 Oh, Leslie, while I have you. Yeah. The players have plans for an April fundraiser. So maybe, I don't know how locked in you are to thinking of April. The variety show that we were going to do. Yeah. Does it matter? I mean, it's a different kind of thing. I don't know. People can respond to that. We'll see. I don't think it matters because it is a very different kind of thing. But I think the committee could weigh in. They're too busy in March. I was just trying to, I mean, May. I mean, yeah, I mean, May is OK. But it seemed like a good winter activity. My thought was that if people are being asked to donate money to this cause, I know I don't want to be asked too often. Yeah. Well, but this is an activity. We're going to get into the topic in just a minute. So it looks like you've got a question around your point to make. Yeah, just I'm a little confused about the our open meeting law requirement. Are we supposed to be in a place that's. That has allows public in and details like that. Anyone can answer me the requirements, Pat or or Sandy. No, there was a short period of time where the the law had the exemption to that. What you're speaking of had expired, but legislature jumped in and extended it until June of twenty twenty four. So we can still we can still have me. Yeah, okay. And zoom as long as it's open to the public. That's my right. How about posting? Don't we have to post some? It was a post office, skip mark and town office bulletin board on Monday. OK, thank you. Just wanted to check. No, it's probably fine. And, you know, we'll be doing more of these. Let's go and get started. It's a few minutes after our start time. I know a few people expect to be here, but a bit late. Want to welcome Kirk White. Good to see you and thanks for coming tonight. And work of media is with us tonight as well. So this will be recorded for a posterity, I guess. And, you know, anyone else who wants to check in and see, you know, what we're doing. So we'll go ahead and get started. And I'll I'll moderate the meeting agenda was sent out in advance. And the first item on the agenda is to update folks on where we are with fundraising for the high school heat. And I know that Midge and Sue and Leslie particularly have been working on some approaches. And I don't see Midge here yet. So maybe we could go ahead with Sue and Leslie and then we'll catch up, Midge, if she joins us a little bit later on. Yeah, the the players, I guess I should have confirmed with Midge about our April planning because we're already planning. We got a team and we because it's a variety show, we have to have tryouts and that it's going to happen soon. So word has to go out soon. But we're planning a variety show that would be the working title is Turn Up the Heat. And it's a benefit variety show for the community. There'll be tryouts on. March 18th at the High School Auditorium. We have the OK to use the auditorium. And the show on April 15th. So right now we're getting ready to send out information about the tryouts. And it will be the tryouts will be a screening to get a good balance of the show. It's not it's not a there's no winners or losers. We might accept everybody that comes because that might be just the right number. So but it's not it's different from the talent. What is it? Who's got talent or? Yeah, they've done in the past in town. Alley, alley, alley, alley, right, right. And people can come with singing or instrumental or dance or skits, comedy, even acrobats, whatever. We would like to get lots of variety. There'll be a charge at the door and we hope to make some money. I just want to ask a question. You said. Benefit the community, but. Yeah, oh, it'll in the in the broad sense on the flyer, it's going to say what the what the purpose is. Yeah, that it's for the repurposing. Keeping that keeping the keep going. Yeah. It sounds good. I look far too. Yeah, you you could come and play piano. So you want are you asking me for my idea, Vic? Yes, please. OK. So I had this idea of a Vegas night. I went to a party like this. So the the company comes in with the tables, the crops, tables, the roulette, blackjack tables. This group is located in Watesfield. They're very successful and they've done a lot of school fundraisers in Vermont that are successful. We're a small town. So it's a $1,200 fixed fee that covers two employees to run roulette and crafts. And then we would have to get volunteers that they would train for blackjack tables. They suggest six to eight tables. And so we if we were going to do this, we would figure out what we want our admission to be and what that gives them. Does that give them one hundred and twenty five dollars of chips? And then if they want to buy more chips, do we give them, you know, one hundred and fifty for ten dollars, twenty dollars, so we give them three hundred dollars in chips? What are you, you know, that's that's their thing. They've worked with these numbers before. Those are just ideas. You can change it or make it up how you like. And then you don't cash in your chips. Your chips get cashed in for raffles, so we would have to secure items from businesses and people and artists, maybe for some raffle items. And that's where they can cash in and win. So that this is an idea. Yeah. Communities in Central Vermont who've done this and. Yeah, they did. Waitsville. There's a lot of schools in Vermont that that use this company. Yeah. OK. So they have a track record. Good. Pat. That I just called mid. She thought the meeting was tomorrow night, so she's getting on now. OK, I'll quickly. I'll just quickly review that the fund raising efforts that started. Wait, Catherine. Pat had her hand up, should. And oh, sorry. Leslie's talking. But Pat. Um, you would have this at Pierce Hall. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yes. OK. And is there an idea of what would be expected as a final profit? Did they give you any idea? No. No, because we'd have to, you know, we'd have to figure out, you know, I mean, I did some numbers. If you if you had 30 people, we would certainly get more than 30 people at 30 a piece. That's nine hundred dollars. Let's say 10 people buy 25 more of chips. That gives us 1350. So I think you're talking a few thousand at least. OK, good. If we can if we can if we can cover the $1,200 table cost, the initial cost with with spawn today, they suggest you get businesses to sponsor a table or individuals to sponsor a table. And that covers your $1,200. Now, you know, they work in bigger towns. What she said, she kept saying, call Kasella. You know, I said, I don't think they work in our town. We're pretty tiny. So we can go a field and seek some donations. That's very good. All right, hello, Mitch. Hi, sorry. I thought the meeting was tomorrow night. So Sue, Sue has already spoken of the variety show and Leslie just spoke of the casino Vegas night. And was there a third fundraising item that you were going to speak to? Yeah, yeah, there is just a minute, please. Hey, Dane, can you not do that for a minute because I'm having trouble hearing. OK, thank you. And just keep it brief, no need for long, long explanation. Yeah, so what I was thinking of doing was an art project that would involve the community, including the the elementary kids, where there is barn barn quilts and mandalas squares and circles. They would be a project that would vary in sizes. People would have choices to do either or and and a choice of sizes as well. It would be an ongoing project that would last a couple of months, give people time to be creative. And then there would be a show of all the different pieces. A gallery show. And then my thought was to auction them off. At with the silent auction on 4th of July. At on the park and after the parade, giving people a little bit of a chance to view them. So. The the barn quilts are traditional New England and. Decoration that usually traditionally are four by four. They get painted in the style of a quilt. And but they're all painted and and then the mandalas are in circular shape. And there are repeated repetitive design that. Um. Usually incorporates things of nature and what not in them. These would could vary in size from four by four. Two by two or one by one treated so they can be hung outside and on a bit on a building or on a porch. And the mandalas could be anywhere from a four foot circle down to a one foot circle. Again, it would be somebody else's some the artist's choice. And I and so I thought the kids could get involved with that as well. Maybe can work with the art teacher and have her help kind of instruct the kids how to how to go about this. But the artists themselves would foot the the tab for the supplies for the supplies. And it would be their choice on how they would like to do it. And so even though. You know, traditionally they are used for mounting outside on buildings. If somebody really feels inclined to do something that's a little bit more delicate or with fabric or dried flowers or whatever. You know, they should have that option too. I really want people to be creative with these as much as they can. But then the goal would be, as I said, to display them. And then to have a silent auction at a time where there's as many people as we can possibly get and Fourth of July seems to be a good thing. And a lot of times after the the barbecue in the parade, people are just kind of milling around wanting something to do. So I thought that might be a good time to do that and have a captured audience. Yeah, nice addition to the festivities to. Yeah. Good. So that's it. Great. Thank you. Sounds good. All right, I'm going to move on to the next item, which is the Brownfields and have that update. I'm going to take the lead on reporting on a meeting that Catherine and I had and Pat, you were with us when with Sarah Wright talked about hazmats and Brownfield, I don't think we've been in so many meetings together. I'm not sure which one you work in. But if it sounds really that was in the February 3rd meeting, I believe, but there were two meetings. First one was January 31st. Not sure, Pat, were you on that one too? This was a little bit of a meeting about the high school. So you can watch whatever you want. Who's talking? I think it was Burma. I just muted her. Sorry, sorry. Burma, a little background stuff. Anyway, so back on the 31st, there was a meeting with Sarah Wright from Two Rivers where we got a little more background on the whole Brownfields assessment process and just to sort of recap. There's a there's a difference between Brownfields. Brownfields is the the physical fields outside the building, basically. What's in the ground and is there anything dangerous in the ground that needs to be removed? And then Hasmat speaks to materials that are inside the building itself. And so we have some reporting back on what's called Phase One of the Brownfields assessment. And so what was recognized was from a research of the documents and the history of that site. It was learned that not only was there high school, but well before the high school, there was a wood products factor there and a railroad siding. And so with those kinds of activities, tend to do is produce hydrocarbons that leach into the soil. We don't know to what extent yet that's a later phase to figure out quantitatively and qualitatively what's there and how much is there. But also it can be pesticides that are used to keep the grass down around the railroad tracks, fuels for the machinery that ran the wood products mill. So all that is potential and yet to be discovered in terms of, again, quantitatively and qualitatively what's there. And if it whether or not it's to the extent that it has to be removed and mitigated. I just can I just open a bit. Can I just say please one of the NEPA for those who need a little bit of reminding the National Environmental Protection Act, which is a requirement to undergo the environmental assessment if you're going to be eligible for most federal funding. So the phase one is phase one of the NEPA, which is a doc, possibly a document review. Yeah, and we'll get to talking about phase two in a bit. But as Catherine said, we're talking about phase one. So those there's those risks. There's also risk of an underground plume of hydrocarbon from what used to be the Rochester Tyron Auto Store. And this was a gas station before then. And because the property around the school is downstream, downfield from that location, it's possible that there's as I say, a plume of hydrocarbons occurring underneath the ground. And that might or might not have to be mitigated. Depends on what's the concentration and if it's there at all. So it's it's a risk factor. And that's what phase one is about is identifying risk factors. Did she say the Rochester Tyron? I thought she said the Irving gas station, which would be the skip mark. Says old gas station. Irving is not an old gas station. It's an existing gas station. It used to be the gas station. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. So Rochester Tyron Auto wasn't Irving, because the only Irving. No, no, no, no, no. Rochester Tyron Auto was a former gas station before. It's just Tyron Auto, I believe. Yes. I switched him around. And the term that she used was the old gas station. That's what I took it to me, not the current gas station. OK, yes, I do know that. And I do know that's an identified brownfield situation that is going through some sort of remit mitigation process. Right. So the next step on that is to actually dig holes and do sampling underground, see what's actually there. That's a that's a whole process and to develop a plan for how they're going to go about it. And then there has to be the actual physical sampling and then the analysis of the sampling. And then, you know, to the extent mitigation is required and that would be a later step and all that talking months and months of work in the future. And also finding the funding for that to to take place. There are there are funds around. There's a process for finding it. And we learned a little bit about that today. Some of the agencies go and talk to the. So last between those. So here, yes, let me go on to hazardous materials. So there there was a physical examination within the high school building looking for for types of contaminants specifically. And I'll I'll go from one to the other. So the first one was they look for lead lead paint. And there's a there's an x-ray based machine that's used. They just scan the walls and floors and doors and and look then they can identify lead and and to our great satisfaction. They only they found a very small extent of lead. It was on two doors in the multi-purpose room area. And those can be mitigated by basically removing the doors. So that was that was good one to learn about. It has to be done by the doors and not on the on the case things, only the doors on room 9 and 25. The mitigation itself has to be done by a certified contractor who knows how to handle this and, you know, withdraw it properly and dispose of it properly. So that's that's that one. Next one we looked at was they looked at was PCBs. PCBs has been much in the news. It can off gas from building materials that are, you know, even out of sight of where you are in the building. It can come from lots of different places. The issue here is what's the level of concern? You know, the concentration that is a level of concern. And it seems that the levels, it depends on the use of the building. So, for example, it ironically enough, daycare is not specifically regulated, but it's obviously something that you'd want to have a pretty low level of concentration, if any at all, the level of the excuse me. I'll jump into it. The Department of Environmental Conservation is not going to require us to take action, which is a very interesting piece of it, too. No. Yeah. And that's what we're working with. Yeah. So that was still sort of up in the air. We're not sure exactly how that's going to be resolved. But there is PCB present. But, you know, the extent to which it is a concern is yet to be resolved. So that one needs further work. And it and and Jamie Kanarney, the superintendent, said that the the high school is scheduled for PCB air testing. So the places that she pointed out were the adhesive on the cinder blocks, the windows on the doors and the ballast. Right. The ballast of the components of the forest of lighting system. Next one that they started looking into is asbestos. And you may recall from the 2019 Black River study, there was asbestos was found the this time around a brief visual inspection was done. They identified some things, certain ceiling tiles. And Jamie said that they just completed some asbestos testing in the high school in 2021. He has a report on that that specifies what's been found and where. And I haven't seen that report personally. I don't know if you've seen it, Catherine, but he was going to send. No, he spoke to him last. He hadn't quite gotten together to send that over, but he's going to do it. And he thinks there's no asbestos in the ceiling tiles, only in the boiler room. So the problem, I think, was the contractor who did it didn't didn't work, bring the results to VHB or work within the state somehow. I can't remember my notes are poorly written in terms of my handwriting. But yeah, that that we'll have more information on that because we've not gotten a copy of the 2021 report. And the fourth item that was looked into was mold. Mold is a real concern, particularly for vulnerable populations. And there is concern about mold in the building. However, it is being Jamie reported that it is being addressed by the consultant working with with the school as a result of the water main break because with the water that spilled, not water may, but the fire alarm sprinkler system. When the sprinkler system broke, it spilled water, which promoted mold growth. And they have mold remediation as part of the repair of that work in any place where water has come in, like through the leaky roof. There's there's have to be mold. So that has to be addressed. It's something that's not just a matter of scrubbing off the walls, but takes more vigorous work if it gets into concrete. You have to sandblast the concrete surface off to get at the mold and concrete. So I just want to jump in there because the contractor was in at the end of October and he did not make us wait about the mold. He contacted within 24 hours, the school system, because of where it was found was basically he thought the cause of insufficiently heated east wing. And so the school jumped on that immediately, you know, in response to his urging, because he said if they didn't, it would get deeper into the building. So so those are those are preliminary findings. There's additional work that needs to be done to assess how much of a concern, particularly PCB and mold is and get that taken care of. But it's well underway. Catherine, anything to add? No, I just jumped in as I felt like I should. I think certainly possible questions, feedback from the group on on the hazmat or the brownfields, for that matter. And just a further follow up on the on the brownfields front, Pat and Catherine and Sarah Wright and I met today with people from the state who will work with us and work with the town on the Brella application. We had a pre application meeting today. This is the process that will enable the town as a prospective buyer of the piece of property to be protected by the Brella protections against the liability for any future claims of responsibility for cleaning up the site. Once this process is through and you get a certificate of completion and that and that certificate of completion can be passed on to a subsequent buyer of the building from the town if and when that takes place. So it's something that goes with the property, like indeed, which is very good to hear. All right, next item is floodway and floodplain. And I know Dick and Dorothy were playing to join us tonight, but we're going to be delayed. So maybe we'll come back to that. Well, I can I can start on that, you know, if you want because I was at that meeting, so on. So if they are here, I think he would say that the we've gone, we've moved ahead with the steps to remove the floodway, the part of the high school parcel that still existed in the floodway and DuBois King did a survey that's been complete. We're waiting to get the map, but we did get the bill and I did forward that on to Julie today. So we feel that we're moving quite along with that. However, when we met with John Brooker Campbell, who is the floodplain manager for this region on Friday morning, he basically said that we need to go a little bit further because there's a possibility that we'll have some act 250 compliance that we have to deal with. And that was a surprise to us because Sandy Haas had stated at our feasibility study public meetings that due to the size of the parcel, we would actually 50 things would be waived. So that was a little bit of a surprise. Anyway, I'm going to just I just opened my notes from that meeting and we see, oh, here's the next caveat on that. Dick stated that we have to get a water permit for this change of the property and that there are exemptions from the need for a permit. But we do not fall under that exemption that less than 2 percent of the area is being transferred. So Dick then asked Jamie Canarney if the school district would contact the regional engineer to see if there is a waiver, if both properties are under the same ownership. So we're waiting for Jamie to get back to us. And John said, John Brooker Campbell, the floodplain manager said, Laurie advised, that we get a jurisdictional opinion regarding the act 250 compliance. He said, Sandy may be 100 percent right, but we don't want to go down the road and find out at a more inconvenient time that we have to come into compliance with Act 250. So he gave us a couple of names that we will pursue that with him. So what else? We reviewed Greg Gossin's suggestions. He's our consultant architect for eliminating the floodplain. This is where the high school building took in water during Irene in the lower part of the auditorium. And I think all of these these suggestions have been shared, so I'm not going to necessarily go through them all. But they sort of honed in on two, which was to either eliminate the door from the auditorium. That has still below the mean flood elevation and then what they call dry proof the exterior walls that are below the mean flood elevation and that we could possibly be looking at a floodgate solution for the door and that Greg has experienced with this and D and K would have an engineer that would work with Greg to sign off on anything. So before we actually even hone in what's the possible, we are trying to organize a follow-up meeting at the high school with a D and K engineer, with the consultant architect, with Grace Vincent, the environmental state officer who's the one who pointed out to us that the property was in both the floodway and the floodplain and John Berger Campbell who agreed to come back. So it was a very positive meeting. He liked he liked our proposal very much. Patty asked about the possibility of splitting the building into two separate buildings because the eastern part of the building is not located in the floodplain. And he was not on board with that. He said that the building was too close to the to the to the river corridor for it to be an appropriate housing site. He said neither would he approve a solar array on any of the land behind the high school because whoever the installer would be, let's just say, for instance, Green Mountain Power because they've actually suggested this, they would bring in gravel to insulate their installation. He said, and given the possibility of a flood, that gravel would all wash into the waterway. So he said he would never approve a solar array, but it was okay to put it on the roof, which is something we've talked about. He said because the upgrade is projected at a cost of 3.1 million, that would be considered a substantial. So the entire building would have to be brought into compliance. So we asked, well, the compliance with what entity and basically with the Rochester Flood Hazard Plan Regulations. And the one who is sort of wearing that hat is Dune. So Patty called Dune while we were all in the meeting and Dune talked with John, they happened to know each other. And Dune understands that the flow of the whole process will go first through Rochester and then to him. So that's about it. We, you know, as I said, John's gonna be contacting Grace. We're gonna schedule a follow-up onsite meeting. We're waiting for Jamie and Dick to have a conversation about the jurisdictional opinion of Act 250 because we're not sure whether that should be the property owner or the prospective buyer. We just don't know. And that's all, that's all I have to say. Any questions, Catherine or me on those issues or move on? Thank you. Thank you for getting all that information and sticking with it, that's... It's our new hobby. Yep. Okay, next item, town vote date discussion. So we wanna have a true conversation discussion here around this question of when should we go to the town for a vote on acquisition of the property or not? Initially, we thought it would be in March, this next month. And then as we got into the realities of the hazmat and Brownfield's assessment, realized that we're not gonna have nearly the kind of information we need to be able to provide to people until late the summer at best. So I kind of put it up to there. But on the flip side, there's money out there to be applied for grants to fix this building. And we're a little concerned about waiting that long before even starting the application process, assuming that the town agrees to take the building. So we just wanna just open up for conversation, what people think about what is good timing, what feels right, what does not feel right, what are other issues that people may have in mind that should be taken into consideration so that we can target towards a point in time and be building towards that over the next period of months. Here's Dick. Hello, Dick. Hey, Dick, can you hear me? I can. Okay, good. I think we've covered the floodway and floodplain issues adequately. Save you the trouble, unless you really want to talk about it. Cassidy. I guess one question, Dick, is whether Jamie was ever got back to him about the water permit and was there any decision about who would be pursuing the Act 250 question, whether that's the property owner or us? That was still up in the air. Right, I haven't heard back from Jamie about the wastewater permit yet and do we have a strategy about the jurisdictional opinion? Well, my question is, who is the appropriate person to pursue that with the two contacts that he gave us? If it is the school district, I think anybody would be willing to support Jamie on a phone call because I don't think Jamie is going to be 100% confident about presenting this particular project, even though he's superintendent and the school owns the building. So I think that in the end, it will be a group effort. So I have a question here. Go ahead, Sandy. Yes. Are we talking about whether an Act 250 permit is required for the subject for the little boundary adjustment? Are we talking about the big project? Big project. Okay. So that's us. That's not the school. And that's- That's something you'd be willing to go forward with? I will work with others. I don't have the factual, all the factual information that you did, but let me start with a straightforward phone call because I thought that everything under 10 acres was just NA. So I'm not quite sure what he's working on. So let me start with that and I will, who do I get back to? Katharine, Vic, what do you want? Yeah, you can get back to me. Vic was in Montana during that meeting. So I can certainly get back to you. Or Dick, Dick was in the meeting too. So was Patty. And I can also give you the contact of John so that you can get further clarification about what it is that he was talking about. Because he said you may be 100% right, but he still wanted us to go pursue this jurisdictional opinion. Yeah, okay. Yeah, send me an email with his contact information and I'll follow up. Okay, good. I think what we need is sort of a pre-jurisdictional opinion just to find out if they want to hear from us and what information they need. They do jurisdictional letters all the time, that's yeah. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Sandy. Okay. Hello, Dorothy. I see you're there too. Hi. Welcome. So we were just beginning to have a conversation around number four, the town vote date. And I was saying that on the one hand, we have this hazmat and Brownfields timeline that we're working on to get information for us, for the whole town for that matter in terms of what the actual condition of the property is. And that's going to take a number of months. It will take us easily into the end of summer. We wanted to go that far before having the vote and make an informed vote. On the other hand, Catherine and I are hearing from various sources is that there's a lot of money out there to be had and the sooner you go for it as the owner, the better. So we just want to get a sense. And Catherine, you can elaborate on that because you've had more of the direct contact with that information. What are people feeling in terms of one, we ought to be targeting this town vote and what kinds of information or milestones should take place before then and how we might ramp up for that. So this is a conversation and trying to get sort of a sense of the group of when we should do this. So there is a consortium of representatives from various organizations, funding sources within the state that realize that all of the ARPA money and other kinds of what they're calling one-time funding is quickly being obligated to larger population density areas. And so now they're making a real push to make presentations in the more rural areas of Vermont and they bring in a head of representative from a lot of agencies. And there was, I watched the video of the presentation in Orange County that happened on January 23rd. And when it was all said and done, I asked, in the process of our project as the potential buyer, can we go ahead and apply for these funds? Because a lot of them, they don't even expect the implementation until two years down the road. But the obligation of the funds or the granting of the funds is happening sooner than later and they were stressing time to time again, do not wait, do not wait, do not wait. So we're not the owner and the school district isn't an eligible candidate to apply and neither is a nonprofit. It's gotta be, it's gotta be a municipality. So that's why Vic and I were kicking this around. It's like, well, I think the town at least at the time of the annual meeting needs to know that as we have said at our select board meeting and at school board meetings and public meetings, Sarah Wright gave us the timeline most recently and it's not gonna be until August that she says we're gonna get the results of the whole environmental process because even though phase one is done and those reports are in, the next step is to make a work plan and that doesn't happen overnight. And then the next step is the phase two sampling and testing. And she basically said it's not gonna be until the end of August that we have the information that we have always felt was so important to the voters of Rochester. But maybe the voters of Rochester will take the attitude like, well, we're enrolling in the Brella, which means that we'll be protected from future liability of anything that could occur with the hazardous materials or brownfields with respect to the project. But we do need to get that 3.1 million started. We'll apply for another earmark and we certainly feel that we will be a good position to make an application for an implementation grant from the Vermont Community Development Program. But does the town want to vote sooner? Do they want to wait till August or do they wanna make a vote sooner or should the voters be weighing in about the whole process at this point? As the select board's been very clear, they wanna leave this up to the voters. Anybody have an opinion or question? Leslie. I don't think you can ask them to vote unless you have a public meeting and talk to them about causes. Of course, we're not at the vote at town meeting. No, no, no. I know we're not voting at town meeting, but at some point, you have to have another public bring the people in, bring the people in and I don't know that anybody ever just talks about this as an asset. Do you just throw an asset away? Yeah, we're assuming that there will be a communication education process. We're really only looking at the date is the issue or relative date. Yeah, that's all. And we are, they are going to be holding a second meeting or they're gonna have probably several, but they're gonna have one in Windsor, but they're gonna have it in our area of Windsor. As a matter of fact, the reason that we even first got wind of this is that Erica Hoffman-Keyes from the Green Mountain Economic Development Board gave us an email thinking that the first January 23rd presentation could happen in the high school. And so, you know, Lindy and Julie really went to work to make it all possible. And then it was like, uh-oh, you guys are in Windsor and not in Orange. Looks like you can't be there, but I'm thinking she wants it to happen at our high school when they do the Windsor presentation. I don't know, you know, I'm not the one who's deciding this, but certainly the school board and Lindy was very open for them to meet here. And when that happens, which is gonna be soon, whether it's here or another part in Windsor, I think we all need, those of us who are truly interested in this need to show up at the meeting because it's important to really hear the whole conversation and what's due when in terms of grants and what are the criteria and what are the amounts, because this is the way the funding stack is created. You leverage multiple grants to get to where you need to get to. Paige. My thought is because this is such a long haul project and requiring so many, as Catherine says, so many different grants along the way, I think the sooner we know how the town feels about whether or not they wanna take on the building the better because it would really dictate where we go with all this. And, you know, with all the, having a number of informational meetings and in person online, however we can manage it, you know, letting people know as much as we know at this point in time and what we gain and to have the vote early and what we gain or what we lose by not applying for these grants now. It's a non-starter if we don't get some of this money and if we're letting it kind of go to the wayside because we don't have the consensus of the town, that's money that probably won't come back in the pipeline for quite a while. So I think the sooner we can get the meetings, the informative meetings going and get some consensus from the town. I mean, we should really know. I mean, it's been three years since the group has been working on all of this and where does the town really stand on it? We don't know. So that's my- And it was told to us early on that in terms of being eligible for the federal money, we have to complete phase one of the NEPA. We don't have to complete phase two. We could go through phase one and phase two and the town based on the results of that can still say, no, we don't wanna buy. There's no obligation for the town to purchase having gone through one and two of the NEPA. Dick? This is probably useless, but this is ultimately a problem of the citizens of Rochester one way or the other. And I'm wondering if the select board should be approached once again, explaining the present situation and how their unwillingness to take on the building is adding years, not months, but years to the process. And that whether the town votes to take it on or not, it's still the town's responsibility. So other than politically, what's the downside? Brad, do you wanna speak to that or- I can only lend my own feelings. I can't speak for the entire select board because we need to have facts and numbers in front of us. What we went through tonight, you have a roadmap of what needs to be done. My other column to the right was how much does all this cost? And there was no mention of any numbers. We need to present to the town numbers timeline and who is going to be funding it. We've got to have something that's a little more solid than here is what we've got to do and we'll figure it out when we'll get grant money and figure it out later. We've got to have a solid. I agree. We have to have something more solid than what we have right now, even how the full assessment process is going to be paid for. We've been told there's plenty of money in DEC but I didn't hear either of those two representatives say that tonight. Did you Patty? No, no. And what we're facing again is for some reason Stockbridge, their CLA factor that is part of their education budget from the state, their CLA went down to 75% even though they did a reappraisal of their town values only two years ago. I'm not sure why I feel something has arrived there because Rochester only went down to 87%. Why would Stockbridge go down to 75 in just two years? I have property in Stockbridge too. So I'm not looking for this 14% increase in my taxes either. So they're up in over a 14% increase in just their education part of their tax rate. And they're looking towards the school system to number one, the first thing on their list is to eliminate heating the school next winter. They're gonna line item that right out of there. And so their point is not completely accurate, Patty. They're not gonna line item it right out of there. They wanna keep doing this one-third, one-third, one-third that we did this year, which is a reversal to what they said. And the high school heat has nothing to do with the tax rate going up for Stockbridge but it's become a civil. Yeah, yeah. But nonetheless, this is how Jamie's expecting them to react. So I mean, they've got it, if they can't change the CLA they gotta look elsewhere to bring down their tax rate. So that's one place they're gonna look right away. Jamie Kanari is looking towards getting a decision on the school one way or another. Positive or negatives that way. He knows what his future with that building will be. So I can agree that Jamie's looking for a decision the sooner the better. The town here is not ready to present to the taxpayers, the voters, based on what we have in front of us. And again, the more we think we've cleared a couple hurdles, we find that there's a couple more behind it. You know, I'm certainly not thinking that we can go for any vote before August. Probably not. The one thing too that we don't really know of which we hope to get really soon is the cost of the flood plain mitigation, not the floodway, the flood plain. So that has become a priority. It's one that Liz Curry pressed and we're pursuing it. And so the cost of that is still up in the air and whether or not the school district could actually put some of their $65,000 reserve funds towards that. I want to throw out one more variable in this that we've only touched on a few times in the past and one which Peter Fairweather thought was critically important for us to consider. And that is who really ought to be the longterm owner of this building? Let's say if the town takes it, are we talking about the town holding it until for a year or until some other group comes along, whether it's a homemade LLC that's created by citizens who want to see this thing develop or do people think it should be retained by the select board and managed by the select board for the town indefinitely? I think- I don't think that it should be managed by the select board indefinitely. I don't even think the select board, I mean, since we're talking about tenant rentals, I've never felt that that was something they felt unless they are used or occupied the building. But in terms of the grants, the municipal funding mechanism is through the town. So it seems the most reasonable that the town has at least the interim ownership while the upgrades are happening while that money is happening. And that certainly is not possible, that money is not available to the school district. Yeah, all I'm getting at is I think we need to come to a conclusion around what is the definition of the timeframe, what are the parameters and be able to be public about it at some point. Otherwise we're just kind of guessing and throwing out ideas. And I think that it won't instill confidence in the voters unless they have some sense of, what are we really talking about? And so that's an exercise we have yet to go through. What is the exercise that we even have to do, like with the Brella application completion? And it's something I think Liz is trying to help, Liz Curry, the interim project managers trying to help us work on is a schedule. Even though these things are not cast in stone because we're not in control of the availability of the contractors who have to do a certain thing. I mean, it just, this has been a difficult time for staffing, whether that's across the agencies, but even for contract workers like consultants and so forth. So there's so many uncertainties in terms of scheduling. And one of the things I need to applaud this committee on and I do deeply for my heart is your persistent support of the project and the activities that you're creating to keep the high school heated and just everything that you've been doing is commendable. And it takes that kind of perseverance of spirit and motivation to really move through. And I don't think any of us fully knew what we were getting into when we started and look how far we come. And we have been told time and time again, you guys have really come a long way by every agency representative who has met with us and it was toward that building. And also they say they love the proposal. Again, John Brooker, I love this proposal, you know, Eric Law from USDA, I love this proposal. Bernie Sanders, I just, you know. End up and then Sue. I have a question for representative White. The legislature is talking about bringing in preschool from the ages of three and four years old. And I believe they're talking about a full day school program for three and four year olds. If that were to come about would the school system that we have our district where both of our elementary buildings are filled right up if that becomes a mandate, would the school, the district now need that high school building for space? I think it's a very good question, you know. And I haven't, you know, that bill is still being manipulated and going through the legislative process. So I'm not really sure how that's gonna, you know, unfold whether or not it'll even, you know, get through the whole process. But I do think it's fair question about, you know, for if you're folding in, you know, different levels of childcare than, you know, what are the funding mechanisms and how do you support the facilities? And I suspect that there would probably be money attached to those pieces. But I know at this point, certainly, you know, appropriations and the way, you know, ways of me, they haven't got anywhere in here looking at that level. So it is a fair question, you know, about that. But, you know, there are some bills and things that are working through to try to create more funding for towns, for example, don't have any available space for childcare and to help them build childcare or develop childcare properties. So that might be a way that that would come back through to help support that. Because I think, I don't think the legislature would just say, oh, here, now take care of these kids now. And, you know, good luck. So, but that's where we, that's where we're at. What I've been getting from the school board is, you know, a couple weeks ago, they got very open to the idea of daycare. And they were actually ready to start those wheels turning right away of opening a daycare facility within the building. Jamie has said to me that, just like everybody else, he's interested in the auditorium section of the building. And then if we throw in these three and four year olds, both Stockbridge and Rochester Elementary are at capacity. They will need classrooms. Of course, that building would need to be retrofitted because the urinals are all too high for three year olds. But, you know, I'm just wondering if we look down the road and transfer the building, the school might regret doing so if we look down the roadways. Unless we upgrade the building and then we transfer it back to the school district. I mean, there's nothing that says we can't do that. And then the school district has the building that's been completely cleaned up and the whole building envelope upgraded for energy efficiency. Yeah, they're not eligible for a while. Unless they buy it. They're not eligible for the funding that we're talking about to clean up the building. I mean, they need to. It's sitting there as a school facility been used that way. So I don't think they would have to go through all of the hoops that we're going through because of transfer of ownership. Sue, did you have a question or a point a while back? Yeah, I was just building on what Dick was saying about the choice of the town taking it or not. Of course, I don't think they would vote to take on the building until we get, they get more information like Pat was saying. But that has to be then, there should be a split screen and we could have all the information over here. Okay, if you don't buy the building, here's what's gonna happen and here's what's not gonna happen. The school is gonna be stuck with a building that's not fixed by itself and et cetera, et cetera. So I think it really does need to be included in the information to the town. And the other thing is, if it's going to be potentially used by the school system again, the school system who contracted with Black River Design back in 18 and 19, they learned about everything that needs to happen to upgrade this building. And it's almost 50 years old. So these systems need to be replaced, which is essentially what we're doing in our upgrades, replacing electric, replacing heat, replacing the roof, replacing the doors, replacing the windows. These are all things that have to be done as it goes into the future. So this is a viable asset that goes into the future. Good. And I just wanna echo, I think your instinct is correct. That recognizing that you have to move at the pace that the citizenry feels comfortable moving at. But I'm on commerce and economic development. That's my committee. We do put the money into the Brownfield radiation programs and all those kind of pieces that many of them that you're trying to access and utilize. And right now, there is a lot of money and there are a lot of municipalities that are hankering for it. So I'm pretty certain that this next budget year, well, also, I mean, there's of course the ARPA money and ARPA that related and as was stated, that has to be allocated by about another year, but then there's a couple more years after that before it actually has the projects have to move forward. But, you know, I'm pretty certain our committee is going to, that we're still a strong move to keep putting money into that stuff, but at least for this next budgetary year. After that, you know, the legislative economists and a number of folks are saying they expect the downturn in our economy and that a lot of that stuff is probably gonna get scarce. So just, you know, timing is important. And so I want to encourage you to move at whatever, the quickest pace you can. I have a question for you too, in terms of when the, when the state with Act 46 encouraged consolidation, certainly they realized there was going to be the resultant empty buildings. Was there any plan for, you know, how you would support the towns with their emptying school buildings in the repurposing process? Because that was so integral to the decision to consolidate. And that's before my tenure, maybe Sandy actually has some insight into that. Katherine, the answer is no. There was no consideration. And the reality is that technically Act 46 did not say the schools had to consolidate. It said the school boards had to consolidate. So there was a, I'm gonna say a denial factor in the whole concept. Mitch. Well, I'm just, if we have the need for a preschool and we have a need for daycare, the town, the numbers are there between especially with Rochester, but with Rochester, but also especially with the two towns combined. And both elementary schools are at their brim. Those kids are gonna be moving forward and going into middle school and high school, which the town is going to be paying tuition for. And this building, no matter who takes it on, certain aspects of the upgrades will have to be done. And so if there is this discretion between what can be done when the school owns it or the district owns it and what can be done when via grants, when the town takes over, doesn't it behoove us to just kind of strategize with the select board and our group and the school board to kind of dovetail those together. So we take advantage of each one as much as we can because this work is gonna have to be done. Even if the building gets turned over to somebody else, much of it will like the environmental stuff. But it seems to me like the towns moving, both towns are moving towards the need to expand. And if we demolish the school, if that's an option, then we don't have the option to utilize that space. But if we keep it and upgrade it, then we can turn it back to the town. Whenever that need arises, and apparently it's coming down the pike. So does that make sense? Anyway, that's my thought on it. Might be a good selling point. To really work better. What's that? It might be a good selling point to point out to the town, hey, we might need it in the future. Well, it seems like we need it kind of now. I mean, the preschool, the daycare was ready to move in at any moment. And now we're hearing that the preschool is also, it may not happen this year with the preschool, but it sounds like that too is coming down the pike. And there will need to be a space for that. And there is no space. So, do you add on to the elementary school? You know, what are the options? We have a building, we have a viable building. Yes, it's gonna cost us a lot to upgrade, but it's a necessity. None of the town buildings have been, there's never been a budget to maintain them to any real degree. And, you know, like the infrastructure, we're kind of at a point where it needs to be tended to one way or the other. So I'd say take advantage of as many grants as we possibly can, at least make an attempt to take advantage of them. And if we wait on certain aspects, we'll lose that opportunity. That's what we're told about the money available now. What was the first part of what you said, Catherine? I said, that's what we're being told about the money available now, that it's unlikely it'll be available later. Who was it? Burma. Oh, Burma, yes. Hi. Hi. I'm just listening to everything. And if you wanna have a vote about this with the citizens of the town of Rochester, you have to give them concrete things to consider. And from listening to this last hour or so of conversation, there's so many gray areas. I don't know how you can ask people to vote with so much uncertainty. So my bottom line is wondering, what is the taxpayer of Rochester being asked to give? In order to have the building rescued and owned by the town? I think that needs to be spelled out very clearly. And maybe at the fall event, the harvest fair, there could be a poll taken amongst people who are voters of the town of Rochester, just to get an idea of where things can. But I think much, much more concrete information needs to be given before people can really make an educated decision about this. So I'm just throwing that out there. That's only my opinion. Kai, I appreciate that, Burma. That will be. It's a very logical opinion. You'll need to know. And we're working to get that information. Yep. Yep. So it's gonna take more time. And as Catherine said a little while ago, as we overcome a few hurdles, we discover a few more. So it's taken longer than anybody really thought that would. So my sense, I just want to get a sense of my sense is that we need to keep working away at this environmental stuff. Don't shortchange in terms of getting the information, but at the same time, we can be pursuing, or at least learning about the various funding streams. And we want to retain either Liz or someone, Liz Curry or someone who's in a position to help us with seeking grant funds, use some of our seed money to do that. Are we ready to move on to the last item? I'm gonna spend, so we did have a conversation with Erica Hoffman, Kai's about the possibility of them taking the building on an interim basis during the upgrade process. We never got a definitive answer. She was gonna get back to us on that. She was an applicant at the time. And she did encourage us to apply to be one of the top 10 projects. I don't even know what the result of that is, but we're pursuing a lot of different possibilities with this whole thing. I just want people to know that we're not, every single possibility that we can be chased down to see whether it's viable that will help in the process of achieving the goal. And the immediate goal right now is to get the funding together to upgrade that building. Okay, last item in the agenda is prepped for the town meeting and March the 6th. I'm assuming Catherine and I will do a tag team again like we did last year. Give a briefing on where things stand and take questions. Anybody else wants to participate in that? Raise your hand, but come to the meeting, listen in here and hopefully answer questions if you can. Catherine, anything else you wanna add tonight? Well, I don't think we can take an hour out of the town meeting for all of this. I think we really do have to organize a pretty concise presentation while giving people what they need to have to ask questions. Yep, Sue and Robert. There could be a table out in the lobby with some information that would be more than the speech that you're gonna be able to make. I mean, we need all the opportunities to educate people. Agreed. Yeah. And remember, I already got my town meeting book. So I can remind you, there's three pages of information in a book. For the high school. So you do have it covered on where you've been. Yeah, I think we would hit the heights. We could end up and ask for questions. Let's give them a little. Robert? That's right, Pat. Thanks for reminding us. I don't know how that was gonna end up in the report because that's a larger than an eight and a half by 11. So it takes up three pages. Three pages. Robert. Yeah, just a little logistical detail. Normally either myself or JEMO would take care of the sound and lights and such for the town meeting. I will be out of the state. And obviously JEMO is no longer available. So I'll have to arrange with someone to just show them how, I can rate, I can set up everything. But so that someone can come in and turn it on, but I will not be there. What about Ben? What about Ben? Who? His name is Ben. Ben. No, I wouldn't suggest that. What about Ethan? Ethan might be able to do it. Is he not? Is he a moderator? No, it's usually Dan McKinley. Hey, it's Dan. Okay. All right. I think we're done with our agenda. Any other. Questions, comments. Pat. I submitted the newspaper notice this afternoon. It may not make it into this week's paper because it's Wednesday afternoon, but it will definitely be in next week's paper. So the Brella application will follow that. And boom, where we got on it this afternoon. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Pat. Thank you. Oh, thank you. All right. We'll meet again. Probably monthly and they need to be, and we'll be open meetings and, you know, presumably we'll get more. Participation from the public as, as we go along. And that's it for tonight. Good night. Well, anybody needs a more committee members for these activities. Let us know the heat related activity. Does anybody know if there's any. Money banked already towards the heat. Oh, yeah, I wanted, I wanted to say that. We raised $10,535. By the end of 2022. There's going to be some expenses from that. Take, take it out. You know, so I can't tell you what the net is, but I don't think there's been a lot of. Of expenses. So we're halfway to our commitment and as the one third of the task, but then we also learned that we haven't used as much heat as they projected. So they're not expecting the heat cost to be as high as they thought it would be in September. Okay. Great. The end on a high note. Yeah. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. Yeah.