 everybody knows everybody so I'll introduce myself I'm Denise Wheeler Select Board. Cliff you want to go next? There are Cliff Emmons, Calis-Select Board, Rose Calcha, Calis-Select Board. Go ahead John. John Braevant, Vice Chair, Calis-Select Board. And Sharon? Sharon Wayne, Calis-Select Board. And then we have Katie who's our recording secretary and keeps her computer on mute and does our minutes. So oh is Sage, is Sage connected now Cliff? No, no you know what I think. Sage if you can hear us would you please unmute and let us know. Sage is on mute but I believe the audio is connected for Sage. Okay and then we have, I only know this name only because I can see the little box with your name. Do you want to introduce yourself. It's how really hard to hear you. Thank You Consolidated. Can you hear me now? Yeah I live on Old West Church we bought on David and Kathy's house the house next to Oh, David and Catherine Morse. Yeah. Yeah, welcome. Thank you. We used to live up on Robinson Hill and we moved away for a while and then came back. And Michael? Michael Fullerton up in North Calis. I'm here because my wife and I have a permit application in tonight for a little right-of-way work. And I don't know who that is by phone. Alfred. Oh hey Alfred. How are you? Good. I bet you guys are glad the weather's a little cooler. Yeah it's changed a little bit. Yeah gonna go back up rain. Yep. So Alfred is our road commissioner for that. We were just doing some introductions Alfred. So okay. Nice. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry this is sage Kennedy. I have finally gotten. Oh there you are. Mic'd up and whatever in Central Calis. So here I am. Central Calis. Okay I like that. Yeah absolutely. You look at that triangle or that diamond and there I am. There you are. You're at the you're at your Jack Hill Road and Peacon Brook. Yeah. Okay. So is there any public comment for items not on the agenda? Additions or changes to the agenda? All right let's get started. I put on the agenda about the solar powered lights. Toby sent an email that he's not able to join us tonight but he did do some preliminary work and gave us a cost and sent us a website that all the documents are in the folder and he said they're not expensive and they can be mounted to any pole. Just by way of some background we have been looking and talking about these solar powered lights in East Calis for a couple of years and we were almost there with Dan Courier's help from CVRPC and then he left and went to the agency of transportation. So it kind of got dropped by the wayside but Toby believes that we might be able to afford to do this in East Calis out of the current highway budget. I'm not sure which line item that might be. Alfred, do you know? We certainly don't have a line item for that. We'd probably have to make a new one maybe or maybe take it out of the miscellaneous. Okay. So in my question, yeah. Okay. My question to Toby was going to be and I think I asked him that but he didn't really answer it. East Calis, that's Route 14 so it has to have a state permit and I checked, I contacted every place I could possibly think of to see if there was any grants available and there's not. Woodbury just took it out of their town highway budget and got them installed. They have the permanent flashing lights. I think if you've been to and if you've been to Hardwick or Woodbury, you'll see those signs, the flashing lights. Right. Right. So I just wanted to see what where this blood board what you wanted to do. Let's have a discussion about it. I don't know. I can hear some background noise from somebody's. Rose. I see on the background noise. I've muted your mic for a minute. Go ahead. There is a line item in the highway budget for road signs and I think we budgeted 4,000 this year. Oh, so maybe it would come out of there. That might be what Toby's thinking. Good point. I was hoping that in East Callas, we would get the permanently mounted ones, not the cart kind that you move around. We also I mentioned that maybe we could get one on Lightning Ridge by the school. Maybe the school board could come up with the money for one by the school and then maybe one as you're coming into Maple Corner from County Road. But that, you know, that's a lot and the ones that we've been mainly talking about are East Callas. So what's what are the board's thoughts? Cliff, you want to go? Yeah. We have had several of the residents and town folk raise concerns about speeding in various areas. If our budget has the room to support purchasing multiple signs so that we can have them more or less permanent and three different areas within the town, I think we should do it. John? My cursor wandered on me. Sorry about that. I agree with Cliff. I'd like to add more than one sign but I would like to also, it's only I think a couple hundred bucks per pole. The removable bracket, the dismantling bracket or if you call it, to allow us to move the signs elsewhere because three signs would be great but we might have occasion to want to move them to another couple locations just if we're having great success and people are starting to figure out that for instance the speed in Maple Corner is what it should be 25 but we have problems elsewhere and the sheriff isn't always able to be there. We might want to be able to move these things around like we did the speed cart for instance. So that would be my only suggestion that we make sure that they're mounted on the non-permanent brackets on those poles. Are there poles, Alfred? They are, it's an anchor so you drive the anchor in the ground first it's about three feet long so you drive that into the ground first and then the actual sign post fits inside of it and that's meant so that if a car goes off the road and hits that sign it will fold over and not come into the windshield so you that's why you have to have that anchor. All of our signs that we put in now we're using anchors so that they will do just that they'll fold over and not into the windshield. But this unit would mount on a conventional pole other than I mean the anchor system I understand a break system. Right they fit on a regular sign post the square channel sign post that we use for all of our signs and the bracket I think the bracket that you referred to is the anchor that goes into the ground so it certainly could be moved certainly could be moved to any location you want to put it. Even on 14 we would still we would have to get another we would have to get a permit even though they're temporary correct. That's right. Yes. Anything goes in the state right away is need to be needs to be permitted. Right. But for our town roads we can we can just do it. That's right. If it's in our right away we can put a sign anywhere or a or a device like this anywhere in our right away. Okay. Rose I know you made a comment about the the budget part but you have anything else. Yeah. So actually last year we budgeted 4000 for road signs this year we budgeted 3000 and this email from Toby says that each sign cost about 2675. Yeah. Three signs would cost 8500. Right. And then he says suggest using one universal mounting bracket and then that way it could get moved around so that bracket is 125. John I just forwarded you that email. So yeah I mean I I think it's good. I I think we'll have more versatility if we are able to move it or move them move these signs and you know 8500. As long as we could. Yeah. I mean that's for three signs. I don't know if you want to go to two signs to drop it down a little bit. Yeah it might I'll just point out that two signs is going to wipe out our sign budget which we buy stop signs speed limit signs. Yeah. The post all that. So you know we may want to think about not burning that whole sign budget up maybe we can find the money from a different line item. Yeah. Well and maybe we just maybe we just start out slow and we buy one. Right. Or like you said if the school was willing to chip in for one then we got to in town. You know the highway buys one they buy one and then we can sort of juggle them around with the you know if they're able to do that for us. Yeah. Especially if we use especially if we use it mainly by the school because I know we've heard over the years about people driving their kids to school and they're in a big hurry because they're late. So anyways Sharon you want to have you want to chime in. Yeah. Thanks. If there's no savings in buying bulk then I why not start with one. We're at the very beginning of the fiscal year. We can circle back the end of the year or look at it again in next year's budget. So I'd like to make the motion that we buy one moveable sign. Okay. And I would second that. Motion as well. So there's any further discussion John. So I'm sorry say I allowed to speak at all during this. I'm sorry. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I always give everybody a turn. Okay. But John's on the board. Absolutely. John I deferred. I'll defer to our guests. Sage go ahead. So I want to say East Calus should be the first place where you put a speeding sign. It is not been the most looked at area has a lot of kids in it. We've begged for a crosswalk across Route 14. Not sure how that is gone. I know there was also speeding surveys that went on East Calus. I don't even know if you need temporary one but one there starting there would really mean a lot to the community. Also the schools. I'm pretty sure right now you shouldn't be asking the school for coughing up any money. They are they are keeping their head above water barely. But that's just my opinion. And I'm sorry. And thank you so much for letting me speak. Oh sure. Absolutely. We always let everybody speak. Thanks. John. While I concur generally with Sharon's idea. And I was going to say this or Sage spoke. I think the priority is getting one the process on Route 14. But that's one that should be there forever. And I think you need one going both directions. So that's two. Right. So one coming into the town. So that's two there. And whether we buy a third or just use the speed cart and move that around for the time being until next fiscal year. That might be something to consider. But I think we need one for each direction. In East cows that are permanently affixed. Of course we still we first need to apply for the right of way access. Right. And then only then would we then make it. It's it's usually recommended that you have to because if you go if you're by the town garage and you're going down that stretch of road it's 50 and then all of a sudden it's 35 and a lot of people don't slow down. And that's a night. Say what. By the ball field where the kids are. Yeah. Exactly. And then coming into East Cal is what was recommended was to to. Right. That was what that's what you usually do is you put up to. Oh one in each direction. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But if there's a budget issue I would be pleased if there was one. So are you making an amendment to Sharon's motion friendly amendment. If it's received as a friendly one. I don't know if it is. I think you need. I don't know how you prioritize north versus south. I don't either. On that road. I I don't know if the motion means to put it on 14. The motion was just to purchase a unit. I didn't hear any further explanation. Maybe Sharon can explain further. We're thinking is maybe. My thinking was budget driven that we have the budget for one. I hear I hear all the points you guys are making. But if we get one movable one now it could move back and forth and use callus. And even whatever we are on July 13th. We're less than two weeks into the fiscal year. Right. We could revisit the issue. It can move back and forth on each side of the green with the need. I just think that we need to be cautious and with that price tag. Well I want to ask Alfred how much of it. What is it like to have to move this. Well it's probably a couple of guys for for under an hour I would say because you've got to drive a anchor. And I suppose if you had designated spots you could just leave the anchor in the ground and just move the post itself. Yeah. Each each time. So once that once the anchors are in it's it's not much time at all. I mean probably one guy myself could do that just you know because the unit is attached to the post and you just stick it into the inside of the anchor and you put a bolt except in the one Alfred. What's that except in the winter you move it and you'll never find the anchor again. Right. Well that's true. Yeah you'd probably have to put a post next to it or something to mark it because when the snow comes it's going to cover for sure. Right. Can I just ask one question. Sure. Just for my own two cents. Where are we with the sheriff are we still are we still they still under man powered and that's why we don't have sheriffs. Now here's too much. I think they are still under man powered. We just renewed our contract. They've been in Maple Corner. They've been in East Calus. They're supposed to set up in other places in town. OK. I mean my opinion is that that's going to be the solution. If we can get get more blue lights out here that's going to remind people of what they're doing and it's speeding. Right. And I mean not to say that these these signs aren't effective because I believe they are but it seems like if we're going to spend money let's spend money where we can get some of it back also from the ticket. Right. And we do that but we only have a certain amount budgeted for the sheriff as well. Right. But right now we're talking about taking money from the budget in other places to do something that's not budgeted. Why can't we take some of the sign money to go towards the sheriff budget or or a different line item. I mean I think I just think personally that if it's if we're spending money I think it's more effective to have a sheriff out here because that's going to you know it's going to be much more effective than the signs. Okay thanks for your comments. Okay now I see Craig has his hand up and Rose does. Yeah thank you. I just noticed a new sign in Montpelier Street after if you're heading like away from the food co-op there's a new one right there. It's pretty small. It's a lot and you cut out you cut out you cut out when you say again. I saw I've seen a new one in Montpelier over the last few weeks. It's a smaller unit. It's at eye level and it's caused me to slow down. That's 25 through there. I have a hard time understanding how some of these signs cost so much money and I'm wondering if it's worth contacting Montpelier City Works to say what's this new sign. They're much smaller and apparently it's going to be permanently mounted there but maybe it's way cheaper. I'm just wondering if it's worth checking into other models or are there new models available that might be less money. Yeah okay thank you. Rose. So there's $4,000 in the sheriff patrol budget. Yeah. $3,000 in the road sign budget. So if you add according to Toby's email the cost of one sign and $175 for shipping and $125 for that universal mounting bracket. It's $29.75 for one sign. Okay. So that would that would totally wipe out Alfred's road sign budget for the year unless like he said we would just take it from you know somewhere else in the budget. So I think I at this point I think I favor Sharon's idea of getting one. I don't know that I'm not 100% sure but we are new into this budget and to blow out a whole line item on one sign is quite a lot and the blue lights if someone gets a ticket they kind of remember that area so the sheriff might be more effective. Well it might there might be a way that we can do as Alfred or as Craig suggested check with Montpelier City Public Works and that would be something we could ask Toby to do. John. A couple things I understand this motion to be purchase of one radar where they call radar speed limit sign. I think Sharon amended her motion as I understand it to for us to cite two pole locations in East Calus Village to start as part of the motion. Second is a commentary regarding policing and the effectiveness of policing. Montpelier has a full-time police force and they're getting paid around the clock doesn't cost them more or less and as we all know anyone who's driven down County Road and descended down Upper Main Street. If you're not at 20 before they had the radar control sign we all knew not to exceed 25 or 26 because the police were there with bicycle radar in the summer and radar everywhere. We all knew that. Nevertheless Montpelier thought it was wise to install a permanent sign. My understanding is that Montpelier and the Montpelier's residents have been really happy that that sign is actually done more than the policing has because it's continuous and a lot of times people speed not intentionally it's just like their heads are somewhere else that are on the cell phone so it's kind of a wake-up and you know if someone wants to go 100 they're going to go 100. They're going to know at night the sheriff's not there but it's for people who don't tend to want to be scoffless. So I think this sign the idea of buying this one sign will test to run it and put it up put in install two poles I think that's a good idea. All right anybody else? Cliff? Just want to make sure I understand Sharon your motion includes the one sign and the universal mounting bracket? Yes. Okay. Move the sign back and forth. I intended to include what we need for Alfred to efficiently move the sign back and forth on the opposite sides of 14 in East Calus. Thank you. Anything else? You had something else you wanted to say Sharon? Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. The other thing I would like to propose a friendly amendment and that is we vote to approve this with a caveat that we asked Toby just to double check pricing see if we can find anything that's more efficiently priced maybe perhaps a call as Craig suggested to East Montpelier. Yeah sounds good to me. That would be my motion or friendly amendment to the motion. Sharon do you accept that? Yes I do it was city of Montpelier. Okay and I'll second it with the friendly amendment as noted. Are you ready to vote? John? FYI I'm surfing the internet not paying attention to your meeting select board. No not really. With regard to what Cliff has suggested I immediately found a solar traffic system speed radar speed sign 23-24 free shipping so there are other opportunities out there. Okay so so part of the motion is to advise Toby to check with the city of Montpelier maybe we want to have him check with maybe we don't want to vote on this tonight I'm just trying to think this through maybe we asked Toby to do some more searches check other websites check with City of Montpelier and defer voting on this until next meeting maybe that makes sense. I'd be okay with that because then we could also ask Toby what portion of the budget he imagined pulling this from. Right okay so I will withdraw my seconds to the motion and the friendly amendment. Sure withdrawn. Okay thanks. But it is but Denise I guess I just want to underscore that hearing from the folks in East Cal is how important this is if Toby can't be here then let's make sure we get something from him so we can take action next time. Yes I think I think what happens on the second Monday of the month is it ends up being a meeting at the fire department meeting I think because he's usually available the last meeting of the month. All right so let's move on curb cut request Thorin Markison I don't know that he's on I did send him the agenda the curb cut permit application is in the folder I did try to find on the county road where it was marked and I couldn't find anything and I had asked the question you know is this why is there a new curb cut needed when there's already an existing one did anybody else drive by and take a look yeah I drove by and took a look they're doing a lot of remodeling on the property I think they're converting the what was the garage into more or less a storage shed or something putting a some kind of porch on the southern side of the property house and that's why they want to have the drive there so that the drives closer to where the main entrance to the house will be. Okay Alfred did John well so Cliff just I did the slow break review I can see where the existing driveway was and I also can see like a two-track place where they've been pulling in and out is that the new location as you understand that'd be my best guess because like Denny said it wasn't clearly outlined for me to make sure that that's where it was okay but based upon what I see in the application and looking at the site yeah that's my guess is approximately where it would be. Rose? I as I said in my email I'll defer my opinion based on Alfred and Toby's assessment I did not go and see it. Okay Sharon? Thank you. Alfred? Yeah the only thing that I could see is that and I'm judging by his diagram that he drawed he just wants to move move his driveway a little bit south essentially on the opposite side of his house from where it is now and I know in the past we've had them if they want to change from an existing to or proposed then they have to block off or discard the the existing curb cut. Right we only want to give you one curb cut on that road. Right as far as site distance that it's wide open clear there so that's that's a non-issue I don't believe there's going to be any sort of water problem there there's no ditch so I don't think he would need a culvert I didn't really notice if the existing one has a culvert or not but I think the way of the way of the land is that the water would be further down his driveway out of the right of way anyways. Okay and you actually went and looked at it right? I actually didn't but I am familiar with the property and I know I know the site distance is fine I didn't get this until late in the week last week so I didn't really get a chance to go look at it but it's pretty clear in his diagram and like I said I'm familiar with the property so I would I also talk to Toby about it and he shares the same the same opinion that I have is you know it's not a problem. Okay anybody else um yeah and like I said I mean I'm glad that Cliff and John and I at least attempted to do us to take a site visit since we're signing off on the curb cut permit I like to know what I'm signing off on so I appreciate Toby your input um oh there's everybody there we go. Cliff? I have some concerns about the site distance because that portion of the road I believe it's isn't it Alfie isn't it 50 miles an hour? Yes it is yeah and I believe the zoning administrator said something about the requirement is 425 feet site distance and neither direction and on the application it lists three I believe it's 300 feet in one direction and 1600 feet in the other direction I can pull the application back up if everyone like to see it. That's what it says. I've never never heard of 450 feet of site distance it's always been 300. 425. Right well 425 is still an odd number to me it's I've always gone with 300 feet of site distance as far as curb cuts go. But that's on the that's on the dirt roads I think yeah B71 and the speed limit. And what did you find Rose 425? Yeah 425. Yeah so that's a I think that's a problem John. I don't see this as an urgent rush to decide tonight. It's a construction site and you know clearly he's using both anyways I mean blind eye but I went by and I the only question that came to mind was from the south is a bend below that house to the south of it and I didn't know if there if there was enough site distance there might very well be but just a quick drive by it that was a question that came to mind so I was thinking if Alfred went out there it would be better. Yeah render decision and I again he's he's not selling the place next week and right it's it's in process I think he's he can handle two weeks he's using it anyway but I guess don't want to bless something I'm not sure. So I would be comfortable maybe two of us going with Alfred to the site just to just to check it out who has who wants to or who has time. John. I can at his convenience pretty much except for tomorrow. Not tomorrow. Well that was my favorite day John tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon I can but in the morning I have an appointment with with my car. OK so why don't I just why don't I get some times from you guys and I can send he's got his email here on this application and I think it and his phone number so we can just give him a call and see if we can work at a time. Yeah I'm available I'm available whenever you're ready. OK and I can join in or somebody else can whoever wants to. Mine makes sense to see if Bob's available. Oh Bob Martin he's the zoning administrator. Yeah he's the one who brought up the point about the sight lines. Oh I see. OK. And so so the rose has roses confirmed by looking at the documents it's for twenty five right. Yeah I was actually looking at Bob's email. OK. Is there anything else besides line of sight. I guess also the culverts and all the runoff if that's a place where there is any such thing. I think it would be good for Alfred to check that out. So I have I have no problem with that. I just I like I said I just received this last week and now today we're talking about it. So I just didn't get a chance to look at this and normally these don't move this fast. So I that's why I didn't you know make it a high priority to go look at it. But I am totally willing to go look at it tomorrow and then I can form a better opinion or whenever you guys decide there's a good time to meet there. OK. Well stay tuned and we'll come up with the time. All right. Ready to move on to. Well I just I had one further comment. Yes. In looking at the email that was forwarded these these included the zoning applications and not a curb cut application. So it was just a little bit different. Didn't really contain I think some of the same questions or information. So that's just being nit picky. But I just wanted to mention that that it wasn't an actual curb cut application. Yeah there was one. Yeah I got I got one. I'm looking at it. I think Cliff did you call it. You called it up didn't you. I have two that I'm looking at and the zoning applications. OK. Sorry. I take that back. You got it. OK. Very good. All right. Let's move on to North Callas. This is just a permit to do some temporary work Michael. Right. That's correct. We're having a foundation job and he needs to build a little ramp down to our yard to get his equipment in and out. How long is that going to be there. Two to two and a half weeks. Oh OK. I hope. Yeah right. I bet you do. I wish it wasn't happening but what are you going to do. Yeah it's only money. Any of the board members have any questions and Alfred do you have any comments. I'll let the board go first. Cliff. I don't have any questions. John. Well I just you know we when we approve these temporary maybe limited site distance. I don't know if it is or not. Applications where there's a need for construction is Alfred will have conditions to ensure the safe movement of traffic and pedestrians and bicyclists and all that. So I'll just defer to Alfred on that. Yeah I was going to I was going to ask if Alfred if we're putting are we putting up some town cones there so people. No that would be the responsibility of the contractor and me and Toby met with Michael. I believe it was last Monday and discussed with him the what would be needed for the road signs and protection for the traveling public. And so I think that Michael's gotten that information and I'm sure that he will pass that on to his contractor and judging from the contractors. My experience with that contractor I'm sure he is capable of providing that safety stuff that we would need. Yeah I've talked with Jim Rogers of John Rogers and some construction and he's well aware of what it needs and he has no problem providing it. Okay so the contractor will provide the necessary safety devices necessary safety devices and signage. Okay and you said this was for roughly two and a half weeks. Approximately yeah I hope and when when will it start. A week from yesterday Monday the 21st. Tuesday Tuesday the 21st. Well Monday whatever that day is. Monday the 20th. Yeah Lord Bullen and the Crip don't rise. Right exactly. Okay so work to commence July 20th for approximately two and a half weeks. Yes. Okay any other board member questions. No. All right would somebody like to make a motion to approve the temporary. Right of way. So moved. Second. Okay. We'll have to leave this document at the town office to get signed by everyone. Is everybody okay to come down to the town office and sign this. Yeah not tomorrow. Is there a when by when does it have to be signed. Well normally we would have just sent it around the table and signed it. But if we could get it signed by Wednesday. If the contractor's coming next Monday so Michael has the permit. Does that work for everyone. Yeah I could do it after work tomorrow night. Okay I will get it down there. I can do it in the Denise I can do it in the morning. Is it going to be there in the morning tomorrow. Like by nine. I can't promise that depending on what we've done here. It's your it's in your hand right now is that it. I just I have what I just printed it off from what was sent to me. Why don't I print it and sign it and drop it off there in the morning. You could do that. Why don't you know what I can do. Why don't I fact why don't I scan this and send it to you Sharon you can print it off because I just I just wrote the conditions on here. I could scan it and email it to you. I can do it while we're meeting. Okay. Okay. All right all those in favor of the motion. Cliff. Hi. John. Hi. Sharon. Hi. Rose. Hi. And I have an eye. All right you got it Michael. All right thanks. I'll make one last comment. The 25 Molinares speed sign on Upper Main Street in Montpelier has a lot less to do with the speed of traffic than the crummy condition of the highway. Anybody going over 25 doesn't respect his car. There you go. There's that too. All right. Thanks very much. Thank you Michael. I'm going to log off and go to another Zoom open mic session in Jackson, Wyoming. Ooh that sounds like fun. They've traveled Michael. Oh yeah. Thanks. Take care. Okay. We talked last time. I think this was one of the things that Sharon had asked me to put on about doing a joint meeting with Operations, Road Commission, or Conservation Commission for a comprehensive approach to the town road and conservation practices. What would you like to do with this going forward? Well, let me start because I didn't bring up the meeting. I brought up the concern from a resident that trees are dying possibly related to road maintenance practices, which Alfred was confirmed from the perspective of folks on the on the Conservation Commission. So it just made me it just made it my reason for bringing it to the Select Board was as an as an FYI that I'd heard the concern saw the evidence of it if that's where it's coming from and and I'm not I'm not so I don't know that we as a Select Board have to convene the Conservation Committee Commission and the road crew to work together. I think what I would support is a clear statement from the Select Board that it's our expectation that road maintenance consider the environmental health of our trees and everything except the invasives on the side of the road as a as a priority as much as as reasonably possible while maintaining safe, safe roads. So back when this came up, I think several years ago and we constituted a roads committee. It went through several different groups of people. Stephanie was going to try to be on tonight, well, so maybe we need to see what the Conservation Commission wants to do in regards to this. Is that kind of what you're suggesting, Sharon? Yeah, I think hearing while having them, but what I'm also looking for is that the Select Board not sit in the middle of this conversation instead that we provide a clear direction that that the two groups are working together and that road maintenance considers broader issues than how do you clear the road? Yeah, and that's sort of what the road standards that we adopted, which are now sadly out of date, did get into that. And it was the goal then that and Alfred was on the roads committee that they work in harmony to try to come up with some ways to do just what we're talking about. So it may be that we ask the roads committee, which included, I think Rose used to go to those meetings, included Alfred and members of the Conservation Commission. And Rick Keane was on there because he's got a lot of experience with AOT road stuff. So maybe we could ask that the roads committee be revamped or revitalized or whatever the right word is. Go ahead, Rose. I was going to say I was the Select Board liaison on the roads committee. And as I've mentioned before, they have not met in four or five or six years since either 2014 or 2015. They haven't met in a long time. So there really is no roads committee. And then more recently, we adopted when Toby brought forward the state standards. So we no longer have the callous Vermont road standards that we used to have. We now have the state standards road and bridge standards. But when we did this before and adopted the road and bridge standards, I remember that as long as our standards weren't less than the state, if they were more than the state, the state approved them. Yeah, but they're but once they expire, they expire. Oh, right. The ones that we have to operate on under are the state ones. Right. But we could do like we did before and have our own if we can get the man and the woman power to do it. John. I think what you're saying, Denise, we can, to the extent that we can add or augment what the state minimums are, we can do that. And so I would simply suggest that we maybe even next Select Board meeting to get this thing going, that we evaluate existing road standards and maybe pass a motion. This is an ordinance, right? No, it's a standard that that we adopt, re-adopt the standard to the extent that they are not in conflict and augment the state standards. So then whatever is over and above and incorporates the issues and approaches that we hold near and dear that those are back in effect. Yes. And maybe we could get a couple of the former roads committee folks to join us at the next meeting. That would be great. This is Pam. I'm just going to chime in. Just remember that, you know, the state does have the standards and there may be some things within the state standards that may conflict with the Cal standard. Well, if we were going to do these last time, Pam, we got them approved by the state for the municipal roads general permit came out. That's all I'm saying. So that municipal roads general permit is now, you know, that's law. And so, you know, just I haven't read through both to compare and contrast for anything like that. But just know that that that's something that, you know, somebody should look into and just make sure. Yeah, well, we can maybe ask the members, current members or remaining members of the roads committee to look at the municipal roads general permit standards and see what they say. John and Sharon. Well, again, my suggestion was that to the extent they don't that provisions of the road stands Cal's road standards are not in conflict, but are additive that that those that we adopt them with the caveat that the state road standards where in conflict hold precedence. There's a lot more to them than what the state standards are involved. We talk about mowing and seeding and things that are beyond the stormwater issues and invasives and all that kind of jazz. So as a general matter, I think what we're saying is when we're our standards augment, it's where we are more conservative is that I guess that depends on what your perspective is on what is conservative and what it's not. But I what I want to say out loud is is I hope that it's a sentiment of the board, even though we're not um, taking a vote of passing a document tonight that we are not fully endorsing of the state's rules. So that's that's one thing I'm understanding is that we have a sentiment, even though we're not in a position to endorse it because that matters in terms of direction for Alfred. But the other thing is I don't know to what extent were those standards that we had in place would address the tree health issue that was brought to my attention and and I just don't I want I want to see Alfred I hope pick up the phone and talk to Stephanie and say Stephanie. I heard a select board meeting. There's some concern that our road maintenance practices are killing trees and gosh, I don't want that to happen. Educate me so we can need some things more possible. So can I ask a question here? Yep. Which which tree where where are the trees that are supposedly affected by the roads? So I must be a specific spot that that brought this all up again. Actually, I had the opportunity with the townsperson who raised it with me to to go and look at trees all over lots of different places in town that and it's not just old I started well old trees and the old trees die. I in fact somewhere on my phone. I think I have pictures of even young trees that appear to be really challenged or even dead. So so you can go and look in Lightning Ridge. That's a place to start but you'll see the same thing in other places in town. And it's not and it's something that has happened recently or is this something that's been going on for years or I mean I just don't understand why it's being brought up all of a sudden it must be something that has that has blossomed or something that has just happened recently. I mean I don't know that's why I'm asking I don't know why it's coming up again all of a sudden because we've been using the same practices that we have been right along and I would like to know why the trees are dying or if it is that roads I would like some proof that it is the roads that's killing these trees. I mean it seems like the roads take the blame for everything and it's not necessarily so. John. So I would love I would love to take a field trip and look at some of these trees so I could I could share that that evidence and form my own opinion. I think that's the idea for we want the conservation commission to get together with you and with a tree expert not us not you not maybe even everyone on the conservation commission but the state tree expert my understanding is there's at least a specter of blame the finger of blame being pointed toward our use of chloride which is slang for calcium chloride which is a salt and as we know salt kills broadleaf trees most definitely. It's why on the paved roads of Vermont you will not see a single maple tree except way back or up on the hillside the chloride is kills them. Well no that's that's road salt that's different when you're talking about pavement that's road salt. Chloride is a calcium chloride is a salt. I understand that I'm not arguing that point I'm just saying that with calcium chloride we're only applying it maybe once or twice a summer on the paved roads they're applying it three or four times a day in the winter time so there's very much different. I I I'm not disagreeing with you and I know we we use calcium chloride much less often but there is a concern so what's find out from an expert they might say not anything what's going on it's something else maybe it's the paragraph or something we don't know but it would be good to know so that when we get the phone call we can respond and say well it's not the chloride or it's not whatever we're doing it's something else that we have we're addressing differently. So let me ask a question maybe somebody here knows the answer we did we had a tree inventory done um via the state I think it was Joanne Garten to look at the ash trees you know because of the emerald ash borer I wonder if there is somebody at the state or CVRPC that could go and do some drive arounds and look at the tree health and give us a report that might help us get started with what the problem is that we're trying to fix does anybody think that makes sense is that something that Stephanie would know the answer to your question of weather yes she might I can ask her um like I said she was going to try to be on tonight but she must still not be feeling well Pam do you know is there anybody at CVRPC that does this I mean we could definitely do some kind of inventory driving around and looking we are not foresters though nor are we um you know experts in tree damage so it might be good to um involve the folks who have helped us develop you know the ash tree inventory right um hear what they might think because that's really you know we we got um you know guidance from them we do do ash tree inventories for the towns now we have no problem doing that um it's but in terms of you know all the different kinds of tree species that are out there and what might affect them um I wouldn't feel comfortable um having that um you know being out in the field and trying to figure that out I wonder Neil um Neil who's on the commission he's on the commission he's a forester right I think he would be a great first person to talk to about this um since he is on the conservation commission and I drew land also yeah and then also yeah drew two and then you know also reaching out to um forest parks and rec um I'd be happy to um for you know just relay this to Ashley Andrews um in our office to see you know if if uh anybody at forest parks and rec would be um a good resource for us and then we could easily develop um an app to go out and do some kind of inventory like right I'm just thinking that would come from then that's the other thing because the as tree inventory came from you know from an emergency match and this isn't really going to fly with that type of funding oh I'm thinking that maybe we want to have some type of report before we get people back together and say how can we fix this maybe we need to know what we're looking at as problems select for me does that make sense I was just I was just going to throw out um the county forester is Dan Singleton yes and he lives right here in callus he might be a resource too good point cliff John you Sharon I see everybody's shaking their heads okay so let's let's do that as our plan um good well do we do we want Sharon's taking the initiative honest we want to delegate that to Sharon let her I was just going to ask what it is to me to me it is contacting as um Pam and rose Pam said she would talk to somebody in her office rose suggested um Dan Singleton our county forester maybe it's contacting all of these variety of people and seeing if we can do some kind of an inventory would you be willing to take the lead on that sure Katie did you get the names I wasn't taking notes on the names yeah okay great all right um we now have Sandra waiting to give us an update on um our budget we need to sign the Sullivan and Powers engagement letter for auditing services and get an update on the tax sales we're running behind schedule Jay Copping is waiting to talk with us about um the public meetings at the town hall during the pandemic I asked him as our health officer to join us so Sandra you're up Jay are you still able to kind of hang on you got to unmute Jay to answer our question you should be able to just press down your bar Jay to unmute and just hold it down while you're speaking maybe he stepped away um let me try oh he sent me a chat this is Jay not able to hear anything yet he was having troubles getting his audio connected he was working for a while it might be honest okay I just I just sent him back a message asking if you can hear us now so Sandra you want to get started sure so I sent a June report or year-end report and the end of year looks very good and summer it yeah to summarize it we need to summarize quickly we ended with an unaudited balance or fund balance hang on of three hundred seventy nine thousand six hundred seventy six dollars which is over our opening fund balance by sixty eight thousand six hundred dollars so this we ended up the year in a very good position to get to our tax collection time and also to be able to manage highway and other grant expenses that are going to be in play during this early part of the fiscal year uh expenses weren't the we were under budget and expenses by a little what really pulled us out was revenues that were in excess of what budgeted were anticipated so that is all good news highway also ended on a high note um they had expenses over budget but their grant revenues state the day for them and in the end they had roughly forty six hundred dollars to roll over into the capital equipment fund uh just of the capital equipment fund it has a current balance of a little over thirty thousand dollars we are going to be short for a forty thousand dollar payment that at least payment that we need to make in january uh so the difference between what we have in that highway fund um and what is owed on that lease payment will be an unbudgeted expense to the highway FY 21 budget just uh alford is aware of that it's something that this is what it is not every year are we going to have a lot of money rolling over into that capital into the highway capital equipment fund which actually begs the question perhaps the the left board might consider uh if we're going to continue to use the capital equipment fund as a basis for uh lease payments we might really consider putting an appropriation right into the highway budget uh every year to fund that capital equipment fund um and we'll never know if they'll have more money than uh expenses you just can't see it at the beginning of any fiscal year but at least it would be an amount of money that we can count on being in there uh i think that really hits the highlights and i does anyone have any questions because i can go right into the delinquent tax report i know we're running you i just you wanted sander you wanted confirmation that we decided to not purchase the chipper yeah the the select board was very clear that they were not going to make any downward adjustments to the budget in uh their june 22nd board meeting however the issue was raised and a soft decision seemed to be made on whether or not we were going to raise uh to keep the 25 000 in for the chipper so that is um a question that the board needs i think to answer tonight we are ready to set a tax rate we have a grand list we have our educational rates and what i need uh to go um to go forward with setting the FY 21 tax rate is a set budget and that chipper piece is the only one that still is floating so i would ask the board to make a decision on that tonight and along those lines i'd also um ask the board to make a to set a date to set the tax rate i think it's easier for the board if you have that as a one item one agenda item meeting and perhaps even a special meeting i would need about between a week and a week and a half to you know uh that i have a solid competent numbers i work those numbers several times to make sure that uh there are no mistakes on that and i really we could set a tax rate e at a half an hour early of your next meeting or anytime before july 30th which would put us in very good position to get those tax bills out owner about the same time we got them out last year don so to be clear getting to the chipper uh sandra we need to decide because if we decide not to purchase the chipper that would the cost of that chipper to 25 000 dollars that was allocated to that line item would be removed from the budget and the property tax assessment the property tax rate would be adjusted accordingly thus you need to know that tonight right i do i do and i need to have we need to have a budget number and so that chipper that refresh your memory is a it was a loan and the payment that would be coming out of the f y 21 budget would be roughly seven thousand dollars and a little more so that that's actually what you would be uh you would be pulling the chipper out and you would be reducing budget voted at town meeting by about seven thousand dollars now we've already had the discussion of what one cent on the list how the how one cent on the list affects tax rate that's a very small budget item not taking out 25 000 we're just taking out the payment we were authorized to take a loan so that's um so i need to know that and you don't have to decide that while i'm on but that should be i'm asking that that be a discussion and a decision tonight so we can get that straight done i vote we buy the chipper so to be clear uh sandra eight seven or eight thousand dollars is much much less than a penny on the tax rate right at 21 000 was about a penny on the tax rate so it's about a third of a penny so at 21 000 and a property with an excess value of 200 000 would save roughly 20 dollars so this is a third of that 21 000 what would they say the third and these are all rough numbers because they're based on um the grand list of FY 20 but we're talking maybe seven dollars don am i remembering correctly that we we talked about not purchasing because we had some this am i remembering that we had a maybe a lead or a suggestion that that we would do better by renting or something all something alternative right correct i read yeah i was just going to say the same thing sharon i thought i remembered john saying that he had checked something out of something about hiring yeah somebody to do the shipping right so i uh actually subsequent to the last time we discussed this since we've discussed this last i spoke with brent lily who's the operations manager at washington electric co-op and it was suggested by his dad farmer dug lily that we actually could probably hire a crew for 125 bucks or whatever it was an hour and we would actually you know right right right finish um alfred is correct he got the answer no way um because that yeah it might cost wek you know 175 an hour three men and a chipper and all this stuff but they're under contract with a company and it works out to that rate and they have a commitment you know spring to fall um we these people aren't just hanging out they're waiting for a phone call like the culligan man uh from callas to come in and chip they're busy in the summer they're booked a year ahead of time uh so that that is not something that is even with close to the range of reality realm of reality um i i the original plan was to try to get that chipper in the spring there were a bunch of them out there um i would dare say that there's less opportunity now and we might not be able to get something like that and i also know that a lot of this kind of equipment because of the covet 19 situation there are a lot of people either with time on their hands or doing you know private work because they can't work in an office because of the proximity issues or they've been laid off and so that every single dealer is sold out of all this stuff from tractors to chippers to everything so if it were there and as a budget item we left it in there it would be not an option if alfred could find one uh or we could collectively find one it might be an opportunity it might avail itself it may be that we're unable to despite putting that in the budget find one at the price we were could have gotten one for in march i think that would have been the case anyway but i think it's been exacerbated by the current circumstances yeah given the tiny tiny tiny amount i think really think it has almost no effect on the tax base i think we should just leave it in and see see try our luck but i don't think we should just say well we couldn't find one for 25 so let's spend 50 it was made clear to the taxpayers we were shooting around the 25 000 mark and that is still remains the mark that's that's the contingency yeah that's 7 000 8 000 loan amount would be uh premised upon can we katey can i ask that you um review what we did out loud or not but the detail on the process we went through so dug dug brought to us thoroughly talked to brent and found that what works for wash and electric co-op isn't going to work for us and i would really like to have the details of that in the minutes because we're all going to be called on to tell that story again and i want to make sure the facts are available yes it would be that would be great katey yeah and and to be clear i spoke with brent directly and he said no that's not an option for you put that yeah it would be good to have that in the minutes as well yeah and he said that in front of dad while they were fixing their round baler their hay baler okay all right very good so we're leaving it in is that everybody in agreement yes right all right sandra anything else on budget wait gross gross gross you agree so yeah so is who's going to go shopping for a chipper who's going to look about availability is john going to do that or is alfred going to do that seems like say what dreg pelchuk oh you know he would find it it might be in missouri but he'd find it that would work yeah do you want him to do it sure if he wants to as long as he's clear on the budget and that's got it and the budget includes getting it here right it's gotta it's gotta be the whole package okay the the voters authorized up to a $25,000 loan and since we don't we're not going to have any money in the capital equipment fund we're pretty much um we need to stay with that number yes ma'am and ray um delinquent taxes where is my report i think delinquent taxes look very promising even i mean we have them certainly but the issues surrounding the delinquencies this year seem um not as daunting as in previous years i sent around a numeric full report on every taxpayer and then i did this spreadsheet um on nine taxpayers with amounts of taxes uh that total $30,915 and these taxes for all intensive purposes are well over $1,000 so there are there are three taxpayers who really have i have questions about i doubt that any of them will end up going to tax sale but uh i think maybe they could end up being collected by gloria rice the other parcels two three four six and seven they have all either on a payment plan one is on a payment plan and the others have simply committed to paying by august and what we have discussed is that you know they missed their deadline of june 30th um everybody has a situation to talk about august 15th or so is roughly when i'm anticipating letting the tax bills fly for 20 for this tax year 2020 and what i've said to them is the preference is that it's all paid in full by august 15th the new bills are coming out but they have to be paid have to be paid by november 15th or that there is no payment plan available that's the end we're not going to have last year's taxes outstanding after the deadline for this year's taxes that policy and that uh and that practice that the board has had for the last two or three years has been very very effective in keeping the tax the delinquent taxes to a bare minimum um so i i think we have a reasonable expectation of everybody paying now number five may end up requesting an abate an abatement uh based on illness um and that the intent of that particular parcel owner is questionable to me at this point in time i'm not sure the family circumstance and the promise to pay after the tax refund it was in um i don't know if that's going to be kept so that that is a possible abatement situation there but otherwise i think we're gonna i think we're going to get them all and i think we're going to get most of them in by mid august so there you are well thank you very much for all your hard work on that nice nice nicely done it it went much better than i thought this year um i i i i i'm i'm happily surprised so you're outstanding um delinquent taxes are 2019 taxes only and they're just a titch in excess of 32 000 i think that is a real uh that's a real positive end to f y 20 right perfect um anybody have any questions on the delinquent tax report if not oh cliff you're muted yeah it's not uh working the way it's supposed to right now but i think i'm unmuted now yeah so i was just curious we had the uh tax sale did those properties get uh reconciled prior to the closing of the tax sale one of the parcels paid in full uh that at the 11th hour to gloria rice directly there was no tax sale the second parcel did go to tax sale and we are holding the proceeds for the redemption period now this same parcel went to tax sale two years ago and on you know the 11th hour the owner did redeem the property so i suspect we're gonna see that again this year okay thank you thank you okay um we need to do the Sullivan and Powers um contract any comments sandra on that no that's their standard letter agreement and we are ready to go with them uh the audit will take place on july 23rd and 24th that's a thursday and a friday we will be closing the office through all business on thursday and friday for the audit um i am hoping to keep our there's usually two of them sometimes three of them come in and i'm hoping to keep you know to not have too many hours with the four of us working in the office together they will have a hard time social distancing they set up their computers around that long table and there it's just not um that they're gonna have to figure that out hopefully we can do some of the information exchange by um uh digitally oh that would be nice yeah i'm sure they're as concerned for them i'm sure they are as concerned for their own safety in this matter and uh i think i i hope we can do it that way anyway maybe they won't send three given the size of the office um well then this would be their third or fourth time here third time i guess and i'm hoping that they won't i'm hoping they'll send two we have a pretty good relationship and i have accumulated i'd say three quarters maybe more of the f y 20 documents that they're going to be asking for so um we're ready for them i'm just we'll have to see we'll have to see what their comfort level is they really did want to come in that's the thing it's easier for them to come in and do it that way and if they didn't that means you would have to be scanning a lot of stuff and sending it to them yeah i would still need to be i would still need to be in the office um in communication with them scanning as they would ask okay well well you know we'll figure out that process i know they are doing audits right now uh in other towns so they have um practice and in working around the uh social distancing situation and i'm i'm guessing that they are starting to perfect it by this time and clifty do you can you call up the contract Sullivan empowers contract in this is give me we have we have budgeted enough money for the cost correct sander yes all right so it's it's basically the same contract we've had in other years correct sander yes okay and do we all need to sign do we need to sign anything or i think there's a signature page somewhere yeah and i i think that uh if the board gives one of its members authority to sign on its behalf and that is reflected in the minutes as a motion that that would be that that should be acceptable in particular under the situation oh no see it looks like it's not it looks like it's got us all signing this yeah so we can do the same thing i can um i can't right now but later i could print off the signature page and leave it at the office for folks to sign what what's the turnaround time to get this to them it needs to be there before the 20 well before the 23rd so and the next you know week it should get there i think they're counting there they're expecting it to be in they're not sitting on pins and needles wondering if they're trying to come at on the 23rd they're expecting to come yeah and it won't and it won't slow and it won't slow up the dates um when they're planning to come oh no we we set this date a year ago okay so in order to get into their schedule yeah all right so i would make a motion oh sharon i'm sorry yeah instead of we all drive to the town office to sign it for wet signature can we just sign these things you know one at a time through print and sign and scan back to everybody or back in a rotation or something so actually i could sign everything from my office you know what i mean i can't i don't have a printer here so but whatever works for everyone else i mean i can drive to your office or something sharon i go to town or something i don't know well it could once it's all once once those of us who have access to that have done it it could go to the town office to get printed and left in the in the i can i can do like i just did with the other document but cliff wanted to say something sharon are you um i believe denise is going to email you the right-of-way document that we discussed earlier with the conditions you're going to print that out sign it and leave it at the office tomorrow by nine a.m. i am but what i'm suggesting is that we adopt a different practice where we don't have to all i mean i i personally cannot be driving to the town office three or four days a week to sign stuff yeah i don't think if you're i was just going to say if you're doing it for the right-of-way document you could do it for this document as well just print it out and drop it off and i agree with you we should try and find another way to do this but in the interest of getting these two going that's fine i but i yeah as a this is we're going to be in this environment for for who knows how long so so unless a wet signature is required um yeah and i don't think we're driving to the office three or four days a week but i think a better way of doing it is something we should do so i can print off the signature page and scan it and send it to Sharon so she has it by tomorrow morning or tonight i guess you want to buy right that would be great i'm still in the office now if i can start that process and john wants to say something too um yeah so maybe and this is like cliff's bailiwick maybe we could explore a license for the select board members there's a uh i don't know if they call it the professional but the the higher grade adobe acrobat license allows you to convert to word and and add signatures and and generally amend a document by adding a signature and if we had the program on our individual computers we wouldn't have to print it out and rescan it we could just you could have a picture file of your signature i do i add it to word documents but i do not have the ability to add it to a pdf document and it's not worth it for me to buy an individual but maybe there's a uh business license or something for that would save us a lot of effort there's a low level adobe license you can buy that's pretty inexpensive it's an annual it allows you to convert adobe documents into word it's not always perfect but i believe also for those of us running office 365 i think that version of office has that capacity as well um there is also low level license you can purchase that creates the ability to do electronic signatures there are other applications out there that uh do the same thing i i can i'll be happy to research those and see what's going to be most cost effective it could be as simple as a dropbox license that would be a good idea thank you for making a note to look into that thank you okay so would somebody like to make a motion to approve the Sullivan and Powers contract for um the audit i had one more quick question for Sandra about the cost of the contract yes go ahead Sandra i i recall that um they gave us uh either two or three year um thing for doing the audit at the same cost are we still within that or by doing this new contract we're on a new amount or something i don't really remember the details but can you refresh my memory on that um we initially signed a contract for FY 16 17 and 18 okay and then uh we signed a three year contract for 1920 and 21 and let's see this year may have stayed the same hang on for a quick second i think it went up maybe by 500 a year up once or twice let me let me look here we are so in FY 19 16 17 FY 19 was pardon me 14 000 FY 20 was 14 9 and FY 21 was also 14 9 so it's the same cost as last year all right as last fiscal year so we're locked in on the amount we pay but we still have to assign this annual contract to perform the audit like they're two different things well they're yeah they they have offered us a a sweetener by hooking up with them for three years and this letter okay simply describes the scope of services and you know what okay thank you what friend flessey said is look if you guys decide you're not going to do a year or something like that as far as he's concerned he he's not going to sue us for performance or anything it would just go out the window that's not the way they do business but that is the way to encourage us to continue to be their customer and they've been pretty reasonable in their uh increases they haven't there really hasn't been much of an increase over the last six years or six fiscal years thank you thank you for i have a quick question um there's somebody on by an iphone could you please tell us who you are this is Brooke dingle jean oh hi bro okay um are you i can't now remember did somebody make a motion katie okay i'll make a motion that we approve the um engagement letter for the um fiscal year 20 audit with sullivan and powers as outlined by sandra i'll second that fiscal year 21 fiscal year 21 audit right we're already doing the the 20 this contract is for 21 audit not 20 right okay fiscal year 21 audit okay and i seconded it are you ready to vote cliff hi rose hi sharon hi john hi and i'm an i all righty thank you sandra um one last thing yes ma'am we want to set that date to set the tax rate that that should we do that can we do that 630 on the 27th can board members be available at 630 cliff rose i don't i don't know but if i'm not if everybody else is there i'm fine okay sharon sharon what does it's it's our regularly scheduled monday meeting on july 27th just starting at 630 instead of seven oh yeah that works okay sharon is that work for you all right can we have that yeah that'll work for me as well can that be the top that can that be at the top of that 630 agenda yeah that's why we're meeting nicely that's why we're meeting at 630 just to do that okay great okay sounds good all right thank you wait stop one yes anything anything else the fema um fema is open for submitting expenses we have a little over $3,300 so we have met the threshold the question for the board remains do we want to submit those expenses now we anticipate any other expenses if we submit them now and we have additional expenses we must meet that $3,300 threshold once again if it's during the same event so i am holding paper on 3,300 almost 3,350 and it has not been submitted i think it's a board decision whether or not to to submit now and understand that any additional expenses will not be reimbursable if they don't meet a $3,300 threshold and that and this event is going to probably close at some point now there's no rumor that it's closing anytime soon but it won't be open um indefinitely so we don't have a date by which we have to decide that we may have some additional expenses depending on what we decide to do with use of the hall or not well i just don't want the board to lose sight of it because right just keep reminding us yeah yeah we we want to keep that uh on we want to we want not to forget that all right i am i think cliff did i cliff i didn't wasn't sure do you have a question i just wanted to say that i can tell you sandra absolutely we anticipate having additional expenses we are at a point where we're probably going to have to expand our zoom license there i've asked before in zoom is not reimbursable now okay then the other one that we just discussed regarding acrobat licensing that's probably not going to be eligible as well but we do imagine incurring some expenses for when we come up with our policy for use of the town hall there'll be some items that we're going to have to purchase and have in place there yeah okay okay anything else for sandra before she leaves or before she stays oh i can leave all right thank you well thank you all very much have a good night thank you okay thank you okay jay are you on jay i don't see him um let me try calling him at the station or see if he can call into one of the numbers yeah because he can call in right he doesn't have to be on in zoom yep he's on but it's not responding i guess yeah i think he can hear us but i don't think he can speak to us hi can you scan okay you then why don't you call in you can call in can you call from the um fire station phone right cliff which cliff which number should he call chicago or new york new york okay if you go into the calendar and um call in the new york number it's a toll-free number okay and don't forget don't forget you're going to need the meeting id or password probably okay all right thanks jay cliff while we're waiting to see for jay to call in um maybe we could quickly do it update and the reason why the office is closed that should only take a couple minutes hey denise sorry to interrupt are you done with me or um i believe so unless anybody does anybody have a reason for alfred to stay on um wait a minute this is pan oh yeah east calisthen alphy do you want to stay on for the to talk about the storm water stuff i hate to keep you but uh sure sure i can wait i just i guess i forgot about that but yeah i can wait okay cliff john you wanted to say something well i'm not nothing urgent i can actually talk to alfred offline about it okay cliff server migration the reason the office is closed yes it's the final bit of transfer we've kind of been running with the the original server the backup server the new one is in place but now there's a final bit of data transfer that has to happen but more importantly than that what is going to be going on tomorrow is a lot of testing to make sure that there are no other hiccups so once they resume normal business on wednesday uh they'll have already overcome any issues that they might encounter and they're actually already started working on it as we meet here did i see something where they were actually going to start it tonight yeah they're working on it right now okay i was hoping it wasn't going to affect our zoom meeting but i guess it doesn't no it doesn't this is really more about impact upon the nimrick and the files that the office staff maintains okay jay are you on yet no he's not okay let's give him a couple more minutes maybe we could do the memorandum of agreement this is a project that's been in the works for what two years panel yeah well it was uh in in the thought processes back in 2017 so it's almost three years now but we have so this is um do you want me to just give the but you want me to just give the background here denny if you can do it yeah just um this is a memorandum of agreement between cvr pc and the town to um help facilitate the project for the final designs of the storm waters um mitigation at the east callus post office and the moscow woods road gully so um i came and talked to you folks a little while ago um to see if we would submit it could submit a grant for this and everybody said yes do it so i submitted the grant and um we've got the award and this is just a memorandum of agreement that cvr pc is going to manage um the engineer that's been hired who is um melona mcbroom and um you folks there's just a few things that we're going to need from the town to help facilitate the project and this memorandum of agreement just kind of outlines that and there is an in kind match which is um outlined in the memory memorandum also which is about um 1200 of in kind time and that counts for two projects so um when we'll just need um somebody to kind of um take responsibility to um you know to keep track of those match hours and fill that out um well the road crew would be the road crew would be doing those that work right yeah and and then the other part to um just authorizing the memorandum is to is for alphie um and crew if the engineers need any test pits dug or anything like that um for them to help out with that and if they could use their own or you know the town equipment to do so that the equipment use and the um labor time counts as match too but also if we you know if the um the the engineers are also going to want to come and talk to you throughout the process and show you you know the designs at different stages and your time to listen to the engineers counts as match as well so um that's all kind of outlined in the memorandum like what we want to kind of you know include folks in the process of you know 60 90 design so you be will you be periodically checking in on this project visiting the site i'm sorry what yes i will be yeah i'll be you know i'll be visiting the site and um uh working with the engineers on and uh with the designs and the feasibility and the landowners as well who is uh john recie and um the recreation association as well so um that's that that's the gist of it but there is some town involvement with the match so that's what this memorandum is all about and also just kind of authorizing and making sure that alphie and crew um can participate alfred do you have any questions uh no not at all i'm i'm more than happy to help um i'm assuming they're going to do test holes fairly soon is that correct yep as soon as they can um uh as soon as we have we do have um just have to get the contract signed with them which we do have already and they're already working on things but they haven't um let me know yet about any dates that they're going to be out there to to dig the test holes but we'll let you know and we just wanted to have this signed as well but with you folks before we would move forward with that okay so it looks like it needs does the select board have any questions or comments everybody good would somebody like to make a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement and authorize me to sign it so moved is there a second second okay um what we'll vote row uh cliff hi Sharon hi rose hi john hi and i'm an eye all right so should i just sign the signature page and send it back to you yep that'd be great all right very good thank you thank you so much thank you thank you take care all right jay are you on now i can hear you can hear me oh yes we can hear you oh my god yeah there are miracles all right so thank you for agreeing to join us um you mentioned um this is a not on the agenda but i just wanted to let the board know what you found out about water testing at Curtis pond i had spoken well actually didn't speak with anybody on the uh health department's lab site they're pretty clear that many things and it's and it's on their side you can see what they're testing and what they're not testing one of the things they're not testing are swimming holes swimming pools lakes and that sort of thing i i think a situation arose where somebody was swimming at any of our pond someone got ill and there was question of what might be in the water then we might be able to preempt and get a test i'm not aware of any individual labs i'm not sure how risky that is to find somebody who might accept a sample and test it but at this point even though they recommend it they're not testing so that's kind of where we stand and i did respond back to one or two towns people who had inquired about that and they seem satisfied knowing where we are kind of in the world right now so that's where that piece stands okay well thanks for checking that out and thanks for the update um so i had asked jay to join us to talk about the consideration of reopening the town hall to use for meetings and and or maybe other events given the current situation i sent the board i've done a lot of research um asking questions of this agency in that agency i think i sent you a packet of information of just some of the stuff that i found on my journey and i asked jay as our health officer if you would join us and weigh in so jay do you want to tell us you want to weigh in yeah if you could so weigh in like i did in our conversation last night i think one of the first questions and i think you guess you just answered the main question concern or issues seems to be do we or do we not open the town hall for various meetings events and that sort of thing is that sounds fair yes okay so you know i work in health care and and we're pretty cognizant of of the cautions that it's out there um and the things that we're doing to protect ourselves and protect our community members um some of these conversations obviously trickle down from the governor's office they trickle down from what appears to be at least bi-weekly meetings from the vlct and some of their comments on their resource page i think as i spoke with denise last night you know i've got my personal feelings on it but and i think the general consensus out there is not to do anything like that most communities currently are doing technological visits they're doing zoom meetings um and that sort of thing i know that the uh league of cities and towns and courtyards select or town offices to be open to serve the needs you know licensing your dog getting your marriage license whatever those things might be as long as we have in place signage at the office you either do with these things by appointments you do them um distance one or two people in there at a time or the distance thing requiring a mass and that sort of thing and uh as denise and i tried last night one of the concerns about opening up a public building the current recommendation would be to have it no more than 50 occupancy and to have only one person per 100 square feet and i'm thinking how much that would limit things the second problem with that of course is getting everybody to comply with distancing with masking and then the next problem of course is how do you disinfect and clean everything out afterwards so i think there are a lot of considerations in there and a lot of difficulties to doing something like this um and i think most of us in the medical community and it sounds like from the government offices is um to limit these things until we are better prepared to manage people who come in and and keep everybody safe and frankly right now this county is in pretty good shape and if we can maintain that we can get through this a little bit quicker i think if we just open both doors and let folks come barreling in to have various meetings and weddings and whatever else the building might be for uh might very well set us back i just i think there are a lot of issues and concerns there so that's pretty much the gist of it and i sent around a document i don't know i think you said you looked at it cbrp speed puts out put out a document it says what other town offices are doing um right you not other town other town offices and other boards committees commissions and by and large for the most part they're either doing um zoom some are still doing it by phone can't imagine that um but nobody has as far as i could look and see and looking at that chart nobody had reopened meetings to in person yeah i think that's pretty much true you know and and and trying to be cautious and the things were even like playgrounds i think were opened up to limited degree interestingly enough at the end of june uh provided that there is signage to what they need to do you can't be sick when you're there you have to wash when you get there wash and relieve and you have to wear a mask at the police all of that uh and keep everybody safe is difficult and understanding that people are grumpy and they want to get things moving onward and so on um it's just the medical community and doctors that i spoke with recently it's been our best our best feeling is not to do it that it's a bad idea oh i think that's i think that's where we're at with things in the world right now so yeah and then you do have to think about the cost well you mentioned something about the flu season is coming up in addition to yeah we don't even want to think we don't even want to think about that you know we start vaccinating in august for the flu and every year we hope that we are getting the right strain of the virus with the vaccine that we have the two viruses don't cross pollinate if you will um but once you get ill let's say with one or the other you're susceptible to getting the opposite one i think and you know becomes more dangerous so you know hopefully there would be a vaccine for the for the covid-19 sometime in the middle of the you know december or something we just i'm not sure that we've got that yet and even if we got it in december november even we're not going to protect the entire population right away so we're going to have to be more alert and stay on our toes with how we're caring for ourselves and our loved ones and um you know just remember the general numbers of the public out there do you know if it's mandatory to take i there's mandatory questions that you have to ask and you have to do have names and contact information do you know if it's mandatory to do the temperature check you know there's been conversation about that and i think they're trying to make a decision on that actually in the next couple of weeks uh that's the latest that i've heard on that you know you can have this virus and not actually have the fever to start off or you can have the virus as you probably know and not show any symptoms at all so temperature check is a minor thing and i think that might lead them to sort of backing down on that a little bit i think on the other hand you might catch people who have a fever or even a low grade that might spur us to pay a little closer attention to that individual um signing in for meetings you know like if somebody's in your office they should sign in with their name and their contact information so that if anything happens we can trace it back um and that is still being required uh of places so that does still stay into effect the temperature thing again i i know they're talking about that and it's quite possible that they'll relax on that um you know i would say within the next two or four weeks but you know everything is so subject to change right now yeah it seems to change quite frequently so blackboard members would you have do you have any questions for jay clip uh not really i i think uh jay once i want to echo denise and say thank you for joining us um pretty much confirmed everything that i've suspected um and also um gives us some other information we can take back to the community as people are continuing to inquire about use of the hall so yeah i think one of the important i do think one of the important things is if our community members are calling select officers are calling to town office or whatever just to reassure them what we do is in their best interest and that they can still conduct business um you know in the proper fashion based on the guidelines we've been following for the last several months and you know trying not to get people grumpy but um you know i've been living with a mask for several for several months now and although it's irritating um it's second nature at this point granted it's it's my daily work eight hours a day but um you know it should be the same for all of us no matter what we do okay jaren um jay hi thanks for being here um i would like to just ask that we have jay come back in maybe two meetings this is too close although uh but whatever the third meeting from now is just so we build a rapport and a relationship and regular check-ins because as every as jay said this is not going to we're with this this is with us for the long haul so i think continue to hear from him and keep him engaged with us yeah august august tenth would be our first meeting in august and there might be some changes by then certainly certainly um rose i can try to do that and certainly any information i get i would pass on you know before meeting if there were any changes that uh other folks might not hear about okay that'd be great um rose questions no i'm just bummed um you know i yeah i mean i've been vocal before and you know just putting it out there that i just think meeting via zoom is so inefficient um and but you know we have to do what we do and you know i am thankful that we do not have widespread community covid thanks be to god um i too wear a mask every day but we need to protect everybody and be safe so i just want to say hi to my friend jay thank you for uh leading us on this being our town health officer and look forward to you coming back and keeping us updated john you know the um the zoom meeting are a real pain as you ever trying to get in there out on the thing tonight here every time i try to do these things like there's a different problem with it and if there are meetings you know the community can always come in by phone or zoom and you know it's a miserable way to meet i totally agree all right we try to stick it out best we can yeah if i much thank you i much prefer face to face but i also know as i mentioned as the home provider for people with special needs in both high-risk groups jay knows my people because they come to the health center if i were to come back home and transmit something to them it could be fatal yeah it's proven that way your time or two yeah john any comments or questions for jay i'm i'm really happy that you were able to take the time and meet with us jay thank you for sticking around toward the last third of the meeting that's fine okay select board so what would you like to do about you want to put this off until we meet again with jay on august 10th to see where we're at with all of this um what's your pleasure what do you want to what do you want to decide can we can we just note um that a few weeks ago when the governor started um lessening the restrictions and allowing us to actually be out and and encouraging social distancing and all that i think even before all of the the workplace protocols came into place around workplace and other settings temperature visitor registration to all that we were starting to see them in person meetings happening and and and we're really kind of taking a step back from that and recognizing that um we didn't have all the information then that we have now we didn't have the clear protocols from the governor that we do now and that we actually in some perceptions might be taking a step back well i think we did have um an in-person meeting at the town garage where we were very separated we did an in-person meeting at maple corner um and you know it was that was a risk that we took and i'm not sure what continued risks people want to take i think it's important for us to be leaders and and if we're if we're if we set an expectation that we're going to be conservative for the safety of our community well that's why i would not be in favor of the select board even if we're social distanced with mask i would not be in favor as a matter of what's fair to others for us to meet at the town hall and and we wouldn't be letting people in they would have to do it by zoom cliff mentioned that there were some technical issues that he could overcome for that um but in a sense of fairness to all the other boards and commissions people are really really really want to use the town hall and so don't we because it's beautiful and we just spent a lot of money fixing it up um i just want to make sure that we're doing the right thing and that we don't people at risk john and thanks for that denise um i still think that we could meet uh as with cliff doing some upgrading and and making some arrangements but given that but given the larger issue with use of the town hall and um the what you said denise i saw in the end at that point well taken and i concur okay so jay could you be back with us on august 10th and check in and in the meantime you said you would send us information if something significant changes right yeah i'll send you an update anything that i find out or hear from uh the various agencies on any of these things and any other guidance or you know what the status of the county is which is always available um to the state health department site anyway but yeah i'd be happy to do that um if things change i'm not uh readily available i'll um i'll figure it out we'll do something so and and i'd be great i get these updates every day from from our emergency management and from vlct and from cvrpc and i do check that information so sure um i would be happy to see them put something out that said something different than what we currently have i would love to see that so let's cross our fingers all right anything else jay or should we let him get back to volunteering at the fire department i'd love to get back to work okay thank you jay thank you all appreciate it all right bye bye now bye um town hall cliff yeah i think we need to hear something good after that discussion so i will be happy to let everyone know that the exterior painting the contractor will begin a week from today next monday yay do we know what color uh we're going to finalize the the shade of white uh david has that information from john is going to communicate it to the contractor and uh they're still trying to figure out the tone of green this is going to be used in the appropriate areas but uh that should not stop him from the first phase which is doing the lead abatement then comes the primer coat and then comes the final coat and another reason that we can't use even if we didn't have covid right now while he's doing that lead abatement isn't he going to have some kind of tent area set up and equipment it's a pretty involved process he has to have tarps and um there has to be running water available uh the dust has to all these steps he has to take to contain the dust he has to clean it all up every day and dispose of it properly um so yeah it's best if people aren't there during that phase of it uh but he will have to pause because there is one exception um the primary election schedule for august 11 we need the town hall to conduct that and there's a bunch of protocol that's being put in place judy and barbara have been training on what they'll need to do it's pretty extensive barbara shared some of that with me so he will break from his word so that the election the the primary can take place and then um he'll go back to work after that but i i suspect the lead abatement will be done before that date comes any question okay the other thing that's on the agenda and the the friends of town hall are doing the revised management agreement adding some of the language that was requested so uh we are meeting on more of a bi-weekly schedule these days so probably by our next regular select board meeting we'll have a revised document to put in front of the select board for everyone to review and hopefully sign off on yeah i mean there's no huge rush because we can't use the facility anyway exactly in the meantime they're starting to um look into arty and uh scott are looking into the uh formal rental agreement we have that to show everybody at some point and also doing research on the insurance requirements and it goes above and beyond the insurance that the town already holds for the town hall because if if we when we do get to that point we're able to have um non-municipal functions going on upstairs we want to make sure that we have correct insurance in place yeah um before we do i have some an update on the keypad alfred you said you wanted to have you wanted to have a chance to leave the meeting any unless you want to you're welcome to stay but unless otherwise you can sign off okay yeah it's it's supper time for me yeah well there you go thanks alphys okay have a good night all right you too take care um so i contacted john mccollough and he is going to be installing the keypad it's like it's like the thing that we sat at when we went to maple corner you put in the code the little thing opens and a key falls out and it can be reprogrammed with a new code if we're finding that there's some kind of um too many people accessing the key so that's that's the update okay anything else on town hall from anybody thank you cliff you're welcome okay um john um brook are you there hi brook hello i'm sorry i'm trying to get in a place for i can talk that's okay can did you have something you wanted to talk to us about i don't want to keep you hanging or you just i'm just listening in okay i'll raise my hand if i have anything thank you okay thank you if that's okay but good to almost see you i know you don't want to see me you don't want to see me right now right okay um thank you all right john asked me to put an item on for compliance with the open meeting law so i'll turn this over to him yeah thanks denise um and i asked that quite the last minute because i fielded a complaint or a concern raised by um a resident uh craig line contacted me regarding concerns that are the standards are our callous town boards and committees have been operating by may we may not be operating consistent with the open meeting law um in particular we have a design advisory board that oversees uh development or uh any kind of work done on historic structures within our historic district which is generally the kent corners or the great greater kent corners all west church historic district and so we have a design advisory board that evaluates any any instruction or any changes to existing construction or or historic structures for that matter um and it at the time i was informed by mr line i had no knowledge first hand knowledge that his complaint was true or false or what have you um the design advisory board was allegedly meeting uh without warning their meetings um and not holding their meetings as a public forum but meeting privately i don't know if that's the right term um and not keeping minutes as required by the law and not posting notices etc so um not having that direct knowledge i actually met with uh john mccullough who's um i guess a de facto member of the dab that's the acronym that we use the design advisory board um on another matter and uh today late afternoon and so i asked him firsthand you know has the design advisory board been meeting with um you know applicants without noticing those meetings where there was a quorum and he answered yes i asked has the design advisory board been meeting uh on projects and reviewing applications and discussing applications or proposals for construction or building amendments without warning those meetings where there's a quorum and the decisions being made yes have you been keeping minutes no um and and all this said you know frankly the i guess the longer history is many of our boards over the many uh years have not been fully compliant if even compliant at all with um the meeting law the Vermont laws that govern how boards conduct themselves with regard to making themselves available to the public and receptive to public input and commentary etc on the goings on um and it's been an evolution since i've been on this board seems like we tick off one committee uh not tick off but tick down the list from one committee to another and have done that in terms of educating them and bringing in the league of cities and town attorney who's now our attorney um educating our board members as to how how the law operates when it when it and what it's the expectations are um the dab john mccullough informs me has never uh taken into consideration the open meeting law it's not by any uh willful intent to evade uh the public spookier discourse but just how they've always done it um so uh to that end i brought this to Denise our chair's attention and Denise suggested uh and this is again before i met with john mccullough Denise suggested we reach out to Jim Barlow and just confirm kind of our sense that any any of our boards uh need to comply with the public open meeting law i'm sorry the Vermont open meeting law and um and whether or not there are any instances where they may be exempt somehow i know we had an issue with our roads committee i came they came up earlier in our meeting tonight uh where they hadn't been warning meetings and taking minutes and all that and there was some pushback and we had to get tough uh tough love was uh expressed and and so now they they and i guess if they reconvene they will follow that um so this is yet part of the evolving education process i guess in town of callous but um jim barlow our attorney um that the town of callous has on retainer uh issued an opinion and an email to both Denise and i um and he said in relevant part the design advisory board is a quote unquote public body subject to the open meeting law and its meetings need to be noticed per the requirements of the OML open meeting law i think the DAB the DAB's inadvertent misstep is a reasonable concern for the uh design design review board um but i don't i'm sorry development review board but i don't believe it warrants stating the entire starting the entire process over so for the audience's edification there's a there's an application pending before the development review board the DRB and that application that's under review or that process that DRB is conducting on that application uh includes uh consideration and evaluation um of the DAB's report to them it's an advisory opinion as to whether this application uh comports with the uh guidelines we have a set of guidelines that govern how projects are to be uh constructed or otherwise approved um in the historic district the DAB did meet with regard to that particular project and the speaking of is the Janet Ansel Steve Raines project they're proposing to build a small house on their existing property that i think is they're going to subdivide off a lot of some three plus acres is what i understand um and uh they did meet with the applicants did consider the application did arrive at an opinion that's in writing a written opinion that they then delivered to the DRB there was a DRB hearing recently um and then later on a subsequent to that formal DRB meeting they continued the meeting to a site visit i believe last saturday morning uh at the project site again um so let me continue on that's the background uh Jim Barlow says uh i would recommend the the development review board issue an interim decision directed to the DAB and copied to all interested persons stating to the effect that it has come to the DRB's attention that the DAB failed to warn its meeting and site visit on the ansel application in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law therefore the DRB requests that the DAB hold a new properly worn meeting to review the application conduct a site visit and issue new written comments to the DRB those new comments will be available to all interested persons as a public record the DRB will review the DAB's new comments and if new comments are substantively different than the DAB's original comments the DRB will reopen the ansel hearing to receive testimony etc on the DAB's new comments otherwise the DAB comments are not if they are not substantively different the DRB will issue a decision without reopening the hearing so and then he closes that he hopes this is helpful so um i wanted to bring that to the fore that's his opinion he's essentially advising that we the select board reach out to the DRB and and his own of his opinion here um and ask that they reconfigure the process to take into account the uh inadvertent missteps with regard to public notification and public uh process associated with the open meeting law and one one of the things jim said was in looking at the statute it tells you what you're supposed to do to follow the open meeting law doesn't tell you what you're supposed to do if something inadvertently doesn't happen um so this is an opportunity to hopefully cure the issue because there's no guidance in statute of how you how do we how do you go back now and fix this so and if i might add and i think this is something that i can discuss openly and and more in a more general context even if we have any board that contributes to a public process a permitting process and they contribute documentation that was arrived at outside of the expectations for instance of the open meeting law um it calls that process into question and if we as a select board allow that to continue forward and there is an appeal we then have the unfortunate situation where we have to make a choice whether to invest the legal resources to defend that decision of our drb or not or even if we feel like it was inappropriate challenge uh all this is you froze i don't know where i froze am i not there yeah you're there now you're there i don't know where i got cut off the challenge the legal challenge the well whatever that was the if if the drb if a drb decision is premised upon information that was born out of a committee of the town such as the conservation commission and that becomes part of the record and that was arrived at those opinions uh those advisory opinions those those that that yeah um and the drb relies in whole and part or in part upon those opinions and they were arrived at outside of what is required under the open meeting law that drb decision if challenged this could be something we would have a hard time defending nevertheless we would be expending significant legal resources and and and quite frankly i as one select board member i i don't want to defend something that we knew going into it was was inappropriate so i think the prudent thing for to do is to file follow jim barlow's good advice and um as a select board recommend that the drb take a step back put things on hold and ask the da dab the design advisory board to go back and restart that process and and work through that legitimately and my understanding is that process would be they don't just warn a meeting and then move forward that that needs to be opened to the public and like our select board meetings our planning commission meetings our conservation commission meetings our road committee means in every any other committee of the town um that they are open to to input uh from interested residents uh and if there's a pro and con side from all sides and that they objectively consider all comments that are relevant uh and appropriately presented um i also would strongly suggest that we make clear that um they yeah that their minds be open uh just open generally because uh they should not be viewing any participants in this restarted process as problem parties that they every they need to understand and respect that every part residence town is a right to participate in the permitting process this is part of the permitting process it's an expectation that's that's described in our zoning that the da b will review projects in historic district um so um i would ask that i would want to see the da b perform their duties with an open mind and and uh with respect as i i think they would yeah and also when we're when this is all said and done having reviewed the guidelines for the district um which have to be approved by the select board which we did back in 2008 i would like us to put on our list of things to do to revisit those guidelines and make clear in there some things that i think aren't clear about the process okay um craig it looks like you have a fire going there is that true they are citronella candles because the mosquitoes have these oh yeah the mosquitoes are pretty bad oh i i thought you were enjoying like a nice campfire you're glowing what can i say yeah it's a seance i do this okay um craig did you have anything you wanted to say uh yes i'm just a short statement of thanks honestly to john i knew i was right i have a lot of experience in open meeting law in the way of being a board member and the vice president of the board of the cali cover library and while the library follows open meeting law to the t in terms of committee meetings and board meetings meetings are warned minutes are provided they're posted within five days of the meeting uh uh draft minutes we are not required to by law because cali cover library is a private non-profit however the vermont department of libraries strongly suggests that all libraries be as open as possible for their patrons because we are asking the people of callus in Worcester and millsets et cetera for a lot of money every year and it's every taxpayers right to know what we're discussing what we're doing with that money and policy decisions all of that and so i only heard through the grapevine that there was going to be a site visit by the d abe it turned out that was the second site visit and i asked to attend and i was met with hesitation by the de facto chair mr sheets needed to consult with mr mccullough who hesitated and said well would you ask miss ansel if it's okay honestly that was not necessary but i did and she agreed and i stood there and listened i took some photographs as part of that just to record to document everyone most everyone knows i'm a photographer i've taken thousands of pictures from that house site because it's beautiful and so i asked mr mccullough numerous times will your discussions be open will there be minutes provided i want to read the minutes of your discussion will you provide me personally with the opinion not only am i just an interested party here in town i also am an adjoining landowner and so i was really surprised that i had not received notice of this meeting because it's a town committee and i told this to john and he said well we've just never done it that way and i said regardless it's open meeting law and i knew i was on the ground and and i really thank john very much for dubbing into this i feel vindicated it's a long process and frankly i am one of only a few people who is opposed to this project i'm being vilified i've received nasty emails from people and and it's really disappointing and yet i'm really gratified to know that in the beginning i was on solid ground the process should be open anybody who wants to attend can voice an opinion and and moving forward um i'm happy that that might happen more so with all committees thank you john john underscore that craig had you contacted any member of this select board and 10 confident outcome would have been identical that no member of this board would ever do anything but what i did um that's how we roll here and uh and i want to apologize at least from my perspective this somehow slipped under our radar it's really on us to make sure our boards are educated and have the tools they need to conduct their meetings we did do an educational session some years ago and it was back when jim barlow was with the league of cities and towns so i want to say seven eight years ago um and it's just a reminder that this is something we need to consistently you know you know work on and fine tune and and educate our board members which our boards are constantly turning over and uh it's an ongoing process we're we're going to need to put together a bullet sheet that needs to be handed out at to every board and every new member of every board like an information pack like yeah i think we need to send out a reminder i think we did when we had one of our appreciation things at the town garage recently we had jim barlow um do a quick date up on the open meeting law and i think we just need to every year when we do appointments reappointments that we provide every single member of every board commission committee a written statement of what is expected for open meetings to follow the open meeting law so um i'm glad i'm glad that you are under understand and appreciate the effort that's gone into this today craig thank you if i could just one other brief comment and that is i do understand from having served on the row committee it's hard to find enough people to serve there are lots of committees there are lots of important work that needs to be done and and there are only four members of the design advisory board right now they're supposed to be five david and i david sheets and i talked for hours about this issue i did not have a copy of the guidelines and one was never sent to me when it was published i got one in 1998 when i built my house but it was out of date it took six weeks to get that and i kept emailing both david and the town clerk and finally i found one on my doorstep and the town clerk had left it for me and i sent them both an email and said thank you very much i am only looking for information and so and there are a lot there's a lot of work there are few people and i know that's hard yeah and i and just so you know the guidelines are on the website that's where i found them i i did find them there i wanted a hard copy so i could okay be like stuff and of course the town office is closed and you know it was but i did finally get one okay and denise i just want to say quickly i really appreciate your you're speaking to the protocol and procedures because at the drb hearing thursday night i tried to ask the questions of the chair what are the protocols here what are the expectations what are the outcomes from tonight how do i file an appeal no no no we can't answer those now you ask me at the end and it was a very difficult thing to not at the beginning of the meeting have there was no agenda other than we're going to have this hearing and this is the process you know pig did describe it somewhat generally at the beginning but to have all that stuff spelled out is only going to enhance everything for everybody so yeah okay naomi yeah um can you speak closer to the mic sure um i'm here tonight because i was at both the thursday night call and the site meeting and um you know we just bought this house like a few months ago and last late last year and so we are in the historical district and so when we saw the sign go up which was just maybe 10 days ago you saw the zoom meeting and i thought well i want to know what's what's going on and i closed my laptop at the end of the meeting and i and i burst out in tears and i looked at my husband i'm like we have to get out of here like this is crazy um craig uh was articulate and asked questions i spoke up nobody else spoke up everybody just said oh it's beautiful janet um the intimidation was mind-boggling to me um and the same thing was a repeat on saturday morning just rudeness um craig being shut down who had a very good articulate calm presentation that he made i listened to comments going on behind his back you know between janet and i think it was judy um i was i was blown away and i felt frightened to say anything i don't like the house i think it looks cheap i don't think it helps the area i don't think it's beautiful like nell and nicks house that just blends in so beautifully um i felt very uncomfortable to say anything so i don't know anything about the protocol and the process that's supposed to happen and i'm weak and back up and and redo that but how i'm really asking this how do you stop this intimidation how do you make it so people actually feel comfortable to voice their opinion and i guess part of it is getting people there that feel comfortable enough to even go i mean my husband was like what are you bothering for she's going to do whatever she wants so i'm being really honest here that's that's the feeling that i walked away with that they're entitled um they own the town and even though uh you know we just came back here and we own more land than they do but doesn't matter you know they're just going to do what they want and that's the feeling that i walked away from John extremely upset uh to Naomi's question i think i don't think it was rhetorical um about intimidation and what to do um if any board member including the select board intimidates anyone the rest of the select board or the select board needs to know um if you have a concern we want to know the name of the person what they said please put it in writing as soon as you hear it so we know it's as much as what you remember what they did said or did or uh the general public i would hope that chairs of committees would limit that but we even our select board meetings we have public lash out across you know we've had numerous meetings where the issues are contentious people yell back and forth and get threatening and we've in one case i almost had to walk a guy out i didn't know if he was going to come the blows but i got up to walk him out and he walked himself out but uh that's the public but if anybody who's appointed by this select board uh intimidates anybody we need to know that and and we need to for ourselves make a judgment as to whether it was intimidation it could be just the recipient but if we need to know what happened public officials yeah and in this case it some of it is unspoken you know some of it is uh how do you measure that some of it was you know just shutting crag down um literally you know yelling out time like that um when he was in the middle of his presentation um that i was really interested in and well the night you know the nice thing one of the one of the only nice things about zoom is it's all completely recorded absolutely so i've nice i see the thursday night meeting and i'm sure i mean it was and just so you know the select board i probably is as generous as we can possibly be with taking comments from the public even to sometimes people saying we take too much comment but it is the town everybody's a resident everybody's equal nobody is better than anybody else because they have three acres or 300 acres it doesn't matter everybody is how long you've lived here whether you've lived here six weeks or you've lived here your family's been here 200 years right i mean i've i've experienced that exact same thing Naomi when i first moved here you know how long you've been here oh i'm sorry sage did you want to speak i i want to support i mean let let Naomi talk but i would like to chime in about what happened on saturday morning oh okay and on the thursday evening call me i asked about the site too and i you know i spoke up and said you know we're looking at the house but i don't i live right up the road and i have no idea where it's actually going to be is it going to be in the field is it going to be on the driveway i i don't know i really i would love to have another site visit and the only response came back from peg who said are you done yeah well you notice yes i'm done and that was it there was no answer there was nothing there was no interaction with any of craig's questions or mine and nothing it was very very strange so sage you wanted to have it i think i can't see if brook somebody said brook has her hand up but but oh go ahead brook if somebody has their hand up by all means you you've been trying to chime in so go ahead sage i just want to say you know i showed up at a site meeting i wasn't at the zoom meeting on thursday night okay all right there's a site meeting going on craig and i i had open eyes craig and i'm like craig craig has shut me down in school board you know craig is great he's a town moderator he's been great he was so professional and so humble and just so hoping to express his concerns and i walked in there and i honestly had no opinion about what was going on and it was hostile that's the only thing i have to say and it was weird it felt like every decision had been made and it was just it was very very strange and that denise thank you for thank you all it's you know 941 on a monday night and i really appreciate this to be able to speak so thanks so much you're welcome brook did you want to speak thank you if i just might uh i just have a couple public comments to me um i am a practicing attorney in vermont and have done board work for municipalities as well as lots of zoning board work as well um and what i'm struck with listening to this conversation goes back to i think what mr bray bant was saying originally which really has to do with training of the people that you have in these positions and as craig mentioned very hard to get people who can devote the sufficient time but it is essential that people in these positions understand that they wield the governmental power in a permitting situation to control what one can do with their own property and we have the fifth amendment clause that says government can't take your property without just compensation well regulatory taking this can happen and so the question becomes are the people that are in those places of power that you have delegated your authority to as a select board by putting them into place do they have the knowledge to conduct business under the open meeting law properly it sounds like that needs to be validated which is great that you folks are taking responsibility and making sure particularly during this pandemic with all of the challenges of zoom and all of that but what i hear are personal interactions here face to face for example at a site visit where people are trying to articulate their positions the various first thing a drb needs to explain to people is what a site visit is what it's for and that you can't take testimony but people can point things out so that one can put them into context when they actually go to a hearing and get testimony so these are the kinds of procedural safeguards that we have to protect the process to make sure that everyone is treated equally and whether you you know so for example this this protects the applicants who might be of some stature in the community or might be lawyers believe me i know what it's like to be a lawyer and to have an automatic assumption that you have a leg up in the process because of your superior knowledge so it is essential under these circumstances to ensure that the original dab i think you're calling it not be a secret process that that report is a public document the applicant gen and ansel should not have been sending that but she did so because she knew it needed to go to them and it's shocking that it didn't so when you get to the drb level showing up at a site visit or at a zoom hearing and being treated as if you were a member of the public to only be limited to some public comment where you're actually in a butter who should be considered an interested party who's there to participate and to establish their standing legally to participate in the actual process of having their say as the next door neighbor person across the street or someone in the neighborhood or there can be a group of people if you have a requisite petition from citizens to participate but particularly under these circumstances with prominent folks you know the the appearance of impropriety that that has been suggested through some of the interactions here feeling like you only get a certain amount of time instead of you being a participant and a party to this process sounds like craig was across the street he's in a butter and he shouldn't be told no you're a public comment person he should be recognized as someone who is a party is trying to establish standing and to foreclose his comments that is that is going to be an appealable issue that will send this right back down to the drb if the environmental court gets a hold of it because the participation of a person of an interested party in this permitting process they have to establish their interest and the issues that they raise articulates the scope of their case and their appeal so if you don't let them have their say before the drb you are not allowing them to establish whatever the scope is of what they need to provide for evidence and so if they go up on appeal and say i wasn't allowed to speak they'll do one of two things they'll decide it anew because pardon me all of those problems low can be remedied because the environmental division is going to make their own decision but if you hamper the folks from developing their evidence and presenting their case at the lower level you know you're you're opening it up to a remand now i am thrilled that you folks are you know understand the ramifications why do you want to spend public monies defending positions or decisions that are procedurally informed they you know you might call it technicalities but due process of law by government agencies is the most basic right in our constitution and thank you for making sure that these processes are going to be by law and they're going to not intimidate people and make them think that because someone has a lot of power and influence or has lived there for generations and by the way the drb should not be asking people how long have you lived here that is not a proper question that has nothing to do with anything and that gives the immediate response or reaction that this is a done deal and there is no fair hearing and there are no due process rights to actually be heard and have the information that you present be considered analyzed and a determination be made by law not who's lived there the longest so thank you very much john bray there and the select word for jenice thank you very much this is a real public service that you are making sure the integrity of your government is without reproach thank you brook we appreciate your comment okay so is there any further anything further to do on this john i think we beat this one to death at this point uh you know but we beyond this issue for me this is a case in point the why we need to there's a priority issue to revisit with not only the dab which is number one priority but also all our boards i think that we need to kind of re we circle back around on this one maybe have a more global meeting and education on zoom with all of our boards invited um and then they can ask questions and learn about this we have volunteers and i feel really bad for you know the the dab folks you know they volunteer to do their best they're not trained by us they're not given an information package or a training package and we just say here you go make sure i guess the assumptions make sure you do the right thing whatever that is and it's not too much different than with our current drb um we used to have drb's chaired by competent attorney steve reyness was a drb chair chuck starrow was a drb chair no chair being warren colman there's all three of those gentlemen our attorneys uh i believe sharon i was lucky yeah she was on the drb just on a drb another competent attorney and when you don't have any folks like that isn't on that board to act as you know guides through uh the the processes um that's it sets us up for failure and it's not because anyone is deliberately trying to abuse their authority um but it also allows for the infiltration of inappropriate uh statements and discussions and you really need a chair that's gonna disallow that and certainly you should not have a chair participating in those kinds of discussions as may have been occurred here i don't know um sharon wanted to say something yeah i just want to say to everybody i'm being uncharacteristically quiet because i have a conflict on this issue or on this on this matter when we don't matter and we talk more holistically about boards and training than i than i will be engaging as a board member so that's yeah we probably won't talk about that tonight because it's almost 10 and i know sharon's turning into a pumpkin i am the air is off in my building okay um okay so are we ready to move on is there no a rose do you have your hand up yeah i just wanted to publicly say um how horrible i feel i mean i'm so very pleased craig and they owe me that you brought this to the select board now we know about it um that's not who we are as callous citizens that's not that's just not right it's wrong on so many levels and um you know the appearance of impropriety i mean i think you'd have to be helen keller to think that there wasn't an appearance of impropriety i mean i'm just so blown away by this it's so wrong on so many levels so i just want to refer back to what john brave ant said in the email from jim barlow about what we do now going forward immediately tomorrow um what the process is going to be and john you spoke about that um jim barlow has laid this out but um you know this gets to the root of who we are why we live in this town why we care about each other how we treat each other um and so i just wanted to put that out there well and you'll notice you'll notice at the bottom of my emails kindness is first kindness is second and kindness is third yeah bro thank you very much that means a lot to hear thank you so much sure all right are we done with this matter so we can we have one more thing i at least like to get through if everybody can stand it thank you madam chair for putting this on the agenda in such short notice um yes no problem at all um and i you might just to note i'm an alternate on this matter um and i was like 15 minutes late because i couldn't get on to the stupid zoom thing and apparently nobody was introduced so um i apologize for that there were a couple of us drb members who insisted on a site visit so anyways and i got asked at six o'clock that morning to participate and everybody knows i don't read email at six o'clock in the morning like gross try me about me and you both right nine or ten maybe i'll read email but not six o'clock in the morning that's right all right thank you so much and just know that we're on top of it yes thank you thank you all so much i'm gonna sign off it's time for ice cream okay thank you brook for the education yeah c le for that my bill's in the mail all right thank you bro good to hear from you thank you folks i appreciate it didn't mean to lecture you really are doing good work thank you we're trying thank you all okay um process for signing the orders it looks like this is going to go on for a while longer um used to be we would pass them around the table barba came up with a suggestion of how we might resolve this round robin of orders i think cliff had a suggestion as well um so i can let cliff give his suggestion and then my concern with the suggestion well i know that uh we don't like the idea of having to go to the town office to sign things um but these documents are they impact a lot of different processes that go on and certainly a lot of different things that uh sandra is working on there is also um some sensitive information included in these orders um people's pay rates and things like this um my proposal was that perhaps we could put them in the lock box at the mudroom um that there be we could even arrange to have a key with one of the combinations to like what we're talking about putting in at the town hall so people could go in punch in the combination get the key open the lock box and sign the documents put them back in and that uh we try to find some kind of protocol that we could agree upon that um if everybody can't make it down there to sign it that's okay because as long as we get at least three members of the board signing off on them then sandra has what she needs and can go back and show the auditors that we have a process in place uh that we had to adjust for this um also we would probably want to consider once we get the word that there are some orders there to be signed we agree as a team what is the time frame we can expect to turn it around in so that uh judy and sandra who are definitely um barbara as well you know they're dealing with some uh extreme circumstances just like we all are and anything we can do to help relieve their levels of stress i think we should look at so yeah and i think in my email i laid out a couple of issues with the orders not being back at the office with the um you know we have a monthly audit done by cindy at nemrack and quite often you know they just pull out random random things that they see in the nemrack reports they need to see copies of the invoice to match it up with the nemrack entry so not having the orders back to the town office in a timely manner you know does present a problem and in addition to the ones that the cliff suggested judy is a little hesitant about the lockbox thing because she's concerned especially when ballot start coming in tax payment starts coming in she's a little hesitant um for us to be going into the lockbox not that we would intentionally do anything but she's worried that stuff might come up missing what if it gets caught in with some other paperwork um and when i when i review the orders i have them on the table i spread them out i have my little ruler and i go through each and every entry each and every invoice each and every check and that's why when you see after i've done it i have a little check mark that that's my process of doing that in the parking lot i could do it i will do it if that's what we decide as a team to do but it will make it difficult yeah i'm with you denise i mean when i don't want a process where it's a pro forma signature i mean when the five of us sit around the table there's you know generally one or more of us who you know we do just sign it but somebody always catches something and asks questions and if we're if we don't have the opportunity and there's no we're our processes and even designed to suggest that we're actually looking at them i don't think that's a good process so i know this last time was a little difficult people have work schedules vacation schedules kids schedules all that stuff but if we could as a team agree to be more on top of it and getting it passed off to the next i think barba calls it around robin um i think really that's really the only choice right now well i mean one of the one of the issues we had is we didn't get them there i mean the stack we got was like this because yeah i mean i i had them for i had june orders so it was and march orders so there was a whole stack that we got at once so there we need right we need to do it more often there's probably every time there's more there's process improvement on the front end too yeah what if we i i looked at barba's suggestion 24 hours this is that's not enough time for me just isn't um so i i would never commit to turning them around in 24 hours i mean i'm here i i left my house at 6 30 this morning i'm here at 10 o'clock at night 24 hours is not realistic but i agree um the other thing is if only three of us have to sign them then part of the round robin can be which three of us are taking responsibility for this set so what i could do is after i sign them i can send an email to the rest and say who wants to be next so that we can keep them moving and then somebody can say i'll be next how soon can you do it and move it along that way so that we're hitting people that are available can we actually we actually have a schedule i mean i will do better if we if i know that this week it's this week is i have to make the space and not in 24 hours but if you give me 48 i can i can do it in a week i know that this is my job well we can decide that like at a select board meeting because the orders are done for every select board meeting so like right now um i have the orders who wants to be next and who and how soon can you turn it around i'm looking at my calendar i can get it to okay so do you want to pick them up tomorrow we can arrange to pick them up yeah you can pick them up or i can drive them to you either way i mean it's all a matter of just cooperation it's a little bit of pain in the neck tenice you're going to the clerk's office tomorrow so you can swing by cliffs dump them up there and no i'm not going to the clerk's office i sent i sent the stuff to Sharon to sign Sharon's going to there oh okay but if cliff wants to be cliff wants to be next what if i call you in the morning cliff when i'm done with everything getting everything everybody all the critters around here fed well you can call me in the morning when you're done but it's probably easier if you just call me cliff okay are you done are you well done medium done biff well done and rose what's your schedule look like are you at work yeah um but i if he if he looks at them do you think you'll look at them tomorrow cliff yeah if uh if Denise and i can get him transferred from her to i in the morning yeah i could definitely do him yeah because tomorrow when i get out of work at six i'm going to go by the town office and sign some papers then from there i could go to cliff's house and bring the orders home with me tomorrow in the evening okay and then they're done three of you done here's three so then we just need to get them back to the town office for Judy or Barbara Barbara's working afternoons Judy's working mornings i guess okay and they could and one of them can just pick them up and put them in the office and then they're there and they're in the vault where they need to be yep all right excellent thank you so much all right is everybody ready to be done i think so john john unmute yourself i'm unmuting myself you never believed i could be muted so um Denise is acting chair i'm acting vice chair we have simple procedural thing to get done and i'd like to get it done tonight i know people would like to be vice chair i would like Denise to continue to be a chair she's a wonderful job and i'd like to as i said were threatened many many months ago that i would be stepping down and i would be nominating looking to nominate Sharon Fanon in my stead i think she was interested at that point in time i don't know if she still is um so i would like to get this done um now so i'm going to propose uh a slate uh Denise Wheeler as chair Sharon Wynn as vice chair uh katie is our secretary right recording secretary she needs to be disappointed okay so i'd like to move those two individuals for the chair and vice chair position and i'd like to also um at some point you know we need to come up with roles responsibilities and and how we do things going forward i want to also say that i really think this meeting went well tonight huge agenda but you really did a great job Denise thank you all together moving us through thank you thank you thank you for recognizing that that doesn't that means a lot you left so thank you but i so that's a motion and i'd look for a second for those i'll second that okay is there any further discussion are you ready to vote i'm sure Sharon's turning into a pumpkin any minute i'm waiting for her to turn orange i'm already turned pink oh all right let's take a roll call vote cliff hi Sharon hi rose hi john hi and i'm an eye and i'd like to make note the women are in charge we're always in charge didn't you know that oh i know that but i'm psyched thank you for doing that thank you aren't in Denise all right i was prepared to do minutes but um and i did have a couple of questions cliff i sent you about a couple of the minutes that katie didn't have the information so maybe when you have a chance not right now to see if you can answer those questions yeah i saw you sent one of them i'll take a look at the other one i know what you're talking about i already addressed one of them okay and don't forget july 27 6 30 to set the tax rate and send me any ideas that you want for the agenda and i'm the agenda seems to happen because there's always something going on can i make a motion that we notwithstanding i'm turning into a pumpkin that we go into executive session for personnel matters under one vsa section 13 313 a3 of course i'll second that cliff hi rose hi Sharon hi john hi and i'm an eye katie that was at 1007 thank you katie the recording has stopped