 Good evening. I'd like to call the Thursday, January 17th grown select board meeting to order. To my left, far left is Peter Kelly. My left is William Lamberton. To my right is Jeremy Hansen and Angelina Capron. I'm Brad Town also with us is Dana Hadley, our town administrator and Diane Isabelle, our treasurer. Additions or changes to the agenda, Dana? Yes, I'd like to add a discussion on the annual town meeting warning. Okay. Anything else? No. Public comment? Hearing none. Treasurer's report, Diane? Yes. Okay, I've given the select board the December trial balance budget status report and delinquent tax reports. Last time I told you I was gonna be reviewing the budget status report because we were six months into the fiscal year. So all I wanted to do was just go over a few of them that were kind of going over what we had budgeted. It wasn't too too many. It was really good shape, otherwise. On the recreation board, we went over because we bought a snow blower. So that's to be thought, you know. That's coming out of their fund at the end of the year. Also, if you were to look at the budget status report, some of them, like are at 75%, that's because some of them are paying in advance. For instance, the insurances for workers comp, I've already paid three quarters of the installments for the year. Okay, so those are, they are where they're supposed to be. It's just that I've paid them in advance. And some of the insurances I pay two months in advance, like the health insurance. So that is, they're still in line, but for December, they look like we've spent. And many lines are not divided equally for each month. Let's see, on the police part time wages, we budgeted 20,000. Right now they're 22,388. So I do know that's already over budget, but it will be over budget by even more. I'm sure there'll be more. No part time help. Let's see. And then on the equipment maintenance for the police, we budgeted 13,000. They've spent 10,000, almost 11,000 so far. So that probably will go over budget. And the gas, we budgeted 14,000. They're like 11,000 now. So that will probably go over budget as well. I don't think extremely over budget, but it's still going to be over budget. Guard rails, we budgeted 6,000, and the guard rails were 10,000. And that was a bill we got from Lafayette for Crosstown Road. Right. Okay, so they had to do some reports. We had to do that. Yeah, there was some motor vehicle accidents, and so we had to replace those. Going down the hill. And on the erosion control, we budgeted 5,000. We're like at 7,000 now. And that was from pike industries that we got. That's right, rock. Yeah. Rap. And otherwise, in that, that's it. I found that we're going to be over budget. So on the guard rails, were there accidents because the guard rails were faulty or the guard rails damaged because of the accidents? The guard rails were in very poor condition, but I can't say that the guard rails were the cause of the accident. But we're not going to get reimbursed. I'm sure. No. It wasn't an accident that damaged our guard rails. Okay, that's a better way to put it. That's all I've got. Okay. Thank you. And now, you can see a transportation. Right here. All right, thank you. My name's Natalie Boyle. I am the project outreach coordinator. So basically, I'm the PR communications person for this project. This is Bruce Martin. He's the project manager with V-Trans and Matt Gamlin is in design. He's over there. So thank you for letting us come. Thank you for inviting us to kind of raise some information and let the citizens of Berlin kind of know what to expect and what's going to happen. So for my part, I contact stakeholders, area businesses, municipalities, try to get out as much information to as many people as possible in regard to V-Trans projects. So on this one, I've already built quite an extensive stakeholder list of area businesses, particularly those that would involve tractor trailer deliveries or things of that nature, just so they know, because gosh, we started contacting them in October, November. So trying to give everyone a really nice, long lead time on this project so they know what's coming. They'll be able to contact their suppliers and for the six weeks or so when this project does require the exit to be closed, they'll be able to make alternate arrangements. I have, and if you're okay with it, I can leave these here on the table. So I have some project fact sheets with some information. They include the detour route and they include some of the project information, my contact information, as well as Bruce and Pete Hodgson, who is the resident engineer snuck in in the back on me. Sorry, Pete. And also an email signup sheet and if you don't mind Dana, let's get filled out just to get that back to me at some point. Of course. Great. So if you would like to be included on my updates, basically once we get ready for construction, I will start sending out updates on a weekly basis or more often if needed, particularly as we get closer to the closure and while the closure is happening. We saw EMS walked in. We also coordinate with area EMS, state police, local ambulance hospitals, schools. I have a lot of schools on my list as well. So for my part, if there's an issue or a question for the project, it's most expedient, most efficient to go through me and then I can direct concerns through the best channel to get information related as quickly as possible. So that's my part and I'm gonna let Bruce tell you all the technical things and all the fun stuff about the project and how it's gonna work and the reason for why we're doing this and why our closure is required. Sure. Somebody to help hold some of those or? I'm good for that. Okay. Like Natalie said, I'm Bruce Martin, project manager and roadway design for V-Trans. The project was actually programmed because this area has seen numerous rockfalls in the past. This is about 1400 feet in length. 600 feet is within the exit itself and another 900 feet on the main line of the state. And it has a failure plane that if it does fail has a potential to overwhelm the traffic lane. Actually, we had a failure back in July of 2012 at luckily it was a nice bright sunny day. It was 2 p.m. in the afternoon and actually the failure caused the material to actually go across the traveling and some material actually made it to the median. This was on main line but this failure plan exists throughout the entire exit the entire length of the project. So this project was programmed because of that failure and the potential for more failures. And we looked into some alternatives as to exactly what we should do here. We looked into alternatives of stabilizing this. This is like pinning it in place with some rocked owls or putting some shot crease basically just to hold it in place. And the other alternative was to lay the slope back using blasting alternatives. So we looked at the cost of it and basically the life of the treatment that we'd be using and the cost effective way to go about is to be blasting it and laying it back on a one-on-one slope. There is a lot of material here. So to show you the typical that we are working on. So you can see this light dashed line is kind of the existing ledge. And what we're planning on doing is cutting it back on a one-on-one slope. So as you can see 1,400 feet of this is a lot of material. 600 feet of this being in the next itself if there's a potential for failure it would actually consume the entire exit. What led us to the closure is obviously with this amount of material being able to consume the exit is that if we do a blast, the material will be there and we need to truck it out still. We need to muck it out with excavators loaded on many, many trucks that are just gonna be moving back and forth. And it just really wasn't feasible to have traffic and all that machinery there that they equipment there at one time there really isn't enough room because there is a ledge on the outside with a curve there as well. So we thought it would be more prudent to close the exit. We did look into alternatives like putting some fencing along the roadway itself. This could require a slight shift but the fencing itself is very cumbersome. Like the contractor would have to put it in and then do a blast and then move it every single time there's a blast and also with the amount of material that we're looking to move the fence isn't really feasible because it could overwhelm the fence as well and still make it to the roadway itself. So we are looking into what's the best way to get in and get out and that'd be closing the exit. During blasting times, all exits will be closed. I mean, right now we're just planning and closing the northbound off-ramp but during blasting obviously we don't want traffic going through the area. So we have rolling roadblocks on the interstate itself on northbound and southbound and that's when we'll have the Sheriff Department or UTOs will be starting down to like exit five and moving their way slowly as it approaches the project and this will give the contractor enough time to make the blast, check all the roadways, make sure there isn't any fly rock or debris in the roadway and then make sure it's safe and clear for traffic to go and then the UTOs will pull over and allow traffic to continue throughout. So we will have one lane closed during on the interstate throughout the life of the project so we'll be down to one lane just because there'll be a lot of material that is going to be moved as well. So what this means for Berlin obviously is that our detour is going to be sending everybody to exit seven and you know, down 62 to 302 into Berry City and around. I do foresee that a lot of vehicular traffic is going to be getting off exit five. However, exit five is a very steep grade, you know, exit down to Williamstown. Very steep grade, it's not good for trucks and there's actually a sign on the interstates dating this. So I do foresee the trucks will have to make this route out around. The vehicular traffic, I'm assuming that they're going to be using all, you know, other methods they're not going to be going all the way around. I see some of them probably getting off exit five. Some of them could be using the side roads within Berlin itself. But you can't expect to see any increase of traffic going through Berlin during this time frame. We have planned the closure to start around middle of June. We like to just wait until school is out because they're all school activities and we don't like to close roads and schools are in place, but we are planning on it, starting around mid June. Have it for six weeks. We are incentivizing this to really get the contractor in and out. We're allowing them to work seven days, seven days a week. We will not have them working on holiday. So we do have provisions in our contract that says that if a holiday like the 4th of July this year is going to be a Wednesday or in the middle of the week that the exit has to be open the day before, the day of and the day after the holiday just to allow for any increased holiday traffic through this area. So like I said, we did look through many alternatives and this is the one that watched you give us the longest life. Like we can actually lay this slope back and we will never have to come back here again. Whereas if we had to stabilize it there's going to be maintenance throughout and still potential failures that we can't control. So we thought this was our best approach at it and I know when we close down any roads, closing down an exit is definitely an inconvenience for people but this is the safest alternative that we went with and that's why we're moving forward. So any questions for me right now? Not on the board but anybody else have questions? Sure. Yeah, I'm Joe Stoff, town resident in Berlin Fire. So back at exit five you're going to start your rolling road box. Is it fair to say that your signage will start prior to exit five? Yeah. I believe probably a message board before exit five just notifying individuals that exit six will be closed so vehicular traffic can start before then but we do have lengths and guidance. I'm not exactly sure exactly what those lengths is what the signage for rolling road box will be but we do have provisions for that. And as much familiar with the Georgia project that was happened last summer. And you do have kind of a countdown three mile, two mile, one mile. And then I sat there in traffic for 20 minutes and they had a problem that day. But regardless I do know you'll have that type of signage. So when your truck traffic comes down to exit seven to go to the detour which you're proposing. Is there any thought in changing the timing on the light system here to expedite the traffic that we are getting? That is something that we can look into. Unfortunately that's not really something that I can really predict right now. Right. Because I don't know exactly what queue lengths we're going to have or what the volume is going to change. That is something that we can potentially look into during traffic. There are longer queues during construction and we can work with timing on that. I believe these are all state-owned lights so we can work with our artisanal group and work on some adjustments on that to make it a little better. Peter Grusso, F.L. Grusso Stonebrough, that's a joining landowner, Corey. You did say, Natalie, we have talked to the phone, hi. You did say that it is going to be a closure on northbound and then a rolling stop on southbound cutting across onto the same route? Yeah, there'll be rolling roadblocks on north and southbound interstates. So we're not going to let anybody on at that point just because it is close proximity to the exit itself. Like we do have a blast radius that we don't. Yeah, we deal with that a lot when we blast. Yeah, so the northbound will be closed at all times but during when there's non-blasting going on southbound will be open and the on ramps will be open as well. And you figure it will take approximately five to six weeks before we're done. I mean, I'm a little concerned given the fact that we could lose $300,000 in that period of time as a joining landowner right next door. I think and I hope it will take less than six weeks to get in there. That's why we are incentivizing it and hopefully the contractor can move. Do we know where this material is going to be going? That is actually up to 300 feet away. It's actually up to the contractor and I think once, this project hasn't been advertised yet. It's actually advertised next week. So since you are close, it's probably beneficial to reach out to wherever the contractor is. We have it up on our website. Possibly you can make it. There's gonna be a lot of truck traffic, empty and loaded going through the city very a lot. Because you have everybody all the way down through including us, you have jet service, you have pike, you have Booth Brothers, you have Bellavans hauling a lot, okay? There will be empty going through Barry coming back up to the station. Who knows? Depends on if they're coming or going. Bellav trucks coming in all the way through the city Barry loaded all the way through the city Barry back and forth. I couldn't make the Barry one, but you know, everybody from out of Vance to Booth, there'll be a lot of it. Right. And you know, like nine and a half, she has reached out to a lot of those people and I think- We have trucks for both of them. Yeah and I know some of those businesses are probably using town roads anyways and they have to be permitted for that. But that's exactly the truth. Apart from us anyways, there'll be dealing with town on that. Like I said, we did have traffic counts on this location. It didn't show high numbers of truck traffic at this location but that obviously can be a new sling near and all that here from what we have. 20, 30, 40 trucks a day. Yeah, town wheelers. Just for your pet, all right? Could be just for our pet, yeah, I mean, you know, that's not a guarantee but, you know, we're talking 250, 300,000, maybe more in that short period of time that we could lose in the middle of the summer. That could put us, it's a lot in, you know, six weeks. Like I said, maybe that's something that you'd wanna actually talk to the contractor when they're out there. Well, I think we should get that squared away prior to them getting out there. You know, find out who's gonna get it and then approach it from there. Yeah, definitely. Our turn is about 300 feet before you're working and we are adjoining landowners right there. That's just something that the state can't get involved with. Like I said, we are advertising this next week. It's gonna be a four week advertisement period. So I think we're opening bids on the 22nd of February. I believe that date seems out to me. And we'll have the information on our website and all of our products go to the apparent little bidder. And I don't mean to hold anybody up but could you tell me the mitigation situations you've looked at prior to doing this? Yeah, like it's rock dialing and shock-creating. So just try to stabilize in place. They do have some rock dials there but there's still potential that if a failure did happen those rock dials would hold it all in place because there is such a large volume. Like I said, we were looking at the treatment options and the blasting and the amount of rock dials that we needed and the amount of shock-creating that we need, it's basically leveling out. And this is something that we can just do it once and not have to come back with, back out again. And that's gonna be later on, I said on the 22nd? It's going, yeah, it's gonna be open on the 22nd I believe, on the February. I'll be in touch with you. I was gonna say, I can be in touch with you too once we know that there's a contract, a contractor chosen and a contract. I can just fire that information off to you and then if you wanna, that gives you- And I'd rather not do it at all and she is this one. Sure, but then you can at least reach out to the contractor as early as you want to and try to help mitigate some of that for you. But yeah, I can definitely get in touch with you when we find that out. Thank you. And not a question for you, but maybe for the board. I don't know if they would entertain the idea of changing the weight limit while that exit was down to accommodate FL stone products. And I don't know if that would give you- Probably would make a big difference if we could get off the lower one and come back through on the back row right across by jet service. That'd make a big difference. Or airport road, Miller road, we'd have to talk to Berrytown for that, but that to me would be logical. Thank you. You're welcome. So I live on East Road, which is the road you just talked about. And so I was a little concerned about the impact on traffic going over East Road and how that will affect our quality of life. Summertime, dust, you live on a dirt road, you increase the traffic, and I'm not a full fan of dusting. So I'm curious more than anything about how that might evolve. And I didn't know about weight limits, so that's good to hear. I'm glad there are weight limits. I don't want a bunch of tractor trailers figuring out that they can get off the other exit and backtrack and get back down to the hill very easily on East Road. But also just regular traffic, I'm not sure. It's gonna increase a lot. How do I deal with that if it gets to be too much? Anything we can do. So I share that concern. Yes, right. You're only closing the northbound. The northbound operative, correct. So I'm trying to figure out they can't get off there, so they can't get onto East Road, is what I'm thinking through. But they'll go, because I do it all the time, you go down to the next exit, exit seven, and you go past Shaw's and Appleby's, and then you just take the next right, and you're on East Road, and it connects you, it runs parallel to the interstate. Right, but what I'm saying is the exit that you can't get off is coming from Williamstown and getting off in Southbury. Right. So you'd be coming from Williamstown, you'd have to get off the Williamstown exit and take the back road to exit six. Well, my daughter works at Dartmouth every day, so that's what she's gonna do. But I can see it doesn't take much to look at Google and say, well, instead of doing that, I can just go buy it and then come back. And I don't have any steep hills to go down, and I don't have to go through Berry City, and gosh, that would be much more convenient. Right, now I understand what you're saying. I was just thinking that you would have to go buy it five miles and then back five miles to do it that way. If it was me, I would get off at Williamstown and take the back road over to exit six. I was thinking more along the lines of the trucks. I think that we should look at, I personally think we should look at them. Opening up Miller Road and Airport Road for the duration. I think that's a reasonable request. It's paved. I don't know how very town feel about it, but it would be that tax. Something I can look into. A few years back, sorry, a few years back when the airport project was going on, they had a lot of leg removal there, and I believe Pike got the contract for that. But they had proposed something, someone was removing all the material from the airport was to go across the airport road down to the airport. Right, and they did it, and then they paved that road for the town. That's correct. For the right to use it. But that was also to save all that truck traffic from going through the middle of Berry City as well. So there's some give and take there. So I can actually, I wanna look into some opportunities and maybe some opportunities to actually get some grant funding for the town for these issues that you're bringing up. Like what I'm hearing is like increased traffic, maybe you want some increased law enforcement or something like that. And there might be opportunities that could actually get some funding for you. We'd have to kinda like look at a map of the town and see what we think the alternative route's gonna be because it's based on town road miles. But that is something I can look into. And a temporary traffic light at Miller Road and Airport Road might be something we would need to do this. But yeah, I think it's certainly worth looking at because six weeks is a long time. Yeah, I'll take a look at that. That takes into account enforcement, like I said. It would be paving and I don't know if a traffic light would be involved in that but it's funding for you for what you, but I mean, no portable on a trailer. Yeah, traffic light. Definitely, you know. So I think it comes back to East Road about where you guys would be hauling us and whether you, so we were talking about using Miller Road and Airport Road rather than East Road for hauling debris. Because East Road's supposed to. Right. Well, they're making sure that any of the heavier traffic doesn't use East Road also. Well, of course, hauling debris, a lot of it would depend if Mr. Grusso can work out something with the contractor because that's a logical place to haul it to. That's right. 350 feet away. It's right there. They're joining land owner. So that would take the only traffic becoming down or getting off the exit would be mostly cars. So if I wanted to deliver to Mr. Grusso and that exit was closed, I'd come to exit seven and need to go back over there. So what I'm suggesting is that Airport Road and Miller Road to get back there. After I deliver to Mr. Grusso, I could get back on the interstate because that exit stops closed. That's all. It would be a lot to me, a lot smoother than Berry City. And this is something that if there's something the town wants to agree with. I mean, you can definitely tell Natalie because she can be in contact with some of these trucking companies that she's reached out to and notify them as well. Just see if anything's easier. I think the town is probably agreeable to it, but it would be very, very tight. Very tight. They've got a short piece. OK. Dan Currier, Central Regional Planning Commission. And so I just wanted to mention, if you do want to have that as a truck route, that you request that it get signed as a truck route. And so maybe have that be part of the work that VTrans comes up with if there's any funding available. And then two, what were the reactions from Berry Town and Berry City to these meetings? The biggest reaction has been brought up here is, where are the trucks going to go as they take material away? And again, we said that that's something we don't know right now, and we can't find out until there's a contractor on board. Absolutely. I will just say, I do know that because I've been working with Berry Town on the Miller Road section, that is used by heavy trucks already out of Booth Brothers. So it's already basically a truck route in Berry Town's mind, so I don't know how many more trucks they really want on it. But in their eyes, it's a truck route, and it's been functionally classified as that as well. They're doing it by permit now. It's still posted. So that posting would have to be lifted for the duration. Right. But the hurdle may not be as hard as it is. Right. Any other comments? My name is Bill Lyon. And my son, a law hero on behalf of my son, he's got a couple of businesses down on 14 South. And he's concerned, actually, about loss of business during the time it takes effect. And I guess it made me foolish when I'm just asking a couple of questions. If you've looked at moving any legs on the northbound section of Exit 4, you're getting off on one of those. Exit 4? I mean, Exit 6. As you get off, there's some ledge on the left. If you look at moving any of that, so you can set that load over a little bit, and perhaps develop a lane so we can use it. Do a crossover. We didn't talk about that. I mean, we didn't really look into it in full detail because of some of the grade right there and the other way. So we didn't really. So you looked at that, and you don't think it's possible? I don't think it's as effective as what we're proposing right now. It's awesome to work in business for a lot of people, not only on behalf of some. Right. And that's why, I mean, we understand, like I said, this is an inconvenience for a lot of people. And that's why we're trying to, you know, we start talking to people back in October. And we're here now, I'm not, may break the protocol. The other thing I had a concern with, and I've been to several of them, 64, going down to the Williamstone trucks, getting off there, don't know what to do. And what's your plans for additional signs on the interstate as well as on 64, even after they get off to one of the, you know, that's a serious ill? Yeah, it's already signed on the interstate, so I don't know what. I mean, we can't really fix people that are just not paying attention to our signs anyways, besides if there's a local law enforcement that can take a look at that. I mean, it's just early in the battle for them. Yeah. Don't know it. And once they see this is closed, truckers look into some other areas, like the human oaks, they may have a lot of fun out there. They may have a lot of fun out there, yeah. All right, thank you. And if you want to sign up for... If you want to get emails, then definitely get them on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The last thing that I have to say is if this, for some reason, got postponed to this project, you do know that they're closing exit 7 the following year. They're deck projects, bridge deck projects going on, yes. And both exits are going to be closed north and south, I think, sometimes. And north and south together are going to be closed for a period of time. So... Yeah, we're trying. We've actually thought about doing this a year ahead of time. However, there's a bridge closure in East Maltaire that there's traffic kind of in the same location we are. So we're trying to just get rid of it between these projects knowing that they're going on. But at 6 and 7, we're both closed, we'd have a problem. We would definitely have a problem, I agree, whatever you said. So one other thing, we are planning a public meeting one month before the actual closure, two weeks before the actual closure. 21 days, I think it is. So that's something that we can let everybody know that this is coming. This is the date that the contractor will have a schedule then, so this is the date that it's happening. Then once it does get closer, we will have a meeting with the contractor that the contract will set up with the EMS individuals as well, just so everybody's on the same page. And we know that the plan of attack will move forward. And typically at that last public meeting before the closure, the contractor will be there, which is really useful because he'll have his schedule and in mind what they're going to do specifically. So it's a really good time to get a feel for the contractor of exactly what they want to do, how they want to do it, when they want to do it. So that's always nice to have the contractor present and you can really pick their brain if you'd like. Yeah, after a botched town resident as well. With exit 7's closure coming up next year, you might not know the answer to this boost, but has there been any forethought to changing the slip ramps in exit 6 in such a way to accommodate extra traffic in the future? Because right now it was the way the exit 6, that off ramp you're talking about, and you're going to close with this project. It comes down and the two lanes merge in such a way that one side has to yield. Well, if exit 7 is going to be closed next year and during that exit 7 closure, you're going to want to expect a lot more traffic coming off of exit 6 to avoid exit 7. Is there any possible way to get those slip ramps to come together, two lanes, and then merge further down? Has anybody thought of that in prep of the exit 7 closure? You're right, I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know a lot of details on that, but somebody else might have. I have some insight into that during a parking ride analysis that was done for, I think, we was on East Road where they were going to put right by Jet Service. They looked at those options because there was going to be a new turning movement to the left. And so that turning movement was a concern and being able to have the stop distance and so not being able to put both lanes, not being able to run two lanes side by side. I'm not saying you shouldn't be looked at again, but that's what we found during the parking ride where we didn't want to add additional left turning traffic and then have two lanes of traffic running side by side. So created an unsafe situation, the intersection. I did bring up, when we were talking to AOT about the Bridge Deck project next year and the year after, I did bring up the Airport Road detour to them as well because we're going to need the same thing going the opposite direction. I think when we look to Berrytown and talk to them and talk to our road folks here in the town of Berlin, we should look at that. This could be a temporary three-year detour. I can definitely speak with the project manager that I think it's the manager, but I'm not sure. I mean, their closures are short per se, but there's several of them. That's like four or two weeks. Closures. Another question before you post. If dust is an issue on East Road, is there a possibility of adding a dust control item for East Road on the contractor? That would be part of the funding that I'm going to look into, some of the grant money that I can give to the town. Excellent. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you all very much. Thank you. If anybody wants to leave their e-mail address here, please come up. You can always call me to... Thank you, Antonina. As a kid, left. Thank you, everybody. Okay. Yeah, your name on the list is Loyal Bliss. Rare. Yeah. Yeah, probably put it on there. I meant to mention that Jana will not be here this evening. She has rescheduled to February 7th. Approvals of licenses, permits, vouchers, applications. Still working. You okay? Yeah. Thank you. We did put out an RFP for audit services for one year with the possible extension for an additional two years. And we received a proposal from... And this was not a closed bid. We received a proposal from Father Gil Segal in Valley, who are the firm, who is the firm that we've used for the past three years. And I had included that in your packet for 2019, the financial audit of $14,000. If there's a need of a single audit, we expect we will need one because of the sewer project. That's a $3,000 item for a total of $17,000. And for years 20 and 21, the audit, the financial audit increases $500, and the single audit stays the same. We will not need, I don't believe, three years in a row of a single audit. And we may not need one in 19, but we will need one eventually. The other bidder, and there is Sullivan Powers & Company, also a very well-known accounting firm in the area, and they have bid for three years, 19, 21,000, 2020, 216, and 2021, 223. You had asked me to include for the fire department so we could do economies of scale. They did give me those, and I was just going to pass them over to the fire department so they could make a decision on their own for that. Do you know what we paid last year? Or this... We paid, I believe... 13. 13, yeah, 13.5, yeah. I was actually... I was wondering... Oh, I'm sorry. Not us. Do you know what the audit cost was for the fire department? You know, and I should have looked at it before at Cape Town. I'm sorry. That's all right. Who did the audit? This one here? Sure. Yeah, who did the audit show? Excuse me. Who did the audit? The last true audit was done by batch owners, and last year was a review which is also done by batch owners. So we had said that that wasn't allowed anymore? Yeah. Right. So we don't really know. We've never really... I haven't... Before they started doing the books, they did the audit. Right. When all of the bookkeeping was done internally. So they did the audit, and then we said, okay, now that you've done the audit, you've gotten a sense of it, they essentially handed it over to them. So, yeah, I don't... I don't know whether the timing is the next one, or who's... It was roughly $5,200. $5,200, okay. Right. So... It's pretty good. The difference really between the... Yeah. Plus these are familiar with us. Right. I'm familiar with both of them now, and I really love Selvett and Powers, but that's a lot of money to do the same thing. Yeah. And I'm very... I am very pleased with Father Gil and Sagali. One advantage we do have with Father Gil is they are familiar with us. Yes. We've done a lot of the... Community. Yeah. The main number you have on the paper was combined? No. No, that was just for the town. So again, the town, the proposal for the town... It's about $1,800. Yeah. Yeah. With Father Gil, $14,000, which is $500 more than we paid this year, and going up $500 each subsequent year, a single audit would be $3,000. And I think it was $2,500 before, I believe. Yeah. And we paid $2,500. We'll all make a motion to accept the proposal of Father Gil, Sagali, and Valley for an audit for 2,000 fiscal year 2020, is that correct? 2019. It'll be FY19, 20, and 21. 19, 20, and 21. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries. And I'm going to just hand the fire department the proposal for them. They've got hours included in there, so... Sorry about that, but... So if we are going to include... Well, they will contract on their own and pay on their own. It's just sharing the same. So we just hoped that they would get a better price by... Using Father Gil. Using... Being with us. Being together. I don't know if that's so or not, but... Okay. It was worth the shot. We can try. Yeah? Thank you. Also, while we're talking audits, I've given you a copy of the audit ending June 30th, 2018. So you can read it at night when you're bored. When you can't sleep. Yeah. And that will put you to sleep. Okay. Approval of Select Board Report to the town in court? I presented to you the Select Board Report that I put together. I am always open for suggestions if you'd like to include something or if you'd like to delete something. It is much in the same format that the board has used for a number of years. I think this is fine. I think there's a name. Type on Officer Pickle's name, P-I-C-K-E-L. That's how it's called. Thank you. Second page, I think. I didn't pick up on that. So I didn't pick up on that. Diane, you're not going to be my proof for you. I know. I'll fix that. And we wanted to be able to... If you vote to accept it, I can give it to Corinne for the town report. You have to approve the Select Board Report that's presented that previously noted in correction. Sorry. You're set with me, Diane. You're set with me. Yes, thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Motion carries. Okay. Dating you had a thing you wanted to put in. Would you like to... Okay, the town meeting warning. Rosemary gave that to me this afternoon and I did make copies so you could look at it. As soon as I get my hands on it, you can look at it. There is really no changes from year to year. You did vote on the operating budget, which Rosemary has put in. And we'll just pass those along. And the others, the zoning regulations are on there for voting on the zoning. The others are the agencies that have requested funding from the town. And finally on the floor of town meeting is the election of the town moderator, as well as the schedule for real estate taxes and personal property tax due dates. Basically identical last year with a few date changes and number changes. Exactly. It's kind of an exciting thing. We've got a budget over $3,000. Yes. It's up about $70,000. At some point, I want to talk about adding a fire pond on Eastford. Maybe have an agenda item. Sure, I'd be glad to put it on agenda if you want to talk about that. I think we'd need to involve the fire department as well. What's the closest dry hydrant to Eastford? You can talk about the existing stuff. We did. Is there any information that you can give at your home? Would you like to be included in their mailing list? Yes, please. If you want to put your email there, she will email you and there's a little information on it. I think at the bottom it says we won't share your personal information. That's good. I don't want it or so I can't have. I know Wayne. I assumed you did. Sorry, Mark had intended to come and forgot. He had a prior commitment that he got tied up with and then totally forgot and I said a prior commitment. So I apologize for interrupting. Thank you. The closest dry hydrant is actually right out here on Crosstown Road. However, the closest hydrant for East Road is part of the new hydrant system. On the other end of East Road, at the entrance to Brusso's Pet is upon there that if an emergency needed, we will come along. It would be handy to put a dry hydrant into that pond. I've been in contact years ago with Mr. Nippling who's a property owner but he lives out of state and we weren't able to connect to make something work there. What's the closest pond? Well, we could take one of them. It might hurt. I'm not aware of any of the other property owners on East Road have upon there. No, and several years ago now the neighbor up on the hill right on the corner there heard how it spun down and I just remember it was late at night and the trucks were hauling water from that pond over on 63 over there. Over from the entrance to Brusso's. We got water from there when that fire occurred. I'll move that we approve the coming warning as principle. Second. Any other discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. The town administrator's report. Wait a minute. Approval of slug words minutes for 12, 20, 18. Move to approve the minutes for the Thursday December 20, 2018 meeting of the slug words. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion carries. Town administrator's report. We have received the monthly EMS report from Berrytown Ambulance. It also has the year to date report. If you'd like, I can copy it and send it along to you. That has the statistics. They had total calls for service in 2018-3875. Prior year was 3,764. And then he has broken down of what types of calls they were. We also received from the state the 2018 Equalization Study results. The common level of appraisal for the town of Berlin is 102.14. Last year was 102.45. So we really didn't have much of a difference. The coefficient of dispersion has improved from 17.98 to 14.9. And we also, this year, will have the new update on mobile homes, which you contracted to you last year for the April 1 of this year's grand list. Right now, mobile homes alone are at the coefficient's 20%, 20.56. So that really skewing it. And that's why you decided to do that. That project is going fairly well and they believe they're going to be on schedule. I am going to ask the assessors to come in and visit with you as this project gets completed to tell you and also to update you on their preparation for the grand list. And that's all I have to say. Okay. Let's see. Comedienne, what board? Do we have to recess the select board and convene the control board? All of you in favor? Aye. I have, this is the time of year when we have liquor renewal requests. And the first renewal request I have is the China Moon Buffet at 1400 U.S. Route 302. And this is Class II license. And I have no reason to suggest that you don't approve it. Could we maybe get the whole list? Do you want me to tell you all of them? Do them in mass. Okay. We have two on China Moon. Oh, I guess everything has two copies. Sorry. Applebee's 199 Payne Turnpike North. Maplewood 159 Payne Turnpike North. Shaw's Beer & Wine Payne Turnpike Berlin Corners Vermont. And that's it. What would that put to you? That was the China Moon. China Moon, Maplewood and Applebee's. Applebee's and Shaw's. Okay. Move to approve all four of the liquor licenses for those four applicants. Second. Any further discussion? I have a second. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Aye. I need signatures all around. I'll give them copies of each. Yes. Just pick along and just sign all. Okay. Move to adjourn the control board and you may convene second. All those in favor? Aye. Go for carries. Roundtable Pete? I think I'm also. The license is permitted. Approval of license permits, vouchers and applications. Move to approve general fund accounts payable warrant number 19G14 with checks 18793 through 18840 in the amount of $58,840.25. Also general fund accounts payable warrant number CNB02, paid through ACH in the amount of $20,617.73 for the truck loan payment. Also payable warrant number 19-14 for payroll from December 23, 2018 through January 5, 2019 in the amount of $51,639.61. Also December 2018 reconciled bank statements for the general fund sewer commission and water division. Also the general journal and tax admin entries for December 2018. Sorry. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Go for carries. Roundtable Pete? Jeremy? Angelina? Anything with the... I would like an executive session please under personnel. We'll move to under executive session that's provided by BSA Section 1313A3 to consider a candidate to be hired as an officer for the Berlin Police Department. Quick. All those in favor? Aye.