 Hey guys, well, let's let's get to it. Unfortunately, I have to get off by 610 or 615. So I'm hoping I can't imagine we need more time than that to create our list. But if we do, you're welcome to continue without me. I apologize for that. I don't know. I've been thinking about the best way to do this. I think I think maybe the way to do it is just to create a laundry list and then we can sort it out and prioritize it. Yeah, I don't know how everybody else feels. I did get let me read. Let me read what Phil said me. Phil said Peter for this evening's discussion broadband I would like to see a significant contribution to CB fighter fiber 100,000, which would be matched this would cover the connection cost of approximately 50% of the underserved expenses in middle sex. Number two, he has new gear for the fire department I had that on my list also. And number three other than that I suspect I can support pretty much anything that anyone else that the board identifies. Again, I don't, I don't think we're going to be picking and choosing tonight I think we're going to create a rough list to start from and then work on it and have a public hearing and see what the public has to say and then we'll find to it the only thing I think we need to keep our eye on and I keep saying and I know is this match business with the CB fiber because I'd like to take advantage of that opportunity if we can but other than that there's no rush to do any of this during that right now we have we have time to use it on got it all be used by 2026 but in regards to the CB fiber on I think we should act on that sooner than later and not wait. Right because I guess there's a limit to, I think there's a limit to how much they're giving out. In terms of matching. Yes. Yeah, yes. Yeah they posted something on front porch forum just recently, basically saying that the match is a first come first serve. I believe it was a million dollars that they had available for the match and that they said that several municipalities have already taken them up on that offer so you know as time goes on their their ability to provide us or other folks with match, you know is decreased so. No, I read this I read the same thing Randy. Um, to render remind us what what's the total I know it's a little uncertain but what's the total amount we expect to get around numbers. When it's all done 515,000 and some change. I mean I, I don't know how everybody else feels and I'm not trying to jump the gun but I would suggest we get my 100,000. We can always give them we can always give them more later if we have more. We got what 160,000 or something. No, we've got we've got 250 right now. Okay, well let's give it to them I said. Well, we don't have to we don't have to say that right now but I don't think it's a bad idea to maybe decide that tonight. I can't imagine. I mean Phil certainly isn't going to object he's suggesting it and the rest of us are here. So, do we have a fire department requests to was that like 30 was somewhere between 13 and 20,000 so I would suggest just to be on the safe side and knowing that the price of everything seems to be going up like a skyrocket we pencil in 20,000 for the time being and see what, see what he comes up with. I'm going to build a spreadsheet right now see how much we spent. Yeah, but no no go go right ahead that would be great. I mean the other thing, the other thing that I think we should do and I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to jinx the jinx the deal but I think we should put money aside some money aside in case we don't get this grant for the town hall. So we can go ahead and do that work and I'm not suggesting that it's necessarily the same amount that we're doing the grant for but it should be some some of real money. What do you think Liz maybe 30,000. Yeah, I would say I think we're actually quite hopeful that we're going to get this grant. Just the way that they've been talking with us. Hold on, hold on saying is. Yeah, I would say that'll guarantee we get the grant right right. Anyway, I'm just saying on our spreadsheet plug it in. Do we have a sense from CV fiber do. Does anybody know what their original ask from the town was. The original last was they wanted it all Randy. What was that dollar value. I think they thought it was like 350 does that. Is that what we originally thought it was during I can't remember. This was. I think it was. I think it was in that vicinity. All I'm saying is if we, if we do 100,000 now, and a year from now we have extra money or we haven't been able to spend it all or we think we should give them some more we come sure they'll happily take more. I don't know, I don't know everybody else feels I just, I am really motivated to take advantage of that math. My knee jerk quite honestly was when I was thinking numbers in my head it was it was a little above that hundred and that 100,000 that I was like at 125 and my head when I was considering like what seemed reasonable. But I, I didn't know what the ask was originally and how much that contribution actually went towards the installation so it sounds like that might get us more than 50%. The thing that's a little fishy. And unfortunately, who is, who is our representative now Sarah. I got an email from the president of the CV fiberboard saying our representatives did not been showing up. I don't know representative is David Lawrence and I think we're still looking for a backup we have a backup. Who is it. It's my neighbor, Bruce. Bruce Bruce Bruce. I don't know if he's been formally appointed maybe he has. He has. I would like him, he would like to be on it and I said I will bring it up at a meeting. Why don't we put that on the May 3 meeting. Peter, if you could just slow down for a second when you read when you went through Phil's email. You said if we provide $100,000 we get a match that gets us 50% of what he says. Let me read it just a little slower. I know I'm a little wound up I'm sorry I've had a busy day. Okay, I'm back to full power after my trip watch out. Okay. I'm going to read the wrong thing here. 100,000 which would be matched. That would cover the connection costs of approximately 50% of the on slash underserved residences in middle sex. Okay, thank you. My understanding of this is, and it's been a little confusing and I've been trying to read the CD fiber stuff, but when I had the conversation with them back six months ago. It was clear that the town got no direct benefit from our contribution. So, yes, maybe that amount of money covers that. But what they explained to me then unless they've changed their story is that it's all just going in the pot. So it reduces the amount of debt, but it doesn't offer any special deal for the town of middle sex. So, so I think that that was the message when all of this first was circulated, but with this ARPA money being put in play. I believe the language has then changed and said that the monies that the town, the towns give directly impact the town itself. I tried to read that three times. And every time I read it I come back. I mean they're trying to make it sound like that, because they got a lot of push, push back. I'm not I'm just not sure it's really true and I haven't been at any of the board meetings or heard any of the discussion but regardless. I think it's a good thing to do. And whether it's 100,000 or 125,000, we can always give them more later. I'm interested in other people's thoughts but we're getting I'm putting the cart in front of the horse here. So what else have we got to the roads. Well, we so direct that I read all the same stuff that you've read I know you went to the meeting which I didn't which I didn't attend, but you're satisfied that we can use any of this money for our own town infrastructure meeting roads buildings. Yeah, so what they want you to it's whatever is what they consider lost revenue or whatever. I take it that we can use it for infrastructure they talk about using it to winterize meeting spaces to do all that type of stuff. And so I think in that brings me to not just the roads but I think we need to do something in the interim to the town hall. We need to be a heating system. We just spent 800 and some $900 on a septic hopefully that might carry us through on on getting that repaired. But I do think whether we sell the building or whatever we do with the building later on. I think these fixes still need to be done. I couldn't agree more we definitely need to have a heating system we definitely need to have a functioning water system. The only thing that that I'd like to hold off on a little bit is the is a new lift because who knows. I mean yes is it going to be advantage to a potential user of that building to have it be handicapped accessible. Maybe but also maybe not so. And there are grants for those for doing specific things like that. And I would just I want to add that based on our town plan and the energy plan that's associated with it that we don't want to just jump to replacing the same old heating system and I think we should still if we're going to get this grant we'll be able to see this stuff hopefully this summer to be able to know like the state of affairs for the town hall. Once Sarah has her chainsaw she can go in the woods and cut wood we can put some wood stoves in there. Well that's an option. But we could say I because I think also what we're going to you know we're going to be looking for and I'm wondering to render if you know the answer to this is that you know if we're looking for grants to help us with actually rehabilitating the town hall. Can we use some of this money towards match for that. Okay. So we may want to think about because we may need a big thumb for something like that it could be you know that we need $100,000 or something like that. Yeah you definitely can use it for that but I do think there is and not the lift so much but there's an immediate issue there. I was down there the other day we had our three new listers in the office we had the person from Nemret this is all in the bookkeeping side of the office. We had a bookkeeper and we had myself in there. So you had five people in there. The three listers were gathered around the desk which is your standard office desk. And I think that we need to do something in the interim just to get us through down there. So that was one thing I noticed that was on my list and What is it that you're asking for I'm sorry more desk space. Well just I think there is some remodeling down there that needs to be done on the windows upstairs are, you know, it's like sitting there with the window open and it's going to keep Sarah up there and anybody else. Um, there's definitely the downstairs ones have been replaced, but it's the upstairs ones that haven't. But that was just temporary I have it down as temporary fixes to the building. Well, go ahead I'm sorry. No, so that was kind of where I was going with that one. I mean, anything, anything that's going to, you know, presumably, we're not going to bulldoze that building no matter what. So what it's come down to is are we going to use the building are we going to sell it to somebody else. Well, having decent windows in there having a decent heating system in there, you know, whatever I think is only going to, I mean we may not get it back dollar for dollar but we'll certainly get a lot of it back. But the other, the other thought I've had for a long time. And, you know, is we overall, you know, the upstairs now is not used for meetings. It's only what I call Sarah's auxiliary office well could we set up a couple of more work stations up there sure we could. Like, do we need to make sure that he works and the like during this as it isn't like the, the, the bridge open bridge on the battleship and a North Atlantic storm up there. But there's quite a bit of there's a lot of space up there that could be utilized now whether we move the whole list or operation I don't know how we would, I don't know how we would do it but just give up the idea that other than the select board space that we're going to have a meeting space in that building. We can talk about that but I agree putting some. I mean I think don't get me wrong guys, other than spending a boatload of money on the roads the other and the other thing we haven't talked about is the town garage which could certainly use some help. You know, half a million bucks is a lot of money we're going to work. I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure Victor and Shane could could spend every penny of it if we gave it to him but I don't I don't think that's what we really want to do either I think this is a, I agree with Phil Scott this is like a once in a lifetime opportunity to take care of some serious stuff that we really, we really need. Okay, I added retention bonuses for the road crew didn't we talk about that. You know, sign on bonuses act did we talk about using some of that money. Well, I think we had decided between the bookkeeper and the what we did in upping all the wages it cost us about $50,000 to do that so I think we've kind of already included what we've already done as money being spent towards that. So we can, we can post date. We go backwards. Yeah. So, but do we want to consider you know since we're having a hard time hiring and people are, you know, basically moving on to different road crews where they're doing better bonuses and we're to retain people do we want to have some money set aside. You know, for that purpose, like Calis is giving a $2,000 sign on bonus for their road crew job that they have posted right now. Yes, Sarah. I talked to the Calis one of the Calis town clerks today about that and he said it's $2,000 spread over two years just to give you an idea about that. Yeah. That's not great. That's not so great. So just, it's not like they give him a check when they walk through the door. I think most of them are like that though is a small piece up front and then once they're on for a year or whatever and they've stayed there, then they get for all fee type deal. I know that most most places look at the the second lump some payment at a year at that one year mark. Yeah, I agree Randy. So you're saying back to Dorinda's comment you said that we probably already spent $50,000 on the salary increases, the bonuses and all the fringe and everything that is associated with that. We're making we're making a little of that up though aren't we going to because we're down a person on the road crew. We probably are but that was, you know, that was kind of what we when we did the math back when it was all happening. We figured it come in somewhere around the $50,000. I'll keep it in there. Yeah, and I spent 300 so far. 300 how did we spend that already 20,000 on the fire department uniforms 100,000 on CB fiber 30,000 for the town hall planning grant 50,000 for a town hall rehabilitation grant match which might be 10% remodeling the town hall with temporary fixes at 50,000 and retention bonuses and salary increases at I think the temporary fixes at the town hall for 50,000 might be more than what we really want to put into it don't you. I have no idea. Thanks are so expensive. I know, I know. The corruption is going to be the left. Didn't we get an estimate last year that the left was going to be 20,000 right there and if it was 20,000 last year, it's probably 25 or 30,000 this year. That's nice to you that's nice to you to say last year that was three years ago was $20,000. Right. And don't forget, and don't forget the rate on mediation. Hold on guys, I still think we wait to see what we come up with so that we can yes we should fix these things but we might not need to fix the elevator if we're selling the building, right. And there are grants. You know, hopefully we get this grant and we don't, we don't have to spend that money. I mean, we can always, I think the balancing item on all of this is going to be between what we put into the road. Well, what we put into our buildings, what we put into the roads and what we get to see before. That's going to what's going to bring us up to the half a million dollars. Yeah, the roads if we add in 300 I've spent 500,000 Randy. Just, just bringing up the point that you know through this feasibility study that we're going to be doing on the town hall or this exploration study whatever you want to call it. One of the things that this money could be spent for if, if they decided to build a new building. Just the discussions about losing our food shelf and whatnot that this money specifically calls out items like that or other other services provided and and the ability to spend money on building something for that purpose. So, I don't think that it, it's necessarily, you know, we can paint the framework, so to speak, but I think that we need to keep things like that in mind that we might not know for another year. Right. And we have time and we have time. Yeah. The other thing, the other thing that keeps rattling around in the back of the back of my mind, and I know I've brought it up before is, you know, one of the things we need to do early on in this town hall project depending on, you know, where we go with the state police who knows where but to find the potential sales value of our existing town hall and fire station is I mean if that's, if that's 350 or 400,000 or who knows who knows what it is that'll build a damn nice town clerk's office wherever we want to build one. I would think that'd be part of this study right Liz. Yes, it is. Yes, it definitely is. So one thing, and I think Dorinda this has changed since we first talked about it, because one of my ideas to was to donate some amount of it 1020,000 to the middle sex community fund, which gives out grants to people who, you know, apply for any kind of reason like they might need assistance with some pain for something that they can't get as a benefit someplace else like heat or something like that. And, or it could be, you know, something like I think the energy fair is applied for like a few hundred dollars to, you know, provide a prize or something like that at the energy fair. So I'm wondering if we, because we don't have the, you know, specific auditing that we thought we were going to have, we could put it to the middle sex community fund which was built specifically during the time of COVID to help community members in need. And that way, you know, we could have a nice balance there to be able to support our townspeople who may have a need. We can't go into our funds, we'd have to give it to if it's its own organization, it's its own organization. Right, so we, that's one of the stipulations you can't put this away for a rainy day. So, but you can be creative with this. So if you have, say, $30,000 sitting in your town hall building fund, you could spend $30,000 out of this money for something else take the money out of the, you know, use the money that's in that building fund and it still would remain the same it wouldn't be like you're funding that so you know you just would be replacing the money it's not like you would be docking it away so there's a potential to move funds around if we needed to use funds from one thing to another. Yes, there is other thing I'll give you what couple things that I thought of not only the turnout gear for the fire department, they're talking about air packs, and they came to us two years ago about a new rescue vehicle and looking at the capital spending when they don't have the vehicle being purchased I think for another I think three or four years, which I don't know if our current one is going to hold up that long or not. It's going to cost a fortune to maintain it if we keep it on the road for that many years. So, I'm wondering if we should, you know, start looking at where we have placed this, the funding for the capital spending plan, and see if there's an urgency that should be dealt with sooner while we have the money, as opposed to, you know, just funding at each year. And then that gives us that gives us the, you know, the opportunity to start building that fund. I agree with that because if we if you were able to purchase it now with this money, which there is a provision for for safety services, including the purchase of the vehicles. You're breaking up breaking up Randy. And you can basically start. You're all broken up. Well, what I the other thing I like about and I was thinking about the air packs but but you're right to render those air packs are going to be a big deal when they come up and we've been hoping there was going to be grant money to pay for those but maybe this is the time just to say, Hey, this is the time to do it and I like about it is when we're bringing the fire department along into this merger mode to show them some real financial support from this with a rescue vehicle and air packs or whatever it is, I think would go a long way towards making them feel pretty good about the town of Middlesex and being part of the town of Middlesex. You know how much I've spent now. Yeah, 800,000. Time to cut our budget. Where are they here. I'm ready. Well the roads I put in is 300 so if we cut those out we will have spent the full 500. Yeah, we still have fun balances so you know it's on there is money that socked away for our future stuff so how much is in our background that's a good thing. Well, between all the funds we got 462,000. That's not bad. But. So those that was a couple things the air packs the vehicle and the turnout gear for the fire department. The other thing was I still think we need to pursue some three equipment to hold meetings. I don't know how we do it I don't think or could probably, I mean that's good for select boards but I don't think that's going to take care of our other budget committee or, you know the planning commission anything like that they're not going to want to be attending all those meetings so, and you're not talking a ton of money there you're probably only talking a couple thousand 3000 maybe. I don't know. I was thinking 4000 but yeah I think you're in the right range and I think we should do that. Yes. I think we need to be set up to do that it's interesting so everybody's been saying these hybrid meetings or a nightmare. Well guess what I attended a hybrid rotary meeting yesterday where there were probably 18 people in person and six people. Zooming in. They didn't work fine. And they didn't make what they did was they had the people who were there and sort of a horseshoe arrangement, and they had the camera way back so they didn't zero right in on whoever was talking. But for that number. It worked fine there was no problem at all. So that encouraged me to think that we could potentially do some kind of hybrid thing and have it and have it work without having it be a nightmare. The key is the people who are who are dialing in just have to respect be respectful when they interrupt the meeting because it's hard to expect somebody to be sitting there looking at the screen when somebody's frantically waving their hand but I'm just telling you I was I was pleasantly surprised how it worked and they didn't have an owl which was, you know, peering around at the individuals that were talking or anything like that. So I what I'm saying is I agree during that. I like during the idea of looking at the capital plan. And identifying something that seems, you know, sort of a big purchase that we're always like, are we going to pay for it kind of thing without. Well, those two things for the rescue, the rescue truck and the, and the air packs I was, I actually somehow don't ask me how I probably clicked when I should have clacked one night when I was half asleep but I'm on this. This site where they keep showing me all the used fire equipment that's for sale. I know you can buy a pretty nice use rescue truck which I think would meet our needs for like $25 or $30,000 I mean really nice is it seven or eight years old with 20,000 miles on it. Yeah, but that'd be perfect for us. Oh good I can cut 100,000 out of the budget I put it in at 125. No no no it definitely doesn't. Liz. Yeah. Yeah, you're, you're the only one that can see all of your numbers and you're just kind of putting some figures in there and I don't know where all these figures are coming from my head. Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, a couple of comments I you guys kind of went through everything I did have one other item I'll bring up in a minute but one of the things before we spend any of this money we do have to have public hearings correct. I don't think we should have. Okay, sorry. So, on my, my point is this, I do agree with Randy I had put down 125,000 on that on that CV fiber thing. But if we find out, I think we need to find out if that's exactly the way it's been interpreted that that the money would be spent in middle sex. Did that match. I think we should do that right away. If we don't have to, and then and then have the public hearing on the rest of the money that we don't spend. I agree with that. I want to be, I want to be clear about that. I think that amount of money is definitely going to be spent in middle sex, but it isn't like, because they have our money to spend in middle sex that our middle sex rate payers are going to pay to spend in middle sex. Now there is talk and help me out here Randy there was talk of hookup cost, but we could potentially cover hookup costs. I, so I think that I think that this ARPA money did drive that conversation about the spending in the town that was was pushing the money to CV fiber. What I did read was that the less money that they have to borrow to essentially get the, the service to the folks in town, they would receive a reduced service fee. Yeah, so I think this is directly, I never saw the overall service fees maybe would be reduced but not specifically for the town. My understanding is that the town residents would see a reduced fee. I could be wrong. I say something. I just said that I did think that the town residents would receive a reduced service fee, the more money the town gives, but I could be wrong. You know, I would think with a phone call we could or a email we could we could get that clarified before we gave the money like maybe this maybe this week we could have we could have Sarah reach out as our assistant and get the answer to that question then we could make a decision our board meeting next week which is practically tomorrow. Just a thought. I just like to be sure. Let's write the big check I'd like to be sure we know what we're what we're doing and what we're getting for no other reason so we can justify it to our residents. Hello, I'm just looking at the town spending plan. The estimated release a year for the rest of you this year with 2023 marker of 140 hours. Liz I can't hear you. You're probably Can you hear me now? Something with your mic. Now can you hear me. Now can you hear me. Yeah. Okay. I'm looking at the capital spending plan. And it has the rescue truck as a replacement year of 2022 and in the budget for 2023 and 140,000 in the capital spending plan budget. So it is in there. But it's And I'm looking at a live, you know, like a Google doc. Was that the rescue truck. It says rescue from 1986. But I wouldn't think it'd be 140,000. Well, that's with the number that the fire department gave Christian. I mean, he says, I think that's a brand new. Yeah, I would be amazed if we had to spend half that amount of money. I'm going to put that in the comment. Because for the most part, we have all the equipment that needs to go in that truck. What we need is a new truck to put the equipment in. I mean, we've got the radios, the lights, the whatever the rescue equipment is, we've got it. So it's basically basically a pickup truck with a van body in the back of it so it can carry. I'm not to the comment. I'm not going to take out 140,000, but we should. What about the town hall, not town hall, what about the town shed. How much money have you got left, we could spend it all. I don't have anything left I've already sent out but I'm just looking at it. I think what we, I think what we need to do. John Ray. A couple of times he would do it. He has ideas on how to make significant energy improvements to that building without costing a fortune. And he thinks that idea that, you know, you can't reinforce the structure of the building so you can add insulation as a fall. So, you know, that that engineering report we got two years ago. Yeah, who did the next five years. The next five years for the town shed show overhead doors at the current year current price of 11,000 roof at the current price of 20,000. Why does it need it? Why does it need your new roof doesn't need just a paint the roof. I don't know. I don't know the answer. Replacement schedule is 40 years and it says ready for replacement is right now. You got to remember the life expectancy of that building was 25 years the whole place. Listen, if we don't look at a capital spending plan and make up our own ideas there's no point in that. I truly I understand I'm just, I'm just saying, you know, like putting in that rescue truck for $140,000 I think that's crazy. So what needs to be done to the town hall building is is beyond what I know but I, I respect John Ray Hill and his experience and expertise and I know he has ideas. And if he has ideas other people will probably have ideas about how the, how that building can be significantly improved and made something made so we'll have reasonable period of time I mean we had people suggesting Randy. You know, air to air heat exchanger so we got the humidity out of the building so that solve mold problem, you know, I mean, yeah. But all I'm saying is, we need to have some money in there for that, for that building. And I know what the amount is. Okay, well, so far we spent a lot. But you put in 300,000 for the roads. Yeah. At the end of the day it feels like this exercise you could have, you could have a million and a half dollars on that list and this is just a wish list if you will and we're going to, we're going to prioritize this and, and, you know, definitely focus on broadband, I think on the front end but then as we, as we move on we can evaluate and this is just a brainstorming exercise so I'm not worried about having a million and a half dollars on there to start. I mean, as I hold on a minute Sarah as I said, you know, we could spend this half million dollars and another half million dollars on the road and not have any roads and not have anything for anything else. So, yes Sarah. Isn't isn't there an infrastructure bill that's giving us a lot of that's setting a lot of money down down the pipe to for roads. We don't know everybody keeps talking about that but we don't know. So yes. But by the time I presume, by the time we have to make final decisions on that money that either will have happened or won't have happened. One of the other. I thought it was, we just, I just heard about on the radio that it's coming like now this Monday starting to come now for roads. Well, I haven't, I haven't seen anything that says the town of middle sex is going to get X dollars. Number is what they're what they're allocating statewide but I didn't see it broken out. So that's all I'm saying we don't know. But I mean we could get 100,000. Who knows. Yeah, Steve. Peter, as far as the town town garage. I know we need a new town garage but I just put 25,000 in there. One of the things that they do need is new heating system in there they need new heaters and so I mean I put 25,000 in there it isn't a lot of money but I mean we could spend all the money we got between the town hall and town garage so we've got to put some stuff in there but So I just put a small amount in there but we do need to have something in there. The other thing that I had with regard to the town garage is hiring somebody to build the build the cover for our diesel tank and getting that project completed. Yep. Because I'm afraid we're never going to with our resources in a way we're going we're never going to be able to do it ourselves. Right. I don't think that's a big number what did we where did we think that was $8 or $10,000 max. Yeah, it shouldn't be 10 but so, so put in $35 or $40,000 total for the for the town garage that would cover building that roof over the over the fuel tank and and doing something with the heat. Okay, can I just ask a question. I'm also looking at the capital spending plan. There's a boiler here that says it costs 20 years with the 20 year lifespan but there's actually no number in the rest of the spreadsheet to say when the replacement year is that you're saying it's now. Now. Yeah, it says 2032 Liz. That's all the way at the end. Oh, so if you look at E 22 on, are you talking town hall or the town. I'm in the town shed each 15 boiler. Yeah, so no he didn't put a he didn't put a thing in there. So that's ready for replacement now I'm going to have that right now. It isn't a boiler. I mean I don't know what it's going to be but it's likely not a boiler. It's probably a it's probably a hot air system. It is. Okay, I'm going to write hot air system. There's a place, you know, the fuel tank says 8500 is that the actual fuel tank itself. No, no it's a roof over a roof. Yeah, I think this is the fuel tank, not the roof. The fuel tank is that's in the capital improvement plan. Okay, so we really need a fuel tank roof as well. Yeah, because the fuel tank isn't slated to be replaced until 2033. Okay, so I better add in the fuel tank roof. And you say that that 10,000. Yes, you guys are really spending a lot of money right now. I'm really confused Liz. You're saying that you're added the cost for a fuel tank, but the fuel tank doesn't need to be replaced until 2033 or something. I'm confused with spending plants are to replace it in 2033. Okay. It's just that Liz is going back and forth between the capital spending plan in which I'm getting confused. So maybe if you guys can just sit aside five minutes at the end of the meeting to just methodically read through the list. Yes, can go ahead. I just want to get a clarification on this we had said we were turning the maintenance of the capital spending plan over to the budget committee. So are we just making these notes for our reference because there's nothing being relayed to the budget committee that this is what we're doing. You know, or are we going to relate to them that we're making these suggested things, but so I put it in Jordan because this is a live document that they'll see. And I'm somebody who has access to making changes to it like there's a few of us it can go in and make changes to it. And because it's such a brand new document that you know these are in my mind corrections, or clarifications that weren't. I'm not going to start adding these things into the town hall plan. Like, these are real things that somehow got missed like I'm not going to start putting in, you know, you shouldn't be, you shouldn't be changing anything on the capital spending plan at all. Right. Not yet. This should be just a working document within the select work. Yeah, no, no, no, no, I know I'm not this, this, there are two different things I'm doing here. It's okay. I'll let Elias know what I'm done. And Randy knows too. The challenge with all this guys is, you know, we don't know what road money's coming. We don't know if we're going to get this grant for the town hall I mean there are a lot of there are a lot of unknowns in this. So, you know, if all the full of cards line up correctly. We could have a lot more money but as I said before, I really think the balancing number in this is going to be. If we give more money to CV fiber or we spend it on our roads and I have a pretty good feeling after this spring, that if we ask our citizens what we should spend it on they're going to say spend it on the roads, but we'll see. Yes, but I mean if we're, we're dividing it up between giving more money to more money to more money to CV fiber versus the roads I think I would I would bet our citizens would want to give it to the roads Mr we good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me okay. Yes we can. You have any questions or anything you'd like to add to this discussion. I just want to put a plug into fixing the roads 100% that fiber things happening from what I'm reading, regardless of this money, and I don't know, I mean I view, probably you guys have this all laid out but the arteries of this town. Hill Center Road, brook road and Molly Super. I mean, it just came me still for the first time. You know all we keep doing is throwing sharp rocks and holes, and we got dirt up against the trees. I mean it's just, it's this town is. You got to fix the roads the arteries, not playing around on side roads fix the arteries first, then we'll be free to work on the side roads and everybody has a state but Believe me, I go I go over East Hill every day and I know what you're talking about the the the unknown and I'm not sure I saw you pop in and I weren't I wasn't sure whether you heard the earlier part of this conversation where they're supposedly or not supposedly there is a big pot of money coming down for the state specifically for the road so until we know what that is, we can't make any decision but certainly this is the time and I think everyone agrees this is the time to try and spend a good amount of money on on the road. So, we hear you loud and clear believe me. Okay, do you guys agree those are the arteries of the town. Yes. We're on life support right now. It's bad. You got to stop throwing sharp rocks and holes. It makes no sense. Well, we were in as you know when you you experienced it like like we all did, but we were in an emergency mode this summer now we I mean this winter or this now we've got to figure out, figure out where we go but the one decision we did make which is why that dirt is in the trees is that we're going to grade that powdery mucky slate back into the roads like we have in recent years we're going to scoop it up and get it out of there. Because that's that's part of the problem that what's left of that site it's just a nightmare in the summer. Yeah, the nightmare when it falls out in the spring. I interrupt you, Aaron, and we all do agree with you, but we don't need to talk about the road so much and what's wrong with them. We have our list here. I'm just just saying we're trying to trying to do a list of items that this ARPA money could be used for. And we've all agreed that the town roads need money. Copy that. Well, thank you if you if you have anything else to add raise your hand or jump up and down or something and well, we'll recognize it. Is there anything that anybody can think of that we've missed we've created quite a laundry list not not saying that we've we've set the amounts but I think we've created the created the laundry list in terms of town equipment. I think all our town equipment unless I'm wrong is is pretty much on the list to be replaced when it needs to be replaced I know we've talked about the excavator. That's all on the capital spending plan I believe less. Yeah, the excavator the button loader. Yes Randy. So, the excavator is a topic of conversation because I understand that there's quite a few repairs that might potentially need to be taken place there and from a budget committees viewpoint. I'm wondering if this is further out in the in the replacement plan, then we might be willing to swallow when a 10 to $15,000 bill comes for. For the bottom side of that excavator, knowing that we're going to try to replace it and I think it was two or three years. I think it's, I think it's two. So, you know my understanding and talking with with Victor and Shane a little bit over the past eight months or whatever is that you know that's a pretty serious question on their minds anyway as you know is is dumping $15,000 into a machine that I think they were at $25,000 or something like that for trade in value. And you probably know more than I do Steve but you know I've heard bits and pieces of that conversation and, and I think it's something that that we as a as a board and the budget committee should probably be looking at and what the options are because I don't know how the equipment fares lately and we don't, we don't, we're not on the good side of the side of good luck there so. I'll also add that right now our interest rates are pretty good they're starting to go up by seeing increases. So, I mean it might be something we really want to think about sooner than later to that. Not that I want to see the town go into a bunch of debt service but if you're going to do it in two years you might be better off doing it within another year and get a better interest rate. And the question is, you know, you said it exactly right during this, we can, we can still get the good interest rate, typically, typically we don't go out and buy town equipment for for cash so the question is whether we want to use our ARPA money for that or we don't want to take a 10 year note or whatever we need to do to buy and buy an excavator I also think that what I heard the conversation I heard was better to have a smaller excavator rather than a big excavator that would be more useful so maybe it won't be quite as expensive but I agree it's a good thing to. I mean it is, it is a killer that you put a, you know, you put new, basically new underpinnings under that excavator and spend $15,000 and it doesn't increase the value of the excavator by half that amount of money. I've, I've done those kind of things myself many times I know how it goes it's not good. What else. So, so Liz I would, I would put a note in there about the excavator. How much we want to put in. What do you think Steve Randy. 35. I don't know. You mean for a brand new excavator. Yeah, I mean if you're talking about a brand new excavator there, there, you know that size is probably in that in that price range. It's up towards 150. But I thought, aren't I, aren't I right that there was a discussion that it would be more useful to have a smaller excavator and hire out when we needed a big excavator. I don't think the excavator we have is oversized. They were talking about not getting a bigger one, doing any bigger work with, you know, like we can't reach down over some of these banks and get into the brook when it's down there 10 or 12 feet you can't, you can't get there with that excavator so right. This is showing on the capital spending plan 170 K in 2024. That's with trade in. 200 without. Right so it is expensive. And it's going to be only more expensive. Don't forget, we bought this one as a used used piece of equipment wasn't brand new and we bought this right. I don't know that we necessarily, I don't know if we want to put these things in that are like, I mean all these things that are in our capital spending plan. But we're sort of like looking and adding them in. I think just making a note here's the thing again, things that we would I'll use the excavator as an example. That's a normal piece of equipment which we're going to replace and use and replace and use just like we do our heavy trucks. I view this ARPA money as a, as a chance to take care of some one time. Once in a lifetime that'll probably be once in my lifetime for sure type expenditures and if we're planning for a new excavator just like a new 10 wheel truck or a new brain or whatever it is. We can buy that through our normal through our normal operating process so I hate to. I hate to spend this on those expenditures but I think it's good to put them on there and then we can then we can weed them out but. I just, you know, to put a to put a substantial amount of money into the roads now, which we wouldn't be able to do, especially when we're doing this paving project and other things. That's exactly the kind of thing that I think we should be using this money for and you know money for the town hall, absolutely. Money for the money for those things for the fire department absolutely. But things like things like a new excavator and knew this and knew that I think those are sort of built into our regular ongoing operating expenses and yes. I agree with the render we can we can borrow the money now cheaper we might we might want to do it because everything I read and see is the interest rates are going to but it'll take a while to filter down to the town type money but they were talking. I think I think they were to the Fed was talking like a three quarter point interest rate increase potentially next week and that's huge I mean that isn't happening forever. So, you know, let's not forget that, you know, some of this stuff is going to take a year or more to even get so we order something that's going to be, you know, 12 to 18 months before we even see whatever it is that we're we're getting so. I mean, I view this process as throwing everything on the on the chalkboard and then kind of scoring, you know, giving higher priorities to the impact to the town residents and whatnot. You know, so that's, that's the job that I see in front of us is throw everything up on the board and then, you know, sit back and kind of score everything with thinking about how it impacts the town residents the most. Great. So let's, it's six o'clock. Unfortunately, I have to leave in 15 minutes are we are we ready to come up with our, our revised master list to give Sarah was. Yeah, I mean I just been typing in making notes. Hold on right now we have a, including the $300,000 and 170,000 for an excavator we have a $924,000 budget. Well, I would, I would recommend we whack the whack the excavator out of there. We are normal, normal operating expenses and you have three that hold on a minute Aaron we have 300,000 in for the roads. Yeah, we can leave that in there for the time being for for a plug number I mean the the the crap shoot in this is whether you know how much road money we're going to get from the state if we get a gigantic trunk of money from the state we may not need all of that. We're going to use it and if we get the grant for the town hall. I mean that's, that's going to get us right down where we, where we want to be Aaron you want to comment. Aaron, I just wanted to chime in on the excavator. I don't know how many hours it gets a year. You know, this is I'm sure is a different topic altogether but 15 grand sheet may compare to a new excavator. It's probably 10 and a half months out of the year, maybe 11 months out of the year, and you buy a new one you're getting all the new tier four crap. It's going to give us problems down the line. Just like our trucks. I know, I know. We're not, we're not buying excavators right off the bat. Yes, Sarah. And let's just read through the list. They're really slowly. Yeah. Okay, the first thing on the list is CV fiber. And that's, that's 100,000. Yeah, 100,000. Okay. The fire department turned out here at 20,000 town hall planning study. If we don't get the BC DP grant. 30,000. I haven't gotten there yet. Nothing's in order. There's nothing in any logical town hall rehabilitation grant match possibility. I threw in 50,000, or just in general, we can have grant matches because we know lots of grants are coming out modeling the town hall with temporary fixes at 50,000. We're not remodeling, not temporary fixes. I mean, they're not temporary fixes. We put a new heating system and that's not a temporary fix. Okay. Retention bonuses and salary increases that we already paid for. For 50 K. Mod mitigation, 300 K. With a note that the build back better funds will probably cover the majority of the cost. Or may cover all the cost. 65,000. That's pretty capital spending plan. What they have in there. Peter's version of a rescue vehicle at 25 K. The economy. The no frozen rescue vehicle. Let's see. I wrote for the middle sex community funds. To give to town groups requesting funding and towns people in need. 25,000. Do it said 10. I've increased it because I have my fingers on them. We can always. Where's the number where's the number for the select board retreat. I already said air packs rescue vehicle. I already said that a remote meeting equipment. 4,000 and town garage repairs. 25 K for new heating system and 10 K. For a roof for the fuel tank. Equaling 35 K. And that total right now. Comes to a lot. Equal some. Ooh. 754. That's not bad. That's about right. Yeah, 754. I think that's a good start. Me too. Thank you. Well, I'm back finally. Steve's on his phone. That's, that's because of our beautiful broadband. Yeah. So Steve, what, what we've got and I don't know, I don't know when you get, when you came back in. Liz just went down through our list and we're at 754 right now. With. Yeah. A thousand for town garage repairs, 300,000 for the roads, a hundred thousand for CP fiber. And all the other things we talked about. So I think, I think that's a pretty good place to be right now. I mean, if we, if we get the town hall grand. And we get a good chunk of money from the state for the roads. We're going to be uneasy straight. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was wondering if, if that list could be distributed to this like board. So we can look at it. It's in the minutes and I'll send the minutes out tomorrow. Okay. The other thing I was wondering is, and I don't have a current thing for, for our fund balance. I don't know if Dorenda brought it up originally. And I think that'd be a good thing to be able to look at too. Well, what our town fund balance is about 150 right, Dorenda? No, she said. In our, in our funds themselves are that we. Yeah. For those we have 462, but a lot, some of those don't apply to us being able to use like. The restoration fund is not going to apply here. The town forest fund isn't going to apply here. I mean, I can give you the numbers for the ones that would apply, but these are numbers that were kind of, you know, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I can give them. Yeah, I can send those out. No problem. I haven't, this was as of March. We haven't gotten April. Yeah. Right. Okay. I just want to point out, you know, that includes things like the paving fund, the bridge fund, you know, those funds for other things we can use. We can use and have used in the past money from those funds to cover cash flow shortfalls, but not to cover. Not to cover real money shortfalls. And to the paving fund, there's 259,000 in that fund. And of that, we have the center road project that's going to eat up over. It's going to eat up. I think a couple hundred there. So. Easy. So you're really talking that's going to be knocked down by a couple hundred thousand. Yeah. Okay, good. Wait, can I just ask a question? And I greater understanding the true sort of. Fund balance in terms of less funds being like non. Allocated. Yeah. Is what like more like 160. I'd have to go back. I mean, that's always a moving target. I would have to go back in. I would have to go back in. I would have to go back in. I would have to go back in. Because depending where we come in at year end, like we're overspent for this budget year, I would assume we're going to be. So I would have to take. What the audit came up with. And then back out what I think we're going to be short. This year to come up with something. Because that money, that includes like taxes. We haven't collected yet. It's a hard number to come up with like that, you know. I would tell you, I believe at the end of last year. The number was like 140. I mean, I, I could be wrong. This is just popping into my head, like 147,000. We certainly are going to lose money this year. So it could easily be. 100,000. I mean, it is. There isn't a lot of extra money sitting there. And like Peter said, we use it to as cash flow. Yeah. Sorry. I really have to. I really have to go. You're welcome to continue the meeting and the, and the discussion. I apologize for this, but I think we're pretty much. Pretty much there, but I'm going to, I'm going to jump off and I'll look forward to seeing your comments in the. In the minutes. Okay. And we got, we've got our board meeting next week. Don't forget every week. Okay. Before you go, let me just ask you something. I'm going to put the CV fiber allocation on them on agenda for Tuesday. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes, sir. When are you leaving? Well, I hope to leave Monday. I'm still waiting for COVID test. I was at a conference in there. It was a super spreader event. But I mean, we have a plan. We have a plan in place to cover our select board. Dorinda's going to, she's going to control the meeting. And you guys can just record the meeting on, on zoom. And I'll do the minutes. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Have a good trip. Hope I get, help I get to go. Is your book. Another book tour. I'm going to visit Anna and pull. I'm not joking. I'm sorry, guys. I've got to go. Bye bye. Okay. Is there anything else you want to talk about? I don't think so. I don't want to talk about anything else. I think what Peter said, we pretty much covered it, right? And if you think of anything else, you can shoot me like, we just like, oh, remember when we talked about at the select board meeting? I'll add it to the spreadsheet. If you want to shoot me an email, I'll just put it on my little spreadsheet. Okay. Hi everybody. Have a good night. Thanks for coming in. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.