 call us like we're meeting to order. First up is public comment. This is anything that's not currently on the agenda. This is Trevor. I've got one real quick. Just want to remind folks who are joining us remotely to stay muted unless you're speaking so that way we can prevent any of the feedback loop issues we had a couple of months ago and then so unmute to come on and mute to jump back off and then you know raise your hand or use some of the other tools if you need us to find you in between. My name is Jesse Schmidt. I'm from Orange County Restorative Justice. I'm not sure if I would be part of the public comment period or on the agenda during the budget conversation regarding our request for appropriation. You talked to Kim the other day so that would be for the public hearing. Right. So that'll come pretty soon. Okay. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to see you too. All right. Seeing none we'll move forward with approval of the agenda. Hold to approve it. Second. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries. Next up is the draft 23 budget hearing. I'll give you the intro here. What you've got in the packets and before you tonight is what we're calling version one of the draft 23 budget. It focuses on general highway library police and there's some water and wastewater budgeting in there as well. This is the version that last appeared before the budget committee back in November when it was endorsed there. We've decided to start at this point since that's kind of the common baseline. We will have a need to move to what we'll call version two in this case just to reflect a few different things not the least of which is we now know both what our employee mix is. We had some vacancies or uncertainties or some older assumptions back in November. New employees. We know that there are going to be some changes to the levels of coverage folks have. So health insurance costs will factor in their retirement costs. We've hired people at different rates of pay. So there's some most of the adjustments that you'll see between version one and version two if nothing else happens. We'll be on that personnel end of things. We could talk a little bit about what that would be. It'll be more than version one again if nothing else happens. But the idea would be that when you have a kind of a second budget hearing or subsequent meeting that might be when we incorporate all those things in and you look at it look at that product at one time but where we're at in the aggregate for version one just to kind of go through the four main I'm calling the main ones in terms of their taxpayer funded the water and wastewater or enterprise funds. So those are user rates that apply to the people who are within those districts but we're talking about with the general fund from 22 to 23 looking at an increase of about 4.9 percent from year to year with version one that's about two and a half cents on the tax rate that's 162,000 in going back through those numbers a bulk or a significant bulk of the increase are in costs such as retirement you know 54 thousand dollars of that increase from year to year you could think of it as retirement related increases that go from being in the state employees retirement system and having some of the underfunding issues there they've been raising the employer contributions notably so we're expecting we're going to go from a little less than 14 percent when we put together the budget for 22 we've already jumped up to 19 and a half percent in the current fiscal year and we're projecting that we'll be at about 20 percent as the employer contribution in fiscal 23 so that six or so percent jump across all those employee categories is a 54 thousand dollar increase on the general fund end and then you'll see it it shows up in the in the highway end to to a lesser amount um did you say 24 percent we think we're going to go yeah up to 20 percent at least yeah is what's in that in those salary sheets there is another the general fund another 30 thousand dollars in reserve transfers there's 55 thousand dollars in capital reserve transfers on the highway end so we're putting more money into those capital investments there are some monies associated with um buildings and grounds and recreation based changes notably in some of the staffing areas we've gone to the hybrid employees on a full time model so you see some of those show up in the building grounds budget when you look at those increases from year to year and then we are seeing some reductions in some other areas such as there's about 34 thousand in highway debt service that comes off but really in the in the aggregate there's not much new from year to year when you think of it from the perspective of programming or services it's really we are going to keep doing what we started to do this year try to invest in infrastructure with this budget or at least capital investments maybe more broadly so that could be everything from paving and gravel roads to bridges and culverts to you know implementing what comes out of some of the energy auditing process for this building among others and so it covers all of that ground and then we're just going to try to build from a service perspective on what we're doing with some of the framework that we've got when you see when we get to version two we might talk about there's an idea to move buildings and grounds employee over into a recreation facilities role so taking existing resources and maybe moving them around and then that might have some impacts in terms of what the dollar amount would be they're already included in some of the version two forecasting that we've already done for next time but aren't in first version in large part because we didn't have the idea at that point we came out as we started to talk about where are we at what we needed to do and the ice rink conversations prompted some of that along as well so there could be some additional changes but they're going to look to use existing resources in different ways or move them around a little bit I can go through individual lines if you want I think I've covered them in broad strokes you'll notice that in version one you'll see the 1.5 million dollar tax anticipation note we're not including that in in some of these numbers here there's a revenue and expenditure and they essentially wash each other out that's the money we borrow to pay for services into those first tax installments common and we pay it off throughout the course of the year so there's really only about a I think it's about a $14,000 general fund cost associated with the interest charge there which is already in that number I gave you earlier a 3.4 million dollars from the general fund budget we'll also talk about capital plans and projects at the next meeting right now we have just kind of a general sense of where everything should fit you'll see that the reserve transfers are large so you increase in key categories this lets us spend some more time with say our new highway superintendent and identify those gravel road projects we'll look to pull from the paved road projects that were identified last year to at least block out say $250,000 worth of paving again this year and from there we're going to build that multi-year paved road plan using the paving condition index and the software once we get past bud season spring we'll be able to build that especially now that we're staffing there were callback in the fall between COVID related disruptions in in service to key transitions in finance and highway we've gotten pushed back a little bit in some of our our capital planning planning efforts and so we'll look to at least identify something for forward progress and then we'll have to have some conversations about the sidewalk machine perhaps in terms of the one that we have is toward the end of its useful life and what does the next step there look like and then maybe also the East Randolph truck that comes up year over year that's been highlighted by that department is still a key area of need knowing that it's wrapped up in some larger conversations and we should have hopefully a better number or an updated number for that truck what it looks like at least in base strokes that we do have the reserves sufficient either now or projected to fund all of that stuff that I've that I've talked about using those resources so we feel pretty good with where we're at we just have a lot of question marks related to some of those planning efforts ARPO funds the Maple Street project cost is going to be really tight to the town meeting warning year so we may have to think of a different way to keep moving that project forward like I mentioned the ARPO funds are in there there's some changes in the and the allowed uses there that might more easily enable their deployment in other places so that's the harder one to really nail down at this point but we will come up with something for 23 that has some detail to it using those basic parameters and then continue to build up through town meeting and beyond into that much larger out years model it also lets our newer people get some time to particularly in the highway and get to know the equipment needs the operator tendencies the community and then identify what we want to do with trucks heavy equipment some of these pieces or culvert projects for example which ones might rise to the top and so we'll look to pin more of that down but it's not in this version one budget that you have here tonight and so it's a little iterative this is later than I think we'd like to be in a normal year I think most of us would give anything at this point to have something that we would call a normal year and so maybe we can plan on somehow incorporating that but we still have time between now and really the end of the month so we have to warn town meeting and from a capital perspective the important piece with that is just that's we're going to put any money from the general fund of the highway fund over it's got to be identified on that end so the reserve transfers are already in there those are unlikely to change as we get to the to the end line so we do have some flexibility if we if we need to keep talking about that piece we can do that beyond that town meeting warning marker but we certainly want to have it as soon as possible so then voters go in knowing kind of a full suite of what we're talking about doing in fiscal 23 a little bit of an overlapping time cycle there but that's the the quick and dirty four version one like I said that's the version that the budget committee last saw in November Cliff was able to put that together before he left for his new opportunity very likely little there's very likely little to change in version two other than those personnel costs we do have did ask department heads to submit ahead of time with the deadline of yesterday at noon any additions or amendments the listers highlighted one that essentially would take some of their salary lines and reset them to they'd be level with fiscal 23 so that's an easy kind of change to make there's no real net dollar impact and then there's a proposal to add $5,000 for economic development for support for things like our marketing and tourism tourism grant initiative we're engaged in and josh could speak to that at some point that has very little impact overall it's a one-tenth of one penny kind of addition to the budget and then we may have some others here in the audience who have requests the special appropriations list that you have in version one is sort of from that standard of everybody's requesting the same amount as the year prior we'll go back through and double check all that we do know there's at least one organization that would like to request consideration for an increase in some of the complications again go back to COVID and if you've got a petition your way on and it's harder to collect signatures in a code error then I think that's the the baseline if there are any particular questions I can help one of these things is we're still learning everything that's in here so if we can't answer anything tonight we'll run down and answer and bring it back as well so dude are there any questions on that from the board I have a question I'm assuming that like ARPA funds don't need to go through a budget cycle there are no ARPA funds in this for fiscal 23 they think once we identify where they're going to go part of that process can be identifying what's the right way to deploy them so as some of that guidance I think ideally we'd like to show them in and out through a budget to make sure that'll make it easier to report on the back end we might be able to figure out some ways though to to work through that otherwise in terms of they'd still run through our accounting system you know through NEMRIC would show up sort of in and out but it would be it would be nice to identify the uses show them you know ARPA revenue in ARPA expenditure out do they have to go through that for some reason or is that no I think we just want to make sure whatever they go through we're able to fully and accurately account for for what they're used for so that when we report on those uses because we have been at least an annual reporting requirement that'll begin this April even before we spend any of the money that will stay with us at least through the 2026 deadline to to spend the fund so these are these are also time limited too it's pretty much between now and we have to obligate them within the next two years and then spend them by 26 so be transparent in our process yeah yeah the other board questions seeing none we have a question from Cliff it's more of a comment Trini that I just wanted to remind everybody that Trevor talked about the cost of the tan and to remind everybody that there's an offsetting interest revenue line item that offsets that cost because we've actually got an arbitrage where we're going to make money on that that's right yes we like those maybe we could get a few more of them going we aren't limited as to how much we can borrow though right um so Trevor if I understand correctly what you would like is the board members to study the budget for any comments and to set a date um for the second hearing is that correct yeah we normally will do one I guess end of December and another one early January where we're a little backed up on that and it happens to coincide with the need to warn town meeting anyway and until we set the budget we can't set the town meeting warning so we were looking for we'd suggest it next Thursday but if there's another date that works we can do that next Thursday is the opening of the warning window between 30 no less than 30 no more than 40 days from town meeting and so the 20th this is really that and then it does tie in with being earlier is better than later especially if we're going to go with a traditional with the floor meeting on the Saturday before that makes sure that we don't run into any weird timeline issues with the 30 and the 40 if we ended up Australian ballot on town meeting day it sticks to that 20th and 30th of January metric a little more cleanly but we'll work through it and then what we'll do is if you once you set that date we'll send you those version two updates so then we'll just be working from there moving forward so those include once again those health insurance and other personnel costs that are being updated or have been updated and be shown in this version is there any board members that have a conflict next Thursday works for me works for me uh not for me works for me oh hey sorry I'm not going to be here and I'm going to be probably on a plane at that point so I can't help you how about the following Monday that does not work for me unfortunately about Tuesday not good for me no keep going about Friday morning no sorry can't help you there either your plane's already landed Barry no you don't understand it's only got through phase one okay I won't be home until Friday afternoon okay so um anytime after that I'm here for the next month and a half um what about Saturday morning sure the 22nd yeah I could do that what's your Saturday morning like Trevor are we getting into pre-scheduled stuff for you I uh I might miss a game or two at a basketball tournament for third and fourth graders so I'm missing very exciting action but uh that's uh we don't even know if we're having that yet between COVID and it hasn't been scheduled so it's possible we don't miss anything at all but we'll make it work I I help out so if I'm not there um he'll be able to carry on as important as I am they'll carry on how early that morning can people do so Trevor can make his tournament if they haven't I can start at eight I can start at seven thirty oh yeah okay you morning people what nine oh my god half the day is going nine nine o'clock oh lord I can do nine o'clock I could do eight eight or nine yeah um eight doesn't work really oh eight it kind of probably still be drinking coffee oh I'm not gonna drink that that's why I'll drink coffee there's no doubt about that yeah absolutely all right let's go with Saturday at eight Saturday at eight sounds good thank you all next up is the consent calendar this is meeting minutes um I just have a question before we move this item I'm not seeing warrants anymore to approve is everybody else seeing them yeah so do I yeah I think I got them well as long as you're at the forum and enough people are approving them but I haven't seen them so somewhere my email address might get changed or something that's what I'm wondering I got a hundred I must have been 121 pages here this time so oh no that was the board packet that was the board packet where's the warrants yeah so where are they didn't I just yeah they they came separate email so it's probably something with an email address so we'll we'll check that out to make sure that the one that Michelle's using to get these to all of you that she's got um everybody's I thought maybe that I wasn't there wasn't any because there's it's not listed on the agenda to approve the warrants oh no we're still we're still spending the money for better or worse I've gotten all those okay so uh do we want um the agenda only warned uh meeting minutes and we didn't change it when we did the approval of the agenda so we'll have to remember to put warrants for both months on next month's agenda so the consent calendar tonight only has meeting minutes we have any comments on the meeting minutes move to approve not a motion move to approve the uh December meeting minute oh second all those in favor aye aye opposed anything carries did that question Larry uh just wondering if since we're meeting a week from saturday that we could approve it then if we wanted if that was convenient we can sure can good idea yeah next up is business sorry to jump in treaty we moved so quick through the budget hearing there was somebody in the crowd who had um something to bring up to you on one of the special appropriation requests didn't know if you wanted to hear it quickly right now and then we can incorporate anything that you decide into into the stuff for the 22nd sure so we've got jesse from the orange county restorative justice center correct correct okay um and I don't know where to look I see your owl device there so I'll look at that I guess um so thank you for giving me a few minutes here I'm the director of the orange county restorative justice center we serve all of orange county with uh court diversion pretrial services programs as well as civil diversion programs we also do reentry services for people returning to our communities after incarceration that includes reentry services transitional housing connecting people to mental health and substance abuse services and other community resources to help people gain stability while they're going through a court process or after they're returning after being in jail um that's a quick synopsis of what we do uh Randolph every town in orange county provides an appropriation to support our work we are 100 percent grant funded um our grant and donations um in town appropriations uh and we do collect um fees for our for some of our programs but we have a sliding scale and as many of you probably understand um the economic circumstances of most of the people we work with our most people are low income and so we uh waive or lower our fees almost all of the time for people um we uh before the pandemic began we began a process of um requesting increases from towns it had been over 10 years since we had requested increases in our appropriations from towns in orange county and uh Randolph was on our list there are two towns that uh the pandemic we got caught in the pandemic it was Randolph and Thompson so those are our last two towns that haven't provided an increase in appropriation we did go out full gusto this year to collect the petitions that are required to request an increase we have over 130 signatures um I will say that over the holidays um people who had volunteered to collect signatures from us became very reluctant to do that our staff were going to pick up for this final two weeks here um after the holidays and I've had two staff people um who got COVID um last week and our and then I had other staff who had to quarantine because of close contact with those staffers um so our ability to finalize our petition process and Randolph um was brought to a quick halt um by our current circumstances our appropriation um from Randolph has been $600 and we were asking for an increase to $1,200 I have the petitions here that we did gather um in our in our efforts um but I know that we are not going to be able to um to meet you know the expectation of I think it's 175 signatures so I guess what I'm requesting is an accommodation um to accept the number we did get as a sufficient for um putting that uh request for an increase um into the budget thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions they have about what we do or our finances or anything so I see Emery is on Emery what is the number that they need for signatures you're muted if you're trying to answer that Emery maybe there um so Trent for a special appropriation if I'm not mistaken requires a percentage of the voter registration is that correct yeah the petition would be the was it five percent of the registered voters it's the number between it's less than 200 I don't know the exact number and then one of the wrinkles might be I think today might have been the deadline for it was a deadline for some petitioned articles if not all of them as well but Emery would have to clarify that so there could be an added wrinkle based on statutory timelines in terms of whether the number I am here oh there he is yeah today was the deadline unfortunately that five percent is right but today was the deadline I believe it was three p.m and so Emery does the select board have the authority to not follow that process or only if it gets added as a budget line item correct I would have to go through the budget process I believe yes at this point because that's not part of the legislature's changes um that's only for candidate consent yes but you'd have the broad authority to um I think the board it's it would already be on the draft warning based on the policy for at last year's number you do have some discretion as a board whether or not you have things that are essentially town I mean you can add anything to a to a warning within not shouldn't stand within certain parameters so I think you'd be using your broad warning based authority to add it as a question much like you would if there was some kind of advisory article for example I got petition I think you have got the ability to to do it you're just foregoing the petition based money change but we can look into that too if you want I'm pretty sure you're right I think the concern would be that the rules were already out there for everybody so if any entity wanted to come in for funds or wanted to come in for an increase they had the same set of rules that they had to meet if we were going to not require it up front we probably would have seen some other organizations coming in looking for additional funding would be my guess but we got into this with some of our discussion back years ago with stage coach and I believe we were told if we didn't follow the normal practice they had to become wine item in the budget could I ask another question Trini sure were all the other towns doubled in the amount too we did the way we determined our increase was based on percentage of the county population and also the caseload that comes from each town so not every town was sometimes we're double we also have did a baseline like a minimum of 350 so the smaller towns all are at 350 and then the larger towns are somewhere in between the big proportionality based on population in the number of cases we see from the towns so there is there's a system by which yes I'll make the motion that we put the restorative justice in 1200 dollars for this next year I'm sorry can you say that again I lost the last bit of what years I'm sorry yep I'll make the motion that we put restorative justice on the ballot for 1200 dollars and that would include if we have to put it in the budget which I don't think we do that we do it that way yeah I would I would second that it sounds like they made a good faith effort to try and get this done and worth worth it and it seems like an extenuating circumstance I'd be happy to support that request and we don't really don't want them out spreading cold we have a motion in the second on the table it but I need to just understand the motion a little better Pat your motion is to put it out as a special appropriation for 1200 dollars or in the budget was that it put it in at 1200 dollars is a special appropriation and for some reason Trevor finds we can't do that which I don't think is the case to put it in the budget at 1200 dollars for just this one year so to open it up for discussion that means that the voters don't get a say in that they get right might be doing a special appropriation for one year yeah but I think it can be a special appropriation um go ahead Tom treat if I can just ask um they're already in uh on the ballot before the voters for 600 dollars so this represents a doubling um I'm not quite sure and maybe this is what Trevor needs to explore I'm not quite sure um I don't know for able to amend the special appropriation question at this point in time without without opening the door to other people as you suggested asking us to do that after the deadline date in the future so can we just move to appropriate the 600 dollars additional in the budget and allow the voters to vote just on the initial 600 that was previously requested right now we have a motion to either amend the special appropriation to 1200 without signatures waiving that requirement or if that's not allowed put it in the budget so we would need to vote on that if it's down then we can talk about other ways to do it I'm just really concerned that it's setting a precedent and we haven't allowed these to go in as a budget line item so you're now bringing in the special appropriations in as a budget line item um you know there's a little bit of a policy wrinkle too in terms of the town's I don't know if we call it a special appropriations policy but essentially we have something in place that guides these types of requests and so when you look ahead to the draft warning on the agenda you'll see we've got that list of agencies that have made or organizations that have made requests before and what that policy says is that if you're going to keep that amount level you essentially are then um automatically placed on the warning for the following year and waives the petition requirements and where the petition requirements come in I think or if you're new or if you're asking for an increase so I don't know we'll look in to make sure there's no statutory concern but I think it might need more of a policy question about do these circumstances warrant deviating from that policy about increases um as it relates to the the ones that have already made it on and and are you comfortable with that as a policy choice given everything that's gone on but we'll look into the statutory wrinkle but I think you do have enough latitude there that that likely won't be an impediment but we'll make sure I I'd like to just say that um it does seem like this is an extenuating circumstance I don't think anybody would reasonably expect that we're really setting up precedent here it seems really clear that there's this is unusual and then the other thing I'd say is that if we do go this route that um the second part of Pat's motion really should be amended to um to add to put $600 as a budget light on because it seems like it'll still if we can't make if we can't amend the the town the the special appropriations from 600 to 1200 it seems like it would stay at 600 so we would only need to add 600 in the regular budget okay let's unsort this one so are you you're backing off your second to the original motion yeah because I think if I think we don't we're not gonna we don't want $600 to appear as a special appropriation and then and then also add in $1,200 as a right budget item we would only want to add in 600 to make up the 12 right I would agree with that and so Pat um you want to amend your motion or you want to keep it the way it is no my intent was having a total of 1200 right what you're saying yeah lary is saying exactly that it's just that it clarifies that the second 600 would would failing the ability to put it into the special appropriations portion of the warning the separate 600 would would come out of the budget and and so it's a total of 1200 either way as as opposed to a potential of 1800 if you take 600 and 1200 am I am I interpreting that correctly lary yes exactly yeah that's fine with me because my intent was 1200 so to clarify is your motion now pat to um approve if we legally can an increase in the special appropriation line to $1,200 if we can't then it goes to us keeps them at a $600 level that they're at now and put $600 in the budget yes okay so pat has amended his motion now we need a second I'll second the amended motion I have a motion and a second on the table before we have any more discussion hearing none call the issue all those in favor I motion carries thank you very much great so we're now on to the FY 21 audit presentation and discussion and before we start that um I would just like to thank Cliff for all the work he did for the town of Randolph and kind of snuck out without having any type of opportunity to publicly recognize him but the efforts that he undertook when he came in as the finance director were just phenomenal in the place that we find the town now after his tenure with us are just awesome so I would personally like to thank you Cliff for all your efforts me too hey man me for and with that we will move on to hearing another awesome result of Cliff's works I hope Bonnie is here I hope that's her on the phone because I'm quite prepared to talk about that and I appreciate the accolades thank you do we have uh Bonnie with us can we get who's on uh 802 249 7836 Brooke Dingledine I had to step away from my laptop okay would you like to prevent the town out at brick as they say I went to law school so I didn't have to do math there you go that's why I majored in English now how do I meet myself again and you gotta do that ever how did the brick's number get muted it well it looks like she's muted on here so I don't know you know he's down on the phone number and a step away from her left computer her computer is muted in the phone well I can be I can just mute the actual tone and no worry oh okay yeah I don't think I can oh good there is a command you can use our zoom um I'm just blanking on what it is so we can step this agenda item aside and come back to it if we see her join us that makes sense sure all right so let's consider current use changes a um this is mainly bursting that that's their list for talking is this all right yeah okay um this is to see in accordance of title 32 section 4261 it's basically two current use parcels were accepted into the grand list here but in December 20 um December 28th um 2021 so it's just a change to their values that they were originally taxed on that was in the original grand list it's like the other four to six one forms I've given you in the past for you to approve that this change happened okay do we have any questions from board members any questions from anyone else if not any motions move to approve the two changes second all those in favor all right all right opposed motion theories next up is a discuss the Davis road solar project for the request of michael finder and for the record I am recusing myself from this conversation or from any decision because the property is owned by my late dad so it's all yours larry I believe you could still leave the discussion leave the discussion even if you're not voting I'm happy to do it I just think it's I don't see any reason why you couldn't this is my thought okay so um I see we have michael binder on here so if michael would like to let us know what what he's asking of the board and he's here in the room with that so I don't know if you're ready to go michael yeah would you like me to read the letter into the record or is it in the packet it's in the packets I think maybe just uh at least we think is you just uh yep just give us synopsis of what you're looking for so it's on the record okay um we're requesting that you rescind the preferred sites letter for the Norwich solar technologies project on Davis road the reason is that the project does not conform to the Randolph town plan um would you like me to give you the background and that's basically what we're asking maybe slow the background in terms of what why you think it doesn't conform to the town plan other process elements you participate just maybe round out okay how do we get here today sure I'll be glad to uh in June uh Norwich solar technologies came before the Randolph planning commission to seek approval of a 500 000 watt solar array off Davis road in route 14 they told the planning commission that the project was in conformance with the town plan and they were granted a preferred sites letter subsequently the Randolph slack board took up the issue and at that meeting uh we attended by zoom and objected to the map they presented which showed their project on our property uh brendan malley told us the property lines on the map were not correct with that nor solar technologies would have a surveyor identify the property line before construction would begin and they were uh granted a preferred sites letter for the project um on the project site plan that nor solar to the Vermont public utilities commission this is after the slack board um they did correct the property line issue but the site plan also shows that the majority of the disturbed area uh and were on slopes greater than 25 percent and that about one third of solar panels themselves were on slopes of greater than 25 percent uh on october 21st 2021 we sent a letter to the planning commission alerting them to the slopes issue and requested it be on the agenda at that next meeting we asked them to rescind their preferred sites letter because it violated the town plan prohibition of commercial uh of solar development on steep slopes one of the reasons for the steep slope prohibition is to increase resilience of the landscape in extreme rain events we were surprised that nor solar technology did not attend the meeting but we learned at the meeting that chairman sonny holt had been communicating privately with nor solar technology and nor so solar technology assured him that the average slopes conformed to the town plan all members of the planning commission in attendance uh agreed that the project was not in conformance with the town plan one commission member said in the meeting obviously this slopes issue was not a factor that was ever discussed at the june planning commission meeting that's probably partially our fault for not knowing the text better and asking them questions so we can take some responsibility for that norwich solar technology was not forthcoming with that the planning commission members at the public meeting all agreed they would consult with the town attorney to see what his position was on rescinding the preferred sites letter after the december meeting the planning commission members communicated privately by email with each other and with nor solar technology the norwood solar technology attorney told them that the town had no legal basis to prohibit their development on steep slopes but nsb promised that if the planning commission did not be in the letter they would not place solar panels on slopes greater than 25 percent now without waiting to hear from the town attorney which they had agreed to do at the december public meeting the planning commission voted three to one voting by email not to rescind the preferred sites letter the reasons as they were expressed in their emails were that correcting their error might subject the town to an expensive lawsuit and that norwich solar technology had promised not to put those panels on steep slopes we are disturbed that the planning commission negotiated in pride with the slopes issue with norwich solar technology it is not their job to negotiate with applicants their job is to deny a preferred sites letter to any project that is not in conformance with the town plan ultimately the permit to build the array is issued by the ron public utilities commission if they approve the plan submitted by nsb there is no way for randolph to enforce the town plan prohibition on commercial solar development on steep slopes the promise made by norwich solar technologies is meaningless if randolph wants its town plan to have any meeting you must rescind the approval of this project and then we have a attached a map which was in the packet and it shows large areas probably about a third of the solar panels on slopes greater than 25 percent using the data that they prevented lidar data from the state to make these people maps so it was uncontested that the project violates the town plan the only question is what is the remedy and i think the planning commission is a bit naive to think that they can revoke this thing later if they're worried about lawsuits they should rescind their letter now not after construction has begun or further work has been done so i would request that the select board now rescind that letter let norm solar technologies plan a new map put it before the process again for approval in some way that does not violate the town plan if you want i can try and screen share the map that we put in the packet uh otherwise um do we have anybody on from the planning commission or to talk about the process from their perspective sonny's out of town so i don't think we'll i think he'll be on but i don't know if josh wanted to talk to the process a little bit or or harry would have been there as well i'm going to defer to josh because i think that's probably his role here and i'll talk a bit afterwards yeah i guess in terms of the process from what i remember now because it's almost seven months ago i remember the public hearing and and nor would showing us a map i don't remember all of the conversation around the slopes i remember the topographical map that they showed during their their presentation but i don't recall like what the conversation was in terms of the 25 slopes um do you do you want to see the i mean i i don't know what maps that i have here um i can speak to that the map that we included are in the packet is taken from the submission to the public utilities commission it's their final engineer and drone at this point the one that you'd seen previously at the select board and the planning commission were preliminary drafts uh this is one where they put a little bit more effort and they have uh the elevations are done at one foot intervals this lighter that they use is pretty amazing what can do to make that accurate map so um i think that the they really need to come back with a new site plan uh there's not going to be any way they're going to have this be a 500 000 watt solar panel array on on that land if they stay off the steep slopes whether they want to pursue this you know at a smaller size or not is you know their business but right now your business i believe is to enforce and uphold the town plan and to correct an error that was made uh they were not forthcoming they materially misrepresented uh that their project met with you know conformed with the town plan to both the planning commission and the select board previously and it's not correct the the maps that they submit themselves uh show that they have quite a bit of the array on steep slopes can i speak please if that's the appropriate time um just uh let's try to get the facts here so i'm jim mariam uh court field resident and uh ceo of norwich solar and i'd love to be able to submit a couple things into the record which might help you yes you say great so uh if i can there's a public document which is to the public utilities commission which basically uh agrees that we will not build on slopes of 25 degrees and install solar on it and we will stay within the limits of disturbance as proposed so uh this is something that is a condition of the certificate of public good that the public utilities commission enforces if we were to violate that the public utilities commission would pull as a remedy our certificate of public good which would prevent us from being able to connect and generate obviously that is not something that we you know a bank or we or anyone that would want to own that array would comply with or want so as a measure of enforcement the public utilities commission which is a role here will ensure through this public document that we submitted as a condition of the certificate of public good we will not install panels in slopes greater than 25 degrees if that meant it was only a 400 kilowatt system array that is our risk but it still would conform to the town plan because we've agreed with the public utilities commission as a condition to not install solar on slopes greater than 25 degrees okay thank you we have single being with our hand up thanks for letting me speak um I was aware of uh became aware of this matter before the planning commission and attended the December meeting and reviewed the information that was presented and also listened to mr. Holt about what process he had been engaged in and I'm not here to um try to stop anything any particular project but I want to go back to something that um Trini said earlier tonight when she was discussing how rules need to apply equally to everyone I also want to talk about the duty that the planning commission and the select board have as government officials to defend our laws and to make sure that the quasi-judicial process that they engage in when they make decisions such as this is followed and that open meeting laws are followed and that decisions and conversations and evidence is not accepted and considered in private and talked about over email which is the equivalent of meeting in person in secret and violating the open meeting law and the process that happened at the planning commission first of all was that the commission decided this was in violation of the town plan but they were worried about getting sued and had a liability concern which frankly is absurd because to rescind a letter based on omissions of material fact perhaps even intentional would be pretty difficult case to bring in court but I was very supportive of Harry's concern and decision to go get a legal opinion so that's what the planning commission said we're going to rescind it but we want to make sure that we're not going to get in hot water so the next thing we know they have decided not to rescind it there's been no meeting there's been no lawyers decision or opinion about anything they completely reverse their position and only through a FOIA request a freedom of information act request was to determine that all of this decision making was made in private these are not deliberative sessions or anything of that nature these were decisions that were made contrary to what the board had decided in public in the meeting and led people to believe was the course of conduct that they were going to do the other concern is that the substantive view turn on the position is also very concerning because the information that was obtained from the applicants attorney is is at best legal argument and certainly not very convincing legal argument things like preemption you can't tell us where we can't put a solar array which is nonsense read the apple hill solar case that I just took to the supreme court and prevailed on the other thing that they bring up is due consideration you don't have an enhanced energy plan no one's going to listen to you that's a bunch of hogwash as well because apple hill solar was a due consideration plan of bennington town which now has an enhanced energy plan but the public utility commission gave due consideration and said you can't build solar ray on a prominent hillside very similar situation to this only you don't even have to interpret what prominent hillside is in this situation all we have to do is look at a map and see that these slopes that the solar array project is proposed for and the access road are being are going to disturb areas in excess of 25 percent grade in fact even up to 40 percent grade now the proper process of the planning commission was to say I'm sorry you omitted this material fact you gave us all sorts of information about an argument about how you were in compliance with our town plan you even cut and pasted the very section of the town plan that talks about where these solar array projects can and cannot go except when you cut and pasted that you stopped right before the steep slopes provision and ignored it and led the planning commission and the select board to believe that you're in compliance with the town plan which was not correct they could have said part of the project is there and on average we're calculating it at 10 percent or they could have said you can't tell us that we can't put it on a 25 percent grade give us our prescribed sites letter anyway did they do either of those things no they didn't tell you about it and managed to get it by the planning commission and the select board without anyone noticing that there was a provision that said you can't build these projects since slopes of 25 percent or steeper so that in my opinion is most concerning and then to have this open meeting law violation process to follow up after watching one of my neighbors and community members bring forth this information to be corrected so that a preferred sites letter a rubber stamp by the town saying we we are in support of this of this location how can that be not only is it in violation of the town plan but these people were not frank and honest with you omission is just as bad as misrepresentation the consumer product in vermont is based on either a material fact misrepresentation by affirmative representation or by omission so then what do we get we get told we've reversed course so what now when all of this was going on i i just became aware very recently that one of the planning commission members had recused themselves i guess because they were involved as a realtor in the property and then treanie you had recused yourself which was totally appropriate and i am not here in any way shape or form to try to say that this project shouldn't happen but the way it's currently configured it is not entitled to a preferred sites letter i agree with one of the planning commission members who said we were hoodwinked although another one said that we should take some responsibility for this for not knowing our own town plan language so each of these boards planning commission select board and the regional planning commission have an independent duty to determine whether or not a preferred states letter should issue because they all have to sign on to it so as i understand it jonah michael are coming to you and asking you to rescind the select board approval of that and also to look into what happened at the planning commission because you appointed the planning commission and you are responsible for whether or not they follow the law of due process the constitution of the united states the state of vermont inter statutory law in vermont they have a duty to do their business in public not to secretly converse make decisions and figure out what to say to michael binder a lot of this is revealed in the foyer request materials that were produced pursuant to mr binders lawful request to the town and i hope that the select board was not involved in that that conversation as well but it's really incumbent i am speaking to this i was not interested in getting involved in controversy but i have a duty to protect and defend the constitution of the united states and the state of vermont i have a sworn duty to do so as all of you select board members do and i implore you to look into this to correct the situation and make sure that this doesn't repeat itself this is like the select board holding hearing and having one of their select board members present evidence after a public hearing for consideration in secret without the town knowing about it that's not okay and this is not okay so please do something about it thank you very just does anybody know what is there anybody here that can testify about or talk to us about what the planning commission actually went through and any legal guidance they got or a treaty could i interrupt and just i just wanted to add one more thing because i truly am very sorry um since fear about this if these folks don't want to construct their array on slopes of 25 percent and are going to avoid this and what they need to do is reconfigure their site plan bring it back to you and say okay we've remedied the problem we've reconfigured it this is our plan now i have never heard of having a plan and then saying well even though i have a plan that has all these arrays cited on 25 slopes we're not going to put them there that to me uh you know every act 250 permit that has ever been issued for 50 years and i'm sure every puc permit that's issued requires that the permittee construct and operate the project and compliance with all of the plans that are put into evidence and approved by the puc in this case and so i don't even get how you can put in a site plan and say oh but we have a condition that we're not going to put them on 25 percent slopes and what about the access route that's on 25 much more than 25 percent slopes so i'm not i am here to say not you know say no to this if they want to go change this and come back to you for different approval and say okay we remedied the problem then you look at that and you say okay if this past semester it gets a thumbs up but this i'm going to promise you things and sonny agreeing to that and sure wink and a nod that's what is the appearance of impropriety here and the other thing is particularly in a situation where folks on boards have had to recuse themselves you make every effort to make sure that everything is transparent in public not do it all in secret and then figure out what we want to tell the public which is exactly what happened so i hope they can reconfigure it and that it can be um you know done in compliance with the town plan but even if it's not they can go forward and the puc has the authority to grant permits even if they're in violation of the town plan so you could say i'm sorry it's not in the violation it is in violation of the town plan they can go forward and convince the puc to give them a permit anyway your job is to speak about the town plan period not to negotiate something else that isn't that's maybe gonna kind of be okay in somebody else's opinion so thank you for your time i appreciate it one of the things i can do for board members is that we put together the response to the public records request and if we send you that you'll have each piece of email that's been referenced take a little time to collect them but what we've got what we think is the pieces that we're we're out there in circulation and everybody's reference so we'll send those to you i said a question maybe for both norwich and and for for michael and jone um which is that where are we at in a in the puc timeline and what's next so in terms of asking any of the entities for action how does it fit even into that regulatory systems timeline do we know what's next there is a date for whatever process element comes because before the commission did they had there was a little bit of a deadline that was hoped for based on puc timing not necessarily the town timing so i'm just trying to figure out where are we what's next i guess it's the simplest way we're waiting for a scheduling meeting where i believe the next thing would be scheduling for another dentiary period we will be doing depositions as possibly cross examinations calling witnesses and so forth depending on how far this needs to go we're hoping that we won't have to go forward at the puc and that the select board here will correct their error and stop this and let norves solar technology come back with a different site plan which will be judged on its own merits but let me just if i can follow i'm just trying to understand the process if if the preferred citing letters one of the nine ways you can attain preferred setting but the public utilities commission still regulates the project would one or even all three parties rescinding a preferred citing letter bump you out of the public utilities commission process yes okay one or all three one you need all three you need all three signatures so just to recap for everybody that's planning commission select board and regional planning commissioner and the regional planning commission is already through kevin geiger opines that they wouldn't revisit their action unless for some reason we revisited ours so they're standing a step back from it trying to figure out what the local navigation is first before they would do is that because they based it on our approval i think because they did yeah it's a circle yeah it is but the two rivers also reviews but they do the broader than than that they don't you don't necessarily get two rivers approval or any regional planning commission approval uh just because local regional body did actually i spoke with kev our email with kevin geiger about this uh also and he told me that yes they do certain reviews but they're not revealing compliance with the town plan they're assuming the town will do that so they're basically rubber stamping the business about the town plan if i could make one comment back it's my understanding that this meeting was about rescinding the select board's letter and that's based upon a violation of 25 degree slope and the plan and again i submitted a public document filed with a public utilities commission that states we will not build on any slopes we will share that information with the town and with uh the binders as well anyone that wants to see it and again the public utilities commission will enforce that so there's been a couple comments that our word is worth nothing uh feel what you may but public utilities commission word is something they have the enforcement authority here and it's a condition of a certificate of public good contrary to to what miss single dean could mention if it's a condition of the cpg and we put it in there voluntarily to make sure they're fair the public utilities commission is not going to override that that would be a condition of the permit so i i'm just trying to keep it to the facts that are here which is we've agreed not to and we don't want to go a bit on so far than 25 degrees and it is in the record with the public utilities commission who is the enforcer at the end of the day why can't you have your engineers put out a site plan that's accurate for that site great great question this typically goes through a process of land survey and work that is done post the completion of the permitting process so you do your best effort like most of these processes are to say this is what it's going to be we have a very defined limits of disturbance that we will stay within so we're not going to capriciously move the array but it should it violate through that very on the ground survey process 25 degrees we won't construct there as we wind out with the condition of the public utilities commission okay so to stop some of the back and forth there and get back to the board getting the facts we don't have anyone on tonight that can help the board understand what took place from the perspective of the planning commission and what helped them what we've got is other people's and interpretation of what made them come to that conclusion but if I understand correctly we have nobody with us tonight that can help from their perspective or can tell us what they sought for legal opinions and what those were is that correct I could I could probably speak to the legal opinion just because I ended up in the in between with Mike Karen can summarize the two questions that were asked where could you rescind a letter and if so I mean and then the sub question of if so how and whether or not that opens up any liabilities and the response from Mike was essentially yes it's likely that you can there isn't a lot of process or precedent around that type of action so it's not necessarily spelled out how you go about it um or how it all fits together it's unlikely in that interpretation to create some set of undue liabilities but again without much of the precedent there's still a little bit of unknown and there's no obvious um Achilles heel though at least from that kind of cursory glance so the opinion was focused on those two areas based on the conversation everybody attended at the planning commission being so that was that was the attorney's role and the questions that were asked to him specifically about that could you just say that again and his opinion was that you probably could rescind it yeah so he looked into it and that's where it's it's one of the I think it's nine ways for a project to achieve the preferred setting designation there isn't much process or any process and even really any precedent about what happens or how you rescind a letter it does seem likely based on what there is that you can I mean if you've extended the the letter of support so to speak you could at some point pull that back if there were some change in circumstances how you do it what it looks like that would be the question it's probably a simple letter in the return um and whether or not that opens up any liabilities there isn't anything that's obvious it doesn't mean that there would be something that somebody would bring up or that would occur that we don't can't foresee at this moment but there wasn't anything that sort of popped up as a if you do this then be ready for that kind of other thing if I can make a suggestion I mean the town can certainly file a supplemental letter or a comment with public buildings commissioned to say you know we filed the letter based on the fact that no no array will be built on so fair than 25 years okay so hang on bro just a second that's something that our legal council would have to guide us not and we don't have them here with us tonight I think Tim had his hand up first and then brook okay I just have a quick clarifying question um Jim's been talking about a 25 degree angle and the town plan talks about a 25 percent angle and those are two different things uh 25 degrees is about a 50 grade so I'm just curious are we're talking about the same thing or two different values here uh line mistake we're talking about the same thing gotcha thank you rick I think Perry's on the on the line and he was it on the planning commission and was there and was privy to all these emails perhaps he could speak to what happened I could I think what I'm going to do is I think that truthfully here um my interpretation of what you're referring to is a little different than my interpretation of it so I'm not going to get in the weeds here about the differences that I believe I heard um so that's where I'm going to leave it I asked Jim a question um go ahead public utilities or whatever will they require that you do a map showing exactly where the panels are and yeah we're going through a series of required filing which would be um aesthetics natural resources um electrical feasibility because a whole series of studies and in that would be um maps in particular because we've made it a condition about the slopes we will have to show some level of we'll have to show compliance uh with that and it'll be followed compliance to make sure that after we build it we did not violate from what we said we would do and we would be subject to losing our specific at a public good should we violate the conditions of our of the application so you will have to submit an accurate an accurate site plan where we're going to have to submit something to comply with what we stipulated to the public utilities commission what exactly they're going to want um I don't know but we will have to in some manner comply with being able to verify that you did not install in slopes that we said we would not have seen so yes it's the short answer so if you did that now and resubmit it based on that would that work the way it would work with the public utilities commission is if we say that we're not going to do it we have to comply with that or else we face significant um financial and the penalties from them and everything that we would have done would be lost so they don't actually say show me that they should not going to do that because they know they have the ultimate enforcement power that if we don't do it they can tell us this all has to be removed and so um we will have to show them that we comply but they don't have to see it ahead of time because they have the enforcement power to make sure that we do comply I don't know if I'm being clear with you it's just the way that they operate yeah I understand if they specifically did have a request though show me this we we would comply there's many different ways that they may interact on this point but we don't know what the public utilities commission will choose as their mechanism of enforcement but ultimately they do have that they are the enforcer of making sure we don't do it wouldn't everybody did better off if there was a plan that was out there for sure before we go in we're gonna have a have it surveyed on the ground to make sure that we do not have um any any array installed on the slope for us the importance is the limits of disturbance and that's what the public utilities commission is looking at so we have to stay within that disturbance area if some of that disturbed area is a slope of greater than 25 percent sorry they get that right we can't build there and it could potentially be a smaller array but from the public utilities commission from the ANR report agency of natural resources reports everything that's fine I'm using them both they're looking at that sorry circle of disturbance and that's what they're looking at and we've added this extra stipulation that we will not build on any area within that specified designated area that has a slope of 25 percent I don't know if I'm answering your question this part of the process sets the boundaries and at some subsequent point you set the details is that okay the limits of disturbance is setting is really the specific area they're looking at there is they allow some movement within that disturbed area limits of disturbance to to uh cite the array so as you get on site you will learn things physically by being there you know there could be a large boulder that was never seen or something like that but you might adjust around but we have to stay within the designated area that we said we would operate within and we've added this extra stipulation to ensure that we don't do work on spokes of 25 percent as well so that's how we and we would determine that right off the bat when we get there is we would do a land survey to cite and lay out the array the best we could within the limits of disturbance which is what all of the reports are being done on so the limits of disturbance is actually larger than the physical space you're able to take and maybe to try to reframe that's question if I can maybe because you're going to have to do the second piece anyway doesn't it make sense to do it all before you go through a regulatory framework is that what I maybe kind of want okay um generally uh we go through the regulatory framework and it's it's smooth and you put this towards the end because you don't know what stipulations might come out of the public utilities commission process so agency of natural resources could say you know we actually want you to move the array here so we don't know precisely where we've given a designated area where we think it is but there's many parties including parties here in this room that can have influence on the public utilities commission to say we want it done a certain way so based on that it gets hard to get down to specifics of where you're going to cite something because most likely it can change a little bit it would be very easy to get to specifics if you had to survey down first then you would know exactly what you have you would know how large your array is your engineers could plot it all out and the public utilities commission would have something that's accurate to look at it it sounds like you might be other variables that's a variable or a set of variables that you're saying that could be other variables based on regulatory review from that the agency multiple parties look at this process okay and at the end of the day we bear the risk that it does get smaller because of slope or any of those other constraints we bear that risk and if we've decided oh to make it bigger we need to go out of the limits of disturbance that starts the whole process over again so I don't have answers okay we have a couple people with hands up um first is Brendan just wanted to say good evening and some of this discussion referred to interactions that I myself personally have had with the select board the planning commission and some of the folks you know attending here tonight so I just wanted to say hello and and to say as as we have said at many times both in public meetings as well as you know directly to folks it's our desire to work with folks in the community to make it possible for the host number of folks in Vermont to take advantage of renewable energy it was me personally who presented this project to the select board in the planning commission and I did so in good faith and that is the the manner I continue to work with the town and as some of you know I am also a direct neighbor to this project so you know I have I have every interest in care for the town and and care for the property thank you thank you Brendan Larry yeah I'd like to say that I I also think that that that Brendan and Jim are working through this project in good faith um and I would really you know we approve this project based upon what we saw now knowing that some of the the panels in the original plan could have been cited on slopes which are are greater than 25 degrees we or was it percent percent I'm sorry um we we we it seems it seems really clear that no one wants anything to be put on slopes that are that steep and Jim presented evidence that indeed they are not going to do that I'm not sure what we gained by rescinding a letter although I do agree that the process at at best was flawed and at worst um there has been illegal with some of the open meeting law violations which have been indicated I'd love to learn more about that at some future date and if we are having problem in in our town with open meeting laws being followed um we need to take that very seriously and make sure that everybody all our committees are well versed in what needs to happen to comply with open meeting laws um it seems to me that what we could do at this point would be to um and maybe we can't do that at this meeting because it's not warned perhaps we can do this at our meeting on the 22nd um would be to um make a an amendment to our letter simply stating that you know that that any panels must be on you know slopes of less than 25 percent um for it to um be a preferred site for us and and that way we would um become compliant with the town plan all right um brook you're muted brook maybe she's gonna go yeah okay sorry I was trying to look up the town plan language sorry that's why I couldn't get back to the unmute button so um there seems to be this notion that by just not putting these panels themselves on the steep slopes it's somehow that manages to clear the town plan and um you know it does talk about energy facility development shall have to meet principal structure setback for the relevant area in the town zoning and shall be prohibited in floodways class one and two wetlands lands within 50 feet of the top of bank of perennial streams lands over 25 slope so energy facility development shall have to meet the development cannot be on a 25 slope is the law that was enacted by you folks just putting the solar panels you know actually not on that does not remit does not pass muster you also have to deal with the access road which appears to be on very steep slopes throughout most of what I have seen from mapping of this and so this notion that somehow we're not going to you know put the big foot or the cement uh you know pylon down into some area where there's 25 percent slopes you've got to drive all the trucks all over these areas you got to take the panels up there you got to use the excavators you got to disturb all the area so when jim is talking about the disturbed area the disturbed area is what can't be on 25 percent slopes and what just because you're going to try to avoid putting actual array a panel itself on the 25 slope how is that going to work that's why site plan needs to be given to the town the town what does the town have to gain larry to rescind this letter what they have to protect is to protect the town plan your law that you enacted says this and just like pre-new patrini was concerned earlier about precedent and rules have to apply to everybody you have a prohibited locations provision that is as plain as the letters black letter law here and you are needing to rescind this because the lands are over 25 slow that that are the energy facility development now precedent is important your only job here is not to listen to what's going to happen at the puc and we're going to promise them this or that the only job that you have in this role in the role of of the puc preferred sites determination is should you give this person a preferred sites letter not do you comply with the town plan do you comply with the town plan as a bare minimum and is this a place where we should give you a fast forward you know speed pass to to a permit because we think it's a really good place to have it that's a more enhanced standard in my opinion but at the bare minimum you can't give a preferred sites letter for a prohibited location until unless there is a site plan that shows that a disturbed area is not impacting slopes of 25 percent or more and if they want to reconfigure the array and you guys think that's good enough and you don't care about the access road fine everyone coming down the pike from now on is going to know that in Randolph it doesn't matter how steep a slope that you're building your access road on because there's no prohibition the town plan doesn't mean anything that's what precedent is about so i know jim is a very smart fellow and he's doing his best to help to revive this but i strongly recommend the town one of these boards should do the right thing like camden walters voted to do and that's to resend the letter and if they want to come back to you guys and say okay now that you've rescinded it we've changed things fine if they don't want to they can go forward in their process at the puc you're not it's not stopping them they've already figured out we're going to give them a condition and so maybe they'll say okay it doesn't matter that you violate the town plan because you're going to try to avoid actually putting in the panels where they shouldn't be and that's good enough for us here's your permit please defend our law otherwise don't enact it brook has just um brook has just asked the question that i was going to ask and it's relative to the access road we've been focused on the siting of the solar arrays but we haven't really addressed the question of the access road and i'm wondering if in its um communications with the puc if uh if norwich intends to um commit to not putting the access road on a slope of 25 percent or more so i can speak in a limited fashion and uh you know certainly um especially um given the uh the nature of the analysis of how i have spoken in the past you'll forgive me if i'm careful so um i would say that there may be some honest differences in interpretation here so that that may be the case another element is that the state process um in terms of slopes and in terms of the management of impact of storm water that process goes through the state storm water permit and there are different levels of storm water permits um the all of these projects all of these vermont 500 projects apply for and receive a state storm water permit that addresses all of these as far as i know being careful all of these issues in terms of um managing the development and its impact on the landscape and um and how not just how access will be gained but where will there be a laydown area and where will the vehicles park so um these these issues are considered um there is and now i have to preface this i'm speaking based on my personal experience on other solar projects um there is a preference for using existing access as opposed to putting in new access this particular this particular property has several uh existing uh access ways we would call them so um and and they go back many years some have been used more recently for logging but they predate the logging and so there's often a preference for using an existing access way rather than installing a new access way and i believe that that would be the case here one of the existing access ways was selected and shown on this site plan that was submitted so um and then when you make that choice of using the existed the existing access way um then the storm water permit um where we use a licensed engineering firm uh to uh make the plans and then we submit them for review and approval um we'll govern things like runoff areas whether you need level spreaders or whether you need um any number of other storm water management um um uh approaches implemented um on the site so that's the best answer i can give you with the you know limited understanding i have okay so we have um what's going on any further questions or thoughts on how to proceed with this from the board michael wants to respond to the last statement okay just one second pat it feels like we're missing the whole side are any information from the actual planning commission uh in the town attorney those are the pieces that feel like they're missing for me anyway um move somebody in the town offices the oh hang on tom okay all we have from the planning commission is the letter that was sent to the binders announcing the rescission of their previous decision to um to rescind the letter the rescinding of the rescinding um that's the only thing we have from the planning commission i just have to say that and i'm i'm entirely supportive of this project i'm entirely supportive of the spirit of this project and its intent i do have a concern um and it's almost an overarching one about the potential violation of open meeting uh laws here in the way this decision was made it's not whether i agree with the decision or not it's how the decision was made that could be problematic i have no doubt and and and have every every reason to believe that that norwich will act in good faith and go through with what they're saying they are willing to do but good faith and the letter of the law are two different things and um uh that's a little wait can i weigh in here for a second yeah there was no violation of open meeting laws when we made the decision to grant this request okay so i don't know where that came from all right um but that's totally a falsehood so if anybody thinks that that was the case i'm more than happy to have that conversation in private here uh with trevor so that he can share that information with you folks okay but there was no violation of open meeting laws when this decision was brought to the town i don't think that's what's being implied here i'd love to know what's being implied uh so well that's that's that's where i'm at on this i i think i'm gonna stop right there right but hurry let me just ask you the suggestion has been made that the decision was made via email is that accurate or not no this decision was not made by email when we originally granted the permission when we said we would give them a letter of support that was happened in a meeting okay where you know there was public input and oh yeah you know that so that's not the case here i'm not sure what's being implied here that we violated some open meeting laws but i would certainly love to see how that happened because i am not aware of that until tonight so that's why i'm not commenting about this until i get that information tom let me just jump in we're not talking anything about the original i don't even know when it was right i realized that yeah this is about what happened to december 14th by email december 13th 14th 15th 2021 to rescind they had decided to rescind the decision but needed to make sure they weren't going to get sued they didn't wait for the lawyer's decision they decided by email to not rescind after after talking sunny talked with the applicant and got some other explanations and ways to try to smooth it over and they all decided except for camden to reverse what they told everybody in public but they did it all by email so i'm happy to send you what foyer request provided but i think the town administrator has that because he must have produced it and i would urge the select board to review the conversations to determine whether you think that that's the way the town should be doing business okay so before we go down that rabbit hole too far i think we're at a disadvantage because we haven't seen any of this i haven't unless somebody else has um so i'm a little nervous that we have a lot of things at play and we have nobody here again i will say it from the planning commission from the perspective of sunny or whoever led that whole process to give us their side of what took place and and what happened and i just i don't i mean i'm gonna leave it to you but training training wait wait bro just a second um i think it's up to board members how you want to proceed with this if you feel like you have the information you need or do you feel like you need the other side of the story um the concern seems to be that the the the course is already out of the barn and this is moving towards the puc and if we take another weekend even if we were to bring this up again at our meeting a week from saturday i'm just questioning the timeliness of how imperative it is that we make this decision tonight or if we delay it for another eight days ten days whatever it is can we take those eight to ten days to gather all the information we really need to make a a reason decision and then make it then rather than tonight uh without without opening the door for i don't know when the puc i missed earlier when when the question was asked when the puc process is actually going to start uh happening if somebody could clarify the timeline on that it might have a date you don't have a date yet is it likely to happen before the new area 11 say hard to say but um we don't know we don't know yeah still the first thing they have to do is schedule a meeting in order to schedule the actual hearing and um yeah that's you know COVID and everything else and uh it's it's hard to predict right and part of what i'm asking that is that's your next regularly scheduled meeting i don't want to get anybody crosswise time wise but i would really like to protect the morning of the 22nd to be about the budget the capital plan and town meeting because those do have a time element we cannot miss at the end of the year so we need to complete that work and so whatever you do if we can block that off and figure out the time around or other than i would recommend that can i get in or just real respond to brennan valley and a couple other points um you there's uh been requests to know what happened at the planning board meeting uh jone and i have spent a lot of time listening to the recording of that meeting and transcribing it and we have filed an affidavit at the public utilities commission that contains a number of quotes of the planning commission members to give a sense for what was going on there um i don't know if you want me to go through this and read this all now i don't think so it's certainly in the public record now so yeah yeah so thank you for the offer michael but i i just feel like there's so much here and there's one whole part of the pie not here tonight to talk about what took place um that there needs to be some type of input here from them and even from the town's legal counsel on what where we're at and what we need to do well i have a i have a copy here of the town's legal opinion on this switch which trevor already mentioned saying yes you can resend and there's not going to be any liability that he can think of so that's been done already and i'm sure you could have a copy if it's not in your packet i could hold it up to the screen right now for you to say if you'd like and like i said we have an affidavit of our transcriptions of that meeting and of course the recording the meeting is public record you're welcome to listen to it and hear every nuance of what happened there as far as brendan's issue earlier that he mentioned that the public utilities commission will be responsible for making sure that stormwater regulations and so forth are passed and so that's fine and i'm really glad the public utility commission will do that but that's not the job of the select board to decide about stormwater runoff your job is just to see does it meet the town plan what has been submitted to you and i don't think it does and i think it needs to be rescinded and let norm solar come back with a new plan and we'll judge it on its merits okay so thank you for explaining what our job is i just feel like we don't have the full picture and the i don't know what questions were put to the attorney to figure out what that opinion was that was issued if everybody else is comfortable that they have the full story and are ready to act we can entertain motions and go through that i'm just not convinced that we have everything that's needed to sort that out thoughts from the board on how to proceed i'd like to move that we um that we table this discussion and consideration of rescinding the the the letter to our february 11th regular meeting and during that period of time let's gather all the information we can from the planning commission from the town attorney and i particularly would like to see this question of whether the decisions that were made and communicated in the letters and emails that ran the time period from december 12 to december 14th whether those decisions were made consistent and communications were consistent with open meeting laws i hear you parry i totally agree and understand that the previous meetings back in june were consistent with open meeting laws no question about it the question is where the actions taken december 12 to 14th consistent with open meeting uh juts so i'd like to see that question addressed and but my motion is to table this till our next regular monthly meeting i'd just like to say that i think there's more than one question to be answered here one of them is whether we resend the letter or not another one is the whole issue of uh public information and doing everything according to the law and the third part is our part in approving or not approving an application like this and should we have some criteria by which we do that okay so before we go there pat we have a motion waiting for a second the table to table it and get more information does that work for everybody for the two parties well we're not up for discussion you you want to follow process pat we got to follow process i have a motion and it's a second for discussion i will second it for the purpose of discussion okay now you have questions on it yeah trevor asked this before and i think the answer was that the 11th will probably be soon enough but i just wanted to ask that question again make sure i like the answer and if i can piggyback on it how much notice do you generally get before you're called back to the tvc so you may not know right now but how far back from when they let you know the way most scheduling meeting you know the all the parties would have to agree on a specific date but i understand so we could always say that the date will be after yeah okay any other questions for this discussion i would love to understand i think Patrick did a nice job that there's multiple threads here i came here under the understanding of the discussion about spokes and the select board removing their preferred letter based upon spokes and now it sounds like this is a multi-faceted discussion i'm just trying to understand the scope so for the next for the 11th meeting or the next meeting will it be actually warned what those slides are or just so that we understand what the different angles this is going to the best of your ability well the issue that involves you about the scope and whether it meets a town plan is the important issue we need to deal with but i think there are a couple others that we need to deal with at some point being public information and our part in approving this without having any criteria by okay so uh what the criteria is we're proving it by and what not came up when we issued the letter pat and so i think what we have on the table here is a discussion of whether we what we what we need at our next meeting to be able to evaluate this and make a decision so i'm not disagreeing with that i'm just saying there's more than that issue that we need to look at well yeah i think there are multiple threads we're all in agreement on that and i i think you and Trini are in the same page but the reality is the facts are that we don't have all the information at hand to make a judicious decision tonight i don't think so and that's the that's the spirit behind my motion all right so we have a motion on the table on the table this get more information and bring it to our next meeting any further discussion hearing them we'll call the motion all those in favor hi hi opposed abstained hi or abstained whatever it has to be that would be me ha motion carries it would be nice if we could have representation from the planning commission and get some of these questions to the town attorney and get some more information before everybody has to come back and make a decision next on the agenda as we're pretty early on in the agenda tonight and it's moving right along in time is green mountain powers line upgrade on pleasant street so i can kick this one off because i was involved in it some green mountain power has started their line upgrade down beanville road pleasant street down to the fire station in starting some of their drilling they ran into some communication lines and some fun things so they've had to go to a back truck with high pressure water to clean the holes out to make room to put the poles in in doing this they had to move a little bit the location of the line in the original plan they submitted to us they showed that the trees by the cemetery were at risk but they tried to save them they're not going to be able to they need to remove them to be able to bring the poles down through there uh in having the discussions with them we weren't sure that it was very specific of what came before the board that those trees would be removed so we wanted to bring it back before the board to make sure everybody understood that uh and there were no concerns before we just said go ahead and remove them um so you'll see i think there's three trees by the cemetery um they're going to be in the way of that power line going in uh and this was brought back to the board just to make sure everybody was on the same page and clear about what that looked like i think those trees that are better removed that effect yep they're down Trevor a little bit late i think that happened yesterday all right well i think Kevin and i are going to have different conversations tomorrow then but it was pretty clear that we were going to check in they had been discussed in rod strokes as part of a site visit but hadn't necessarily been discussed or considered as part of some of the original approvals the approvals had focused on those trees that were um you know how the leafier crowns that were closer to the central part of that cemetery and then a few on the beamville road sort of ended it where the telephone lines right now kind of cut through um so a couple of those old and maples might either have to be trimmed or removed and we had left it that we were going to double check and verify and then if you get off for your blessing then they would be fully good to go so if they've acted already they are certainly ahead of the curve with that and i hadn't i had not heard that i thought we were in alignment for my apology there well no that was the that was the understanding the exchange with him it was very clear that we were meeting tonight we would bring it to the board tonight to make sure that everybody realized on the plan those were identified so you weren't the only one all the ones you see up by the road anyway are gone oh there's so some of them are still there well i guess at this point there's no action to take until we know what happened right right yeah we'll we'll follow up with green man power very so next up on the agenda is to consider appointing members to arpa got a list in your packet of folks who have supplied their early emails of interest somebody who also we referenced see gary durr had spoken that he was interested in a quick email but it's not in the patent that's in there so i make sure that his name is not missed as you consider those gary durr here and then you can we've got a few of them on now i don't know that when i looked a little while ago they were we had all of them on if you had any you had questions for things you could do is point right now or you could discuss candidates later in executive session under the personnel monitor and then make appointments when you exit there you have six slots really when you think about it one of the slots is set aside to be a select board member who would chair the arpa committee and then the other six members because it was a seven member committee upon your adoption of the scope of work i think in let's say we did that in november and we would do that and then we had tried to do it with an eye towards some geographic representation but i think after we've been out there and advertised for candidates over the course of two months and it was exciting and opportunities this is the numbers we have or the numbers we have we're very grateful to have them but i don't suspect that going much longer will get more we'll shake much more and it's work we can get going off it and it's timely in terms of the final rule was just published by the united states treasury department it looks at first blush like we're going to have a little more flexibility and how we use the money the lct's guidance when i checked this afternoon on their website was in bold print something to be effective just hang on for a second if you can you know so that they can digest the 500 sub page rule and figure out exactly what's in there and how it differs from the interim guidance it was in the interim guidance that we had the very specific categories it seems like with the final rule especially under the loss revenue provision there may be the opportunity to use that category more broadly without any of the you know equations to prove what your losses were at different points to what amount up to a maximum might have a lot more flexibility to be able to use that but that's very analyzing that we'll keep an eye on the informational sources and reach out to the we've got a dedicated ARPA coordinator there that they connect with at any point as well so it it's evolving like i said we've got about two years to obligate the funds four years to spend them and we've set this committee up so that it would be a fairly finite scope it's got a task list and it's got a time and right now that time sort of expires at the end of April so we also want to make sure they have enough time to do their work too as we go through it and then make any decisions on extensions or additions if we need them okay so um we have a list of candidates that was in the packet i will say i like how um jeff grout addressed his said send it to the one in charge yeah uh the only candidate that um i'm a little bit concerned with on this list is uh ramsey because i believe she's the one that didn't show up at the budget meetings and folks were really struggling with non-participation there cheney what budget meetings are you referring to she was on the budget committee for a while and wasn't showing up and um they kept coming talking about how they couldn't get a quorum and are you sure i mean yeah i don't i don't recall ramsey being on the budget committee since i've been on the slack board i'm pretty sure that she was the one that i don't know how to look it up right now but there we had we did have another member of the budget committee who who i would agree also often did not show up but i i wonder if you're confusing the two people yeah my recollection is that ramsey is our representative to two rivers but not i don't recall her ever being on the budget committee at least not in my two years on the slack board okay that's possible yeah i'm not i'm not sure about that i know that she's two rivers rep but i'm not sure about the budget committee anybody have any thoughts on other folks that came forward this isn't um we're looking at filling five positions right we've got yeah six um you need a board member so seven when you consider that but oh okay i wasn't clear as to whether the board member was the sixth or the seventh okay yeah and then you got seven candidates for the other six slots i'll make the motion that we appoint the six people that are numbered one through six and second that uh just for discussion beforehand did we look at um did you say you looked at geography trevor or this is just all that came forward yeah we put that out there with this with the thought that we would try to provide at least three slots that were aimed specifically at you know village center east um but the seven candidates that step forward were the the that's the whole chute match so to the extent there's any geographic dispersion in there um it's you know it is what it is and and but some of the names i couldn't off the top of my head tell you i know where ramsey lives and that's about it we have one that says she lives on partridge hill right maria and jeff lives near there and matt matt moroski lives on beanville road michael abadi lives on um at the at the end of uh school street extension at the ebbok road not here right on not long before oh yeah oh yeah tree i i don't know where maria lives partridge hill okay so so so all these all these folks are on the on the west side of town beanville's not yeah right oh we didn't get anybody from the center even when we posted it twice before yeah we went out a couple different time in a couple different places and there seemed to be west side uh heavy yeah that's not good it's yes spat said it's a west side story at this point uh yeah that is concerned about that i don't you know this this is an advisory body correct it doesn't yeah right yeah it's making it's going to do the some of the review and make some recommendations and provide some you know an analysis of of what's possible i suppose with with the arpa funds back to the select board we'll do that advisory capacity and then you'll still have the policy prerogative there at the end of the day people from other areas can come to meetings and give their everything will be open warned in accordance with the public meeting right even probably set aside a little arpa section somewhere on the on the website another section on how to get to the arpa section it other than the lack of geographic variability it I mean it does seem like a good group of folks I mean yes it does there's no question about it it's just that and I live in the village right in the heart of the village but it is a little bit concerning as Trini suggests that the voice of people from the center in East Randolph isn't represented here unless one of our select board members steps up from that area to chair and and serves as that voice do you think the time commitment is for this I'm hopeful that in terms of actual meeting time the rules are clarified the LCT does most of the heavy lifting say in breaking it down and we get some help there and anywhere from four to six meetings an hour and a half to two hours maximum and then staff will probably do you know putting together packets agendas postings and then trying to synthesize right up whatever comes out of it and then coordinating reviews so you'll have some other pieces as part of this as a committee member but we'll try to keep it limited to that end of 15 hour framework say in terms of meeting and review time to the extent possible do you think we'd be done our little task here by say the first of June I think that's certainly the goal yeah we were hoping for a little earlier but we're going to try to if we need a little more time we could it is that with the final rule done and once that's broken out that should smooth the pathway when we set the committee up it was still unclear what that timeline was going to look like but now that we know the rules of the game it should be a little easier okay well I would volunteer to be the select board chair member as long as we can complete the process by first of June if not then somebody else is going to have to step in to finish that up to help you out Perry if it's not done by June I will step up and complete the term but perfect done by June well that would be my goal okay yeah you know I think it's personally shouldn't last much longer than that anyways but I know how these things can go so yeah this looks like a pretty solid group that you're not going to hopefully have to do a lot of hurting a cat's with so yeah I mean I agree you've got you got a good group of people there so yeah and it doesn't look like I mean I don't know all of these people well I know them sort of you know superficially but I don't see anybody here that looks like they would have some kind of overarching agenda of their own which would be a fly in the ointment for getting done by June but yeah I think it probably could be done by June that'd be my goal all right so we have a motion to elect the six that have put in interest letters and a second with Perry chairing it that's not part of the motion that's just a different one but so all those in favor of appointing the six hi hi um posed stained motion carries to be in a motion to appoint Perry or he just is special we know he's special I'm pretty special yeah I'm pretty special all right I think you should just make a motion and be done with it and that way it's official I'll move that we appoint Perry the chair of this committee I'll second have a motion and a second all those in favor hi hi posed stained motion carries who knows thanks for taking this on Perry uh you're welcome I don't think it's that hard a task Trevor's gonna back me up with a lot of good information right Trevor right 120 page packets coming your way on that's that's what I thought gonna make those plane rides fly by in a hurry yeah exactly so you better get it to me before the more morning oh boy all right next we have town meeting Australian ballot or floor we just wanted to bring this up so you could at least start thinking about it the legislature has enabled um the same option essentially as last year um starting the senate went through the house I didn't get a chance to check today to see if the governor had signed it that was the last step as of when we wrote the um the agenda notes um really it's just giving you the town the option um should covid concerns especially with increasing case counts hospitalizations all those things um if there's some worry about town meeting level of exposure level turnout those things you can go by Australian ballot essentially the same setup as last year informational hearing is required I think no more than 10 days prior last year we did it a week out with town meeting um and uh and could budget sit with other informational or or access points obviously once you warn uh town meeting and the Australian ballot setup there's nothing you can do to adjust any of the budget numbers or anything that would be a forevote for example the other thing to build does allow the capability to do is to move the town meeting date to presumably a warm or weather one for one these are all one year um actions so they wouldn't have any lingering effect or consequence just to move town meeting to warm a date the idea being that um you know wherever covid uh caseloads and other things are at that point we'd be able to meet outside in most scenarios feel a bit more spacing not have any sort of ventilation concerns or any of those pieces so you do have the two options knowing that we're 10 of 8 here it might just be one of those things to think about and this might be one that fits in well with that conversation on the 22nd if you want in terms of we'll know whether or not it's uh been fully enacted but just to get you thinking about it in large part because if we do it might adjust timelines a little bit um as opposed to right now we're queued up to um I think if the draft warning is written in a way um yeah it's written so that um much like last years with the australian ballot thing it's going to go with the floor we can change that pretty quickly so that there's the saturday town meeting and then anything that would be by australian ballot would be the tuesday march 1st I don't know if there are any thoughts or if you just want to chew on it a little bit and come back I think everybody had hoped after last year we'd be back to normal for town meeting this year but it's nice to have the options I don't say that um I'd like to ask if if emory has any um from the clerk's perspective if you have any reflection on this and I'm also I mean when this when this all came up in 2020 and I know it was relative to the general election and the primary in august but um as there may be larry you can talk about this has there been any discussion at um the state level about waiving any of the petition requirements for candidates for public office or for um ballot questions yes all right good and what what is who wants to take that one the legislature in fact the how the senate um I think it was yesterday in the house today um passed a bill that um that obviates the need for signatures for for candidates running for um positions for town meeting day elections okay so so select board members for instance for re-election this year do not need to collect signatures um this bill I believe still needs to be signed by the governor but um it was it passed the house I think it was either it was it was pretty much unanimous I think there was one dissenting voice vote so I expect it will be signed into into law um shortly okay thank you I was wondering about because I read s 172 um in conjunction with with a meeting I was attending in bridgewater the other evening uh in my reporting role and um I noticed it didn't address that I believe this was s 223 okay yep the dissenting vote larry was probably somebody that had already got their names on the petition right um what was that pat that was supposed to be a joke I couldn't I couldn't hear you very well the one person that voted against it might have been somebody that had already got all the names on their petition I had a question for trevor um I'm wondering if uh you know we don't have a lot that goes on um that we vote on at town meeting in person um it's in typical years the the one this one sort of consistent big thing that we vote on is the membership of the budget committee um and last year we did that by australian ballot which which seems appropriate given how we do all our other elected offices but australian ballot it seems like that makes sense anyway and I'm wondering actually not just not I'm thinking about it as as if maybe we look into making that permanent um in some sense because all our other elected officers are all elected by australian ballot it seems like it makes sense for that one to be done the same way but anyway um it's it's nice to actually have an in-person town meeting for people to debate resolutions and the other handful of items that come up um and so my question is I'll get to my question my question is can we have an australian ballot for the items that we would normally decide on town meeting day but also have a delayed town meeting um for say sometime in the spring where hopefully we will be passed you know a time when we can't meet in person or if we are we could maybe have an alternative site outside where we could actually have a town meeting um can we can we do both those things or is it kind of a one or the other it's more of a one of the other if you go all australian ballot then you wouldn't need to move you'd be doing that so you could keep the dates avoid any covid concerns and exposures um and can you be conducting all the business that way because otherwise if you delayed it did it by australian ballot then you still the only thing you're moving really is the informational hearing which can be done remotely now anyway it sort of envisions that you pair a remote informational hearing before the australian ballot with the australian ballot so that way everybody can participate some form from from home or some other relatively safe vantage point whereas if you move it it would be with the idea that we would do you'd still have the the things that have to go by australian ballot or that would traditionally go so the election of officers but you'd be doing the rest of the floor stuff from that amended date so it's sort of australian ballot it's either bit our traditional sort of town meeting no changes an australian ballot with the same date or an amended date that would still have both pieces but the four pieces would stay you know the budgets many of those would still be from the floor at a later date say may or something right right that's correct so if it's not a requirement i think you just move all the issues through australian ballot i'm with larry on that one me too okay so we had a motion to do that we did didn't we larry yeah that's what i thought it was larry right that was a motion correct it was a motion of course yeah of course it was i seconded it yes you did so we have a motion in the second all those in favor hi hi hi hi i'm staying motion carries next up is the draft town meeting morning i would assume this has to hold out until the budget meeting yep yeah the one the one piece we're waiting on are those final budget numbers um and once those are set and we'll make sure that everything matches we'll go back through and check the check for election officers to double check deadlines but wanted to just again get you thinking about it it's january 13th and we've got till january 30th so we're we just want to make sure it's it's as front and center as possible but no action needed tonight you'll do that once you once you've set budget numbers will adjust it take a look at it and and have you that's it's hopeful maybe at the 22nd we'll be able to do that all right sounds good next up is considering the library below grant and restoration hi this is Amy Brassen from the director of the library and uh but if you want to be more visually oriented if you want to look at page 108 of the pocket you received i'm just going to go through these points quickly so there are actually two things at hand here first is the great news that we did in the $20,000 grant competition for historic preservation to help pay for the prepares and restoration of the people are so really worried about that um the other question has to do with whether the town will commit uh $140,000 to make these repairs there were several questions at the previous forum so let me fill in for you the first question was there's my proposal to do bidding process that in which contractors are invited to examine the structure and then provide a plan and a bid that can buy with the town's procurement policy or purchase and policy and yes Trevor and I reviewed that policy and we'll look at the proposal where it provides something like x number of items at x price this is you know a process that's used for the solicitation of professional and other services for qualitative judgments must be made another question that came up was are there additional grant funds available and I will modify what I wrote here and say no there aren't any available at the moment but as always I do buy open for opportunities so it's certainly possible that I could find additional grant funds but at this moment there are no opportunities that I have found to help pay for the historic preservation project thank you for sending me the information about the ARPA funds that are flowing around I'm sure you all are well aware of how tightly limited those funds are but a good one if there will be the energy efficiency project and that's good news because libraries the event of each new ARPA system has made attention and so hopefully somebody can be found through those projects but we don't see anything for a historic preservation project like this right now another question that came up was how much is the town taxpayers pay for capital improvements with the library so I ran through the projects that have been done at the library from 2009 through 2021 and it's a total of just under $268,000 about a quarter of that came from the taxpayers of the library 46% came from funds that the library trustees were able to provide and 30% came from grants and another question that came up had to do with the McNair money that the library was fortunate to receive a few years ago the question was is that money restricted and the answer is no it was not restricted by Mr. McNair the library trustees however did make strategic decisions about how that money should be used so a hundred thousand dollars of it has been kept for future needs and the remaining are lost because it's in the market the amount changes but anyway um 50,000 was that a building and the remaining 50,000 went between youth engagement and events in outreach so the forty-fourth follows of what the trustees are able to devote for the restoration of the particular funds from the remaining amount of money that is left for building these so shall I move on to the question about those points no we'll see anybody with questions I have I have one training yeah I have had are there several contractors that can do this type of work or is it very limited I'm sure it's quite specialized the ramped requirement is that we solicit three contractors to bid but we don't have to get three bids for the mood sense so I'm absolutely invested in making sure that we get the right person for the job which means you know casting the net broadly but I will also be able to advantage a guidance from the division and from the preservation trust to find the right people to invite in terms of the timeline I have a grant acknowledgments that I need to return to the division to start preservation by February 4th it includes things like acknowledging the timeline that I'm going to go through, certificate of insurance, you know it's a W9 so it's kind of procedural but the thing I really like about this grant is they have various deadlines for each step of getting the point so February 4th is the term you recommend March 4th is providing big documents to the division for them to achieve. Trevor also had some ideas about a structure that I can use to put together the big documents so again thanks to Trevor for that. By May 27th I have to submit the new bid to the division for their approval so it's very tight. In June 30th the three agreements have to be completed and then unfortunately for me I learned that the project has to be completed by December 31st of 2023 not December 31st of 2024 which is what the original email from the division said so sadly I'm not getting as much time as I have hoped to get the project done so that's the timeline. Any questions about that? So I guess at this point I don't know that I have anything more to say other than there are two questions I think you all need to act on one of them is approving acceptance of the grant and the other is committing 140,000 dollars from town funds for the project. All right any questions from board members? So Trevor what is sitting right now in the in the fund? And the facilities reserve? Yeah. I believe it's around 200. I'm trying to see if I have this sheet here with me it's still upstairs but that's what it was because we had highlighted that we didn't unless there was uh it was 60 to 80 thousand dollars in other revenue that was forecast to come in in this fiscal year and if we did that or achieved that money we'd be able to fund the three projects that were in there one of which was repairs here to the skylight it's another thing the town hall and there was a third smaller project in that 15 to 20 thousand dollar neighborhood that might have been also at the at the library approving a different building but because of where we're at fiscal 22 it's unlikely those projects would occur in this fiscal year anyway even if that money didn't materialize and when we plan ahead we'll likely be moving those post july one anyway and also trying to make sure they're appropriately shaped and scoped out so there is enough money in the reserve to do this it doesn't fully deplete it but we will have to as we think about our facilities and as we complete some other projects that'll help us define future building projects we probably will have to spend some time thinking about how to fund the facilities reserve the way that we've been funding some of the others. So in the capital plan we have other buildings that had needs that won't get any work done? Probably not in two they'll be pushed into 23 at this point some of that I think would happen just as a nature of the timing and the availability of contractors trying to get the copy of the capital plan in front of me here it'll help. So there were $80,000 that were supposed to come in in addition to the what was projected to be in there there was a transfer that went over about $75,000 and we were looking at projects in 22 that would have included the town hall office that I talked about before and then there was a basically replacement for exterior painting project at the library so there were three for 285 but without that other $80,000 other receipts or grants with just the facility reserve money you wouldn't be able to do all three but time-wise the town office one is in in fiscal 23 at this point anyway. My concern on this is if it wasn't the priority on the capital plan does that mean if somebody else like Randolph Center or probably not because we don't own that building but somebody else went out and got a grant for a small portion of their project does that then jump them ahead of the other needs that we have that that funding is planned for? It could if we hadn't identified a project already I think where this one has a little difference is that it's there's a $200,000 project in for fiscal 22 in that capital plan now so if we certainly if we took you know the East Randolph Hall out of the blue that would upset that priority apple car and this one in past process had been put out here in fiscal 22 at some point and some of us until we complete the energy audits and go back through the capital plan I mean we it goes back to what we talked about and getting ready for the infrastructure and ARPA and other funds that are out there is there's some basic project scoping that we need to do across categories and buildings is one of them in order to know what we want to do and then to be able to put them in priority order so that we're both ready if opportunities come and if not that we're ready with our own funding and have put them in the right order or the order that we want to move them forward in can I make a motion training yeah is that yes you can I would move that we accept that historic preservation grant and that we commit up to $140,000 in capital funds for the library kipua project the second part so just to clarify does that come with any type of direction for them to continue looking for grants to pay for this I'm just a little nervous that we're now short changing the work that we've talked about now for multiple years on the town hall and this too I think Amy has said that she'll keep looking she said that again tonight and Trevor and Cheryl will be looking I think this becomes a priority project because it is leaking at this point do you have any further discussion on this very none all those in favor of course opposed sustained motion carries and I consider approving marketing and tourism grant agreement of robin so job I would think the select board on that take the opportunity to thank the select board profusely on behalf of the board of trustees you know you put this stuff off on a really old building and it just costs more and more the longer you wait and so we have an opportunity to fix it and we are grateful for the select board support thanks again yep so marketing and tourism grant agreement hi uh so this is uh this was a grant out of eccd and I apologize because this we've already applied for this grant it came together really quickly in November um and um I wasn't able to bring it to the December uh select boards meeting because I was on vacation um and so you know now we now we get to bring it to your attention with some good news because we we got the grant um this is a $30,000 grant um and and so this program was designed um one to to focus on um collaboration um and to be regional specific um there was only half a million dollars that the eccd um had for the whole state um and so this um this this proposal utilize the work that we've been doing over the last year with Randolph in motion um and because every every issue that we've done we've gotten more support from businesses um and we've been able to really sort of highlight the things that are great um about Randolph in the region um and so the bulk of this is going to go towards the creation of a really awesome website um that will sort of be Randolph in motion um and really be a digital platform to promote the community um and the region um the other piece is going to be um supplementing uh Chandler's new world festival um and specifically with some additional marketing resources um targeted towards uh consumers in Quebec and Boston in New York um and then the third piece of the grant is going to be providing some marketing resources to Ridgeline outdoor collective um because that is such a draw for the region um and what they've really lacked um up until now is just having any marketing resources whatsoever um so you know it's 30 000 dollars I think um you know the Randolph in motion piece is going to be between 15 20 000 dollars um and and then also there's a little bit of money there um to help with promoting the region through the use of getting an essence writers um to the area to show them around the region and to give them some experiences that they can go and and write about um in some of their publications um so a pretty exciting opportunity um for Randolph um and in our region um to make a big marketing splash here so I'd love for you to to consider accepting this this grant there's no match um to it which is awesome um and they are in essence just using our project proposal as the the grant agreement and for the deliverables I'd be happy to answer any questions you guys have move that we um that we accept the grant as uh as just defined by Josh I'll second that I have a motion in a second any questions can I just ask briefly what are the deliverables Josh uh well the the website for one yeah um and the the marketing campaign um with Chandler um to uh for their campaign they're targeted towards consumers in Quebec Boston and New York um uh photography obviously that's going to be and maybe some some small videography um that we use on the website and for uh ridge lines marketing um material um and then of course like the the writer coming to you know being able to have a writer come to the area or multiple writers um and giving them that experience so that they can go and um write about their experience in the region um at you know at within their publication um could be you know some sort of like uh trade journal or or entertainment recreational journal newspaper uh whatnot um all of the collateral we we said we would make available to the state of Vermont so they would be getting all of that thank you very we have a motion in a second on the table all those in favor stand motion carries adopting the 22 certificate of mileage this is an annual occurrence and requirement it ties into our state highway aid and the calculations are based on our class one two and three mileage there are no proposed changes once we fill out the totals so basically everything in the previous mileage will carry across no other changes no new highways discontinued reclassified re-measured or meaning doesn't mean it's scenic and we'll need at least three of you to sign it based on the way it's set up and then we ask the town clerk to sign it uh this comes to us from B trains and then we'll send it back to the mapping division is this taken into account or was that last year that we had the discontinued roads they should be already taken into account in the calculation but i'll double check that to be sure but they should already be out of that mile that was last that was last year period okay i wasn't sure where it fell into the yeah when that time frame happened right what would that be instead of making a motion to approve the certification of highway mileage second second the motion in a second all those in favor all right all right you can post stained motion carries next up we have an assembly permit for winter test i don't know who who wants do you want to introduce it perry or do you want us to i can handle that so essentially what this is it's the same permit that you've seen for the last well not last year but in two previous years there's not a lot of change um in respect to the event so um one of the things that i'd discovered in handling this process is it's a little challenging to pin down the people that you need to get to sign off from this so kim and sent an email to these folks i had talked to them personally i don't know if they've showed up at the town office to sign these but i had conversations with uh mr bonac from the police department and i had a conversation with mike hildebrandt he asked a few questions i addressed those gave him a new map and kim was going to reach out to the health officer and public works director i don't know do we have one of those anymore we have a highway foreman but i don't know if we have a public works director so now it's one of the hats that i've sometimes done for you so everybody okay well so that's left over though from when we did have public works yes building the grounds and highway was all won as public works and then as separate so anyways there it is sitting in front of you i think kim did you say you've gotten a couple signatures now yeah i got i got all of them except for the i got them all worked yeah okay great thank you you're welcome what i can help you with it trevor would be that one thank you trevor so we're good perfect you're good period all right any questions no but given that it's a public event and it's to support the town and whatnot um i believe there's a site out there that people can go to to sign up to volunteer and help out with it oh yes so um so over the weekend there's a website that went live it's called rain dot winterfest dot com it basically gives you an overview of the event shares with you the activities as the parking situation addressed talks about volunteering talks about sponsorship uh so my friend valerie has done a pretty tremendous job of putting that together for us as always as always as always she is a dynamo when it comes to this stuff and so we've we've we've taken it to a new level where you can actually submit your sponsorship money online you can register for the event online you can you can sign up for the cardboard race box race online so yes we're we're moving and i will share with you that the initial uh facebook post from a couple weeks ago was shared 400 times which was pretty impressive so i think it's you know turning into a very nice community event so i'm looking forward to uh getting up there when i get back and making some snow so i can support the water district buy a little water nice so anyways that's it in that shell hey let's go ahead time i was going to move the approval of the assembly permit for aware of fast 2022 second a motion and a second all those in favor hi post steam yep motion carries thank you help is of business i just wanted to point out one thing that i told the arts and culture committee uh i would do at their at their monthly zoom meeting yesterday and that is that and and uh kim and trevor are both aware of this there are several openings on the arts and culture committee and they are soliciting applicants for that for presentation to the select board they decided yesterday that any applicants that step forward they would submit for consideration of the select board at this at the reorganization meeting following town meeting at the same time as they submit their own intentions to return for another year so that's just a quick update on that yes any other items managers report the only thing to amend from what's written is in letter c this is the federal ets program the supreme court voted six three today to to block the federal standards so there's no osha or osha temporary or other standard forthcoming according to the communication from vlct this whole program is quote unquote effectively dead so for now take that off we were going to be in a spot where we're going to hit the hundred employee marker in the summertime with pool camp and then it's one of those that once you hit that marker you stay there even after those camp counselors and lifeguards and others return and that's the reason we got to a hundred was we had to count volunteer firefighters the five of you would have been counted and that under some of those standards so for now there isn't anything we need to worry about with either mandating and requiring proof of vaccination or some kind of testing protocol for unvaccinated employees we are following the general state and federal guidelines as we were before no change it's a long way of saying no change perfect right anything else from the managers report thanks so we do have a couple of things i can keep it quick with the late hour too or we can if you want to touch base on the on the personnel stuff real quick at a minimum but entertain a motion to go into executive session a move that we go into executive session for consideration of contracts collective bargaining and personnel issues second all those in favor all right all right all right post state motion carries