. They actually asked for this agenda item to be included. I don't see them here on the. On the zoom, however. So back a couple of meetings ago. You did amend the ordinance to restrict parking. On the left side of Bush Hill road going down toward the lake from Michigan Avenue. Right after you did that that next weekend, I printed flyers and went up there myself and put. Flyers on the windshields of all the cars on both sides of the road. One side telling them that they were parked improperly. No parking on this side. And then the cars on the other side, I put a notice telling you're properly parked now, but just FYI, you can't park on the other side of the street. The signs are up. And as I indicated, when you adopted the ordinance, it's not enforceable until 60 days after its adoption. So it's going to be the middle of all this before we can actually write tickets or tow vehicles from there. So that's what we're going to do. Folks from the state park are on happily. I've been up a couple of different times since we adopted the ordinance after that day that I put the signs on the windshields. And I went up yesterday, which was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. And there were no cars parked on the left side of the road going down the hell at all. I went up there again today. And they were right. They were not up as far as Michigan Avenue today. Yesterday they were, but it seems like people are paying attention to the signs. And I'm happy about that. We have had some questions. And this is more for Susan and Walter, maybe. I'm not sure if you know, suggesting that there should be some limitations on the size of boats that use that access. And I don't really know what the town's authority is. We do not own any waterfront. It's our road, but the cul-de-sac at the end of the road is actually not even ours. The boat ramp probably is the old, but I don't know if the state has ever done that or would consider it, but it's one thing that has popped up. Right now it seems like it's working. Okay. And I think the fact that. The center of state park is open now has taken some pressure off of Blush Hill. There's another boat ramp that is. Accessible to people now. This is Susan. If I may respond to your question, Bill. So I asked Chad the same question because you had posed that in an email at one point in time. And since he chat almost is the park manager for Waterbury Reservoir State Park. Well, Waterbury Reservoir. No, it's not a state park. And he told me that he had not really seen any difference in terms of boats using Blush Hill. And some of the boats, maybe that we're using Blush Hill, maybe have gone over to Waterbury Center State Park. I know that there was some larger boats that usually go and park and use the ramp in Waterbury Center State Park. So I don't know if I, I was hoping he was going to be on tonight so that he could. Susan, can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, I guess my little screen doesn't show everybody. So maybe Chad can address that a little bit more since he's done and he sees what's happening there almost every day. Yes, I apologize for coming in a bit delay. The question about the size of boats. Or the number. The size Chad, this is Bill. You know, I've got a small fishing boat that I launched there at Blush Hill. I've got a small summer long and spring long. Into the fall. I've just earlier in the year, late May and early June, I saw far more pontoon boats than I'd ever seen before, trying to get in from Blush Hill. And some pretty good size. Feedboats for lack of a better term. I don't know. I'm not a boat person. So I don't know what kind of boats they are. I noticed earlier in the year that there was a considerable size increase and the difficulty, of course, is the length of the trailers, which just make parking on Blush Hill that much more difficult. I see. I believe that initially there might have been more pontoon or party barges than we have now with other parks opening like Champlain becoming more inviting and easier. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think we've served. Too many more large vessels. We certainly have more vessels, but I wouldn't say that they're necessarily in a greater length than normal. Okay. So I agree. Yes. From your perspective, is that lake. Starting to get crowded yet. For the better portion of the season, I think we're at peak usage. I think we're at peak usage. No, I, I believe we're at peak usage. And it is slightly heavier than in previous years. We can contribute that to both the pandemic and the beautiful weather we've been having. But we're definitely at peak usage now. So what, at what point does. Consideration of some form of. Regulating kick in, or is it just. Well, we're at peak Chad, but I think the question is, is the reservoir too crowded at peak. So I'm like, I'm kind of all with the number of boats out there. No, regardless of the boat launches, I believe they're still adequate space for all types of vessels to spread out. Also note that nearly 90% of the users here are paddlecraft. So even on a busy day, if the boat launch appears quite congested, the small vessels spread out quickly on the surface. And everybody seems to be pretty respectful of each other as far as. As far as boat speed and. Regular and whatnot. Yes. People come here for a reason as popular and everyone enjoys it. Generally they're quite respectful. So I'm going to, I'm going to date myself here, but back in 1996, 97. When there was a previous. Park manager. We did extensive boat counts on water. And I think it was probably, I don't know if it was about the same as now because we haven't really done many counts in recent years, but I know back then we talked about we, meaning the public, the town, and the Friends of Waterbury Reservoir talked about that's when the use of public waters rules went into effect and the no wake zone went into effect. And there was a lot of concern with a lot of traffic on the reservoir at that point in time. So it's kind of gone up and down over the years, especially when there's no water in the reservoir, it's gone down quite a bit, but it takes a while for it to, I think, to increase up. And this year is, I think, unprecedented at a lot of places. We have seen way more people in general in our state parks are using the state parks and their behaviors seem to be a little bit unruly also, more unruly than usual. Susan, I've got some data to add. This is Walter. We did, in 2018, do a user survey at the Waterbury Dam Boat Launch, and we had 104 respondents. And we were asking questions about their ability to enjoy the waters of the reservoir, how they've rated the access. Our rating system was out of five and a majority of the average for how has your experience been on the reservoir today was a 4.7. How do you rate the quality of this access area 4.6? And that was before the work was done. I was really surprised. And then the number of people that participated in the survey, we broke it out by user type and we had of the 104, 44 people identified as paddlers and 34 identified as motor boaters, 19 onshore recreators and seven said they were there swimming. And that, those are the, I think the best stats speaking to that question of, I think it's just a good feedback loop on, are we at a place as far as density where it's affecting the user experience? So, doesn't sound like Chad or perhaps you, Walter, think that it's at a critical point yet. I think one of the questions from the last meeting a couple of weeks ago was additional parking. And whether you, Walter or Susan could weigh in on the question of what capabilities does the state have to perhaps do some additional parking on some of the state forest land air that's I believe is on the right side of the road as you get close to the lake. I'll take a stab and then Walter can fill in cause he was, he took over as project lead. And of course, this all started with green mountain power and their FERC relicensing effort back in their late 90s which I was involved in. And as we were going through the process of them developing their improving the access areas, we recognized pretty quickly that parking capacity would be quickly outstripped by what is on the ground. And that wasn't part of the FERC relicenser licensure and we tried to actually leverage some monies from the land and water conservation fund which is a federal grant source to match what green mountain power was using for the private dollars using for developing the access areas. And we were turned down by the national park service as it was not, I guess it went against the regulations for the type of funding that could be used as match. So we have identified at each of the three areas meaning Blush Hill, Waterbury Dam and the Moscow Access Additional Parking Places and have gone through some preliminary designs and engineering for those. And of course, everything takes money so it has not received any capital funding but I know our upper management is really concerned about the parking capacity there. And I think it's just a matter of time and maybe after this summer, it might rise to the top of the pile whereas a few other things were critical first before the parking areas could be improved at around Waterbury Reservoir. Well, thank you for that, Susan. I think to what Walter and Chad just said a few minutes ago, it's helpful, it seems that they think that there's adequate space on the reservoir because of course, if you create new parking and the parking that's there now continues, you're gonna generate more traffic. There'll be more people using those accesses because they can get to them. So it's something that I think we should certainly talk about to make sure that, how much more use can we accommodate? Does it mean that we create a parking area for 25 parking spots and then erect more no parking signs along Blush Hill Road? I mean, I'm not saying that we have to do that. I'm just saying if you put more parking in, do anything to permit the parking where it's allowed now, just you invite more usage and that's more traffic, both on the water and on those roads to the access point. So I just think it takes careful planning. No, I agree with you, Bill. But I think our issue is trying to alleviate people that are like you said, parking on the road. So if alternative parking off the road can be creative, created and then signs like you said, no parking on the road, you would think that that would help mitigate the amount of extra people going to the lake. That'll have to be part of the state study, I suspect. Yeah, and to me, I don't, clearly I don't live on Blush Hill Road. I think the parking that we've restricted now is working well, as I said at the meeting. And if we can keep parking to one side only, it narrows down the road, but the boaters and the trailers and everything else were negotiating the road a few weeks ago when there was parking on both sides. So it's clearly better than it was. And I think the access for emergency vehicles, which was the main concern getting down Blush Hill Road is it's doable now, with parking on both sides, especially if there was a vehicle coming up the hill and there's a fire truck trying to go down, that would be difficult. So I think it just, like you said, Chris, continued discussion and planning about the future is important. All right, Michael, you wanted to say something? Yes, I did. I've been an active user of the reservoir since the 80s. And it seems like there's been a real ebb and flow in different times. I think right now we're in one of these crazy ebbs because of the coronavirus increase uses that people want to get out outdoors. I think people are fairly respectful. I think we don't have, you know, you have some problems with both motor boats as well as paddle users. You have some, a few motor boats who are not that considerate of people on paddle craft and you have people on paddle craft who probably shouldn't be right smack out in the middle of the reservoir, you know, impeding people who are water skiing. I know there was a long meeting where we had for public use, there was consideration of making the entire reservoir five miles per hour or less. I attended a lot of those meetings. And ultimately what came out of those meetings is that Waterbury is reservoir, is really a good reservoir for multiple use. That's one of the reasons why they develop the North arm, you know, as being five miles per hour or less to keep, you know, either slow motor boating or it's mostly, you know, paddle craft in that arm. And I think that's done a real, you know, long, you know, process to keep boaters kind of in different areas. It's just, I think we got to get through this year before we really, I think want to change something because a lot of other places are not open. I think Waterbury is a good spot, both for paddle craft as well as for motor boats. And most of the time, you know, if anyone wants real quiet use, go there most of the time during the week and there's really not that much, you know, this year probably a little bit of an exception when we've had some use, but most year during the week, it's the problem of people who want quiet use, you know, 4th of July weekend. And that's just a very difficult thing to accomplish. So I think we need to, before really changing anything, I think see what, you know, the pandemic's gonna happen. Are we seeing a long-term change, you know, again with having, you know, the day use area, another, you know, ramp open, I think, yes, we need to see, maybe because the ramps have been improved and more people are willing to take their ski boats and such in, but, you know, again, I think the Vermont Water Ski Association, this is one of their prime lakes that they like to see used for tournaments and stuff. So I think we just have to take a wait and see attitude. Again, let's, I think we need to work on parking and develop some more parking areas. So we can maybe, if I think the best thing is just try to segregate the people who just have a canoe kayak, a place for them to park, so they're not taking up the places that the people who have trailers, you know, I think that would really help to aid the, in the congestion. Yeah, this is Walter again. Michael, that's some really good insights there. I will say we monitoring the degree of use and understanding it is a high priority of ours for the reservoir and something that this year, if our funding mechanisms weren't impacted by COVID-19, our plan was to have a VYCC user survey assessment crew supporting the efforts to gather more data on the reservoir. And I'm hoping we can reinvigorate this program next year. We've used it the past three seasons and other locations on state land and it's given us really good data about degree of use, pressure, density. And what we've done so far is a general assessment of opportunities we have to expand the overflow parking for some of these primary access areas. And Blush Hill is one such area, but there's also a plan as Michael mentioned, you know, separating the user types. Another location where we're investigating an overflow parking area is associated with Waterbury Dam and that location has potential for a spot where we can direct people to park that are accessing the remote sites overnight. So it just separates out the cars that might be parked in an access location overnight. You know, these are all things that we are in the process of getting some concrete numbers so we can move things forward, as Susan mentioned, as far as securing the funding, securing the permits to do this work and get a little clear vision on moving forward with it. And all of this stems from a general concern with increased usage being focused on water access as we move forward and as temperatures gradually increase. So it is something that I guess I'll say again is a high priority for us to wrap our heads around. Walter, are the campers designated to go into? Cause I know I saw a lot of cars parked in the canoe access up by Little River. You know, down there there seemed to be cause we got off the water fairly late and there seemed to be a ton of cars there still. Are a lot of the campers parking there and then canoeing up to their sites? I believe that is one of the primary spots. Chad has a much better understanding about the pattern for where the parking is occurring for folks that are accessing the remote sites. It seems like the paddlers do like to enter from that area because it has, you know, the wakes a little more controlled it has that more paddler feel to it on the north end. Right, so I think that's what you're seeing with the car top access. Okay, well, I think it's probably time we moved on to the next agenda item. I have one last question and I'll aim it at Chad. I saw in the news this morning there that some of the beaches down in Lake Champlain beaches down there in Burlington were pretty well trashed over the weekend there. People leaving their crap behind all over the place just littered from one end to the other. They packed it in, but they didn't pack it out. And I didn't know if we had any of those issues up here at the reservoir. Very few such issues, you know, the Waterbury Center State Park staff controls the access and refuse there. And then on the reservoir itself, we have very little litter. Most people are respectful and leave no trace. Good for them. Good for them. Okay, you have something to say, Bill, or are we all set? Nope. Okay, I'm just gonna say I see Scott Seward's on this call. I think he's the last house on Blush Hill. I don't know if he had any mention of the changes and what he's seen since he's on the call. I didn't know if he wanted to say something. Maybe I caught him off guard. Who was that, Mark? Oh, okay. Scott Seward, he's the last house on Blush Hill. Yeah, yeah. You got anything that you'd like to comment on, Scott? Nothing new that hasn't been said, but just to reiterate that, yes, this year has been a significant increase in access at the Blush Hill launch year. The new parking enforcement and the new parking signs are drastically improving things. So thank you all for that access to our driveways significantly improved. But yeah, so the frequency of travel and the frequency of usage has definitely gone up this year. And yeah, we have tended to see some altercations between drivers of cars trying to figure out parking or navigate parking, hopefully in the next couple of weeks as everyone gets used to the new parking situation with the restricted access on one side that that'll improve. But we do have a nice vantage point to hear and watch everything going up and down the road. So it's been an interesting summer. Keeps you entertained, huh? That's a word for it, yep. Cocktails. Thanks, Scott. Have a good night. What's that? Nothing. Oh, I thought I heard somebody else say something there. Okay, well, we can jump to the other corner of the lake now and talk about Little River Road, Road Speed. Apparently there's been speeding up there as well. I can't imagine that because we don't seem to have that problem anywhere else in the town. So I don't know who stuck this on the agenda. I'd like to speak to it, but... Well, I'll start it off. We've had a number of emails and calls just expressing concern about the traffic and the speed in particular going to the state park and to the boat launch. It's kind of a perennial issue. And I think this year, as we've already said, I suspect that the access at the dam has been more heavily used this year than it's been in the past. I guess the state park is open now. And as you all know, the local folks anyway, there's an enclave, there's a neighborhood there right at the beginning of Little River Road. It used to be paved, the pavement got so bad that we turned it into a gravel road. And there's some people on the call tonight who live down there, I think. And if they wanna have a chance to make a comment, they're certainly welcome. Yeah, so hi. This is Rob and Allison. We live at 250 Little River Road. We've been there for about 12 years now, I think. So the grand scheme of things not that long, but for our lives, a good chunk of it. We have seen, like Scott Seward was just mentioning the amount of people going down the road and then flying back out has increased significantly because of the current situation, which we think is wonderful, to watch our fellow Vermonters enjoying the wonderful beauty we have to offer at the reservoir. And then we've got some out-of-staters now too that are enjoying it as well. But one of the things we've seen more than anything is more people jogging, biking, walking that road than I've ever seen before, which has been a really nice thing to see because it is such a beautiful part of our community. But we're seeing some ridiculous speeds. Amy and Jeremy wrote a letter that was emailed to Steve. I'm not sure if that was sent to you board members tonight, but it really summed up the entire situation that Allison has definitely been the squeaky wheel over the years trying to get this thing figured out. And like you said before, Ingrid, it's not unique to our road. I'm seeing Ingrid on the thing, I'm not sure. My name is Bill. I'm using my wife's computer. Sorry, it's a whole bunch of people on the screen. Yeah, my hair is a little longer than normal too. Yeah, it's not, I mean, I read front porch form and we know Gupto Road and Loomis and we've got all the speeding roads in this town because people are really in a hurry to get to wherever they're going for some reason. But it's, we are so close to the road with our house and we knew that when we bought it and it wasn't as bad as it has become. This year it's just, it started in April, as soon as people were trying to get out and enjoy the world around after being locked in for a little while. And it just has just increased. And since the park is open, the mountain bike trails are being enjoyed more. Everybody's really in a hurry to get to have their fun, which I totally understand. And we've connected with the state police who have done a fantastic job. I just wanna commend the work they've done over the past several months. They brought in, I think they drug it out of one of their old storage units, a speed control sign that has done a good job for people coming down the road. And I think what happens is a lot of people just forget. You see those signs where they flash at you, we're all guilty of it occasionally. It was like, oh, shit, I'm speeding, excuse my language, sorry, this is a town meeting. It's okay. But... We've heard worse. I'm sure. But it's, you know, my kids are 12 or 11 and 14 and on bikes in the road. Amy and Jeremy have a daughter who is at similar age as my son, Elena, who is also here, has a boy who is three at this point. And we're starting to use the road more and it's just becoming a highway that there's going to be a tragedy at some point. And again, we found the speed sign has worked. It's helped. It'd be really nice to have some sort of permanent fixture there. Like we have going down Stow Street coming off of Route 100 there, it would also be nice to have some seasonal speed bumps, you know, like we've seen around town here and there they seem to help as well. I mean, when we see, you know, this blush hill conversation about the boats, I've seen some massive boats coming down our road this spring, driving 40 to 50 miles an hour. And it's just very frustrating. And I'm sure that you all, maybe not all but many of you have experienced this meeting issues where you live, but it's gotten to a point where it's a massive problem. That's it. So I appreciate the concerns and I've tried to respond to the emails and the front porch forum. I'm glad that you've been communicating with the state police. We've certainly glued them into the concerns that we've had and asked them to, you know, spend some time down there. I'm glad that they were able to put this speed sign up. I'm wondering from the select board's perspective, I did talk with Bill Woodruff about, you know, the speed bump that we have up near the post office in Waterbury center. That's a, that's a temporary speed bump. Bill is concerned that no speed bump really is going to be safe to put on a gravel road. There's really no way to anchor it in. That one up on Guptal Road has spikes that get driven down into the pavement. And, you know, they kind of bind there, but if you just drive it into the gravel road, as you go over it, he just thinks it's going to, you know, loosen it up and it's going to bounce. I have been thinking it might be, would have to probably invest in them. I don't know if we have enough, but we could put some Jersey barriers up on the road to narrow the road in the vicinity of the maybe there, to make the road narrower that would cause people to have to slow down to go through. I don't think we can narrow it. So it will be a one lane road, but that's something that has occurred to me. I don't know if anybody has a thought. I'm not a traffic engineer. There's not a lot of ways to really slow people down there. As I said, we took the pavement out a few years ago. Frankly, the pavement probably slowed traffic down. It was so bad. That's why we, oh, it was so bumpy that it was probably easier to speed on the gravel that's there now than it was on that old pavement. But, you know, it's something that I've just been thinking about. I don't know what your feelings are about that. So Katie, I see you had your hand up there. Go ahead. A question I would have is if we narrow the road, would that make the people that are walking, biking, running, would that make them feel safer or less? Because if you're having these big pontoon boats coming at you and the road is really narrow, is that gonna make you feel better or is that gonna make you feel worse? Well, I think the walkers and the bikers could go behind the barriers. You know, the road's still gonna be there. You could just narrow it in and when you've got to the barrier, the people who are walking can walk on the outside of the barrier toward the edge of the road. They don't have to walk through that narrow portion. So I'll put my two cents in here. It frustrates me to listen to the conversation here about these types of things. That's part of the reason why I throw my hat in the Ring for State Rep this year. It seems like we're focusing on consequence rather than cause. I mean, this isn't just our problem. This is a problem probably that every town in the state faces. One form or another, speeding on roads, speeding on the interstate, winter driving on the interstate, you know, people recklessly driving, putting other people's lives at risk and there's a simple solution, as far as I'm concerned. You raise the fines for speeding to such a horrendous amount that you'd have to be a banker in order to pay the ticket. That way you avoid all this other nonsense. And listen, if you don't get it through your head, I mean, I don't know about you people, but when I get out on the interstate, I have a CDL. My CDL has so many restrictions to it that if I violate something, the guidelines are so much tighter than the average person that I lose my license like that. I'm out of business from a business perspective. When you get out on the interstate, it seems like people turn into a Jekyll, go from Jekyll to Hyde or whatever. It really is discouraging to see how people act when they're on the road, forcing other people off the road, weaving in and out, just causing for no other reason than their impatient, selfish, disrespectful, whatever it is. And if we could get our legislative body to increase speeding violations, tickets to an amount where you'd have to be a fool to speed. And if you are a fool, you'll pay the fine. And that fine not only will probably sting you so hard that you'll slow down, but it also will pay for the law enforcement's time and the justice system's time to deal with your foolishness. I really kind of wonder when we're gonna start putting accountability in the laps of the people who need to be responsible for the way they act. And that's where I'm coming from. Well, the fines on Little River Road are in the control of the select board. We have a traffic ordinance that we amended for Blush Hill Road for parking. You can try to raise the fines for speeding if you want. Is that in our purview? Yeah, it's in your purview, but I'm asking you that if you make the fines such that a reasonable judge is gonna think that they're unreasonable, they'll be thrown out. Maybe the judge ought to be sitting in on this conversation. Well, that's a different story. The other issue is enforcement. We're paying the state police $365,000 a year. We're getting hours of work out of them and they're stepping it up a little bit. They've been down there a little bit, but maybe if they write five or 10 tickets like you're talking about, word will get out. But I think the bigger question right now is there a way that we can calm the speed some way other than enforcement? What that imposes, that imposes problems to the good people. That's what really gets under my skin. And to your point, if we had to control over that, I didn't realize that because I always thought speeding, especially like on Gupto Road, we don't even have, we have to go through a long drawn out process to get the speeding limit taken down. I didn't realize that speeding tickets were in our purview, but what if we put, what if the select board, and I'm throwing this out to the select board? What if we talked about fine increases and or both being signage on the road, speeding just like they are on the interstate during the work zone, fines will be doubled, fines will be tripled, whatever we think will do the job. I mean, if people are going up there to have a good time and they're also going driving down a road where other people are walking and riding and pedal biking and they're trying to have a good time, it seems unreasonable to have people putting other people's lives in danger when they're both trying to do the same thing. It's just disrespectful and it really irks me. So something we should put on the agenda for another discussion, but I would like the select board to consider that. It's time that we started making these people be accountable for their foolishness. It's not the good people's fault. I think you have to be careful raising fines to the point where it disproportionately affects people of a lower wealth bracket. I'd be a little concerned about that. I'd want to look more at it and just more enforcement. And I guess my other question is, can we do a reverse speed bump and actually dig in a reverse tabletop that has a dip sign? Can you do that? Or does that go against safety code of roads? Yeah, I asked that same question, Mark. I don't know the answer to that. I did ask whether they could trench across there. Just, can I jump in for a little bit? Sure, Rob, go ahead. So Chris, I appreciate your comments. And I do think that higher enforcement will be great if someone was actually patrolling that road on a more frequent basis. I think the state police did a great job early on. We haven't really seen much of them in the past couple of weeks, but that's another thing. We did notice that when the road is not well taken care of, it's in prime shape right now for a raceway. But as it develops the speed bumps out in front of our house naturally through divots and potholes and stuff, the people with trailers are definitely going much slower. All the good people are going slower because they don't want to ruin their cars. So it's like, yeah, we might piss off a couple good people who want to get their kayaks in the water, but we're going to slow down some of those boaters driving 50 miles an hour past my house. So I like that the Jersey barrier idea is interesting. I would guess that this behavior is probably not legal, but we occasionally on this road park our cars out in the road to keep cars for the mean it slows people down. But that's not safe either. What Katie mentioned previously was, if someone's riding a bike and has to squeeze in between a car and a boat, another way there's going to be a problem. So I don't know. We're just looking for some creative solutions here to just tamper the speed. Entire road would be awesome, but at least in front of the neighborhoods where there's young kids out playing in the road. Yeah, I think I love the idea of narrowing the road in a way that would make this helpful, but I'm not sure just watching the speed that Jersey barriers alone would do enough to slow these boats down in these big trucks that are going pretty fast. So Rob had mentioned the possibility maybe of a permanent miles per hour sign or maybe a few on either side of our neighborhood. I live two doors down from the sprays on Little River Road. With that possible because we have found that the temporary one really does work going up towards the park, but when people are leaving the park, they don't have that reminder and they're just flying home. So permanent miles per hour signs on either side I think would be a huge boom and would do a lot to this. And it wouldn't really be negatively impacting the good people. You were talking about the flashing signs, right? Yes, that tells you the speed. As somebody who lives off from Stow Street, another super speedway in our little town, every time I go downtown, I take my life in my hands, just walking down the sidewalk because people seem to consider it a challenge when they turn down on the Stow Street to see how fast they can get going by the time they're under the interstate. So I feel for you, I feel for you. My worry in this conversation is, and I mean, don't get me wrong, I've wanted some form of way to get the idiots that fly down that road to stop doing it. And I've wanted for a solution for that, for some number of years now, my worry is that when we start putting regulations and we start changing the roadway to weed out the people who basically don't care for human life, where does it stop? Where are we gonna start altering roads to protect people from getting hit or are we gonna be putting up speed bumps on every road that we have? Are we gonna be putting speed enforcement on every road we have? And I just, I don't, I don't know what the solution is and I don't know where to start and where to stop. So no disrespect, Mark, but your comment about people with lower incomes, do you think they have less of a brain that they can't recognize that if they act ridiculous, they're gonna pay for it? Yeah, but the point is, is that someone that's wealthy might be able to afford the fine, but if you increase the fines for someone who has a lower income, that could be a huge proportion of how they survive. So yeah, they made an error, but it would disproportionately affect them more than someone who's wealthy. So you have to be careful, I think when you decide what amount of fine is, and I don't think you can make it, I understand what you're trying to achieve, but I think you have to be really careful when you think about that as a deterrent. I think that's why you see fines not in that level, because people do have to travel. You know, we can speculate how it would impact people all day long until what harm would it do to give it a shot and try it? You might find that people recognize that they're gonna get hit hard if they act like fools and decide not to. Go ahead, Mike. I don't think, I'm kind of a little bit in agreement with Mark, but in a little different way. I don't think very high fines are going to be a deterrent and for some people who tend to speed a lot, they think they can get away with it. I think it's gonna be a matter of having maybe some more state police presence in some of these speedway areas to give, because people in the community know, oh, we see right down when I travel on Guptal Road, they say, oh, the state police has been there and people tend to calm down a little bit. So if they're out, they have to rotate around which of the speedways they're at, but especially local people that are as well speeding, they're not going to. I think Bill's idea, some traffic calming in some way is something that can help on a little river. But the problem is sometimes, I know from traveling in a truck, especially when you go on a real downhill to try to keep the 25 miles per hour, especially with a trailer, sometimes can be a little difficult, even if you're trying to be safe. And I think people, there are a lot of good people who try to do the right thing. And I would hate to have someone if they go in 30 miles per hour, have a cop give you a ticket for $400 or $500. I just don't think that's the right thing to do. So if I got picked up with my truck and trailer by DMV, because I was going too fast down the hill, you think they're gonna care? The law is that I have to do the speed limit. You're right. So what are you talking about, Chris, in terms of a fine level that you think is gonna be? I don't know. I don't know. I don't have to see the fines to Mike's point. He's talking about more police surveillance. I think if you talk about all the roads that in the town of Waterbury that the police are already surveilling, along with the other thing, duties that the two police officers that we have, the only way you're gonna increase more police surveillance is to hire more police. And then it goes right back to what I said, that impacts the good people by reaching in their pocket because the cost of having those law enforcement officers around goes up. And I don't understand the logic or the lack of logic for not making the people accountable. I mean- Chris, we wouldn't need speed limits and fines at all if people were as reasonable as you think they are. Why we have fines now is because people don't pay attention to the rules. It's always been the case. There's a lot of good people out there who speed on the interstate. There's a lot of people who go 75 miles an hour and don't think anything of it. That's because we allowed it to happen. Bill, how does it work with, the reason that this road is being traveled is for the state park, is there, I mean, we happen to use the state police as a contracted service for police services, but say we didn't have a police force and we were relying on the state police, when can we kind of scream a foul and say, hey, there's this state resource that is being overused, especially this year maybe, or not overused, but just well used. Right. Why can't we ask for more enforcement totally separate from our contract? Well, you can, but the challenge of course is that the state has lots of facilities and lots of places all around the state. This situation that we're talking about is not unique to Waterbury. And with no disrespect to any of the state people who are still on the call for years, Ed Steele, excuse me, former chairperson of the Select Board advocated for a long, long time for the state to pay us more money to maintain Little River Road. We get the same per mile payment for a class three road that we get for every other class three road in town. The state has never done anything any different. So I think it's, the reality is the state has facilities in towns all across the state. They're all serviced by municipal town roads. We're lucky to have the state parks that we have here. They produce a lot of business for our business people like yourself. So I think it goes both ways. And I think that it's not realistic to expect the state to just say, well, we're gonna step it up on Little River Road because it's our park at the end of it. Do we have a signage to do with the house entering that residential area towards I guess Rob where you live. What kind of signs are there as you enter that neighborhood of the house is pretty close to the road that warn of residents or anything like that or is it just a speed limit sign or are there additional signs? Just a speed limit sign. It's just speed limit signs. We have some painted signs that have been up over the years because it's, I've seen them. You have the nice signs out. We're about to step into the not so nice signs which won't work either, but anyway. I think Susan had a comment, Chris, you did. Yeah, I see her. Go ahead. So, this is not a typical situation in many of our state parks where there's town roads in other locations, the town has allowed us to put up some signs for our visitors. Basically, I can't remember verbatim but they pretty much say, please slow down, drive friendly. And if the town of Waterbury would allow us to pull some along Little River Road, we could do that. At least to notify people that as they're driving up the road towards the park and when they're leaving the park that it could act as a reminder, the small tidbit, it doesn't get to enforcement. And we all know that people don't really read signs that well, but in other locations that has helped a little bit. And I can talk to park staff and have them remind people to drive friendly and through the neighborhoods or on the roads as well. If you're making that offer, Susan, I think we can say we'll accept that. We'll accept that. One of those signs on the road, I forgot about that. Jeremy and Amy have one of those signs on their tree? We do. We had gotten in contact, I've called the park repeatedly and asked the rangers that they could remind people when they're checking them in that there is a residential portion of the road. And so the state park people, I believe did drop off that sign and is nice. It's blends in. It doesn't quite... First state park grown. Yeah, exactly. I'm not even sure a lot of people see it and drive friendly is very nice, but I think we're looking for something that speaks a little more strongly. We are worried about our children and our families and our friends. So as much as we love that sign and we do have it in front of our house and we appreciate it, I feel like more is probably needed. That's just... Bill, can you talk a little bit? I know we had made the decision at one point to put one on Guptal and then it got tied in to another project on Guptal, which is a little disappointing that we haven't been able to get that up yet. Yeah, us too. Yeah, I fairly remember the price being somewhere 4,000 or 5,000 per... I think it's about 6,000. 6,000. And then how does it work in terms of... Is that a solar power or does that have to be powered off of a pole? We have two solar powered ones. The one on Route 100, just between Ben & Jerry's and Crossroads, that's actually our sign. The state put it up as part of the Route 100 project, but that is our sign to maintain that solar powered. One of the signs on Stowe Street is solar powered. I think the one on the downhill side of the road is solar powered. We can look into it. Clearly in the neighborhood area there, there's a lot of trees. I don't know whether there's enough solar gain there to make those work, but we can certainly look into that. I've noticed that the one in Stowe seems to be mobile. It looks very similar to the one we have on Stowe Street, but they must be moving the one around, I'm sure, as either on some kind of schedule or they're doing it off of concerns of neighbors or maybe seasonality, but I think there's one in Moscow that comes and goes. So I'm wondering if they're using it in other areas and spreading that investment across a couple of different spots. Yeah, we can look into that as well. There's a couple of types of portable signs. The one that's out on Little River now, is it on wheels? Is it a trailer mounted one? Or I haven't been down there for a while. Trailer mounted and solar, and it's right by Seth and Elena's house, and they have a lovely solar installation from. Okay, so there are portable ones that are on wheels. Village police used to have one of those. It was on Main Street down near the state complex. Somebody who was not paying attention to the speed slammed into it and. The village police also had one that was a small one that could be mounted on signposts. I believe it was solar. And when the village police disbanded because they were purchased with grant money, the village had to give those away to other law enforcement agencies. We tried to keep them so the town could use it. So we can look into those as well, Mark. What about a children playing sign? Those are out of favor now. The state has advised towns that those kind of advisory signs are a liability risk and they shouldn't be put up. We took them down about 15 years ago. I can look into that to see if it's something that is meets with the whatever M, U, T, S, D, the sign code that we have to comply with. So I'm not sure those signs are legal any longer. Also far the conversation has only produced one reasonable idea for me outside of raising fines. And at some point in the future, near future, I'd like to at least take a look at what possibilities are there, if any, but these flashing signs seem to make at least the most financial sense and visible sense at this point. I think we should look into some portable ones. As Mark said, we can move it around the community and we can't afford to have one on every road, that's for sure. Yeah, that's kind of my point. What kind of life is it expected? Like the one on Stow Street, what if you had a best guess, 10 years or what's the? Yeah, I think that's reasonable. So $600 a year versus additional, I mean, if that truly is helping, and I mean hearing just that this portable one has helped just makes me think even more that maybe we need to consider that investment. Well, you know, they're like everything and I don't know if Nat has gotten off, he said that he had to leave early, but I saw some of the comments that you wrote, Mark, and it's true that when you put the signs up, they have an immediate effect, but it's just like everything else. After time goes by, people get numb to them. They see them all the time and, you know, so they're gonna work for a while. And I think that may be why a portable one makes more sense. You can move it in and out and every once in a while it's fresh again in that people. Well, the one thing I'd hate to see is that we make these mediocre efforts to try to curb this problem. And then at one of these meetings, we're talking about somebody's serious injury or death as a result of. The violators continuing to violate and some bad repercussions of it. It seems like any solution, Chris. Yeah. Which is into somebody's pocket. So if we're going to invest money in signs, portable flashing signs, that's gonna reach into your pocket. No, I'm saying that's why. What I'm saying is that I think coupled with the signage is enforcement. And, you know, we may have to hire the county sheriff from time to time to go out and supplement what we have with the state police. I know that costs more money, but. So tell me the logic behind hiring people to give out fines that don't even cover the cost of them pulling the person over and going through the process. Tell me the logic behind that. Well, there is none. You get a fine and you get points on your license, Chris. And if you have enough point goes up, it's, I think it's a deterrent. Okay. Well, I'm gonna get nowhere with this. So. Can I just add that I would like these people who live on this road to keep us updated. And if this is like continues to be a problem, I know it has been in the past, but just like keep us informed. And if you have any ideas, just keep talking to us so that we know. Yeah, I wish you all the best along with everybody else that has to deal with the same type of issues throughout this town, throughout the state. We'll look into those signs, the portable signs and get from there, I guess, huh? Thank you. Bill, I've seen one too that has like a strobe that flashes, I'm sure at a certain price tier. I don't, I feel like some of those work pretty well. I don't know if it'd be annoying for the neighbors, but I feel like, you know, even if it's not just telling you your speed, but just strobing you, if you've gone over a certain speed is another way to deter. Yeah. Oh, there is one that that flashes blue when you reach a certain speed over. Certainly gets your attention. There's a sign on the Moscow road that it says that you're speeding. And as you go down, it even thanks you for slowing down, which is kind of a good, I think a good message, you know, because I know even good people, Chris, as maybe you don't disagree, even good people will occasionally. Well, if I get caught speeding, I expect to get the fine and... Yeah, I think sometimes people need a little reminder occasionally. Yeah. So, my opinion. Question. Theresa, would you have anything to say about this? You've been kind of sitting there idle and I'd like to hear from you about it there, if you don't mind. Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. Hi. Well, I... There is no easy answer. I think that's the biggest issue. There's no one size fits all in any of these situations because you have town roads, you have state roads, you have roads that we control, roads that we don't control. And, you know, I think that I'm not sure that, you know, raising the fines to some level that people won't be able to pay is really going to be effective in what you wanna do. It's an education campaign and continual. It's continual. It's just like, you know, trying to get people to do the right thing. Well, you can't get everybody to do the right thing. You know, the governor's been trying to get everybody to wear a mask, but that's not happening everywhere. Even when we're talking about, you know, potential life and death situations for some people. So, it's unfortunately not something that I think, you know, frankly, I just don't think the solution that you were thinking about, Chris, would be practical. But we wouldn't know until we tried, but that's not an option, apparently. Yes, so one thing, I'm not sure what Vermont laws are around this. And I think I agree with Chris that a financial punishment, I don't know if I necessarily agree with increasing them, but just the fact is something that definitely slows people down. We can't afford to have police everywhere. We don't want police everywhere, but we're in an age of automation and there are plenty of countries and states within our union that allow speed signs that take a picture of a license plate and you get a letter. You can't avoid it. It's way better than any police officer whether a fine is associated or not. What are the statutes around that type of control? That's definitely a big brother. I'm not super comfortable with it, but it's one way to do it and you don't have a police officer for it. I don't know what the laws are about that, but I recall Burlington doing that, particularly right there at the base of Main Street and I can't remember what that intersection is there, but right by the courthouse, that intersection down there. So I'm wondering, I think that they had to post notices that that was going to happen and then I think that there's some notice on it, but it flashes at you and it's taking your picture essentially, yes. So apparently it's permissible. It sounds like it's something that's under local control, but I don't know that for sure. Great way to generate some revenue in a time like we're in right now across Guptill Road, Loomis, all over this town. No, that's a terrific idea, Rob. And I just, I thought that something like that, probably nobody would even want to think about doing, but- Well, I'm not sure- It would definitely be a deterrent. It would definitely be a deterrent. I think it also would be a lightning rod. I mean, when the traffic lights went, the new traffic lights went in at Park Row and Main Street and there's cameras on them to help the traffic signals, the computer and phone lit up from people mad because we had to be taking pictures to enforce stopping at the traffic light. So I can look into it to see if it's legal, but I would suspect that you'll have a lot of people complaining about being a big brother. I'm not saying not to do it. It wouldn't hurt my feelings. I'm just saying- Yeah, well- It would be a polarizing issue. And I'm not, I guess I'm not, I don't know, the application for it. I just at a personal level right now the situation we had above some freedoms to try to solve that. I think it's probably the best strategy, but anytime you drive on our interstate system going down to New Hampshire, your picture's being taken. If you blow through a toll road, like you're gonna get a letter and you're gonna have to mail them back $3.50 and no one is freaking out about that. Just something to think about. I'm not gonna go any further with that one. We can put it on the agenda along with just looking at the speeding tickets just for the heck of it. Okay, I think we've beat this horse long enough unless somebody else has something really important. We can move on. I just wanna say thank you to all of you for putting this on the agenda. And it's interesting to be part of the Democratic process. Thank you. Yeah, we lost you a little bit there, Rob. But I feel for all of you people that live on Little River because we're faced with the same thing here on Gupto and throughout the town. So we all know what we're all going through. Appreciate your time on it. Okay, mask ordinance. Mark. Yeah, I had a couple people from Waterbury. Thank you, Susan. Bring up those mask ordinance and asking that Waterbury consider a similar ordinance. I believe it has to do with anyone who is in the public vicinity of others is requiring a mask. I think some of it is protecting in communities that are heavily tourist based, which Waterbury definitely has out of state tourism that is starting to open up more and more. I have restaurants in Stowe and we follow the mandate and hasn't really affected our ability to do business. I think personally it's probably the right thing to consider. But again, I wanted to bring it up to the select board. I think the one thing that is difficult as a business owner is feeling sometimes that you might have to do certain safety things that the state is not asking us to do and trying to create a level playing field that all businesses are playing within that if I decide to say masks are required in my business and another business doesn't do that, am I actually putting myself at risk of losing some business? I don't know. But I just think that more and more data seems to be coming out to support the use of masks. I think we're seeing more and more states do it. And I think we as a town should really consider doing a mandate I don't know for what period of time but I just think the safety of our constituents we need to really consider it. So I had a discussion with a galley of the day who works for a business down here in town and she is somehow associated with the Lake Eden homeowners association. And because of the governor's turn of the spigot allowing people from out of state to come back in here under quarantine circumstances back when that was a requirement. There was a gentleman that was supposedly coming out from California to visit his relatives at Eden, Lake Eden and she spoke with this gentleman and said if you come you'll have to quarantine for two weeks and you'll have to wear a mask. And he blatantly told her I'm not doing either or. So there's certain people out there that under no circumstances they have probably like you said Mark they'll avoid your restaurant if you require masks and probably go somewhere else. That's a tough issue to deal with like the one we just talked about. Are you back open 100% what's your status? We're open in the reservoir restaurant and the bench restaurant the other one's not open yet but we are requiring masks if you come in dying or pick up, take out. I just. Is it just your employees, the staff and yourself or are you talking to patrons as well? Patrons as well and I actually have plenty of employees that are concerned about their safety and their family member safety and their small group of family members that they interact with parents and grandparents and stuff like that. I did paste in Stowe's mask mandate. I just found online for everyone if you wanted to take a look at what they decided to do. It's in. How do people dine if they, I mean, can you explain that a little bit? They just pull their mask down. Yeah, you just basically put your mask on until you're seated and then if you get up to use the bathroom you have to put your mask back on. If you walk in and grab a pick out you have to be wearing your mask. I believe Stowe it's basically any public forum so it would be restaurants, retail stores, I think even if you're walking down the street and you get within six feet of someone else you really should be wearing a mask as well. I'll read this while we're sitting here but I'd be interested to hear what the other members have to say. Mike, Katie. So didn't we or did we not receive an email from a community member a couple of weeks ago about the same topic and then we kind of discussed it and it was always that problem of how are we gonna reinforce it? Like I also work in Stowe and what Mark just said that's what we have to do but I also go up on the bike path and I bring my mask with me and I wear it but not everybody I encounter is wearing it and that's age groups from the elderly, dense people having their kids in a stroller. So I'm for it if that makes our community feel safer. I mean, I feel like everybody has their mask in their vehicle anyway but how are we gonna stop every person we see not wearing it? We can put up a sign that says, hey, Waterbury requires that you wear a mask wherever you go in public but how are we all with all of our jobs and whatnot gonna require and stop every person we see not following that rule? Yeah, so you're right, Katie. A couple of weeks ago this did come up and the select vote at that time said we were you were concerned about how it could be enforced and decided to really take no action. That was what happened, I think two meetings ago. I just briefly looked at what Mark sent to us. If you notice it, you know, it says the Stowe promise it says on there that wearing a mask is required by a resolution of the town of Stowe. So that is not an ordinance. I don't think it hurts to pass a resolution such as that. Stowe has one of the electronic signs that we were just talking about on route 100 as you enter and it talks about the Stowe promise and wearing a mask is required but that is not a legally enforceable ordinance. That's a resolution of the town select ordinance Stowe. So it's really high level invitation request if you will, asking people to wear masks. I don't believe that is enforceable by any kind of fine from what I briefly am able to read on there. But, you know, it's something that if you want to consider I don't think we unless you want to copy exactly what Stowe has said it's not anything that you can really do tonight but I think this is really a resolution of the town of Stowe and it's a strong request if you will but I don't think anybody in Stowe can find anyone if they're not wearing a mask based on what I see here. But what happens is the businesses end up, you know wanting to follow these resolutions each business that I know of in Stowe, you know follows it and kind of polices their own space. So it ends up being policed at least for the public spaces that our businesses pretty well. I don't think Katie, you have to think that we need we as the select board would need to go around and police this, but I think the community as a general is already starting to do that with just social considerations but I think us speaking as a town and saying that masks should be worn in the presence of others I think is something that I would support and I would hope others would as well. I kind of agree with what Bill sent them in. Just, you know, as much as I'm very pro wearing masks and I tend to wear a mask all over but I do believe it's gonna be so unenforceable and I think the best way to really enforce it is the business community saying you are not welcome in our business if you're not wearing a mask and I've seen some businesses require mask usage and I think that's the best way to get people, you know and that, you know some businesses may have to go the extra step say, yes, we don't, you know you're not welcome in our store if you don't wear a mask for your safety as well as the safety of our other customers and but I just find it hard to people walking around town you know, I don't know if we're ever gonna get to the point where we're gonna have the mask police I don't think we're gonna see we're gonna be giving summons out for masks I think it's more of a feel good kind of thing and I think it's social pressure I have mentioned to people I say, you know it's really something that you really should think about wearing a mask, you're endangering other people and I think if more people did that I know a lot of people feel very uncomfortable about that because, you know, it's not an easy thing to do but, you know, we have to put pressure to people who are not wearing masks you know, I get every time I see the news and I see people on beaches I see people in parks all not wearing masks and socially distancing, it just infuriates me and I just think, I hate to pass something that's not gonna, you know, it's more of a feel good matter my opinion. Teresa, do you have something to say there? You turned your mic on so I didn't know if you guys use the little hands or not so I'll lower my hand I'm used to using the hands in the legislature. Yes, I feel it's unfortunate that we don't have a statewide mandate. Mandate? Mandate, yeah, about this but I would definitely support something similar to Stowe. One, because we are a tourist destination and two, I think that it's not fair to the businesses to have them just say, okay this is what I'm doing for my business and for my employees and the customers that come in here that it makes it more uniform and it gives the businesses and it feels supportive to businesses to me to say, you know, we're behind you we understand the pressures that this is causing and they're able to say, this is a town, you know whatever it is ordinance or resolution this is a town resolution in Waterbury and Stowe it's happening in more and more communities so I would be in support of something like this and I don't think it's something speaking to Mike's concerns about enforcement I don't think it's an enforcement I don't view it as important I look at this as social enforcement and the ability of business owners to say, hey you know our select board has said this is something that we believe is gonna keep our community safer safer for you as visitors, safer for our residents safer for our workers and safer for our businesses and I feel like it's something that we could do to actually support our businesses as they struggle through this uncertain time thank you. Good, Teresa. You want to say something? MK? Yes, sorry. Sorry, Don and I are dual and computers. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I think having a mask ordinance is a good thing. Resolution. Resolution, not ordinance, resolution I just think it sends a message and I like what Teresa said that then it might take some pressure off the businesses as well, but I personally don't go into a business without a mask and if employees in the business aren't wearing masks I walk out of the business. It's yeah, so I think I like the idea of that. Wow, the Northeast Kingdom. You wouldn't do much business up there because any of the businesses you walk in up in the Northeast Kingdom that I've been to, none of them wear masks. They keep their distance and they've got shields up but the majority of them they haven't worn any masks. So as part of this discussion to maybe kill two birds with one stone here I think maybe dragging this coronavirus conversation into this because it's obviously that's what we're talking about. The potential for, I guess my concern is the potential for what I would call our turn at it. We haven't had our turn at this virus impact yet. In other words, the hospitalization, the cases and such it has impacted our businesses and seems to impact our municipality shut down. People are being furloughed and with this bigot being opened up even more and the influx of people from out of state I mean, it's just like it was before the pandemic amount of people coming in from out of state and you know, most of them aren't quarantining. I spoke to a couple that simply said, hey, our area is clean. We came up here and there was no more cases where we were and yada, yada, yada but I think we're gonna get our turn at it here at some point. So I'm just wondering if we pass this resolution, Mark how many businesses you think are gonna be on board with it? I mean, I think a lot of people won't understand what a resolution is and they're just gonna put up a sign that says we're following what the town has requested and they'll police it. I think it's as simple as that. And I think it makes a level playing field and like you said, I do believe that we're not out of it and it terrifies me as a business owner and I think a lot of other business owners and staff of those businesses are scared. A lot of them are scared even to come back to work. So I think anything as a town that we say we're with you we understand the potential risks that we're taking to try to do business in this environment and sometimes we're gonna have to say things that as a town that we believe are the right and safe thing to do and talking about the Northeast Kingdom and I don't believe that if all of a sudden you say a mask mandate is in the town I don't believe that business is gonna come to a screeching halt. Some people are gonna complain about wearing masks but in the end of the day I think we're doing what we can to try to protect the community. So to me, I think it is very reasonable to consider I think it's just, I would hate to think if we do have any kind of outbreak in this town you can see it's similar to what you know the conversations surrounding Winooski and some of the other towns it could really hurt our ability to get through this whether it's my business or any of the other businesses and I'm here speaking as the larger business community and I believe a lot of businesses would support this. I mean, my mind is just boggled that we're even having this discussion because six months ago there was nothing wrong. It just, it's horrible to think that we got to go through this. I'm sorry somebody was starting to speak there before it docked. Yeah, this is Noah Fishman. Go ahead. Yeah, I just want to second that, you know it is tough being a business owner and trying to make public health decisions. I think the more that we can point to, I mean, we're doing, we're requiring masks at our businesses and it clearly seems to be the right thing to do for every business right now. And I think getting the town support that yes, the town-wide ordinance. I mean, people do ask us, you know if it's something we're requiring or if it's something the state's requiring and that be out, you kind of feel out alone trying to mandate something that is really a public health decision and it's difficult. And, you know, we have to answer to our staff to our customers. And I think the more the town can show leadership the more it's going to help, you know and support the rest of the businesses in town who are doing things right. And, you know, one bad actor in this town in terms of the business or just, you know happenstance, but the more we can prevent this happening, a breakout in Waterbury that's going to benefit the whole town. And, you know, we're fighting to survive here and I think we really need all the support we can get to keep COVID out of our town so we can keep to, you know the scraps that we have left to try to get through this year to just try to sustain ourselves. So I very much support the initiative there. Chris? Yes. One of the things if, because sometimes I just was picking up on what Noel was just saying about making public having businesses, making public health decisions. And I think that's a difficult place to put businesses in. And so one of the things that I urge the select board to consider is maybe having our health officer look at the, look at the stow and there are other communities that have done that and have her give us her opinion about from a public health perspective since we have a public health officer to look at that and see if she would recommend it. Yeah. Well, whether you want to agree with us or not I know there's a lot of conflicting information out there as to, you know, the positives and the negatives of the masks. So I guess, you know, it's a tough call getting people convinced to want to do it. It's going to be difficult. But I agree, Theresa, we certainly could have the health officer take a look at what stow has gotten in place and come back to the board here maybe for the next meeting unless you think, Mark, that it needs to be done sooner than that. I just, I am concerned with time, of course. My other concern is exactly what Noah's saying. When we, when this pandemic started, we didn't know how to point to and a lot of us as business owners were starting to close our businesses before the state told us to. And that's a stress that I don't know how to explain but when you have your employees and the general public saying, what are you doing still open? Why are you still open? A very similar stress is happening right now of why are you trying to do business? Are you doing the safest things possible? And one of which is requiring mask usage. So I think to Noah's point, as business owners, it's really nice to point to the town or the state and say, we're following the directive of the town and the state. Don't blame me for creating hard rules or closing the business down or trying to continue to do business. We believe the state's trying to do everything they can to protect us through its rule base. But sometimes I think communities, you're seeing it, I think Burlington might have it, but I mean, obviously Stowe felt the need to do it. And I'm sure it has to do with them knowing that they're entering tourist season and out of state people are coming. And as many of you are well aware, Waterbury becomes another crossroads for out of status to come into our town. And that is where my concern is, unlike maybe the Northeast Kingdom might not see it nearly as much as we will, but I mean, I see it driving around in Waterbury right now. There's plenty of out of state plates around. So would you think that if you passed this resolution that businesses may post on or should post on their doors that we agree with the resolution that's been put forward by the town and that if you wanna come in and do business, you have to have a mask? How would you structure this resolution? Bill, maybe you can speak that. So here's a great example, right? I'm a select boardman. I have businesses in two communities. As far as I knew it was a rule. I didn't even know the definition of resolution but I followed it as a business. I was gonna do it anyways, but to me it helped that. I mean, to me, just having the way to point it out, but I don't really care about fines as much as just maybe the community embracing it more and having somewhere to point to. But I don't know. I mean, I guess to this point, I understand that it doesn't seem to have guts behind it but I feel like if we do this, the business community will support it with signage. Can we require signage as a resolution or how does that work? Mark, I have a question in the resolution that I'm assuming that you may be proposing. Are you looking at mask usage just for indoor requirements or versus everything outdoors as well? I think it would just be in the presence of others. I don't know if we have to even define a spatial. So presence of others, indoor or outdoor. So it means if you're off walking by yourself, you don't have to be wearing a mask, but if you're about to interact with somebody, you should have your mask up. Like if you look at like the CDC requirements, they talk about if you're socially distancing, especially being outside, I don't think they're requiring mask usage. And I'd be more apt to have something for indoor locations where COVID is much readily spread. And I think mask usage is much more needed in indoor requirements than at the outdoors. Maybe that's, I can- I'll tell you, I'd be hard pressed to sit in an excavator all day long with a mask on and probably not gonna happen. I don't think that's what I would be proposing. I really think it has to do with interaction between two people, not someone sitting there in their car or in an excavator or something like that. All right, yeah. So this is Bill. You know, if you wanted to simply adopt what Stowe has, dilution and just change the words to town of Waterbury. I don't know, can you read what you sent, Mark? It's the print is a little blurred and small. You read where it says supporting local economy, economic recovery, can you read what that says there? Is it saying the town is purchasing masks? Bill, where would I find that? Mark, if you go on to try to get to the chat, Mark sent a link in the chat. The town of Stowe gave all the residents masks for you. Okay. Did I lose you? Are you still there, Bill? Yeah, I'm here. Yeah, they're moving. What are you looking for, Doug? I was looking for that, the ordnance set. I'm a little computer illiterate, so you don't have to forgive me. It's not what I do. At the bottom of your screen in the middle, there's a little bubble that says chat. Yeah, I clicked on that. I clicked on that and looked over to the right. You should see the link that Mark sent in the chat room. Bill, do you want me to just read this? Yeah, if you can read that, because I can't read it. So the Stowe promise, while the world has already endured so much as a result of COVID-19, there are still many challenges to come. Long-term consequences are still uncertain, and it is also important to remember that while we are in this together, our individual experiences may be very different. As we enter this new phase of recovery, we ask the Stowe community to join us in support of what we're calling the Stowe promise, promoting health safety. We slash I commit to following the health and safety guidelines and requirements provided by the governor of the state of Vermont and the Stowe select, personally and in my business or organization, upholding community values. We slash I commit to creating a sense of belonging for all our community members, supporting local economic recovery. We slash I commit to supporting local businesses and organizations by purchasing, donating local as much as possible and or by lending a helping hand to businesses that need and want it. I recognize that our local businesses and organizations need patience, understanding and the support to recover from the economic shutdown and are operating under new norms. Practicing respectful civic participation, we slash I commit to performing my civic responsibility and using my voice to address societal concerns in a respectful way. So the only place that says anything about masks is up in the top where it says masks are required in the presence of others, right? Correct. So what? Do it. That's my vote. There's a link in the chat to the actual resolution where they reference the Stowe promise and they say a little bit more about employees of Stowe are required and other people are encouraged. But the actual language is in the chat now. I'll close this like for resolution. Okay. All list the attorney in me, but masks are required in the presence of others is very vague. Very vague, you said, Mike? Yes. So basically says employees must wear face coverings when in the presence of others. In the case of retail cashiers, a translucent shield or sneeze guard is acceptable and low of mask. Businesses and nonprofit government entities may require customers or clients to wear masks while on the premises. Yeah, when I drove through Stowe, I saw people outside sitting at tables, enjoying dinners and whatnot. And many of them didn't have masks on, but then there were others who didn't. So it's kind of a 50-50 mix. I mean, it even says in here, while it's recognized that compliance is mandatory for employees, it is also recognizing that there's no enforcement mechanism requiring residents or visitors to wear face coverings. The intent is to set the example and encourage voluntary cooperation, not confrontation. Yep. Right. In the resolution itself, which is in that second post that was signed, it does say that that whereas Stowe business and community leaders have developed the Stowe promise, I wear a mask when I go in any business myself. I have it with me here at the office. We have people come in now and we're in presence of people around the vault. We all try to wear masks. I'm not opposed to what we're doing, but that resolution says that the town of Stowe, along with the Stowe business community, generated this resolution and this promise. Are you prepared to do that? We've got, you know, one business person here, two, three business people. That was my other concern. So are we ready to do this tonight is my question. I mean. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to go to RW. Maybe that's talk to Karen tomorrow and see if she believes that the community would support it. I mean, I believe she would or the group would. If the concern is that the business community is going to push back heavily against this, but I really don't see that. But I mean, I haven't even heard that in Stowe. I feel like, you know, a lot of people understand why these are, why these resolutions are coming out. Yeah, guys like Billings mobile who's got an influx of construction workers every morning just piling into that place and very few of them, young guys, older guys in and out and just, I don't know how that would impact somebody like Rick, financially, if I mean, all his employees, the staffs got masks and they got shields up at the cashier's counter. Um, I mean, they're allowing people to go into restaurants and sit down at tables of under 10 people and everyone can take their math up once they're seated. So basically they would need to wear their mask to enter Billings mobile. And then once they sit down, they could pull their masks down as far as I know. Yeah, there's not much sitting down in Billings inside. They took the tables all the way, but I'm just talking about guys going in and getting their breakfast stuff and they're in and out. And they're not, I mean, you can count them one after another. Construction workers aren't, go ahead, Mike. I mean, I think if you wanted to adopt this resolution from Stowe, looking at the resolution itself, if you can find that, the first paragraph is fine. It talks about employees, which certainly have the ability to control that. Whereas the CDC has a vice cloth face coverings, whereas the select board desires to have their voice encouraging the community to follow the government's executive order. If you wanted to just leave out the paragraph that says, whereas Waterbury business and community leaders have developed the Waterbury promise, you don't think we need to have the Waterbury promise, you could take that paragraph out and pass it tonight if you wanted to, and then circulate it, it's... Doesn't that paragraph though, have the mask in the presence of others? It's like the last sentence of it. To me, Mark, that promise is saying, like if you have outdoor seating at your restaurant and you're in the presence of fellow people, you should be wearing masks. And I think that's gonna create a problem because I know a lot of times, that's the whole idea with outdoor seating is that the idea is it's something where it's open air, it's you're gonna tend to know your fellow diners and you're gonna have some reasonable trust in who you're dining with that you could not wear a mask in that situation. Plus, are you gonna have a mask on and every time you take a bite, take it down to... Yeah, I don't think we have to get, I think people understand what they can and can't do there. To answer your question, Mark, the whereas, the second whereas says, whereas Waterbury select board desires to add their voice, encourage the community to follow the governor's executive order regarding COVID-19 and to promote community acceptance of the wearing of face coverings to help protect the public health and welfare. You could incorporate, it also recognizes the best practice which includes wearing a face mask in the presence of others. You could incorporate that last sentence of the Stoke Promise part into the paragraph above and just not say the Waterbury business community leaders have developed the Stoke or the Waterbury Promise and have voted to support it. So, Bill, how does social distancing play into this? Is there any consideration for that in this resolution as far as if, should there be a clause in there that says if social distancing can't be achieved, masks must be worn or what? Is it getting too complicated? Well, it does. You're right on track, Chris, because that's where the CDC guidelines are specified if you should socially distance if masks cannot be done. And I think that's a reasonable way to look at things is that socially distancing will have as much of a positive effect as mask use. So, is social distancing in the eyes of the beholder? No, social distancing is I think six feet or greater. I think that's very well established by CDC and others, some people are taking it even farther, but I think six feet is the adopted standard. Bill's showing some frustration. Well, it just doesn't seem like we have consensus enough tonight. And if it, the only way you can do it tonight is to basically copy with some minor modifications what Stowe has. We're not gonna do it tonight then Mark can reach out to RW. Yeah, that sounds like something written for the next meeting. It's just, oh, it's two weeks goes by before you have this and... Yeah, and I mean, I'll comment again. I have a business in Stowe and I'm not, this is already in place and I'm on the SAA board in Stowe and it has not been a business community freak out at all. I have seen zero communications from any businesses complaining about this ordinance. And I would actually ask that we do this tonight. I think time is of the essence. We obviously saw how quickly this pandemic spread across the entire world and anything we can do as a community, I just think weeks or months right now in terms of just in the environment and we're all just starting, a lot of us are just starting to open our businesses again. Katie, Mike, do you have the stomach to wanna see this through tonight or would you rather? I don't, there are several things that bother me as it sits, I would not vote in the affirmative as much as I'm very pro mask usage. Katie? I mean, I would be for it if you reworded it to fit us and yeah, I would be for it. Bill, can I just simplify it as the resolution as wearing a face mask in the presence of others? And I mean, some of this other stuff seems like we already have to follow the state mandates where every business is following the ACCD rules governing each type of business. So really the only thing we're really talking about is this wearing face mask in presence of others. And I mean, we're recognizing that this is, you know, the compliance for mandatory for employees already exists within the ACCD guidelines. So really it's just us as a town saying you should be wearing a mask, you know, that right now the state is not requiring customers to wear face coverings to enter businesses. Mark, I'd be for that if you would include the fact that you wear a face mask if you cannot socially distance. Right, that would make me at a better comfort level as well. And as a time is of the essence thing to Mark's point, we do have big tourist weekends coming up, like La Crosse weekend in style. We're expecting like, you know, hundreds of extra people. So I would agree at the time it's of the essence. Well, there's a big difference. I hear what Chris and Michael are saying, but if you're going to stipulate wearing a mask, if you can't social distance, that's not wearing a mask. There's a big difference between what Mark is asking for, which is Pottery asks people to wear a mask when entering businesses. It's, you know, if you're gonna say, if you can't socially distance, well then that's not wearing a mask. So we don't have consensus yet. Because the socially distancing takes into my concern about outdoor usage. Someone who's in one part of Dack Row Park and another, you know, people may say, well, you're in my area, you know, even though you may be 30 feet away and I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but I think this is more for indoor usage. And I don't want this to be, I don't know, called the libertarian in me. I mean, we could at least start with some form of wording that talks about inside the businesses require. I think, you know, I really think you're overthinking this. If it's really something that you feel is important, Stowe has done this. The people in Stowe are not significantly different than the people in Waterbury. No, I agree. If the people in Stowe have a resolution that says, you wear a mask while you're in the premise, you're in the presence of others, not fistfights breaking out in Stowe because people are 30 feet apart and saying, hey, you're in my space. I mean, I really don't think that this resolution at the very bottom says it is recognized that the compliance is mandatory for employees. It is also recognized there is no enforcement mechanism requiring residents or visitors to wear a face covering. It's meant to set an example and to encourage voluntary cooperation. That kind of fits into Mike's concern, I think, right? Yeah, it's the real concern is, as someone said, I see a lot of people in Stowe still not wearing masks. So it's, you know, it's a little bit of a feel good thing. You know, as much as I agree, everyone, you know, I say to some people, especially when they get in my face, I say, please six foot distance aside or put on a mask. And I don't care if I get dirty looks, but I think, you know, a lot of people are afraid and I don't necessarily think this is gonna be, it's a nice step. It's a nice thing, as Mark says, for enforcement for the business, because they could say, well, the select board has said this, that part I like, it gives a little bit of, you know, power to the businesses to say, yes, the select board has done this, but the whole outdoor thing does bother me a little bit. And I could say it's the unintended consequences, but, you know- It does not say anything about outdoors here at all. There's nothing in the Stowe resolution that uses the word outdoor. It says in the presence of others. MK. What's the harm? Seriously, what's the harm in just resolving this? Put this out there. I don't think there's gonna be a problem. And we have about seven people who have been here two hours ready to talk about the next meeting agenda item. So I just wanna put a plug in for that. I agree. I was about ready to say, let's put this thing forward and let it go where, well, I'll let the chips follow where they may, and- Well, I'll attempt to make a motion, but Bill, I might need your help with this. I'll make a motion that the town of Waterbury recognizes that best practices, which include wearing a face mask in the presence of others. And while it's recognized that compliance is mandatory for employees, it is also recognized that there is no enforcement mechanism requiring residents or visitors to wear a face covering. The intent is to set an example and to encourage voluntary cooperation, not confrontation. Is there a second to that? I second that, I can live with that more. Okay, Katie got to your first there. So Katie seconded it. No further discussion? Well, Bill? So Mark, what you said is very simple. It doesn't, it's not in the form of a resolution like the stove thing is. The option would be the stove resolution, take out the section where it says the community leaders have developed the stove promise or the Waterbury promise, don't have that at all. Have everything else the same and just say, whereas the select board desires to add its voice, encouraging the community to follow the governor's executive order regarding COVID-19, to promote community acceptance of wearing a face mask or face coverings in the presence, while in the presence of others to protect the public health and welfare, now therefore be resolved that employees are required to and people entering municipal buildings are encouraged to wear face coverings or an acceptable substitute and leave everything else the same. Does everyone have visibility to this? And can I just pass this as Bill, or can I request that we pass it as Bill described or do I need to read, try to read? I think you need to amend your first motion, correct? Or what, Bill? Well, he can just, he can, the second friend, he can just say, I don't want to, that's not my motion and just accept this one instead. I'll accept Bill's suggestion and with those changes. Well, either- Now does Carla, does Carla have that? Absolutely not. So either Bill or Mark. I've got it. I'll get it from Bill. Okay. All right, so motion's been made to accept Bill's version of the resolution for face mask. Is there a second? Second. Okay. No further discussion, hearing none. All those in favor to accept the resolution, please say aye. Aye. And Mark, maybe, I mean, this should be signed by the select board. Carla is open for appointees. I think, you know, at least three of you can get in to sign it in the next, you know, we'll probably be ready tomorrow. I'll try to write it up tonight before I go home. But Mark, maybe you could talk with Karen and once it's signed, we can get it to her and then she can maybe make copies and distribute it to the business community. Sounds good. So Mike, I didn't hear from you there. Are you in there on that? Oh, I voted yes. Okay, I can't hardly see you there in the background, so. Okay. Dark in the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rolled it on the agenda and I know it took time, but I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Mark. Okay, so it's... Senator Chris. Yeah, so it's moving on here in time. So the select board needs to appoint a representative for the energy plan committee. It's also, it wasn't put on the agenda properly and that's my fault, but at your last meeting, you asked for the volunteers, the energy committee is going to be comprised of a couple members of the public. Right. One board, some members of LEAP, a select board member and a staff person. So there were two members of the public that have expressed interest for appointment. Curtis Osler, Daniel, is it... What's the name, Carla? VDAC. VDAC. Can you spell that? V-E-I-E-E-C-K. And I believe they both have spoken with Duncan. I know Daniel has. Yeah, I know Curtis has too. Yeah. Daniel works at the University of Vermont, you said, Carla? At the center. At least that's what his email tag was. Do we either of the candidates have an energy background? I don't know anything about them. I don't think so. Okay, no resumes or anything. No. So we need to pick a representative from the select board and also nominate those. Curtis Osler and Daniel. Point them. Point them, yeah. To the energy plan committee. I can tell you right up front, I don't have any time as much as I wouldn't mind doing something like that. Being part of that energy plan committee, I am tapped out on time personally. So can someone say at the time commitment would be? They're gonna have their first meeting in September. My recommendation is that the select board would appoint Duncan to be the chairperson. He seems to be the driving force behind this. I think he's willing to do it. And then Leap will appoint some others. And if the select board would be willing, I think the staff person who is on the committee will kind of rotate between myself and Steve Lott's speech and Bill Woodruff maybe. But I don't know, I think the committee, Mark, is gonna kind of set its agenda at the first meeting. I don't know how many times they're planning to meet. I would be happy to participate. I can probably find some time in September, but not right now. Let's hope, huh? Okay. So Bill, the committee, I mean, we get a point, Duncan, and you're assuming that the committee would be satisfied with that, that what I'm understanding? Yeah, I think so. So you've got four right now that we're appointing to this energy plan committee. Kurt Osler, Daniel Bedeck, Duncan McDougal as chair, and Mark Friar from the select board. Am I correct? They asked, should they be separate motions for the select board member, the public member, and then Duncan's chair? I think I'll be done in one motion. I think they can do it in one if they, I think they can do it in one motion, Carol. I make a motion to approve the folks that were presented by unanimous vote. Second. Okay, we have a motion to appoint Kurt Osler, Daniel Bedeck, Duncan McDougal as chair, and Mark Friar to the newly formed, what will be the newly formed energy plan committee. Is Katie, you seconded it? Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Can I vote on that? Or do I, can I vote on myself? You can vote, yeah, you can vote. Is that a name, Mark? Okay, very good. It's getting late. We're all getting tired here. I was tired before the meeting even started. Okay, use of banner polls at the art against racism, for art against racism. I think this is carried over from the last meeting as well. Yeah, so I got an email from Teresa last week who suggested that the people who had to the select board approached RW about the bottom of the bridge. I think there was some frank conversations about the challenges of working with the railroad and Teresa reached out to me and asked about some banners. And I suggested that probably the select board should be made aware of it. And I also asked the Rotary Club to weigh in because the Rotary Club, I believe, was the organization that actually donated and paid for the banner polls going up. They're certainly a community facility now and they do belong to the town. And I think the, well, Teresa's part of the Rotary Club, she's still on. I have not heard anything from them suggesting that they would not be willing to allow this. And Don and MK are here to talk about it as well, I guess. So without introduction, I'm finished. Well, thanks, Bill. And thank you to the select board for having us here. Kind of being part of this meeting bring its back memories for me. I can see why you're not on the board. I can see why you're not on the board anymore. I do appreciate the time. And we have a variety of folks from that coalition that are here. And simply what we wanna do is since the banner polls were put up to advertise upcoming events, which is what it's been used for, this is a little different. This is a sign that's gonna support Black Lives Matter. And since it was a little different than advertising an event, we wanted to come to the board, as Bill said, and get your approval and endorsement of the sign. I don't know if you saw a copy of it, Carla, if it came or Bill sent it to you, or? A copy of it. A copy of it. I didn't see it. Yeah, so the proposed design is a banner that'll obviously go between the two posts. And it has dark green trees in the front, like lighter green mountains with some clouds and blue sky that says, Waterbury stands with Black Lives Matter. And that's what the banner looks like. I just wanna be clear, it's not the black and white one that you see around town and around the country. So we're looking for the select board to support this as representatives of the community, of our greater community, and endorse that this banner can be put up. And in addition, we wanna then continue with some other banners throughout the year. We're not sure the timeframe, it could be up for a month or so, and come up with another one that we would come back to the select board and we'll let you know what that one says, et cetera. So we felt this was a quicker way to get the word out and get support for people of color in our community. Then a mural is gonna be a longer process. The banner polls as well can host more than one banner. I think there's a ability to have three there or four. Four. So putting this Black Lives Matter banner up will not preclude other banners from being put up there as well. Just so the select board knows, I believe the banners that advertise events are allowed up two weeks in advance of the event and they're supposed to come down right after the event is over. I'm assuming, Dawn, that your request is to allow this to stay up for an indefinite period of time. You're suggesting that maybe it will be rotated out, but it's not gonna come down in the normal two weeks. Correct, correct. And I know, Theresa, you said the rotary is that it did approve the use of the polls, correct? The, yes, I brought this up with Al Lewis. We didn't have a club discussion about it, but I brought it up with our current president, Dan McKibbin and Al Lewis since Al really was the mastermind behind the engineering feat of putting up that structure. And we all said, this is something that was our rotary gift to the town. If there's any adjustment or exception made to the guidelines and they are just guidelines, then we leave that up to the town, but we didn't have any problem with it now. Other people from the coalition, any other comments that you wanna add? You're actually pretty quiet about it. I think just to summarize. Hang on, hang on, M.K. Theresa, I'm putting that on record. I'm being recorded. Thank you. What was the question? Any other questions or comments? Oh, that I, we're still thinking about, we're still not just thinking, we're still working on the mural and gonna be moving that process forward, but it is a lengthy process. And we feel like this is something that we need to get out there now, our message in support of Black Lives Matter. And, you know, I just think it's an ongoing thing. And that's, I think that's all I wanted to say. Theresa, you wanna finish it off? Yeah, I was just gonna say, just to summarize what we're looking for is, to have the banner up for an extended period of time, to switch it out periodically. We don't have a specific timeframe, but with similar messages in support of Black Lives and to situate it such that the banner structure will still be able to support three additional banners. So this banner would only be the width and depth of one banner, wouldn't take up more than one space. Mike, you look like you wanna say something. Chris? Yeah. This is, am I wrong, but is this a big change from what we heard at the last meeting? Because what I heard at the last meeting, I thought it was gonna be images of Black people in history and such. And I didn't hear kind of, you know, much in terms of wording and it's out. That was the mural they were talking about, Mike. That was the mural we were talking about when the abutments, MK's. Maroni here, if I can jump in. Yeah, MK had her hand up first there. That's okay, Maroni, go ahead. Oh, okay, she's conceding to you then. Go ahead. Thank you, MK. Thanks again for this discussion. Mike, you are correct. This is still part of that conversation. And as Don said earlier, I think we are still thinking about the mural because of the process, we want something to go up now. So while we are still figuring out what that mural would look like and to navigate through the hoops of getting that done, we want to have something immediate to stand up with what's really a worldwide movement right now. And so we thought about doing the banner now while we still continue to have the conversation about what the mural would look like. And eventually when we are there, we will bring that back to the select board and present what that might look like. So this is not in lieu of the mural, it's just an adjunct to it. Correct. Okay. I met with the group to talk about the process that we used for the train sculpture. And there was some serious discussion about, do we want this to be a community-wide project? Do we want it to be a project? I'm not talking about the banners now, I'm talking about the art project. Do we want the art project to really involve a grassroots effort from our community? Where, what's the best location for it? What are the obstacles to the location? What are the things that we need to look at in terms of fundraising? It's a much more in-depth project to have something that is going to be meaningful and lasting than what we want to do in terms of having support for a message right now and support for the people of color in our community. So then this idea came up about the banner structure and the location being as you enter into the community. And we thought that this could be an interim step, if you will, like Maroney was just speaking of to show the community how we support people of color and the visitors to our community. So that's what this is about. Yeah, it's not to replace the concept of artwork in the future, but realizing that that's going to take a much longer process. Thank you. Did we, what's the timeframe for this? And does that need to be part of the motion? I think what we'd be looking for is hopefully, you just authorizing Bill to work with the committee in terms of it's handled right now by the rec department. Nick is the one, the rec director is the person who is usually approving the requests for those things. So I just, we wanted to bring this because it was part of an earlier discussion and wanted to make you aware of it. So I mean, if you're okay with Bill working on that with Nick and with our committee, then I'm not sure what motion you would need other than that and if Bill's comfortable with that. I think that they can just make a motion to allow the banners for this issue to be up for an indefinite period of time. That's really the only change from the normal routine. Then we'll work with you to get it up and stuff like that with Nick and the rest of it. And Mark, further answer your question. MK, well, if you guys approve this tonight, which I hope you do and it sounds like you will, MK is gonna put an application in to put a banner up and then we'll go forward with hiring somebody to create the banner and put it up when that's done. We just didn't wanna do any movement until we knew we had approval, but it'll start ASAB. I need to ask a question, maybe part of it out of ignorance. Trisha, you just made a statement that kind of included the Black Lives Matter statement and then people of color. Are you suggesting that that is all inclusive? I don't purport to know everything about language I should or should not be using. So I'm gonna defer to people who are more knowledgeable about the use of those terms than I. Yeah, I thought this movement was to be all inclusive and I just, I don't want people out there to be offended by feeling like they're not included in this issue, you understand? I understand, but I think somebody else can speak to that. I can speak to that. This is Marlena Tucker-Fishman. Hi, Marlena. Hi, Chris, your point is valid, it's to be all inclusive and that's why we're saying Black Lives Matter because we're not included in so much. We're not included in representation in our community. When there's art displayed, I was driving through different areas of Vermont and seeing art of just white people on it to be framed and there's no issue with that. And to say that Black Lives Matter, if it creates an issue for someone, when it's just a plain, simple statement that's saying yes, we matter and the fact that we have to say that, even though it should be a given, should be more frustrating for us than for anyone else. It's not about excluding anyone else, it's about finally acknowledging that we need to be included. No, I didn't mean, I'm not talking about white and black people, I'm talking about Asian people or other ethnicities that may be considered white or black. All those ethnicities matter and they're not being targeted like black people and that's why we're having to put out the reminder, a common sense reminder saying, hey, we're here and our lives matter. It's that simple. It's not to exclude anyone else, it's just to restate what should be, that should not have to be stated, that our lives matter. That's it. So, can I also chime in? Yep. Maroney here, I totally understand the concern and I've heard this over and over again. People feeling that the statement, black lives matter is a suggestion that no other lives matter and that's not what it means at all. And to the point of Asian people or other folks feeling excluded, they understand and as Marlena talked when we say black lives matter, we are actually trying to raise awareness not only in that. So let's talk about the Asian community, for example. Let's look into the killing by policemen of black people. Let's look into those numbers. So we are talking, this is not to say that no other lives matter, this is to say that yes, all lives matter, but right now, black lives don't matter. So all lives don't matter if black lives don't matter. This is about being inclusive. It's not about being exclusive. This is not about dividing or pushing other races. This is about saying for so long, we are living in a society that feels as black people, we feel that our lives do not matter and we want them to matter. So black lives matter means everyone's lives matter. It's not an exclusive, it's actually an inclusive movement. I'd like to catch up with you at some point there, Marlena. I'd like you to see a video that was sent to me tonight that I'd be curious of your opinion of it. I would love that. Yeah. Okay, Mark, you wanna move forward with your... Yeah, I'll try to make a resolution. Sorry, did you say I did need to put a timeframe on this? I apologize. I'll make a motion to allow Art Against Racism to display a banner on the banner poll. And is there a timeframe? You should just say waving the time. Waving a timeframe. For an unlimited period of time. For an unlimited period of time. That's better. Second for that? Is there a second for that? Second. Mike, seconded it? Okay. Any further discussion from anybody? I really wish that we could have seen this design prior to this meeting. Pardon? I really wish we could have seen that design prior to this meeting. I'll make a motion that M.K. was gonna get the application in. Hey, trying to get in here. We were gonna design the sign. You can't really put the application in so you know when you can hang it up. There's a little bit of an interruption there, Carla. Could you go through that again? Yeah, Don mentioned that M.K. was going to submit an application. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I'm on. I can hear you, Carla. Okay. No, M.K., Carla was just trying to rephrase what she had just said there because you got blocked out a little bit. Go ahead, Carla. I mentioned that M.K. was going to submit an application for the sign, and then you were gonna figure out what the sign was gonna be, but you need to know when it's gonna go up. So... So, Katie, is your concern that you'd like to see what's going up first? Yeah. So... Go ahead, M.K. We can... I'm getting an echo. Can you mute your cold computer? Whatever, okay. Sorry. So we have the design, and I'm sorry it wasn't sent to you before the meeting. I thought that was going to be done, but we can send it to you. I need to find it in an email, and I will do that in a minute. And then... I don't know if you want to check your email and... Well, unless we're gonna postpone this... No, I don't want to... Motion and... Excuse me. Unless we're gonna postpone this motion and until a later date, pick it back up again till after the design has been sent out to everybody. It's a moot point to vote on it now. I think it's being pointed with chat length. Yep. Say that again now. I can put it in the chat link. Okay. So if you click on it, you should be able to see it. Oh, no, that just takes you to my Gmail. Forget that. Close that off. It didn't happen, MK. What's that? It didn't happen. It's not in the chat. Yeah. Okay, so hold on a minute. Let me find it. Lies, can you put it in the chat? Yeah, just give me one minute. I'll get it in there. Okay, sorry. So someone asked also where the banner polls are located. They're located right out in front of the municipal building. I think you should just answer that. I don't know. Yeah, I think so. I think I might be able to do it now if you hang on a second. This might work. Do the other select... Okay, so can you click on that and do you have an image? Yeah, I realized it was going to be horizontal. Yeah, the banner polls go across that way. Okay. Okay, does that help? That's me. I don't even mind. You talk. I'm done. I'm done. I'm awesome. Do people have it yet? Yep. Yeah, so you can find it here. It's the bottom of the chat. Yeah, I try clicking on it, but it's not working for me. But I'm personally comfortable believing that you... There's a link to a Google Drive file, too, in case that works better. I'm comfortable with it. You have it, Katie. Why are you muted? Just out of curiosity, is there any significant difference to the... that I may not be getting? You're cutting it out. I don't know what you said. Is there any significance to the colors? I'm just more curious than anything else, but it looks nice. Yeah, it's Vermont colors. I mean, it's the trees amount. This is a blue sky and the clouds, you know? Okay, I don't see any blue. Well, or white. I don't know. I don't have it right now, but... Yeah, white clouds. I was just curious about the colors. I didn't see any significance. I don't know. Noah designed it. I'm not sure if he's on with us or not. Yeah, I'm here. And the graphic designer put together is an artistic take on bringing Vermont together with that Black Lives Matter movement. So it's nothing in particular that I can point to. Looks nice. We want to make it attractive as well, you know, to really... to because it's going to be on the front of the town offices, we want to make something that represents our town and our commitment to this movement. Totally understand. Yeah, I think it looks good. Very tasteful. Well, I'm trying to get back to your eyes. I can hear you, but I can't see you. So are people comfortable enough to make a motion and pass it? I think the motion's been made and seconded. All right, thanks, Mark. Yeah, I was still waiting to hear from Katie. Yeah, I got it. So what's the verdict, Katie? Is this vote all up to me? I thought we voted on it. You said you wanted to see it. Are you okay with it? I received it, yes. Okay, and are you... I guess the motion's been made and seconded then. And if you're happy with it, you'll vote yay. If you're not, you won't nay. So motion's been made and seconded. So there's no further discussion. All those who wish to approve say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none. Motion passes. Aye, no, can I abstain? You can, yep. All right, so are you through with this one? Thank you very much. Appreciate it for your time. All right, the rest is up to you, Bill. Well, it's pretty late. I only sent this out to you this afternoon. We reviewed the budget, the last meeting, I think, or maybe the meeting before that. We're through half the year. Everything looks about as it should at this point. Payroll, of course, is in the 40-ish percent range between 40 and 48% a little behind the calendar because of the layoffs and the reduction in hours. You'll see in the revenue pages on page two, we did receive the $33,342 grant from the state for recreation. It's a COVID grant that the state provided to us understanding that recreation programs were going to be different than normal. So that clearly is helping our revenues so far for the recreation program. About two-thirds of normal or what we anticipated, we got 60,000. We had budgeted 95 for rec program revenues. So if you add that 33,000 to the 60, that brings us up to 93,000 for those revenues. Our spending is probably going to be a little bit down, but certainly that was a big help to us and enabled us to buy some tents and some other pieces of equipment that we really needed given the fact we were going to be in different locations. There's nothing else really that I need to point out right now. I did include in the email that we received last week an estimate from the state on the pilot payment and on the current use payment, both of which are slightly higher than we budgeted, which is a good thing. But there was a caveat that the legislature is coming back into session in August and they may indeed still make some changes. So we're not out of the woods, but at least in terms of what the bureaucracy has right now, given the information provided by the state so far, it looks like we may be whole this year as far as pilot is concerned. We budgeted $308,000 and I think it was 336 that the anticipation is. So right now that looks good. So I'll stop there. If you have any other questions, certainly you can either ask them now, email me, I'll try to get back to you, but there's nothing here at present that I'm overly concerned about, except just what tax revenues are going to look like just what tax revenues are going to look like. Chris, you signed a request for an extension that Dan Sweet filed with the state. Typically the grand list has to be filed by the middle of June, he's asked for an extension. It's a two month extension. I don't think it will go that long, but we don't have a grand list yet. And the state really is not ready yet to set an education tax rate yet. So we're still in the waiting mode as far as when we can set a tax rate. I don't, it doesn't seem likely to me that it will be even the next meeting probably will not be until August that we get to set tax rate at the earliest, I think. At that time, we won't have any real information more in terms of our revenues because taxes are such a high component of it. But I think when we set the tax rate, that will be the time that we can have a discussion about whether we're going to think about waving penalties in interest, whether we push that decision off until later in the year but we're not ready to make that now. And there have been a couple of overtures from some significant property owners about appealing their appraisals. And that has to go through the process of Lister's meeting first and then potentially the Board of Civil Authority. So as we find more information about that, I'll keep you apprised, but until Dan files that grant list, we won't really know too much more. With everything snowballing in such delay there, how does that, what are the repercussions there on the other end of this? Well, you've already decided that you're not going to collect taxes until November. We're going to have one tax collection date. There's really no other repercussions at this point. It just will be that, it will be later in the year before we have an idea. The normal year we have a tax bill due in August and then another one due in November. And you kind of get a sense in August, if you're at the 98% collection level in August, you pretty much know it's a pretty decent year and that's what it's going to be like in November as well. We won't have that this time and it's just, you know, we're borrowing a little bit, we'll be borrowing a little bit longer than normal. We'll have to continue borrowing through the fall. So it'll cost us probably more than we budgeted for tax anticipation borrowing, but I think a lot of those expenses like that will be offset by some of the cuts that we've made. It's really going to be the three big ones plus the property taxes, the current use, the pilot and the forest and parks current use and then tax collection. Those are our three big, four big revenue sources. If the pilot and the current use and the forest and parks all come in, that will be a good sign, but we don't get that payment until November either. So it's going to be the last two months of the year before we really get an idea where we're going to stand going into next year. Well, maybe it's a good time to try to throw this, these other agenda items into this conversation near Maple Street. Can you remind me when Maple Street, the grant is due or the decision on that? Yeah, I don't think we're going to get the grant, but we're preparing to, you know, pay Maple Street. There's been, I know at least one culvert has been changed on Maple Street now. I'm expecting it's going to be some time late August, September when we pay Chris. Do you recall if that's, is that, that's got to be a reclaiming it? Oh, yeah. The condition of that road, it's got to be ground. We're going to reclaim it. We're going to do full reclamation needs to, okay. And I want, want the board to consider and maybe you can suggest one way or another bill. There's two sections of road that stand out small sections from the end of Guptell road around the corner by the Zen burn to the bridge are pretty rough shape. And then from the town shed to the split in the road between turning to go up Maple Street and over to or TJ store, Luke, which is store used to be couple of houses right there, the old, the old guy at place where Randy's mother lived in another house next to it. Those poor people, every time a vehicle goes through there and pounds those potholes, it's got to be horrible for them inside the house. And I didn't know if those two places, if there's any way we could somehow squeeze enough out of the budget to skim over those two areas. I've already talked to Woody about the second one that you mentioned. They are up from the post office to Waterbury center. If you remember back in the spring, we talked about full street and if we had enough money that we'd do Howard Avenue. All right, no disrespect to Howard Avenue, but I think the stretch from the post office is much worse and it's much more highly traveled. For sure. I was hoping that we might be able to do that. And I know the section you're talking about the Zenburn, Woody's off this week and I'm mostly off this week as well. So I'll talk to him next week about that, but I'm hopeful that we can do the one up by the post office anyway. And we'll talk to ST about the other one and see what the cost is. So I'm gonna throw it into the mix. Yeah, okay. All right, that's all I had on that. So thanks for the budget update. And unless anybody else has got any other business, I think we can close it out for the night. A very minor issue, Chris. I know I've been asked by a couple of people and I'm just curious. I know some people have said, they've noticed that flags were in up this year. I'm assuming it was either due to the big dig construction and or that we have, you know, our public works folks there on lower amount of hours. So that's not been a priority. What flags are you talking about? Long Main Street for the fourth of July. I don't think that's ever been us that has put those flags up. Oh, okay. Because I know historically- Back in the day, Tony de Blasio used to do it all himself and the fire department may help, but I think with the construction, that's the biggest issue probably Mike, but I don't know. Yeah, I just a few people have asked that. And I wondered too, because I'm so used to seeing those flags up for, you know, the fourth of July. We didn't have a parade so there wasn't a big motivation to do it. Right? Yeah. All right, everybody else all set? Mark, you look like you on to nothing to go. Motion to adjourn? Yep. Second? Thanks, Katie. Second. Okay. I'm really good at that motion. You guys have a good week for us to you. Thank you. All right. And we'll get that.