 Already into our meeting So I'll take a motion to come out of executive session We have a second Okay, all in favor aye So we've been in an executive session as I expect you all know We've been interviewing candidates for office. We don't have much to report We interviewed for treasurer. We don't have much more to say about that just yet We are going to have to Back off a little bit on road foreman We find that we're unable to fill the position at this time. So we're going to Regroup and think about how we're going to get that position taken care of in the future Okay One thing to say we it's it's complicated because we also need to get a new member for the winter So we have to we have to figure out how we're going to go do it Okay Thank you Have you all had a chance look at the minutes? We have got two sets of minutes December 25th and December September and September 26th Everybody okay with the minutes? Would you move them? Great we have a second Okay, all in favor aye Board orders are coming around Please try to sign them we Had a this a traffic study done As you know, we were going to try to do traffic studies on a lot of the roads because You need to do them before we can change the speed limit. It has to be based on data and The way it works is We count the speeds at which people are driving. This is state law At which people tend to drive we throw out the fastest 15 percent So the speed at which the slowest 85 percent are driving is the speed limit Unless we have a really really good reason for not driving at that limit So we had a counter put up CVR CP put a counter up on County Road and Measured the cars going and the average speed at 80 at the top speed at 85 percent was 51 So that would indicate that we cannot Lower the speed limit to 40 as proposed Good you can see this we can we can make these data available to you if you want You're saying if people are not exceeding the existing speed limit by a lot then they can't lower No, no when you set the speed limit it has to be based on data This is state law and the assumption is apparently that most people drive at a safe comfortable speed So you throw out the top 15 percent and then everybody that's driving at or below the next speed fastest speeder That's the speed limit You can round it, but that's the speed limit unless you you know if there's a hospital or something obviously you can you can Go more slowly They may not have done it based on data, I don't know Yeah, I mean it sounds counter-intuitive to me because of course if the speed limits 50 people are gonna drive The speed limits 40 people will probably drive 40 and so the law doesn't make sense to me But that is what the law says as it was as it was presented to us that there's There's a behavioral element of it too and so having drivers That are driving having a speed limit set that is that is significantly lower or even you know marginally lower then what Then what then what people are already inherently, you know basically voting with their with the right foot you know with what the Mass sort of the average Individual driving on the road considers to be safe and if they and if a group of people are all doing that then the slow traffic ends up being a Safety hazard as well because then people start acting More recklessly to to get around the slower traffic. So there There's a reason you look at the data first and there is accommodations in the law too to make exceptions under extenuating circumstances when when there are circumstances that would justify it, but But but that's why it's an important first step And that was the county road so there are other there are other roads that are still on that priority list that BLTC didn't didn't get a chance to study Um, my question is what what days were the study done because I feel like the flooding and a lot of the traffic I feel like there were I just would like to know when this sure what we didn't we were scheduled to do it Yeah, we were scheduled to do it when the flooding was still an issue So we put that off But then we decided although we don't think we're quite ready to do it on the dirt roads yet the gravel roads We could do the paved road the one paved road. So we did it Yeah, we I'm trying to tell you they were September 15th to September 22nd Okay, and the counter was set up and they recorded every hour how many had gone by and at what speed? Yeah And you know The data is important and I think you know when we get down to it as a community You know it though with the ones that stand out are the ones that are driving really fast and they're on there You can see them and you can see when it was and one of the conversations that we had with the Sheriff's Department was identifying the time frames when you have habitual offenders who are going and These are all these are personal habits, you know, and so you you can You can do targeted enforcement And from my perspective, I think this really comes down to an enforcement issue Doesn't matter what the speed limit is going to be if people if the vast majority of the population is going to drive a certain speed and And a certain portion of the population are always going to drive drive Incredibly fast regardless of what that speed limit is then that's not a speed limit issue That's an enforcement issue and we as a family to have a conversation about what our budget is for wanting to address that enforcement issue And what a time to be talking about that That's what we're doing. Do people want to see these data because we can post them if they're of interest to people Okay Is the fact that Like I Know Well, we don't feel we just state that that's our reason I Suspect that East Montpelier didn't base theirs on data. The trouble is if you don't base it on this kind of data The law enforcement won't enforce it So you could try that Yeah, anything else on that one. All right Ben you're here Knudsen curb cut application the town Ben is submitted an application for a curb cut on Jack Hill Road and the road crew has looked at it Three of them went over Tyler John and Dana. They said the site conditions Are are fine? They asked that a 15-inch culvert be installed And directed to the northeast side of Jack Hill And and regularly maintained regularly cleaned out They're going to dig a ditch along the road to Let me find out to make the the drainage go north and just south of it, they're going to build a Colored like a little catch a very small catchment base So it'll come out both ends of the culvert apparently some of it in the catchment basement Basin and some of it will drain down to the other culvert that goes back across the road and With those conditions, they recommend that it be approved Stephanie There were ditches dug along the east side of Jack Hill Road a few years ago. They were very very deep They were along the west and I guess And it made driving there very scary at times especially in the winter when you can't see you know They're there, but you know the road is fairly narrow And I'm concerned about if they continue The same thing digging deep ditches as it goes up past Ben's and to this new Curve cut that we're going to have the same kind of situation And I drive on that road almost every day. I live at the top of the hill, so I'm very familiar with it It was very In the winter time even though this wouldn't the snow have been built up between the road and the ditch The snow goes into fills up the ditch, and you don't know where it is You don't know where the ditch begins. Oh It's a problem in the long roads when there's roads that are relatively narrow and deep ditches That if you go in the ditch you are not going to drive out Which is contradicts the road standards which say that the road the ditches should be no deeper than Cars or vehicles are able to drive out if they accidentally drive in and those ditches were just amazingly deep And I don't know if they are now. I don't think ditches are maintained very much. So maybe they're not maybe they're filled in I don't know, but I'm just saying that when they were first dug and for years afterwards They were dangerously deep And I'm yeah, I just hope that these when this ditches does The road standards are falling and the ditches are dug no deeper than would have to happen Would have would be you could drive out of it if you drove in accidentally Or on purpose, but do you know anything about this thing? They think maybe the standards of the better roads the local roads manual Is that in the local roads manual that it's supposed to be only a certain amount deep? I think that's interesting. I think the road standard set The ones to say I don't think they've changed the Calis Roads Where Calis Road standards differ from that state standards So as long as they follow the cat the back road standards, you are satisfied No, because they're often Inconsistent and my I remember the last like or the last I believe the last time they approved these road standards or or recently there was a caveat that if they The state standards differ from the Calis standards the Calis standards would supersede the state standards But you'd be you you would be content if they were following the Calis standards. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, okay, the Calis standards are very shallow and We'll allow for the water to Which is one of the issues with yeah And it says if there's a culvert there's a flooding event or I mean that water needs to be able to move and it It's a much larger conversation, but with that changing world You know the capacity for water to move in a timely manner where it's got to go So it's so it's important and that's why they ditch the way that they do part of the issue has to do with frost line and culverts and if the culverts aren't Deep enough to be below the frost line They they need to be replaced more often they can be damaged with the freezing and thawing and in order to have the culverts Deep enough to be below that frost line The ditches have to be deeper to accommodate them And so that's why the state standards changed to recommend the deeper ditching The Calis standards still recommend the more shallow ditching, which I agree with you feel safer is safer In terms of cars going into them and not getting stuck, but this is a this is a one of the many thorny Calis state road standard Differentials that has come up again and again and again over the years and I don't know what the answer is But we could make a note that at some point in the future we might want to visit revisit Standards and have these conversations And I think that people talked about there are ways of grading They make it more gradual so you don't have that sudden right You know, I would hope that You can you can make the roads wider to get that grade Perhaps we're maybe in areas where there are The potential for deep culverts there should be wider road there. Oh, yeah, I mean, I think we could probably Work language in there considering that this driveway is going to require A culvert and and culverts need to be used to manage storm water and that's the seems like a prudent measure That you know that That the culvert is installed in the ditching adjacent to it is Adequate to accommodate the installation of the The culvert but any subsequent ditching or adjustment of ditches ditching, you know further up the road which is fallen to the town's purview is It's done in consideration of the callous road standards Right, we wouldn't put that in Ben's permit though. We could talk to the road crew about it Yeah, and I would say in this situation also the such as maybe added but I believe that they are I believe that they are But we are there are curves. We are going around curves there And so it's not like you have like long one long flat thing you can see part of it. It's nice and wide You're talking about curves and you're talking about fail and narrow road and it's I don't want to end up in that ditch Right, yeah, we don't want you to To suggest maybe something to be done. Yeah, sounds like something we can talk to the road crew about I don't think this is the Applicants issue. This is a town. Yeah, road crew issue. See Chesa. Oh, I'm sorry My point of view No, he's putting his application They've proved it Well, the road commissioner has approved it from as far as the development Has had an application twice from them. I don't know if you guys have known that I don't know if you know any of this history as you don't I want to put it on pause And my request is you make no decision right now And then wait, did they not get their DRB permit? Did he not? Yeah, I thought it was contingent on you getting a curb hat. No, it was contingent on you getting the right of way Which it's this? Well, no, that was what he was getting. No, but it wouldn't be contingent on that So they took on two different applying times and it was for Dividing a six point two bigger lot Three plan three if you want to be technical for a non road front not front is what right to divide and So I am not one to want to say anything about what anybody can do with their link But so okay not front is not not going to complain but a curve cut on Jack Hill Road Almost anywhere should have more assessment than just to sign off on it And I hope that we will almost delay or deny this We can't we can't reasonably do that somebody access to to their property from from a town highway and so Or a non Intimately familiar with the conditions, but there's a reason that it was likely in front of the DRB is because The the creation of a non-frontage road lot or a non Frontage lot is a non conformance that would require the approval of the DRB So that being said if the DRB approved the conditions Associated with creating that non road frontage lot the aspect that we're considering tonight is the is the access to the to the property and and the Safety of doing so relative to the Standard set by the state so we can't reasonably deny somebody access to their property If it meets the exceptions I feel is extremely dangerous My property is actually where the culvert would put out their water I'm Five culverts already on my property And I'm not in my property thing. This is actually not our land right we're just hanging out with it and trying to take care of it and this is a Curve cut above like Like there's actually a curve in Jack O'Rourke and it's a red toller's old house at that property There's a curve and those looks Do you agree with me Stephanie? That's like a dangerous place to have Any kind of something coming down the last place that is safe is Chris Tuller's driveway and I can't Imagine there being a driveway in between that and North of the house on Jack O'Rourke There's a gully Right across from that spot. There's a totally a huge belly that divides And goes down to Beaconburg Road and the amount of road I don't know the maintenance the washouts the culverts And when you say widening the roads Down at the furthest end they already have one in the road But there's not a lot of road to widen on Jack O'Rourke and I really would like us to respect that I I don't feel like we can say what other people can do that. They're safety and all there's That's a bus room. That's a school bus room. That's a curve There's I mean to add a culvert and somehow the water's coming to the north Somehow on that driveway. I don't know where it will go. And so that's why I'm asking for a pause I don't know. I guess I can't do that Very concerned We can only of course look at it under that what the ordinance gives us 30 to look at it under and Stephanie will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's sight distances and Culver I'm not the one you propose Okay, that's It takes a long water stage. Can you just clarify for me? What is it? You'd like us to look at that hasn't been looked at For what reason that's what I just want to understand I mean Drove on that corner We respect your rights, but this is but how would it be different if we put it off for two weeks? You might see something It needs it needs to be that there's there's room for discretion there and so The town doesn't pay for the part part of the point of having a part of the point of having a curb cut ordinance And the one that we have many towns have is that you know, we we are We are to take into consideration the safety risks and what plays into that are largely line of sight and And traffic frequencies that that sort of thing, but it's all you know relative to the site and the conditions of the site and the And and what the other options are for the property owner To work within the limitations of the property that they own And so the second element of that is to make sure that you know adequate measures are being taken to protect the The town infrastructure Which would be the road and not you know putting in curb cuts or allowing curb cuts to be installed in a way That would adversely impact the the town infrastructure And that's largely where the culverts come into play, you know redirecting storm water so that they don't scour the roads Away from just the natural runoff of water, right? We just have a huge flood. We have to think about how we work with how water runs off hills, right? That's a hill just that Kirkback is a hill coming down onto another hill and wash out and then it goes Everybody's water, I mean, so I don't know. I just want to think about Like I get the road stop, but there's also Brooks and streams and water runoff and I I want to say that I totally support Ben's having a house there. I think it's a We need more houses in Calis and we have to be outside the place There is already a curb cut I'm not going to get go-horns today It's the driveway for that first house It's there. It's ready to go. Ben could access his property using that curb cut Ben why are you not using that to access your purpose? Oh, it's personal I thought the deer be a denied that site There is a he has a driveway and you try to use it to use it and extend extend the easement would then go He'd start on that driveway go past house and continue on to the lot that he just created Okay, I'm confused. Didn't you have to go to the DRB to get that as a right-of-way? You got that as a right-of-way But if you were to go back to the other curb cut, do you have a right of way there, too? You'd be going across Weston's land is that right? Oh, it's your own land. Oh, so you can give yourself a right With meetings and a lot of charge intent So I'm not interested in having you back to that process if anything can be helped well to prepare the initially of initially applied for the Original one initially and then changed changed it With Druid and then came back with this different location that required the curb cut The first one wouldn't require another curb cut it would require an approval of extending the easement Across his across the land that he's selling onto the land that he created. So You know, I didn't I didn't sit on them. I said I actually And as I recall you withdrew because there was some problem with the neighbors. This would be clear. Yeah All right, we're getting way off schedule here How what's your timeline? Are you getting ready to build or if we put it off and head of some more No, I'm not asking you to spend more money. I'm asking if it could wait two weeks and Come against me has been to delay delay delay and have these things that are not necessarily relevant Generally based on emotion and preference of people that are not Cost you more money to wait two weeks I Disclose it I think that the guys when they looked at it They're was concerned about how the water would flow and they didn't put a fair amount of thought as we saw it into how They can mediate any water issues other thoughts I mean if they approved it and we started this Yeah, let's say that it would be approved. I don't know I Appreciate people's concerns about things changing, but it's not a safety issue It's not a violation or a line of sight and and they've made a recommendation in their best In their best sense to have to mitigate stormwater issues and runoff issues relative to the road infrastructure So I would make a motion to accept the To accept the application presented and as recommended by the road crew with the understanding that That the ditching be adequate to accommodate the The proposed culvert but no greater and every effort should be made to Wait, wait, what are you getting this? That That the ditching associated with the culvert installation is adequate to accommodate the culvert as proposed But not exactly but but no more This is a little different I know so that's why I think she's just looking for the distinction between what the road crew Recommended the conditions and what you guys would just say as recommended by the crew with this addition Have you got that rose y'all set? Everybody understand the motion do we have a second second everybody understand it. Are you ready to vote? Okay, all in favor. I It's unanimous Sorry guys. I think what you need to do is Talk to the back roads committee and work on those standards Yeah Uh Grand list the John do you want to speak to this? The first one Personal property and current use Call us the callous portion Given the current use exemption Listers right there the owner wasn't there We sent changeable people notice to the owner and even following our visit told With that So we went up and we found found things that we corrected and lowered it And the last one was kind of strange Three pieces of property Two of them at all their all camps and The description was it was a building that was not down and rebuilt So we went to where these three camps were and we found a building that had clearly been rebuilt So we assume that that was Parcel that we were looking at We made a mistake. So we assigned all these changes to the wrong person We realize our mistake. We just reverse things Put it back the way it was But it ended up with a net change of appraisal the last two are the same name No, okay. So I'm saying she's the same person same person Is this this Mary Thulman yes it is and then Elliot Jacob and then Gary Lewis and Trevor Lewis Gary Lewis was the first one. That's the current use Second one Questions for John Somebody make a motion that we should sign this Authorize it and sign it. It looks like we all have to sign this one Second second, okay all in favor I Hiring committee for town administrator Donna and Judy we appointed them at the last meeting and they've decided they Are overwhelmed with family issues and they're stepping down So we have approached Tom McCartle who many of you will may know. He's the Public Works director in Montpelier for the city of Montpelier Former is he retired? Oh, yeah. Oh, okay And he has a great to serve if we will appoint him That's all right with everybody Okay quickly make a motion Yeah Thanks Yeah, yeah and replace them with Tom Okay public comment anybody want to speak about anything that's not on the agenda Okay, maybe Did those callous Road and bridge standards, but over time they have to get renewed and renewed To my recollection we don't have callous road and bridge standards subsequent select boards have adopted the state standards and So you have to renew all the time and even though back in 2015 and 2017 Congress man Stephanie really wrote this beautiful thing and actually it was It was like the gold standard And even the people in the state house were very impressed at AOT because they recognize that a one-size-fit all Doesn't work what is good in Willis downer Essex might not fit the back roads and callous And so they're going to use ours as you know like a template But I think every time you renew if you don't keep your are all little callous road and bridge standards alive and approved I think I think every five years And so I think subsequent to that you come in and say you guys need to sign the bridge standards And I think we've adopted the state standards Oh, and I think there was some confusion because I think that they did pass in their last session New standards, which are definitely different from the state standards There's been there's been incremental re-adoption of them There's been a lot of question whether or not they're they're being maintained to those standards And that's a whole other conversation that I that I really don't want to get started tonight for sure, but And I was there for when they were re-adopted most recently which was at the end of last year I believe it was our local written bridge. It was our local They were read they were re-adopted as they were originally proposed now, you know what which will need to Find an update because the one that's listed on the town website is 2015 Yeah, it's just in the minutes. I think but I think they re-adopted that one But that was the one that they re-adopted That's not the modified one. It is the modified one. So it's the modified road standard callous road standard That was initially implemented in 2015 And then it had been incrementally re-adopted on a number of occasions most recently in September of last year There at that time there was there was question or whether or not it needed to be Run back by the state. I mean any any of those modified road standards needs to be reviewed by by AOT anyway So there's some so there's some question on whether or not it'd be appropriate to have those reviewed again Just to make sure that they're still in good standing or making changes, but that was It was read opted nonetheless So it was yeah, I was I was there it's in the minutes that it wasn't updated as a All right, now we're going to turn to highway department issues. There's several here. I've got three things Toby's going to talk to us about The truck. Oh, well actually let's hear whether you were able to get the 30% we talked about Authorizing a purchase of a new truck at the last meeting But we put that off to now because and and some others thought that maybe we could get a grant That would pay for up to 30% of it Oh, okay Energy program actually not in place yet Conservatism is doing it. I called them today The the vehicle that you're replacing has to be in 2009 or earlier Because they're trying to get all the smokey old diesel off the road So we don't qualify for our truck because the truck that we were replacing is a 2014 However, when we get to purchasing a greater Our greater will actually qualify for up to a 25% great In the purchase of a new greater so the last time we Looked at trading in the great the old one of the old greatest for a new one the trading value was about $30,000 The great 25% which would be $75,000 25% of 300,000 so that would be a good program if if and when we do decide to go for a new greater And if that program does take off the only Codicell about that program is the old greater has to disappear It has to be dissembled and never be run In other words, they have to be certain that that old diesel engine is not being used any longer. So There's under saying we could trade it in and not qualify for this program for 30,000 Apply for the grant but that means we have to disassemble we have to get the We have to prove within 60 days of purchase that we've taken that greater and made it unusable ever again That's the codicell about that So essentially right now for the new 10-wheel truck There's no grant monies other than just going ahead and doing a trade-in So essentially if you're still on the board for that then we should just authorize the road crew to start So I talked with the salesman on on Charlie West today It's going to be well over a year before we see the trucks if we ordered it tomorrow. It would be a year from Tomorrow and probably a year and six months. So and If we take out a lease purchase on it, it would be another year after that before you have to make any payments So you're talking almost two and a half years away before it actually has to go on to the capital plan or There's there another ten-wheeler that can or not ten-wheeler, I'm sorry Another six-wheeler that can Serve the function of that I guess Are they going to be able to sustain waiting for that or The old truck is still there. So in other words the old truck which is seven years old and then essentially has expired It's extended warranty. It's still On the road still working. We just got it back from some repairs that it needed but again We have been working on Doing a seven-year replacement policy in order to keep the extended warranty That's something we can so essentially now we're doing a test where okay If we make another year and a half without a problem Maybe we can change that and when you get to doing the capital planning You know, I sort of did a draft of a capital plan What you really want to do is not stack five or six payments in one year You want to sort of stagger them as much as you can and that's a manipulative tool that we can use in the future You can change the plan you can Trade a truck in earlier so that you then are not stacking them all up in the same year So that's something that's a tool that you guys can do at any time. It's The reality is that we have over two million dollars worth of rolling stock in the town garage and on a ten-year plan That's two hundred thousand dollars a year. You have to put aside as capital money So that's that you know, that would be the target right now Probably three years. We've had over a hundred thousand in the capital plan And that's because a lot of things were not it were paid off and essentially didn't didn't require it One one of the last years that I worked on the capital plan They actually put like thirty thousand in that wasn't a part of the payment. It was just to get to a thousand It's just that now Things cost a lot more for replacement. So, you know, the number is close to two million over two million for replaceable cost And again, if you so right now We're doing a lot of five years. So you guys can essentially just go, okay That's five years. We can just go ahead and do it if you want to extend those so you have less payments over more years You can go to town meeting every year and have Voters approve that so that then you can balance those payments by how you approach purchasing a truck Because you know right now a greater would be a ten-year purchase Instead of five years and it's cuts the payment in half. Yeah, but it extends it for more years So there's all those tools in your in your tool back for the capital plan and we'll be discussing that in early November Yeah, with the capital plan. So all he's asking for tonight is authorization to prove to go purchase it Any questions? Okay, would somebody like to move purchase I Mean authorizing Toby to order the truck. Pardon me It's all moved Do we have a second and we have a second? Okay all in favor. Hi. Hi All right, Rose you got that More details All right now you're gonna try to talk us into purchasing a boom mower again Is the firm that we're renting the more currently from and they have a fall sale For a brand new messy Ferguson for a hundred and forty four thousand or a used one for a hundred thirty-two And it's actually the mower that we're using right now, but we've rented from Just throw it out there for you and ask me to sort of compare The cost of renting it every year versus owning It's about well, it's thirty five hundred dollars a week if you rent it Eight weeks is going to be twenty eight thousand dollars a year And that's if we don't need it six weeks or whatever I still don't know if we went out every day How how many weeks it would take to do one pass of all the roads? I'm trying to track that now with our using this thing, so The payment if you bought it on a five-year loan It would be twenty eight thousand per year for five years and at the end of five years There's you know more twenty eight thousand per year and under warranty for the five years I'm not sure what the warranty on the machinery is It's no there's no extended warranty, so it would be whatever the manufacturer warranty is probably just a year So there's no extra charge for an extended warranty Just wanted to let you know that that opportunity is there. I call them this morning And both both mowers are still available and again There's no rush except unless somebody else besides they want them and they're not there in two weeks or a month or whatever So you can have some discussion about do we still have do we still have the one that we're renting? Yeah, yeah, just just arrived on the third Okay, if you guys want to go take a look at it. It's a nice piece I talked with Dana today who's been mowing with it says it's great You just turn the key and go no problems everything works does a great job We only have one guy swing a hammer at him saying don't mow my grass So And this is the same situation as the last one we talked about where it's a fixed boom So there's got it's a boom. There's not alternate uses of that right. There's no yeah, there's no multi-use mowing The only other thing is to find an outside contractor, but again We're gonna look at so you know an outside contractor to see if they would they would charge to do the whole town There any chance of discussion with I Mean I guess if you need to eight weeks, that's most this summer. I'm just thinking of You know a Relationship with another town or the chance of renting it to another town for a month when we're not using it If I could pause it I guess Renting equipment is always a basic proposition You respect the things that you pay for But Yeah, so I You know, I think the big the big question is how much How much road mowing is there to do what kind of style and like how long does it take and if it's taking eight weeks out of the year to do the road mowing twice and Then I think that that influences the math, you know Yeah It really makes a big difference so as these things grow up on the side of the road Somebody big pullover thinking that it's just grass there and it's a ditch because we have to know that yeah Yeah, there's a lot of safety issues on intersections where you can't see around the tall grass It's really something that has to happen and that's the only tool and guess the question is how do you how do you do it? I mean you can hire a contractor you can rent equipment or you can buy a piece And then you just look at the then it's a cost-to-benefit ratio We haven't done the costing on a Contractor, you know if you could call a contractor and say 69 miles of mowing or 72 miles of roadside mowing Give me a ballpark figure what it's going to cost every year Yeah, and I can say I've made two of those phone calls And you can't even you can't even start the conversation unless you can quantify What kind of road mowing and what kind of equipment they need that you know, otherwise they're just gonna Take conservative guess on what their costs are gonna be and say you know worst-case scenario I'm gonna need all of my equipment for all 90 miles of your roads and and that's not really a fruitful conversation either You know, I think I'd be really interested in seeing kind of what what kind of mileage He's getting out like what kind of productivity is getting out of the machine over October through the rental period and then looking at what what we can do to Maximize our value out of the mower by you know, assigning it certain mowing tasks, but not others, etc Part of the Old tractor that we had was very hard to quantify So there was no consistency about okay, I went out mowing with my job I've got it now really so Right this point we will we'll really get it. You know, we'll get Within the next three weeks we'll get a full idea of how much we got done And again, it's just three weeks. I think we'll need four That's my that's my estimate There's two there's I don't know if it's the same one it's the same model. It's the exact same equipment they have five or six or eight or nine So it's the same model And is the new price you said it was a sale price I guess it's an end of the year $50,000 to $60,000 Yeah, I think that new haul in the middle there was 160 or something like that But it was a year-old tractor and a brand new mower and they're mixing and matching in ways try to get the price down Anyways, it seems like a good price and there's a useful one for 10,000 All right good Come back to it next week. Thanks. And then finally this is the scoping study. Are we signing because it's a grant? Yeah, like the last one. Okay. Oh, it's a contract that is under a grant So we do have a grant and that's the contract with Du Bois and King that's signed between Central Vermont Regional Planning to his mother who's And we're the town's Decided to let them give us the money to do the can't he'll sign it so that the country so that Du Bois and King can start to work Oh, okay. There's no money exchange right now until all the bills gonna do And that's a roughly a $39,000 grant. I think the town's share of that is $10,000 That's right Would you like an explanation of what that is? No, I heard somebody say something Well knowing that we had to get a grant first to get the information so we could do the scoping study Okay Okay, would somebody like to move this and authorize The board That we authorize and Do I have a second second all in favor, okay, thanks Toby, thank you Get better. Oh Okay, then I'd better finish it Okay, next up is the budget so It's the date September October Okay, thanks for coming out twice tonight Toby Okay So as we all know we're working on the budget and we've asked several of you who have pieces of the budget to come in and give us Your wish lists, so we'll start with Teagan Two things one is that everyone's gotta raise this year mine was built in the budget the road crew got there Barbara did not make any additional money. She saw a similar way she did last year And I don't know if you're planning on doing a cost of living this year But if you're not if you're waiting until next July to pay her more money Then I recommend the increase for wages by 10% that should cover two years of cost of living Personally, I think she has held this group of us together with duct tape and glue and cheerfulness for the last six months And I don't know where we'd be with her. So you should recognize her in some really mean boy I know budgeting is tight and I know we can't just like Give her piles of money much as we would love to but I do think we should show her the respect She deserves and give her a decent increase. Did you give us so you wrote that in here? I Included a 10% increase, you know I just realized that Gabrielle was the one who was going to keep these notes so that we could put this into the draft budget Could somebody do that so that it can be sent to Sandra tomorrow because We're going to work on her draft budget and she's going to include these into the budget. Yes The recoil oh you have oh, okay, thank you. Okay, and hers is written Teakins is written down. Let me just make sure that's clear. So you're suggesting cost of increase for the town clerk And they see you've put in a number for the town clerk at the assistant town clerk Increase on her hourly wage, which brings her to 26 79 an hour. Oh, yes. I see 25 hours We've done 52 weeks. I don't know if you all worked out a different number of hours per week for her position I know you were trying to figure that out more specifically that I if I recall correctly, that was the number Yeah We'll we probably will just have a conversation with Barbara about it. It's okay I appreciate it I'm not changing that Digitizing we've been doing it goes back to 1943 I feel like the next couple years is not the time to be digitizing further back We've got a lot of other financial things on our plate And I'm not asking for any money to do big projects. We do digitize everything as it comes in So everything new is being digitized that doesn't require any additional assistance. I just do that And the ball shall be we had a different time to come from I don't know I Didn't wasn't on you'll the last two year So let's make a note to ask A chunk of it from every reporting goes towards the fun that's designed to take care of the vault So that's a question for Sandra. Are you noting that by any chance? Can you make sure that? Why do we do vault shelving every year we buy new shelves every year Different containers or different right of shelving you small failure actually has some really cool systems Because there's a lot of things I keep having to put in that never come out At some point we are going to need to get more creative and I'm gonna need to do some projects so we can fit Well doesn't digitizing enable you to I don't know put them in deep storage somewhere So we're just gonna have to keep building bigger vaults forever Who's next John you've got three things Lister zoning administrator and town hall budget You sent us some stuff Everybody else is looking at theirs on the computer and I have mine right here Yeah, I don't recall seeing a list of one. Well, I can't find mine now, so The town like reassessment coming up and I was around in 2015 when we did a re-appraisal And it did involve lister time beyond our regular, you know, late spring just Following up on building permits and going out and inspecting so the Lister wages are up to reflect that As a mappings about the same as it always was I talked to Chris 37 cover it The thousand dollars for software It's just We've got our portion of what the list was used to remember with that cam and the abac drawing thing and use our subscriptions It's actually less than the last year that you've asked for yeah, but look at the You go to the actual from the year before And and I'm hoping that If I get a better number, I can give it to you before you just put it in that Okay Lister expenses 150 bucks. It's pretty much just for certified mailings. That's all it is at this point Because you won't be driving around the town next year Well, we will be but I mean that's part of the wages as part of the hourly. Oh, we don't give you a road Thank you. Yeah, so that's pretty much it I'm comfortable with 18 850 They want to start thinking about putting an assessor a professional assessor in place and Finding a budget for it now obviously it's only one quarter of the fiscal year And then in your fiscal 26 budget, you're going to have to definitely have somebody there because the way we talk about it in the past the requirements of the list were The computerization that they're doing So you're saying we would not have three listers next year we would have one professional assessor You can negotiate you can do one professional Part time with my list of from the town you can it depends how you want to arrange it You're whatever the contract is but for sure you have a professional Assessor that's I a oh whatever Credential you're going to be paying a little bit for that so John and I have talked about it How much would a professional assessor cost? I would say With their services need to be supplemented with Somebody locally to do the mapping type components or any kind of like incremental Maintaining the parcel map is a list of responsibility Yeah, so would that replace the 188 50 instead is that what you're proposing that instead we put the 25,000 in the budget Okay, Jen had suggested we put it in the 25 budget that's why I'm thinking about it Because March March of 2025 is when you hire or bring in new listers if you're gonna So I'm just sitting thinking again You might all start interviewing and seeing how much and what And then and then in your physical 26 is when you would have a full Assessor In terms of planning the long run It would be good to just consider that and maybe put a little extra in the budget in case and also at that time March of 2025 Three appraisals going on so Maybe Right now Yeah, I see so the assessor would actually be our employee it wouldn't be a contractor Or something that's not really an employee full-blown benefits and all that I was envisioning that there are firms that have people who do this for you as a service That's not how you well there. I mean you go out and get an assessor It doesn't necessarily mean that that they know how to maintain the grand list They might be do a great job in determining the value and they assess value of a piece of property But you've got maintaining the grand list. You got maintaining the parcel maps There's other stuff Unrelated to assessing the value of property We are the state's bookkeepers And that's what the listeners come down in half of what we do is manage data for the state if Hey, the state's not actually happy with the way we're doing it So now they're requiring all listeners to have a certain amount of annual training and certificates Without a certificate even if you're elected you can't function as a listener as a house bill that passed a year ago So we are the state's bookkeepers Just thinking through kind of the workload and the expertise if if a professional assessor even if it were contracted out if they were you know contracted for just the Assessment and appraisal Does that significantly? Shift the workload for the listeners so that there's more cushion to do the the data entry in the map map work Assessor, you know, there's other towns Research to see what all the work is that they do There was one thing that was doing everything So if there is a list out on PBR that has a list of all of the assessors that are professional that are Available to be hired and I would Probably be better as a contractor not as an employee Are you applying for the job Yeah, my observation is that in addition to all of their technical huge amount of very technical work The listeners do they interact with the public a lot they interact with the public a lot I Yes Is there a reason why the listeners have to work in the office couldn't they work remotely I mean and they could take the calls Forwarded to them it used to be we needed access to the ball now many of the deeds are digitized and as far as the Surveys that and There could be a time when the listeners wouldn't have to work in the town Office to work here for example coming during the day and work here When now that we got a piece of internet My very understanding is that there's three displisters because that's largely relative to like the kind of boots on the ground element of going around and assessing the Parcells, right? Okay Well About town hall Part of the DRB budget I Thought DRB was listed under zoning, but it anyway, but there are pieces that are yours like your stipend and expenses stipend expenses Expenses I started by mailing and I think I asked for 600 bucks Is it is getting more and more expensive and there are more and more conditional use applications being sent out Okay, make your case Cuts himself short The way we have a written is that people should go to the zoning administrator before they apply for a permit So people call him and he has to talk to them and he has to say oh So so there's all about which is before the permit comes into place and then the permit comes into the application Not only that he has to look at the match the setbacks Is it a flood zone? Hazard is it in shoreland and now we got people are in both which have a lot of things and now After all of that application he has to help prepare for the DRB or After it's all done, he has to drive and put up the key and get my lose He did those So there's a lot of them. I mean, I'm Anyway, I just think so Tia and I T went out and I asked did the other towns have an assisted zoning administrator like I am supposedly and No other town does No, but they also don't have hourly zoning administrators, right? They have And so And you asked about population as well So But anyway And I think John is there's more any any zoning administrator that's going to be in this position. Sorry, what what's he getting up? 48 48. Thank you. Yeah, I would at least put it up Do you have any estimate of how many hours a week or whatever it is you need to do work? Cations are easy than others All the putting up the peas and things like that Because you have to get it done within a certain period of time Work and so when when it's the last thing in the world you want to do is get a great state Put a piece of plywood on a staple to pee and then drive all the way to Some corner or town Hammer the thing in the ground When I recognize a piece it's past the separation date I take it so I don't rebuild the But seriously when you count all that the stuff that Jan was talking about how many hours a week Are you able to make an estimate? You know, I don't keep track and I'm not even aware of getting paid Not surprised In your email is that we need to be also thinking about how do we train somebody to do what John does or for ourselves the opportunity For somebody to at least be interested in what John does and we're not going to get anybody interested to do what John does You know for for nothing it's that it's really it's a really hard thing to ask We're spoils because John knows all of the codes and the ordinances sits on the planning submission and all of the other things but you know, we need to Mileage is a good example as a town we need to be if it's our policy to pay people for mileage Then we need to pay people for mileage and it's everybody's responsibility to make sure that they're that they're turning in that mileage for At the for the very least we need to be knowing how much that actually costs Because when we go and ask somebody else to do it if they're going to be interested in taking over a position We need to be able to say this is the mileage and these are the hours and this is how much is the personnel policy committee working on that Yeah, okay great mileage is a big thing That's We not put anything in for a stipend for an assistance Five hundred a year for a stipend but that was just me being I think that was in my email I suggested John Barbara you at your hand raised Works Anything else I can record that Ryan requested that we'll leave that amount in but we talked about not earmarking it for secretary I know when I was doing the DRB, I would have liked to have had a legal budget So I didn't have to go to the select board every time I wanted to talk to the lawyer So we talked about putting it in as a general expense for the deep Yeah Okay, can we move on to Town Hall? Yes This is the town this is the proposed. Oh, I found mine. Would you like one? Anybody this was new About this There are some things That should happen sooner rather the generator should be moved for the recommendation of the design advisory board and Design advisory board also asked that the generator and propane tank could be screened That's what they prefer. So I actually have a the budget number here come that came from People work field service for moving the generator and then I threw some money in there for lilacs Then just miscellaneous stuff fixing that door so it doesn't stick try to get it before it breaks all together There's a storm one day that was made but never installed by the the guy that did our storm windows here goes on the gable end should be installed The metal hand rail Scott now we're talking about that Andy and I were talking about that it might be too late in the year to do it but next spring Sand them off and put a couple of coats of rest only along the exterior porch lights It's one of the reasons that these doors get covered with the bugs and spiders. So Take a shot at putting one of those yellow filament bulbs in so it lights up the place But it might keep the moths away Then that speed light that's out there apparently it belongs to Washington Electric It doesn't get power from our meter So I call them once and ask them could we do something to get something they had a Sharper cut off because that's also casping so much light on the building. That's attracting the critters And also you can see it driving down the street It's no reason for it to do anything more than eliminate the parking lot and the path to the doors So that needs more looking at but it may be that If Washington Electric says they can't change it, but they've let us they could take it down and we put our own Lamp on that with a shade or something. It would have to get its power from our meter And I don't know exactly how that's done, but that's one of the options Understanding with that any of those that are before the meter. You're still paying like a monthly Even as before the meter I mean, it's like a flat fee. It's just like we own it, but yeah, I'd like to get a little towel I think he's still working Have him come and look at it Because who I spoke to wasn't really interested In any kind of short cut off fixture but I think it'd be a nice thing to do for the building If in the future we're actually thinking of building office spaces in the town office There probably won't be room for that big chair or table Bring it here would be the Thing to do maybe Commissioning some smaller tables to flank it so it actually turned into sort of a u-shaped or c-shaped kind of flatboard thing I want to consider something like that But then we'd have to have another table for the new Town office the new space in the town And it was a little like three foot by four foot You should see the desk area they gave Barbara Oh And it's not comprehensive It's the best thing to do in 10 minutes Any other thoughts about still improving the acoustics in here The most great furniture made a big difference and I think continuing along that line It's just that we still have one town committee commission that Refuses to meet here because it's too hard to hear and understand and like Friday night It was really hard to understand it was It was really hard to understand we had what maybe 30 people in this room and it was Hard to understand what people were saying. It was so echoey and as a 36 year old So I listened to the work of video from the last meeting since I missed it and there were definitely a few people in here I I don't know what you said Because voices are low or quiet or what have you so there is Yeah, it definitely needs to work to work in here. Yes, so John. What's the first thing you would do if we said Next thing we spoke about this while ago I mentioned that it was going to be an incremental thing and this was like even though it's a big empty room This is like a living room in someone's house. There wouldn't be an acoustic problem because you have sofas and you have things on the wall and and So we still have a lot of hard services that are directly opposite each other and there's a sound just gonna have a glass bouncing back and forth so Continuing to put things on the wall Even if they have a glass that reflects sound it goes tilted just a bit. So it wasn't exactly You know in plain opposite that all mitigates And I think we've done everything the can as far as the reverberation from the floor to the ceiling Between the furniture and the rugs. That's probably pretty good. So right now. It's just a side to side So are you you and daughter continuing to think about that? Yeah I maybe put a line item in the budget for Nothing fancy, but frames. So that's when they're nice photos and just start start mounting photos So, you know people you want to remember buildings you want to remember things Scott just brought in on 1858 beers now That's my opinion one thing after another But you didn't put that in the budget No, I didn't like I said the only thing that crossed my mind before I left was maybe an allowance for picture frames So what a couple hundred dollars Yeah, I would pause it maybe holding off on The charity table until we know what the full scope of our office needs are and think about some acoustic infrastructure when I was very do it when doing a very cursory pass of acoustic stuff there are our acoustic ceiling contraptions that are Aren't just like just carpeting that's hanging from the ceiling, but they're just they're kind of cubicle wood Shape they look like cherry that might actually be cherry and they were not terribly expensive and so You know I we can go round and round on people's aesthetics for certain things, but I think At some point we're probably going to need to address the ceiling ceiling to floor Relationship and and it seems like if we could put some stuff on the ceiling that could be a good option Ten ceilings gun that kind of thing so Aesthetically it would be appropriate for an old building like this and it is designed for acoustics But it's not like the stuff. It's not like a tecton or a war or a track system to panels So something like that will be nice. I could look into that. That's a pretty simple matter besides the labor estimating materials easy Well, maybe you want to continue to work on this a little bit Yeah You know as Jordan said I think it's a kind of priority to get this to where it's a useful space for everyone Yeah Purchase from stall that we consult with friends of the Calis-Town Hall because they are kind of a continuation of The renovation committee that John Scott and David sheets and others sat on for so long for years bringing us to this point and Even David sheets has approved Different kinds of acoustic tiling that would meet his historic preservation standards So we want to be sure remember them before we do anything. I'm sure John would never let us Insulting with David sheets Yeah The internet Oh, you mean their first to do the new rates Year we're still waiting to see what we're gonna build every month for CV binder, but I and that's different from the town Office expenses, this is this would be Okay, so we'll wait to hear from can you give us that one you I think that was for that was for two months So I think the internet is around 180 a month and then I have to double check the phones and that depends if we're keeping with Consolidated for phones or switching to CV fiber for phones. So that's okay. That's the kind of up in here Okay, so those are all be listed already. I don't like this my budgets there But those all be listed. Maybe you could help us update those when we Anything else on this one? Okay, thank you John. I think you go through all yours And as I said Ryan has already requested 400 swim committee Daniel. Yeah So All things made equal Water testing The trash service Basically when we're able to run the swim program Basically fees cover all our personnel costs at this point But I also, you know the On-going bigger change relates to the dogs He and Chris teller put into getting money for the floating dock a draft Secured so that would be a reality I'll leave it to him So We have online recruitment problems 30% So if anyone knows someone who wants to commit now Do two pretty serious trains prior to a $2,000 job next July Touch, but it's a taller We're comfortable with make make us feel much more comfortable about who we're putting No swimmers into the hands of but it makes But in terms of the finances That So So I came on as the maintenance guy probably about 15 years ago You see like both the wrap Um But the young So the raft I last year is started to sink Parts of it hit come off and we're hanging out from underneath with sharp screws sticking out of them It was it's a good thing. We got it out there when we did We managed by taking some of the money out of the budget that Daniel had and And running a go fundy campaign to come up with enough money for a new wrap As soon as Sandra gets us to check for the second half, I can go pick it up So that's going to go on the water next spring. So we're going to have a really nice new 10 by 10 draft out there That's made of steel and composite decking. It'll outlast On efforts for sure The dog is The dog was made of wood as we had a pressure treated and see your decking It's been getting worse over the years. I've replaced deckboards that were rotted I've reinforced the frame where it was rotted but this summer I It was just worse than ever and When correspond flooded The dock actually floated up, you know, it's a good online with the whole thing floated up kind of drifted off ran around and one of the Steel pipe legs broke where the pipe didn't break with the wood where the Brack is attached to broke off because it was so wrong. So we retired that section and put the intersection back Just to get us through the rest of the year But I'm you know since You know, I think I we haven't gotten any new Equipment down there. It's you know that getting the raft this summer was the first like new equipment that I've been a part of The dog is even more expensive than that and I'm very new to it also So I'm feeling my way through this So what I thought about was well, there's different ways we could do it We've built a replacement For the old just look it was made of pressure treated sear decking volunteer labor I Estimated that to be twelve to fifteen hundred dollars for the materials and then The second option is to buy From dog doctors, which seems to be the place where all the I don't know if anyone's familiar with Over at the fishing access the state has this really nice floating dock I was told that that cost twenty five to thirty thousand dollars This is the state purchased that from dog doctors. They buy all their floating docks for all their fishing accesses from doctors This stuff is really long-lasting. It's made in Ferrisburg. It's way too expensive And I'm not going to bore you with it But I wrote here that you know, they offer different grades of dogs for different kinds of water conditions We're not Open Island Lachlan Bay here. We don't need their heaviest duty Yeah, they're ladies to do one maybe a little too late for For our situation. I can attest to the fact that if anything Down there is not super strong the kids will break it They're great at it. They try all day long So I hope And so that's why I gave you guys Numbers for here, and this is just off their website tax included and wrap and wrap it up a little bit for Oh You can take six percent Why is this heavy duty one cheaper it's great to know And that but that and that's a better job because so well, I would say that the steel I Don't know if the steel frame or the aluminum frame The aluminum frame that I looked at is their heaviest duty aluminum frame Oh, I don't know has their hope is their lower grade steel frame I don't know exactly how they how they compare in terms of strength Aluminum is really cool because it never rusts Galvanized you know marine grade galvanized steel probably won't rust for a very long time But aluminum will never rust that might be one reason to consider aluminum or steel plus it's a little bit cheaper Um But you'll notice I've also talked about the width issue our current dog is five feet wide That's what they built that dog offers four and they offer six so we gotta make if we're gonna go with that we got we've gotta make a choice About whether they go a little bigger or a little narrower. How does the dog tend to get used? so The reason I think the reason the town buys and maintains this equipment is for the swim program So looked at looked at from the viewpoint of the swim program The swim instructors use the dock to observe the kids when they're swimming back and forth the kids jump off the dock to When they're learning to dive Um That it may be you have more to say about that Daniel But it's it's like it's kind of like a place to hang out for Instructors when they're observing the kids swimming in the place with kids to hang out when they're getting ready to jump in the water Outside of swim program hours the dock is used by Many people as can fit on and for kids to do cannon balls and flips off the end of I think a six-foot dog would be lovely everyone would love that because The way the trees are there the dock is this place So if you want if it's it's a little chilly if there's a breeze if you want to get if you want to get warm Everybody hangs out on the dog. So the wire dog would not No one would mind that it's just a question of constant I can't believe how expensive the stuff is Mark has a team that I would echo that I think skipping on width would be a mistake Okay, and I think These I mean these costs to me don't seem very high to think about on an annualized basis, but I don't know right the town thinks about Investing all the money in front we have also this We have some dialogue By email this summer about this we have an endowment fund, which I Think is that five thousand five hundred dollars and five hundred dollars of that is all that's available for our discretionary use syndrome a That's my understanding. I think though for such a thing as this Maybe we could ask for a small increase in our appropriations Sort of to annualize the cost and take some from that endowment to review every time But I think that requires a lot more approval Is the 24 foot length is that the current length? So it would go out into the invention here is going to go out as far as the current one does and I fully concur with the width that There's sometimes a lot of people on that dock and Trying to sit in the sun and trying to walk around the people sitting in the sun Four feet would be challenging Proprietary technology, but I just disassemble some family's dock and they devised a pretty ingenious construction of three three aluminum sea channels that are 30 feet long each and they're fairly light and so every season two of us can assemble and disassemble in about two hours If we're not interrupted by toddlers and It's an all-day event for sure But the only wood elements are the pieces of decking Sections, right so it's a I Know that it's been that much The aluminum is it is expensive and I guess if we're interested in Self-building, I think there could be some right side of thing The doctor ones are great, but we might be able to do it for a little bit less But you know getting away from the PT and minimizing the amount of wood replacement and that sort of thing You know and if it's designed simplest Simply enough then like anything that needs work can just be kind of popped out and replaced But we do have to make sure our insurance will cover it as we did with the Right We weren't like in that insurance This new round the summer we made sure that Larry Smith signed off on it And so that's a consideration with the new dock with a new dock as well I'm imagining is this Larry gonna be okay with us building our own sea channels or I think Larry is pretty excited when he when I sent you know the page from the doctor's website They gave the construction details and the lower rating point Z factors If he gets something like that for this new doc, he's probably And is it as it floated there's the doc doctors one's a floating one But the new one would sit on pipes to That's what I mentioned here is that the one thing we can reuse is the pipes Luckily the doc doctors doc sections take inch and a half pipes. That's what our old one took was inch and a half pipes And they will probably last 100 years There's nothing wrong with the galvanized pipes in the castle minimum feet that they fit into so Whatever we choose to do I've intended to I intended to reuse the old pipes and feet Because they're expensive if you buy a from doctors, but we wouldn't need to because we can fit them right into their friends All right, so that's anything else from you guys I think we'll get Santa to put that in and then when we That doesn't mean we're gonna approve it. I mean at some point we're gonna go through the whole thing and Absolutely Okay, and we're pretty confident that if we do the doc doctors doc it'll be passive will approve it I would think I imagine they're gonna ask questions about how it's used We're gonna have to figure that out at some point. Yeah And if we are thinking about Construction at some point when you run into Steve you should talk to him because he just did an enormous amount of research on docs Including looking at doc doctor ones to replace ours He would be a good person the brainstorm Okay All right, thank you Okay, next up one eat a cemetery Commission Well, you're still working on your budget I gather you're not you and in your budget is kind of your own because you have your own pot of money In that we are elected And The budget was part of the the whole town budget But a few years ago, I don't remember exactly when And It was switched over so that it's an article every year town meeting we come up with a budget and it's voted on a town meeting and We try to keep it the past few years at Pretty much the same amount 49,000 500 was what we've done past a couple of years And that includes Sex and contract knowing contract trimming the hedge at Fairview supplies and any special projects that we might Decide to work on right now. We're still working on the the OS church fence Hopefully that will be built before winter and The Robinson Cemetery Fence is Well, it was done a year or so ago and we were going to ask for volunteers to paint but it's been so bad that Joe assessed and maintenance person He thought it was best that we went to spring. So we will set a date sometime in the spring when things seem Dried out they ever do And have a volunteer day So you get income when people buy sites is that right? That money goes into our endowment. So it's not really money we can use although we I'm going to ask Right back to come to our meeting at the end of the month Rod is on the what the board of trustee And Our target was two hundred thousand dollars in the endowment and once again about that Rod Then you can think about taking money out. Well, it's quite a bit about that So we'll talk to him at a meeting about taking a percentage out of it And that will mean our budget that we asked for from the town's people would be lower What's the other? Specific criteria for what the endowment is used for We can just use it as part of our regular budget or we can specify that we want it for a certain thing Is it basically perpetual care? Yes years ago The cemetery commission wasn't budgeting enough for their upkeep and Fensery here in the hedges and all that and they kept drawing down And it really was too low. And so round up With his great advice said No more take anything out. We need to build it up over two hundred thousand and then you can You know take a little bit Because it is for perpetual care people buy those plots Yeah, yeah So the endowment is built up when people buy plots It's invested and the other projects tend to be paid for Whatever the time of the services. No I'm sorry. I Was I was asking The town gives you money not for the endowment but for the services that the upkeep, right, right, okay Yeah The way the endowment grows is when someone dies a plot that money goes into the endowment And it's it's invested and hopefully it'll continue to grow Through the investments as well But the amount that the town gives you doesn't go into the endowment. Yeah, it's a separate That's the money that we spend on the Mowing contract section contract and whatever else might be And do you need us to approve what you asked for or do we just Sounds like we just need to represent it And it gets voted on right at that Yeah, well hey, I've been here for less than a year, so Everyone else is new Yeah, okay, so so which is another reason I want to see front but can come to our meeting to Explaining how the endowment works to all of us Give me a refresher and let everyone all the other the other four people know This is what it's for and this is how it works In the annual town report for this fiscal year that just ended in June The town gave the cemetery Commission 42 5 Because they were able to get some money from their T-Roe price account 9400 so 9400 plus what we gave them Equal, you know what they needed Okay, any questions for Thanks for coming that was good to understand a little better how it works and They think Nick You want some money too? There too, I was one is for my emergency management That's a general best practice recommendation to all the municipalities that they And some of them some of that Set aside in a reserve fund a one-time reserve fund mine they can be used in the midst of an emergency when some of them Getting a service or materials that require Payments in the heat of the moment when the select board may not be able to convene to Officially approve the expenditure so you have some money and they would be there recommending $5,000 in this in the reserve Fund for that purpose So this is not a line and it's just used if it's ever needed which we hope it never is Who would have the authority to spend it on that fund? That's something to to define it Guessing they would be I'm thinking that one select for a person plus Somebody only with the emergency management director or somebody like that and any combination of people Which during the urgency can be very hard to do else about that, how about if we We can't put over $5,000 in this year, but maybe we could put a thousand in and then build it up over a few years Difficult and a lot of hard decisions, so I don't consider this an urgent request But just something that's to be proven to be our time Well, it seems like we could certainly establish the fund Even if we put a dollar in it and just to get it a holding place Yeah and there is that the The California emergency management group at their last meeting said it would be great to have a line item for Purchasing food Stored at a shelter for instance, it's usually camp food Food that can be stored long-term And then eventually gets rotated out so that was a recommendation from that group Which I also consider to be not urgent But it would be a good idea Yeah as a Citizen, I'd like to recommend that the emergency management director get an animal stipend Much like our constable it's a stipend our animal control officer It's a stipend our health officer gets a stipend And I was have talked to Dean about this even before our emergency management director was awarded the statewide Emergency management director of the year. I had told Tegan. I thought that he should get an angle stipend Or more monthly stipend how it works out, but I feel like he should be recognized in that way I might go ahead. I think it's a great idea I would decline it, but I think the next emergency management director maybe So I've got it down We'll talk about it at some point. We'll put it in and see what where it goes Thank you and questions for you keeping track of your powers obviously related to the FEMA response, but Do you keep track of your hours at all relative to stuff outside that you were doing before? Before it started raining in July Yeah Report at town town meeting on like hours hours dedicated and service type thing for for each of these Each of these positions not not as I mean not just for the For the event and just celebrate that but you know, I think it's important Oh, you mean outside of the I just in just in general like how many hours are dedicated? we've had plenty of conversations with with Nick in and At least hours worth of conversations with you before it started raining from the beginning of the year and that's that's real time that people are Committing to developing important policies and procedures and that sort of thing and it would be a good year to recognize that I think Your do you write a route town report for the you do So Well, speaking of that Teagan's some are you gonna have mark? use his journalism students to do the Story of the flood He wouldn't recommend kids who are not top quality, so it's all right with you all Are these callous kids that we're talking about I don't think we need to approve it Teagan I think you're the one who does the town report Yeah, it's terrific, so maybe they can gather some of this information about that Jordan's talking about All right Thank you, Nick I did say we were gonna do more on looking at the budget from last time, but are we fried Pretty much Yeah, I think I don't have any bandwidth left to think about budget right now Let's see if anybody's got any reports. They want to make I didn't put the full list in here Because I knew we were gonna be pretty tired by the time we got here and by the way Barbara and Scott put together some Refreshments for us. Thank you Got us through And there's still cookies and doughnuts like Diet Coke I want to know who thought of the Diet Coke You know I'm an addict So and you have anything else on roads that we haven't already done today I think we've done enough. Okay, Jamie. You probably have some stuff to say. I do I Assume at this point everybody knows about the bids maybe not the Bid opening was what a week or two ago. I lose track of time The bids came in higher than we were hoping fairly substantially. So we got two bids and It creates a funding gap I'm in the process of Scheduling and having a bunch of meetings Between myself Gabrielle will be at some other CPA folks and each of the contractors who bid to discuss Alterations that may Decrease the price tag So we're looking at ways to make it a little bit cheaper and we're also looking at new creative grant opportunities the CPA is in the process of Early discussions with a with a grant writer who we may Hire to help us look into some grant funding opportunities So there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on a lot of work being done No, no major actions needed just so how can you fairly We don't have to reopen the bids, but you can talk to them both separately. Yeah, so One of the One of the bidders Approached us and said I have some ideas. I'd love to talk about it if you're open to it And so we met with Michael and decided they the fair way to do that Would be to say yes, we'd love to hear your ideas and also reach out to the other bidder and say We'd love to hear your ideas too if you have ideas if the ideas lead to a Significant change in the designer scope of work That we thought other contractors might be interested in Bidding because it's changed we would want to put it back out to bid But if they're fairly minor things like use a different type of rock anchor Then Then it wouldn't need to go out to bid and it could we could offer that change to both of the bidders and get them each to The other idea that's been bounced around that will Come back to this board once we know more is There may be pieces of the project that they bid on that We could Have the road crew do To save money on the project right, so Just as an example and these are made-up numbers But if you know there there will be some type of a water control System similar it'll be a pipe a pump or a siphon that's yet to be determined But so there will be a large water pipe similar to what was installed at the flood And it'll need to be put in a culvert and buried under a road to access construction If the firm doing the construction says that's gonna cost $10,000 We could say oh does the road crew have a suitable culvert and a couple loads of gravel Maybe we do that part ourselves And save the money on the other end so there will be once we're in Sort of contract Negotiations once we've once we've picked a firm and we're working on the contract That's when we can have those conversations about can we do pieces of it? Can we save money here or there? Well sounds like you're you're moving ahead when you should have seen the looks on their faces when we open those bids I thought oh, that's it. We're done It was it was startling for sure But but we're forging ahead and we're still optimistic and we're relaunching our fundraising efforts and I Think we're still you know, it's a it's a heavy lift, but we're still on track to do it next year Thank you. That's it and Jordan I left it and because we at the last meeting we talked about a laptop For the new town administrator, whoever she or he may be I'm not terribly concerned about being able to get a machine that's adequate in short order So I think it's as soon as we Have a kind of a timeline on a on a start date We should just go ahead and purchase one and Pick one out or something like that if we need to Yeah, okay. Yeah, and I think they're fairly agnostic about where they come from as long as it looks like it's being purchased responsibly, so I Think that's it anything else Thank you If you haven't had one of the doughnuts you should Yeah, all right, I'll declare this meeting a jerk