 If folks want to shit that, you're welcome to still upstairs. Outside, if I can remember if you can hear it. I stand on the agenda as an election of officers. Folks still, this is a fair organizational meeting. I already have a meeting also. Doing some of that. First item is to elect a chair. I would make a motion for elect training, sir, to chair. I would second that. Any other takers? You've got the drill down. You're looking down already. No, I can't do it. You have experience. Hearing none, motion in a second. All those in favor? Aye. Steve, I'm from the jury. We have election of a vice chair. Michael's not here, and he was doing a great job with that. And he didn't say he wouldn't do it again. Sounds like a shillin. Your motions. Here you go. The motion in a second for Mike is to chair. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Steve, motion carries. Next, we have election of a clerk. It's mostly taking minutes, getting them turned around within the time of all the meeting laws. I'm terrible at that. I have some skills that is not one of them. Oh, you have some skills? No, no, no. That is not one of them. Oh, OK. Matt's going to take that. I'll nominate Matt. I'll second that. Motion in a second. All those in favor? Aye. Just wanted to be confirmed for the vice chair. I know it's Mike Hildenbrane, but the motion in a second is that? It was tagged by Kerry and Matt. Kerry and Matt. I wish I had a hit this spring. I should have gone to Essex earlier. Next on the agenda is public comment. This is for anything that's not currently on our agenda. My name is Brooke Dingleton. I'm an adult president. I wanted to make a comment about an issue that came up that kind of delayed the town meeting yesterday. Tom Hardy asked to be heard before the meeting convened. And he basically indicated that there had been a select board meeting the night before on Monday night. And he was demanding some answers about what took place in the executive session because he was aware that this award had brought up an issue and talked some about that and wanted an explanation. Asked Mr. Ward for an explanation. Accused the select board for Mr. Ward of convening in the illegal executive session and then talked about the contents of what happened within that executive session. So I tried to be recognized by the moderator to respond to this comment or issue that Mr. Hardy had raised because I was extremely concerned that a member of the public would come into town meeting and talk about what he has heard to place in executive session. We understood from Mr. Ward that it was duly noticed. Executive session was entered for the purposes of discussing an employee issue. And there was nothing inappropriate. No other select board members spoke up and disputed what Mr. Ward said. So I didn't get recognized at the time but at the very end of the meeting when other business was allowed to be brought before the meeting. I decided that I needed to say something because it was very troubling to me that someone would come in to any meeting and suggest that the confidentiality of the executive session of the select board had been breached. And that information had been given to people outside of the select board executive session membership. I talked a little bit about the need for transparency in terms of our elected officials and how important that is in terms of the ability of the public to have the confidence in our elected officials that they are fulfilling their oaths of office. And one of those issues in terms of fulfilling your oath of office is to respect the sanctity of executive session confidentiality. No one in that room, whether they're a board member or someone invited into that room has the right to breach that confidentiality. There are important reasons why executive session happens and there are some very narrow reasons why any public board can meet in executive session without the public being pressed. If this was, as Mr. Ward suggested, and it's the silence of the other board members indicated that this was a duly enacted agenda, it was properly noticed, and there was an executive session for appropriate reasons, then there was nothing wrong with that and that should have stayed private and confidential. There are important reasons of confidentiality for the employee, for example. When you talk about negotiating contracts, litigation, mediation, there are reasons why premature public knowledge of information would compromise the building of the board to, you know, in a litigation. If the other side knows what you're going to do ahead of time, that's a problem. So I would ask that this board be mindful of the obligation in the oath that you have taken in terms of not sharing private information that is supposed to be confidential with anyone outside of the executive session. And particularly for reasons that appear at least, I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but appears to be for purposes of manipulating an election. I think it was totally improper for this to have happened and I also think it's totally improper that it was brought forward in the accusatory way that it was. I will also say that I am a friend to Mr. Hardy. I have great respect for him and I am not suggesting Mr. Hardy did anything wrong. And to the extent that anyone yesterday thought that I was suggesting Mr. Hardy had in any way done anything wrong that is absolutely false. The issue for me was the people in the executive session, the elected officials and anyone they invite into that forum, those are the people who are bound by confidentiality. So there's no mistake. I don't believe Mr. Hardy did anything wrong in hearing information that he was told about what took place in this executive session. My concern is why was he told this information and by whom? Any other topics? We'll go to the next. Before the board picks up item number four, I'd like to ask the board to consider amending item E, which is with their licensure rule. We had one item from in after the agenda had been set. And if the board were to amend it, we could include it in this meeting. It is a licensure rule for Sodexo, Vermont. Sounds good. The agenda. Second. I move to approve the agenda. Second. Motion in the second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Next we have the consent calendar to include meeting minutes of February 8th as well as the ones. And I run Climate Economy Model Communities Program. If folks haven't heard, we're coming to Randolph with this program. We wish that. Thank you. Thank you. Under the leadership of Gary Durr and a great team of folks and with the support of the select board, Randolph applied to participate in the Model Communities Program and was selected as one of the two communities we will be working in for 2018. You have a busy agenda tonight, so I don't wanna take a ton of your time. My intention in being here is really, A, to connect a face with a name. As I begin my work here in Randolph, I think there is actually nothing I like more than having my phone ring and having it be somebody from here in Randolph who has questions about the Model Communities process and what that looks like and how to get involved in that process. It's that kind of interest that is actually essential as we try to build a successful program. So mostly I wanna sort of be sure that folks know I am available and really welcome questions and feedback as we embark on this process. And then quickly I wanna give you an overview of what this process is gonna look like so that folks have a sense of how to get involved and what this process is all about. I'm gonna do that quickly though and then I'll field any questions you've got and then welcome any follow up from folks either here or elsewhere. I will acknowledge that I'm probably gonna get on the road soon after my presentation as the snow's already started out there and I'm heading back a little bit. What do you see in the email it just come out? It's gonna have to be horrible, horrible weather for Friday to get canceled and you're right now. I know this is nothing compared to what we might see tomorrow. So I'm gonna hand around. I've got some diagrams. I've got six copies of that. There's more of these copies. I don't think I have enough for everybody but feel free to hand those around. So here's how this, well first of all let me just describe a little bit about what we mean by the climate economy and what the underlying sort of mission of this program is. For Vermont Council on World Development for about the last three years we've been convening a statewide conversation around the climate economy and really the core thesis of this program is that essentially no matter where you fall on this question about climate change and how we are responding to it either as a community or a state what we know at this point is that there is a global response to climate change and that global response to climate change is massive and it means the massive deployment of economic resources as various nations and states and communities look to respond to climate change. And while climate change poses a real threat to our economy as we think about our ski industry and other things here in Vermont we also can think about where are there economic opportunities as communities respond to climate change or as homes and businesses respond to climate change and the model communities program is built upon the idea that we will bring a community together and really it's up to you here in Randolph to decide what the shape of this program is for Randolph. As we say at BCRD again and again, thank you Mr. Lee for closing the doors there. We don't know what's best for Randolph, you here know what's best for Randolph. We have a theme for this conversation around the climate economy but we don't have a specific agenda. What you will have the opportunity to participate in over the next few months is a series of public meetings first one in April that'll be a big kickoff event where we will, it essentially is a big series of brainstorming sessions. Stay tuned as we nail down a date for that but that'll be in April. And then in May the community will come back together to identify some priorities that you all wanna focus on as part of this climate economy model communities process. And then finally in June another large public meeting where the task forces that will push those initiatives forward will meet for the first time and really develop action plans that are part of this initiative. The other important component to this program is we have a core partnership with Efficiency Vermont and Green Mountain Power and other partners. And that is because part of this program is not just thinking about community initiatives but also thinking about opportunities for homes and businesses. I know that you all participated in Vital Communities Weatherize Program a few years ago and the Solarize Program. You also participated in Efficiency Vermont's targeted communities program. So actually what we wanna do with this model communities program is really build on the great work that you've done through those three programs. What are those opportunities for homeowners in this community, for renters in this community? Maybe it's about energy efficiency. Maybe it's insulation. Maybe it's about solar on a rooftop. Maybe it's something as simple as swapping out LED light bulbs, right? The goal in this process is to make it as easy as possible for people to participate. And really the fundamental mission is we really believe firmly that this is also about making a more affordable community for people to live in and helping people stay in their homes and make sure those homes are sort of both healthy and affordable. The average Vermont home spends about $5,000 a year on energy costs. That $5,000 is split actually, a quarter of those costs are on electricity, a quarter of those costs are heating, and then half of the costs on energy for the average home is on the transportation fees. For a lot of budgets, that's a pretty significant portion of a home, of a household budget over a year, that's $5,000. And we're eager to work with you all to think about where are there opportunities for folks to achieve safety. So I, like I say, I don't wanna take up a ton of your time tonight. Mostly my message to you is I am available, I really welcome questions, I welcome feedback as we get started in this process. I've really enjoyed as I've started to engage folks in the community, what comes through loud and clear here in Randolph is people really feel an enormous love for this place. And it's obvious to me why. I mean, you are blessed with sort of a wonderful town and amazing institutions for a town of this size. And that in part is why VCRV is really excited about partnering with you on this program. Because we think there is great opportunity when you think about the college, when you think about the hospital, when you think about the tech center, when you think about the chancellor, all of those institutions along with the town and others, you know, Rosta, all of those folks in this community, if you all are pulling together in the same direction, there's some real potential there. So that's what we're looking forward to helping facilitate. Excuse me, do you have a phone number? Sure, an email address is johnjonoh at vtrurl.org and then the phone number is 802-225-6393. 6393. 6393. And, you know, town manager certainly has contact information as well as just Gary and others. I have cards too, so. John. So my understanding, you talked a lot about efficiency and energy-specific things, but you're also prepared through this process to put a lot of other things on the table, really depending upon what people come up with, right? It's not merely that narrowly focused. It could be much broader and far-reaching than you are. Without a doubt. I mean, to give you an example, we worked with Middlebury and Powell last year and both of those communities in different ways really are thinking about agriculture as another opportunity. Obviously, there's enormous connections between agriculture and the economy here in Randolph and also agriculture and climate here. So that's an example of the kind of thing. Transportation is another place, as I mentioned, and transportation is an interesting thing because we all are responsible for our own transportation, but at the same time there's really a community aspect to transportation as well. And so, thinking about what are some of those community opportunities around transportation, economic development, recreation, it really is up to the citizens of Randolph to decide what those other components of this program are gonna be, right? Hey, I really appreciate the opportunity here. I'll see some of you tomorrow night and really look forward to working with you on the fair in Randolph. Thank you. What's happening tomorrow? Thank you. We're having sort of a first smaller conversation tomorrow night of a planning committee that will sort of set the, sort of, plan the kickoff event. The important thing to note about that first meeting is it doesn't really limit the opportunities of this program, it really just sort of works on the logistics and helps with the planning piece. So. Is that piece open to the public? You know, I have a little bit of a juggle there, which is what we find is about 25 people is the ideal for that meeting. And to be honest, I have 27 people coming to that. So I, that's part of what BCRD has learned in this location process is to try to keep that particular meeting sort of at that size. At the same time, as I would emphasize, nothing that gets decided at that first meeting really limits the opportunity of this program. It's wide open and it's that first public meeting in April where the full opportunities for brainstorming will happen. 17? Yeah. Yep. I just recently tried to go through Efficiency Vermont to put a new boiler in my house. Yep. But I decided not to do it through Efficiency Vermont because I had to go with a certain company to put my boiler in. I had to have a certain boiler at a certain percentage rate. Yep. And so I got a couple of cost estimates and it was between eight and $10,000 for the boiler. Well, I took it upon myself to go to web and buy a boiler for $2,200 and then have a local frumer put it in, so it cost me about $3,000 for 140,000 D.C. of boiler. Yep. But with Efficiency Vermont, if I went through them to get a $250 rebase, it was gonna cost me between eight and $10,000, so I didn't see any. Well, that's, you know, that's good feedback. And the beauty of this program is we're gonna have folks from Efficiency Vermont up here and answer in those kind of questions, is sometimes what they do is provide some upstream incentives for particular more efficient boilers, but I would really have to let them answer sort of what their process looks like. Well, mine was 87% and they said they wanted over 90. Over 90, yeah, right, so, yeah. So this is going to have a local planning committee of residents, or who is that comprised of, and who decides to get some on that committee? You know, I, the real decision-making happens in the big public conversations, right? And then what'll happen is there will be some task forces that when the community decides on initiatives, the task forces will then convene to move those initiatives forward. And when I think about sort of maybe a planning committee that comes as a part of that, maybe it's the local chairs of those task forces that are coming together to sort of be coordinated about how this process is moving forward. The one piece that I've experienced as I've done, I've been doing this work for about a year for the VCRD, and in a way it seems like a three-month process because we're gonna have public meetings in April, May, and June that are sort of the big convenings that we do a lot of promotion for, but really the real work of this process starts at that June meeting when you convene task forces and when people get around the table and say, how are we actually gonna move this thing forward? And that's, so I would ask you all, have the long view as you think about this and be thinking about what are the things that I want to emerge from this process, not only do I want them to happen for Randolph, but what are the things that I might be willing to actually sit around the table on a monthly basis to help move forward for this community. We at VCRD will certainly be a partner in moving those things forward, but ultimately what we see again and again is the success of something like this is really contingent on having strong local teams and local leadership that's ready to push these things forward. Can I make a comment? We are looking for this to be just a one or two year program. We look at these task forces that go on four or five years more and be very ongoing. So this could well be very transformative for the community in a very positive way. And these folks, Paul Costello, an organization that's been in 60 towns around Vermont over the last 10 or 15 years, not so much focus on the climate economy aspect, but they're really pros at what they do. They really are, will pull this together. I appreciate you getting one of my, what we see is with our community visit process that this process is based on, sometimes you plant a seed that's part of the community visit and a task force will meet and literally it'll be two or three years later and that task force will have done something that maybe even at its origins it never conceived of, but these task forces sometimes, I don't know if I'd say have a life of their own, but they have a staying power and a real ability to get things done. But that's where again I say sometimes you have to have a long view about some of these things. Obviously we feel some urgency about moving ahead, but ultimately it's badly up to you folks. Thank you. Thanks so much. Next on the agenda is the downtown designation program. Inviting me to talk about the downtown program. I understand this is, and what I've prepared for is an overview about what the downtown program is about, something about what we've done here through the program and how it works with the various roles in it are. So I have some packets for everyone that they can review and you can refer to those later. There's some information in there about designated downtown, there are only 24 in Vermont. Those are the 24 on the cover. The second page is a little bit of an overview of the program. The third is a map of our designated downtown. It's an actual boundary within which certain perks apply. Then there's a list of all the different benefits that the program offers within those areas and sometimes outside of those areas. Anything from tax credits, which I'll go into a little more to act 250 benefits within the downtown and some access to other programs that are downtown focused. A little bit more about the tax credits and the transportation fund, which is another perk of the program. And then I have a two page document that describes a little more in terms of brand off what the program benefits have been. For example, the tax credits that have been awarded for town and some of the statistics that we've done over time around that. So those are just a little more in-depth relative to ranoff specifically and also some of the special or potential benefits that come out of it. Also, in the final page is just an overview. At the bottom is something that adults has asked us to pull together, which is a rough estimate of time involved, staff time volunteered and estimated attendance at our events or people who have benefited from some of the publications. And then finally at the top of the last page, just a little overview, our CCC is also Development Corporation and our properties are listed there. The top are properties that we own, manage or have a controlling interest in. We contribute over $234,000 each year to the tax revenues of the town. And then the bottom is some other projects that we have developed but no longer own and that contributes another $40,600 plus dollars of taxes. So that's just a little overview of our involvement. And as you can see, many of those are in the downtown. Most of them are in the downtown. So we have a vested interest in seeing that this downtown thrives. So the downtown program is essentially a community revitalization program and it helps preserve the historic character, enhance the future of what they call what medium to large size historic downtowns in Vermont. And of course, medium to large for Vermont is a little different than medium to large for other places. And Randolph's been in the program almost since its inception. It was started in 1999 and I think we got our first designation in 2000. The program provides communities with these financial incentives as well as training technical assistance to support local efforts. So as much as John was saying about their program, this is designed to support local efforts. It's not designed necessarily to tell you what to do but to encourage, for example, we are not alone in having a lot of fires in our downtown. A lot of Vermont towns have fires in their downtown and one of the things that the tax credits specifically target is sprinkler systems or elevators for three and four story buildings that people can no longer use for commercial purposes or even for residential purposes because of the fire codes these days and things like that. So it's a way to not only support economic development but to support safety and the viability of the buildings over time. So the municipalities receive, the platform received the designation but the program requires a local nonprofit organization to actually be the organization that maintains the program compliance and keeps it in good standing. And this is designed to be a collaborative process between the organization, the town and also other organizations and individuals in town who all participate together hopefully through the development of larger goals. Again, much as in the climate economy, you wanna look forward, you gotta think big but you gotta work sometimes in a more short term basis to get where you're going. And it's the same kind of approach. It's based on the main street approach which is a sort of a proven approach that was developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation long time ago. And basically you're looking long term but you're trying to find inexpensive short term ways to bring people to the downtown and to bring people together in action. And then the state then provides technical assistance, training, networking, some other things that can help move things along. And so with just a little show and tell here, so I developed some pages that will illustrate some of the things that I'm gonna talk about that we've done in the downtown and you can look at those as we go. So the first is flames are kind of something we get used to right here. In 2010, fire destroyed. The building that Chef's Deli is now in. It actually, we're luckier than with the Bellmay and Ben Franklin Bellmay because the structure was in stone-tacked. The inside was completely destroyed. And the insurance wouldn't cover the cost of rebuilding. And luckily, if there was luck in that, the luck was that it happened, I think in March or April and the tax credit rounds in July. So we were able to work with them to within really a few months to get them a $100,000 tax credit award which enabled them to redo the building to maintain the historic. Beside, you really would not know because of that money that that building had seen any change except that there's less coatings of paint on the exterior detail. So, and I gotta say that this is one of the simplest money programs in the world because it's really a tax credit but you don't have to be able to have a large tax hit yourself to take advantage of the credits because you can sell them to a bank and insurance company or on the other taxpayer. And so it's very easy to use. They're very expeditious about deciding, you don't wait a half a year to find out about the tax credits. And so more recently, we've helped some other local businesses get these one main tap and grill, a couple of buildings in the Foundry complex in Catamount Soul or more recent awardees of tax credits. And total we've received as a community almost 500,000 over time. So, and that's leveraged obviously in the case of, for example, that building, the tax credits, the $100,000 in tax credits enabled an $800,000 project to happen. So, we leverage private funding. The other big benefit is downtown transportation grants. And these are department transportation funds, several $100,000 a year, usually it fluctuates a little bit. And these funds are only accessible by designated downtowns. So, they're competitive, but the competitive women are much smaller group of towns. And we've received several over the years, I actually don't know all of them, but I know of in the recent past at least $300,000 or $400,000 in transportation grants. And those have been, I think we're planning to apply again this month if all goes well. And that goes for sidewalks, paving, lighting, signage, all those things, there's sort of infrastructural things that support businesses and civic life in a downtown. So, really important, again, pretty easy. It's a grant, you got to go through the grant process, but it really helps you leverage those town dollars that are going to that kind of work. And they also want to help with signage, like let people know where your downtown is. And so, things like the kiosk and signage, the welcome to Randolph signs, those are examples of the kinds of things that we do as well. Other benefits again on that list, just highlight a couple, preferred grant status, virtually every grant in the state and many federal grants will prioritize downtown designated areas or downtown areas. Even if you're not in the area, for example, our waste water plant receives preferential grant status because in part of it's serving a designated downtown. So, there are those ancillary benefits that are really impossible to see how much we get from them, but we get regularly sort of a preferential status. The state agencies that cooperate in this are very helpful when we need them. So, technical assistance and again generating things like active 50 waivers and things like that, which is going to help development in the downtown be easier. And as I said, it also sort of incentivizes short-term things that are live in the downtown. So, things like recently our mini-maker fair, we had become concerned that our kids weren't getting enough exposure to the kinds of tech skills that really are the career of the future. And these maker spaces that are developing all over the place, most universities have them now are great, but to get there, often you have to take smaller steps, like a fair is often sort of a gateway to a space. And so we contracted with the developer of the Burlington Generator and the Champlain Maker Fair, and he helped us start one here. We started it in 2016. In our second year, I think we may be, not sure, I know we're the smallest town in Mont, we may be the smallest town in the country to hold the Maker Fair. They're usually in larger cities. And this year, this past year, we were the largest maker fair in Vermont set second to Champlain. So it's grown, it's wonderful, we get a lot of local business involvement, and it's terrifically fun to see kids doing some hands-on things and seeing what's possible. It's kind of looks like magic sometime. And so that works really well. We also hold things like like Palm Town we host, Safe and Safe in Halloween, we work with the town and with the chamber, tree lighting events with the town. We do our annual meeting, highlighting some of our work and that's open to the public. And then last year, we hosted the White River Valley career and job fair as well. And so we try to find those things that will help bring vitality, but also bring skills. And then placemaking is a big initiative in the downtown world now. It's an effort to really make public spaces more useful and fun, and often involving the community participation in the design or the production, the creation of the space. And so Montpelier's little pocket park effort really inspired our work with, and we have been working, as John mentioned, with Efficiency Vermont and their pilot targeted community program. And so we got this idea to bring more Joyce who's the architect there to help us design a pocket park locally and got some support from the town, from Efficiency Vermont, from LED Dynamics, a lot of local businesses are supporting that effort and we hope to be able to kick that off this, kick the build off, finish the fundraising kick off the community build this summer. You do have some work still to do with the town to enable that to go forward, we're really, I hope, very close to being able to do that and to really bring a few sort of public spaces onto our downtown. And then we try to involve youth in virtually everything we do. Last year we worked with volunteers from RTCC, R-U-H-S-V-T-C, GEMS, Rotary Interactive AmeriCorps and other individual young people to find meaningful ways for them to get involved, including the downtown survey, for example. Not only did they help fill it out, but their classroom used it to do data analytics. So that was a great opportunity. RTCC administers a small business, you're buying a loan fund and we've helped several local businesses start, like Vermont Computing, Vermont Natural's Sheepskins and Freedom Foods, got loans from us in their startup or expanding businesses like Valley Bowl and Garner Woodworking. That's more recent. And we've also been able to use outside grant sources for technical assistance, such as I think there's a blurb about a technical assistance grant we got from the SDA to help LED Dynamics and the Farm Stand, which became Chef's Market, when they were just beginning to want to do more with their publicities, the signage logos, publicity materials and that sort of helped them get to the next step there. And then we match big businesses that are available or buildings that are available or businesses that are looking for a building. We try to keep track of what's available, what its amenities are. And so when we hear about somebody looking for something, as we recently did with an empty building in downtown, which we hope is gonna gain some traction, we try to find the right match so people don't have to hight too far. And obviously in the coming year, we look forward to participating with the Climate Economy Program. There's a picture in there of this zero energy modular home built in Vermont, which we're gonna be able to get a sort of mobile unit to be able to take other places, but also to just demonstrate here, which is a sort of a whole new home product. So we estimate that in 2017, we contributed staff time of over 2,100 hours, volunteer time of over 1,000 hours and produced events or promotion that reached pretty conservatively about 5,000 people around the downtown. But it works best when we work together. And so we're really looking forward to finding ways, long-term and short-term ways to improve civic life and economic wellbeing downtown. And to continue that work. So if there's any questions and that town does support our work, has supported our work over time, and that is part of the expectation of the program, that the town gets involved in supporting the organization, as well as contributing in kinds, work and collaborative efforts, and obviously goals setting, which is important to us. If anyone has any questions, you may have an answer. And if we wanna test those around, I can test this around the public as well. Different set of photos and... Is it the same bunch? Are these two? No, no, that's okay. Yeah, that's pretty good. And to your presentation, you've seen the goal setting. When was the last time the town sat down with our ACBC to do the goal setting? Well, you know, we applied, you have to reapply periodically for this program. So it used to be a few years, I think now it's every five years. The last time we did it was last year. Well, and I'm a year off. I keep thinking it's twice that deep. In 2016, we had to apply for renewal. And at that time, we did develop the work plan and did review it with the town at that time. But it's a little different. So what we haven't done for a long time and really I would welcome doing because I think it's extremely important. It's one thing to develop a task list. It's a completely other thing to develop a goal setting list. And when this program started, when we first got involved in the designation, it was not too far off the fires. And this town had a pretty big wish list. I reviewed this recently when I did a presentation for American Planning Association in Vermont. And this town had an impressive to-do list. And it was visionary. It was ambitious. And they're almost all done. And then as things sort of got done, we stopped developing big wish lists. And I think we need to do that again because those things, when you check off that list, I don't have it memorized now, but the skating rink, a new bridge, renovate Chandler, our solid bridge square project was a brownfield in a prime scene. Renovate that. I mean, there were not small things. And I think all but one that we had on the initial application got completed. And so that's inspiring, I think. And I think we need to do that as well as sort of what are we gonna try to accomplish this year list. And the thing about this program is that while the town applies and certainly wanna collaborate efforts, it's not like an employee-employer or contractor relationship. It's really a collaborative sort of relationship under the statutory umbrella of this program. And in that way, it was designed to really take advantage of the strength of the town and maybe some of the more nimbleness of a nonprofit organization to be able to do things that the town that maybe can't do as quickly or doesn't have the staff time to do. So it has the potential to be a powerful combination and then obviously you want as many other organizations and individuals involved as possible and businesses certainly. But those big goals really, when you look at the list, we don't have that as a community. And I think that's one of the things that it would be really helpful of climate coming, same thing. You need some big goals to be able to see your way toward them and we haven't done that a long time. Maybe we can put you right in that list on the task. I think we'll be fine with that one. But what he also said is to, Bethel University or Bethel has adopted, I can't remember who coined it, but it's a wonderful word, that we are duocracies. We need to come up with big ideas that we also need to be willing to work on them because no one organization, no one person, no one group can do this alone. So it's important that we have ideas and we're willing to work. Thank you very much. I have a question. I think that's the board to ask her any questions for the board. For me, I'm all set. I think I'm good for now. Now, I know that Salivary Square is not underdeveloped, is underdeveloped and I see here you have a thing from Vermont Mod. Now, if I was to purchase one of these 40 by 13 foot glorified mobile phones, that is energy efficient, and I put it over there at Salivary Square or Randolph Place, I don't know what it's called now. How much would it cost me to move in? You have to buy the land, how much it costs me first, water sewer hookup, the lease or whatever it is, the whole nine yards. If I was to put one in there and my first day, how much would it cost me? Right, and the reason I can't answer that yet is because we're working on the designs with Vermont now. Mr. Joy is right, the Vermont was started, the company was started after Irene as a mobile home replacement concept. So it looks like a box park. It looks like a mobile home. And that's why it was created and it was created to be affordable and what they call zero energy module, meaning that it creates all the energy it uses. I understand that, but I don't know what the cost is. So a model like that, a 70 by 14 model would probably cost in the vicinity of 150, 160,000. And then there are incentives from Efficiency Vermont and others that brings it down to more like the $100,000 range. But we're working on something that is a little more designed and a little more community friendly. We don't have the designs and we don't have the pricing in yet, but that is the goal, that they not look quite like their original design. My dad's an engineer, so I understand that engineers are often not designers. The guy who runs for Vermont is an engineer. And he's, and it does my dad would say it works, doesn't it? But we're looking at ways to maybe step up the design a little bit. Any other shipments? Same one? Yes. Can I carry? Could I just offer an unsolicited testimony about the downtime designation program? I was personally involved with the building that is now known as the Freebeam Cafe at the time that was an accredited building that was right on the verge of being, should have been demolished. And thanks to the downtime designation and the state program and combined federal and state tax credits, there was enough incentive that I rehabilitated that and as a result, 12 to 15 years later, it remains as a viable downtown entity, well known to many, and still on the historic register. None of that would have happened without those tax credits. On these, on these lot things which is sort of like a work by the trailer. So how does that enhance our community, the look of our community that we stuff a trailer park in the back of it? Yeah, as I was explaining before, Joe, I'm here to clear, so the initial design was designed to be a mobile home replacement product. So in those areas, particularly they got hit hard by Irene when and some of the trailers were old and not at all energy efficient and some of them really not habitable. There was an effort by the state to make sure that the ones that could be replaced were replaced with high quality replacement units. And that Vermont was created around that by the engineer that used to work for a modular home company. And the difference between a Vermont and a modular home is essentially that it integrates all the energy features and so it's got solar that basically powers the unit. But it is not that design, that particular design that you're looking at and that is the model that's gonna be on a trailer that's gonna roam the community so that people can see what it's like inside and how it works. But we're working with architects to take the idea and to make it look better. To make it, it's just like a modular home, you can build pretty much anything you want with them but you have to get, the cost point is of concern to us. And so it's both trying to build something that looks good but it's the size that the market needs and that's gonna break the piggy bank or that we could get subsidies from some of these agencies that are promoting zero energy things. Vermont Power has been donating or providing Tesla power walls for some of these units so it's a really, it's an innovative time but they don't have a lot of more sort of what you consider sort of a normal house design yet and we're working on trying to make that happen at least something that we feel good about offering to the community and we will test those with the community to see what people think. The reason I kind of ask is because you know I'll put that right in the center at the interchange district if you will. You know we have a design review committee and it has to meet this, it has to meet what everything you think of to fit in there. Yet right here in the middle of downtown and talking to downtown district or downtown designation and talking historic preservation and the middle of your downtown which is basically where that is we're essentially looking to put in trailer park and I'm just wondering how does that design review really happen and how does the public select board, planning commission, DRVs whatever you will get involved with how that's going to look. Yeah, well right now we don't have a historic district downtown, that's something I think we would support but as I said we have no intention of putting a trailer park looking thing in that property. What we're working with is working with engineers who have worked with, and architects who have worked with the Vermont model to now take it to its next phase which is a more, and it's already happening but into a more mainstream application. So will there be a public process? Yeah, yeah, we're gonna send those designs out because it's not just to test the market as well. We're gonna need to test the market and say hey, we think this design looks good but do you think it looks good? Because somebody's gotta buy it. So do you have a target market, yeah? I'm just gonna assume the target market is. Yeah, I mean the primary target market in part because of the state's goals is 80 to 120% median income. And so it's average income so we some that might be more but some that might be less and it really depends on what kind of package we can put together. And ideally this kind of product would also be attracted to young people to people who don't wanna like I have all my life and I spend all your waking extra hours fixing the old house. People wanna go in, don't want a huge house, want a new house, don't wanna have to think about it too much and so people who come, who may be attracted to work here want a new home within striking distance of the downtown. We don't have much built after like 1940 in town. And so it's a departure and it's a challenge because building crisis are gone up. But we have this local company, really it's you know, he's done a wilder upper valley and he's willing to work hard with us to see if he can find a way to do it. Come up with a design, a market thing that fits everybody that might be working in the community so they answer Joe's questions. I think that is a concern so but you're eventually gonna have to provide some form of conceptual artist rendering type stuff. I would imagine how the community is gonna be built something similar to what you did last time. Yeah, absolutely and we wanna get it out there early because we wanna test it. We wanna hear what people say before, you know, we invest anything in it because it's not gonna be worth anything if you can't sell them. Right, okay. So the median income right but then on the last survey that was done was the family income and brand office, $36,000, $38,000 that enabled the grant funding for the wastewater facilities and so you're building to that market the $36,000 a year family income. It depends on your, it depends on your compound value. The average income for a family of four I think is over $60,000. I'm saying that was that income survey at that time. That was for your downtown, not for the whole community. Yeah. Yeah, well, I just wanna say one thing about it. My name is Roger Globsky and I'm on the board at RACDC and I've had a chance to look at some of the preliminary designs so I just wanted to add to what Julie's saying that really the goal of the project is to do two things. One is to make sure that aesthetically it adds to the value of the downtown. So we've actually gone to a design process initially where we've looked at early designs that were not good enough and they've been rejected with the sense that we need to want something that the town would be proud of. So that's really a criteria in moving forward with the project. And the second is we wanted to attract new people to the town, not just new people around the town. And so if we come up with a design that's efficient, that values the environment is affordable, we believe we can attract young family productive workers to the downtown and we think that this is a project that will really help the town become revitalized. So I think really a value in going forward with this process is to get as much community support around the initiatives that have been started. And if they're not what we need to be, we want to make them better. Any comments on the downtown design? Don't we need jobs for then people to come in? This topic is on the downtown designation program. Any comments? Thanks Julie. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have a famous committee to serve the audience for many assignments. We have two prospective candidates. We have Jessamine West and then we also have Tom Ayers. Tom is seeking an appointment to a vacant position with the Economic Development Council. And Jessamine is seeking an appointment to the Conservation Commission, which also has a current vacant position. Preference is to do the interview portion of this and then move the point over to the end to get through all the topics that have people here for me. That makes sense. So in the packet on the table is the committee who commissioned vacancies. The last page has the statement of interest from Jessamine for the Conservation Commission and Tom for the Economic Development Council. And then if we have some questions specifically we can ask them. We're having trouble hearing. Yeah. Yeah, we need to talk about it. You want to talk a lot enough? Okay. I'm going to review the statements of interest that were submitted by the candidates. We're going to ask them any questions that we have and then move the discussion of appointments to the committees, to labor and the agenda to allow the topics that folks are here for to be taken care of. So who aren't getting over grinding through? Who wants to be the health officer? Who wants to be three board members? Who wants to be the town's service officer? Do you have an interest in some of those correct? I don't know what it is. What does it sound like? What does it sound like? What does it sound like? What does it sound like? You don't know either? What is it? It's not me. I think I'm guessing that folks are so worried about us. We have the my town's solid list of lands that takes care of the land bill and how does this place look like some kind of little thing. What kinds of it? So we just had a chance to review the statements of interest from the board. And so taking the first one, just in here on conservation questions, any questions currently? Have up for Tom on the Economic Development Council. Any perfectly questions? Any statements that you guys would like to make? There's no questions from the board. I'm happy to just abide by the application that I submitted. If there are any questions, I would simply just underscore that I have a pretty significant background, including as an elected official and another municipality in economic development and community development initiatives, having chaired committees as a city councilor in Burlington in all of those areas and also in the transportation energy and utilities sector. So I bring a fairly diverse perspective to the whole question of economic development. And as the now 11 month director of the Chandler Center for the Arts here in Randolph, I think I can bring a perspective of the leader of a major economic driver in the community to the council as well. And so that's my interest in stepping up. Thank you. I'm interested in being on the Conservation Commission as sort of somebody who likes the outdoors of Randolph but isn't super sporty. Although I will say I put my application in before the Conservation Commission was on the front page of the newspaper but I am still up for it. And I just wanna help with some of the communication that we do with the Conservation Commission, with the town, with partnerships with other organizations and with sort of figuring out what to do with some of the upcoming changes that are gonna make the Conservation Commission job slightly more complicated and I'm interested in participating in continuing to serve. I've been adjusted to the peace in town for six-ish years. I'm looking forward to being on a committee with regular meetings and that's pretty much it. I just like the outdoors and want everybody to like the outdoors more, right? We'll move that to leader. Next we have, that's application of Furnist Road. So, it's being looked at, this is all about. So, Governor Scott has an initiative that he's put in place to make improvements to things that affect the lives of veterans and their families and each of the agencies statewide needed to come up with some projects and initiatives and Randolph just happens to have the Veterans Cemetery on town road, class three road right now. One of the items put forward by somebody that is on the committee to identify projects and the transportation to participate in was the repaving of Furnist Road. So, it was identified as an item of interest and what they're asking us to do is to reclassify Furnist Road to be a class two highway. The state does not provide any grant funding for class three highways for this type of effort. And then, they will fund the repaving of the road as long as we can get the spec out and have it bid by Memorial Day. And they will do from Route 66 down the entire distance I believe because the measurements we've gotten from online is that it's only about another 10 or two tenths of a mile beyond the entrance. So, what we need to do as a board if we support this is vote to have Adolfo write a letter requesting the Secretary of Transportation to reclassify Furnist Road to a class two highway. They have what they need to issue the grant to us to do this. It is an overlay similar to what you see that's done on Route 14 from the intersection 107 to Leigh and Townline in the last couple of years. We tried for a complete drainage mill overlay project. Just wanted to do the rebaving. Yeah, yeah, well 125,000 versus 750,000. Yeah, I know I'm sure that was the rebaving, but when we look at a high use highway, all the way last about five years is basically the time they give it, this one will be closer to eight to 10. But it will be 100% paid for by the state. So, we'll give us a repaid town road at no cost. We just have to agree to change it to a class two highway, which actually increases what we get paid by the state in the military version. That's right, that increases the mileage. Yeah. If we go to, it'll take this, particularly I think it goes out to almost a mile and we get into class two out of class three to give us a higher payment for roadways. Sounds like an o-brainer. Any motion? Thank you. All right, so what, well, just before we, I just have a question. This does sound like an o-brainer. No. If this is the case and if we get more money from the state for class two roads, why aren't other roads class two, is it? Is it just a matter of they don't qualify for that kind of level of that particular classification? And if so, why would this qualify? It seems like it's not a terribly highly traveled road. You're great. They have to meet certain qualifications to get in. This one's going to have an exception made because it has a high traffic generator at the end of it that's owned by the state. There is a requirement that would prohibit, so the process, although the towns are allowed, towns are allowed to make a motion to reclassify the road from class three to class two. Process has to be approved by the Agency of Transportation. So even if the town order, any town order, make this vote and then pass it forward and make requests. The Agency of Transportation couldn't deny it. In this case, it would work out because we're working with them at the moment. We also are able to do it because we, there's a limit of the number of miles that we have for class two classification. And so long as we remain at 25% or less of the number of class three miles that we have in the town, we're able to do this if the state allows us to make the transition. And we would remain under 25% of our total class three miles. You can go ahead and fix it. It's pretty much an embarrassment. Yeah, sounds good. It's pretty much an embarrassment to drive to that beautiful facility over there going down that road. And I think that seems to me that we should allow them to make that repair. Is that a motion? I don't know. Can I ask a question first? Sure. Is the bed spec prepared in time to go out of town? And that's to follow the town's spec and fitting process. Okay, I didn't know if we would have to go out with an R&P and then that would go as services covered under the funding as part of the 100%. Yep, if we were, if we have to do anything special to do the job, it is covered in what the state would have. Do you want the motion? Sure. Okay, so I would move that we upgrade the road to a class two based on the fact that the state is willing to reimburse or take on the cost of that project at 100%. Okay, so we're going to second all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Abstain. Motion to dis. Next on the agenda, we have a list of liquor license for you all for Shaw's Humberland Farm, Chamfering Farms, Randolph Village Pizza, and early week, and it's Sodex. Do we have a problem with any of that stuff? No reason not to? Okay. What's the Sodex? Oh, we're good with that. I see. I'll do it. Any concerns? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. All those will approve the liquor license for Shaw's Humberland Farm, Chamfering Farms, Randolph Village Pizza, and Sodex. So I can make a motion to the second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain. Motion to dis. Next, we have the recreation area. We have Heidi Ariasar, recreation director here to speak about this next agenda. The resurfacing of the courts is on the capital projects with another maintenance, so if we keep on our maintenance schedule, our courts will not end up like BTCs, they're unpayable, so got the three bids and I'm recommending that we go forward with the advantage tennis courts because they have more of a warranty on them, a three of warranty on the seal, as well as two new tennis nets that come with it, so that's also an expense, but we will resurface it, we'll seal the cracks that include the basketball and the tennis courts, and add to the windscreen that provide on the parking side where all the dust comes through, as well as through the basketball courts and the tennis courts. So all that is within budgets. I have a comment about the windscreen. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. And this is looking at the late June? Yes, so the sooner we go forward, the sooner they get us on the schedule. Tennis schedule starts June, and we're hoping to add the pickleball line, so we're gonna have pickleball league for adults, as well as providing some additional programming for kids. So that's an add-on. Lots of interest in pickleball, but we're going to non-filial rather than stay in our courts. We'll look forward to that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Does your recreation or some recreation can abuse these facilities? Yes, we do. Just wanna point out to the board that Heidi's been really working hard with not only just the painting of the estimates, but also working with the community and the community groups that use these facilities, so she's trying to get us to the best price possible, but also making sure that whatever the town is able to get from these best prices is also what the community is asking for. She's put in a lot of work into this project. Yeah, we're with the Tennis Committee, the Tennis folks that are pretty strong. They have 50 members that play in the year in the league, so all the captains are involved and been working on this throughout the last couple of six months. Just want to know a little bit about the pickleball. What's that? Is there a league here yet? Nope, and we're gonna develop one. We're gonna develop one. Great. Okay, that sounds good. Watch, he's on the hop or anything, so. Yes, I still appreciate your thoughts. I'm waiting for curling, I'm waiting for that. That's next year, that's next year, curling. Great. Is that the use of a little vacuum cleaner? Yeah, look at that. That's a good one. That scared the whole thing. Yeah. Great. I haven't been living next to the Tennis course and I have noticed for the last five years, so basically the wind screens are up, but then during the winter, they get a ton of abuse and they're just flying over and flapping over and basically destroying themselves. Yes, so. So no one ever takes them down, though, in the fall, in like maybe October, November, when no one's out playing tennis and then puts them back up so they seem to last about half as long as they should. And I assume that they're much more expensive than one would imagine. It looks like it's just landscape material, but it's probably something that's more expensive than landscape material. But I'm just saying if you need to buy new ones, that maybe there's a way to get twice as much use out of it by taking them down. Oh, we will. Those are, we're on the air bird and so on my watch, they will be. Okay, because in the past, they just would stay up there. No, I don't. It's going to be part of our fall winterizing schedule. Oh, another issue is also lights. I know that's not on the list, but those particular tennis lights often will be on with nobody out there. And just for kind of no reason, it's not, there's no kind of rhyme or reason to when that might happen. And a few years back, I could call and no one seems to really be responsive or in control or could explain what makes them go on or what makes them go off. It's just a schedule. Was the, is the games, and we have talked to the captains that they are responsible for turning them off. In the middle of December, they go on, they're on at three in the morning. Well, that should be the morning and we will look into it. That's probably just a malfunction or something. I'll pay more attention. I have a call. Yeah, no, it's a, please call me. Yeah, all right. Absolutely, thank you. How many different towns use that facility? Our facility? Well, our league is mainly a Randolph brand tree in Brookfield that play. But I would, I've contacted them part of the USTA league as well. And so we're looking to expand and offer some tournaments. I am a tournament director for USTA and looking to expand. And those are really Randolph as two nice courts. So we want to keep them maintained. So are all these towns contributing to the resurfacing? No. Well, the majority is Randolph. There's probably, I can count us. I know it seems from Bethel. No, we don't have teams from Bethel. The league that I run is from Randolph. We might have one or two people from both frames of play. We don't play, we play here and we play at DTC because we need a third and a fourth court. And that's really unplayable. So we have to stay here. Can I make a comment about that? Sure. So we also have a little league field that other members of the community from other places use and so we don't think we're charged in other towns for useful league fields. So not trying to short sight anybody but my remark is we're one community here with multiple towns around us and so we are that core community and so we do share things back and forth. So when I played little league years ago we played in oil thin and Chelsea and Randolph and so I think this is similar. Yes. But actually if you had corn operated lights and they would shut off on that one. Corn operated lights or maybe better timers or something. I think that's an energy commission item. I think they can help you fix that one. Just asking. Do you need a motion for this? You can return that. You can return that. You can return that. Yeah, we can motion we approve the the period of park recreation and the resourcer. I'll second it. I'll second all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Yes, yes. Aye. concurvence. Aye. just due to the weather she asked, if we could put bonus. It's one item for one more month until next week. And we go on to enough center solar proposals. This is an item that was brought to the town in the past and the town was asked to consider the project. It had laid dormant for quite some time and there have been some recent changes to the project. The subsidiary was recently purchased. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of a different company that appears to be moving forward with the project. They're giving us advance notice of their 45 day notice. So that if the town or its committees wish to review it and provide comment, we could do so. So just some tips for you. This is the project we had three or four hearings on. We had a site visit out there at the time. The group that was proposing the project was looking for the town to write a letter of support. Even though it wasn't required. So we went to a fair amount of public process on this. This new group is not asking for a letter of support. It is basically just telling us, hey, this is going to be filed. So the town's perspective we can write letters to them at this point to comment on the plan itself. To file a public service for it after they file the application. Correct. Yes. So they're not proposing a public hearing agenda like the last week in Feinger. I'm going to put on my planning commission mat from now. So back in the spring, we met on the planning commission. Matt with two rivers out of Quichy. I think we had five meetings. Two of those meetings were joint meetings with Braintree, Kirkfield and Randolph, I believe, to talk about identifying sites for future solar and wind generation. And this was part of the initiative, the 2015 goals that the state's created. Correct. To become carbon free or something along that lines. And so the reason I think that some of this is happening is because at the present time, we don't have anything in our town plan that addresses this. And that's something that the planning commission was looking to work on. So we had recommendations from two of our out of Quichy on this situation. But this is actually going to come a little bit before we're going to have an opportunity to chat about this on a town-wide level for the planning commission process. Correct. We do not have an issue plan as a chapter of our town plan. But it's underway. We've got the planning grant for it. Can you talk a little louder, please? Sure. I think we've got the planning grant to do that effort. But yeah, they have to be in compliance with the town plan. And our town plan is not going to have anything in it that they have to comply with for site needs. Kind of beating us to the punch. At this point, didn't we just get the board to choose? They could provide comment. We could post phone in until the next meeting. It has a choice either to instruct me to draft letters and share with the board to provide instruction or again, post phone in until the next meeting. I think at a minute when we need to send us to the planning commission and the energy committee for comment. It is on the planning commission's agenda for the next meeting. And we'll tell you that, so. Does it make sense to write this group of letters saying that we would like them to hold off on their plans until we have a town plan in place? Yeah. We want to hold on to that. Great question. Can't hurt, right? Do you think we're voicing our intention? They have cut out everything that was in there that Ranger Solar had. The hearings in the town and the meetings from the letter of support from the payments to the town on top of what their taxes all that's been stripped out of us at this point. They're going back to public services. You're implying that they're not going to be quite as friendly as they were before? Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, I hear you. That's to me like it'll be submitted and then we'll be on the 45 day clock. So any time we can get ahead of that we're probably going to ease in what's on it. That'll be it. This process will put more on us on the abutting landowners to take action than the town to take action. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I'm having trouble hearing because my ears are stuffed up, but I'm not familiar with this project that's being proposed, but I regularly do work at the public utility commission. And I regularly represent municipalities before the public utility commission. So I'm trying to understand it sounds like we're concerned because this is not being cited in a place that perhaps would be one of the preferred areas of the town that ultimately the planning commission may identify as the areas that we would support for solar projects. And it sounds like there's perhaps abutting landowners that will be happy about this. Is there a consensus at the town in terms of what position is this a project? Because I'm hearing they're beating us to the punch. And yeah, apparently they are. If we don't have this list, I don't know about the third sites and have our effects in a row in terms of any applicant that comes down the pike now. So my question is hearing, yeah, there may be some more on this on the abutting landowners. While there are basically two ways for municipalities to participate in these kinds of proceedings. One is having that, you know, those sites identified or having your town plan indicate where they are and it's required and all that. But the other is for the town to actually be involved in the permanent process to take positions about certain issues. And I would encourage the town to not feel that they are without any ability to intervene here and to try to effectuate either changes to this application or to defeat this application. And again, I know nothing about this application. I'm just trying to provide some information about other ways that the town may be involved in this process to try to either defeat or shape it in a different way that suits our needs even if we don't have all our planning documents in a row and can rely on that in order to guide where projects may go. I'd be happy to assist in any way that I can if I'm a select board wants to discuss it. I know we don't want to incur attorney's fees by hiring necessarily somebody to go. But because we have folks that have lots of planning experience, the Planning Commission can go and have a representative from the Planning Commission represent the Planning Commission's interest there or someone from the select board or even a designate of somebody in the community. So I just want to be sure that we don't feel that we don't have some arrows in our quiver if the town believes that they're going to intervene in a proceeding because it is not a goal or within the vision that we have for it. I have a comment just as someone who attended some of those public meetings. And I think one of the main objections, if I recall, my corrective was the fact about these wrecks were going to be sold off to people in Connecticut. So it's basically some asset stripping. In other words, it wasn't that the town or even private individuals in the town were going to gain the benefits. It was really all the benefits of this were going offsite and out of state. And that was a main issue for me in terms of my personal objection to it for whatever that's worth. Just to bring that into discussion, I'm not sure if everyone was really up to speed on that one. What's happening? They can be sold out of state. So that does seem like defeating the purpose of supporting local economies, supporting even things within Vermont versus Connecticut just coming and basically farming us and using us as farming animals. It's how it's working out. It's all the firm to meet their end of period farming. Right, to cover there. That was one of the biggest problems for me personally. I don't want to write behind you. I went to several of those meetings too and I was going to be part of the Energy Committee and I went to a lot of their committee meetings. And as far as I understood, they were against this project and it's the same project. I think it came in equally split from the project. So, and I know that this question before, so and I know that the Select Board didn't really know quite, they knew that it wasn't going to make the big difference and they didn't have power or they didn't feel that they had power to say, no, you can't do it. But I think, and I think you're right. We need, you know, the Select Board and the needs to make a decision about whether they supported or not. And, but I think we have quite a few people in town that are looking at whether we're getting any kind of credit for it, whether it's good for us as a town to take that much land out of that particular use. And I know people have bought, you know, Ringer has, or whatever it's called now is it has bought the land that they want to use for. So. My name is John Mazzupo and all I'd say is I agree with all three people, what they said. I do too. It makes, it makes sense what they said. Makes sense. Does it make sense that our first stop is whether our energy committee and our planning question to get their take on that effort? Again. It's different. It is different. The layout's different, not by a lot, but it's a little bit different. So as far as I know, there wasn't a lot of trust felt in it in those meetings regarding this confidence. I think some of the representatives like it were a little bit challenging. Put it nicely. Do you need that? Dobson, I think I would add having a way to have some kind of statement that's proactive, you know, about what we are willing to accept and maybe including as long as the power is going to stay here, you know, in the general area. Things like that, I think would be really helpful to, you know, create those guidelines so that when companies do come forward, we've got a clear plan and an idea. Anyone want to go back to your chair, sir? Yeah, I think generally it's been powerful. Maybe someone can check my understanding of, but I believe that the biggest difference with this proposal compared to the prior one is that they're no longer going to apply our rates under some arcane federal law that allows them rates, that specified rate, that is quite beneficial to range or so on. And I think, I don't know if that's no longer available or if they've just reconsidered that. So they're not gonna do that anymore. And I'm assuming that's why it's not gonna be just profitable for them and why. Is it true that we're not hearing about any financial remuneration to the town, other than presumably assessed value in taxes? So they've stripped all that down? So that to me changes it quite a lot. Considering, I'm gonna just bring up again something we talked about before, at this blackboard level, that this project's almost for sure has to decrease the resale value of the significant number of homes that are in that bowl up above it. We had some argument about it, but I'd be willing to put a hundred dollars down that five years later we could identify a number of properties that are not selling and perhaps house might suck lots that are not developed over with new houses because of the view shed being impacted. 110 acres dispensed is a huge visual impact. Speedtow Road and Elaine Sewell's old house under the water tower will never be the same. So that's not the only economic consideration. It's just one, so we will have that effect. I'm gonna go down and record this saying I believe that could be the case. So if there's not something offsetting to the town, I have to raise the question, why would we support this? One of the challenges is that they're not asking for that letter of support either. Nobody, no letter of support. I don't know if the Planning Commission members would know or maybe broke a few wood. When the legislature passed the statutes that provide for the towns to set up these energy preferred siding areas, was there anything in there that would ask any developer to hold off until these towns had those plans in place? Is there any type of precedent set by that or is this sort of a race to the, how do you think the Public Utilities Commission is going to view the fact that Randolph is undertaking this and their Planning Commission looking at siding where they have been given the chance by the legislature to intervene in what process that I believe that they hadn't had as much say in, if you can even correct me if I'm wrong there. If a developer of a project this size is proposing to get that done just ahead of when the town may have their project, their thing done, is there any way to beyond the process that you described to, or if anybody else knows if there's any other language available that would ask that they hold off until our process is done? Yeah. All right, so generally the rules that apply, if you will, are the rules that are in effect when an application goes in and it's known as vested rights. So if the law has not changed yet to a new town plan, for example, you are stuck with measuring the project against the town plan that is in, that is valid at the time the application goes in. Now, there is an exception to that if, for example, a select board has noticed, they have to get a 30 day notice for a hearing to change your zoning ordinance or your town plan or whatever process document that you're talking about. If the actual notice has gone out that this will be voted on in 30 days and we have the document, but it's not law yet, that's actually the deadline. Now here, we're just working and planning and it's a process that has not come to fruition yet with a new document. So we're stuck with the existing town plan. In terms of those preferred sites, the measure is arguing compliance with the town plan. If the town plan says, this is where we're going to allow solar facilities and you're proposing it for some other place, well, then you can't comply with the town plan. It's sort of a very simplistic way to try to explain it. So it's your rights to the law best at the time that you put an application. Now we could certainly say to someone, gee, would you hold off or change in it? And we want to eliminate the site that you're living at. It's probably doubtful that they would be willing to step aside. One of the issues that is important to any kinds of these solar projects, particularly because of diminishing financial incentives under the Trump administration, for example, a lot of these solar is changing somewhat. It is no longer being as profitable. So right now we're seeing sort of a, oh my gosh, we got to get our projects through before we lose all these financial incentives. The other thing is that the public circuit, we used to be called the public service board. It's now called public utility commission. So the public utility commission rules have actually changed. And it is more onerous now to get a permit for a large solar project than it used to be. So there are a lot of things going on, but that's why it's really important that towns understand that they have, they can get standing in these cases. They don't have to go through all of the hoops that in a buddy landowner might have to be to say, well, I think orderly development is something that I have an interest in. Orderly development would be the criteria that you would attack if you believe that a solar project would diminish property values in the town. Surrounding it, a buddy, whatever. A property owner going to the tribunal and saying public service board, I don't want this project because my property is going to lose value. That is not going to be sufficient. That's not a reason for anybody to stop a project. If a town comes and says the orderly development of our town is adversely, unduly adversely impacted by this project because we're going to lose tax revenue of a million bucks because all of these properties are going to have to be repraised because they will diminish in value when this project goes in. That is a much more powerful approach for the actual municipality to have a lot more say in this and to advance a challenge on a criteria that will have meaning, whereas an individual landowner would just be dismissed out and we don't care about your individual property. It would have to be demonstrated in the context of what impact it would have on the town and the grand list and our ability to pay our bills. So those are the kinds of things excellent to get the planning commission involved in the energy committee. Just pay incredibly close attention to those deadlines that come fast and furious and intervening in this. You need to file your motion on time and try to get in. And I would recommend the town do it just to get your foot in the door even if there's a dispute about what position that the town will take to make sure that we don't miss that opportunity if we're still getting our ducks in the room trying to analyze and determine whether this is a good or bad project for the town and whether the town supports it or not. The issue of they're not offering any tax incentives now plays right into and dovetails with the issue of we lose our tax revenue because the developers would go in and say, don't worry about the orderly development. Don't worry about the taxes. We're alleviating that problem for the municipality because we're giving them all this money. And if we're not getting the money now, we have a pretty good argument. And sometimes taking a stand, intervening as a municipality leads to other options like negotiating settlements where maybe that money can be found. Maybe mitigation can occur in terms of the ultimate, you know, expense to the town for lost tax revenue. Just really quickly, there are other issues involved also that were enumerated and described in the past that I won't bring up again, but those issues that were just raised are not the only issues. And if anybody wants to hear them again, especially if you're new to the board, I'd be willing to be personally with you. Sure. I'm not against, I don't think that we are, quote, against solar. It's the magnitude along with some other issues. I did get an email from a resident up there that's concerned they're showing a right away across their property, which they haven't granted and have no desire to. I have hearing aids and I still can't hear him. Yeah, I can hear you either. You too, microphone. I have a microphone. You have a media microphone. There's, I received an email from a resident up there who's concerned they show an access across their land to connect to the three phase and they have a grant that didn't have no desire to grant it. So I think they've got some other challenges coming. There's also no decommissioning bond proposed in this new plan. So they have now no plan for what happens at the end of this, if they were to go belly up, who's gonna happen to clean up the mess? They're still missing some pretty big pieces. It appears in this plan, but I think it will be good if we can get a couple of the committees that are focused on the stick of development and these issues. So push it up because last time we were split all across town and we were in a 50-50 basically of support and non-support. So we would need to know what are the issues and where does the town stand on? Take a position. Any questions, comments, thoughts? Appreciate all the input. Yeah. It's fair to go on the other hand. We give that to those committees, we give them a deadline to get it back, especially knowing that this is going in for a while. And at that point we'll have 45 days to vote. Any response together? Maybe one more time, again, at their next meetings of each of those groups. And it sounds like we're planning for the next morning. It's already on the agenda. Okay. Committees, councils, and the representatives of the committees. We're going to appoint people to committees. It's going to be a very exciting topic. Everybody put your hand up. Yeah. So we have a list. Yes, the group of the background section. All of the individuals listed here with the exception of our existing townspeople, we have not been able to confirm whether he was interested in continuing with the project or with the commission. Everyone else has confirmed that they would like to continue serving in their specific rules. We do have a stage coach representative that was appointed to fulfill a position that had been vacated halfway through. That term inspires, or inspires. They have not expressed their interest in continuing. They did have the interview. She did have the interview. They did have the interview, she expressed that. That was so recent. I'm sure she's interested, yeah. Because it was only a couple months. It was only a couple months. I don't believe stage coach has met, has a group, probably, that haven't changed a point from now on. We've been meeting post-fundments, and then she had to. It seems premature to kick it off. Yeah, right here. Look how many people left the room, huh? What do you want to put their hands on? Exciting stuff. Thanks. Okay. Okay, I'm not one of the, hold on a primary, I'll be a part of it. Do you know what to do? She may be listening to the primary all the time. Michael raised a good point in that. He's listed as the alternate for the LEPC, and also further down, Winston Sadoe is also the alternate for two members out of Michi. Just want to point out that he does not have alternate listed, thanks to his name, but he is the alternate. What's the town service officer? We might have to take her right now. There are some positions and committees that I'm still trying to learn about. For example, just a different example is the town history committee. They've tried to speak with our longer serving staff members and they were questioning whether or not any of the former members are still living in the way they last met. I don't think so. I think the last one might have been met in her week. Yeah. So. I just wanted to see the town history committee connected to the Randolph Historical Society, or are they totally separate? We're two separate groups. That I was able to learn, the two separate groups. We could get them to where we had them to march. I think former select woman, Marjorie Ryerson, was involved with the town history committee. It might be a person you could ask about that. I went to a couple of their meetings. She was a select burglary liaison, huh? I mean, she might have been a select for a liaison at the time. She could have been. Yeah. Thank you. So we think briefs live on for a longer stage, right? If someone closed the doors, I can't figure out how to do it, but it's noisy. I'm going to grab that and see if I can figure it out. There's a thing behind it up as well. Try to install it with allines. Oh, thanks. This is a representative that meets the other menace qualities that are part of that group. It'll include a landfill, hazardous waste collection day, all that good stuff. I believe it was recently renamed to the Mountain Alliance. So we needed some updating in that position. We have to be filled by a member of the select member. Listed on page two, we said Mountain Alliance, Triton Alliance, which I added. But in our previous list, I said we specifically listed on these Triton Solid Waste Alliance. But we just didn't have enough to do in some time. The previous representative was Ross Evans. Anybody dying to participate in that one? The major is done. It's got a new agreement. Yep. What's the name? I need some logo. It's a good sum. I do most of the work, so. You do most of the work? All you need is the faces. We manage the. A smile and a whole thing. Age, waiter. Okay. I'll be sure of that. Smile and a waiter. Who? Nobody's dying for that. Nobody's dying for that. Why are we going to do it? I'll do it. I have four kids that create waste. I'm gonna do that. I'm kidding. Just a touch for responsibility. Thanks. Waiter's Valley Ambulance Alternative. That can be anybody. It doesn't have to be a board member. Anybody have this? This is his wait room hand. I am not. This is like an auction right now. What are the possibilities? It's an alternate. So when Steve Webster can't go to the board meeting, it's filling in for him. But you have to stay up to speed. So lots of times the alternate goes to, but the board member just, you get one vote between the two. I think they meet every two weeks. See a lot of head shaking going on out there. Now's not even time for that. Every two months is good, every two weeks. Yeah. No takers on that one either. I'm gonna have to wait on that a little bit. Conservation Commission. We have three positions rolling. We have Jenny Davis and Michael Van Dyke. Are they, they haven't confirmed that they want to continue? Michael has confirmed. I have not been able to confirm with Jenny. So does anybody have any issues with Mike? Your notes is both C3. Did I, I couldn't confirm with her? Your notes is both C3. Oh yes, I'm sorry, yeah. Jenny does C3. So we have them and Jasmine. At the end, or both individually? We mail it all at once. Oh yeah, I think it's. Put the names in that we agree with and then vote it as one. Yeah, like an addict that fills in the full group. Any concerns? No, I'm fine with that. Maybe if we just desired. Nope, sounds like a good way to do it to me. Is that, I'm just saying. Okay, that can be into consideration. First in the last group, Jasmine. We just added her in. Oh you did, okay, sorry. You couldn't have him. Just Economic Development Council. We have two terms expiring. I was not able to update the note that I placed with board here that indicates that no response from either member, both Winston said to note today saying that he would like to continue and Ken confirmed yesterday evening that he would like to continue. Great. So we have those two that want to continue and we also have Tom who's here that expressed an interest. So that would mean one of them would not continue as we put it. There's a big in the bottom. There's a big in it. I actually emailed today to apply for that just I don't know if that's relevant now or it needs to wait till the next meeting. For the open position. For the open position on the Economic Development Council. Sorry I didn't receive your email. No, I emailed it after business hours. Oh. I left for you. Jessica Tappeth, T-A-F-E-T. I don't know what it is. That's a belong. It's the most popular place to be. Can you give us some background of your background? What you put in the email name? Well, I asked what is the application process because it said if you're interested, email, send this email. Oh, so you said a big question. And said I would like to apply to be on it. Yeah. Yeah, sure. So I've been to an Economic Development Council meeting before and I was really interested in the activities they were doing including making the brochure and I saw the TV advertisement that they did. I'm also really interested in Perry's idea to hire an Economic Development Coordinator for the town and that's a project I would love to work on. I own my own small business in Randolph in addition to working for an agency. And I'm a 27 year old person who moved to Randolph from out of state four years ago and so I'm really interested in the Economic Development of Randolph and I'm really interested in revitalizing our downtown and encouraging businesses to move here in many ways including outreach, including whatever we can do in terms of tax incentives for businesses. So, yep, you have any other questions? Yeah, can we have another board member? No, I know we can't, I know, I know. Why not? We can if we go back and change it. I think that's in the town plan right now is the numbers set by the town plan. I'm not mistaken, I think we chose. We'll take eight, we'll take eight, we'll take eight. What's that thing in the title? No. The E for Economic Development, which I've heard from all of our select board candidates. If I can just speak on behalf of Jessica, I have worked with her and I'm an attorney for this, I don't know that. She is incredibly organized, energetic, jumps in and volunteers to do any tasks, puts amazing information together in terms of visual documents and marketing materials. She is incredibly open to it, writes very well and has a genuine interest in our community, our economic development, food security and other issues that are incredibly important and relevant to the town of Randolph right now. So, I certainly would support her and I think she did a great job. I don't know any of the other folks that have heard the names, but that's my next guess. I'll be right back. I don't need to compete either. No, if he did it first, he would just do it, but if there's an agency, I'd like to be first on the waiting list. There's one vacancy right now. I thought we had two. Well, it says here, Winston's. Well, I looked online, it said you had two. Any town report, it says there's only six people so we have eight. On the website, it says there are two people. Yeah. The seven seats of which we have. And I don't want to compete. I'd rather partner with you. Sounds like we're working on a compromise back there. Would it work if we put some in and then if we looked at the process, it could add more to the committee. She's nodding. We signed you right in for a whole bunch there. You nodded. What we talked about was taking the existing committee members that want to continue. Because we haven't heard anything from any that they're dysfunctional. Usually we get that. So the members are here. Roger and Jay here. If we take the vacant position and put Tom into it and then look at what the rules are as far as expanding that committee and if it has to be part of the town plan re-write which we're underway with. We can address it there. We can look at it that way. This is a list that takes us about three months to complete for the other nine months of work. Usually it's waiting for people to step up that wants it in. This is a suggestion. My understanding is these are open meetings to the public. So we would welcome your attendance. I don't know if commentary were made that you would find a difference between being an official member and helping us to participate in any decision making. I've attended one meeting that I've served as I mentioned earlier on economic development and neighborhood revitalization committees and other municipalities predominantly of Burlington and Winnowski and believe me, anybody that shows up in a meeting and volunteers to assist us in anything like that be careful what you ask for because you'll beanted. Please, please, please. It looks like the missing person is Ross who was the select board member. I'm looking at the list that's on the website that says there's two openings. We have to have a select board. We have to have a select board first on yet. And you need seven total, is that right? Or nine? Seven plus the select board member. Okay. So Ross wasn't actually a member. He was the select board member. He's a liaison. He's staying on the sewer and water, I think, but not at home. So I guess my comment would be if you guys were agreeable to that because this is a subject that's near and dear to my heart, as you all know. I would certainly encourage you to invite Jessica to come to those meetings and then if something down the road should change then, you know, if you have somebody who decides to resign she would be very much up to speed if she'd be willing to participate. Okay. The next meeting is at 5.30 at the bank on Monday. Thank you. Oh, I thought we were going to reschedule that. Yeah, we might reschedule that. In the event that that is rescheduled. Someone's going to get to realize that. Yeah. So I guess that's how I would run. Okay. So in fact, in discussing the board, are we comfortable putting Tom on as the seventh member of the academic development council? No sense. I'm agreeable with that. And while we're on this, do we have a select board member who wants to be on this? Oh, I would love to do that. Anybody else want that job? It seems like an interesting job, but I think you should take it. Okay, thank you. No, I'm serious. Well, it's a subject that's near and dear to my heart. I know you. Yes, it's very clear that that's true and I think you bring a lot of energy to it. Okay. So I would be more than happy to take that position. I want to point out just one thing just because I noticed I had not updated the economic development council portion that long back to conservation commission, I actually did not receive a direct confirmation from Jenny with regard to her just in continuing on the conservation commission. So I'm pretty sure she wants to do that. Okay. We're close. Okay. Okay, recreation. There is currently one vacancy due to a recent self-resignation from the position. I have received two last-minute requests to join. I was not able to compile the information with enough time to add it to this meeting, but there are two candidates that are interested in that one vacancy. I'm actually a member of that committee in addition to being a liaison. And if we have two people who are really interested in being like, you know, fully voting members of that committee and it seems like we'll bring a lot of good energy to it, I would be happy to not be a voting member and just be the liaison to make room for someone who wants to come to this meeting. Okay. This is a calling cancel. It's very rare. Yep. Because when I get it, I think it's Elaine Millington calling. Okay. So we'll have those names at the next meeting. Yes, that's fine. And we'll leave you on as liaison for that. Can I hear it? Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to remain a part of the committee in some fashion. The remaining list from capital to energy, I could only speak to a handful of committees that have indicated that they would not like to see changes in membership. The others, I am still trying to confirm membership, one to point out which is the town's history committee, but the others, I'm still working to confirm membership. They're direct interests and whether or not they choose to continue or leave the committee. Okay. So those will look at the membership of those next time? If the board chooses to, yes. There is one. I do want to point out that I did speak with Jerry earlier today via email with regard to EC Fiverr. All three members of EC Fiverr have indicated they would like to continue, that they require that a form be filled out by the board to receive the form, again, not in time to be able to pull it together for the board to consider that form for signature. Put all those on April. On the next list, you know what? Do we need a select for the Aeson for the conservation commission? I don't think there's been one. No. That's right. We have a difference in membership, DRB. It looks like we have an alternate, Josh looking to step up into one of the positions and Dan Devo looking to be three-pointed for another term. Yes. And if the board were to move Josh up to a full number, then the one vacancy created, Paul Ray, would like to fill that vacancy. He wants to be an alternate. An alternate. Okay. The commission has another vacancy. There's one vacancy for the planning commission. No letters yet? No for planning. Okay. No. The design review advisory commission, the exit form. We don't do much. I think a very couple of people that don't want to do much. It's actually true. I put in a letter for that. My name should be on there. You're in there. I put in a letter a couple of weeks ago. Okay. For planning commission? No. For design review? Design review advisory committee? Yeah. We should pay this back. Okay. Was that email to me or? Sent it through Marty. Oh, through Marty. Okay. I have a question. Perry, you said that your committee doesn't do much. Do you do anything in regard to the? Hold those buildings up. Let's just go into the center. The independent living. Independent living was in our jurisdiction. Was just outside? Wasn't in their jurisdiction. Oh, okay. Thank you. So there's a zone there. If you look on the town maps, there's a map there that shows what's actually in that area. The last thing we worked on was the Kingwood Park building. I guess the medical building. So that was the last project we worked on in that district. So I don't know how long that's been, three or four years now? At least. Yeah, I mean, there's just nothing that comes up. So I think prior to that, before I was on the committee, they worked on the McDonald's project and burned. So. So if anybody's interested, you get printed as a piece of this. It is. It's basically what it is. It's you're an advisory board. So you get them what we did was, you know, they presented, they present. So in the case of the hospital situation that was involved in, you know, they came in with the, the design and the, the architectural, how it was built out and an overview of the project. So you kind of look at that project and you're able to go through and you might suggest and recommend changes, but they're not binding. So, but they are something that you can present to the DRB and their consideration for granting the permit. So there's one big. There's two right now. So are you considering a canon for one of these two positions? Apparently so. If you submitted a. I have to check with Martin, but if you say you submitted one to Marty, and then there's two other openings. I think there's one. There's two openings total. So what we'll do is go back and check with Marty, see what she's got and bring all the candidates that are interested forward into April. I'd be interested if there's an opening, unless anyone else wants to do it. Okay. I guess I just have to send in your interest. Okay. Send in an email to Adolfo that says the committee you're interested in, some of your background, especially we're going to have more than we have positions. What is that? I didn't quite understand what the confines of the district is. So what it is, your any project that came comes before the DRB is kicked off to this board to look at the design of the project. So the aesthetics of the project. So in the case of the hospital, you know, we looked at things like what the building was going to look like to fit the character in the area. You know, did they have enough trees in the project? You know, in this particular case, there was members on the board who thought that they would like to see them eliminate one of the driveways. That was a pretty controversial issue. Didn't happen that way. And so it's, you're an advisory board of the DRB to tell them whether or not you think this project fits the area. So the DRB can take the recommendations or not. In the case, that case, I remember something about, you know, we thought that they should only have one driveway, but that's not ended up. So they made a case of the DRB and said we'd like them both. That's kind of what you do. Screening dumpsters. It's basically like the exit for quadrants. Yeah, there's a, I don't know how the Kingwood Park case got in there. It seemed to me like it was too low. But anyways, it has to do with the exit for quadrants. Okay. So I can't tell you the specific boundary lines, but here's a map that shows that. Another problem with this, and another consideration too, was in which we have no, only one person on here, was there was some discussion, and we might as well talk about it, because there was this design review district or panel for Randolph Center. So at one point there was a discussion about merging those two, because that group has not yet... They did merge. They did merge. So they are merged now? Exactly. Oh no, they can cross over. The members can serve on the other... Okay, so they can serve back and forth between all two? As alternates? Yeah. That's how you guys sorted it out? Okay. That's proposed to us by the plan. Yeah. We didn't know, I didn't know how you finished it off. So that was... This is a person, Carol Mallory. Her term expires in 2010. I think it's actually 19. No, okay. She's doing improved. Okay. Like how many was started two years ago? Right. That was a result of the zoning ordinances that were passed in Randolph Center. So they wanted some input on what could actually be done in Randolph Center. So because they lobbied for that, we created the zoning document. Unfortunately they didn't come up with enough members within the district to fill the vacancies. So... They wanted to save it, nobody wanted to save it. Exactly. Nobody wanted to be the bad guy. Just so I understand, you said you weren't involved with those buildings at the top of the hill. No. But you just referred to the hospital, what did you mean? I wasn't involved in any of that. The hospital is building at Kingwood Park. The former... Oh, a different place. The former... The hospital's property halfway down the hill. Okay. Okay, what used to be Kingwood Park. Right, okay. That one we were involved in, we weren't involved in anything in the center. And the center wasn't involved because they didn't have the community. We're not part of that district. The district borderlines. There's lines actually on the map that state what this group is responsible to recommend or to meet and talk about. That committee is referring to is within the historic district and Randolph Center, the gift is right because it's just that side of the historic district. So no one's in charge of that? Carol is. The DRV is. The DRV. But no, the design. All that. But not the design part of that. The design group is in the historic area. Right. And then the design review advisory commission is down at the exit four area. There is a gap between the two. A gap for the whole bunch of big buildings that have been looked at in that way, right? They're looked at by the development review board. Yeah, let me just... I think you're a little confused. So the DRV is the people... They're the people who make the decisions. These other little advisory boards, they may look at an issue in depth like, you know, do we like the aesthetics of the design? And then they make a recommendation that they don't have any power and they can't force the DRV to go their way, which... Right. You know, I don't know whether the driveway example is one of that. Yeah, the driveway was one of those examples. So DRV makes the decision. These are helpers to that process. Yeah, well, I have no power to decide. Thank you for that. Then they are getting advice from a different group. Right? They are. Okay, so like what you're talking about, the orchard buildings, the senior housing... There's no special group that advises the DRV. The DRV has to do their own work on that. The DRV is the group. The DRV is the group. The other group in the center only dealt with this historic district. That's what they asked for. So that was to control to make sure things... I mean, examples that they brought up were, okay, so for example, not putting an addition on a house up there that didn't match the character of the neighborhood. So for example, if we've got houses up there that all have cloud boards, we didn't want to put vinyl siding on those houses. So that's why they wanted some say in what was going on in that district. And so from the planning commission standpoint, we granted them that ability to do that. And so that was adopted in the zoning ordinances for the last... Those ordinances would pass here a couple of years ago. But to this point, there's only been Carol Mallory that's served on the board. So as you guys move to make the two groups overlap, we have to solve that problem. I think that was prior to your stint there, Canyon, wasn't it? That was a long discussion about that up there. Were you a part of that? The very end, yeah. The very end of it. Not the whole discussion, though. And it was quite a lengthy process to get to that point. So we gave them what they wanted. So if anybody is interested in serving on that one, it's another one that doesn't have a whole lot of work. Well, just for a little history's sake, I might have to work on a design review document for about six years along with the committee. And it was submitted to the select board and it was proceeded to be ignored. And that was the design advisory group was, I believe, meant to oversee designs of things in that area we're talking about in the surrounding the historical district. And so it's unfortunate, it seems to me. But thank you for bringing me up to date anyway. Well, we actually did adopt that because we used some of Bill's information to come up with what we did up there. So that's actually how that came to be and some of those maps that Bill had to come up with were part of that process. Karen Lynn Lumbra was extremely involved in that. So I mean, you could chat with her a little bit more about that. But that's why we got to that point. Right. But I'll just state that all their work was ignored by the select board. And it doesn't mean people want to volunteer for things that were involved in that. Well, that's why we fixed it. That's why I went to the planning commission. Not much of a fix. Well, we gave them what they asked for. And I will tell you, the process was very open, very transparent. And we actually had to encourage them to come to the meetings because they started the process and then they dropped the balls. So we thought they were done talking about it. So we actually reached back out to them and got them involved in the process towards the end of the zoning document and said, you guys want this or not? Because we haven't heard anything and so we reached back out to them. And that's why that design review commission came to be. So we gave them a district and we gave them the ability to put some people there. Now, that's all we can do. Tonight we're talking about who wants to be on. Who wants to be on. Sorry. We can go. Thank you. Table that one. So water and wastewater advisory committee, is this the one Ross wants to stay on? That's right. And so we need to select forward liaison for that one. And this one can have five to seven members and that's three. So we don't even have anything. Yeah, they can as long as all three make it. I do know that this committee is soon going to be not your final enticing. We'll soon be reviewing really discussing ways to make impact fees more or less impactful to new businesses. So it has an economic development component to it in the more immediate effect. You think about that one. No area. So we're good with the three that are on there now. The list to advertise. We can have five to seven members. The economic development council has five laws somewhere that are quoted here as controlling the membership at seven. So we're going to have to change those to change that. Anybody jump in a bit for that one? You want to think about it? For deciding? Water. Water? I would do the water one. Just this one aside. Ross said it was just a great time. He lives across the street, but I might actually get to see him once in a while if I go to the committee meeting. Not that the money's running good enough in this house. Exactly. Especially in the wintertime. We also get a board wrap or a capital planning budget. That's right. Do we need one for EC5 or is that straight? No, it's a straight delegate. Which one did you say? Capital plan. Fire advisory has won. Energy has won. Do we want to do that part of it tonight? So for budget committee, we have a... Matt said he'll do capital planning. Maybe not out loud, so I'll speak for him. Okay. So on top of capital planning, we have the regular budget committee, of which we have a board member that's... Unless somebody wants to take it, I'll continue. In this list. Here. There was some... There was confirmed with staff on whether a select board liaison was needed for the budget committee. So we were searching through... I understand that there has been no liaison, but we were searching through the initial creation of the budget committee as it was created in the early 90s, late 80s, I believe. And so we have not even been able to confirm whether a board member liaison is required for the budget committee, but it has been wanted on the committee in the past. I don't know if it's required. I think it's a good idea to have that. It seems to be how we're picking up on some of that unless they're going to get committed to coming in and doing the presentations. I did get some pushback from the committee on their requirements with regard to quarterly presentations. There was... It did not happen at the meeting yesterday, but there have been discussions on potentially amending their requirements or the by-loss for the budget committee because the members were choosing not to do the quarterly briefings as they're supposed to be doing. So that's an ongoing discussion with the committee, and I'm hoping to have them come in at some point to speak with the board. They also didn't want to provide their official funds up or down on the budget, which they were supposed to do. So they just meet and talk about the expenses to date and that appears to be how they want to do it. I just sort of done that committee one time. They held my feet to the fire pretty hard. How did you like it? Well, we did it. We didn't answer for it. All right, so Mike wants to continue with one. Yeah, I can continue with it. You're going to turn the thumb screws down a little there. I advised them as an ex-officio and non-voting member that those were their responsibilities and they did push back and I provided them with their by-loss and then they still didn't do it. Okay. So Fire Service Advisory Board, do you go to those meetings anyway? No. I usually Jay and Larry take them, but I can continue. Anybody else want to go and talk about communications and truck space? Hmm. It's terribly exciting as well. Is this pretty exciting? I think what we need is a, for some people, a clarification on what committees we can actually vote on, because we're at liaisons to a lot of them and we can't vote on all of them. So it'd be good to know if we could actually vote or not. So can we hold off on that until we actually, I mean, I'd like to know which ones you have a little say in here. Fire Advisory we can't vote on. Okay. More ex-officios and non-voting departments. Yeah, so, yeah, okay. Well, I think I'd like to know which ones you can vote on. Vote on any of them. Have the power of the pen. You can change it, huh? Okay. Well, that's just a show. I don't want to do that. Energy committee. So I'm going to liaison to the energy committee right now. I'd be happy to continue in that role unless someone really wants it. I could give it up, please. I might take on the fire one. They'll see me here. I'm thinking about it. Maybe. I might consider that one. Give me a month. It might be disappointed. It might be frustrated or disappointed. Disappointed. Okay. It's really not a lot of anxiety. Okay. It might give my goodnight off. Yeah. All right. Let me ponder that. We don't have to make that decision tonight. Citizen advisory board. That is also one that I'm seeking to get clarification on. I know the leader is chaired by Sergeant Stollinger from the village police department. I'm hoping to speak with her very soon so they could get more information on their ongoing work. What is it? So this is a group that meets and talks about reintegration of folks coming out of prison. I think we need to figure out how we are going to get the communication back from the liaisons on these committees. We really get it that last year, but I think it's important if we don't have a liaison to this committee that we get a report from them. Yeah. Because we've had a few colorful folks that came back in and there was no warning, no advance notice to this left board or to members of the public. And I see that kind of something we probably haven't known. The potential strategy going forward for cross-pollination between the different committees and the different commissions, and that's to have with the understanding that every committee or commission or council has their chair in order to be able to get everyone talking and ideas crossing boundaries because a lot of the work that's being done actually affects other committees. For example, the water waste water. Someone who may be interested just in the water quality or the water issues may not necessarily understand how impact fees are affecting the development of the economy and the town. But what we're hoping to do is to create a either quarterly or sometime frame where all the chairs can actually come together to brief each other on what they're working on, what they have coming down the pipe and to provide each other with this information. And one of the strategies that we can put together is also have them, at some point, not all in one select board meeting, but periodically have two or three committee chairs come in to discuss their work with the board similar to what RACVC and John Copehens did today. That have done things in the community to keep them from ever having that report in the courts or that paper trail. And I think they have creative ways to put things for the kids to do to learn from their bad choices. Is that what you're doing, Justice? It's similar. That's what we did when I was on it anyway. I think there's some direct work with Orange County with the county itself. I'm not entirely familiar with the actual connection, but are you right? I'm just kind of sure if you usually attend some meetings. I lived in Alaska for eight years and there was a really great program up in the Fairbanks area for restorative justice that was well documented. A lot of input and study around it might be something worth, you know, what really works on their voices. I'm sure they're probably doing some of that already. Nice. Sorted out tonight for changes is the LLEPC rep, where Mike goes to an altogether two reverse adicchee rep, where Winston goes to an alternate tri-town solid waste along with the president. This map. Pledge of committee, Mike is the lead on. Conservation Commission is fully seated, adding Jasmine West to that committee. Economic Development Council, the current list gets receded with Tom Aris taking the vacant seat and Perry being the select board liaison. And they will include Jessica in their insights when they change units. Recreation Committee has Larry as a liaison and we have some applications we'll evaluate for that. Capital Planning and Budget, Matt as a liaison, fire advisory, Mike with Perry Armwrestling, if he decides he wants to. Energy Committee has Larry as a liaison, DRB, we have an alternate coming up, Josh as a member, Dan DeBoe re-appointed as a member, Paul Ray as an alternate, and the Water Waste Water Committee we have Larry as a liaison. The others, we have some emails to find and sort out and bring forward for the April meeting. Board would like to reaffirm, just want to clarify we were appointed Ross, Suzanne and John. Yes. Okay. And look for some more. We're supposed to have five. There will be some interest in that with the manganese issue with the potential need for a $1.00 thing. For free, I get my way. Really? Yeah. I'll be with that one too. So, why? I have the last two water upgrade license. I haven't renewed it, but I have one. Is there any comments? Second please. But do you have anything different when you took their notes on that? Just to make sure I'm kind of listening. Yep. Comments on the back? We'll have a couple of comments. I don't know if it's the right time or not. Are you guys, is this an open comment period or just on the... Only on committee appointments. Okay. The other business is coming up. Okay. So maybe I'll wait for other business. Would that be a better time or... If it was something that's not on the agenda, the time was at the beginning and we needed public comment under item three. I have a quick comment about what Adolfo just brought up from that Perry comment on, regarding the water quality issue. I'm not talking water quality. We're talking about that being a topic on the... Okay. On that committee's agenda. We were talking about that it would be an interesting attitude to the person that wanted to meet on that committee. Okay. Okay, so the ones that I just went through is that we want to go with tonight. The variable, yeah. Sounds good. Okay. So the motion... A motion to approve those. Okay. I move to appoint the members that we've discussed. Second. Motion in the second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. The meeting is of a business or anything under... Okay, brother, this is... Just given the nature of today's meeting, there are a few things that we're going to be leading for the next meeting. Wanted to be respectful of everyone's time, saying that this was government-specific focus on appointment of members and appointment of select programs to committees. So this report will be brief. I want to start out with just a topic that I've initially brought up, which was the manganese issue. We continue to work with the agency of natural resources, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and also with the drinking water or groundwater protection district. We have asked on three separate occasions from the drinking water, the NOI protection district director to answer some questions as to the very specific nuances of secondary standards and primary standards. So what I have been able to confirm from drinking water and from DC specifically is that the state of Vermont has adopted secondary standards for manganese according to USEPA. And those secondary standards require that towns test for manganese with the ultimate user, which is the very last user in the water system. What the state of Vermont is doing with the DC requires is that everyone test for water at the entry point. So with that one particular instance, I've specifically asked myself, well, if the state has adopted secondary standards for manganese as written by USEPA, why are we then creating our own standards and then also specifically creating a health standard as opposed to what USEPA says manganese is, which is a secondary standard which should only be considered for aesthetic purposes, color and odor. And there is a word in there that DC is clinging to which is that states are allowed to consider wellness. And in wellness we include health, we include prosperity, we include any number of different things. What the state is specifically saying is that we're only focusing on the health component. So what they're doing is they're creating in state a primary standard for USEPA for manganese but using USEPA secondary standards. And so they're essentially mixing apples and oranges and saying that we are allowed in the state to change regulations to monitor specifically for health and not just for color and odor. Whereas I'm saying to them, well, chapter three of the Vermont State Code, section 800 says we are not allowed to do that. The state has to either amend water quality rules or specifically create an own rule but they can't use an existing stipulation and a rule and then incorporate new practices or procedures as opposed to creating an own rule for this one issue. So with the questions that I have posed specifically to the drinking water and drinking water folks and to ANR and DC they're just refusing to answer the question. On three separate occasions I've included our state representatives in their email messages and they've just not responded. So we're continuing to provide and we're continuing to ask questions and I'm hoping to at the very least get someone from the environmental portion of the administration, DC, ANR or drinking water to actually give us a response to our very specific nuanced questions. The next issues are specifically about consolidating services so the town has been working very has been specifically focused on consolidating services so that we can have a much greater bargaining position when it comes to upping on contracts or essentially placing the town in a better bargaining position in general so we could have a more fair contract for our services. We have found that over a number of years we had a mixture of telephone lines a fair point, a mixture of telephone lines with Comcast internet services with both after consolidating services we found that we're going to save approximately about $5,500 to $6,000 per year just on consolidating under Comcast we have been assured that the service will not diminish we have been assured that there are protections for Comcast service because we had some issues I believe in the past with the previous hurricanes about loss of service with electricity the buildings that we will require continued service if there was interruption due to an actual disastrous type we do have generators in those buildings so we will have the ability to use our Comcast telephone lines I just wanted to point out that this was something that Larry kind of pointed out at one point so he kind of led us in the direction of I just wanted to say thanks for pointing that out to us we are still working on being able to have a representative of Smith Barney to come in to brief the board on the town's current position with taxpayer positions and savings the plan was to have a representative come in this month for a briefing but because we moved the meeting from the traditional day which is the second Thursday of the month to today we were not able to have that person traveling back to Vermont tomorrow morning so the idea is to have this person back in town hall here to brief the board on what positions we have with the town's money and whether they are risky or they are conservative and what we can do to better maintain the taxpayers money I have been meeting with community groups on a regular basis most recently with RACDC to discuss the downtown designation program with a new iteration of a group in East Randolph that is now referring to themselves as the East Valley community and they are essentially calling some of East Valley because they are comprised of residents in South Randolph East Randolph and North East Randolph is how they are describing themselves so I have been meeting with them to talk about any number of issues about how we can increase East Randolph, how we can provide greater services they have specifically asked me on something that I had shared with the board before about an interest of having select board meetings in East Randolph once we were able to have the East Randolph hall rehabilitated and opened again for service I was happy that they suggested that because that was something that I was already thinking about I'm not sure how the board feels about that I think it's great I think it's a good idea you signed up with them here so the loose plan that I hope to present at some point to the board is how to be able to have lead prog meetings one in the village, one in Randolph center and one in East Randolph alternating every other month so that the community at the very least feels like they have a direct immediate connection to the board as opposed to having to come down to the village the folks in East Randolph they shared their idea and I said that's something we can work toward I didn't commit the board to doing that but I said that's something we can certainly share with the board and work with the community they were happy to hear about that we are still taking or at the very least trying to collect as many estimates for repairs for East Randolph as possible for the East Randolph hall at the moment we have cost estimates for repair to bathrooms 80 accessibility to the building upwards of about $40,000 to $50,000 we do have that money put aside in the capital budget we also have money put aside in the capital budget for paintings and other issues that exist with the hall but what I'm working with the group is to figure out exactly where we are with the hall try to provide cost estimates of what it would cost to rehabilitate the old hall versus what it would cost for other options the group is very open to hearing whatever options exist whatever options would be less expensive to the tax credit of the town so if one option comes in at less money than rehabilitating the old building they're willing to hear about it but one of the things they did ask is that at our next meeting which is being held on the 12th next week they asked that I bring in at the very least a few cost estimates for repairs and also to share with them an update of what work we have done with contractors a conversation for that is going to continue we have, by we I mean the town we have obtained some data from Werva with regard to the response times at various points of the town I don't have the specific numbers but the numbers that I do have indicated that in East Randolph they do have the response times upwards of 30 minutes and above depending on on the call in Randolph Center they have calls ranging upwards of 30 minutes for response time and also in the village there are response times ranging anywhere from 0 minutes to 20 minutes I was uncomfortable with the data that was prevented to the town it was really just this is the data that we process here it is digested my response to them was I like data, I like reviewing it giving the amounts, giving the figures giving the times there was some pushback with why they could not provide the data say in a spreadsheet or in a material way that I would be able to review and process it and share to the board and I also said that I would like additional review of the data because I didn't like that some of the responses indicated that there is zero response time for calls in the village through their explanation is that if an ambulance is on summer street when someone on summer street calls the ambulance the ambulance is already there and I said I did not want to look at those outliers in the data because the idea that I have is to present the board with the amount of response time that it takes from if they're in the bay to come to Randolph Center to come to the village or come to East Randolph if there are these outliers of the ambulance is already there so it's a zero meter response time for an outlier of there was a police emergency that forced the ambulance to sit idle for 20 minutes I said those are outliers and I would rather just focus on the ones that are very direct to speaking to their response time so they agreed they said that they would at the very least rerun their data with these parameters and they felt comfortable rerunning their data with these parameters so we just got that information for the next meeting we are also moving forward with replacing the previous secretary position with a special projects coordinator slash branch administrator we felt that it was a greater need to the town to have this position serving the town residents as opposed to someone on staff who specifically focused on the administrative tasks so the idea is to have a draft position announcement that we've created and we still have to go through the very specific portions of reviewing what exactly it is that we would like the position to do what expertise that we would like for them to have with regard to grants management grant administrating and to make sure that we don't have too much overlap with our existing grants person in the finance department so we want to make sure that the position works well with our existing grants person as opposed to having too much overlap and paying somebody for the same skills that we already have so we are hoping to move forward with that position very soon we don't have an actual timeline but we're hoping to have that soon with respect to the administrative portion of what needs to happen in town hall the mail, the answering telephones understanding that staff in town hall already have three or four or five different tasks from time to time I have asked our finance director to explore with some of the cuts that we've already made but not necessarily cuts but some of the mainstreaming and the efficiencies that we've created that are already showing us long term savings on a year basis on a two year basis if we identify enough of these savings I have asked them to consider proposing a part time administrative person that sits in the floater that could bounce around from all the different departments to see what needs to be done administratively drafting reports answering telephones, speaking directly with constituents that are reporting potable damage to their cars or other issues in the community so we want to make sure that even though we're mainstreaming even though we've identified that having an administrative person on staff is not as important as having a grants administrator or a special project reporting we don't lose any efficiency or effectiveness with the day-to-day administrative work at Town Hall so as soon as we identify enough savings what we'll do is we'll come to the board we'll let you know this is where the savings are this is what we're proposing and if the transfer is essentially a revenue neutral or a cost neutral venture then we'll propose to the board that the board allow us to hire a new staff person and that is it for this one where is it any comments any comments questions yeah in reference to what you said about approaching the state about water quality and trying to fight that mandate or requirement I understand your position that you're seeing in terms of the from the standpoint of fees that may impact the sort of marketability of the town and from a standpoint of economic development and attracting business I think you kind of framed it that way like bringing fees down maybe that ties in in some way for economic development I would just point out that regardless of whether I know there's a debate about manganese and whether it's actually worrying about from a health standpoint the EPA says it does I know there's a debate about that but I think the thing about that is that there's also the perception that if a town's water is not up to an EPA standard then how is that perceived by somebody who's considering relocating the business to the town so it's not just about the fees of the water service it's also about water quality and if you have water quality that and you're not up to snuff that's not going to reflect well on this town for economic development people are not going to want to move here and I have a friend who lives in North Bennington where they have a very, very serious PFOA issue and I've seen what that did and at the time when they said it was all about jobs it was all about attracting business they said we don't have to worry about it they knew what PFOA was they got about 30 years of being in North Bennington but now it's a disaster zone it's polluted people's wells there's serious water contamination there's people with cancer so how does that now reflect on North Bennington they have that permanent sort of stain on their reputation and their ability to attract people to live there or bring business and I know that manganese is a different issue but I would just keep that in mind it's not just about fees people are looking at moving here and if you want to attract people that it might be easier to do this thing the other thing too is I know that not every select board or person or committee member lives in town so they're not necessarily drinking the water I live in town and I follow the water quality reports over the years every year it comes out manganese has always been high and although it wasn't always over a sat limit it was always when I called the health department years ago I said well what's the issue why is this even a concern back then when they weren't even saying it was a health issue they said well one of the things that manganese does is it causes an odor problem and there are times when the water in this town literally smells bad I mean I notice and it fluctuates because the manganese level fluctuates for whatever reason whatever wells come from whatever and so if you have restaurants you want to attract that kind of thing do they want to be serving water that smells bad then they have to filter it's not easy to filter the only thing that filters manganese is reverse osmosis that's very expensive so I would just encourage you guys to consider all these other implications here and not just water fees when you're dealing with this and I think to try to fight it what is that going to cost going to a court that just to me it doesn't I don't think it would make sense and you know as a paying water customer who's paying a lot of money for crappy smelly water I'd rather my water smell good and not have to worry about this I have one other question too and that's um Adolfo had told me that he was working on a letter to the select board to ask for $10,000 back from the conservation commission the conservation commission had given towards the preservation land at exit 4 and I'm wondering if that's still in the works so what's going on with that part of my report in the later not in the later time but it will be if it is recommended to the board to do that and the board accepts placing it on the agenda there will be an item on the agenda that specifically speaks to that point for the next meeting would that be nice I would have to bring that to the board for the board to decide what items it would like to see on the agenda well my understanding was that was going to be talked about tonight that was in that article in the paper that is a laboratory article and I came here specifically to hear your presentation that it tells about there's a number of things here with this there's a number of issues here and the way this came up and the way it was planned in the press before an election I was at the select board meeting last year last June when it was debated by the conservation commission Brendan Barton was here on behalf of the commission he presented it had unanimous vote of approval by the commission then it was voted on by the select board it was debated thoroughly and I was here as a representative of Exiform and Space to speak and to answer to some of the questions that came up when it was voted on and the main thing and I'm here to reiterate this because the main thing that was a component all the way along through that fundraising process was that there would be public access on those 22 acres of land that was clear and that's still clear that's still a component of that land the other thing about that is the land behind the driving range which is owned by Miles Hooper that's the field behind the driving range that's part of the 150 acres that's also preserved when the Vermont Land Trust wrote the restrictions and the easements on that land they wrote in a path it's part of it it's written into that site plan that there will be public access a pathway on that land the only access to that to get to that path that the Vermont Land Trust put in is the pathway that was guaranteed stir this up and try to ask the money back this is very divisive and I think it's going to be a big mistake because there's a lot of people that want that access it's how it was sold to the public it's one reason why people donated and there are many different parties in this town that want to see that happen I know that Rosta, the trail network they want to see that access and we've discussed it with them they would like to see that they have a bigger picture taking not just having the access on the 22 acres but going back into Miles' land behind it and then back into Volgar Road they've spoke to other budding landowners who want to see that happen it ties into a whole bigger picture of they're trying to do a bigger trail network all around town you spoke to that the recreation portion was sold to the town, can you speak to us who sold that portion? there was a fundraiser there was a fundraiser that went on last summer Madam Chair I have to go back to work after this we'll save this for the next meeting when it's on the agenda well, look this was in the press and we have it very well on the agenda the thing here is there's a lot of double standards and I'll just say that this will be my final comment wait, before you say this is your final comment I know this isn't on the agenda but it was in the press and it's an issue that we're not asking for action on so it doesn't need to be on the agenda but there are people that have sat here for three hours waiting to have their say on whatever this was that was going to be discussed so while it's not on the agenda there's no reason why this discussion can't continue I mean you have a thing on your agenda that says other business why isn't this other business other business is what a catch-all for whatever you forgot to put on the agenda and so you do it as other business I understand what you're saying it will be on the agenda at some point just an information how do things get on the agenda how do things get on the agenda we don't have any words about that combination of town business that has to be dealt with of requests from the public for things to go on usually a topic like this could be heard under things not on the agenda and then if it needs to be a bigger time it goes out so everybody can participate in the conversation so it's the timing of the news article with all due respect I could have said all this at the beginning I knew the guy from VCRD was trying to get out of here and get back to Monpelier as well let me just jump in for a minute let me say something about the manganese I am very impressed Adolfo with your level of analysis and what you've gone through to look at the rules and laws and everything else it's very impressive thank you and I mean that absolutely sincerely I've been practicing environmental law for 25 years dealing with ANR and over that time there has been there is now a situation where we have an agency that is trying to expand its jurisdiction and authority basically and to try to go to them as you have you are doing nothing but beating your head against the wall trying to convince them not to enforce their laws at least that's the way they look at it they have standards you are not going as a non-scientist to convince them of anything we can hire an expert scientist and they're not going to convince ANR of anything and so I am very impressed with your energy about this and the LED dynamics issue is very concerning though I have no clue why somebody, whoever this person is is saying you can't apply for Act 250 because of this issue that Chris Recky and I talked about that after 10 meeting we are watching your head going I'm not sure who is telling in that but that sounds crazy spoke with Chris this morning and we as people are very concerned about LED I as a school board member am very concerned because we have an incredible relationship with GW plastics and LED and internships and opportunities for our kids can we get back to the agenda item so in response to what he was talking about in the town court and the manager's report there are other avenues to approach the issue about LED and the manganese and ANR and it ain't knocking on ANR's door and talking to these low level people or mid level people it's going to Phil Scott Phil Scott is the governor of this state who is committed to business who wants balance and wants to control environmental regulations and permitting so that it makes common sense and that's why he's against big win that's who we need to go to to fix this problem we need an audience with the governor because the governor is in charge of enforcement of our laws he controls ANR it's just I'm troubled that you are expending so much energy on this when I and you were talking about litigation there's never and I'm sure we're going to win and we're going to spend tons and tons of money much much money that we don't have to spend and likely not accomplish the goal that you're seeking even though it makes perfect sense it's logical we're talking about government regulations federal and state and interaction of those things can I jump in for a minute about this, kind of off the record so he is aware of the situation so that came up in a meeting that we had in January and I think we're trying to work through that I think he's understanding where we're at but I think Adelpho's efforts at this point we're not talking about spending a lot of money fighting this there is this and I do have a little background in water because I manage the water system and so the difference here is what the federal standard is and what the state standard is we have more manganese in the bottle of water that you buy at the store than you currently have in the town water system so the regulations are a little skewed here so we've asked the governor to look into this and I think maybe in a little while we'll have some form of resolution to this the LED problem I agree with you don't know where it came from it seems pretty counterproductive to what we're trying to do here and I don't need to try to I'm glad to hear that my concern was so much effort and energy is going into this process of trying to talk to a brick wall that we get it and so approaching the governor is great but having the solution ready and available so that they can be given a solution is the best way to accomplish reaching goals when it comes to you know it's great to say yeah it feels looking into it but I agree and that's where they left it with us you know so I'm waiting to hear something back and I'm hoping it'll be positive but you know how it works up there and just very quickly on the other issue you know for being a person in this town and reading accusations and the valley news by someone who you know I think you're doing an admirable job but you weren't here at the time that these activities happened in terms of the conservation commission board etc and for you as a representative of this town to go to the press and to say you know somebody was hoodwinked and the select board was misrepresented by this organization that they've never talked to just want to make sure because these are being recorded and read what valley news says and if misled I'm trying to give misled, misrepresentation whatever word you want to use but that means to me that the select board was given information that was false when I read that in the paper and so I see that and I'm like so I went to the minutes I'm like what do you mean they didn't talk about valuation they didn't know what the consequences are going to be A, they're the taxing authority how can they be misled about what the taxes are going to be when land is conserved do they not know that if you're stripping off development rights and the value of the land is what it should be which is agricultural because that's all you can use it for they don't understand that it would be reassessed that's kind of embarrassing for Randolph to be portrayed in the sense that select board is either ignorant or incompetent and doesn't know their own business I was shocked by that but in addition to that to suggest that in my subsequent conversation about I went to the town manager and I said who made the representation and what did they say and I was unable to find out who it was that made a whatever the word is misled whoever misled the select board who is it that misled the select board and what did they say that misled the select board what position did they have that had anything to do with preservation trust they are not negotiating a deal with the select board they're not making an offer or a demand and going back and forth about well we'll do this if you do that so I truly do not understand how our town manager was authorized to do this because he wasn't here and how could he know that the select board was misled if he wasn't here and in fact land valuation was part of the discussion before the select board in its in your own minutes thank you we have two comments are they relevant to what we're talking they're relevant to the town manager's report one of them is about the water, the manganese so I wanted to ask this at town meeting but I was too shy so my question is I think we need to know the exact cost of what it would cost to replace the filtration system and we need to know the cost of what it's going to take to litigate and for you to try to see the state and we need to balance which is going to be cheaper and we also need to know what is Bill McGrath waiting on for LED dynamics is he waiting on the town to say we're going to fix the system and as soon as we say that can you go ahead with this project and you can determine what we should do moving forward so that's my question that's my statement for that and regarding the exit 4 issue you did say in the press that at the next select board meeting you were going to present a letter so I just think that that's bad form to say in the press you're going to do something and then not do it so I just want to throw that out there great very quickly I can get a meeting with Jason Gibbs regarding the manganese if you'd like to do that maybe the two of you would be willing to come to the state house and figure it out unless the board wanted to I'm not representing anything to do with the town I'm happy in any way as I've always let folks know in the town I'm happy to help in any way I can but I don't think it's for me to go anywhere unless the board were to authorize me to do so if this was an issue about speaking on behalf of the town in terms of me as an individual person I'm not even in the water district I'm not affected by it so I wouldn't even be an appropriate person to go on behalf of the water district really but again if there's anything I can do to help I'm happy to he's privy to the conflict and the prospect of litigation so I think maybe I would be willing to use whatever sort of the capital on my head but just keep in mind that even before the EPA came up with this new lower standard the water smells bad and there are days when it smells bad so even if this happens you know it's gonna happen so it's gonna be a great consideration that's something that hasn't been said yet yeah it's two sentences that's not gonna do with any of this I think it would be great to have select board meetings in East Randolph I just want to make sure that in addition to bathrooms and accessibility and everything else the building that we have select board meetings in has internet access because I think that's a utility nowadays not just a nice add on and it is one of the things I'm concerned about in East Randolph although I would love to have meetings over there I think that makes sense I believe as part of his report earlier about the Comcast being town-wide services the fire department next door will get it so I think it's going in there as well thank you one quick statement about Paul Broone I just think that it's really bad form if our town is attacking someone who has come to many towns in Vermont and done help preserving historic lots and lots of historic places he is the most kind compassionate but conscientious person that I've ever known he is full of integrity he has been so wonderful to work with over the last three years we all have a different viewpoint of him but I think it would be really scandalous and improper and really bad form for our town to do anything that diminishes what he's done for us not just this time with exit 4 but for anything that he's helped us with which has been a lot over the years and I would just add and I'm sorry I've talked so much tonight I think that an apology needs to be written to Paul Broone preservation trust of Vermont to apologize for slandering them in the press preservation trust misled select board is not a true statement they never came they never talked to you they never led you at all no less misled people that came who were part of exit 4 the group exit 4 open space Mr. Samus on his act 250 situation they came as townspeople to try to give you information as townspeople tell you we want you to support this conservation commission is doing it so there's some suggestion well somebody with exit 4 maybe they were sort of representing preservation trust no that's baloney okay I would like to ask the board to issue an apology to Mr. Broone and preservation trust yes I was at that meeting we're done with this topic wait a minute we've gone way over and beyond on the topic we get the message we'll respond and we'll take it we've got it no I mean respond this topic is scheduled for another visit so we're not done with well when it if it comes up that we're going to take some type of action it'll be on the board agenda that's not a good idea not a good idea to put it on the agenda not a good idea to put responding to this issue so can I just say something about this seeing how I'm a new member here I'd like to do a little digging and a little research into this subject myself before I make any decision to vote on anything to deal with this issue right now because I'm not privy to the same information that maybe all of you had so I'd like a little time to think about it and review it so that's what I'd like to do so we're not going to get into a conversation about that because that is not how this happened and you are very misinformed if you think it did okay my conversation with Paul Broone had nothing to do with the exit for any situation or any other situation like that so if you think that's what happened you're misunderstood about how that occurred we talked about some other things and had nothing to do with this so I don't know where you got your information from but I can tell you that that was not the case pardon? Paul Broone, okay and I had a very candid conversation for 2 minutes out of 15 minutes the first 15 minutes were quite cordial so this is not where it came from so whatever Paul told you we need an apology at this point because I did put on the hot seat here for something that I had nothing to do with okay, we're going to move for a motion to go into executive session to discuss a labor contract and an attorney communication motion motion is second all those in favor thank you