 As public comment about anything not on the agenda, nothing will move to approve the agenda. I motion to approve the agenda. I will second. Those in favor? Aye. Next up is consent calendar. Move that we approve the consent calendar. I'll second. Those in favor? Aye. Next up is the business. The 22 audit presentation. I think that's you. Sorry we lost you. There's no kicked out. But we're back. Oh, hold on. Hang on. We're meeting. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Bonnie. We're working through the text up, but we're up to the 22 audit here. If you're ready. So while we're presenting. Can you hear me okay? I think so. Is the June 30th. I don't know if you have specific questions. But I completed that. Early in 23. This week. Could be heard. Can you hear? It's a little choppy Bonnie. We're trying to figure out. Yeah. I mean, we're on the ether. So. I don't know if you have specific questions. Completed that. Early in 23. This. We were there. We're 23. This week. Could be heard. Can you hear? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The ether. So. Ethernet. Oh yeah. If you turned your video off. Maybe that'll help. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is that better? Yeah. It feels some to me, but it's still a little bit. Yeah. Okay. All right. So. We finished up the. You know, it was a long road. Because of the absence. You know, did a great job getting us. It was a long process. But we screw. And like I said, we started the 23 audit, which is great. We ended up. Making a positive fund balance and the general fund and highway fund. Funds. Which is great. So we don't have a negative fund balances. It can tend with. No major. We did put comments in the management letter areas for improvement, but I do realize that that was largely because of not having a positive fund balance. So. You have Zoe now, which is great. So I don't know if there's any specific questions to you. Of the audit. But all in all the town is in a healthy position. Positive fund balances. No major issues. And. I guess I would. To field specific questions. There's several pages to go through. And I know. I have some just. Figuration questions. Just in case anybody wants to view it. Who's watching at home or picks it up later. There's an audits tab on the website. It's under. It's in the same spot that you can find the annual reports. So we've got a column that's, I think it's announcements. If you go in there, you can find it. You can search by audit in the search bar too. So that's where we post all of the independent audits. Okay. So. As Bonnie said, they were in house doing fiscal 23. Yesterday in the day before working with both Zoe and. And Kayla and our finance department and Cynthia from NEMREC. Who's been helping us out. Years. What's the timeline? What's the anticipated timeline for that? For 23. I don't know. Bonnie, is there sort of a best guess knowing. It's hard to predict. On 23. Yeah. It's hard to predict because it really depends when we get the remainder of the information that, you know, we still have. We've done most of the control testing. We still have some work to do on the utilities and fixed asset and debt are probably the biggest that we have left to that where we have the debt schedule. We're still waiting for information on the fixed assets and still waiting for some information on the utility building and just some other outstanding items. I would say best guess. You probably will have a draft by the end of October, if not earlier. And then you can review it and, you know, hopefully we can present it at the December board meeting and it'll be much time later. Hopefully then it was like. We don't like doing June 30 thoughts in any. So it was to get it done as soon as we had, but it really depends on the remainder of the information or calls and, you know, what we're working on waiting for this information. That puts us on the time that we want to be on on a more regular one. If you go back the year before I think Bonnie came and talked to you in early January. We're meeting when we were doing 21. So that's a fairly normal schedule for us which is nice. And you'll have all this information for the budget process itself too, which is so nice. If there's anything that's germane to that of course. And I think this year is going to be just, because number one, we were on number two, we'd have both Cynthia and Zoe working and just, I think this year we'll be smoother, quicker and we'll be able to get it wrapped up more time. It's amazing what having bodies can do for us. Yeah, exactly. Any questions for Bonnie? Thank you, Bonnie. Hey, to here. See ya. Bye, Bonnie. Bye. The requested action here is that we move to accept the FY22 audit. I'll move that we accept as submitted the fiscal year 2022 audit. A second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next up is interviews for the vacancy of the select board. Here are two candidates. She's the publicist on the line. We're going to sit here and Matthew in the room. We'll take them all one at a time and run through the questions. Well, I was going to suggest that we go through the questions we've worked out, but alternate rather than doing one and then the other. So ask the questions almost as if it were a debate format, just ask the question. So ask Matt first, Alyssa second, or whatever, and then ask Alyssa the second one. And alternate, who goes first? Well, no, seriously. I'm just getting professional here. I mean, we could flip a coin. Alyssa, can you hear us okay? I can, yep. All right, so we'll ask the first question. I know I wrote and I was going to hurry, but I made some time, so I'm okay with whatever you all figure out. Okay. Thanks, Alyssa. Alyssa, can we see you? Hi there. Nice to meet you. Hi. Sorry I couldn't be there in person. So you want to ask the question, have Matt answer it, then have Alyssa answer it? That's the next question, have Alyssa answer it, then have Matt answer it? Right. That just seems like a fairer way than a more adequate way than going through each all at once. Okay. Yeah, the question is who goes first? Well, it doesn't matter because we're going to flip it around anyway, right? Yeah. All right, let's get going. So the first question is why do you want to be on the select board? What qualities, skill sets, and experiences will you bring to the board, and how will those benefit the town? And we'll have Matt answer first. I'm going to ask you to repeat the question because it was a triple barrel question. Why do you be on one? Should we have Matt come up? Yeah, when you're answering it because the recording, this doesn't pick up. Sit here? Yeah, that's okay, sorry. I'm noticing that when I look at the meetings. So why do you want to be on the select board? Yeah. What qualities, skill sets, and experiences will you bring to the board, and how will those benefit the town? All right, well, I want to start off by thanking you all for inviting me for a conversation this evening. I appreciate that. I have been a resident of Randolph now for a little over a year. I have been serving on the Planning Commission and very recently was asked to chair the Planning Commission. I moved to Randolph because I was looking for a place to, my wife and I were looking for a place to settle down and to build a life for, on into our retirement years. We moved around quite a bit. We lived in New York, we lived in Rhode Island, we lived in Michigan, and now here. I put my name in for the select board because I was encouraged by a few people in town to think about doing so. It took me a while to decide whether or not I wanted to offer to serve. And that's what it is for me. It's service. I see this as an opportunity to serve my community and to give back as I did when I took the role with the Planning Commission. My career has been mostly in higher education at the intersection between higher education institutions and communities doing community development, community economic development, as well as community social development. And I'm in a position right now where I have time to give to my community. I have a business where I do executive coaching and consulting work. I do a little bit of teaching, but I'm not in a situation where I have a nine to five job that takes me away from, or small children, that takes me away from the ability to volunteer and to give back and to serve. So that's sort of the why. In terms of qualities, as I said, my career has been in community economic and social development. I'm fairly good at strategic planning. That's probably why the Planning Commission appealed to me as a start. I've been an executive in higher education, including a college president. I would want the board to know my background in that respect, so I'll take just a smidge more time with this answer to give you that. I was a tenured faculty member at two other institutions before assuming a presidency in Michigan just before the pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, I was asked to take on addressing a very racist set of issues at an institution, which I did, because it was consistent with my anti-racist values, and ran square into a modern-day version of the KKK. So if you Google me, you will find online some not positive things that were posted by the crowd that ran me out of town at this college. And I want to be transparent about that, so that you know about that. But I'm happy to give you more detail on that at some point, if you would like. But the thumbnail sketch of it is that I was fighting for the rights of the black community and against the control of a small group of white folks who were killing the college and resisting diversity. So that's what my answer is. Thank you. All this, so would you like to answer the question or would you like me to read it to you again? I think I got at least the first two thirds of it. So I have my husband and I purchased a house in Randolph Center about six over six years ago. And I have a close friend that works in my background is in planning. And she is in the Royalton area and is on a bunch of planning committees and has been trying to get me involved in a bunch of planning committees. And I saw this opportunity come about and it felt like I had already been thinking about getting involved in planning in the Upper Valley and it seemed like a perfect fit to get involved even more locally in the town I live in. I currently work at the Public Service Department at the state of Vermont for the Vermont Community Broadband Board. We're managing a statewide effort to expand equitable broadband access across the whole state and previous to that I've been there for a year and a half previous to that I've worked at the agency of agriculture doing agriculture, rural development efforts. I grew up and I'm from Pennsylvania from a small rural agricultural town so it felt like a natural fit when I moved to Randolph Center and the Randolph Greater Randolph area. And my husband and I are really enjoying watching the way that Randolph is growing and progressing over the six years that we've been here. As I mentioned, my background is in planning. I have extensive experience as a program manager working on budgets and both on the grantee and the grantor side of things and doing project and program evaluation. And I think there was one third part of so that's interest and experience. Benefits you found? Yeah, I think I just in general I've been working at the statewide level even when I was in Pennsylvania I worked for a statewide nonprofit and then I worked for the state for over six years now and I think I can use those skills of managing programs and setting up systems and evaluating situations in an unbiased way to be able to contribute to our local community. Nice. Thank you. The next question, how do you ensure that a level of respect and civility remains between board members? And this one goes to Alyssa first. So I currently am a staff member of a very small staff within a board department within the state of Vermont. So we have three and then we're federally funded. So we have three levels of complicated governance in the work that we're doing. And I feel like one of the skills and the one of the skills I bring to our team is being able to kind of like look at the big picture, take time to make sure I'm listening to all of the voices that are being heard, that are being said and think about what maybe is the underlying issue of like what the point everybody is trying to get to. It's definitely helped us as a small team be able to figure out how to make meetings run smoother and how to improve board relations between the board members and between the board and the staff. So I bring that experience and hope that it would translate well on this board. Great, thank you. Would you like me to read the question? No, I'm good. So every place that I've worked, every board that I've served on, I have enjoyed doing so and I think others have enjoyed my service. Just as a point of reflection of that when I resigned my position as college president almost all my cabinet resigned and half of the board of trustees resigned as well with me. I have across my career been able to recruit and bring with me people from one organization to another as part of a team and I have been brought myself into collaboration with people who previously collaborated with me. People who are at a new institution or a new community and want to work together. I take all of those as indicators that I'm a pretty good person to work with. By way of understanding how I work in my role as an executive coach I do strength finders training for folks which is a personality inventory run by the Gallup organization and I can share with you that my strengths, types, there are 34 that you can end up in your top five. My top five are strategic, futuristic, activator, relator and self-assured and as pertains to this question I think in terms of relating to people the relator skill or personality type is someone who builds very strong one-to-one relationships so I would commit the time and effort to build individual relationships with each of you and the self-assured characteristic it means I don't take things personally. I trust my gut and I also don't invest my ego in ways that make me reactive because I trust my gut so I'm happy to talk about ideas and not take it personally which I think is a strong attribute to bring to the table. So the next question describe a time when you were in a leadership position an extremely difficult situation came up what was your role in bringing the issue to a mutual resolution among all the parties? Well I've already mentioned one and I failed at that one so let's see while I was at Brown I was at the time the director of an institute at Brown focused on public service and there was a student organization that had built a large presence on campus doing what they thought was good service community service for refugees in the community my staff and I understood that what they were doing was rather exploitative in the refugee community sort of white man savior type of approach to their work and it was inconsistent with both the values and mission of the university so we had to address it and I think the single biggest thing I learned in that conflict with that student organization was the power of vulnerability and humility that one of my assistant directors made a very strong decision to give the group an ultimatum around their funding and that was the wrong decision to do and the buck stops with me even though it wasn't my decision I had to go and sit with that group and hear their anger and hear their frustration and hear their hurt and be vulnerable as the director of the institute that an incorrect decision was made and I had to take a moment to exhibit humility in that there was a piece of the decision that was made that was made based on an incorrect set of assumptions or pieces of information about the student group my supervisors didn't think that the situation was reconcilable but the power of being vulnerable and humble in that moment I think was the bridge that needed to be offered for the students to cross and meet us on the other side in a place where the university was comfortable with them continuing their program and the students understood some of the university's concerns and were able to modify their approach in the community so would you like me to read the question again yes that would be great describe a time when you were in a leadership position and an extremely difficult situation came up what was your role in bringing the issue to a resolution among all parties so I would go back to something I mentioned in my last response but I really value that I put a lot of effort into being a good listener and I think one of the key aspects of being a good listener is taking the time to find that connection point with people to build the relationship to have a starting point that the conversation can grow upon I've so often my leadership role was with dozens if not hundreds of farmers either in Pennsylvania or in Vermont through a few different very difficult times so in Pennsylvania I was working for the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and in Pennsylvania there's a large fracking industry that has been taking over a lot of the economy across the state and there were people pro and against it and even within our organizations board different people participating in activities and others loving 100% against what was going on similarly when in Vermont during when COVID started I was at the agency of agriculture and I was in a statewide leadership role working with all of the farmers markets and had to figure out how to listen to hundreds of businesses that were trying to figure out how they're going to survive through all of the different mandates that were coming down on them from the administration and having to like walk that line of being a public servant and answering to the administration but also I had already strong relationships with a lot of the farmers across the state and the farmers market managers and put a lot of time and energy into figuring out how we could find something that would work for them but would keep everyone safe so yeah I think again similar to what Matt said I don't know if it was 100% successful it was a very difficult time but I still maintain those relationships and we were able to push through and get farmers markets some exemptions that were going on and I still feel like that was a success if you're at first what would be your budget priorities for the town in the next fiscal year it just feels a little bit hard I'm not going to tell you what the budget is I'm not going to tell you what the budget is I'm not going to tell you what the budget is there's no question by the way what is your answer now would stock provided us with that question yes that's a very different community probably a very different budget I will hold on for that cool I guess I have to admit I looked at Randolph's budget yet, but I look at statewide budgets, multi-million, multi-hundred million dollar budgets on a daily basis, running multiple programs for this broadband work that we're doing across the state. And that is honestly one of the parts of my job that I really enjoy that is not even one of my main responsibilities, but keeping an eye on how everything is balancing out and making sure I definitely have a math brain. So it's easier for me to look at numbers versus reading really long documents. I mean, to stay in the black. Those for the budget. Like, I guess I would be interested in aligning some of the different development, economic development and community development groups and some of their goals and seeing how there might be some real alignment between some of our local organization schools and the town schools. I think that's the best I can do. Not really a fair question. I'm sorry. It's just thinking. No, I'm good. Well, if I was Woodstock, I think my priority would be Windex to make sure the snow globe is nice and sparkly. Very well said. People's priorities. But we're not Woodstock, we're Randolph. So I would have three priorities actually. First and foremost and well above the other two would be adequate staff. The town struggles with its staffing. I'm glad to hear there may be a finance director being hired. I think there are other staffing needs that hinder the town's development. So that would be top priority. Second would be I think that Randolph has a really good story to tell. Both historical and more recent about what a town it is. There used to be some marketing investment around telling that story. You know, it would be great if in every business you walked in Randolph, there was one of those hand-drawn maps that shows all the other businesses around town. I'm familiar with a community in another place called Birchwood and they have this whole campaign. It's about the same size and they have this whole campaign called Choose Birchwood. That marketing campaign has led to businesses moving to that town and new resources for the town. So a way of thinking about and telling the story of Randolph in terms of a foundation for economic development. I know there's some work around the web page happening that may be a place to start doing something about it. And the third thing I would say is that I'm working on a project for GMEDC right now which used to be called the Innovation Hub that kind of got off to a really bad start and we're going back to square one and part of my role is to talk to as many people in town as I can to develop a community study for GMEDC around how they might stand up a new organization in town that occupies the space between private business in the town and helps foster... Alyssa, would you like the question read again? No, I think I'm okay. Thank you. Okay. So I think in general, it's... My partner and I have really loved living in Randolph. It felt like home. We've made it our parents' home. We moved here and loved it so much we had them move in with us. I think being able to really feel committed to the town would just take that even a step further. Kind of tying back into the budget question, but also... So a lot of my skills revolve around program development and grant management. And one thing that I have always been really good at is working with small businesses and towns and different types of organizations and entities to seek out grants. And I feel like I would find a lot of pride to be able to think about how I can not only do that for a job more generally, but also use those skills locally to help the town and the select board think about strategic development through resources that are maybe untapped. And yeah, it would be really great to be able to figure out how to bring that into a different part of my life instead of just my nine to five job. All right, this question is yours first, Melissa. What are some examples of ways you've been involved in a community, either Randolph or another community, that has had a positive impact on that community? Similarly, when I was living in Pittsburgh, I worked with one of the local neighborhood development corporations to apply for funding to help develop their downtown and develop their local food system and do a marketing campaign for their farmers markets and some new businesses that were popping up. It was in a bigger city of Pittsburgh, but it was a very small neighborhood of Pittsburgh. And so while a lot of the work that I do has been statewide and it's hard to kind of track where the progress is made, that example in particular stands out in my mind as just being kind of on the ground and being able to physically see change and participation in the community throughout that it was a two-year project. And yeah, it would be able to start with nothing and then be able to measure kind of all the increase in participation and see visibly some change through the marketing campaign in the community was really rewarding. No, I think I'm all set. Ironically, I would say I think I had significant major impact in the town in which the college resided where I failed at the college. I feel like I can say that with confidence because the Black community and I have stayed very close together and I have helped provide guidance and partnership and solidarity in their political organizing to people, their own city council for the first time with members of the Black community and to take control and exercise voice of the Black community and other apparatuses of the city in that community. But the other example I would offer is that for 10 years I lived in Albany, New York and taught as a faculty member at Siena College and while there I built the largest AmeriCorps program housed at a college or university in the country and that took a lot of work because all of those AmeriCorps placements were in non-profits throughout the Capital Region. That meant that we had a network of over 50 non-profits all of whom were collaborating with the college and with each other in that AmeriCorps program. That program still exists today. It's clearly run by someone else now but it attracted funding from places like the Kresge Foundation, the Arthur Ryan Davis Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the U.S. Department of Justice. So those are two communities where I feel like I had a very positive impact. Great. And the last question is yours first. You started in your land. That's what happens when you have a number of questions. The town of Randolph has been supporting investments in the community through multiple programs to expand our housing options, recreation opportunities, support services and quality of life experiences. What's your view on economic development within the town and how would you work to implement those views? So I think that Randolph has the potential to focus around the culture economy, creative culture economy, the food economy, light manufacturing. And there may be a couple of other sectors but I think a strategic approach to supporting defined sub-sectors of economic development combined with, as I said before, a marketing plan around the quality of life here in Randolph I think could really move Randolph to the next level. That needs to be done thoughtfully because we don't want to become wood stock. But I do think there's space for economic development here to lift all votes. I also think that there is opportunity in the tech school and with some of the existing trades folks and farmers, take Justin Pullin for example. I've had a conversation with him about his desire to figure out how to direct market some of his production so that he's not captured by always having to sell supermarkets. And I think there's opportunity to support that kind of creative thinking for more blue collar folks as well as the town moves ahead. That's why I'm excited about the GMEDC project and hope that that brings something to fruition. I guess the last thing I would say is that I am not of Randolph or Vermont. So if you're looking for somebody who is of Randolph or of Vermont, that's not me. But if you're looking for somebody who chose Randolph and chose Vermont because of what I think Randolph and Vermont are, that's me. I chose to come here because I wanted to live in a community like this. I'm choosing to serve this community because I want to give back to this community. My experience is of communities all over the world and they're all very different. And they all have different ideas. And some of that experience may be useful and it may not be useful in this context. But that's what I think about economic development and the focus for Randolph. Great. Alyssa, do you want me to reread the question? I think I'm okay. It was a long question, but I got it. So I really have been encouraged by the number of businesses that have been starting up, especially in the last few years. And there seems to be this momentum of especially younger families, younger business owners coming into town. And I think that's something that we can as a town embrace and figure out how to support to make sure that those businesses, you know, they've gotten off the ground, but find ways for them to flourish, find ways for them to expand. I think there's a natural collaborative effort that I've been seeing across town, especially with the recreational community and the downtown businesses. And I think that is something that will continue to help bring in younger families and provide opportunities. I, sorry, can you repeat the housing? I know there is a housing part and I feel like I had something I wanted to mention. The town of Randolph has been supporting investments in the community through multiple programs to expand our housing options, recreation opportunities, support services and quality of life experiences. What's your view on economic development within the town and how would you work to implement those views? So I think I know there's opportunities in, so the person that I mentioned at the beginning that got me kind of intrigued when I read that there is an opening in the Herald and she's actually working on housing in the whole Upper Valley on housing initiatives and figuring out a plan and working with a bunch of the towns. And so I've been following along with, it's a difficult dilemma. As I mentioned, I bought a house six years ago and my parents moved in with us last year and we're still trying to figure out, you know, a place that works for this kind of multi-generational living situation and construction prices have not come down yet. So I know there's some things the town has been planning and wanting to do and the timeline is out there. It's still rather long, especially when people are needing housing today. I think there are a few programs that are happening where I would want to be able to be that kind of listening ear to be able to be the voice to those bigger programs that are happening to make sure that the programs that are evolving relatively quickly at the state level are being able to capture what is actually happening on the ground in our towns. Yeah, in the last few years working for the state government has been a very different, it's been a very different role than what it was previous to COVID with the funding opportunities that are available and I feel like it's an opportunity we haven't fully we haven't fully capitalized on the fact that there are new programs being developed with people actually listening and wanting to try and figure out a solution. So I think just being that like connecting the dots between the on the ground what is needed versus the programs that are quickly being developed at a regional and statewide level would be something that I would hope to be able to bring and discuss and talk about opportunities with this team. That's the end of the formal questions that we wrote. At this point if there's any questions that folks have that are outside of the script or follow-on questions. That was pretty thorough. Tom and I tried. You threw something. There's back here like you can't blame me. I am retired but I am working as a journalist in my retirement years and working more hours than I did when I was not retired and I cover Woodstock for the local weekly newspaper like all the Vermont standards. And you are absolutely right Matt is completely a very different community from Randall and it's a very different community from anything I've ever written about. But they just replaced a select board member and some of these questions flowed from their screening. Can I add to one of my answers? Is that possible? Sure. I think you know I was thinking about this housing piece in particular and my experience in communities that are facing housing crunches has been that one of the successful strategies has been for a community to come together and build a plan. A community wide plan of all investment opportunities whether they're private investment opportunities or public investment opportunities. So it could be land that the town owns, it could be land that private landowners own but sort of developed a community wide plan. If we had all the housing we needed what would that look like? Where would it be? What kind of housing would it be? That's a really important first step because the way development traditionally has happened is developers have to figure out for themselves where is there an available piece of land? What's the market going to bear for me to develop some property? And they're doing it in this sort of atomistic way one development at a time. And so they're slow at doing it. Communities that have put together a community wide plan and can make that plan public are essentially advertising to developers that this is what we think is important and if you choose to do development in the way we've laid out we've already done the thinking about it and you're not going to run into roadblocks, right? You're not going to run into zoning problems, you're not going to run into town problems because the town's already thought it out and has a plan so just plug into our plan and you can do development there. And so that development happens easier. So having that sort of town-wide plan for housing into the future I think is really important. Can I ask a follow-up question? Is that actually of both of you? I hear what you're saying about having a local plan however as far as economic development and rural development goes in this state we have something called Act 250 which many developers and people who are coming from an entrepreneurial business development are critical of because of the multiple layers of bureaucracy and the permitting process is exhausting for a lot of developers. Sure. I'm just wondering how each of you feel about that in terms of how we as a community can interact with our state regulators to try and smooth that process a bit. I'm happy to let you know what I was saying. That's our church name. That's our church name. That's our church name. That is Act 250. That's what we're saying about this. That's our church name. That's our church name. That's our church name. I'm just curious to read. I think they've been talking about re-doing Act 250. Haven't they for years now? So I used to work in the agency of AG and AG development. And so one of my colleagues was one of the people that actually reviewed some of the permits and did some of the mapping side of things. My understanding of it is I think there's opportunities in the Randolph area because of the size of our community and the needs of our community versus a larger scale need that there's a smaller way that we can deal with it that won't actually cause a lot of Act 250 issues. I mean, those are Act 250 really comes into play when you're really talking about building larger developments. And the accessory dwelling unit initiative that is happening now, I think is a great opportunity that can play a good role. And there's opportunities right now for that to be a little bit more affordable with state subsidies. Yeah, I mean, I think the other thought I've always had about it is it seems like one of the biggest concerns of Act 250 is the additional cost of the permits. If there is a disruption in agricultural land and I feel like, I mean, even going back to what Matt was saying, if Randolph has a good plan of figuring out where our assets are, where our opportunities are, there's a strategic way that we could look at where it would be the most cost effective way to make sure we could add additional housing units at the lowest cost. And even if we would have to tap into Act 250 permitting, think about it as like a community effort. I think back to the whole effort that was made in between Randolph and Randolph Center to stop development to keep the agricultural land. I think if we can get the community around like that whole idea of where the needs are and have them and have us all as a community realize like, okay, we're not doing it this way. We are thinking about it. We're not just doing it for this person or the small groups benefit. We're doing it, you know, as a whole thinking about what our strategic goals are as a full community that we're actually pretty lucky to be where we are in the state. But it all takes time. I mean, planning takes time, let alone everything else. So I'm not an expert on Act 250 or the housing board at all. But my understanding, a loose understanding of it is that when a community, if a community puts together a plan for housing, there are steps that the community can take relative to that plan that can make permitting around Act 250 for projects that are in the plan easier for the developers to move through. But I also think we have an opportunity here with the Opportunity Zone. Randolph sits in an Economic Opportunity Zone. The large banks like Barclays, when the Opportunity Zone legislation passed at the federal level told their large account, private account holders that they had set up accounts for those large account holders to put capital gains and escrow them and wait for opportunities to invest. Does everyone understand what the Opportunity Zone is? So the banks still have those funds. There haven't been enough projects around the country for those investments to take place, largely because smaller communities haven't put together portfolio investments. It's all individual investments. The banks don't want to invest in a million-dollar project or even a two-million-dollar project. They want to invest in a 15-million-dollar project. Well, how does a town like Randolph get to a 15-million-dollar project? Well, it's not one project. It's the hotel, and it's the smokestack property, and it's the five other empty properties around town that need to be redeveloped. And it's an addition on the hospital, and it's, you know, it's five things like that. And you roll that all together, and even though there are different owners of each project, they're rolled up into an Opportunity Zone fund. And now the bank is interested in investing in that fund, and that gets you access to low-cost capital, particularly in high-interest times like this, for all of those individual project holders to pursue their projects and get their projects done. So that's another way to think about how to attract the resources to do the housing development and other development that needs to be done in town. That financing side is more of a GMEDC role, and a RACEC role. The town's not going to go out and take the lead on financing a project like that. We may be able to help with zoning, and we may be able to help with some type of plan for it or a layout option, but we're not going to go chase the revenue for somebody to do it or do the permitting side of it. Where you get your savings on active 50 is doing some level of pre-permitting, and the town won't do that either. GMEDC can do it. RACDC can do it. Somebody like that can do it. The way you're going to get your savings to a developer is for somebody else to do it. You're not going to get away with not doing it. Somebody's got to do it. It's who wants the headache. The town has a role in the planning part, in pulling together the different private owners and the town owns property too into a single plan. That plan then can be taken by GMEDC or RACDC or someone else to that next level in the permitting or in the soliciting for funding. Do we have any more questions? On the other side. We will close the interview. Thank you both. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. We will move on to the manager's report. Just two quick check-ins that have come up. I was trying to count the weeks. We don't see again if we stay on a regular schedule for close to four weeks. One is we're still holding the 4th of July check. Do you want us to keep hanging on to that until we have a conversation? Just to both send it and have a conversation? We can send it and then we're going to get back as payment for the law enforcement services because the amounts are suspiciously similar. So at a minimum we end up back at zero. And then we can have the conversation. But we're not supposed to be paying for the law enforcement services. So I got to believe if we send it for the full amount we're not going to get a refund. No, they'll use it to pay the bill. Did they give us anything of any level of detail of what we were paying or just to pay this amount? Thank you for your continued support of the White River Valley Chamber of Commerce Town Appropriation 4th of July 1, unit at $2,500. I think they need to submit to us a little more detail of what we're paying for. Especially given the amount of staff time and lining up our own volunteers that we had to do. And then the second one is from Mark. And it's for RACDC. I think it was the hopeless to include it in last week's conversation. There was a lot going on that night. So what there is, and I can pass around before you're doing it, it's just a letter, I mean it's set up like a resolution, but it's essentially a letter of attestation. So meaning that we know that RACDC wants to pursue $25,000 in state funds through the downtown vibrancy fund program to complete some projects that fit within its overall downtown organization mission. No match, no admin. This isn't a pass through. It's a straight grant for them or a straight payment to them. So there's nothing we have to do other than you as a legislative body has to say, yep, we understand that they're going for the money and we understand that if they get this money it's not to supplant any local contributions to that. So we make about $28,000 a year and each year for downtown organization services. And or... It's an interesting thing. If it's for downtown organization services, we're okay. If it's for general support of the organization, both arguments have been made as I understand recent years. But this is more of a refunctory task that only requires signature if you're amenable to it and pass it around before you sign it, it's pretty quick. It doesn't require anything from us other than this task. That was all I had. I just have a quick follow-up question on the animal case that we heard recently and we concluded that hearing has a formal letter gone out to Mr. Spill He and I spoke about the decision on Monday or Tuesday and the formal letter has to follow and we generally try to do them in about a week, a week and a half timeframe. And that's the one where we go through and we do the whole here's the process, here's what happened to the hearing and we've testified, there were the findings of the board, here's the order. So it has that. It looks a lot like a DRB decision in long ways in terms of a quasi-judicial structure to it. He is aware of what you ordered. So the only concern I have with that, what I called you on was that Milo doesn't agree at all with what he told us that night. She claims that the growth is not liquid. It's solid. She believes that the vet told her he was 99% sure it's cancer, that the cancer is throughout the dog's body and that they can't operate on it and he couldn't do anything more because he's not sure that there isn't an organ involved that's causing it to push out. So what I don't like is we made that decision based on his statements that were false. Can we reopen the hearing based on false testimony, allegedly false testimony? I'd want to ask our legal advisors that one. I wouldn't think so as a matter of due process. However, given that there's a change in circumstance, maybe that does change something in the equation. I don't know. That's not it. 20 years. The dog's cancer is that one. We can't throw in a match. I don't like that he sat right here and lied to us. If that's the case, I was trying to reach him. Somebody should interview the vet and get the facts right straight from him. There's only one reporter in the group. And one from animal welfare. Animal welfare organization manager. Who would that be? Doctor, what would be your budget priorities for the coming year? Let's have a conversation. Trina, I know you reached out to me. I can't find the email, but I'm willing to speak with him. I think we got to first find out if it's even valid, if we can. But given the fact that we acted on false information that was given to us, I don't know what we would change. I think our first priority still is to have him surrender the dog. Is that considered sworn testimony? You could. You're in a quasi-judicial proceeding, so it's as close as you get to it. Yeah. And I don't know, I don't know if there's a hip-up for the vet in arrogance, but how much he may be willing to say to underscore what Milo has said. Maybe we need Milo to report back to us on what she's learned. She was on vacation the day that we had that hearing, so she wasn't able to participate. And it's devolving once again into almost a more of an animal cruelty. I want to choose my words. But I think the state has said pretty much they're getting the care, and that's kind of met our criteria. Yeah, but is the state basing that on... I don't know. He said she said, or is it... I think she's got a relationship with the vet. Yeah, that's how I'd understood it. And their pieces, as long as there's some sort of care management plan going forward, regardless of the condition the dog is in, that meets their criteria. So the dog that's released has to come with some sort of care management plan, but then is assumed to be worked out. The state has a lot of work to do on its animal cruelty and animal welfare policies. So there's a lot of this stuff gets swept under the rug. And I'm tired of it personally. Mr. Legislator. We have a lot of work to do at the state level on these issues because we're caught in a rock and hard place here. And it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. So it'd be nice to have tools even. We can recommend that somebody surrender the dog, strongly encourage it, say it over and over. We don't have that as a tool set though in our dog toolkit in stature by ordinance. So even some of those smaller tools being enabled helps us maybe figure out more creative solutions. If indeed what's been alleged is true and the dog is riddled with cancer and organs might be operating. Compromise then, then euthanasia is the most humane thing that can be done. Case closed. I hear what everybody's saying. I'm starting to wonder though, given the limited tools that they had available, and given the fact that this dog seems rather unlikely to live much longer or cause much of a threat to other folks. I'm just wondering how much time we'll spend on this. This is really a good use of staff time, board time, to do really spending more time on this. Yeah, I hear you. Well, I'm happy to reach out to the veterinary clinic and see how much he may be willing to save, but I don't know how, I mean our hands are kind of, it's kind of been proscribed by it. I mean deciding when to put down your dog is traditionally a pretty personal decision. Absolutely, absolutely. Having been there and done that. Is moving into executive session? This is a statutory one motion. You need the finding, it's outside of that list of six, so it's just the motion to enter. I would like to move that we go into executive session to pursue into one VSA, 313, A3. Second. That wasn't there. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.