 pre-town meeting required by law in order to have us vote by Australian ballot tomorrow. We're not, we're not amending anything tonight. Don't try to do that. That's all part of the ballot process. The flag is in the back and it's our practice to say the Pledge of Allegiance. If you could turn around. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. There are five articles. I'll read each one and then presumably people will have the opportunity to ask questions and find answers. If any of you are not residents of the town of Berlin, I would ask the assembly if you would have any objection if they spoke at this meeting. Anyone have any objection? I'm not, I'm a non-resident. But you don't object. I do not object. Okay. And so it'd be good if when you do speak, you stand up and you give us your name and if you're not a resident, you don't have to tell us if you are a resident. But if you're not, so we know where that opinion is coming from. So the first article, the Berlin Town Center Gateway Improvements, reads, shall general obligation bonds or notes of the town of Berlin payable from revenues derived from the town's general fund in an amount not to exceed $2,550,000 subject to reduction from the receipt of available state and federal grants and aid. That may, those words don't really belong there, be issued for the purpose of financing the cost of developing water sewer, stormwater treatment roads and sidewalks in Berlin Town Center. The estimated cost of such improvements being $2,550,000. And who is prepared to answer questions here? Tom, the House of the ER Assistant Administrator. Any questions about Article 1? Or what are your questions for Article 1? Questions? Oh, I can add that. Why don't you, yeah, why don't you tell us a little bit about the project? Yeah, I can, I can add that the, as you may know, the town received a new town center designation in June of 2020 last year, and something that the Planning Commission started about 25 years ago, and it's finally come to fruition. This is a program that that allows towns without a traditional downtown like Berlin to access funds, technical assistance to, in effect, create a downtown. This is a 25 year program from the state. Berlin is the third recipient of a new town center. The other two are in Chittenden County. And Berlin has a relatively small population compared to our neighbors in Chittenden County. And we're very proud that we got this. We, at the end of the day, we hope that rural communities can see what we have done as a community and use this as a springboard to bring development into their community. So what this does, the town received, in May of this year, a 3.8 acres in, in, there was the five towns that make up Washington Central Unified Union School District voted to approve to give that 3.8 acres to the town. And now that is the first property coming into the gateway. If you, if you have the handout, there's a map attached. It's the, it's the road. It's coming off Route 62, which is the current Berlin Mall Road. It's envisioned to reconstruct and realign that road, making it significantly more pedestrian friendly. Anybody who's travels that road now knows that it's, it's hardly anything but pedestrian friendly. There'll be sidewalks, streetscapes, street lights. Berlin was, was instrumental in bringing the Chestnut Place, the 98 unit senior housing that you see there now built on your little map that you can see that it's the, the T building at the top of your top of your map there right across the street. Fox Run is 30 units of workforce housing that's in its final stages of permitting from the town of Berlin. They plan on going to bid in the winter, this coming winter and starting construction in 2000 and 24 in the spring of 2000 and 24. So this project has received two grants now, one a $500,000 grant and another $205,000. We are now applying to Vermont Agency of Transportation for an additional grant. We thought it was going to be about 300,000 we're going to request. They are now including stormwater in their applications. So we're going to be asking for $700,000 grant from an agency of transportation. Those of those applications are due to the state early December. We will likely hear in the spring of 2000 and 24 if Berlin gets awarded. So but all those would reduce the bond cost. And I lost my train of thought. Sorry, but I just want to make sure everybody understood that that reduces the amount of and I guess that's it. If anybody has any questions, I'll remember what I was trying to think. Questions over in the back. Yes, sir. I just want to make sure I understand what the numbers mean. It says that each of four parcels is each estimated six million. That would be 24 million. It's the grand list value. What's that's what you think each parcel that will have a grand list value about $6 million. That's correct. And so that's not related to the amount being asked for. No, there's not a subtraction from that to the grad. So there's like three different kind of numbers here. There's grant numbers. There's some kind of value. And then there's the cost that you're asking for. What we're trying to do with that number is to show that the value added that the community is going to receive from from this investment. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Very shully. I'm wondering who would be responsible for the maintenance of this? The roads and sidewalks, the town of Berlin is said that they would take over. Okay, so that would be additional cost. Of course. Yeah. Another thing I was wondering about looking at the geometry of the roadway here was consideration given to the fact that large delivery trucks will be using this road. Yeah, yes. That's not a final design. That's planning purposes. But the folks from I'm gonna forget their names. They're engineering firm out of Burlington designed it. So we believe that it'll allow a proper truck reuse. Anyone else have a question? Paul Martin has the $500,000 grant already been spent. It has not. So the two point is in addition to that amount, or would that be subtracted from the two point five? It would be subtracted as the 205,000 will be subtracted from other questions on article one. Sir. Yes. Is there any timeframe for the building of the road or we're trying to get it as much grant money as we possibly can. And this $700,000 asked that we get trans if it comes to fruition, that will pay for over half of the project with what we have in place. It would be staff staff recommendations to select board that then we would we would go to bid in short order if we get all those grants. My name is Jane Fallon. So we voting on a bond for the $2,500,000. That's okay because it doesn't say we're voting for a bond. It just says Berlin Town Center, gain improvements. The warning is that it says Shell general obligation bonds be issued. So it's asking you that it's not on there. It's that's just them. Oh, you know what? That's a very brief. There's a warning has is the question that's here. And I don't think there's are copies of that. And I also believe that would allow you to borrow against those bonds. Yes, sir. I'm Bob Richard Berlin. I'm just trying to get a concept not on this particular article, but all of them on how much it affects property tax. In other words, let's just let's assume you know, you get some federal funds and you get some matching. But for every million that the town has to pay, roughly how does that affect will say $100,000 appraisal? I could give you rough figure. Yeah. So each the three articles that impact you as a resident, because article two and article three are not paid by the General Fund. That's they're paid by the users of the sewer system and the users of the wastewater system. So to me, that's different than articles one, four and five. Okay. For it's a rough number. You don't have no current interest rates are going to be but we estimate for article one with without receiving the $700,000 grant we're going after be about $400,000 home about $13 a year on your taxes for the article four, which is the multi years. We talked about that later. It's another $13 per $100,000 home. And the last one, the ice rink improvements. It's about $7 and 70 cents per $100,000. Yeah, thank you. Get it in my head, you know, what all this means and dollars and cents. And that doesn't sound unreasonable. Another question. I have a great deal of faith in our select board who probably have had work to explain to them then what we got at the website or off the warnings. I noticed only three of five of you signed the warning on the website. Was that was there a reason for that? That's my question. I believe Dave Sawyer wasn't there and someone else was ill. We just had the three of us. I guess the question is, is there a dissent? Article one, so we go to article two. This one comes with the film, so it's more entertaining. Shall general obligation bonds or notes for the town of Berlin payable from revenues derived from the operation of the town's municipal sewer system in an amount not to exceed $2,200,000 subject to reduction from the receipt of available state and federal grants and aid be issued for the purpose of financing the cost of repairs and replacement of 50 year old sewer line. The estimated cost of such improvements being $2,000, $200,000. And user are the videographer here. Mike Smith is the design engineer on this project and he's helped us develop the budget. Good. No, there's not raise any expectations. This will not be entertaining. I can tell you joke afterwards if you want. But my name is Mike Smith. I work with Weston and Samson. We're we have an office up in Waterbury. Been around since 1899, about 800 people now. And we do civil environmental engineering, water sewer, wastewater plants, industrial wastewater, that kind of thing. So that's the first four slides. I'm going to be respectful of your time and jump into the meat of it here. Again, this is all just about us. Tom can tell you more. So Hospital Hill, where you're headed down the bank to CVS, if you were to go down that way, there is a sewer line that runs from the corner of Fisher Road, that intersection by the hospital down past the hospital parking lot goes down toward a substation down there. And then it cuts goes underneath the highway. And then it goes down through the woods over the bank behind the tire place. And you'll waste water treatment plant, right. They used to be in the 70s. There was a wastewater treatment plant, which has been abandoned, but that sewer line still conveys the sewage from this area town, down to that point to a main pump station, then it kicks it over to Montpelier. Right by the hospital parking lot, section of the sewer broke about a year ago. And it was a minor discharge. And Tom reached out to us because we were currently doing an asset management plan to look at the entire wastewater collection system for the town. So we did a little extra investigative work there and found that the pipe, the sewer line, which is rigid, and it's got bell and spigot joints, so they kind of stick into each other, got pushed by unstable soils, which pushed it away from the hospital parking lot toward the ditch. This is also being exacerbated by continuous erosion of water going down through that ditch line. It's cutting it deeper and deeper and deeper, making the soils even less stable. So the pipe failed. It is back in service and it's in operation right now, but it's not sustainable the way it is. In order to replace that section of pipe, we're going to have to not only replace it but stabilize the soils so that the pipe stops migrating. So it's about 9 almost 1000 feet of pipe from the corner of Fischer Road toward the substation. Some of the impacts of this project not being done. It's a major environmental liability for the town, very costly, very expensive, the state's aware of the failure. And their anticipation is that the town will do something to repair it. This is this area, these four corners up here designated as a large commercial district, which I'm sure you all know, serves the airport, the hospital, the schools and the new town center. All of the wastewater from those entities goes through this pipe, which is the bulk of the sewage generated within the Berlin collection system. So it's a critical piece of your infrastructure. This is just an aerial photo with some of the stuff that we picked up from a quick field survey. This is Route 62 headed down towards CVS, that's the ramp. The substation is down here, it's hard to see. And the sewer line, Fischer Road is up here, but the sewer line comes down through. And the pipe came apart, the existing pipe came apart right about in this area, between two sewer manholes. So it's not a it's not a it's not a matter of just dropping in another manhole, or putting in a repair with 10 feet of pipe. It's going to require stabilizing the soils because the entire line is in danger of failure. The project cost, the construction subtotal, and I'll get into how that broke down and why it seems as large as it is, is 1.3 million. If the project is funded through SRF, engineering fees for preliminary design, final design, and then construction phase engineering services are capped at about $300,000. That's because the state of Vermont uses a fee curve. Contingencies right now because there isn't a final design, we carried it at 30% for budgeting purposes so that you don't get partway through the project and find out you didn't set aside enough money. There's some construction easements that will probably be required temporarily, and that may cost some money, we approximated that at about $25,000. And then typically the town will have some internal administrative costs. So for planning, we carried half a percent of the total construction costs for that. All in is 2.2 million, which is what the moderator just mentioned was on the bond article. So that's a breakdown of the cost. So the project includes, as I mentioned, stabilization of those soils around the sewer line. So you've got this ditch line with the hospital parking lot being up here on top of one of the banks. And sewer line is actually in the bank. So to get down to the soils that are unstable and failing, we've got to do and also to replace the pipe. We have to do more than just excavate down to the pipe, we have to open that area up a little bit and put in some better material and some drainage. So the stabilization is an expensive piece. Complex traffic control because there's a lot going on as you can imagine rated that that intersection and we're going to have construction vehicles coming and going and serving that area. Bypass sewage pumping. That was on the order of $250,000. And what that means is we're going to have to set up temporary sewage pumping, at least at this point, to move the sewage around the construction site so that the sewer line so that sewage can continue to flow. And we don't have backups or other issues or discharges upstream of the construction site. Stormwater drainage. There's a bunch of stormwater structures that crisscross through that area. They're going to have to be addressed. We're going to be working in a wetland, which is up toward the corner or the intersection of Fisher Road. So that's going to require some some special considerations, soil stabilization for the excavation. The existing pipe is asbestos cement. And it was commonly used in the 60s and 70s. It's all over the place. It is now considered a hazardous waste. So a piece of the cost is going to be to remove the pipe and get rid of it. It used to be common practice to crush it and leave it in the bottom of the trench and lay your new pipe on top of it. And the thought was, as long as it's still buried where it was, it's not a danger to anybody, but that the EPA is no longer taking that approach. So while it's not a huge expense to the project, it is an added expense that you wouldn't see otherwise on a sewer project. So then we have the new gravity sewer and manholes. And as I mentioned before, there'll be some fairly complex excavation support, because we're trying to replace a pipe that's parallel to an embankment on the side of the embankment. So we got to go back in a ways. It's going to be a fairly complex project. Financing. So as Tom mentioned earlier, this particular article, or the money voted under this article is going to be paid for by the connected sewer users, not by the taxpayers of the entire town. The town is considering SRF loan funding, which is a state revolving fund. The state loans out money for infrastructure projects like these. And as towns pay that money back, the state rolls it back out into other loans. Because it's got some federal money involved in it, or federal seed money. The state does charge 2% financing fee. It's essentially interest, which is very low. I don't know what the commercial for commercials 5.3 5.3 USDA is for USDA another federal program that does similar infrastructure projects is for you said so that's gone up. So the state still holding it to because it's a sewer line, it's expected the the asset itself once it's built has a design life of anywhere between 50 and 100 years. That outlives the life of the loan which allows the town to spread that out over 30 years instead of the typical 20. If it was a sewage treatment planet would only be a 20 year loan. Payments would begin one year after the project is complete. And something else to consider is when the town applies to get on the state priority list for this type of work. You can also get in line for pollution control grants through the EPA and there still are some ARPA funds left that could be contributed, all of which would pay down the the loan principle. So your worst case is 2% for 30 years on the eligible cost for the project, which would be engineering and construction, but not land acquisition. That would be the worst case, which isn't bad. And it would only be offset or made better by grants that could be applied. But the town won't know if they have those grants until they apply for them and also if they're on the state priority list. And that's it in a nutshell. I wanted to be respectful of your times. I know you have other things to talk about. Anybody have any questions? Who is that connected users are people who are paying a sewer bill? So anyone like who has a home or a business? Yep, homes, business, the hospital. So in a nutshell, the town has a sewer budget to cover all of the costs of owning and operating the sewer system plus treatment at Montpelier. And they divide that up into what's called an equivalent residential unit or ERU, or an equivalent dwelling unit sometimes call it EDU. So typically one home, a two bedroom or three bedroom home would be one EDU. The school would be many EDUs based on their flow. Town offices would probably be like one EDU. The hospital would be huge number of EDUs. They're about 65% of our customer base costs. Yeah, there you go. So in a nutshell, the hospital would pay for 65% of this project conceivably. Did that answer your question? Or dig off the rails? You mentioned land acquisition. This might be a question for Tom, who owns the land where the line will be repaired and the construction. The town has a current right of way there. We're hoping to stay within that right of way. We're not anticipating much land acquisition at all, Carl. Some of that land acquisition cost would be like could include temporary construction easements. If some of the work has to cross outside of the town's sewer line easement, or if access to the site needs to take place from private property like the hospital parking lot, some of those costs would be included in that as well. Yes, sir. Is this the only pipe that channels sewage to mope your sewage treatment plant? There's it's it's kind of like a tree. Yeah. This is the main branch that comes up the hill. But there's also another sewer line that comes from Duncan Donuts down on 302. The very town line. Very city line towards more failure. But this, the by and large, I'd say better than 90% of the town sewage flows through this, wouldn't it? I wouldn't say that much. I'd say 6040. 6040. Any idea what this will cost the residential homeowner that is on the system? I know a lot of the town is not. I broke it down. Yeah, I didn't I don't have it with me right now. You want me to a rough number? Yeah. So Tom asked me if I could take a quick look at this right now. Right now. The town has 547 equivalent residential units. So again, 65% of those are with the hospital. But per per ERU would be an increase of about $180 per year. per ERU. Like the ERUs that I gave you were our water customers. We have twice as many sewer customers as we have water. So that would be by half. Yeah, so $90 a year per ERU for the sewer customers. Thank you. And that's that's based on that $2.2 million. I want to say to that worst case scenario. Yeah, and these are planning costs. So the 30% contingency is going to drop when we get a final design. And hopefully the numbers, you know, right now with with COVID construction prices are all over the place. It does seem to be stabilizing a little bit. So that gives us more confidence in the numbers being good for another year. But there'll be another opportunity to do revised opinion of cost after the final design is done. And maybe we can find some efficiencies with the design to help keep the cost lower. And and also as you just pointed out, so it's $90 per ERU per year increase. But if the town gets a PC grant or some ARPA money that they can buy that principle down with that $90 is going to go down to. And that's just for 30 years, right? Correct. Correct. Any other questions? So the pipe currently is working. I'm presuming and I mean, is this an emergency or do we wait a year or two? So technically, the town could apply for the funding, calling this an emergency. Right now it's functioning. But if there was a backup in the sewer line, which is how it was discovered in the first place. It's a gravity sewer pipe, and it's very steep. So the water is coursing down pretty quickly and it's shallow in the sewer. But if there's a backup, it backs up and it spills out through that broken joint where the pipe was deflected. So if the town, so there's two answers to your question. Realistically, it is not on fire. But it's not sustainable and something should be done as soon as possible. But secondly, if the town does apply for emergency status, it'll give you more points on the priority list, which will make it more likely that the funding will come through quicker. Mike, I just want to say something to I'm Rob Allen. I'm the chairman of the Public Works Board here in Berlin. And this hospital hill line is very concerning for us as the board members. It would be disastrous if this line failed on us. We'd have to, Mike pointed out there'd have to be during construction, there'd have to be some bypass pumping. If this failed on us, we would have to do actually bring in vector trucks and pump from an upstream manhole for a time until sewer water doesn't stop flowing. You can't shut it off like water, like a water line. So we'd have to do some emergency controls for this for the for the sewer, which would mean getting in vector trucks to pump it and take it down to the Montpelier plant until we could arrange some kind of a bypass system. And in the winter time, I'm not sure how we would even do that. So for us on the board, this is this is an urgent matter for us to get done. I, you know, I, I would like to see this done next year for sure. Every meeting we we check in to see what the status is. And I'm surprised it didn't move to too much. None that we know of during the July flood when when everything was so wet and landslides are happening everywhere, it seemed like. Thank goodness, this didn't seem to slide any. I called Tom the day after that happened. I was thinking the same thing. It scares us that that we could have a disaster. It's just hanging like a like a rock ready to roll over or something, you know. So we really need to, you know, if we need to fix it, there's no there's no option not to do something here. So we need to hopefully this bond passes. Otherwise, we're going to have to we'll have to borrow money from a bank or something to get this done. So follow up on that. The state is opening the priority list for applications. They're going to have documents ready for the municipalities on November 15. So if the town votes to move forward with this project, then you could be getting in line for money as early as the spring. The big thing on the SRF program that you're trying to get is the construction money, which is the big that's the big nut. And that's what all the competitions for between all the other communities right now. It's a perfect time to get involved in a project like this because a ton of money has been dumped on the state by the feds because of the COVID situation, stimulus money that we've been hearing about. Secondly, the state has through the SRF program what they call a planning advance, which means that there is money right now tonight, available to start to design for this project, even if you don't qualify for construction funding next year. I think you will though. But the point is, is the design can start as soon as the town is ready to get you in line for construction and the P list application. The town votes to move forward with the project that should go in as soon as possible. You could even potentially have money available the first of July. Any other questions on article two? Thanks for your time. Thanks a lot. Article three, completing waterline loop. Shall general obligation bonds or notes of the town of Berlin, payable from revenues derived from the operation of the town's municipal water system in an amount not to exceed $3,702,000 subject to reduction on the receipt of available state and federal grants and aid be issued for the purpose of financing the cost of completing 1.8 miles of water main, creating the closed water system, the estimated cost of such improvements being $3,702,000. Who will speak for this? I have a map back here I could show a little handout really says at all. Town built its first water system in 2015. We've operated it since then. We're very proud of that water system. It's relatively young and it operates in the black. Not many water systems as shown operate in the black. The problem we have is our wells are up past the airport of the dodge dodge farm road. And so there's a 12 inch line that comes from their down airport road that all of the water passes through. If there's a break on that 1.6 mile loop, all the water customers are without water. And a 12 inch line is a large line, a lot of water, we have a 420,000 gallon tank, two hours probably to that that tank would be loaded. So what the problem probably talked a little about this, but the idea here is to put a redundant line in from the wells coming down Scott Hill Road and connecting to our line on Comstock Road. And that's the 3.3 point $7 million project in a nutshell. Questions on this. Waterline loop. Margaret Shelley, by the way, which is the on the colored map, which is the new red? Okay, I thought so, but I just wanted to make sure. Sir. Oh, all right. Questions on article three. I'm going to make you laugh. So this is going to be paid for by the people who are on the sewer on the waterline. Correct. Not by everybody. Correct. Slep or agree with that? Yes. On the town's water on the town of Berlin's water. Yes, not the city of mob failures, water, nor hedges water system. Both of those operate in this town as well. Tom, as we add sort of the project to the new town center, as we're adding more dwellings, are they going to be lowering the amount shared across all users of the water system? The more customer base you have, the lower the cost for everybody is I think. So the answer is yes. It it's that building apartments does not occur overnight. We have a 10 year plan to add housing over there to new town center. We've got the the one project built the senior housing we're doing this 30 units. The thought is 350 to 500 units of housing there in the new town center in the next 10 years, they will be consumers and customers of those waters. If there was any expansions, I'm assuming it's the same like units, similar to the sewage, because any expansion to the hospital or anything else like that, they would incur a greater portion of retain. Correct. Other questions about the waterline loop? Yes. So currently, I think just brass tacks, I think I'm paying about $440 a year towards the bond. Correct. Because four times a year I get a bill and I pay. And so this seems like a large chunk of money. And we're when we put the new pipe in. Are we instantaneously adding any customers to help pay this down? Or is it all of us that currently are on the system? Everybody was currently on it. All right. So what's that going to do with bond payments? It's going to go up. The development in a new town center is what we hope is that customer base is going to be added as well. So is there any way of knowing like the the original system that was put in in 15, part of the reason I bought my house because I knew there was going to be water. The house didn't have its own source of water. Do you know what that cost? Remember? Somewhere between six and a half and $8 million. Oh, it was that much. We got half of that in a grant. So our bond payments right now are for about $3 million. Yes. Just trying to get that was a 40 year note. So do you think like my bond payments are going to double? I'd have to go back. I don't have that number. We will seek grants here. We haven't found any on on this project. We don't know what per ERU this is going to jump. No, it's all going to depend on the amount of grants we we have to take Mike's point here when he said this house isn't on fire. But it's it's it's a pending issue that can seriously impact the school. All there are a lot of customer base here. We need we need to be able to provide this town wants to grow economically. We need to provide good quality water on a reliable basis. We can't have water outages. You've seen communities around us have water outages outages for weeks on end. We cannot do that, right? We cannot do that. Berlin is on it on the cusp of some, some growth here. And we need to fulfill our obligations as a community to serve our our customers. Anything more on the waterline loop? Let's go to four. The recreational multi use path sell general obligations, no bonds or notes of the town of Berlin, payable from revenues derived from the town's general fund and an amount not to exceed $1,610,000 subject to reduction from the receipt of available state and federal grants and aid be issued for the purpose of financing the cost of constructing approximately two miles of recreational multi use path, the estimated cost of such improvements being $1,610,000. Who is familiar enough with this? So this article goes hand in glove with number, number three. So if if we are putting a waterline on and we're tearing up Scott Hill Road, as it's torn up, we want to be able to add bike lanes to that road when we replace it. And and so that's what the $1.6 million is for is to add those bike lanes. If number three never comes in fruition. I doubt number four will ever come in fruition. It just makes no sense that the cost would be I'm probably prohibitive if you try to do it on your own outside of the reconstruction for for the Scott Hill Loop. So it's a hand in glove. The the some members of the Recreation Commission here, the they have they have a very aggressive schedule to to put in bike trails throughout Berlin. You see communities that have put bike trails in mountain bikes. It's an economic engine. People are coming from miles around states around to come visit community spend their dollars in recreation. People want to live in a community where they can recreate. They want good schools, they want clean water, they want access to adequate wastewater, and they want recreation. And so it's one of the cornerstones of the whole economic development plan that the town of Berlin has for the next 10 years. Question. Yes. The yellow are proposed trails. Yeah, that was that was that was a planning document we put in for a grant. We didn't get a grant. So it, yeah, that's it's, it's, it's the commission sat down and he said, well, yeah, this makes sense. Sort of important to note that currently there is not a bike trail along the airport road. There is no. No. They're on to very town. No, we want to be there. Yeah. Gary Shelley, uh, so despite what it says here, multi multi use pass, this is basically just wide shoulder on the road, right? It's eight feet. You know, it's, it's, it's, you get, you know, two ways. And if you've been on the Burlington bike path, it'd be very similar to that paved two way traffic. And what you see is cottage industries spring up around these facilities. It may be two miles today, but we want it to be 20 miles in 10 years. So would this be able to be built within the existing right of way? That's the anticipation. Correct. Yeah. In the back. I, um, this isn't really to do with recreation, but I'm just wondering, looking at this, I think this is what tags on with it. Is, is there anything in the plan about addressing people being able to cross the intersection of 62 and Fisher Road? That's always in up for discussion. The, the in our town center now, and which encompasses that area when a, when a property owner wants to redevelop their property, they're required by our zoning regulations to put sidewalks in. And there are several properties being, being discussed through redevelop. We're hoping that that intersection can be addressed in, in, in this time. So people put in crosswalks would then they put in like a crossing? Yes. Thomas, is this part of cheaper because we're, is it with this product be cheaper because of the work done with the water line? But if this was done without doing the water line would it just be more expensive? Much more expensive. So this this just happens to be like an opportunity to do this. And then does this do you feel like for the grants that you've been applying for or something like applying for a ton? The starting some of these projects that we're looking at starting, send any messages or help us at all with future grants? I think what, what ends up happening, if you have a bond vote in the community supports that the project like this, this says a lot to the folks who give grant money, right? They say, this community is really has, has an interest. They have their heart and soul in it. And they're willing to put some skin in the game. So I found that. And that's what's called shovel ready. If you're ready to go, you have a greater chance of getting funding. So it's one, one more step to get you down the road. Well, the multi use path be simply a wider road, or is it going to be separated from the road to keep bicyclists and walkers safe? We haven't got the final design yet. Ideally, it would be the latter. Yeah, ideally, but we haven't got I'll never ride a bike on a road that has cars on it. Too many family injured and dead. Further questions about the recreational path? Is there a way? Absolutely. I mean, there's the town has parking at its campus. There's parking at Berlin pond. The school has parking. The parking ride that just opened a year and a half ago doubles its capacity. There's a lot of parking around. Okay, yes. This is a question or more of a comment. But we're talking about two miles of road. And Mike Poginski, I've lived in this community for 22 years. Whenever I ride my bike, that is the last place that I think about riding. There are so many other places to ride around our town. I'm just wondering the efficacy of putting all that money into it. I understand what Tom is saying about future development. But that seems like a lot of money for two miles of biking in a spot that's really not the primary at the bike anyway. We all all of us that bike bike around that lovely Berlin pond. So I guess that's my two cents. Thank you. Anyone else? Article five recreational improvements to ice rink. Shell General Obligation Bonds are notes of the town of Berlin Parat table from revenues derived from the town's general fund in an amount not to exceed $775,000 subject to reduction from the receipt of available state and federal grants and aid be issued for the purpose of financing the cost of installing a solar power generating canopy while creating a four season recreation facility. The estimated cost of such improvements being $775,000. Who speaks for this time? Or is there somebody from the recreation? I can or the right commission could jump in as well. Everybody knows that there's an ice rink. And hopefully everybody knows there's an ice rink at the at the town office campus. It's really used. It's it's nature makes the ice. We don't make ice. We don't have a Zamboni's all volunteers do the work. We the Recreation Commission is really believes and I've got to say I drink that Kool-Aid as well as that there are limited recreation opportunities for young adults and and older adults in our community. So thought process is put a canopy over over over that, make it a four season, and underneath that canopy during spring, summer and fall, you could do basketball, pickle ball, pickle ball, volleyball, various different recreational activities that many communities have, which we don't have in our community. So again, if Jeff or Tom, if you have anything to add, you're more than welcome. I'm Tom Willard. I look this old because I've been maintaining that. It was it was built in 1990. I think of 1995. It was built with all money that we raised town businesses with no town general fund money. It's been very popular. It's that location where we have security, the police departments there, the town officers are there. There's plenty of parking. And it there was a lot of talk about some grants and putting in a canopy for solar 760kw solar project. And he said, it doesn't make me sense to put it over a parking lot. Let's put it over the rink. It would increase the use. You know, you'd be able to play hockey in the wintertime when it's snowing. And you could turn the lights are there, the electrical is all underground systems. It's going to need a lot of work in terms of the subsurface construction and drainage in order to support tennis or pickleball or stuff like that. But gee, with the lights there and the canopy, it could be a year round facility. It could be I think a community builder as well. Now in the winter, the community is all winter ice hockey skating type people, but it could be a bigger community, I think amenity for the town. So I think it makes a lot of sense. And I think it would would really, really be a real benefit to the town. I'm Jeff Ferrell, Rick, another recreation commission. I also live right next door to the skating rink. Like I get to hear all the hockey parks hitting the boards at two o'clock in the morning. It's great. Because people are out using that facility and having fun on it. And one of the things that we don't think about and Tom just kind of glossed over is the maintenance of that of that thing that is there for everybody in the town and people from all around the area to come and use. And one of the other views that I get to have is three o'clock in the morning when the lights are on and Tom is out in a raincoat and a snowmobile pants, spraying water onto the rink. And and and then later in the day when it snows, when it snows two feet, and either I go out with the snowblower or Tom is out with the snowblower. One of our other rare volunteers is out with the snowblower blowing the snow off off of the rink and making it useful for everybody who wants to be able to use it. When we like Tom said when we came up with the idea of the canopy, we thought, you know, oh my gosh, something over this thing would just make everybody's lives so much better. We could put the disco ball in there and everything would be great. Yeah, a couple of skate and all that kind of stuff. But but the but we looked at it and it was extremely expensive to put a roof over the thing. So Tom mentioned, hey, there's money for a solar thing. And that was what we looked at. We said, hey, if we can get some money for a solar thing, let's generate some power, put it over the skating rink, make it so maybe so we can use it. So when we go out, we don't necessarily have to snow blow it every time it snows. We don't have to repack it and then re and then re ice it if we if we go too long without snow blowing it after it snows. It's there all the time so that it's available with if we can put a substrate down underneath it and have smooth ice. Has anybody skated on the rink recently? Has anybody been afraid that they were going to lose a body part because they're going to fall into a hole on the ice? We've all been concerned about that. It's a great natural feature, but it's a natural feature that it makes it a concern for us to have have little kids, people with less stability, people learning how to skate, people who are really good skaters and used to skating indoors, coming out and finding out that this is what it's like to skate outdoors and there's a hole somewhere. So those are the kind of things that we've been concerned about and we really want to have a good facility. Like Tom said, it's right next to the police department. You drop your kids off. They can be there in a relatively safe somewhat controlled environment where kids can go and make good decisions for themselves without necessarily a whole lot of adult supervision. But they have the but they have access to emergency services right there, feet away from the skating rink. And how many other facilities do we have in town for the public? Places to get together, places to congregate, meet, play sports, do whatever. There's a little park over on Muzzy Road. There's a, well right now the road going down past, what's that, Painter Plank north is Community Park, but only because there's a hole in it and it's blocked off. That'll probably not be a park for long. Then that's about it. So we've got the mountain. We can go up and ride bikes and cross country ski and do things like that. But how many places do we have where a kid can go and play kind of on their own? And we don't really, we don't really have a whole lot of that. So me the neighbor who's going to listen to the basketball's bounce at two o'clock in the morning, me the neighbor who listens to the hockey pucks, hit the boards at two o'clock in the morning, send it. Let's have it there so we can have people who can come out and enjoy our community here for a lifetime. Thank you. Thank you. Brett Murphy, West Berlin. I understand the benefit of having a canopy over the over the play surface, but what is the thought behind the usage of the electricity generated from the solar array? Is it going to be net metered sold and or is it going to be used by the town buildings or how how is that going to benefit the town to have a solar array above it? I'll swing it this way. So Jeff mentioned that, you know, an idea of some grant funding. It really wasn't grant funding. There are developers out there that that I've spoken to and the cost, the cost of the solar is about $300,000 that we would sell the rights to the electricity to that developer and they would build it the canopy for $300,000. So the town of Berlin has no skin in the game on the electric. It's it's up to those developers who have paid for it to pay for it. Okay, yes sir. Adam French in Berlin here. The question that I have, I'm just wondering what people think about is around, well, you mentioned a good facility, creating a good facility over here. It sounds like it's going to be something fantastic, a great facility and it's like a it would be like a no-brainer for our community to do this for the for our for our children and young people. I'm wondering about the the the the more traffic we would get there from other towns and I'm wondering how people feel about that people coming in from, you know, from Northfield and Montpelier and any other towns and the the traffic increase for that. I'm wondering if anybody having any thoughts about that? Tim, you got any thoughts? Tim, right on the corner. We're the we're the prime candidate for the people who get the traffic from other towns. My thought was Jeff kept and he's right, I do hear the pox, I hear the noise. We could probably shut the power off at 11 or we'd come up with something I would imagine. Sorry, the question, oh about the traffic, well Shed Road already has, we have tens of thousands of trucks that go up and down Shed Road every year. I guess I'm not talking about this car traffic, I'm talking about people, more people coming in from other communities to to use those facilities, you know what I mean? Well and not necessarily our own from our own community. Right, I don't know if you can have somebody standing there checking your residents I'm just wondering what do you think there were thoughts on that? No, I don't have any thoughts on that. I think it's great to have the kids playing and people playing is great. If you got a kid here in town, where do you go now? You go to Montpelier, you go to the rec fields in Montpelier, you go to the nice facility that Barrie Town has that for some people in Berlin is probably a 40-minute drive from their house to go to the the Barrie Town, Skate Park, Dog Park, Baseball Field thing next to the elementary school middle school elementary school in Barrie Town. Maybe you go down to Northfield to use the pool. Maybe you go maybe you just don't go anywhere because there's there's you don't think there's anything to do. So people coming from other communities, East Montpelier has its own little skating rink that they put together. There's a capital skating rink down down at the at the Capitol building in Montpelier. Barrie rink with the cover over it. Yeah and so there are other places that other people do go. The one thing that I would say about our facility is that if the nice thing about our facility is we probably would not encounter some of the problems that they have at those other places because we have the police department sitting right next to the skating rink and it's kind of obvious when there's five police cars parked there. So I'm selfish. I want this community to grow. We have a nighttime population of 3,000 and a daytime population of 12,000. We need to get some of those people to move to Berlin. Help with our taxes. So buy our water. Use our sewer system. Shop at the grocery stores. And what if they're going to if they're coming here to play hockey or basketball and they're living in Northold and say oh my goodness I'm I'm this close to the interstate. Honey let's move to Berlin, right? And and that's why people move. That's why they have amenities that people don't want. You know they're they'll buy gas at our grocery stores and and all that. Sir. My name is George. Now a reality check. I need my wife to review because I need glasses. Okay well we're both fiscal conservatives and I know that everybody's talking very hopefully and cheerfully about all these plans. My concern is the condition of the of the country and the condition of every time I get my statement from my retirement it goes down every month. Down and down and down. The prices go up and up and up. We're over 33 trillion in debt as a country. We have one trillion in debt in credit card debt. Citizen bank failed just two days ago. I don't know if people are aware of that. Major bank failure and that's poor bond market performance that cuts into that. And mortgage-backed securities. The largest mortgage-backed security bond fund ETF traded MBV. It's rated AAA. If you go down into the details you go on to iShares on and look into the details on it. The underlying things are not AAA. You can get down to FICA scores on everything that's underlying everything that's in there. I think that we're headed for a big crash and I don't think that it's going to be a crash like 2008. They've kicked the can down the road time and time and time again and what they're doing with the with the mortgage-backed securities now. This is residential. This is not even commercial. Usually commercial is considered to be much more risky. And these mortgage-backed securities that's residential it's actually performing worse than the commercial. So I think that we're headed towards a crash. 1927 crash. 1929. Yeah I don't think that it's going to be because it's not going to be 2008 again. It's going to be worse. And I think that we're headed there. Fitch downgraded the U.S. long-term foreign currency issuer default rating from AAA to AA three months ago. A day after they they did that Fitch downgraded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to AA the very next day. So my concern is that we're spending I've never I don't remember ever seeing this this many things of such large amounts to vote for on a single vote in terms of money and my concern is that we'll be spending a lot of money now maybe some of it's necessary the sewer line and the water line but in terms of having a center now I don't know if we don't vote on the center what happens what happens then if we don't if we vote down a bond. Ask the select one. What happens if it gets voted down? Well we don't get the money to take and improve the the town center we will probably have to drop it. The thing to remember though is that if you're going to take and look at financials our taxes are affordable enough because of that shopping because of that mall if we do not take care of the mall help them become stay solvent and what you're saying will happen in just Berlin not with nation because they supply a lot of tax revenue for the town. Okay well so what does a Berlin town center have to do with the with that? They own the land. They own the land for the for the town center the mall owns the land. The mall owns the land. Well that's my major concern I just think that there's a lot of spending here and just with the circumstances financially you know I'm concerned about the future. We've been up here over 30 years and always seems to be a spend expense and for all these like fluff projects look I don't care I'm 77 you know how many years I got left you know but I mean if you guys got kids or whatever they're going to inherit your debt and their kids are going to probably inherit your debt but you can't think of the president I don't even think anybody here really even thinks about the future you know maybe a month two months a year next bill it's his life we're into a big bang big big bang look at Ukraine look at Israel and this bum we got as a president just spending money hand over fist it's going to come down it's going to have to come down you know if you say and you ain't got adult people in the bay and you're out like you did in 1939 I mean we're going down the shitter anyway that's my okay yeah that's all we wanted to say thank you thank you um something else on article five that's the one I would like to speak about getting back to that one uh the two gentlemen that are on a rec committee I'm wondering do we have any data of how many kids use that facility only anecdotally do we have have you ever seen anything with anecdotally we have there's probably 20 to 30 kids like on a weekend night um out there using that using that facility at night uh I say anecdotally I mean looking out my window or when I'm over there um so 20 30 kids and they're and that's people coming and going throughout the throughout the day um week nights um a little bit less but you look at it four or five kids um coming and going families showing up um pretty regularly throughout the day been out with homeschool groups that come and use it um during the day uh it's like they're fuzed for homeschooling to get together and um and use it um so yeah throughout the week or throughout the winter several hundred heads show up and and use it that's good information you know and we can all I guess compare that in terms of our use and the person use um second question was in order for the pickleball courts and all the other envisioned improvements you got to do something you've got to spend more money to resurface that uh the ground is that part of the that's part of it yeah was that part of that's that's part of this yes okay okay so we're going to get and just get the part I was flat ground underneath and a roof overhead okay and a roof that not just a place you can connect the lights but a roof that's because I was a little unclear when people were okay it's not going to be a a civic center by any means but if you can imagine a pavilion type thing with a uh with a with a hard surface underneath like a shed roof shed roof yeah okay yep okay very good and thoughts about monitoring that because one of the things I taught school in my pillow for 30 years I now monitor their rec department in evenings and sometimes no kids show up sometimes the whole basketball team shows up right sometimes I understand whatever yeah but you know in terms of if this really does take off I mean do we have do are the police expected to monitor this situation no but I I mean kids need free play time and free play space where they can where they can be without necessarily be without um somebody standing on their throat telling them what to do all the time I bet those two would have supported me but but the uh so um yeah so we're not necessarily going to have a home monitor out there okay yeah thanks thank you good yes sir nobody's mentioned it but I think it would be an excellent arena for like a cornhole league most of the undercover I mean not just kids I mean a lot of stuff yeah it would be a good center you know rain or shine what's good about this recreation commission they got a lot of young folks on it you know my hair color your area and and uh they've got a lot of juice right now and they they have kids and it's just wonderful the energy that they're bringing to this community and we as community need to ride their coattails because they are they are the future and it's a bright future for the town of Berlin yes I just like to express my appreciation Tom and the others that have maintained that ring mainly Tom that one of its distinct advantages is that there are not league players and games and they're constantly being scheduled I wouldn't be skating it's so little free skating time they didn't get the surrounding links I'm not sure that that's speaking in favor of probably thousands of dollars but to this point I appreciate it so I'm Doreen Lane from East Road and I too am concerned about the future so every year I've been here I think 12 years now and every year I get my tax bill and I go oh my god it's going up again and I want to know I want you to know that I'm I'm actually losing capacity here prices of everything's going up and when you're my primary income I'm you know no secret I'm retired that's not going up that fast so my question for you is what's next what will you is there something that you know about that's going to be another big bill that you're going to be coming back to us before the town now owns 3.8 acres in in the in the town center they have designs to to develop it they they depending on how they do it they could enter into an agreement with a developer and lease the ground that's I think something in the if that's what happened that could could be something that the select board would come back to the constituency with again that adds value to the community right if they put in housing 40 units of housing and you have 40 families move in you got 40 families now paying taxes to the town of Berlin it it's every item on here is an economic development engine there are no frills here this is looking at the growth of this town and looking to hopefully address your your your problem again we have 3,000 people that pay taxes right and live here we have 12,000 people visit our town every day we've got to capture some of that 12,000 and and have them have them in our community I I agree with that but I I need I need less spending overall because the reality is really hitting hard so please know that and thank you thank you thanks for sharing anything else I'm Flo Smith and I'm on the local select board and I'm very proud to be and I thank everyone for being here tonight and for your involvement and sharing your views whether they're for or against but I am extremely for this and what Tom just said we are very cost conscious on the board it may look like we're trying to spend a lot but we look at ways that we can do it that's going to be beneficial to the community and along that line we're looking at local options tax and that will be to your point that will be very helpful like Tom said so many people come into our community at all times of the day from other communities and back to Adam's question I wholeheartedly would love to have other towns come if this passes the more the merrier and do for our youth there our future and so I appreciate you all being here and sharing your views thank you that sounds like it yes on the local options tax the one thing is we pay local options tax to bury because our zip code is buried when we buy anything on the internet that is an excellent question and a past select board member Carl Parton who's here tonight he was on our board and he actually brought that to our attention yeah and that was very keen information for us so that's something that we are looking at as well I don't know how that changes get our own post office well get our own post office yes that would make the difference sure yeah the polls open tomorrow at 7 10 a.m and close at 7 p.m and in order to get out of this meeting I'll need a motion to adjourn excuse me Paul and that's at the town office not here that's correct so moved and second second second all in favor say aye those opposed no no