 like Mike, hey Mike's here, it looks like everyone's here, seven o'clock, I'll go ahead. Will you ask, this is TG, will you ask what TG is? Yeah, can TG identify themselves please? Yeah, it's Tom Glor. Thank you. Thanks Tom. Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. It looks like we have everyone here. Let's start the select board meeting for Monday, April 5th, 2021, 7 p.m. First order of business is to approve the agenda unless there's any changes. I have an addition from Bill Whitruff, and that is to consider the certification of compliance for town road and bridge standards and network inventory, which I think we can do under select board items. Okay, well, Adam as item D, I'm sorry, E, yeah. I moved to approve the agenda as amended. All right, is there a second? Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, first item is consent agenda items, minutes of March 15th meeting, liquor licenses for Stil Street Cafe, Thai Smile restaurant, Bluestone, American Legion, and McGillicuddy's Irish Pub, and the waiver of late fees for dog licenses. Do I have a motion or do we wanna discuss? I mean, I guess item C might be worth discussing. I think item C would be worth discussing. What's, Karla, can you run us through the typical timeline there and what kind of fees we're talking in late fees? Can you just remind the board? The typical timeline is that after April 1, there's a $2 late fee charge. Last year, you waived it for the entire duration. My goal is to try to get people to license their dogs and not penalize them right now. Okay. Our fewer dogs licensed during COVID than ever before. And how's that effort going, Karla? Or has it started? It's going. I'll be sending out some reminder notices here soon and I get notifications on from Court's farm. Do you see a lot of delinquencies or pretty much everybody up to par? Since we don't have an animal control officer, our dog licenses have declined in general in the last few years. And quite a bit during the last year. And a lot more people are getting puppies because of COVID, so. How does the info go out, Karla? Is that when people get dogs and they go to the vet and do the rabies and all that, how do they know the process? Like, how does that information go to the public? I only do it through Court's farm. I don't know if the vet has a good point. I should call a couple of veterinarians and ask them to let people know that they need to license their dogs. Yeah. I think that might be a good resource to you. And I, the people that licensed their dogs last year, if they don't remove them, I send them a reminder notice. Yeah, I think that's a good comment. All right. Any other questions on that item or I'll take a motion? I moved to approve the Consent Agenda items as listed. All right, is there a second? Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Like me? Yes. Correct. All right, been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? No. All right, Consent Agenda items have passed. Public, anyone from the public wishing to speak? This is your opportunity to speak on anything that's not in the agenda. You're more than welcome to comment on the items as they come through the agenda, but this is also an opportunity to speak to anything else. Is there anyone that would like, you can digitally raise your hand or you can go ahead and just start speaking if you'd like, okay? Looks like we don't have anyone wishing to speak under the public section. So we'll move on to Town Clerk items. Consider contracts for land records vendor. Right, so this is for the digitization of land records. We're in our second five year contract with Avenue Insights. And that contract actually expired last September, but we focus on other reasons it has not yet been renewed. I do have a renewal contract at the same price for here's September. And I have a second contract from a company called Profile that I'd like to switch over to in September. So there's two contracts and it's pretty much the same price as we're paying now. Okay, any additional questions? The money to pay the monthly fees, they provide all the equipment that we use to scan a computer's server. The monthly fees are paid out of the restoration fund and they're paid from money that's set aside from reporting fees for that purpose. So it's paid for itself out of the restoration fund. Can I ask a quick question? Why the change? I'm not real happy with Avenue's customer service and I know the salesperson from Profile because he was one salesman for Avenue and Profile is a nationwide company but they actually have an office in Essex. So I get all my supplies from them. I can get my maps digitized in Essex and I send them off to Texas and I have heard that the customer service is very good and the product is more, I'm much more up to date with the product I'm using in terms of its features. Okay, great. Any other questions? I'll take a motion. Does that need to be a motion to sign the contract? Yes. And who's going to be signing that contract? You can authorize me to sign it or Karla, I think. Anyone want to make that motion? Yeah, could be either of us. I'll move to authorize Bill or Karla to sign a contract for land record vendors in the order that Karla stated. Okay, is there a second? I'll second that. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Before you move on, Karla, what's the, how much goes into that fund per page? So it's a $15 per page recorded by state statute and four of the 15 goes into the restoration funds. Okay, so $4 per page recorded. We've got a little bit more than $46,000 in that restoration fund now. And, you know, it certainly can handle this. Karla's income will far exceed what the contract costs, I believe. It does, we've got it all. Thanks, Bill. All right, we will move on to select board business. Item A, consider scheduling a select board public hearing on the draft interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district recommended by the planning commission. Steve, do you want to, or Bill? No, Steve is here to talk about that. Thanks. Good. So this is a topic that you're quite familiar with. The planning commission has been working hard since your public hearing that you held, I think back in February. And they've made quite a number of changes, I would say not a lot of substantive changes, but they are sending this draft via me with their recommendation that you schedule a public hearing and consider adoption of the interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district. I'd just like to highlight a couple of changes and then we can talk about how you want to move forward with scheduling a public hearing on these bylaws. I think maybe, Danny, for your benefit, I'll just briefly say that interim bylaws are an avenue that's enabled under state statute when there are circumstances that warrant an expedited review and approval process. And we found that there's some real barriers in our downtown area for development, including barriers where we're considering brewing operation, association with a tasting room, that type of thing. This really takes a little bit more comprehensive view of the zoning in the downtown zoning district. It's based on our draft unified development bylaw that the planning commission has been working on for about three years or so. So I can certainly take some questions. I'll just give you a brief overview and then we can talk about next steps. So there was quite a bit of comment before at the public hearing about the thresholds for size of some different uses in the downtown zoning district. The planning commission did decide to increase those thresholds to 4,000 square feet instead of 2,000 square feet and limit the, it's really a threshold for what's called a permitted use versus a conditional use. So there's a more elaborate review for the larger projects that are over 4,000 square feet. And this would include things like restaurants and so on. They did keep an upper limit on three uses. One is the food and beverage manufacturing which includes brewing alcoholic beverages or distilling alcoholic beverages. And that would be limited at 4,000 square feet in this district. And then the light industry which is really a broad category includes everything from silk screen operations to more production of products that's an indoor industrial use. And then there's one more use. I'll see if I can find that here while we're talking. The only area, and I put this in the email that I sent out to you. The only area where the Planning Commission had some changes that they wanted to make that I ended up approaching our attorney, our municipal attorney, David Rue, about has to do with accessory dwelling units. And it has to do with compliance with state statute. So I did work with our attorney. He had worked with us already on those bylaws to make sure that there's been some changes in the state statute on accessory dwelling units over the last couple of years. So since this draft was prepared. So we've got those bylaws now in conformance with state statute. So with that, I think Bill wanted me to keep this fairly brief. I could certainly take any questions. My recommendation is that we hold a public hearing. It needs to be warned for at least 15 days. The soonest we could hold the hearing would be Monday, April 26th. And we do have this court case pending. We want to keep these moving so that we can try to resolve that, get that project in for an application. And I think if we could hold a public hearing that evening, then I think it would help move these bylaws forward and perhaps help resolve that case. So that would be my recommendation. It wouldn't interfere with your meeting on the 19th, which I believe is your next regular meeting where you've got some interviews and different things going on. But Bill, did you want to add anything before we open it up for some discussion? No, I think you've hit the high point, Steve. Clearly, Steve worked hard with the planning commission to get some more buy-in from them for these interim bylaws. I think they understand better what the issues are and why the interim bylaw approach is really the necessary one right now. So I think you should warn the public hearing as soon as practicable. And I think that would make it April 26th, right, Steve? But that's as soon as we could do it. We can warn it in the Times-Argus. And we would get an article in the Waterbury Reader like we did last time. And I'd work with Lisa Scolodi and her staff to get that accomplished as well. We get the draft on our website with the latest news piece. So it would be available to the public directly from the website. And then we can also send it out. Okay. Anyone have any questions? Steve, what's your thoughts on these intrams? These intrams being close to a final including set of bylaws. You think it could roll over into a final set or? Yeah, I think so, Chris. I think the planning commission has put a lot of work into these bylaws. I think they may recommend a few further tweaks, but they're going to have a discussion at their meeting next Monday about next steps. I'm gonna encourage them to have a bit larger phase to the first phase of permanent bylaws. But that would include this downtown zoning district. We would expand on it, perhaps to include the area of the former village of Waterbury or basically our Waste Water Service District. That's one approach that I'm gonna recommend. But yeah, I think in really answer to your question, I think these are really setting a good direction for where we're gonna go to lay the groundwork for our first phase of permanent bylaws. Good. Go ahead, Steve. If I'm not mistaken, we still probably would need interim bylaws for the downtown district for the sake of, I don't know how close we are for overall townwide, you know, full bylaws. Would that be a correct statement? I think that's correct, Mike. Danny, for your benefit, these bylaws have an effective period of two years, and then they can be, if they're adopted by the select board, then they can be extended for a year. So they're meant to be interim or temporary. And then, but I would anticipate within that two years, the Planning Commission would have a, I think it's gonna be a first phase though of the unified development bylaw, I think to expect the entire bylaw to be ready in that period, maybe a little over optimistic. And building consensus is a very important piece of dealing with these bylaws. I think we've built pretty good consensus over these interim bylaws. And we wanna take this in stages and build consensus. So maybe, does that answer your question? Yes, it does. And I really wanna thank you for working with the Planning Commission on kind of moving this forward. Some of the changes that you mentioned, I think make the interim's a lot more tolerable. And it's a good job. I really appreciate it. Okay, good. We're welcome your comment as well at the hearing and your input. You can make substantive changes after the hearing and then adopt the bylaws, probably not wholesale changes, but with interim bylaws, you can incorporate comments from the public or your own comments and make changes before you adopt them. So keep that in mind. We're not trying to discourage comment at all. Yeah, I'll echo Mike's comments. I really appreciate the work that Planning Commission did. And I know there was some issue on timing and how things played out. So we really appreciate them moving quickly on this and presenting something. So if you could extend that thanks from the board to that board, that would be great. Steve, so just to make sure that everyone's clear and I believe I am, these are interim bylaws. We as a select board, we ultimately are the decider on whether or not these move forward. I think just off of Chris's comments, there is no one else other than public comment. We are the deciders on whether or not we move forward with this and vote it through. The Planning Commission has showed us what they believe is the right set of the rules, but we ultimately are the ones that will be approving these. Unlike maybe another scenario, I just wanna make sure that the board's clear that basically we'll hopefully tonight approve that we're gonna warn of a public meeting, offer an opportunity for the public to comment comment on any of the details of these bylaws. And then we then as a board can decide off of that public comment, how we make any other changes to this document and then make it, approve it. Now, what happens public, the public meeting, what's the timeline after the public meeting? Just to remind the board. Yeah, public hearing is closed and you've had a chance to discuss the draft to make any subsequent changes. You can adopt the bylaws, they become effective immediately. So that's- That could happen that evening. That could happen that evening. Okay, yep. If you have a question about bylaws in general, the legislative body of the select board is the body that approves really any zoning bylaw. It just, in this case, the Planning Commission doesn't have a formal public hearing role, that they're always in the legislative function of drafting and recommending. Yeah, and with a permanent bylaw, if the select board had public comment and then decided to make substantive changes to it, you'd have to warn another hearing and then take public comment on the changes you've made. Under the interim bylaw, it's meant for efficiency. So you can kind of hear what the public's comments are, make any adjustments that you think are necessary and then adopt it right then, that evening, and they're effective immediately. So this is a very effective way to get this to happen in a timely manner. Okay. I'd like a specific date in mind, Steve. Right, so I'd recommend Monday, April 26th, that at 7 p.m., I think you'll have your regular business taken care of on the 19th. You could just focus on the public hearing that evening and we could get that warned. So if you agree, then what I would suggest is a motion to hold a public hearing on the draft interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district dated today, April 5th, 2021 and state the date and time of the hearing. Right, yeah, that's staff's recommendation. Steve, before anyone makes that, I just have one question. Do we change the maximum principal building footprint, 5,000 just sounds small, but is that the word changes from permitted to conditional or is that the maximum footprint for a building? Yeah, and we can have some more discussion at the hearing, but that's correct. The planning commission had a lot of discussion. They felt that scale is very important in this district. We did, I did an inventory of all the commercial buildings in the downtown district and the vast majority of them are under 5,000 square feet. There are three buildings, I think are over 10,000 square feet and there are a few that are in between. So that's their recommendation. I mean, we could certainly have some more conversation about that, but that would be an answer your question. That would be an upper limit on the footprint of a new building, not an existing building. So it's something that you could not change through conditional. Yeah, I don't know if there could be a variance process for that possibly because it's a dimensional requirement, but it would be an upper limit for building footprint. And is it currently 5,000? No, we currently do not have a limit on building footprint. This is something that's in the unified development bylaw. It's a new dimensional requirement. So that's something that you could certainly take public comment on and have some further discussion about. But that is footprint, Steve, right? That's footprint. That's not total square footage. Right, it's not total square foot. It could be a two or three or even four-story building, correct? Okay, any other questions from the board or public? I'll take a motion. I think that the date would be Monday, April 26th. The board is okay with that. Would that be a regular 7 p.m. time or an earlier time? I would judge that. Yeah, Steve indicated that he would have it as sevens. So I moved to hold a public meeting on the interim draft interim bylaws on Monday, April 26th at 7 p.m. Okay, is there a second? Katie seconds. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, great. And again, that'll be an opportunity for the board as well to give feedback. So I suggest I didn't get a ton of time myself and we should definitely spend some time going through this before that meeting and bring our comments as well. So. If you have questions, you're welcome to get in touch with me as well. If you have particular technical questions, that's fine as individuals, please. So Steve, you'll be sending out the draft version. Yeah, I did send it to you on Friday, but. Oh, you did? Yeah, I can send it again if for any reason you don't have it. Okay, I'll look. Thanks. And there's two documents. There's a, the bylaws, but there's also a map change. So take that into account too when you're reviewing this because it is different. There's an extension. I don't, Steve, I guess we're off to that topic, but did the map change at all from the last meeting? It did not. Okay. So Mark, I'm not necessarily recommending this, but you are going to have a select board meeting on the 19th and if, if your agenda allows, if the select board wants to discuss this by itself with Steve's presence and, you know, the public would be, would be present for it. It would not be the public hearing, but if you want to discuss this, so you're kind of more prepared for the meeting on the 26th, you could put this on the agenda for a little bit more robust discussion about it. If you think that would be helpful. I like that idea. I'd be interested to hear what the rest of the board thinks, but I just, it would make it look like we're not going into that meeting, you know, not blind, but at least it looks like we've been able to hash out things that might look like very small things that we didn't get to tonight. So I saw Anne's hand first and then I'll get a mic. Could Steve post the link on front porch forum and make sure Lisa has it so that the public can see the graph? Yeah, we'll do that, Anne. I'm not a front porch forum user, but others in the office are. So yeah, we'll make sure to get the, we'll get it on our website on the homepage and then we'll provide links. Okay. Mike. Mark, I think that was an excellent idea. I really do like the idea that we flesh out any issues that we have before kind of a public hearing. I think it's just makes things look that we have at least discussed a matter that we're not going in this cold, you know, I think further discussion and I'd recommend that it be on the next agenda. Okay. If no other board members have a problem with that, I'll just go ahead and say Carla, can you make sure that that's added to the next agenda? Okay, great. Okay. We'll move to item B, broadband discussion communications union district. And this came up off of an email we received from Dwayne who's on the call. Steve, I don't know if you want to kick it off. And then Dwayne, you're more than welcome to, I know you have done some research on this and I don't know if the board is fully aware of kind of what's happening. I happen to be on Ring Road. So I'll recuse myself. We're not voting on anything tonight, but I'm recusing myself from anything other than, you know, the discussion. So, go ahead. I can kick off the conversation. And Bill, you're welcome to jump in as well. So this is an area where I have some limited expertise, but I'll tell you what I know. The state statute enables what are called communications union districts. And the district for central mod is called CV fiber. It's a very active communications union district and the vast majority, not all the towns in central mod area are already members. So, and this provides both access to funding and also planning for future broadband extensions, especially into underserved rural areas. And Dwayne, I know you're on the meeting you can certainly speak to this from your personal experience, but the broadband service in Vermont in general and in Waterbury varies widely, as far as the robustness of the service. So, we've been exchanging messages with Jeremy Hansen who's the chair of the board and also David Healy who's the delegate from the town of Callis. So the CV fiber organization is made up of delegates from towns, a town can appoint, a slack board can appoint a delegate and an alternate to the board. Joining the communications union district is a very straightforward process. My understanding is it just takes a motion by the slack board to join CV fiber. And then once you have a person or people who you would like to appoint as delegate and alternate, then that can be a motion as well to appoint those people. And just like you would to another committee or organization. So, I think the best thing would be for me to pass this over to Bill, if you had anything you wanted to add at this point, feel free to jump in. Not really, this came about a couple of years ago Waterbury never really discussed it before tonight. And I think I sent an email both to Steve and Mark to just make sure that if we joined this union that we were not committing ourselves to undertaking the financing of anything that's already in the works. I've received an email back that Steve forwarded to me and it appears that the way this union district is organized is that I'm not sure if it's the law or if it's the union's policy, if you will, but they're not advocating for use of tax money to build out the broadband system. The issue is that there's a lot of places in towns even towns like Waterbury, which where I live in downtown has pretty good broadband service, but if you go just a mile or so from where I live, you have almost nothing. But anyway, this organization is, I believe it's a municipality under Vermont law just like the Regional Planning Commission would be a subdivision of the state. They have certain legal authority and they are searching for grants and other forms of money beyond the property tax dollar to build out the broadband system to places where it does not exist now. So as I understand it, we could join this without fear of having to step up to the plate and come up with tens of thousands of dollars to fund what already they have decided upon. I wasn't exactly sure, Steve. There was something about 25, three, I don't know if it was 25 persons per every three miles or whatever, but I'm not an expert on this issue either but I don't think it will hurt us at all to join if that's what the board wants to do. And then you can discuss amongst yourself who the delegate should be and then the delegate will become the point person and we'll be able to educate all of you and us as we move forward. Well, I think that the 25, three is upload and download speed by the rate broadband and Dwayne, you can probably speak to this better than anyone but the consolidated communications, the max is I think 10 over three, I think it's 10 upload, three download perhaps. And that's the limit. So Comcast has a higher level. I will mention that the federal stimulus bill, the most recent bill has a significant amount of funding coming to states, including Vermont for broadband service extension. So I believe CV fiber is hoping to get a good sized chunk of that funding to extend fiber. I think the extension of Comcast services goes through a different funding process if it's beyond Comcast's own funding and that may be through the public service department. I've just heard that. But so I just wanted to add that that this is being driven in part by funding possibilities. And we have to be part of the communications union district to take advantage of the federal funding that's coming through the state for broadband. Chris, do you wanna, I recused myself, I don't know why, but I did. So can you run this portion? Sure. Any of the board has any questions as to either why or why we should not be part of this organization? I don't see anybody jumping out and waving their hands. I don't see a problem, especially if from what Bill's comment, it doesn't fiscally make us responsible for anything. I think it's good that we're all together different towns and entities discussing broadband, but I don't think that we as a union, it binds us to a specific course of action. I think we can treat it independently. It's my thought. Did Dwayne have something to say? Yeah, I was just, Mark had his hand up there. I was gonna ask Dwayne. Yeah, I was gonna see if Dwayne would comment more and then I have a public comment as well. Well, thank you. So my name's Dwayne Peterson. I'm a resident of Waterbury Center. I'm not a technical expert and my business is not connected with this. So I'm just speaking as a citizen. I would share that the state of Vermont in 2015 created this concept of these community utility districts in response to the for-profit business community not really serving Vermont as well with the breadth of broadband. And it's no necessary slight on them, but just their business model did not include spending the tremendous amount of money to bring that technology to the hinterlands of our beloved state, including much of Waterbury. And so the state created these so-called CUDs to kind of aggregate support and demand for accelerated broadband distribution. That said, it still costs a lot of money and there wasn't really money available. Yet the CUDs kind of citizen bodies, mind you, but just like this board pulled their resources, their knowledge and put together kind of the conceptual infrastructure. What's really significant now and why this is a truly great story is some of the federal stimulus money around the COVID catastrophe has been made available to states to accelerate broadband access. And speaking for myself, I've been working from home. My wife's, Ben and Jerry's employees been working from home. There was that time when our grown children moved back to home. We had four people here being employed in the modern way, trying to operate through internet and like it was awful and it didn't actually work. And so this is exactly COVID disaster related and the federal government has made significant funds available to, as far as I'm concerned, finally help us all with broadband. So Vermont legislature has a bill H360, which allocates $150 million to finally push broadband kind of over the top. This bill passed the house 145 to one. It's known that the Senate Finance Committee where there are streamers being thrown in celebration that this might finally get us where we've all been talking about for years and years. The bill does funnel this substantial amount of funds through these CUDs. And so this is what caught my eye a couple of weeks ago. Again, we have really crappy wifi. I'm really proud that I'm kind of coming through here, but like we are really eager to get into the 21st century. And when I saw that this program, these funds were going to be allocated through the CUDs, which is, I guess, rational public policy. And I looked at the map and my beloved Waterbury is not a member of one of these. And so I brought it to my neighbor Mark's attention and gosh, is this on purpose? Is there something I'm missing? Is there some reason why we don't want to be a party to this? And we want to go it alone. And if it's not, if it was an oversight, because I don't know, these CUDs didn't really have oomph in the past, but boy, it appears as though they will now. This seems like something that my town might ought to really look into lest this ship sail without us. So to the degree that there's no obligation on our part, we're not committing taxpayer dollars. We're not necessarily committing any further action, but we would be a party to this new fangled municipality, the CUD, and thereby we could well have access to some chunk of this significant federal dollars flowing through the state allocated in this way. It seems like we might want to get on board. Well, Dwayne, I don't know how much of that bill you're familiar with, but it seems like this broadband issue would be a two-part component. One infrastructure upgrade first, if I'm correct, and then the broadband connection after that. Does that bill address those two issues? Well, it happened in front of me. It creates the Vermont Community Broadband Authority, which would be a statewide entity with all of two staff people to manage this rather sizable amount of money, $150 million, and allocate that through the CUDs to build out this system. And again, it was passed on 145 to one vote, and I don't know anything that gets out of our legislature with that kind of support. So this seems real, and it seems like a great opportunity. Oh, it's certainly a need that we've been needing for a long time. I don't have any issues with, you know, having a member of this organization. Is it CV or CB fiber? It's a CV like Victor, Chris, it's in central Vermont. Yeah. So there are nine of these CUDs, and our town of Waterbury is surrounded by two. One operates to the north kind of Stowe and north through LaMoyle. The other is mostly Washington County to what amounts to our east and south. So I don't know the relative merits of either one. I would hope that that wouldn't preclude our figuring out which way to go. The significantly larger of the two in terms of towns is the Washington County version. I hasten to add that outside Chittenden County, which has predominantly quite effective broadband, there's only a couple of dozen towns in the entire state that have not opted to join one of these. So Waterbury will be in good stead joining this party. Steve, is there somebody you had in mind to be kind of the liaison here or? I don't, Chris. I think what I would recommend and Bill, you're welcome to chime in is that you join the CV fiber so that technically we're joined. And then you may want to put out a call for people who would have interest and maybe even interview some people just like you would for one of our own committees and boards. I don't have somebody in mind, but that's what I would recommend. And then we can take a little time to get better educated. We can send you some resources as Alyssa put in the chat. CV fiber has a very good website. I can forward their mapping that's part of their feasibility work. So they've laid a lot of groundwork, but I think if we can all get better educated and then reach out to the community and find out a couple of good representatives, maybe do some interviews have some further discussion. That would be one avenue forward. Yeah, I think Steve is right that if we want to join this and I think what happened was we just had too many balls in the air when this first came to light. We were still in the flood recovery mode. We had 25 flood recovery projects going on. We were trying to build the municipal building and it just was something that nobody picked up and there was no champion for this and here we are. So I appreciate Dwayne bringing it to Mark's attention so we can talk about it. I thought Alyssa was raising her hand to volunteer to be the delegate to the organization for us. Michael. Would someone like Bob Butler who does a lot of our computer stuff? He's kind of civic minded. I think he would be an excellent candidate. Yeah, I had the same thought, Mike, but I think Steve is right. I think you should take action tonight to join. Take action and then we can put out there a solicitation for anyone who might be willing to be the delegate and the alternate. And if you wanna talk to Bob and ask him to apply, go ahead and do that. I'd be glad to do that. So then I'd take a motion to, I don't wanna do this. A motion, a move to become a member of the CB fiber organization as an interested party. Yes. I second that motion. Okay, motion has been made. Well, actually I've made, somebody needs to make the motion and then you can. Then you can second. I thought you did that. No, I'm chairing the, chairing the. Oh, because, sorry. Yes, correct. I make a motion to. Just say so moved. Right, so moved. I make a motion to join with CB Puff fiber. Second. All right. There's Katie on the second. All right. Motion been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Do we know how to, I'm sorry, Melissa. That's okay, Danny. Do we know the steps for joining the CB fiber, CUD? I think we just did. Yeah, I asked the question, Danny. I said, is there an application? They said no, just have the select board make a motion to join. That's all. Excellent. The appointing of the delegate and alternate is probably the more formal. Thank Kevin's. It's easy. First part's easy peasy. Melissa. I just wanted to add some additional context and support for the board, which is to say this actually did come up. I think two years ago when I was economic development director, Steve, I don't know if you remember I think we actually met with Jeremy at that point and just to speak to Dwayne's point, you know, being candidate, very backburner. I'm spoiled and lived down in the village where again, we have pretty good internet service but I will say Ed Rooney of Edgeworks Creative and Mark knows has pushed this in the economic development group for years. So I think they would all be really supportive. So just to know that it's come up in previous conversations before but federal money certainly helps speed things up as well as awesome community members who bring it to the forefront. And it's also something that's been brought up by the energy committee that I'm serving on still interim along with Steve because of work from home potential and not helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think it's actually in the energy plan that you all approved a long time ago. But again, just to say there's other support. Jeremy, who's the current chair served on the select board in Berlin. So he's also just a great resource about what it looks like to join as a municipality. And I think you may have to say that you're open to letting them use public right of ways essentially like hanging wires on poles. I don't know the details but that just may be a follow up that's vaguely sticking in my mind. But again, their website is great. And Chris, you mentioned infrastructure. I think they're doing a poll survey right now to look at for the communities that are currently there where they basically can put fiber on poles that are already there. So I just wanted to say again, second the thanks to Dwayne for making this happen. I don't think I ever dreamed of it being this quick and easy, but it's awesome. And just another citizen comment and support. Steve. Just to explain what Alyssa and this, I know we're discussing the motion, but Jeremy sent me a quote from the statute that goes to Alyssa's point. It's just one sentence. I'll just read it. It says, each member shall make available for lease to the district one or more sites or communications plant or components thereof within such member municipality. So they want to make sure that if they need a, like a fiber switching station or something like that, that the municipality is open to like allowing this within the road right of way or that classic case would be something within a road right of way. So that's, that goes to the point that Alyssa was making. Michael. I've been involved in this for a lot of years in my former life with USDA rule development. We had a whole broadband component that we tried and people are probably surprised to know that as much as we think of Vermont being kind of a progressive state in broadband, we're not as progressive as we think. And a lot has to do with our topography that limits our broadband accessibility. We, you know, they have talked about it. The legislature has talked about, you know, broadband for everyone. This has been talked about for the last 10 years. This whole union seems to be a way to move this forward because as Dwayne said, everyone's really needs broadband. And what more have we saw as this pandemic where I can't even imagine people up in Essex County who don't have any access at all to broadband. It must be really hard to conduct education without some sort of broadband. Just my thoughts. Well, one of my concerns is I wasn't gonna express it, but I will. The difficulties in requesting those services in development, such as the ones that I've had in the past, it's like pulling teeth to get these companies to even come and entertain, you know, some form of internet being run into the development. I'd be curious to know, you know, this bill that the state has just passed, if there's any teeth in it to, you know, to upgrade the infrastructure is one thing, and to get these companies to come install the broadband is another. So I'm curious to know how that's all laid out if in fact the broadband companies were involved in this bill that came forward and are willing to participate in it. Yes, Dwayne, hoping you were gonna answer. Yeah, so again, this is not my business and I'm not an expert, but I really care because I need this. My understanding is the 2015 statute that created these CUDs was in honest reflection that these for-profit businesses did not believe they were in a position to fund the broadband access that Vermonters need. And so to your point, you know, your development and where I live, I got a bid from Concast, they, with a straight face, they gave me a proposal to bring a copper high-speed broadband to my home for $126,000. And, you know, I was of course flabbergasted and I pushed back to the project engineer and he walked me through, you know, the costs and what is the trenching for two miles and you're like, okay, well, I guess that's what it actually costs. And you, Concast, are not really willing to eat that. And so it is this federal money, $150 million, which is on the table. And so these CUDs were created essentially to kind of bypass the for-profit providers and create this mechanism to bring this technology to Vermonters kind of in some ways separate from those providers. And so it does remain to be seen how they will spend this money and how they will contract with home to get this done but consolidate and Comcast are not the only company who soon know how to string wire and connect to a worldwide web. So here we go, I think. Anybody else? Right, well, I think we should join it and $150 million is way more money than the state has right now, but at your price, Dwayne, that's about a thousand connections, to yours was over a hundred thousand dollars if you divide that into 150 million, it's about a thousand. So. Well, happily that was to get the service all the way up Ring Road and all the way up Bear Creek. So I actually went to organizing door to door to see if we couldn't like chip that up and so forth. So it gets 126 grand to get that to, I don't know how many is in my neighborhood, 40 families, you know, it starts to work. No, I understand. I just wanted to point out that $150 million isn't as much as it sounds, it's a lot and it's a lot better than we have and I think we should move forward. So I would recommend you approve the motion that Mike made a little while ago. And we're there, the motion's been made and seconded. So the further discussion went a little further than it probably should have, no harm. All those in favor say aye. Okay, Mark, you can have it back if you want to. Mike, you said aye, right? Yeah, yes I did. Probably was in between my hitting my button. Okay. Yeah. Thanks again, Dwayne for bringing that to my attention and bringing it to the board. I think that's a really important moment for Waterbury and I think 157 homes that are currently under service so maybe we can help them out. So thank you. Thank you. I wish you well. Thanks, Dwayne. All right, we want to consider revised conflict of interest policy. Bill sent it over to us. There was a red line version and a clean version. It originated with Danny's comments from the last meeting but ended up that apparently there's quite a bit more that we should change. Yeah. So as Danny requested after the motion was made to adopt what we've been adopting for years now, Carla made those gender-neutral changes that Danny asked for and sent it over to me to just look at it. And the further I read into it I said, boy, this is really kind of antiquated and it's kind of difficult to see how it could be used. I had some questions about how public officials were defined, where you would have the ability of a select board to direct or to tell an employee that they had a conflict and that they had to recuse themselves and that if the employee did not do that, the select board could seek the employee's resignation and the like. And it raised some red flags because the select board in a town manager form of government in particular does not have real authority over personnel issues. So anyway, I sent the whole thing out to Joe McLean from Stitzel Page and Fletcher and asked him to review it. He did so, he changed some of it and then he and I spoke last week and we believe that we solved the whole issue between select board and town manager and employees by defining the public officials who this policy applies to as elected officials of the community. So that would be the select board, that would be the Listers, that would be the library commissioners and the employees that the select board actually appoints. So the select board appoints the town manager so you could have that role in terms of determining that I had a conflict. You appoint the zoning administrator, you would have that role there, but it would leave the conflicts to other employees to be more of a personnel policy related issue where the manager would deal with it. So I don't have the ability, like I said, to have it in front of me. I think that when I first talked to Joe McLean, he said, Bill, there's not a conflict of interest policy in the state that's good. He said every one of them has these same kind of issues that you've pointed out and it's difficult. And he said the state law requires the town to have a conflict of interest policy, but it sets no standards and no thresholds. And there are people in the legislature and in various state agencies who are working to try to have a more uniform policy. But I think this one that he has ultimately recommended does what Danny asked to do, which was the simple changes and then puts this in a situation where this whole language of disqualification and then further down under article seven is really the kind of the meat of the issue. So, yeah, so this article here where it talks about upon the majority vote of the select board request that official offending public office to resign their position, this would apply when you look at how the public official is defined would apply to elected officials. So, the DRB, for example, and the planning commission, the select board appoints those bodies. So if you believe that there was an issue and a DRB member or a planning commission member had a conflict in your estimation, under this policy, you could do something about that because the select board appoints that body. If it were the library commissioners, well, they're elected officials, so they would have to apply this policy to themselves. They would be the board that adjudicated that issue as far as anything in the library was concerned, the same thing with the LISTERs or the cemetery commissioners because they're elected officials. But I think this is in good shape now. If you want to take more time to read it, I got it to you almost as quickly as Joe and I finally finalized it last week. It was Friday that he and I were finally able to to kind of settle on the language. So I think it's ready. I think it's much better than it was before. And if you're ready to talk about it or adopt it, go ahead, but it's my recommendation that you do. Any discussion or does anyone want to make a motion? Go ahead, Mike. Just I would kind of ask, Danny, did this feel like it met your things to be gender neutral? I'm just curious because on your perspective. Oh, sure. So the simple change was just changing the wording from he or she to they or them. So yeah, so absolutely it looks like when I reviewed it and it looks like Carla did a start out job. Good, glad to hear that. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mike. And I appreciate you're asking to understand as well. I think it makes it a really inclusive piece of writing. Great. So I will make a motion to approve the edited conflict of interest policy. Second. Second that motion. I think Katie beat you to it. That's okay. No harm attended. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Yeah. Thanks again, Carla, for the work you put in and thanks, Bill, for catching that. Maybe we needed to review the document in its entirety. So appreciate that. Thanks. Okay. We will move on to item D, consider Zenmar Entertainment Permit, which I believe expired last fall. And Mark, I'm probably gonna recuse myself at this point. Okay. I think it expires this April. Okay, but you'll be attending for public comment, I assume. So who's driving this? So I'll do what I can with it. Carla can jump in if she feels she needs to, but Noah Fishman reached out to both Carla and me a week and a half or so ago and asked about having it renewed. Carla and I spoke, Carla sent to him the application for the entertainment permit and said that, he had to apply again because as Mark just indicated, the entertainment permit that was issued last year expires in April. So Carla sent that off to Noah and we put it on the agenda for tonight's meeting. I got an email from Noah the other day. I'm not sure maybe Carla got it too. He suggested that because he had had a conversation with Chris Viennes, he was gonna leave the outdoor entertainment permit lying fallow right now, wasn't intending to address that at the moment and had some comments about why the select board even had an entertainment permit ordinance, an entertainment ordinance for inside. And I didn't respond to him, but I don't see that he's on the meeting tonight. I don't believe that he has anything, well, he's not here, I can't speak for him. So to remind the board, I think I told you all this last year and this will be the first time for Danny of course, but when the village of Waterbury existed, there were numerous bars and pubs and entertainment venues if you will in the village. There were places where people went to eat and to drink and the proprietors of those places said, gee, if we have music, that might try and some additional clientele and we can have music on Friday or Saturday night or what have you. And it was completely unregulated and this I'm talking back, I came here in 1988. So this is in the early 90s when there was sisters and then sisters too, the thirsty turtle, the pub was where the blackback is now. Those places, many of them decided that they wanted to have entertainment and they just did so. And especially in the summer in those days, none of those places were air conditioned. They would leave doors open and windows open to try to provide some ventilation in their buildings. And of course that allowed the sound to go out much easier and much further. And the village trustees and the village police department and I received numerous complaints from people, especially on like Elm Street, Randall Street, those areas, Anne's raising her hand, maybe she was one of the ones that complained a little bit. So as a result of the complaints that residents, people who lived in apartments and homes on those streets complaining about the noise from this entertainment, the village trustees adopted an entertainment ordinance. And it was a pretty simple ordinance and it's frankly the same ordinance that the town has now. The town didn't need one at the time because there were really no venues once in a while, something down at what was once called the Roadhouse on Route 2. They had entertainment once in a while, but the town didn't have an ordinance because frankly, there were no places outside the village really that were providing this type of offering to the public. So the trustees adopted the ordinance and it was pretty simple. You paid a $25 fee for the permit, you came in, you're explained on the application what you wanted to do. And pretty much the trustees issued the permits and said to the effect you need to keep the doors and windows closed, you need to keep the sound inside as much as possible. And as time went on, I think that they basically even bought a decibel meter and said, and I can't remember the level of the decibel reading, but at the property line, the decibels can't be any higher than X. And those were issued. The village had a police department so it was rather easier than it is now to enforce these things because what would happen is there'd be entertainment happening in August and it'd be hot, they'd open the doors and then somebody would call the cops and Reggie Irwin or Bobby Perry or one of those old-time police officers and even some of the newer ones, Anthony Mozillae would go out and then go to the venue and say, we're getting a complaint, you need to either turn the music down or you gotta shut the doors and see what happens. So that's what the entertainment permit is for. What we did last year and it was really more pandemic-driven than anything else, the select board considered the entertainment request that NOAA had and you ended up giving him a permit to have outside entertainment. And in retrospect, I wonder now whether you really even had the authority to do it. I'm not suggesting that it was necessary but I remember Mike and Nat at the time, Nat Fish who was on the board indicated that when they were on the DRB, the Zen Byron came and got a permit for operating. And I'm pretty sure there was in their conditional use permit, there's discussion about entertainment and what entertainment can be had. And I think last year, the select board's decision frankly, overrode the DRB's permitting process. And I don't really know if you have the authority to do that but that's the history of the entertainment permit. NOAA has suggested now that why does the select board even have this? You know, it's inside my building, it's part of the DRB. I don't know if he doesn't think he can afford the $25 or just doesn't wanna deal with having to go to the select board after having already gone to the DRB in the past but that's where we are right now. So with that, I'll stop and you folks can discuss things amongst yourself. Before, I think I'm gonna have to accuse myself on this as well so I think we have two of us now. So would any of the current board members want to take over as chair? All right, Mike, I see your hand is up. So I'm gonna hand it off to you and I have some comment when you're ready to let me speak. Thanks. Okay. I know it is signing in. My apologies, I was busy taking minutes and didn't see him sitting in the waiting room. So my apologies, no, I didn't see you in the waiting room. No problem. Okay. Let's, as acting chair, let's have first a discussion about it. I don't know if we need a motion made or I don't know, do we need a motion first? No, there's nothing to move right now. There's no application pending. So you don't, this is just a general discussion, Mike. Right. There is an application pending for inside music. Oh, well, I didn't see that. So. He knows that. No, it's been an application for inside live music performances any day of the week during operating hours and then outside acoustic live music performances allowing not to see 60 decibels of problem on a line number of the three days per week, no music after nine. And then he emails Bill and I and tables the outside request. Is that correct, Noah? Sorry. Oh, yes. Yes. So that's where we are. Okay. So there is a request for inside entertainment, which, you know, it's a valid permit application. I apologize. I didn't remember that. So yeah, the select board has the authority to act on this application. Does anyone want to make a motion to act on this item? I just have a question for Noah. Are you planning on not doing any outdoor anything at all this summer and just sticking to indoors? Is that what you're planning? Well, you know, we had an issue. You know, our neighbor had reached back out and expressed that they weren't supportive of us doing the outdoor music this year. We had intended to do like a limited number of outdoor events and then decided to hold off on requesting it until we had more of a chance to discuss it with our neighbors and see if there's anything we can work out. But it seemed like the, you know, feeling of the board was that at least from last time was that if we can't work something out with the ends, then it wasn't gonna pass anyway. So our feeling was to at least get the indoor music going and then see what we can work out for the outside if we can do anything. I mean, obviously we would like to, but you know, it really depends. And then the other thing I was just gonna say about the indoor music is I guess I was requesting in that email I had asked if the board would consider giving us a longer term, you know, I personally don't quite understand what the intent is of limiting indoor music generally, you know, or it seemed like even that concept of the ordinance that was dusted off from years ago that wasn't really enacted and wasn't used for many years to try to enforce getting permits for the indoor music seemed a little bit of a stretch to me. I understand it may be the technical, you know, policy at this time, but you know, I know for a fact most of the other restaurants that are doing music are not, at least from my understanding are not getting permits every time they wanna do a show inside and I guess at the very least I'd ask for, you know, some extended term here, can I get, if not indefinitely, which I don't see as unreasonable, I would just ask Bill to, you know, not have to come back to you guys every year to get another permit that could be at the whim of a select board to say, well, no, you can't. I mean, that's our business model. We do music and food and inside. And I don't, I guess I'm wondering if I can't get a multi-year at least or some kind of approval just to have music, which is, as far as I understood, that was already part of our review and, you know, Act 250 stuff. We already went through all the approvals to be able to do what we're doing. So it seems like another process that seems somewhat onerous to have to go through to do the indoor music. Well, I entertain other, I do have some comments, but are the board members, do they have comments from what Noah just said? I do, I have some questions that maybe, I think Bill might be able to answer. You had mentioned that the ordinance came about, I guess in the 90s, is that correct? That was when it was created. Yeah, the best of my recollection, baby. Sure. And then you said it was a $25 fee, and was that an annual fee for a permit? Yeah, I believe it was. Sure. And then is there a limitation? So I guess Noah sort of alluded to this, but that was my question. Is, does that apply to all restaurants and bars in town? And do you know if all restaurants and bars in town do annually renew their indoor music fee, permit if they do the shows? So as I said before, it was always easier when we had a police department to kind of remember that this was something that needed to be done. Noah, I think you probably weren't on, but the genesis of the whole permitting process was because places in the village were having entertainment and the neighbors were beginning to complain. So the trustees of the village adopted this ordinance. It is an annual permit. It, I don't have the ordinance in front of me, but I remember the application permit. I think it expires on April 30th every year. So it is something that needs to be done annually. Are we faithfully out there, you know, pouting on doors and sending this application permit out? No, because as I said, without the police department, it's just not as kind of right in front of you as it was before. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't do that, but yeah, the business community, some of them know and some of them faithfully renew every year. Others don't remember and don't say anything until somebody reminds them. So it is not consistently followed up on, I guess. And then I'm curious who, I guess I have two more questions. Who oversees that? Is that just the board or is there a process of overseeing that and checking or just is based on like incoming complaints and then follow-up? Yeah, it's usually based on complaints. And then have we been, my second question and last for now is have we been, I know this year is very different due to the pandemic, but over the past maybe three or four years, have we been getting complaints in the village from indoor music or has it seemed like not so much of an issue since back in the day? I don't get the complaints that I had before. As I said, I think the fact that we don't have a police department dampens the complaints that we receive because what would happen is people would call the police. Maybe they're calling the police now. We get the state police reports every month. I don't see a lot on there, but when people are disturbed, when the pieces disturbed, the phone usually rings. And if people who are providing entertainment are doing so in a manner that isn't disturbing anybody that nobody calls and then nobody thinks to say, hey, you've got an entertainment permit that says X, Y, and Z. I'm not here to defend or suggest that the entertainment permit should go away or not. It is what it is. We have it. It has been a tool that has been used. It has most of the time been effective when I've ever had to go talk to someone, a proprietor of a restaurant and said, we've received three or four complaints about what's going on. They typically tone it down for a while and like everything else, then after time, goes out of people's minds and it kind of ramps up again. So it's, from my perspective, it is not a big deal, but for the people who live near these places and when they are disturbed by loud noise, it is a big deal to them and it should be taken seriously by all of us. Other comments? Mike? Yes, Chris? Well, Bill, to your point, let's face it, it's a form of recourse against violators along in the short of it. And I think it's a reasonable tool, keep beats in areas that the zoning allows I guess. You know, to Noah's point, I don't care if he plays music, till the cows come home inside or where the windows and doors are shut. But unfortunately, his business is kind of a nighttime driven business when people are trying to sleep and then during the summer, after being locked up in the winter all year up, inside all winter, you like to have fresh air during the summer and enjoy some of the peace. And you can't do that if there's outside venues playing music. And, you know, the last thing I want to do is rub my neighbors the wrong way. If it were, you know, four o'clock, three o'clock in the afternoon, two o'clock in the afternoon, once in a while, it might not be so bad, but I think they have wedding venue from time to time. I don't know what the ordinance is on the music then, but I even think it's inside then. The DRB has set this rule. I mean, even if Noah and I, for some reason, came to some kind of an agreement, still that would be a DRB issue. At this point, I'm happy to have him play his music inside, as loud as he wants, as long as it don't, you know, reflect up here, but I mean, I'm trying to respect him and I hope he's trying to respect me. And I think my wife wants to say something. Hi, I just want to make sure Noah understands, this isn't a VNC then, this was a permit that we all went to a DRB meeting about and yes, the deal was you could have weddings, which was great, I think I've told you or Ari, I love watching the little weddings out there, it's great to see them, but the reception part of it and the music, that's the problem. And I disagree with Chris that it's okay to do it here and there and everywhere, because it has happened in the afternoon and I get a call from my mother who's down the hill, who's 80 years old and she can't hear her TV. She can't hear good anyway, so it's pretty bad if she can't hear her TV. So I just want to make it clear, this isn't a word, we're running the show here, this was a permit, okay? Yeah, and just to respond to that, I mean, that's why also we, I mean, we had asked to renew the, originally this application was to renew the permit from last year, we just threw it in like, all right, we'll just try to renew. And then, you know, we did get, you guys had reached out and said that, you know what, it's still like loud, like we had a show, you know, I mean, the permit did go through April, far as the last- At the outdoor, the outdoor didn't. Okay, well, as far as I was reading, I went back and looked at that permit and what I, I mean, it was a little scribbled on, it was a little confusing on there, but what I understood on there was it was through April. So I thought we were still under the, that- That permit you got does, but not the permit that the select board issued last year. That was in the fall. That was the end of that. Okay, well, what, when I was going back and looking at the actual, the permit, it looked to me, I may be wrong, but it looked to me like we were through April. So that's why I was, I was like, well, we had a really nice night out and then we had the bluegrass band and it was like, oh yeah, you guys can step outside and we had, you know, was, you know, I thought that was still under the permit and we could go back and look at that, but that's water under the bridge at this point. But, you know, and then we, when we got that complaint from you guys this, you know, a week or two ago, we said, well, let's just pull the permit and then if we can work something out, we can talk. If not, we're not going to try to push it because we want to get a relationship with our neighbor, just like you guys have said. And all I'm saying is, you know, DRB and all those other folks have gone through and already said, we have to keep the doors closed, the windows closed, all that stuff. I'm just saying, it seems like another lot, to do the indoor music, it just seems like a lot, like another round or red tape that I got to go through every year. It's not, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but at the same time, like, you know, trying to put the kids to bed. I know you guys volunteer and do all this work and it's really important and great, but like, you know, it's having to go through every year and don't worry about it. Well, I just want to clarify some things and going back to Bill's initial statement and I just want to, you know, I guess we need to have some rules because the initial, no, the initial, what we did initially when you requested, as Bill said, we probably weren't acting outside. It was not, it was in something, a special request for the pandemic to allow you to have outdoor music. And I think that was the right thing to do, even though procedurally, we probably didn't have that authority to do that. As to, and I could say, because I have firsthand information, because I was on the DRB, the initial permit was granted by the DRB specifically to provide only indoor music. Even going back further, the initial permit for the establishment was really the establishment was going to be a restaurant, yoga studio, et cetera. It was not deemed to be a nightclub and which it wound up morphing into being a nightclub, which really wasn't what was the original permit application. So going, yes, it's become a nightclub. The DRB had that responsibility to, for the good of the neighbors and whatnot have, it was very specific. Have music, close doors, it's fine. I'm looking at what was done. We basically, we're going back to where that permit is. And I say, I know you think it's a real problem to apply for an entertainment permit, but that's what your business has technically become. It's become an entertainment business, not just a restaurant, not a yoga studio, not a lot of other things. It really is a restaurant slash nightclub. And as such, the DRB did give a permit recommendation. And I think we have to, as a select board, work on what that permit was. I don't know what more to say. I don't know if any of the other select men have kind of more comments on that. Just to respond to that real quick, Mike, I mean, I see what you're saying, but the night, I mean, it's a restaurant with music, which is, yes, music is part and parcel of what we do to provide entertainment alongside our restaurant activities. Also, I just want to respond back to the ends, which I think they understand this, but we've never done, I mean, we didn't do outdoor music, aside from a couple of random times before we even knew that it wasn't even a thing. It wasn't allowed. We did, we've always done indoor music and we don't have a problem doing indoor music and we're still dealing with COVID. This is still like last year was an exception and we truly appreciate being able to do it outside. We appreciate the accommodation we were given for sure. And it was strictly the pandemic that forced us to do this. We never, we hardly ever did outdoor things. All the weddings, ceremony or whatever be outside, they come inside for the party. It's always all the restaurant activity. I mean, we've done, I believe that aside from like, if you honest, maybe mistakes early on, we've tried to follow that initial ruling, I guess, from DRB or whatever. So I'm not even saying that, and I'm fine. I'll apply for the permit. I was just saying from the perspective of, year to year, I'm like, all right, live music is part of what we do with our restaurant. It would be nice to know that we can do that going forward as agreed in the terms of the DRB rather than each year being at the whim of the select board, saying, well, this year, I don't know, because this is our business model. I thought that in the previous approvals that if we keep the doors closed and we do these things right, that we should be able to have live music indefinitely. So it's just a little bit stressful as a business if you're like, if all of a sudden we get a totally different select board in here and they're like, you know what? We just, you don't even like Zen Burn and these guys are crazy and we don't even like live music anymore. It's, you know, let's just take away their entertainment permit. You know, and all of a sudden we can't have live music inside. That would seem very extreme in sort of in the power of this permit. That's what I'm more concerned about. Not with you guys. I don't think you would do that, but you never know. And that uncertainty as a business owner is hard. That's the only point I'm making about the indoor music. I totally hear you Noah. I think what we're looking at is, I don't think it's a big thing. And I think we wanna perpetuate what your business is. I think it adds to the vibrancy of the community. But I think it's also for the neighbors and such. That's I think one of the reasons why the DRB put in that condition is being, you know indoors and closed in to avoid that amount of, you know the noise issue. You know, we want you to operate successfully. And I don't think it's too much to ask, you know like any other business owner and if there are other business owners that are not complying, they should probably be applying for entertainment. You know, I don't think it's too onerous to apply for those entertainment permits. And I don't think we're gonna be very capricious to deny, you know and I hope any select board is not gonna take that but if people are not gonna be acting within their permits that would be a reason, yeah for to deny someone a permit. I think to Danny's point, you know we probably should send an application out to all the businesses that have this entertainment and we should do it regularly. I don't have the ordinance in front of me Noah but pretty typically an ordinance will say something to the effect that the, you know the select board may not unreasonably withhold a permit. So it's your property, you should be allowed to do what you want with your property with some reasonable regulation. And I think if a select board just said, no we don't like music in any restaurants we're not gonna issue any permits. I think that would be difficult and not that I would wanna force anybody to go to court but it would be hard to get that upheld. Typically the boards are supposed to issue permits with reasonable conditions and that's what this is about reasonably conditioning these businesses for this purpose. Chris and then Mark. Yeah, all I gotta say is I think, you know from my perspective, I think the DRB split the apple in half and tried to make a happy medium. And as far as the yearly permit issue Noah I mean, how does that differ from liquor permits? Liquor permits are an annual thing and you're not getting the pushback from them on that nor you, I don't know that an entertainment permit should be any different, all I have, Mark. Yeah, no, so you know, I'm not participating I'm participating as a citizen, I accuse myself because sisters and sisters too got mentioned. So I was, it's gonna come in but I think it makes sense for me to be recused on this. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't know if I have a permit in place right now. I know I had it years past. I'd have to ask my general manager. So, you know, on the discussion of whether or not I even know if I have one, I'm not sure. I think Chris to your comment because I really do think that the indoor music should be part of the permit associated with the use in the DRB and not an annual permit. I didn't go into this meeting thing and that was a discussion or anything that I even thought about. But Chris, to your point, if you have an auto repair business and one of the things is that you need to keep a sound down to a reasonable level for your neighbors, then the only thing you have to worry about every year is that you keep that decibel level down to your neighbors, but in our business, yeah, that is a huge concern. If I lost my liquor permit, I'm out of business. And it sounds like Noah's saying if he loses his music permit, he's out of business. I'm not in that scenario. I use music as a very small portion of my business, but I could see in his business, I understand the business enough to know his business to know that I'm sure is a huge stress. And I know he's had problems with noise that has made you guys uncomfortable. And I totally respect that as well. And I think that some of it has to be within a permit and then the rest of it is between neighbors and understanding that if it's a continuation of a problem, then Noah's gotta come up with solutions whether it's a double airlock door or buffering of trees or something to try to help with the situation. That's what I would do if I had, and to answer, I think Danny's comment of downtown, I think I'm the one that does music the most. We are not what the 80s and 90s were, but we could be. I could sell tomorrow and there could be someone else that comes in and brings it right back. Who knows? So I'm always very conscious of my neighbors. There's a senior center across the street and I always fear that leftie's gonna come up the street with his decibel meter. So I think I live in that world of concern of my neighbors being upset with the noise I'm making. But I think to the other point, you could have a neighbor. I don't know what our residential permanent is, but you could have, I have it up here right now and ring that there's someone up on the hill that every day during the summer, last summer, there was loud music. But as far as I know, they can do that till 10 o'clock and I don't think I can really necessarily, they're allowed to do that as far as I know until I, I don't know what level of music can make me, I know what it makes me potentially upset, but there's a certain amount of noise that's allowed to happen. But I really do think to Noah's point that we do, when I'm back on the board, it's just the conversation surrounding indoor music that I do really think it should be considered to be in the permit, just like another business use with some kind of at property perimeter decibel rating that lives within the permit that there's something to go back on. But I understand Noah's comments and I totally understand Chris and Leanne, your concerns and, you know, I've gotten involved to try to help the situation as much as I can, but yeah, ultimately it comes down to really trying to know what do, do your business, but also respect your neighbors as we've talked about in other times when I was on the board. So that's, that's my comment. Maybe Mark, in response to what you just said, maybe that's something we really have to do in another select board meeting is do we wanna go forward with entertainment permits as a general statement? Right now we have entertainment permits, you know, on the books. I know it's not probably totally followed, but, you know, it is there. And as Bill said, do we just start sending out, you know, requests for people they need to get their entertainment permits or do we wanna totally abandon that? That's, I don't know if that's tonight's question, but I'll let the rest of the board decide that. Yeah, Mike, I agree with you and I would like to ask that we do have a, maybe a bigger conversation around that and it seems like tonight's not the night. I think just as we saw, you know, with a different perspective of the conflict of interest, policy that had just been continually adopted, maybe it's important to look at something that was created decades ago and see if it's serving the town and if it's not, how can we better serve the town with that ordinance and update it? And then also strive for consistency and equity for both the neighbors of the businesses and the business owners. So keeping those in mind, maybe we find a new happy medium with like a multi-year permit as Noah was suggesting or something that was, you know, sort of balanced in the middle. Katie, anything you want to add to this? No, I just wanted to call a question because we're a half an hour behind schedule. Yep. I would. Does anyone want, now, let me just clarify. Do we, we're making a motion to, let me think about what we're doing is we have approved before the outdoor permit and that's expired. I don't. So they've got an application. I believe Noah has submitted an application according to Carla that had both on there, both indoor and outdoor. Noah, both to Carla and me and then again reiterating to all of us tonight that they're withdrawing their request for the outdoor entertainment. So right now what they're asking for is to be issued an entertainment permit for 2021 to 2022. As I said, I believe on the bottom of that permit, Carla, it says it's good through April 30th or something, doesn't it? That's correct. So the permit that they have right now for indoor entertainment is still good for a couple more weeks, but he's applying for it so he can continue indoor. Or another year, indoor entertainment. Right. So the permit itself says inside live music performances any day of the week during operating hours, there's no conditions on that. Okay. Does anyone want to make a motion for that? It should be, if you make a motion to approve it, I would suggest that you, that the conditions you put on it be that it complies with the DRB regulations. Yeah, the DRB permit. Right. And to Noah's point, that's why you're saying, why do I need to go through this? Because the DRB is already told what he needs to do. But you've got to do it now because we have the ordinance in place. We're going to revisit later whether we want to keep it, but for right now we have it. They want to do entertainment inside. So you need to act on this permit. Does someone want to make a motion on this or we'll pass over it if there's no motion? I'll make the motion to accept the permit for the Zen Bar Entertainment for indoor entertainment for a year with the DRB policy. Carly, you got the wording on that? I'll figure it out. Okay. I think that's about right. Do we have a second? I'll second. As a motion and a second, is there any further discussion? If not, all in favor, vote. Any opposed? And there are, I guess two, two, I don't know, would there be two abstentions or they're just. Yeah. And two abstentions. Motion carries. Thanks Noah. Mark, do you want to take the helm? Get back to it. All right. Thanks Noah for attending tonight. All right. I believe there's an E item that was added and all I wrote down was Bill Woodruff. I can, this was a request from Bill Woodruff. There is a form called a certificate of compliance for town, road and bridge standards and network inventory that you'll need if you so choose to offer as bill to sign. And this is a requirement for much of this state grant funding with regards to road and bridges. If you sign it, your town is available for state grant funding for such things as roads, pavements, slope requirements, ditch treatment, culvert sizing, third rail requirements. Yeah. It's all stuff that they do in their highway tough projects. Right. And we've adopted this many times over. It's something that we have to do annually. We have a highway ordinance if you will, that talks about the standards, the materials that we use. They're all in compliance with the state standards. You know, this came about a number of years ago, mainly with regard to the whole stormwater issue and trying to keep the waterways clean. We're already in compliance with this. We have the Regional Planning Commission come in. They do an inventory. We have highways that are hydrologically connected to streams inventory quite regularly. We get grant money for that. So this is really a pro forma thing. I would recommend that you approve it, authorize its signature. Is what are you asking for him to be able to sign it, Carla or me? Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. Okay. I'll take a motion. Carla, would you call it again? Local roads policy? So it'd be a motion to authorize a minute to approve the certificate certification of compliance for town road and bridge standards and network inventory and operate the way to sign it. So moved. Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded any further discussion. All those and favorably say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. We're moving on to manager's items. Property tax interest. Okay. As I put in the memo that I sent to you the other day, back in November, you decided to wave interest through to April 1st. And we're just a little unsure. Did you mean that we should press the button and charge interests on April 1st or press the button to start the accrual of interest on April 1st, which would mean the first interest payment would be due on May 1st. It's as simple as that. And you did this, you waved the interest for a period of time in response to the COVID pandemic to try to allow people to keep their money. You cut the penalty last year. This is only interest. So we're just waiting to decide whether you want interest charged as of April 1st or May 1st. Any board members? So I don't know if this is helpful, but the minute said, CBN has been in motion to authorize the manager to reduce penalty from 84% to 2020 with no interest payments until April 1st, 2021. Right. Oh, so now. Right. Well, so on its face, it seems like we should just charge interest on April 1st. But if you take a mortgage and you get your mortgage on April 1st, your first payment isn't until May. So the return the interest button on April 1st and charge it 1% or 1.5% whatever it is in April, I mean, in May, or do you want to just charge it as of the other day? Okay. I guess first question I got to ask is how are we doing on delinquencies? Well, they're coming in slower than they were before. I can look quickly and tell you. I haven't right here, Bill, I think Karen printed me a list. I think we're at about 128,000. Okay. And she let me know that there are 31 households that are delinquent, of which nine are also delinquent in 2019. So any idea of an average, how's that compare? Past years, is it a little higher than usual or? I think it is. Hang on, 116, what was the number Carla that she gave you? Almost 128,000. Yeah, that's, that would be delinquent taxes, penalty and interest would be about 128,000. And for the same period a year ago, let me see. Yeah, last year at the end of March, we were at about, we were about 62,000 altogether. So we're about twice as much, still outstanding. So what are we talking for one month's interest on that? Is that a difficult question? 16,000, let me see. Isn't it just a little over a thousand bucks? It's 1% per month, right? Yeah, but only on the taxes. So it's probably about $1,700, Chris. I believe it's one and a half percent right now. If it's 1%, it's, like Mark said, a little over a thousand. I have no other board members trying to jump in on this. I read Bill's email and to me personally, if I was in the situation and thought I had telling for first and immediately got a bill, I personally think that it should be accrued through the month and the first bill would be, because if we don't, if we bill them right on April 1st, we're basically saying that for March, you were accruing interest and we're expecting payment. So that's where I would go. And if it's $1,700 and obviously people are hurting twice as much potentially as last year that any little bone I think we can throw in right now I think would be appreciated. And I personally say that we don't hit them with a bill on April 1st. I agree with Mark a thousand percent. Okay. So someone should just make a motion that says that the accrual of interest starts on April 1st and the first bill will be made first. I wanna make sure that Katie and Danny may have an opportunity to chime in before we make the motion. Do you have any other opinion before we try to make that motion? Katie or Danny? I think I fully agree with you. I just, it's for this year, right? For May 1st, like a month from now. Yeah. So we're talking about, right? Because we're talking about April 1st. Right. As though it's in the future, though it's past. So it definitely seems. Right, well, but we, so the direction I gave to the utility tax clerk last week was don't press the button until after the meeting. So if we, you know, the bills, April 1st was what they was April 1st, Friday. Five days ago, yeah. Saturday. Five days ago. The bills wouldn't have been going out until this week anyway. So just tatter a postpone, pressing the button until after tonight's meeting. I think I'm in agreement with that thought as well. And then just a side note for you, Mark. We did get wrapped on the knuckles earlier this year for the comment of throwing them a bone. So going forward, just the more lenient or something just in case, you know, somebody's watching. Sure. I heard, I apologize for that. Thank you, Katie. Yeah, thanks, Katie. Can we get a motion? Is there a motion or do we need to just clarify it? You need to make a motion to start the accrual of interest on April 1st with the first bill on May 1st. I moved. Who moved that? No, no. Is there a second? Second. Chris. I did. All right, bills are, it's been moved in second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Moving on to consider audit engagement letter. Yeah, very pro-former again. I think Carla sent that out to you this morning. I think it was, it's a pretty long letter that, you know, is a standard form letter that accounting firms have to produce when they're going to start an audit. All the right languages in there. And the price was, was it $23,300 or $24,300? It's like on page six or something like that. I used to see in my previous life, many of those letters, it's a very standard engagement letter. And I would recommend that it be approved. Yeah, and if you would authorize me to sign it as well, Mike, it's just hard to get all the select board to sign it now, so. I make a motion to approve the auditor's engagement letter and give the town manager the authorization to sign. Second it. All right, it's been made in second in. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, I would like to make a comment that we should make sure that all the board members have an opportunity to make in second motions. So let's give some of the other board members opportunities. All right, agenda, discuss personnel policy. Yeah, so in keeping with helping Danny wonder what kind of organization she got involved in here, our personnel policy is woefully need of amendment. And Chris, I think is the only member of the board now who is on here, who remembers the fund that we had back in 2013 and 14, trying to go through this. The policy that we have in place right now was actually adopted in 1991. I think it was successfully amended one time after that, maybe around 2006. It's a decent policy as far as it goes, but there are many things that have happened over the years that have not been incorporated that need to be, you know, the Family Leave Act and other things like that, federal legislation, state legislation, sexual harassment language and the like needs to be incorporated into this policy. One of the reasons why it has been so difficult to get this over the hump and adopt it is because of the structure of the government in the community in which we live. It's a little less complicated than it once was, but when I was hired in 1988, I was hired, offered the job to be the town manager by the board of select men at the time. We call it a select board. I was offered the job to be the village manager by the village trustees. And I was offered the job to be oversee the water and sewer departments by the elected water commissioners of the village. So those three entities hired me. There are also three other elected commissions out there that have some interest in personnel, the library commissioners and the cemetery commissioners. And now the EFUD commissioners, the Edward Farrar Utility District has really replaced the water and sewer commissioners of the village and the village trustees. So they're gone. But if you look at the organization chart of this municipality that I manage, I've got four or five elected boards that I report to and then all of the employees really kind of come and report directly to me. And we've always tried hard to treat the employees as if they worked for one organization as opposed to two or three or more different municipalities. And when we have had occasion to try to amend this policy, what ends up happening is we get at the time, four boards were in play. There was the trustees, there was the select board, there were the water sewer commissioners and then there were the library commissioners. And we worked long and hard and we kind of went 98 yards down the field and then we fumbled the ball and it's still on the ground and we never picked it up again. So we've got to do this. We've got to do it in a manner that works with the Edward Furai utility district as well. The library commissioners are anxious to get something done, they have some personnel things that they're dealing with of late and we all really need a new policy. So I took the same approach that I did with that conflict of interest policy. The policy that we almost adopted was a model plan from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, their human resources director at, I shouldn't say director, expert if you will, at VLCT helped us get that personnel policy to the point of nearly adopting it. I took that and I sent it to a Stitzel page in Fletcher last week and said, look, we need to get over the hump on this. We were almost there in 2014, but here we are. It's seven years later now when we still don't have it and there's been more legislation both at the federal and state level that have passed. So I got an email from John Klesch at that law firm last night and they basically have a template that we, it's a good starting point and to get us through this process, it's about $1,200 and that's actually pretty cheap when you feel, when you realize that these attorneys are billing out at $200 to $300 an hour just to get this done from soup to nuts for $1,200, I think is worthwhile. We're already gonna be over on our legal line items. We've had some issues. We had the hundred mountain childcare thing. We've got the couple of zoning issues that we're dealing with. I don't think it's gonna be a killing matter in terms of being over budget, but we are going to be over budget anyway on this legal line. So what I'd like to do and you don't have to make a motion today, but is to get the general consensus from the board that this is something that you wanna move forward on. I'll work with the attorney to get things to the point where I think I can bring it to the boards and then we're gonna have to go through the painful process of somehow getting the trustee or the refund commissioners and the library commissioners together with us to try to get this all done. But that's what I propose we should do. And I think that we should have, an updated policy as soon as we can. Comments from the board, Chris? I don't, like you said, Bill, it's been a long time. We're gonna move forward with this then perhaps you may have already have been thinking about it, send out the current policy so that we can get started on going through it ourselves so that we can get up to snuff on it when we do get this, it's talking about it. Yeah, what I propose we do, Chris, is that I think the best starting place, and I can certainly send you the one that was adopted in 1991. It is quite antiquated. It needs to have gender neutral language and a lot of other things to it as well. But I can send you what we have, but I think sending you the skeleton of the proposal from the lawyer will be most helpful. And then we can kind of add some flesh onto it with the other boards. We got hung up the last time, frankly, on the, you know, right now our policy as far as leave time is concerned is a standard sick time, vacation time. That's how it's structured right now. And there was an attempt, there were some of the board members who felt strongly that we should move to a combined time off. It proved difficult to do getting buy-in from the employees. We don't have any unions here. So we don't necessarily have to negotiate with employees, but because I think the employees are our greatest asset, I don't think it makes sense just to impose something on the employees without having them have the ability to understand how it affects them and how it might impact them. And, you know, I thought moving to the combined time off was something that should be considered because we had a number of people and this is gonna sound generational, Katie, but, you know, people, old people like me, you know, the policy says you don't take sick time unless you're sick. It's not intended to be vacation time. So, you know, I've got 960 sick hours in my bank. When I get sick, I take one. I don't get sick very often. And then, you know, I accrue it back and that's it. But a lot of the younger employees that have been with us for five years, 10 years, if you look at their sick banks, looks like they either get sick an awful lot more than others of us ever did or they're using it for vacation time. And I thought that, well, if we made a combined time off and we didn't care why they took it as opposed to violating the policy and taking sick time and really using it as vacation leave time, that it would be better to have a policy that didn't make criminals, if you will, out of some of the employees. But there was pushback from some of the older employees who had a lot of sick time and said, hey, I've built that sick time up and if I have a heart attack or, you know, if I need to have an operation, you know, I've earned that over time. I don't want to just give that up. So that's why we fumble. That's where we kind of stalled out and we can revisit those things. But does the game plan at least of working with this attorney work for you folks? Personal issues are some of the most difficult things that we'll probably always deal with. And I agree, Bill, I think the first starting point we need to have is some legal opinions. We have so many different things from Americans with Disability Act to a lot of diversity things, to a lot of, you know, family leave and such that we really have to, you almost need an expert in HR that is going to know all this. And none of us are HR experts, but I'm sure that the attorneys will have some sort of template where they'll be able to guide us and figure out at least as a start. I am probably, call me, I'm old too, Bill, and I do have a little bit of a problem with the combined bank. I just think sick leave is when you're sick and annual leave is for when you want time off. You know, yes, are you going to chase after someone because they're, you know, not sick, but that's, you know, really is an ethics kind of thing. And I think it's, you know, I know we always had, our sick time, we encourage people not to use their sick time because it always helped because the sick time bumped up their amount in their pension by a certain time. That's why it encouraged people to bank six times. Just like you said, is people who don't bank sick time, you know, if they do have something wrong, then you have to, I know some places have had leave sharing and stuff like that. It's really unfortunate for those who save their time, they're good. Those who didn't, you know, they're going to be asking for time. Yeah, and that's part of the issue Mike. And again, it never was an issue for me. And I know Leanne used to work for us and she was in the same boat that I'm in now as a long-term employee. But in Waterbury, you know, we don't, there's, your sick time is there if you're sick. And if you retire and you have 960 hours of sick time, you don't get anything full. Right. So, you know, we don't have a provision right now. I know there are some employers who say, you know, for every, you know, every 200 hours that you get, you know, we'll convert one to another day off or what have you. But of course, now with the pandemic, we're more in a situation. I'm hoping that people, as we go forward, even when they just get the common cold, we'll be deciding a little bit more often now to stay home than they used to, you know. They should. And we've got to have to, you know, educate employees as to why we offer them sick time. And, you know, nobody's indispensable that, you know, they have to never miss a day because they're sick. There's a lot of people who take pride in that. Oh, I never took a sick time day in 30 years, but, you know, maybe it would have been better for the rest of us if you had. I had staff like that. Okay. I would go bring it to the attorneys and then let's bring something back and let's try to get, let's try not to fumble on the two yard line. I agree. Any other site board members want to make a comment and then do we need a motion for this? I don't think you would need a motion, Mark. Just general consensus of the board is fine right now. Okay. Just general consensus that we move forward with that plan. Great. All right. Any, anything else on that or we'll move on? All right. Next, consider pay ranges for employees. Mark, can you put that up? Yep. Just a second. Well, I just had a question. Should this be something that's talked about and executive as it's pertaining to employees' wages and things like that or no? No. Public employees have no expectation for privacy when it comes to their wages or salaries. So there's nothing here. I mean, most of these are ranges and cover several positions, but there are a few of us who are individual. You know, we only have one highway superintendent. We only have one municipal manager, one community planner. But, you know, Katie, there are a number of municipalities out there who in their annual report every year print the wages and salaries of all their employees. I know some school districts even do it. So I appreciate the question, but no, there's no need to go into executive session for this. So as I said in my memo the other day, the budget was built with the idea that probably this time, pretty much to be an across-the-board increase of 2% in wages. As I indicated, very few people have received any kind of wage increase since April of 2019. The budget a year ago was passed. I think most people were gonna be in line for about 2.3 to 2.6% last year. And then the pandemic struck and we had to be concerned about, you know, how much revenue we were gonna lose and we ended up cutting many projects and many services. Danny, I think you probably know, but we laid off fully. I think nine people or so were fully laid off and then there were another five or six that had hours cut dramatically. Typically we adjust wages in April. We build a budget. The budget gets approved in March. The first Tuesday of March at town meeting, we wait 30 days for the appeal period to pass and then after the appeal period passes, that's typically when people get pay increases if they're going to get them. And as I said, a year ago, everyone was in line to get some kind of increase even if it was just a COLA increase. Because of the pandemic, we cut spending and we didn't give anybody a pay increase at all last year. All of the salaried employees took a voluntary 5% pay cut that stayed in effect from when the pandemic started in late March early April and that 5% pay cut stayed in place for the salaried employees right through into August. And then the pandemic started to ease a little bit. I told the salaried employees that they could go back to their former wage rate or salary rate. So anyway, I did take the opportunity to use the VLCT salary survey. I've upgraded these ranges. I left the old ones which were adopted in 2018 and then the ones in yellow highlight is what I'm proposing now. I would recommend and ask the select board to approve this and also authorize me to go ahead and pull the trigger on issuing the raises that were built into the budget this year with the understanding that a 2% increase just the cost of living since 2019 far exceeds this increase. So anyway, with that, I'll stop. I don't know where my unmute button went when I am screen share. So sorry, I had to take it off screen share. Does anyone need that backup? And then I'll figure it out on mute. Okay, Mike, go ahead. Yeah, Bill, maybe I just have some questions where I guess I assume the ones that you put like an annual salary, those are salaried employees. Yeah. And the ones that you're putting a wage rate, I guess I'm not wondering where is the 2%? Is that at the bottom end or is that, because a lot of them, there's a big range as to where they could be. Yeah, so, Mark, if you can put that back up again for just a second. So, if you look at the highway laborer ones, Mike, we have seven employees there. And while even when the range was $17 to $27 per hour, nobody was above the midpoint of that range. So, if there's a highway employee right now who's making $20 an hour, the idea is that that highway employee is gonna get a raise of 2%, so go to $20 and 40 cents an hour. The ranges, what I've done with the ranges, Mike, is used inflation over the past couple of years and the VLCT salary survey to say, okay, highway laborers across the state are in this range, we need to be competitive. We're not paying any highway laborer $30 an hour right now. We could under this scenario, but it will take time before anybody gets up anywhere close to the top of that. I think the highest highway employee not including Celia would be in the $25 range right now, Mike. Okay, because I was just wondering, I'll just take one, just like public works director, where it says $65 to $90,000. That's a pretty big range. Yeah, it is a big range. And first of all, the public works director, you notice that the memo is to the E-FUD commissioners as well as the select board. So the public works director position is actually an E-FUD position. It's not a town, a direct town position. The range is so big there because most public work directors, when people think of that, think of somebody who's maybe a professional engineer and has a professional degree, but we have, there are public works directors, including our own, that basically have earned their way into that position through experience. They don't have a professional degree, so the range on that one is pretty large. I agree with that. And you can see there on that one, Mike, I didn't adjust the lower end of the range just because of what I just said, but the upper end of the range has increased a little bit just because that would be somebody who's got a professional degree probably. Yeah, that's the reason why I kind of asked is that, I think the statement that you made, Bill, is yes, the staff is probably one of our best assets, but I guess I'm also a little bit concerned because we're still somewhat, I know some people don't want to acknowledge that we're still in a pandemic kind of situation. I'm still a little bit concerned about finances as much as great employees deserve to be rewarded. I guess I have a little problem with some of the ranges as to where we're gonna be financially, because we're still having effects of this pandemic. Yeah, I understand, Mike, but as I said, and I think I put it in the memo as well, there's hardly anybody who's above the midpoint of these ranges that works for us. So this is just to tell you that if we had to go out and recruit a new wastewater treatment plant operator, and that's, again, an EFUD position, we just had an $8 million upgrade to that plant a couple of years ago, when it's got a pretty sophisticated system of removing phosphorus from the wastewater. And we would have to have that range because to get somebody who has that kind of experience to do that job, you might have to pay close to that $38 an hour to get them. Our guy is way down, much closer to the $25 range right now, but he's been here for 18 years or something like that, and he has grown with the position, but we would never hire the guy that we have now into that position because he wouldn't know how to operate the plant, except for the fact that he's been here while we built it. So you've got to have a range where you can hire people, but nobody is at the top of these ranges for us. And I think basically a 2% increase after two years is it fits into the budget, Mike. We've already, the select board approved the budget and the voters approved the budget. I don't think this is gonna be the place where the budget gets broken. Yeah, that answers my question. I was just more concerned about if everyone was on the right end of the spectrum. No, no. It's gonna really be a hardship on the community. No, nobody's close to the right end of the range as well. That's good to know. Thanks. So if everybody's comfortable, could we remove this screen share? Back to full screen. Appreciate that. So I just want Danny to know how I stand on this thing. It's always been kind of a rub for me, government employees versus private sector. There's a benefit package involved in this that couldn't stand alone when we're talking, having this discussion. You know, I've been in the private sector all my life. I see what, all my working career, I see what people out there in the private sector get paid. Their ranges may be comparable to what's being proposed now, probably on the lower end, but typically there's no benefit packages. Raises don't come on an annual basis. Sometimes they're spaced as far as three and five and seven years apart. I've had people tell me that they hadn't had or raises it to those extremes. And it's difficult for me to, you know, Bill and I have had this discussion the year after year, give increases in pay when private sectors aren't. And typically what happens here in this municipality and I'm sure others, along with it comes increases in healthcare, benefits, pension benefits and a like. For a while I've been interested in seeing if there was a way that we could space this cost of living increase on a two-year basis to make it more even keel with the private sector. It's still far from what the private sectors, my opinion, gets. As a business owner, I don't increase my rates from year to year because of the domino effect, not only in the business that I'm in, but other people that are in the business that my business encompasses. They don't do that either. They have to kind of flow with the free market enterprise based on economics. And one question I wanted to ask Bill if he felt that the staff has been shortchanged this year due to everything else that's kind of been piled in with the mix, you know, it was great and very good of the staff members that were Valerie to volunteer to have a cutback. I think moving forward, there was a way that, you know, in critical times, and you can tell me, Bill, maybe that's happened in the past where there's been instances where wages decreased due to economic hardships as it would in the private sector with layoffs and furloughs happening in the private sector when economic times dictate that people have to lay off or fire people because they just don't have the business. So, you know, staff has always been a critical part of the budgeting process, not only with municipalities, school budgets, you know, the staff costs are 85% of the budget. So, you know, there was a few issues out there that if the board has any reason to wanna think we could change or alter a little bit to be more in step with the private sector or is this just something that's not negotiable? Well, let me, Danny, I see your hand up. Well, it's certainly from my perspective, Chris, is nothing is not negotiable. I hear what you're saying. I appreciate your concerns. And, you know, I think I've told you in the past that I've had contractors work for me and I've seen that they haven't changed their billing rate and I talked to them about it. And, you know, I try to take care of those people from my perspective, you know, just doing business with them, you choose to do what you do with your business. You have the competition that's out there, you know your market and you're entitled to do what you do with your pricing and with what you pay your employees. I can't remember a time that we've actually cut anybody's wages, Chris. I mean, if somebody's been, you know, making $15 an hour, I can't remember a time in my career as a municipal manager where we've gone to that person and said, well, you know what? We're gonna lower you to $14 an hour because of economic conditions. We have many times in the past, we have given very minimal raises. There have been a few years like this between 2019 and 2020 where we didn't give any raises. That was certainly driven by the pandemic. No employee came to me and said, hey, you know, you didn't give me a raise. It's April, it's where's my raise? Nobody said that as I indicated, salaried employees did take a pay cut last year. I think that at least from my perspective, I have always tried to be responsive and cognizant of the fact that taxpayers are paying the freight here. Over time, yeah, we have a benefit package and maybe it's a better benefit package than some people in the private sector are able to give, but we have reduced the richness of that benefit package over time. Most of our employees are on high deductible healthcare plants now. We helped them, we put some money in their health savings account. There's no question about it, but I don't think that at least from my perspective that I've ever been cavalier about the fact that taxpayers are paying the bill here. The ranges, I found this memo, I said, it's been since 2018 since that's been adjusted. So I adjusted the ranges the way that I believe that they should be adjusted. As I already answered, Mike, nobody is at the top of the range. And we're talking about for the impact this year, a 2% wage increase for our employees. And yeah, I know we're still in the pandemic period. I can't remember if we explicitly had this conversation when we put the budget together, but initially I was asked to put a budget together that was gonna be 51 cents. We ended up agreeing that the budget should require a 53 cent tax rate. The salary and wage line items all from the beginning were all shown to you. So I can't remember if I told you at the time that the cost of living is running about 2% right now but it certainly wasn't hidden. So the board can do what it wants and I won't take any offense to it, but I just wanna state from my perspective, I don't think anybody certainly at the management levels, me and the department heads are fully cognizant that taxpayers pay these bills. Bill, is it generally an annual increase based on cost of living for pay rates or it's just a value in here? We have always tried, Danny, to provide at least a cost of living increase. So every year I look at the CPIU numbers from the federal department of labor statistics and see that from December 2020 to December, I mean, 2019 to 2020, what I don't have it in front of me right now, but cost of living was 1.9%. So we have always tried to give cost of living increases or close to that. It's not always happened. There's been some years where it's been shaved a little bit. There are far fewer years when we get significant amount of money to give people a raise that would be a raise, cost of living adjustment keeps you even where you were in the past. So there have been few years in my 30 year term where say the cost of living back 15 years ago might have been 3% and we've, the boards have authorized maybe a 5% increase, but when that happens, when there's typically money above the cost of living increases, I typically have not just doled that out on an across the board basis because if somebody's making $20 an hour and they're doing the same job that somebody's making $15 an hour to do, if you give them both a 5% increase, the person who's the higher paid person gets further ahead of the lower paid person because 2%, 3%, whatever the percent is above the cost of living adjustment is gonna be higher if the base is higher. So I try in those cases to tell people, look, we have other ways to reward longevity. You get more vacation time if you've been here for 15 years. If you're driving a truck after five or seven years, you're not adding much more value. You kind of know what the job is and you're equally able to do it with somebody who's been here for 15 or 20 years. So in those cases when the boards have provided additional money, usually that tries to go to the lower paid people and obviously some for merit. There are some merit pay raises that get given for once in a while as well. So. That kind of leads into the question I had in the last paragraph of your memo. In the last two sentences, it talks about some modest raises later in the year to recognize merit. So are you suggesting that 2% raises across the board and then later on giving people extra based on on the work that they've done this year or? Yeah, that's right, Katie. And typically, there are some people that I'm proposing get a little higher than the 2% across the board right now. I think that, and if we wanna talk about specific people, we do need to go into executive session for that. But the last point that you made there, Katie, is that there is a little bit of money that if I just gave the, if we just gave 2% across the board, probably all the money in the salary line items would not be eaten up. And there is room to be able to give somebody something a little bit later in the year. But that's not a foregone conclusion that that will happen. Is there any provision? Because I always like to reward people who work well. But conversely, people who are margin, you know, I don't know if that's even, I don't even know how many, if any, do we have of those folks, do we have, you know, is there a provision that if people are not kind of, or they're marginally producing that there's not even gonna be a raise for those folks? You know, that's kind of like the old merit pay, people who are performing better, you know, get higher raises, and I'm a big believer in that. We've typically not withheld cost of living increases, Mike. Because of lack of performance. Lack of production, but certainly, you know, if this isn't a good year to as an example, because there's really not a lot of money for a lot of, you know, real increases. This is just asking if we can give, basically, and across the board adjustment for people who haven't been, haven't had an increase since April of 2019. But in the years that we do have more money, Mike, yeah. Maybe everybody gets the one or 2% COLA, but if that's, you know, if there's no merit there, you know, then they're told, hey, you know, you're not getting anything. No incentive to do well. Right. I don't think I've commented yet on this. Yeah, I think that there's so many moving parts to this, and I find, I struggle with this in my own business. Obviously there's a retainment conversation that has to be had, you know, if we, if we potentially keep wages low, we could potentially lose people, but it doesn't seem like for year over year, we are necessarily, or that's a huge part of this conversation, but obviously a concern. I, you know, obviously in the business, similar to Chris, I have about 100 employees now, and juggling costs, and back to your comment, Mike, about performance and automatic wage increases, but I think what I've learned over the years with Bill is that I do feel like he takes expense very seriously. I think he does try to hire at levels that are appropriate for our budget. And I think that, you know, these proposals come with a lot of forethought. I think, you know, maybe something that would be helpful for me is understanding what this ultimately, you know, I think obviously I could go and look at the budget increase and try to understand what this represents as a number. The comment of the compounding potential discrepancy between wages is an interesting one that I might wanna research further, but I think it would be helpful just to understand as we talk about this and find out that it's, you know, a $20,000 annual difference versus a $100,000 annual difference. I know those numbers aren't even appropriate, but it's important in the conversation of just understanding what maybe these annual increases are, which I know I could go find that information. And I think it's also important for the board members, especially the ones that maybe I haven't seen. Bill gets a raise from us and, you know, he asks because we don't offer it, which is something that we also should talk about as a board to make sure that, you know, it's a situation where we have to understand that Bill gets to set everyone's wages, but we ultimately get to set bills. And so he has to ask in letters like this, so that's why it's appropriate and why it's fair to ask that. He does mention that, I don't know, Danny, if you knew that he had a car until recently that we paid for, he no longer has that vehicle. And so that's mentioned there as well. So that's just a point. I think for me personally, I think that we should support the increase, but I would like to have a conversation outside of these conversations of a strategy. So there's no surprises, a lot more conversation around how we deal with percentage versus other strategies that maybe make it clear to employees of how their wage curve works. And we as a board, and especially when board members maybe are only on here for a year and this conversation comes up, there's much more of a game plan that is clear. I know Bill has his game plan and I think it just would be helpful and we could try to buy into that game plan as a current board. And then hopefully following boards can have more of the game plan, especially if and when Bill leaves whoever takes his position. It's trying to make sure that they have a clear rule book that we as a board hope can continue. So those are my comments, but I did have one question, Bill, and maybe you could explain it. I know you said, most of the wages are at the halfway point or below, but if you take someone like cheap water sewer operator, the halfway point is I think $22.05, $22.50 and the new base, the lowest wage would be 25. So are there some scenarios in this that there's a significant increase because the base is higher? Yeah, I think so part of the issue there, Mark, is that again, the last time we actually went through this kind of exercise was 2018. And there are a couple of people in the chief wastewater operator, especially because of that phosphorus upgrade. He ended up ticking up above the range that was there before. So he's a little higher than the old range already. So he's not gonna get an astronomical increase to get bumped up into the new range. But again, that's an EFUD issue. And I'm not splitting hairs with you, but that's an employee for the utility district. It's nobody under the select board's control, so. But you're saying that potentially someone could get paid outside of this range and it's a- In a perfect world, it shouldn't happen. There should be an adjustment of the ranges if you're gonna pay somebody above the range. But in that particular case, because of changes, the job description and the person's responsibility ratcheted up pretty significantly from what it was before. It was a simple aerated lagoon and now it's a phosphorus removal plant. So we had to pay that person commensurate with what they were gonna be doing. And it just so happened, he got above the range, so. Additional comments? I have some questions, but I feel like it's not gonna serve us based on how late it is tonight and it doesn't change my opinion about what to do tonight. So I would love to, Mark, see if we could do what you suggested, maybe have a bigger conversation on another time. Chris, I think I saw your hand up. Yeah, I'll try to make it quick. I just want everybody to know that this is a difficult conversation for me. Nobody wants to go against the grain and I just happen to have this rub about this issue and it's not anything to do with the staff. It's the institution that's been developed over time that being from the private sector all my working career, it seemed like the two are separating further and further. People are receiving raises every year and benefit increases every year and then people in the private sector aren't, but then they're infected to reach into their pocket if to those who are. And I'll never be happy with it. I mean, you know, Bill and everybody else there, my wife was a municipal employee for 35 years. So she knows I've had that same rub for a while. And well, I guess I'm just people in the private sector and Chris, I am struggling struggle that they have. And I know, Bill, that you are 100% cognizant of the finances and the economics of this municipality. I don't know what I was gonna say. Never thought anything different. No, I understand that and you know, I'm certainly not taking it personally. I guess, however, I get the rub that you feel, but you either have to say, okay, we're gonna do this or you gotta propose something different. And I don't, I understand that you don't like the system and you think that the public employees are somehow different than private sector employees, but there's no proposal for anything different. And I think that's where the opportunity somewhere to Danny's comment is, I think we should support what Bill's presented, but I think we should have a conversation and look to other towns and see how other towns approach this. And hopefully it's on a visibility that we can look at or we can talk to other towns. So just ask the question and maybe, Bill, you already do this. I'd much rather have, you know, I'd hate Chris to every year, you know, we have a feeling that we need to somehow have a discussion and the employees feel like we're holding them back in any way and there's just a much clearer pathway without, you know, maybe some of the, and I'm not saying it's negativity, but it, you know, it is, you know, it is there, the wages that they take home and there are current expectations. And it gets hard too when you change the rules similar to what Bill said, you know, you change, you change the policy surrounding paid time off and the employees that have been there forever that feel like, well, I've had this, why are you changing on me? I got hired under these circumstances or these this rulebook and sometimes it's a lot easier when you have turnover, but we don't want that. So it's like, it's a difficult situation. And I think we can have these conversations outside of this tonight. And I agree. And I would encourage that. And I'm not disagreeing with Chris. He's right. Pretty typically municipalities have something similar to this. And, you know, a lot of municipalities have unions. And if you look at the union contract, there's a step in grade that just happens automatically. And it's very, it's very frustrating. And we don't have that. We had a union here twice, one in the village police department and one in the highway department for a few years. And, you know, the highway department, the union people that came in there just said, here's our standard contract. And this is how we want it to escalate. And this is what we're going to do. And, you know, I pushed back and I said, no, we're not going to give just that across the board thing every year just because another year has gone by and you move up this way because another year has gone by and you move over that way. If you, you know, if you move into a new position and I basically ended up getting the union to agree to what I said a few minutes ago, which was, hey, if we have money, we're going to portion it kind of to try to, you know, get people who are doing the same jobs on the same pay level and we'll reward seniority for something better. And after a while, the guys didn't like it and they decertified the unions. Oh, you know, I think that I'm trying hard, Chris. Yeah, one last thing and then let's move on. Your comment earlier about, you know, I choose to do what I choose and you do what you do, what you choose to do. The way I look at that bill is like it takes all the spokes in the wheel to make the wheel turn. So we can't all be doctors, can't all be teachers and can't all be municipal staff, you know. No, I didn't mean it that way, Chris. I meant that you choose how you run your business. I, you know, I understand the pressures and I tried to explain to you that I've dealt with contractors and I said, geez, I don't think you're being fair to yourself. You're charging me the same thing this year as you charged me three years ago. That's not right, you know? So anyway, but I get the pressures, I understand. Okay. Mike, good. I'll be real brief. I think what both Mark and Danny said, we do have to have a long-term conversation. Everyone has to recognize that public employees and private employees are different. And sometimes private employees, if a business is really well, they may be flowing bonuses out the door. You know, public employees have more cost of living, you know, you know, not like the private sector. There are differences. People choose different careers based upon that. And, but I think long-term we just do have to have some sort of discussion on what compensation is because you want to be fair to everyone. I hear what Chris is saying, you know, you know, the public, the private sector looks at, well, they're not guaranteed raises every year like the public sector typically does. It's just something we have to figure out what's an equitable system, what's a fair way to go. I just want to have it where it's based upon merit more than anything else. Thanks. Would anyone like to make a motion? Unless somebody else wants to do it. Yes, I'm happy to. Thank you, Chris. So I move to accept the amendment in pay range submitted by Bill Sauer for municipal employees. Bill, does it need to speak more to the letter or just because you have control over the 2% conversation and it's not necessarily like 2% for everybody, right? More or less it will be, but yeah, I think Danny's motion is fine. To approve the ranges and agree with the sentiment with regard to, you know, the executing the budget as it has been adopted, that'll take care of it. Danny, are you okay with those changes? That's exactly what I said. And just to clarify, Bill, just to clarify, we will be having a group discussion about merit-based phrases later on, the possibility of those. We shouldn't put that in the motion. I know, but just for me to understand we will be having it. Not necessarily, Katie. The board and the voters approve the budget and the manager's job is to execute the budget. You can certainly have a discussion about me, but I don't have to come back to the board to say that so-and-so is gonna get a raise. I mean, if we want it, we can have, I'm very much in favor of what Danny suggested before that I can show you what the budget looks like, where the increases are, where our payroll is now compared to where it was. And I think, especially if you compare 2019, 20, and 21, it's pretty flat. But I don't think it should be the board's prerogative.