 Good evening, I'd like to call on Monday, December 19th, 2022. Berlin Select Board regularly scheduled meeting to order. With us are Flo Smith to my left, Joe Stobb to my right. I'm Brad Town. And with us also is Vince Conti, our town administrator and Diane Isabel, our town treasurer. Additions or changes to the agenda? Yes, we have the, we have to finish the business with the Maplewood liquor tobacco license. We did not approve that at the last meeting when we discussed it, it somehow slipped through. And we have a request to move the listers to second on the agenda. And they have some travel to do tonight. Yep. Any public comment? I just have one thing, Brad. Sure. One of the Berlin representatives to the WCUSD school district. And I was just requesting that the town mail out the school district ballots along with the other town ballots for town meeting day in March. I don't know if the select board has already gotten a letter to that effect, but I believe the school district was going to send a letter requesting that the town mail out ballots to all the eligible voters in Berlin. And we're doing that in all the towns for the school district as well. Yeah. So that's all. We were going to discuss that later. Yeah, and that was on the agenda for tonight, as a matter of fact. Okay, we're good. Rachel put it on the agenda. I've got kids coming in from on the train, so I didn't know whether I'd be able to wait that long or not, so I'll wait a bit, thank you. I take it that you're in favor of that. I am in favor of that, yes, thank you. Any other public comment? Hilltop meeting request to the board. Good evening, folks. My name is Phil Zallinger, our office here on behalf of Durga Inc., which is the owner of the Hilltop, our firm has represented Durga since they acquired the property from the Lugu family some decades ago, a number of decades. I'm here to question the select board, as to whether the select board would be interested in entertaining a discussion with Durga that might lead to opening up more rooms at the Hilltop. When you say opening up more rooms at the Hilltop? For what? Well, I pause to bring your pause. They're presently 80 rooms available at the Hilltop. I believe 60 are occupied by folks who are staying there under the guise of vouchers issued by the State of Vermont from the Department of Families and Children, and at least 20 vacant rooms. We understand that the State of Vermont has put a lid on assigning those rooms to other people who have vouchers by reason of disappointment or negative impact or feedback from the town of Berlin to the state authorities. We're wondering if there's any kind of a discussion we could enter into in which Durga might facilitate security purposes or security efforts by the town of Berlin at the Hilltop in return for opening up some of those rooms. There's a demonstrated need and demand for those rooms. I think we're to Angelus to testify to that. And Durga is well aware of the difficulties that have arisen if you're dealing with the town for some time in an effort to get a handle on it. But we'd like to explore whether the town's interested in a discussion about there being further contribution from property owner to the town to offset some of the security expenses the town incurs. You know, we're not gonna make a proposal unless the town's like words interested in hearing a proposal. Chief? Questions? Yeah, how many calls are you getting a week over there? Last night checked, which was on Thursday or Friday, we had from October 1st to Friday, December 15th, approximately 83, 84 calls some of the night. So we're still getting the three of the common calls. What is more concerning to me is this consistent information we're receiving from residents and sometimes the staff of the hilltop that they're being discouraged from contacting the police when they need them. A few weeks ago when I met with the owners, I was told that this was no right, rumor, misinformation, not accurate. But when I spoke to the chief down in Rutland, he was saying that they were hearing exactly the same thing from the guest down there. Same pattern of type of behavior from that hotel as well. So it's not only that we're dealing with whatever problems happened at the hotel, which you already expect in an increase in population, some people facing substance use issues and mental health issues. But it's also a pattern I feel from the ownership that's being somewhat instructive and doing more over there, be more correct. Okay. Flo, anything? Look over our consensus here. I mean, I know that we've had discussions in the past and there was the concern in terms of the amount of time, the effort, the impact on you and your staff. About how many, so in terms of the discussion tonight, how many rooms would you say are a result of those 83 to 84 calls? Do you see it's repeat offenders or across the board? It's always a small number of people that are causing majority of the calls. It's not representative of the majority of the calls. Okay, okay. But the more people you have there, the more problems you have there, it's simple. I would say overall in terms of my own take is to take it under advisement, to have an opportunity to talk with all board members and look at everything thoroughly. That's Jill. I think what we hear from the chief, there are just, there's a small group. But I think overall, as far as let's say on the fire side, you have residents who are tampering with detectors and that's allowing them to smoke in their rooms, they believe, which then resulted in a mutual aid call where a fire was in the second floor. You know, Berry City, Berry Town, Williamstown, Berlin, all responded to that. You know, this, in the end it was just a trash. Okay, but that was also, that takes a lot of resources right there. And I think it's the control of the residents we don't necessarily see that. The further comment that, no one really evacuated the building. So officers were going there to help evacuate if there truly wasn't urgency in. No one was taking it seriously. And that's reflected, I think, in the staff, that they need to be regular in-fire alarms and encouraging guests that there's a line need to evacuate. Because had it really been a fire, that would have been terrible tragedy. Right. Or even if the damage to the building of now people are displaced, it's seven o'clock at night, in the middle of winter, it's pouring rain, it's 30 degrees outside. What am I gonna do with 30 displaced people? Right. I don't know, Rick, what was that? It's, yeah, what would be, or heavy-lift disabled, I suppose. Sure. And the communication with the ownership has that increased, or your ability to reach the owner when there's issues or have communications? I'm just saying, it's a little bit cyclic. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay. Thank you. Do they still have a security company there? They have presence in some way. I don't think I noticed that in the last couple of calls. They hired a security company a few months ago that was unlicensed and unregistered in the state, which is a criminal violation. Secretary of State's office came out, spoke to the staff and the owner, there were a lot of excuses that went back and forth, but ultimately the solution was for the owner to hire them privately and reclassify their terminology. Any other comments on this? I can't speak for the rest of the board, but I'm not really in favor. There's just too many problems and too much cost to the town for the rewards. That we're seeing, I don't know what else you would like, but... From my understanding, the arrangement they have in the Rutland town was they gave some sum of money to the town because they were having issues with a retail establishment. That was a close proximity to the hotel. There was an increase in the total capacity. General Disruptive Delivery. So the hotel owners paid for a position for an officer to be placed permanently at that business or any more visible manner. I don't have the ability to do that, even if you pay for another officer, I have to find an officer and it's just not feasible. I'm glad you broached on that subject because I was curious about that. To pay somebody to be stationed over there, I'm not sure that logistically I could make that up. Yeah, talk. Brad, I mean, chief, you probably know this better than I would. But is there a model for like a fee for service? If you get called out and that, then there's the ownership pays for something? And I mean, there, it's a financial burden to them. They may be more proactive to... It's certainly something that we have a model for when we respond to alarm calls. But not, again, I have a concern that it would lead to discouraging people because now it's a financial problem. Mr. Zal, did you have something? Well, I just can point out that there hasn't been any, even a broad outline of what Jurgen might propose to the town. So I think the chief's reference to the experience in Portland County is inapplicable. And I think it's unfair to use that model as an outline of what is, what might be presented. I don't know what other model that... It just seems, from my perspective, as the chief of police here, on the ethical for there to be any exchange of money with a private business, for some kind of services in return. Sorry, we don't do that with anybody else at town. I understand that, chief, I've been doing business. And that's my personal... For some time, so I appreciate that. Whether or not that's like a legal or an outright ethical language, I don't know. But for my own personal view, I'd say, we push the line. The model is something I've never seen. And I guess I'm old enough to remember when owners of buildings paid to have their windows protected from being broken. Yes, I don't want to get down to that. You know what I mean? The two guys at the corner today will protect your windows from being broken. You know what I mean? Wink, wink. But the model is not, it's not an attractive model. But it was meant, at least in Rutland, it was effort was entered into it. I represent, it's a different company in Rutland but I represent them as well in those discussions. But it was an effort to stem to quiet the situation, quiet the waters. I think it has to a certain extent. I would also point out, and here's an anomaly to this situation, and it's if you have a population in, let's say, 60 rooms. And as we folks acknowledge tonight, there may be a small number of bad actors. Chief knows better than that. Let's say there's the occupants of 10 rooms of those bad actors, those 10 rooms out of 60. Well, those individuals can be shown the door. Yes, the issue is that if the state's not, if they're looking to end this program eventually, and eventually the money's gonna run out. Or if they're putting caps on how many vouchers they're handing out in any particular place. There's some negativity in exiting those people because now you're losing revenue, right? So if you have 10 bad actors and you're not gonna replace those bad actors, that's lost revenue. So, somewhat discouraged from exiting people. That was the point I was gonna make, Chief, is if there's no incentive to get rid of those 10 bad actors, if the state won't replace the occupants. We'll end up exiting those bad actors. I'm sorry? I said, we'll end up exiting those bad actors, one way or the other, if they continue to cause problems. They won't be allowed to stay there because they've put themselves in a situation from a legal perspective. My point was that if the state has a lid on the referrals to the facility, and if the owner takes steps to replace some of the bad actors, but they're unable to make those rooms available for new tenants who may not be bad actors, then you have a fly in the ointment for how efficiently it can operate. That's just an observation. This is not an easy situation, not from anybody's perspective. I understand. Point taken. Thank you. I'm just to point out, Mr. Chair, Mr. Schlier has joined us. Okay. Any insights on this, Dave? I kind of came in late on this, so I didn't hear the whole thing, but I'm aware of the situation and where they're trying to get more beds up there, which is needed, but the problem being is everybody knows that it's been a drain on the town of Berlin's police force and all the extra time being spent up there. I just don't think that personally, that they have enough, they're just too much willy, nearly free Roman when they give these people these vouchers up there. And it's not all of them, but the ones that are creating the problem are creating a problem big enough that it draws attention to the whole place. Can I make a comment, Chair? Sure. Hi, I'm Rick D'Angelo, Assembly Director of the Good Samaritan Haven, and I don't work for the ownership. We have services at the Hilltop but we're paid by the state of Vermont. And I'm surprised by the number of police calls, quite frankly, because we were up there at the beginning of COVID for a year and a half, and then we left for about a year, and then we came back again because we felt that we had something to offer and could help the residents. Our perception is that it's much better there than it was previously. And it's a calmer environment, it's a more productive environment. We're getting more people out into housing and stuff like that. And we feel like we have a better working relationship with the ownership right now, quite frankly, than we ever did before. And I'm not here to make an argument one way or other, but I just wanted to give you our perspective that we think it has gotten better there and I do think it's a few bad apples that are creating a lot of these calls. And it's really tragic because these are the only motel rooms in the state virtually. So you have a lot of people out there that are looking for some emergency housing and unfortunately, there's just not enough of it. Thank you. Thank you. Again. Laura, I can take, no. Go ahead, Dave. I'd like to say another thing too, that knowing that this was set up as a hotel it wasn't meant to be an apartment or anything for long-term living. And I just have concerns that, you know, not just the welfare of the people staying there but the staff and everybody else also, because it wasn't set up as a long-term living facility. And there's a lot of stuff up there that I think's being overlooked that will lend into the safety of the people up there as well. So Mrs. Allinger, exactly what is it that the Durgas want from the town? Our understanding is the state of Vermont will not send more individuals with vouchers to the Hilltown by reason of the town's objections. However, they were communicated to the state of Vermont through the funding source. Yeah. Durgas would like to enter into a discussion with the town of Berlin in which that ceiling or that lid on the total number of rooms might be lifted if Durgas was able to provide the town with the means through which to enhance security and responsiveness at the site. The thing I'm thinking of here is if the cap on the state-funded residents, they still can rent travelers the other 20 rooms. Am I correct? Technically, yes. But it's wouldn't be as surprised to learn that that's a mix of occupants. That is it very successful to the traveling public. In other words, the use of the other 60 rooms for that, for the voucher purposes, pretty much precludes the use of those other 20 rooms for the hospitality industry. So question, you're saying the state won't send any more residents with vouchers there. And that's because we've already hit our ceiling, right? No. No, they won't send them any. I guess I repeatedly shared some of my concerns over the last few days. They've kind of suspended adding any additional vouchers. One of the other things and we don't really talk about a whole lot is all the EMS calls. I don't necessarily think we're gonna see it tomorrow, but the next contract with the increase of the calls with the EMS is gone there. The town will see an increase in that contract and not just because of inflation. The DERGA group, are they trying to think out of phrases? Why weren't they here to express their desires to have that increased? There was my advice to them that I attend and I wasn't sure how many members of the select board would be here, but it was my opinion that it would be better to learn first from the select board if they wanted to have that discussion rather than put you on the spot and start the discussion without any preliminary assurances of your interest in pursuing. And that's not my first select board appearance and I just know how select boards like to work and they don't like to be surprised and you like to be able to think about things before undertake them. That's just the way governance works and it was my recommendation that they not attend and not spill over into evidence and assurances and their characterization of what's transpired and what's going to transpire, that's all evidence that you'd have to hear later. But I want to make sure you are willing to hear the evidence first. So basically you'd like to be put on the agenda for another future meeting? If the select board were interested in considering, yes. Okay, have a motion on this? Anything else, Dave? I'm just, the number of residents up there now and vouchers up there now seem to be, what is that number? 60. 60, it seems that over in the past that there was a number that seemed to be manageable where our current calls went down at the police side of it. And I thought that number was somewhere around 50 and we're at 60 now. Have our calls gone up here in the last, since it's got to that 60 number? Not significantly, no. How many rooms was Durga Group looking to rent in total? We'd like to have the opportunity to rent 70. We'd be additional 10 rooms. And how many rooms total over there, 83? 80, I believe. 80. And with the opportunity that if we were able to take affirmative action with some of the bad actors for want of another characterization, that we would be able to replace those folks so that, you see, I don't know, the chief made his voice heard at the sources of funding. And I'm not sure how the ceiling works, how it was expressed, what the assurances are, and I'm not sure this like where it goes. But for some reason, there are no, even if we lose an occupant, we're not able to replace them because the way the state operates, they are funding source of vouchers, they put a hold on it and the hold stays there regardless of what the census becomes. So for example, if there are 10 bad actors and we took steps to remove them, successfully remove them, there's no mechanism by which Durga can approach the state and say we have 10 vacancies that we created by replacing bad actors, could we have 10 more voucher clients? There's no formula for that to operate and act and actively be initiated. I meant it, just to say that we're gonna free up, give the green light to free up 70 rooms. Those rooms necessarily are not gonna be single occupancy of rooms, so that's something to consider as well. Good point. I might, the hotel owners are doing this for profit, correct? This is not enough. I'm sorry? A hotel is a profit business, right? It's not like they could smear in where it's a non-profit business. We're talking about somebody's bottom line. You're right, chief, but it's also not the behavior and activities of the owners that are giving rise to the conduct that necessitates golf. But they're in the business of making money, correct? Yeah, I didn't see it, yes. So, I mean, that's ultimately what it comes down to, is that they're looking to make more revenue. For heaven's sake, ask a question. Sure you're telling them. Rick's here, he seems to have knowledge of his organization down there. I don't think there's problems down there. I haven't heard anything about it. Rick's down to the twin sitting hotel. I'm just saying. Mr. DeVie Angelis is in a completely different situation. I understand it. And there are occasionally there's problems and we cooperatively address them. What are they doing that they're not doing? That's what I was thinking. They're having more freedom to exit people who are problematic. There's no obligation for them to stay here. If they want, they show up and cause problems. Is the ownership of Hilltop present on a consistent basis? At the building? Mm-hmm, I don't know. Because I think about your question, what are they doing versus what is not doing? And it sounds like you have a great presence at your facility. I'm just wondering what the presence is of the ownership at Hilltop. And if maybe an additional presence on the part of ownership. That's what it's doing. They do provide quite a bit of support, which I think is helpful. But the bottom line is getting people out of there. Right. And moved out to some kind of permanent housing. Which sounds like you're successful at doing right now. It's different structurally. People have, they're leasing a motel room. They have certain rights for that motel room. We're operating shelter. Right. And as the chief said, we can exit people almost immediately. It's a little bit different process. It's a different process in a motel. And we do have a fairly intensive staffing model down below. But we do have staff at the Hilltop too. And again, for what it's worth, in my estimation, it's gotten much, much better. And that's what I was getting at. Your presence at the hotel has been a helpful presence. But still, I think the model there is, even when you're interacting with people at the hotel, you're encouraging them to find more stable, more permanent housing. Right. Can I ask a question? It's just bugging me just a little bit. I mean, I had a pretty good conversation here, but I just, for my own education and whatnot, I get the feeling that we're missing a player in this. The elephant in the room that we're not talking about is, right, that there's the Hilltop, there's the town, and there's the state program, right? And that's part of the issue of what keeps coming up that we keep talking about. I think my opinion as a resident, I'll give it, I'll go that route. My opinion as a resident is that the state should be in this conversation. They're a key player in this as well. I mean, it shouldn't all be on the town's shoulders. Shouldn't all be on the hotel's shoulders, right? There's a key player here that's not in the conversation. And I would add that we need help. You know, it's very obvious, you know, there's just been such a tremendous, yes, I think you said it really well, Vince, that the help is needed. We need all players on board, state included, in my opinion. I think you had a good one. Chair, Rick, is your organization able to provide additional resources and services to the Hilltop? We could increase the level, although we're not a security presence. No, I understand. Or a service presence. I was even aware that there were that many calls because we're not focused on that aspect of it, but we could, yes, we'd be glad to. Well, sometimes the intervention that Good Samaritan provides de-escalate situations, changes directions, changes minds. And what is a potential call need not result in a call, but that's all conjectural. And I'm not a social services guru by any stretch of the imagination. Well, let me just pull the board here. How many of the board members would be willing to sit down with the DERGA group, the state, and have this discussion either in a select board meeting or in some other venue? To have the discussion? Yep. Could do that. What's that? Sure. Dave? Personally, Brad wouldn't shut the door on any type of negotiation, but I think all the players have to be at the table. OK. So yeah, Ben, so if you can line up everybody. State included? State included. OK. Well, Vince, you're certainly optimistic. I didn't put a timeline on it yet. I just didn't. Well, I mean, realistically, it's probably something needs to be talked about anyway, and let's get it over with. I think it is important to bring it out into the forefront and have that open discussion. Now, the question is, Mrs. Allinger, are you going to be free one of those nights? You get that 800 pound gorilla down to the table. I'll be here any Christmas Eve. I'd come. What new year's it? The state has Teflon qualities. Oh, yeah, as we know. Nothing sticks, slides off. So certainly if we think it's fair to ask and we're encouraged by you really just to do so, we'll certainly do what we can to encourage the state to participate. I'd be happy to work with Vince in an effort to do so. OK, anything else on this subject? I do want to. It's not my intention to be confrontational with you. It just entered here for two years, and it would be nice if for one week there wasn't some problem. Second, my frustration is not with you. Oh, no, I understand you picked the wrong. It's too bad those were your first two years. I mean, none of us, did anybody look back to the last three years with fondness? Not really. OK, thanks, Steve. Thank you all for your openness. Appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. D'Angelo, would you be able to be here too? I'd be glad to be here. OK. OK. I'll reach out to you, Mr. D'Angelo. You're too much. You get some ideas on the right people to start contacting the state is to poke the air a little bit. I can. You can help me with that. Wow. Those were the tables, I'm not sure. Yeah, I can give you a thank you. No. Who knows their number? Yeah. OK, thank you very much for being here about this one. Thank you. Public Works Board Meeting Budget Review. Tom? Thanks for having me again. Just to share some documents. Some of these I've already shared with you in the past. This is, again, a list of parcels that has the total grand list of the town of Berlin of $507 million. The total number of parcels in the town is 1,489. I've asked staff here to give me the value of the parcels that are connected to water and sewer. And the number of parcels in water sewer are 369. And the grand list value of those parcels are $293,523,000. The 369 represents 25% of the parcels in the town. The 293 million represents 58% of the tax base. So Public Works Board is a lot on its plate. As you folks know, the town center, they put in a $2.5 million wastewater project to service the town center. And so it's what the Public Works Board is asking the select board is to give some consideration to recognizing the value that water and sewer brings to the town and baking into their annual budget a line item for the water and sewer business. So the recently the Central Rant Regional Economic Development Corporation and Central Rant Regional Planning Commission solicited proposals from every town in the Central Rant area. And they reviewed, they were going to select 10 projects in those towns to go to a state level for further funding consideration. So what I showed you here is the application that Vince and I put together. And for our Scott Hill loop, that's the closing loop on our water system of the 10 that were selected, Berlin ranked the third highest. And so this offer for Berlin to go out and now seek some additional funding. So that was good news that we just received this last week. To that end, the staff here has applied for community recovery and revitalizing grant program. They have, this is a statewide program. They have $40 million for projects. This is our application that we submitted for the Scott Hill loop. The maximum amount you can ask for is $1 million. So we've asked for $1 million. We have our initial conversation with the folks from CRRG tomorrow. I expect it to go well. I don't know if they know about the ranking here that the Central Economic Delta Corporation has done, but we'll be made aware of that. So we're looking for some grant opportunity here. The Public Service Board is also applying for $50,000 grant from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund that will allow us to do the engineering and final design of that loop. So this is just one of many projects that are going to come to the town in the relatively near future. The Public Service Board has taken an asset management plan study for their wastewater side of the business. You likely know that the pump station on Route 302 that 100% of the town of Berlin's collected wastewater goes to that central pump station and is pumped to Vermont. That pump station was built in 1985. It is going to be a disaster management plan. I haven't seen it yet, but all indications are that we need to be looking at doing some sort of upgrade and maybe replacement of that plan. I think the first time that that pump station got put in was probably with federal dollars, paid a good bit of it. There are no federal dollars today. So that's a couple projects here. I know you folks are looking at a capital improvement plan. I really encourage you to put some meat on those bones. Capital improvement plan may hurt budgetarily for the first year, but once you get that baked into your budget, it's there. I just want to show you the proactiveness that the Public Service Board is doing. We're not asking for willy-nilly dollars, but we would suggest today a $60,000 annual line item for the public to have them move forward with their programs. $60,000 a year is roughly, at today's interest rates, about a million dollars a year, a million dollars of debt service. Again, a million dollars is not a significant amount of dollars when we're talking about pump stations and pipes and stuff, especially post-COVID, but it's a start. I think it would show the Public Service Board that the town is behind their efforts. I personally think the Public Service Board has done Yeoman's work here in the last 10 years and brought a lot of value to the town of Irland. I'll take any questions. We've got a lot of good stuff going on, but again, I do really encourage you, and before I leave, I do encourage you to look at baking some capital improvement in your budgets. What could help the Public Service Board immediately is some revisions to their water ordinance that we'd like to slick or consider. The first one is that, because right now on the water system, if you build a new building, you're not required to connect to the water system. We would like that policy to change, and so that's the first one here, require all construction in a defined service area that uses new or significant potable water to connect to burlain municipal water. The second one is the water system is in place. When it was put in place, there's existing buildings. There are numerous buildings that opted not to connect to the water system, and that was their right. What we'd like the select board to consider is that those buildings now receive a value from the water system in the fire protection standpoint. I don't think anybody can argue that by the town having a water line with hydrants on a road that a parcel building does not get value from the system. And so we would ask the select board to adopt a water ordinance language creating a fire protection billing class that those parcels receiving fire protection from burlain municipal water but not connected are charged for fire protection. And so I think these two things are things you could do and we'll help write the language that in, but if we don't want to spend time or treasury developing that language if the select board is opposed to it. But again, I think these are two things that can help defray the cost and spread the cost over a additional customer base, which is the idea. So you have any questions? I'll gladly take questions. It's not. Thank you for your time. The grants. Is that a matching grant of any sort? Which one? The million dollar. They expect you to come up with a balance to do the project. Okay. So it's a million dollars. Then we'd be looking for additional $2 million to get the project done. And then the $50,000. $50,000 is a pure grant. Any other questions for Tom? What's the timeline on both of these? The Public Work Board will apply for the $50,000 grant. No skin. There's no skin out of our pockets. So that will be happening. We'll have to come back to the select board for a resolution of support to that end. And so that will likely happen in early January. They're not meeting again until the second Monday of the month. So they'll probably be your last meeting in January that would come for that resolution of support. Excellent. And for the language in the ordinance, that's something that we can begin immediately and get written up. There are numerous examples out there that we could give you draft language, likely at your first meeting in January if you're so inclined. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. So I do have another question, Tom. You say all construction. So would that be like expansion of current? I put the term in here, Joe, that if you use new or significant, so we'd have to define that, right? And in my mind's eye, significant would be if you double or if you add 50% additional water use, then you should connect, right? That's how I think I would start the ordinance language and if you add 50% additional public water to an existing structure, then you must connect to town water. Any other questions from Tom? I'm on this ordinance thing about the fire protection and maybe able to charge the buildings or the owners for the fire protection based on insurance. I know Dave, when we, when the town put in the water system, their ISO rating and Joe could probably speak better to this than I can, but the town's ISO rating, which is insurance, went from a five and a half to a five. So it improved 10%. That is somehow correlated to insurance rates I'm not going to pretend to know the mechanics on how that works, but there's no doubt in my mind that the water system and the hydrogen system have added value to many parcels in the town. Okay, any other questions for Tom? Okay, thank you very much, Tom. Thanks for your time. Thank you. The list here is review and approval. So each, every year at this time, we come before you to sort of, it's cleaning up the grand list. Any errors or missions that were done during the course of the year, the state says that the select board has to sign off on them so that they know that it's mainly to catch big ones, but we still have to come before you with all the little ones. And there's, you know, usually some personal property and then a few that are real estate related. So do you want to explain the personal property? I can. Okay, we've got, let's see. I think there's three personal property ones. The first one is a GNC holdings company. The business closed and they didn't tell me, so I sent out a bill, but they had closed prior to April 1st. So when they closed, that's when they called me and said, well, we closed and they didn't tell me. So that one was 55,900, okay? That they were being billed. Quadrant lease, quadrant leasing, that was a duplicate that I built them for. They sent me a form saying it was new and it wasn't. And so I still had the other one from the same location and I didn't recognize it. They took both of the same location. So that was 12,200. And the last one was a company called FAST and they had moved to Barrie prior to April 1st and that was $700. So we're looking at 100th of that. So the GNC is like, you know, basically $559. Quadrant is $122 and FAST would be $7. This is the basis. So those are the three that were personal property. And we had two real estate. One was a parcel that was sold to a new owner and the buyer bought two pieces. So when they're continuous, we will combine them. The value of the second one will be added to the first when the state only wants to see what their name once on the grand list. So I combined them but I neglected to make the second piece inactive. So a tax bill went out on the second piece and it was taxed with the first one. So it was a duplicate and it was a piece of land. It was $58,000 in assessment which would be $580 as far as taxes go. And the last, the other one we had was a mobile home that was moved out of town that we didn't know about, that it left. And it was right over in Lucky Wardman's little mobile home area. So we set the bill out to the previous owner. The mobile home had been moved but Lucky's paying the bill. So it's really, there's no loss in taxes. Well on that one I didn't explain it even further. When this resident had moved his mobile home out Lucky's moved one in the next day. So they had no way of knowing. It was the same one. I don't even think the one he moved in was a new one because it was an old one so I think it was the same size. We had no idea. So Lucky's is paying for this one because he does have a mobile home on that lot. So that one was just like a flute, like say one went out one day and the very next day another one was in. So there wasn't any loss of the tax dollars in that one. And those are the only Arizona emissions we have for this year. So $688. And I'll note more than that. Well $611, $1,200 basically. $59, $122, $7, and $580. Yep. $1269. I got $1268. I rounded them up. Yeah, $1260 each. Yeah. Tom has signed it from the south board. Okay. I have a board that has to take and accept the Arizona emissions. Oh, we hope you will. Yeah. So you can choose over here. That has to be signed. It's just a document that it just goes into the vault with the grand list for this year acknowledging if the state should ever walk in here and say where's your Arizona emissions paperwork it would be in with the grand list. So a motion to accept the errors and emissions? I make the motion to accept the errors and emissions as described and explained to us this evening by the Listers in the amount of $1268. I'll second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. See you Wednesday. Have a good evening. Thank you. Now please budget review. Real quick in your package. You have two documents. One is specific for the police wages. And the other one is this document which tells you the details of kind of the breakdown of what changed, what went up, what went down, and what is linked to the new union contract as well. Something went down. Wow. I was, you know, yes, yes. Actually it did. Also shows you the costs that went up, that really are, you know, outside of our control with the, like, the, the, the phycamids, the gas and oil estimates, liability, contracted items that we don't directly. Gee. Yes. I don't, or whoever, I guess I'm going to ask you. So the night shift. Is that based off changing your work schedule or number of people? It gets paid at a different rate. And my question is on the increase in the guns and ammunition, sizable in comparison to the other two years. The current farms that we have are getting old probably a few years past the time we ship them replaced. So that was factoring in an estimate of what it would cost to replace all the firearms, get new optics on them to better increase accuracy and accessories that go with them. Thank you. So when you do that you're going to be replacing all of them and it's not like phasing in some. Yeah, it's not really ideal to phase in some of these who are looking at firearms that would be different caliber. Yeah. Ideally everybody would be the same at the same time. Thank you. Chief, how often do you swap out your sidearms? I would say probably one second, ten years is optimal. We're probably pushing on the 12. If you're familiar with firearms, spraying start to go. The smaller mechanisms start to go. Is the gym membership widely utilized by the officers? Probably not, it's not just a show. I think it's a wonderful program. I ask the question mainly because I think it is beneficial and good and I would encourage it. But at the same time, the cost if it's not being utilized. It's embedded in the contract. Shift in there to prevent shift work is hard. It is true. They're reimbursed. Also they bring what they've already paid. So if they've gone to Planet Fitness, for instance, they'll bring the bill that they've paid and then we reimbursed. Excellent. That's great. Thank you. Is there any area of the budget, if we were to say, could you pare it down? Then an area that you've given thought to, where you... With a smile though, I see the smile. I'm not asking for things that are unrealistic from my perspective. These are all things that... And there's probably things on here that should be increased. Vincent and I were talking about it the other day. Our administrative fees, everything. I tried to get a good example of this. I tried to get our policies to have been updated. And getting... I want everybody to have a binder with those policies so they can refer them to anything. So if I had started to set it down to Staples and see how much it would cost to get 10 buyers, this policy we're talking about maybe is not anything crazy upwards of $9,000. And that's not something I had a factor in here but do we need to have those things absolutely. So I'm saying I'm on the conservative side. I do notice... We're going to push firearms out next year but we're going to run into the same problem next year. I do notice that you keep your costs similar like for example the special investigative unit. The cost with the binders, maybe some of that could be done in-house. Less expensive than taking it out to a printer. It's just a thought. That's not a factor in here but we're talking. I just want to interject a little bit. I'll have to do a little bit more language that's absolutely positive but I'm fairly confident. If we wanted to pair that budget down a little bit and not lose anything for the chief, like the firearms, those may qualify for ARPA funds. We still have some ARPA funds and if that's something important like we look at what's in here that may qualify, I'm happy to do so with that together. I think that's beneficial with any of the budgets that come before us to see what could fall under the auspices of ARPA funds. I'll do some research on that as well. I was thinking not but it's worthwhile to check. We just moved forward with approving the use of the ARPA funds for radio upgrade. Yes, we did. We have police radio equipment. Is that something different? It's not on. It's a couple of handhelds. It's just a couple of affordables. Anytime we need ready repairs. A couple of our radios weren't compatible in the state when it was redigital. I think we just maintained status quo over what we paid over the past few years so that we would be factoring in what would be covered by ARPA. We have to receive those radios. It's going to be a bit of a crunch time and there's really no expected date of those things being delivered. And I see the cost of the uniforms went down sizably. But you also have an allowance. Right. You actually went up if you put it together. So for me to get a better read of where we're at, part of the contract is the officers have a $600 equipment reimbursement allowance. Some people need a lot of separate paying of it. Some people probably not. And that's always been under the uniform under the equipment line up. So I could really never track how many people were actually utilizing those funds and how many were. So we broke it down a little bit so I could track a few uniforms I actually ordered for somebody who needs replacement. I ordered really higher as opposed to those people who were just putting in as part of their equipment reimbursement. Makes total sense. In the next revision of the budget I just want to bring this up as well because he hit it on a few minutes ago as well. Similar things are going to happen with Dr. Diane as well. We're setting up another number so that he can track those administrative costs better and see where they are. So some of these numbers will move a little bit. That's great. That's one of them. You'll see a new category come up under administrative and it will be a similar. I think that's very beneficial. Outline version of the budget there are a lot of things out there. Anything else on this? Not for me. I'm good. When does the budget have to be in? Very soon. Usually January. Yeah, it's... Last year I think it was like the 14th of January but again we had to give it time to get in there as well so by the second week in January we needed to really have it wrapped up. Okay. So probably we'll have to look into scheduling at least one extracurricular meeting there to take and probably go through it. Yeah, one special meeting and one more board meeting and I think we'll have it. Okay. If nothing else we'll move on to... Thank you Chief. Thank you very much Chief. Thank you. Have a good night. Have a good night. We'll move on to Halperk's Washington County Unified School District to the ballot request. Yes. So I think as you heard earlier Jonathan's still here with us? Yes. He's hanging on. I know how to sit through a meeting. So Washington Central School District would like to have all their annual meeting ballots mailed to all active nonchallenged voters in the town. I personally have no objection to that. I do want to keep in mind the Central Vermont Career Center is only sending out ballots by request and then so we should also consider our municipal ballots if we want to mail them to everyone or only by request as well. So keep that in mind. Yeah. It's the same request basically for the Washington County ones as well as that last year as well. And they do reimburse for the costs of printing and mailing. And if they have a cohesive decision from all the towns they believe they were going to look into having those printed offsite as well. But I don't know the status of the elections today. Our last election that we sent, how about the last election that we sent ballots out how many were actually utilized and how many were then done in person? About a third of them came back before the election day. Okay. For the primary it was maybe a quarter. Okay. At a cost of what? Do you know? I honestly don't know. In my $1200 or something to print the ballots I'm not putting your time into it. I'm just talking the cost of the ballots themselves. And as far as the mailing if you mailed it I don't know the cost of the mail. Because we don't keep track of that. We just keep track of all of our postage. But it sounds like they'll reimburse for the expense at least for their meeting ballots. Obviously not the town specific ones. Whatever. So you're sending these out they're not all going out in separate envelopes? In theory maybe they could go out in one envelope if we decided to do all the municipal ballots. I personally think sending all the town specific ballot to everybody is probably wasteful. I think letting people request those too I don't know if there could be some wording that maybe goes out with the school districts ballots that maybe that's separate from regular town meeting ballots as well. Good point. Well I certainly see no trouble with mailing out the school district ballots. I mean we're already in the computer program right? I can't speak to the computer program so but I mean I know from years prior that as far as my recollection that the ballots were mailed as were the town ballots. The district the school district ballots were mailed along with not perhaps in one envelope but were sent at the same time as the Berlin town ballots as far as I can recall. Anything Dave? So we could send out the school ballots and do ours as request. Right? Yep. We get reimbursed by the district for the school. You know short of maybe some some time right? Or we send them all out. Is that kind of a question now? Yeah. Can I'm in favor of sending the schools and having the towns be upon request? Yes. And I think an inclusion of a note of some sort in with the school to indicate as a reminder for folks to call to request a ballot should they so choose. Do you know if other towns are doing similar communication? Yeah, I don't. Were you phrasing that as emotion? I could so put that into emotion let's say. So I make the motion that we move forward with the request to mail the WCUUSD ballots especially since Rachel's in agreement with that and to have our town ballots sent upon request. I second that motion. Thank you for the discussion. Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Town meeting request Rachel. Thank you very much. Thanks for staying. Happy holidays. So we are compiling the town report now and we were interested in doing a dedication page in the front to our local police department. I didn't know if that would be something you guys would approve of. I know in the past it's either you know a dedication to someone who's retired or has passed away. I like that idea very much. Does the chief know that? No. He won't listen to this recording. Is it bad to surprise someone like that? I think it's even even more special if it's a surprise. But yes I'm in agreement with that. I think it's a wonderful excellent wonderful idea. Dave you want to take a motion on this one? We'll just do it by consensus. We can do a written ballot. Bids for digitization digitization. Can I ask you all one more question about town meeting? So I know the last few years has been different with COVID. So looking forward to this town meeting I assume an in-person town meeting is planned. Will that be on Tuesday March 7th along with the voting at the school everything all together? Will there be a pre-meeting on Monday night, the night before? I personally would like to see it as you just described it this year especially. I think the time is right for it to. Hadn't we already decided that we were going to pre-town meeting like on a Saturday? We did. But I don't think there was any big change in the turnout. We thought that perhaps it would but it didn't. It wasn't reflective of our hope. No. I don't know what we have. I don't believe there's any big there's no problems with changing or is that a town vote to change it? To to change it because we had voted to have it on Saturday and I thought that I knew this like it was a select work vote. I think it was a select this is your vote at that time. Do they have to vote again to get a chance? I don't think so because of the it was all because of you know pre-COVID Not so much though. They still wanted to have it on a Saturday and we had it on a few Saturdays and like you say there wasn't any extra people but I really don't know what we're proposing if that's what the board should choose to do. I don't think there's any voting that I don't mind entertaining the motion but I would like the stipulation that upon finding a fax on this. I'll have to research it and see I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe otherwise. Again I haven't done deep into it either. I'm just trying to think did we have it before the voters I mean must be back in 2016 I think it was after that time but we'll almost think it was. I think we had the town loaded on it. To change it to a Saturday so I I guess I think what I'll do if we can look back in the books absolutely that we have the annual documents as long as the motion includes finding a fax and other than that we'll have to be on a Saturday on that Saturday. Your motion? So moved. I didn't say I couldn't resist. Closed to a motion on that one. So I make the motion that Vince will research the suggestion regarding town meeting and the meeting prior to and then we'll go forward with a decision from there. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Okay, Vince for your digitization. Yes, okay. So we have been researching numbers and companies for switching to a digital system scanning our land records and having those available online. So what I'm hoping is that we could use ARPA funds to purchase the system and then to scan and index the records. So there is a company COTS system that is the one that I would love to use if we can. Other towns have been using that in Vermont. We've been able to check it out. It's pretty great. The system itself would be about $7,500 total just to purchase the system to have that includes a workstation for myself and also public researchers when they come in and then be able to for people to search online. The more expensive part of this project is the scanning and indexing of the records. COTS can do the scanning and indexing for about $61,000 that's for a 40-year look back. The great thing about COTS is they could come and scan the land records in our parking lot. So there would be much less disruption to researchers coming in to look for things in the vault. So, but that comes with a price tag. There is another company Records Force who could scan and index the same number of books for $57,000. The only drawback with that is they have to take our books away for about 10 business days. So there would be two weeks where we could not have the vaults available for research. And And where are they located, Rachel? They, you would ask me that. I'm just curious. They're in Maine. Records Force. Thank you. And so Records Force would give us those digital files and we'd have them and then we would share them with COTS who would upload them to their system. We are waiting on numbers from Co-File that's a third company that could do scanning and indexing. However, their intention is to use microfilm images for the bulk of the land records we already have which I don't think would produce a very high quality image to use going forward. Good point. Personally, I'm not in favor of shipping our land records to Maine. It's nice that they don't leave the property. That's why I was asking where they were located because I concur. And it's got to be a microfilm. Microfilm is kind of a thing in the past. It's an old technology really. It's not as usually not as easy to read. Right. Would this all have to be put out to bid? We're calling around but we're not really putting it out to bid because we don't have a when you put it out to bid you have your your request for quotes. You also have your set what you want. Yeah. A certain set of criteria and I think that if we went out to bid we'd have to specify that the records wouldn't leave the town wouldn't leave the town. To be honest my opinion it's semantics at this point because there's only one company that will meet the requirements that we want. She actually has quotes to digitize the records in general from three qualified companies. Wow. Yeah. Two. Essentially one of them we still have to use COTS to get it in the system anyway. Right. This will allow the town to be able to function if we have another COVID situation. For sure. From an efficiency standpoint once it's done it should make a difference. I'll make it. Once we do have this all in place people don't have to come into the vault do they? No they don't have to. By choice if they want to come in and people can come into the office and not go into the vault and still access through the system that will have in place as well. And payments can go right through the system as well. Yes. Online payments can be made set up to be made as well. How are our fees for that purpose with other municipalities close in proximity? Our fees. Our fees for requesting vault and services not huge. Of course not. There's not a lot of difference because I think most of those funds are most of those costs are set typically by the state by statute anyway. There's a list of fees that you can charge for those services. Thank you. I'm Rosie Lecaire and I'm a Berlin resident. I'm also a town clerk who helped train your new town clerk. Thank you Rosie. She's awesome. Thank you. I just wanted to let you know that the fees are set by statute. Thank you. Research fees are pretty minimal. It's $4 an hour for a vault time. It's a dollar a copy for any documents that's in the vault. 10 cents a copy for any like a list or card or list or document or something like that. So there isn't any leeway as far as that's concerned. The town where I work does have our records digitized and we are online. The small benefit of that is that researchers that don't want to make the trip from Burlington to the office can go online and they can actually make a purchase online and buy those records and we still get our basically the company gets about half and we get half. So you end up with about $1.50 a page. So you're not losing that revenue that you would be getting anyway. Thank you. Now can for the $61,000 it does qualify for Apple funds. That I know. Some time ago I did have an estimate out there again I didn't put it in the air but I hadn't listed it. I'm about $50 and that was almost a year ago now or it was a year ago now $50,000 so I'm not surprised that it's $61,000 now. So those costs are for what's currently in the vault and we'll have the equipment to then digitize our own as soon as it comes in. Yeah as it moves forward. And the ability to go further in time if we wanted from the 40 years. If we wanted to add more years in the past we could do that over time and chip away at it as well. So it's actually again the total package is a little more than $61,000 just to be clear for the board is thinking about moving on. There's also the $7,500 different costs on top of the $61,000 so it's really $68,500 So when do we have to have the ARC funds dedicated? They have to be spent obligated by 2024 and to 2024. And basically using the ARC funds for this we'll take and make the records more accessible without personal contact. Yes, absolutely. Your emotion? So before making a motion are we all in agreement that we would not have to go out and I would put it out to bed. That's my concern is that I feel like I would put it out to bed and state exactly what you want and see who can take and deliver. Okay. Now everybody knows what we're looking for. So with Rachel we'll be very tuned on the requirements that we're looking for and I'm going to put a quick turnaround for them to respond in like two weeks. The only thing is the only thing we're really looking for as far as the details go is have the records not leave the town. We don't want them to leave and we want the filing system. Scan and file There's a specific word. Index. So the 7500 that's for the hardware and the software to do this. Yes. In training. Absolutely. We want them digital. We don't want microfish and so on and so forth. It's okay. So we can lay those out I think pretty quickly. So I make the motion that we request Vince to do the research and the bid process for the digitization of the records for the town of Berlin. I'll second that motion. Any further discussion? Thank you for all your effort. Motion carries. Anything else Rachel? Nope. That's it for today. Okay thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening Rachel. Yeah. Okay Vince the beaver baffles. Okay beaver baffles. So you'll see this in your package. This explains it all. Basically it's going to cost $8,000 to put in two beaver baffles one on Mira Lake Road and one out here on Crosstown and this group the POW Protect Our Wildlife Vermont is willing to chip in the cost of each of the baffles. So they would contribute $4,000 to the $8,000 to have those installed. There are some agreements in here that they are expecting from us for that $4,000 as well at the bottom maintain the device for the instructions by the installer who would be Skip Lyle who's state approved notify him and POW if the device isn't working or needs some maintenance don't take the device out or let the beavers be killed without addressing the maintenance problems if the device malfunctions and there's a issue with their property flooding whatever then the beavers can be killed as a last resort but we still need to notify POW and then again it's they got a statement in there basically if we don't look to that then they're eligible to get their money back from us question this yes who's going to be raking the debris did we talk to our maintenance crew is that who we are expecting to do that's what we're expecting to do like now we talk to them well yeah it's not much it's a little bit different probably a little more difficult maintenance than going over with the excavator ripping it out like we do now right and it's going to be harder to reach so it will be a little more difficult so raking isn't necessarily using a power equipment we're using hand equipment sounds like probably again don't know the details I haven't talked to Skip Lyle myself yet to understand fully what that means okay right as far as the maintenance goes so there's all sorts of things about working over water yes there is okay how much cost the crew to go over there to take and do a demolition of the dam let's see the last one they did if I include the transportation time back and forth it was probably about three and a half hours where's the work for three of them to go over and tear it out to mobilize over, tear it out, and back what do they do with the debris they tear out they find a local landowner that's got a place for them to dump it how often are we doing this we've done it three times this year now is that three times in one spot or three times between the two spots and we did trap we paid a trapper for two or three beavers that they trapped and removed as well prior to the three cleanouts so that happened after we took two beavers away what does Tim figure the per hour rate for the equipment is because you've got a truck trailer I think we we booked the trucks at about $35 an hour each we booked the excavator I think at $65 or $85 I thought it was $85 I think it's $85 for the excavator three and a half that's way too how does that sound it is in today's market it is but that's like $125 an hour and more like $60 $65 an hour for the trucks so that's cheap I don't know sometime along we should probably take a look at call on to a few construction outfits and just kind of get it so we have a better nothing we want to run out of the equipment but just we have a better idea what time value of the equipment is while I know what's going on you can go to the FEMA website there's a lot of things out there where you find those those are federal rates and look closely some of those are equipment and operator do you want to have a vote on this or put this off till next meeting I'd like to put it off till next meeting more time to research they're going to be installed for a few months I'm going to give you a chance to talk to a good idea he's willing I think as well to come in and explain so maybe I can see if I can get him in as well to talk about what it might be looking like for the specifics to these two areas and what the maintenance involves and directly to the board and the pros and cons and when it works well and when it doesn't work well and what could fall short I'd like that well I mean the other thing is that reading this if those beaver baffles are not effective there's no out for us if they're not effective they're not working then we can't take them and get rid of them because I think we need to have a look at that what they're willing to give up on that contract yeah ultimately it comes down to what the property damage especially if it's washing out the road or anything like that excellent okay thank you approval of licenses permits I make the motion to approve payroll warrant 23-13 for payroll from December 4th to December 17 2022 paid on December 21st, 2022 in the amount of $66,716.02 also payable warrant 23-G11 with checks 22-533 to 22-566 for payables in the amount of $99,880.09 and the November general journal entries second any discussion hearing none those in favor aye motion carries Vince the liquor license here in cigarette that's the one that was discussed when Mr. Legue when he was here at the last meeting we never went through and formally approved their new license I make the motion to approve the class 2 liquor license as discussed at the December 5th board mm-hmm oh and tobacco license yes I see that now and that's for Makelewood convenience stores incorporated yes second any further discussion motion carries yep my phone keeps going and out on me let's see here licenses approval of the minutes from December 5th not withstanding sounding like a broken record but I approve them with grammatical changes and additions and some removal of senate structure and names and I've made notations and I'm going to give that to Vince and he'll see what those are made as needed exactly make the motion to approve the minutes of December 5th 2022 with comments second any further discussion all those in favor aye motion carries round table Dave no I don't have anything no thank you though Joe just want to mention again that the Berlin fire department has a open position for a town resident to be on the board of directors that position is approved by the select board so anyone interested contact your local segment I can do a adjourn tonight's regularly scheduled select committee second