 select board here, we have Dorinda, we have Sarah, we have Claire Rock, we have Sandy Levine, we have Shelly, we have Paul's iPhone and Orca Media. I think that's everyone. So welcome. Do we have any amendments to our agenda? I've got one. Okay. I just want to give a brief update on my ongoing discussions with VLCT about board training. I'm sorry, with what training? Board training. And I just wanted to mention about her potentially reapplying with the grant that we didn't get for the town hall study and apply for the planning grant, the municipal planning grant. Yep. So with that the first item on our agenda is the planning commission presentation on the proposed updated land use regulations. CVRPC senior planner Claire Rock is to present a likely action on select board official receipt of proposed regulation. So Claire, you are on. Good evening. Good evening. Let me see. I do have a presentation to share with you. Let me see if I have the ability to share my screen here. Okay, great. So hopefully you can all see my screen, seeing some nodding good. Great. So I'm just going to give an overview of kind of the process and the changes that are included in the proposed amendments that the planning commission has prepared and is kind of formally kind of submitting over to the select board for the next step in the process. So as an introduction, just to give some kind of background and context, 2019 the town plan was adopted. And over the past two years from 2020 to 2022, the planning commission is basically taken on the task of implementing that plan. And part of that implementation process is revising updating the land use regulations, otherwise known as the zoning and subdivision regulations. And that the town contracted with me with the regional planning commission to help them with that effort. That all kind of culminated on June 15th, where the public the planning commission helped their public hearing on the final draft. And following that public hearing, the planning commission did incorporate some changes that they heard from comments. And then on the 20th, basically kind of finalized that that document recording in progress. Thank you. So June, July 20th, finalized that document, finalized that proposed amendments of the land use development regulations. And here we are today on August 2nd, presenting them to you. And just as a kind of reminder, as far as the next step in the process under statute, it does state that basically no less than 15 days, nor no more than 120 days after these amendments are submitted to you, the legislative body that the legislative body should hold one or more public hearings on on this proposal that's being presented to you this evening. So the goals of the amendments to the land use regulations kind of can be kind of encapsulated in these kind of four kind of overarching goals. The goals were to clarify the regulations, to modernize them, to simplify them and to align them with the recently adopted municipal plan. And we can talk about kind of what some of that looks like basically in the clarification aspect. The planning commission had identified areas that could be better worded or simplified with the zoning administrator's input for better ease of kind of understanding and administration on the modernized end. There were some areas in which the regulations would benefit from being updated to meet current statutory requirements. And basically, the regulations were amended in 2003, and there'd been a couple of kind of small amendments done. And so it was to kind of bring them up to, you know, kind of more current kind of conditions. Wanted to simplify the regulation, kind of similar to clarification, but just be able to make them easier for the public to understand and as I mentioned, align them with the municipal plan as that's kind of one of the underlying kind of requirements of the zoning is that it aligns with that town plan. So the process entailed dividing up the work into sections basically tackled the village mix use in industrial districts in one chunk, looked at the flood prone areas, primarily that area that's east of the village. We kind of spent some time looking at that chunk, looking at the natural resources and rural areas, and then also looking at some of the administrative and process sections. And as mentioned, the planning commission as a volunteer board kind of took these in in those chunks and discuss them and went through them. And this is kind of the culmination of that process. It did get public input along the way. There were two surveys that were distributed. And both surveys had kind of on average about 100 people responding to them. And in general, people were very positive with the the changes that were kind of being presented and being being considered. There was some direct outreach to property owners. And that was specifically for the the people that were in the flood plain about some of those changes. And there was some direct outreach also done to property owners that live in the Putnamville area. So those property owners were contacted directly and asked to provide any input on some of the changes that were being considered, you know, the public the planning commission held public meetings all throughout the process. And they also had the public hearing that I referenced, where there were members of the public that attended and provided comment. So I'm going to go through the changes. I'm definitely not going to hit on every single item. Basically, what we've been a boy provided to the select board is a track change document where you can see all the changes that were made. And then there's a clean document. So if you just want to kind of look at it afresh, you have the ability to do that. But I'm going to go through some of the kind of like bigger sections or bigger items that were discussed and changed. The first one I think is kind of along the lines of, you know, how do we simplify the regulations? And this was done through kind of, I guess, two different ways. One of the ways we can simplify the regulation is to streamline the permit process. And that's basically to try and ease the approval process for certain types of small scale development that's compatible with other uses in the area and in the town plan. And so the proposed change kind of on that front is basically to merge the functions of the planning commission and the zoning board of adjustment. And basically just create one board, the development review board that will take on all those responsibilities. So you don't have that bifurcated review process, which in some cases required applicants to go to two different boards and have two different hearings. One way that can be simplified is just to have all of that development review fall under the responsibility of one board, the development review board, and then that frees up the planning commission to kind of take on more of that long range planning that they are so good at. And the primary section where you see these changes is within section 7.8. The other part of simplifying the regulation is to streamline the permit process. And this is trying to kind of with that same goal to ease the approval process. So another change that was incorporated into this draft was basically to introduce the site plan review process. Currently right now, the regulations specify kind of the administrative review process that you see kind of in that table with the three columns. So basically currently you have that administrative review process that's permitted by the zoning administrator. And then you have the conditional use review that's permitted currently I would say by the zoning board of adjustment and by the planning commission. But under this we're proposing that all be done by the DRB. Basically, that conditional use review is where you kind of review site plan features, and you take into account kind of kind of external impacts. What we're proposing here is to incorporate a site plan review process, which is that middle column, where basically it's a more simplified review that's done by the development review board, but can help ease the process for some types of development. Well, it seems like it's an extra step. It can really help ease the process by not holding all applications to kind of a more rigorous review standard where that might not necessarily be necessary. And so that section that's been revised and where you can find information about that particular change is within section 7.8. Now we're going to kind of move into kind of looking at kind of what the town plan says and being able to see kind of what does that vision document say and how did the planning commission kind of respond to those directives in these zoning amendment changes, which was another kind of big thing to be able to look to and help guide the process. So in the middle sex town plan, it says that the town will encourage small scale commercial development in the village district and maintain the historic village as a commercial cultural and civic center of the community. So based upon that the proposed changes that you see in the regulation is basically there's an increased allowance on allowable uses in particularly in the village area. So you're seeing now an allowance for some accessory buildings, galleries, studios, museums, and basically we're kind of incorporating a streamlined permit process for more uses. So people who want to develop those types of uses that are compatible with that village area don't necessarily have to be held to that kind of most rigorous conditional use review. They could go through that site plan review or get approval by the zoning administrator. So you'll see those changes primarily you'll see them in the district table for the village, but we incorporated a new table 2.9, which is a summary table that includes all the uses, all the districts. So it really provides that quick look of, you know, what can you do in what district and you'll see the different types of uses and the different types of review processes which are applied to those particular uses. There's also a new section 4.14 that I just wanted to mention, and that's kind of how gas stations would be treated. Big discussion about how currently gas stations are not allowed anywhere in middle sex. They had been allowed in the village and because there have been that kind of historical kind of permissible use and the Planning Commission did include that yes, gas stations would be allowed in the village primarily because you want to if you if you want visitors to or if visitors are going to be stopping to get gas, you want to bring them to your village and not keep them out by the highway. And that basically we incorporated performance standards around that particular use very much similar to how more town has in their regulation. So it kind of gives very specific criteria for that particular use. So that is that is a change that you'll see in the regulation. Another thing the town plan says is to allow for growth in areas west of the village and north of the interstate. The compliments doesn't detract from the village and avoid strip development. So what what the changes that are being proposed that are kind of along these lines is that we're basically streamlining the permit process for our light industry, professional offices, garden centers, recreation facilities, and basically including an allowance for accessory retail in the mixed use district. Once again, you can really get kind of a snapshot of these changes looking at that new table 2.9 that's been incorporated into the regulation. Kind of similarly, but slightly different, the town plan says to target the mixed use and village zoning district for new housing, including a diversity of housing types. So how the regulation was changed to help accomplish that goal is that the there are reduced lot sizes and setbacks in the village district. And basically there's an allowance to be able to streamline the approval process for small scale multifamily dwellings. And we're defining those as those types of multifamily dwellings that contain three to six units. Any multifamily that would be seven or more units would still be required to go through that higher, more rigorous review. But it's a way you can help kind of facilitate and ease some of the regulatory hurdles to creating some of the housing that's been identified as desirable by the town. You'll see once again, that snapshot can be found in that new table and also within the definition section of kind of what these types of uses are. Town plan goes on to say that the to make the permitting process for home based businesses. I think there must be a typo. I don't really believe it says to make it clean, easy and affordable. It must be clear to make it clear, easy and affordable. Also to ensure that childcare centers are permissible where appropriate, make the permitting process clear, easy and affordable. So along those lines, basically clarified within the regulation that those types of uses are either just allowed by an administrative permit or by that site plan review by the zoning administrator. Once again, I kind of identified the sections of the regulations at the bottom of the slide where you'd find kind of those particular changes in the new document. Town plan also says to support agricultural enterprises while preserving natural and agricultural resources, fragile features in the scenic rural character. So the changes that are being proposed is basically want to clarify the state exemptions for agricultural forestry operations. That's one of those aspects where we're trying just to ensure there's alignment between kind of some of the statutory requirements and also to be able to allow farms the ability to diversify their operations and increase their once again, apologize for the type of ability to market agricultural products by basically defining a new permit process for accessory on farm businesses. And this is also something that's being promoted by the agency of agriculture where kind of just want to acknowledge and allow farms to be able to do those accessory businesses and being very clear in the regulation about what they are and what the permit process is for them. Town plan says to examine the town's zoning map and update as needed and the zoning map should respect the areas identified for conservation and goes on to say that we should be preparing for future flood hazards and to keep new buildings, utilities and other infrastructures set back from streams and rivers. So the flood flows are either restrictive nor diverted to the detriment of others. So the way that the new regulations are responding to and working towards those specific directives is that limiting new new buildings in the flood plane to reduce the risk of damage. And we're clarifying within the flood regulations that there is a prohibition on new dwellings in the flood plain along with the existing prohibition of new buildings in the flood plain. Also looking to reduce new industrial development near the flood plain by converting a portion of the zoning district designated along route two to not be industrial use. And at the end of this slideshow I'm going to show you kind of some of the changes that were done to the zoning maps. You'll be able to kind of visually see how some of those changes have been addressed. The town plan says to encourage economic development will provide good paying highly skilled jobs and desired services. So one of the ways that the zoning can help further that goal or decrease any barriers to achieving that goal is that to allow for smaller lot sizes in the industrial district. So basically we lower the lot size from one acre down to half an acre. You'll see that change under table 2.4 that is specifically includes a dimensional standards for the industrial district. Town plan goes on to further state its desire to increase affordable housing options in mills tax and to ensure that accessory dwelling unit provisions meet them. The state requirement and once again to target the mixed use and medium density residential village districts for those new housing types. I already shared one way that the zoning is helping to address that. Another way it's doing that is by increasing the flexibility of property owners to add more accessory dwelling units. So basically we're allowing we're increasing the allowable size of accessory dwelling units that will give more flexibility to people who want to add those particular units and that change can be found in section 4.2. We're coming close to the end. So the town plan does say to help maintain middle sex forest and fields. It goes on to specify that development should be planned and carried out to ensure the continued use of forest and fields and avoid fragmentation of identified forest blocks of connectivity. It also kind of gives the directives to align the zoning regulations to reflect this goal and that it could be and it could include a change to develop areas as well as enhance resource specific standards. So the way that the planning commission addressed furthering these specific goals identified in the town plan is that there was inclusion of specific natural resource protection standards in the subdivision review process specifying that there would be kind of kind of wanting to limit development in streams and wetlands and to protect those important habitat areas. And you'll find those particular changes are incorporated into Article 6. Talking about some of the changes to the zoning map on the left hand side of the screen is the existing zoning map. And what we're looking at is that area between the village and the Montpelier town line that runs kind of along Route 2 along the Interstate Highway and is kind of bounded by the Winooski River. That particular section that we're looking at in that map is the section that runs basically from the east of the village past the settlement farm over to where the Route 2 crosses the Interstate with that new bridge was built and it incorporates that area where there's some baseball fields behind like a commercial industrial building. So that's currently designated as industrial. So what's being proposed in this change is that we change the map ever so slightly in what you're seeing on the right hand side of the screen is I understand it's a little bit confusing because there are some different colors being used on this map update. But basically changing the designation of that particular area along that stretch of road not to be industrial but to change it to be pink to make it rural residential. And basically what you'll see that area in the lower corner the yellow area is still industrial zone and that's there's still in the industrial zone that goes out towards the Montpelier line. But what you'll also see is we've overlaid the floodplain on the zoning map which I think can be really helpful. So what you'll see is that most of that area is indeed the floodplain. So it is very limited industrial opportunity in that area and that area currently kind of has more of a rural character with the farm fields. So there was that slight change made to the zoning map in that particular area. The other change that was made to the zoning map is around the the Riceville Reservoir zoning. Riceville Reservoir area and the Putnamville area. So once again we're looking at the current zoning map that is on the left hand side of the screen. And we believe this is probably an era that the whole kind of perimeter of Riceville had been designated as a rural residential district. And to the north it's very hard to see. But there's a blue blob area that kind of designates Putnamville as a village district. So here we're kind of trying to make more of a kind of a technical change. We believe this was an era in the data and that the floodplain area surrounding the reservoir should not be the rural district but should indeed just be floodplain designation. And we're also just kind of clarifying the extent of the Putnamville district and kind of making that its own kind of zoning village like district. So here we're kind of just making sure that it's very clear to people about what the intent is for those particular areas. So that basically sums up kind of the presentation that I have for you on the zoning changes. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have on the document. I believe you've received the draft document. So I don't know if anybody has any changes. And that kind of sums up the work that we were working with the Planning Commission. Thank you, Claire. I know this is a lot to digest. I poured through the regulations today. And your summary tonight was very helpful in pointing out the significant changes. But with that, does anyone have any questions? The process will be that we will we will accept this document tonight and then we will schedule a public hearing and we will all have an opportunity to think about this and review it and see if there's anything we want to change. But this is a good chance to ask Claire questions if you have any. Yes, Liz. Slide that you showed us with the change around Wrightsville. I'm just curious. So there never was a designated flood playing in the past. Now it's there was. It just wasn't depicted or illustrated on the zoning map. It was referenced within the zoning document, and it does show on your interactive zoning map, but was not on the kind of original stationary map that's also kind of included with your zoning regulations. I think there's and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's just one cross from Wrightsville. That's a residential home. But I'm just curious, does that affect them in terms of like, suddenly they have a house and a floodplain or insurance and things like that? It's so Christmas tree. So the they they probably the flood plain designation for that area has always been the same. We're just choosing to depict it and clarify it on the zoning map. So we're not changing the flood designation. Of any properties. I do know just as an aside that FEMA is planning on updating their floodplain maps in our region and that will probably be a multi year process, which I think they're just starting. So it could be good just to kind of like, maybe kind of see, you know, how those changes of all because then that would have the effect of impacting people in middle sex. But that designation hasn't changed. We're just kind of just showing it for clarity. Okay, I guess I just, you know, one I and maybe Sandy knows with the Meadow Ridge Farm. It's very close to the road. That's why I'm curious, because it now looks like it's obviously it's their property, but does that affect them in some way? That it's now, I can't remember what the was a rural residential and now it's conservation. Oh, right, because of the designation has changed. So that would change like the if I mean, basically, if you have if you have a house there, it's basically kind of grandfathered in, it would affect you if, say, you were wanting to either subdivide or build a new building. And now the the setbacks may have changed. So there could be a slight kind of impact in that way, but it's not going to affect kind of something that they already have, because that's kind of already kind of grandfathered in. Because they have a business and looks on this map. Yeah, this is Sandy. I will just add that when we when we looked at the map for the area around Wrightsville, nearly all of that area that the whole perimeter is owned by I think it's Washington Electric. Yet there was complete congruence between an area that was identified as rural residential, you know, all around the ring of Wrightsville that was also entirely the floodplain. So we thought it had maybe been mislabeled like why would you just have the perimeter of Wrightsville and all of the floodplain be rural residential when everything else around it was conservation. So we thought it was a mistake. Nobody seemed to know why it was that way and it seemed to be more consistent to have that be conservation and particularly where there is limitations to development in a floodplain anyway. Yes, Sarah. Just to clarify, Claire, what you talked about that properties that are grandfathered in, but if they want to subdivide there might be changes in setback areas. Are you just talking about the industrial district or in the and this floodplain area around Patentville? I just want to be clear on that because that's actually going to be something that will be important. Sure. So we the dimensional standards in the village and in the industrial district were changed, which would actually allow more flexibility to property owners. So there won't be, we're not kind of making them more restrictive. So that should not be a problem for for people who want to develop their land in that floodplain area that happens to be designated as rural residential. It's now being clarified that they're actually in the in the conservation district if they're kind of in that area. So their dimensional standards would change. Thank you. Anything else? Anyone? I just had another question. Okay. You know, the area across from the mixed use area that currently isn't developed yet, but near the village. And you talked about some of the changes about what could be there. You mentioned accessory retail. What does that mean? What's like, what's an example of an accessory? Sure. So yeah, this is a change that was made to the mixed use district, which is the area that sits to the north of the interstate. And that through the through members of the public came and kind of had the discussion about kind of, you know, increasing the flexibility and what that might be like and the planning commission was in agreement that they didn't necessarily want just general retail in that mixed use area because they really wanted to focus all the retail more in the village area. However, kind of through the discussion was an allowance for accessory retail that we've included a new definition for where basically that you could only have retail in that district if you're proposing like a mixed use development and where there are other uses and the retail is kind of more just accessory to the other mixed uses that are happening there and there is a cap on the size which is in San Diego to correct me it's like 5,000 square feet or a certain square footage that kind of put some kind of parameters and boundaries on it so it kind of keeps it more smaller and has to be proposed along with other types of uses that are there. Thank you. Just to clarify that so this is only the mixed use district that you're talking about right Claire? Correct. So in other words if you came in let's say you proposed a community development let's say houses and you wanted to conclude something convenience such as drug stores or a small drug store convenience store you could put that there but you just couldn't make that kind of like a big CVS does that make sense is that kind of what we're talking about? Yes. And that's only the and that's only in the mixed use district. Correct. So with that unless there's anything further I think what we need is to is a motion to accept the draft document from the planning then we need after that we need to talk about how we're going to go forward after this and whether we're going to go for a vote on Election Day or whether we're going to postpone potentially postpone our vote until until town meeting it's going to be very challenging I'm sure most of you saw the email back and forth between Sarah and Sandy about that the more I've thought about it the more I've thought you know I want to do this process right I don't want to rush it I want to have time for the select board to review it potentially make a few changes have a public hearing maybe make some more changes and work our way through the process which would be be very challenging if not impossible if we're going to go for for a vote on Election Day but anyway let's take it one step at a time is somebody willing to make a motion to accept this document from the Planning Commission to the select board please yeah I moved it yes okay and is there a second thank you Phil all in favor of accepting the draft zoning bylaw changes from the Planning Commission please say aye aye is anyone opposed okay we've done it thank you Claire again thank you so again I would just open the floor for a few minutes here we're a little ahead on our agenda just to talk about this issue of how we're going to go forward from here when we're going to schedule our public hearing etc and I know you have some ideas on this Sarah well just to fill everybody in if you don't know the Secretary of State's office will be mailing every active registered voter ballot in November and that's going to come from their office and because of that getting questions on that ballot have been moved up or back I've never quite understood that but anyway every question that needs to get on the ballot that particular ballot must be done by August 17th so just practically that you could draw a line through that because it does not meet you cannot get it on that August on that November ballot so I guess the question for the board is if you want to go forward with a November vote what you would have to do is you would have to look at sending out separate ballots just with this question to every voter in November what would the cost of that be Sarah I don't know what the cost of that would be it would be you know I think you could say people could either request that ballot or else when they come in to vote for those who want to come into the town hall and vote in November there would be ballots there but if you first you have to make a decision whether or not every single voter would be would be sent ballots I would say I apologize for interrupting you but I would say that if we were to consider doing that I think we would want to send ballots to everyone I mean making it a process where you have to request a ballot or you have to show up in person and you can't have you know the whole thing so that would be a couple of thousand dollars right well it would be you know the cost of us postage for that ballot would probably be about sixty cents and we have fourteen hundred on the checklist so we would probably just run off the question on our copier for with a couple of rooms of paper but it would be time consuming and it would I don't know how effective that would be but the alternative is town meeting twenty twenty three and as Sandy can say the question about zoning regulations must be on a ballot it's not something that can be voted on the floor so you could add it to the town officers town meeting ballot provided that we're not going to hold town meeting by ballot in 2023 yeah those are your options yes Phil I was following up on you know opening remarks on this item Peter that I doubt that this time enough for us to go through the process that's required to give this you know a good vetting and so I would be much more in favor of seeing it on the town meeting agenda rather than trying to have us rush and get this done by election day and Sandy there are no other than the fact that the changes won't take effect until until they're voted on there's no pressing need that we need to do it sooner not that I'm aware of no I think March is not that far away unfortunately it's almost time to sharpen our skis yeah well not heaven for bid but it's a little scary okay well I don't think I don't think we necessarily need to finalize that decision now but we probably should set the date for the public hearing Sarah uh okay well you know if you're if you're not again if you're not if you're not if you don't have a huge time constraint you can't be any can't be any fewer than 15 days so I guess we're starting with August 18th if you want to hold a do you want to talk about the do you want to I guess the question for the slack board is would you like to go over the zoning regulations yourself and if so whatever is worn for a public hearing and Sandy I think it can help me here must be worn that version must be worn to certain time before the public hearing do you understand so if you're going to just take this as is that that simplifies it but if you're going to meet and say no we don't like this or that this is the version we're putting me for the public then that extends the deadlines well I'm just one more concerned about is trying to do something in August when people are still on vacation in a way and all that we're going to limit the participation where if we can do it in September after schools back in and most people are back from vacation I think we'll get better I would I would say if you're going to go for this in the town in March of 2023 as long as it's within 120 days and you could do it in October you could November you do it right what's a relatively slow time for the slack ward I before budget season crunches that's what that's what I would recommend yeah so you know maybe maybe the the I mean if we're going to do it in in conjunction with our select board meeting we could do it the third Tuesday of September you also why don't you bring in the fire department at the same time why don't you have a big public hearing fire department zoning rigs I actually hate to do that together okay I don't know how I don't know how other people feel but I don't want to I don't want to muddy muddy up the waters and those are two very different very different issues I mean it's it's going to be a lot for people to wade their way through and your your presentation is very helpful Claire and I presume you will give us permission to use that as we go forward with the with the process but you know highlighting highlighting the changes going through the document even even the red line version a lot of the red changes there are what I would consider editorial changes they're not significant change anyway it's a lot is all I'm saying it's a lot so I don't know as we need I don't know we need a motion on that can we just agree that we'll set the public hearing for the for the zoning then I think the board needs to discuss whether or not they'd like to go over the zoning regulations first because that makes a difference on when you can schedule the public hearing do you understand what I'm saying in other words that the select board makes any changes to the current for the plan you've accepted tonight that changes the timeline for the hearings so my recommendation would be that we make changes after the hearing let's not make two if we're going to make changes let's not make two set of sets of changes but again I don't know how others others feel about that by me I mean it makes the process it makes the process you know one step one step simpler and less and less confusing I think is that okay with everybody Vic Liz I'm fine with that I think it's proven to any changes after like you said okay thank you hey Sandy you don't have to hold another public hearing after the board makes changes today I don't know the answer to that question I don't know if there's for some if you make like significant changes you have to have another public hearing but I get confused whether that's the town plan or if that's the zoning you know as a matter of process it's not great to hold a public hearing and make a whole bunch of changes that had nothing to do with the public hearing you just had and then put that out to vote so I would think I mean my hope would be we're going to have a public hearing we're part of the public hearing we're considering implementing changes I think we would bring them up at the public hearing I don't want to be I don't want to be making changes which weren't discussed at the public hearing I think that's bad practice I agree if we're doing that I mean we'll have we'll have six weeks before the hearing to sit around and pass this around and we can we can talk about it if there are issues we need to talk about we can talk about them at select board meetings in the meantime just don't just don't change the regulations just don't change it until after the public hearing right okay so oh why don't we here you have plenty of time so why don't we just warn that public hearing for the 20th of September do you want to make a motion for that or sure someone make that motion please oh no second Victor second it all in favor of having the public hearing for the amended zoning regulations on September 20th 2022 please say hi hi anybody opposed okay there you go thank you all very much thank you and Claire you are fine with us using your using your presentation going forward that's part of the work product of what you were paid to do I presume yes yes I just want to be I just want to be violating any any rules or create a problem when there isn't one but that will be helpful thank you okay so moving on the next step in the CB Fiber process is this agreement and Phil I got it wrong what when I emailed you I thought about that short little agreement thing that we had previously signed this obviously is a more detailed meeting meaty excuse me document really I read through it I really didn't see I didn't see anything bad in there but to the extent we had our attorney look at that first little agreement I think maybe it makes sense to have and take a quick look at this just before we I don't know how other people other people feel about that but there's a lot of a lot of stuff in here as I say I think a fair amount of it derives from the work that Rob did back at the beginning of this process in conjunction with CB Fiber's attorney so you know he may look at it and go yeah I wrote most of this so well that's fine we've spent the dollars or something for for a few minutes of his time but I just I just want to be careful these guys are throwing a lot of legal stuff at us and I just want to be sure we don't get caught in between the cracks so if everybody agrees with that I would suggest Sarah if you could send it send it over to him and then he gives it the if he gives it the okay I'll sign it and if he has any questions or concerns we'll wait till our next wait till our next board meeting they've certainly been taking their time I don't think we need to feel like we're under any time pressure yes the brush was on the first piece which was the commitment which allowed them to get in front of the deadline for the match and I know that that they did that and our money is definitely being matched so yeah you're right I don't think there's a huge time crunch here now do we need a motion that says that the board gives Peter the authority to sign if the town attorney signs off on it or what are I would say we do I would say we do or would you rather have a report from him in our next board meeting and then have me sign it there you go you like that Victor I do okay that's fine that's fine okay anything anything else on this so Dorinda Treasurer's report town fiscal issues action possible Peter there's more on that Jenna you guys at your last meeting you wanted to discuss when you were going to hold a public hearing to discuss the ARPA funds you said let's talk about this at our next meeting okay that's in that say I'm sorry that's in that same same item I zipped over that I apologize and would we like to hold our ARPA public hearing and I guess I would make the same comment about that that I would make that I made about the other one I would prefer to have it in in September or maybe even October but we also need to be thinking about when we're going to have the fire department yes Dorinda I thought there was talk about you guys reviewing what you had come up with previously and then calling it down before going for the public hearing yes I think we should do that yes I agree so I kind of thought that's what was going to be on that we were going to talk about that type of item what what we should go forward with on that or what everybody's thoughts are well that we have I don't I'm over here at the lake I don't have any of my paperwork with me so I do not have I do not have the list we came up with do you have it Sarah I do and Liz has it let me just can you I'm having a hard time hearing you because there can you hear me now yes sorry let me just look under my files I have a file called middle sex well I think we had in the minutes here yeah because I know all the ideas came over the amount of money we had to spend yeah hold on I have it here we go ARPA ideas should I do you have the screen sharing available yeah you should be able to if you go down share your screen or something okay Claire was able to do it do you guys see it yep there you go yep that's what we have let's see if I scroll down a little bit ARPA was 515 that's what our total is that's what it will be so the total wish list comes to 759 the total committed is 220 we didn't really truly commit but that's except for the 100,000 and we haven't even done the ARPAX yet but that's what we kind of thought we had committed and then that left us with just under 395 that fund balance came from in April that's not that high is it well and that's not really the fund balance that's all the money we have for everything that shouldn't even be on the list to be honest with you because what you can take off of this probably is the 50,000 for the retention bonuses because we've already already expended that you didn't want to pay yourself back for that well I mean that comes out of the fund balance so one way or the other you're taking it out of pot A and putting it in pot B could I delete everybody I'd go delete it I think that also that it's a good time to talk about our what the intentions are for the town hall I think we are about to fail an inspection that we just had down there and I'm sure Sarah can talk more about that but I think that building is in a near crisis situation and I think we really should be talking about what our plans are to move forward and you know should more money be going into that I'll also say it's a good time to be borrowing if we're going to borrow because I think the interest rates certainly are headed in the other direction in the long run yes yeah so so you know we did put we did put 30,000 in here if we don't get the VCB grant which we didn't get where we've been encouraged to reapply we're going to talk about that in a little bit but you know what our chances are of getting that I just I just don't know but I don't think they're all that great this is a different grant this is the one that we got for the I was proposing that we apply for the planning grant which is what we got for our capital spending plan and talking to central regional planning commission they thought that could be a good fit it wouldn't be 60,000 I think the maximum is maybe 22 or something like that so it would help and then we could say that we have other funds earmarked to help support it like this 30,000 I think we want to I don't think we'll get the VCB yeah but I think what Dorinda is saying is you know we're in desperate times I still think we need to regardless like they're not going to a grant isn't going to pay us back for something we already did like the planning grant it has to be something moving forward so the question is do we want to wait until spring to do a we wouldn't find out until January maybe December I forget if we got the grant or do we want to just say forget about it let's just do bare bones review of the building engineering and structural review of the building I think that's what we need to do I don't think I would like to hear what the result of the inspection was but you know we want to be careful we don't get back into a corner here and all of a sudden have our town hall condemned and then what the hell do we do can I speak I don't know so the Vermont I kind of remember Vermont's disability Vermont Associates for Disabilities they did an audit of our town hall and to see if we were accessible at all mostly it was to be accessible for elections and these people are very nice and usually they make recommendations what you could do build ramps you know install this electronic situation that electronic situation there's nothing they can do no recommendations they can make for town hall here are the primary problems that we have using going back to our friend the lift both doors of course are heavy and they are not electronically operated but even if they were electronically operated to that lift the well is situated right by the door so that it cannot the door to the lift on the ground floor cannot open all the way moreover there has to be a certain amount of kind of a wall that sticks out so that somebody could depress the mail at the post office activate a button and enter the lift the lift itself is too small the lift has been on its dying legs for as long as I've been here and it has failed inspection and recently we got the access mobility people in to come in and they said it really should not be used they've got it so that it is functional for this voting on the 9th but it's scary and the overarching issue that the Vermont council on disability Vermont's whatever said was that someone is going to get injured it's just a matter of time and it's probably going to be an elderly person whether it's going to be the lift that's getting into the lift whether or not they're going to get stuck in the lift they're going to fall down the stairs whether they're not where the door the doors are so heavy they close on people someone is going to get injured they're going to fall, fingers are going to get tinched we are we're a liability nightmare so when you look at those kind of logistical problems of that building right there it goes beyond simply saying okay we're going to expand the building for this you know to create it's really hard to do with this two-story structure then you add on to the fact that the boiler is also gone, the heating system is gone we had to have it repaired there was water in it in February and the guy said look I don't even know what we can do with this they're so old there can't be any parts the vault is cramped it's gone it's just we have to either expand it or blow it out we don't have a septic system that's worth anything it's extremely fragile we only have a dry well we don't even have any modern way to accept the effluent and finally we've got a building here that's completely uninsulated that has broken windows and I'm sitting here and I'm swaltering I just don't know why we're putting all this money into repairing this building when we don't have the parking, we don't have the septic and we have major structural problems and that's my spiel so with all of that I don't disagree with anything you said you know let's have some kind of a process to verify that in fact all those things are correct and certainly the elevator part is correct and most of the rest of what Sarah said is correct and that just makes it unfeasible to continue to use that building then we're in the mode of selling the existing town hall on that property or potentially demolishing it I suppose or building a new whatever the next step is going to be let's get on with it and let's not spend five years talking about it like we do getting rid of the old fire station but all that said the issue tonight is to consider culling down this list before the public hearing we're going to move on to the next go ahead Liz I was just going to say heard the town plan that Claire had just said one of the things in the town plan says that the village is set for civic engagement which to me means town hall I can't think of another thing that civic engagement would mean besides government but maybe there is something else so that might actually even tell us that the town hall in the village regardless of what we decide to do but secondary Liz excuse me I can't hear you I'm sorry can you hear me now yes okay yeah I guess I'll just shout the I was just saying that the town plan that Claire shared with us just that little piece said that the village in our town plan in 2019 uses the word that it's to be used for civic engagement which to me means the town hall and government should be in the village which if we're going to follow the town plan and that's what that means and we interpret it that way then we should think about the fact that we might not move the town hall to some place totally different like from the school or next to the garage and secondly if indeed it is a terrible situation to have voting here we should not have voting here and we should have it only at Rumney and that's an inconvenience to everyone I get that but maybe after this election can't change it at this moment in time maybe after this election we don't have elections here if it truly is where we are worried that it's going to die trying to vote who's disabled yeah but let me say something that this building is not just used just for elections this is a public building and Liz I completely understand what you're saying about the village I would love that, that sounds great but right now people elections are the only reason people come it's a public building and people who are disabled should be able to access it independently full stop for whatever reason license dogs, pay taxes land records that doesn't matter so that's the larger issue the question is maybe the town can go by the church lot across the street if they're not going to expand it maybe we can, I don't know if you have to stick it in the village maybe somewhere down by Red Hen something's got to happen we've still got the issue of the state police barracks as much as that does seem to be that would be great well I think at a very minimum I'd have to look back at the grant at a very minimum we're probably talking 30,000 to do a full engineering and the MEP study that stands for mechanical electrical and plumbing but structural as well and so maybe we should say okay we're going to earmark 30,000 of this for that and not apply for a grant because the grant is not going to happen until January at the earliest and that's going to be too late let me ask you this Liz if the real truth of the matter is that's going to cost more than 30,000 to do this we can start spending our 30,000 if we get the grant that covers more of the additional expenses if we don't get it we don't get it but I have to believe I just find it hard to believe that for 30,000 and maybe a little more I mean that building is not a complicated building and someone can very quickly tell us what it's going to cost this was more than that to have a true elevator that really works you know this and that I mean I just think we need to figure out who we're going to hire to do this and hire them and put them to work and at the same time we can either apply for the grant or not but if we say to somebody we've got 30,000 to do this work can you do it for that that would be the first step and they say we can do a minimal job for that but we can't do the right job then we've got to reconsider and give us enough information so we can know whether it's feasible to renovate the town hall and really make it work or whether the best thing to do is to abandon the town hall and build a brand new building somewhere else whether it's over at the school and we violate our town plan or we find a place in the village okay yeah and the grant was more than just the MEP and the engineering so options like researching a brand new building and location and costs tearing this one down and rebuilding a new building or renovating so there were other things besides just doing the study it was offering alternatives to the town but it sounds like if this is truly as dire as it sounds that we may not have the luxury of presenting to the town options but they just have to do something and bond for it I apologize for interrupting I just want to move along but at the very least and I see your hand Phil at the very least we'll be able to know is it even feasible to renovate the existing building or are we in the new building world where the new building is going to be is another question but I think we can present those options pretty quick and move forward I just I don't disagree with any of the discussions been going on but I just I want to be a stickler for detail what was warned was for us to set a date for a public hearing not to have a discussion of the things that we put on the IROPA wish list or a discussion about what we're going to do with town halls and I think we need to do that we're probably not ready to set a hearing date and possibly at the next meeting we should have an item that we have a very frank discussion about town hall and decide how we're going to proceed and then go on to a discussion about how we want to use IROPA funds and then we might be ready to set a public hearing so I just want to keep us legal and have us move on sorry I think you know and don't get me wrong we've way overshot on our wish list here but that doesn't mean necessarily that we can't present that at the public hearing and say we're looking for your input on what your priorities are Peter may I just add something this is Sandy thank you I just by way of an update wanted to let folks know I was working with sort of the next iteration of the capital planning work for the town and as part of that I will be meeting with somebody from preservation trust of Vermont that has some grant funds available for restoring public buildings I'm doing that on Thursday meeting at town hall no idea how much funds are available I don't think it's a lot but I just wanted to let folks know broader process we are looking at sort of other possibilities of funding okay it doesn't interfere with any of this I just wanted to let folks know thanks Sandy so getting back to setting the date for the public hearing I think we can set a date for the public hearing and if we want to call down the list in the meantime we can look at it I mean you know one of the things you know we threw that $300,000 for mud season mitigation in there it's kind of a wild card but I mean in my idea yes we need to spend some money on mud season mitigation but does it need to be $300,000 probably not maybe it can't be I don't know but let's set the date for the hearing so when should it be when do you want to do it you can't have two hearings on the same day I think you can that's a good idea I think you know to do a good job to do a good job on the zoning regulations I think you're talking a minimum of an hour and then to say okay now we have this major town issue where we're going to talk about the fire department or the ARPA funds I just think it's too much we'll lose people but maybe I'm wrong I just wondered that's all there are public hearings every week right and town clerks I just would like to request that we not put another hearing on the 20th as I am going to be away and I certainly can give input on the zoning stuff read over those but I really like to be a part of any discussion about the town hall and about the use of the ARPA funds if we could not do that on the 20th I would appreciate it okay well maybe maybe what we should do is defer the decision on setting this ARPA public hearing or just say it's going to be our first meeting in October I don't know oh yes there's no statutory requirement for a public hearing this isn't there's there's no statutory requirement for an ARPA public hearing like the zoning regs so you can decide at your next meeting we're going to have a public hearing at our next meeting it's not like you know that kind of public hearing but you know we'll put it on the agenda for the next meeting to talk about ARPA funds in the town hall and then you guys can decide when you want to hold it how's that works for me not bound by statute is what I'm trying to say right okay at the same time we should all be looking over that list and thinking about it but certainly the town hall is a major priority the needs for the fire department are a major priority you know we just got to work our way through it the other the other thing I keep hearing and you know who knows what it is but apparently there's supposed to be big tranches of money coming down to the state of Vermont for municipal purposes that may help us out also but who knows maybe that's just a pipe dream two hundred and twelve million from white heat yeah only eight million from another eight from Welch and 38 million from Sanders and wouldn't you think that old Patrick Leahy could find a couple of million dollars for his hometown help moves into the next century who knows well we got to keep our eye and we got to keep our eye on all this all this stuff you know and again and you know I know I'm beating and beating a dead horse but you know we're looking at one thing if we're looking at a town hall where we can't have large public meetings you know we can have select board meetings but not large public meetings that we have those at the school it's a totally different ballgame if we want to be able to have 200 people in a meeting room on town meeting day if we ever would get to 100 people so anyway anyway let's move on treasurer's report got nothing to report so no no year end numbers yet no well she's preparing everything we're still making adjusting entries and we'll be sending everything off it's going to be right around where the same what I sent you we're not too far so which is really good for everything that happened yeah I would say so okay thank you highway report Victor I was just fucking to see if Eric was here he said he was going to be here not yet okay so alright so it says that you want to know about North Bear Swamp what we plan on doing up there is go up and at some point that we can clear some of that brush and get rid of that drain the road in that section where the water is ponding and possibly put some material out of the town pit in there but as if I can't we can't tell you we're going to do it we're not going to do it for a little few weeks because this thing with working with one big truck and one little truck is just getting I mean that that international has been out since for three months and it's pretty hard on us but we will people are asking us to do a lot of things and we're just we're backlogged right now and we're working on center road from Steve Martin's to the culvert that crosses right by Cheryl in Jane's house Jane's shop and maybe we'll be moving on to the next culvert which is up by Aiden Krolls when I say the next culvert we're using the payment so far the payment that was a real bad section as you know especially like Phil and Peter people that travel it everyday Sarah we're going to put material in there we took about an inch and a half or so payment two inches at the max and we found the old leguously underneath and so we're going to put some gravel in there we're not reclaiming and we're getting a quote this week as you saw in the corrected minutes I was off on the price per square yard for coal planting but we're going to coal plane the rest of it probably an inch and a half like it is on route two down there if that works for you to understand and then they come in and they level it in other words they take the dips and dives and kind of square it up and then they put an inch and a half on top of that which should save us some money it's kind of unfortunate that we didn't get on the program earlier but the people that are doing the coal planting which is the grinding of the existing payment they have to leave for a little while and then they'll come back and it's looking like the end of August now instead of you know the first of August obviously they're not there now but that's what the crew is working on right now it's so smooth through there we should just leave it dirt it's amazing it hasn't been so smooth in years I agree with you 100% save us a ton put it in the pushback I don't know how much pushback we would get if we did I spoke with Eric and I have been in conversation as late as today about just getting some good gravel from the place where it used to stop back in the 70s or 80s whenever it was but I don't know how much pushback and I don't know how the select board if they wanted to give comments on that would be greatly appreciated can I just ask for clarification yeah so the cold planning is going to happen from Adencrolls old place to the interstate to the where the state road correct so what are you doing now that's not called cold planning what's that called removing the pavement with an excavator and a truck we're moving the pavement so okay but you're not going to you're not going to cold play in that area that's just kind of all be up in the town from Adencrolls back to Steve Martin's okay is that good I think so why don't you just call playing the whole thing up to Steve Martin's because it was so broken up and so out of out of so broken up and so rutted if we touched it with the cold plan it would just break up okay thanks we also want to drop the level of that right what's that we wanted to drop the level not just put more product on top of it yeah we wanted to get that reason is we wanted to get that asphalt off so we could rework that area and actually make the road smooth and have a grade to it rather than have a big hole in the middle and be higher than the center and the water can't get off the road right so Victor it's Peter we were talking about the fact that on the not the part of the road where we're removing the payment that the rest of the road we were going to be raising the level of the road like four inches no more no more done no more what's that thank you just what's the update on that damn international truck I don't know three months I don't I'm sorry didn't hear the last part I mean is there is the part coming is it being manufactured is it it's going to be here August geez I don't know August 8th or something like that I mean I don't know what you do I don't know I don't know the truck is down there and you're kind of committed we didn't want to take it to Charlie boys and we didn't want to take it we'll take it to Clarks I've asked a couple of times and I don't know what Eric found out but we were looking to see if somebody else down in the Burlington area that does that to see if they could get something but you know as far as I know you just cannot get the parts yeah well the bottom line is if it's coming if it's coming the 8th of August that's right around the corner but if all of a sudden it doesn't come and it's going to be months and months and months more I think we've got to think about doing something whether we whether we trade that truck as is and try and buy a used truck somewhere or I don't know what we do we're losing money every day when we don't have that truck it's crazy it makes it hard on everybody it's not like it's not like we're running 20 year old trucks you know that's what drives me crazy that's the whole reason we buy new trucks so we don't have problems like this the only silver lining is maybe we'll get it fixed by the time I get it traded great so I don't know when the new truck is going to be ready do we have a ballpark idea September September I'm not throwing the Boston police don't you don't either but that's what Eric is here he's here so I'm guessing I have not talked to them lately but I'm guessing we would not see it until sometime in September reach out to them to see where they're at with it. Yeah. If I can get a closer idea, because I need to the quote that I got for the interest rate was only for 30 days. So I need to let them know that it's not gonna happen in August. I thought it was gonna happen in August. I got you. All right. Yep. I'll do that. If they are forecasting the interest, I mean, right now, just recently interest rates have ticked down a little bit. But if they're forecasting the interest rates are gonna be more, let's take out the loan and put the money in the bank account and pay it when we have to pay it. Let's not. I'll have to find out if we can do that without actually having the truck, but I'll find out. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So the other question I have, Eric and Vic, is have we made any progress on our new employee? No. No. The prospective candidate was offered a different job some price outs. Okay. So we need to ramp up the advertising and... Correct. Searching and all that. So, Sarah, are all our ads still current for that position? Yeah. I was just thinking of canceling indeed because it had expensive and nothing's coming through. But yes, I mean, I put them up six weeks ago. I don't know what it's more you can do. I just hate to think of going into winter without another guy. I guess what I would do is remind the existing road crew members if they find somebody, there's a nice payday for them involved. I will do that. As well, because I know they know a lot of people. So just to keep that out there in front of them. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Board members? Yes. Mike. Well, I'm not a board member, but I just wanted to go back to the North Bear Swamp discussion for a minute. So I didn't have the opportunity to go on the walk and the discussion that you had following the walk isn't online yet. So I just talked to a few people who were there. Seemed like it was pretty clear, but what I was hearing from the various people is that everybody sort of, they said there was agreement about what to do, but nobody was clear what that was. So I'm wondering if Vic or Eric could just give me their take after your discussion last week on whenever it happens what you are planning to do. So just before we turn it over to them, the strong sense was that we don't want to throw up the road and make it a trail. And that's fine. And then, you know, question number two is okay, if it's going to be a class four road, what improvements can we make to not make it a super highway but make it passable for regular vehicles with the understanding that we're going to close it off in the winter? So I think what Victor was describing earlier in the meeting is cutting brush, creating drainage. Eric's idea is to try, as you go from the south side to the north side, drain it to the, what would it be? The west, I guess? Yeah. Side of the road, which I hadn't really thought about when I looked at it, but it makes sense to me. So a combination of a brush cutting some new material and some drainage to make that a passable road and go away with that puddle situation. Okay. That's fine, because at least one person thought it was going to be draining, but not necessarily filling. Is that, is that just what they... Well, you can't, I mean, you don't want a good, gigantic dip there, right? And plus, if that means you would have to drain a lot deeper to get to the bottom of the puddle. Okay, so the fill would be what? I mean, like what kind of material? You're talking about just gravel or... Yeah. Yeah. And chances are it might be some combination of, material that we've taken off our roads and stored at the town shed. It's not going to be fancy, but it's going to be material, road material. Okay, I'm just wondering, because I know that one of the concerns is that we have a lot of invasives alongside the roads, and there are no invasives up there currently. And there's a lot of concern about the environmental habitat up there being compromised. If we wind up sweeping sides of the road, storing it, and then throwing it in that ditch, we could just be creating sort of an ecological problem. And that should be considered, just particularly because of the sensitivity of that area. We do have some gravel material in our pit that really isn't good enough for roads, but it would be perfect for that situation. Okay, so that would be relatively clean or pretty clean. Yes, correct. All right, see, that's just what I was trying to get to, Peter. Okay, no, that's fine. And again, no commitment on a date, but we're trying to do at least some of that work this fall. So. Right, well, as far as the trails to me is concerned, there's no rush. And as I said, it's fine that it's staying a road. We weren't really committed to it being a trail. We just kind of wanted to prompt the discussion, so. Yep, yep. Well, the concept, and as you know, we've had a lot of conversation in the last year or two, and we've thrown up a few sections of class four road that we just deemed were impossible to maintain, but we want to ratchet up our attention to our class four roads and not make them class three roads, but make them passable, drivable roads. Yeah, I mean, in that particular spot, I guess I would encourage it's the, you know, whatever minimum you felt you needed, but certainly not to encourage people driving through there. They're going to drive through, they're going to drive through, but we don't necessarily need to make it easy to do that. I mean, the same way that other sections- Mike, look, look, look, look, look. We get it. We get it. We've heard you. You've said the same thing to us about four times. I would say, and correct me if I'm wrong, Victor and Eric, but I went all the way through that road from the other side the other day just to look at it. And if we can make that section of road comparable to what the rest of that road is, and there's some brush that needs to be cut on the rest of the road too, but for the most part, the rest of the road is passable. So, you know, we're not widening the road. We're not, we're just making it possible to get in there and do the work we need to do. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah, the only other thing around this, and it may not be the right time to ask or remind you about this, but there was some conversation about the idea of putting a sign, a small sign up, probably at the somewhere around Romney, probably at the beginning of story road that just says, you know, Hunger Mountain Trail this way, very small kind of sign. So people don't wind up because Google tells them to now go up East Bear Swam. We discussed that and we agreed with that. And that would be a great project for you guys to do to come up with what that sign should be. All right, you want us to take that on? That's fine, we can do that. Sure. Okay. Just make sure we, we have probably, we would probably pay for the sign, but if you, you come up with a language that would be helpful, yes. Yeah, and we'll show you a design or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, gentlemen? Silence. I'm good. No, I don't, yeah, I don't have anything. I mean, with the exception of the truck situation, it sounds like things are, things are going okay, but we do need a, we do need another man. Yeah, I will, I will reach out to them again tomorrow to find out where they're at. Thank you, Eric. Just make sure they're still on course. Okay. Yep. All right. Anything else, anybody for Eric or Vic on the roads? Okay. Thank you. So moving on to other business, approving the minutes of the July 19th select board meeting action likely. I think we have enough people to approve those minutes. I believe we do. Was there a motion on those minutes? And a second? I'll second it. Okay. Thank you, Victor. So while in favor of approving the July 19th select board minutes, please say hi. Hi. And any opposed? We've approved our minutes. We've already done the ADA inspection issue. You had something, Phil, update on. Yeah, for my, pardon me. Discussion with Vermont League of Cities and Towns. I've been back and forth a little bit with the director of the municipal assistance center about training and she is getting some resources together for me and some people to consider who could do some work with us around roles, responsibilities of select board, open meeting law, some of those other issues around various legal issues that we get confronted with. The other piece that she suggested was, I think a person out of UVM who, I can't remember the name, who does some work and they had her do a training a while back on how to run an effective meeting and basically setting policies and procedures for board meetings. And she sent me some materials. I haven't had a chance to look at them. I just got those this afternoon. But anyway, we are moving forward and I'm going to look at some stuff, have some other discussions with her and come back to you with whatever I find and we can think about when we want to schedule something to move forward. Great, thank you. Thank you, Phil. And Liz, you wanted to talk about the grant. Is that going to duck at this point in time or? Well, I mean, I guess we're going to have to decide I mean, as Sarah said, we can just decide to use $30,000 and find at least hire someone to do a structural and MEP study of the town hall, which we might just want to make a phone call tomorrow and see if we can get someone on board to do that and get a quote. Is there a requirement for a dollar limit that we have to get bids out for that? Does anyone know? That's a good question. Yes, we have a policy on that. And of course, I don't have it here. I think it's like 25,000. This would be something we would get. 15,000. Okay, so then we would, if we want to do that without discussing it as a use of the ARPA funds, we should just go ahead and do that and then maybe if we're able to get something, we're not going to be able to get anything before the grant opens up in September, probably. So we, at that point, we can see that the deadline is not like immediate for the grant. So it's possible that someone would be able to do it in the next couple of months. I have no idea how busy these people are. They could be six months. I would tell you, I would tell you they're busy, but you're right. So at any rate, why don't we just leave it as an option and then what I don't wanna do is say, oh, I'm gonna apply for it and then not and lose that opportunity if Sandy had some things she wanted to apply for. Which at this point, she said, I think it's a good idea to use that grant for this particular purpose. But if we really don't have that time, then we should, I mean, do we as a select board need to vote that we're gonna at least use some money to do this study? That's what I'm gonna do, but I think the first step is to try and find two or three people who would do it and they can give us, they can look at that building and tell us how much money it's gonna take to do it. And I don't wanna tell them we think it's gonna cost $60,000. No, no, no, no, no, that's not how much it costs. We don't want the world's best job, but we want a good job and we need help. Right, well, so the other question is when you, and Vic, you know about this probably from your work in the state, when you're doing bids, don't you have to tell them all the parameters of what they're gonna bid on? I don't know what those parameters are. That's correct. I mean, you would have to say something in the effect you would like to kind of an analysis and a feasibility study on continuing to use the town hall for the purposes that you wanna use it for. I mean, I don't think any, no matter what you do, I don't think you're gonna have 200, 300 people there and I don't think you're gonna have parking for too many. But anyways, I would just like, yeah, that's what we should do is decide what we're looking for and finalize what we're looking for and then put out a proposal to a group of, hopefully get two or three people to come back and say that they're interested and then vote on an amount that we're willing to pay. Yep. So, but my question too is that, and maybe we accept this, is that if we were to sell, if we decided to sell this building, we have to disclose what we learned in the structural study. Yeah. And so, we just have to take that gamble that they're not gonna say this building is worthless. Right. Didn't you guys decide that you were gonna bring this up at the next meeting? Yeah. I think so. I was trying to keep us on task on that though. Well, I guess, yeah. This just goes back to the grant. I would say, I guess what I would say Liz is, let's keep the door open to do the grant. My understanding, and unfortunately, I can't remember the woman's name who called me on that fateful day to tell me we didn't get the grant. But she said, there probably isn't a lot of work to be done to resubmit that grant. You guys have done most of the work. Would you do some polishing? Would you make a few changes? But she didn't seem to think it would be that big a deal to resubmit it. So, yeah, you know. But I guess my question is between now and next meeting, would it make sense if I reached out to, because maybe Central Mont Regional Planning Commission could write up for us a bid description so that we at least have that? Sure. There's no harm in us doing that. Is there? We don't have to vote on that. It's just a request for proposals. Yeah. So I can do that. I can reach out to them and say, listen, this is getting desperate. Can you help us create a request for a bid? For, and what that would look like, like what we would need to include that they would want a bid on. They can probably do that for us. I think so. Just, it's not really a bid. These are professional consulting services. So it's basically a request for proposals from engineering firms around some parameters. Like you suggested, you know, with, I mean, we know some of the things that need to be looked at, but it's really the viability as we move forward of that building. So it doesn't have to be as specific as a bid document would be. It's really just establishing some parameters that engineering firms can then look at that and give us a proposal. Got a request for information, Phil? Yeah. I have one question. I don't want to hold this up for anybody else. I'm just in the back of my head, I'm trying to figure out, the people say we're going to tear it down and they're going to do this. Isn't that a historic building? No. No. Isn't it a historic building? No, it burned to the ground in like 1933. There's nothing historic about it. It has no historic designation whatsoever. I'm sad to report. Yeah. Oh, it's just wondering. I mean, that may be better. That may be better. Yeah. Peter, I just want to say one last thing. I don't know if you guys saw my FriendPort forum post today, but all our land records going back to 2001 are online. From today, 2002, November of 2001, and almost all our survey maps going back to 1972 are also online. Wow. Wow. That's great. Phase one and phase two will be using some of our restoration funds to actually get all of our records online. And that's a juggling step, getting our microfiche out of the state archives and giving it to this company to index. But it should be possible. So that's great. And we used restoration money. I don't think we used any ARPA funds for it, not directly. Probably not. Yeah. So yeah. Nice job, Sarah. Yeah. It took a long time. We were just about to do it when the pandemic hit. We were given, we became the low men on the totem pole because there are some towns that didn't have anything digitized. But if you want to download something, it's going to be $3 a page, $1.50 goes to the town, $1.50 goes to the company that does this. Nice. So that means we will have less people in our office pawing through our land records, right? Yeah. The idea is to have, I mean, a lot of the, there's so many places that want this. And, you know, some towns have held off for fear and I don't know if this is true. I don't think so that that would allow viral access into our land records and destroy them all. But even if that happens, we've got it all on paper. Well, it's going to be a robust backup system, I'm sure. Let's not talk about all on paper. That's not on our server, right? That's on other companies. Right. That's on another company's server. Yeah, some liabilities on them. Yup, all liabilities. And it's a server that a lot of towns in Vermont use. So we're just, it's a big day for viral sex. In this process, we didn't discover our missing land records, right? Those are not land records. Those are town records. Oh, I'm sorry. Town records, yes. 48 to 1968. No, it's on. Okay, everyone. Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good evening. I'm adjourning the meeting. Wee-hoo! Bye, everybody. Have a good night.