 Um, so I see that we have a quorum. We have eight, um, shortly nine, uh, David, I don't, uh, I don't see you. I'm going to assume you're there because I see a, see your name. Um, all right, so I'd like to call the May 26, 2020 governing board meeting of CV fiber to order. The recording has started. Um, all right, any additions or changes to the agenda? Did you want to add a discussion about, um, Washington, Siobhan? Um, yeah, sure, let's do that. Okay. Maybe we can do that right away. Give some other folks a chance to, uh, to pop in here. Any, anything else that we need to add or change? Okay. Hearing none, uh, public comment. Does anybody have anything to comment on that's not on the agenda? Hello, David. I met, uh, this, this is John Russell. I met somebody yesterday, not yesterday, two days ago, who is part of Mansfield fiber. Um, really small, I guess only a hundred and eight or something like that connections. Um, but they got it all done. He says they got it all done in two years. So I don't know what they did. I didn't have a long conversation with them, but, so they have a hundred, a hundred, um, there, and they're expanding again this summer. Yeah, they were, they were the first, they were, they were the first ones to take advantage of the Vita broadband expansion loan and the folks and the folks that run that were actually involved in, uh, EC fiber and in Burlington telecom. So they, the, the, the Naltis certainly know what they're doing. Okay. So they had a bit of a head of steam, I think, going into that. Yeah. Uh, anything else, public comment, not on the agenda? Okay. Let's move on to, um, well, let's, let's do a discussion of Washington. Okay. So, um, before you can do that, should we? Okay. All right. So I've been approached a couple of times by individuals from Washington. The most recent one is Katharina and we spoke on the phone recently. She is in the meeting right now. I see, well, I see her name. Um, they are trying to weigh joining EC fiber or us. Um, I explained that the processes, their select board has to decide to make, do this. Um, they had a, there were some people who had the idea that if they joined, everybody would be obligated to use CV fiber and, and that's, and there was another, uh, kind of a, well, not really a misunderstanding. It's just, um, they were told that EC fiber doesn't do why, uh, wireless, but we were going to be doing wireless. And I said, well, that we aren't, that's not decided at this point. We haven't made that decision, but there, there may be some stationary wireless in the future somewhere, but we're not sure. It's not what we're planning at the moment. Um, and so we, we had some nice conversation about all of this. And, um, I think she's interested in talking to her select board about joining. And I just wanted to put it out there that it's still something we're interested in, because I think we're still interested in Washington because of their location. Right. Yeah. So, so, um, I guess that's it. Probably go on for another five minutes, not saying much new. So I won't. So, uh, Katharina, if you, if you can hear me and you're interested in weighing in or you have any questions for us, you have our undivided attention. There's anything that we can do to help as you go to your select board and such. It looks like she's muted. She may need, oh, there she is. Hi, hi everybody. Thanks for letting me listen in. Yeah. I guess Siobhan did answer most of my questions. The thing with the wireless tower, um, I'm not, you know, I'm pretty tech on savvy. I know that 10 years ago or so, there was a, uh, one of my neighbors on the mountain that I live on was approached by Verizon to put up a cell tower and everybody was going screaming, no, no, no, no, we don't want a tower. So my biggest concern would be even if it's temporary a tower. So I guess I would have to make myself really knowledgeable about what that means, what that entails, how it impacts your health, et cetera, et cetera. And then aside from that, before I approached my select board, I wanted to talk to Siobhan because I wanted to have some good talking points on how to convince them to, you know, write that letter that they have to write, to be accepted as a member town. I guess that's it. Yeah. And so we are, um, so I think Siobhan or I would probably be happy to attend, not to volunteer you there, Siobhan, but I think you can also be happy to attend that meeting. Um, and so they can ask questions of us if there's something that in sort of the prepared presentation, if you didn't feel comfortable asking. And I should clarify, if we were to use wireless, we'd be talking about rather small deployments. And again, Siobhan's right. We're not really, we don't really know what that's going to look like. It would not be a Verizon cell tower. It would not look anything like a Verizon cell tower. It would be rather, rather small to hit a handful of houses at most. But so I'm, I am a computer scientist. Electromagnetic fields are not my area of specialty. That's my sort of required PhD disclosure. However, as I understand it, the, the science does not really support health impacts of wireless. Um, but again, not, not my field. I'm going to defer, I'm going to defer to people in the field, but it would, yeah, it would be worthwhile doing, doing some research, looking at the literature and finding out more about that, I think. When you say small, what does that mean? Five feet, 10 feet, 20 feet high. Go ahead, Michael. Um, so what we're, we're planning almost all fiber of the home, Katerina. But we're planning on using nothing. We're not committed to anything yet, but we're tentatively planning on using some fixed wireless to fill in where we can't easily get to its fiber early. And then eventually over build with fiber and take the wireless out. There are going to be some places where there's a bunch of wireless certain towns because there's already available towers. That does not include Washington. And, and the towers we're talking about aren't really towers. They're utility poles. So they're that, that sort of size. In most cases, we're going to put in 40 or 50 foot poles and put some antennas on those. Spectrum that's going to be used, the, the radio frequency spectrum is going to be in the low to mid band spectrum, which is the most safe of all the frequencies. The higher the frequency, the more danger there is and the higher the power, the more danger there is. And so we're going in the opposite direction. Low power, lower frequencies. So very safe stuff. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Anybody else have any thoughts about Washington one way or the other? Or should we just see how their select board votes and talk about it then? Okay. I'm seeing head nod David. Well, I mean, the one thing is we, we have 18 towns with not delivered any yet and EC Fiber is pretty much built out. So if I was Washington and I wanted something quicker, I might consider EC Fiber. But my understanding is there's no reason why we couldn't apply to both, right? That's true. Yes. That's true. That, that is true. But in terms of then, you know, who's going to take responsibility and who's going to put you as a priority? I mean, if you're in both, it's going to be, you know, not me. And then EC Fiber says not me. So, so I mean, there's nothing that precludes you from, from being in both. It would just be making sure that you know that you will have your turn when it comes to being, being built out. So I'm having a hard time seeing the name of the person speaking with the headphones on. I'm sorry. Me? Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Well, there's very few females. So I'm talking about the male here. So I'm, I'm Jeremy Hansen. I'm the chair. Oh, Jeremy. So, so I really appreciate you and Siobhan volunteering to speaking at the select board meeting. I have to find out first how they're meeting and when, you know, it's, I'm not really connected with them. But when you say meeting with them, would that be prior to them voting or prior, right? Would have to be prior to their voting, right? We could go either way. I mean, if the select board meets, it has to be a warned meeting. So I'm happy. I'm happy just to go into the meeting as they're discussing it right before they voted on it. I mean, that's what we did with, with Chuck in Moortown and sort of arm twisted arm twisted the Moortown select board a little bit and said, no, this is something that you're really ought to do. Okay. So yeah, we're happy to, you know, happy to do that. And as I've, I think I've heard basically every question about communications union districts. And I think I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of, of where things are going in the state and at the federal level. Okay. So I want to, I'm going to find out when they're meeting and I get in touch with you or Siobhan. If that's okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Katharina. Any other, let's see. So that was our discussion of Washington reports back about recent meetings. So I know David, you've been in a few, Michael, you've been in a few. I'm just going to go. I don't have anything like really specific to report back. I'll just tell you the meetings that I've been in, give you a brief overview. There was a meeting with Velco. Velco is really interested in helping in any way that they can. They have a plan to, to do some additional fiber builds. And they would like to know and cooperate if they're building in a particular place. And we can sort of avoid duplication of effort. They're willing to partner with us. And that could be if we build the fiber and we give them some capacity, they would trade that for capacity on their network elsewhere. They said explicitly that that was something that they would be willing to do. Had a meeting with somebody from the EDA. I think the Economic Development Agency, if I'm not mistaken, I didn't even realize that this was a federal agency. There is some grant money that is coming out of that. The rep from the EDA said, your best bet at getting a, getting at the funds that they put out is to get all the CUDs together and put in one statewide application and go in together as a consortium. And the other CUDs were on the call and everybody was kind of interested in that. And EC fiber sort of said, okay, we'll, we'll take under advisement. And they suggested that they might be willing to kind of be that leader, let's say, leader kind of putting their name on the front of the consortium. But kind of exactly how that's going to work is not, not totally clear yet. And so David and Michael, you're, you've been in some of these meetings. So if you think I'm missing something, or if you want to add anything, just, just pop in. I wasn't at the one about EDA, but I should just comment that EDA has built a lot of fiber in the state already. Part of the Berkeley's Kingdom dark fiber network was built by EDA. Oh, cool. The telecom oversight board, which is a board that arguably provides oversight to the public service department. Evan Carlson, our friend up in the Northeast Kingdom, CUD, he's on that board. And that board met and took some comments about the emergency broadband plan. And they are kind of chewing on it, but it doesn't sound like there's really much moving forward with that. I mean, obviously correct me, Michael or David, if you think I'm misstating that, but it doesn't sound like that there's much happening on that board. House energy and tech continues to be very invested in talking about this topic a lot. They had a rather long meeting with some of the usual suspects in this, in this field statewide last Friday, was it? I think it was Friday. Kind of trying to figure out what to put together and what to take from the emergency broadband plan and to put that into legislation. So it seemed like they were really chomping at the bit to get something going soon, like sooner than later, like weeks scale, because they're going to be adjourning before too long. And I think they're going to want to get something out the door. What else? I think that was really my list of meetings. Anything else? Anybody have any other meetings? There was a CUD organizing meeting of all the CUDs that, I don't know whether Evan set it up or FX from EC5 has set it up, but all the CUDs were on it. And then the fledgling almost CUD areas around the call. And Addison and, I don't know, Franklin was not on the call. Anyway, the gist of the conversation was a couple, three, four, two-fold anyway. The first one was, was it worthwhile setting up an organization or association of CUDs? And the answer was yes, in general. And I heard, I talked to FX today from EC Fiber and evidently, their lawyer, Giuliani, and hopefully our lawyer, Giuliani, is drafted up a proposal to do that. And we'll see that soon. The second thing that came out of that meeting, but proposal anyway, was, was there any interest in the CUDs getting together as a group to bid on the FCC's out-of-oction? And that EC Fiber said they would be interested in leading that if there was an interest. And when he, when the meeting happened, he's indicated he wasn't sure that they could come up with the, the money guarantee, but today he was much more optimistic about that. So that's another possibility that's out there that needs to be acted on in the next couple weeks. And I forgot with the third area. Is there even time to do that? Sure. Well, I don't, I would say yes. You know me. I'll say yes to anything. So um, Michael, was there one other topic of the coordinating? Because I don't know, was that the meeting that Rob Fish called? Yes. I think it was, I think it was Rob's. Yeah, that was organized by the department now by CUDs. Yeah. Um, what else? I didn't take notes on that one. Let me think. Yeah, I know. The other thing, I think Rob Fish said that he was proposing putting in a Northern border line, Northern region, Northern border region commission, um, proposal for all the CUDs, which struck me as, I didn't follow up on what he was doing, but I probably should, but I haven't. I think that's all I got out of that meeting. Another meeting that I went to, I spoke on behalf of another board that I'm on for telehealth to the energy and technology committee. And they're pretty intent on, on doing something in the short term using the COVID 1.25 billion dollars. We'll see if anything flushes out from that for immediate broadband or Wi-Fi radio, Wisp kind of things. But I think that was it. I don't know if I have any other meetings. Oh, I did. Oh, I did talk to the regional planning commission today and everybody should know this. They were not comfortable signing. And in fact, they would not sign an NDA to get a copy of the feasibility study. And Bonnie's point was, we have to certify that what you guys do is consistent with the regional plan. And without seeing the feasibility study, it would be tough to do that. I said, oh, I'm still looking for a letter of support for our grant application. And she was willing to do that as long as she knew a little more detail on what we're going to do it on what, you know, how, how it was going to work rather than where it was going to work. She said it'd be a lot easier if she could see the plan. And I said, well, at this point, if you don't sign the NDA, you don't get to see it. So I just thought I'd pass it on to everybody. I don't understand her objection to signing the NDA. If she needed to see it, what was her reason she couldn't? She didn't give me good reason. Okay. I was, I was mostly interested in getting the letter. Because in the grant application, you have to certify that your project is consistent with the regional plan and any state plan. And so that is where, you know, she's important to us. Even though the state, the regional plan is not very definite, not very articulate. I did, I've cited all the relevant pieces of their regional plan into the application. But obviously, no, go ahead. Sorry, sorry. David, did you reach in back into the USDA grant? Because we tapped some of that also in the USDA grant saying that we were consistent. I don't remember exactly if they're, if their plan was something we were consistent with. But I, I know we looked back and said, yes, we're consistent with these plans. Yeah, paragraph or two in the application. Yeah, and I remember that. And, you know, I basically, we're consistent with the plan because it's so weak. I mean, no, there's an interesting thing in their plan, which is the people they felt that brought high speed internet out to go to villages and not to the hinterland because they're one of their planning objectives for the region is compact development. And if you bring fiber to the hinterlands, you're going to have disperse development. So there is a little teeny bit of conflict there. She didn't think it was a big issue today because that originally was written five years ago. And things have changed. Jeremy, you had something? Yeah, I was wondering if it would be worth offering to provide her with the public version of the feasibility study. She has it. Okay, thanks. Oh, she has the draft version, not the, not the final. I don't think we've had, do we have a redacted final version? I haven't done that yet. No, I'll be, I'll be putting that together tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. All right. Jeremy, I could add a few things about the Velco meeting. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so they, some specifics, they have 100 gigabit ethernet middle mile back calls. That's, that's significant to offer to us. They have, they would offer IRUs, which are long term leases. They would offer trades between our fiber and their fiber. Um, so that avoids paying money. They offered their market rate would be $45 of fiber strand mile. And, but they said they would negotiate it lower for CUDs. They'll collaborate on expansion and construction. So they'll actually work with us if we're building a project, they could be part of it. Um, I'm looking at my notes. I think there was a couple more things. Where is Velco again? Velco is the company that manages the whole electric grid for the state. So they're everywhere. Oh, okay. They're the transmission lines, not, they're the big poles with the high voltage that doesn't go to houses. They go to substates and power all the utilities. And they're owned by all the utilities and a couple of other smart so they, they don't own the utilities. The utilities own them. Um, they have 72 fibers on their, on their network and 60 of them are accounted for. So they have one, two, or 12 fibers left to share. And the purpose we would put them to is backhaul where we only need a couple fibers. So that's no problem for us. That's just a good thing. And, oh, the last thing is that they are sort of organizing all the utilities into considering the possibility of also bidding in RDOF. And building the fiber themselves, putting it on all their poles. And then we get an operator and an operator off of their least fiber. So even though we're planning it one way, everything could change in a year or, yeah, in about a year, depending on who owns what after the auctions, whether we have a state auction or not, and this federal auction. So that's it from that meeting. Okay. Any other recent meetings folks want to report back on? All right. I see the next, the next one we have here is update discussion about private fundraising and loans. That was something that Phil was going to give us some feedback on. And I just exchanged some emails with him before the meeting. Are you on the call, Phil? I am. I couldn't get in for the video call. So I'm here by phone. It probably has to do with our stellar internet here in the little sex. But, yeah, I had a long conversation with Stan, Williams. And it was interesting. I primarily was talking with him about doing the high interest rate, high risk kind of notes that we had talked about in terms of raising some matching capital for. And he was on the opinion that we shouldn't do that at least not right now. He felt that there's a lot of money around and that we probably would not need to do that step like they did because there are going to be other sources of funding and some of it just outright grants that we wouldn't have to pay back and that rather than going that route of having to sell those notes, if you will, and pay that debt service that if we don't need to do that, then we shouldn't. And I take that for what it's worth. I think he's following this stuff very, very closely as we all are. But with a lot of experience under the belt, he's also looking at that and how certainly for EC fiber, what they can leverage and how they can move forward. So you know, his sense was that when they did this, the playing field looked very, very different. And it was necessary for them to do this. And this is prior to any of the CUD legislation. And certainly nothing like what's going on right now in this COVID-19 environment and the money that's being either put out there or being proposed to be out there to fund the kind of work that we're doing. So that being said, whether we decide to go forward or not with this kind of offering, he did send me the agreement for this kind of funding, which I've looked at, I guess also was written by Paul Giuliani. The piece that you had sent me, Jeremy, was for a bond issue much, much more complex and not something we would need to do. So Stan sent me the language, you know, could be very easily edited for us to go on. He said, and because, you know, this is basically a local kind of offering. It's not like you need a broker, you don't need a financial advisor, you know, make the changes, have Paul look at it, make sure he still feels it looks okay, and then go out and try to sell notes. And they did that in $2,500 increments. And probably that, you know, less than that is probably just not worth the paperwork as far as doing this. But I was a little surprised about his take on that, that just in terms of the current environment, it was much more of a wait and see than rushing into going this route. So that pretty much summarizes the discussion and, you know, where we, you know, where we could be and what we need to have for discussion about whether or not to proceed or do as Stan is suggesting, which is maybe just keep this on a back burner and see what happens with other funds. Shivani of a question and then Chuck. Yeah, I just wanted to double check as a municipality. We are allowed to do a bond issue, but we probably wouldn't be able to do that until we've got some fiscal history. Am I remembering correctly? Three years. Correct. Yep. I just wanted to double check that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about that. And of course, this wouldn't be a bond issue. This is just, you know, short, short term, high risk, high interest rate money. Chuck and David. Yeah. So to follow up on that, I had a conversation with Luisa Shibley, who Michael you'll probably remember over at milk money. And they are actually starting and offering where they will manage the loan process because apparently there is, there are some reporting requirements. And you know, it's similar to their offering where all marketing of the product, it still falls on you and if you can't successfully market it. So, you know, too bad. But it's an upfront cost of $2,500 to start it. And then they have a small ongoing fee depending on how long you continue to sell them. And they have their very first loan offering coming online as we speak. So that's the first item. If we did want to go down this route, it could help with the reporting requirements that exist within the regulations for it. The second thing is I had a conversation with Simeon Chapin at VSECU. He's their community outreach officer and specifically helps organizations such as ours figure out different funding paths. And he mentioned, he can't guarantee this will be a possibility just yet, but he mentioned that in the past they have set up situations where they basically create a CD product that is tailored to help with funding. And the way it works is they sell the CD. It's their name on it, but it would be the CV Fiber VSECU CD. And anybody who actually purchases that CD, the funds get then offered to us as a loan from VSECU. Now, obviously our risk profile is non-existent. So they need to talk amongst themselves about how they would offset that risk and whether that would even be a possibility. But that conversation is in flight. And then the last thing I wanted to point out is I'm having a meeting on Friday with Chelsea Lewis who helps manage the Vermont Community Foundation, which is a fund located over in Middlebury that funds lots of different co-ops and municipal interests. And so I'll report back, obviously, what I might find as to whether there are any opportunities there. Sorry, one last thing. Louisa Shibley mentions we should also get in touch with an attorney located in Burlington named Eli Moulton. I don't know if anybody knows this person, but he apparently is specifically well-versed in helping organizations figure out different fundraising techniques. Okay. Eli Moulton, you said? That's right. Yeah, he said I was just confirming the name. Yeah, Eli Moulton. Okay. Yeah, the one of the thing that I forgot to report on that was interesting when I was talking with Stan is that I had asked him if he had any recommendations about financial advisors because you know, Paul Giuliani had recommended that we try to find someone and I had not had any luck. And Stan's comment was, well, great, if you find one, let me know because as far as I know, yeah, right, right as well. If you don't know one at this point in the game, then I'm, you know, there's no chance I'm finding one. He said as far as he knows, there is nobody in the state of Vermont that has enough experience or knowledge about the telecommunications industry to basically give us any help. So he was like, you know, we're all on our own. He goes, it was like, you know, I'd love to find somebody too, but I can't find anybody. So I'm not sure where I'm going to call Paul back at one of these points. Okay, you suggested this, find me the person, because none of us seems to know one. All right. Thanks for, yeah, thanks for all that research, Chuck. It sounds like you got some pretty promising options there. David and I think Siobhan, you have your hand up again. Yeah, no, Chuck, everything that I was going to talk about, so that's good. No, not everything, he covered more. Okay, Michael. I'm trying to remember what I wanted to say. Oh, we'll go backwards. Eli Molton is my attorney. He's wonderful. And he managed my milk money offering as well as setting up my company. And I do endorse milk money as a great platform for if we're going to do incremental investing, like we've been thinking about. But I agree with Stan, and I think I've been saying this earlier. That's what we do if we have to do it, in my opinion. I think if we can get this NBRC grant, we're going to have the match that we need, and we're going to be able to get the Vita money, and we're not going to have to float all these loans at high interest and manage them and buy them back when we get low interest bonds, which is what EC-Fiber was forced to do. But one thing different about the environment is the speed of things, which EC-Fiber didn't have available to them. And if we can get an NBRC grant to be the match for that, we don't really have to raise funds. So let's not even do it until we know. But if we start getting hints from Ken, Jones, and others at ACCD, the policy is saying, oh, you can get your money somewhere else. We're not going to give broadband money out. If we hear that, well, then we need to start scrambling. Maybe we're going to look at that investment vehicle again. What was the other thing I wanted to say? Well, I guess that covers it. That's good. Go on. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or thoughts about private fundraising, high interest rate, loans out to folks? Is the consensus that... I see you, Siobhan. So the consensus I'm kind of hearing, or at least the silent consensus, is that maybe we just hold on now and see and have let Chuck continue to talk to folks and then maybe engage one of those processes in parallel if we need to. But Siobhan, what do you think? I was just going to say that I'm in favor of not going into debt. That's just how I live my life. So yeah, no debt. So that's my advice. I don't talk to teenagers much. And so when I do, I'm like, crazy aunt, Siobhan. And I say, stay out of debt. That's my catchphrase. So no Vita either, right? No, no, no. Okay. That's only a $4 million debt. That's the high interest stuff. The high interest stuff. Yeah. Credit cards versus a mortgage. Well, Vita's not low, but it might be necessary. Yeah. Well, again, when Chuck would stand, he says, you might do the Vita thing initially, although like you were just saying it's not real high. It's not real low. It's somewhere in the middle. But you do that until you get some track history and then until you can float some bonds if you need to and then pay off the Vita debt, which seems to make sense to me. Well, I think that's actually how the Vita loans are structured was intending for the revenue bonds to be the off-ramp because they're not going to hold those loans for the duration, as I understand it. Okay. So they're fairly short-term just here. Yeah. I think the payments are spread out over, was it 20 years or something like that? But the idea is that we would then pay back into them where we'd essentially buy them out with municipal bonds when we can get to that point. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Okay. Anything else on fundraising loans, et cetera? Okay. Let's move on. Next thing. RDOF partnerships. David, do you want to drive this one? Based on our last meeting, I sent out another email with the criteria list of things we needed to have answered before we took on a partner. And I included an NDA for the feasibility study. And so far, I have not had a reply from any of them. They have another week or two to respond. But nobody took me up on the NDA. ValiNet did. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a little slightly different, isn't it? Wasn't you going to work with Stan? That too. But I mean, they're also using that in their response. Okay. Oh, okay. Fine. So that I didn't know. Thank you. And didn't VTEL, David? And VTEL, which I'm not still trying to figure out, yes. VTEL's got complicated. Then I need to reconnect it with a bunch of people to figure out what to do with VTEL. So that's still a work in progress. The other one, I did, I mean, I talked to Washington Electric Co-op and they're still mulling it over. A lot of cooks in the kitchen right now. In a positive direction. But they're certainly really slow too. I mean, they're really accounting on the feasibility study to tell them what to do. Well, by then the ship is already left. So, and the other thing that was disappointing about Washington Electric Co-op, they did not meet with the consortium of electric utilities to talk about this. So I don't know what that meant. So that's the update on that. I may have to, this day, this 26th, if we need to do something before the next meeting, I'll let you know. I don't believe we will. Okay. One question I want to kind of put up to the board. We've been talking about this sort of off-handedly. What's the general feeling about going at the ARDA funds with a statewide CUD consortium? We get all the CUDs together and we create a super CUD, maybe a special organization created with the legislature's help or something like that, or something on our own, legally crafted by Paul Giuliani or whatever, and going after the ARDA funds on a statewide basis with all of the CUDs linking arms. Any thoughts about that, Siobhan? It seems like a good idea because it's a bigger pool of power, or we're better together than we are individually. It's less we're competing against each other and we're working together. And so, obviously, I'm for that. Yeah. So, this is Phil. I agree with Siobhan that I think the bigger the consortium, the more power we yield. So, yeah, I'm in favor of it. Michael, then Greg, I know, Michael, you have some, there's some nuance here. Yeah. I don't think being bigger is any better in ARDA. What is valuable about this is that ValiNet has bidding rights. So, everybody consorting with them in a consortium gets bidding rights that way. That's the valuable thing about this. And I think it is something to consider. I don't think it's a slam dunk, but I think we should really be open to it. Whoever is the lead bidder has to get the letter of credit to cover the whole thing. So, if they're doing the whole state, it's an enormous letter of credit. Whoever is the lead bidder is going to be respond, has to become an eligible telecommunications carrier, which is a state, it's a federal definition, but run by states. You become carrier blast resort and all kinds of other obligations. And whoever is the lead bidder is responsible for getting all the build out done. So, that's asking ValiNet to take on an enormous responsibility. If they're willing to do it, we should keep talking to them about it. But being big doesn't make any difference because you still have to bid on all the individual block groups. And it's just a matter of how much you're going to bid. It doesn't matter if you're big or small. Everyone has an equal footing in that sense. All right, Greg. Yeah. So, I agree with Michael and it's really the ladder of credit. So, but that may be if all the CUDs were to come together to consortium, that might be something that the state or Vita could arrange for that letter of credit. Yep. And that's something that we've been explicitly talking about and the state and nobody's running screaming saying that they wouldn't do that, which is I think not a great sign, but at least, you know, something that's that could be talked about. I mean, that could be feasible. It's in the state plan. Yeah. In the emergency plan. Yeah. Yeah. Jeremy, this is Jerry. Can I get in? Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a little bit concerned about doing that and following up on what Michael just discussed. It's an incredible financial commitment to make something happen. And we've got nascent CUDs and, you know, really it's easy fiber with the track record. We're doing pretty well for ourselves, but we haven't turned the lights on for anybody yet. And other CUDs are even farther behind. It would be quite an extraordinary commitment to say that we would follow up on the statewide areas. I'm not sure we're ready to make that or even be a part of that kind of commitment. That's all. So, but realistically, it would be ValiNet taking on the risk. So, I mean, so what would be the drawback in your eyes? What would be the thing that would make you feel better about joining something like this? I guess to put it from my perspective, I don't see how ValiNet would reasonably take on that kind of risk. That's an extraordinary risk for them to take on. Well, but there wouldn't be any financial risk there really, because the letter of credit would be insulating them somewhat from that. I mean, there still is obviously risk, but in terms of them losing the farm, the state would be essentially underwriting that and sort of eating some of that risk for them. So, I'll chime in on that when the floor is open. Yeah, go for it. My concern there would be, you know, we have to worry about the implementation capability too. And single provider ValiNet is pretty small. They've already showed a reluctance for some diversion of technology. And so, if you're throwing the whole boat in on one provider, I'd be a little wary of that. That's all. Any other thoughts? David? Yeah, this, I mean, I'm not opposed to the idea, but it's sort of a complicated map out there. Washington Electric thinking it might or may not, my feeling is they're not going to get it together in time. And then we have ValiNet. And I haven't heard back from, you know, the other ISPs that I sent out the interest to. So, it's an interesting, I mean, the ValiNet one is interesting. So, last call on Ardolf's stuff. We are a bit ahead of schedule. I'd like to see that approval of the NBRC application. So, you would have seen a message from David earlier today that includes 15 minutes ago. Yeah, that's right. So, the application for the Northern Borders Regional Commission grant, which, what was the actual, so we're requesting about $600,000 to cover the match and some other stuff for the pilot project in conjunction with the Vita loan. This is sort of how to spend our kind of plan all along. And an incredible amount of work. I admit I've not more than sort of superficially skimmed it. But the amount of work that David put into this is impressive. Not to mention when you see that, how many pages did you say it's going to be with all the addenda? Probably a couple hundred. But the one question I have for the group, let's see, question, question. Well, right now, I mean, I'm going to have 35 pages of letters of support. But in doing this, I mean, I use the Feasibility Study pretty much extensively to come up with the numbers. And then I added our own, you know, potential labor to work on this. I'm going to ask, I mean, right now I'm still working on it, because actually the whole application has to be done online. And I was tired of going in and out. So, I just created a Word document that matches the application document. In addition to the budget worksheet, it's actually a spreadsheet. If somebody wanted the spreadsheet, I can send you the spreadsheet. There's two other forms they require to be submitted at the same time. One is the standard federal 424. I forget the name. Anyway, we've seen it before with our other federal grant applications. And I have to admit that I'm encouraged by the amount of work that's gone into this only because I think we can use this for a bunch of other federal applications, maybe even the EDA one. Oh, that'd be good. Because it summarizes a lot of what we're doing. I'm not exactly sure what the EDA proposal might end up being, but at least the heavy lifting in terms of filling in forms, getting all the names right, and all that is done. So the application needs to be in their hands on June 1st, which is next Monday. I will finish my piece of it, depending on anybody's comments tomorrow. By Thursday, I'll keep on making changes then. And then I have to put it onto the web version. So that's why Thursday is my drop dead date. And I don't think of anything else. They have some restrictions on how long sections can be. So you'll notice that I could have gone on for pages about what we were doing, but they didn't want that. They wanted 500 words. So I have a question into Christie at the Department. The woman from the state who's overlooking this thing about the feasibility study being included with the application because they're a public organization. So the question is, is whether anything that I, if we can say that this is proprietary not for release, does it have to be redacted? I have that question into her, and I'll get an answer on that because without the feasibility study, they don't even know what we're doing. So it'd be tough to not have it in there. But at the same time, I'm quite aware of the issue of they are a federal organization. So subject to public records review as well. But my guess is they've dealt with this before because they often finance publicly private ventures with the money. So I'll see what she says when she sends it back. Anyway, so that's sort of it. I'll be happy to take any questions or suggestions. By the way, I want to thank everybody for the outreach that you've done. I forgot on the list and Senator Cummings is putting together a letter from all three senators from Washington County. And I hopefully get that tomorrow. Alan, thank you. Averham's letter came today. So that was super. And I don't know, Phil, are you getting all the people from? You should be getting a letter from Tim Newcomb, which is really pretty interesting the situation he's in. I've seen it and he said he's sending it on to you. So can that add to the pending list? I forgot to add that to the list. Yeah. People coming out of the woodwork in Middle Sex and Worcester. So either Phil or you have done an amazing job. Phil, is that you doing that? Sorry, I was on mute. No, actually, Laurie Sharp took that on. And offered to help do that. And I said, sure, run with it. And so, yeah, Laurie's done a great job making connections. And I just handled the swap board and he did all the others. And then Chuck is phenomenal. Anyway, everybody's contributed. So it's great. Andy, a couple from you. That's great. And yeah, that's the funny thing is I get these things and I don't know who they came from. I don't know who got the people to submit. All right. Well, so what we're hoping to do tonight is, as a board, approve or essentially empower David and I to submit the online application for the NBRC grant with the materials that he's putting together. So David's preparing it and is essentially the technical contact. I'm the admin contact who has to actually go into the computer system because I'm the chair and I have to go click submit and essentially authorize it. So I'm going to move that we authorize David and I to submit the NBRC grant application. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. Let's see if we can do this consensus thing again. I'm going to unmute John. And if I don't hear any objections, I will assume that we have consensus. Make sure if you're muted and you have something to say you unmute. Wait a moment. Hearing no objections. I'm going to assume that we have consensus and the motion passes unanimously. Thanks, everybody. Okay. Let's move on to next steps after feasibility study. The feasibility study was submitted to the department. I sent a message to Clay today hoping to hear back if any little tidbit of information. It says 10 days to review. We're at, I think we're at seven or seven days. We have another two or three days anyways before they're supposed to respond and give us essentially the green light to go forward with the business planning part. As far as I know, Fred is not waiting for that green light. I think he's basically assumed that we're going to get it. But I don't know that David project team folks, you guys haven't had like another formal meeting with him since the final deliverables. No, I emailed him tonight to get an update to do that. So I'll send out an update to everybody later. Okay. So next steps after the feasibility study are going to be the business plan, which reconnected with Stan at Valley Net. He's, you know, recommitted to doing some of those financial bits and pieces, which will also allow us to tap more of the USDA funding for the remainder of the project. The timeline is also mentioned in David's NBRC application that he's put together. So looking at when we would be preparing for, you know, RFPs for engineering, system design construction, how all that's supposed to be working out. So it's in there. What's the, do you know when the turnaround time when we would know if we got the NBRC funds, David? The original application package said August. So my guess would be around early September. Okay. So the idea is that we would then essentially have our Vita loan being ready to pull the trigger pending that. Yeah. So I pulled down the Vita application, which is online now. And Jeremy, I don't know if you've got a good relationship with the woman there that does it. It's like they, it's their standard application in the top. They just titled it broadband blah, blah, blah. I mean, they're asking for stuff that we don't have. I mean, it's so, and I don't know what the lead time is for the application. Do you? No, I mean, it's, it's not super fast, but I don't think it's terribly slow either. I mean, I can, I can ask you and young and see what she, what she says in terms of, you know, if there are specific things that you found in there that you want to highlight that's, you know, not that just don't apply to our projects. I think, you know, in a lot of cases, if it doesn't apply, we just put, you know, NA, you know, we can ask it. We'll have a lot of that. I mean, the one thing they need is a business plan. Well, so good news for, yeah, good news for us is that that's, that's why we're building this, right? Yeah. So, so we should hopefully be able to just kind of drop that down as part of the application and go from there. So, any other thoughts or questions about process now that that, now that we're sort of waiting on Department of Public Service? Okay. So, let's move on. We might be done much more quickly than I thought. Update on the public records requests. So, I received the public records request we talked about at the last meeting, that my denial with the redaction was appealed to the head of the agency, which interestingly enough is me. So, I spent some time. I re-read over the statutes. Did you have a meeting with yourself? In a way. I mean, I didn't take minutes if that's what you were hoping, but which would be a public record, but no. So, I review the statutes and I sort of gave it, gave it some more thought and came to the same place that we are a kind of in this odd position of being both a public and a competitive entity and that the statute seems to support a competitive entity having trade secrets. So, based on that, I sent the response and yeah, sent that response and I've not heard back since. So, the next step would be if the requester decided that they wanted to proceed from there, if they weren't satisfied with my response, it would then be sent up to the Superior Court, Washington County, for them to adjudicate. And so that How much time do they have before they have to do that filing? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know that there is a I don't know that window. Do you know Alan offhand? Like, how fast they have to I don't know. I mean, it could be as much as six months, but I can check that and I can send you a note, Jeremy, about that. What can you tell me when you actually sent the sent the denial of the appeal? Do you remember the date of that? Yeah, stand by it. I sent to the denial of the appeal Wednesday, May 20th. Okay. Before the end of the business. So, the first thing the person who's been denied has to decide, besides if they're going to get a lawyer or represent themselves, and in this case, the person might represent himself, they have to decide if they really do want to file and there's a filing fee that used to be, I don't know, $275 has probably gone up since then. So, the person has to think is it really worth it to me. So, I'll look to see how long he has, and I'll send it to you, Jeremy, and you can decide if you want to distribute it further or not. Okay. I appreciate it. Yeah, good work on this. I appreciate you doing all this. And as an update, I received another request for the same document from a different party. I suspect my response will be somewhat the same. I have not read in detail that request. I saw it, it was just like just today, like within the last several hours, I saw that it was there, I glanced at it and I'll get back to it and send a response probably tomorrow. So, we have to do a redaction of the final version then. That's what I'm doing it tomorrow. Okay. And I would also ask members of the board who have unredacted copies, I would think hard about the wisdom of passing along the unredacted copies to anyone outside of the board. You're not really within your rights to do so. I mean, just saying, if anybody has any questions or anything else about this. When you're redacted for reforms, do you need that one map that didn't make the cut last time? I will. Thank you. Thank you. This is John Russell. I'm just curious, are there two people that have asked for a copy of this? Are they potential competitors or are they news organizations or what? I'm happy to talk to you more about this offline, John, they're separate from the meeting. So, when somebody makes a public records request, it's not actually material, their status or why they're requesting it. I mean, I'm happy to talk to you one-on-one about the requesters, but I'm not going to. I'm only curious if not. Yeah. So, if you would give me a call sometime tomorrow, I'll be happy. We can chat about this more. Jernia? Josh? Are you planning on sending a version of the final draft that's redacted out so that the rest of the members of the board have a copy of that? Or is it something that if we need to request it at that time? I can send it out to you. That's no problem at all. I will, while I'm doing the redaction, I'll send everybody both copies. So, if you get a public request, the redacted copy, I think unless anybody has any sort of objections, the redacted copy could conceivably go on the website. Do we want to do that? Does that make sense? Or do we want to just wait until we get a request for it? Okay. So, I'm going to go with gut instinct that we just want to hold on to it unless it's requested. I mean, it is just a deliverable for the purposes of the broadband improvement grant. So, that's a step towards us getting the VEDA loan. Did you have something, Siobhan? I think I felt like I cut you off. No? Okay. Jeremy? Just a thought. I'm wondering if Ardolf comes back and says that the redacted version isn't acceptable and that they can't sign an NDA, then what? So, for Ardolf, correct me if I'm wrong, Michael, does Ardolf require the feasibility study? Or I'm sorry, I meant NRBC. Which was that? I'm sorry. I meant Northern Borders, not Ardolf. I misspoke, if I said. My guess is I've dealt with this in the past and we'll do what's proper, I guess. I'm not sure. Michael, do you have a thought on this? If they require it, we submit it and we beg them to keep it proprietary. I mean, when you sent in your grant for Crasper, you had all the routes mapped. Yeah, but that was just, that was so little, it wasn't, you know. All right, all right. I'm just, just one of the question marks. You did it. Thank you. Do we need to authorize them? Let me say this to everybody. When we did our NBRC grant, there were at least four people working on that application. David did this by himself. Yes, very much so. Hey, thank goodness for retirement, right, Ellen? How's that working out for you? I'm having a ball. Good, good. You choose your own projects now, right? So I guess, does the board need to authorize David, if necessary, to release it now? Or what do we do with that? To release it as part of the NBRC application, you mean? If, yes, so if Northern Borders will not accept the redacted version, can we say that David has, that at that point, it's, I mean, my feeling is that it's worth it to get the Northern Borders money to make this a public document. I think that the benefit of getting the Northern Borders money outweighs the risk that we would be at of making this a public document. My sense, they've dealt with this before, and I think they'd probably keep it confidential. What do you think, Michael? I agree. I don't think there's too much risk, but we should ask them, just you already did ask them. Yeah. I think we want to be careful with this. We have to be consistent across the board, you know, an individual company, an organization, an entity or whatnot. We can't pick the people that we give it to. It could be that Northern Borders will sign an NDA, you know, if, as David says, they've dealt with this before, maybe that's how they deal with it. I'm not sure, but we do have to treat people consistently. Just to Jeremy's point, do we need a motion on the table to explicitly give David that authorization to release it in its unredacted form if it comes to that? Maybe. I mean, so, I mean, I think if the expectation is if they're going to keep it, if they're going to keep it protected, you know, if they've dealt with this before, if they're going to keep it protected, then I think that there's not really any additional authorization required because that's effectively an NDA. But should we, so the question I think then is, should we, if they won't, should we authorize David to release it in any event for the greater good of the application? Greg? It could be that if it's submitted as part of the application, it's not a release. So that needs to be clarified. We're not releasing it as a standalone. It's included with an application that may be required. So that clarification I think we should determine. Okay. Michael? Another possibility is that we just include a map of the the basic pilot, the whichever the blue one or whatever it was, and not the whole report. Whatever minimum information they need, they don't need the 100 page report. They need certain information and we may be able to just provide the certain information they need. And then now we're not being inconsistent because we're not releasing the study. Okay. Let me get an answer from her too. Yeah. So maybe we authorize David to release the portions of this of the study that would that would be that are required for a successful application? Okay. I'm going to move that. So we're still talking about so we're kind of modifying the other the previous motion. Didn't we already passed the previous motion? So this is a motion to modify the previous one. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yes, you're right. We did. Okay. So this is an additional authorization for David to release those portions of the study as necessary to submit the grant. Do I hear a second? Can I amend that slightly? Sure, why not? So we're so we first authorized to release the whole thing. Now we're moving to release only those parts that are required. Can we make this motion in lieu of the prior moved article or whatever you say that? Well, the prior one was just to authorize Jeremy Hansen and David Healy to submit the application. Oh, right. There's nothing about the feasibility study in there, which is why I brought it up. Okay. Okay. So then, yeah, I second it. Let's move. Let's discuss it if necessary. Okay. Any any thoughts on this? This is John. I'm just curious, you know, as Allen points out that we have to be consistent. If indeed they will sort of accept this as an application or a portion of our application and not release any information, that's that's one thing. But if they don't accept it that way, then we would have to go against your decision, Jeremy, not to release it except as redacted. So they would whoever those two people are would be able to get the portion that are included in the in the application itself. So I think we need to we either believe in you and I do Jeremy that we shouldn't be giving this information out because the blue line is pretty specific and anybody with knowledge, you know, of what what we're trying to do would figure out that oh, that's where the money is they've already discovered that's where the money is are and then we are automatically being, you know, competed against because we gave out that information. And that's basically all the information that that they need, because everything else is is just like add on. Okay, we did that now we can do these other things. So if whoever it is, they would they would have all the information that's important. That's that's that's my point. Yeah, Jeremy. I mean, I guess I'm not sure that I agree with that because I mean, we need to make the information public at some point when we make the plans. And I think we've already decided that, you know, we can make stuff public as we need. But, you know, what discussion of the other routes. I don't know, I mean, there's the shorter the time period between when we build and when we release the information limits how much sort of mischief someone could get up to if they were trying to be a pain in the neck for us, I guess is the way that I look at it. Whereas if someone really wanted to be a pain in the neck in some of these other locations that are maybe closer to the top of our list, you know, are higher up but not at the top, then, you know, it would give them more time to do that. So if hopefully that makes sense. Yeah, Jeremy, I'm I'm wondering if maybe we're talking about a problem that doesn't exist here. And maybe, you know, David can do some poking around and when when he gets closer to actually filing will know what the answer is, whether there is a problem. Is there a process by which the executive committee could be delegated to make a decision, the kind of decision we're talking about, rather than having the whole board do it in Indiana. That's that's essentially what we're doing right now. We're just delegating that authority to David. So I mean, if you wanted to make it, you know, the project team or executive committee or any subset of us, we can always delegate authority. The one thing I want to point out, the only the only way this document could ever be made public is if they give us the grant. If I'm mistaken, all applications are private. I mean, when we submitted our grant application to the Department of Public Service, nobody can get a copy of our proposal if we didn't win. So I don't know if the, I mean, it's another question I'll ask Christie on Wednesday. Yeah, the somewhat complicating thing here, I think, is that the Northern Border Regional Commission is itself a public entity, I believe. I mean, it's described as a public private endeavor. But I think somebody could actually make the public records request of them, and they would have to deal with the same questions we've been dealing with. I don't think they're public private. I think they're a government agency. Yeah, they are. Yeah, I think so too. But I know that the Department of Public, when you make a proposal to a state government, you don't get the award. Your document is not made public. The only document that gets made public is the contract. Yeah, that makes sense to me. This is a federal agency. I think Michael's right about that. And I don't know what the Access to Public Records Law FOIA is on the federal side about what, you know, what kind of protections. Let me get it cleared on Wednesday and will. Yeah, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. They have to have dealt with this many times before. And they're not going to release information that is proprietary and really is a trade secret. I think they'll lack responsibly. That makes things better or worse, Jeremy. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mug you. No, no, no. I think just making sure everybody's clear. I mean, again, what we're talking about is authorizing David to choose which parts of the feasibility study, which could mean the whole thing. I mean, if that makes sense, we're authorizing him to make that determination. He's the one that's been sitting with this for weeks, months now, and he's going to know how best to respond to this. And maybe we have, he and I have philosophical differences about whether it should have been released in its entirety or not, but I'm going to trust that he's going to get the answer and we'll be able to act nimbly to include the proportions that are necessary. I'm going to, and I muted you, Phil. That was your, your feedback. Jeremy, I think a complicating factor is the law requires an agency to appoint somebody, the holder of records of that agency. And that is the contact person for the public or whoever else wants to get a copy of the record to get in touch with when they do want to have a copy of, of, of what, what they say is a public document. So I'm a little bit worried about David also essentially being made a holder of the record as well, when we've essentially kind of designated you as the holder of records for CV fiber simply because of what you've already done. You're the conduit through which these things are supposed to go partly. So there is consistency as to how the law is carried out. Okay. So are you, are you suggesting that you, that David answer these questions and that I decide? Is that what I'm here? Well, you are. You're the one that's pushing the button. Okay. That's true. That's true. In the end, you're going to have to sign. So I, I guess that's a good point. That's why I was thinking of the executive committee because it would include you and you, but this, the same thing is going to happen. What David just said, you're going to have to push the button by signing it. So you're the one who's the ultimate decision maker. That should be fine. But that's, I mean, that's honestly a bit more responsibility than I want to have. I would like the board to be able to, no, I understand, but I would like the board to be able to tell me that it's okay for me to do this. I do not want to go rogue and just do something because I personally, myself feel like it's the right thing to do. So if I hear the board tell me to do one thing and I have a feeling to do the other, the democratic process requires me to obey the wishes of the board. So Michael, then Jeremy. My point I've made already, but in answer to that question, you could have the ultimate authority and we can, as a board recommend that if you have any questions in your mind as to the right decision, you can run it by whatever body we choose now. It could be the project team. It could be the whole board. It could be the business committee. It could be the executive committee, but I think we should give you the power to push the button with whatever portions of the disability study David believes are required. And you're making the decision as the holder of the records. And if you have questions about if there's some judgment calls that you're at all uncomfortable with, we should name the body you should consult with. Is that an amendment to the motion? Well, we can make it shorter. But yeah, I guess. Yeah. So why don't you make that shorter. So right now where the motion as stands is empowering David Healy to include as much of the feasibility study in the application for NBRC as he deems necessary. So Michael, how would you update that? So the amendment would be that David Healy will recommend to the chair the portions of the feasibility study. He believes are required. The chair will make the decision. And if the chair has any question about it, we'll refer to the project team for consultation. Okay. I heard a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Second by Siobhan. All right. Any further discussion on the amendment? I'm going to unmute Phil and hopefully not get the feedback again. Siobhan. I just wanted to say that I think you and David understand the board's concerns as relates to the feasibility study and the public stuff well enough that I don't think there's a lot of question or conflict going to be going on around here. So I believe that this should be okay and that you are capable of enacting the will of the board because you know what we've said. Do you feel comfortable with that? I do. I just when somebody says you have ultimate authority, that's not something that's true or desirable. Just saying. Okay. Any further discussion of the amendment? So let's do the unanimous consent here. Does anyone have any objections and would require a roll call vote for this amendment? Speak now. We'll give you a moment or two to unmute if you have such concerns. Okay. Hearing no objections, I will assume that that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. So we're back to the motion as amended. Any further discussion on the motion as amended? Hearing no more, I will entertain any objections to it passing unanimously. Do you have any reason that you would want to have this be a roll call vote? Please speak now. Give you a moment. Hearing no objections, I'll assume that the motion passes unanimously. Okay. Thanks, everybody. Anything else on? All right. So what was that? That was actually still talking about public records public records requests, right? Sorry to derail that one a little bit. No, no, I'm glad that you did. That was very useful and we were and we're still ahead of time. So we got to fill the space of something, right? No, we don't. Okay. Yeah, it still is. So we have two sets of minutes, one for April 28th and one for May 12th. Any feedback on the minutes that Jeremy has submitted to us? So I'm going to go back and take a peek at those. Let's see. See the draft May 12th meeting minutes that those were sent out May 13th. We'll just write the next day. It's going to scan through these real quick. I would also just like to say giant kudos to Jeremy for getting these out as quickly as you've been getting them out. Thank you so much. It's really, really useful to see them while the meeting is still very fresh in mind. Yes, indeed. I'll second that. I'll make a motion to approve them for both of them or just one. Well, I would do one at a time to be just to drive Jeremy crazy. So we have the in the in this process. You're giving me. I wasn't at the 28th, but I was on the 12th. So I can't vote. So let's just let's just do the 12th. I'm sorry. Yeah, let's let's do the 12th first then. If you were if you want to abstain from the vote on the 12th because you weren't here, just just say that you're doing that right now and we'll make sure that that gets included in the minutes. Did anyone second the motion to approve because David made the motion and then who seconded? Second. There you go. This Mr. Robert, whose rules were abiding by right now is probably like rolling over in his grave for this terrible breach of protocol here, but I think we're I think we're going to be all right. Okay, so any further comments or discussion about the May 12th 2020 meeting minutes? Okay, any objections to approving them as they stand right now? Okay, this is your time to object. We can do a roll call vote if anyone is still inclined. Make sure you unmute yourself if you have comments. Right, not hearing any objections. I will assume that we have consensus and the motion passes unanimously. Thank you. On to the April 28th 2020 meeting minutes, those meeting minutes were sent out on later that night on the 28th. Bravo again. There was a revised copy sent out on May 13th. Oh, so I see. So included a couple changes included the last name of Stan Williams at EC Fiber. So thank you for that, Chuck. All right. I don't really see anything leaping out of me except a couple places where my name is spelled S-O-N-H-A-N-S-O-N, which whatever you know who they're talking about the Swedish Jeremy Hansen, perhaps. I have one mistake. The section titled Approval of April 14th 2020 minutes, it says the motion was to table the approval of the minutes until the next board meeting on April 12th and I believe that should say May 12th. Ah, okay. Let me just, yes, you are correct. Okay. Okay. I have made that change on my PC and I will fix my misspelling of your name Jeremy. I'm very sorry about that. Spelling is not one of my strong points, unfortunately. It's all good. That's why we paid the big bucks. Okay. So was there anybody who was not at that April 28th meeting that you want to abstain? Is that you, Siobhan? Orange abstains courteously. Okay. Any other abstentions from the 28th meeting minutes? Did anybody actually move approval of these yet? I want to approve the meeting minutes aside from the previously mentioned changes. Seconded. I have a second. Okay. Seconded by Chuck. Thank you. All right. Any reason to do a roll call on this one? Speak now if you have objections. Unmute yourself if you need to. All right. Looks like we have unanimous approval on the April 28th minutes as well. Thank you very much. Okay. Wonderful. We are at the end of our agenda and we're going to be done a little bit early. So let's move to round table. I'm going to take executive privilege here and do my own round table first. First of all, I want to really, really, really emphasize my heartfelt thanks to David for the big lift. This grant application gets us to construction. This is really, really, really big. So again, another round of applause to David. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't want the applause until we get the mic. Wow. Okay. All right. Still. Yeah. And the PO box has been registered. I have the key. Jeremy has the other key. We are done with that. That is underway. I have an email out to the online fundraising site to find out how I can be made the primary person. I talked to Becca, our former clerk, and she has a bunch of mail that she is emailing to me. So I'll be getting that soon and we shall hopefully be able to go on from there. Did you have a question, David? What's the PO box number? PO box is box 325. Or if you want to be fancy, sweet 325. Very exciting. That's Southbury, Vermont. 05670. And strangely enough, there's an odd way of addressing it if they require an actual street address. What you can do, even though the street address does not exist in Southbury, you can use my address because my name is on the account. So you can say 204204 Borelli Farm Drive. Number 325. Same thing. Southbury, Vermont 05670. And the postal folks will make sure that it all goes into the right box. And I should say, Phil, if you're still on the line, you don't have a key. I only got two keys, but you are also, as vice chair, you are an authorized pickup person. So you can go to that branch and pick stuff up if you need to. Okay. I will run right down and check it out. Great. Thank you. Yeah. And if you don't know where it is, it's right up the street from Haniford in Berrytown. So not terrible from there at all. Okay. Let's see. Next on the roundtable, Siobhan. I was just going to thank David, too, because I know how long that stuff takes to write, and I just really appreciate it. Thanks. I'm done. All right. Allen? Yeah. I want to thank David for pushing us to go out and try and get letters of support from people. It's been the best thing that I've done, because I've had people get so enthusiastic about what we're trying to accomplish. It's been great. It's really been affirming the kind of work we're trying to do. So it was a good task. Thank you. All right. Andy? Yeah. Same kudos to David. It's a great piece of work all around. And also, Jeremy's a great clerk, just so he knows that. Agreed. Chuck? Nothing tonight. Okay. David, you're muted still? Yeah. I think I've said enough tonight. Okay. Thank you. All right. Greg? Yeah. I have to triple kudos to David. Thank you. A immense amount of work and getting it in on time, managing. So you get the applause tonight. When we get the money, you get the bottle of gin. I'll trip into that. Yeah. I will too. All right. Jeremy? Just going to continue on with the thanks, but also just wanted to say thanks to Jeremy, Michael, everyone else who's been to all these meetings that we've been reporting on, because that also takes a lot of time and a lot of focus and attention and isn't the most pleasant thing to do. So anyways, thanks everyone. All right. Jerry? I'll continue on with the thanks. And apart from that, nothing dead. Thanks, Josh. Thanks everybody. Thank you very much. Okay. John? Also have to thank David. I don't know. I don't know. He's an alien to doing all this work. So other than that, I don't have anything to add. A couple pieces of information. So the department wanted comments on their emergency broadband action plan. They were due today. I'm working on them. I'm not getting them in today, but they said they would still consider them tomorrow. So I'm going to keep writing them. And the other thing is, this is sort of CV fiber news. I'm doing my best to get COVID-19 CARES Act money for this year to upgrade all cloud alliance towers to 25 megs or better for everybody. And so that will be CV fiber territory and part of our overall plan until the fiber reveals it. Okay. Phil? Yeah. Following along kudos to David. Great job. And just generally thanks to everyone for staying the course with this. We've had some ups and downs over the last couple of years. But we're seeing some real possibilities. I will say the end is in sight, but I'm just saying the possibilities seem greater every time we meet and have more information. So thank you to everyone. All right. So and thank you for reminding me about that commentary, Michael. I sent in CV fibers comments earlier today. I just forwarded it onto the rest of the board. I should have CC'd the board when I did that. So there you have it. And I move that we adjourn. Second. All right. So you could certainly hang out here if you want, but I will be turning the meeting off in just a couple of seconds. So have a good night, everybody. Enjoy the weather. Well, it actually kicks us all off. Bye-bye. Yeah. Bye.