 630, we'll call the meeting to order. Members are there? Yep. So first on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is there anything else that needs to be amended or included this evening? It's not already on there. I'm good. We will have a executive session this evening after, but just need a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. I appreciate everybody offering up to go to virtual this evening. I know the school today, like everything at the school like blew up today to the point that they, I believe have shut down school for tomorrow for the middle school. So both of my daughters were close that are now home positive. So even though the CDC says that vaccinated person, I could attend the meeting in person. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. So I was like, I told Teresa, I was like, I won't be there, but so I appreciate everybody changing their schedules around. And as we do, as we will have in the executive sessions this evening, there will be some paperwork that would have been included in the executive session that we will not have this evening. So Teresa will do her best job to bring us up to speed on those pieces. And the only thing I didn't see on there I probably should take care of them. The appointments is the TATRILTS are 630. And then I'm assuming that we're looking at equity inclusion committee. What time was that gonna start out? 645? Yeah, I think so. I think I had, you know, we usually try to a lot 15 minutes for appointments. So yeah. Yeah. No big deal. I just noticed that afterwards. So we will go right to our 630 appointment. I see Jess is on and her family. So we had about a month ago, we had talked about in regards to some stormwater, stormwater issues at 48 Dark Hill. And we've spent, I don't know, the last four weeks, the town end of it just trying to figure out what our obligations and legalities are in regards to the property and how we have done or how we have worked with residents in the past on similar instances to make sure we're doing everything fairly. So we've collected that information except that to go over and then we can have a discussion on it. So I'll let, I'll turn it over to Reese. So we did do a little bit of research. So hi, Jessica, hi, Joshua. And we had talked about, the concern was that there was a culvert on the property that discharges onto the property. And we had obviously that the culvert has been there for a long time. So because there's certain things with the towns. So certainly towns are immune from tort claims for damages because we have what a court would call privileged defense. And because the culvert has been there for more than 15 years, we have a prescriptive easement, which basically whether we have permission or not since it's been in place for continuous period of 15 years, we're basically our only charge here is to keep the culvert in working order. That being said personally, my recommendation or ask of the select board is that in the spring, we ask the road foreman to go up and on the way up on the right to Jessica and that Joshua's property is on the right. Remove any berm that's on the side of Dart Hill so that if there's any water sheeting off, it would sheet off in the back part, which is where Joshua had said there was a culvert and that part is already kind of wet. And get the, for the natural sheeting of the water to go off on that side of the road, it might relieve some pressure from that culvert. We also could work with an hour right of way over the bank, which is where the culvert is coming out now and try to divert some of the water from the culvert more along the edge of the river bank to kind of extend it along the bank so that instead of it coming down and pouring in your driveway, it's kind of hopefully spreading out on the bank on the way to the river more towards your driveway and install some stone at the outfall of the culvert to slow any erosion, also usually stone at an outfall will help slow the speed of the water as well. So that way we could try to do a little bit of maintenance on our side to at least take the water so it's not coming down where it is, try to move it along the bank a little bit. That I think would help because of where it's outfalling right now. The other thing too is I did reach out to GMP because I know that you guys had a concern about the pole and the anchor and the gentleman did take a look at it and he said while all the anchor is near the culvert runoff, it's not in any danger coming out of the ground, he thought that it was all fine. The other thing I think that we could do or possibly if the select board will agree to do is to provide the Taitroats with a one like a 15 inch by 20 foot piece of driveway culvert so that when you build your house, we could give you a piece of driveway culvert to go where your existing drive is and you could have your excavation contractor install that that might help with any water that's coming off the bank kind of leave your driveway and go towards the river where obviously where you want it to go. I think that we could ask the Taitros to sign a release for any potential claim and we could just give them a piece of driveway culvert when they're prepared to build kind of, take care of some issues and give them something else for when they build. So that's what I have for information. So it sounds like Teresa with the town doing some work in and along the right away which you had mentioned about some erosion stone and then some berm removal so that we can get better sheeting of the water off the side to alleviate some of the force of the pipe and that we would give one piece of driveway culvert pipe which normally is not the responsibility of the town, is that correct, Teresa? Correct, right. And then if we put those pieces together there's a little bit of work that the town would do along the roadway and when they build their house have that driveway culvert put in then the water should recede to the other side of the property near the river, is that correct? That's my hope obviously water because of where they're built they're so down obviously set down in, so anything that's gonna sheet is gonna sheet towards them unfortunately but I'm hoping that if we do this it'll take some of the pressure off that culvert by kind of getting, trying to coerce the water to go further down and away from where it's doing, where it's going now. So I guess probably the easiest thing would be to do is first would be to get the board members to weigh into Teresa's idea and if that is a go then probably let Jessica and her family doesn't have to be a right now decision but maybe get back to us on what you think about the solution and go from there, does that sound reasonable? I think so, yeah. Okay, so what does the board members feel about Teresa's place to go ahead and do some minor work as she detailed there as well as give out the driveway culvert? I mean, cause you all should have gone up and seen it by now so you should all know exactly where we're talking about. I see that as a solution. Again, as you stated, when this is done there might be some tweaking, some stone or something but yeah, we can't do much more than what you've suggested. I don't believe at this time. Paul or Linley, Jean? Well, how does that impact the very end of that culvert where it's actually coming, the water is coming out just above the river? So the stone would go in that area where the end of that culvert is so that it would then flow down into the river? No, the culvert is much further up onto their property. It's near where the pole is so basically what the stone would do as an outfall is basically to try to slow the erosion right there cause in the pictures they showed how it eroded down the bank. So hopefully we could try to put something there obviously to slow the erosion but I'm hoping that if Allen could dig a little bit on the outside almost like banking so that the water when it comes out if it's not a heavy flow could kind of go to the right and go down the bank and maybe disperse itself a little bit. It's hard because the culvert has been in there so long. The options are tough. We can't pulling it is very difficult. There's because of the way that the road is built and the property owner next door has, she already has water issues and we can't to divert new to put in a new culvert. We would have to get easement from someone else but the fact that this one has been there so long our obligation is only to keep it in working order. I'm just trying to think of some creative solution to take the pressure off a little bit. I mean basically at this point the work Theresa proposed would somewhat alleviate the water issues between the outlet of the pipe to about the start of the driveway. But until the driveway culvert is put in the water would still just be sitting there on the property. Yeah and it's hard too. I mean I'm not going to guarantee this is going to be the perfect solution. Once the road crew gets in there and can kind of see what it is maybe they'll can dig it out and stone mine a little bit to try to encourage the water to flow. Basically if you're looking at the culvert more towards the right down towards the bridge we'll have to see once we get in there. It's not the perfect solution but it's something to try to help the situation. But it's also going to depend what we find once we dig kind of in the bank as far as how well you know water's water it's going to go where it wants but we're going to try to do something to get to move it. I appreciate Theresa that you kind of put together an approach that you know knowing that the town technically doesn't have to do anything still kind of gives us some options give the two roads some options. And I mean I think we're going to do in the best we can do with it and not knowing that it might not be perfect or it might not be the end all be all solution. To me it sounds like a good starting place at least and then kind of assess in the spring and then also as they get their driveway culvert in and all that. I would also add that when they build it is possible for there when they put in any foundation for the excavation to include some swales that would redirect the water to either to the culvert or behind their house to the river that might alleviate a good bit of water that's coming off of that hill. I live on a mountainside as well and have a garage that and a house but the garage especially is getting water off of that hill and I'm redoing the ground behind it and I don't have nearly the space that they have. So that's a solution that I think they might want to consider at that time. The other thing is I'm not sure I didn't look and I apologize I should have looked to see what zoning district they're in or what the property is zoned as because if you're within the hazard flood area they'll be if you can rebuild there there'll be things that you have to do anyways. And I'm unsure and I again I apologize I didn't look to see what zone you're in. So even if you can build a house there there may be requirements certainly there are some in the zoning regulations for depending on if the property is in a flood plain about rebuilding. So that might be something we want to look at too is what zone you're in even. So before you make plans to build we could see what's existing in the zoning regulations. So it sounds like the board is in favor of Teresa's proposal. And Jess I can see you guys have any comments in regards to that this point or do you want to take some time to think about it and give Teresa some feedback or? Yeah we're just going to kind of sit on everything and just kind of get back to you guys at the timely manner. Sure. Yeah Joshua I'll look at the zoning and two and let you guys know what the zoning says there and then certainly give you a heads up when the road crew is going to come and do some work so you can be present. Maybe we can certainly meet and talk to the road foreman and kind of look at some options there too. So that way you can be a part of it when they come up. So we're working on it together to try to make it better. Sounds good. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. So anything left in regards to the first appointment are we all good to move forward? Good. So right now, Laura do you have all your members that want to be present this evening for the committee's appointment or are you still waiting? I know we're maybe just a little early. No I think we're right on time and I'm planning to represent for our committee tonight. Okay. All right. So we had, apologize I think it was probably about close to month now. And November 15th. Yeah. Okay. So we had received a letter from the EIV. Just going over some of the, well we had a discussion, I'll back up. We had a discussion during the budget time. Budget time is throw everything against the wall. Let's see what sticks make sense. Do we want to make any tweaks to things? So we have a very transparent open discussion on things. And one thing that we had talked about that caught some eyes was the trouble that we're having in continuing our current policing policy which is how we have it set up now as we have 20 hours a week budgeted for a constable. The constable's duties for the most part are animal enforcement, speed enforcement, everyday community presence. And then depending on the state police and where they're at, sometimes it can get more involved into some other pieces depending on certifications drug activity and things that take a little more time. So one thing we had talked about the budget back, I don't know, a couple months ago when we were talking about this was we were pretty fortunate for so long that we were able, for a period of time we were able to share a constable between three municipalities where one would get 10 hours, one would get 15 hours. So we were able to share between Rochester Hancock here. And then he had moved onto the Sheriff's Department and then we had Oscar and Oscar was able to give us, he had duties at Killington as well as he was able to give us, I don't know, I'd say what, 15, 20 hours a week to reach some average in Bethel. And then Oscar took a full-time position in Royalton. And so right now we've been kind of splitting shifts with two officers, which we're really kind of getting, both officers have full-time jobs. So we get a little bit here and a little bit there at odd hours. So we were talking about, how could we better serve our, or serve our community the way we have, told we're serving it with the hours. But one thing we started looking at is to get somebody right now with the way everybody's shorthanded and you need a full-time presence. When I say full-time presence, I mean, you need to pay somebody full-time because there's the 20 hours of community time turns into maybe 30 or 35 hours once you figure in the paperwork and go into a court date and doing paperwork and stuff like that. So we had kind of gone through your questionnaire and I don't know how we want to start this. You want us to just go through and answer some of the questions, Laura, that you guys had laid out there and set. Yeah, that would be great. And then in addition, Therese had recommended that our committee review the Constable Report and we have done that. And we actually have a few more comments, suggestions and questions that arose from our review of that report. So I would be happy if you guys have prepared some responses to the questions that we sent in November. And then I would also like to have a few minutes to review our input about the report. Sure. So again, when the select board was talking about this, we were talking about it on a budgetary purpose, not a changing anything. We weren't going to change anything other than, we felt in order to get to attract a high qualified individual and with the strings that come attached with the position now that we needed to budget a full-time person. And I don't know if the committee knows or not, but we did end up, for our budgetary purposes, we did just to stay with the 20 hours a week is what we budgeted, but we did add in some extra speed carts because we have been purchasing some speed carts the last couple of years to try to work on some speed enforcement when the Constable's on around. We do understand and appreciate that the select board decided not to spend hours for the Constable, but also just, as an advisory committee on equity and inclusion in the town of Bethel, we still believe that the questions about how we resolve these community-wide issues around speeding and substance misuse and even issues related to animals that we've heard about are really important to consider from an equity lens. Yep, so what I'll do is, and the members, if they have the EICs right up in front of you on the second page, second page, second paragraph is where the, there's seven questions that were put together. So that's kind of where I'm looking at right now. And I wouldn't say, Lord, that we have the board completely has a full set of 100% answers, other than what I'd like to do is just kind of go through it one by one. We can put in our comments. I think probably some of these, we haven't even really even thought of. We didn't expect to even go that far, even on the budget end of things. It was just kind of thinking about it. But the first one just talks about the clear evidence on how policing in communities of similar size and demographics to Bethel has decreased harm from drug use, driving under the influence, homelessness, mistreatment of animals and or has resulted in decreasing. So I'll just chime in. Chris, I'll just comment. I want to be clear that the reason we put those specific examples in were those were the examples given by the select board for needing to increase the hours. Yeah, so right now the way the policing structure and anybody can jump in after is, the way the constitutional policing structure is, well, it depends on what the certification of the officer is. So in the past, and I don't, Teresa is really good with the certifications, the E4s or whatever they are, but we've always had a constable that just was up to constable certification levels. And then when Oscar came, he had the full certifications of a regular police officer. So depending on what their certifications are, allows them to do certain things. And then you combine that with the state police. So when the state police knows what the qualifications of your town municipal officer is or constable is, then it allows the state police in some ways to kind of put a little more on your plate and they can go do other stuff. So typically the constable is, for the most part, is a community presence to be in and around the town, working with the school. We used to do things like dare programs and different pieces like that. We have an obligation, and all communities have to have an obligation to animal and to things. So it's not necessarily mistreatment of animals, but it could be misplacement of animals, lost animals. So we have to have somebody on duty to receive that and get them to the appropriate place when it happens. Also things like dog bites and things like that. All I can say under my experience of being in the town is typically the other thing you see is like speed patrol, it's a village, so making sure that people are driving inside the speed range. And then most recently when Oscar and those guys came on is because of their certifications that allowed them to do a few extra things that normal constables couldn't do. So they could take on some of the things like, clearly see that there was some very questionable activities happening in and around the downtown during certain hours, right? Which normally was a phone call to the Vermont State Police. And if they had somebody around, maybe they would check it out or maybe they wouldn't. Chris, can I just, sorry, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I'm just concerned about the 15 minute limitation that we have. And I just wanted to clarify and I really appreciate the dialogue you're giving, but also I just wanted to clarify that we were really looking for evidence if this board had sort of done any study or surveying of similar towns. And if not, that's totally fine too, but we were wondering. Yeah, so I would say in this case more we haven't done any studies. Okay, I think that was really the point of that question. And we think that, I'll just say that we care deeply about the issues of safety in the community that were brought up. And we would like to recommend an evidence-based approach. So if that hadn't been done, which it sounds like it hasn't been, then our recommendation when it comes to any future conversation about policing is that there'd be a more robust survey of possibilities. If that makes sense to those of you on the select board. Yeah, I mean, I think we're open to all suggestions. I think what we've done is probably just, I guess what you call more trial and error of doing some things and seeing how it reacts in the community positive or negative and adjusting from there. So I do want to stick with it. Yep. Can I address just one thing? Sure. If you want to skip down to number six, are you in touch with other towns in Vermont that have successfully reduced speeding, drive-runner, influence, homelessness, drug rules and issues involving whatever, number six. Actually, there is a town in Vermont that is, except for the homelessness, which is something that I'm not sure that's under the police purview, but maybe. It was mentioned by the select board as being. Okay, well, but anyway, the others, the town of Island Pond has that all figured out. You know how they do it? More police, more people out on the street to catch those people that refuse to abide by the laws. So I think that kind of goes with number one, that we didn't even have to reach out to them. It made the news how they had decreased crime in their town. I can't remember the number, but I buy a huge amount by having off, I can't remember his name either, but when you go into Island Pond, you slow down. You don't do what you're supposed to do because you know if you don't, you're going to be in trouble. So that was taken care of by more police. So that's why I think number six goes along with number one. So that's an example of the evidence that I hear the EIC asking for. There may be others. I would like to ask the EIC if they would be willing to assist with that research, about other towns. That would be very, very helpful for the select board to have that information. I also understand and appreciate that there has been mixed or even negative, there is research about the negative impact on some groups and persons of extra policing even in the state of Vermont. So that is something that I'm trying to be sensitive to. And I think that's a good thing to do. I'm trying to be sensitive to. And so that might also be part of the evidence-based information gathering that should, could inform us. And I think we also have to, and I think this is where homelessness caught in there. We also have to understand that our constable, police officer, resource officer, whatever you call the person is also, is also out there as a tool to help different things. So like for instance, we had a gentleman who had come into town, I don't know, a couple of months ago, Teresa, that was homeless. And we were able to direct that individual towards some resources, shelters, food shelters, food pantry, places like that. So same thing with like, if you were gonna buy a used car off of Dave, he might have to go there and verify the bin, do those things so you can get registered. So there's a lot of resource things too to think of. Yeah, Chris, that's exactly what from an equity perspective we're really interested in supporting the human service agencies who are the experts and issues around homelessness and substance misuse. And so I'm glad you bring up the importance of those resources. And that's where we've heard more stories of recovery and success for people. Well, I think overall, I mean, a lot of the questions in some ways kind of blend together in one way or another. So I think it sounds like from the slack board that they're welcoming any information through research that your committee can come up with towards making policing better in our community, either from other examples or researches or a local town. Like Dave mentioned, Island Pond taking that information and seeing how that might fit into our town. One thing that I had written down on mine to just have is if there, I guess the way I see things a lot of times is personally is like, what is happening in our town? Not Randolph, not Royalton, not Burlington, but like what is really happening in our town? And if the committee has any examples of positive or negative feedback in regards to what's currently being done, I think that would be very helpful for us to look at. So if you had, I'll make it up, an instance of some type of discussion that wasn't positive or something like that to happen between the constable and a person or good instances like being a resource officer towards a homeless person. So any of those like personal experiences in Bethel, I think like I would really like to share or have that info, look at that. I think that's a good point. And I also value the importance of learning from others. So using those evidence-based models of what has worked in other places, I think is also important. But it kind of leads me to the next question or observation we had was we did take Teresa's suggestion and review the constables report. And I guess my first question about that is who reviews that? Is that something that Select Board reviews regularly? Actually, it had, he hadn't done one a while. Oscar wrote his own software, the spider data. And so he puts all the stuff in and he actually had been, when he first came, he was only, he was here and I think it was Killington, Laura, that he worked part-time. So he used to give regular reports that went into the Select Board packets on a regular basis. And then we kind of realized that we hadn't heard, remember he hadn't worked in a while and he's out now for like a month plus, I think. And so finally, I was like, wait a second, we haven't heard from him in a while. So he put the reports together and normally the Select Board gets them every month and they can take a look at them. But to get us back on track, obviously we're over our 15 minutes, but I think that to answer your question, Laura, is we did not do, and I think most of your questions lead to that. And no, the answer is absolutely not. We didn't do any sort of evidence-based research. It was just this conversation we had, what could the budget sustain, that sort of thing. So I think I'm anxious to see what information you guys can provide the Select Board after you have your two public community conversations on speeding. I'm gonna be really anxious to hear what sort of information you gather. And you're right, if we have, you know, in the future it may be worth doing that, you know, having a more of a evidence-based, it's either something that equity inclusion or we may have to hire someone to do it. I don't have time to certainly to do it at this point. So, but you're right. It would be nice to kind of see what's the combination that's gonna work for Bethel beside if there's other, you know, signage, policing. And we did order two more signs and a speed cart or an order them there in the budget. Depends if they pass. So they'd be too like we have up. And eventually the goal is to have them on all entrances of the town and maybe have a couple of portable speed carts to kind of get people to slow down and that sort of thing. I know Rebecca Sanborn Stone had an idea that came out during the Better Connections about some stuff that we'll be looking at the steering committee too. So, but Chris, like Lenny's had his hand up too, just so you know. Go ahead, Laura, sorry. Lenny, would you like to go first? And then I can, okay. Theresa, thank you for your input. And I'm glad to know that you guys are working so closely with Rebecca Sanborn Stone and our committee has also connected with them around the work they're doing for Bethel for all. And I wanna let you know that we've actually made a decision to postpone our conversation, our community conversation. I'm so sorry, it's still really high on our radar, but we thought we could do something a little more collaboratively with Bethel for all. And also we hope to do it at a time like when the weather's warmer and we all feel a little safer gathering together for a face-to-face conversation. But I do know we're running out of time, but if I may just take one more minute on the Constables report. Chris, we thought it would be a really wonderful way to your point of like collecting stories. And I love looking at data and I love it as a way of storytelling or a community. But without going into great detail, after looking over the report, we found that the story did not reveal itself to us. There were a lot of acronyms and codes that we were unable to decipher. And there wasn't any reference or like a dictionary or any place for us to look back and see what the codes meant. And there was not consistency with like how addresses were used in Liston. And then the other statistic that showed up monthly was around the average age of like the person who received a ticket. And at first we thought, oh, maybe this is a good part of the story. And maybe it's young people who we need to be working with, because you know, in the first, on the yearly average, it was around like 20 something. But then later in July, it showed that average age of person pulled over as being 4.8 years old. And so then we thought, oh boy, this is not relevant data. And so we are really interested. And Chris, like really to your point of creating a Bethel story and we think the data is the good way to do that. And that's something that our committee is willing and eager to do just to be supportive to the select board and town governance is to work with you. If you're interested to develop a report that does tell a data story, that would be more meaningful. So I just thought I wanted to share that on behalf of our committee. If you have a list of things that were like that, Laura, that would be really handy. If you don't mind shooting me an email and saying, hey, look, we couldn't follow this because of the acronyms and we didn't, the age isn't, that would be great. I can send it to Oscar and to be like love. We do have it already done. I can happily send it to you. Oh, sweet. And then I can look and see, talk to him. I don't know if there's something wrong in his program because he wrote it, he does software, he developed the software himself. So that would be great. And then I can get it to him and get it answered for you. And the other thing our committee had talked about is there's a woman who grew up in our supervisory union in our school district named Tabitha Pole Moore. And she was the founding member of Vermont's first NAACP. And she just concluded a long study with the Vermont State Police about improving their data storing. And so we have a great relationship with her. And I think we would be eager to get her input on how she might, on what suggestions and what she learned with the Vermont State Police that could be helpful for improving our data storage here in Buffalo. Great. That'd be great. Oh, Paul, did you have something? No, I just wanted to mention that in the past, those reports that we had looked at, the various police departments have to file certain reports with the state of Vermont that describes a breakdown of the type of stops that they're making. But they are also limited as to what personal kind of information they can put on there. Great. The state is interested in making sure that there aren't any nationalities or races that are being stopped more than others. They're interested in that kind of data, but not so much the person's name or any of that personal type information. Interesting though, Paul, because the reports list people's name in home addresses. Yeah, yeah. But it didn't give other data that seems much more relevant. That's why I think the differences between Oscar's proprietary software that he's built, I think the previous possible gave us a copy of his reports that he would send to the state. And it had a little more detail as far as the nature of the stops, but less detail as far as the actual person themselves. And I think that's the challenge that we've had in the past, Laura, is when we started getting, like, oh, this is great, but then you look at them and because of what information can be used and not used and depending on which setting, is then it makes it really hard to kind of find that picture like you were talking about. And even at the board level, we had a hard time like, oh, what does this even mean? Because half the time like person's name and address can be in there because that's public record because they'll publish that in the newspaper, you know, where, you know, anything about like sometimes ages or sex or, you know, those things can't be put in there, you know? So it's really weird, but so it doesn't give you the information that you would thought you would be getting, you know, and make a decision like that. Yes, Lenny, I'm sorry we... That's okay. So food for thought on January 7th of this month, the Vermont Digger published an article about a research that was done that black people are more likely to be stopped in Vermont and arrested and jailed six times higher than their white counterparts for the same crimes. And we make up 1.4% of the population. So when considering a constable and increasing policing as a citizen of Vermont and Bethel who is black, I think this has to be a long discussion before that just happens. And it has to be a discussion with the board and with minorities in this community of all kinds so that you really hear from them and that you really get an understanding of why we are, we have a lot of trepidation about increased policing when we're already being policed at a higher rate than anybody else for the same infractions or less. And this was in the Vermont Digger on the 7th. This was just... So I just want to put that out there as food for thought when increasing something like that, that we can really perhaps look at alternatives to policing. You said January 7th, Lenny? January 7th, 2020. All right, I'll look it up and put it in the packet for the next slide for me. The only thing I want to add in there just to correct you, Lenny, is we're not looking at increasing policing. We've never said that. But when you increase hours, you increase policing. No, not necessarily. So where this is getting confused is, so even like five years ago, so our town budgeted around 20 hours of service, right? So if you were a resident of this town 10 years ago, probably you would have saw our constable probably at basketball games, in and around the community, a little bit of speed patrol, that kind of stuff. And then the last five years, there's so much more paperwork and tape, court appearance, all then in things. So that we take away from some of the things that we had meant to do, like we don't have a presence at middle school because we just don't have time or a person. So we were never talking about expanding policing. We were talking about right now to find a qualified person. We cannot find somebody that wants to come in for 20 hours a week. Right. Because every law enforcement agency in Vermont is trying to hire somebody. So why would they want to come to Bethel for 20 hours when they can go to Hartford for 40 hours, right? And be full-time benefit in the whole nine yards? So that we were talking that in order to get to 20 hours, we may have to have a full-time person or pay them a full-time wage to get them into our community. Because right now what's happening is nothing against our constables or constables when they're on duty is they're only giving us the time that they have, which usually like, can you remember, Lenny, the last time you saw the constable in town? I mean, I don't see the constable hardly in town. Does anybody see the constable? It was a while ago. You know what I mean? So that's the challenge we're having right now is we're getting the leftover hours because both of our constables have a full-time job. So they may come in on an oddball hour, like they might work Sunday night, right? None of us sees them on Sunday night. So is that really doing our community good by having somebody that's not present? Because all we're getting is the leftovers. And that's kind of where we were sparring this, like budgetary, we're trying to think, okay, if we really want to do what we are telling everybody we should be doing a year, 20 hours a week, presence, then we need to find somebody and pay them full-time wage. It's kind of almost kind of like the whole thing, like we can't find anybody to work at the store for $10 an hour, so we're gonna have to pay $15 an hour. You know what I mean? It's kind of along that wage, but we weren't talking about like having a police department or increasing our time. We're saying right now probably 20 hours of in-person policing is probably really 30 or 35 total hours when you figure in like a court date for a pullover for speeding or doing the paperwork or the reports like Laura, putting those reports together, all that stuff. So, yes, Jean. I just wanted to suggest that if I agree with the evidence base for what we are doing, I also think that the focus on Bethel is important, but not to disregard either areas, communities within our area, because we are very different than Rutland or Burlington or whatever, but especially those in our area. And third, I think that we should try to find out whether or not there is a rise in criminal activity in this community or a decline and what that might add to the process any decisions down the road or recommendations we might make as a select board make to the town. And finally, I think I was very, very appreciative of EIC's offering to have those four open forums to gather information from community members. So I would, I hope, what I heard Laura say was that they've been not canceled, but rethought or there is rethinking about whether and how they might be related to the Bethel forward. I hope that's the case because I think gathering the information, including gathering from the town through a survey, I think is more evidence that we need to hear. Thank you, Jean, yeah. Laura, excellent. Well, I really appreciate the time of the select board to hear our comments and questions. And I'll definitely bring back to the EIC committee the questions and requests from the select board for their feedback. And if you have. I just want to, Lenny, I especially want to thank you for the, for your comment about the recent article in Vermont digger because it's really powerful and important evidence for us to bear in mind too. And if there's any further information that you may need, I'm sure Teresa can help you out with anything that we may have when it comes to reports or anything like that. So we appreciate you guys doing hard work. And that's what that's why we have committees is because the select board cannot be doing everything all the time. So it's good. It's good to have others checking around. And in this case, working on this for us. So thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. So we are moving on to the public comment period. So if there's anything that isn't on the agenda that anybody would like to bring up. Now is the time. You raised your hand, Jean, or. Up there. Just an FYI. And something we may want to take up at a later date. In Randolph. The energy committee is. Suggesting to the their select board. That they put. On their town meeting ballot. Now we're not going to do that, but that they would empower the. Energy committee to work with nearby towns. To make proposals to reduce municipal energy cost. Lower consumption of fossil fuels. Enable said and enable seminars on weatherization. And energy generation. So I just thought it would be helpful for us to know that. We might want to. Consider making a similar either passing this along. Or making a similar request of our energy committee. I'll let Nicole Sierra know. And then if they, they can certainly do that anyways, and they do talk to other towns, but I'll let Nicole know, Jean, that they're doing that. I'll send her an email this week. Okay. I'll forward you this. Trees just so you. Have. In writing. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Yeah. I'll send it to her. Because I know our energy committee has someone member. We have what? Two members from Royalton. On our energy committee now. So we have, they had come to us. Were you on the board then, Jean? No. Okay. Yeah. So we actually have two members on our energy committee in Bethel. That are Royalton members because Royalton, I guess maybe didn't have one or something. And we were looking for members. So we actually do have two members from another town on ours too. Which is nice. We're stronger together for sure. I just thought we ought to know what's, what's going on. That's great. Yeah. Thanks. We'll let her know. All right. Any other public comments? Thank you. Don't see any hands. So. We will move on. Trees, you had on their. Yeah. Authorization representative for. Phase two engineering loans. So that's just a motion to allow to. Yeah. Three of you will have to swing by the office and sign it. I'll put it out front. And so that you guys, I just need three of you to sign it. So yes, I'm the authorized representative, but they apparently they need an alternate, which is fine. And so Pam will do it. So just need a motion to appoint treasurer Pam. Brown as the alternate authorized representative. Or the phase two engineering role. Yeah. Second. Okay. Move by Paul second by Jean. All in favor. Hi. Okay. Or the hands. Sorry about the noise in the kitchen. Abby's making a Sunday and break. And here's salivating over that Sunday. So. She's not allowed unless she can share. That's why you're COVID positive. You can stay home. And Brady's sitting here salivating. So. All right. And next song, we had the survey for the town report that we had talked about. And Trees had looked out there and talked with. A lot of the people who were on the town. We had a lot of different identities to see what, what may be some appropriate questions. That people would like to have on the town survey. Yeah, I sent you, I had to, I was had updated it after speaking to Rebecca. So I had to email it to you guys tonight since we weren't going to meet in person. So, um, this is what we talked about doing as the last page of town report, the back cover. So people could tear the cover off. And they could, you know, answer it and drop it off on answer it and mail it back in, or we're going to create a, like a survey monkey link. Once the language is set. So someone could also fill it in online or they could scan and email it. So, um, you know, the great thing about town report is it goes to all the registered voters and all the property owners. So. I had talked to Rick Benson. We came up with the first question. We actually reached out to, um, two rivers and talk to them as well. So. The, um, the part that had changed was number four was obviously, um, Rebecca had, you know, we'd given people a place to find Bethel for all. Plus the question is if we could change one thing to make Bethel village more accessible to you, what would it be? So then there's a blank line, but so people could, could fill that in. Um, and the other ones are, you know, to check all that apply or yes or no questions. So, um, I think what's, we had also talked about, um, was maybe adding a fifth question on here, um, about Australian ballot and then asking people, would they want to make it a two part question? You want to vote Australian ballot for the budget, um, and, um, you know, elected officials that way we could kind of, that way we could get feedback on that as well. Then you'd have a better idea. Um, obviously, um, we're waiting for some legislation. Some legislation has passed, which is allowing us to go to Australian ballot again, this, this town meeting and not hold town meeting. Um, what we're waiting for is there's possibly pending legislation, what they had not done in this first passage of S 172 was to make it so that they would waive the petition requirements. So it doesn't make any sense that they want us to avoid, you know, town meeting and COVID exposure, but yet they want somebody to go out and do one to one to get 30 plus signatures to get on the ballot. So I'm assuming they're going to fix that. That's the talk, but I don't know yet what bill number that is. So. Okay. So I'm assuming they're going to fix that. Um, I don't know if, if, but the law is clear. We currently have, if we were to vote in person, one of the questions on the warning is. Shall the town, you know, basically shall people vote so that. We go Australian ballot for officers. If we vote Australian ballot this year because of COVID, that comes off the warning. We cannot, the legislation is clear. Um, and I have a question for you. So, um, so anyway, so if, since, if that changes and it might be worth adding a fifth question on here, since we have to wait a whole nother year, let's see what people think. Do they want to vote the budget Australian ballot and officers or just officers? Let's, let's, let's get some feedback. So. Yeah. questions is how do people feel about this? And, you know, just like Chris has done a good job of asking everybody that's had a meeting, it's still a very small subset of people. And even if we as five board members go out and kind of pull a few people each ourselves, it's still a pretty small subset of our overall community. So I love the idea of including those two questions in this survey. Okay. So if anyone has any other feedback on the survey. I'm just, well, two things. One, I'm disappointed that we are prevented from asking that change in an Australian ballot because we are limiting it to a committee. It's a committee of the whole, but we are excluding those who, do not for whatever reason attend in person. So I just need to say that. I do think that that's a good option for a question and a check all that apply might be appropriate. Okay, good, that's good. And that there be just, well, leave things as they are or move everything or move one. Well, anyway, so I'll leave that. The second thing is I believe there's too much information that we have about the Constable question. To just put it as stated without further explanation. That's a, we're asking people to make an informed suggestion when we haven't been able to give them the information they need. That would be the extra information. I will tell you that I had, that was one of the notes was on that. And I was wondering if maybe it would be wise to rather than leave it as police services because it appears we have several different definitions depending on who you are of what police services are. Maybe we should define what police services is going to be. I mean, again, I think the point is that we're not, I don't know why this is a difficult, we're not changing anything other than the time that we would pay somebody. But we're not changing. It is necessary, right now we have, we're using a Constable eight to 10 hours a week because we can't find anybody because I'm on a part time basis. The population, the community does not know that Chris. That's one of the pieces of information that is not available. We've asked for the EIC to do additional information gathering. We don't have enough information to make any kind of an informed suggestion about that. To simply ask, do you want more police protection or police services is asking people to make an uninformed response? And that's my opinion. So you'd like to take it off, then you'd like to. I would like to take that one off. Well, maybe I would like to see it on there. And the reason why is maybe it's not going to be and the reason why is maybe we can restructure the wording to show to pay a full time or pay full time, but increase or not increasing police presence because I don't know why. I mean, I know why we're on this. Shouldn't be is we're not increasing anything. We're not doing anything we're doing now. We're not changing anything. All we're saying is we can't find anybody in order to find somebody and we need to pay somebody full time. That's what you are saying, Chris. That's what you are saying. That's what we're saying, period. There's nothing different. No, that's not what we are saying. No. That's what you are saying. That's what you're saying. Question. So I just, so that you, I know why you're doing this and I understand that, but as a citizen of this town, it doesn't come off that way is what I'm saying. Your reasons for doing that are different than increase. The moment you increase hours, you've increased policing from a citizen standpoint, from a person sitting here, not knowing about a budget, not knowing about why are you doing this and all of that. So that does have to be clarified for the basic layman out here who is thinking, well, police needs more hours, needs more policing. That's how it's equated. Maybe I need to change the wording, Lenny, so that it says that we want to pay for, that we need to pay for, pay someone for 40 hours per week for 20 hours. Something like that. You know, if that's your intention, because if you're going to have them full-time, more hours, no matter how you paint it, means more policing. Okay, that makes sense. You know what I mean? So I just want to throw that out there. The other thing is I have a question about what you're putting on the Australian ballots. When you put that in, I don't think people have the information. Will there be some information for them to go to a link and understand what they're talking about? You mean, as in someone might not know what Australian ballot is? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, it's no different than a warning right now. I can define that. When you start using those terms, they go, what's that? I've already had that happen to me. Yeah, that's true. I've had to explain it a few times myself. I didn't think about that. So I'll define that. I have a little reference point I thought might be helpful. Then they can go and do the research themselves, but it might be helpful. Okay, that's a good point. Yeah, you're right. I've explained Australian ballot plenty of times. I didn't even think about it. So that's a good point. Thank you. I will make a note about that. Just a quick one on number two, and it's not about what we were just talking about, but it was more specifically stating it as being willing to support that via an increase in property taxes. I'm not opposed to that wording. I just was curious if other members of the board that caught me off guard because when we were discussing it, we were specifically approaching it from the budget standpoint and still creating a balanced budget, not necessarily with the idea that we would automatically increase property taxes. And I'm just wondering if other board members kind of got caught by that same thing and had the same thought of does that, is that almost like leading the witness? Are we leading them to think that it would automatically mean an increase? And is that actually what the board was thinking if we had gone that direction or would we have tried to still create a balanced budget and offset it in other places? Because that had been more my understanding was we were still looking at that. Yeah, I think that what happened was once we saw the actual numbers for a full-time officer plus retirement, plus health insurance, plus dental, we knew we would have no choice but to raise the budget because I couldn't come up with that kind of money. We couldn't have ever bounced the budget using that number. I would just didn't want people to think, so this was where maybe I'm off track, I didn't want people to think that bringing someone in like that, all of a sudden the fine revenue was gonna go up. So it's not like we're thinking we're gonna bring this person in and they're gonna raise, you know, obviously quotas are illegal, you would never do that anyways, but you just wanted to make sure that I didn't want people to think, oh, we're gonna bring somebody in for more hours and they're automatically gonna get it via fines. So, but maybe my wording was too harsh. That's a potential increase instead. Yeah, and well, I guess too, the other board members, do people wanna take this off? The gene wants to take question two off. Does everybody wanna take two off or should I just work on the wording? I think question two is a valid question. I think we need to flesh it out a little bit more with just something like, you know, given the current pressures on our existing costable arrangement, do we want to increase, you know, something flesh it out a little bit more, not necessarily with all the details, bells and whistles. I think it must be a lot more because just within 10 people there are 11 people on this Zoom, there's at least three definitions of police services. So, and that's only 11 people out of 2000. Yeah, I had to find them at the bottom of the page, Dave, by saying provide law enforcement and animal control services, but maybe I do need, I should put that up at the top and spell it out more clearly. I don't, like, I do agree that very few people have any idea about the paperwork that's required by a law enforcement officer. I also suspect. I think people should also look at the Royalton's police chief. While she is full time, she spends time in the community making strides to be part of the community, get people to, this is a police officer, I'm here to help you. And maybe that we part of our requirement of a police officer to walk the streets, don't get in the car to arrest everybody they see, just be part of the community and maybe get people something that so they can feel safer because this officer who's walking around in a blue uniform is not out to get me. He's out to make this community safe. I think, I really think we need to, I think- I would like to suggest that if it is primarily or fundamentally a budget issue, that there is another approach that might enable us to share a more fuller discussion of what Dave has said, what Leonard said earlier about the imbalance of treatment of African Americans and Vermont, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If we were to simply put it on the ballot for 2023 meeting with, as a separate item from the quote, budget, which would be to authorize an increase of the budget to a, provide for making it easier to hire somebody to do what we're asking to be done. What are the benefits? What are the, and that could then be a community wide or a town meeting wide conversation rather than a simple yes, no, I like this idea or I don't. I think it is too complicated and too nuanced the way it stands. And so again, I encourage it being removed from this survey. We have the capacity to establish a budget and then to defend it or to, and in this case, I'm suggesting added as an addition. We wouldn't change the budget until 2023 anyway. That's my suggestion. But wouldn't you want to have more information before you ask people to vote on it? I mean, this is going to help us. If we put this on the ballot now, we can redefine police services. I don't know, I'm not a linguistic person, but I do know that that seems to be very, very, I don't know, not informative. I would like to have that information before I had to vote on it rather than police services. Because I mean, if I was a person who hated everybody, I would say, good, go out there and arrest everybody that looks wrong, okay? Or the other person who says, well, are they going to do that or are they going to come out here and they're going to shake my hand and show me how they can support me? And I think with that on there as a question to let people talk about now this year, we would maybe have an opportunity to put on a ballot in 2023. Not tomorrow. I think all these are is just getting some ideas out there that we have to see if we want to go any farther with anything. So I mean, I'm sure that we can work it better somehow of, in order to provide the 20 hours of community coverage that we have, you know, have relied upon for years, in order to do that now, we have, you know, would you be interested in paying somebody full time to do that position? Because, you know, because you can't find somebody for that money or something, but- Maybe the other option too is besides the yes and no is also put in a place where people could write a sentence or so of like maybe a comment or a concern or something. So we could gather a little more information, certainly reworking the wording, like Dave and Gene and everybody suggest and reworking it, but also giving people a place to make comments. So then in the future, we might be able to flush out some more details if everybody says the same concern. You know, you'd have that information like Dave is saying, you'd have more information because this is just a survey, you know, so I can see what Dave's saying, you want more information for 2023. So we could add a comment line in there too and gather some data. And I, like Lenly was saying, I think the property tax increase of property tax piece is a little confusing because- Okay. I mean, obviously if we ended up going that route and paying somebody full time, it probably would have property taxes somehow. It may be affected by all, whatever, 40 or 50,000, maybe affected by 10 or something. Yeah. I'm sure we're gonna try to balance that, but I think all this is, it's just a jumping off point of, you know, maybe it's right down the middle, half the citizens say yes and no, or maybe it's overwhelming one or the other. And then we can have that conversation, you know, through our different committees and our select board, you know, to say, okay, this is worth time investing, right, you know. Did you have some, Jesse? Try to reword it somehow. Yeah. Yeah, I think I have a couple of points. One is that I think, yeah, Chris, I agree with you, the like combining the, because it's possible there are people, yes, I wanna see an increase in services, whatever that means, but I don't wanna pay for it with property taxes. Like, so those two things together might not make sense. I also think, yes, there are a lot of questions as to what those services, I definitely support there being room for somebody. I mean, my personally, I'm interested to know what people in this town think that this police services are doing for them or what they want to see from such police services, that what's not happening, what is happening now, that's what I'm actually interested in. I understand that this survey has a specific use and I think that it might be helpful to have that at the top of the survey, saying this is not an official vote, we just want your input as a citizen of this town. Something that's clarifying about what this is because I'm just, I'm not assuming people like where people, people are coming from all different places and have different levels of familiarity with how this process works, how the town government works. I would assume people know basically zero about the process and just lay it, lay as much out there as you possibly can to explain what is going on. So that- I like that question too, Jesse, that's a good question of what services would you like the constable to provide? Well, that's actually, that's an excellent question. I mean, because you're right, someone might say dogs, someone might say speeding, someone might say drug enforcement, that's also a way to get some more information. I wrote that down and I will, I agree with what you're saying about letting people know it's just a survey and- Yeah, and I also- That may be a check all that apply. And I mean, I think that's also an opportunity to explore those things as not being something a constable or a police officer deals with. Like those might- I think we have a unique opportunity here to do a survey. Like this is something that our committee has been talking about doing a survey of all residents that we can possibly reach. So this is a good opportunity to reach a good number of people. Yeah, we're trying to, there used to be something at town meeting. I don't know if you remember it called the Doyle Hall, Senator Doyle used to do a survey every year for a hundred years. And the local rep would drop it off and people would fill it out and then they would take them back and God bless him, he and his people would sort it. So we were kind of just doing that, trying to work on planning and zoning, better connections and then not just stuff to vote on, but other things that we're on the planning commission we're looking for information about density. So this was trying to cover a lot of bases, but I like that information. So I'll just try to rework that question and take everybody's comments and additions and we'll add Australian ballot and redefined in a better way the constable question. You could also add a question on their trees, which is basically, what other services in town would you like to see? Just a blanket where somebody can write in, we'd like, or what other topics do you think the select board should take up in their next session or something, you know, like just a random. Yep. I mean, I know it makes it more difficult because like survey monkey and stuff, you can't like write on survey monkeys and more like, yes, no, check all that type of thing. I know it makes it a little more difficult. Not to dumb it down. And this may make your job a little harder, Therese, but you don't want to dumb down the survey, but you want to remember that you have to sort of approach people like they're six years old when it comes to stuff like this. Okay. You know, do you know what I mean? I do. I remember an English teacher telling me once that anything you wrote that you were going to publish, you should write it at 10th grade level. Yeah. I don't know. I just was stuck in my head. A teacher told me that once and I've remembered it since. Good. Today it's fourth grade level. Yeah. Assuming that people know and understand and approaching it that way. Yeah. That's a good question. For example, until I became a member of the select board, I didn't know that we had a constable but not a police office. I didn't know that. That was not information that was falling off the tip of my tongue. One thing that just left out of this conversation that Theresa and I had talked about is once this survey is put together in whatever form we approve it in, we plan on not just passing the survey out but at town meeting day. If we do it in person, then we would have a conversation from the floor with each item so that people understood what that meant. So I mean, obviously if people go on ahead of time and they turn their survey in early, then they wouldn't get the explanation but we had planned on, right, Theresa? Putting that in there, you're under non-binding resolutions or- Yeah, Robin, Rick Benson talked about it. Yeah. And we still could do that when we have budget discussions and stuff. Once the warning is set, which you'll sign not, obviously you'll sign the warning at your next meeting. Once we know what's exactly happening on the state level, then we will do that and we can make sure we try to talk about it at all the select board meetings, budget informationals, that sort of thing. Because like what Les was saying, chances are everybody's gonna get confused on these surveys anyways, even that cannabis one, they'll say, well, I don't want it in my town. Well, it doesn't mean that. It means selling at retail, you know, so. I know. Well, thank you. I think the input was really good. Thanks everybody for doing that. And I'll rework it with everybody's suggestions. And so thank you. I appreciate that. It was helpful. All right, discussion on deputy health officer vacancy. So yeah, this is, as we all know, we currently do not have a deputy health officer. And this is saying that our, I don't know why they're saying the term is going to expire because we don't have one right now. But they're saying. I was there, I think. You were. And but that's what's gonna happen is on the 31st. So basically I was just asked to put it on here to let people to see if you guys knew someone or to reach out to somebody who might want to be the health officer or the deputy health officer. I can't remember when Neil Fox's term expires. If it's this March or next March, do you remember Paul? I think that they're referring to Neil Fox's position. I think he's coming up. I'm not sure what the, because you have to take an oath and all that whatnot. I wonder if that's not Neil's. I don't think so because there is the health officer, which was Neil and the deputy health officer was Chris. Right. So I thought this was the vacancy for Chris and, and you don't have to, I was looking into it. You don't have to have a deputy health officer. I thought you had to. But it, the deputy health, well, I won't say the deputy health officer is the one that fills in for the health officer if they're incapacitated for whatever reason. The chair of the select board would also be deputized to do that as well. So by that, so. Well, maybe, maybe Paul's right. Maybe I'm thinking deputy health officer because that's what you were. Maybe Paul's right. This is maybe they call Neil a deputy health officer as deputy of the state instead of just health officer. But either way, we need somebody. So I was hoping that you guys would talk to people and maybe you would come up with somebody who was interested in being, you know, filling the position of the deputy health officer, Neil. You know, Neil's done it for a long time. God bless him. It's really got to be somebody that has some excitement for this, because it's in my short time, I don't know, it was less than a year that I did deputy health officer when helping out Neil is, I mean, it's a full time, you're on call all the time. So I will say that probably 80% of the calls that you get you probably are just briefly investigating to see if that's part of your preview or not. But the other 20% that you actually have to go out and I mean, these in-person questionnaires are huge. I mean, they're like 18 pages long that you have to do, take pictures and then you have to report it, send it all back to the state and it is very time consuming, I'll tell you. So it has to be somebody that has some time. So do they have to be a Bethel resident? I think so. Yeah, good question. I don't, yeah. I would assume so because every town has them and they're not easy to find. And there are also other responsibilities that they have. They are now, I wouldn't look. I'd from the phone call that you get from a tenant, the health officer is supposed to be involved in COVID regulations and COVID procedures at the school. He's supposed to be looking at cleanliness in the kitchens and things like that. There are a lot of other responsibilities that also go along other than just the phone call from the tenant who's got a complaint. Yeah, most of the issues tend to be tenant complaints and like food preparation or if you got sick at an establishment type deal is where most of the calls come. But yeah, like Paul was saying, they've greatly have added on to that since the COVID piece which doesn't help our case for finding somebody but it's, there's a lot there. Well, like I mentioned before, they're also trying to get the health officer away from doing inspections of properties where they really don't have the background to be able to make a decision about building regulations and violations and things like that. Yeah, I'm trying to get them away from that part of it. It'd be nice if we could find a retired nurse or doctor, somebody maybe then the community that has a good background in some of that. But anyways, whoever is interested, if you know of someone who's interested, please talk to people and let them know we're still looking obviously for a deputy health officer. We're also looking for tree warden. So, we definitely have some needs. So if you know of anybody, please talk to them and we'll put it on the warning or I'll put it on the agenda again for next time. I just wanted to kind of bring it out and talk about it publicly that we have some need. Doug, you said you'll do it, right? Oh yeah. We can make that happen for you, right? I know you will, but I don't know. We'll put a little extra cash in your pocket. Not enough, not nearly enough, but some. Yeah, because if it's the health of the trees officer. Yeah, you could be a health officer slash arborist. That's right. Oh, yeah, that might be, you know, that might be one that, you know, we may be sitting here in March trying to figure out how this is going, so. You will be panicking because it's you otherwise. So, you'll be, I expect. No, it's only whoever the chair of the board is. It's just like we'd be. It'll be a full-page ad in the Herald, paid for by Chris Jarvis, and we'd be the health officer. I think it's $600 a year is the stipend, but. And that might be, we had talked about different appointed positions. I know this year we tried to start to work on some of the monetary values for that, but I think going forward, the health officer one might be one we might want to look at as a higher stipend because there's a lot of time that goes into it. You know, it's probably something instead of $600 to be more like $3,000 or $4,000. You know, maybe that's probably not even worth it. Yeah, but. What about Janice Punder? She'd be good, but I think she wants $15,000 a year. She wants a lot more than $600, but that was sort of. She'll have her. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it does take a lot of time. Yeah, everybody on the board needs to just do a little bit of service on it. Get your feet wet. Okay, eight o'clock. And we got, we have some personnel that Teresa was talking about that have some balances of their PTO time that has not been used. Did everybody get a copy of that in your packets? Yeah. So I guess what, Teresa, you want to talk about her? So obviously per the personnel policy, it talks about the max accumulation you can have of vacation and or sick time. In this case, it's vacation time. I don't track people's, you know, vacation time. It comes up every two weeks on their pay stub. So in this case, I think, you know, things can't happen. You know, we had a water project going on, maybe it couldn't take off the time you wanted. Some people had plans, things they were gonna do during COVID. And then obviously couldn't do those things because they were canceled. So there's some by the personnel policy, you have a max accumulation and what you have over that is gone. If you didn't use it, you lose it. And there's not some, there's only one that's large here. The other ones are fairly reasonable. So I had, you know, so I just wanted to talk to you guys about maybe rolling it over, maybe even giving a timeline saying either yes, you can roll it over, no, you can't or you can, but you have to use it by X or we're only gonna roll over a portion of it. Either way it's a gift, you know, whatever you do is a nice gesture. Everybody knows the personnel policy and how it works on its personnel policy was in place before I got here. So anyway, so that's it, I just need a decision. It's not a decision within my purview to make because it's not a policy that I'm in charge of, it's yours. And the reason why I don't know what it was about three years ago, maybe four that we had updated the policy is because we had quite a bit of town employees that had rolled this time over for years on end. Yeah, you did and you used to pay people out big chunks of money for vacation and sick time accrued and that was changed. So if you were hired after X amount of date, you could know, you know, you didn't pay those out. So you've slowly paid out people. I think we only have a couple left. And obviously the personnel policy is something that's on my radar and I work with Stitzel Page and Fletcher to come up with some new draft language. But anyways, I had talked to Dave Eddie about this today. I talked to Chris about it. So either, so whatever, I'm not sure what your choice is. What do you want to do? I mean, I would move that. You did yourself, Jean. Whoops. I recommend or I would move that we accept this recommendation, recognizing that this has been an extraordinary year and extra demands on those offices, positions. I would ask that maybe we do recognize that but some of those numbers are pretty high numbers. So I'm not sure it's just this year, but I'm not saying take away, but I am saying that the use it or lose it, in my opinion, is the way it should be. And if we want to put, and I believe we should, put a timeline on that. Chris and I had a conversation today and I've worked in enough places so that I could tell you from experience. But if you're not taking that time off, you are not giving us, that's not the way I want to say it. I don't think we're doing right by you by not having you take some time off and get reset. That's true. Take some time off, okay? It's not good. It's not healthy. So I'm going to say that we force it. I hate to use these words, but we force these people to take some time off or lose it. If you really want to, if you really don't want to take time off, well, I'm sorry, but we're going to give you an option. So did you want to put a date on it? Like they have to use it by June, by May, by whatever, what was your thinking? Due to the different numbers? Let me look quickly. I would think giving them this year, but then not more than this year. Cause I think really only in the one case does it concern me that it's not, it's still not going to be even usable in a year. I don't think it will be either. I think it'll end up building some of it, but. I think six months only just makes that a harder issue. So give them the year, but that's it next year starts. I agree. Our budget ends the end of June. So in some ways sticking to our budget. But when does the, when does the roller of account or not? January, we do it in January. For some reason it's calendar year here. I don't know why, but yes, but it's calendar year. So Jean, you're saying. I would say it must be taken as vacation, no pay in lieu of, and it must happen by the end of 2022. So you want to give people a year. And I, Is that your amended motion, Jean? Yes, yes. And I'm making it 11 months. I had a little bit of a different, what I was going to recommend was being that three out of the four people's hours are what I would say reasonable. There was one person that has quite a bit of hours that I think even if you let them have the whole year, they're not going to use that. And I think Linley had kind of pointed to that. I was thinking that we allow up to 40 hours to be rolled over, but it would have to stay inside our budget. So it'd have to be used by June 30th. And that was kind of what I was going with, which would take care of two of them very easily. Cause there's inside the 40, one person slightly over the 40. And then like we had talked about, the other person has quite a bit of hours accumulated that even that plus their new hours, they're never going to take all that off. Okay. So to recap, we have a motion from Jean for 11 months with no second. Chris is saying only given everybody 40 hours and they, of only up to 40 hours extra, no matter how many they have rolled over and they have to use it by June 30th. Right. So is somebody going to second, Julie's probably gone, what? So I don't know what you're going to do here. I also have to look at Pam's situation where she doesn't necessarily have a backup that can drop in for all those hours either. That's true. She only, her and I budget, we do budget for X amount. I think we budget for 80 hours a year for Jean, cut for Jean Burnham to fill in for Pam, Paul. Cause sometimes Pam can, you know, she's closed for a week and we've taken her stuff or- Pam will also work, you know, she'll work, she'll fill the hours with work. That's just her nature. True. And how she's going to do that. I will not disagree with you. I'll go back to my same point. Yeah, I agree with you, Dave. I'm sorry, I'm going to stick by that. No, I agree with you, Dave. We were doing them a disservice by not impressing upon them that they need to take the time. It's there for a reason. And I'm cautious that we set a precedent that, you know, what happens next year, COVID's still going to be here. We're still going to be going through this for another year. So what happens next time, Mara? I also sort of going along the same lines of what Dave and Paul were just talking about. I feel like with this in particular, kind of keeping mental health at the forefront and giving somebody a little bit more flexibility. And I know this is not what we're discussing tonight. And I'm not even asking us to discuss it tonight, but I know that a lot of through COVID, a lot of organizations have started a COVID time bank that employees can gift their time off to other employees should they need it for COVID related, whatever. Even if it's like, I've got a sick kid and I have to stay home and it's really hard to work from home, you know? So I think giving people a little more flexibility for that mental health reason is really important right now. And I don't disagree with what Chris was going with this of limiting it. I also don't think that 140 additional hours are going to get used even in a year, but giving that flexibility speaks volumes to what we're asking them to do for their own mental health, as opposed to saying you have one extra period of time off to carry over. It's a little different of a feeling, I guess. So are you going to second Gene's motion then? I'm leaning towards it, but I haven't yet, have I? No. I would amend that again to limit it to 48 hours. Okay, so you want to amend your motions to giving them 11 months to use up to 48 hours. Okay. Yes. I just need to keep this written down, that's all. Okay, 11 months, 48 hours. So now you're combining Dave's, Chris's, and- I'm listening and including Chris's comment. I feel like we should just put her out of her misery and give her a second, I'll second Gene's motion. And you repeat the motion. So Gene is moving to allow up to 48 hours in additional rollover to occur that has to be used within 11 months. And it has to be taken as time off. Yes, we don't pay for people for a vacation leave anyway, so. Right. Okay. In Pam's case, then she will be out a little under 100 hours. Which she's aware of. I told her that originally when I did the math, I told everybody, this is how many hours you're gonna lose. And she knew that and she said she knew it was in the policy. So anything that you do over this is going to be a nice gesture. So I will, so if that's your motion, you're at 48 hours, then it's still, you know, it's still a week, which is still nice. It's better than you would have if you follow the policy, which was nothing, you know, just what you normally did. So it's still very nice. What's the- Julie has a comment. Should we have a date in there, like the end of the year rather calendar year, rather than just 11 months? Sure, that'd be great. 12, then by December 30th of 2022. 31st. Yeah. Is that okay with Gene? Is that okay with Lindley? I can buy that. Guys, you just need to vote on that. All right. Well, did we get a second on, there was a motion. Yes. Yeah, Lindley, Lindley seconded the 11 months. Okay, all in favor. December 30th was to use the 48 hours. All right. All right. Thank you. How many hours report? Do we have anything left that we haven't discussed yet? Did we get fine votes? Yes, I think you did. Four. No need to vote. No, I think you're set. I think we've talked about everything. I was just browsing through your notes here to see if we forgot anything here, but... No, I'm just looking. I think we're good. All right. Select board meeting minutes from the 27th. Anybody have anything? Just need a motion to approve. No moved. Okay, moved by Dave. I got my name spelled wrong on the back page again. Oh. That's not uncommon. Oh, shoot. I just saw it just now. Okay, I'll fix it. Thank you. L-check probably changed it. Sorry. Just an editorial comment. There in what I'm looking at, there are a number of instances where words have been run together. And I'm assuming that the official copy does not have that. Well, let's hope. Sometimes happens when you transfer it from what I send to Risa and I make it into a PDF. Yeah. And then I turn it into a Word document. So sometimes it does. My copy is pretty good, but there's a couple of things. Well, for example, page three, number four, the select board agreed with this. There's no space. I know. That's an editorial and I just wanted to point that out. All right. And it's funny, Jean, is sometimes I, if I put my cursor in there, I can't, it won't let me tab in spaces sometimes it will. So it is just, it's a glitch in the between me. Yeah. It's not the same as a, it's there quite a bit. Yeah, it's just, it's not a perfect conversion. Don't have to try. I've made my comment. I've said what I need to. Okay. So approve as amended. So just need a motion to approve as amended. I moved. I'll move. Second. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. There were a couple of other communications in there or meeting minutes in there to go through as well as there was our general budget status right now for the month. If anybody had any questions with any of that? I have, I have two questions on the budget. Okay. Probably it's me not paying attention seeing it previous, but telephone at the town hall, what do we need expense for the telephone at the town hall? Well, there's a telephone at the town hall and the wifi is there. Okay. So that's on your telephone. Yep. Okay. And the other one was about under municipal, I think it is boarding equipment and supplies. We have to go with the new legislation. That's probably not enough money. Well, I think that you might be okay because Pam said that, because we'll just copy the ballot, photocopy the ballot. Pam said you're going to hand count. So that'll save you a lot of money because if you We're not going to do it on the machine. Right. You'd have to program the machine plus print the ballots. You saying you're going to hand count it. Okay. Oh my God. I have a, under solid waste, I see an 11,000% increase in other. Was curious as to what that might be. I, let me just look real quick. I think that's current. Yeah. Yeah. Let me just, I'm sorry. Let me take a look. It's because we receive every once in a while restitution because there was an embezzlement years ago at the solid waste at the transfer station. And because VLCT passive paid out the claim, any restitution that you receive has to be, we take it in as a revenue, cut them a check as an expense. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. It doesn't happen very often. Yeah. Unfortunately. Just caught my attention. Lisa's under the revenue. True. The only thing I had saw at Theresa and we had talked about before, but, you know, we're about half, well, we're halfway through our year, but not halfway through like our highway budget year. And we're already at 64% on repairs, tires and stuff. And usually wintertime is when the equipment takes it to hardest. So I'm a little worried that we're already smoking that through that budget pretty quick. I know. And he's, you know, he's had some issues, had some, had some repairs. Hopefully it slows down. He hasn't had anything recently. Hopefully it catches up. Otherwise he knows the drill. He has to under spend another line item to the concern is then we'll end up under spending the gravel for the roads that we talk. Yeah. No. Yeah. We talked about, you know, or something over time or no, no, I agree. We have had a conversation about it, but I mean, stuff breaks down. He's repairing it. And he bought tires at the beginning of the season. So that would have already thrown him over. He out of skew a little bit, but he's a lot of new tires and new tire chains up there right now. So speaking of tires, I haven't been up there, but I just, I would make sure that those tires are in a secure location too. Okay. I mean, tires are very expensive to begin with. And I know right now with things the way they are, tires is one of those pieces of merchandise that people are looking to steal. So if they're not secured building, I don't know. Are they, does anybody know if they're like laying around outside or if they're inside? I don't think so. I think you're on it. You're not. But you could be a rugged boy to pick up one of them tires. Yeah. For, you know, depending on what size tire they are, you know, if they're just a regular truck tire, they're about $1,000 a piece. So you'll find out, you find a quick way to put that in the back of your truck, right? Yeah. Okay. I'll make sure I let Alan know. Yeah. And then like those loader tires are like. They're expensive. One more question. And this is just for my information or understanding. On the balance sheet general fund, there are two references to a sweep account or sweep savings. I would like to know what sweep is. Sure. It's basically the money. What they do is we have a sweep that attaches with our checking account and it earns more interest. So basically instead of keeping all your money in your checking account with it low or no interest at all, it sweeps over to this. And then the bank automatically does it every day. They sweep money either way, either towards us to pay our bills or back into the sweep into the savings. So, and then there's a special collateralization agreement that protects your money because it goes over the FDI and C insurance. And speaking of that, the audit, I just finalized the draft audit. I got it last week, finalized it, wrote the management responses. And this year was the first time that I've done in other towns, but never here. I wrote the management discussion and analysis. So that's off to the auditors. And so you should be seeing final drafts soon. Thank you. All right, any other business to come before the board this evening? Anything that we just thought of needs to come up? Hearing none. What we will do is we'll just see a motion to enter executive session to discuss confidential attorney client communications and contract negotiations with the town of Royalton. Do we have to adjourn the select board meeting and then move into executive session? No. No, I'll give you the audit to the minutes later when they came out and any motions they made. But there shouldn't be anything afterwards, so. You need a motion. I'm talking. Hey, all in favor? Hi. Hi. All right. So thank you everybody for this evening. Thank you. We won't be making any public decisions afterwards, so. All right. Have a good night. Night, Doug. See you health director.