 I thought we'd have to start a little late. We have, you call out your name. I'm gonna start and tell where you're from is introduction to Justin, who's a new member. And Justin, I'm going to let you say your last name so I don't mispronounce it. So when it's your turn, if you say your full name and whether you're appointed and from where that would really appreciate it. So welcome Justin and I'm gonna introduce you to our vice chair which is Doug Hoyt. Good evening Justin. How are you? Good to see you. I'd be curious to hear more about you. And Doug Hoyt is the other appointee from the Montpellier City Council. So he's your, for your partner. Jim Ward, introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Jim Ward, appointee from City of Barrie. I was wondering who you were when they saw your face up there. So like now I know. Kim Cheney. Hi, Kim Cheney. I'm a at-large member. I live in Montpellier. And Will. I'm a central capital mutual aid fire. Thank you. Sally. I'm Sally Dillon and I'm also a capital fire mutual aid rep. Thank you. Carrie McCool. Hi, Justin. We've worked together at Carrie McCool. Dispatch, she provides our Montpellier police. Thank you for being here, Carrie. Really appreciate it. Yeah, of course. And see, did I miss any board member? I jumped right into Carrie besides Justin. Oh, Brent. Brent, householder, I saw your picture but now you're live. So please introduce yourself. I'm Justin Brent, householder, at-large board member from Montpellier. And Brent, Doug Brent. Yep, can you hear me now? Yes. I'm Doug Brent. And you're from? Chief of Fire and EMS for the city of Barry Vermont. And Donna, I had asked to be on the agenda. I didn't see that I was, but whatever you. Yeah, actually you are the update on response from cities. That's not what I asked to be on there for but whatever, that's okay. Okay, I didn't understand that. I can put you somewhere else. Where would you like to be? Will that work? Wherever I just had a comment to make on firefighter safety. Okay, well, if the general comments, you could actually put it under public comment right at the beginning of the meeting. Whatever you choose, you're the chair. Okay. Just make a note so I don't buzz by you then. Joe, you want to introduce yourself? Good evening, Deputy Chief Joe Walzer from the Barry City Fire Department. Thank you. Brian Pete. Good evening, this Brian Pete with the Chicago Huck with the Montpellier Police Department. Chicago? Chicago. Old habits, hard to break. Now that's old history popping up, huh? I was just talking to some old friends. David Delcourt. David Delcourt with the New York, no, the Times Argus. Oh, clever, clever. And Steve McKenzie. Steve McKenzie, Barry City Manager. And Justin. Direct Flavin, newly appointed Montpellier member. Here I am. Justin participated in the Police Review Committee. Did a lot of heavy, heavy loading work on that. Really appreciate it. Wrote the report. Thank you very much. Yes, yes. Okay. And we have live here, we have Stephen Whitaker. I think everybody knows who I am. Okay. So we have the agenda. Any additions? Yes. Kim. I'd like to offer a motion to get a legal opinion concerning time term limits. Okay. Does the board choose to add that to the agenda? Yes. I'm asking the board, is that okay? No objection. Okay. So let's put that down here. Let's make it like six and a half, seven, maybe seven and a half be better. Okay. So with that addition, anything else? We'll assume the agenda is passed by unanimous consent. But you've got the open meeting violation on this? Yes, we do. And go next to the improvement of minutes, November 18th. I'm sorry, did you hear that? Stephen was making sure that we had the open meeting law violation, which is an agenda item, number seven. In case you didn't hear him. Anytime, whether it's myself or anyone else, you can't hear. Just please, any of you have to interrupt us, just say I can't speak or it's fuzzy or bad reception. So then we're gonna go to minutes, November 18th, approval of minutes. I would entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Did you get the second, Brent? Is that Jim? We both, we both were either one is fine. Okay, or Sally, I heard it, but I didn't see it. I'm sorry. Well, let Brent handle that one. Any further discussion on the minutes of the 18th? All in favor say aye or wave your hand. Aye. Any opposition, raise your hand. Okay. Passes by unanimous consent. We don't have to do a roll call. Yay. Next is reviewing the bills and approved payment. Are there any questions? We have eternity website, which has been consistently at that 1010. The bills were attached to the agenda that Brent set out. We have the Times Argus ads for both the annual meeting on the 20th and the public hearing on January 13th. I also got another bill, which I will, which the board got, which real quick send out from Vermont League of Cities and Towns. It's a little higher. It had been really 1,224, but this year it's 1,350. So I had actually put 130, no, 1,300 in the budget. So we're still pretty close to being what we expected. We divided into quarters. It's $337.50 that I would ask for approval from the board to pay the first quarter of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns payment towards the liability insurance for the board of directors, which is required by our charter. So there's actually three bills. Any questions about them for myself or Brent? I have a profiliated related question. Have you contacted the Census Bureau and given them your address? No, but I have the form that I received and I will fill that out. That is a form that Bev is the one who hasn't had his actually fill it out, but I am going to put in a new address so that I have the post office box. Okay, good. But along with staying in context of the bills, I'll entertain a motion to pay eternity web, Times Argus and the Vermont League of City and Towns. I'm moved. I'll make that motion. Okay. Second? Seconded. Thank you, Jim. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor say aye or wave your hand. Aye. Aye. Any opposition? Thank you. And I should have mentioned, John Odom reached out even though he's out of town and did the oath with Justin today by phone, which is allowed so that that's why he's allowed to vote. Yay. Okay, the next item, number five. You skipped over public comments. Oh, I did. I did. I am so sorry. I told you, Doug Brent, I would manage to do that. Trying to get to our big items, saving time for that. I'm hurrying a little too much. So let's go back to public comment. I apologize. It's out of order. Let's start with Doug Brent. You would like to share some information on safety? Yeah, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. All right. So I don't wanna take up a lot of time in this meeting but I do want to get this out there because as you know, I've been a proponent of firefighter safety and that this project is about firefighter safety as far as I'm concerned. As you know, I've been a public safety employee in Vermont for almost 50 years. My biggest motivator for this whole project is firefighter safety. It's imperative that we take care of those who take care of us. I need to make sure that firefighter safety remains paramount and is not forgotten and gotten pushed to the wayside as we argue about the different things that we talk about on a monthly basis. It was important to take a minute to speak to this group about firefighter safety this month. This is the last monthly meeting of 2021 for this body. It's important to note that an important date also falls before the end of this month. On December 29th, the village of Bells Falls, Vermont will mark the 40th year anniversary of the Star Hotel Fire, which took the lives of two young Bells Falls firefighters. As Bells Falls is a village in southeastern Vermont, I'm sure you're probably asking yourself why is this important to Central Vermont? I will tell you, those two young firefighters responded to save the lives of innocent people who were trapped in a hotel building. Several occupants were dramatically rescued by responding fire crews. Bells Falls firefighters Dana Fuller and Terry Brown were sent in to evacuate the building to rescue the occupants and ended up getting lost due to severe fire and smoke conditions. Sadly, both men ran out of breathing air and succumbed to smoke inhalation. In 1981, portable radio usage by interior firefighting crews was a non-existent tool and it was not an option. They both had all of their issued equipment in place, their turnout gear, their fire helmets, their breathing apparatus, their flashlights and a fire hose line to extinguish fire and to follow out on the building if needed. Once inside, however, the conditions deteriorated very fast. The one inside central stairway burned out and collapsed, leaving those men trapped. At this point, there was no contact with the men and no way to tell them what was happening. Worse yet, there was no way for the men to let anyone outside know that they were lost or trapped. Then to make matters worse, they became separated. Firefighters from Springfield, a 30 minute fire truck ride away on arrival were asked to enter the building to search for possible lost firefighters. They climbed the ladder and entered the second floor through a window. After about 10 minutes, Springfield firefighters located firefighter Fuller and with all their might extricated him unconscious from the building, lower him down a 32 foot extension ladder. Their search had only located one firefighter. So it was assumed that the second firefighter had already exited the building on his own. It was only after firefighter Brown's father notified the fire chief about 90 minutes into the fire that his son had gone into the building had not been seen since. Though the fire was raging out of control, additional interior fire crews from Walpole, New Hampshire entered the building in search of firefighter Brown. After facing inconceivable fire and smoke conditions, they located an unconscious firefighter Brown, dragged him to a window and placed him on the end of an extended area ladder for other firefighters to retrieve. Firefighter Brown was brought to the ground, placed on an ambulance caught, a breathing tool was inserted and CPR was administered. He was transported to the hospital, only on arrival at the hospital did responders discover that both firefighter Brown and firefighter Buller died due to their inhalation of deadly smoke and gases. My question is, could this happen again? We've asked ourselves over and over again. Why is this important that we are reminded of this tragedy? What did we learn from the incident? What do we all know now that we didn't know then? As I mentioned earlier, portable radios were not an available tool for interior firefighting crews in 1981 like they are today. Today, it's mandatory at a very minimum that at least one crew member has a portable radio. It's safest if all interior members have a portable radio. After all, as we saw in those falls, teams do get separated. This could happen in any town Vermont on any given day or any given night. This could happen here in central Vermont. Unfortunately, as you all now know from the Televate Report, our very own central Vermont interior firefighting crews quite often, excuse me, quite likely will not be able to talk to anyone on their portable radios or operate safely even though they are equipped with portable radios. Your fire departments know that they and they still know that and they still step up on a daily basis to run into buildings that everyone else is running out of. We didn't need a report to tell us this information. We know it and we expect it. That does not make it right, it's just the way it is. That needs to change. Through whatever mechanism is developed in these meetings either through CVPSA, capital fire, Montpelier or Barrie, something needs to happen. It's not a question of will this happen here? It's a matter of when. Listen to the fire chiefs, follow their directions and their recommendations, improve land mobile radio systems for central Vermont fire systems. For the central Vermont fire service. Improve the technology that is designed for the jobs we are doing. It's there now, it's tried and it's true. This is not a contrived story. This is not a case study. This is not a net magazine or a newspaper article. This really happened. I know I was there. As deputy fire chief for Springfield, it was my crew. My firefighters, Peterson and Morris who located and removed firefighter Fuller from that fire. Furthermore, I personally worked on the resuscitation of firefighter Brown and only stopped when ordered to buy an emergency room doctor. Obviously, this is extremely personal to me. It is my hope to never be involved in an incident like this again. In 1986, I was very fortunate and I was honored to be named the fire chief for the village of Ellis Falls, a position that I held for about seven years with our friend, Paco Lamont as police chief. And we, they have never stopped thinking or talking about Dana Fuller or Terry Brown. Here in central Vermont, we need to do something now and stop talking. Only then will this, the pending 40th anniversary of this terrible tragedy, can we say that firefighters everywhere have learned something and done something as a result of the deaths. Thank you for listening and have a very happy holiday season. Thank you very much for sharing. I certainly didn't know that history. Very powerful Doug, thank you. If you're interested in knowing, there is an amazing, amazing 90 minute video which was done by the Falls Area Community Television which is a community TV in Ellis Falls. It's named call to duty and it pays tribute to those heroic individuals. It was unveiled to the public in September as a memorial fundraiser for a park that they're building on the site of the Star Hotel fire. Is that September, 2021? Yes, it was just barely released in September, middle of September of 2021 to a packed cinema in downtown Dallas Falls. Okay, thank you. Is it available on YouTube chief or how would someone get it? I don't believe it's available on YouTube, Jim. They've had public viewings because as I said, it is a fundraiser. But if you were to contact Fact Community Television probably via their website and make any type of a small donation they'll send you a DVD copy of it. Thank you. Well said chief. Okay, are there any other public comments? Steven Whitaker. Yeah, thank you chief that was moving and troubling and inspiring all at once. I agree with you, that's why we're here. I worked to get in building coverage modified into the RFP that went out for Tel Aviv. And as you know, I'm sorely disappointed with what we got as a product there. A lesson learned, an expensive $43,000 lesson learned. I wanna speak about the integrity of this organization. It's had a rough start. I've been through the history and the minutes all as many as I could find and time aligned them, et cetera. And I wanna emphasize and encourage this board to not only listen and forget, but to actually discuss and take action and resolve on strict adherence to the charter and to other laws, especially open meeting and public records laws. I'm not at all comfortable that we're tolerating the building being locked while we're required to have it open for a public meeting right now. In true integrity, we would have to cancel or postpone this meeting until we resolve the city hall backdoor issue. Secondly, I went to the trouble of asking city council last night for CVPSA to be allowed to use the video and audio accoutrements that are here, amplified speakers, big screen television and or even projector. The city agreed that that was okay and the assistant city manager offered to set it up for this meeting tonight. Those requests were disregarded and ignored due to our chair's lack of confidence with technology. And I just don't think that's excusable. That's not questionable because I can't hear as well as and I can't see who's talking, et cetera. So I'm just making that a point again. I know I belabored it prior. We need to strictly adhere to the charter with regard to warning meetings and public hearings. I'll call your attention to section 901-38 of the charter where any special or annual meeting of the CVPSA is required to not just publish the ads in the paper but have a public hearing prior to that meeting. And that's what I was speaking to last meeting that that would have required noticing this meeting back in October. Those concerns are just swept aside despite the violation of the charter. The charter says this organization shall hire a public safety director. We're wavering and bobbing and weaving and fitting and starting and we lack a director to keep with consultant technology expertise if needed to keep things on track. Allocate costs equitably among the members. I've been back through the memorandum of understanding between CVPSA and Capital Fire and the free ride only extended until the existing contract with CAP West with Montpelier was renewed. It has been renewed. It was approved months ago by the city council. So the option to not pay a fair share of the televate study that they're relying on to justify putting out an RFP is not proper nor is it consistent with the charter. One more minute, Steve. Respect term limits. I have provided all of y'all with a corrected map this morning of the three complete two-year terms that our chair has served with admirably served kept great minutes, you know, a while back. I've just been through those tonight. So I think that's enough for now. Okay. Anyone else would like to make a public comment? All right. Then we'll go to item five, which is the, I'm sorry, I didn't see a hand. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. This is a Brian from Montpelier PD. Okay, Brian. Yes. I'm not gonna bite my tongue on this one anymore. I just would like to say that it just, this whole purpose of it feels disingenuous in regard to Mr. Whitaker, period, that Mr, that fire chief Brent had came out with something extraordinarily personal and talking about something safety, which I think everybody here is wanting to do. It's just disingenuous. And I hope that we can continue the business of the spirit of what chief Brent had said. And then we get on the business of that rather than someone who wraps himself in a clothe of self-righteousness. Well, thank you very much. Okay. So then we'll move anybody else that I miss any hands. Okay. So we now go on to number five, which is an update on the response from the cities. And I mistakenly put Doug Brent there, but maybe I can put Steve McKenzie on the spot. Do you have any update as far as any discussions since we did that presentation with Tel Aviv on the city council, or you wanna do any forecasting if you don't have any clear answers? Yeah, well, you were successful in putting Steve McKenzie on the spot. I wasn't prepared to make any comments, but regrettably no, I don't have an update. And I think it's primarily because we, the twin cities have been unable to meet since actually it's been quite some time. I had mentioned that or indicated at the last meeting in November that I was hopeful that to get the two groups together to, I think, get ourselves coordinated since having met whatever the last time, six months or so ago, and quite frankly, just because of schedules, couple of us are sidelined a little bit, we haven't. So I regret to say we have no update. Other than, I think the only comment I would make is I think it was just prior to the last meeting that Paco and Doug had, and I had a three-way conversation and we covered a number of things, but during that conversation, it became evident to me from Doug and Paco that something that I thought had been said in the Twin Cities report, if you will, apparently didn't come across clearly. And both Paco and Doug had indicated that they didn't understand, I think, or understand that part of what we said in that memo is that the Twin Cities felt that for both of us, the immediate priority was move ahead with the consuls upgrades and the radio procurements. And I was a little surprised at that because I thought it had been indicated in the report. I did go back and I see the text that I was referring to and in that text, to me, that was the intent of the comment or whatever. I understand that it might not have come across as clearly as it was intended, but the point of all that is I think that's the direction, I don't think, I mean, that's the direction that the Twin Cities decided quite some time ago, and I think are working to proceed in that direction, not to the elimination of anything else, but we felt that direction was, or is, meets the immediate priorities of both cities and is consistent with the recommendation out of the Televate Report. So I'll, that'll be my feedback. Well, I know that both city councils are very much involved with their budgets and moving forward with all their hearings, all their meetings around budget and public hearing, moving to town meeting items. So although the discussion at Montoya City Council was supportive of the Twin City team spending a time to look at and support the Televate recommendations and the ones that I thought also came from the Twin Cities team. And that was replacing and updating the current I use the language that I put in my email to the councils at their joint meeting that I felt that both the public safety staff the Twin City teams and Capital FAR was very clear that a priority was to replace the updated and update the public safety telecommunication equipment and to have greater participation of the FAR and police chiefs on public safety board and to develop an acceptable equitable funding formula for the needed capital investment and to agree on a governance model for capital investment. So the capital investment governance and fund funding formula seems to go hand in hand with acquiring them, you know, some funding strategies. And so I see both Bill Frazier at Montoya City manager as well as the council they are really wanting the Twin City team to move to that. Now it may not be until January but as the Twin City team has time to focus on that and get beyond all of our budget stuff I see that as a priority. Is there anything you need from us to help Barry move in that direction or is it just a matter of having the Twin City team meet and talk? I could say if you find a way to find some more time that'd be very helpful. I think we all suffer from that. So there's nothing we're waiting on or relying on from the board. It's really, I'm really disappointed that we haven't been able to get together and I blame myself as much as anything for that. It's really getting reaching out, getting scheduled getting a get together. In fact, Doug and I were just talking about that today and we're gonna reach out to Brian and Bill and see if we can't set something up for the latter part of next week. And of course, as we move ahead here in December it's getting tougher and tougher to schedule meetings but we gotta do it. Well, and then the other thing is that the Twin City team really needs to bring in Capital FAR so that their involvement is right there when you're talking about the equipment. Yes. Yeah, I'm gonna have to leave that to the chiefs. I mean, in my mind, until I stand corrected I'm focusing on, or I believe our focus is really the consoles and the radios for a very city of Montpeyre. Now, if that can be expanded in some way perhaps but I'm thinking the focus is more narrow than broad. Okay. At the Twin City level and I'll let others correct me if I'm wrong. Okay. Well, maybe we'll get some input from Capital FAR folks and see what they're wanting to do towards that end of radio and the simulcast system. Sally, Will, Doug Hoyt as our public safety authority lays on with the Capital FAR group which one of you wanna start it off, Doug Hoyt or Sally Will? Hey, Matt. Well, let me jump in for a minute. I guess I would indicate that Capital FAR you know, at their least last meeting did agree to move forward with working on these issues. I think Chief Brent's comments at the beginning of the meeting here are appropriate for a continuation of discussion along this line. We got both Barry and Montpeyre that are working on their budget and if I'm not mistaken, Capital FAR is also working on theirs. So all of those have got to come together but the underlying and motivating comments by Doug Brent and probably shared by all the other public safety chiefs is the protection of those people that provide the service. Apparently, I started in public safety a lot later than Doug Brent but I too was on duty when that event occurred in Bell's Falls although I was not in a position of being able to make any impact on that. The loss of life was not lost on. Nor was the loss of life for all the other law enforcement officers and other firefighters that have occurred in the last 40, 50 years. So getting the communications part worked out is critical and I can't help but think that the desire to take care of in building communications being as critical as it is in both the fire service and the law enforcement service need to be addressed but correct me if I'm wrong and I very well could be but I'm not hearing anything that has the same level of importance coming from the two major council organizations. So how do you build that into your budget? Now if we're gonna build it into our budget then we have to go to the voters. Is that what we're really saying? We're not gonna worry about what Barry and Montpelier or even cap the fire is gonna do. We're gonna strike out on our own and create a funding chart to take care of this. Man, I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna want to have the blessing and support and even guidance from Chief Pete, Chief Brent and all the other chiefs in Washington County. So we need to hear that. It's important to get the consoles and those related items have them all put together. So that we have a backbone for a very robust communication. We also have a capacity to have a favorite word that Steve Whitaker likes you will fail over should something happen at Barry or Montpelier that both one or the other can pick up what's missing. So I don't know, maybe I've talked long enough. I think it's possible. I think we need to get those grouped together like Steve McKenzie said, so we can figure out who's gonna be working up who and who is it gonna be presented to? Okay, Will. I'll stop there. Okay, sorry, I thought you were closed. No, I'm all the, I'm okay. Will, Sally, would you like to hear? Well, Steve, thank you. Yeah, I just, I know that your scope, Steve probably is more narrow, but I think for Capital Fire Mutual Aid, our scope is for the entire mutual aid system. It's a safety issue for us as well. And I think the simulcast system that we're working towards will certainly help with that. So I guess I would definitely say for our part of this, we are definitely a broader scope than what you're looking at. Yeah. Was there any discussion, Sally? And then I'm sorry, Will, I just, if you or Will can mention interest in working with Televate, as well as Public Safety Authority, working on funding strategies for the simulcast. I don't think that was out of the question. I don't think that was shot down or anything like that. I just, I feel like we're ready to move forward. We feel the need to move forward and we wanna move forward sooner rather than later. Okay. Will? Yeah, so I don't know what I'm gonna add much to this conversation other than, this is a huge concern for all of us in all of the communities, as well as the cities, whether it's in building or just rural Vermont, communication has been degrading since narrow banding and everything else. So it's a bigger piece in my purview. And some of these things were handed down to us on the federal level. And we don't, in my opinion, I don't think we're getting much help from the state level on this situation too. So I think we need to look at all aspects. And I do think the Capital Fire Mutual Aid and all the chiefs in it, and including the select boards, the folks that I've talked to to truly appreciate the problem that we're in, but we're at a very not good situation with being so far behind 30 plus years on equipment and now faced with a very pricey price tag to resolve this situation. So I think that seems to be the crux to the whole thing is how do we get this thing going? I don't think anybody is in disagreement about we need to move forward. And I don't think anyone entity can manage this on their own. Yes. Yes. Kim, was that, I wasn't sure if I didn't see a hand but I guess that's what you meant. Yes, go ahead. Well, I listened to the last meeting of this CFMAS and, you know, it's the fundamental problem here is where do you get the money to build this? And hopefully, I don't know what your plans are when talking about the budget, but I hope you've got some discussions with Tel Aviv about any ideas they have with it. One of the things that was said at that meeting which seemed a little odd to me that what they wanted was an RFP for the simulcast portion of the project. And apparently the idea is that if we do the RFP the providers will figure out what we need and what the prices are. As I wrote you, Donna, Tel Aviv feels that there's no point in doing an RFP if you don't have the money to buy anything. Why are the providers gonna spend a lot of time doing anything? So it's kind of a chicken and egg. We've got to resolve our fundraising and grant. Fundamentally, the only way this project's gonna happen is with some combination of local participation and grant money. And I think getting a grant, I'm anxious to hear what you have to say planned for the budget and how to look at that because that's probably more appropriate time to talk about it. Okay, so I'll come back to some of your comments when we talk about the budget. But does anyone wanna say something before maybe I make a leap into the budget? Can I just remind y'all that the next stage after the needs assessment was supposed to be an engineering phase? And I've written extensively on how the preponderance of the big money that's out there right now is to provide broadband. And that means that if we were to design an integrated system with broadband, that those federal funds which are out there could cover the cost of towers and redundant fiber to each tower site. So the public safety radios can co-locate and get the benefit of that infrastructure. We're not sure that the existing towers won't need a replacement. We don't sure whether we need eight or 10. There's a lot of open questions and Tel Aviv didn't get to engineer the redundancy. We need to be designing for hurricanes meaning possibly even underground fiber to these towers. All right, Stephen, you're off topic. A little bit. A little bit. Engineering is the next stage and that will clarify the amounts of money needed and the funding sources. Okay, I was just trying to stay away about getting buried back into Tel Aviv criticism. I guess I like to say, I just feel like we went to both city councils and the Capitol Far with clear presentations at Tel Aviv Report and we really wanted follow-through commitment. We get partial commitments but not follow-through commitments. And until we get a follow-through commitment from the cities and Capitol Far so that they're willing to come to the table and truly work and commit on what they're working on so that we have a funding strategy. So we have an agreement of cost allocation region wide as well as governance. We can't make that step to go after big funds. We need $3.9 million. Public safety authority went out and with PACA we had him go and talk to bond banks. We don't have the profile, the resume to do any major capital supervision. They were very clear that it would have to be one of the cities. Now in general terms, Montpeyor says they're willing, I believe, and Sally will, you can correct me but my understanding was that Montpeyor has extended itself to say they're willing to consider being the administrator of such a grant, at least open to the discussion, I should say. So that indeed we could go forward with that but we need to have this follow-through commitment. So it doesn't matter what we put in our budget. It won't be there until we all have our members saying yes, councils, Capitol Far and moving forward. I mean, so my budget that I've sent to you is just about public safety authority. There's no capital funds in there because we can't raise that kind of money, we can't supervise that kind of money. Now we can generate some real good expertise to our Contelavate consultant and that's one of the pieces of the budget. We have about $30,000 left without any further valid item to get more money that we could put into Tel Aviv. But I personally don't wanna spend any more money on any consultant until we have a real solid follow-through commitment from the cities and Capitol Far. Then we can do the funding strategies. We can go out and look for earmarks. We can get money from many different sources that we really have to have 100% buy-in and know everybody's on the same page and we haven't gotten there. So anyone think we have? Tell me, I'll gladly take a path. Donna, I know the chief has his hand up. I don't know if you can see it on your screen or not. I can't see the chief. Oh, I'm sorry, Brian, you're way up in the corner. Yeah, thanks. Go ahead, Brian. I would just recommend just the formation of a working group to, it's nimble, time is of the essence and that just, there are a lot of the fire chiefs, the police chiefs, we have an idea on what funding sources might be out there. So I think that, you know, allow us to work through a project working group to see, to identify potential funding sources and then move forward on that. Transparency, that creates a problem. Can I ask a question? Yes, Doug. Appreciate the comments, Chief Peake, but who do you want to see in that group? Do you just want to see Barry and Montpelier and Capitol Fire members, or do you want to see Central Vermont Public Safety that are already involved? I'm open for everything and for everyone, but it just has to be a consolidated effort and a quick effort rather than, we're doing a lot of, respectfully, I say this with the utmost respect, we're doing a lot of talking, I'm ready to move on action and I just need, respectfully, I just need space so I can work. So I mean, if the Twin City team gives you that space and you could bring solid stuff back to the Public Safety Authority and Capitol Fire, we could move on that. But again, you're talking about at least a whole year of planning to go after funds next year. We can't get it this year. I'm thinking about trying to get it this year, ma'am. Oh, wow, okay. Can I make a comment on this? Part of the problem with getting other towns to join and really make Central Vermont Public Safety a viable and sustainable organization is that they don't want to be run over by the two big departments, the two big city departments. So we need to be creating a, somewhat of an egalitarian governance structure and we don't do that by just handing it to the chiefs of the two big cities. Okay, okay. I'm sorry, Kim, are you asking to talk? Yes. Okay. Look, I'm convinced that no funding source is gonna give any money unless we have a regional plan and everybody's part of it. And the best way to do that is to get capital fired, meaning the CFMAS to join CVPSA. And I think we gotta have some serious talks with them about why it is actually to their benefit because it would be, I know that they're, they invited, they asked at their last meeting that the CVPSA take the initiative and reach out to them for how that we can work together that we can work together because it's playing that the agreement we have now is, well, it's not much of an agreement. It just doesn't cover the kind of things that need to be done. So we need to get some serious negotiations going. And I think if we could get Chief Peton and Chief Brent and some, I think we're gonna have to get Paco back on our payroll and working for us and a very small group could at least begin talking about ways that this could happen. And I don't know capital fire for less, lack of a better term could send one or two people to this group. But another thing that needs to be huge to start with I hope the leadership. Well, yes. And we even made a name for this group that we referred to in our presentations to the city councils and the capital fire. We called them the core team. But we've been talking around and around since 2014 when this organization got chartered by the legislators. And we still haven't gotten that follow through commitment. So, I mean, public safety authorities, current governance model, nobody buys into. That's why we don't have these members we're gonna get towns to vote it in. They don't like our current cost allocation, you know? And so that was all the things we were asking this new coalition group. I mean, I was really straightforward to the presentations. I'm not here to stay public safety authority. I'm here to make a coalition that people stakeholders will buy into and make something happen. Well, that's PSA, CVPSA as far as I'm concerned. I know, but I don't even wanna even call it that because people have their own ideas about what public safety authority is. And it may end up using some of that structure but until the three core members right now that we have the two cities and Capital FAR agree, yes, we can agree on this kind of governance model and this kind of cost formula and this kind of funding strategies and put the table, people at the table who are authorized to make decisions. We're just talking about it, Kim. We just keep talking about it. We only have two members. We don't have three. Capital FAR is- Oh, I'm sorry, I consider their MOU as a member. At least they have an associate membership status. Well, I don't know. That's very strange. They can only vote on paragraph three of that agreement so the only thing they can vote on is dispatching and we're not talking about dispatching. We need to have some serious negotiations and sit down and talk about how we can all help each other. And I think Chief Pete's idea is a good one and I'm certainly willing to sit down and talk with people and I'm interested in what you've planned for the budget because that I haven't heard yet. Well, one, the budget went out in the draft form and but I'm going back to this that what I heard from Montpelier at the very least is they prefer not to start a new working group but have the Twin City team look at where they are and then invite us in and invite Capital FAR in and have discussions and that from there when they get positioned, let's say 1st of January, February then we could start those talks. But now maybe Brian who thinks that he has some funding for this year, I think the consoles are going to happen and maybe I think Montpelier is certainly considering putting the consoles. It's one of our first runs through our budget and they have expressed interest, very, I'm not sure about. I don't think they've been that far into their budget yet. Have they Steve McKinsey? Immuted Steve. I'm sorry, my attention was elsewhere. Could you repeat your question? The consoles, the public safety staff in both cities seem to be real strong about the cities supporting the consoles. You think that's true of their counsel and Barry? There's been no formal discussion of our proposal at least at the very city council, but I think that's something that the council could get behind with the proper, I think support and identification from the department, at least from our side of the equation, once we're ready to do that. Well, and then it was an October meeting, November meeting that November meeting when we shared the allocation costs that Paco did just as a sample, that if you took the radios of consoles and you divided it, that's where that $3.9 million came from. And he divided out the cities, and so that was one look at it, but that's where the $3.9 million that I guess I feel is hanging over the actual move towards the simulcast. And that's higher than the number that Capitol Far had before. Is it not Sally? I think it has in it the RFP, both forming the RFP, implementing it, assessing the bids that come in, et cetera, is in that 3.9. And Televate has definitely got the expertise to do the RFP and all the follow-through of that. And that was their prices included in that 3.9. But that's nothing I'm gonna put in this year's budget. Can I make a comment, a very brief one here? Whoops, I'm sorry. No, Doug, Doug Hoyt. I'd like to put with all kindness, Brian Pete on the hot seat. He's recommended a working group to focus on identifying and procuring funding. Brian, if you're still listening, if this board appointed at least a liaison person to your focus group and your focus group included Barry Montglair and Capitol Fire, could we all sit down and put together whatever needs to be put together for identifying him for the funding purposes? So we have a plan and the plan would then go to all the approving authorities. My city council, Montglair, Barry and boards of select and for Capitol Fire groups. This is what it is that we've got for a plan. And I'd be more than willing to go talk to any council, any select board group to let them know what it is we're doing or what we're thinking. We need to get this thing off the dime here and move forward. We can talk about this until midnight. I won't be here, but we can talk about it. Yes, sir, if I may, what my hope, I'm no miracle worker nor do I claim to be, but I do understand the urgency of the situation. And all I can tell you is I'm gonna give you my everything to try to bring to you options I wanna go a little bit step further than a plan. I wanna try to bring options to all entities. Cause we already do have a great working relationship. We just have to kind of in any ambiguity as to who's in charge or which direction, everything else like that. I think we've got that relationship already established between Barry, Capitol Fire and I believe, especially with Paco and CVPSA. Everyone has the same goal. The only thing I'm looking to try to do is get out there as quickly as possible, identify potential funding sources and then bring back what that's going to look like. That way folks can make the decision cause I can bring back a plan then I'll get hit back with so many what ifs. I'd rather say these are the options we have available. This is the decisions that we have to make. Okay, it's okay with me. Okay, so... Brian, Chief Pete, Kim, I'd like to sit down and talk with you about this. And I'll give you a call in the morning and maybe we can find a time. Okay, I'm gonna ask that the board appoint Doug. He's our liaison for outreach. And so this is just maybe it's not even a, it's like what the council does to just direct our liaison for outreach to be working with the Twin City team. And is that all right, Doug? You wanna take that on? Okay. I'll take it on. So for Brent, householder, it's not really a motion. Less I confused you. It's just we're really asking Doug in his outreach work that he make time to attend these meetings and we're putting the pressure on Brian Teet and he's gonna make these meetings happen sooner rather than later. No, sorry, Stephen. I didn't have you in the queue. I'm sorry, but let me just check. Anybody else on as far as Doug working with the Twin City team? That's fine, but it doesn't mean I'm not gonna talk with Brian Pete if he'll talk to me. No, I'm not saying that. I wanted to follow up on Doug's offer and Brian's offer, we made it official. Okay, Stephen has a short comment. I'm still trying to remind that the new, especially for the newer members of this board that Montpelier relies on the funding that capital fire brings in. That there's a core conflict of interest here of trying to preserve a turf that is not sustainable when you go to a regional dispatch. And we don't need to be negotiating with the fire chiefs. They don't have the authority to commit the funding that is needed from the served towns. Okay. So this has to result in a plan that is not dominated by the chiefs. Okay, that's all. Retired or otherwise. That's all, that's all, that's all. And Donna's attempt to, you know, set exile, exile the prior chair is outrageously. I'm not exiling, Kim. I mean, Steve, you're out of order. You're Steve, even you're out of order. Thank you. Can we talk about the budget? That seems to be a good place to go. Okay. So one of the things is the fact that we talked about in our previous meetings to share time as well as what we can do between now and March and where both cities are both recovering from the pandemic and lots of lost revenue and lots and lots of demands. So I put forth a very uncreative budget. It was one just to see what our real cost are. So I did the FY 21 actual and I'm not really the treasurer, but this organization, Justin, just for your information is set up so we have an official treasurer and assistant treasurer and they are not allowed to be on the board. And we have Bev Hill from Montpelier and Chris Helpburn from the Montpelier Police Department, administrative staff who is, Chris has been really good in facilitating, processing our bills and payments and banking the checkbook, but they don't do reports. So every once in a while, I try to catch up on a report. And so this in FY 21, we had $96,000 to come forward if you're looking at the chart that I sent out. So we started with that fund balance. And then indeed our administrative costs because we've decided to go without staff these last three years, we have kept that under $5,000. And then this year, we, although we had thought we were gonna expend that money in FY 21, this year we spent 50,000, not 55, initially our budget had 55,000 in it for FY 22, but we spent 3,000 last year and 50 some this year. So we were under our budget of 55, that was good. And so I'm projecting and our FY year is July to June. Sorry, I got a real tickle. Whoops. And so my estimated budget for FY 22 is that we'd have a fund balance of around $42,000. And so if we took five for our base operation and 30, 35 for consultant participation in some of these activities, we'd spend our money next year. So by FY 24, we'd have to have some at least administrative money as well as if we wanted to have further work from another consultant. Donna, are you looking at that Excel spreadsheet that Doug Brent sent out in the meeting notice? Okay. Yep. Another copy of it. I didn't bring printed copies. They went, they sent out in the packet. Sorry. Yes. So do you see it? It has the various columns on it. Yes. As I'm looking at it, I don't know what you got, but I think I got the same thing. Okay. I meant cough wise. The, it looks like these projections aren't looking for allocations from the Barry Montpere communities until fiscal year 24. Is that right? That's what I'm putting out. The board hasn't decided. So I can No, no, no, I'm just, I'm just trying to make sure I'm interpreting the spreadsheet correctly. That's right. I'm saying if indeed we keep a low profile, I mean, everything I feel the CD public safety authority board can decide anything. But the voice of the cities would definitely probably not work with us if we put $50,000 on the ballots. We can do it, but I don't, I think it'd be a really hard sell for both city councils right now. I would agree with that assessment. I think that's done. And we're not in a position and neither is capital FAR to start making an allocation to them. We can work on that. That's one of the things we can work on this year is how do we have a more full participation from capital FAR? And one of that is financial. So, but any of these numbers can be moved. And I'm open to suggestions, but that's what we could do with the money we have. We could go another year, work with whatever working partners we can possibly get and move forward to some real funding strategies and cost allocations. Anna. Yes. I'm not sure I understand this. Are you saying you don't intend to ask for money in this March for the, which we would see in July of 22? You're not going to ask for the. Not, I'm not doing anything. I'd give a budget here for people to play numbers around. You can take and say, no, I want to do FY 24 budget with the $50,000 request this year. You can say that. I just showed you what would happen if you, if you took in no money on this town meeting day and went to FY 24. Well, these are the things that I think we need in order to, you put a general budget that we would hire, tell of eight, but and very broadly, you said it would be essentially working on, I guess cooperation, but I've sent you emails about this. I think what needs to happen is tell of eight needs to do their study, which they can do to, I think they call it a, they don't call it an engineering study, but they call it a phase three planning. They say they have all the information and we should give it, we need to know from them how long it would take for them to put that together. Then we would have the basis for RFP. We also need to keep Paco on board. And I think the charter requires that he be a director, not, there's a charter requirement, but we need Paco and CVPSA needs to be a part of that. And I also think getting people to work together is gonna require some legal expertise. Getting the cap fire for a shorthand. How can they raise this money? And I think it involves joining CVPSA because otherwise we have a plan on everybody for himself. And I think I agree with you that reading the newspapers about Barry's budgeting and my appeal is really just beginning. It's gonna be tight. On the other hand, there are, I've heard nobody talking about the ARPA funds. And surely some of that money could be used for planning. It's an infrastructure and Okay, Kim, I'm gonna interrupt you because you're wondering a little bit on speculating what kind of funding sources. No, I'm asking you. I'm asking you what you want. I'm asking you to contain yourself. I understand that you've talked about Tel Aviv bringing them in and that's really great and that you see that we need to go after funding. So I like to hear other board members before people speak more than once about what they would like to see. And again, my modest budget leaves about $33,000 for some consultant work, whoever that is. So who would like to talk about what they would like in the budget? Just everybody could talk at least once that would give me some real clear feedback and guidance. Honestly, I may. Something happened on the screen, Brent, householders at you. I didn't touch it, but What's going on with it? I got one big picture and everybody else is really, really tiny. Is that the right hand corner? There's a view selection. Yeah, I didn't touch it. Well, okay. I don't know why I did that. Thank you. All right, Doug Hoyt, you had your hand up. Yeah, same thing happened to me. It's you just got to get rid of the speaker portion and put it down into a window portion. Don, I think it would be helpful for me and perhaps maybe for the other members that looking at the spreadsheet. Fiscal year today, fiscal year 22 today shows revenue of 96,000. It shows a fund that your revenue total was your fund balance. It's all that came in this year. Yes. Okay. And out of that, we have spent 54, so we have a balance of 42. Yes. Remember, we're not done yet. I understand that. Okay, okay. Right now for the purposes of working towards the agenda item, which is to work with what we're going to do for a budget or whatever, then you got a fiscal year 22 budget and column D. No, it says fiscal year 22. Good. Yes. That's the current year. That's the actual budget. So you have the compared real actuals against the budget. Yes. All right, titles make a big difference. You got fiscal year 23 budget, which is something that you're proposing. It's a working document. Yes. Yes. But it is a proposal, whether it's right or not, that's up to the board to decide. So we're looking for $40,000, which is really going to be fund balance. Yes, no. Yes, I made it 40,000 instead of 42 because we have a few months left. Okay. So, looking at that budget, 40,000 is going to be working with what we have left over for fund balance. But you're also showing, and I'm not trying to be critical here. I'm just trying to understand and make sure everybody else is, we're all on the same page. Is that we're going to go for $5,000 on the respective city budgets or votes? Yes, no. No, not for FY23. No. All right. I'm not showing any allocation from the cities until FY24. So where does the 5,000 revenue come from? What $5,000 are you referring to? I don't see it. Oh, I know. You're way over. Okay, that's another, okay, if you stay with the first one, two, three, four, five columns, whoops, that popped up, then that's really about year to date and the three budgets. If you look over here, this is showing if you did something different in FY23. I'm trying to figure out the origin for the birthplace of column I. Oh, I don't know what. I'm looking at 5,000 and the world is fund-balanced. I can't see here. All I can see is what's on my screen. I don't, I absolutely... I see the 5,000 you're talking about now, Doug. Yeah, on the far right-hand side. Yeah, column I. Yeah, those are just various. I don't have a column number, sorry. Working numbers, such as the real point of this one was that in FY22, if we decided to spend everything this year, so we spend down our consultant money this year and not next year, then we only have $5,000 left to go into FY23. If we go ahead and say, Televate, we want you to do the next phase, then on the far, far right column that says FY22, if you go way down to consultants, we're spending $85,000. That's the 55 we've already spent plus 30 from this year. If you look at the consultant line. Yeah, I see that. Okay, so in the consultant line that's close to the year-to-date FY22, the budget has $55,000. And we spent 50 of that this year so far. Televate has given us around a $30, $35,000 budget to start into the next phase. So I made it the $30,000. If we decided this year to do as Kim suggests, that we get Calivate or Paco and we spend that $30,000 this year, then we only have 5,000 left to go into FY23. Sorry, it took me a while to jump to those columns. Does that make better sense? Didn't make a lot of sense to me. Well, if you spend, if you wanna do consultant, go to the consultant line, folks. Right now, we're only planning to spend $55,000, but if we do the next phase, which is gonna cost $30,000, if it's greatly reduced, it'd be more than that if it's not, then we'll end up spending $85,000 this year in our consultant and we'll only have $5,000 left, not 40. What's Televate planning to do for $30,000? That's what I wanna know. They would, well, they gave us an idea that if they wanted to, they'd be working with, quote, the working group on touching base on governance and funding strategies and cost allocations. I mean, I should say cost allocations. Our three top priorities is what they would work with with the working group. But Donna, are they gonna... So then they're in position to go into the next year and do the RFP and all of that and be part of the $3.9 million grant raising. I think they, I don't wanna repeat myself, but I will just briefly. We need to get, I don't know what you wanna call it, a study or a full-time analysis of the equipment that's actually needed and specifications down so that it's a foundation for an RFP. And when I talked to Rick Burkey said, they have the data, they can pull that together. Then you know what it is that you're gonna buy. You don't know the equipment because they're just gonna give you the specs. Okay, and we can get down to the context. I would disagree. My conversation has been very different with Rick, but that's just a matter of what you wanna do with it. But we still only have so many dollars for either a consultant that's Paco or a consultant that's Tel Aviv. And so in looking at the budget, the reality is if indeed we spend even the small amount of 30, 35,000 on a consultant or down to $5,000 for FY23. Yeah, that's why I think we need to ask for some money. Can I ask a question and make a comment? This way. I just would like, we started out trying to get an opinion from everyone else. Can we come back to core questions so that people can hopefully understand the numbers on the spreadsheet? Doug, do you understand better how in one column, FY23 has a $40,000 balance? And because we spent nearly 35 on a consultant, it comes out with only $5,000 if we go another way. They're comparing two different ways to spend money. Yeah, a lot of this is about style. And I'm not so sure I'm fully in love with this style of presenting where we're at. But having said that, I'm not at all prepared to rewrite it. So we'll work with it. I've just used the base budget we've been using for the last couple of years. So, yeah, sorry. I've got a lot of clothes and I don't wear them all the time. So therefore. Maybe McKinsey can put some light on my numbers. No, my question, Donna, again, is just trying to understand the mechanics of the budget. So if we look at, excuse me, column D, the fiscal year 22 budget, the bottom line, the net balance at the end of 22, if I'm reading this right, shows at $35,130,000. Yeah, right? Yes. Okay, I'm just curious how you start the next year with a $40,000 fund balance. I would think that number would be the $35,130,000. Well, because that was the budget we adopted way back when. Right. I was actually using the year to date. And so you'd have to substitute it and even be less. It'd be the $35,000. Okay, all right. So I just try, all right. So I understand it. Yeah, for the FYI 22, my comparison was in one, you have $55,000 for consultants. The other you have 85, which would be the next step for Tel Aviv or Poco. Yep. And so if we stayed with the money we already have basically spent as a consultant, then we'd have a fund balance to go into FY23. If we spend money on a consultant, we have no reserve. Would you explain the 85 again? How do you get that? Because we started out with 55 that we've already spent or nearly, we actually was 53, almost 54,000. And the estimated 30, 35 for consultant work. Because that's all we have. I mean, we could spend more on work, but that's all we have. Oh, okay. Not yet. I'd like to move on beyond you, Kim, if I could. Will, Sally, Jim, Brent. Oh, go ahead, Jim. I just have one quick clarification on the C column, FY22 year to date. That's actually a year in projection, is it not? Yes. Okay. So I was gonna ask the same thing, Jim, but looking at this, so when we're talking about the fund balance, are we talking about an unencumbered fund balance? So this money has not been committed to anything? Okay. And are we expecting to, I know a lot of these, not that it's material in any form, but are we assuming that over the next two years that insurance and supplies, website, those types of things, even for consultant and project management, whether there's gonna be any type of inflationary adjustment there? I put in like new numbers where I got them. We knew that, yeah. So in FY24, I increased our share for our board insurance. It went up a little sooner this year than I thought. The increase in membership increase always happen. The others are pretty solid, but I mean, it's just an estimate based on experience. I'm sorry, that's all I got. So on the VLCT membership for the current year, they budgeted at 620. You're saying that they have already told us it's 950, which is why you put in- We increased it to have legal advice on all the public records and open meeting law stuff. So that was a motion made, I believe in October, but I'd have to go back. Was that October, Brent? Yeah. So the membership is kind of variable based on how much you use the advice. It's a status, you have a certain status, you have access to that advice, you don't. We had a very restricted, associated, inexpensive membership before, but we couldn't talk to anybody. So 950 is a number that they generated for a higher level of service. Yeah, I mean, we're still an associate because we're not a full municipal. Right, but that afforded us more advice. I can call their lawyers. So we just increased our subscription to a better plan? Yes, and hopefully that we would not have to spend legal money outright, at least not very much. Yeah. Now the board could appoint a group to take this and work on it if you'll give us guidance, but I think it comes down to, do you want to take on the challenge to get on the town ballots? We can do it. Or do you want to spend the consultant money and move to another phase, no matter what the consultant work is, but it's still, do you wanna do it with Paco to elevate the move forward? Their actual work scope could be defined as we decide later, but it's a matter of whether that's the move to take because we know I need money, then this year we'll need money next year. And I think we've heard really clear from the cities that they're not totally satisfied with giving us money for the results we've had. Yeah, but it's not, with all due respect to the good advice from Steve McKenzie and Bill Frazier in his absence, it's not up to them. It's up to the voters, it's up to the voters. Yeah. That's the only people we have to... No, we put it out there, we market it, we talk to our communities, we can do it. If they shoot it down, they shoot it down, but I know for one that I'm gonna have Doug Brent out there campaigning for it. But, I think there's some wisdom in having a small amount on the budget. The small amount would be to design it in a budget, I mean a ballot item for having some consulting services be it Paco or whomever and working with Tel Aviv to work on these plans. We've already sort of committed today to work with Chief Pete and other members of the public safety community to do things. There may be a need to have some guidance on this so that we can begin to develop a more robust plan. I would like to see the public safety authority put a very small amount on the ballot. I don't have a number in mind, but it certainly wouldn't be anything near what we've done before in the past. That would keep us relevant as far as I'm concerned and would also at the same time keep that process going where the voters are looking at a ballot item. Should there be a ballot item in a subsequent year? Right and we can put it, I actually worked on some wording on that, whatever the amount that this money would be for Central Vermont Public Safety Authority operating budget and a phase two of the Telecommunication Assessment and Improvement Plan. So it's general broad if that or we could just put it for our operations. So it sounds to me like we're gonna need another 2025 from each city. Well, I'm not so sure I see that much money, but I'm gonna look at Steve McKenzie and Lisa also talk to Bill. How far can we possibly go? Well, 50,000 would be 26,500 in Barrie City and 23,500 in City of Montpelier. Now Steve McKenzie, have the floor. Yeah, first of all, I wanna speak to Doug's comment. Doug is absolutely right. I'm not speaking for the council and the ballot item can get on the ballot. What I, the point I was making is an item on the ballot will fare better if it has the support of the outright support of the individual councils. I don't, just as I'm dealing with a relatively new council on budget issues at my end of the spectrum here, I'm not sure right now that that support would be out there. Now, if there's gonna be a ballot, so from that perspective, if there's a way the budget that Donna proposed, there's some variation of it where there was no ballot request this year, I think that would, I think that would fare better. But Doug's right, the board, Doug and Kim are right, the board has to decide what it needs and what to put on the ballot and then hope for the best. I think that if there is gonna be a ballot item for any amount of operating funds, Doug or representative of the board would certainly have to come to the council and make that case and hopefully have the support of the individual departments and so on. But so I wasn't trying to suggest that I was speaking for the council, I'm just trying to give you the best policy I can of the council. Steve, I clearly understand that and anything that I said was not contrary to that. No, and that's okay, I just don't have a problem, I'm just trying to... In fact, I appreciate fully your position and would seek out your advice. Yeah, I think we're on the same wavelength. I think so. Just have to hit me in the head a little harder. Oh, that's, but this is a tough course to follow here. Yeah. Okay, so I don't see Will or Sally. Did they disconnect? Yeah, I think they're out. Well, here's Will. This is Will, I'm still on. I was looking in the wrong place for you. Okay, good. Yeah, I'm not sure I have anything to add to this. I think having a very lean budget is good for everybody's perspective, but I also think that there's a fair amount of work that needs to be done and if we have to have resources, then you have to have money to pay for those resources unless we're getting volunteers to do all of this having lifting for us. So I'm new to this group, so it's hard for me to interject with... Many of you have much more background in all of this than I do, but I don't know how you do much with the money that we're talking about and we're talking about a $3.9 million grab that we need to look for. And if your budget's $25,000 a year, I don't know how you do that. And from a perspective of a small town, trying to put these things on the town ballots for budgets, our town gets asked for money from every other entity out there. And I'm sometimes, or mostly disappointed, we fund everything, which is kind of disturbing to me, but when these are the types of things that I think we should be, our tax payers should be putting the money towards. Instead of some of these other types of situations. So I think if the group thinks that we need funding, then we should look for that, but I also don't think we should be trying to build a budget that doesn't make any sense. And we should be saving that ask for the bigger piece that we're going for. Doug Brandt, yes. So as I indicated earlier, I know about public safety. I've been doing it for a long time. What I don't know about really well is politics and I don't know about the CVPSA charter in its real infinite minute pieces of it. But I guess as an outsider or as a taxpayer in Barrie City, I would ask if we're considering putting something on the ballot in Montpelier and Barrie to fund CVPSA, why wouldn't we at the same time be considering putting something on the ballot in all the other communities asking them if they want to join CVPSA? Excellent point, Doug. Can I speak a little? Well, all the towns have various steps to be put on the ballot, but one could decide to do that. Very difficult without staff. So I guess, so this is Will again, I guess I would just add to that based on the televate meeting that we had and invited fire chiefs and select board members, what was the representation of the select board members from the 27 towns in Capitol Fire Mutual Aid? Maybe 10? Yeah, not trying to put you on the spot. So now we're gonna try to go to 27 towns and get this all put on their ballots in a month. You know, as they're putting it together, it's not gonna happen. I'm not. I'm just being realistic. I don't know how that's gonna happen in a month's time. And it can't. There is a process. Yeah. But it would be... It's very lengthy. I did it for public transit for years. Okay. Well, see, when you get it. So Donna, if I might quickly, what I was suggesting was not asking the other communities for money. I was just asking them to, hey, do you wanna be a member of CBFSA? PSA, we'd really like you to be. I know whenever we've asked, when we were doing a lot of reach out with select boards, we couldn't ever get beyond their select boards to get onto their ballots. But we could do a petition, et cetera, and get on. But again, not without staff and not without a lot of advanced work. Yeah, the only comment I would add to what Doug asked though, is I mean, if you ask a membership question without a money question, you don't end up with much. I mean, somebody, you know, communities could say, yeah, we're willing to be a member. And the question to either be how much will it cost, or if there's no cost statement, you really don't, I don't think you have an effective member. That's part of the issue, is we're gonna have paying members. Effective members. All right, I need to do a time check, folks. And we've got a couple other items here as to, yeah, you are. So if indeed it's like 8.39, we're already nine minutes over, and it's been good to get lots of thoughts, but I'm trying to move forward to some action. Do you wanna set up a working committee to work on this, or you wanna give me some direction to make changes? Again, this budget can keep changing, but it would be good to have at least one you feel you can go with, even if we're not sure yet how we spend like consultant money. And we can add additional meetings. If you wanna work on it as a whole group between now and the 20th, we can work on it again on the 20th, which is a Monday, it's our annual meeting. And then we have on the 13th, we have our public hearing on the budget, on all the things that's happened prior, getting ready for any kind of warning that's gonna go out onto the town ballots. I'm talking January. Yes, January 13th is our public hearing. That gets posted tomorrow, and then the ads happen. Anybody wanna make a motion? Yes, Doug. What were you looking for with the budget besides advising people of the budget? Well, I was looking forward that we ultimately at our annual meeting on the 20th, we need to get out at least a week before what we think is our budget. It doesn't mean it won't change, but this shows our intention. And we've got to start lining up our warning that has to be to the city by January 20th. We're gonna do a warning on the ballot. Now, I'm trying to avoid this because it gets really complicated, but there may be a conflict between Barry's approach to the ballots town meeting day and Montpelier. Montpelier is discussing whether to do a mail-in. And in the past, they'd like to do a mail-in, which means everybody who's a registered voter gets their ballot sent to them. Barry is not likely to do that. They haven't in the past. And the discussions that the city manager had with Carol Dodd, or excuse me, John Odom, our city clerk in Montpelier, had with Carol Dodd the city clerk in Barry, she felt it was unlikely that Barry would do a mail-in. Now, we're on both ballots. Rules there about them having to be done the same way. We're also in Montpelier, we have a school district of Montpelier and Roxbury. Roxbury select board has to decide to agree on the mail-in because they are part of the Montpelier city budget. So there's a lot of moving pieces. It means that it may cost us some money to do our ballot. Now, all of this conflict between a regional entity being on multi-town ballots and some wanting to do mail-in, some not, could be resolved the first week of legislation because Vermont legislators are going to be considering that first week, potentially doing the same sort of emergency ruling they did last year and have the whole state mail-in, that the state will pay for it. But we won't know that until January 1st. So that is another cost. I have no idea what that would be if we had to pay for our own ballots. But what that would mean if Montpelier did a distribution of all the ballots mailed directly to voters, ours would not be mailed. Ours would only be voted on by the people who walked in the door. And it would be the same ballot that we would send to Barry to use and Montpelier would use. And last year, which we did a mail-in, there was like 400, 500 voters that walked in and voted live versus 2,500 that voted mail-in. So that would impact us. I don't really want that to be a decision influencer today because it's gonna cost us money and be more complicated and less people voting us, but it is something to consider and be aware of. But I would like to have a sense from the board if they want to have something on the ballot and how much and where that, and then I'll put it into the budget. My turn. Anyone else on the board wants to speak before Stephen talks again? I just had a quick question. So if we elect to have no additional allocations or appropriations from each city this year, then nothing goes to the bottoms, right? There's, they don't. No, we still have two at-large slots that are gonna be open. Oh, that's right, okay. So we may have to pay for having those ballots printed. That's a possibility. Yes. And it's a possibility that would only have people voting on it that come in person. What I was just gonna say, if that's an unknown cost, I think we have to have some kind of contingency line for that, because that's a very realistic possibility for what you're saying. I don't know if it's $300 or 3,000, but it should probably be factored in there. It would be three to 5,000, I think, something like that, he's not asking us to pay for personnel. Maybe Steve McKinsey would have an idea and bury. Yeah, not sure what the question is. Cool. It's a cost of print ballots. Well, what? I'd have to turn to Carol on that. Yeah, it's a little more than just the print costs. I think that we might have to share some of the labor costs, but it's, I mean, so I'm thinking three to $5,000. It costs the city to do 12,000, to do the whole thing, but that's a lot of labor. The other question I had was, if we put something on the budget for appropriation that gets turned down, we're no worse off than we are if we didn't put anything in. That's true. We still have the fund balance. Well, other than, you know, I think we could possibly create some bruises in our relationship with our city councils, but, you know, it won't be the first time. And that's certainly a consideration, but I'm also thinking what Doug said earlier, which I tend to agree with, even if there was a almost a token amount of 10, 15,000 per city on there as some sort of allocation. It's a measure of interest. It's a measure of support. You know, we have to have the city support. And obviously we can limp along for a couple more years on our fund balance, but that's really just kind of fisting away their money. They're not willing to put more into it. Let's give them back the 35,000 bucks we have now and call it a day. You know, I mean, that's kind of, and I'm overstating my point there, but, you know, we have to have some indication that they want us to continue doing this. And it gives us some legitimacy if we're asking for money, if we're not asking for money, then what are we doing? You know, so, but I definitely don't think it should be anywhere near like $40,000 or $50,000 per. They'll vote that down. Well, and let's say we think, let's say we'll think 20,000. We'll know by mid, by our 13th meeting, January 13th, we'll know what the legislators have done about the election. So hopefully the whole issue of whether we have to do our own ballot will be resolved by then. Before we need to put the ballot. Right, but meanwhile, I'm going to spend time on researching ballots. I mean, what a waste of time. So we have someone lined up. I mean, you know, you don't get them printed overnight without having some prepping work done. So that has to be done. So it isn't no work to put some on the ballot. We have to start certain activities as far as publicity, posting, letting the public know. There's a lot of places, paperwork that I have to do. And they'll be, and I don't know what point we have to order ballots if we're going to have. I don't know how early that is. So do you want to do a placeholder? Somebody going to make a motion? Well, for tonight, let's do a placeholder. Okay, what would you like? What were the original amounts? Well, I mean, I just plugged in 50,000, you know, so it was 26, at one city and 23 at the other. No, I mean, I totally agree with Jim. 30, I was thinking 20. But did I call it? Okay, just remember though, okay, no. When we have a motion on the floor, you can make comment. I'm just reminding, if indeed we have to pay for the ballot on it, that would be the only thing. If we're paying 5,000 out, we're only asking 20. I'm just, that's something to keep in mind. Right now, 20s or 30s, a fine spaceholder. You want me, you're going to put 20 in your motion? I don't know, what's everybody else think, 20, 30? I think 25 from roughly each city. Total 50. No, it can't be, it can't, we've got to use the same process of breaking it up. Oh yeah. Yeah, we do. I don't know what the numbers would be. Well, I can give you the numbers. It's just the big- 26, 5, and 23, 5. I already told you. Point of clarification. Please, don't do that. Point of clarification. I'm sorry, but it's hard for me talking to you all when Steven's making side comments to me over here. So I don't mean to be hushing you, I'm trying to ask him not to interrupt. Point of information. So I just need a gross number. I can do the 53 and 47 percentage. Can I ask you a quick question for the information? Doug, were you suggesting 30 total or 30 from each community? No, 30 total. Total. And I couldn't talk to him to go on lower, you know. I just didn't want to go 30 from each. No. I think 30, I think 30 from both or 30 in total. I mean, that seems fair. I mean, in the end, we have to, if this is going to continue, if it's really important like Doug Brent says, you know, with the story that he told at the beginning of this meeting, I guess I come back to you, if this is a worthy endeavor, we need to have to invest the resources to get it to where it needs to be. You know, we can limp along, like somebody was saying for a couple more years, but at the end of the day, I feel like that, you know, it takes real investment to make real change. And I hate to be all pie in the sky about this, but I do feel like that we need to be mindful of the cities without expending too much political capital and try to work with them. But at the same time, we need to, we need to really, you know, if this really does, if this really is life-saving and this really will save lives and it's emergent and we need it, we have to, I think we should invest something and we should ask. That's just my opinion though. So if it was 30,000, very city would be 17,100, Montpellier would be 12,900. I think we need more if we're gonna get the RFP done. Yeah, the 30 is not with any consultant work. This is what I wanna talk about. Yeah, I just wanna give you a heads up. My computer has just told me it's gonna do an update in 15 minutes. So if I disappear, not that I went away mad. Pretty soon we're all gonna disappear. I just went away. Now let's hit postpone. You can do that 25 days in a row. No, it's not giving me those choices. It's either restart now or 15 minutes. I move that we budget an additional 45,000 to be divided according to the formula between the towns. Anybody wanna second that? You said 45,000. We have a point of order. Do we already have a motion and this is an amendment to it? I'm sorry, I didn't hear anybody second dugs. On dugs? Yes, I'm sorry. You're right, Doug offered 30, I didn't hear it seconded. Somebody. I will second dugs. Okay, so a motion that was seconded by Jim was for $30,000. Okay. Yes, Doug. I think Kim in effect is trying to amend that. Yeah, I was. I'm getting a little lost on all this frankly. What was your number? 30,000. And Kim said 45. Yeah, I said 45 from... So right now we have a motion on the table that was seconded for 30. Okay, so I'll move to amend it to 45. Okay. Do we have a second to that amendment? I don't see a second. So the motion on the table is for $30,000. All in favor? No. I'm sorry. It's a board meeting. As Doug and Stephen, Kansy and Brian Pete have been interjecting whenever they need to. Stephen would like to make a comment on the motion. Yes. The key point that Doug raised, keeping us relevant. But in commentary, we're being asked to move faster but with no money. So you're really setting yourself up for a contradiction here. I think you need to structure a budget that anticipates other fundraising besides the ballot item for the two cities. I think to hire an executive director, which is a shall in the charter and to have them have televate or equivalent as a consultant for technical expertise and to get the engineering design done and to get the failure mode analysis done and to get the governance and cost sharing issues allocated you're gonna need 100 to 200,000 over the next year to be ready to spend to raise $3 to $4 million. So y'all are thinking about it. You're gonna obsolete yourself by trying to pinch pennies. Just recognize that you need a budget that's going to minimize the amount asked of Barry and Montpelier because it's not equitable for all the dispatch serve towns to not be contributing and then go directly to those towns for some of their ARPA money to raise the rest of the 200,000 or 200,000 that you're gonna need. In building design needs to be part of this priority plan. But when you go to voters, they're gonna say, what is it we're voting for? And we don't have a vision here. We don't have a plan. It's like, what will we get for our money? Oh, well, we'll yammer around like we have for the last couple of years. Will we get public safety radio? Will we get broadband? Will we get cell service? And will it withstand the storms that are coming? Okay, Stephen, thank you. So right now I see the general discussion behind the money, not necessarily details is one of those working group items that maybe Doug and Brian can help us with on prioritizing. So we have this motion for $30,000. Oh, yep, Jim. Yeah, I just wanted to respond to what Stephen just said. I think there's a very good chance that we will get nothing. And if we ask for $50,000 to $60,000, and I agree with him, if we're gonna accomplish anything, we need the money. But at this point, the consensus that I'm hearing is that we may not be given anything. So by just having some small token in there, we're getting some measure and voting for $17,000 is not necessarily easy, but it's a lot easier than voting for $50,000. So I think we have to be able to test our support and you can almost guarantee that you're not gonna get $50,000, even though that's the kind of money we need. If we go back to the same, we have a grant in place and everything's ready to rock and roll. It might be a very different story in 12 months from now. And a final point, Brian Peat and Doug Brent, our employees, staff of our member municipalities haven't spent nine years on the school board. Half the people that spoke was staff all the time, the principals and the teachers and whatever. The public didn't necessarily have immediate full access to a commentary throughout the meeting outside of the public comment period in the beginning. So I'll leave it at that. Okay, and remember, whatever you decide now, we have opportunities to change it, but we do need to keep thinking deeply as to our position. All right, I would like to have a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'm gonna abstain Donna. I thought that's why I remember to think about abstention. Thank you, Justin, totally understand. I'm opposed. Okay, then we have to do a roll call. All right. So I'll go along with it. Because we can do a roll call, Kim. It's not the end of the world. All right, it's getting late. And I think this is up for further discussion in the next couple of weeks. Absolutely, absolutely. So it's a good place holder. I'll vote for it. All right. Very good. So very, very quickly, as far as the open meeting law violation that I understand. Can I move the table back? I know I'm not a member of the table for now. Oh, sure, love to, love to. Okay, we're gonna, well, other than I guess, okay, we'll table the open meeting law violation unless it was gonna be really quick for now. And oops, my battery's low. Yeah, move the table. Okay, and legal opinion on term limits. Can we table that also, Kim? No, I wanna. Okay, so go ahead and make your case, sir. Try to be brief. I think the charts that Stephen has brought produced raise a serious issue, Donna, as to whether the three term limit has been complied with. In one chart, it clearly hasn't been, you had served three terms and you were ineligible to have another one. On the other chart, what it shows is you were serving your third and final term and halfway through it, with a year to left, you resigned. And then... I didn't resign. Well, you resigned from the city job and then you got voted into... No, I didn't resign. No, it expired on March, 2020. And on March, 2020, I was elected at large. My first score term started in 2016. I had a partial term in 2015. Look, I think this is a serious issue. And I think our legal counsel has resolved them in the past very well and has... I'm afraid we appropriate money or we get going somewhere and somebody says, oh, hey, your board was messed up. You didn't have the right people and et cetera. Well, okay, Kim, but if you're talking specifically about my term, that was the one you brought up in 2020 and that you sought out the lawyer and his opinion was the partial term, the part of 2014-15 didn't count as a full term. That was your own lawyer's letter, which I shared with the board. So if it's my term you're talking about, that one was already got legal opinion on it. Are there other members you feel have burned? It didn't. It wasn't dealt with. Okay. Look, I think I don't wanna have a whole bruja about this. I think it's a complicated and important issue and we should get legal opinion on it and let somebody that's some neutral who's got our best interests at heart figured out for it. Okay, but is your challenge my term? I mean, I know of those dates. I'm just trying to write this down. Is it just everybody you want checked out? No, I just think you're the other one that's been called in the question. In a way, I look at you've had, you will have instead of six years which you were elected to, you're gonna get eight. And I think that's- Well, I'm sorry, you can't go by years because at large are three year terms and appointed are two year terms. But okay, so I'll try to stay neutral on this one other than you have seen that letter. What's the board's pleasure? Do you want us to get legal advice and spend money? Yes, I want to get legal advice. Okay. You're making a motion accordingly, Kim? Yes. Okay, is there a second? Well, second for the purposes of discussion, I want to know who we're gonna get the legal advice from. Well, I would ask Paul Gillies. He gave the last, the other opinion prompt, well, he knows a lot about this stuff. And I think he can figure it out real quickly and give us a good advice. Yeah, but he's gonna be giving you opinion on his opinion. I don't like that. So I'm sorry, Doug, you did second the motion or did you ask- Seconded for the purposes of discussion. I wanted to know who we were talking about getting for attorney. Kim wants us to go back to Paul Gillies. You're essentially asking Paul Gillies to give an opinion on his opinion. No. I do not like that. That's not what he's, the opinion had nothing to do with the present. When he gave before had nothing to do with the present circumstance. It absolutely did. Well, the statement was that partial terms are not full terms. And they don't count towards the limits. Yeah. Right off of some facts here, because I- Nope, nope. But what you did- What are you saying? You didn't serve. So- I thought you resigned your city's job. No. Well, then you served three terms and we're ineligible to serve. No, it ended on the- Okay. Oops, my battery battery. So let's get this, it's a technical issue and we should have a lawyer figured it out for us. And I would like to, I would like to have that done so that we don't need to spend a lot of time kicking it around. I think it's one of those issues that we can clear up and get out of our here. One way- We lost Donna. Kim, there's a chance that Donna can't hear you right now. I'm going to exercise some discretion here as the vice chair and move this along. I've got an old saying that I call upon from time to time, is that the mind cannot comprehend what the ass cannot endure. I like that. I'm sort of there myself. Okay, so we have this motion. Any more discussion? I think they need to be informed about the facts that behind this. No, sorry. You can't, you've got a conflict here. You need to hand the chair off to somebody else. Doug? Yeah. If you would like to take over his chairing around this motion, Steven's buzzing in my ear that he would like to speak. Do you want to recognize him and then you take over the motion? No, I don't all, do not want to recognize him to speak. I want the board to reach a decision on what to do. You don't have the facts. Okay, so go ahead, Doug. I don't have to have the facts right this moment. I have to make a motion, have to accept the motion. We have to vote on it and we have to find an attorney to look at it. Those will provide us with the facts. Don, I would ask you in your position as chair to ask the Vermont Leagues, the cities and towns to take this issue up and get an opinion. I can do that. Did you vote on the motion when I was gone? No, I should do that than you. We're still on a discussion phase. Well, if they'll do it, I haven't thought of that. I might. Donna shouldn't be the one presenting it. Steven, stop talking. You have not been recognized. Doug, they will not write down opinions, but you can call them and you can ask them that question. And I'll pass you the information of who to talk to at the league. Okay, I'll do that. Doug, Jim is waving at you. Yeah, go ahead, Jim. Gotcha. I'm just trying to understand the issue here. I kind of read a little bit of the stuff that was sent out. And I happen to know Paul Gillies pretty well and always respected his opinion. He seemed to be pretty clear on the last position that the partial date, the charter read full consecutive terms. And so he discounted the initial terms that were appointments. So the clock started running after the end of the beginning of the full term appointments. So I guess the question is that resolved before or is that still the issue now? Or I'm not sure where the issue is now in front of us. It's a separate issue. If I look at what. Excuse me, Kim, a Doug is cheering. Sorry. Hey, Doug, Justin wants to come in here. I see that. I'm waiting for Jim to finish his conversation. No, I'm basically done, but I'm kind of a little confused about what's the new issue now if the old issue had been resolved. And I'm sure I cannot answer that question for you. But Justin, I saw your hand up and pleased by all means. I think I can answer that question, Jim. So based on everything that I'm writing, I have a legal background. I guess I'm a lawyer, but not really a formal lawyer. But I know I know I'm a good guy. So the issue isn't the partial terms versus full terms. That's been decided. Partial terms don't count. At least it seems based on Gilles' opinion. The issue is when Donna actually began her first term. That's what the legal opinion needs to decide is when Donna's actual first full term began. And that needs to be decided by the lawyer going back to the minutes, et cetera. So this is the argument that is being presented to this committee. That's not, I'm taking no position either way. I'm just saying that's the issue. When did Donna's first term start? Did it expire? Did she resign? Whatever, but that's the issue. It's not partial versus full term. You're saying that there still is an unanswered question. There is. There is an unanswered question that is being presented to the committee by Kim and by Stephen and many others. There's different interpretations of the answer or the question. I don't know if there are. I'm just saying that that's, apparently Donna and Stephen Kim have different interpretations of it, but that's the issue. When did she start? We're not judiciaries ourselves. And so I think we should get an opinion on someone that can, we can all just accept that opinion as being final. The Montaliga cities and towns to me would be a fine place to go. Okay. Thank you, Justin. So I'm going to help me here. I got a memory issue. Have we got a motion? Yes, we do. Okay. And the motion is? The motion is currently is to seek legal advice, not by who we can decide that later, but it's just to seek legal advice regarding terms. All right. Does everybody understand the motion? Is everybody prepared to vote? All those in favor of the motion? I'll make a move with the amendment. I'll second it. I know where you're going, Jim. Go ahead. I move that we identify the legal counsel that we seek an opinion from as Montaliga cities and towns. I second that motion or the amendment. It's all right with me. All those in favor of the amended motion? All right. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. We've got to vote on the amendment first. Right? Yeah. Robert Rule says we've got to vote on the amendment first. So all those in favor of the amendment? Aye. Aye. Opposed? I hear none or see none. That motion carries. Now we'll go back to the original motion as to seek legal advice and assistance from the Montaliga cities and towns. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? I hear none. Doug asked for extensions on both because Donna is here and she needs to abstain. I excuse myself from the discussion and the vote. I think we're all done here on this. Are we all in agreement? Yes. All right. Give me a turn by unanimous consent. Yes, I don't see anything else on the agenda. I'm for that. Great. Thank you all for hanging in there. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, have a great evening. Good evening, good evening. Nice meeting you, Justin.