 It says five o'clock and this one says 502 on the clock. Behind me, welcome guests. Peter's right here? No. Peter is caught in Colorado. Peter is not going to call in his place due to the latest official statement saying that she is running late. Yep. We have a, are there any amendments to the agenda? The only amendment to the agenda is to consider whether to hold a select board meeting right before town meeting on the 3rd. OK, so that will be any other business to come before the board? We probably could go to the next board. OK, so we, do you know all the, do you know all the selectmen here? If not, the two of them will introduce themselves. And we are getting another one who's coming in once delayed at the airport in Denver. Phil Hayek, Steve Myrne. And this is? Brenda Curls, I'm the treasurer. OK, so if you want to introduce yourself for the record keeper there, our town clerk and administrator, that would be great. And our first item on the agenda is Ben Rose, recovery and mitigation chief, section chief of Vermont Emergency Management. Hey, how long have you done that, Ben? Since I read it, I assume you're asking for help. You came with, she asked me to help and I jumped in about five months after I read it. She dropped me into FEMA world and my hair was on fire for two years. And you haven't come up yet. OK, so if you want to, and do you want to introduce yourself for the record? And what you do? I'm Jennifer Evans, 28 Rich Road. I'm the owner of the property that I'm looking for. It's under discussion. Buy out, yeah. Yeah, and? I'm Tracy Collier. I was the head of the Disaster Case Management Program right after Irene. It's now no longer there, but I can speak to that. But she's still my case manager. You're heavily involved in this issue. Tracy, do you work for the Vermont Department or are you currently do work for the state of Vermont? But previous, when I was in the role of Disaster Case Management Director, it was for Capstone. Oh, OK. OK, Ben, if you want to chat with us. Yeah, thank you. And have the floor. Thank you all for your service to the community. Thanks for taking the time for this. So what we're going to talk about is what's commonly called a buy out. And this is where FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, provides 70% federal share of the cost of a project to buy out a residential property in this case, which is in a flood vulnerable location. And this is hazard mitigation. The theory is that it saves the federal, state, and local taxpayers' money over time if people don't live in extremely dangerous places, which require repetitive flood recovery. And this was a very big deal after Irene, because the way this hazard mitigation funding pot works is that for every dollar of federal assistance, there's $0.15 made available to the state, the recipient of the grant, to make hazard mitigation grants anywhere in the state. And so Irene, it was about a billion dollar to hit on the state of Vermont. And more than half a billion came from different federal sources. One big source was Federal Highway. The other big source was Public Assistance, which is grants to communities to repair their infrastructure, like local roads. And there was $210 million of public assistance. The state got about a third of that for the Waterbury Office Complex and other state buildings, too. Well, long story short, so $0.15 of the dollar means that there was $34.5 million available to the state to make hazard mitigation grants. And we're still spending down the last of that, but we used over 20 million of it to buy out people who'd been badly flooded, in some cases who had lost everything in Irene. And most people in Vermont don't have flood insurance. So this was a good humanitarian mission, and it also bought down the risk in a lot of communities. And we've had about 10 smaller floods since Irene. Five of them, we've already closed out the grants. We've got a lot better at managing disasters because of Irene, and we learned a lot of lessons, which we're trying to hang onto. Well, long story short, that just gets us to the starting line. For whatever reason, this was not a buyout that people were ready to move on right after Irene. And I should stop and say that the way the program works is that the state makes a sub-grant to the community. And it is entirely voluntary on the community as the sub-recipient and on an individual landowner whether participate in this program. And in this case, the stars are aligned. That we have a willing community, I hope, and a willing landowner who said, enough, I don't want to live in a dangerous place anymore. And in one of the subsequent disasters, DR 4330, which was, I believe, the storm of June and July 2013, one of the applications that was submitted was to buyout 28 Rich Rowe. And we submitted that to the town of Middlesex? You did indeed. I have the application right here. Just in one line. This is the application that was submitted, and it was signed by, I don't know who, whoever that is. Peter Hood. You couldn't read that? That's right here. So that got you one would think to the starting line. But FEMA has a lot of rules, but they move very slowly. And there's a lot of hoops to jump through. And we have now jumped through a bunch of them, including a site inspection visit, and FEMA asking lots of questions. And there's a new requirement, which FEMA has added since Irene, which I think FEMA came to this honestly. It's a requirement that both the recipient, the state, and the subrecipient of the town sign a recapitulation of the terms and conditions of the grant. So what I have for your consideration is this eight-page document, and there are copies right there. And I have some extras, so I can share them with you. How's an email there, too? This is the thing that was emailed. You're going to ask me difficult technical questions about this. I know probably. Well, I didn't read this because I couldn't bring that up. Well, if you have difficult technical questions, I'm probably going to say, I don't know, but I will get you an answer. I should tell you that I am not a subject matter expert practitioner of hazard mitigation grants. I'm the state recovery mitigation section chief, which means I've had three hazard mitigation officers work for me, but I've never actually been in the leads of doing projects until I very good hazard mitigation officer, Laura, know it's left for the Nature Conservancy a few months ago, and I've been trying to keep things moving forward. But just last week, we hired a very good new state hazard mitigation officer named Stephanie Smith. And Stephanie already knows a lot more about the programmatic details and guidance than I do. So I don't want to say anything that's going to be wrong. But the good news is that there's nothing in this document that is materially different from what the rules were when you applied for the grant. What FEMA discovered, I said they came by this honestly, what they discovered is that there's misunderstandings later in the process because people didn't understand what they'd signed up for. And so they're getting people to sign saying, yes, we understand all the rules of the game. Things like, we know that we need to provide a clean title. We know that we can't redevelop the property once. We know, we the town, we the state. Just looking at the title search, and we the town do know that we have outstanding obligations on that property and the town, isn't that right, Jordan? No, no. No taxes or? Not on that one. Oh, okay, sorry. Well, you can't turn around and resell it to a developer, for example, because the reason the federal government is investing in this buyout is so that it will remain an open plot of land. You're basically giving it back to the Nooski River, which really wants to be there. Can you just tell me, Ben, will we own it? Yes, the town will own it. The Vermont Housing Conservation Board, here's some other good news, and we didn't know this until, even when I got on the agenda, we weren't sure about this, but now we know. This is Liz Scherfer, our fourth member of the State Board. This has been Rose and others, about 28, 38, Rich Rose. Yes. Hello. I know these people. Yes, Liz. So, we're talking about the terms and conditions for a hazard mitigation grant to buy out from there, to make sure. Okay, do you have one more copy of that? I have a few copies, yeah. Here's the agenda, and... Oh, okay, this is what we're discussing when we were on kinda like, I was on page 308. Yeah, well, I wanted to talk about the funding, because that's usually where the real pain is. It's a 75% federal share of the total project cost, and the elements of total project cost are the appraised value, pre-disaster, it's been flooded. Basically, the town hires an appraiser, that's a cost. The appraiser says, okay, the fair market value of the property is X thousand dollars. If the property owner doesn't agree to that, then there's a mechanism for a second appraisal, and you get into all kinds of back and forth. But usually the appraisal comes in somewhere in the neighborhood of what's on the tax rolls for plus or minus. So 75%- But we can't use either of our town listers or what we have on our record for the price. No, you have to hire an appraiser. It's after, or pre or post? Well, in this case, it would be right now, because it hasn't been gutted by a disaster recently. Post-disaster, right. Then there is well, then you have to hire a, the town does a title search, ascertains that the title is clear. Okay, that's another small cost. Then the town schedules a closing. Okay, and um... That's another cost. The closing, okay, there's a closing cost, right. 75% of all of that is eligible. The FEMA cuts a check, the state makes the check available, so the town is able to, at the closing, buy the property from the property owner. You walk away, okay. The town now has to hire, procure somebody to demolish the site and bring it back to clear ground and cap the utilities and whatever else needs to be done. And then take a picture of it every three years, and it's a green field. And that's pretty much the end of the story, except where does the town come up with that extra money and how does the property owner afford to walk away for 75% of the appraised value? That's an answer that we don't have for all projects, but we had it for the properties we bought after Irene because the state also got a community development block grant, two of them actually, for $40 million, and we were able to use the CDBG money as the non-federal match. And as that was running out, the Vermont Housing Conservation Board stepped in with a small allocation that we could use to finish out the remainder of the buyouts. And we were running out of that money and we didn't know where the match was gonna come from anymore, and then a property in another community dropped out. It's kind of a sad story, but it's middle sexes and Jennifer's good fortune, I believe, because there is just enough money left in the last VHCB allocation to cover the non-federal match, both for the town and for the homeowners. So when the dust settles, other than carrying costs for a little while, there shouldn't be any cost to the town and you should be able to walk away with the fair value and not get into the difficult situation where your buyout offer is 75% of a price value, minus the town's share of the demolition cost and so forth. It's tough to ask someone to walk away for 63% of their market value or whatever. Especially since it won't be as high as it would have been before the flood. Well, again, it's an appraisal and there are times when during the demolition of you encounter unanticipated asbestos or some other unanticipated expense, it is possible to amend the grant. I mean, if the appraisal comes in $10,000 higher than what we put in the budget, we don't even need to do a lot of paperwork with FEMA unless the overall cost changes by 10% or more. If it comes in under the budget or on the budget, it's pretty much smooth sailing on the other end. I don't really want to go through all the pages of legal gobbledygook with you, but if you have specific questions, either about the program or about the language passed away. Ben, do you mind if I ask a question? Please. As from my experience from administering the last grant, we submitted bids for asbestos consultation. I forget exactly how much that was, but there was a little bit of asbestos. There was asbestos in a kitchen sink and there was a little bit of asbestos on one of the rooms in the two trailers. It was not a big deal. We then submitted RFPs for asbestos removal and two of them came in at over $40,000. One of them came in at $20,000. I'm not sure the person that's the one that the sledboard chose, I'm not sure that the job he did was probably the greatest job because I then was yelled at by the state engineer who insisted that I record on the land records that did not follow the exact procedures for, but I think I don't know anything about asbestos removal. I hired a contractor. Going back to that, considering that we were just looking at a sink and a little bit of asbestos on a roof, of a mobile home, things that are Jennifer's house, I think, considering its date, probably the asbestos. That's what I'm thinking. I mean, that's- I think there may be some insulation in the out of the asbestos. So now we're looking at if her house is like $120,000, do you know what your house is valued at, Jennifer? It's like $115,000 or something like that. So now we've got a $40,000, this was seven years ago, a $40,000 asbestos removal at the minimum. What do we do? How much does the town get back then? We will put in a cost- Because that's over- Change, a scope change, cost over on request to FEMA if that happens. We have a little room to work with because it's in the map, special flood hazard area, and FEMA has a policy, which is called the BCA waiver, the benefit cost analysis waiver, for buyouts that are under $276,000 total cost. FEMA does not require a benefit cost analysis for anything that's in the map, special flood hazard area. And that's because it was just, they found that those buyouts are cost effective. And so because we're not pushing up against that limit, there's nothing that's going to trigger a red light to go off with FEMA, and it is what it is. If you end up having to spend a little more on proper demolition and disposal, then we'll put that in as a cost overrun. Do we get the estimates, and then we ask for the waiver, or the additional amendment? Well, you'll write, Sarah will write me a letter saying, we got bids, and it turns out we have this unanticipated $40,000 cost overrun, and I'll send it to FEMA, and we'll tell her that it's a red light for an infuriating couple of months, and eventually it'll be granted. Hopefully it doesn't rain for four days then. Yeah, it's a slow process, and I don't control FEMA's time frame, and I apologize in advance for the bureaucratic grind of this process for all parties concerned, but it's a good outcome in the end, and it's actually a pretty good program. I might have missed something in the, so the 75, the 25% match. So if the cost goes up because of this, the match then would go up as well? We have enough budget. You have enough for that. We have enough, VHCB has enough to bring up. Well, it's actually VHCB money, and we're hoping they'll be, well, I don't think I'm allowed to say this, I work for the governor, but there are people who would. But this is Gus, right? Sorry? Gus Selig's operation. Well, there are people who would like to see it, the VHCB appropriation go up, if it does, there are people who would like to see a piece of that go to keeping the buyout program going because it leverages these federal dollars. But that's above my pizzeria. But in the short term, yeah, I don't think, I think there's about $50,000 available up to about $50,000 should the town and property owner need it for the non-federal share. And please don't ask me about the transaction sequence for that. I know you get the money. I don't know who gives a check to who or all others. We're used to paying that and getting it back later. But is vermiculite considered like asbestos and something that would be beyond or is that normal in the process of demolishing? Because vermiculite is one of those things that has asbestos in it. Or is that just a part of the, like that's an assumption that all houses have vermiculite in them at a certain age? I don't know. You don't know? Okay, because I'm sure that that's what that's. But that's where my- And that's what the issue that this claim was when I thought you missed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my house has it. I'm gonna ask another question. In the audit of our, I'm sorry, Mary. In the audit of the last buyout we did, FEMA recommended that the board pass certain policies regarding contracts, bids, you know, to make sure that those policies were in place before we went down this road. Does that sound familiar to you? Is there anything in dealing with small towns that you make sure that there are certain policies we have in place before we- Yeah, yeah, unfortunately I know a lot about this. Okay, so tell us what we need. The good news is you probably are going, well, I don't know what the good news is about is, basically in order for the state as the recipient to make a sub-grant to the town as a sub-recipient, we have to follow the state rules for making a grant which have been through the state auditor and everything, so my employer, the Department of Public Safety is gonna be making a grant to the town before the Department of Public Safety makes a grant, they require the town to have a conflict of interest policy, a procurement policy. You probably have all these things. Vermont League of Cities and Towns has templates and I mean, basically if you've ever gotten a grant from the Department of Public Safety for anything, you've checked all these boxes and you'll have to fill out a little questionnaire in the same, I don't know if it's calendar or fiscal year to assess whether the town of Middlesex is a high-risk applicant or not, but it's pretty routine stuff and basically follow your own town's procurement policy which is you don't just call your brother-in-law to do an appraisal, call three and if only one response and you deem it cost-reasonable then you put a note in the file saying we RFPed for three and only one responded and we think it's cost-reasonable, we'll have town of Middlesex and that'll let the FEMA person check the box. Is that, Sarah, we did that for the last two, didn't we, in the other trailers? So to be clear, we did send out RFPs, we had closed bids, we opened them up, we went through the bids, I did an analysis explaining why we did the lowest and best bid that we felt we chose, it was quite a learning experience. I'm a little worried about our procurement policy, I think I brought it to the select board earlier and there is really no, for towns of this size, then unless you're dealing with these big grants, there is no requirement that you send out bids for everything, it's just in the state statutes. So we're gonna have to bone up, that's why I'm asking now because if this is coming down the pipe, we should have all that paperwork in line. And in a way the process keeps, you're right, but the process keeps out of trouble because we're not gonna be able to actually do this until you have the sub grant and Melissa, our very good finance person won't issue that sub grant, won't send it to the commissioner for signature until you've signed it and she's determined that you've checked all her boxes which all of her requires her to check, so. Which means all these policies. You're gonna have to have it all there. The board is going to be that once you pass that procurement policy, you gotta follow it for everyone, you gotta follow it for sand, you gotta follow it for trucks, you gotta follow it for, I mean it's. Why can't we, why can't we exempt it? Certain times. Is this gonna change the way you do business? I recommend looking at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns policy and most towns have a, have a like a small purchase threshold I think of $10,000. Like if you're buying something for more than $10,000, you probably wanna procure it competitively, right? You're probably doing, I mean you're good stewards of the people's money. The policy just tells the state how you do that and it's pretty painless. You're right, it's a good opportunity to get that in place. The other one you'll need to check Melissa's box is a conflict of interest policy. Which again, I'm sure you're following and it's a good thing to have it in the books. I don't think we have a policy, a written policy on that either. I think it's in our personnel policy that that may not be good enough for the state. Well, Melissa will help you if you, she can get you templates for all of that. Yeah, it can be done. It puts a little work on you. But you know how last time we could spend on templates. This is the two-take-any-finders I've got. They're just for 190 and 191, three-mile bridge room. But there is also, I think up to, I don't know if it's okay. Oh no, no, no, I'm not charging time. I'm not doing that again. You can take a little management cost money. You can do that. May I speak, Mary? Yes. The problem was that female wanted me to work on this project over time that I was not allowed to work during office hours. So if I was going to do anything for FEMA, I had to do it after hours. The city of Barrie paid back $63,000 because they did not do it correctly. We had to pay back 252. So I've been down that road. We'll talk about flying about that. I'm not sure yet. All right, yeah. Wow. And we sure want to do this, huh? That's why we're here. Any other questions or any other members of the board about any of it? And so let me ask a question, Ben. Is the reason you called up to find out action unlikely and you wanted it action possible is because you want us to sign this tonight. Is that what you're saying? We can't move forward without the town signing it. It doesn't have to be tonight. I'm not trying to rush you. It's been what, four years, right? But, but... But we just saw this 10 minutes ago. Right, this is one of the steps we do control and FEMA wants us all as the recipient and subrecipient to acknowledge these terms and conditions and then they will issue the award and that gets us to the starting line. Now I should say that even once you've signed this and they've issued the award, if the town changes its mind or the homeowner changes its mind, you can pull the plug. I mean, until the closing happens, there's no obligation to go forward. So I don't think there's really risk to the town by signing this document at this time, but it keeps the possibility of success moving forward. Well, we have to have a title on the show, too. Well, what does the board think? I mean, do you feel comfortable moving ahead on this a feat? I do, let's go ahead. If the representation is that it's substantially what we did when we indicated, when we put the application in. How many years ago? Seven. Four. 23. Well, the homeowner was submitted in 2014, I guess. Oh, I know it said 13, but that was just, wow. The disasters have sort of all blended together for me now. And Jen, you're 40 years ago. Yeah. Okay, well then I'll accept a motion. And the motion should be to authorize the acting chair to enter into the terms and conditions set forth in the FEMA document project number 4330-8R. Is that right? Don't you need that? Yeah. Is that what you said, Phil? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone else for a second? Liz. Liz. I'll second it. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Chair votes yes. Okay. And so, I'm the signature recipient? Yes, would you just, yeah, I talked to Peter, yes. You are the signature subrecipient, right there. If you sign that, then I can make a copy for you, okay? Great. I didn't mean to cover any of these questions. No, they're good questions. I'll get everything on the record before you go down. And there's, you know, there's always some bureaucratic kerfuffle with these, but we'll get through it. By now, it's, I mean, I haven't done it once. The day is the 18th? Yes. The 18th, yeah. Okay. Do you just need the signature page? Sure. Right. You can get a chance to say anything, anything you want to add for the record? No, not for the record. Off the record? Thank you. It's a lot of work, but she deserves it. It's hard to live somewhere where you don't feel safe. Yeah. Right. There's no question about it. Sure. It's a beautiful spot, but it's not safe. It is a beautiful place to live. I like there all the time. I prefer not to have to carry two cats through icy water up to my hips again. Well, they were going to make it the Mary Skinner Memorial Park and put it in a toilet right there. First you have to die. We can have the memorial later. Let's not go there. Well, you call it the memorial. It's a memorial. Oh yeah, right. The bikers of the world would thank me though. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh yeah, the roads are bad. I didn't have any trouble accept it when I go down the road. It's the paved road. There's a lot of bumps there. I can feel myself skidding if I don't get in the right groove. I was in Montpelier earlier today. It was just so much everywhere. But that's not the same as icy. Are you saying it's icy? Yeah, it's just, I mean, I'm not in the right car. Somebody was saying that I'm in a couple cars. I saw cars actually on the center road. There were, somebody had gone off like into a giant. Thank you, man. It's so. Yeah, my dad went off the road yesterday in a Subaru because of the rust. Can I get the checks out of the road? The two of them off the road. All I need is just the checks and you guys can look at the others. You mean you're just assuming we're gonna approve them all? I know you are. I got two out of three signatures already, so. Wait a minute. Here you are, Liz. Okay, thanks. Sorry I'm late, everyone. I don't know if things have, I used to go into town because I was spent the day at my house cleaning up after family, but how great is that? Yeah, right, right. It's good. How was life? This is yours. The hike was great. And even though it was cold when it started, they said it was one of the clearest days. Yeah, it was a beautiful day. I've never seen it in the eyes of 24. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so Sarah, you don't like to join us. You like to talk from afar. I can't help it. My eight-year-old laptop cannot exist without being plugged in. But what, you don't like to get an extension cord? No. Are they gonna fly over here? I don't like this anymore. She really wants to create some distance. I know. I noticed that. Looks like we got paid today. I mean, I feel, I didn't get paid. Get our annual paycheck. Wow! I think she's a great idiot. I'm very questioning whether or not I can sign checks, you know? I think she would look at this to know that she's getting paid tonight. I'm right. She thinks she's gonna get coronavirus from one of us. That's probably, like... Okay, so the next item on the agenda is discuss updating town rental policy to include waiver of liability and to clarify renter's obligation, raise snowman removal. How's this the kind of thing that probably Keter would like to be in here? But I just wanted to... Well, you could at least outline it because we're not gonna... Right. We're not gonna act on it tonight so we can discuss it twice and it will be a lot shorter when we discuss it and when Peter discusses it. So we had two Saturdays ago, we had a baby shower here and it was the day after a big storm. And I got a text at 1.30 in the afternoon before the two o'clock baby shower and unfortunately the people who rented it were very nice. They rented this before. They're middle sex residents. But, you know, the renter said, it's 1.30, when is the road crew coming today to plow the plow town hall? To plow the parking lot. And I made clear to her that we do, I will not be shoveling the walks, we will not be doing the, we will not be plowing at all this, but she was under the impression that this would happen. That was an issue. She ended up getting somebody to come in and just ride all over the parking lot and mat down the snow. Because the road crew was asleep. They had been plowing all night the night before. Then the toilet's over the floor. The toilet's always overflowed this year. We have this problem where we rent town hall at this time of year because people need a space this time of year, but we don't have, this building doesn't work. The front steps are impossible. That the big ice dam forms out there so people can't get to the elevator. They can't get in. It's not up to the road crew to plow. The toilets inevitably overflow if you've got more than 10 people. So I guess what I'm asking the board is to consider what we should do about this. If we should amend our policy to not rent during this. Don't rent it. Right. Don't rent it at all. But this is when the community wants it. For example, we've done that. How many people, really? It's like a few people. It's not like we're overflowing. I mean, sorry about the analogy, but it's not like we have somebody who wants it like 30 times out of the month. Well, like Weight Watchers comes once a week, right? Weight Watchers no longer come. They're no longer here. They have found the building intolerable in the winter. Okay. So that's that. And also Carol Hughes moved across the street, moved so that's the other issue. But we always get at least one or two March birthdays. We get things like this. There's gonna be the month season series where people are gonna come in and wanna use town hall. Sometimes we have yoga during. People, it's weird that the only time this hall gets used is the absolutely worst time that this hall should be used. So I guess that's what I'm asking for is a little bit of guidance. I say don't rent it. How many times do you rent it? How many times was it rented this past year, not counting? Not counting Weight Watchers? Weight Watchers. I don't know, maybe about six times. But again, you know, there was a dog therapy class. There was a lot of, last year was kind of weird because there was what's next, middle sex stuff. The results of the local political parties wanted to get together, you know, stuff like that. But March and February, at the times of, you know, non-political, regular people use this building and they always run into these problems. And the reality is that our building should be, I would say some public space would be nice, but. Yeah, well, but not if it's not. But not if it's not, yeah. It's usable and we're renting it to somebody, so. I mean, we don't charge much, but I don't think we should rent it out or if we can't. I mean, we've had the problem with the toilet for as long as I've been on the board. I know, we've been on the board. And I mean, I've thought about, you know, maybe we should get a toilet that's outside, but nobody's gonna go outside when it's cold and use the toilet anyway. No, and I can't figure out the well. Sometimes there's water, sometimes there's not. It ended up the toilet was kind of broken, we fixed it. Well, the toilet in general is a problem here anyway. Right, it's not a traditional grade toilet. It's a type of toilet you have, not really. I would suggest we just don't rent it. I mean, it's not, I agree. Okay. Yeah, especially in the winter. But I mean, if in the summer it's, I know, every time people have had a party here, we've had a problem with the toilet every single time. I mean, the other thing we could consider too is rather than saying no one can come and use this space. There might be just space limitation, like crowd limitation. Yeah, but the baby shower, how many people were there, 30? Yeah, no one else. But that might be too many. Like maybe, but we shouldn't say, oh, you can't have a conservation commission meeting here, five or four or five, six times a year that we've rent that out. And it's not like they're making any money. You're making it available to the public. But for that few times, you'd be better off just not renting it. Well, I think it should be kind of either or. That's where we get into the problem of, you know, people could have heard themselves. Again, I want to say that these people who rented it were fantastic. When the toilets overflowed, they cleaned them up, they cleaned up the upstairs, they were great. I would never have known that, it wasn't like the other time that the toilets overflowed where I couldn't even open that door because it was so... And I'll say I rented this town hall three times and never had an issue with it, but never expected anybody to shovel off the steps or anything like that. But I think it's a, to Liz's point, it is a nice... Yeah, I don't want to just say no, we don't have this available. Well, I think it's a really nice idea, but I don't think we should be spending a lot of money because we're not going to fix the toilets easily. Well, what about people? I mean, the other thing is the liability issue. Well, they definitely have a waiver of liability. Why don't we suggest that they rent the fire station? Because there is that little public room, I should say. Yeah, but we can't have people around that equipment down there. And if there's a fire, you can't have a party going on. You've got a ping pong table upstairs there. Oh, that's upstairs, yeah. Better off to go up to the school. Can you rent this camp? No, the school is really bad. What? No more. You've got to get fingerprinted before you go in. It's kind of tough. Yeah. You do. Background check. Pretty soon we'll have to get fingerprinted before we go up and vote. That's a tough one, but if you start making rules of, you know, only so many people or this and that. But I just don't think we can say we no longer can. I mean, I think there has to be caveats. I think this warrants further discussion of how we're going to deal with this. Well, of course, it's going to warrant further discussion because, you know, Peter wants to weigh in on it. I just wanted to bring it to your tent. Yeah, no, that's good. I thank them for the foreseeable future, though. You should not rent it. OK, well, I've got people ready. I know. We've got events happening here. I mean, we've got something upstairs now. Well, it's not too bad. Here's a typical example. The local water district that's right here, they're using it next Sunday. They'll be fine. They'll probably want to even turn on the water. Right. I mean, when we do a yoga class up there, it's not like we're running down to the bathroom. It's more like parties. Yeah, it's parties. It's big things. Kids. Parties can be a problem. There were games and food and, you know, so people watch their hands at the bathroom. That's wrong. Games and food. It just causes us to have to go use the toilet. Absolutely. So there's one of the things right there so you can rent it out to more meetings type thing, but not for parties. How about playing for meetings only? Meetings only. No food or drink allowed. No use in the matter. Go home, go at home. Go outside behind the fire station. And that's to sign a labor reliability, although it's a town meeting. If you overflow the soil, you have to clean it up. OK. Well, we're trying not to discuss it and do it. Yes, we are. Well, I think we've narrowed it. I think we've got it better. OK, so it took us about 10 minutes. It will discuss it next time for about 35 minutes. No, no. We shouldn't because we have discussed it some. We know where our minds are going. I think we've done some searching. We've got to hang together. Let me just say, we'll have a little monologue from Peter. And it will start with this. I've thought about this a lot. Yeah, we've thought about it for a whole week. I love Peter, but he's so sincere. OK, Treasurer's Report. Well, the report is, you guys get paid tonight. Yay! So there you go. Thank you. You vote, yeah. Thank you. I know. This might be my last one for all I know. Why might not get voted in? So this is for this year. This is for the year ending, not the year beginning. And then we get a separate W2 in the mail, right? We already got it. Yeah, we got it. We got it a long time ago. Well, I always put anything. It's the exact document. I put it right to my file. That was what you got last year. This is for the W2 you got, which is for 2018. You'll get one. So this is a real check. I have to deposit it. Yeah, but she can take a picture of it. I do. I do that now. I do the mobile deposit. That's the greatest thing that's ever happened. Yeah. I'll try to do that with cash. Oh, I know. That'd be cool. But I deposited $20. Ray, wait, what happened? Oh, wait a second, I don't know. I don't like to do as much stuff on the internet as you do. I'm afraid somebody's going to break in and know everything about me. They probably already did. They already do. Yeah, I know. There's a camera right there. They just don't want them to access your bank accounts. That's all. Anything else that you want to tell us? I don't think so. No? Lane duck session. Yay, this is nice. That's what we like. Lane duck session? What do you mean by that? Because it's between the budget. For the new board seven. Yeah. As if it's you guys to go. As if the new board's going to be any different than the old one. Or she will go running on a post. I'm running on a post. Are you ready? I'm ready. Yeah, just the two of us are. You didn't need that, huh? I didn't. I was throwing it your way. All right. If the treasure report is done, oh, we're ahead of schedule. We are. Anyone want to move the approval of the February 4, 2020 minutes? Who hasn't signed me? Sure, I did. Move. Mary, did you sign most? No, I haven't even looked at it. Phil moves that we approve the February 4, 2020 minutes. And is there a second for that? I wasn't here. I'll second it. I think I was here. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed. Those abstaining. OK, let's move. OK. Where is the memorandum of understanding for the emergency medical service between Middlesex and Montpelier? I decide not to make a bunch of copies because they just end in recycling. Is this an annual thing? Yeah, it's big bucks. It's big bucks. This is like a very short agreement for a very large amount of money. That's exactly right. OK, the city should provide the ambulance service to the town for a two-year period, July 1, 2020 through 22, the amount of $0.40 per capita, $40.58 for the first year, and then $42 for the second year. And they're using the town service population, which is the 2010 US Census, and then they do the multiplayer. So we're going to owe bills $35,000 and some small dollars on the 15th of 2020, December 15, 35, and then 36 and 36. And if the city explores joining a regional ambulance service during the period of disagreement or shortly thereafter, the city shall negotiate a concert with the town so as to maximize the interest of both the city and the town. This is not only for this town, don't they provide this for a bunch of the other towns, too? I don't know. Is this something that we always sign every year since the weekend? I know, but I mean, like, are there other towns, too? We're not the only ones. All right, does anyone want to move for approval? I will move. OK, Steve moves. Anyone want to second that? I'll second. You should probably authorize, you should have a motion to authorize you to sign that. And that motion includes the provision that the vice chair is authorized to sign it as the chair. I'll just put vice chair. I guess that's it. Yeah, and I signed it. I got what I said. It's authorized me to sign it as the vice chair on behalf of the board. OK, that's the motion. Have you heard the motion? Any of them. So I will amend that motion to read that. Great. Good. I'll second that amendment. Second that. You accept that amendment. I accept that amendment. You second that motion. Yeah. OK, all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. And those opposed say no. Any abstentions, Steve? Shall I assign vice chair approved by the board or just leave it with my signature? So a bunch of different towns pay them for the service. Can I have a look at that one? They also file with health insurance. What do you say that again? Well, I'm just saying, you know, so they have contracts with a number of different towns to provide ambulance services. Don't they also file with health insurance to get paid for ambulance services? Oh, you mean putting insurance claims? Well, they bill the. They bill, like if they go out, they bill on. That person? That person. That person. Oh, yeah. They bill the person and then the person, then the person submits it to their health insurance. This is like just like an insurance coverage. It's basically just to make sure they'll respond to your town. Yeah, this isn't like based on number of runs or anything like that. Just curious, like so in our budget, it's like $70,000 something. Yeah, they gave me the number. I was going to look, but it was something that was supplied to us from the fire department. I don't know. I didn't compare to see if the number was exactly what they gave us, but supposedly they had called and gotten it from them. But that was a number they provided to us. The number, you mean the US census? No, the dollar amount was given to us by the fire department. $40.58. No, no, the total. Oh, the total. The total amount. Wonder what our 2020 census is going to be for? Well, they do the American survey every five years. Well, we've got an increase in our population, haven't we, Sarah? I don't know. Small. I doubt if it's much. I don't think it's much. $40 a person is pretty reasonable. Oh, for this? Yeah. Yeah, it's reasonable. I mean, like the number of people in the town has increased. I don't know what that is, but probably small. Any correspondence? No. No one's writing this. Orders have been signed. Orders have been signed. You guys want to talk about the meeting on the proposed meeting of holding a select board meeting at half an hour before town meeting just so you guys can at Romney School just so you guys can sign orders? Sure. Sure. That's a good answer. Perfect. Did we just talk about it? And we're done now? I think so. If I could just comment on that one. Can I share my experience with the fire department? Yes. How were the outfits? Did they feel good? It was really heavy. So what I did was I met them at the fire department. And it was Jeff Koons was in charge. The chief wasn't there. I always forget his name. Doug, right. Doug wasn't there. And so there's a new young guy named Eric. I've been. He's been on for a couple of years. Yeah, he's been on for a couple of years, yeah. Relatively new, I should say, for us. And so he was kind of my partner. And everyone was really professional. And I think Jeff had really good command of everyone. So what we did was we met with Moortown Fire Department. And we did a joint training with Moortown Fire Department. And so we went to a house just down the road in the fire truck. And I was all suited up in Katie's outfit. Did you get to ride in the front? Yep. I was suited up in Katie's outfit, Katie Koons' outfit. And then when we got there, we basically trained by going in in teams of two. And there were other people in the building into a smoke-filled building with fake smoke. And so I was wearing the really heavy breathing gear that they're looking to replace. So they're looking to replace these oxygen tanks and the whole sort of system. And it was terrifying and exhilarating. And I definitely had a renewed appreciation for what a firefighter has to do in terms of going into a smoke-filled building to look for bodies. Because that's what we were doing. We were searching for a body that was somewhere in the house. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't like, I had my bearings for completely off. And this was a house with no furniture in it. So imagine a house with furniture in it, right? So we had to climb up to stairs. And then we had to crawl around on the floor and find rooms and find doors and things like that. All the while making sure that I wasn't panicking because you get claustrophobic because you don't see anything around you. You've got this breathing apparatus on. And so I mean, I thought it was good. And then when we got back, so we did that with the, and the Moortown guys were, they were in command of the training and they did an excellent job with just the command of the whole group. Everyone was really a fluid group, I think. And then- How many people were there? Oh, there were a lot. There were, on the Moortown side, there were at least like eight guys. And on our end, maybe six or something like that. There was a decent number. I don't know if everyone was there so I'm not entirely sure who's on the fire department. So- They're the Ketchapaw boys, I know they're on that. There's a man and his kids. He's been on it for a long time. His sons are probably like, so I'm high school either. Oh, I don't- Like teenagers. But there are no one that's in Little Sex except for this guy, Eric and Jeff. So Eric and Jeff both. And Eric is, he was really professional and helpful and I felt very safe with him. So anyway, it was, it is definitely older equipment now. I mean, I was able to breathe, you know? And so I don't, I can't speak for the equipment being not in good enough shape for our firefighters to use it. Like is there, is there a reason that they have to be replaced? If it is that there is a danger, I mean, certainly we wanna be very mindful of that and because they're definitely putting their lives on the line every time they go into a burning house. Do they go into a burning house when they're part of a mutual aid? I don't know, I think they do. Yeah, there's- Yeah, sure. Or if they're, you know, there's a house in Middle Sex and, you know, smoke is the biggest sort of killer. And, you know, one of the things too was that, you know, they were saying the experience that I had had no heat with it, but a burning house has heat. And so, you know, that you, so you have to say, well, you have to crawl on the ground because the heat rises. And so, you know, when you're dealing with, with those really tense situations and you're breathing and you're panicking a little bit, you might have intense heat all around you too, you know, that you're dealing with. So, I appreciated the invite, I learned a lot from it. I don't wanna be a volunteer firefighter because it was pretty scary. And, but the other thing that was nice about this training was that this was designed to train these volunteers to go in and know that they might not be good at that. And if they are claustrophobic or they do panic, they might not be the ones that we send in to, so being in those circumstances of a safe place to try it out, I can tell you, I was terrified, yes. Yeah, I was, and there was no, and there was no real smoke. It sounds like the way I felt when I started doing scuba diving and I said, can we out of here? Yeah, no, that's pretty cool though. Yeah, it is cool. And the reality is that if we do need to replace this, I still think we need to figure out, is this something like, if you borrow the money for it? I don't know how that would end up working out. Do you set money aside every year for it? How much did they say it was? I think it's 50,000. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot, yeah. 50,000 for how many sets? I think eight, wow. Yeah, that's expensive equipment. Yeah. Or can it be done sort of piecemeal, like you do two at a time so that you're not, or do you just do it all at once? You probably, I think he said that you do it all at once just because of the interchanging. I think that's what they said when they were here. So we'd be better off to just do it all at once and take a multi-year for it. Probably, yeah. So anyway, but I mean, the reality is that fire departments are expensive, you know? I mean, they're really expensive to maintain and I do think that this is even more reason for us to think about, are there ways to do this more cost effectively either like, why aren't more towns partnering together with fire departments? Why does each town have its own fire department? I mean, I know because- I think it started in the old days just because it wasn't that sophisticated and you'd have like one truck and one tanker. I mean, the reality is, their job is to save lives. It's not to save houses really, because that's just not possible in rural areas to really save houses. So, I don't know. Anyway, that's my update. Oh God, here they're, yeah. No, I feel good, yeah, and I feel good about how everyone respected Jeff and, you know, they really had it all down what they were supposed to do when they got back and all that. So- Are the other guys friendly to you? Oh, everybody was really friendly. You just can't remember who they were. Well, I don't know, I'm not good at remembering names. The more town guys were really friendly. I think they thought it was a novelty having this like bird person to come out and put on a- That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. How much did this stuff weigh? A lot. Like probably 50 pounds, and I didn't have half the stuff on me. 50 pounds. Like because you, there's all this other stuff. The tanks were really heavy. The clothes themselves, the thing, maybe not quite 50, but it was a good, I mean, I had trouble like moving. I was like- You were like, yeah. I have to get down and crawl? Right. Because I can't stand up. Exactly. Yeah, it was, it was a lot. Yeah. It was sore on my back after carrying it for a while too. I wonder if the new stuff too is lighter. I think it is. I think it's more comfortable and it's lighter. I think it's easier to get on. Like I couldn't get it even on myself. Like I needed all that help like swinging it around because it was so heavy. So you got a fire, it's gonna take you like 20 minutes. Oh, I don't know how they do it. Yeah, I mean, well, no, they, that's what they train doing, you know. But yeah, so anyway. Sure. Okay, well, we still have the board of civil authority meeting. I know who's the chair of the civil board. I think I am. I think you are. Who is it? Well, remember the last time I got adjourned, it's my first meeting. Okay, so is there any other business to come before the board? No. So that meeting is on the 30th, is it four o'clock then, correct? Yes, there's life board meeting. Yes. You lost your adjournment, would you like? No, we're the board of civil authority. I have a whole bunch of right over there as soon as Mary's down all the way. I, there, okay, I hear by adjourn the meeting. Yep. At six o'clock. Five fifty nine, it says over here. It says six o'clock over here. It says six o'clock over here, yay. Yay. It's five fifty.