 It's seven o'clock right now on my phone, so I will call this meeting to order, the annual meeting of the town of Rochester. Welcome everyone. I'm Dan McKinley, I'm your moderator, at least until the first article. I'm going to elect the moderator for the ensuing year. I'm happy to serve this past year and we'll see how that turns out. I would like to share an invocation that's being used in a lot of town meetings around the state. And it sort of focuses us and revisits a theme of community. Welcome to the Rochester town meeting. We've come together in civil assembly as a community in a tradition that is older than our state itself. We've come together to make decisions about our community. As we deliberate, let us advocate for our ideas, but not at the expense of others. Let us remember that there is an immense gap between saying, I am right, and saying, I believe I am right. Let us remember that there is, and that our neighbors with whom we disagree are good people, with hopes and dreams that's true in as high as ours. Let us always remember that in the end, caring for each other in this community is a far greater importance than any difference we may have. So if you would stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, if you can. Can I remove your hats? Pledge of Allegiance, to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, under your command, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I want to go over a few things before we dive into the business of the evening. Remember that meetings are governed by state law and Robert's rules of order. Oh, I think Pauline will just go up. Thanks, Nick. The meetings are governed by state law and Robert's rules of order. And I'm going to remind us of a few of General Robert's rules to make things go smoother. The business that we're going to conduct today is on pages four and five of your town report. You may speak twice to an article once when recognized by the moderator for the first time and a second time when anyone else who wishes to speak has spoken for a first time. And then you'll be limited to five minutes, please, to your remarks each time. If you're able, please stand and use loudest voice you can. So we all can benefit from your ideas and your wisdom. Sorry, we don't have a microphone to run around. For non election articles will attempt to decide by voice vote. If that proves difficult, then we will have a division of the house by raising hands. At the request of one voter, we can do a division of the house. If that still proves difficult or there's controversy there, someone can ask for a paper ballot. If there are six other voters who would like to agree with that, then we would have a paper ballot. Remind you that Select Board, Lister, Auditor, Road Commissioner are some of the offices that require a paper ballot by state law. The debate can be stopped or cut off during an article by calling the question or previous question. However, you have to wait to be recognized before you can call that question. You can't just shout it out. I have to wait for the moderator to recognize you. And then two thirds of the assembly must vote to stop debate. Speeches or your remarks must be confined to the merits of the question and no one will be allowed to engage in personal attacks from anyone else in the room. The role of the moderator is helping accomplish your business expeditiously and fairly. Please raise your hand and I'll recognize you in the order that I see your hands come up. Please state your name for the record and speak as loudly as you can. I will try to recognize you by name but I'll blame the lights and masks and many other things on why I might not remember your name even if I've known you for 30 years. So please excuse me if I have a lot of stare. I remind you that moderators ruling can be challenged and I encourage you to do that. It is my goal to do the will of the assembly, not my own agenda. You need not be recognized by the moderator with your hand raised before you wish to challenge. Just call out you want to challenge that ruling as the moderator. And if there's a second and I will explain the ruling and then everyone gets to speak once on that and then we'll have a vote of whether my ruling is sustained or not. But please do not hesitate if my ruling seems odd or wrong or to the challenge. It's part of the process to do the will of the assembly. Let's see. Similarly, if you think I'm violating Robert's rules, please call out point of order and I'll consider your concern. I'm your moderator but by no means an expert doing this once a year. I'm not quite happy with all memorized yet. The moderator can use unanimous consent to allow you to do business in expedited fashion rather than following the rules, asking for a motion, a second debate and then a vote. For example, if someone wanted to speak for a third time on an article, we would suspend the rules and say they could speak again if there are no objections. But if someone objects to suspending the rules or any unanimous consent, please just call out I object. And then it would take two thirds vote to sustain the rules. So please, as I'm using unanimous consent, I'm not trying to bulldoze you, but if you're concerned about it, please object and we'll talk about it. At this time, I'd like to ask those that are not registered voters of Rochester to raise their hands so we can welcome our guests and know who we have. Got a couple folks welcome. Thanks for coming out tonight. We'll remind you that unless there's suspension suspension of the rules that non voters may not speak or vote or non residents may not speak or vote on any articles, but it's our custom here in Rochester to allow our visitors to speak on on matters of the town. And I wish to use unanimous consent to say that and if there are no objections, once again, we'll allow our visitors to speak. Don't have any opening remarks from the select board, but we do have a representative white here this evening. We'd like to share a few words with you to open us up and see what's going on in the state. Good evening, everyone. It's great to actually be in person with you all. My name is Kirk White. I am your state representative and and I am on the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee. And the House in this year is really focusing on workforce development and all the things that get in the way of that. And so part of what we're trying to do is a lot of our companies can't find enough workers or qualified. So we're trying to find ways to to incentivize and remove blocks to those kind of those things trying to get more, more money into nursing education, trying to improve our career and technical education programs, because they're trying to get a plumber these days, right? So the legislature as a whole is working on workforce development. We're also working on some companies have said, well, you know, I've got somebody from out of the state that will work for my company. But when I when they try to come here, they can't find any place to live. And so housing is another issue that that is getting a lot of attention in the legislature. And then also young families try to move here and there's no childcare. And so again, that's another thing. And one of the things that as I'm sure your past representative can can attest is is in the legislature there. Things can be what we call silo. Everyone's got their area of expertise and no one talks to anyone outside of their area of expertise. And and so instead what happens is no real crop, no real solutions happen. Everything sort of, you know, well, we'll just take care of our part. And the legislature is trying really hard at this point to overcome that. And so there are a lot of committees that are being created work, working groups and stuff that are crossing those lines. So that the committees that are doing workforce development and committees are doing housing and childcare. And all those are actually working on these collectively trying to break down those barriers. That's a large part of what your legislature is working on. My own committee has been working on its commerce and economic development. Economic development stuff is fun because we're trying to find ways to help businesses get started and grow in the state. And then there's commerce and commerce is exciting things like insurance regulation, which after I leave here in a couple of days, I'm going to a four day conference on insurance regulation. And I can't imagine that will, that'll be more fun than I can imagine. So, but my own committee commerce economic development, big things. You know, we've been working on a large deal for workforce development. Again, you know, trying to get more trained skilled workers in every sector, including healthcare, nursing, construction, education, teachers, again, child care providers, all those things. So we're really working on that. Another thing we're trying to do is we're trying to, the pandemic really showed a lot of problems with our unemployment insurance process. And, you know, a lot of people fell through the cracks, a lot of people it didn't work for. And, and so my committee is the one that gets to kind of, you know, tear that apart and see what we can do to make it work better for people. One of the other things my committees are working on is there's a program called the Vermont Employment Growth Incentive Program. They call it veggie. And, and it's supposed to incentivize businesses to hire, you know, to start more jobs, get more jobs. And, and at this point where the question is, is we've got lots of jobs, you don't have enough people to fill them. And so the question is, is this, we're throwing $5 million a year into this program, and is that really a good use of our money? And a lot of people in my committee don't think it is. And so, but you know, you have state bodies that have been running something for a while and they sort of like to keep running it. And so we're struggling and battling with them about it. Other things are data privacy. My committee is really looking at data privacy. You know, what happens when somebody steals your data and, and sells it on the internet and how we can, we can cut down on that and reduce that. And, and so other kinds of things like that. That's what my committee does. If you haven't seen, I post three exhausted posts on front porch, front porch forum, and, and also on my Facebook page and I have an email list. And so if you want to know the minutiae of what goes on up there, if I can happily share it with you, I also really try to explain to people how things work there and how they don't. So that if you've got a problem and you want to figure out how to get your problem is all, I've tried to give you advice on how to get that to happen. And certainly if there's anything I can do to get involved to, you know, with state agencies that are kind of selling wall in you, I'm always available to do that. So I hope you'll reach out to me. I'm always looking forward to hearing from people and, and trying to represent you as best. Is that is possible. So thank you. And thank you for letting me be here. Thank you. Thank you representative way. All right, we will get into the business of the night with our warning. The town of Rochester Vermont annual town meeting to be held Monday night, March 6 2023, 7pm Rochester school auditorium. The legal voters of the town of Rochester County of Windsor State of Vermont are hereby notified and warned to meet in the Rochester school auditorium 222 South Main Street in said town on Monday, March 6 2023 at 7pm to transact the following business. If there are no objections, I will not read the entire warning, but I'll read each article as we go through them. Frank, that's a first piece of business. No, if there are no objections, not reading the entire one, we'll start with article one, article one to elect a moderator for the ensuing year. Martha, Dan McKinley's the nominator. Any other nominations? Typically don't need seconds for officers, but I appreciate the thought. Any other nominations? Then we'll close nominations and I'll ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Dan McKinley for moderator, which begins now. I'm going to put out law and signs next year to campaign for the latter. Article two, to elect all town officers acquired by law. First in that article, to elect a select board member for a three year term. Nancy, thanks for the amount needed. I would like to second that. Frank, could you help? Any other nominations? For a select board, close nominations. I'll ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Frank Severy, for a select board member for a three year term. Welcome back. Number two of article two, to elect a Lister for a three year term. Nominations. And back. Can we do an A as the nominator? Seconded by Frank. Any other nominations? Sitting none, we'll close nominations and ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Lister for a three year term. Congratulations. Number three of article two is to elect a collector of delinquent taxes for a term of one year. Have us nominate Rebecca Klein. Rebecca Klein is denominated. Any other nominations? Seeing no other nominations, we'll close nominations. And no, don't need a second on opposition. Ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Rebecca Klein, for a collector of delinquent taxes for a term of one year. Congratulations. Rebecca, if you're here, let's see. Number four, to elect a library trustee for a five year term. Nominations. Frank. Doreen Jones is denominated. Any other nominations? Diane Rittner. All right. Doreen Jones is denominated. And I don't see any other nominations. So we'll close nominations and we'll ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Doreen Jones for a library trustee for a five year term. Number five of article two was to elect a trustee of public funds for a three year term. Nominations. Nancy. Mike Harvey has been nominated. Other nominations. Seeing no other nominations, we'll close nominations and ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Mike Harvey for a trustee of public funds for a three year term. Thank you, Mike, if you're here. No, we haven't. See you. Number six of article two was to elect a cemetery commissioner for a five year term. Nominations. Nancy. Tom Puckett has been nominated. Any other nominations? Seeing no other nominations, we'll close nominations and ask the clerk to cast one ballot for Tom Puckett for a cemetery commissioner for a five year term. Congratulations, Tom. Article three. The voters authorized payment of real taxes in four installments with due dates being Tuesday, August 15, 2023, Wednesday, November 15, 2023, Thursday, February 15, 2024, and Wednesday, May 15, 2024 by physical delivery to the tax collector before 4pm on those dates with post marks not accepted as proof of delivery. Someone like move that article. Nancy moves. Second. Seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. I said it. Articles fast. Article four shall the voters authorized total highway and general fund expenditures of $1,313,277 of which $921,967 shall be raised as taxes. I'm going to move it and second it. We'll get right into our discussion. Moves it. Second. Anybody want to second that? Nancy. I'm sorry. Sandy. Second. Any discussion? Kevin. This would be a different kind of a vote than the article. It would be. That would be $3,248. And that would make up the amount. That's a small amount of money, but it would be a great show of support for the volunteers. So the number was 3,248. First response, but I couldn't hear the whole thing on the side. First response for a certain amount of money. It was cut by the $3,248. Like to say it's not a lot of money, but it would show support for the volunteers. Discussion on study. Okay. Can you hear me? The organization. First responders, which is. GFR was developed after our own valley ambulance services. Operations do several reasons. GFR arrives on a medical scene without an ambulance. So can only provide initial first aid or CPR, not able to transport. The GP GFR funding comes from Rochester, Hancock and Granville and is based on the WERBA budget. Right where the valley ambulance for Rochester had a significant jump in their funding request for this upcoming year. Evaluate their service as they are highly qualified and capable of providing first responder care and transportation, both timely and consistently. It was the select board's decision to support the entries of WERBA and to continue to fund GFR at a lower funding figure to continue to support the team and encourage improvements. This was a notice sent to GFR on January 11. Thank you for the time spent in preparing both initial budget presentation and secondary information. Regarding the finances and operations of the greater first response during the past year and expectations of the upcoming budget year. The select board members of Rochester also must consider the quality of service services rendered to its population along with the cost and have made the decision for the budget year of July 1 2023 through June 30 2024 to reduce the funding to Granville first response to $3500. The select board is still very supportive of the first responders and are pleased to continue to support supply support to this organization. We fully expect to see a larger and more available membership and better coverage during daytime hours in the next 12 months. Plus the issues surrounding dispatching worked out so that communications are at the optimum speed and quality. Once these goals have been achieved, we will be more than pleased to consider support at higher levels. I would suggest keeping records during the upcoming budget year on a Rochester per call basis to present data that supports improvement to our budget and finance committee in the fall of 2023. The end of that letter. It is our sincere hope to see improvements to the infrastructure and response rate for GFR, which is why we continue to play support to the organization. It was not an easy decision during a year of very high increase in our tax rate to decide where tax dollars are best spent. Since January, we're going to have had conversations with GFR on how we're going to help support GFR and its members. A plan moving forward is to meet with first response service chiefs to our Valley to better their services with education, training and recruitment for all in our Valley and beyond. GFR has contacted the Vermont EMS office to explore transport capability licensing. An increase in response rates since December of 2022 has also been noted. GFR is working on resolving dispatching issues and we are currently working out questions about their budgeting figures. Do you feel you have the correct figures and continue improvement in response rates along with a regenerated alliance with Werbel? The select board will once again revisit funding requests from GFR. Thank you. I'm going to jump around a little bit. Kevin proposed amendments. I need a second to that. Second question. Thank you. Discussion. I'm happy when Grandville showed up. They were there a good 20 minutes before Werbel showed up. Not that that's Werbel's problem. It's logistics. I mean, they're on the other side of the mountain. And like I agree with Kevin, that's not a lot of money. Not for peace of mind and for getting help when somebody needs it. Unfortunately, listening to what Patty has written and I assume is the statement of the select board, it sounds to me more like a punishment. And it's a punishment to the Grandville group who have been very, very responsive to the needs of Rochester. And what is a person's worth $3,000 when we divide it in the people in this town? I think what Kevin has offered is something that we all ought to stand up and vote for. Larry Strauss. I'd just like to talk about two things. I'm basically in agreement that we should find the Grandville request. But I also want to just talk to the technical point that the select board budget is a lump sum that the select board is not required to spend in accordance with the individual budget lines of the budget. So I just want everyone to realize that adding $3,500 to the budget does not require the select board to direct it towards Grandville. And they could just as well deduct $3,500 from any place else in the current budget and leave it at its current funding rate. There's no requirement once we appropriate funds in this budget article that the select board direct each dollar to the individual line items as outlined in the budget. But I think it would be politically wise for them to do so. But there's no requirement for them to do so. And there is a difference between transport and first response. And I think that they're both critical needs, but they're different needs. And a robust first response is just as important as transport. And they shouldn't be misunderstood as the same thing. They're both extremely important. How do you expect them to upgrade on less money? Can you repeat the question in your mic? The question was how do you expect them to upgrade for less money? Which is a logical question. I suppose the after a long discussion at the budget meetings, the motivation for this was actually to just inspire a little more attention and bring in attention and discussion to the whole issue and hopefully like the conversations about expanding the possibility of working with them to possibly have an ambulance, a transportable ambulance located in this valley like we used to have with the rescue squad would be an ideal outcome. So this was meant to serve as just to shake things up and inspire conversation and bring attention and appreciation to what we do have. We're thankful for them. Yes. Did select board consider asking the public trust fund to help out in the situation? I mean, last year we did 12,000 for heating fuel for the building we don't own. I mean, 3,000 from the trust fund would have been a good use. We're always asking the trustees of public funds to come on. Further discussion. I think, I think there's some clarification on how this all came about. We were in the drills of the budget finance meetings. We started them in September. We request that all departments send their budgets into us. And then we start going through them piece by piece. A couple years ago, we switched Granville to from appropriation to the general fund. And we also did that with work because we considered them emergency services. We had requested Granville to come in to talk about their budget with the budget finance committee and the select board. And we just didn't have time to have them in and we had a lot of questions. We had a lot of complaints that they weren't showing up for calls. So we had to make a decision and we had to put a budget before the committee and before the select board to adopt so we could get it in print. And this was how it came about. And it brought out the conversation. We knew this was going to happen and we were glad it did. So I had no problem putting the money back in. But I think in the future it needs to be transparent on how they run their business. And we need to know how it goes. And that's just the way it is for the budget finance. And that's how it came about. We didn't do it to punish him. We just did it because we didn't know where the money was going. Hi Frank. So the amendment is to increase the amount of article 5 by a amount of 3,248. Do I have that number right? Correct. An amount of 3,248. The questions be called. All in favor of ending debate? Say aye. Aye. Those votes will continue debating. Say nay. Correct. Questions be called. We'll have a vote on the amendment. The amendment is to increase the amount of article 4 under the authorization of the highway and general fund expenditures by an increase of $3,248. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those votes say nay. Aye. That would be an article as amended. I think my math is okay. Is anyone else done math? Okay. 925,215. Somebody check that. Right. It will be the amount we raised by text. On the same amount for the expenditures. Increase on the same amount. Okay. Which number do you want? I was looking for. Read that up. The number to be raised by taxes is 921,967 plus 3,248. Can you add that to the amount to the expenditures of 1.9165? Article 4 as amended. Shall the voters authorize total highway and general fund expenditures of $1,316,525 of which 925,215 shall be raised by taxes. We have to move that and second it. We're going to move that. Okay. Jeff and Sandy discussion. Yes, Tim. Hi, Tim Crowley. You know, the oftentimes we get sort of cut up in a rabbit hole of you know $3,000 and whatever that those numbers come out to. What I'm hearing is a bigger issue. This hearkens back to the days of the rescue squad when it was our neighbors who were there to take care of us. And we've over the years really surrendered, you know, local control of our own care. And now we contracted out at a hefty price and we could probably debate whether that's more money or less money or good or better or not better service. What I would ask to select or do now is consider the question is what is the vehicle that we have as a community to facilitate this relationship between these folks in Granville who are really trying hard but apparently not succeeding at the level we'd like, I guess. And hook them up with WERVA, people to whom we pay considerable dollars. I could be telling you something that you already know but it sounds to me like, I mean, this is an important matter. One that I don't want us to resolve over debates about $3,000 and people missing budget meetings but one that says we care about the first response to people here in Rochester. And I guess I'm wondering what is the vehicle that we have as a community to make sure that somebody is spearheading that relationship and encouraging this group in Granville and WERVA to do what we need here in Rochester. Yeah, actually it is on the agenda to appoint a representative to the Granville first response next week and we've already been in contact with WERVA. Further discussion on the article as amended. Seeing none, we'll move to end discussion and move to vote. I'm going to read the article again. Shall the voters authorize total highway and general fund expenditures of $1,316,525 of which $925,215 shall be raised by taxes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. I said it, the article passes article 5 shall the voters appropriate 49,935 for its operating expenses of the Rochester public library. move in second please. Carey moves. We're going to in a second. discussion. See no discussion on this article. We'll move to vote. Shall the voters appropriate $49,935 for operating expenses of the Rochester Public Library? All in favor say aye. Aye. As opposed say nay. Aye's had it. The article 5 passes. Article 6. Shall the voters appropriate $21,420 to continue funding the North Star Recycling Program from July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024? We'll move in second minutes. What do you need now? One of the moves. Seconded by Sandy Pintu. Discussion? Not only is it a valuable service for all of us, but I have trouble with it. It's just, it's a good service for all of us. Further discussion? Yes, thank you. Frank, yeah. That's just why it was no more anyway. It was just North Star Recycling. It was North Star Recycling. So it's a really valuable service. Every, you know, every first, you know, every first Saturday and every third Saturday. So it's not weird. All right. I don't know. They pick up. Penny Hoppert. He's saying it's recycling and also pick up and try for the same thing. Further discussion? Hearing none. We'll move to a vote. Article 6. Shall the voters appropriate $21,420 to continue funding the North Star Recycling Program from July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024? All in favor say aye. Opposed to say nay. Ayes hot. Article 6 passes. Article 7. Shall the voters appropriate $8,000 to fund the reappraisal reserve fund? Moved. And this is going to be moved by Burma and seconded by Catherine. Discussion on this article? Frank, no one unless sir. We didn't much time train. And what is triggering now? The state of Vermont sets pretty much a lot of the tax rates for education based on the appraised value of our property. That's the most important part. When our property values as they set in place are not below a certain threshold, then the state actually will call us to do a reappraisal. Back in the day. We appraisal will automatically done every 10 years. So we have this double way. That our common level of appraisal has dropped to an area that would be close to us needing to have a reappraisal call. And our last reappraisal was done in 2012. Perhaps we could speak more on that. But in the anticipation of that, the state does give us funding towards this. I think it's over $6,000 a year. But if we have to start doing a reappraisal within the next year or two, we still won't have enough money to complete the process. So we're saving up for what inevitably seems to be a reappraisal coming in the next couple of years. Let's see. Oh, yeah. Okay. Katherine, did you have? I think extreme escalation of the market value of a lot of our homes. As I expected, the results of lowering are afraid of this price being lower than it should be. So what about levels out of the next couple of years? Can we then have a higher taxes because of the property that's sold? The taxes are based on what the budget is. So taxes wouldn't necessarily go up because of the value of the house. If the values move, the tax rate moves with it. We just need to generate this amount of money. Values of real estate have been higher in the last couple of years. We are actually pretty lucky because sometimes have jumped way beyond the threshold and are experiencing a pretty large tax rate hike for the education tax because of that. So if we hold on and all your values go down, yeah, it could possibly turn around. I'm not sure what is our CLA right now. 87%. The drops down below 75, which many other towns have, then it would pretty much trigger a real price. So it could go back up in the next couple of years. It's a market, so. For the discussion, we'll move to a vote on Article 7. Child Voters Appropriate $8,000 to fund the reappraisal reserve fund. All in favor say aye. Aye. As opposed say nay. Aye said it. Article 7 passes. Article 8. Child Voters approve the creation of a Skate Space Donation Reserve Fund and authorize transfer of donations received from the Moscoma Bank GoFundMe account and monies previously appropriated by the town for Skate Space. Martha Moves, seconded by Catherine. Discussion. There's no discussion. We'll move to a vote. Child Voters approve the creation of a Skate Space Donation Reserve Fund and authorize transfer of the donations received from the Moscoma Bank GoFundMe account and monies previously appropriated by the town for Skate Space. All in favor say aye. Aye. As opposed say nay. Aye said it. Article 8 passes. Article 9. Child Voters approve the creation and appropriates $12,000 to Highway Grant Project Reserve Fund. Moved by Verma, seconded by, I think I saw you might be scratching your head, but you got seconded by that. Discussion. Oh Kelly. Could we have an explanation of the fund? An explanation of the fund. Please. This grant project reserve fund was put in place at the advice from the budget finance. And basically what it is is when we receive a grant or when we apply for grants, there is a matching funding that goes along with those grants. And in the past, since COVID and during COVID, we have grants that traveled over a couple of different years. And so some of the matching money is it's kind of in a gray area where we don't really know. We couldn't move it in between two years. And so we decided to establish this reserve fund grant. So to cover those expenses during a calendar year or a fiscal year. And that's what this is. There is some in the in the road budget that's at the bottom of for last year that they put in, but they never marked the fund as a reserve fund. So this is just to cover any grants that we get for highway projects that we have to pay a match of 10 to 20% of the grant. And it's an estimation that we use for the grants that we have coming up for this fiscal this budget year. That answer your question. Yeah. Kelly. Further discussion on the article discussion we will move to vote. Article nine child voters approved the creation and and appropriate $12,000 to the highway grant projects reserve fund. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. As habits the article nine passes. Article 10 child voters appropriate $1,000 to fund the tennis reserve fund. Bye. Seconded by Leslie. Thank you. Discussion. Discussion. Article 10 child voters appropriate $1,000 to fund the tennis reserve fund. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those say nay. As habits. Article 10 passes. Article 11 child voters vote to appropriate following sums as requested by these community agencies. Central Vermont Council on aging $3,000 Claire Mont Claire clever Martin Center $2,066 green up Vermont $100 Orange County parent child center $250. $2,066 green town senior center $9,849 safe line incorporated $250 tri-valid transport from the stagecoats $1,300 Vermont rural fire hydrants $100 Vermont visiting nurse, excuse me visiting nurse association $4,800 white with a partnership $875 women's safe $250 for total of $22,840 moving by Seconded. Thank you. Discussion on this article. Yes, Frank. These figures are from the agencies requesting the money. And they are level funded from the previous budget. Further discussion. We will vote on article 11. Child voters vote to appropriate the following sums as requested by these community agencies. And if there are no objections, I'll just give you the total $22,840. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. I said it article 11 passes article 12 to transact any other legal and proper business you bought brought before said. Yes. So, currently, since the robot step down from being our emergency management coordinator, the select board has been filling that role by default. But we are definitely open and soliciting interested in anyone else that would like to step up and take that position. You don't have to do anything unless there's an emergency. You don't have to make that decision tonight. What's the title? What's the title? That'd be emergency management coordinator. And a hand over here. Yeah, Dick. Unfortunately, I don't think any of them are here to hear that they're all out working. Catherine, did you have something? I think it's part of the COVID-19 task force site. I just wanted to thank Vic for his years of service in that role. And so I know in the event of an emergency, what that could entail. So I hope that you find a good candidate. Any other business? So Catherine and I are here tonight as co-chairs of the high school emergency committee. We put a four-page report in your booklet. And then there's a two-page addendum with cross-detail repair costs to be owed. We just wanted to take the opportunity to respond to any questions people may have and comments about the project. We had intended that there would be a vote on it, except firing or not firing this month. That's not going to happen. We just don't have enough information about the condition of the building and the environmental assessment of the building and the grounds to provide an informed update on the condition of the building. And the process is underway with the involvement of the state of the conservation department and other state agencies. We don't anticipate that information is going to be available until later in the summer. So we're anticipating that the vote that we were talking about in the past to be in our property fix is probably not going to happen so later this year. So let me just pause with that and see if there are any questions about the project for Catherine. The question is whether or not there would be informational meetings about the project as it progresses. The answer is yes. They will be warned and they are publicly available either here or soon. We also have monthly meetings that are now being warned and you can participate in those meetings. You go to the website too, you can be a part of a regular email list because we try to generate monthly reports on the project updates so that things are transparent. I think for the last time, of course, we presented publicly in July the feasibility study and we've been regularly attending those meetings and select board meetings, bring updates, working with both systems. And we are at this point feeling like we've really got the floodway issue resolved with a property boundary adjustment. And I think now it's back in the school's attorney's court to finalize all of that. We recently, on February 10th, met with John Booker Campbell who is the floodplain manager for this region because the building took water in through that door during Irene. And the consultant architect Rick Dawson, who was part of the feasibility study team has put forth multiple suggestions for mitigation and that's being reviewed right now. We're hoping to have a meeting of Grace Benson who is the state environmental officer, John Backigan and an engineer from Dubois King who's been doing all the surveys for us to sort of really hone in on a final decision that will best mitigate the floodplain issue but also retain the use of the auditorium. So it's a long process. We're really navigating the regulatory landscape that we didn't anticipate when we got involved in this but we're learning a lot as we go along. I think it's interesting to note that to date we have received funding in the amount of $91,900 towards this project through various grants and agencies and also private funding. The Heat Task Force, which includes members of the Re-Purpose Committee and the school board has raised to date $10,535 the Rochester portion of it and there's more activities being planned. Do you want to speak to those additional activities of fundraising activities that are being planned? Leslie Scott, oh she doesn't want to speak. Anyway, stay tuned. It looks like they're going to be very good. Would you talk about the project manager, who that person is and what your project manager is doing? So we had some planning grant funds remaining after the feasibility study and the town hired Liz Curry who has a company called Common Lands. One minute or something like that. And she was brought on to the project to help establish a roadmap and she said to us at our last recent meeting that the committee themselves has really been working successfully with various effort agency representatives and that until we resolved the floodplain issue she didn't feel that she could take us any further. We asked her, in her experience which is mainly private development had she ever done the eight factor analysis that is necessary for HUD and she said no, that we walk away at that point. So she really doesn't have the kind of experience that this project is at right now and it's also a community-driven project. We're not a private developer. So Liz, we will return to Liz once we resolve this but we reached a place where it didn't make sense to put any more money since we're going to have to put money in other places. We have to get by this floodplain issue find a solution that's going to work for the regulatory and practical standpoint then revisit the issue of project management and what kind of account would we need and where would we get the money to pay for it? I guess we're going to add something to this and I'm glad that so many people are here to hear it. Catherine and Vic over the last three years have spent hundreds of hours researching this project and doing all the groundwork up to this day. They have met with numerous agencies and officials and have gone through, Catherine has written many grants and they have worked in really creating a body of information that all of us can rely on and return to to educate ourselves, to inform ourselves to what's involved with this project. There is a lot going on with it. It's a complicated issue. The agencies are so... it's bureaucracy so you can just imagine and they've been dealing with it and it's benefited not only for us but the town in general because somebody would have to be doing this information in order to inform us what do we do with this building because we all want to make an educated decision about this and not just have it be an emotional response to how much we love this school or how much we hate this school because we want to have the figures and the information there to make that decision and they have done the work so I just want to applaud both of you and it's not over with and if we just look around here at the auditorium itself to what we have right now the thought of not having this would be heartbreaking for most of us there are so many memories that take place here but it's not about the memories it's about how do we move forward in this town what do we want to offer anyone else not only who is here but who we would like to come here and enjoy this community as much as we do because we all love it here and this is a really big asset that I think all of us would tremendously miss if it wasn't here but I just want to say I so applaud the work that you do and I think we're all benefit from it so that's my say on it folks Any other business to come before said me Larry Yeah, Larry And with the permission and good grace of my neighbors here I'll take that responsibility to act as coordinator for emergency services I hope there's some training Business, yes I have just one question it's about public bathrooms so we can come to town and there's no public bathrooms is there any discussion about public bathrooms And if there were where would we begin Do you have money in the budget to keep going up for a selection of porta potties that we put around town in the summer and like for the last year and a year before that we started putting one off the park and we're more centrally located as well as down by the tennis courts and there's the one adjacent to the fire station but yeah, it's um that's a problem we have talked about it I mean there was a thought about the old fire station maybe but you know it's um it gets complicated it gets to be a I don't want to say that anything else we've got a group yes, Dean referencing committee and I want to invite you all to the pay neighbor event which has been graciously offered by the fire department to have a a place where we can all come from 11 to 3 on March 12th to discuss we're actually looking for new neighbors who have showed up here in the last three or four years and also all the other services that are provided in this town so the services will have tables there'll be a touch of truck by the fire department and we really appreciate the use of the firehouse I just wanted to give you all a warm welcome down there and hope you can show up for an open house and tell your neighbors the new people in town we would love to see you anyone else before we entertain the motion to adjourn come all in favor anyone opposed to that meeting adjourned, thank you all