 we are to convene the meeting of the Waterbury Select Board for Monday, March the 20th, 2023 in this steel community room. The first item on our agenda is to approve the agenda. Any additions, deletions from the agenda? I move to approve the agenda as written. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I can no longer recognize that at all. I moved to approve the agenda as written. Great, and I seconded it. Can you hear that down, now, Danny? Yeah, it was wild, it just went silent, so. I'd like to see if we could, I'd like to make an amendment if we could, either before the executive session, if that is most appropriate, to add a couple, two, three minutes to go over the next meeting's agenda, something I'm hoping can be added to our meeting agendas in perpetuity. Any further discussion on that? I'll accept the amendment. Friendly amendment. Friendly amendment. Thank you, Roger. Any other further items or discussion on the agenda? Melissa, did you want to take up the minutes of town meetings? Well, I would say, as a matter of formality, the minutes currently listed on the consent agenda are our last select board meeting, and so I didn't realize until I came in today, and I asked Karen, do we approve the minutes of town meeting, which have been posted on the town website. In last year's time report, it does say that the minutes were approved. That being said, I hadn't reviewed them prior to tonight, not knowing that, so we could do it tonight, or probably I would propose that the next meeting. That's okay with folks. I'd probably do a next one. Yeah, I agree. Okay, good to hear that. So in this consent agenda, we're just approving the minutes from our previous meeting. Perfect. If there are no further amendments to the agenda, all in favor of the amended agenda, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The agenda's passed. Next item, do we not have a public, we omitted that on- So you have a public at 7.25. We need a chair, a vice chair, a secretary. I'm so used to seeing it right there. Thank you. We get to all sometimes become creature habits. The next item on the agenda is select board organization to elect a chair, vice chair, and secretary for the board. Everything is open. I will make a motion to elect Roger Klopp as the next chair of the select board. I'm happy to second that. Oh, no, you have it, Danny. Sorry. Sorry. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on the election? All. Well, I would like to say so. Sure. First, I want to thank you for the nomination and also for the tremendous job that you've done over the past year. I think we got a lot of work done over this past year and really enjoyed your leadership and appreciate the fact that we now have a new municipal manager, a new town clerk and treasurer, and we'll soon have a new town planner and just want to say that we appreciate your leadership over this past year. So thank you, Roger. I really appreciate your words. It's been a pleasure and even more so an honor to serve as chair for the last year and I know we'll be in capable hands with Roger. Assuming we'll vote in the name. Right. We'll try to vote in the name of this town. So all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Next item is to, is the nomination for vice chair of the board. I think it's Roger's meeting, though. Oh, boy. I didn't know, I just do the whole election and then I hand it over to him. All right. Would you like to do that? Mike, why don't you continue through this process and then I'll take over on the next item. Thanks. Do we have a motion for vice chair of the board? Alyssa. I move to appoint Danny Kellman as vice chair of the select board. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll submit it. There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? There being none. Okay. Okay. Do you wish to say something, Danny? No, I. Also, so. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know if I was supposed to. I just thank you and I'm glad to move forward with the nomination. Yeah. Mike, you've been absent a couple of different times for family reasons over the past year. I think Danny has demonstrated a remarkable ability to lead the select board. And I'm very happy to second the nomination for her to continue as vice chair. I just want to, in the discussion section, I do also appreciate Danny, all of your hard work in behalf of the select board. It's really, you know, you helped me out. I think we've had some good discussions and I wish you luck being vice chair again. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. So all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. And the last is to appoint a secretary for the select board. Nominations for secretary of the select board. I'd like to nominate Alyssa Johnson as secretary for the select board for this coming year. And we have a second. Second. A second. Two seconds. Seconds all around the house. We have a motion. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Any, any discussions on the secretary's position? Would you like to say something? Well, I wanted to just thank and acknowledge Karen Petrovic who is our actually acting secretary and note that this is a formality only. And we are very grateful for her taking the minutes for most meetings and I'm happy to fill in the raritions. You're welcome. I'm happy to. In behalf of the whole table and Zoomland, I think we've all agreed, Karen, you've done a wonderful job. And you take that responsibility of all of our plates. Thanks. Thank you, yeah. I would just add that when Karen has not been able to be here, Alyssa has jumped right in and done a remarkable job on serving the secretary. That's part of the reason I wanted to nominate her for to serve another year. Thanks. If there's nothing further to discuss, all in favor say aye. Aye. Can you pose? Aye. Whatever. I'm sorry, we'll delay. Any abstentions? If not, thank you, Alyssa, for being secretary. And now I will pass the baton over to Roger to conduct today's meeting. Thank you, Mike. All right. We're a little bit ahead of our agenda, which is good thing. The next item is the consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So hold. Second? Second. Okay, any further discussion? Very none. All in favor of passing the consent agenda as written? Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The consent agenda has been approved. Okay, we're already to the public portion of the meeting. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to address any item that is not on the worn agenda. And I would ask that you please speak, limit your remarks to five minutes or less. And if it requires more, we can add it to the agenda in the coming weeks. So does anyone in the public, yes, Anne? I have a question for the select board about the town meeting. I would like to know why there was no Pledge of Allegiance, why there was no band, and why there was no Keith Wallace Award. All right, so we have three questions, actually, from Anne. One was the Pledge of Allegiance, one was why there was no band, and then one was what the status of the Keith Wallace Award. The Keith Wallace Award. Keith Wallace Award. I can address the last one. I understand that the Keith Wallace Award is being discussed by the EFAT Board, and there are some plans afoot to make an announcement on that. During one of their upcoming meetings. Okay. As far as the band, the Waterbury Community Band did not reach out to me for a permission to participate, so they did not participate. I don't know who their organizer is, I know who their solicitor is, and she did not ask me if she could come and participate. As for the Pledge of Allegiance, that was an oversight, Anne. I guess Mr. Kilgore has previously done that, and I didn't know to remind him, and he nodded anyone else, so it was a miss. I apologize. It was brought to my attention the next day, and I've made a note for it for next year, and that's the answer for that. All right. Thank you, Anne, for those comments, because I think this is, we're kind of a little bit out of the loop on doing town meetings we haven't done it, and with a whole change in Tom being a new town manager, I think some of those things wound up, unfortunately, got and slipped. I know usually Skip Flanders has been the one. I'm sorry to have to begin it, but I'll be, it's not it. You're breaking up. Anne, can you please repeat that? I just feel that, even if Jeff had forgotten it, somebody should have spoken up, because I just thought it was terrible that even after a hiatus of two, three years, we still should have had a pledge of allegiance. It was an official town meeting, and I think in those instances, I mean, this democracy is just going to hell on a handbasket if we can't observe just one little thing about our democracy at a town meeting. Yeah, well, I think you received an apology from Karen, and I'll also reiterate that. It was an oversight, we regret it, and we're gonna take steps to make sure that it's respected in the upcoming town meeting in the following year. Thank you. Yeah, anything, is that it? Okay, Anne, you're okay. Anyone else from the public? Okay, well thank you, and thank you, Anne, for your comments. We have now the public hearing for 51 South Main Street VCBP grant application. Is this one where we need Nicola to address the, Lisa, come forward? Perfect, I never know if I should stand or sit. Well, I'm gonna come back and see, there we go. So thank you, everyone, for having me here again. Sorry to interrupt, but can you please just introduce yourself? Oh yeah, I'm Nicola Anderson, I'm the Director of Real Estate Development for Downstreet Housing and Community Development. I'm here on behalf of Downstreet, requesting that we open up an application and to apply for funds for its Community Development Block Grant Funds from VCBP, which is a Vermont Community Development Program. We are requesting to apply for $500,000 in funds, which is not the maximum amount, but we feel like it's an amount that more likely will hopefully put us as a stronger application. As you know, we were here about a month ago for requesting ARPA dollars for this project. We have gotten our, we weren't initially gonna apply for these funds, truthfully because they are the most competitive funds in the state. These are funds that have not increased whatsoever, their allowance, and it's really challenging to get them, but due to our construction budget, that our cost estimate that came back in project budget, we are needing to fill the gap with these funds. However, we have great, so these funds, you know, aren't an allocation from the town of Waterbury, but they're federal funds that flow through the town of Waterbury. So that's why we're here today. Technically, they're awarded to the town and self-granted to Down Street, but we truly will, there is some administration work for the town, but really we will manage as much as we feasibly can throughout the project. Just to share a little bit about the project, as we have applied for funds in our funding meeting, some of our board meetings are coming up, our first one's in April, the state is really excited about this housing project. It has been stated as one of the strongest applications in the state, just with the location being in a designated downtown, the fact that we've not brought new units to Waterbury since like 2014, with the unit count, just that the state and different funders are really excited about this project, and I'm actually hoping that this will create a stronger application for the BCDP funds as well. If we can get all of our funding lined up this spring, we will be able to close the financial closing on this project by November or December of this year, which is one of the fastest moving projects that we've been able to move forward in years to. So if I understand correctly, you're looking for us to approve using the town as a pass-through and our permission to apply for these funds? Yeah, and there is a resolution that we have to pass today for that as well. I have the resolution. The resolution simply says that we're agreeing to be the pass-through entity that we have an adopted municipal plan, which we do and that I'm the contact person. I have worked with the BCDP funds in the past. The funds flow through the town. There's no financial obligation on part of the town. We in essence will draw down the funds from the state to pay to down the street. So we're never in a negative cast position because of this. There's a little bit of administrative work, but it's pretty minimal. It's something that I can handle with Michelle Ryan, our bookkeeper. So pretty low burden in terms of the workforce, in terms of the work added. But a nice cramped program of funds can be ordered. And if it does trigger an audit, there's a way in this that we can put budget aside part of this award to pay for that audit as well. There's a rule. You have to get what's called a federal single audit if you have an excess of three quarters of a million dollars of federal funds that flow through you in your calendar year. So this could be a half million, but might not flow through in one year. And we haven't hit that threshold in quite a while, but a federal single audit is not an uncommon thing. And it's not really a big deal from our perspective, especially since the single audit review would essentially consist of justice fund grant program and just the drawdown. So we're not talking a lot of work. Any further questions from the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve the resolution as Tom just described it. I make a motion to approve the resolution for the down street application for 51 South Main Street. Oh, second. Okay, any further discussion? We have a motion that's made and seconded, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, thanks, Nicola. We really appreciate it. You have it. We all have it. And quite Nicola, you just said the resolution that you published, comment that you're going to talk. I'll need a call in a minute. I'll get that online. And just the copy with resolution, especially. Yeah, yeah. I don't need the hard copy. I can get that said to me, for sure. Thank you. I'm going to have it from the back of my hands. I'll sign it. Yeah, we're, I just want to add, we're very excited and very pleased to hear that this is one of the foremost projects in the state. And I'm very much encouraged that this will move forward. Thank you. You are too. Good. And does this need any further action on the part of EFUD as owners of the property? It does not. And the reason, one of the reasons that the funds would flow through the town and not EFUD is that the town has the municipal plan. And EFUD being a children's district wouldn't have that plan. Mm-hmm. Thanks for that explanation. All right, next on the agenda, we have housekeeping questions. I guess that's fine. Who has the housekeeping question? I'll take it a little bit. I just wanted, if there's an opportunity to talk to the board about the orders, for example. The Mondays, that we have meetings. That's fairly self-explanatory. I bring them, and one of you all has the opportunity to sign them. But on the opposite weeks, there is a hope from the staff that folks get into the office fairly quickly to sign orders. Particularly if you see a message that says there's a check that needs, you know, it's urgent. And just perhaps an ask when that email goes out about the orders if somebody can reply just so we know it was received. Maybe throw in, I can be there Tuesday at noon. I can be there Wednesday at five. You know, whatever your availability is. So we have some information to give to the bookkeeper about when she can expect those orders to be signed and just managing those expectations. Well, I think, sorry to interrupt, no? Yes. Go ahead. I was just gonna say, Danny already added an item to the agenda about planning, adding items to our next agenda, maybe that at the same time identify who can schedule the time to come in and sign the orders so that it's sort of understood who's coming in. Is it responsible? Sure. I agree with you, it's a little bit nerve wracking. Not knowing who is gonna come in and get those things signed so that the business of the town can move forward. I also didn't know if Cain needed any explanation what this is all about. I mean, I think you gave me a pretty good rundown on email. Yeah, so every week on Monday the bookkeeper runs the accounts payable, payroll. He lives in this folder. We can't mail the checks until these orders are signed. So if, for example, we have a credit card payment in there, we run the risk, I think less so now perhaps than before, but we had one credit card with really tight deadlines. And so that was always urgent. And there can be other ones too. Somebody wants to buy a truck and we need the check. Or, you know, who knows, the list is endless. And we only need, I guess this is a different authorization, sign warrants. So we only need one signature, but we can touch on that a little later. So that was on my housekeeping list. Somebody had a question for me about... And just so Cain, that applies to any purchase we make, whether it's a million bucks or a buck. Oh, thank you. And then something I'm looking into is an online system where orders could be approved online and reviewed, but then any invoice would appear online. So if you had a question about an invoice or someone said to you, hey, how much should we pay for that truck? You can always call us, but you can dig it up on your own if you wanted to. So the interior system that any member of the public could also look at and see what we're spending our money on. So it's just a matter of finding the right system and making sure it's affordable. But they certainly exist. Perfect. So if Danny wished to talk about that a little more in depth later, then that's fine, that's great. Okay, I was, you know, part of Danny's request, I think, was to make that a standing item in the agenda. And I would just sort of add a friendly amendment to that, that we would also identify who is going to come in and sign off on the warrants so that it reduces some of that question. That's due, how was this going to move in? Who is coming and when? That's a big question on every Tuesday morning. Right, and unfortunately, the Tuesdays are days that I have to go into the office and so that doesn't usually work for me, but. That's a good idea though, Roger, to have it planned out and then if somebody needs backup for any reason they can reach out, but yeah, I like that. Okay, and then I had another housekeeping question that's about orientation. Both Alyssa and I received orientation through VLCT a couple of different online workshops last year, which I thought were adequate. It didn't, not every town works the same because of different management scenarios, so not everything seemed to apply and a lot of it was more on what you can't do because of open meeting laws than what you can do, which was a little discouraging so much. But I'm just wondering if those same orientations are available and maybe you've already discussed it with Kain. And then you might want to have a little bit more orientation scheduled for our next meeting just to make sure that everyone's clear on what the ground rules are, Alyssa. Well, so on that note, this could be housekeeping and VLCT. We actually got postcards from VLCT, which I interestingly noticed were mailed to the municipal complex. I get other things from them mailed to my address, which just brought up, I did not know until Valentine's Day of this year when I tried to distribute Valentine's Day, we have mailboxes in the municipal offices. So in housekeeping, we have mailboxes in the municipal offices, even though I think, do you give them our home address? Cause I get stuff at my house too. Although I got an email today from VLCT, I have to do a survey. They may ask for home addresses. I had not completed the survey. It's probably gonna ask me through your names, your phone numbers, your emails and your addresses. That's pretty standard stuff. So if you have any objections to that information being given to them, let me know before you leave tonight. The mailboxes for those of you on the select board, I don't think they're wildly used. You'd probably find like a VLCT postcard or some sort of flyer from a real estate agent or something of that nature in there. But if there was something that came urgent, you'd get an email from me. Would you get it in your mailbox? Mike. Suggestion, I think would be a good thing for a lot of organizational thing, maybe to dedicate one whole select board meeting to that. There's a lot of things that really go into the organization of the board. Anything from, you know, I know we're gonna do some like conflict of interest and things like that. But in terms of like, you know, we haven't discussed for a while inclusion and there's a whole bunch of issues. I know we may wanna have some training again, you know, with Mary again. And, you know, there's the only people on the board who would have been at that training would be myself and Danny. And I just think dedicating one full meeting to that, you know, you could do the little bits of business but the bulk of the meeting dedicated to a select board training. Tom, I think you had mentioned inclusion training. Yeah, I want me to talk about that. No, I'll wait until the agenda item about next meeting. Well, it's in front of us right now. So why don't you go ahead? So I traded to me with Mary. We had a pretty long Zoom meeting and she's working on a proposal to me about an additional training and the question. And I discussed with her that extending it beyond the manager and select board department to all town staff. And then the question and the question for you is do you want to extend it further to include volunteer board members? So it wouldn't be a given the size, it wouldn't be a training, it would be a series. So she's working on that scope for me to try to work through that and figure that out to bring a proposal to you. And then the other part of it would be, and this would come pretty soon with a new employee handbook is, I think embedded in the handbook would be a requirement to have training for new hires within so many days of being hired. That's something that we would schedule and make sure happens, but I think it's a good way to make sure we're meeting our goals. I think that's a great idea, Tom. We discussed, I know in the first round before Mary came in, possibly including staff in some way. But then there was, but the immediacy we wanted to get things done, it was limited to the select board and just a few others, the town manager, the town clerk, et cetera. But I think that's a great idea that, I know in USDA, we had required diversity training every year on our staff member. So I think it's a good thing that people, and I don't know how you wanna do it. You may wanna have some people have a shorter segment of it and other people, managers and stuff like that may wanna have the full. Yeah, and I told Mary that I really was looking for her guidance on how she thinks it's best to proceed given she's done a lot of this. And I told her tentatively, I'd like to plan for late April and May, somewhere in there, rather make sure the scope is right and have some time. Danny, you went through the initial training. What's your take on this? Thanks, I did talk with Tom a couple of weeks ago and was really enthusiastic to extend it to at least the full staff. And I really feel strongly about that. And Tom, I really appreciate what you're saying because part of the question is when we have new boards or new staff, how do we remedy keeping the momentum going? So Mary might be able to point us to some resources that would be helpful for new staff in particular, but also maybe be able to talk with us about ongoing work knowing that the board does turn over even if it's one person each year and what the best way to do that is. So she's spectacular at what she does. And I think we're really lucky to have her and certainly enthusiastic about the full staff being there as well. All right, any other questions or input from the board? So Tom, you'll have something to present to us at the next meeting. Maybe not the next meeting, but soon enough. Okay. It's being actively worked on. All right, thanks. Any other housekeeping questions you promise right now? Yeah, listen. I didn't know if we had any updates on emails or just sharing contact information. I think I do at this point have everyone's contact information but I don't know last year. I think we did it just like, again, we kind of send out information to everyone and just say like, hi, my preferred contact. I don't have a, I only have myself one which I'm happy to give to the fellow board members. And you're free to call me on it. Please don't call Margaret at my work at the front desk, which happened once. So anyway, I don't know if it's best for us to send that to Tom and have him distribute it or us just individually send but I know it was not great at it last year and I think it would be worthwhile early on or what folks prefer emails are. And if you want a town email, you can create that. Yeah, I will just note that it's not uncommon for select board members to be targeted with spam and malign intent. And I had my personally mail hacked this past year. That's not a fun process to have to resolve. So I just, I mean, I think you should expect when you're gonna receive spam and phishing emails. So just according to the lies. And so you may want to consider just using a town email for town business, which will protect your other contacts. Just a suggestion. What public officials and it's all out there and the scammers know. And it's anytime I get a suspicious, I know I've gotten Roger call. I used to get all the time. I get something for you all. Crispy ends all the time, you know, about stuff. And I just don't respond, I call. I get on the phone, you know, call someone. Smart. It's your best idea. All right. Yeah, so let's just before the end of the meeting, maybe I'll start it, I'll put it back down my personal phone. This is not for public sharing with the public. It's just so that we can be in touch with one another whenever we need to. All right. Let's move on to approving the conflict of interest. Policy and rules of procedure. I had sent an email, but I was literally right before the meeting. And I was just curious if, if we as the town, I don't know if that would be the clerk or the town manager, but how often we might check to ensure that the statutes that are referred to in these documents are up to date and that we're still in compliance. I don't know how often a state statue may or may not change. But it seems like without, we often will go decades without double checking and can get into hot water. So maybe we'd put it on that town rotating calendar every three years, every five years to just check on any referenced statue and make sure it's correct and in compliance. It's a great idea. I can tell you that we did work on the conflict of interest policy with the auditors and they look at that every year. So I believe that one is rock solid. All right. So let's start with conflict of interest policy. We have in front of us, the authority is going to do 24 of the SA 229120. The select board hereby adopts the following policy concerning conflicts of interest and that goes on for several articles, nine articles from there. And just to be clear, we did a little research on this. The conflict of interest policy has historically been adopted by the select board every year. I don't believe it needs to be. Once a select board adopts a policy, remains a policy. So we kept it on the agenda out of tradition but I'm not aware of a statute that requires you to re-adopt it each year. I think why we're popularly as every year we usually have some change in members. So that's short, I think would be the reason why you would re-introduce it every year. Sure, I'm just saying it's not a requirement. Right. But it's a tradition. So I will entertain a motion to approve the conflict policy for 2023. I move to adopt the time-water rate conflict. Conflict of interest policy as presented. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? I think in the spirit that has been brought up this evening my understanding is this applies to all bodies that our committees and things like that. And I will say I attended one subcommittee meeting and they said we should have a conflict of interest policy. And I said that's great, the town already has one and it actually applies to you. So again, I think just in that thinking about like, I know we're probably on appointments in a couple of meetings, is this something we share regularly with boards just so I think we, because of Open Meeting Law and additional training, are very aware of it. But recognizing it might be more a learning curve for other boards and just wanting to make sure that they're being informed. We can. And I would just state the record on the town website under plans, policies and ordinances, is that the tab? Or procedures, plans? Yeah, far right on the bottom. Maybe it is ordinances. Yeah. Okay, any further discussion on the conflict of interest policy? I just wanted to add maybe just this printout of conflict of interest is just something we hand out at all boards. And at the beginning of every year might be a good idea because then no one's going to ask if we have a conflict of interest policy, it's going to be in their hand. We'll do. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor of approving the conflict of interest policy? Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, we'll approve the conflict of interest policy for 2023. Next are the rules of procedure. This is to conduct the meetings in accordance with the Vermont Open Meeting Law, 1VSA 310, 314. And it goes on from there as printed before us. Any discussion on this one? I'll make a motion to start to adopt this like board rules of procedure. Okay, do I hear a second? Second. Second with Cain. Okay, any further discussion? Alyssa. I would also just say it loud because I think this is one that like we do adopt every year, but I don't understand what Cain just suggested. I think we should have a printed copy of these at all of our meetings. And just because we actually have public attendance, which is so great to see, I just wanted to say out loud a couple of the high points just for the board and for everyone just around like, obviously they have to be open to the public per open meeting law. At the beginning of the meeting, there's five minutes for public comment. We're allowed to increase that if there's things that if you'd like to be on an agenda, you contact the town manager, select board chair or town clerk to request that. Follow the order of the agenda. And, you know, the chair runs the meeting and you know, comments on relevant agenda topics up to five minutes at the discretion of the chair. And I guess I would just say, thanks rather for being willing to chair and I think hopefully we as a board can support you in doing a good job running a meeting for everyone where folks can be heard but also we move business forward. And it's constantly a challenging balance to do but just taking the opportunity to say, that's my hope or intention as we adopt this. Yeah, thank you. And I'll just follow up by saying, I don't pretend to be the world's leading expert on Robert's rules or the slightly amended Robert's rules that the state of Vermont abides by. So if you have any issues, whether it's this or anything else, I invite all the board members or members in the public to address them with me and we'll try to keep improving and conduct a conduct of the meeting. How do you feel about these specifically these two documents just being on the wall or somewhere in this room? Because I don't attend every board meeting and I don't believe you attend every board meeting. I mean, I can circulate them to the board chairs but it all states that it's supposed to be available at the meeting, which it is via the web but I could get a couple of frames and put them up. I mean, I'm not scotch tape on the wall but I can find it nice. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a small bulletin board with a couple of, you know, maybe even more information. Yeah. Do you post agendas for all the boards? Mm-hmm. I mean, yes. Can we simply add this to the back of each agenda so you're not hosting? Well, I could but we have to print all those and print them out on town too. So that would be a lot to print on each one. A little more trees. No. Supporting the, I like the board, it's a good idea. I like to just grab a small piece of board and that. Well, not diminishing the idea of calling attention to them to the board chairs, but having them available in this room where pretty much all of our board meetings are helping. Yeah, I think that'd be a great idea. And they are, I was also gonna ask you mentioned it but they are on the website? Yeah. They are. Okay. There you go. All right, you want to remind me. I know we have a motion and a second. Did we pass this? Okay. All in favor of passing the select board rules of procedure say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Opposed? Any abstentions? All right, the rules of procedure have been passed. Let's move forward. Authorization to sign warrants. So you would need to make a motion authorizing at least one select person to sign warrants. That's been done here for a long, long time. Sometimes decide they want more than one person. Sometimes decide that they want the entire board to approve it at a public meeting. I think the model we have now works fine generally. Which is to have every select board member authorized to sign warrants. Authorized to sign, but just needing one is really important to check. Okay, I'll attend the motion. And to authorize all select board meetings to sign warrants. But only one has to sign per the currents of each mark. Okay, do I hear a second? Second. All right. Any further discussion on this? I'll just agree with Tom that I think this, the system that we've got works well. And we've been able to find at least one board member to come in and get these things signed so that the business can move forward, which is most important. And it does provide a level of oversight from the board on all expenditures of the town. So I'm in favor of it as well. Can I also let you all know, perhaps you don't know, but you can still sign warrants electronically. The Edward Farrer Utility District, they sign the warrants without actually coming into the office. If you want to see the bills, you need to come into the office. Well, we used to do that during COVID. You would just scan the applicable figures and send them into the town clerk. So it is another option. Yeah, having only done it twice, I enjoyed just matching up the one paper and the bill. Okay, that one works. Okay, next one, and it's a little bit easier to do in person, perhaps, than online, although I have not tried it online. It's easier in person, but I've done it a bunch of times. During COVID, I did it a bunch of times on the scan. It gives us that option in case something happens and we need to something else to be signed. Right. So your motion was that it can be done either in person or online, so the way I understand it. I didn't make that motion, but I think it's a friendly amendment. I think it's state law. I think Karen's right, that's what you're telling me. So is that a bond we don't need? We're authorized that the warrant signing could be done in hard copy before. Right, okay. All right, any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of passing the authorization to sign the warrants, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, the authorization to sign warrants is approved. Newspaper of record. Currently the Times Argus is our newspaper of record. Previous to that, it was water burning roundabout, but since it's no longer printing a hard copy, state law, as I understand it, promotes us from having them as our exclusive newspaper of record. It has to be printed newspaper. So we have, I'll open up the discussion. I'll also note that one of our constituents, Bruce King, sent an email out within the last two days asking if we could have the Valley Reporter, which is published in Weitzfield as our newspaper of record, since it does cover local school activities. And I did respond to Bruce and I contacted the publisher at the Valley Reporter today. Their circulation is about 3,100, including about 50 households that are subscribed in Waterbury. They also put it on the stands at Shaw's Village Market and Maplewood down at the entrance of the ice center there. So it does, it is also here. I also just out of curiosity, put in a call to the Times-Argus to find out what their circulation in the town of Waterbury is and they're gonna try to put together those figures for us, but couldn't get them to maybe for this meeting. I have a question about what that, what the relationship with the newspaper looks like when it's our paper of record, we still pay to put in those public notices each time, is that correct? We still take to put in the notices. When I add, there's the Secretary of State publishes newspapers of record on their websites. You can also use a statewide publication and there's a little nuance to the law. Their website was down all day today so I couldn't really research this when it came up in detail. So I can't tell you today with 100% confidence that a newspaper that just does a weekly would satisfy the legal requirement. I think it would, but I can't tell you that with 100% confidence as of today. There are some legal notices that we have to publish in consecutive weeks. Bonvote, for example, I'm not aware of any that we have to publish in consecutive days. So I think a weekly would be fine. It isn't nice to have daily publications because an example was EFUD passed updated water and sirens recently and to some extent the legal clock to a challenge starts ticking when you publish and that would also apply to things like DRB hearings. So sometimes it's nice to call on Monday and if they can get the notice in on a Wednesday you've met your requirement and that 60 day clock may start a few days sooner. So it is nice to have the daily on occasion. I can find out for you if it's a requirement. I just didn't get that done today. Mike, and then let's go. Yeah. As much as I love when we had the water around about available, but that's not about now in their current state. I'd be very opposed, not the Valorant Court is not a good paper. I know they do a lot of hardwood sports. They do school board meetings, but I think people who read newspapers, they're gonna read even by those numbers I would think the Times Argus would be, especially older readers who either get the, used to get either the free press or the Times Argus. I think most people want to vary this. It's a little bit more Washington County centric than Burlington free press. I think that's, that's just, you know, if we have to have, plus this concept, I think it's a good reason to have the availability of a dally. So I'd be opposed as much as I'd like to want the value of a reporter as a paper itself. I don't think it's the best means for it to be a paper of record. Alyssa. My question was for Tom or Karen, they know what it's a technicality, which is around having an alternate. As I'm recalling, I mean, I believe the then water brain record, which was a weekly was the paper record for many years. And I believe that Times Argus was an alternate for those quick turnarounds thing. So assuming that law has not changed, I think you could have a weekly and a daily. So I was wondering about some combination that we might consider that would give us that flexibility. I thought the school coverage wasn't interesting. You know, I think like the, I hadn't thought of it. So Bruce, who I see is here on Zoom, bringing it up, appreciated it. Obviously we, but literally many other towns and then it was like, oh well, should it be the store reporter? I don't think so, obviously. But the fact that it does have the shared school district with the valley and Dr. Braymore town and that it covers all of those. And that we're on that school board as well. I thought was interesting just in terms of who might be subscribing. It's, I will say modest subscription fee as opposed to the Times Argus, which personally I don't subscribe just, you know, from a cost perspective. So I'm hoping, but I think the alternate might be a good way to at least acknowledge some nuance if we choose to go one direction or the other. Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, we don't really want to go with the stove newspaper. And that kind of leaves us optionless as far as readers go. We're kind of pinned with the Times Argus than a valley reporter unless, unless you want to go free press, but I don't remember the last time I picked a free press. Absolutely. Does staff have concerns or anything? I have no concerns with having an alternate newspaper right here at all. It seems to work well when we had the Waterbury record, as Alyssa mentioned, that was the weekly. So I wonder, I like the idea of supporting, you know, the Valley paper, but also understand the need for possibly a daily and a quicker turnaround. And I'm curious if like, if we chose, if the board unanimously chose to go forward and we went back, would we be able to double-check and then adjust as needed? Or will we get ourselves into a weird pickle if we tried to do that without confirming? I mean, I can't imagine that rule changed, but. I don't believe it changed. No, you can still. Bruce, I'll just recognize that you're online here. If you wanted to contribute to this conversation, we'd like to hear what you have to say. Sure, I'm not very zoom literate. So I'll do my best. Can anyone hear me there? Yes, yes. All right, cool, thank you. Yes, so I do think that there's a certain value in having a newspaper that already reports on our school district and more than just the sports coverage that the Time to Argus provides for the Harvard sports, the Valley reporter does comprehensive school district reporting. And I also see the value in having a daily provide quicker response so town government doesn't get slowed down just by waiting for a weekly publication. So I think the best course of action is from what I've heard is to maybe choose the Valley reporter as the primary and then have an alternate of the Time Argus. So when town staff needs to get something out quicker, they have that option to do that. And I would also add what comments about that the Waterbury Roundabout is kind of our primary journalistic outlet, even though they are a digital outlet of continuing to post notices on the Waterbury Roundabout to get better outreach to folks that may only be subscribing to a digital journalism outlet. Thank you. And just a question for the staff, I'm sorry. Yes, Lisa. I don't hear a comment even though I'm trying to cover the meeting at the same time. Yeah, sure. Come up though, please come up. I was just going to say that we are, of course, working with you to ask the staff about how we're currently, what the current arrangement is, but you can probably answer that better than any of us. Right. I'm Lisa Skolodian, I'm the editor of the Waterbury Roundabout online site. And it was the Waterbury reader that was the paper of record last year along with the Times Argus that we produced with them and then that ended in September. So I understand the need to have your notices in a print publication, I get that. That's the world that we live in right now. But if you're gonna, I would like to just throw out the option if you're considering having two newspapers and you're gonna be using the Times Argus to, if you have a print paper as your primary, have the local Waterbury paper which also covers the school district. I'm sitting here thinking maybe I don't have to cover the school board Wednesday night but if I'll just let the Valley Reporter cover it. I'm doing that too. And we have 2040 some people getting our newsletter every week. That went out this morning, a little late of my crazy weekend. But we have somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 people on our website every week. And that's around the population of our town. I think we have a pretty engaged readership. We have a lot of people on our website reading the town stories, the school stories, et cetera. We have made room and I do give Tom and Bill beforehand some credit. Some of the public notices have been coming to us. There've been public hearings that have happened in the town. Like tonight's public hearing for Down Street was on our website. In an admission that well we'll put this in the 10th August but if we want people to see it we need to put this on the roundabout too because that's where people are looking. It's also a place where the town can advertise for employment ads. We do have, that's not a legal notice because you advertise widely for jobs. So those go into a lot of different places so I appreciate that. One of the reasons that the bill to change this didn't happen last year is that newspapers, print newspapers talked about how important the advertising from these ads is to them. Well I'm getting none of that advertising right now. So our main source of income right now is 101 people giving us money every month that are readers. So I'm at the point with this where unless we get advertising we sort of need to be getting funding from a multitude of sources. Subscribers are one source but we need to start really truly working on businesses and organizations seeing us as a place to advertise to support us that way so we actually have that revenue in order for us to get paid. So anyway, I would just throw that out there as an option if you are thinking about if you're having more than one outlet what's the mix, how do you meet the requirements and how do you actually get the public to notice the public notices. No offense to the Valley Reporter. I was on the phone three times with them today. I had there with my friends and it was about things with the schools that we're covering together. You know, they do a good job. Their focus is that the towns and the Valley and we're covering a lot of the same stuff that way too. But as far as whether readers in Waterbury are reading the Valley Reporter, I'm not sure. I mean, how many of you read the Valley Reporter every week? Do you even know where to get it? Do you go to their website? You know where to get it, right? Yeah, that's right, you were listening. That was a quiz. It's online too, so it's just a consideration and I don't know what your budget is for this sort of thing, how many places you wanna be able to spend your money when it comes to that. I know our ads are a lot cheaper than the Times Argus. So for whatever that's worth, I just wanna throw that out there to say don't forget about us because I'm here, we've got UVM students trying to cover things as well and we're trying to keep that going and there are a lot of people paying attention. Right. So, thank you. Do you wanna give him? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Oh, Anne. Anne? I just wanna say as an old newspaper person myself, I don't get print newspapers anymore and I get my local news either on WDEV or The Roundabout and I rely on that and I get all my other news online, whether it's the Times, I don't do the Times Argus, I do the New York Times, I do the, I do the CBC and I do the Boston Papers all online. I'm just so discouraged by print advertising, the print papers, the way they've been consolidated and shrunk down and stuff, but that's just an old newspaper woman's two cents. But I really think if you can include The Roundabout, I think you'd reach, I don't know anybody who takes those papers anymore, but that's just me. Thank you, Anne. So, to clarify, we by state law have to have a print newspaper as our paper of record that does not preclude us from still purchasing advertising space in the Waterbury online, you know, addition knowing that that's where most of our residents get their news, but we cannot choose The Roundabout as our paper of record. We've heard a lot of testimony, does anyone feel like we need a motion? Like I make a motion to have the Times Argus be the print paper of record with the Waterbury record, Waterbury Roundabout be the alternate. Do I have a second? I do not have a second. You're looking a little bit... Yeah, we're blessed, but I feel like we need to make a second before I put it in. Second and for the purpose of discussion. Okay, now we have a second, now we can discuss. And so, as to what I just said, can a non-print paper be the alternate? I don't know the answer to that. Not legally, but you can certainly tell us that any legal notice that goes in the official paper of record we should also put in the Waterbury Roundabout. Okay. So we don't want, go ahead Elsa. No, go ahead. So my question is just making a motion for a paper, should we not include that as an alternate since it's not actually a legal alternate? That's a, I'm afraid, I would have made my amendment to just have the Times-R as be the paper of record. Just say withdraw, and then we can start again. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. How do you do that? Just clean right here. I'm drawing the original motion and I reintroduce the new motion to make the Times-R as be the Waterbury paper of record. Okay, with no official alternate. Yeah, I'll wait for a second. It's tough to find these days. We had a lot before, no seconds. I guess just in the spirit of the discussion, I just want to thank you, Lisa, for your comments and say Bruce, to his credit in his email, immediately started with make the Waterbury Roundabout, the paper of record and we went through state law and why that wasn't possible. And I didn't suppose that just at our previous meeting we have asked Tom to, not for all public notices, but to try and work to include the roundabout. And I think we should, regardless of after we make this for all newspaper of record, I would, if it's amenable to the board offer that we also make a formal motion to instruct staff to post all notices in the roundabout separately. Yeah. With the question on the table with regards to the actual printed papers. Yes. Times-R, it feels like needs to be in the mix for the daily purpose. My question is, does the board feel their points taken about, roundabout really should be, is it worth putting Valley Reporter as an alternate for some reason or do we think that gives the wrong impression because we want roundabout to really be the alternate. It's semantics, I'm not trying to, you know, push them but that's not my question on the table. And also, if you look at the numbers for the Valley Reporter, they're very small. Right. So, I don't know the reason to have the Valley Reporter, other than they're a very nice organization. Even, we just said none of them, none of us read the Valley Reporter. Well, there are five here. Okay. Right. Do we have to have an alternate? If we have the Times-R, which prints daily, do we need an alternate? No, no. Do we need an alternate? And then we can second Mike's motion. Well, no, no one has second Mike's motion so we're still sort of open discussion until we find a motion and a second. All right, so, does anyone want to restate a motion and find a second? Someone else. They're helping a lot, dear. We can do this, folks. Mike, one more time. Well, the most recent motion was to have the Times-Argus as the Waterbury's paper of record today. Yes, and we're waiting for a second. I will second the motion. Thank you. All right, we have a motion to make the Times-Argus our newspaper of record. And we have a second. Any further discussion on this motion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the Times-Argus is our newspaper of record. Now, what Alyssa had just introduced was to also direct the board to also post notices in the Waterbury Roundabout. Direct town staff. Oh, it's a direct town staff, okay. We don't need a motion, we can just do that. Yeah, we don't need a motion. If everyone, that's consensus on that, I think we're all okay with that. If not, please let me know. I just, Karen wouldn't mind putting an explicit note in the minutes, that just, I know it's already been in there last week, but so that's there again. So we can tell us. All right. And then tell us how much it's in the minutes. I'll just also note that if we so decide, we can also advertise in other newspapers, including the Valley Reporter, right? Roger, this is what, I would love to, if the Times-Argus gets back to you with that, those numbers, I'd be super curious to see it if you do get that information, if possible. Sure. I'll be happy to inform you at our next meeting if I don't get the opportunity to do so before. Okay, thank you. Let's move forward. Authority for Tax Anticipation Borrowing. As I understand it, there may be a circumstance that we will need to borrow funds before taxes become due and received in August. And this is the authority for the time to do that. Tom, maybe you can further explain. Sure. We have a couple, despite having substantial reserves, the town has some pinch points for cash, as does EFUD. So historically, there's a request before the sweat board and then for EFUD, sure whether or after. In essence, for the town to borrow from Utilities Recruits, we borrow from the town. Last year, that was set at 2%. EFUD borrowed money from the town at 2% last December for a few weeks. That's about it, and then EFUD again borrowed money from the town for essentially, about the month of February for three or four weeks at 2%. The town, EFUD paid the town interest that went into the town's tax stabilization fund. Historically, the rate has been quite low around half the prime rate because the prime rate's been very low. And so that's favorable for both the town and EFUD because we're borrowing from each other less than we could borrow from a bank. Right. If there ever wasn't sufficient cash in under this pally, then I'd just simply go to a bank for short term cash. So right now, the prime rate is 7.75%, which is something that I haven't seen in my adult lifetime. I think the last time the prime was at seven and three quarters was maybe in the 90s, late 80s, in a while. We're still in a good position. We could still borrow at well below the prime rate, but I would propose that this year the internal borrowing rate should be, you can pick your number, but I think it should be in the range of three to four. I think three and a half is pretty consistent with our past and that we're usually around half the prime rate in that range. So if you have a particular feeling, but my recommendation is three and a half, and I propose the same for EFUD. EFUD has cash pinches just before bills are paid. And the town has cash pinches around the statutory dates when we have to pay school taxes. And we try to do as much of that internally as we can if we have to pay interest, we'll pay ourselves. Like, does this differ from the article that we passed? You know, we don't pass it, tax anticipation. I don't think we get into the weeds as to what percent. Is that what we're doing here? That's authority for external borrowing. Okay. So what the town. Is it for internal borrowing? Yeah, town meeting day, there's authority for external borrowing, tax anticipation, note if needed, and then there's also authority to borrow for public works equipment. And then if we need to do a formal long-term bond vote, that's a separate, complete separate item. Thank you. And just a point of clarification. Who or from what fund are we borrowing the money internally? E-FUD is very investment funds. And so the town would borrow from E-FUD's reserves. E-FUD would typically borrow from the town tax stabilization fund. Okay. Any further questions? Yeah, Alyssa. There's no question. I was gonna offer a motion. Okay, go ahead. I move that the select board authorize inter-municipal lending between the town of Waterbury and the Edward Farrar Utility District with an interest rate of 3.5% at the discretion of the municipal manager. Do I have a second? Okay. All right. Can't be first. That's just because my right ear's a little bit better than my left. All right, so any further discussion on this? I'm sorry for second. Okay. Thank you. All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. We approve the authority for internal borrowing at 3.5% or at the discretion of the town municipal unionist and manager. And you just said E-FUD actually just paid its time back, right? Is that our money? E-FUD had owed the town $110,000, and part of that is operating, and part of it was E-FUD just bought a new truck. The town, the town meeting day, the $150,000 payment to E-FUD was approved. The town meeting can technically be challenged. That being said, this was not an external purchase, so I moved the town's $150,000 to E-FUD. That check here at E-FUD paid the town back with interest, and I took delivery of doing that because it's just the right thing to do for both municipalities in the end, since it's internal cash. I didn't commit it, so outside organizations wouldn't receive any funding until that 30 days has passed. All right. All right, let's move on to the appointment of the Tree Warden, shall I list? Yes, we need a Tree Warden. Our Tree Warden is Steve Lott's Beach. Despite his party, Steve is gonna stay on for two more weeks. As Tree Warden or? As Steve Lott's Beach, and all his glory. Okay. The rain. That's right, the rain. What's a Tree Warden rain? We, I believe we really should have a Tree Warden and a deputy. The Tree Warden duties come into play when there's a dangerous tree and someone has to make a call about taking it down. And sometimes it can be a little bit contentious, especially if a homeowner has a nice tree in front of their house and wants to keep it. Nice to have someone who's got that title and some training that can go with it. And VLCT does trainings for these sort of things. Steve, let me know that Mike Lashavio, so I have not yet, but he maintains our, a lot of our gardens and areas in the summer has expressed an interest. I would also suggest that one of our public works crew should be the deputy Tree Warden in case they've got it and make a call. Do you have an individual in mind? I believe that should be Bill Woodruff. Do you know if he's willing to serve? I actually haven't had that conversation with him yet, but it's not, we're not adding to his burden per se. So I think it's pretty safe to appoint him as a team player. Al Angel, is there a residency requirement? Not aware of any residency requirements. In fact, I know in other towns there have been non-residents. Do you happen to know if Steve has talked to Mike Lashavio and whether he'd be willing to accept the position? I believe he has. Mike volunteered to Steve. They don't think they need a decision tonight, do they? They don't need a decision tonight because Steve has two more weeks. So you can take your time on this one. Until April 3rd? Okay. Maybe if you can just make sure that the two candidates are prized, that we're interested in them serving unless the board has any further discussion on the matter. We'll do. Okay, thank you. All right, I think we've finished the main public agenda. And then there's the, actually, there's the item that Danny added, which is the next meeting. And so what I'm doing, would you like to address that now? So knowing that we're not gonna have everything ready for two weeks from now, each meeting, I just think it would be prudent and helpful for us as a group to maybe, A, look at the parking lot, see if there's anything that is pressing or that we're ready to move up, maybe knowing whether we have a heavier light agenda in front of us, also to hear from Tom as to whether he knows already that there's anything and then to hear from individual Slack board members. Of course, you know, it will evolve, but I just, I think it'll help us be looking forward, especially as we establish those goals that we've been working on. So I think one thing is, we just talked about the tree warden, so making sure that that's on the four, three agenda. And then looking at the parking lot, I'm curious if there are any of these that are coming up that need to be on that next agenda or it would be prudent of us to put on there. Tom, do you have input on that? Yeah, I've got a few items for the next agenda. So the first is, appointment of acting planning and zoning director. We do need at least an acting director by law. We are interviewing for Steve's replacement on Friday. We have some excellent candidates, so we may have a better understanding in a week or so of where that's headed. But nonetheless, there's likely to be a period where we need an acting director. So that would be likely an item for the next agenda. It could also be Steve on a part-time basis until we find a full-time replacement, but there's some conversation there that a lot could be tied up with a bow for two weeks from now. Yeah, Steve will be serving through the 3rd of April? Through the end of this month. March 3rd. Yeah. So perhaps we need a motion now to... We can go the weekend without it. Okay, so. On a similar note, Steve is also appointed to Central Mon Regional Planning Commission. So his appointment actually expires in July and he's willing to stay in that role. So presumably when there's a new hire, we'd make that appointment too, but you can also have an alternate. You may want to consider that and that was something for the next agenda I would put in front of you. Other items for next agenda was presentation of quarterly financials. And then with that, I also, and that would take a bit of time trying to work on that presentation to make sure it's detailed enough, but concise enough. And then also, as part of that would be, I'd give an overview of the investment funds and where they're at, where they finish the year. Some of the major issues there. I need all those races approved too. One of them's in May, and they've all been patiently waiting to hear from me because I've put them off through the month of March with the Sleep Pupers. Yeah, all those Sleep Pupers, 100 for 100. Circus Smirkus is something new. That Clyde Goodemore Parade and the gravel grinder, which is in May. I think you and I got the email about the gravel grinder. Yeah, that was one that I was going to say that we should definitely approve or address at the next meeting because they have to do their planning. And did we approve the little leaf parade? So he's prepared to come on April 3rd. Okay, yeah, we got the fine room. Oh, maybe we move all those up to the 4-3 agenda from the parking lot. And then I'd love to take this opportunity also for those who are watching or in the room and for Lisa. I know there was some trouble with the website getting the agenda up last weekend. And I found out from Karen that only 158 folks in Waterbury subscribe to the select board agenda notifications via email. And I know a lot of folks sometimes say they feel surprised about agenda items or they might feel blindsided or they didn't know it was upcoming. So I really want to get the word out that if you just sign up on the website, it's a really easy link. You'll get the agendas, exactly what the select board is gonna be addressing. You can reach out about the items and we really want the public to feel informed and engaged. And there's such a simple way to take ownership. So I just wanted to say it, wanted to make sure it was getting out there. That's great. Don't wanna hear that. All right, Mike. The other thing that's kind of time sensitive and I don't know if Tom's spoken to Gary about this. We usually by early, I think early beginning of May, we have to approve our local emergency management plan. That's on the to-do list that's being worked on. Okay. But we're gonna have to approve it and stuff like that. So if it's in a provable stage for next meeting, you know, there's only gonna be one more meeting before the deadline that that has to be in root state. This is for what again? I'm sorry. Local, it's for this, for much emergency management. Okay. We have the emergency management director submits for the municipality. It'll probably be for the most part, pretty similar to what it's been the last few years, but they have to renew yearly a local emergency management plan. They call it a LEMP. For the municipality. And I assume it's gonna be, well, a lot for Gary, it's probably gonna be change some change in names and positions, especially with what we have now, but that's a requirement for for modern emergency management. Okay. So do you wanna do new board appointments on the 17th of April or do you wanna do it on the 1st of May? They expire on April 30th. So I guess we could do it, make first. So this is new people coming to boards like the Conservation Commission and Planning Commission. You do already have three applicants for the Sea on the Planning. So you're probably gonna wanna interview these people over this soon. So I just wanted to know now what, when you wanna, when you see that being done, so I can plan accordingly. I need to advertise for some vacancies too. Right. That was my question on the CBRTC for C, but should that just be moved in? I guess it's a little different, but should that just go with the other appointments whenever we choose to do them? If you wanna do that on the 17th, we'll start to take up the same time, yeah. Yeah. It seems like with the financials for the third, maybe that would be better to use on the 17th for the current. Right. Well, it's either the 17th or the 1st of May is what Karen is suggesting. Yeah, I just don't do them on the 17th. If that gives us enough time to recruit the candidates, I know that finding volunteers is not the easiest thing to do and we wanna make sure that people know that there's an opportunity and give them time to put their names in the ring. Luckily, many of the people who are expiring have already voiced that they'd like to be reappointed. There's one gentleman that would not like to be reappointed, so that leaves a vacancy on the tree committee. But the RAC committee we know is scarcely, you know. We do have a new person that's raised their hand too, to join that. Okay, are they emailing me? I told her that she should, but I will make sure that she does. Well, I'm happy to try to get as many names on the agenda for the 17th as I can and I guess May 1st would be a backup. Right, let's do it that way. That makes sense to me. Get them started and then if we still have further appointments to do on the 1st, we can do those. Yeah, right, or if we wanna deliberate here. I think it just gives us that flexibility by starting on the 17th, it goes on. Okay. And thank you Karen for managing the many terms and it's on the whole page of the website, right? The appointment stuff, I think it's in the announcement. There might be something in the news, but no, I haven't, I wanted a date before. Oh, before you. I haven't put on front porch around. Oh, okay. I haven't talked to that. I haven't really pushed anything until I had a date. I wanted a deadline. So April 17th with May 1st as a backup, if needed. And one other thing, Tom was just noticing today that it started out at about 25 degrees and ended the day close to 50 degrees, which means that mud season is not far off. And last year, one of my first public comments that I received that I was like when I remember was the atrocious conditions of the roads and what we're gonna do about it. And I know that you and Woody are addressing this. I was just wondering if we might get an update on that in the next meeting. Yeah, we can. And I think Woody's also pretty close on the proposed paving plan that he would bring to you and he'd bring you, probably double the budget, worth of roads and some recommendations within that, but that's how it works. I thought the budget was already approved. I'm not suggesting we blow it, I'm just suggesting that he's gonna have a normal list for you. Okay. And then he can give you an update on the dirt roads and we're hoping after all the gravel that was put on Perry Hill last year that it's not so bad this year. I think we're gonna have to see what comes. Okay, if that can get on the agenda, I think you could increase the number of people tuning into the meeting and a timely update. And you're saying we're not sweet for the next meeting. For the next meeting, yeah. Are we mentioning the conversation that we had earlier today as well for an advance of the 17th? You can, sure. Cat's out of the bag. We have a local non-profit business that has appealed, they've asked for tax exemption. The listers have not given them tax exemption status, so they will be coming to the BCA. And the select word is a member of the BCA. So my earlier conversation with Tom and Liz Schlegel, the chair of the BCA was to conduct that meeting on the 17th at six o'clock. So it's in advance of the select for the meeting. I will have some plenty of communication on this one before you, the statute related to, I'll be pretty open about this. The statute related to your ability to exempt a non-profit from taxes is really gray. And the case law, That's not good color. And the case law is really gray. And so Joe McClain is gonna put together a legal opinion about the specific facts of this one to give you some guidance. Including precedence? Including precedence. Because that's where I go in the gray zone. But I warn you about this one. It's gonna be meeting and it's gonna require some time and conversation to get through that, to make sure you make the right call. And a lot of you is 14 members of the Board of Civil Authority and then the five of you and the Lister and the same name. So that'll be tacked on to the meeting on the 17th? Yeah, that's the hope right now. Typically they, you know, an hour, are we starting? Okay, all right, we'll prepare. Do we think in ourselves for that one? Well, yeah, I hope so. You have an hour or two. You hear the case. You can recess for a deliberative session and you've got, don't have to finish that night. I understand, thank you. All right, well, thanks for the warning. Any other items that we'd like to see on the agenda for our next meeting? Very minor, we just said tell meeting day minutes, just for your next meeting. Oh, sure, make a meeting. There we go. Danny? No, thank you. I thought it was a handle. Okay, all right. And then we had discussion awards and then we're done. Discussion awards? Okay, I'll sign these after we adjourn for this week. Does someone want to sign between this meeting and our next meeting for our new policy? It's not a policy. Okay, so don't be. The 27th would be the next Monday and we're 28th Karen with the assumption we usually have them Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. Right, this is where things, to try to come up with a tight schedule is going to be tricky. No, not tight. I'm just saying it's someone that we, like if you knew you were on a trip. Yeah, so in theory, order to be prepared late day Monday the 27th. Time of that varies based on a lot of factors, but late day, say after two o'clock. So if somebody could commit to coming by on Tuesday, that'd be great. Unappearance? Yeah, I should have no problem with coming by on the 28th. You want to do it, Danny? I could pretty much on Tuesdays because I have a rotary meeting in the morning by 8.30, 9 o'clock. I could, you know, that's what I usually did was stop off in the lot. Sometimes they weren't done, so. Yeah, they weren't done on a Tuesday morning. Right. Yeah, it's possible, that's the thing. Right, mm-hmm. I mean, I think we'll continue to send the email saying, yeah, I'm ready. If somebody, you know, if Mike writes back and says, I can stop by tomorrow morning, then, I mean, I think that's all I need is just somebody to respond and say, I can be there that day. And then if it's not soon enough, that provides me the opportunity to say, anybody else? Anybody sooner? No. And I think that would be enough for a staff if I just had to respond. But as a standing here, right after rotary, I could pop it on in the yard. Good. So, okay, Danny? Should we have Mike? The default? You know, there may be some, you know, if I'm on the camp or something like that, I may defer for one corner, the other members to do it. All right, but for next Tuesday morning, we're counting on Mike to do it unless we hear otherwise. Here we go. Okay. All right, good. All right, I think we've finished the public agenda. We don't like the motion that we move to executive session. We'll discuss a matter of pending litigation. So you would technically, you wanna make, first you'd wanna make a finding that premature general public knowledge would place the select board on the town at a substantial disadvantage. And then you'd wanna make a motion for executive session. It's a bit on, won't keep that. Yes, so I move that premature public knowledge of pending litigation would place the town at a substantial disadvantage. That's it, we're just finding that. Does anyone agree that telling the public that what you're gonna do in a lawsuit isn't a good legal strategy? Thanks, Dave. Okay, we have a motion. Second that motion. Okay, okay, we have two seconds on that one. So all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. Thank you for your participation. Now, I'm gonna do it again, so now I'm gonna make a motion that we move to enter executive session for the purposes of discussion, confidential legal advice, and invite municipal manager to do this. Do we have a second on that? Second. All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Thank you. Any abstentions? I'll be in touch. Thank you. We're moving into executive session.