 Go. Okay, we're calling our meeting to order at 6.08 on Monday the 14th. Properly, we should be asking about changes to the agenda, but I think maybe we should save that until the more open meeting begins. Right, and the warrants are circulating. Okay, thank you. And I would make a motion that the board enter executive session under one VSA, section 313A3, relating to the appointment or employment of a public officer or employee and invite a candidate to join us. Second. Second, thank you, Rick. Questions? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, so we will enter executive session, step out and invite our candidate to join us and Wayne will let you know when we are ready for you to rejoin. Wayne, are you ready for us? Okay. We were in executive session, as you know. Thank you for your patience and my apologies that we don't have a warming outside when that happens. We went into executive session under one VSA 313A3, which relates to appointment and employment of a public officer or employee. We had a candidate who came in with us and we interviewed and at this time I am ready for a motion to take action consistent with our discussion in executive session. So moved. Okay, is there a second? Second. Okay. Lisa, let's say. To take action consistent with the executive session. Consistent with discussion in executive session. So that again is, that's that middle ground we are going to take an action but it is not something we can specifically disclose given the nature of the action which is different than we have nothing to report and we have something to report and stay tuned. Okay. We thank you all for being here and we are continuing to try to figure out how to do public comment in a way that both allows people to speak and allows us to get our work done. So thank you for signing in. If you'd like to speak we're going to turn to executive session, we're not executive session, sorry, to our public comment at 7.30. And in the meantime we have, let me ask whether there are any additions or changes to the agenda that people want to, that the board wants to make. No. Anybody? Okay. You shared. Yes. So Mark made a motion and then was it seconded? Yeah, Rick seconded. Okay. Or Denise. Yeah. Everybody's hands went up. And we voted them, obviously. And we all, and we voted. Okay, thank you. We did vote them. Yeah. Okay, I've moved on already. Okay. No changes to the agenda. The warrants are circulating for signature. Moving on to the consent agenda. I am going to ask that we remove the minutes because. About two over two. All of them. All of them because I think none of you had a chance to take a look at them. That leaves three items on the consent agenda. So. I would move the additional items listed on the consent agenda. Second. Any questions or comments? All in favor. Please say aye. Aye. So what we, so what those items are, if you didn't print a copy of the agenda is we have basically swapped Candy Smith from a DRV alternate into a full DRV member. And Ashley wore from a full member to an alternate. Okay. That was at the request of the DRV team. Okay. We have Denise personnel updates. Yeah. First off, Lisa. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm sorry you're not going to be able to continue, but we really appreciated you. You're wonderful. You take great minutes. If. Let us know if something changes. Thanks. When the nights are hard and it's late and I have a long commute. I know. I know. I actually thought a while ago that I wouldn't be surprised since they didn't have to drive to Hardwick. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to come and my dogs aren't ready for better than I am. So anyway. Yeah. I know about that piece. Yes. Just keep posting on Facebook pictures of the dogs. So, at least let us know that this is our last night taking. So. That's part of it. Thank you. It was a little something there for you. It's for you. It's for you. Thank you. Okay. The rest of my update is that we, as you know, we interviewed somebody tonight. We had two more emails of interest, but they didn't send resumes. And. Please, do you want to speak in that just a little bit? It's hard to figure out. Yeah. We had two more emails of interest, but they didn't send resumes. And we had one additional applicant, but that person has not responded to emails or phone calls. I'm sorry. For what position? The treasurer. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was having a problem. Thank you. And can I add maybe you have, we had a person who we had interviewed, but. Oh, that's right. You want. Yeah. We have somebody that we interviewed a while ago. And that person with Drew, he's been looking, he'd been looking for a place to live in the central Vermont area for like six months and could not find anything affordable. So decided to withdraw and stay living where he's currently living. So. And he was very good. So the other piece is we have here, and I'm sorry it's in such a teeny tiny print, but everybody has offered to help. So here is a list of positions that are currently open. So we'll send this around. You might need a humane to find glass to read them, but. Do I have just reading down through? Yeah. Okay. So what we have open is you saw the things you saw that posting for animal control officers. I mean constables. We have animal control open, emergency management. Well, that one's not for sure. We need another webmaster. We need a way of coal and assistant zoning administrator. And David is Jared's. Thomas still on as CV fiber. He is. Okay. We need planning commission members. We need a design advisory board member. We have three slots open for conservation commission. And they are generally looking for somebody with some background in that area. We also have three positions open on the historic preservation commission. We are going to be re upping our roads committee looking for people to see on the roads committee again. And that's about it. There's some positions that are going to come open when we do the March meeting, because those are elected. So that would be, we understand there's a lister that's not going to want to run again. And that's pretty much it, but I can send this around. So you can sign up for whatever position you would like to help us with. The price of coming to a meeting. No, no, it's actually at our last meeting, Mary Alice profit said that we should ask for help. And we realized that we don't ask for help at every meeting. So we are, this will be a regular feature of our meeting. So here's the help we need. Sign up and we will make it happen. And also spread the word. Yes. This is a primal problem in small towns. You know, they're just not enough of us. Yeah, right. Yeah, you know, one thing that was mentioned is the possibility of like a public information officer, you know, at the last meeting, we would, we haven't really talked about this yet. It's a board, but it would be something worth looking into because it takes a lot of time and we don't really have to do that kind of outreach. So if we actually had somebody outside in the community, it's kind of serving that it would give the double advantage to having somebody observing that isn't in this select board circle. So that that's something to think about. You can find a good point. Yeah, that's not on the list. That's not on the list. And we have not, and we haven't distusted or established that position to something that's not there. So the rest of my update is just sort of what I've been up to. We've signed off on the FEMA COVID grant. I've renewed the VLCT Passive 2023 insurance that's done. VLCT management, VLCT risk management assessment that's been taken care of there. I've been at the town garage reviewing emails and talking with the crew. I spent about four hours there last week, maybe the week after. There's literally thousands of emails that have to be gone through, some deleted, some printed off with hard copies for stuff that are grants that should be in the town office, organizing the emails, creating file, creating email folders so you can find things. These are historic emails. Historic emails, right. I've been working with Rick to create grant files and I renewed the diesel, what is it called? Diesel tax exemption, which happens like every two years. And you used to be able to do it on paper. Now they have to have it set up and account online. So I've set up an account online and done passwords. Got it all set up so it's all ready to go. My next up stuff to do is to inventory the road crew pagers and see we need to get another pager. Two-way radio for the tractor, but we don't need that till summer. Worked on getting bonus the first and second installment of road crew bonuses. That's happened. The road crew is reviewing, and this is probably in your notes too. Reviewing the road crew plowing routes because when I was in the garage and I've mentioned this to Rick that the former road commissioners route was three hours long and everybody else's route was six hours long. So they're working on trying to make it more even, the plow routes. Rick and I are having a meeting on Zoom with this, it's called BRIC tomorrow. It's for BRIC grant. It's tomorrow at 11, Rick, so you know. And then Rick and I are going to work on reviewing this vision SARS grant administration for FY 23. These are grant compliance documents that we have to me. Basically the grants that we have is audit requirements, things like that. And then Rick and I have been working with Nick and Betty Copeland on a grant for generators for the town hall and Maple Corner Community Center for emergency management. And just so you know, I've been doing payrolls since April of 2022. So that's where I'm at. Thank you. It's my update. I wanna add one item and that is that our, we learned we got the final piece of leading up to a potential union negotiation with our road crew. The Labor Relations Board had certified the vote, which means we now move into starting to schedule conversations with them and all of the next steps. Right, that we've been through before. Which we have been through before a couple of years ago. And we will be, Denise mentioned earlier, but with Lisa's exit, we will be, we can add minutes. Recording secretary is on there. Is it on there? Okay, great. I think it's on there. But we need a recording secretary person to do our minutes. Because if one of us has to do them, they're not gonna be as detailed as Lisa's. Okay, we are at, I'm just paying attention to the time. We're ahead of time. We're ahead of time. We're ahead of time. That's great. I don't know if everybody's here. Well, everybody was supposed to be here by 7. Yeah, this is why we, probably why we asked folks to be here at 7. So I'm gonna assume that people who wanna speak are here. So what we're gonna do is each person will have five minutes. And if every single person who is here expressed interest and it takes us longer than the half hour that we left on the agenda, then we'll give that time. And if we have to continue our meeting to finish our business through another night, that's what we'll do. We really struggle to try to figure out how to get our business done and invite people to speak. So that's what we landed on. So thank you for being here at 7. I'm assuming that... I know you mentioned, okay. So we have six folks. That's actually a perfect half hour. Although, is there anybody you wanted to speak who didn't get to sign in? Good question. That's a fair question. Okay. Okay, great. All right, I'm just gonna go in the order that you guys are listed here if that's okay. David, you're first. Please come and join us. And don't take offense, but I am for your benefit in mind. I'm just gonna go ahead and set this. And when it deems that's your cue to find your graceful wrap-up. I don't want to say your name. I would. So David Healey on 770 Robinson, San Terry Road. And I'm here to talk about suggestions and thoughts for select board consideration. The first topic I'm gonna address is town management. Maybe time for creating a town administrator or a management position. The management operations of the town have gotten more complex over the last 10 or more years. This person would be responsible for providing drafting budgets, drafting board agendas, managing staff recruitment, et cetera. Before going in that direction, the board may want to seek out help for moving in that direction. And I've provided a link to the Vermont Town and City Management Association for that kind of a reference. That's number one. Number two, dealing with surprises. This is how the subject we just discussed. Among the town newsletter would provide all residents with information about what's going on. It would also provide an opportunity to profile various members of town staff and commissions. They may be volunteers who would be willing to take this on. And bring that up because East Montpelia has one, Waterbury has one, Bilsex has one, Calis is not having one. Is that the signpost? Yes. So I just think that a lot of things we don't, everybody knows some things, but not every knows everything, so anyway. Online meetings. What base meetings allow for a lot more public engagement? Outfitting the town halls that accommodate this is critical. The board can use some of the towns out of funds to purchase the appropriate equipment, audio, the equipment, camera that moves, as long as talking and acoustic treatment if necessary. Meeting efficiency improvement. One way of improving the efficiency of the board meetings is to have whoever oversees an area in which a motion is to create the motion, oh, the person should create the motion in writing prior to the meeting. And this serves two purposes. One, everyone knows where it is, and it goes to the minute taker exactly as crafted. This is the standard practice at the CBFy for board and all our committee meetings. Our meetings seem to be incredibly productive with this approach. Dealing with contentious issues. The board should develop a protocol for dealing with contentious issues before they get out of hand. This could be providing the pros and cons of the issues and events. Town office access. I believe it's important that the town office be more generally open and available to visit. And then, lastly, oversight come down. The board should establish a process for reviewing planning commission, conservation commission, and develop new board activities and others. More engagement with these volunteer bodies can help avoid controversial surprises within the community. Did you give, do you have copies for us? Oh, okay, good, because I was taking notes. No, no, no, no. Thank you. Thank you. David, thank you so much. Thank you, David. Thank you, David. Can I say one more part? Absolutely, a nice thank you. A model. Thank you, David. There's experts, if anybody wants David to read the comments, I'll just take a second. David, he wants more copies to give to people. Okay, all right. Who's next? Stop yelling. My name's God-Helling. I live on Hague River in Adamant. I'm a retired lawyer. I serve on the DRB in the town of Calis and I work at the Adamant Co-op. And I may be a little out of time here, but because it sounds like there may have been a truce, but I'm here to talk about what's been going on controversially between the select board and the residents. And just for full disclosure, Sharon is a friend of mine. We walked together. Rick, John, some other folks here in the audience are friendly acquaintances of mine, people I really like. And I read Friendfort's forum. I've been really appalled by the accusations and using my notes so I don't go over five minutes because I ramble on about this forever. That's because you're a lawyer. And the attacks against select board members who've been trying to do a good job all of us. I was particularly appalled when those remarks, some of which were not based in fact, included things like an allegation that somehow the board edited the order to transcript or the insinuation that the folks were having secret meetings. I just can't fathom that members of the select board whom I know would be so underhanded. You seem to have gone out of your way to be transparent and offer everyone a chance to criticize and ask questions. Trying to assuage the criticism, undermine your ability to get on with the business of other items that are important to our town. These folks, the select board, is here to serve us. They spend long hours in meetings. They review documents, they chew over issues, and it's all without pay. If I had been a member of this board for the past several months, I would have stepped down. Instead, they're offering us more time. I don't know, I'm thinking some of the critics are out there tonight. I really regret that few, if any of our citizens have spoken up on the board's behalf. It appears most, if not all of the voices have been the critics. And I'm wondering why those of you who support the process and support our select board members have not spoken out. There are always two sides to every story and both should be heard. I understand tonight is aimed in part, at least I thought in part, to address the maligning commentary of the past weeks and to try and set these differences aside and move on. I ask all of you to say what you have to say now, or as they say, forever hold your peace. And I say this not just to the critics, but also to those of you who are in support, in whole or in part of this select board, it's conduct and it's actions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Also, Admiral Blaine, within five minutes. Thank you. Everybody's been doing great. Thank you, I'm in the time. Barbara, Barbara Whedon is next. You're not next? She doesn't want to talk. Are you? Well, unfortunately, excuse me, I have a problem I go to tonight. I signed our win, I thought there was a list of attendees. Oh, okay. So you have speakers? Okay, of course. No problem. I probably would have put myself first down the list. Well, Ginny, are you an attendee or a speaker or both? Both. Okay, feel free to come up and join us, please. Yes, thank you. So I want to say, I think ongoing criticism is part of the democratic process and should be encouraged. And I need to feel you have encouraged that. And I think that's great. And I think it should continue. And I also think that, yes, of course, there's at least two sides there for a story, right? I mean, there's really many, many sides to the story. And that is really what I want to speak to tonight. It seems like there is, there's just some communications breakdowns, some relationship breakdowns, and that there seems to be a pattern of this. So it's not what's happened between the Select Board and the Road Commission. It's not what's happened between the Select Board and Jeremy and Barbara. It's all town employees, previous town clerks, future town clerks. It feels like there is something systemic which is just not working. And it may be that David captured it very admirably in talking about how the roles have gotten bigger and bigger and harder and harder to manage. So what I would like to suggest is maybe reaching out to some kind of organizational consultant or an organizational mediator facilitator kind of consultant to really kind of get to the heart of what has been causing these difficulties and challenges and try to come up with a solution that best pleases everybody. Because I think that we do all, we all love campus, we love living here, we all want to have a smoothly functioning governmental system within our channel. And so I think some kind of mediation protocol has called for some kind of consultant to work with everybody and figure out what is really the best solution for all. Any time within like five minutes, just have some fun. Yes, well done. Reach Harrington. And I don't, there's a lot of things I could talk about, but I just decided to focus on one, and it's not necessarily even the most important one, it's just one that I'm ready to address. And that is the select board agenda, the actual agenda that comes out before the meeting. I get mine on Tom's porch forum. I don't, I haven't been able to figure out how I can print it, I try to go into the town website. Oh, good point. And I can't find the agendas. Oh, it's on, yeah, it's on the website, it's on the calendar. Yeah, it's on the, no, it's a picture of the month. Right, and if you click on the link on the date, it takes you to the agenda, I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to let you talk, I'm sorry. I knew that if I print that out, I'd end up feeling stupid. No, no, no, it's a good point, I don't know how other people might be having similar issues. One of the things that's bothered me about the agenda, the agendas, is that there are a number, what I see as sort of obscure items on the agenda, and I don't know what they are. It'll be about something I've never heard of and don't even know what it is, including words that I don't even know the meaning of. Well, if there's some way that, even if the agenda becomes a two-pager, go on. It's already three? Yeah, no, no, but go on. No, go on. If there's some way that there could be some explanation by each item that is clearly gonna confuse people because they don't have the intimate knowledge that the select four member has of the issue. So some interpretation, and the thing that others is the use of acronyms. Now, then acronyms are perfectly fine if what they refer to is fully spelled out on the same page and your eyes can just go back and see. Oh, that's what that is. But if it's not, it shouldn't be spelled out. Even I don't know, it takes more paper, but I just can see the average, citizen and catalyst looking at those things and saying, what's this all about? I don't want to know, you know? And that's not what we want, that's not what we want to elicit from the public. So, let me now just check in here to make sure that I covered what I wanted to cover. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the concrete suggestions. One of the things that, Judy, you're next, we've, I mean, I think, I hope you've all noticed, we, you know, we try to bring more, we've started saying when we're gonna take an actual action rather than just, you know, discuss something, but marrying your comment up, Reed, with I think it was from David, I've heard this, it's only speaking for me because everybody on the board needs to buy into this, but I think it would be great. If we did actually, where we're gonna take an action, if we literally put the motion on the agenda, at least the proposed motion, we could always amend it. I was gonna say sometimes we don't know. Sometimes, but it would force us to, you know, somebody knows what they would love the emotion to be. Right. And that could go on the agenda and we could all pick it apart and say we hate that motion. Yeah. Anyway, thank you. I had somebody else that asked us not to use acronyms. Yeah, that's a very easy address. That's an easy fix. That's an easy fix. Yeah, thank you. Okay, let me get back here to my, okay, Judy. Welcome. Thank you. Judy Fitzrubber of Kent Hill Road. And I'm actually, first I wanna thank you so much for having this extended public comment time so that you can hear the ideas and opinions and concerns of the Calis community. I really appreciate you providing that. I'd like to first make my own statement and I'm gonna read it and I'll supply it to the reporting secretary so she'll have the text. And then I'm also gonna read a letter from Donna Fitch. She couldn't be here. I know she emailed it to you, but she also emailed it to others and there was a consensus that it would be helpful to read it out loud so it can be shared with the community. So I'm gonna read that out loud too. And I don't think I'll look over five minutes, but I might make up some of the other time that was not taken. And I have to read it just so I don't wander and lose track here. This is yours to start. So I'm gonna start with mine. No, I'm just gonna say I wanna thank each of you for your time, energy, skills and everything that you give to the town in these unpaid positions that require juggling the management of multiple areas and solving a multitude of problems. We owe you incredible gratitude and I appreciate the impossible positions that you have. You must feel at times that they are impossible because the demands are so great and I wanna start with that in a sense of justice and support. I agree with that you've been aligned unfairly online and I have some suggestions that I wanna put forward just for you. And also I speak for myself from my experience. While I believe each individual member of the select board is working hard and has the town's best interest at heart, my observations in my 10 years as a town official, I was assistant town clerk and assistant treasurer and then town clerk, we need to believe that the select board needs to develop more effective patterns of communication particularly regarding employee relations. I've witnessed a number of employees and some town officials leave their positions stating that they felt unheard, disrespected and discouraged in their relationship with the select board and like Ginny said, I'm not sure it's an individual issue, it's almost a systemic issue like what David said. Here's a few suggestions. In order to move forward in good faith, I suggest the select board, one, hold frequent and regular listening sessions with employees, officials and the public to develop a strong professional system, consistent system, which can't involve just you because it's overwhelming for hiring, training, supervising, evaluating and engaging with employees in appointed officials. Three, develop job descriptions in collaboration with the people in town who have direct experience and skills and knowledge and understand the scope of the work in those positions. And four, provide overviews and updates on front porch forum that explain the major direction and priorities of the select board beyond the agenda and minutes to increase a sense of transparency and trust. And that might get back to the newsletter idea which again, I'm sure you don't have time to do, but I think it gets lost in the agenda and it's like, what's the main routes? What's your vision? What's your direction? And then people start, you know, kind of what's going on. So those are my suggestions. I'm gonna now turn to Donna. And you're gonna give that to me. I'll give that to her. And I'll also, I'll e-mail it. So there's a word about it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So this is from Donna, so this is not necessarily directly my ideas, although I agree with many of them. Donna writes, I'll be out of town for two weeks and will be able to attend the November 14th select board meeting but wanted to speak out to the current personnel issues. I hope my past work experience in business settings and as town clerk and treasurer can offer some insight. My observation is that the new positions director of public works and treasurer slash business manager have been created in response to issues that festered over several years and were not addressed at the time. The select board was reluctant or unable to address the strained relationship between the board and the road commissioner. The operations manager position, which in its original iteration was temporary, was intended to be evaluated after a few months. It was not. A part-time select board administrator position created by a select board appointed committee in 2017 was in the end not approved. Rather than looking back, the select board and citizens need to look forward. I'd like to see us do this together and she has six suggestions which I'll read out briefly. One, the treasure of business manager job description is unrealistic. I doubt if there's a person out there who could fulfill the requirements or whose experience covers or who would want to take on accounting, human resources and a high level administrative support position. Two, is the treasurer position part-time defined part-time so it is clear how many hours the job is expected to take and clearly lay out the expectations of that position that go beyond day-to-day bookkeeping tasks and payroll. Three, high level administrative support to the select board and the town is desperately needed. Many of these expectations are spelled out in the treasurer slash business manager job. The person for this job is not a treasurer. The previously mentioned select board administrator job description also addressed the organizational and managerial skills needed. Four, the personnel issues go beyond these two new positions. Over the years, more responsibilities and requirements have been passed down from the state to the towns. Specific skills and expertise are needed. I am concerned about the aging population of those who serve on the town commissions and committees. I'm exposed to the work of the planning commission, the zoning administrator and the listors. These are professional positions requiring specific expertise. We need to be reaching out and mentoring younger Cal citizens so that the current committee members can share their knowledge and that includes mentoring future select board members. Five, the select board cannot work in a vacuum nor do five people necessarily have the skills and experience needed to run the town. The post-pandemic employment situation is a challenge. However, there is a lot of talent and experience in Calus and there are people who want to work. Six, none of this will happen unless we work together to engender respect and rapport between the select board, town employees, committee and commission members and Calus citizens. Thank you very much and I'll make sure to get these. Yeah, thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Does anybody know how East Montpelier's signpost newsletter, it's always on my impression that that's entirely private. It's private. It's volunteer work. I think the town supplies the printing and the cost. Okay. And that's a hard copy document. I think it might be online as well. So if you'll indulge us and just some, do we have anybody else on the list? No, that's it. Okay. Is there someone else who would like to talk who hasn't? Okay. So, this is good. We have a little bit of time. I was curious how that happens. So one of the things that I want to just say out loud is we I'm going to speak from my heart and my experience. One of the, so many things we struggle with. One is email. And you guys have heard me say that before. My personal feeling is that we will be so much healthier if people come to our meetings and say, here's something I want to talk about. And then we create space on an agenda to do it because a lot happens in email that is a formula for it feeling like it's a surprise when it shows up on an agenda to read's point for getting lost in the shuffle and not showing up in the queue. And then, you know, any number of other things, but I would love to have people come and say, we have an idea. Will you just kind of, well, we have some of this going on now. The dam that Kurtz-Pondam is really started as, at least in my area, I joined the board in 2017. And I think the committee, by the way, that you mentioned that worked on that job was before 2017 because it wasn't when I was here, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, this idea that so much excellent work can happen outside of the board and just kind of check in with the board like a newsletter. If there's a group of citizens who want to do a newsletter in town, and what the group needs from us is, we love that idea. Can we build some money into the budget to support it? Absolutely. Would we each make ourselves available to have a conversation or be interviewed? I don't know why not. It would be up to each person. Those kinds of things can happen. Many times somebody wants to come and say, I'm willing to take ownership of this. Will you just bless it for me? Yeah, and it's like, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need from the board to make this happen? Yeah. Because there's a lot of good, there's a lot of talent out there. I love the newsletter idea. I think that could be something that, you know, let's get some people involved that are willing to work on that. And I like the idea of putting a link. I mean, we can put a link on the agenda that takes you to the agenda, but maybe just making it clear in a newsletter. You know, if you go to the town website, the calendar's on the front page, and it lists all the meetings right on the calendar, but maybe people don't really understand that they can click on that. Yeah, it's happy to do that. On that link, I can't do it. And it takes you to the agenda. So, you know, there's some things like that that, you know, it could be something in the newsletter. Hey, did you know how it acts like this? I like the idea of something, I don't know how we would do it, something very brief coming from the town. I know, I don't know how it gets there, but I know on the website of Plainfield, it might be Marshfield, I don't know which, I'd have to look. When you go to the main page of the website, there's sort of like, here's what's going on right now. It's right there. It's only a page, you know, but it's sort of like, here are the main events. This item is coming up to be discussed at the select board. This item, you know, and I know we're overextended, but at any rate, I really thank you. One of the things I'm really struck by is the concreteness of your proposals, and I just think they're really great. It's much more helpful to have ideas, you know, we can't fix all the problems, so ideas are really, really helpful and appreciated. It gets my brain to thinking. Well, and I will say it again, speaking only from the, I really worry about over-promising. I worry about things that we say we'll do and then we can't do. I worry about, these guys, I worry about, I would be against us putting more on Front Porch Forum because I worry that creates another forum for conversation when really our meetings need to happen here, our conversation needs to happen here. Because then we're conducting town business, right now I worry we're doing too much town business actually in email rather than here. We certainly don't want to be doing town business on Front Porch Forum because somebody from the select board has weighed in on something. That's actually counterproductive to the open meeting law where our meetings happen here. And plus we would get busy. This happens all the time. We would get busy with something and we wouldn't keep up some commitment somebody thought we'd made and then there's a whole other problem to solve. And you know, Front Porch Forum is social media and we know what happens with social media. That's why you have not seen a select board member respond to the comments because we can't. Well, we don't, that's our practice. We all agreed that we would not respond to comments on Front Porch Forum. For one thing, if we were to come in as a board we'd have to have a meeting to agree to comment. You see what I'm saying? Right. So, and like for one of us to comment it's just not the, it's not the way it should be. We should be doing our business here if you have an issue. Please come talk to us. We try to speak through the chair, you know with one voice just for that reason. Be very careful about how we as individuals reach out. Well, I don't want to speak with that. No, we don't. Well, we don't know. We don't, we don't speak through the chair. We all have voices. That's always been my impression. My point is that the point that really matters is that we don't, as individuals on a platform like that, we aren't speaking for the other board members but that's the way that can be interpreted in those forms. So we're very careful about not doing that because, yeah, we're all independently elected but I did not, you know, I don't represent Sharon. You know, we have to speak as a unified voice. We like to do that in a form where we're together. So if we want to disagree, we can disagree here. It's a male. Yeah, I mean, yeah, quick. I'm going to just peak. This clock isn't working, which is why I'm going to peak quarter of. So Reed had his hand up. Jenny, I saw yours. Reed, do you have a quick question? Yeah, just, I just said, we're on the subject of communications with the public. I wonder if we, if we know how many people in town don't use computers and don't have that kind of thing. All right, we don't know. I don't know if we can fix how we can fix it. David probably knows. Let's get more comfortable about our almost obsessive use of electronic communication. If I knew, if we weren't missing so many people because they don't use computers. I agree. I mean, I'm very intrigued by, you know, what if we took a community, what if we took an electronic hiatus? We went back to, come here. The sun spot. It makes the big sun spot. I'm very intrigued by that. By, I mean, it would be an interesting exercise. But our work still does happen here. We don't make any decisions on email. We don't. We really don't. Because you can only take our work for it, but violation of the public records law and open meeting law. I do think, David, I mean, I do think I brought it up here. I think there's a strong sentiment on the board. Certainly I haven't. That our meetings should be all available on Zoom. The problem is we're making, it's just ridiculous here and under our current. And so when we get broadband in here, I mean, I think you'll find a lot of support for doing. If you're gonna need better equipment. Yeah, yeah. We know that. We can't, the signalists, I want to say. So right, so we have, that has been brought up and discussed because we were doing Zoom meetings when it was COVID, but it was everybody was on Zoom. Doing the hybrids proved to be a really huge talent to not work well. We need equipment to do that. Yeah, and the acoustics. The acoustics here are a problem. I mean, I'll look so for acoustics, but there's more to it than that. So when we were meeting in hybrid, that screen was like where all the Zoom land folks were. And I always sat over there and the little owl guy camera was in the middle. So this is what it was like. If I wanted to look at faces and see everybody, those of you who are in Zoom, you know exactly what happened. Turn my back to the owl. So what you're literally seeing is my back now so that I can see your faces. That was, that didn't work for me. When I'm, I want to speak and I want to like talk to somebody and my back is a bit. Right, and the acoustics in here are not great, as we know. We have to get that. We have to get it. But I just want to say one of the reasons we're doing it is there are many of us that are saying, don't cry at night because of headlights. Yeah, absolutely. So it's like, we can't go to work. So I wanted, I mean, I guess, I want to just, one thing I hope we can package a little bit is this idea of a newsletter or a different kind of communication. And I wanted to say to those of you who are here in the interest in that, bring us back a proposal and tell us what you need from us in terms of a budget item. You know, we need you to, we're gonna, this is how it's gonna work. Somebody's gonna come to your meeting and somebody, you know, well we need a newsletter committee. Yeah, bring back the proposal. The more, this is what I say to one of my neighbors. One of my neighbors is full of ideas, full of ideas. And I say to my neighbor, I will come over on your kitchen table and help you develop your proposal. But every time I hear, why don't you just, I go, you just, you're giving me more things and I already got all the things I can handle. But we will support you with a well-thought proposal that you can do. I'm thinking about Linda Sheets with the swim ramp. Right, yeah, Linda Sheets came to us and we said, Linda, will you make it happen? And she said yes. Yeah, it's like, okay, do the, do the light work. Check it out and report back to us. That's really, really helpful and that means community involvement. If you do that, you know, don't just come and say that you don't like this and you don't like that and not have any way to help us because I can't think of all of the ways to make those different or better. And then actually, and then over promising. I never like to say I'll do that and then not do it. And so instead I don't say I will do it. And as I know, if I did, I would just disappoint. Jenny, you've waited very patiently. I'm sort of taking the opposite approach from Reed in that, yes, there may be many people who in town who don't have computers, don't like doing social media, but you're talking about getting younger people involved and moving younger people on the board. Gotta use social media, gotta reach out. And I feel like it might be better to do more rather than less, though I hear what you're saying. Can't say anything decisive. But if there was, for example, a town, Facebook page, it could go right up there like, oh, we wanna have a newsletter committee. Who wants to be part of a newsletter committee? So I'm not necessarily saying yes, you should do a Facebook page, I'm just saying they don't sort of shut down the idea of social media. That reaches a whole another group. There is, something did come up, now that you mentioned about a Facebook page. If it's a Facebook page that is done by the town, like the select board or the office staff or anybody like that, there are certain regulations you have to follow to keep it up. So like, different people have done, like there's a callus people page that somebody started. And callus settlers. And callus settlers, those are individual citizens doing that. If we did it as the select board, there's a lot of regulations that we have to follow to make it so that it's kept up to date. And it did come up, Jenny. So just so you know, it has come up and I appreciate you bringing it up. But just know that there's a lot of baggage that goes with it. You wanna start one? Go ahead. Hi. I feel like Jared. Oh, I'm thinking these thoughts. But the other thing is coming to meetings isn't that easy to do, especially as the snow sets in. I mean, I mean, I mean, that's one of the things I honor about you all. I'm just getting here for these meetings. Now we have to warm up the car at the time. And so I'm wondering if there's a way, like a public reach out that you could have just like talks, sessions, meeting sessions like at the people corner community center and at a man, but you know, just, I know something else on your plate. But another way to help increase communications between the slot board and the public. So you saw like public outreach meetings in various parts of the town. Like the only way we could do it is if it wasn't, we'd have to warn it as a board meeting if it involved all of us. It's just a couple of us. It doesn't have to get worn. Well, we could rotate our meeting. We could move our meetings to other places. We did that for a while. We did a minute in East Calis for a while. All right, let me ask this. Would somebody be willing to explore other venues and bring back a suggestion for occasionally doing this meeting just in a different place in town? Maple Cormac Community Center. Would somebody like to take that on and come back? There's a community club. There's the East Calis Rec Center. Would somebody like to take the lead on putting some shape around that idea? I'm looking for somebody else. But I would rather be else. So I think the MCCC is a good place to start, yeah. And this is a question of that place, just getting what money makes you need it and make sure that the money is reserved. What? To get the, to make some money, you have to reserve the room. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta make sure that they don't want to be absent. Right, so somebody would have to be in charge of scheduling. Right. Well, think about it because I don't want to commit to the word to things that we can't accomplish when we have said we will. We honestly feel ourselves as burden of doing too much of that already. We sit here and say to ourselves, oh, we'll do that. And then we look at each other and say, well, what happened? Will we ever get that done? And it is not that we're not getting anything done. It's that there's too many balls floating, Judy. I'm not quite sure how to articulate this, but. It seems to me that the controversies and conflicts that have created a sense of lack of transparency or lack of trust emanate from difficulty communicating with employees and other officials. And if that core issue was dealt with, then it's almost like a ripple effect. If those relationships were positive and strong and healthy and there was structure around that, supervision, evaluation, clarity around job descriptions and just a sense of a real strong core leadership and management in terms of employees and appointed officials. I feel like the communication problem might even take care of itself because it would kind of be at the same level. It's not so much where the venue is because people all from one side of town will want to go to the other side of town. It's dark, it's winter, whatever. I think it's about really core relationship building and trust amongst the board and the board with the people that you supervise. And that creates a whole culture of trust and transparency. And that's to me where the attention needs to go. Okay, that's really helpful. And thank you for that. One kind of wrap up thought is anything we do as a group has to be in public, literally, unless it fits into an exception. So that's something to be aware of as we think about all the ideas of what the select board could do. Can I just make one more comment? Yeah. When I was a town clerk, there was a period of time where Denise and Cliff met with the office staff every two weeks. And it was a period of time where it felt like we were really heard, we really understood what the select board issues were, they heard what our issues were, and we began to work on things together. And then there was some kind of a decision that that was inappropriate. And I actually think there's probably a structural, legal way for you to have liaisons with different constituents so that you're not all have to be in the same room with the same person and you can build good relationships. So what I'm curious about is, Mark is in the context of your recent campaign, met with some other select boards. I've been to select board meetings and other towns for different reasons. The other town officials come to the meetings. And so that's one of my points of curiosity is what happened to the idea that part of the organic integration happens because we're meeting every other, we're twice a month at least, in a meeting here. And this is where all the town business happens. Not all, but where our business happens. And having Alfred the road commissioner came here, I would really, I think that model to me where everybody on the board, not just a couple of point people because a lot gets lost there. And so that's, it feels to me like a little bit of a whack-a-mole, like, wait a minute, we've solved one problem but we've created a different problem. Well, I have a thought and I'll just throw it out there for right now. I think that we could put on every agenda, 10 minutes for the office staff to come and address the board. And if you don't have anything, then you don't have anything. But have it as an official agenda item at every meeting. To have the office staff come and address the board. It could be the Listers coming to address the board. It would be any type of anything like that. This might be a longer conversation because I think there's a power dynamic when somebody comes to the board in an official way. It creates, it's very different coming here and presenting even I feel nervous because we're being recorded. It's very different to build a relationship where you're in the office, you're casually talking about, hey, we're thinking about maybe tearing down that wall because it would create more space for the new trailer. It engenders some kind of creative collaboration that can't happen in a formal kind of way. Can I build on what I think I'm hearing Judy say is that it's not so much about conducting business as it is team building. And that's what I took from what Judy was saying when for a while or a couple of years Denise and Cliff came and met with the town office staff regularly and we shared ideas between Judy and Sandra and myself and Denise and Cliff. We called ourselves a team. I felt and we loved that team of five of us and we felt like we really were understood and were invested in what the select board was working on and we felt like the select board cared about the town office staff. And that went away with no explanation and we have missed it terribly. And the select board has appointed different ones of you to be liaisons, a liaison to the road group, a liaison to the Listers, a liaison to the Planning Commission, a liaison. And we at the town office have asked over and over and over again, would you please have a liaison to the town office? And just to be clear, the liaison to the Listers and the Planning Commission was for a specific project. For a specific, yes. It was for a specific project. And I used to enjoy our team meetings. It was great, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think, I feel like if it's a wrap up comment. It just, to me, this argues further for having an outside, the organization. Organizational control. This isn't something that you can fix here on the fly, but I think some deep thought and time needs to go into it to come up with a plan that, again, really works the best for everybody. Right, which would be if it's the whole board in a meeting with the camera on. Well, okay. No, that is, we've asked and explored the idea of just a workshop, not a workshop, a retreat. That would, if five members of the select board are at a retreat just for team building, then it's a public meeting. I'm imagining a consultant could interview each one of you individually, for example, not altogether, as well as interview other town members. They make recommendation. Yeah. Maybe if there's a problem with what's coming. Yeah, it's somewhere. I think it's a really interesting idea, but I'm just, and I'm not saying no. Or like all the reasons we can't do it. I'm just informing you that it might be considered to be a serial meeting. I don't know, which is illegal, but at any rate, the report they made and the recommendations they made would be public. I mean, it would have to be public. I wanted to say one thing though, too. I mean, I'm speaking for myself, like I work full-time. I meet with the road crew often, you know, John will test right now. We try, I use vacation time to do that. A lot of it, and it's important to me that there's connections, but to keep drawing, we already give huge amounts of our time to this town. I mean, a lot of time, all of us. And so, to keep, and I don't mean to sound selfish, but I keep hearing, give me, give me, give me, you gotta come to my workplace. Well, that comes out of a little bit of vacation time that I get. And if, and takes away from my work, complicates my life at work even more. You know, so we have to, if we do this, I mean, I have limits to what I can physically do. And just to wrap up, I mean, I think this gets back to looking at a structure and a position that could help you with supervision, communication. Back to that town administrator where David's starting, maybe? Or the committee that had the select board administrator. Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. Thank you. All right, thank you, everybody. Thank you, thank you. It's nice to have such a chat, thank you. And please stay. And thank you for your time. Yeah, please stay and see all the others. They come to your time. They're about to hear a road report on letting hours go over their roads. Right. Okay, starting on our budget. So just, that would have been in the minutes of some previous meeting. We were meeting this weekend to start working on the budget. So you know that we, this is very much on our minds as well. Also, part of the production that we have to do is produce the warning. Generally, warning, so that's the specific things that people go down. Right. Warning items can come from two places. The select board can, you know, and we will produce a warning for the, well, for the overall town budget. But other people come and ask us for warning items. So that's something I want to get really clear about because again, this is a place where there's been some email conversation. So if other people say, I want this on the warning, then you could come and ask us to put it on the warning. I think that's a really good process. Here's the kind of rationale, here's the request. And then, you know, we can say yes or no, but if you've come in and spoken to us and said, here's what we want, you know, to ask people to vote on and here's why, then it's a public process rather than some kind of email exchange where it comes up, you know, out of nowhere. So this is my understanding of it. And all this comes from the big VLCT municipal calendar. It's a great big huge fallout wall calendar. My understanding is that it's all comes down to the town clerk and what happens is that the town clerk will be posting on the court forum the deadlines that people need to make in order to participate in the warning or to run for office. And so in December is when we start telling people these are the offices that are when I say we. The town clerk will be setting constituents know these are the offices that are available to run for in town meeting. Here's the deadline by which you need to file to run for that office. If you want to have a warning and have an article in the warning, this is the deadline by which you need to file your petition because you have to go out and get 5% of voters to sign the petition and submit it to the town clerk by this deadline. All of those deadlines fall on the town clerk that's on that free page that I have. So that's my understanding is that it's done by people submitting a petition to have an article on the warning and it all goes to the town clerk and he brings it to the select board. Or the select work can put in a warning item. Of course, of course you can. Sometimes the warning is yours. Right, and so what I'm saying is that people have things they want us to put on the warning, us to put on the warning, they come here and tell us about it and why. And they also have to get a petition signed by one person. No, not if the select board puts it on on our own. Based on somebody coming and saying we want to sell bubblegum at the corner of Peek and Brook or whatever. And they do that, they don't have to give a petition. No, it's only if the select board's like, well, I don't know about that. You know, go to your petition and 5% of the voters. Yeah, but like the Woodbury fire department, they always come here and make their request. Okay, that's it. And then we put it on. I mean, we're just saying, if you hear something, someone comes to you. Or if you have something. Or if you have something, come to us. Okay. Yeah, and we can, if we put it on, it's on Woodbury fire comes in. Yeah, yeah. Okay, right, yeah. And this is where, so I did put something on based on an email thing that was flurling around. And to land that email that nobody else was on, but that's hard for me to be the only select board on an email. And but also it's, we don't want everybody on email because then we're starting to have a meeting. So I did warn, I did put them on a future agenda for the town office folks to come and raise an issue that I was threading through that email. You don't want to talk about that there's an issue you would like on the agendas, on the morning. Yeah, there was an issue with off. Well, but either way, but to bring some transparency to the issue, that's my point. Okay, so I'll let you take that off with Jeremy. Okay, yeah, all right. All right, so we start on, yeah. So we start our budget process on Monday. Saturday, Saturday is Monday. And yeah, and we, you know, set out loud that people want things on the warning that are kind of a, I mean, some bubblegum on the corner, peak and brook, I think we would say go do a petition. Right, but that's my point. Yeah, I think I can tell the town business or something a little more integrated with town business. Come here and make sure we're aware. Okay, okay. So may I ask another process question? So in my three page deadlines for publication of the town report, I color coded it and Jeremy was one color. The town clerk was one color. The treasurer was another. The select board was one. The graphic designer was in one. The jet service printing was a different color. What should I do with everything that used to be sand on Sandra's list? Does that not come to the select board? Yeah, can you send that to us? Can you send us the big list? I get the big list, I'd like to see that and see. Still have it highlighted as I'm just gonna call it treasurer because it's gonna all be the finalized and stuff related. Right, so it would be helpful for us to answer your question to see that list. Yeah, because those duties are divided as you know, but give them to us. Yeah, we don't want to lose the thread that is the treasurer because we will have somebody in that role. Okay. Thank you, Barbara. That's it, thank you very much. And Barbara, actually I think I'm calling Jeremy at 8.25 for the ARPA item, does that sound right to you? Or is he calling you? He asked me for the phone number at the town hall tonight. Okay. I think maybe he's calling in. Yeah, okay, yeah, perfect. Okay, so we are moving on to, all right, that kind of kicks off getting ready for town. It's kicked off. Rick, roads report. Good, I'll try to make it as quick as I can. In general, the road crew have been phenomenal again. They're amazing. We've been really trying to prioritize actions. We've been transitioning from grading to, you know, to wash repairs and preparing trucks for, and so on. We'll go into the details there. We've also been working on the East Montpelier Bridge. John and the guys. Moscow. Or Moscow, I'm sorry, wrong bridge. The Moscow Bridge, they got a concrete plug into the hole which will maybe prevent water from dropping down into that failing abutment and making that failure even worse than it is right now. So that kudos to them. And thanks for the weather that we got that allowed us to really pour that concrete without even eating it. So that's worked out really well. We've also, let's see, we managed to get out and mark locations for several of the radar speed signs on Lightning Ridge and on County Road. So we're going to try to get those plugs in. Right now we're preparing, obviously, for winter weather. We may be having a storm coming in Wednesday. So they're focused on trucks and I think they, plow frames are on. We've got all of the dump trucks are operational now and with the six wheeler just came back with it, they had to replace hydraulic pump on it. I think tomorrow, John, I believe you guys are putting chains on. Tyler told me that all the piles were going on to the frames today. Yeah, so they're good. So it's changed tomorrow, so we should be ready. Yeah, all the equipment's up and running right now. So that's a very good thing. And we're, well, we've got more to go, don't we? So that one thing that has come out that is a big problem that guys showed me the chloride trailer that we hauled, we have a 1000 gallon chloride tank. So you're probably talking to your 10,000 pounds worth of chloride and that trailer, well, one axle rusted in half and fell off, I believe, right? Had to be, and the trailer is just uninspectable. It's in terrible shape. Should have been retired a few years ago. So we're kind of coming up with an alternative plan. We'll work on that more this winter after we get into the swing of the winter plowing. So that to possibly, at least for the time being, weld up a steel pallet or something so we can lift that empty tank onto one of our dump trucks and spread from a dump and then for the time being. And then we'll see what makes the most sense in the future, whether to replace the trailer or do this from some truck base. We'll work that out this summer. Or this winter tie as we move forward. Let's see, in general, there is some general grading work going on right now still. It's mainly work fixing washes and problem areas at this point because focus is shifting into snow removal. And our window for doing this kind of work is evaporating. It gets hard to get these roads compacted in time for the weather that's coming so we can do more damage if we overgrade those at this point. So they are focusing on, I believe, Collar Thursday. I think the plan is to do clean out all of the Collar Hill culverts, I believe. I think that's the time. You already did it? Oh, good. OK, I know one culvert was done. We had a public request on a drive culvert that was headed. You're sure of that? Yeah, OK. Tyler told me they were doing everything up, all the rest on. Yeah, but anyway, so maybe I misinterpreted that. And you added drain to that, which is? Yeah, I told them about that wash. That hill, we had quite a gully going up there. And that rain didn't help us when 7-8. Yeah, I told them that they jumped right out there because they were also working on Sparrow and I think Wheeler too, that's on the agenda this week. They're trying to get those watches under control before snow gets out. That's good. I'm glad that was, I wasn't sure they'd be able to squeeze that one in right off the top. I'm glad that happened today. Let's see, you know, cover replacement. Yeah, the Moscow Woods, we, as I said, they've stabilized that drain, the best they can, for the short term. We're working on, I got estimate from DeWolf Engineering. We're trying to see if we're able to sole source a design, the design and bid document, bid process, contracting to sole source it with them because we're under a very short window. We really need to do the temporary repair to that abutment to stabilize that for three years or so until we can actually replace it. That's a full replacement on that structure. It's hopefully going to be a box culvert. It will probably be, if it's a box culvert, it's hard to guess right now because of inflationary cost. Three or four years ago, that would have been $300,000. It's going to be at least $600,000, $700,000 now, maybe possibly more. That doesn't include the engineering, so we're probably, yeah, we're talking a better part of a million dollars probably to fix that, but the main thing is the abutment itself. It is undermined on that structure, so it's actually down in the stream bed and it's not just what's failing above, so we have to, we've got to, that's a complete construction. Anyway, we can't waste time on that, we've got to move. That's what I wanted. I'm trying to get, right now in this environment, there's a lot of ARPA money out there and so it's hard, our temporary, there's probably around $100,000. We've got an $80,000 structures grant through the state to do the temporary repair by getting a contractor to bid on that small a job right now might be a challenge, so we need to move this fast. We all have to do permitting and everything else, so I don't want to get caught late in the spring by having this out to bid. I'd like, you know, I'd really like to get it out as soon as possible. Can I ask you a question about that? So there's, you've given us a contract for preliminary professional services. Yeah. That's not agenda, do you want to? No, no, no, that's actually just, that is just for your, we, it's not agendas, I just gave that to you guys for, for your reference. It's kind of future agendas. Yeah, yeah. I need to first find out, because we do, we are using a structures grant and I have to make sure that it's okay that we can sole source. We can do that by our, by our town policies, but I have to make sure that meets state procurement guidelines. I mean, it's clearly, Meaning it doesn't have to go out to bid. Meaning it doesn't have to go out to bid. We're in disaster mode and it's, I think it clearly, Well, I just have to make sure, cause I don't want to, I want to, I want, I've talked to the trans, you know, their, their DTA and I'm waiting to hear back, cause he wasn't sure. So, We have specific, yeah, we have specific exceptions in our town policy, but, Right. Make sure that the state does as well. Yeah. I just want to make sure that we're sort of ready to transition one at 825, because I think hopefully Jeremy's calling in. Give me one. Let me just take a quick look. Yeah. I mean, the, the, I think the last thing I'll touch on then is, we've got a few things in mind for our strategic planning immediately. You know, I think we're going, I'm going to start creating a tracking spreadsheet for the guys for all the roads so that we can, we'll break, we'll list all the roads, we'll list all of the class of the road. Two, three, four. And then we will do, you know, we'll probably just have some categories where we have general maintenance, we'll have a spot fix of some kind, you know, but if they go in and do a road, whenever they do road work on a road, they can just write in a date, fill in a date and then we'll know what it is roughly and they'll put a check by the type of work it is. So we'll have an idea of how, what kind of coverage we're getting across our road system. And then we'll, it'll also give us a better idea of these problem spots, you know, where we're returning a lot. And so, and this is something we'll make very simple. So they'll be able to just do this at the end of the day and we'll be able to, we'll be able to see how we're, you know, where are times going across the town. And then also come May, you know, I want to go out with them and we'll look at our seven or nine bridges that we've got and take a close look and see if we see any impending issues with any of them. Those are always expensive fixes and they are time consuming to do. I don't want to run into another Moscow Woods structure problem like this if I can avoid it with this short notice. And then probably too, once, and the time to do that is May when everything, all the grass and vegetations all smashed down, we can see them. And we have to kind of get in that sweet spot where you can actually hopefully see the bottoms of the pipes because the bottom of pipes called an invert. And that's where a lot of the rotting happens in those structures and that's gone. You're sitting on a time bomb. So we'll work with them to kind of get that done. Our town-wide culvert inventory, we have over 600 culverts in town. That is scheduled to be redone by the Regional Planning Commission. They hire consultants to come in and review that. And it's either, he thinks it's this coming summer, but if not, it'll be the next. I just got the new pass where I just signed in. I just got a password from the RPC to get on to the inventory tool that I actually helped write years ago. This is the second generation of that. But we can, well, the last time this review was done was probably 2016 or so. So it's been a long time. And I don't know if it's been maintained. Yeah, they haven't covered it. Well, just what I mean is every time an inventory, every time, say, the guys change out of Calder, like Calder, like that Calder Hill, we can actually go in there, change that in the database. And so that, we can keep it up to date. Once this thing is up to date, and I'd like to make sure it stays up to date, because that's a good budgeting, I'm planning tool for us if we do it, if we use it. But more importantly too, I think we'll work together. They know the culvert's better than me or anybody else because they work around these things all the time. And I think we'll try to look at some of those 600 ourselves for problem thoughts that we might think that we may need to be addressing. I think we'll be pro-its proactive as we can about that. Yeah, thank you. We're good? Yeah, I just wanted to, thank you, Rick. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks to the group, they're been great. Yeah, we are. Is there a problem with actually dialing in? Well, I'm just gonna call Jeremy at his home. Maybe he's waiting here for us, I don't know. Is there a sign up sheet for people who wanna, is that there's somewhere right? We haven't got it back. No, you've got it right here. This is for you. No, not this one. The one of, oh, the appointed positions. Yeah, appointed positions. I'll look at all the people that signed up to help. Denise is being facetious. Well, people need to think about it. Yeah, yeah. And I am, we will, somebody will connect with Jeremy, or Jeremy, with Jamie, and get it on the website. Yeah, and we'll try to make it bigger prior to that. Yeah, but yeah, just letting people know we do need help, and these are, like nobody needs to put shape on that. Those are positions that just exist and need support so that our town can run. Okay, let me see if I can get Jeremy here. No service. Well, you know what I think- Do you wanna try it here? I can dial it last year. I thought that if I, if I say- Is he at home? I assume so. If I say- If he gets local, we can dial. But if you say you wanna use Wi-Fi calling, it doesn't make any sense that- I mean, I don't know how hard this is. Can I try it on this? Well, I just wanna give him the chance. You know, this is their whole town office proposal. Would you give me this number? You can try. It's 802-456-8141-8141. I think Denise has said it doesn't work because- It's the only local, it's maybe the only local. That is a local number. Want me to try it at home? If you have service. Well, the thing is gonna get on Wi-Fi. Exactly. Just a second here. Let me just see if I can get on Wi-Fi. I am on Wi-Fi and it's not- Let me just call. Okay, yeah, let's try it at home. Okay. Yeah, you're just playing a losing one. You're calling. Is it letting you call? All right, now, let me just get the phone number. The number is- Can we use that phone to call out if it's a local? Just hope it is. It was in Washington, Indiana. It did, it did. All right, so- What's the phone number? 456-8141. Peggy and Jeremy. This is the select board calling Jeremy to talk about COTS system if he's there. If not, we'll struggle along without him. Thanks, bye. Oh, is there a number? I think we can do it. Is there a time limit on that? Yeah, it's quick. And Jeremy sent it around to all of us. Yeah. And I suggested to him that we do have some money in the reserve fund, but we also have ARPA money. We can just use all ARPA money to pay for this and leave the money in the reserve fund. So that's what the board needs to decide. So cold in here. It is really cold. I guess I'm just gonna say it out loud. I feel like it's hard to figure out the right way to build a better communication bridge when even when there's a proposal or a request that there's not a presence at our meeting. I just really struggled with that. And I feel like I need to just say that out loud because there's always conversation about better communication. And if we don't say out loud what's hard to process or hard for us to handle, a hard for me to handle, hard for me to handle it, but if communication works both ways. Well, communication works both ways. And this is an opportunity for somebody, if that's a place that communication needs to be better, this is a clear opportunity where instead it's just an email. And I said it earlier and I know I'm repeating myself, but we get so much email and it starts to be businesses happening in the email. And I'm really uncomfortable with that. And with the pattern of business happening, business, or even the business happens in the email beyond when you put this on the agenda. I know you put it on the agenda, but here's everything. And can you just handle it, process it without somebody sitting here explaining? Sort of like what happened with the planning commission. That's right. Coming on, they were supposed to come on September 26. We were all scheduled. They were on the agenda. Then the afternoon of our meeting on September 26, we got an email from the planning commission saying, oh gee, after all, I'm not gonna make it. We're not gonna come to, we're not gonna hear the issues. And then we're left holding the bag with communication. Well, right, Denise is right. We had an issue that we've been criticized for was actually on the agenda. And we got an email saying, I'm not gonna come, but here's all the things that I wanted to ask you. So could you just let me know? And then, well, yeah. And then we were criticized that we hadn't taken care of it, but we did, but they didn't show up. Well, you didn't process the issue because nobody was here. Right, so I guess we can do it, but I just hope something hasn't, I just wanna say for the record, I hope something, everything's okay, something hasn't happened. And that's why he's not calling. Yeah, that could be. Is this, what's your recommendation? Well, I mean, we're kind of stuck because there is a deadline. So if we wanna do this for the town, we have to take action on a, so the issue is the COT system is, I forget what the deadline is. The COT system is a system that the town uses for online, or yeah, for electronic land records. And so I believe that the proposal allows us to, I'm assuming it's some expansion of what's online. It's going back, so it doesn't let records back and I didn't for it, I think, rather than whatever we have now. Okay, so we had 28,000 budgeted. We don't have any budgeted. We had nothing budgeted, this came up. We have a reserve fund that we've been putting money into based on the warning at town meeting that's approved by the voters. My suggestion is, I think there's 5,000 in there right now, I'm not positive, that we have this ARPA fund. This is a great project to use the ARPA money before, leave the money that's in the reserve fund there, which might eliminate the need to put so much more in every year, do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? Well, the reserve fund is the reserve fund is for office stuff. It is not for the building itself. It's a reserve fund for the office, so I think it could be used for either. So if it's only 5,000, there might be 15 in there. I don't really know, I don't really know. I would ask Jeremy that if you were here. He suggested that we use the reserve fund and I said, well, we've got this ARPA money. Right, yeah, I wouldn't want to, I somehow imagine the town office reserve fund as being sort of an infrastructure more than function. Well, okay, I think that this is exactly the kind of thing which- Okay, right here on the last page, historical land records, 17 volumes, 1941 to 2012. That's how far back that's going. How far back? 1941. Yeah, I think this is the kind of thing that's desirable but not mandatory. And that is exactly the kind of thing which we might want to use one time federal funds for. Jeremy. Jeremy. Hello. That's great. I think you do so, thanks for setting up. Yeah, thank you Jeremy. We really appreciate, because we've been sort of like, okay, we think it's for this. Go ahead, tell us what the proposal is that is in front of us. Yeah, so the proposal is, Judy did a lot of really, it is the max of the 1940s, however, actually in an index. So you're essentially going between two different places on cost and it's quite confusing for folks. And until you really know the system and dig in, you actually have to, because we basically have kind of like a Google tap style representative, so you have to kind of like scroll through cart, cart, you can find the image that way. This proposal would essentially have two members of cost as digital images of, and so that there will be one search tab, you'll find everything that we have an actual image for all the way back to, I think it's like book 23. So that's essentially. And it totally, and I can, I can validate what Jeremy is saying. So it's there now. Yeah, it's there now. It's, yeah, so to refine what we were saying earlier. It's all there now, back to 1940, whatever, but it's. It's not indexed. No, it isn't. Well, it's indexed in the cards. It's super hard to find. I have finally figured it out, but I know I had to call Jeremy one time and both of us, Jeremy were like, huh, how does this work again? So I imagine you get a lot of those kinds of calls. Yeah, it's a lot of education. And I think it's generally because they're like, wait, you have an image, but I can't just find it on the search tab. So I think it was just, as you know, sharing most researchers just want to go back for a year. So that's for a typical researcher, once you're really doing a deep dive, that's going to be that one search tab will give you pretty much all the information that you're seeking. It'll simplify the process. It will just make it more cohesive. And it will probably bring a little bit more revenue just because people, it'll be easier for people to find these things online. And of course, even if they're online, if they don't come into the office, they're still paying a dollar a page and we're getting that revenue every month. So it might expand the revenue from the town office a little bit, but it'll just make it easier all around for researchers. And it just seems like with this ARPA money floating around, it might be a really good use of that just to be able to do that full 40 year search with one search tab that does not have to look in different parts of cost. So Jeremy, how much did you tell us was in the reserve fund? Okay. So initially, I kind of explored this idea that you said, you know, we do use up that 15. The one fact that I did have, if you wanted to leave the 15 alone for the time being, I was not able to do anything about this summer, this summer because obviously we've had a lot going on. The absence of the treasure, there's been sickness in the office, et cetera, et cetera. But it might be, it's up to the board, but if that 15,000 was left in the reserve fund, it might be a really good idea to use that to at least begin to digitize all of the, that is something that's kind of a longstanding bit of a mess that I have not even begun to think about in tangling, but it might, so I guess I would say, you know, if you did want to leave that money alone, there are other very worthy projects that we could use that. Keep in mind that restoration fund is only to be used. It's a creature of statute, the legislature put it together. I don't, it's been a few years now, but essentially it's for digitizing and upgrading archives in a digital world. And so this, you know, something like that would be useful, or if the board chooses, you've got this $2,000 and just, you know, use whatever amount of ARPA funds to cover the remainder to fill that contract. The other thing I can say that did talk to Mars in a couple of weeks, he said the rates most certainly will go up 10 to 20% and that if we were able to pull the trigger on this contract, they could begin work within two weeks. So Jeremy, the reserve fund money, that is for just, is that for anything or does it, I can't remember now if we had it for a specific purpose. I heard, so let me translate what I heard. I heard the reserve fund is a specific fund that came from this legislature for digitizing. And so we're not talking about a reserve fund that would replace the floorboards in the town office or fix the leaky roof. But don't we have a separate town office reserve fund? Right. Correct, those are two totally different things. Okay, all right, that's what I was looking for. The town office reserve fund, that's money to upgrade with the town office. What I'm talking about is the preservation fund that has over $15,000 that is specific to digitizing land record. Okay, right. And that fund comes from the legislature. Well, it's- Correct, so for instance, we budgeted in last year's budget about $10,000 for me to get a new roller shelf and flat map updates. The roller shelf was delivered today, so that's gonna be really good because I have run out of space to put books in and we go through about two books a year, land record books. Yeah, so that preservation fund would not, I was not able to use any money for that because storing the actual physical book is not consistent with what the legislature specifically created, which was for the purpose of digitizing land record. So there's, yeah, there's certain things that you can, cannot use that money for. And as far as the town office fund, my understanding is that is more for repairs or for upgrades or for whatever future needs of the town office. Yes, okay, yes. And I know that there's been talks about a few renovations and things like that. That's why that money is there. Okay, thank you for the clarification that helps. And the preservation fund, Jeremy, that came from the increased fees for accessing records, so it's continuing to be fed. Am I right about that? Correct, so what that people legislation did was allow town clerk, the fees did go up slightly. It was $4 out of every $15. So $15 a page to record, I can, and you don't have to, it's elective. Some town clerk don't take that money out, but it's been a practice for Judy and I don't think that we have taken $4 out of every $15 that's recorded to put aside in that fund for the purposes of digitizing further the land record and trying to, you know, with the hopes of, hey, all thinking the more accessible for people, but also, you know, the notion around having lots and lots and lots of people in the vault at one time is, you know, less of a priority with COVID and flu and RSV and all these different things. So it just makes it easier for online researchers to not necessarily have to come in to tell me to search records in person. At least be able to do much of their research before they show up. I mean, that's what I've really found, is that people can use quite a lot of research and then they're sort of getting the out and in, looking through the zoning files, looking through some of the other things to kind of get the full picture that they're seeking. Right, thank you, Jeremy. So I just want to crystallize one point. If we don't use ARPA funds for this and we save them for something else, over time the preservation fund that Jeremy's talking about does grow. So eventually there would be enough in that to do this and all the other things. That's one of my concerns is, I'm just not sure I want to use, I want to do the full 28,000. I don't want to use the fund because the fund is dedicated for this specific purpose. The ARPA money we can use for anything. Well, right, and so, yeah. So, but I like the idea of using some of it. So like I would support Splitting or 15,000 coming from ARPA or 20,000 coming from ARPA and 8,000 from this fund. In other words, I'm just reluctant to use that. So you want to make a motion? Okay, I move that we commit $8,510 of this, first of all, that we approve the contract. And authorize Jeremy to enter into it. And in terms of the funding, the 20,000 of it come from the ARPA money and 8,510 dollars of it come from the historic, what's it called? No, from the preservation fund. The preservation fund. Coming from recording fees. Coming from recording fees. Yeah. I will second that. Any other questions, comments, all in favor, please say aye. Aye, aye. I want to ask if we can, Denise, you're the keeper of ARPA. Can you circulate and maybe we can put in the record next meeting where we are in terms of? Yeah, because I'm gonna need to do that. I'm gonna need to do that for when we start talking about town meeting budgets and all that stuff. So that's on my radar. All right. Jeremy, thank you very much. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you. Okay, thank you everybody. Have a good rest of your meeting and talk to you. All right, thank you. Thanks. Appreciate it. Okay, that actually was super helpful to have him here. Thank you, Jeremy. Okay, Mark, you. So, this is about the NEMRIC reappraisal contract, the contract. We got it right here. We saw the contract, the four of the contract, there were two open, the board had two concerns. One was there was no maximum, it's a no maximum contract for the contract. And the second was, well, would it qualify under the town purchasing policy as a sole source contract? And so, Jan and I came up with a new revised contract, which you have, which has in it a limit of $126,625,625. And in addition, an hourly rate not to exceed $6,000 for any BCA and grievance hearings. It's that kind of contract as we drafted was circulated to Ed Podfelder, who provides his services via NEMRIC. And he agreed to those terms. That amount is comfortable in that it assumes an increase in the number of parcels that we have. And it also assumed, on the other hand, it's beneficial to us because 125 for parcel charge, it's conceivable that by the time this happens, it could be more than that. But they're committing to this. In terms of sole source, I reviewed the town purchasing policy and I set forth two exemptions, which I think really are absent here, which is that there's really, right now, there are very few, if any, appraisers who have not been snapped up by other towns and Ed knows who of course, and he knows how. He's done this before. And he's done it before. And there's also an exception for professional services characterized by a high degree of professional judgment and discretion, including financial services. And so I think this clearly falls within the exception we could do it. So it's my recommendation to the board and it is one that's seconded by Jan Olson, that's O-H-L-S-S-O-N as the Lister, that we move forward with this contract and approve it today so that it can be sent for signature to Ed Clark. Is that a motion? I move that we approve this contract. The reappraisal agreement contract. Assault service, yeah. With the assault source with Ed Cloudfelder of Mead and Emery. I'll second that. Yeah. Questions, comments? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, so I'm going to, here's the signature page. I actually do have a question of which budget is this going to come out of? There is a fund, a separate fund, which is state money. It doesn't have quite that amount in it yet, but I think it will by 2024 when this happens. And if it doesn't, we'll have to supplement it, but I think there's over a hundred thousand in it. Yeah, there is a state fund that is overseen by the tax department, right? Yeah. Okay. I think it might be used for that purpose. Okay, thank you. Is that something we all signed? Okay. The next item is approving and signing revised municipal policies. Oh yeah, and this is the one, is this the VCDP one? Yeah, it is. Yeah, so the Ross Community Development Program, I brought it, I printed it. Before we start anything on that, I'm going to recuse myself from this matter. Oh, right. Hey, you can then do it. Well, this is where I was heading, is that when you both recuse yourself, it's only me and Rick, because John's not here. But is that a quorum of this meeting? No, it has to be. It has to be a quorum of the board. Up to where it can. And plus a quorum is a majority plus one, and we don't have that either. So I think we have to defer this to the next meeting. Well, okay. Do we have a problem tonight? Well, hang on, we have, we have a, are we warning a special meeting? TH-7 on Thursday. TH-7 on Thursday. We don't have to warn that, I don't think. No, we haven't warned it, because it's nearly deliberated. It's deliberated, but we would need to do it for the Saturday meeting. That's right. So can we just postpone it to Saturday? We'll join you then. If not in person, you said he'd be on by phone. Okay, that's fine, because you and I are great help, right? Okay, so we'll- Jeff's not gonna be happy, but it's later. Yeah, okay. Up next. Oh, Nick. Femigrant, Nick. Yay. Yay. All right. Nick's frozen in place. Thanks for whatever on your book. Wow. Let's try something out just to see if we can flex these muscles. This is an action item. Before we even start talking, somebody say what the motion is. The motion is going to be to approve the FEMA grant application for a generator at the town hall and Maple Corner Community Center, which we forgot to put on here. But it's to purchase two generators using FEMA funds with a 50% match from the town. And that includes, and installation, right? Yes, one way of short-cutting that is to say to approve the emergency management performance grant application by the town parents. Right. For two generators. Oh, there's a list that I need to tell you what- Yeah, there's a list of stuff. But the other piece would be to use ARPA funds to meet the town's 50% match. Okay, so this is, I think, I said this before, but I think David and Orbeez's suggestion that we get super clear about our motions is an opportunity for all of us and the people who are bringing things to us, because- Well, if Nick wasn't here to bring it to discuss it, it would have been hard to come on. Oh, we tried. No, but that's what I'm saying, it's like if- I could have proposed this. This is something that not everybody can- So just work on it. Well, right, that's something we have to work on recognizing, oh, Nick shouldn't be in the motion. Right. This person might need us to help come up with the motion. Right, that's what I'm thinking. I do think it is a good idea because it will hone us all right away and where are we headed here. Anyway, I just wanted to raise that because it was a good point. We'll start there. This is about a proposal for the town to provide a 60% match for this grant coming from the Vermont Department of Public Safety and the purpose of the grant is to support local emergency and emergency operations center improvement projects. And Lisa, I'm gonna send you an email tomorrow with all the details. Yeah. Yeah. So there is a list of things to qualify for the grant and here I'm gonna read off what they are, the ones that we're proposing by the way. This is Denise and Rick have been tracking and we're participating in this and they're the people at Betty Crocker and I mean. A generator, 24 kilowatt for this building. So this is auxiliary emergency backup power. So I'll just, there's two sites, but just to talk about this site, a radio base station because the rationale is I'm gonna move the emergency operation center away from the town office which is small. That's the natural disaster and the emergency operation team is trying to function right. We'll be on our foot and tripping over with the municipal officials and competing for communications gear and stuff. So if I had to come back here or we can spread out and have the backup power have a cellular booster on the building so that you wouldn't have problems with yourself and you'd get three or four hours and to have a radio base station. It's the same one type that's used at the town office so that we could be connected here to the town garage, to the fire department, to the minor emergency management and so forth. And the last piece to it is a automated external defibrillator, A, UD device, like they have over to school. So those are the four pieces for here at town hall. And the other component of this is to, again, primary purpose, needed emergency operations and your secondary purpose. We have those things. This would be a suitable location for emergency shelter, the one in the center. American Red Cross representatives came last week. They toured this building, they toured the Maple Corner Community Center and the school and said, great, you can do that if you had the backup power. You could use this building for that purpose. Over at the Maple Corner. Before you go to Maple Corner, do we need a cell repeater if we're gonna have fiber here? It's different in that this is boosts cell cells. Yeah, okay, all right. Fiber is a part of it, but you also have redundant systems. So if the cell powers go down, you have cables, the cable goes down in the cell. Right, okay. And that's about 500 bucks. So that's not a big deal. Okay, yeah. What's the total cost? Well, he's gonna get to that when he tells us about Maple Corner. I'll just give you Maple Corner. Oh, they're just asking for, they do not need the radio base station. They do not need the cell phone signal booster, but for a generator and also for the AED device. We had a contractor, two contractors come in who sell generators and look at this and gave us quotes. The total cost for all of those things as it's coming out now is about 25,464, so the 50% match from the town would be 16,330. Wait a minute. $25,000 for both locations. So it should be about 12,000, right? Half the amount. 12,000 for all of the gear that I just listened to. Right. And 50% of that would be the match. 25, that would be like, that would be like 12, 5, right? I'm reading the wrong numbers. Sorry about that. I'm turning that to the five, just man, yeah. Okay. Is what is in their bid, what was there? And these are, by the way, propane generators? I just gave you the wrong numbers. So I scratched this out. Okay. Just before coming over here. The total number is 32,000, so I'm okay. That's good. And so it happened. So then the 16,000. What is the price for the generators? Generators are 12,732 for a, that's installed for 24 kilowatts. And are they, does that include propane, inner propane? They are propane, and both places have a propane tank. Tank could be added, and Bill Powell's been talking with Gillespie about the cost, probably somewhere around $500 to do that, right? But we already have propane here, and I'm making up. That's all right. You just have to tie it. Is that how it works? You just have to hook up to it? I'm tying it. Okay, so let me test this out. The motion would be for the select board to authorize moving forward on this four piece project, applying the total cost of which is approximately $32,000, 50% match, which would come from FEMA grant, and the town's 50% is, match is $16,000, which could come from ARPA, but doesn't have to. Right, right, if we had other money, we could do it. Okay, so I think it just needs to be that the town would approve the 50% town match, and then we can figure out. Right. Is the, are we, is this our final action? In other words, we're approving a contractor. You have to prepare the contract and bring it back to us. The application deadline is tomorrow at 3 p.m. And I know it's like we don't like these kind of things. But we didn't even find out about this until a couple of weeks ago. So are we authorizing NIC as emergency director to? To apply. Do you need our application, our authorization, or is it for you, is it sort of within your scope already? No, it's for you to sign this piece of paper. You as the municipal authority, you as the fiscal agent tonight. Or tomorrow morning. Yeah, right. So what you want is a motion to authorizing, no, authorizing the, authorizing the filing of. Right, and we're working with VLCT to get the FEMA grant application. You have to show that you have proof of insurance. So we're working with VLCT to get that. Yeah, and by the way, FEMA is not involved anywhere in any of these materials. I think it'd be more, I'd prefer to say the sources, the Vermont Emergency Management Department of Public Safety. Okay, can you read that? Maybe Lisa would want to read it back. The grant chore is the Vermont Emergency Management Department of Public Safety. Okay, so we are moving the filing of the grant application. Right. And agreeing to the match. Right. The match, the 50% match. When they said they would do it down as fiscal. Okay. Okay, so. Well, we should say it out loud. Yeah. So Denise as fiscal agent, because we don't have somebody officially in the position of treasurer. So we need to say out loud, it doesn't mean that Denise is our treasurer. Right. And that the purposes of this application she's in the shoes of, did somebody make a motion? Well, Mark did. Okay. Lisa, did you get the motion? So he said moving forward on the project, but what you're saying is. We're approving, I move that we approve the Vermont Emergency Management. The filing of a grant. Yeah, our application. Of a grant and an application. Two. Two of the Vermont Emergency Management Department of Public Safety. For the Emergency Management Performance Grant. Grant. And that, do we want to state. And that we also agree to the local match of 50% of the cost. So our submission is to be. Right. All related to the installation of backup generators and related facilities at Town Hall, and the Maple Corner Community Set. All right. That's that motion, man. So there's no money, it's just the 50% of it, that's right. I'll second that. Any other questions for Nick? No. Okay. Great job. Hi. Thank you, Nick. Good quick turnaround. That was fast. I know, it's mind-boggling, isn't it? Sign it, man. Are we gonna sign? Do we have to sign this? I'm just sure. Cool. Any other questions for you? Mark, you mentioned Town's Purchasing Policy. Yes. This grant requires a copy of the Town's Procurement Standards. Yes, that's the purchasing. It's on the website. It's right online, Nick. I can send you the link to my website. Yeah, and under ordinances and policies, there's a purchasing policy. Yep. Do you have to also include your blood type? Yes. Yeah. Actually, this one, actually, this grant wasn't that bad. Yeah, I see, it's sliding from the inside and not the inside. Okay, so my question is, we've signed this. And I'm gonna want, do you want, do you need the hard copy signed? And if you do, would you? Scan it. Would you scan it and email it to me so we can keep track of all this stuff, because I'm gonna have to create. So, there is the hard copy. Yeah, I've already created a digital folder for this stuff. But we're gonna want to have to keep hard copies for the auditors. And let me see if there's anything that I haven't said to you. And I'll be home tomorrow morning so that we can make sure that we get what we need from VLCT. There's one other thing I said. I think I need to include an application, a letter of support from the select board. So I'm gonna draft that for you and send it to you. Or is that something you need tonight? In that case, I'd also make a motion authorizing. Rick and I have been working on it. If you wanna draft a letter. Yeah, authorizing Rick and Denise to sign a letter of support for the grant. Great, well, how are you gonna sign it? Oh, just one, I think just one. Oh, okay. Then Rick, okay, okay. Rick, just authorizing Rick. No. No, Denise. Rick's gonna be on the road tomorrow. Okay, Denise. Doing his job that he gets paid for. Thank you, Nick. All right, thank you. Well done, Nick, thank you. Thank you, Nick. My question is, finally, one of my goals has been to here to generate here. As far as I'm concerned, I think the board should express its sense that whatever the hell else you find at the last second you need to do in order to finalize this, you have authority to do it. Oh, I have authority to do it? Yeah, or get it done, you guys. I mean, because I know with grants, you keep reading and they're about to stick in the envelope and you realize, oh my God, I can't believe it. Well, these two have really been very helpful. Okay, thank you for doing that, so good. We did it. Okay, thanks a lot, Nick. Thanks for being here tonight, too. Oh, yeah. Thanks for coming and for your support. I'm just saying, your patience and your integrity are truly true. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Did you get that for the minutes, Lisa? What, you just said patience and integrity? Yeah. I wanted, so moving on to where we're at now, we're at our nine o'clock item and it's only 10, 11 after nine, so. That's not bad, congratulations, Madam Chair. You're up. Well, no, it's fine, it's working. I want to just mention, and Lisa, this also, I just want some, please, some quick, just, you know, something in the minutes on this. So there's been over the past couple weeks, I was copied on this whole email conversation among various other folks around the revised tax bill. So person withdrew from current use and that results in a higher tax bill and a revised tax bill. And then that throws all the timelines off. Ooh, tax me a few tomorrow, aren't they? Shoot. Did you check right? Yeah. I'm about to say grace period. I was like, oh, wait a minute. We do have that. I meant to drop it off on my way and I forgot, okay, so back to the point. So there was this whole email conversation that I was copying on and I couldn't figure out why I was copying on, but it became clear that it was, because it wasn't clear whether the 30 days to submit payment applies to a revised bill, which is going to extend that deadline past tomorrow. And every year the voters have approved the seven day grace period. So does that apply to a revised bill? At one point, and this was not the end, I counted, there were 12 emails on this question. And clearly no, so I said, Sandra at one point weighed in and said the statute says 30 days. So that takes that question off. Last task, the last bill, the person gets 30 days. We can't compel payment earlier. So that question was answered statutorily. And then there's the question of whether the grace period applies. And I said, if that's been our practice in the past, apply it. So this ties to a couple of things. One is my point earlier, the business starts to happen in email and I'm incredibly uncomfortable with that. I was incredibly uncomfortable being put in the point, the position that somehow the select orders being looked at to weigh in on something that seemed to me like a, ask forgiveness, not permission, kind of, you know, can't we get our business done and then check in with each other about whether that was the right call. But anyway, so that allowed it to move forward. And I said, if that's when our press practice and absolutely just apply the seven day grace period. And that actually led to some other conversation in the email, which I won't get into right now. But, I am not a fan of that kind of business happening in new email, right? And I'm also not a fan of, you know, if it's gonna be an issue and it's always gonna be a question, then we should lock it down in a policy. So I'm just, I'm doing all those things. I'm saying to you guys, I said, if that's past practice, let's just do it to sort of move on. And I'm now alerting you that I did that. Without your authorization. And secondly, putting out there that we should revise our delinquent tax. I'm just gonna say, should we just revise our delinquent tax policy? Right. And then it's never, and then it's not an issue. That's my point, is let's, let's revise our delinquent tax policy. And this just goes on the list to do. Down to the bottom, where we've got some policy things we need to do. But at least we're saying that out loud now and that is now our practice. So if they're, even before we documented in policy, that comes up again. I would hope that we'll embrace that as our practice. But it won't get through. Well, it's in our minutes too, so that helps. Exactly, it's in our minutes. So when we get around to revising our, reviewing and updating our delinquent tax policy, we should incorporate that any grace period, the taxes aren't delinquent until any grace period has run. Grace periods apply. I don't know, we'd have to finish the language. Right. Anyway, I want to say all that to you guys. So it's seven days, it's, yeah. Yeah, it's just seven days from the date that the payment was due. Right, which is not exactly how it's voted attempt. No. Which is what created the whole conundrum to begin with. Right, and it's never been an issue before. And it was only an issue one. Right, so. And yet. Right, thanks Nick. Okay. So yeah, so I put some language here more or less along, or in my notes, I don't have that. But now it'll be in the minutes. It'll be in the minutes. Yeah. Future agenda items. We really need to meet, we need, well because this becomes a budget item, we've been carrying this, but invite the Woodbury and Eastmont player to discuss. Yeah, I was going to say when, because that's, you know, that might be something that we would need to put on the morning. Right. We need to what? Mourn. Well, we talked, when we went to us, I think we already talked about this, but I'll just recap quickly. We went to an Eastmont player fire department meeting and they brought up recruitment issues as everybody else having volunteers. But they said, would the towns consider some kind of an exemption like we do for veterans? It's like a certain dollar amount or percentage to entice and incentivize people to belong to the fire department. And there would be strict guidelines about, you know, from a certain amount of exemption from their property tax. And they would have strict guidelines about who would qualify. It can't just be, you come to one fire or one meeting a year and you qualify there. There would be specific guidelines or requirements, you know, for training, for attendance, all these things. So I think, and I talked to, yeah, I talked to both fire departments and they really are happy that we are willing to initiate this. It might make sense to just talk to the fire departments first. And then we will be having a budget meeting with Eastmont Pillar Fire Department and Eastmont Pillar Select Board. In the end of December, we could ask to have this as an agenda item to talk about and invite Woodbury. So I'm gonna refine that idea and suggest that we actually proactively reach out to Larry and Chance, right? Yeah. And say, you know, we are open to... I think I am, I think I am already. But have you actually asked them to, we haven't seen a proposal. No. Ask them to present a formal written proposal so that we, so we don't, what we were saying earlier, so we don't save time. So that we don't like create the proposal here. With as much detail as possible. Do you want to do that, Denise? Sure, I've already talked to them about it, so. I can follow up if you want, so it's a different, coming from a different email, different person. I'll do that. Well, I guess we'll both be doing that. For, yeah, I don't want to. I guess the biggest thing is, is, you know, do we want them to come on the 28th? I guess it is, right? We can have them on the 12th, but we let them know that it's, that we want, we would invite them to precipitate a formal proposal. We can have them come on the 28th, you mean? No, the 12th, that gives them more time. Oh, the 12th of December. Yeah, and that takes something off. Chance and Larry. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I've already talked to them about it, mentioned it, talked to, what's his name? Alex, somebody whose name I can't say. Oh, Alec, but was this the, yeah, that's it. Okay, I don't know that we, historic background, we're gonna do that next time? House Brookes? Yes, okay. I talked to Stephanie. I don't really think, at this point, there's anything to go in executive session for tonight. I was thinking there wasn't, and I was gonna stand in it and do that. I think I would like to bring up when, can we have any idea which of these, when we are going to put on our agenda, the warning for the Curtis Pontian? Well, we have to allow, I sent, I talked to Bob Fletcher, and he needs more time to research it. He says that he thinks he's gonna research it, find a way to make it happen, and help write the warning, but he needs more time to research it, and I mean, it isn't like we have to have the warned item in time. No, when is the last time we can have the warned item? Okay, I'd have to go back and look at the paper that Barbara sent all of us, giving us the deadlines. Okay, well, I'll talk to you about it. I don't think. I think he's gotta do it within like, at the next meeting or the next, because we've gotta have the warned item, so I just let her- Well, here's the thing, the alternative to him is something that's gonna take two or three weeks to make happen. So I feel like I've got to act in the next five days. I gotta pick up the phone and call someone. I'll make an appointment. Call someone? Bond counsel. In other words, if I'm going, just the act of finding bond counsel. So I think probably we do need to go into executive session. I do wanna make sure that we have time so we have to, I'm gonna insist, we go back to what is gonna be in our next agenda, because we are getting to a place where there's a lot of pieces. Yeah, okay. We have some commission committee reappointments we can do next time. Yes, Denise? Yes. But we can do those in consent. We can do those in consent, especially if we can find some people to fill some of the ones that we put out there tonight, HPC, Conservation Commission. But we have some that we can renew. Yes, yes. So if nothing else we can renew. And the renewal ones, I feel, I feel perfectly comfortable doing renewal ones in consent agenda. I think new appointments we should meet with. Yeah, I think we should get CaliCover Library done. You know, we've been saying it next meeting, next meeting, next meeting. Let's just get it done. Okay. Rick, traffic control ordinance is one, also we keep moving forward. Is that something you feel like you want to put a, no. Time on on, not right now. Yeah, okay. So I'm gonna just drop this right down to future agenda items and take it off from dates. Yeah, let's not put a date by it. Okay, but do know that there's people who as soon as we drop that out, I mean it's, people are paying attention and watching. See, I get it. Well, I can, well, I just wanna make sure we can get it done. Speed signs, I didn't hear that mentioned, I think you told me when we were speaking the other day that you actually have been around town looking at where to, with the road crew looking at. Yeah, yeah, we picked, I just mentioned it tonight. Oh, I'm sorry, I guess. Yeah, we picked, we, eastbound and westbound. Can we take this off? So is that moving forward? Yeah, as soon as, it all depends right now on whether they get out and dig in the bases before ground freezes, so they're gonna, we've selected three locations, one on Lightning Ridge, two on. And you've got it in your rolling report, so we'll. Yeah, that's it. Okay, traffic, use of ARPA funds for traffic calming roads, study. That may end up being something that we do. I think we might wanna put that under just future agenda items. And we may wanna see if we can hire somebody to do that. Well, of course we would hire somebody. Right, it's just, it's more like that in between piece. Who's gonna manage that whole thing? Right, so I think we just move that to, it's not gonna happen until next summer. Until we have a DPW. Right, it would be a. Okay, and the annual VAS trail request can be next time. Right, because that'll take five minutes. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna speak with Jeremy about, I did the December 12th item. Pulled out of that, I will speak. December 12th or the November 28th? No, the December 12th thing that I have here. Oh, okay. I'm gonna talk to him about, and encourage him to come and talk to us about that item. Okay, so going back to, you think we need to go into the second session? I think we should go into the second session. You have to invite me to join you. And we'll invite you to join us. So is, will somebody? We don't have to, but you can't, I just can't slip into these. No, you can't, no. So we're going into. Any other motion? I think I'm going to make, we're going into executive session to discuss a Curtis Pond related contractual item. And is that accurate? Under, I don't know what this is. Real estate, I don't know the numbers. Yeah, it's a real estate contractual item. What time is it? 9.29, and we'll put the specific reference, statutory reference in the minutes. It's one, I know. It's one, three, one, three, A, one of the sub-numbers. I have that slope here, but we have to make a finding first. Right, we're premature public knowledge. Okay. I would like a motion that premature public knowledge of a contractual item would disadvantage the town's negotiations related to real estate. Okay, second. No, that's a, I'm asking. Oh, okay. Motion made. Second. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And I would invite Marc Mahoney. And now it's a point, we made the finding and now we'll go back to the original motion of we're going into executive discussion to discuss a real estate contractual related issue under one, three, one, three, A something, A one something, is there a motion? To moved. It's under, it's three, one, three, A, one, A. Yeah. Okay. Capital A, not little A. All in favor. No, is there a second? Any second? Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. A one A, A one A. Yeah. Two A's, okay. Three one A's, three one three little A. Not the, yeah, Marc was recusing himself.