 Thank you all for coming. We went to the site visit. Some of us were there. It's a very nice cemetery. There's a lot of really old stones that was amazed. Can we go around it? Yeah, I'm just going to do that. Yes. So thank you everyone for going to the site visit. So I'll start. I'm Denise Wheeler, Sleck Ward. Cliff Edmunds, Calis Sleck Ward. Sharon Winfannon, Calis Sleck Ward. Katie Lane-Karnes, I'm the recording secretary. I'm Fletcher Dean, Calis Cemetery Commission. I'm Rose Pellchuck from the Calis Sleck Board. I'm Andy Christensen from Popper Hill Cemetery Association. And Laura Brown from Popper Hill Cemetery Association. Hi Jennifer Whitman. Jim? Oh, John, we all know- John Calis Sleck Ward, John Breven. Jim Barlow, town attorney. Paul Masetti from Popper Hill. Masetti, okay. Juanita Nunn, Cemetery Commission. We're you chairing tonight? The only unofficial person here. I just saw some headlights. So I'm betting that's- I was probably John Samansi, so the man. So I was trying to figure out the best way to do this. We normally at the beginning of our meeting take public comment on non-agenda items. Hearing none. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? Hearing none. All right. So as I said, we went to the cemetery and did a site visit. There was some pretty cool stuff there, I'm going to say. And we looked at the stream bank that was eroding. And you know, so there's obviously some work that needs to be done on some of the stones. And some of those stones are really, really old back to the 1800s. That was pretty cool. Well, Weston Cate is buried there? Yeah. Did you see the big Cate stone? So I didn't know. And maybe everybody else does. And I'm the only one who didn't know. But there's a difference. There's municipal cemeteries, public cemeteries, religious cemeteries, and nonprofits. So the ones that Callis currently oversees are municipal cemeteries. I'm not sure what you classify yourself as if you're a non-profit or you're a public non-profit. You're a non-profit, okay. And then there's religious. And I assume the religious ones, the whatever church or religion they're affiliated with, take care of those. So that was, I didn't know there was like four different kinds. Hi, John. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Yeah, very good. That's okay. We just did introductions. We, some of us went to the site. Take it down to the site? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a pretty amazing place. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. We did round the table introduction. So just for the record, do you want to state your name? Okay. Tell us who you are. John Zamanicus. I'm Darren of the Cemeteries Commission. Does anybody else from the cemetery come in? Randy's not coming in. You're just missing Randy. Randy. Yeah. Maybe he'll show, maybe not. I don't know. So anyways, thank you for sending us all the information that I asked you for. And I wonder if you can just kind of recap for us the situation that you're in. I guess I'd say first of all that our cemetery association was eagerly hoping, it was hoping that we could hang on to it in the cemetery for a long time and take care of it. We're very proud of the cemetery. For those who may not know, it was established in 1872. It was the first non-profit in the state of Vermont. Oh, right? Yeah. And we got an award of, well, a few years back, recognizing that fact when the Secretary stayed. Wow. The problem that we faced was, I guess you could say, is climate change because we had a series of storms, particularly the storm that came just before Hurricane Irene. That was in May, right? That was in May. And that's when we had the mudslide, the landslide that you saw, right? So that was treed? What's that? That embankment was treed just like the rest of it? Entries, yeah. That was May of 11, right? 2011? Yeah. That kind of threw a monkey wrench into our plans and we quickly realized that we couldn't imagine with the meager funds that we had to address that problem in any meaningful way. But we went along with what we had for a while, thinking maybe some magic would appear which didn't until this year we realized our funds were going to run out. And we still didn't, you know, we had people come in and give estimates, people look at it, just pro bono, just looking at it. You mean to fix the stream bank? Yes. Yeah, because in the minutes it says 100,000. Yeah, that was a number that Bill George told us that I think at the annual meeting on the advice of somebody he had come in and look at it, but because it was pro bono, it was not an official estimate. He was just giving us an all-park estimate of what it would be. So that's what triggered our vote to turn it over to Calis because it's within the town of Calis. Right. It looked though by the names on the headstones that there was a significant number of names that I recognized that were East Montpelier, some were Calis. I'm assuming there's probably Plainfield Hollister was there. That Hollister would have been in North Montpelier, so that family is one of the original founders that set up the nonprofit for the cemetery back in 1872. I think most of them originally were in North Montpelier, but North Montpelier is in East Montpelier. Right. So in looking at the Edward Jones, the minutes of your meeting said that there was like $5,000 in something last year. Last year. But now there's $22.30? $2,030 or $0.23. And what caused the, I mean, what caused the decline in the funds? That was spent on primarily mowing crops this last summer. And who does the maintenance there? Wyatt Hill. And he's been very good about being frugal. But for the past several years we have spent a little under $3,000 a year and it has not gone up. I think it went up like $65 this year maybe. So it's been pretty stable. Yeah. But it's almost $3,000, which makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't look like there's that many plots left available to fill. I don't know what the right terminology is, so you'll have to excuse me. I don't know what the right cemetery words are, but space is available. Rooms to rent. I don't know. A lot of our rooms went over the bank. Did any of this, when that stream baker rode it, did any of the caskets go into the river? No. That's one of the, I'd say that was a point of urgency in our annual meeting is we can see it's getting very close now, especially on if you drive up there on the right-hand side. We had placed on the day after the landslide, we went and we put stakes in the ground. You might have seen some stakes. Yes, we saw two of them. And some of those stakes have gone over the edge now. So it's continuing to further. It's continuing to further. Like there's a set of stones there that look like they're the closest to being the ones that might erode away. It's a big stone with some wee stones. Yeah. And I mean, other parts of the cemetery that it doesn't look, you know, doesn't look bad at all. We've done a number of things to try to take care of it. We've had, we've got to try to clean the stones. We've had, we've had help from U32, they could call it sculpted seniors doing community service in the spring come. Yeah, you guys have used that money. They've helped you? No, we've talked about it. And we worked with them to try to remove invasive buckthorn, honeysuckle and other invasive plants around the perimeter of the cemetery. I think for three years, right? Yeah, I think for about three years now we've had them come. And we've worked together. Yeah. Well, there's some pretty old stones there that I imagine look like they could really use a good cleaning. You couldn't even, you couldn't read the words. The last time we had them clean was probably 10, 15 years ago professionally. I went to the Fairview demonstration on cleaning stones. Andy and I, we now have D2. So Andy and I hope to get up and do some. D2 is. D2 is the the non-toxic, non-toxic thing that takes the burn off. Nice. Yeah, it does. Yeah, good. Well, how much, how much land was there? Like, you know, you can see that there was a landslide, but I don't, maybe it's just, I don't have the eye to know how, you know, was it, like, as long as the table, what was the depth of land that used to be there that just went down? Well, you know, it's hard, it's hard for me to estimate. We put the stakes, we put three feet back from the edge, but that was after the landslide. And most of those are, some of them are gone and most of them are gone. And somebody said there used to be trees there. Was it Euclid? Yeah. And you could. And the trees all the way down to the, to the bottom. Yeah. To the bottom. And all just went. Yeah. The trees and all. But you can look over it. You can see the chunks of the trees still in the water. Yeah. Well, I noticed the debris, in fact, the fletcher brought up. So sandy, you would think the water would percolate in before it went over the brink, but explaining that Irene came to town and it must have really inundated and saturated things, so things flowed over the edge and that's what caused it. But you can see everything's kind of funneled toward that really severely eroded corner where the big collapse happened. And that looks like the place that you would need to. Yeah, you'd want to fix that drainage problem and redirect the flow away from that edge. That's, that's what's causing it to continue this. Well, one other thing I may say about the space available. We went to the Vermont Cemetery Association annual meeting and they had a presentation there about how to reclaim space for your cemeteries. There is like a roadway there. There's a place on the west side towards Route 14 that could be used for cremains. Now, tell me to explain to me what cremains is. That's a set of a casket, like a full burial of a casket. You could have, you know, smaller boxes or whatever for cremains. That's what I thought it meant. I want to make sure I understood it. So there are some strategies that could be used and we're finding that more and more people are actually entrusted and cremated so this. Right. And when was, I mean, I don't recall what you said you charged for a plot and for the perpetual care, but when, I don't know, you know, what you charge now and when was the last time you increased that? 2013, wasn't it Andy? I believe so. Yeah, but we are still way below Greenmont Cemetery. Greenmont Cemetery, way below what you mentioned. What they charge. They charge $800 and it is in the minutes somewhere. Yeah. Which one is that? The one in Machillier. Okay. What do we charge? What's your money? What do you remember? What do we charge? Greenmont when it says $800. Well, that's what Greenmont charges. And that doesn't include the perpetual care, right? No. We don't say perpetual care. What do you call it? If there will be a charge. And that's it? End of space. Here it is. There it is. Probably in there too. But the cost of cremation is on the cremation burial. It's Greenmont charges $800. Copper Hill charges $300 on weekdays. Oh, I didn't see that in the minutes. Yeah. I couldn't figure out why it was different on the weekend than on the weekdays. Well, because we have to pay the sexton charges more. And both of them include $100. So this is the $300 and $375. This is for the actual plot. The burial? Yes, the burial. Because the plot already is owned in most cases. They have them. You're paying for the space and then you're paying for the act of the burial. But the fees you're describing are for the burial. Yes. So are there, and the plots are already owned? Yes. So that's a different question. And are there plots left to sell? There are a couple. And I think it's on the map that Andy sent out. Not many. Unless you, not many. It looked like there was like four, maybe. Yeah. But if you want to go to cremation burials, then you could increase that. So there's, so it's $300. I'll say I get buried on Wednesday. It's going to cost $300 total, period. There's no other cost. If you have a lot already. If you have a lot. Okay. So how much, you have like maybe four lots left. How much are the lots? Those are full burial lot. Yeah. What does that mean? For casket. That's not supposed to. They'll take four caskets, right? You're charging $800 for a plot? Of course. It's in our bylaws, which Andy has a copy of here. Um, so a full, uh, full, uh, internment lot was, uh, $600. What is that? I was hoping that's the right year. Full internment lot. That's for the caskets. For four, I believe it's four caskets, right? And it's $600 for four? Yeah. For one lot. So the four, if you wanted four lots, it'd be, uh, six, five. So it turns into four. You can fit two caskets in on one lot. What did you suggest? One lot can accommodate four caskets. No. Oh, okay. Okay. And that's my question is how much is it for? So it's so much for a lot, so much for the burial. So the cremation stuff was $300 and $375, and the lot is $600. Andy, how many plots are in yet that lot? Actually, this says full internment lot, single grave, $600. Single grave. Three by five. Three and a half feet by 11 feet. And a single cremation lot is $350. What are you looking at? Actually, why not? I don't have mine anymore. I'm just trying to understand how financially it got so desperate, I guess. We stopped selling lots. There weren't any more lots that were advertised for a long time. We thought it was, oh, quote. Oh, okay. Remember what a cemetery looks like it's full? There can also be graves that are no longer marked. That's a big question for the rest of the cemeteries in Dallas. There are, it may look like they're in a space, but there may be a stone that's been taken away because it crumbled. So it's one of those things that we would have to like hire someone to do. We have to do like a, it's a kind of dependency. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like Wyatt is very wary of that because he has other places where there's, so it's just that, because when you were saying, looks like there's spaces, that might not necessarily be spaces that are hanging from the ceiling. But some of the old blocks were a forecast of all this. And they had one monument and maybe a cremation. There are only one casket. And there's still all this other space. Okay, so there's space available right there. Right still? Yeah. Do you have good maps of that? Are there good maps of all those different? There are maps. We don't have them. I'm not judging you. We have a collection of maps. We actually have the original map. The real map. Probably the original map. Hundreds of them. We have, well you have a map, Dave Culver knows sort of our database type. Yeah. That was the thing I sent here. Right, yeah, I saw that database. Yeah. But you know, I don't believe that there's many stones or any stones that are really crumbled up there. They're pretty well preserved. Yeah, I saw one that had been, it looked like the top had been knocked off and somebody put it back together. It was a really old one. The only extra grade with Sunmark that I'm aware of was this one that, there was a hired man I was told he'd be buried there and he's there somewhere in that lock but he didn't get marked. We don't know. But he was a hired man for the guy who was the Lawrence buddy. And Sharon. Oh yeah? They're probably more than one, but yeah. That sounds, what are you talking about? Never mind, it's not what it is. Not relevant, it's just interesting. I'm going to say just a few words about the perpetual care fund which is probably misnamed back in the, in the teens and the 20s the perpetual care fund was established. The results of the, the minds of which are going to be touched from things like mowing and that sort of thing. And this summer I took on myself the task of digitizing the entire archive. Wow. It's several boxes which I'm hoping that either the town clerk here will be excited to receive. Or not. Or not. Or if not, maybe I checked with the wrong historical society or something. But we have a lot of paper. And in the process of doing that scanning I discovered something interesting is that during the, up until 1959 people paid a fee every year for the mowing. And. The families. The families. Yeah. And if they didn't pay it, they didn't get mowed. And certain people could go and mow their lot and plot. And what did they do? In lieu of paying this sort of annual fee. In addition to that monies were raised in each year with an annual fundraising effort. Studying letters out to the members owned lots of the cemetery. In 1959 there's a rubber band full of envelopes built. This is that of all the envelopes that came back. Address not known. The recipient was dead. And so forth. And I had noticed up to that point that there's an increasing effort to try to raise money that was failing. And people, this is like established in 1872. So by 1960 you'd look at it. 80 plus years of dispersal. In 1960 there was a request made. They had a lawyer, probably got a lawyer and they freed it up out of those constraints and put it into a kind of mutual fund. And the members of that board then I think determined that it was impossible or it was a losing cost to raise money every year. And they used that money. And that's how that original fund got used up. Everybody on the existing board well actually goes back to you know probably 20, 30 years ago. The institutional memory was lost. And so each succeeding board on the public secretary association just said okay this is how the people that got me into under this board did it. So we'll just keep doing it. And so that's why about three or four years ago we're looking into getting a non-profit status with the IRS so that we can do some fundraising. And after some laborious efforts doing the application, submitting it, ultimately fail, it didn't happen. There was another flood I think and the tax department said they never received it. And so what happened then was that we just kind of fell back into the pattern that the previous boards did. And but here's a there's kind of a funny thing is in scanning the documents I found that in 19 I think it was 63, it was in the early to mid 60s we were granted the non-profit status from IRS that we had been seeking. Oh wow. And it comes to the loss of institutional memory. We didn't nobody on the board knew that. So then you couldn't that mean you could do fundraising? We could but then by that time that was this year that I discovered. Right. And then we realized that it was unlikely we could raise the money needed to do the repair of a bank. Well and then something in the minutes talked about grants. Have you applied for any grants and been denied? We looked at grants originally about three or four years ago and we didn't get it was unsuccessful but Bill George who works for these pure fire departments said that grants non-profits are persona non grata when it comes to these federal grants and that municipalities have priority over non-profits. So that was part of what he said was considered by the members and attendance in that suede our thinking also to vote because we both had the experience of having failed the grants and we also heard that there was reasons why we failed. Well it's my understanding and Jim can correct me if I'm wrong but it's not an automatic that the town has to take over the cemetery. If you're still have your status we would not be responsible for taking it over until or if you completely dissolved which means you would no longer be the oldest non-profit in the state. But we would still have the option of not at that point as well or not. Jim. But there was a May in there. There's a May. Yeah there's a May in there. I was just going back and looked at that statue. Yeah so I mean. He cited it the first time as part of the number goes but it's upon the solution that assets may be transferred to the county. And in the case of the May, then what happens? In the case that May. In the case of May not what happens. It may not but that's an interesting question. I think it leaves over the please open the possibility that there could be a successor non-profit that takes over the cemetery or that it's transferred to another private association that's running the cemetery. Yeah I just have you checked out any of those other non-profits to maybe take over the cemetery? I'm not aware of any. I don't know what non-profit is. I don't either. Do you know what type of non-profit is? One of these is the East. For example, I mean if Greenmont Cemetery for example was run by a private non-profit similar to you theoretically your cemetery and your responsibilities could be transferred over to that association. I don't think so. If they were willing. Yeah I don't know what might be I don't know what might be out there but it's just it's just part of the discussion that we should have because for the for Calis to take it over that's a lot of money that is needed for repair to be quite honest. What if, Chair, if so so Andy was talking about Miss Palace having better greater effect of getting grants. Right. What if I'm just thinking aloud if like a municipal fire district was formed that involved East Montpelier and Calis townships. To take it over. And then. You said fire did you mean fire? They call it fire district. It's just it's a it's an investment to Jim too. It's a municipal entity that's separate and aside from the town. Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily. What motor companies do that. Right. It was a fire. It was Calis for me. Yeah well. That's what it's that's what it's called for whatever reason. It's probably how it started out. It should be a municipal erosion district. Yeah. Well yeah because there is because you know they did Bill George did say it sounded like it was a East Montpelier problem being given to Calis in the minutes. So I just wonder have you talked to East Montpelier at all or are you thinking Calis because it's in Calis. I think the reason he said East Montpelier is because many of the people initially came from North Montpelier. Which is part of East Montpelier. Yeah. But. That's by exclusively. Yeah. No no no. I mean you can look at the names and you can see their family names from all over it. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. Yeah that's right. So I just want to you know I just want to have a you know kind of an open discussion about what the options might be. And we certainly are going to be out of money after next year. Right. Completely out of money. Right. May not have enough for you when you get through. Why don't have enough for a minute. No. You know maybe we could set up a meeting sometimes throughout through the winter. With East Montpelier. With East Montpelier. That's what I'm thinking. And at least have it as one of the agenda items we do with that occasionally anyway. Yeah. And then we could have this conversation. Because there may be an opportunity to work with East Montpelier. Share the cost. So to share the cost. I mean we do that right now with the fire department. Yeah. You know so there might be a joint venture opportunity here so that it doesn't all fall on Calis taxpayers. Because right now our Cemetery Commission operates on 49, like $49,000 a year. So. Last night I got on the internet. Yeah. I checked out the Army Corps of Engineers. Yeah. And they do a lot of stuff with water and stuff like that. And so we've got a good thing on there. They did a lot for Irene when they had to flood themselves. Yeah they did. Maybe that might be a small job for them to think about. If we have to take it over. Yeah. That's a good idea, John. Yeah. Yeah. I think Bill George had some information on that too. Yeah. Because there was a big landslide on Route 14 right near his home. And he spoke of that. And I don't know exactly. He's knowledgeable about it. So I guess maybe we should make a list. One would be to, and I'm assuming Katie, you're going to keep track of the list. One would be to have a joint meeting with the East Montpelier Select Board and their Cemetery people and our Cemetery people and you folks. We can put Army Corps of Engineers on there. We can put the fire district idea. Right. Right. Visa B or non-profit. So just for clarification. East Montpelier Fire Department's a non-profit. And then they invoice us and they invoice East Montpelier. We have a contract or a real arrangement which in addition to this having them provide us services and us them revenues. There's an allocation. There's a formula in there for how the costs are allocated across two towns. It's based on complicated formula, but involves basically population, the level of use and all that stuff. So maybe we could arrive at the same thing if you stayed a non-profit. Or maybe if this is true that you're more likely to get grant monies or Army Corps assistance set up a fire, municipal fire district. So what are you saying is the difference between a municipal fire district and what the fire department does between Calisthenes? Fire, we should have Jim chime in on this. Right. The fire thing throws everyone off. My understanding is you can set up an entity that performs municipal type functions, but they're separate and aside from the actual town. A fire district is a limited purpose municipal entity providing services to a defined geographic region. They were originally established to provide fire services. Now typically they provide water or sewer services. But they are a government and they- They're their own governing body. They're their own governing body. Perhaps the simpler way to do it- They can assess taxes too, right? They can let me taxes. Fair. You might consider rather than creating a new entity, perhaps just having an interlocal agreement between Calisthenes and Montpelier that could form a single board to oversee the operation to which each municipality contributes some funding each year. And they would still stay as the Poplar Hill Cemetery- Depending on how you did it. Non-profit? Okay. Or it could be that they could dissolve and transfer their assets to this new joint entity. Yeah. Which is like what the fire departments do. Yeah. And yeah, similar. Another thought for you too, and I- Just watching. I mean, how much does it cost to keep you going over years? It's been about around $3,000. I mean, it just did a, you know, you guys do social service agency appropriations every year at the time of meetings. $1,500 from Calisthenes, $1,500 from East Montpelier's the social service agency appropriated would fund all their maintenance. To repair. To repair. But in the interim. But in the interim. Yeah. And a longer term plan. I can get- Since you have never been part of that before, you'll have to fill out a form. And this is really good timing because now is the time to fill out the form. A form? What are you talking about? To request being put on the Calis warning to be a social services agency. And I would think East Montpelier probably has the same type of- To get an annual appropriation. To get an annual appropriation. Appropriation, yeah. So are you- Which town are you guys from? East Montpelier. Your East Montpelier. Yeah. Yeah. So, and what you're saying is go to the East Montpelier select board. That's- Yeah. I mean what Jim is suggesting- For it in the interim. And it doesn't preclude in concur- And you know, it would happen in March. And then you'll know you have a budget for next year. For next year's maintenance while you work on some of these other things that are longer term solutions. Good idea. And you have a little bit of money left over. So it wouldn't even have to be all the different next year. It would be good if you'd eat into what you had left. Right, yeah. She does not have- Try to cut your costs, you know. You know, your fund's completely spent. And then we're just thinking out loud too. Maybe the toddler association could work with the cemetery commissions from each town. Start working out a project. How we're going to fund the repair of the bank. Right. Give you, you know, the cemetery commissions of each town giving you some manpower to sort of undertake this project. And maybe a group joint project to fund. Come up with some ideas. To come up with some funding ideas and repairing it. And then ultimately that allows you to, you know, get that repaired. You've got an annual potential funding source from the social service agency appropriations. And you can keep existing as a- Yeah. And we could make Jim a bit helpful. There is one other problem too is that all of us, I think, are- You're done. Becoming elders. Or our elders. Andy's the youngest. But I mean, it sounded like you all still would really had your heart and soul in this. So there might still be an opportunity for you to still be part of, you know, of the fix. With three members of our board. It's getting harder too. Yeah, we're sort of a shadow of our form of self. And there's somebody in there said that, you know, there was some younger blood that was needed. Well, that's true everywhere. It's not just you folks. It's across Vermont. I mean, and do you put out a request for people to become a board member? Or maybe Reed wants to become a board member. Except Reed? Oh, yeah. Because Reed didn't count us. Brownington, a few years. I think I got experience there, Reed. But Reed didn't seem like he was very interested. But he came to the site and he said, yeah, he did. It would be nice. I just wanted to say there's something called the Vermont Old Cemetery Association. And I think they do small grants. I don't know how small they are. What's it called again, Reed? The Vermont Old Cemetery Association. We have them around for years. At the end of the year, we didn't talk to them. The grants are microscopic. Okay. And they have their ability to give advice. I think their advice is more on things like relocating graves of the danger. There's also restoring stones. That's what most of their grants are for. They're not into. So could you get some grants along those lines to do some cleaning? Well, they might be able to get grants for cleaning, but I'm fairly certain they couldn't get grants to touch the bank. Well, no. But I mean, if this is what Reed's talking about, there's obviously some stones there that are in desperate need of cleaning and maybe some other kind of repair work. That might be an opportunity to save some of the money that you have and some of the money that you might get appropriated to do some of that work. A friend of mine is a president. Who is it? Tom Gibson. I'm just noticing. I mean, Andy's come to a couple of Cemetery Commission meetings, at least to and explain the situation. I get a sense that this is more that they're planning to go out of business. And one is because of the enormity of this repair that you're looking at for the restoration of the bank. And number two is just that your funds are dwindling down to nothing. So I don't know if you all... My sense was that you were planning on going out of business this month. So now we're talking about reviving you and keeping you limping along. You're out of the grave. For a couple of years or whatever. But I'm wondering about the urgency of... Because it looks like the repairing or restoring this bank was so daunting that you just said, we're just this little tiny non-profit. There's no way we can afford this. Who could? And I think you were looking to call us to being able to leverage grants or whatever to be able to do it. So I just... When I stand there and look over the bank and I see that gravestone over here that's 10 feet away or whatever. In my mind, I'm just thinking about how long is this going to take. And John and I were walking in different places. We saw where the ground had sloughed away pretty recently. So has anybody given you... I mean, it sounds like there's a sense of urgency on your part that it needs to be done right away. And as we heard, our budget is $49,000 right now through the town. Would that... There's no way that we could... I mean, we... I don't think we could go to the townspeople and ask them to ship in $100,000 to repair this. We never expected that to happen. There wouldn't be any one entity that would ever fund that. Yeah. So what is the... What is your best scenario that could happen there? Well, first I'd say that your description is very accurate. That's fine. So you are looking to just be done. I thought maybe you were looking to be... have a way to not have to be done. I think that Fletcher is correct in that and that we look around the room at the annual meeting, all the gray hairs. And everyone is pretty much as old or older than the board. There is a... There are some... I was there. That's us? I was there. Yeah, that's right. I was just about to say there's a... You're pretty callous though. There is... Reporter. There was... Yeah, there was some younger people like they're probably in their 40s and 30s, 40s. But there... Once I talked to them, they're busy with their lives and stuff and they're not terribly excited about getting involved with the cemetery. The one point I'm concerned about in terms of the urgency was that... And I wish I could speak more coherently about this, but I was led to believe in the annual meeting from Bill George that there's a funding cycle coming up that we're municipality to apply... And I don't know what the timeframe is. Me for grants? For grants. Because there was some... More money is coming... Grants aren't as easy as they sound because you get the money, yes. But then there's a lot, a lot of behind the scenes legwork involved with administering a grant. There's a lot of paperwork, a lot of accounting. There's reports that have to be written. And so there's a lot of man-hours or woman-hours generally is what it amounts to. Put into administering a grant. It's not like they just give you the money and you say thank you and go do your thing. There's a lot, a lot of work involved in administering and keeping track of a grant. Is it in their small dollar amounts? It's not... Most of them are not anywhere near $100,000. No, right, right. And then usually in the town business we have to foot the bill and then we do the paperwork and then we get reimbursed. Right, yes, usually. I just want to look at this from another standpoint. What is the risk of this bank continuing to slough off? Does anybody have any kind of a best guess scenario, how many years this would take for it to reach that gravestone? And what about moving the gravestone out of the way? I was going to have to say that. Instead of spending $100,000 to... Well, just to do the work that stabilizes that bank, you probably have to need that first set of graves just to get a truck back in there. I think that's a given. But the longer you wait, the more it's going to cost to fix because you're losing room to work. Do you have any written estimates from anyone about this? No, because it would have cost a lot of money. Just to get the answers. Do you know anybody? Did you do anything like this? For Larabie construction. Anybody with a dump truck in the backhoe? Right. Who's that? Rick, an engineering. Yeah, civil engineering. Who else do we just want to see if we know anybody to get some reasonably priced help to go out and look at it? Well, I think we're thinking about it through a cemetery lens, but the erosion issue is common. So maybe... Stay? Yeah. The state should at least feel to recommend. Well, in the minutes it said something about Bill George talked to somebody at the state and that's where the $100,000 came from. Was that just kind of a fly-by look? That wasn't a real... That was a fly-by look. Yeah. And I think he was sort of basing it on the erosion on room 14 near the bridge that's now being repaired. And I don't know the details, but knowing how much that cost. Okay, so let's think about what... You had anything else, Fletcher? No, not right now. Okay, I'm just trying to think... Okay, let's see what our first steps might be. It sounds like maybe talking with East Montpelier. And I know you're not interested in long term, but I think maybe short term getting that appropriation request in even if it's only just to give us another year of maintenance costs being covered. Not for a thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah. And then working with having this joint meeting with East Montpelier because they may have some ideas and or they may say, no, we're not interested and then we're back to what do we do? Do they have a cemetery commission too? East Montpelier? Yeah, I think all towns have to, don't they? They don't have to? Well, you have... Somebody has to do something. You said earlier... In my cemetery commission has so much more. Right, right. So you're suggesting that we go to the town and ask that it be warned. So you would go to Calis? Yeah, there's a form you fill out. I'm going to... I've got a note to get the form to Andy. And you just fill it out. It's like one page. But we can ask the town if it's not from Calis? I don't think so. I don't think so. Yes, why not? If it's not from Calis, it doesn't matter. We have a number of non-profits who request money from the town, you know... Different states, different areas. Community action, better demands. But I mean, and we could explain it in this appropriation that it might be a one or two year time request. Yeah, might not become a library. And then we can explain it on the floor that we're working to come up with a long-term solution. But in the meantime, we have to have a means to take care of what's there. Maybe you folks could look at a small grant to get some help to clean the stones. Is there an imperative around that? I mean, is that the same as the aversion and some of the other issues? If you don't keep them clean, is it harder to do when you do it? I think that's a non-issue. It's taken us years to get around to each cemetery, and we haven't even finished within Calis. We've been doing this for over five years. I think cleaning stones is something that is nowhere near as important as what they're up against. I had my own family monument cleaned this year individually. As I do down in Hope Cemetery and in Lafayette, a couple of other places that I could have been with monuments. Yeah, that's what we've done here in Calis. But we have volunteer days and nobody shows up. It just turns out the commissioners are long. I had some professionally done. Yeah, well, we had some professionally done, but it was quite costly and we're getting blowback from people in the town. It looked really nice. Yeah, it looks great. The pressure washers clean them up pretty good. Yeah, they use a special agent. It's bad for granite instead of stones. Yeah, because it takes way too long. Okay, for granite, but not marble or any of the oldage stones. It's slate. Yeah, it beats up. Okay. Anyway, if anybody wants to go look at Upper Old Fairview Cemetery, right now they're in primo condition. Where is that one, Fletcher? On the Calis Marsh Field Road. Yeah. Okay. You're going up, it's on the left. On the left side, yeah. And they look like they're brand new. They glow. It's amazing how they glow. Well, so yes, on the other hand, I mean... It would look like a cemetery that people... Right, it might be more interesting. But still, I mean, if it's not the biggest priority, then I think at least putting our, and especially putting Laura and Peter's energy, the things that we're asking them to do when they're feeling like, okay, you guys are running thread bear and you're here because of that. Right. I'm not sure what the timing might be to get a joint meeting, because I know towns, because we are, are starting to work on budgets and town reports and stuff like that. So... We can make an overture though, right? Right, I mean, I can reach out to them and talk to Seth Gardner and Bruce Johnson, who's their administrator. Well, we will be having a meeting with them. We do, like, every December on fire departments. Fire departments, so we can maybe do it then. Fire to some. As far as the administration of a grant, I have handled several large grants. I was the director of the Good Samaritan Haven homeless shelter in Barrie and the Good Neighbors family homeless shelter also in Barrie. And each time our budget was over 200,000 each year for each of those. But in addition to that, twice we raised 400,000 for remodeling. And that was all grants. Yeah, I just know from our staff here, the computer reporting requirements and stuff now are much more significant than they used to be. Well, I did all that. Yeah. And it depends if it's federal or state too. It was mostly federal. Yeah, and the federal government wants a lot more. Yeah. So I'm just trying to get a sense of where we're at so I know how to plan agendas and stuff going forward. Jim, do you have anything else to add to the lightness? You were talking about $3,000, probably $2,500 units from Calis and Eastmont Bay here. And we've got Wyatt already mowing that. I mean, he's already doing it. Wyatt has been doing it for a long time. But Wyatt gets paid from them, not from us. Right, right. But yeah, we can't just pay him out of our Cemetery Commission funds. No, no, because it's not a hell of a cemetery. So we are going to owe him for no more bill, I think. Last but not least. Yeah, so your fund's even more defeated. Yeah, yeah. Did you say there's property on the west side of 14 that's part of the cemetery? No. No, not on the west side of 14, but on the west side of the cemetery facing 14. I see, okay. I'm missing something. Yeah, I think we walked over there. All right, so we're going to get you the forms to fill out to request some money. I'll reach out to Eastmont Piliar and see when we might get together. I don't know what people's schedules are like, but it's two cemetery commissions, two select boards and new folks. So people, you know, this scheduling, it could be a little difficult. Mondays are generally Eastmont Piliar. It has their select board meetings on Mondays. We generally have ours on Mondays. So that's usually a good day for us. I know my board has usually got their schedules open for Monday nights. So it'll be important between now and then too for these folks to have a similar meeting with Eastmont Piliar's select board. You get them up to speed, you get them thinking about it, and then we'll convene. You know, I also am away an awful lot. I'm going to be gone all of November. I have another commitment that I'm not going to tonight, every Monday night. So I sort of feel like Andy cannot do all the meetings, although he is the most knowledgeable. Can you get other folks on the board to step up? Please one more. I think we're seeing it right here. Is it? Yeah. That's really the problem. That's a big problem. That is really the problem. It's a huge problem. It'll be one meeting, as I see it. I mean, just to let them know what we're thinking and what you're thinking and what we're willing to do at the interim. But I wonder if we could get them on board. Can we just skip that? Instead of having them have to do us another meeting with East Montpelier and then we all come together with East Montpelier. Can we narrow it? It's us advocating for them. And so there's a lot of processing that won't have happened. We've already had a lot of processing here that on the email over the last month and a half to the full summer. I can probably meet with Seth. Yeah, why don't you do that? I'd be able to do that. My time is questionable at this point because we're dealing with health crises. Great. Yeah, and that's obviously more important. I think that's... I mean, yeah. And if we have a meeting with the select board, we can bring it forward. It's just for them to hear from you and also to understand where you guys are. I get it. You've already given the energy to the board, to the cemetery to carry it this far and you're asking us for help and we're kind of obviously feeling a little... Which is where you are too. I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm like, we aren't. Yeah, yeah, so we need time to process and we have... But we have peers in East Montpelier and that's the place to start is open the conversation. Yeah, I mean, do you guys at least open the door? Yeah. Well, I and we can have, you know, a joint... Could be an email too. I mean, you can do that. Yeah. Right, you can send it to Bruce Johnson and to Seth. Yeah. You know, if he ever sends them an email and we can... Our minutes are public, so when Katie gets the minutes up, you can send them a copy of the minutes from this meeting, which might help them understand. I mean, helpful to them. Yeah, yeah. You know, here, here's... We met with the Cal Select Board and so our chair commission, here's the minutes, here's what we talked about, here's some... And Katie's got a list of the ideas, so they won't have to start right from scratch like we did. And I think also being really clear with them that yes, the cemeteries in Calis, but it's right across the line from East Montpelier, it's part of the North Montpelier community and it has served that corner of East Montpelier for what, 100 years, 150 years. Yeah, so making really sure that they understand the hook for East Montpelier. Cliff, do you have any questions or comments? Is it correct to understand that there are Civil War veterans entered in the cemetery? Yes. Has there ever been any research done into what national pressuration of Civil War cemeteries, era cemeteries, there are options there have you looked into any of those possibilities? This is the first I've heard of that. Katie, I'll put it on the list. I would definitely add it to the list. That's a good idea. Yeah, because they're very interested in preserving the monuments. And especially if you have older stones that could be considered monuments, that really opens up a door to a lot of funding. I mean grants are just funding. Funding. Just funding, because just funding would be great. Do a whole boatload of paperwork. There's definitely groups out there that the reason I know about this is I used to work for a company that installed ticketing systems at national parks and historic monuments. And I was the guy who was assigned to go through the South working with all of those. And there were a lot of cemeteries involved. You know what it's called with the tip? Did you look it up? I can certainly do some research. There's a number of them though. Yeah. I wonder if there's one that's specifically for Vermont because don't forget we've got that stone over at Memorial Hall that's got the veterans Civil War and whatnot veterans on it. And I think there was some funding that was gotten was there funding that was gotten for that from some something they got funding somehow to add more names to that monument and get it cleaned or something. Who comes around and puts the flags up for the veteran? For I think this is why it is. Somebody comes to work here. I think the sixth graders do it. I think the sixth graders do it. Or third graders. Elliott Morse is involved in that. Excuse me? Elliott Morse is involved in that. In the flags? He would know all about that. Elliott? He's over Cali. He's on the East Montalier Sanitary Commission. But I don't know that he wouldn't put them up in Cali. I saw somebody does. I saw some in Toplar. Why does he buys a bunch of them? And he puts some of them up. And then he brings a bunch of kids over to do it in the spring. Around Memorial Day. Cali. It used to be the Women's Relief. Was it the Women's Relief Corps? The Stowe Women's Relief Corps, which is pretty much abandoned. Yeah, and then they said, we don't want to do it anymore. Same situation. Yeah, kind of the same situation. Yeah, it's one of the oldest groups in the United States is the Stowe Women's Relief Corps. Be glad you don't have a building to maintain. Right. Well, I have a shed. So you guys, I mean, I think this has been a really good discussion. And there's some ideas out there and some opportunities, I think. Thank you for the work that you've done for sticking with it. I mean, this can't be easy for you folks, you know? I'm sure it's not. It's an emotional... It's a labor of love. It's an emotional issue, and I appreciate that. So you are going to send out the minutes with one, two, three ideas. So, right. Well, that'll help you open the door, I think, for discussing things with East Montpelier, even if you start with Bruce and Seth. Do you know their email addresses? Yeah, she's got them. Yeah. Oh, that'll be on those emails I sent you. I'll talk to Seth personally. Yeah, he doesn't have a like, say tomorrow. It's right next door. This is my neighbor. Oh, well, there you go. I'm buying them all for coffee and cemeteries. And cheer, and cheer at Cal's. I'll probably write along the chapter. How's McAughey? He doesn't stop. He doesn't play polo. He gets a milf again. Oh, yeah. I absolutely like how he'll play polo. Do you have a copy of your bylaws? You said something about your bylaws. No, this is taken from the bylaws. But it has the, I know you have the mail. You can email them to me. You don't have to have them tonight. Yeah, I'll send them. Yeah, just scan them and send them to me. And we can post them in this, in this Google folder. Just so you know, if you go on the Calis, town of Calis website, you'll see where there's the minutes. And that's where Katie will post the minutes that you can use to talk with Seth. And they'll be on the calendar calendar. Can we go to the calendar? It's in the minutes and on the agenda. The link. The link. The link to the public folder so that if Seth and those guys want to look at documents, you won't have to, maybe you won't have to resend them all again. They could just go there and send them the link. Send them the link to the documents. Can I upload to that or not? Probably not, right? No. Okay. No. But we can. No. Yeah, well. You send them to us. What you'll see is in the minutes that Katie publishes, there will be a link to the folder or all these documents. You can copy that link and send it to anybody. Right. But they can't. But they can't. We might be able to share the folder with Katie. But any folder, any documents, our bylaws, I'd have to send them. You send them to Denise and Denise and I'll have Katie load them into the folder. We can share the folder for tonight's meeting. No, it's Google Docs. Right. It's a public folder. It's that public documents folder. Yeah, I know but. But could actually share it with. There's this folder that we could share and give them permission to load stuff into if we decide we want to do that. I think that's not really in tune with our website policy right now. Well, I mean, separately, he could share the documents in there into a folder, a separate folder. It would be a town folder. Just send it over to them. So if you look at the popular agenda for tonight and there's the link right there. Oh, yeah. You click on that. Okay. And I can download whatever. Right. You should be able to download that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy with that. I'll send in the stuff too. Right. I think that's the better way to do it. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't make it. Yeah. We did that. Yeah, it's all published now. Oh, you mean the bylaws? I'm not sure, but the bylaws I might have with me tonight may not be the most... Well, it's current. Okay. Yeah. Just when you get a chance, if you send them to me, then we can put them in the folder. And these are all documents that Eastmont Piliar can then already have a collection of. So it'll make it easier for them. So just before we leave to make it clear for me, you are going to continue to exist then and sort of look at some alternative funding to keep the cemetery going for the next year. We are going to have to get funding though. And the town of... Yeah, and the town of Calis is not going to take over... Immediately. ...the Rockler Hill Cemetery. No, I think that... At least immediately. But we're not going to be taking this over as of October this month. It doesn't sound like you want to, but this hinges, it seems to me, on the fact that we have to get a little bit more money to pay for the upkeep of the cemetery. I mean, I think there's another year I think it's not maybe fair to say we don't want to. You have to understand that this is a big deal for us to have to take this over. You know, it's a lot of money that's needed to fix the erosion. And it's not that easy because you guys have to officially dissolve. And I don't know what paperwork you have to do to officially dissolve. Don't we have a boy here? Yeah. I don't know either. I don't know what they have to do to officially dissolve. They have to come up with a plan of this solution. It has to be approved by their members. That has to provide for how they will wrap up their business and how they will transfer their remaining assets. Once that's approved by the membership, then you record that or you transmit that to the Secretary of State's office. And there's probably going to be some public comment or public opportunity to do something. And once that period of time passes, the remaining officers of the entity, although you can't do any business, the one thing that you can do is effectuate sign the documents to transfer those assets away and close up the entity's business. So there are some official documents that... Yes, there are. You can't just say we're not going to hold any more meetings. You do have to go through this process of winding up your business and giving the Secretary of State's office... Where are those... I mean, where are those... Where are those directions informed on the Secretary of State's website? No, they're in Vermont Statutes. It's Title 11B as in boy. And just give me a moment. I'll give you that. And if we were to... If we were to take over the cemetery, do we... Is there just a deed or something? Is it just a simple transference of a deed? There ought to be what I would call an asset transfer agreement beforehand. Sort of, okay, this is what we plan on doing and this is how we're going to effectuate this transfer. So essentially upon dissolution, then there will be probably... I'm just thinking like a bill of sale for the assets. Some sort of document that says that, okay, now these assets in this account will become the property of the town of Calis and then as to the real estate, it'll probably would probably just be a quick claim deed. I can't imagine any kind of word on that. Wouldn't have to do a appraisal or what do you call it on there? A type of survey. It depends on the nature of the boundaries. I mean, if there was a question about the boundaries of the property, it certainly would be in the town's interest to have a survey done so that it would know what it was acquiring and making sure that there weren't any final issues that go along with it. A survey isn't required, but it might be a good idea there. Okay? And I just also would suggest that the town... We've done some level of due diligence about this, but I think that there ought to be maybe just a little bit heightened level of due diligence about the monies and the obligations that go along with those monies. Yeah. There might be some documents there that say, for example, this money is to be used for this specific purpose so that we know what those purposes are and make sure that those things can be fulfilled. So, yeah. It says East Montpelier. What is it? Papahill Cemetery of East Montpelier in the County of Washington. Jim, what year was that? 208 dollars and 40 cents. I thought it said 1879. Where did it... I think that sounds right. Be down at the bottom. Right. The signature line or something. I don't know. 1892. 1892. Yeah, back up. Okay. 1892. How the siblings are involved. What are the pieces of land in Calis? And I think it's called the Poplar Hill Cemetery Association. And there airs and assigns a certain piece of land in Calis. In Calis, yeah. But why does it say East Montpelier up there? It's driving the role of a high-worlder. Where does it say... Where does it say Calis, Washington? By full satisfaction by George Butler. Here's where it says East Montpelier. But it says... Oh, he's from the cellar. He's from the cellar. No, I think it's just the recognizing that the Poplar Hill Cemetery Association probably had its place of business in East Montpelier. Just because it does right now. That's where it's sort of business office was at the time. But the land is in Calis. Oh, oh, I see. Yes, yes. And it's got lovely meets and bounds as long as you can find that. Ash Street. I was going to say, in front of the Ash Street. That's great. That's great. That's very far from the Emerald Avenue. I was going to say, it's probably not Emerald Ash Board disease now. I mean, that's probably a legally sufficient description to transfer properties they were want a little. Right. Okay, now I'll be a bit... It's like more or less. More or less. Right. More or less it's over by that tree somewhere. Yeah. I think our goal is to work with the Tidal's community folks. That's what we want to do in the Cemetery Commission. So we just need to work together to solve this problem. Well, we don't have any options or choices, so we've got to work with whoever we can work with. Well, then you're lucky you got us to work with. Right, now you have a team. Right. Now it's bigger, so maybe you feel a little better. Okay. And meanwhile, we'll play to the sky dance. For nugget to rain pennies? No, not pennies anymore. That may help. Do you, John, do you think there's, it'll be possible for a representative from the Cemetery Commission, CALS, to be, you know, basically the appointed point person? Appointed to our Cemetery Commission. To your group. And at least I'll tell you, if they did the same thing, they need to have two more. Sure. Two more people. What do I have? Juanita? Bless you. There you go. Because I'm a Cemetery Health Group, I'm a 50-year person. So then you got a rep from each town, and they work with you and assist you with the business, but also help you transition this, you know? Yeah. So what? So there you go. So there you go. You got one more helper. So Juan. How much rhubarb do I need to have? And maybe how much you can detain. And maybe when you talk to Seth, you know, he can, you know, open the door for you guys to talk to the cemetery. Unless you already have the Cemetery Commission. We already have a Cemetery Commission. Ali Marx is the, or actually, he's just, he stepped down. I think Alan Ploove also stepped down, so I don't know. There's a young fellow who stepped in there for the Cemetery Commission. Well, you have some young people on yours. Uh-huh. You. And Fletcher. Yeah. Thanks a lot. And Juanita. And Juanita. And John. Thank you for having Saturday. I'm a senior citizen. That's nothing. It's still a senior. Most places consider you a senior citizen. You're going to milk that for all you can, aren't you? Damn right. And Eddie, you're going to have to go home with me. You have two benefits. Take what you can get yourself. Let's keep the discussion, you know. Let's keep things moving. And meanwhile, if there's any other documents or anything else you need to do. I don't know. Jim, can you think of anything else we want? The bylaws. I think we can do that. The bylaws would be helpful. We know where the deed is located. We've got a sort of general outline right now of what the financials or the accounts are. I mean, if that was given for that. The chapter of it's title 11B is in boy for dissolution of nonprofit corporations. It's chapter 14. Chapter 14. Chapter 14 of 11B. We're going to just plan a dissolution approved by the memberships and filing articles of dissolution to the Secretary of State's office. It's not particularly complicated. Yeah, it doesn't sound like it's bad. So they would probably have to hold another meeting and vote to dissolve. Yes. We already did that, actually. Yeah, I think we did that. But really, you should look at that statute. Not that we're encouraging you to dissolve, okay, but you should look and understand what is actually formally required to do that. Right. Anything else? Any other questions, comments, thoughts, ideas? Well, thank you for your work with Poplar. Thank you. I've never been up there until today. It's great. It's like a secret drive. I love a little driveway with the gate. It's very, very special. I can see why you're attached and wanting to put it into good hands. Well, actually, we weren't even thinking if you were willing to take over. We would like to still be involved as perhaps friends of the cemetery. Absolutely. I mean, you guys have the history. You have the mental, you know, the historical knowledge. So you're, I think, the realist. Your involvement is really important and critical, I think. And Paul does, yeah. And Paul, where does Paul live? Where do you live, Paul? Liberty is what I feel you're now, about 30 years, but when I walked my locks, I lived in the walk-in office. Oh, okay. All right. Anything else anybody has? All right. Motion to adjourn. Yes. So, I have a favor to say. Oh, hi. Hi.