 Okay, good evening all. I would call the February 15th regular select board meeting from the town of Berlin to order. With us is Flo Smith, Justin Lawrence, Angelina Capron. Also with us is Vince Conti, town administrator, Thomas Bodowski, assistant administrator and Diane Isabel, town treasurer. Additions of changes to the agenda, Tom. Vince. Yeah, I have one to add, which is the February 1st minutes for review as well. Okay. Anything else? That's all I have. Okay. Public comment, hearing none. Treasurer's report, Diane. Okay. I was getting ready to put the two vehicles for auction that we wanted to put for auction with the two old police vehicles and I was getting information on them. But in the meantime, the police chief has come to me and said that he would like to use one of those vehicles. He's still having problems with the vehicle he has. And we put like $1,700 into it last month. He said he's still having issues. So he's asked that I wait to put the vehicles on until he's chosen one of those vehicles. And he'd like to use it in the meantime until our new vehicle comes in that he's ordered. And then he'll take off one of the other vehicles that's being used right now. So before I do that, I need to obviously ask the select group, that's okay. And I don't know which vehicle he's gonna choose. He's just saying he's still having all kinds of vehicles with the vehicle he now drives. The two vehicles are out here in the yard. They're both tagged in the current inspections. One of them does not have a current inspection. One of them, the inspection was done in June of last year. But the other one, I do think the, I think it still has an inspection maybe till this month or March. Right, I wanna take a point that out too. I will, yeah, I will. Has all the equipment been stripped off those vehicles or is one still equipped for his use? It's been stripped off. So what does that entail for him to use it? I'm curious. That's the thing, he'll have to take the lights and sirens and stuff like that off of the one he has right now and put them on. Yeah, I just didn't know if he mentioned, I mean, by actually, I feel like you should be able to use that as an inventory in the meantime. I'm just curious if we know what expense that'll be. I don't know. I don't know. I know he came to me, it's been like over a week now. And he said, would you bring up the next meetings that I really need this and he didn't really give me any more information? I would think as long as he's operating within his budget, he should be fine, right? Yes. Motion on this. Does it require a motion? Consensus on this? I think that seems reasonable. Me too. Yeah, it makes sense to use what we got. Right. So what I will do is after he has chosen one and we've got everything solved, I will put the other one up for auction. And then later I'll do this one. Okay. Thank you, Diane. Anything else, Diane? Nope, that's all I got. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Newtown Center application, Tom. Thanks, Brad. So I sent out notice to the select board that the February 22nd hearing date for the Newtown Center was postponed until March 22nd, 2021. Once I get a definitive time, I will forward that to the select board as well. We're trying to get as many folks to attend that meeting to show support for the application. Probably won't get much time to speak. We have 10 minutes to present our application to the downtown board, but there may be a series of questions that could be directed towards members of the select board. So again, we will send that, confirm the date and time as soon as we get that confirmation from the agency. Okay, thank you. Anything else on this, Tom? No. Okay, Berlin Conservation Commission reappointment of Phil Gentilly. I make the motion to reappoint Phil Gentilly to the Berlin Conservation Commission. Your second? I'll second that. Any further discussion? Yes, please. Yeah, go ahead. So my question was the last meeting where we had the Conservation Commission on there, it was somewhat unclear and I just want to clarification as well. When we appoint members to the conservation committee, it sounds as though it's not a public and actual board, it's an advisory committee, is that correct Brad? As far as the commission goes, yes. They, everything that policy and everything else has come through the select board. Right, so one of the things I was curious about was just the number of members and why, I mean, I don't understand why we have to appoint people if it's just an advisory committee. And I wanted clarification on that. One of the things I was, if it's simply advisory, it doesn't matter how many members they have and who's appointed and can you explain that? Well, the trouble is, it's better to keep it on some formal footing because if you just have it, they can show up when they want, then that's not really what we're looking for. We're looking for somebody, people who are interested in the board, in the commission, to do the work that what will or do what work will come their way. And if you just have it as a social gathering, there's nothing that's gonna get done. It has to have some formal structure to it. So to me, what is, so the structure sounded like that we didn't really give any direction on what the town or the board thought the structure should look like other than just letting these boards have it. And so I'm just curious. I know that it doesn't change the appointment process, but I would think that given the depth of the topics these guys have been dealing with, that we would wanna provide some structure to our boards that's clear and it doesn't seem like we've done that as a board recently. So I just wanted to follow up on that. Well, back when the board was formed, there was a, I won't say a written out, written structure to it, but I believe it was the Conservation Commission was appointed to take in, manage the town, forest, and there was some other things, but I can't remember what they are. It was before my time, but we've always the board, the select board has always allowed them to manage the forest and the cuttings and whatnot. But in the past they've done a fine job with it. Most of those, most of the work that they do is structured around the state guidelines as far as forest management goes. They also do some other work in that they also, I think most of these people serve also on the Recreation Committee. So. Right, and that was kind of, it was one and the same until we just kind of separated it too, right? Yeah. Vence, I see Vence with his hand up. What's going on, Vence? Hey, I just like to jump in here my first day. Oh boy. Yeah, here we go. No, I'm just gonna throw this out there that I should probably dedicate some staff time to the commission and to the boards and maybe take a look at that whole process that was discussed at the last meeting as well. Maybe come up with some recommendations on how to pull that together, support them and move that forward a bit. Well, yeah, and I agree, Vence, and I appreciate that. And I think that's a great idea. My only, I don't have an issue in any way, shape or form. The more members on a lot of these commissions, the better in my opinion. And I think we're gonna get a more diversified approach perspective, if you will, on everything. I just feel like we need some clear direction and we need some structure there and I don't think we've had it. So I would appreciate it if we could do that. Okay, again, I'll take an action to look at that and come up with some recommendations. Thank you. Anything else, Justin? That's all I have. Well. No, that's wonderful. Thank you all. Yeah. Okay, all those in favor of reappointment of Phil Gentilly to the Conservation Commission, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries. Fisher Road, Colbert Design and Permitting, Robert Clark from Otter Creek Engineering. Robert. Good evening. How are everyone today? Good. Good, thank you. You're still? I'm doing well. Thank you. Good. So I was asked to come by Tom Badawski tonight and just give a brief update on where things are at with the Colbert Design and Permitting and kind of schedule for everything. Right now we're still on track with everything we had discussed a month or so ago, maybe a little bit more with the board. The intent right now is to essentially advertise for bid in the next two to three weeks, right around when you guys are going to be having your vote theoretically for this project. And then the thought would be bids would be opened at the end of March. And we would also know and have the results of a vote by that time. And then we could move forward with signing a contract and getting a contractor on board for construction this summer. I have all of the permit applications finished. For Tom's review, I need to send them with final plans. We're making some tweaks to those. We had a meeting with the geotechnical engineer and the structural engineer the other day to just make sure everything was aligned where we wanted it to be. But I think Tom should have those in his hands this week. And then we can go ahead and get the permit applications in. Does anyone have any questions? I did share with the board in their packet the design drawings as they stand now. So they. Robert, do you want to talk to about any of those or? So, yeah, I think the, the. Thing that was in there, Tom was the, the sections and the plan view, but I think we've, we've fine tuned those actually quite a bit since last week. Just, just because we, we had a couple of other changes. So we have a utility relocation plan for the existing utilities there. I think the biggest thing to notice is how much of an area this, this project really takes up. And, you know, it's certainly a much larger structure than what was there now. We've gone through all the hydraulic sizing requirements and kind of completed everything that we needed to do to satisfy the, the river management engineers criteria. But I think it, it's just a much larger structure. And, and I think the plans really put that into perspective when you look at them. It's what 30 foot wide, 25, 26 feet tall. Yeah. And it has almost a 40 feet of excavation when you factor in getting down to the footings. And it's a, it's a challenging site. Certainly. So I remember the initial conversation. This does appear to be an, is this narrower than the previous one we had looked at, and maybe taller or something. I don't know if anybody can explain that, but you know, we were talking about a much wider structure when we were going through there prior. Originally the state had requested somewhere between 35 and 40 feet when we went out and did some supplemental topographic survey in the late fall. We were able to get that width down to a total of 30, 30 feet of clear span. So it is a little narrower. It's not any narrower than the last update that we had provided, but it is narrower than those original conversations that we had. Okay. Thank you. I was just, I was curious. Yep. The culvert that's in there now is going to have, has the same flow as this structure is going to have. The, this structure will probably two and a half times the amount of flow that, that existing one has, if it really had to see it. This, it's kind of a unique hydraulic situation with Berlin pond and some of the, some of the things that are happening in this drainage area, but this, this new structure is much larger and it has much more hydraulic capacity. This is, this is a little bit off the, off the top of the engineering thing, but I actually had a taxpayer reach out to me. He's very active in the community and they asked about the financing after they saw it on their ballot. And, and they asked about the, with the army reserve and any, the buildings over there with, with the army reserve building there, that's, that's not a, an egress they're concerned about where we would be able to maybe ask them for any funding or anything like that. Is it Tom? Or Ben, some sorry. Tom's probably better equipped to answer that than I am at this point. We can ask anybody. I don't think they're going to say yes. No, I probably not. But I was just curious how, if we knew how that worked with facilities like that nearby, and what, what the actual process or procedure was surrounding it. I know the hospital is very anxious for that road. Culver's very place. And, um, they're set, they're, they're response to me on similar questions to them as it's, it's, it's a town. Asset and it's a town responsibility. So we don't know how it works on with specifically, I just didn't know if the army core engineers or anything, just any of it. That's all I'm asking. So, but we don't know what you're saying. I have not asked anybody my sense is that they'll say the same thing that the hospital did. Robert, have you ever heard of anybody working with a municipality like that in any way shape or form from a governmental capacity like that? Um, I never have. Uh, I'm trying to think. If there's. No, I never have. And, and, uh, I'm not aware of any other funding options that would be available either. They don't have a whole lot of assets there that, that armory. Do they? Um, That I don't know. It was just raised by a taxpayer and I thought it actually sounded like a valid question. Yeah. The only thing I was thinking is, I mean, you never see a whole lot of vehicles there. They're kind of spread out. Uh, you got that armory there and, uh, By the. Fisher on Fisher road. You got one down in, uh, Waterbury. You've got one in Richmond. Um, You've got a lot of assets in their parking lot to, to move. Um, anything else on this, Robert? I don't believe so. I think, um, I think we're on. On track and, and hopefully, um, There's been enough outreach with everyone in town to understand, you know, how important it is. I'm sure you guys have, uh, Received calls and stuff from concerned citizens who are interested in getting this replaced as soon as possible. So hopefully the vote goes well and. We can keep moving forward. Okay. Well, thank you, Robert. Anything else on this Tom? No, but I have some of that on the next item here to bring. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Robert. Thank you. Uh, Fisher road Colbert finances. So I sent in your packets. Um, This letter from. The Vermont economic development authority basically outlining the terms of their. Agreement with us for the town for lending. We were waiting for this or for the select board's review. The question that was outstanding with the, um, with the bank was. Because we need a townwide vote. Um, Um, Granting the select board, the, the right to the ability to, to do this project because it's over a five year term. Um, uh, we've, we've asked the bank, do we need to have that positive vote before we can apply? And their answer was no. And then after they answered that, they issued this, this terms letter. So, uh, if the select boards of the, of the mind, um, I just wanted to say. Um, the one that the application filed with the one economic and development authority. They don't have a lot of funds in it. And I'd hate to lose our, lose our ability to borrow at this relatively low interest, interest rate. I wouldn't know how to, how to phrase that one. Um, so we're simply seeking to. Uh, approve the application, right? Um, uh, yeah. application to the- Just for approval so that we can secure the funds should the taxpayers vote for it. I would move that we make the motion that we allow the town to submit the application of the On Economic Development Authority and the amount of 1,063,000. The screen just got shut down on me. Call it what, you know, up to $1,100,000 for the Fisher Road Culver Project. I second that motion. Thank you, Justin. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, so there you go, Tom. Let's see here. Development on Route 302 Town Fair Tire Center, the sidewalks. So, last meeting, you may recall that the Development Review Board is hearing tomorrow in application to redevelop the stakehouse in which is on, which fronts Route 302. Our new zoning regulations require that any properties that front 302 that are redeveloped have a sidewalk component. The last meeting, we had a draft maintenance agreement where the developer would in effect be required to do the maintenance of that sidewalk rather than the town. And the select board asked for a beefier agreement. I sent out an agreement that was reviewed by Bob Warnick as a PE or was a PE, a professional engineer. And there's also the Chair of the Development Review Board and Brian Carnes from the Wolf Engineering and myself came up with that beefier agreement. And the three of us think that that likely would have answered the select board's questions and concerns about maintenance of the sidewalk on the go forward. So if you have no issues, I'd ask the select board to agree to that maintenance agreement and sign it tonight. We would get the applicant for that project to sign it tomorrow. And it would be filed with the Development Review Board as part of the written testimony for that project. Here in motion. What was the beefier part of the agreement and how did they address the tier duration? I apologize, I didn't get an opportunity to review that, Tom. So if you could just give us a high level overview, I'd appreciate it. Yeah, let me just pull it up here real quick. So it's where we put in here the under the now therefore the second paragraph under one. When the time of the day when snow should be removed, we said any snow that is accumulated by six a.m. would have to be removed by noon. The maintenance of remove if there's any debris like trash or grass growing on to the sidewalk that they would need to cure that in eight hours. We talked about cracks larger than 18, excuse me, one-eighth of an inch or if a crack is becomes elevated over a cracks where it becomes a trip hazard that they must repair those cracks within 72 a.m. And then on the replacement of the sidewalk, we said that the replacement would need to be done if normal repairs cannot repair the sidewalk. So that paragraph there is where the beef is. And is there anything as far as recourse written into those? If they don't follow that, I know that based on my experience on this board, there's been issues with recourse or maybe not issues, but is there what recourse is written into it if they don't follow that? They would be in violation of their zoning permit and then we have this, then you could go after them with respect to that. How so? You could null and void their zoning permit and they couldn't operate a tire facility there. So I don't believe that to be true. What you're saying is we could shut the business down if they're in violation of the sidewalk. I don't know maybe we would ever be able to do that. So I was just curious how. However, however, the sweat board has the ability to take action against somebody who's violating permit. Right. So as our zoning administrator, I'm just asking you how that would work along with this policy being written in for this. There's two, there's two cures in the zoning regulations. One, there is a municipal ticketing that's written in the 2019 zoning regulations that in effect, allows an officer of the town to, to write municipal tickets. It's a civil violation and it has an escalating monetary penalty depending on how the select board writes that piece of that. So that's one. And the other one is you could, you could take anybody who's in a, violates a zoning permit, you could take them to court through, through your, through legal mechanisms that the, that the town has to cure the problems. So based on our previous conversation, we have all of these in place and, and I'm not, I'm not doubting that we have all these mechanisms there, the authority to do so and try to, but I'd really like to urge the, the borough and select board to come up with a way to do it, because isn't that why we had a few people attend meetings earlier in this year? It was because we're trying to figure out how we can actually enforce our zoning. So we can spend the time to write these things and have these procedures in place, but. And then realize we didn't have the ability. You're cutting out, Justin. We've had conversations prior about not being able to enforce some of our zoning and how to go about doing it. And I know I'm opening up a can of worms here, but to me, that's a huge piece. So we can say we have these mechanisms or we have these policies in place, but, and I agree with the agreement that we have. I just wonder how the town would actually enforce it because as a board or as a municipality, I don't think we've really addressed the issues of enforcement of zoning violations. Tom, are you a part of those meetings or was it justina? Maybe Brad would know better. I don't recall those Justin. No. The, the, the meetings with. For the civil. Penalties. I can't remember the, the scale, but I agree. Tom said rings true that it was honest. It was. If there were out, if they were not in compliance, there was a, there was a. I can't remember what the, the dollar amount for the fine was, but it just kept escalating until it got to be where it was somewhat. Large. It was. I remember it was by the week or by the day, but it went up fast. My recollection of the conversation though was the, the select board in the town doesn't currently have a procedure set in place for addressing violations in zoning or any of these. And so we have a penalty system in place and sure it does escalate. Maybe it does go up, but we don't have a process to actually collect on it and a procedure in place. And that's my number one concern. Well, well in the zoning regulations, there are procedures for violations of zoning. I, I don't. I don't have a memorized chapter in verse. No, no, I get it, Tom. And I, but we had had even like. Enforcement of everything. We had had Trevor Whipple come in at one point. Yeah. Yeah. And just the process on how we would go about enforcing these. And I feel like if we don't have a tight system, we have spent some time and we need to have these in place because it's important for the future development of the community. But we, it's no good to have a law written in place that eventually nobody knows you can, you can't enforce it or it doesn't even matter. So to me, my big concern isn't necessarily this particular policy as much as it is set, making sure we have a future policy set and a plan and a process and a procedure for enforcement of our zoning, because what good is our zoning if we don't have that in place? I know that it's all written in there, but we had some serious collection or some serious recourse issues as I recall. And I think it sounded like you and Flo, maybe we're on and understand Brad was definitely there. And I know Angelina was as well. So I, to me, it's like one of those things that we've kind of just not worried about that we need to get a grasp on, especially as we're doing this new town center and everything else. We need to make sure that we have that in place. I agree. 100%. Okay. We should take that and. And the future. That being said, I would move to approve the town fair, tire proposed sidewalk maintenance agreement. You're a second. I'll second. Okay. Any further discussion? Vince. Yep. Taking, if you would, could you look into that? I'll take a look at that. I'll talk to Tom as well and see what we have on file. And again, I'll come back with some, some thoughts and recommendations on what we find. Yeah. You can put that on your to-do list. Thank you. Anything else on this? All those in favor. Motion. Motion carries. Let's see here. So that's town fair. No appeals pending certification. As far as. Listers. So that document was sent out to the select board in advance. There was no outstanding appeals. And the listers that asked that you select board sign off on their letter to that effect. Is that for the whole board to sign or the, the whole board to sign? Okay. So we'll take it. A motion on that, please. I'd make a motion, but I don't have it in front of me. Tom, if you can. I don't think I heard it clearly. I could bring it up here. Thank you. Motion for the chair to sign. Look here real quick. Have it in your pile there. I don't have it. I think it is for the whole board to sign. That's right. Yes, it is. Yep. Okay. So we'll take it. A motion on that, please. I'd make a motion, but I don't have it in front of me. Okay. We can move it up here. Thank you. To approve the no appeals pending. Here you. Move to approve the no certificate. Here a second. I second the motion. Thank you, Justin. Any other discussion on this. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Motion carries. let's see here the we'll skip the liquor licenses for right now and virtual pre-town meeting day time have you heard from rosemary uh this is vince vince's deal here oh vince yeah um well i did talk to uh to rosemary a little bit about that um i guess the original date was scheduled for the saturday the 27th for this um the only concern that they uh that she expressed was the fact that the ballots are already out people are probably already receiving them um and that's good they thought that was kind of late um i don't think there's a i looked to see if there was anything and asked her about the the notice period as well i didn't get i didn't find anything you get an answer back on that one um as far as uh warning the meeting um for that so i think at this point um my thoughts and recommendation is to stick with the original date of saturday the 27th yep okay and rosemary was good with that uh sure there was okay there was some reluctancy there um yeah you know they they obviously they felt the sooner that we could have it the better yeah but you still have that you still have the warning period correct it was already worn for the 27th so well i think some of what the issue is is not it's the uh informational town meeting that they're going through the agenda the videos we talked about people doing i'd sent out emails we'd had prior discussion about it we're mandated to do it and i feel like that the concern is now that so much time has passed since we've done this or made the decision and especially the night before town meeting with all the absentee ballots that we'll receive this year you know it is a little bit late and and you know what we had talked about potentially doing a month and a half ago would have been much more informative to the voters i don't know i mean everybody was involved in that so i don't know i don't know what happened but i mean people need to know what they're voting on have some conversation and they're not going to wait until the day before town meeting to send their absentee ballots back and i i think that's a genuine concern and i feel like the we've dropped the ball on that it's just my two cents but i brought it up a couple of times and there's not much else i can do well the 27th the 27th is uh what four days before town meeting five it's the saturday so it's four days yeah part part of the driver is that this this meeting had to be held within 10 days of town meeting yeah so you couldn't we weren't we weren't able to do it too far in advance right but we were able to put together an informative video going through all the all the items on the agenda and then we could have played that which is one of the emails i sent as a recommendation going through all of those items for voters and then having the question and answer so i'm actually i wish we had done that i wish we talked about it a month and a half when i brought it up as i understood it the uh i have a go ahead angelina you can get any emails so i don't know i'm with the email system but i'm not getting emails i don't i don't know what's happening but uh that's concerning to me um and i also just want to say i think that the mail system right now is you know lagging because of code and think that four days is sufficient um make decisions and mail in their ballots i to be honest that's just my thoughts and uh i'd love to hear your thoughts i i agree with that to some degree angelina i'm not going to completely disagree but i think there's a lot of people that the day they get the ballots in the mail uh in an effort not to uh forget about them put them aside or anything like that they're going to fill them out and send them back anyway so typically speaking four days would probably be absolutely enough but we're going to get a substantially high number of return ballots uh prior to even free town meeting this year that was my concern and i in your i've already filled mine out so i i've read about well the i thought part of that justin was that the uh the informational part had to be interactive it did but part of what i brought up was prior to the interactive meeting was the fact that we would go down through everything on the ballot have a discussion about it allow people if you know have have a brief it's kind of like if you're running for select board or whatever have somebody sent in a paragraph on you know why is kelloch Hubbard uh kelloch Hubbard library asking for this amount why is this organization asking for this amount why is the borough and fire department asking for this amount and let it let them know how they came up with this number and how it was supportive of the town but we didn't even give these people an opportunity to do so and i brought it up a couple of times i i wish we had that's all i can say and i think it's too late now just go ahead just a quick question how many people do we expect to attend the free town meeting at this point at free town meeting yeah it's it's different i mean it's usually it's relatively small numbers um but i think given the fact that when i spoke to rosemary and karen in 50 of the typical voting population prior to making the decision as a board uh to to try include ballots mailed out to everybody along with the school board 400 plus tech residents or voters had requested for absentee ballots which is substantially larger than normal to me it's a something we needed to address and and i apologize for that as as i just apologize i don't even know what to say to the taxpayers for that hopefully they get all the information they need if not i don't know like reach out to vince concy maybe no comment okay anything else on this vince no i've got nothing else on this one okay are you setting a date well i would think uh the 27th as i was warned as i'm a little confused i hesitated saying anything but why can't we just at the next meeting go over each ballot item and and read it off so everyone's aware of what it is and if we want to comment on it comment on it but at least it'll be out there way ahead of the meeting um you i don't think it you know at this point you could just read down the list of articles and if anyone wants to talk about them or knows about them we could bring it up but it wouldn't take more than 15 or 20 minutes and then people could go find the video online and watch it later if they wanted to but at least it would be out there and you could invite like the fire department to come in and say something quick if they want to about a reduction in their budget if they knew about it or how would we do that yeah that's that's fine i think we could just let each each group know that we were going to be talking about it next week seems reasonable to all of the burlin residents how i mean so i would think you'd be able to so what kind of notice would be to let people know to attend them i think angeline i think what john sang is not necessarily that this would be our interactive meeting but this would address the concerns that i just spoke about where getting the information out in a fast process or maybe i'm wrong john you can correct me um but it wouldn't mean we have your typical town your meeting warnings and so you could do it that way and it would address that but it would also i mean two weeks away so we we'd satisfy all of our warning requirements correct yeah i think so and then and then people people with resources like front porch forum and karen's email blast would probably would be able to have access to the video for further review later on or you know work on the river council of the arts check out the burlin select board i think that's a good idea thank you justin thank you so who who's going to produce this video we're doing it right now it's on zoom right john seems that way to me we could do that's what i thought we could just record the the meeting the meeting and post the link on the website i don't think it needs to be anything i don't think there's going to be anyone not anyone but i don't think there's going to be that many people to watch it but at least it's there if someone wants to it's there's a resource that people can file through should they want access and information it doesn't require a tremendous amount of resources other than what we're already doing and it addresses that concern correct so can i can i try to summarize it make sure i understand it please do okay so at the next select board meeting have uh have on the agenda basically a ballot review to just to go through the items give a little bit of information on each one take a cut of that video probably get it out there to front porch forum and in karin's email at least uh as an informational piece and then follow up with the interactive meeting on the 27th that pretty well sum it up uh yeah i mean i i it makes sense doesn't it it does well excuse me excuse me that your next select board meetings march first the day before town meeting pretty bad point the 20s the 27th is saturday um just before that for that so that's four days ahead of the of uh town meeting well there goes that idea yep so this was a couple meetings ago yeah basically the the pre-town meeting is worn on the 27th um paul ghillies will probably go down through the list of the articles like he always does and the only trouble i see is that or actually shouldn't be a trouble uh just get just send a email to the people who are have articles in the morning to that there's a zoom meeting for this and they'll have taken if they want to be there they can be there to take in uh tell us why we should be taking uh tell the voters why they should be uh voting to uh give the money that about right so it was what i can see it was just leave it as it was worn for the 27th see who show see who comes on to the zoom meeting on mute so are we saying that we can go ahead and create a link and put it on front porch forum for people um to attend that meeting well you can take in you can take and put out to attend the meeting on the 27th and then once that's done you can take a link from the um the website the town's website to that meeting you can't do that can't you i'm not into computer so i'm assuming you can do that yes brad you can do that so that would take in satisfy everything anything else on this dude does the select board want to weigh in on what time that was or just keep a part where it was originally worn i would say keep it as it was originally worn i mean kind of okay that's good that's good thank you kind of how to change it now does berlin uh the town of berlin have a facebook page a what what page yes who yeah i believe i know that we do but i don't know who manages it does anybody else karen that's what i thought so another idea is to go ahead and put it on the facebook page and then it can be shared the town doesn't actually have a facebook page karen has her own facebook page that she had she invites members in the community to look at her facebook page but we do not have one that is our own uh the last person that did have one that was our own was jeremy hanson he was one managing that but then when he left that disappeared so someone is still managing a facebook page called berlin vermont posting stuff for the town and links about the town really okay so maybe it maybe it's still jeremy then i do know karen does have one but i think she calls it social media so my idea is just that um i don't know i could i could share it to have that page and then i could go about wherever it goes but um that's just an idea to get it out i'm yeah um i'm looking at it now diane it's got 953 members that see unofficial berlin vermont page unofficial okay that's run i knew i wasn't mean i know i wasn't maintaining one so okay that's run by uh karen okay yeah and she calls it what she just calls it berlin berlin vermont okay i thought she had a different name for it okay anything else on this hearing nothing um minutes from december 30th 2020 and january 6th 2021 and february 1st 2021 make the motion to approve the december 30th 2020 minutes as presented second per second john did okay uh any other discussion all those in favor i i motion carries um motion on the minutes from january 6th 2021 i also make a motion to approve the january 6th 2021 minutes as presented second any further discussion all those in favor i i motion carries hi and february 1st 2021 i'll make the motion to approve the minutes for february 1st 2021 your second i'm sorry i was just catching up on the uh just finishing reading them so second flow second brad yeah uh any further discussion on this when did the when did those minutes come in tom friday and i sent them out to you guys on friday all those in favor well i i have some comments i mean there's certain parts that are fairly thorough on the on the public comments but then when we actually talk about the discussion about the vast application i mean there was a lot that was brought to light towards the end of the meeting um like not like we have a public board not not taking minutes and not holding votes and not um acting you know following open meeting law quite frankly um and and that's fine if they're advisory only but i think in my view we've been giving we've been giving them quite a bit of responsibility for a board that's just advisory to tell us you know what we should be doing from a conservation standpoint i mean we've almost uh let them go a little too far um in in their duty um just based on what they said that their role was so you know none of that none of that's captured at the the end of the minutes um but you know we we do have quite a bit of thorough he said she said in the beginning from the public comment so so do can we review the review the the zoom meeting recording and then have the minutes amended to correct that john well as long as long as the minutes are posted um um within five days um we've met the the requirement there the within five days of what the meeting um what i would say is um we can put this off till next select board meeting and approve them then and everybody can have their chance to uh write out their amendment stool can we ask whoever does the minutes to review the the footage or the we're paying something to do this right so they they should review the the the zoom meeting recording that we have or the orca bio and be able to do that for us right i don't i don't have a tremendous i don't have three extra hours i think that meeting was to totally review it but i know there was some a lot of content omitted and there was nobody's fault like john mentioned well we can take in uh we can have the have the secretary review it so the consensus want to put this off till next meeting i would agree to that i definitely gives her time to do that thank you okay um approvals of licenses permits vouchers and applications oh i thought you'd have that up by now well you're so good at it come on flow i'm going to defer to one of you because i was trying to pull it up and it's not there so unless tom can put it on my screen which would be appreciative otherwise i'll defer to one of you nice folks well why don't we take and do this i make i make the motion to approve payroll warrant 21-16 for payroll from january 17th 2021 to january 30th 2021 paid on february third 2021 in the amount of 47 810 and 29 cents payroll warrant 21-17 for payroll from january 31 2021 to february 13th 2021 paid on february 17th 2021 in the amount of 45 319 dollars and six cents payable warrant 21 g 17 with checks 208 9 9 to 20 9 3 5 in the amount of 64 452 dollars and 43 cents january reconciled bank statements for the general fund sewer commission and water division and january budget status report charl balance and deliquent tax report i get it all yep thank you john second any further discussion all those in favor hi hi motion carries um here uh liquor licenses so we need to go into the liquor commission and approve the licenses for china moon wolmer and brockton corporation's jobs need to exit the select board meeting and enter the liquor commission meeting we can just do it all in one sure i make a motion to approve liquor licenses for alpo vt ink uh doing business as china moon buffet first class walmart stores east lp second class brockton corporation doing business as shah's beer and wine number 75 16 second class second uh any problems with the uh these licenses tom or vince any complaints from the police none that i'm aware of i'll also defer to tom as well none none none that i've heard either and it's it's a follow oh sorry all those in favor i motion carries uh let's see here let's see here uh roundtable uh flow yes i wanted to thank angelina for her three years on the board wanted to make sure to do that because we won't be meeting again until the first and i don't want to forget so thank you for all of your service angelina and i also wanted to just say for all those who are listening in on the meeting that we have two people running for one for three-year seat one is theron lee sleeper and also um c david soyer and that's it for right now i might have one more thing before we're off but that's it for right now thank you john thank you lee um i was just gonna uh i've been thinking about our last conversation with the uh the the public members and the conservation committee members about the snow machine trail and the conservation management plan and i think it would be a good idea if we go ahead and have a third party write the conservation management plan um there was a lot of concern from the conservation committee that due to the the the short uh staff list not the short staff list but the number of uh committee members that they had that it was going to really be hard for them to be able to do that and you know i think you know we we brought this on um we as a select board and asked for um this along with vast and i i think that you know um we should go ahead and put out a quick rfp and uh go ahead and hire out that conservation plan and the conservation committee the select board vast the mountain bikers can all go ahead and weigh in on it uh but if we have a third party doing it um it can be more inclusive and we we can all compromise and get get all the pieces that we want um and and get something by june um you know my my thought is is you know just with the amount of work that probably won't be able to happen if we if we don't do it that way john actually based on some of my thoughts and reflection on the prior meeting uh sounded like wendy win didn't sound not overwhelmed but it sounded like they felt quite tasked with everything that was in front of them um when i i was one i think that i was thinking about the same thing and i know i know that josh walkers on here uh from the public and one of the things that he he was he was been reached out to is to get other people involved and i don't know josh what role or what piece um you were asked to be involved in but it sounded like we have a real opportunity here to be able to just congeal everybody especially by utilizing a third party in my perspective um and in eliminating the stress and maybe maybe the conservation commission getting into the leads on this uh and being able to focus on what's important to the town if we could do something along those lines i completely agree well and i think you know going going back and listening again you know them being advisory uh you know their part was advising us on the 10 acres that was considered highly valuable valuable conservation land right i mean that was their advice to us as we want to protect that uh the very best we can we know um because of the other areas in the state you know if you go out to playing fields vast runs right through the middle of a wetland and there's state of vermont conservation science all over the place and there's you know uh extremely steep trails um in callas woodbury Worcester berry all over the place and i just think that you know it would be better to to have um an outside company do this where the conservation committee can advise us on you know what should be in it but the end of the day it should really be the select board approving that before it goes to the montland trust i i agree it doesn't it doesn't mean that there's any bias in any way shape or form i just think it would break it down to the more mechanical piece of it the the so that moving forward again kind of like i brought up with these boards earlier in the meeting i don't know if you had been able to join us yet john uh but the fact that we need to develop a system and a process and a procedure for all of these i feel like that'll give the the the town the municipality the baseline that it needs to make future decisions without delay or procrastination that are very clear and defined for our residents yeah i was uh contacted by um uh tom willard and i think on behalf of wendy wendland and just for uh for advisory on um what you should do uh for approaching vermont land trust and in in the past we have already done this we've uh found the records in the town clerk's office that vermont land trust has already approved the snowmobile usage in the town forest and they just want a management plan and um we we drafted up a management plan and submitted it to i am not sure if we got to the board or if we submitted it to the um conservation committee but um since then they've dragged in wanting to do the mountain biking the snowshoeing the summer activities the hunting and and invoking that all in with our approval for um opening a trail yeah so one of your concerns is the fact that you feel like each outdoor recreation activity is not addressed individually it's addressed as a whole which i can see where that might be a concern is that true josh um it's a concern i'm sure with the conservation commission but um since the biking trails have always already been there for a number of years the hiking the snowshoeing the hunting has all been there for a number of years and then we asked for permission to open up an existing trail that was already there in the past it comes to this a big uh snowball effect yeah i just think you know i think with with so much on everyone's plates it'd be best just to um do an rfp and have an outside uh company consult with all of us you know take information from the conservation committee take information from vast and put bring bring a management plan amendment to the um select board for approval before sending to from outland trust it seems simple straightforward everyone gets uh you know weigh in and in the end the select board will look it over and decide if it's right for the town you know we we submitted a generous plan to the conservation board of going up and maintaining that throughout the year maintaining all the water bars the brush building a new bridge for them and um and and i just don't know why it didn't go anywhere from there i understand them wanting to get a plan for the whole scope of what their use is for them of everybody for the mountain but why now why why now josh because we asked josh i can understand your frustration and i i understand where you're coming from especially because you're participating in potentially one activity that you can't currently do throughout that area and i know you participate in multiple other activities that are up there and it does feel it does seem like i get from your perspective where uh this one concern got lumped into everything and i kind of feel like it did myself on the board i definitely feel like it did and so i think what we're trying to accomplish here is is a clear defined uh plan that that that that somebody from an out another advisory a professional firm that's not tasked by volunteers which are probably unfortunately overworked by everything we already have and unable to put in the time just like i know you've dedicated hundreds of hours to the the proposal that vas put in and and all of that i think that i think that what we're trying to do is accomplish a very uh personalized for the town of berlin uh proposal to well we want to put it out to our fp for this to be written specifically for the berlin town forest and in there it'll actually address each maybe individual that was my next question was will it address individual recreation uh just the snowmobiles just cross country just snow showing how how do you propose that that would be done john based on that request well i guess my my thought was was uh we'd we'd put together a simple statement of work of updating the current current plan adding a link to to it um you know and vince probably knows how to do this better than i do but really you know really just you know outlining you know bringing it up to date with these sections and you know around you know mountain biking and uh snow machining um you know what so the more the more i listened in you know it it just became clear that there there's a communication issue going on here because we've been talking about this for over six months and the things that we've brought up and the things that have been discussed have come full circle and were again brought up as major concerns at the last meeting and i'm sitting there you know shaking my head saying you know i you know to to these people these are real concerns and and i can appreciate that but i feel like we've brought them forward and answered on whether it be a steepness of a trail or hey did you know that um uh cross country skiers actually like a packed trail um and snow machine trails more than trying to drudge their own trail up the mountain um or you know in other towns walkers actually prefer a well groomed trail um rather than trying to pack through the snow themselves um you know i'm wondering where you guys will draw the line is it going to be bird watchers are going to need to make sure they don't bring any bird feed up there and seed the ground with an invasive species you know i think you're going to have an agreement separate with every different person the snowmobile club is only going to be using that area for one one of the trails one of many trails that are up there for four months maximum out of the year i do feel that the vast club has been penalized here to some degree through this process because you know if you go online you can see the mountain bike association has maps of all the mountain bike trails up there um and those are being able to be used by all everybody you know skiers hikers bikers snowshoers but and snowmobiles won't go on those trails so don't worry about that right so so maybe maybe you know depending on what the what all of you think um you know is that something we could have vince work on for next time an rfp uh to send out to uh solicit bids for a management plan upgrade uh or update for i'll volunteer to do it you like that well i was gonna i was gonna say who are you gonna take and target your uh rfp to there's a man there's gotta be management firms or resources on a state level that'll handle this um but i was kind of wondering if you were looking at like a forest or something like that no i think it would have to be somebody specific to manage properties and conserve properties of not specific to it but with an expertise in that area certainly i mean there's that we're not the only conserved land in the state of vermont so i'm sure somebody else helps write these management plans for towns municipalities we could probably ask the vermont leagues of cities and towns if if they are aware of uh firms that do this good idea and let me uh let me take a look at that and see uh who's out there right and i'll uh i'll make some recommendations to the board on what we can find out there for resources so for the next meeting just to clarify so i'm clear on this what we're asking vince to do is find out who in the area or who who can help us with this management plan for the town forest and then are we also asking for any uh if we do an rfp a proposed rfp to include just a generalization or are we asking it to include specific features um the only one of my one of my concerns with the existing management of that town forest that really really i don't i don't think it's ever been brought up or i've even brought it up or anything but it's one of my concerns is that on this heavily conserved land that we keep hearing so much about i do know that there's some personal cut-in mountain bike trails that people utilize and continue to utilize that aren't part of the the actual trail map that aren't part of the proposal um and and yet the town the conservation commission doesn't appear to have that bring that to the select board's attention or or i or maybe they're not aware of it maybe i'm totally off on that but i i believe it's been addressed in meetings prior um and so we're just going to let people that go add and use it uh at their own discretion and not go through the proper channels utilize it without penalty or following a process yet we have an organization that's willing to partner with the town and do great things for the forest potentially uh trying to go through the proper channels only to be penalized so i just want to make sure that that's something we address in this process as well just this one thing and maybe i can address this to vince is i know that barry town has barry town forest and there's also bike trails of millstone bike trails go in there and it's here but or the snowmobile club as well and maybe they have some plan um already written that that we can go by you know because that's a shared use they ski snowshoe you know that the frisbee gulf and that's all in barry town forest yeah there's a lot of those there's a lot of those i think throughout the state that we can you know i can take a look at and see who they've used or how they've done it as well um yeah or just use their plan as you know just um duplicate their plan as a baseline where we don't have to muddy it up so much and take so much time from people you know yeah i think you know we've been talking about this josh and you know this for for three the three years that i've been on the board we've been talking about this and i and i think except a few years ago i mentioned that maybe we should have a collaboration with other towns and other boards to kind of figure this out i'm a huge fan of snow machining snow revealing i i love it um you know i have some questions is our forest you know conserved um you know what is behind them not wanting have a snow in our forest what what is there needing to be protected so badly but i i think that it's time for us to to give people who like to snow machine um a trail that is permanent and i mean this has been going on for years like i said and it's it's just time now um for this to get figured out so what i would like to see is um a collaboration between towns you know a trail that's gonna be maintained and um and be a permanent fixture and to satisfy everybody yep and i agree and there's been studies done on the environmental impact of snowmobiling and you know it must not be much if there's like five thousand miles of snowmobile trails in the state of vermont and the hiking and biking is a lot more of an impact on the environment than a snowmobile is and another thing i wanted to let you guys know is um i've already gotten every other landowners written permission there's 19 different landowners between between going from shaw's which shaw's is assigned landowner to to use their property all the way to uh barrows road in our northfield so there's 19 landowners that have already approved the trail to go on their private property and it's the the town forest is the only place that we don't have permission for it yet so i guess so i so my friend is why and i my question is the biggest question what is the reason yes so the reason the reason's been brought up angeline a couple of times in some of the prior meetings and it's things like um just the grade is too much which i've personally have been snowmobiling a little bit this year and i've been down some pretty steep grades and i haven't seen any safety issues and i've been up on about you know shared usage um and how to incorporate that and i've been on some trails personally where i've met probably 60 cross country skiers and they were thrilled that we're there and i actually saw the cross country ski club grooming the trail with the snowmobile right down by the like next to the snowmobile trail so to me i think the biggest thing at number one honestly is uh fear of the unknown i think that currently if a lot of the the people that are voicing opinions uh are maybe a little bit nervous about not realize or maybe they don't realize the the the level of professionalism it's not the snowmobile clubs out there that it used to be maybe or the perception that it used to be i mean if you trace out some of these new snowmobiles they're 20 000 a piece for a brand new one you're not talking somebody just ready to smash one into a tree because they're out doing whatever just acting out of control you're talking and i think that but that's not i i don't think that's the visual visualization some of the some individuals perceive simply based on the unknown um so i think some of it's a little bit of education um and some of it's actually not being i mean you got listen we all own that land it's not just the people that snow shoe or cross country ski there's a portion of people in the community that own it that are snowmobiles and they have the right to use it too and i i feel like that might have gotten overlooked but ultimately it's the fear of the unknown well and i think i agree with you about the fear of the unknown justin and reflecting back and looking back um the number of people that were extremely concerned about opening up burlin pond that lived around the pond uh for the reasons of traffic for the reasons of increased people on the road all of those things um you know it was it was an unknown at that point um and i could tell you you know some of my neighbors now were were dead set against it and now they're users of the pond um they loved the pond they loved a kayak out there they they loved to do do these things um and they realized it really really wasn't that bad um another concern that we heard was you know the increased traffic on the on the road and we we heard we you all heard the same thing with burlin pond being opened up um but in the time that i've been in burlin the only complaint that i've heard about public complaint that i've heard about traffic on the road was when a tow a car that was in the road was towed uh that was a walker um so you know people adjust and get used to it and you know um it's it is a busy area and you know we all have to be careful but there's many safety things that we can do that i've been observing in other towns um such as posted speed limits on brookfield road right now there's not one um which means it's 50 miles an hour according to the state police uh not one posted speed limit there um there's no no parking signs along the sides of the road um there's a number of things that we can do to help mitigate the issues and i think we can address all of those things but i don't think we ought to penalize the the vast club when i i think there's a large majority of or not a majority but a a large group of people in burlin that do snow machine and would love to be able to access um other areas and not just drive down um you know a lot of pavement to to get out of town and i think i think you know we as we all uh we all pay for the land by deferring the taxes on it by not having the taxes on it by it being townland and if we can open it up and let more people enjoy it especially during the winter when there's so little to do i think we should but um i'll be quiet now vince okay well just as you're right i mean i i mean i think it's time to put this to rest things that it's you know it's been ongoing for long enough and it needs to uh it needs to come to a rest and so it needs to be voted on and figured out and that you know okay so i just just want to say this all started with a question do you want um do you want us to investigate having a third party write the um update the um management plan and i think the answer is yes i do that we want to make that investigation um find out three or four people that we can get an rfp quote out to um and what that's going to look like uh and i think also um i heard come up in conversation the depth of that and i think we again to put it to rest i think we need to go into depth on this management plan and cover all our bases um and get a very comprehensive management plan that can satisfy everyone vince vince one of my concerns would be in an effort not to penalize the uh the the vast people that are currently requesting to use it and we have plenty of other demographics that are currently allowed to use it yep i would almost want to narrow that down uh i think that if you read the deed it says that from time to time we'll create a new management plan um but what i don't want to have happen is have somebody come in and say it's going to take six more months to get one done by a third party i'd like to ask that that that we look for someone to specifically write a management plan dedicated to the use of snowmobile traffic on that property and also the overarching plan can i put something in is um you know and it just popped into my head was uh going with like the very town forest like if vince could uh contact them or contact some of these other towns because there's almost every town in a lot of the cities in the state of vermont have snowmobile trails in them so if we were just to contact whether it be the select board of those towns and see what they have for a plan for their snowmobile trail instead of uh bringing in a third party like angeline has said we've been in this for three years you've gotten input from a numerous amount of people i've given you over a hundred um signatures of people that want this and um when i was joined in on the zoom meeting there was a lot of people that wanted to be on that meeting that couldn't attend it and that's why i got the signatures um and i think that that um the signatures and the people that were in the zoom meeting you know outweigh the people that don't really want to see it and the people that don't really want to see it you know this this um town forest is for everybody and um i think that i really think that uh the snowmobile trail should be able to go through and i don't think it should be muddied up with a bunch of other think you know people like uh just in saying them taking another six months from getting somebody else i think that um you know as a snowmobile club we've already given them a management plan and like i said it was a generous plan and um if we could just come up with an agreement with the with the conservation board and the select board um this should be able to go through and i don't see why it should take until june to figure this out right well i see where i see we're going with this josh especially given the bridge structure and things involved in this right because we don't want to get material materials for that bridge yeah and we're going to want to make sure if we're going to partner with somebody to help cover the cost of this so maybe part of what you could do vents along with the process that we just discussed was reach out i i don't think that i can't speak for the board obviously but obviously john's voiced his perspective i think it's clear my perspective is that if there's a responsible way to utilize the property that we should accommodate every single resident for every single use that we can up there um and i know that the snowmobile is supported by a tremendous amount of the population um and so maybe we could reach out to these other municipalities because they must have conserved land it must not be or there's not that much difference and ask them maybe what they would do or how they would handle it so that maybe even at the next meeting as an agenda item um it's possible that you could have some proposals that you know this is what barry town said they would do or this is what east montilier what they said they would do or this is what callus said they would do and we can have some some true discussion on that and and maybe if it's just real cut and dry based on what you get for feedback from that maybe maybe we don't need to rfp for a specific thing and we can just say okay well we're comfortable making that decision and moving forward on this piece of it um period and but i i mean i think we still need to we still need to have the the plan in place over review done overall but is that what you're saying josh well you know i don't want to take too much more of you guys time i know you've spent a lot of time on this there was one other thing where you know you gave the conservation board until june to come up with a plan and that's still not an answer for us to have our trail they got a plan and then it's still the formalities have gotten permission for the trail and um if if we need if we want vast to grant money for a bridge that we that the vast that the stonebill club is going to have to pay for we have to have that grant actual application in by may so we're like a month beyond when our grant application can be paid for by vast so because it you know the one bridge that i know the select board um graciously said that they would pay for because it was going to be used by the town and owned by the town on darling road you were going to pay for the materials and we were going to supply all the labor of the labor to build the bridge you and you guys were just i gave you an itemized material list on how much it was going to be and it was going to you know close to three that was twenty seven hundred dollars and you guys approved three thousand in case we needed to put a gate down at the bottom of the the darling road to make sure that there was going to be no trucks or jeeps that got up there right so so and and we also need to redo there was there's like a little footbridge on black road that we need to replace to get across with the trail groomer that was going to be the full cost of the snowmobile club and that's where we would need to file for a grant from vast for that so we are hoping we could get this done before june more like before may because we need to have a grant application by may you need to have a finalized approval from the board or a finalized hard no from the board to in order to make a decision by the end of well well either that we're going to have to scramble to try to come up with money from that actual private snowmobile clubs to fund the bridge and then maybe next year we can apply for the grant to cover the the uh the cost of the bridge but if we could apply for the grant now it's hard these clubs don't have a lot of money they just run on a swing and a prayer you know it's a lot of volunteer work that goes into this and so it sounds to me like with the timelines that we may have set for expectations as a board um in in thinking i'm a layman to this i don't know whether that you know what the to me a june first timeline sounds reasonable um but but but when you put it in that maybe we should we should also involve more people um i wish i would have known this we should have sped up the process meeting you know i wish i knew the conservation board was going to be um dealing with in the last meeting there was nothing in the agenda that that was going to happen or else i would have been um president the meeting well i that that deadline was set in a prior meeting okay um and then and what i believe happened was in the public comment time um that that conservation commission and some some supporters of not having motorized recreation on that area uh we're present for the meeting but it sounds to me like the the point you're making is our timeline that we had originally set on the prior meeting um for a june deadline and expectation i believe it was the prior meeting but i believe what you're saying is that timeline just not realistic for the needs of a club and the support that the the town would get from the club if we were to partner with them correct well i hope that you know you get someone a deadline of like you get the june first they would have it done before may 31st or whatever right right so but what you're saying is just just the timeline we set for the plan and all that which i think i think we can probably fast forward a lot of that by putting this out to our fp sure yeah so the the board can readdress the board should be able to readdress this timeline issue and i maybe that should be another you know vince when when we come back with the proposals or the ideas for the proposals for the next meeting we also have a topic on there and we invite baston there to talk about these issues so that we can address these potential timeline concerns so that we can put together exactly what we're looking for because that's after all going to be part of the rfp so i mean obviously a may 1st deadline versus a june 1st deadline to affirm that's busy it might mean whether or not they bid on it or whether well also what about if you know vince talks to barry town and he gets a form i think that says this this and this and he gets one for me small pillio and he gets one that's heard that's part of what we've asked him to do at this point why can't we just take one of those at the next meeting and say yep that one fits just the guidelines exactly what we need that's going to be our management plan let's submit this to the conservation board and have them send it off to vermont land trust i think we may end up doing that we'll have to have it as an agenda item in order to take action on it yeah um so we're asking and i would personally prefer to do that in the interim to get things moving forward if it was in a way that was beneficial to the town without tying up expenses associated with hiring somebody so that everybody's not completely overwhelmed and tasked with this huge burden i think we're what we're going to ask them to do is exactly that and hopefully vince can come back to us with with somebody that said with somebody says this is exactly what we did and how we addressed it this is how we address the slope maybe we have to make some minor alterations to it in order to approve it um and then ultimately i don't know that we need to send it to to the conservation commission for approval we should probably get their input yeah and we could do so at the same meeting at the same time and ask them to be present for that should vince come up with something like that yeah but ultimately the select board would be the ones that would approve the management plan that we would then forward off so their input as an advisory committee would be valued we're not relying on their approval so given josh you're not completely off i think that's a great idea and not the one i'm we're we've asked for them to do some research and maybe we could reach out vince to them as well and ask that they have a proposal on what they'd like to see for that so that we could look at that for the next select board meeting even um and i mean i mean i agree with angeline i want to get this over and done with and put it to bed i'm done talking about it and i not in a negative way yeah i think it's been too long it needs to be addressed yep to be done in dealt with no thank you for your input angeline anything else john you're welcome josh i see you guys you know have a a good solid plan and i want to see you guys happy and do your snow machining i i know that if i could i'd be out there too so you know i i want to see that happen for you and unfortunately i'm i am leaving the board um so i won't be working on that in june but i i would love to see for you guys to have that sooner than later i think it's time to get this done it's it's been it's been long enough and it keeps getting put off and enough um i appreciate it thank you that's just my my two cents you're welcome anything else on john angeline anything more on uh roundtable i have nothing gustin yeah i had sent uh it was just in the form of a text to tom i see still kind of on here uh i think uh karin had brought up i don't know why we didn't think to do it uh you know i think there's been a little bit of unusiness but or whatever around around the fact that we made our admin our assistant town clerk a full-time position and you know she said you know there's nothing that would at that point in time and reflected in the minutes there was nothing on the orca video because none of it had been approved none of it had been published there's not a line item in the budget um and i had asked if we could just send a letter summarizing the offer that the the board made to karin to her for her personal reference because if i was to me that would i mean to me that'd be kind i would like to have that in front of me you know you're you're being told one thing and it would be nice to have that letter so i think that'll be a standard procedure we'd put in there for anything and i don't know why we didn't do it but i i was wondering what the other board members thought about summarizing the offer that we had made to karin should she accept it so that it was in there and it was solid and it was pretty clear to taxpayers where you know all the conversations the board had had about it unmute yourself john i'm i'm good with that i didn't i didn't really think about you know the that aspect of it i'm sure karin would you know just like something summarizing exactly you know what we agreed to so she knows for herself and um i think that that's reasonable we should do that it was under the impression when we made those decisions that night that we were deferring to rosemary in her capacity to put forward the information to karin i we we might have we may have been but the you know there's not a line item in the budget that reflects that and based on the way we were choosing to budget that um it was just kind you couldn't really refer to it and say okay well there there's the line item for my salary um so i mean vince did you get an offer letter from the town yes i did there you go that says it to me right there any else justin i just want to thank angelina for joining us and being a part of the board while i've been on there as well thank you i think you was anything else for there was just a couple of things i wanted to weigh in on the snow machine discussion that we had through roundtable i'm not opposed to it i haven't made a decision but i think whatever we do going forward we should put it on the agenda as opposed to a discussion in the roundtable like we did tonight i don't think that's really following proper protocol um the discussion tonight was good and it was informative but by not having it on the agenda other people anyone who's interested didn't have the opportunity to be part of that discussion so that in and of itself concerns me um so i just want to address that i'm not really of the thinking that we should have vince at this point go forward with the things that we've discussed or was suggested tonight i think that it should be discussed on a future board meeting and be warned in advance and then from there and i also think that we have made that june 1st date in our last meeting and to do anything outside of that right now is just um making it more difficult per se and then the other thing that i wanted to say is i wanted to thank angelina for donating to the berlin fire department her stipend i think that was very nice and very generous so thank you so you're welcome and um i slow i you know i've been on the board for three years i've been discussing this um vest and the snow machine trail for three years now and it's just not moving forward and i think you know just you know i i've been on the on the board for long enough to know that it's it's time i just think that putting it off and putting it off and putting it off is not helping anybody and it's not serving it community or the people who want to go snow machining or or in that i just think it's time and i see what you're saying and i'm not but i appreciate go ahead go ahead and you go ahead i'm good i just was going to add that i just think that it's go ahead no no you go forward go ahead i just wanted to add that i understand what you're saying and that it's taken the three years and you've been on the board for that duration but i think we are going forward with a process and we just need to carry that process forward and it almost sounds as if tonight we're you know going a different direction or trying to bypass something in advance i don't really think that we're trying to do a disservice to vast i think we're just trying to carry things out accordingly and so my take is that yes i think it should in eventuality move forward in whatever capacity is determined but we just have to go the proper process and so that's why i brought up the concerns tonight thank you i i just want to comment on that flow and i understand where you're coming from and can appreciate that perspective to me the perspective and the approach that we're taking is still following the proper protocol and still trying to determine a timeline what i think that we didn't don't have in place for the town is is a process or a procedure for this and i think that being such a vague process and procedure and not having having a staff of volunteers and and having their input from the advisory perspective is extremely valuable and important but i i feel like this is such a topic that we we need to have the professional maybe uh kind of it's in their wheelhouse the people that that handle these these these processes or procedures or that deal with them on a daily basis i i feel as though we should use them in an advisory role as well in an effort to maybe better utilize our board resources or the talents that they have on there so that's that that's why i think that i completely agree if we're going to take any action we need to have agenda items on there the the boards are open to public comment uh round table all that every time so we haven't chose to make any changes or make any decisions uh as a board so they they they i get we want to keep people as in the loop as we can i don't feel like this was a deceptive or work around on anybody's behalf to try to accomplish this i think this was simply a discussion to help better the town and move a little bit forward in how to help develop a process so that we don't have a delay for any of these people that want to utilize the forest or or even the forest but any of these other things in town we just need to have a procedure and a process in place so that people can know what to expect when they enter into it and that's what i think that we've tasked vince with doing is looking at a professional firm as a resource to help us do that for our citizens does that make any sense or is that am i wrong in my perspective it may it makes absolute sense to me so but any of you were on the board and brad except for brad we've been having this discussion okay so so the problem is that it keeps getting put off and it no there has never been a motion or any decision it just keeps getting put off you know it keeps getting put on the agenda and it's just a discussion and then and proposing is that there is actual movement and that something is done and concrete and it moves forward there's no more discussion it's it's not no longer an agenda item it it becomes fair to everybody and we just move forward for i i don't want to see it i don't want it i don't want in three more years i don't want to see this on the agenda again so maybe we should make sense yeah john on the agenda every time would it make sense to have the vast vast use of burlington forest on the agenda every time until we get through this process go ahead john i don't know what it's going to take but just think that you know wane and and jeremy you know we we've all talked about this it's been three months about to leave and i just want you know josh has been out he's been meeting supposed everything that he possibly can and i think that it's time to have an answer and first to have an answer i just think that don't think that we need to keep putting it off or that the future board members need to keep putting it off who don't know maybe about the discussions that have taken place over the years because this is this has been a process it's been a long process and we keep having new members join and they don't know exactly what the discussions were so it's frustrating i think to vast and to you know people who want to utilize trails and it's frustrating for board members too who have been here for a long time i think um i just think that it it needs to get dealt with and done that's it yeah john yeah i mean flow i think i understand what you were trying to say but based on that we shouldn't be having any discussion about any future items on the round table then and we really shouldn't have a round table well round table was supposed to be just taken for the board members to take in voice of an opinion that's i think that's what i did and it evolved and it certainly did but what i've noticed on my time in this board and it's been extremely frustrating as everyone sits quiet and nothing happens unless if you push it every single meeting and i've learned that from tom who in his time and this is supposed to be a compliment tom unless if you push something like the town center every single meeting and make sure we're moving it forward it doesn't go anywhere and i you know i think angelina was absolutely right there's a there's a lot of you know quietness and not wanting to you know stir stir any pot at all and just you know go on approving payrolls and that's that's not why i got on the board and i didn't have an agenda and i didn't have a specific issue you know i was asked to consider you know donating my time to the town and while i'm here i'm going to push issues and we're going to talk about them and you know and if we vote against it then we vote against it and i'll move on we can all move on and get on to the next issue but if we're not talking about them and moving them forward then we're just not we're not doing any good as a board we're just going through the motions and nothing ever gets done in a town by doing that exactly exactly yes i agree yes that is absolutely correct and it's time for that to it's time for that to change because we you can't do anything without discussion and without addressing the issues and actually moving forward with it making appointments you know i apologize that i have not been able and that is not completely my fault that is the nature of what has happened in my life to me and you know i've done my best um and i am leaving the board now because i don't feel like i um i don't know how to word it but i i don't feel like i could be as participant as i could have been and it's and it's no fault of my own it's because i i was faced with having to look at my own life and having to look at myself as a as a human being and dealing with issues that were personal and that is not the for the town to deal with but i've done my best and i um will finish out my term and i hope that the board will take my consideration and my experience into consideration and and listen to that wholeheartedly and move in the future if there's nothing else motion to adjourn motion to adjourn a second all second all those in favor i motion carries have a good night everyone you do