 We have it's like 30 seconds of five. I'm going to call a meeting to order. Do we have any additions to the agenda, Sarah? Not to my knowledge, your information. Okay. Peter, we have. Wait, you're in progress. Phil has something. Can we just talk briefly about an update on CD-Fiber at the end? Yes, I have Jeff Carter. We have Sandy Levine. We have Randy Curie. We have Vic Dwyer. We have Dorenda Crowell, four members of the select board. And do we have, do we have the camp meet boys in the standby mode? I don't have any, maybe that's what Carter is. I don't have anybody in the standby mode. Jeff, if you can hear us, is that you? Yeah, no, I'm just interested landowner. Thank you. Okay. It's just five o'clock, maybe it's a few minutes. Maybe it's a few minutes late. Why don't we do this? Do you have, how much stuff do you have, Dorenda? Not much. Actually, I really don't have anything. The one thing I'll mention that it doesn't have to be addressed right away, but I did send an email out with a link on it a couple of weeks ago for proper updates. Yeah, by some of that, yep. And I had been following a lot of emails going through our treasure or clerk list. And it seems there's a lot of towns that are using this for infrastructure. So I haven't had a chance to read any detail of what the changes were, but obviously they must have been some big ones because people are using it for all sorts of things now. Now I saw that, I saw that also and the question would be that once we get through, once we get through town meeting and our organizational meeting, we focus on that and start to really think about what we're gonna do because those dates are gonna creep up on us pretty fast. Yeah, I have to do the first filing for the report. I think it's either March or April, so. Well, we should all remember that we wanna get back to that and I would encourage all the other board members to read that material that Derrinda sent along. Yes, Sarah. I just wanna say that we put the postcards that we sent out, the cost of that, we I think we're gonna build to ARPA, right Derrinda? Well, we put it into COVID for the line item for COVID and then depending what we do with the ARPA funds, whether or not it'll come out of that at the end or not. Okay. But right now we have a line item that's for COVID related expenses. Perfect. Anything else Derrinda? No, that's about it. Oh, I did have one quick question for you. So on the account, last week's accounts payable order, there was 16,760 to Buzzy's garage. Yes. What truck was that, you know? Or Victor, did you know? Victor can tell you if not, I'll look it up. Most of it is on the freight liner. Holy mackerel. And a little bit on the Steve's truck there, the international. Yeah, a lot of bills, a lot of maintenance. Yeah, unbelievable how expensive everything is. That was the only question I had, Derrinda. Thank you very much. There was a lot of expenses for repairs last week. Yep. We can't. Go ahead, Vic. We're having trouble trying to figure out how come that the newest truck, that freight liner, just rusts out the whole bottom underneath of it. It's just, I mean, it looks like a 10 year old truck. Let's buy five gallons of bar and chain oil and put the sluice to it. Try and stop it somehow. We need to do something, right? We should. They're washing, they're washing the trucks more. They're washing them regularly now. Yeah. And I'm not so sure. I mean, let's face it, heat and salt and moisture will probably rust anything that's steel. Yeah, oh yeah. It's a perfect, yeah. So we have, we've got a bunch of people signing in here. And we've got 802-2499 or 8406 raising his hand or her hand. Yeah, that's Russ Bennett calling on his cell phone. Okay. I thought it might be new. Thank you. We're anxiously awaiting your arrival. Well done. So we've been doing a little other business while we were waiting a few minutes for you. But if you're ready to go, we're ready for you. And I think we've got a number of people with us here who are interested in what you have to say, including the large. Yeah. I'm just gonna give you a high level sort of where we're at and where we think we want to go. And then the devil will be in the details and that'll come along as we discover them. So first, just a little update on planetary matters and the properties that our staff made. We've got some pretty interesting new tenants. This looks like they're coming along. So that'll be, I think, great for the town. They'll all be assets that are across the food and art realm pretty much. No major, yep, yeah, take care, honey. No major doings. The only thing that's sort of on a construction kind of a thing is we're going to, we're working with Tesla to put in an eight station charging station on the end of the White House towards the North. And I think that'll be good for all kinds of business because it'll bring electric cars and it'll bring electric cars that probably have some more disposable income than some others. So there's that, we're going to continue to work. I will, the trail committee and the planning commission on getting the trails done down to the overlooks which I think are pretty stunning down there by the river when you get a chance to go down and look down into the dam. It's pretty, pretty exciting. So that's not for camp meeting unless you guys have any questions. Are you still there? Yes, I'm not here. Okay, okay. Yeah, I don't have a screen on because I have to call on my phone because for some reason I'm having a computer problem. And then the Colby Farm Galaxy of Yes is the LLC that we formed for that because we want to say yes to whatever kind of community it is. I think we all want to have. We've started doing ground exploration. We've hired stone environmental to do septic discovery and that kind of stuff. And ground water hydrogeologists to see what we actually can come up with for water, water in and water out there because that'll guide a lot of what we can dream stuff but then what's for real, you know. But we're- Ross, it's Peter, excuse me, I'm interrupting you but you should stop by the office or have them stop by the office when we were exploring how many years ago was it? Eight years ago, 10 years ago? Explore. No, it was 21 years ago, Peter. Oh, there you go. Well, that shows how my life goes. Anyway, have you looked at that information because they identified sites up at the Colby Farm which were good for water? Yes, they're roughly identified, rules have changed some, there's some fracture trace analysis that were done and we're gonna bring in in the next couple of weeks a VLS kind of a thing which is very low frequency below anything we can hear to survey where we think there might be deep ground water wells given the fracture, fracture seams, et cetera that were further identified and we further looked at with geology. So we'll see, it's all just hand waving, you know, until we actually hit something. We'll also bore for gravel wells because those can also be high yield. But while we're on that part of the sort of topic, one of the things that I came to my mind is one, you guys were looking for water and that was identified as a site that might work for the town. We're gonna need to develop a water system no matter what for what we're doing. And if we find a ton of water, we would not be averse to saying is there something we can work together with you guys on to bring water to the town for two reasons, one, because you know you have a fair amount of properties that probably don't meet their isolation distances for wells and septic systems and all that kind of jazz. And two, since we're gonna be pretty far-upgradient, we probably would be able, if there's enough, you know, it might be enough to provide hydrants, you know, enough head pressure to provide hydrants for fire department kind of stuff for the commercial district. So that's, you know, go get it, sweetie. That's to be thought about, you know, because I imagine the landscape hasn't changed a lot in the ground as to what really needs to be done long-term for the town. So we wanna try and be good neighbors. And if we find ourselves with an embarrassment of riches, then we should share it. That's what that is. And then we'll start, we haven't really created any plans and kind of things that we can start permitting for, but we do have thoughts. And we think a couple of things that we're gonna wanna lead with, if we can, you know, make all the local and state active 50 permitting work, is we think we would lead with a daycare up to about 150. And we're talking with a couple of experienced long-term daycare providers that, you know, do a good job educational, all that kind of stuff to see who we can partner with to do that. That's gonna take a little bit of time, no matter how quickly we do whatever might come. So that's a year or two off before being able to be realized. The other thing that we think we'd like to do in conjunction with that would be the beginning of a small music and art school that, you know, could build from the ground up. Concurrently, we'll look at, you know, we'll do X amount of septic, we'll guide what we can do for the first phase. And we would, again, wanna start doing some residential development and do 10% of that as perpetually affordable. So those are our goals. And I think one other thing from a building standpoint, we're looking at doing is some kind of a barn-like community center kind of thing, which could host events, you know, little events. They could be whether it's potluck things or the occasional wedding or something like that might all work out in one little hub. The other things I wanna be clear about is we've started going up through where some of the log roads were and where the legal trail is to clean them up so that people can walk or ski up and down it. And we want to keep as much of those things open to the public as possible. The, oh, we also are talking with solar providers to, we've gotten pricing. This is fairly stunning as to what it would cost to put solar array in enough to make the entire project net zero, not knowing what the entire project is, but a fair amount. And if we can figure it out, we would try and do a lot of that upfront because that would immediately, there's a lot of rules and regulations. It would immediately take some fossil fuel or other forms of generation off before we were able to, before we were actually able to use it, but that could have a net value to us all long run. So those are from infrastructure standpoint, the highlights, we haven't looked at, we're gonna wanna have a conversation with the planning commission about some small tweaks to the zoning and those kinds of things. Maybe we wanna see something from a building standpoint, just like we talked about down there on route two on Main Street, the ability to have some higher and lower buildings because if the zoning, I think it's presently 35 feet, if you're zoning is all the buildings are being built at 35 feet, it means there's sort of an arbitrary height that maybe isn't going to provide the best long term and an interesting collection of architecture. So those are the highlights. Russ speaking for the board and hopefully speaking for the town and speaking personally, I'm excited to see that property developed. There have been a lot of proposals from the former owner of different ways to utilize that property and none of them have ever worked out. So we'll be as friendly as we can be to you and I appreciate your offer on the water. I mean, we'll just have to see how that plays out but certainly it's appealing to bring some water down into the village if we can figure out how to do it. Yeah, I think one of the things we wanna keep a close eye on is what kind of infrastructure money might be coming down the pike from the fed to the, we know we have some already in the state and now might be a time when if we discover water, it's a big if, but if we discover enough and we can do it in the right way, there might be a way that would be more palatable to the town than it was before. There's other money. Yeah, well, we just have to play it out. Our previous proposal was not warmly received, to say the least. So we got some, let's see. I mean, now we'll know, the big uncertainty then was, as I'm sure you know, was the really water there. We didn't drill any test wells. We didn't do any exploration to actually develop the water. If all of a sudden there's water, that might get people interested. Yeah, I think until we know there's water, it's fun to imagine. So that's basically what we're doing. We're trying to think ahead and hope for the best because after all, we are the galaxy of yes. The other thing from a business standpoint that we're planning on doing, working with condominium law to keep the entire property together, people will be able to buy and design, have personal designs, depending on what it is, what houses may be, some houses will be single family, some will be multi-family, so that they can build equity. But we want the goals and the aspirational mission of the project, which is really to be, a little community hub that makes it more exciting for the original village of Middlesex to be able to stay intact and somebody can't just sell a piece and then become a naysayer to good things. If that makes any sense to you. So that means that we would see probably if we've got to crunch the numbers, but we'll see, we'll probably self-tax through condominium association pieces for a lot of what normally would be the town road or whatever, which we are plowing the town road right now by the way. So people can get in there. And one of the things, if we get some snow, there's a nice little flooding hill from the center road side where that little lot used to be, down into halfway down to the end of Colby Road. So people could sort of unload their kids at the top and then drive down and catch them at the bottom if the snow continues to fall. Questions for us, anyone? Sounds good. It's exciting. Great. I agree. Yeah, we'll put that one in the details. So we'll bring you details as we start to really have something that goes from aspirational to documentable, you know, and then the discussions will vary around what's possible. Okay, well, we look forward to hearing from you, Russ, and we look forward to working with you. Yeah, no, it's a pleasure to be working with you in this town. Thank you very much. Thanks, Russ. Thank you all. Yeah, bye for now. So, Derrinda, you're all set, correct? Okay, so Highway Department, update on road conditions, action possible. Victor. Yeah, as you've probably noticed, we went around and pushed the snow banks back a little bit. We used the grader to take some of those rough spots out that come from winter freeze thaw. And I guess we're just trying to keep the roads up. So, and we're trying to keep the overtime at a minimum. You're gonna have some overtime in the next few days, I dare say. Well, that's true. We'll say. We'll say. And other than that, unless you have some questions, it's really, we're just bouncing wrong with our winter maintenance. There's something about February 1st, which always makes me start to think about spring. So, when do we need to be moving ahead with our paving projects, signing contracts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, getting updated estimates? As you know, last fall, we were a little nervous about doing the pipe crossings and doing the pre paving work that we wanted to do. And we're in contact with the paving company and they said it's no issue if we move it back a little bit, they're not gonna push us. As originally stated, we're gonna try to do it in June. Right. If we can't make it, they said that they would push it back for us. Perfect. We just wanna make sure we're maybe not at the head of the line, but at the front of the line, as they say, right? Yeah, it sounded like we could. Nice to meet you, sir, hold on. Go ahead, Drew. I just wanna be clear in the minutes. When you say pushing back it, we're talking about the center roll road pothole situation, is that it? No, it's a perspective project. What? Paving project. Okay. And where exactly are we paving? So, go ahead, Rick, or I'm sorry. Say that again, please, sir. Sure. I just wanna know for the minutes, what are we paving? I thought we were paving center road where all the potholes were, no. Well, we are basically gonna pay from where we started down by the interstate to Steve's house. Okay. I just wanna be clear. That's center road, right? That is center road. Okay, thank you. The plan is right now, we were gonna, we were going to grind the existing pavement, but we're thinking about removing the pavement and regrading the road and building it up with good material and then paving it. That was the, that's our plan right now. And what we're pushing back is the time we were originally gonna start and we're trying to start in June. I mean, we'll try to, we'll do it as quick as we can, but I really don't know what the spring is gonna bring. And we have several culverts. We have a few culverts that we have to replace and that'll take a little time. We gotta do a little ditching down through there. We gotta do some preparation work, a little bit more if we remove the pavement. That's the plan. Thank you, Victor. Any questions, anyone for Victor? This is Randy, Peter. I've got a question. My memory tells me that the small section of McCulloch Hill from center to the bridge was separate from the bid that we received. And I'm not clear as to whether or not that's part of this paving project or not. As it is now, right now, because we had the grant was we got the $175,000 grant and then we have the money in our paving fund. We were gonna do the pavement, pave it back to the bridge on McCulloch Hill. Okay, so that is included. We'd like to pave it right up McCulloch Hill and up your driveway too, but I don't think we'll be able to do that this year. We can only take care of one board member's driveway at a time. We're gonna create a nice paved turnaround that's next to Steve's barn there. He's happy. He's closest, so it's the way it ought to be. So Vic, just to be clear, you're also going, as well as paving that section from the interstate to Steve's farm, repaving that, you're also going to use the money that you have from the $175,000 grant and the town paving fund to pave up to the bridge from the center road. Yeah, where it's paved now. I know, but to repave it to the bridge. Okay, thank you. Anything else, Vic? I don't, I don't. Get the trucks, get the trucks fueled up, get the boys fueled up. They're gonna be busy. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Vic. Thank you. Certificate of Highway Mileage. And Sarah sent that to us. It reflects the part of Dolan Road that we threw up, which reduces our total mileage. Other than that, it is, I believe, exactly what we have done in the past. Does anyone have any questions about that, or is there a motion to approve it? Move approval. Second. Okay, thank you. All in favor of approving the Certificate of Highway Mileage, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. But we're zipping right along here. This might be the most efficient select board meeting we've had in a long time. Approving minutes of January 18th, 2022 select board meeting. For a motion. Move approval. Thank you, Phil. Second. Thank you, Steve. All in favor of approving the minutes of January 18th, the select board meeting, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we've approved them. We've already talked about the orders and signing the orders. Do anybody have any questions or concerns on the orders? Looking at them. Nope. Other than the truck repair bill. Okay. Correspondent, Sarah. Oh, I think we're good. Okay. And other matters that might come before the board, you wanted to give us an update, Phil, on CV Fiber. Yeah, not so much an update, but I didn't know if any of you received the CV Fiber newsletter via email. Anybody else? No. Yes, I did. Oh, you did. Okay. I just thought I would bring up that, but first of all, there's a new chair, Jeremy Hansen, step down as chair, and Jerry Diamatidis, who has a background in consulting on large construction projects is taking over that role. He's also the one who wrote the first USDA grant for CV Fiber. So I think that's a good move and Jerry will be very helpful. The thing that interested me, and Darinda brought up, again, what's been going around on the Treasurer's List about use of ARPA funds, but I think we should explore that, but the, I don't know what that, I can't remember what the name of the entity is, the broadband council or whatever, has issued a call and will match any ARPA funds that a town puts in to CV Fiber, and CV Fiber now has said that any town that contributes that money will be spent in the town, as opposed to their previous position, which was it just goes into the general hopper, but they have this other grant, which will be a matching funds grant. So I just wanted to make sure that we don't, you know, don't lose sight of this. We've got the money, we're sitting on it. And I think maybe as we have a general discussion also about the infrastructure piece. And I did look at the stuff that you sent, Darinda, but I honestly didn't quite make heads or tails of it as far as what's exactly allowable for infrastructure. So I got to dig in a little bit more, but I think, Peter, you thought, let's get through town meeting and then come back and talk about some of this. So I think that's a good timeline, but so I just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention that there's a little bit more incentive out there that we might want to look at. Well, I think what's happening from what I can see and what Darinda can see is what we were hoping was going to happen is as this process went along, more things would be eligible. And certainly if we can help the town out in other ways, that's great. I have to believe there's going to be some money in there for broadband. There's an awful lot of money there, but we need to get to it and figure it out. And I think many other towns are in the same position we're in. So they're going to be doing the same thing. The only other thing I have is just for you, Liz, I did see the stuff about the grant that you're concerned about. Yeah, all the emails this afternoon, did you see them from Christian? Oh, I saw an email come through. I honestly didn't get a chance to even look at it. What did you say? Okay, well, there's some things we need to do sooner rather than later. I didn't study it. I just skimmed through it, but... You mean like deadlines that are due soon? Yes, I got it. Okay. Yeah. All right, I'll look at it. Okay, okay. Let me know if you need my help. Or maybe any help. Yes, Randy? Phil, are there any deadlines to that matching grant funds that you're aware of? Yeah, there is one. It's not imminent. It's a ways out there, several months, maybe half to three quarters of a year. I'll go back and look at it and keep it on the radar. But we've got plenty of time. To deal with it. But that's good. I perked up when I saw that, Randy, because that's a good way to really leverage our money and get more benefit. Anything else, anyone? I would and I don't know if everyone is aware, but our cohort, Mary Skinner, did not decide to run for reelection. So, Randy has stepped up and put his name in the hat for that seat. Thank you, Randy. And other than that, I believe we have no contested, we virtually have no contested elections. Is that still true, Sarah, as far as you know? Yeah, there's no contested election. We have every single Lister seat open, the three-year seat, the two of three-year and the one of three-year. So, if you know anyone who is inclined toward real estate or might want to be interested in a career where you learn how to assess properties and you can do it for other towns, now is the time to get that person written in. 15 signatures, that's all you need. Not 15 signatures, 15 votes. Just like a petition. And we need somehow, some way, to find, if we can't get people to run, we're gonna need to find people to a point because our contract with NEMRIC will fire us to have two Listers. Right now we have zero. And what we really need are people who are semi-computer literate. And you don't have to be a whiz bang, you just need someone who knows how to get their email, can file online forms. I mean, it's nothing really big, but that's the big holdup currently. Okay. NEMRIC will do some training for us if we... Everybody will do training. Okay. Yeah. The other thing if you're talking to people about this position is, remember that we have entered into a contract. So the actual inspections of the property is not gonna be part of our Listers duties. They're not gonna be reaching out to citizens in town and inspecting their property, but they are gonna be responsible for generating the grand list and doing tax appeals and all that stuff. But they won't be running around in mud season with their tape measures and their inspection glasses on. So that might, what we really need, and correct me if I'm wrong, Sarah, but the way the process works is the NEMRIC people will be doing the inspections and uploading that information into the computer. But then there's a step that we have to do to transition that data into the database, which generates the grand list and the tax bills and all that stuff. So a lot of... I'm not sure exactly what that data is, but I'm sure NEMRIC or somebody will sit by them and hold their hand while they create a grand list. It shouldn't be that hard. But my understanding is it's basically an in-the-office function dealing with a computer. They're not running around in their own cars in the field looking at buildings. You have to help. What are our options if we are unable to elect and or appoint listers, Sarah? My understanding is we get to try and hire listers. Hold on to your checkbook if it comes down to that. That's what I thought, yeah. Let me just say something. First of all, you're allowed to hire an assessor. You still haven't, because you haven't gotten rid of listers. You're just hiring an assessor. Yeah. But here's the COVID switch or whatever you want to call it, assessors are really hard to come by. To just give you an idea, you have to, there are professional appraisers who they're a whole different world, like Marco Garcia, whom we used on the FEMA project. It's a very onerous process to become an appraiser. It's a little less for an assessor. However, we're not the only town in this situation. And I just don't know. I mean, I hate to think about it. It would be so much easier if we could get people from the community, some who are computer literate to step in, oversee this hired assessor that we have now, and then take it forward. So I'm just afraid we won't get anybody. How about putting out a plea, Sarah? I do want to put out a plea. I don't want any, you know, Tom, Dick and Susan to come in and say, oh, I'll be an assessor, because to be quite honest, we've kind of had that over the past year. We have trained two people who have gotten a certain part in the process and can't do it. One has developed, you know, she's gotten a new job, so she can't. So that's not fair to her, but the, you know, another person we did train and then just gave up. So we really need people who are committed. And I've been talking to people trying to do what I can. It's just not easy. You, as Eric says, you need somebody who can be there during the day to answer questions. And that's just not someone who's very available. Yeah. The other thing I would point out is in our payroll adjustment that also pertain to potential listeners. So there is, it's not big money, but there's real money associated with doing this for a part-time job. Yeah, there's real money and also, you know, someone could set themselves up with a nice little career if they decide to just do that. You know, it's, you could become, you could work for a bunch of towns. It would be great. And you don't have to reach the same level as, you know, licensed appraisers do. What's the ask? Is it a day a week? It's, Randy, it's kind of seasonally intensive. So the, the Lister year, the calendar year begins April 1st. So whatever property exists at whatever state it's in April 1st, that's the, the go point. And the grand list itself should be developed by the beginning of April. And then you go through the whole grievance process, listing to people come in and appeal their valuations. And then you file the grand list of June, early July, and that's what the town uses to base its tax rate on. So, I mean, it's really intensive right there. And so you could work many, many hours in those weeks. On the other hand, I don't really know because this is the first time we've ever had a higher assessor doing this as opposed to a town-wide reappraisal. So it's, it may not be as many hours as you think, but it's, you know, it's an intense hour. So in August, it begins to drift off. And then, you know, so it's, it's just really seasonal. Yes, Karinda. We were, we had them budgeted previously for like 655 hours a year. And that got dropped to between 250 and 300. So, so, I mean, that was a significant drop when we brought on the assessor. Yeah, but I would say, I would agree with Sarah. The busy time is in the spring through mid-summer, in the fall and late summer, fall and winter, it's pretty quiet, very quiet. There's quite a bit of work once people, like they do all the updates when people file their HS-122s late. And so throughout the summer and the fall, we have a lot of updates to, they have to reproduce tax bills and things like that. But that's not a ton of time, but it is what they do throughout the end of summer and fall. Yeah. And as Eric says, you know, when you're dealing with a state, you can't deal with a state after hours. You have to deal with a state during the day. And you deal with a state a lot. And Sarah, just to be clear, Eric is now saying that he's willing to stay on and help do some training, but he really does want to get done. Eric wants to get done. Yeah. We're trying to work, I'm trying to say, Eric, if we can find some really enthusiastic, extremely computer savvy person who can sit next to you and you know, you can just tell them what about it, then I think maybe he can stay. He does not want all of this burden to fall on his shoulders. He's done. You know, he's ready to retire. No, I don't blame him. So we're looking for two, hoping desperately for one and then we can keep him involved. I mean, the good thing about Eric is, he has a lot of institutional knowledge. He's looked at a lot of these properties. He knows what they are. And it's unfortunate to lose that because you can look at the paperwork, you can look at the computer report, but if you haven't actually seen the property, it's hard to know what's what. Anyway, we've just got to work our way. We got to work our way through this. And Sarah reports that the town report is in the process, done from our town point of view, right? We're just waiting for it to be printed. I don't know. I think Dorinda might have something to say about that. Oh, okay. I talked to Sarah tonight. We got that figured out. So I say, yeah. So that was taken care of, not an issue. I do have one thing I forgot to mention when you're all done. Go ahead. So the fire department submitted stipends for their people. In the past, it's only, they've always submitted them once a year, but evidently they've, in their meeting, they've changed their bylaws and they're now gonna submit them twice a year. But during their reorganization or their rewrite of their bylaws, they went back and made the new rates of pay effective back to last May. So we've been hit with a substantial bill from them for the stipends. I told Eric I was gonna mention it to the select board because I didn't know if your understanding was that these new stipends would go into effect like when we, you know, when you had your meeting with them, but now I have, you know, this bill that does go back. So, and it's going to be, and this is only for half a year, then we'll have the other half come in at the end of May again. So my understanding was, and I believe I'm right on this, but maybe I misunderstood, when they were talking to us about increasing the stipends in their budget presentation, that to me meant that the increase in the stipends would be effective July 1st next year, not retroactive to July 1st this year. Well, that's why I'm bringing it up. Is that what the other board members remember? No, no, I think the stipends were effective immediately but not retroactive. I don't remember anything about that, but I think the stipends were gonna be effective immediately. So they were gonna be effective. My understanding. November. Right, November, December, whatever that timeframe was, but not retroactive back to May. How much is that bill, Karinda? I don't recall what the amount is off the top of my head, but you know, where people were getting, you know, $50, $100, whatever, you know, they're now like 600 and 500 and it's a substantial difference. And I'm not saying we shouldn't pay it. I just don't know at what point that, you know, you guys accepted that change and that's why I'm asking. And I told Eric that I would bring it up. Okay, so I'm looking at Liz and Phil. Do you agree with Steve that that's what we, I don't know if there's anything in the minutes. I mean, I can go back and look at the minutes, but probably it's clear as mud in the minutes. I have to say that the, I did go through the minutes looking for this and what transpired was, I believe it was in August, you said, you know, if you wanna pay these guys more, pay them more and then they just paid them more. There wasn't any type of motion by the board to do that. And just in the next meeting, Jeff said, well, we started paying them more and that's been really helpful to morale. Yeah. Okay. Right, but then my question is how do they get paid? Like if they, like it's been helpful to morale, but did they actually get money or they just knew that they were gonna get this five-yearly payment? Or are you saying they're billing us? They give them on a regular basis. I see. So they want us to issue the check just like we issue your stipends once a year. They've now gonna ask for their stipends twice a year. And they, so they submitted it for basically the first half of the year. And for some reason in the transition or whatever, they forgot to include May's hours. And so they're kind of just throwing those into June, I mean into July. And so my question is, are they asking us to pay them back cause they already gave this money to the firefighters and volunteers? No, no, we pay them. No, no, no, they want us to write the checks list. Okay, so how did morale get better if we hadn't written any checks because they knew they were gonna get more money? Yeah. Okay, so wasn't they actually had money? Okay. So, and this was, you said August, Sarah. I'm just saying that in the, I believe the discussion was in August in the September meeting you had with the fire department, Jeff said that he said morale is good, especially since the volunteers are paying, or being compensated at a rate of $10 an hour for calls now. So that was September. So that was- So my guess is at least half of that is August, September, October, November, December. Five months is the new pay anyway, right, Darinda? Yes, anything from July 1st on. I'm sorry, say that again. July, July through December. Okay, so, but basically, July was the one month that then if it's really July, July's the one month that they would have had the old payment. They have some old hours in there that they forgot to include previously. Right, but most of it is the new hours, right? But it's all under the new rate. Yeah, it sounds like probably the majority of those hours are under the new rate anyway. So I'm like, just pay it, right? I mean, they're volunteers. If it's one month, one and a half months of this extra pay, my vote would be to say, pay them this few months of their time when it was pre-the new hours. Here's the question though. The question is, do they presume that they have money in their budget to pay this or is this all gonna be an overage in their budget? No, it's not, it's just like we did with the town employees wages, it's unbudgeted funds. Well, do we know, do we know that for a fact? Yeah. Or they think they have some of their equipment money they can save? Yes, Steve. What was their, they had a budget item in there for stipends, correct? Yes. It's not very much. Let's see. It is, we did increase it this year. Last year it was $3,000 and this year they put in for $18,000. Okay. Maybe there's, now when you say this year, you mean this fiscal year we're in right now? No, no, for $23,000. I'm not worried about the next one. So does that mean that they anticipate this year that we're gonna have a $15,000 to $18,000 unfunded expense? Is that what we're talking about? It could be, I don't know. I mean, certainly- They could have put it in their budget when they came in December. They had to put the next year's budget. They don't have it for the current year budget. Oh, for the current year, yeah. Right, and so, and interestingly enough, in 21 they only spent $1,210. And so with, and it was a $3,000 budget. What's the bill that they've submitted to us now? I apologize, I don't have it at home and I don't remember what it was. $8,000, is it $8,000? If you don't have any memory. I wanna say that it might have been seven or something like that. I honestly don't remember. Okay, so. Well, here's the question. The only question for me in this is, do we say, look, we presume the new rates were gonna be effective the day we said, okay, go ahead. And we understand you're not the middle sex fire department yet, but to the extent you're exceeding your budget and expending the town to pay for it, to all of a sudden go back to May. And I don't care if it's $500 or $700 or whatever the difference is. I don't think we should pay that. But maybe everybody else disagrees. I just. Yeah, I agree, Peter. I certainly don't remember anything about retroactivity. And I'm fine with going from September to May or whatever it is when we came to that agreement with them and moving forward. And that's already gonna impact the budget, but we were trying to work with them and get things smoothed out and going in the right direction. So, I prefer to stay with something like that from September forward. Let me go back tomorrow and find the bill and I can email everybody. I told Eric he wasn't gonna get, they weren't gonna get paid in the latest pay run anyways. Cause I had to bring it up to the board just to get clarification. Let's take a look at what the bill actually is and what the money is and what the overage is and then we'll make a decision. I know we agreed to the increase and I know we approved the amount in the board. Yes, we did approve the amount in the budget for next year. But Steve, I wanna be fair. I just don't wanna give the ranch away, that's all. Yeah. Even the ranch away. Yes. Yes, Steve. I agree with you in that sense. However, I think we should find out what Eric or whoever has told these people about those stipends. If they've already told them they're gonna get this money and they don't. That's a little bit of a hit for the guy. My view of this is, let's find out what the bill is and then have a conversation with Eric and say, Eric, so where did the retroactive part come from? So we can understand that and see if we can figure out what the retroactive amount is. I mean, if it's $800 or $1,000, I don't wanna get in the fight with them over $800 or $1,000, but this is exactly why, this is exactly why it should be a town fire department. So we don't have situations like this. They cannot, and they've been really good over the years about living within their budget. And I acknowledge that, but to just go ahead and rewrite their bylaws so they make the stipends three months retroactive, that to me is overreaching. So anyway. But I don't mind having the conversation with Eric or Dorinda. You and I can have a conference call with them or whatever it takes. I don't wanna, I definitely wanna be very careful that we don't throw Eric under the bus seat, believe me. Right. We need him. And we need him on our side of this. Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, I just wanna say one thing and that is that as you're making your decision, keep my thoughts in mind, which is that I believe most of this paycheck is during the time that we said we would cover them. If it was July, that we had this conversation, at the very least cover the whole month of July. Well, we're gonna get all that information. We're gonna get back to you. We're not gonna. I mean, these are just volunteers. And then it's not like they're really wealthy people. I get it. I get it. I get it. And this money means a lot to them. They've got a big pay raise. Maybe we should go back five years. I will say the invoice I, the invoice I got did not have a breakdown of hours and when they took place, it was just a total that we were to pay along with the list of names. Yeah. So maybe the first question is to ask Eric, what's the, you know, they must have a chart or a graph or something that shows. I can email Eric. He's very receptive. He's really understanding. And I can email and ask him if he can send us a breakdown of what those numbers are. Yep. That'd be great. Yes, Sarah. I just wanna say going through the minutes that the big come to Jesus meeting you guys had with these with the fire department was in May. And that is when you had the serious discussion about, well, you know, this is when Gary Dillon was talking about how much they pay in Waterbury. And you said, look, if you need more money, you know, go do it. So that was May of 2021. Okay. There you go. Okay. You didn't, there was no formal approval. It was just like, that's what you need to do to keep these guys good. Yeah. And I think that's what happened. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, in that case, I think we're on the hook, but let's get the breakdown and look at it. Okay. I'll ask him for that. Okay. Thank you, Brenda. Yeah. Uh, anything else? Anyone? Just very briefly, Peter. Yes. You guys are going to have a meeting with the fire department next at your next meeting. That's the second meeting of the month. Do you want to just put it on the agenda for that meeting? These stipends? We're going to deal with, we're going to deal with this before that. Okay. We're not going to have a special meeting though. Are we? No. I hope not. Let's see what everybody, let's see what everybody thinks. My recommendation is we get this breakdown. If they're thinking is that we said these increases were effective in May and that's what the minutes, and that's what the minutes reflect. I think we're on the hook for her. Yep. Agreed. And I really mean it when I say, the last thing I want to do with all the progress we've made is to go backwards and get a fight, getting a fight with them over a relatively small amount of money that we're buying $16,000 worth of truck repairs. Like, you know, there's no stopping us. Anyway. And we don't need to throw the new chief under the bus either. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Anything else, anyone? For those, for those who don't know, Sarah has dedicated the town report to Mary, which I think is a nice thing to do. Very nice. I mean, she. That's so sweet, Sarah. She spent a lot of, a lot of time and a lot of meetings over the years. So she deserves to be called out and respected and thanked and it's too bad. We're not gonna have, we're not gonna have an in-person meet town meeting so we could really recognize her, but I will make a point at our informational meeting of recognizing her. 30, 24 years of service. Wow. Yep. Yep. That sounds like more like a sentence than a service. And it's not commutable. No. But I'm just saying in all seriousness, and you know, Mary and I have had our disagreements from time to time over the years, but she's given us a lot of good advice and counsel over the years and she's been an active participant in the select board and she deserves to be recognized. So I feel good about that. Oh, she is. Okay. Thank you one and all. Have a good evening. One hour on the does. Pretty good. See ya. See ya. One after your cocktail. Good night, everyone. Good night.