 Let's call me in order at 630 about We have some additions to agenda. It looks like you've got one Gina. Yeah, no Oh, it says none. That's right. Yes So no additions Review of minutes December 4th Does anybody read the minutes from December 4th? I'll make a motion to accept the minutes and yes, I have read the minutes. I've read them Do we have a second? I'll second it Okay, it's a period job once again done by Carl. They were good minutes. Thank you It's open for discussion the minutes Is there any further discussion? Are there any corrections? None Not that I saw All those in favor, please say aye All right. All right. All right. Yeah, I appear to have it. They do have it made it to the past public comment I see people on the Zoom are the members of public or are they here for specific purposes? I'm Terry I'm representing Twin Valley Senior Center. Okay All right, so no I'm Amelia and I'm representing Washington Central Unified Union School District Okay, I just wanted to confirm that That's on the agenda to discuss. I think it was at 845. Okay. Thank you. Okay So the first thing that we are going to discuss FY 2025 appropriation discussion Kellogg-Harbert Library Nobody's here. Good evening. Oh Dan. Oh you're from the library. Yes. Hi Okay. He is the man. He is the man Okay, we're ready to listen to you first. Okay. Glad I joined early. Thank you Thank you so much for having us Are the Eastmont Pillar representative on our board Sarah Swift It's planning to join as well. She may be here closer to the 640 agenda time that we were told but Happy to be here We're grateful for the support of Eastmont Pillar. We have really strong support and activity from Eastmont Pillar as I'm sure you've experienced we are you know dealing with the effects of inflationary pressures on our budget so The biggest pieces are on our personnel costs and health insurance costs so You may remember that we did not ask for an increase from Eastmont Pillar last year But we are requesting an increase of just over $5,000 $5,196 in the coming year That represents a $20 per capita request Which is how the State Department of Libraries sort of compares Municipal support for libraries across the state That compares to 55 our request to Montpillier is $55 just so you So you understand that and it's in line with what we're requesting from our other Five towns that we serve So it's a request of increase of $2 per capita And it's primarily results like I said health insurance and personnel costs so we signed a new union contract in March that has 15% wage increases over three years those went into effect July 1st of this year So we're moving into the we will be moving into the second year of that increase In addition to those percentage increases we set a new wage floor of $20 per hour for our staff You know we're competing not just with other libraries across the state and across the region But also with you know increased wages at employers all over the state, so And we have wonderful librarians who I'm sure you're all familiar with and Want to support them the other piece is that we received a 14% Increase on our health insurance premiums from our blue cross policy going to effecting January so significant increase there I'm Municipal funding is only that half 52% of our total budget. So I like to say that we're really stretching your dollars through Draws from our endowment and private fundraising, which we've increased significantly over the years and the other thing I'll speak to is that We're not requesting any increase as a result of the flooding But I'm sure as you know the library experience about 1.4 million dollars in damage due to the flooding in July and through a combination of insurance Private fundraising and FEMA funds we expect to emerge after the flood more resilient and better able to serve the community. So Grateful for all the tremendous support that we've gotten from donors and others and I'll stop there. I did submit the report to the town That talks about some of the services that we've provided in this Montpelier But I know you're all pretty familiar with the library. So if you have any questions stop and answer them now Yes Then thanks Dan and Welcome to your position. I think this is the first time you've come to us in this position It's true. Yes. I started in just in late June. So three three weeks before the flood Right, right. So could you expand on what you said about emerging more resilient after the flood thanks to insurance FEMA and private fundraising? What what does that mean bottom line wise or in other terms? So we are moving Basically the cost was a result of all of our building mechanical systems being located in the basement where they flooded All of those systems are getting moved The only one that's staying is our district heat, which is just because we'd have to replant the entire building in order to move it But we're planning to floodproof that room And everything else our air handlers our electric elevator Controls our building heat controls. All of it is moving up out of the basement So we expect that to have a major impact on you know, if there is a future flooding event I mean right now. I'm worried about that You know that Recovery would be a lot faster and less expensive Okay, and in terms of the bottom line that you have 1.4 million dollars in damage Was all that covered through insurance FEMA and private fundraising or did you need to? Reach into your endowment We have not reached into our endowment. We had a $400,000 flood insurance policy which we've received We've raised about $600,000 in grants and donations And we're expecting to receive the rest from FEMA, but it's a As I'm sure you're familiar with quite a process to get any money from that. Yeah. Yeah, okay And then in your report your first report for 2022-23 you alluded to the tax situation in Montpelier I believe if I understood your language correctly, but you know, we're seeing that Montpelier voters may be facing huge increases in their property taxes and I'm wondering how You think that's going to affect their willingness to keep funding Kellogg Hubbard at the levels. It's been funded Well, we had the city council in Montpelier asked us to petition And we collected nearly 800 signatures in Montpelier Which I think is a testament to the support that we enjoy from Montpelier taxpayers. So I think they Really the flood gave us an opportunity to demonstrate our value as a community space in Montpelier and a necessary You know a place for people to to gather and connect and access information and public Wi-Fi available outside of the building and so on and so forth so I am Consciously optimistic that will receive support. We are asking for you know, a pretty sizable increase in Montpelier It's similar percentage wise, but Represents the larger dollar now because Montpelier is our largest funder by far Right. Okay. Thank you. No further questions at this moment So the increase is $2 per capita Confusing in your thing here the increases to those two dollars per capita Going from 18 to 20 Okay, gotcha that that's a little more clear. Yes, we're going from 51 to 55 in Montpelier. Just yeah, I gotcha Yep Okay Anybody have any more questions for Dan? Do not Hey Like Seth quick question procedurally since I'm new to this Do we vote on this to put it on the ballot for the week? We don't vote on this to put it on the ballot for the citizens. Just it's just We do the wanting usually all together Okay. Oh, thanks. Okay, very good. Don't usually do it one right. You mentioned that last time. I'm good. Yeah, okay Thank you Have any questions All right Well, thank you, Dan Sarah just joined but we're oh Sarah just wait, but we're way ahead of schedule Well, we're right on time for a beginning in the eye So she's not have something she want to add I'm sure she was just gonna say nice things about the library and our services and she's always available to Answer any questions about the library. We have representatives from each of our supporting towns Sarah We're actually they're ahead of schedule. So I was just wrapping up So I don't I don't think you're necessary, but if anyone has any questions Please feel free to reach out to Sarah or it's myself always happy to answer this Sarah you missed a very controversial part of the conversation. Oh dear What I actually wanted to add is how great the library staff has been through the flood and Keeping the library open and keeping services open and how lucky we were to have Dan You're working there. It's I'm working. Okay. Yeah, okay. I don't I can't you were just saying nice things about me So don't let me stop you and And how lucky we were to have Dan step in at that moment after Jesse Lynn left And otherwise we're doing good the circulation the services for East Montpelier are up the programs for kids and adults are going strong so I think despite our setbacks that it's been a good year for the library All right, sounds good Nobody has any questions for Sarah Okay Well, I don't think we'll dwell any longer on your Kellogg Hubbard request everyone seems satisfied Thank you put it to the voters and we'll see what happens All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you Um, so we're a little ahead of schedule expecting are we expecting anybody from rct? So rct, I think I thought I saw someone here from rct. Yes. Caleb is here um jamie had emailed me earlier from green mountain transit that um Likely likely wouldn't be able to attend. Um So just because they're kind of in the midst of dealing with flooding and all of their service areas and In addition to some lack of internet access for a lot of employees So so we have someone here though if we want to proceed so rct is here. We can certainly might as well Do that. Okay. So f y 2025 appropriation discussion rct rural community transportation and green mountain transit So there's nobody here from green mountain transit, but we do have someone here from rct, correct? Correct. Okay We're ready to hear you Good evening, and thank you all for taking the time. Obviously it's a lot of challenges going on tonight for Transportation but also our communities. My name is Caleb Grant and I'm the executive director of rural community transportation which is the transportation provider for The northeast kingdom as well as lamoille county I am here today seeking appropriations in support of our us2 commuter Which stops both northbound and southbound in east montpellier In the service year 2022, which is the year we have full results for We had about 714 pickups in east montpellier for the commuter both southbound and northbound The amount we are requesting is consistent with our appropriations from last year. So there is no requested increase the largest challenge to rct and I won't speak for gmt but as with many organizations as the phasing out of COVID funding what was covered by the state traditionally for either the 20 or the 50 depending on the route is now left to local match so You can probably see from our vehicle if you've ever seen our bus roll through town. We do seek sponsorships currently Vermont state university is the sponsor for the us2 commuter As well as appropriations from every community along the route. So with that I will open up questions Or happy to clarify any points that there is additional information needed So you you mentioned the number of riders, but how'd that compare to last year? I actually can probably look through your literature, but Um, so typically uh, you saw our peak was in prior to COVID During COVID you saw a significant increase And we're a little bit closer to pre-covid ridership But a large quantity of our ridership is state employees who are still on the Remote work. So what traditionally would have been a five times a week transportation? We're now looking at the one or two depending on what their specific state office requires. So Typically east montpellier. We're doing a lot of southbound trips as opposed to northbound But again, the state employees is probably Attributes the largest decline, but it is nowhere near prior to COVID, but it is significantly up from the COVID period I'm sorry, I thought I heard you say that there was a significant increase in ridership during COVID Surely there was a decrease. I apologize. Yes a decrease. Okay. Okay. Good. I'm sorry, but No, we rebounded Yeah, we've rebounded quite a bit, but not fully. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Yep any more questions nothing Let's see it some nodding some nothing some nothing Pretty pretty clear cut. Yeah, very clear cut. Yeah well, I appreciate you zooming in and Saying what you said and doing what you do, but I think we're going to move on if no one's got any more questions We don't want to go along the agony tonight and we get a long agenda and the weather's crappy. So Yeah, I will just add that Very proudly we are still doing service tonight We take very seriously that if we drop people off in the morning, we will get them home at night So and whether that's a direct path or not, we are still picking up and transporting back So thank you for the opportunity and if there aren't any additional questions, um, I'll probably pop off at that Work. Yeah, really good. Good luck Thank you. I very much appreciate all of your support and um, good luck to your community with this recent flooding Yeah, good luck to you Thank you. Take care. All right. Good night Um, now the lady is here from Twin Valley Seniors. Is that correct? Yes I'm sukari and Denise Wheeler, who's our interim director had sent A list of the things that we've done over the last year. I I believe she sent that to Gina and I think that I'm hoping that you all have a copy of it It's just basically all the different things we have done We're working to try to get more volunteers and more activities going for our clients Our biggest project, of course, is the Meals on Wheels project And you know, we've served like over 9400 meals during 2023 We're always in need of money. We're always short of money like everybody else I write as many grants as I can to get money for Meals on Wheels, but You know, I've had some success and some not success But that's that's our really big project to To get money to keep Meals on Wheels going because we have so many hungry people in the six areas that we serve and I of note. I think I should say that we only have two two paid staff people and those are part time people Everything else is done by volunteers We have over 40 volunteers who come in and help us prep food Help us set up the Meals on Wheels In containers we have people who are driving And anybody who can do anything We have a lot of volunteers and a lot of help if it wasn't for them We wouldn't be able to continue doing the work we do And we've had some Some hard times this year like everybody else the basement flooded. We lost a lot of food. We lost We lost one of our freezers And our range had to be replaced and that was a huge expense So um, we're coming forward to ask for the same amount as we asked for last year and our appropriation request And um, we I appreciate you letting me come on and talk to you And if you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them any questions nothing nothing nothing There is a future discussion sue about the um, it's a request for the paving for twin valley And I mentioned to Denise that that was going to be later So I'm not sure if you're going to stick around for that discussion. I am. Okay. I just wanted to address that Okay, perfect. Thank you All right, thank you for all you do for your your uh stalwart of the community. Thank you for Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you too dealing with your limited resources Yeah, I can see your budget's not very big. It's like, whoa, you do a lot without much money right for sure Yeah, I've seen your request been on the floor and number one year was raised People are like, no, no, they deserve more money. We're open to that by the way Right, I was thinking the same Could happen Um, so no more questions We'll move to the next Now, do we have someone here from the senior center senior activity center? We expect anybody we may yes Matt Wilson. Yes, we'll likely be here later So I don't know if we want to move on to other ones in the agenda and come back because we're way ahead of Way ahead, but I'd like to stay ahead. So that means we'll shoehorn somebody else in That time because we're 10 to 7 if you want to Just pop down since we do have someone from the school here Yeah, we do we could discuss the town meeting warning because the question there why the school is here is about the mailing of the ballot so Just want to mention that so yeah, let's do that. Naly is not hanging around until right right right at a clock. So That may be a good one to us. What do you think? Yeah, yeah, that may be a good one to go ahead and jump ahead too. It gets boring Okay, discussion of 2024 town meeting warning consideration approval for wcu usd school boards who authorized ballot mailing to all registered voters And consideration of town ballot mailing to all registered voters. So This lady here. Yes. It's here to ask us what we're playing this Is that what you're wondering about Yeah, so thanks for having me. Um, Amelia Contrata and I am a um appointed temporary appointed board member And there's one other appointed board member for a spot for three-year terms axel oven And then the chair florida smith So We will collect the signatures and typically I think For the elections we put in a request that the names Be added to the the ballot that's mailed usps Okay So we're We haven't decided whether we're going to mail ballots to all registered voters But we have the last two years and we're probably going to continue I'm I can't speak for the rest of select board But I'm in strong favor of doing that because we've had very very good results With this part of the rest of the select board agrees. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you Yeah, I I don't want to I'm not speaking for anybody. I'm just speaking for myself But I'm just telling you that it's it's uh, it's a really good approach to get voters to participate And I have heard no objection to it So that's probably going to be our plan. I think carl concurred with that and scott did So you've got at least three members of the select board on board with uh mailing some ballots out So didn't we usually flip the two ballots together and say, well, that's right We're probably going to do the same thing So Is that was that answering your question? Yes, it does great. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we appreciate it on behalf of the board It's just a way to further democracy at this stage in our In our country that seems to work And you know People don't think about voting like they used to but when they have the ballot in front of them, they participate So Amelia are we in the same situation that we were last year where all five Uh school district towns need to approve the co-mailing of the ballots for that to happen I believe there's a there's a decision per town I believe so Yeah, um, so I'm not sure the I'm maybe my question wasn't clear Uh, can can east montpelier mail out the washington central ballots if one of the other four towns says no We don't want to do that in our town That actually is I can't answer that question I'm not completely positive. Um, but flor ds smith I'm sure pretty answer that I'm sure she has that information my understanding. Um You know, I'm not even gonna go there Wrong information. So it's a good question. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, that's the way it was last year and I don't know whether anything has changed Okay, they say no way right and that would stop That would stop that. So I know I think that you're I I'm not gonna say for sure, but I believe that it The process is a continuation only because I'm just realizing there was a request last meeting For everyone At least one member from each town to attend the town meetings to make the request And so it makes sense that if that was the strategy then they're they're trying to coordinate and make sure that Everyone's on the same page that's my My educated guess But you're talking about somebody attending town meetings discussing To make the request so that all five towns could Right the names on the ballot in order for one, you know Yeah, if that's if that's a case then um Maybe just to be extra clear We should pass a motion to the effect of what we've agreed to We want to have a motion now I think so Does that seem in order? I have no idea Does it hurt? It doesn't hurt Yeah, okay, it does not hurt and then we're bound to it, you know, you know, I mean So so I I move then to um approve the co-mailing of east montpelier town ballots and W s wc uusd school ballots to all registered voters for the march 2024 town and school meetings At the expense of the town I'll second that Any further discussion all the people please say aye Aye Aye The eyes do have appear to have as they do has okay I think we're good. Thank you. Thank you for your tireless work. Thanks for your work. Thanks for popping by today Good luck at the flood Maybe just want to hear us talk Tell floor. She's got the rest of the baby to sleep you want to see democracy in action. I think um Okay, so let's see it's seven Uh Do you want to discuss storm repairs fema? I don't know why Sure next item Yeah update on july 2023 school repairs and fema that sounds like kind of a boring subject. Let's do it. Well, it's uh Hopefully it stays boring after tonight. Um, yeah, no kidding. The real news here is that I have been trying to get an answer on Sodom pond road and the culvert there is a stone culvert that failed during the july flood yeah, and It's a stone culvert So the big question is when we have a structure that old is whether it was considered historic So after going back and forth with fema for the last few months, finally, I got it punted over to the state Um, apparently isn't the normal process, but thankful Thanks. I'm very thankful to the state that they did take the initiative to determine. Um Whether that culvert was historic and it was deemed not historic Therefore our repairs are in no way hindered Um by needing to retain that structure in any way So I included the letter that I received from the state um with information about That you know that tell you about that determination that determination has been provided to fema as well Because obviously that's an important factor and our repairs being eligible for reimbursement that we do not have to retain that structure So I don't know if the select board has any feelings positive or negative on that determination from the state um I don't know what residents in the area are going to feel But certainly it's significantly More cost-effective to not have to keep that structure Because now we can just get something engineered and designed in that area And hopefully not have a repeat of the july flood Yeah, hopefully we're not having that right now Um The other bit of information is that I finally kind of got some info that v-trans I did not know that so learned that last week too Actually can do um h and h. Um, it's a hydrological and hydraulic studies For locations the problem is from what I have heard through the grapevine The state's way out like a year plus on being able to do this However, I did complete two requests because we do need h and h studies done at both sander circle And sodom pond we need more than that, but those are the most critical in particular sander circle where the road is currently impassable Yeah, um Obviously it's a circle. So it's not destroying anybody too much But we need we need to get that fixed next year. So I submitted the request to be trans I have asked But I haven't heard back yet on what timing we may be looking at for them to be able to complete these studies I'm going to guess their timeframe is not going to be Efficient for us. Um, because I think we're going to need it done more timely The cost for an h and h study is reimbursable by fema If the h and h study states that you need a structure Larger than what you had in place prior to the storm. Okay The stone culvert is going to be a given. Um, that we are not going to obviously be replacing that structure Sander circle We're 90 sure that one is also not going to be replaced with the exact same structure Early indications are that we need different structures in both of these locations. So I just wanted to let the select board know I want to get an answer back from be transverse on Are we looking? I mean, what if they say they can get to this in two months? doubt it, but if they say it's 12 months odds are we need to go ahead and hire an engineer to perform this work And hope that the h and h study will end up being reimbursed by fema Yeah From what I've heard they're not extremely expensive that the bigger expense is already going to be reimbursed by fema Which would be the design of the replacement in both of these locations But so I just wanted to let you know this was kind of out there. So stay tuned Once I hear more back from be trans then I will let you know because I would seek obviously select board approval Before I issue we will need to issue an rfp for both of these locations to get designed because we just don't know What the value of them will be so we kind of need to follow all the fema Guidelines in case they're of a certain dollar amount that we need to make sure we're following all of their processes to a t So that's the fema or that you're going to be on the state list for doing that We're on the state list correct, but I I did tell michelle redmond who is our Our district rep with v trans that the timing may mean that we need to To hire someone to do the work, but I asked her to just let me know what they're looking at so that then we can Make a decision on what we need to do. Yeah, but obviously we need to repair sand or circle next year. So Yeah Okay So that is the storm repairs of fema question from carol Yes question, please um, so Gina and this isn't your area of expertise, but in case you happen to glean any Any possible answer to this How come and maybe it's just a rhetorical question How complicated can it be to do a study to determine that a larger structure than what was previously installed Is needed. I mean it seems to me like you could check a couple boxes Did a storm overwhelm the existing structure? Yes Has god given us a promissory note that no such storm of such Magnitude will come again. No therefore it needs to be replaced by a larger structure Yeah, a lot of it is just the math of how like what is the acreage of water that's fading into the area? What's the flow of the water? So I've seen some of these again This is not going to be our bigger expense The bigger expense is going to be the actual design of the replacement and the engineering of that From what I've heard these are somewhere around 12 to 1500 dollars ish of your design expense So we're not talking a significant amount of money here So to your point carl that kind of fits in that I don't think they're that difficult to do But I'm sure the state has has a significant backlog right now that we're they're working through So and do you know even in speaking with fema even our fema wrap said to me our risk is pretty low That these would not be reimbursed by fema because They they should say that we need larger structures than what we have today Yeah, okay, and do you know whether Any output from the h&h study will be useful in the design will we get the specs? It will dictate what size essentially needs to be there. Yeah, okay, so that's important. That's great. Thank you Okay, so we're still a little bit ahead Zoe has a question What's that? Oh, okay, not that important. I was curious. Did you say that the h&h study was the only part that would be reimbursable? No, we would be reimbursed for the entire design It's just if if for some reason the h&h study came back again Let's you saw them pond and said we think you should put another stone culvert in there That's as small as you had in before not going to happen Um fema would say, okay, we're not going to reimburse that portion of your bill That is the h&h study, but no they would reimburse everything the replacement. Absolutely everything else is reimbursed It's just the h&h study needs to state that You do need a different structure. Where are they caution you on really doing these is if you have an area That's kind of always been a problem for you and you want to do a study to see what it is Well, that study could tell you that what you have is actually fine. You know, there could be other reasons causing that Causing an issue. So that's where you run the risk of doing them Um, again, even our fema rep said to me, we're really not looking at any risk if we do end up Hiring out to have this work done. It will be reimbursed by fema But I still want to do my due diligence You know and at least see what I hear back from the state I don't want to make an assumption yet until they definitively tell me That we're looking at a year out to get those studies done. Then obviously we need to probably make a different decision Any more questions? Okay Should we do the ash tree management grant application? Yeah So really what this is the resilient roads committee. I happened to drive by them yesterday. They are out marking trees I think they were attempting to do some today as well Um, so they're currently working on drafting two grant proposals to try to get funds for the current year ash tree management projects Normally, I would bring you kind of a grant application for you all to review before I submit it They're in the process of working. They're due January 5th So this is the only meeting we have between now and then so i'm kind of just getting a Preemptive approval from you that when I do get these drafts from the resilient roads committee that I can submit these grant applications on behalf of the town And hopefully we can secure some funding for our projects this year. Yeah Yeah, I don't even necessarily think you need a Emotion or anything for this it's because I'll bring you the grant Agreements if we get them back That you'll have to authorize me to sign. Um, but as long as you're okay. I'll I'll submit those applications Um, we're okay as soon as I get info from them. We're okay. Yeah, I told them I thought this would kind of be a no-brainer. So I think it's a no-brainer But you never know you never know you never assume. You may not want grant money for every single No No, there's a lot of brain in here. It's just it's it's an automatic Yeah, yeah um We're still significantly ahead of schedule 15 minutes. It's not a bad day. No, what do we have to do that could be really quick Town treasure report. That's really quick. So Usually, um, what do you have? I should look in the memo here So the standard reporting package you have but big news really I guess here is just an update on where we are with The delinquent tax collector reports probably the most interesting. Yeah I know that I don't have the exact figure because I didn't think to ask that and all the somewhat chaos of today, but um I know one of the four taxpayers that went to tax sale. Um, actually did come and pay their bill Uh, I Think it was the thursday or friday. Um, so that I know we are Under that 53 six. I think their bill was somewhere around 9 000. I believe well beyond the 40s that they came and paid so, um she had Written Michelle had written this before that payment had occurred. So um, it was kind of a I think it was on friday So, um So, yeah, so we're actually now down to three taxpayers That would be headed to tax sale Yeah And then pretty low delinquent balance at this point, right The current late balance is pretty comparable actually. Yeah. Yeah The delinquency is good that we're cutting that back. Yeah And then on the standard reporting package That's somewhere here nothing leaps out of us now Not yet Is everyone perusing the multi-page document Or I'm having oh here we go I count you have it. I have it. I know I've just had to find it and see a paper That's okay. No perfect. I'm not complaining I commented but Uh so What does everyone think about the town financing? Are you digging in here? Yeah, I read through can My standing on my my normal um My normal issue can can we continue to invest some more money even in short-term instruments? Michelle can continue to Because there's still plenty of um Cash that's just sitting that's that's not earning anything For maybe something some other cash flow statements if we're if that's a relevant Issue to mention at this point, which one's got so much cash Um Just the cash just the cash Yeah, I'm trouble. I'm having it's harder to follow everything here. Um We're just doing the town you just your report. Gina or or have we moved on to the treasure status report I know this all the treasure stuff is from michelle Right. No, no, I understand. Is that is that a relevant conversation now? Or am I In the accounts that's not gaining interest. I think right. I mean jumping ahead. Is that a relevant conversation now? You can yeah, go ahead. Why not? Okay Yeah, no, I understand that that's that's a michelle issue, but um I'm just wondering whether we can get a little more aggressive With our uh with with turning some of the some of our cash into some interest bearing investments, even if it's extremely short-term which it could be A week a month. Anyway, that's just just looking at the at the accounts um, some of them are Are certainly earning but there's you know, there's apparently a million to 295,000 um That are not interest bearing still the capital reserve Uh, special accounts Yeah capital reserve fund exactly Yeah, I mean that doesn't look like there's any interest happening there Well, they're included in the town checking That's just broken down. I apologize Okay, thank thank you for that clarification. Okay, then I then I withdraw my um, then my question or concern She's on top of it. Okay. So looking through what do we have a red flag Or green flags a green flag usually means go I mean, we're we're talking, you know, like vanilla and chocolate I know Strawberry red flag generally means something that could cause a learn correct Black and red a green flag means That's get gold. That's that's positive. That means an upmarket not a downmarket Okay, okay So I don't see anything too alarming Gina's right on top of it. I think if there was I look through it also I think if there was something that was alarming so you're just so you're not You're not dissecting this you're letting other people No, no, no, no, no, I did read through it I did okay. You did I I did my due diligence my fiduciary responsibility as a select board person Okay, okay all right. Well I don't hear a lot of comments going on so I think we can move on Does anybody have strong feelings about Looking at the accounts any anymore I I just have a procedural question and I guess it's in Seth and What so when do we really start to get? um really into the the nitty gritty for the fiscal um july 1st Adoption. Well, obviously it's got to be it's putting for the voters. So It's going to be next month. We're going to be Presenting the kind of final budget ish. Yeah. Yeah, we have to have stuff approved by about the 20th of january They go to the next within the next two meetings We'll have to approve a budget. Okay. Thank you Yeah Okay, thanks for that clarification Be ready for a possible extra meeting in january as part of that process There's no guarantee we will have an extra meeting right It has happened before but I have a feeling it's not going to happen this year, but who knows Hope for the best plan for the worst Yeah, sure uh tax collection update. We're done with that Okay 717 um Looks like Yeah, those things Oh, are we going to discuss the fy 2025 budget development? That's in there. I don't know if you want to get that's in there. We can since we're just talking about money Yeah Sure, let's talk about that the same packing or not I see the And on service right after that. Yeah I see it. Oh, that's still the ambulance Here we go. Yep Wow Okay, it's on the same vein. So this is a good idea to discuss this now What do you want us to look at you? Well, you can I've given you a summary in the memo because we typically kind of hone in on where we are for a tax rate perspective um Then I've kind of given you some detailed info on Where we're seeing our biggest increases and this does include which it was a precursor to this agenda item The numbers we received from the fire department were the fire and ambulance. Yeah, this does include their updated numbers um Overall the budget Is obviously increasing uh for salaries That's primarily just based on the staffing structure. We have in place and increase for employees assumed um Benefits are actually going down a bit based on the current selections that employees have made for their benefits And then everything else fire and ambulance is going up based on the numbers that we received from them And most everything else is really being just driven by market conditions. Um highway operations Going up because things are more expensive. So, um, it's really there's no Glaring massive difference in the budget other than Tweaking the numbers based on where we see current costs It's not like there's anything new That wasn't in there before except for the child care, but uh contribution tax, which is only $2,900. So I did not call that out Um, that is something new that the state passed. So just so you all know there is a tax additional tax on uh wages, but Again, it was $2,900 of the budget. So Wasn't material was not a significant impact Yeah that's uh And in the notes, I've tried to put if the budget's based on like insurance for example Well, I got I have information from BLCT. Um, any kind of dues if I've received anything In particular then the number has been updated and Based on the source document Okay Right now the tax rate is not increasing as much as it did last year. No, which is the positive. So is there a three cents? Yeah Yeah, 3.6 cents 3.6. Yeah. Yeah Well, that's not horrible And of course, this is something I look at Like every other day right now. Yeah, no, I get it Because information trickles in or I just give it a fresh set of eyes Yeah, after not looking at it for a day or so. Yeah Any questions for jena No, pretty I I did look I did scrub through it. It's pretty straightforward. I mean it kind of is what it is. Yeah Is uh Well, it's helpful if you broke out those Oh, no, very it is really very interesting actually. Thank you. Yeah I depressingly so I I geekily I geekily geekily enjoyed reading it It could be worse Oh, yeah So the envelope service is 12.7 percent you've got In the fire I was 5.1. Yeah, those are the numbers. They get correct Yeah, the percents you see in your memo based on the impact of the total budget not each individual line item Right, right. But yeah, I've pulled the numbers they gave us in here and yeah, obviously the agenda item proceeding this was You have all those reports as well here for Yeah, any resident that would like to see that as well, right? Hmm I mean the envelope service has gone up Double digits. I think every year for years But I'm not a hundred percent sure that but I'm pretty sure of it Is that your impression to you? Yeah, it's good. I mean, I've only been here. This is my second budget cycle, but certainly has been Pretty big jump every year. So I've been here. It does concern me a lot That's another item to discuss later. I see we've got that it's a separate item Yeah, and obviously I've rolled their number into the right now, but that's That's up to the select board what number goes into the budget. So Put their number in for now, but yeah, it'll be a discussion for you all to have Yeah, I'd like to hear some explanation on that. That's quite appropriate Any any more questions? I have a question. Can you hear me? This is Deb Yeah You can hear me? Okay. Great. I'm having trouble with my zoom. So I'm on the phone and on my laptop I don't know where you're hearing me, but Under total tax related charges in the revenues part Under the Uh, I'm beginning of the second page page two of the Land use change tax $2,000 collected this year I believe that should be up underneath reimbursements because it's in the category of the current use hold harmless the state equalization reimbursement actually a state equalization reimbursement is a better example of something that's equivalent in the sense that the current use hold harmless is what the state gives to the town to make up for the reduction in taxes town taxes that is um Related to people being in the current use program The state equalization reimbursement line is what the state actually sends to the town to help reimburse for the Listers time spent on the equalization study every year. That's a dollar per parcel. So that's a 1248 And the one that's down below which I believe belongs up here with reimbursements that land use change tax But the if you if someone is in the current use program withdraws some portion of their property or their entire property from the land use program from current use the Listers um Are being reimbursed at the time they spend And administering that program with the state we do a lot of work on it at our end Whenever they collect a tax this happens only when somebody pulls out of the program And there's a penalty when they develop the land or sell it or do whatever they do with it We're allowed the town is given up to 10 percent of the tax that the state collects As a reimbursement for the time that the Listers spend on the current use program So that $2,000 is really a reimbursement The same way that the state equalization is a reimbursement for the time that we spend on these state equalization study every year We've got another one of these coming up. We're going to get another $2,000 this year. I believe again Then I'm going to look at what account what account that is but the 2000 you're talking about was actually an actual number Um, so I could make sure that in the series of accounts. I'm pulling into this bucket um Where that account is status it could be that it pulled in here and it shouldn't but Typically they're going because it's not actually it's not actually a tax receipt. It's a reimbursement that the state is sending to us specifically set up Because they involve the Listers so much in the current use program and the only way they have An opportunity to reimburse us for Is when they actually exact a penalty and then we are given 10 percent of that penalty You know What i'm saying is I I need to look at what account that was coded to These categories align with how the account roll up or they should on the budget status report So that's what i'm saying if if that if the account that this was coded to is in this bucket of accounts I'll have to look at the reporting it did It could be it did ended up actually posting to an account where you're saying it shouldn't be but at this point That ship would have sailed because it's a fiscal 23 actual number. So we wouldn't be moving it at this point So I can look at what account account that is in It looks like it's I mean you have it as others so Well, you know what i'm saying in the way this this this feeds off of the budget status report So depending on where that account right right right, yes, that's how I believe they rolled in here, but yeah Okay, but so that I can take a look at yeah, so what my point is is If that's the account that's in and that's where that account is classified in our budget status report I'm not going to move that actual number. We can't move that. It's like I Yes Yep Any other questions Or comments Okay, so I'm going to put that aside And Say that we are done with the discussion on fy 2025 development Now We're right on time For Montpelier senior activity center Is that lady here madness here and harness here. Oh, okay All right, so we're ready to discuss this And we have For the record, can we have your full name arney, please? Sure. Hi. This is arney mcmullen director of recreation and senior services for the city of montpelier Nice to see everybody tonight Good to see you Thank you. Did you did you all get a copy of the powerpoint presentation? Uh, well, I guess so what do I do? Yeah, I have a copy. Yep Yep We have a copy Perfect. Sorry. Somehow I muted myself Um, so I'll go through the I'll go through the powerpoint presentation to share a little bit of Information in regards to what the senior center is about and you know, the the folks we serve Especially for anybody who may be a new to your board But it's it's quite an active place and And a lot and the seniors seem to really love it So a little bit about msac Is it's a place for lifelong learning healthy aging socialization nutritious community Meals and access to resources on aging in the region msac serves the city of montpelier as well as our surrounding towns include an east montpelier berry town berlin callus middle sex more town northfield plainfield rocksbury and wooster Our dynamic senior center provides a third space for retirees working older adults and adults in need of socialization socialization and connection Which is especially true since covet had hit and people were so isolated for so long Um classes designed for all ages of older adults msac provides programming that reaches seniors of all age groups from 50 to 90 plus Bone builders pictured to the right is one of the most popular classes With four dedicated instructors teaching hundreds of the members each semester with We offer classes in arts and humanities fitness and active living and wellness We look to the needs of our members to ensure great experiences Affordable and accessible programming msac members and the public use our space in a variety of ways For example coffee and conversation Meets every monday morning to discuss wide ranging topics in a comfortable setting We offer over a dozen of these drop-in groups each semester It is our commitment to take care of the older adults in our region whether they are Are a paying member or not? Another area is building long-lasting friendships What makes our senior centers stand out are the connections we make amongst our membership and community partners Staff work directly with our members every day and participate in each In their activities such as our potluck lunch shown above Of several great partnerships our feast senior meals program hosts volunteers from superior high school and students work In a commercial kitchen setting which promotes career building and connections With our senior members feast senior meals Providing healthy catered meals to our members feast senior meal serves more than just meals on wheels Feast is a nutritional resource for the whole community. They offer a farm stand Which has served over 50 adults each week since september 2023 Feast offers access to nutritional guidance and support through our partnerships They are also host special events such as bernie sanders town hall back in june Creativity and engagement A cornerstone of healthy agent and staying engaged is using one's mind in new ways msac supports creative outlets With classes and programs designed to stimulate the mind and foster genuine expression Among the several art classes we offer. We also have we also have tabletop weekly tabletop games Host art shows and community events like our upcoming puzzle palooza and curate a small but thriving library of books puzzles dvds and magazines Exploring new england one of the thing that's exciting about msac is msac holds several chips annually and popular attractions in vermont new hampshire msac also acquired i'm going to update this a 12 passenger van In the past year which has opened the doors to new activities locally and bring in more members on trips The van is also really nice because it does have a lift. So it's accessible So we can get anybody Anybody to be able to move around easily? Mobility is another crucial piece to healthy agent and we look for trips that are not only fun But accessible to seniors of all ages A place for healthy agent despite set setbacks from the covid pandemic And 2023 flood msac continues to serve the older adults of montpillier and surrounding adults with high quality And affordable programming in 2024. We are looking to hire a program and membership director Which will boost our ability to serve our membership and provide more value to the community So With that being said, we are on the end of the process. I was hoping to be at the meeting tonight but With the amount of flooding that we've taken on today One of the roads that I normally am able to get home on was actually under water So I had to had to take the interstate just to get home But the montpillier activity Okay, let me just step back here So msac appreciates the support of east montpillier voters and residents and we look forward to serving more of you in the coming year We recognize the importance of other area resources for aging vermonters To your residents and believe in working collaboratively with fellow senior centers and agencies to provide the best support Due to inflationary and optional operational costs and our continued commitment to offer in high quality services and programming Montpillier senior activity center respectfully requests level funding of $9700 for our annual appropriation request to your voters for the fiscal year 2025 We thank you and for your consideration of this request And we're and the city of montpillier is still working on our budget because we're in the process of still Crunchy numbers as most towns probably are due to all the damages from the july flood and other challenges that we've been facing with the Multiple of damages that happened to the city From the past summer flood So if anybody has any questions Happy to answer No questions for any Just for the sake of the minutes, um matt could you explain your connection with msac? Yeah, so i'm the communication and development coordinator for the senior activity center. Thank you Yeah, we have a we have a pretty good team and we're working on adding another member Which we hope to have hired in january So that's the program in membership director So right i see that speaking yeah And right right now i wish i like i said i wish i could have been there because i actually matt had prepared Some handouts for me to give to everybody and we can probably email some copies to you to also look at later In regards to the you know types of programs and how many programs we offer right now this semester for the winter I believe we're we're right around 50 plus or minus programs that we're offering To the senior community You guys are pretty valuable I used to sit on your finance committee Okay Pretty well aware and i've been i've been a member too for years Yeah Thank you for your work. Yeah, it's a wonderful facility and for those of you who know who may or may not know This is my first year at the helm of the senior center um So it's also new to me But i also been involved with recreation for those of you who may have had kids and youth sports and everything For the last 30 years. So i've been around Montpelier now for pretty long time Thank you Well, thank you for zooming in. Um, does anybody have any more questions? Pretty pretty straightforward. Yeah, thank you both and the Thank you for your level. Thank you for your level funding request Oh, yeah, well, thank you for enter. Thank you for entertaining us and uh allowing us to speak at your select board. I appreciate it All right. Yes. Thank you All right, you were more entertaining for us than we probably were for you It was all good. I was I was looking at your at your agenda and I said, holy cow That's a busy agenda. And when I got on I saw you were all the way down to You know, the ash management. I said, oh, no, they missed me We circled around you and came back Does that's perfect gave you the right time Um, perfect, but if there's nothing else for This gentleman or these two gentlemen, we can move on to the next Um item can I just make one comment? sure um, Denise wheeler is now on zoom And she is our interim director at twin valley senior center And I kind of just tried to fill in for her because she was expecting to be on it seven ten She might have some other Thoughts that she wants to let the select board know about Okay, so let's I think we're done with the Montpellier senior activity center Okay, thank you And now thank you very much. Thank you Now we're just got a circle back. I guess it's a twin valley No We can Mario Hi, Denise How you doing everybody good? Nobody got flooded yet pretty wild out there pretty wild. It stopped raining now So I'm not sure. Um, thank you sue for being in there. Um, I'm not sure what sue said, but You know, we're a we're a very small way smaller than Montpellier senior center and we serve the towns of Marshfield, Plainfield, Cabot, Callis Woodbury East Montpellier and a portion of Montpellier now Our annual operating budget is roughly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars And a lot of that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars we Do by fundraising And asking the towns for appropriations Uh, we do not charge a membership fee which most I guess other centers do um We I sent a list. I don't know if you all got it. I sent a list of What we've been up to in 2023 to the board members get that list Yeah, we saw that Okay, but I mean we do a lot For such a small organization We have the equivalent of about two two and a half Staff members and everything else is done by volunteers and board members So we we do an all we do a lot for such a small organization our Um appropriation request is the same as last year six thousand dollars Um, so hopefully you had a chance to look at the list to see How many things we do and our missions? um And is to facilitate the social emotional and physical well-being of independent citizens In our service area by providing access to community resources services and activities That maintain the independence and wellness of all citizens helping them remain in their communities And what I've learned in my time doing this Is that not only does food provide for Good physical Health, but it also provides for emotional health if you're at home alone Nobody's around day after day Sometimes the only person you spoke see is the person delivering the meal And our drivers oftentimes come back and say oh so-and-so is really talkative today Um, because that's the only person they see In person to talk to so we provide a lot of um emotional Support to folks the folks that come into the center Come in to play cards socialize Work on puzzles Um, and we're always looking for creative and new opportunities for the services that we provide um One of the things that I forgot to put on the list that I sent out was that we also have um free tax clinics For anybody that wants to come in um AARP holds the clinics Um, and they're free to anyone that comes in to have their taxes done You listed you listed that on your on the letter on the it's listed I did oh, okay. Well good on me. I thought I didn't um So like I said, you know, we're we're pretty small um And we do a lot of really great things. I've had people come into the center That they just rave about how much they like our center because it's homey It's smaller You know, they feel like they get a lot more personal one-on-one attention um We have a new a new cook and He lives actually in East Montpelier And he's doing a wonderful job. The meals are really wonderful They're you know, they all all the meals that we serve have to be approved approved by a center amount council on aging dietitian So they're all healthy and within different guidelines We also provide A lot of meals to our homebound folks that have special dietary needs soft foods diabetes um You know things like that Illnesses that people have we try to provide meals that meet those Nutritional guidelines that they have to follow Anybody have any questions? They were all questioned out I have the question. This is deb Hi Deb. Can you hear me? Yeah, hi. Um Who like oh, I'm sorry your first name is denise. Yes Thank you. Yeah. Hi. Hi, denise. Um, I put together the town reports So I'm always looking for this kind of information to include in the town report And I will probably be contacting you about putting together your page and what kind of stuff you want to include on it I was just wondering if you have a breakdown of how many of these meals on wheels are for people in East Montpelier specifically Um, we can we can get that to you Okay It's nice when you can you know can point to exactly what Is happening in our town's I don't know if I don't know from up hill your senior center I should have asked when he was on whether he has that kind of a breakdown too In terms of how many people in East Montpelier specifically are using the Montpelier senior center But you're the ones that are providing all the meals on wheels for our town, right? Right. And it looks like also part of Montpelier now too. Yep. Yep Montpelier got overwhelmed and um The council on aiding asked us to take on a portion of Montpelier, which is has worked out well You know, we we serve for a small Group we we serve not over 9400 meals a year That's a lot of meals And is that a lot of your operating budget or is that like a completely standalone separate program? Well, I can I can send you a breakdown of how much it costs us to Prepare a meal. Sorry when I we seem to have a smoke detector that's having issues tonight keeps going on I can send you a breakdown of but it costs us to prepare a meal It's roughly about $15 For us to prepare a meal And we get reimbursement. We get some reimbursements from the town appropriations We get some from council on aging Um, we ask people we we can't charge because we're a nonprofit So we can we can only ask people for a donation Some folks can't afford to donate so they don't donate anything or they donate Whatever they can afford So we roughly have to make up about five dollars per meal that goes out the door Five dollars of that meal has to be made up by us doing fundraising And and the new clip that you took on is one of your staff people that you have to pay out of your budget, too Yes Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. Uh, we'll be in touch again. I just was curious about that. Thank you Yeah, you're welcome So while you're there, we'd like to move on to the ARPA fund Uh request because we have some questions about the paving requests from twin valley Yeah, now before you can I ask a question? Before you go there the ARPA funds if you are generous enough to give us some of your funding um Do do we have to spend it? I think it's by the At the end of the summer or beginning of fall of next year. Isn't that when you have to I think that we have to spend it, but they don't have to spend it. We don't have to spend it Okay, that's what we wanted to give it to you. We've spent it Okay, so and do we have to do any kind of accounting for that? No, um Well, I hope you do some accounting of this. No, I mean to back back to you or back to the not to the U.S. Government. No, okay Yeah, hopefully you are not going to take the money and buy a new car Is that maybe Maybe I'll buy a Corvette convertible to drive some of the folks around That's what I'm wondering why you're asking that question Well, because I thought because I thought that the money had you had to Divvy out the money by a certain date Yeah, we do but you are a recipient of the money. We're giving you the money We're taking care of the accounting. Okay, so my question was if you don't give us the full amount that we asked for We could then put it in an account And try to fundraise to get the additional funding that we need Exactly. That's kind of what we're one of the questions we have for you Or is there you're going to be able to come up? I mean We're probably not going to give you the 50 000 bucks or whatever it is But we may give you some money because we think it's a worthy cause So then what's going to happen to the money that we give you? Are you going to be able to do the project? Well another thought we had I mean if you could have seen the parking lot This morning, it was a sheet of ice and there's no way anybody In a wheelchair or a walker Could safely enter So one of the other options that we thought of was we could ask we could pay Pay the um handicap parking spaces And the ramp area So you think they're going to help the ice problem? Well, yeah, because then they can actually we can actually put something on it to melt The ice or make the traction better right now. It's just big I don't know you guys must have seen the center the parking lot right now is full of like potholes And lumps and bumps So the ice builds up in these lumps and bumps And even with the plow they can't do it. We did have um Our plow person come and sand which was which helped But having a nice park parking lot that's all paved Would be such a such a wonderful thing Um right now people have to park, you know and miss potholes and big puddles of water Yeah Yeah, but I I don't question the Worryingness of the cause. We're just wondering if we don't give you all the money How you can get the rest of it? Or are you just going to pay half of it? It's kind of what you just said like if we say we just gave you 25,000 You're going to just do part of it Until you get the rest of the board the board would have to discuss that Whether we do part of it or whether we want to do a special fundraising campaign Yeah, you know to help pay for the other part of the parking lot Yeah, so those would be our options Yeah So the money that we give you could go into an account mark paving And eventually you would use it Right and that's why I asked if we had to spend it by a certain time No, you don't you do not have to Okay Yeah I mean everyone on the board thinks I think that this is a worthy use of the money But we were just concerned that we if we don't give you all the money what's going to happen to it Are you just going to be done? Yeah, but you've answered my question Yeah, I mean it would make it harder obviously for us to do it The full parking lot Well, excuse me Seth We were originally told that if if we did not give the whole 50,000 Then the project would not be able to be can would not be able to take place I don't know when that was said Well, that's okay. You're it sounds like you're coming up with a different plan That if we don't give you the full funding you could still use it It might not just happen tomorrow or you could just do half of it or something Is that correct? Right, right. Okay. All right Could I just make a couple of comments about this paving project? Sure So most grants that we write They're for fairly small amounts and they're basically for you know food. We're asking money for food It's hard to find a grant that would cover You know $50,000 to cover the paving for our driveway And in the last year and a half We've tried four different times to get some monies To get this project going For instance, we we applied to the human services grant to the state of vermont But because they required gap funding of that for 50 percent of the amount that we needed to For paving they wouldn't give us anything because we would have to show them up front That we had the 20,000 or the 25,000 in our budget, which we did not have so and another Grant we tried for was the home and community based services through the agency of human services state of vermont And I did work with the council on aging to try to get some help for this But unfortunately because we didn't have a specific Medicaid provider ID certification Um, they would not consider us for the application for the infrastructure improvements And others we we went through the congressionally directed spending account Um, and um because we were outside of the us census Determined area to be eligible for this funding We were not allowed to apply if we had been in the area closer to say Dudley's or the town clerk's office We would have been in that specific us census area and we would have been able to apply and had a good chance to get funding for paving And otherwise we've asked bernie sanders office also um through the house appropriations committee And we didn't get any anywhere there. So What i'm trying to say it's really hard to apply for a large amount of money for this type Of grant and so that's why we were really hoping we could get something through our breath through the east montpellier select board Okay We are always in fundraising and grant mode always Yeah All right Anybody have any questions for laura or denise or Sue Sue Who sue or denise sue or denise Can you do you have any idea when you wouldn't be able to let us know? Oh, we'll probably have another meeting or two on it. Okay Or we're not making any decisions that I don't think Or are we I don't know we're soon Okay Well very good. Thank you for your time. Happy holidays. Merry christmas. Yeah. Thank you. I'm due um Okay, so there's other Um items to discuss on the use of the art of arpa money. There's the Altogether now request there's request for the trails and there's a request for the historical society or was that the other place up there You got them all. Yeah Yep, so What is everyone we talked about this at the last meeting? Um, and we didn't come up with any conclusions Has anyone thought about this? I mean the Altogether now I think has been problematic Carl discussed some of the problems Um, so I'm not quite sure where we are on that. Was anybody else have any thoughts? Which did you want to talk about now? Altogether now. Okay Yeah, I mean I've raised questions and so I've I've put my finger on on problems But I think Altogether now is an East Montpelier based nonprofit and That we can address some of the issues that The spending is actually going to be done by another organization that owns a house Rather than by the nonprofit, but the nonprofit is a tenant. I think that if we can get them to show Janice to show that she's extended the long-term lease for Altogether now in the house by 10 years Which she said at the previous meeting that she's agreeable to do that We can We can and just looking at the commitment of everybody Living in the area and having part ownership of the house to the work that Altogether now does Um, I'm comfortable devoting some portion of the funds to giving to Altogether now So so was it clear Carl that they would be able to open the preschool again? Or is this just on the housing? They're just working with housing the preschool takes place in the in the farmhouse. So I know but I'm not sure that's going to be back Back in business Were you were you clear on that? um I I thought that they were working to Remedy all the issues the fire State fire inspector brought to them with the idea that they could go back into business, but maybe I didn't specifically ask that uh-huh I mean, I've heard them talking but it sounded like they were just talking about the affordable housing aspect of the building And I didn't hear anything about preschool. So That was a question I had Um, we could ask for clarification of that. Absolutely Yeah, yeah, the preschool is one one big reason to support it and We had at least one member of the community come in and testify about how important it was For her to become educated as a nurse so that she could serve residents as a nurse yeah Okay Anybody else have any questions or thoughts about all together now? there's still some some ambiguity on you know where You know and documentation that we as carl had just mentioned that I think that we would need um to at least Seriously consider this Also the ownership that building this seems I know there's you know ambiguous We have some Responsibility Town's money. Yeah, it's it's not clear cut by any means I think we're uncomfortable with some of the aspects of this Yep As I uh, okay, so The other two requests one is the trails Anybody have any thoughts on that? No The trails sound to me like a not a bad organization They're good investment Yep No, I think the parking lot is Serves more people just to put that out there Or serves an awful lot of people from A lower income bracket than this side than the trails do But I'm saying the trails is a good it's a good project I don't know As someone who has one of the trails go across his land that I see a fair number of people out there Oh, I'm not saying you don't I I can't I can't tell you what their income is Well, um Well, I don't want to go into that. So What about the now it wasn't the historical society? I didn't believe it was just play cabinets in Sandals online She's on zoom sandal is on zoom probably wants us wants to address this Okay Yeah, I see her Hi, Seth. Hi Carl. Hi. Hi. Hello and my town office. Anyway No, I think I'm hoping that my proposal is really clear I try to be as specific as I could be The the the bigger pictures for the benefit of the town in general because the only place we've ever had Um a spot to display is at the entrance to the town office and that's certainly not open on weekends and so we'd like to um Work in conjunction with four corners After they get their mold their mold issues Remediated I met with them twice and they're perfectly happy to um have us Set um get something built there Um that can store stuff and exhibit stuff Um, it might take a little pressure off of the storage issues right there at the town office But we wouldn't move out everything that we have in storage in the town office vault area It's pretty safe and it's pretty well documented there But the idea is to have um some display space so that if on weekends we want to be hosting Any kind any number of events and we've got some things as maybe rosie has pointed out um in terms of the towns what 175th anniversary which is like right about this year or and and next year and um the vermont You know the the um declaration of vermont becoming a state also being celebrated I think within the next two years so we just don't have a space to welcome people on weekends And if we had a had display materials and display, you know lockable display cases Um at four corners, then we can go back to doing things there Okay Any questions for sandal anybody? We had some discussion in the absence of the historical society at our previous meeting about um the connection between the four corners school house association and the historical society with a background that we have just We've already allocated $30,000 from the ARPA funds for the The school house association for improvements there. I'm wondering if you could speak to that sandal Yes, uh his over the years We have as an at the historical site has paid small amounts of rent anytime we wanted to meet there um And we share a mailbox together. So our our treasures get along well with each other. We have separate um Treasury accounts, um And again, we've oftentimes met there um particularly before COVID and now with the with the mold issues They're not having groups meet there now So we would a resume meeting there from time to time and b set up these displays and and have more um open house type events on weekends for Any number of you know visitors to come So the displays that you have at the town office right now Those are not connected with the four quarter school house association at all. That's right. No. No, it's just something that Rosie has encouraged us to do um And we don't do a lot there, but we have right now we have our our saleable materials Set up there. So it sounds like It really would be double dipping for the school house association to have some replacement for the displays that you already have in the town office Just because they happen to be located in the school house, which is as you say open You can have open on weekends Um, I don't quite get your point Well, the point I made it last time is you're already putting money into that building We don't need $30,000 of ARPA money into the four quarter school house I felt that now we're giving more money In the same building Which I think I'm still correct on You want to display cabinets within that building that are part of that building? Correct. Although again historically We have done a lot there and we our group has been You know somewhat dependent On having that building available Right now we hold our e-smoke failure meetings in the old brick church But we certainly can't leave any of our materials there for display or viewing What have you and Yeah, and the only other thing we've we've used the four corners as a place to keep our computer projector safe there So we've we've worked hand in hand with them in a number of ways but But right now their their critical need is to remediate the building and our more You know To kind of get us Settled in someplace in town We don't own a building a lot of community a lot of communities that have historical sites have either a room in their library Maybe a room in their own town office. Maybe um a room in an old school house or they own a whole building But e-smoke failure historical has has never owned A facility space and this would at least make us feel like we've got a little Corner of town someplace Yeah So I have a question then just kind of a thought experiment for you seth um Would we see this as somehow more valuable to the town more worthy of funding if the new display cases were to end up in the old brick church Or the elementary school or some other location than the four corner school house The my my point of view on the use of the arpa funds is How many people is it going to benefit? And that's basically the bottom line for me. It's like if we give $50,000 out How many people are going to benefit from that? Is it going to be a narrow segment of the population or is it going to be a huge swath of the population? Yeah, so seth um, I appreciate that point. Um, yeah, again The historical site Since covet we've really had to kind of pull in our wings a bit We had to do a lot on zoom like a lot of people did Fewer gatherings. We still have places for gatherings. That's not so much an issue But four corners would be would be, um, you know, once they're fixed up. We would use that space more Um, and again, we don't have places where we can invite the public to come to um, the elementary school is Really much more careful about I think to some degree other than sports about public ventures Um, you know, we can have town meeting there that type of thing Um, but we couldn't do things easily there on the weekend and we certainly can't do Things in the town office and we can't do a group much of a group anything at the town office So it doesn't really behoove us to do much more than Um, appreciate the courtesy of the town office letting us display the town history books and the town publications there Um, we we really need a kind of a little corner Where we have our nice things right now that I know there's actually some boxes up at the historical at the poor corners of historical artifacts, but We have no place to put them out and people do write us and contact me saying. Oh, I've got my Grandmothers this not got my grandfather's that and we just ran across this or that Historically, and there's just no way to get them out there um, and probably Maybe Seth you've seen the where the vault is in the town office and There's a lot of amazing stuff in there But we have really very limited time and very limited space to put it anywhere And and it's not someplace where people can see it unless they occasionally You know come by the town office and they just happen to see it So there's no place for us to exhibit our town history and that's uh, we would need a lockable decent appealing cabinetry that's what the basis of the request is and Then we have the clearance with this with the four corners to have you know ongoing Visit, you know reasons to come there and exhibits and activities and again, Rosie's kind of encouraging us to um do more of to celebrate upcoming anniversaries both through the town and the state okay, so um I think we still need to um Clear up a few things with all together now before we make a final decision on this use of ARPA money So i'm going to ask the town administrator to put it on our next agenda and we've got to get it done by then And that's only since Exactly, that's my point. So it's always not here Yeah, there's three of us, but john's resigned But there's only going to be four of us So it's always not here I'd rather make it as full of board as possible and In personal Yeah, okay, so I'd say we move on. I got a subpoam running in my cell right now. I don't want to burn out Water running everywhere So anyway, so then we're gonna We've heard a lot about the ARPA use of ARPA funds tonight I think we're all starting to settle our minds on what we should do with it and we'll make a final decision next meeting Um, so the next item on the agenda is discussion and consideration of resident requests to discontinue town right away Is is a resident here? Well, no, this is a continuation of the Ed Deegan request right so as requested at the November 20th, I think select board meeting I had the town attorney Get a list of all the persons Owning or interested in lands or which the highway may pass or but so essentially the budding landowners Yeah, so I have that information from the town attorney. So I'm presenting that the select board now It's a question of what the select board next steps What's the next step the email from the town attorney on what all we need to do For this request, what's the next step? Well, we would end up having to post and you'll have to schedule a time to examine the premises Okay Don't know if winners have a good time to do that or not. Um Right now the ground's pretty There but well, we have to get 30 days notice Yeah of the site visit. So there's a whole lit bit of things that we need to do So, yeah, I guess another question is where is this on the priority list for the select board? To jump on now or where do you want to go with this? Um, so if you give the 30 day notice now That's not a very good time of year to be Walking around up there. Yeah, and we have to notice a number of different There's only five people organizations No, we have to notice the planning commissions. You have to know commissioner forest parks and recreation Yeah, why don't we just wait until after we get done in the budget? In the town report thing And then we'll put it on our because february is kind of a dead month So why don't we just put it off till then? Okay, so we can get through all the other important stuff that we have to not that this isn't important But it's just it's going to tie us up and we don't need to be tied up right now That's fine to see that good enough. Yeah, but at least we have the list now from the town And then we can execute from there right if the select board agrees to do so. Yep Okay So we can get really bad And the next item is updated on east bulkhead fire department quarterly meeting Discussion east bulkhead fire department 2025 capital requests and budget So most of us went to the meeting They're asking for some increases Um, I have some thoughts on that but uh, I don't know what everyone else thought Is he starting you weren't there, right? No, I But Carl was there. I was there. I had another board meeting. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I had um, but as you heard I had some questions about the The magnitude of the increases and was somewhat mollified when I learned that they were not as high as I Had originally believed From my glance at the tables that they presented us But yeah, they they continued to go up significantly above the rate of inflation each year and They're reflecting Problems that they have in getting people to volunteer adding more people to the payroll And um and health insurance costs increasing and and other things Um, they presented it as a budget that um, really they couldn't figure out how to cut anymore without cutting into the bone and so Yes, I have concerns and no, I don't immediately have any suggestions for ways to reduce the increases So I'm concerned about the double digit increases that they had for years keeps going up I understand when they're at well, I want to give you just a slight bit of history When they sold that to the town The ambulance revenue was going to fund everything It was going to cost the town nothing And then when they got it passed They said oh just kidding the ambulance revenue Is not we can't use that for our operating expenses So we did manage to get them to do some of the expenses out of the ambulance revenue And we got them to take the $15,000 of ambulance revenue and put that back into the budget When they're moving away from that now as they took out all the expenses If they weren't making out of the ambulance and they moved that into their general budget Now all the ambulance revenue almost all of it is going into the capital capital budget Because they say equipment costs more money, which is it's true. It does so There are some ways around that but it wouldn't be a I don't know if it would be a popular way for us to move forward But if we contracted our ambulance services out to very town and they use this Building as they're one of their substations Which is what Williams found is doing right now Um, it's probably a cheaper way for us to operate an ambulance service the The argument against that from their point of view is that that money would not be coming in for them to buy equipment with Um, my argument with the equipment even though I realize they do need equipment and they need the new engine Is that if they don't have the money to spend on Equipment like new trucks. They would have to bring that to the town voters And in some ways that's an appropriate way to handle The requests to their capital requests is through the town through the voters It would cost the town more money on that side of things, but they wouldn't buy as much stuff so the ambulance service if you contracted it out is done on a per um per unit basis on population and Bruce and I looked into that Bruce looked into that and it was a significant savings And it does stabilize the cost of ambulance service by loss So those are just some ways that you can Change the dynamics of the whole Organization, but I don't know how popular that's going to be So in the future if you're concerned about double digit increases And you want to stop that then you have to look at alternate ways to provide ambulance service to the town residents Which is going back to what they had before But they completely changed their model as we've gone forward And it gets more and more expensive more and more staff Pretty soon it'll be pay staffing instead of per diem. That's even more money. So I'm just I'm just saying There's a lot of red flags going on here for expense Yes, Scott This is what you're proposing as a potential alternative or Or action is something that would be addressed or considered for the next budget obviously because Yeah, it would have to be something that we We should investigate. Yeah, because it's we need to have hearing We should look into it in the in the future I'm not saying at this moment. We've got a lot to do. It's a project It's a big project to take on But you know, it's something I mean calis is concerned about the increases also So What's that? Yeah, you you you've made that, you know, really apparent since I've been on the board since I've been on the select board And I think it's something that we should talk about after You know going forward over, you know before we get really serious about The budget, you know the 26 budget I do too I think we owe it to We owe it to the taxpayers to look into alternatives Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that. I appreciate you bringing that up. It makes a lot of sense for investigation Okay Anybody else have any comments on that? Well, just throw in in terms of the timing that you know, we had some discussion at the meeting about Revising the interlocal agreement with callus and the fire department to go back to the way it was a few years ago So that it would automatically renew but in any case There are certain timeframes within that agreement for Registering a wish to withdraw from the agreement that we need to think about in terms of that's right moving forward in the future But that 90 day that 90 day notice is June July August start June 1st around that So if we want to have a discussion about not renewing Then we need to have that discussion in the spring after town meeting And that's sometimes when we have some time to explore alternatives And then if we thought well, you know, this looks like a good idea Then you could give the notice at the appropriate time So we should keep it on a radar Okay Anybody else anything to say? Okay Um That's it Do we have I think an on agenda was also the um, yeah, we've got warrants Yeah warrants and there was also just the uh central vermont planning commission. That's just a letter for recruitment That's all that's just fyi. We're looking for a representative My uh, oh, that's the sector level. Yeah, not Yeah, when I get to that part, but we're ready for your town administrator point in the warrants, but it looks like the warrants I'm gonna have to sign. Yeah, so they we would need a motion Yeah, too. Happy sign. I move to authorize the chair to sign the warrants for tonight I'll second that All in favor, please say aye Aye Aye I didn't ask for further discussion. Sorry about that scope Um, okay, so I can do the warrants and then Gina you can give the report. Yeah, so uh The proposals uh that were in response to the rfp for the town garage project All came in on friday by 4 p.m. And we did receive four Uh proposals from four different firms. So, uh, I think I'm not sure john's gonna be attending that or not, but there's a meeting wednesday night And I think so he's leaving on wednesday For you andy Kathleen, I'll be here to go over those proposals. Yeah, stay tuned for that Um, so yeah, the town right now, we don't really have representation with central Vermont regional planning commission um, we used to have Uh, represent a town representative with cvrpc and also we had someone on the they call it the attack uh committee But the transportation advisory committee So both of those positions are vacant. So, uh Regional planning gave me an information sheet Um about the position. So I was planning to put this as its own post on front porch forum to just hone in We've posted this position in the past Um, but we've kind of done it because we had a number of positions open Um, so I was planning to put this on the website Um, also, I've already sent this to the planning commission. Um to the chair of the planning commission So hopefully we can kind of cascade this but want the select board to know that if there's anyone that you know of Um, please, you know, let them know we do have a need here Yeah We have a lot of needs Yeah, we do It's tough and we're not alone in the difficulty in recruiting volunteers for these types of positions these days any meeting I attend with Like it for vlct with town fair where there's other select board members or other town administrators or you name it it's it's a common challenge across many towns Uh, there have been no permanent applications since the last meeting so no update there Uh, just wanted to let the select board know that, uh, the town attorney Jim Barlow will be out of the office until january through january 8th He did provide an emergency phone number. So if we have an emergency, um, I can get a hold of him And just a way heads up advance notice that I will be out of the office for two weeks From july 22nd through august 3rd That's in between select board meetings on purpose But I will be working some during that time because I will have to prepare for the select board meeting That will be the monday When I get back So I just wanted to give you guys a heads up on that and then thank you for the long distance heads up Huh, yes, thank you for the long lead time. Well, I usually that busy anyway. Uh, so I say usually that busy Yeah, you know, yeah Have a great vacation ahead of time Yeah And you have your future meeting schedule and that's it. Thank you Congratulations on a record time for this meeting. This is usually a very long meeting. So last year it was very Can I Hello Before you wrap it up. Can I just ask a question? I was unable to unmute before because I've been having trouble with my zoom here, but this step again, um Especially because you just said that the attorney is going to be unavailable The attorney should fix his table there of the owners of those parcels That parcel ID 10 025.2. That's the 3.27 acres that you bought set, isn't it? How much is it? How many acres? 3.27 No, I bought five point something acres 5.75 Yeah, I think so. Where's the where's the map? No map, uh Okay, anyway We should just get that straight because He's looking at this cei web map on the town's website And when I saw that I thought well, wait a minute. That's only through april 2023 When did you buy the Clark piece was that that was after april first, right? Yeah Not much after yeah, so that so Right, so we should just make sure that the one he's got listed here Still belongs to Wayne Clark isn't and isn't the one that you bought because he bought it after april first So it wouldn't be on the cei web map yet Well, he reviewed the land records as well as part of this so I think deb if you have a concern about what he did if you could send me an email with that then I will send that Yeah Maps to do this he Reviewed the record. All right. Well, I'm not in the office right now. So obviously I can check and make sure that I know One of those two Clark parcels is one that's three three and something acres and one that's five and something acres I think into here No, I bought the five point something acres Okay, and I think this one then is the three point two seven. So that still belongs to Clark in other words Yeah, yeah That's like that could be true then. I wasn't sure I couldn't tell because I'm not at work Okay Yes Any questions just email me Okay Okay, that was good All right, we're done I've got other business Yeah, this will probably this will take less than an hour and a half. So don't worry Um, oh, do you want the business that we have to talk about? Oh, trust me. You won't trust me. You won't have a quorum with that Yeah, the the issue is the minutes and my ongoing effort to get fired as minutes taker Seth and Gina and I have discussed Put me putting together just really short minutes I don't want this to land on Gina's desk No, it's not going to land on Gina's and I And you know, I want I want us to To stay clean in terms of getting our minutes posted in time. It's occurred to me that There is no requirement In the state statute that the draft minutes posted be the same draft minutes From the moment they're posted until the moment that they are approved so I talked this over with with Gina today and I want to bring it to you guys what I'm thinking that I'll do going forward is Post draft minutes that are very short and conduct and cover everything that's legally Required, but I can get them out quickly and then sometime probably within a week of the the meeting but not Within five calendar days necessarily post the the more detailed minutes that we have become accustomed to And we don't have to have more detailed minutes We don't have to have more detailed minutes Legally or correct and uh, and I have always spoken in favor of the more detailed minutes as being more friendly to historians to Towns people who don't make it to the meeting want to find out what happened here And anybody who doesn't want to go through the video Well, you're you're you're putting yourself out there to For a lot of work Now what I'm saying I'm aware of that I would like to go to a default position Which is somebody else doing the minutes They are not going to be detailed minutes They are going to be statutorily the minutes that are required statutorily and that's it Because we're we're going to have to operate in emergency mode Which means we have nobody to take the minutes and Gina is not going to do it So we'll have to draw in somebody. I don't think you're understanding me, Seth Yeah, I am understanding you. I'm saying make the minutes Short in what they need to say if you want to do more detailed minutes afterward, that's up to you But I'm saying that the default position we may have to go to is the statutorily required minutes Well, I think he's coming up with a middle ground. I understand So I'm going I I'm saying, okay if you want to do that if you want to lay that on yourself That's up to you. Yes He is I I I I I think call your your suggestion makes a tremendous amount of sense Then I'm I'm curious on what those those abbreviated minutes look like But I think for the historical records of the town I'm in agreement that you know some detail is is you know is necessary and valuable going going forward The statutorily required minutes certainly are good enough, but whatever it's okay That's where the position you want to be and that's okay I would like to say as an auditor one of the things they tell us in the auditor's handbook is to read the select board minutes and look for anything that has you know any Monetary decisions being made or whatever, but the more detailed they are the easier it is for us to follow what the heck's going on and these um I annotated agendas that Gina's putting together Have a lot of the background information You can almost just pick up and dump into the minutes or attach the annotated agenda to the minutes as an alternative If you're going to do really paired down minutes because there's a lot of information there That helps with the auditing Yep, that's something that we decided to do Yep, that's something that we decided to do a while ago, and we're thinking honestly lines Okay Sounds good. Would you like a um, would you like a motion south? No, we don't need a motion Oh for the for the for the next for the next agenda item Oh motion to adjourn. I just want to make sure we discuss the minutes Yeah, no no no Satisfy with that discussion. I'm satisfied Okay I am too So thank you. Thank you Carl. That's a that's a good solution for right now. Yeah, thank you. We'll see how it works. Thank you Yeah Okay Sure, we could have the next item I would like to make a motion to um To dismiss us motion to adjourn adjourn That second oh You second it. Yeah So may I say on Uh, this gentleman May I ask a question? I was negligent I was watching television and I forgot to tune in For the results of your consideration of the money for the various Organizations, can you tell me what? Next meeting Oh next meeting Yeah, we have some questions about one of the requests. We want to clear those up before we make a final decision I didn't miss anything No, you didn't miss a thing you missed the robust discussions And a lot of blah blah, but and we got through it But nothing's been decided, but it will be decided next time Okay, when will that be? Do we know? The next meeting is January 8th Next meeting is January 8th Wonderful. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you Okay The the uh request for adjournments on the floor all those in favor, please say aye Aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have they do have Thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you all Be safe