 Welcome everybody. Any additions to the posted agenda at this time? Nope, nope. Mason? Yeah, I'd like to talk about one of our newest policies, the CBI, contact of interest. So we'll start out with the minutes from the June 24th meeting and I didn't have any changes on those. I'd move to prove as typed up. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Boys, it's pretty quiet compared to what it was posted in three places. Yep. It's early yet. Yeah, it's early yet, right. So yeah, we have been posted in three places on the website and emailed to interested parties so we can move forward with this and we've got that done. On the new business, we had the first setting of the 2019-2020 tax rate. We still have to wait on the education tax rate and we hope to have that by midweek so we were gonna table that for now and we've got a certificate confirming that there is no appeal or suit pending to the grand list, which this goes to whom? Who gets this? It just goes in our book. This goes in the book. So I'd move to sign this and this is part of setting the tax rate for next year just knowing that we can count on the grand list and come second up. All in favor? Aye. All right. I'll pass that on to you, I'll read that. And then we have the new 2019 town road and bridge standard document that was hopefully prepared by two rivers out of Quichy and I'd move, we'd go ahead and execute this. Second that. All in favor? Aye. All right. So we've got one signature on there and there is also on the agenda was signing the approval of a promissory note to Mass Goma Bank for the money we're gonna, the line of credit we're gonna need to deal with the amount of road but we're gonna wait to sign that until we've had it reviewed by the lawyer so table that one also and we're going to adopt a new social service appropriation policy and sign that which is basically the different organizations that are requesting funds at the annual town meeting. We're trying to make it a little more clear and that we actually have them make a clear statement and presentation about who they are and what they want and not allow people to piggyback several requests in on one proposal. So I just figured if people are gonna ask the town to get some of their money, they should, you know, ask. And that's not this one, that is this one. So, yes. Would it be quick to say you were wanting to approve a new social service appropriation policy for use at town meetings? It's not a town meeting. It's just in general, you know, that's usually when these are voted on at the town meeting but you could just say a social service appropriation policy. Thank you. So I would move to adopt this. I second it. In all in favor? Aye. Aye-aye. This is the date of July. Talking about policies that would lead us on to Mason, your question about the conflict of interest policies. Yeah. In reference to probably the most recent policy that we have adopted, is that correct? Of June 24th? And I guess that was executive session that that was approved. I think that. No, we did that during the regular meeting. Okay, I'll see it in the minutes. But it was much earlier. Yeah, it wasn't there. No, on the 24th it was approved, the date. It was adopted on the April 22nd, but signed on the 24th, which in itself is kind of, which came first, that you can under the age. But Article 13 says that the adoption overrides the signature. I guess, I'm just not real clear. It's a, basically we decided because the state mandated that we, by July 1st, that we have a conflict of interest policy. Policy? That we basically worked with the Vermont Leagues of Cities in town, kind of a harmonized. Toilet. Conflict, boiler, dissent. So basically, a policy from what I understand is something that we can actually change as time goes on. It's a kind of the starter play. And what I'd like to suggest is that in our annual town meeting report, we do a nice listing of what positions people can run for office. And that this policy is very short, should be the next page, so that people can understand it. But with 800 plus voters, it's not a bad idea that they have an opportunity to glance over it because it's one of the few places that voters really do take note of what's going on. Because it is a policy that, so I'd like to suggest that this policy be recorded in the annual town meeting report. Thank you. Can I just add something to that? The positions that are in conflict are determined by statute. By the state. They're not determined by the town. So the statutes will tell us whether a select board person could be a town clerk. Correct. So that's, and that's. I assume that's true. Any policy though, as long as the town meets the law requirements, can modify, add, change at a town meeting if that's their desire. As long as it meets the law standards. As long as it meets statute. Right. So that's reasonable to have it be included in the town report. Oh, that's what I'm suggesting. It's an exception. Incompatible positions, I think is the word. Could be, yes. That's interesting. I haven't heard that one yet. All right. Good thing. Mm. Joan. Okay. Let's see. Updating you on a few things. First on FEMA work, Hooter is working on bits for projects that he wants to have fit it out. And it's determining which ones the town clerk will do. And then Lou and I are gonna work together on coming up with a template for the bid package, starting with the invitation and the bid package, all the bid documents that are required so that they're in conformance with what FEMA wants to see. And then we'll be able to use it for all of the projects going forward. So that will be in the works over the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we are in the system and waiting for two things to happen from the state end. One is that we have like a FEMA helper who's employed by the state who's gonna be sort of our agent helping us through the process the extent we need hand holding. And his name is Jim, that's all I know about him so far. But Jim is gonna be giving us phone calls sometime soon, probably Julie and I will sit on that call. It's just gonna be like 15 minute kind of check-in to get it created and stuff. And then within a couple weeks after that, I understand he'll be coming here for a site visit. And I don't know if that means he's gonna want to see all the different sites or just sort of get a feel for a representative sample. So I'll let you know and then I know more about that. So that's in the works. On this US Forest Service side, there's two sort of major projects on my lap at the moment. One of them I haven't started on yet which is the West Hill Bridge. Have to do two things. There one is to get a bid request out for engineering services. And then the other thing is writing a grant application just due at the end of August for the actual construction part. And I hope to be able to work with Chris Mastrick on that because there's a lot of technical information to ask for, but I'll need help putting it together. And maybe by then also we'll have at least an idea whether he's gonna be our engineer on that and that time he works out. We'll have to get some technical information from that person as well. And then the other one that I'm working on is the Bingo Road. There's a temporary fix that the road crew would like to do in consultation with Cricut for this year which would move the road about 15 feet away from the stream bank where it's caving in and then look for a more permanent repair that would move the road further away and do some more comprehensive work. Quick email discussion with Chris Mastrick says that we need to start by submitting a special use permit application. Seven-page document that I'm working on now with help from Fudor so he can describe in some detail exactly what we're proposing to do. And I asked him whether the US Bar Service might be able to come up with some money to help with the cost of that and Chris said he would look into it and see what we're gonna do. We've obviously no promises since we know their funding is changing around what they're able to do and when but I'm not gonna give them a try. Do you have an idea of how temporary the temporary fixes is that like going in through the winter or from now till winter? Temporary for? Through the winter. Okay. It's a kind of a long term temporary fix. So that's it with the Forest Service stuff. The big thing of course is Bethel Mountain Road. Just got a new schedule for what's gonna happen next. And so the bid ad, we're just posted today. And they are, where did I write it down? Okay, they're posted on a variety of websites. There's something called Vermont Bids which is a statewide thing that contractors, people in the business know to look at those things and see who's looking for contractors. So it's there, it should be there now. Also on the Du Bois and King website, it's there. It's in also another website called Works in Progress. And then Keel, Key being Brian, our sort of main engineer over at Du Bois and King is gonna be sending us a full set of plans and specs, the whole package. So that if anybody wants to come into town and look at them without doing them online, they can come here and- Do we should have that by the end of the week? Sometimes, yeah, probably this week. So that has moved things back a couple of days from what our last information was. And just so you know, it had to do with some, a little bit of rebapping that Du Bois and King had to do on various technical details with the project. So just to wait for a couple of days. The pre-bid meeting now is scheduled for this Thursday at 10 a.m. Bids will be due on Friday, July 19th at 4.30 p.m. And they can only be submitted on paper, no electronic submissions. And so we will receive them here at the town office. And then immediately afterwards, we will have a specialist blackboard meeting to open the bids. And choose the contractor. Following that, Du Bois and King, I guess this is something that's required by the Federal Highway Administration is following that few days afterwards, Du Bois and King will provide a bid analysis to us that we have all the background information about who did and how much and whether any defects in any of the documents and why they chose, generally giving a clear indication about why the town chose the contractor that we did. And this is just for Bethel Mountain Road lower part. There's going to be a second bid that Du Bois and King will be preparing next. And that will be for Bethel Mountain Road upper, which they're now calling site two. And those will probably go through a similar process that we've not quite so involved. And then I was going to bring to you the new road and bridge standards, but that's been done so it's great. I did have a question though. There were a couple things that I want to make sure you answered on that or you had to make some choices about what things you were going to comply with. So maybe if you just check, because I filled this out so I'm not studying again obviously, but the things that need to be circled on there. The main thing, most of the stuff you have to do, and you do have for non-hydrologically connected sections of the road, you can choose not to follow the standards, but I suggest you do anyway. And you don't want to have two tear sets of road standards anyway. And then I think there might be something on this. Since we have so far. Oh yeah, there were some questions here about how much gravel you use and maybe you could ask Cooter because that has to be filled in as well. And the reason for that is I think, actually I thought I had you sign that once before, but I'm drawing a blank, I couldn't find it anyway. So it's possible that what I asked you to do a couple months ago was to sign the ones that were good up until very recently. And what we understand from two rivers is that V-trans realized that it was time to make the V-trans road and bridge standards conform to the mis-rural general permit that were sort of not really in line. So the idea is now, they should be, they will be starting July 1st. And if we want to get the maximum reimbursement amount from FEMA that has to be done by those rules. So yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah, so that's all I have. Thank you. Arlen, you had a question back on the Bingo Road part? On the Bingo Road thing there, I was looking at some information when I was in here. And it might have been in the packet that Julie got for me, I'm not sure. But I remember seeing where the select board conveyed to the National Forest Service the right to build a road on or about Bingo Road back in 1938. So my question is, is it a town road? Is it a forest road? Is it a forest road slash town road? Is it a town road slash forest road? Who? It's a town road up to... Yeah, I know. Yeah, up to that point. But you know, we do, you know. Exactly, what is the relationship between the town and the forest road as far as that road is concerned? They contribute to... Because they convey... They, since it's accessing a lot of their property. Right, but they do contribute to our, you know, not a little bit, yeah, it's kind of a cooperative. So yeah, it's all of the above. That doesn't answer my question. No. Yeah, yeah. You're as positive as I am, just kind of wondering about that. It's town road for four miles and 73 after that, it's forest road. Yeah, but I mean, what I'm saying is that in 1938, the select board conveyed to the National Forest Service the right to build a forest road, starting at 73, continuing on it all. So I'm just, whose road is it? It sounds like they built it for us. For the town to go over, you know? The town to go over. Right now, it's, like as Joan said, it's the town road to a certain point and then the forest roads continue on. Right, from what you said, it sounds like they conveyed the right to build the road. They didn't convey the right to keep the road. Starting from 73. Yeah, we conveyed the right for them to build it for us. Forest road. Just like right now, they're looking into upgrading the bridge on West Hill Road and we would be conveying them the right to do that as well. But it'll be our bridge when they're done. And they'll have to buy that right from you for a dollar? Not actually, I'm sorry. We're not actually conveying the right to go on the bridge. They're going to, they're going to build it out of their wallet, not ours, which is not a bad thing. So, a brief good deal. Is this your question? Yes. Why is the roads washing away and it needs to be repaired? Kudor, thank you for spraying the crosswalks today around town to make it a little safer for all the Suzuki folk. Yep. And you're going to the state, they started? They started, then they disappeared. Then they disappeared. I saw them going, I was like, well, look, they're doing it. And then, yeah. I think it may have been the turning of the day and the foot traffic, and too heavy for them. Too heavy for them? Yeah. Well, they don't hold that. Anything else exciting that you? May I say something? I see the amount here of June the 3rd being mentioned. And I wonder, what is that amount in relation to all the repairs that could be done in? That is, there would be up to that amount. It's basically, it's a line of credit to, and the, hopefully that'll be enough. It's just to help out while we're waiting for the federal money to come through and the FEMA money. So they're just, it's there. And if we need it to start paying some of the contractors before the federal money starts coming through to supplement, you know, to pay it, then it's there for us. And what is the amount is enough for the repairs to be done? Oh. Thank you for that. Well, there's also gonna be, they're going to be reimbursing us in stages, not waiting until the whole project. So we'll, you know, this just gives us elbow room and then we'll get some money back. Like a great flow. I mean, yeah, all of our repairs are more than that. Yeah, it's gonna be more than that, but we should be. And FEMA could be a year before we see money coming. That means that we are a year, that we have to wait for a year before we can do the repairs because we don't know. No, no, no. Money to cover the while we're waiting for the money. So no, the repairs are happening as soon as possible. I have another question that is, can the board give any idea how long it will take to do all these projects? There must be phases in which you're going to do it. Is it more contractor, is it more contractors? Well, we're going to be finding. 15s, is that correct or not? We're anticipating by winter. October 15th. And it's been enough months away. Yeah, yeah, we've been pushing as hard as we can to fast track all this, yeah. And still do it right. And then I come back to what was said here, the town road and bridge standard. And someone said that it was a municipal standard, is that correct? Well, what this was doing is coordinating the municipal standards with the state standards so everybody's on the same page. But this is our municipal standard, yeah. All right, thank you. Yeah. I have another question if I may. Yes. Has anybody considered the safety of the residents on Brook Street on Bethel Mountain Road, Upper and Lower? It is very, very dangerous to drive because you have to go on one side of the road, traffic is coming in. There is no supervision, there is no policeman who checks, who drives there. And it is becoming a safety hazard for the residents. Not only the healthy ones, but especially the unhealthy ones. If you need an ambulance or anything, you have no idea how long it will take for anybody to come. Emergency personnel, ambulances or anything like that. That's what's happened. No, we've been talking about this a lot. Fast as we can. Yeah. I don't read it anywhere. I don't hear it reaching home to city hall, but I don't want to sit in city hall all afternoon to see what you guys are doing. Is there a way that you can communicate? If you go... More meetings are videotaped by a... Yeah, well, who looks at it? Well... I do. I do. But you have to go your computer. That may right there. I don't want to... Orca media. If you look up Orca media. But that's what you say. You look up Orca media to see if there's anything else to see the project. You look at something else. I don't want to do that. I would like to have the city take the responsibility to inform its residents or parting residents as far as I perhaps on the website. No, it's in there. But that's how we inform it. I thought it was in the hell when I read the paper. I don't understand it. I guess come to more meetings. They're terribly serious. No. No, this has been an ongoing topic. This is the least we've talked about it in the last several months today. It is nice to do it in the last several months, but the road has been on collapsing for the last seven years that we are here. Yeah. Yeah, this has been... You know, you put a band-aid on it. That's not gonna do it. That's why we're doing what we're doing. We've decided not to do band-aids anymore. Doing it professionally. Yes, we are. Yes. This money is enough. We don't even have bids yet. The engineering firm has placed the anticipated cost. So it's in... The Boy and King is now a highly regarded engineering firm that... Everybody should know what an anticipated cost is. It's not about twice as much. Yeah. I think so. We're about $2.5 to $6 million. Okay. Well, that's what I wanted. I want you to know that the residents, on these roads, Brook Street is becoming a disaster. What are you gonna do when Brook Street gets out? There's no light. There's a deep ravine. There's too much traffic and nobody checks. We're certainly hoping to get the Belt and Road repaired as fast as possible so that we can alleviate the problems on the Brook... And then you have to repair Brook Street. Yes, we will. Yes, yes. But you can go over to Corey Hill and go down. Yeah. To Humford. Yeah. We don't have to bring those go around. We don't have to use those. No, that is to get a little... It is, it's us. I mean, it takes me 10... Well, you can go over to Brett Max right here again. That's what she's saying. That's what she's saying. Yeah. No, it's definitely... I'm sorry. Thank you. They look up right over the house. You can't sell your house at the moment, do you? No, no. No. Nobody can sell it. People need to be patient. Yeah. But it'll make us appreciate it that much more when it's done and done right. Yeah, enough band-aids. And I would also like to compliment you that you fixed our girly so that we could get it home. Yeah. Yeah. That was nice. Thank you. You're welcome. That pretty much anything else you want to chat about? No, just... All right, Terry. Hopefully that hydrogen stuff will all be done this week. The last week, the weather kind of... Yeah, it's a short week. That leads us down to the old business of the missing book on the agenda, and I don't have any more information about that. Does it know? Nope. Nope. It's just an old missing book. Box by box? Down in the basement still? No, I was not doing that myself. No. Is that you, buddy? I don't think last week anyone was working on it, you know? So, yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome. Maybe. Yeah, pretty much that's... I think Diane's got something to say. Oh, Diane, now you do have something to say. I just wanted to say I believe that the traffic has been alleviated some of the science, the three on the methyl side and the two on the side. I agree. It hasn't been as bad except for this weekend, holiday weekend. Yeah. There was more traffic and most of them were out-of-stayers. But I know that the traffic did not as heavy because Kelly and I came back from Westland yesterday, from Bethel to Rochester. It was bumper-to-bumper traffic going south. Yeah. I have never seen that many cars, I'm at 100. So I know they're not going that way because they're going that way. And I think having the sheriff here has helped a little bit. Has helped a little bit. Yeah. Although sitting down in Noel Smith's driveway is not the place he needs to be. Because by the time they come over with the two speed bumps, they're not going that fast anyway. He needs to be sitting in my driveway. He can sit in my driveway anytime he likes because they're flying by my house when they're coming up and going down. Which I know he said they're not going to pick them up until they're doing 10 miles over. So I'm not sure that that's going to solve a problem either. But I do think the volume has less than, except for this past weekend, which understandable. There's a lot of seasonal people around. So that's fine. But it has been better. Andrew's directly. They're not going to be back until August. That's perfect. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Is the speed limit going to change at all? Or is it going to still keep at 30-35? It's good to say how it is. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It will for her. I think for the foreseeable future, we haven't really seriously considered lowering it throughout the whole back roads. That's quite a process, too. Yeah. One issue I have with that, though, when you're coming off Bethel Mountain, it's 25. When you're going up Brook Street, it's 30. It's like there's people living on Brook Street more than there is on Bethel Mountain. Yeah. One of the issues is if we were to start the process to change the speed limit, that requires a traffic study. And any kind of traffic study we do now is totally going to be fake news. It's going to be distorted and obsolete. So we really need to just get through this repair and then see how things settle down here. Martha? I've stayed off Brook Street since I don't have to go on there. So I don't know for sure what the action is. Did you say it's 30 miles per hour? 35 from the dirt. And that's the one that will stay that way for the foreseeable future. 30 miles. It's 30 within the village. And then it goes to 35 as you go up the hill. Going on to change it to 35. The tar is 30. The dirt is 35. Yeah. I wish that doesn't make sense either. I actually heard that a state court would stop somebody on the other side of the mountain and ask them more how they were going with a truck. With a truck, good. And turn them around. Good. It's the first time I've heard of that. I've seen them parked over there now. And then the state trooper is down at the Y on the beginning. We have been making noise for years to them. And I think they're, and having the road now closed, I think has even brought it more of their attention than keeping an eye on it. I think also a lot of people were complaining of each round. So that probably doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah. No. Keep complaining. No. I think you said the presence of the sheriff just a couple of times here. Yeah. It really helped. Yeah. Because they don't know when he's going to be there. Right. That's it. No, it's good. I heard someone complaining the other day. The sheriff was on Main Street and pulled over one of their universe and I was unfair. And I said, how fast was their neighbor going? Apparently, maybe it was going 50. Oh, hop on fire. And it's posted at 30 or 35. It's 30 in Canada. Yep. So I said, well, I guess he just needed to be stopped. Mason? So with area businesses, you wanted to scour each of them from putting signs at the bottom of Bethel Mountain Road pointing this way? What? At the bottom of Bethel Mountain Road on the other side. Where we're trying to keep the traffic from coming this way. Basically, we don't want our local businesses to put signs at an intersection. I don't think they've been doing that. Why would they? It's a business sign yet, but it's on that side of the Bethel. Yeah. What business? It goes halfway up, I forget. So it used furniture. It used furniture. It used three businesses in there. And it's an AIR. They got signs at Bethel Mountain Road. Yeah, they do. Fair enough. And it's in Bethel. Right. Right. I haven't personally seen it, but I've heard it do that. You have the sign down there for the green mountain bike shop. But maybe I don't know. That's what I know about. I went up over there to see it. No, when we were on it yesterday, we didn't see it. I don't know. No, it just says road closed. Yeah. And that's where everybody is. It's like a small sign. Right. Yeah, for the antique business. It's for the antique. Where the flower shop used to be. Yeah. And they ought to have three of them there. It's amazing that we don't want our local businesses to promote trying to get over the mountain. No, I don't think we are. No, we don't want that. We don't think so. No. All right. That's it. Let's all go swimming. Yeah. And once again, I want to thank you guys for everything you've been doing. Well, thank you. Thank you for your support. Yeah. Can't wait for Thursday. It's Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. Just go home. Thank you.