 six minutes after five with us, Paul Seminera, Randy Jury, and Stephanie, I'm sorry, I'm with Stephanie Smith, and Steve Jewfrey. Is there anybody I missed? It's amazing what this program does, isn't it, there's no hiding. So welcome, everybody. Sarah, any amendments to the agenda? Nope, just what I put in last night. So the agenda as sent last night should be fine. OK, OK. So with that, and only three minutes late, I'd like to recognize Stephanie Smith from the State Hazard Mitigation Officer for Vermont Emergency Management. She's going to tell us about the process and the costs for the town participating in the FEMA buyout of 28 Bridge Road. Stephanie, you're on. Hi, thank you. So yes, I'm Stephanie Smith. I'm the State Hazard Mitigation Officer. You guys probably worked with Lauren Oates a few months ago. She has since left, so I'm filling in for her and new in this position. But there were a couple of questions about the buyout, so I want to make sure that I can give you a quick overview, and then I want to make sure that you guys have time to ask me any questions that you have about how this process works. So the grant has already been awarded, which is good. That typically takes a decent amount of time, so it's been awarded. On our end, our finance advisor had reached out for a couple of things she needed, and the next step on our end is really to get a sub-grant agreement in place between the state and the town so that we can do reimbursements. And in terms of the funding for the town, so there's no cost to participate in for the town. And the town is actually eligible for 5% of the total project costs in funding to administer the grant. So Sarah's time putting in administering the grant can be reimbursed up to 5% of the total award. The process for that has changed slightly, so I've been working with FEMA on exactly how they want to see that request come from the town. So you haven't made that request yet, but I'll be letting you know how to access that funding so that the town can have the money to manage the work. And then one of the questions is around how the funding is actually distributed. So once that sub-grant agreement is in place with the state, it's typically a reimbursement-based program. So you'll do the appraisal, for example, is the first thing that will happen. The town will hire someone to do an appraisal of the property. And that appraisal, typically the town would pay for that and then would request reimbursement from the state. So the state would supply 75%. And then we have match funding for this. So the community would get the 25% match as well. And there is an option, if you guys are concerned about fronting that cost, there is an option to request funding in advance. So before you pay the invoice, you can reach out to our finance office and get funding in advance so that the town doesn't actually have to have to put forward any of that funding if that's a concern. I'll just interrupt you for a second. Yes, go ahead. And maybe you're going to get to it. I'm sorry to steal your thunder. We're not worried about the cost of the appraisal. OK. You can cover that. But if it comes to asbestos abatement or filling in septic systems or who knows what else. We've been through this before. That's where it could be a pretty substantial bill. So yeah, we're definitely interested in knowing about that. What is the expected, in the normal course of events, what's the expected turnaround time? We submit the paid invoice. Is it 30 days? I believe it's actually five business days for the reimbursement. But if there is a larger bill that comes in, it can be advanced. So you wouldn't have to. If there ends up being asbestos and there's a large bill, first, we would have to request a cost overrun from FEMA if it's in addition to what we've budgeted for, if we need additional funding. Yeah, I understand that. But then it could be advanced if it ended up being a larger bill. Yeah. So the summary of this is, if everything goes as planned, there should be no cost to the town. And if we don't choose to go for the advanced process, which we might not do on a smaller bill but might do on a larger bill, we could expect a turnaround on the money within 10 days. Yes, that's correct. That should make you smile, Dorinda. Checking barely clear in that period of time. Yeah, she's smiling. Questions? More members? Well, what about, does Sarah have any questions? Because Sarah has always been managing these things. And there's a lot of steps. So she's really the person most familiar with getting the stuff done. Peter, can I talk? Yes. OK. So Stephanie, I guess my concern is when I'm reading the grant, it says the federal award is $102,000, which is 75% of the total approved project cost of $136,000. Does that how much does that go toward Jennifer Evans toward the property owner? Or is that supposed to? I mean, what does that $136 cover? Yeah, so I can send you. Do you have the application with the budget that breaks it down? I can send it to you. I don't have the application. I have the statement that you gave the terms and conditions. OK, so I can send you the original application, which has the different line items broken down. So the actual, for the property appraisal, let's see, for the purchase of the property, we were estimating about $110,000, which is what will go to the property owner. But it'll depend on the appraisal. That's what we've budgeted. But depending on what the appraisal comes back as, that's what we have budgeted for that amount. So you have $110,000. And then, so that's my concern. So my concern is that you've got $110,000 budgeted for. Is that supposed to represent 75% of what you're going to give the property owner? Or is that the total amount you're going to give the property owner? Well, the budget was for the total. OK, yes. So she walks away with $100,000. That leaves us with $26,000 and maybe another $34,000 to deconstruct, to send out RFPs for an asbestos. I know there's going to be asbestos. Remove the asbestos. This is why I wanted you to talk to the Select Board, because that number, $136,000, doesn't come close to deconstructing a house, removing the material. You know where I'm going, right? That's a big project. Yes. Yes, so we have in the budget right now, $2,000 for lead and asbestos survey and removal, if that's needed. If that figure does go well above that, depending on what we find out before you actually do the lead and asbestos work, so based on the survey, if it looks like it's going to be $10,000, we can request additional funding from FEMA. That's where I want to stop you, because when we did this last time, the bids we got for asbestos removal were $40,000. And that was for a sink and a little bit on a roof. OK. Number 2,000 doesn't seem to go anywhere near $40,000 to me. And that was seven years ago. Right. So it's possible that it comes in higher. And part of how these grants work, it's voluntary for the homeowner. It's voluntary for the town. And if there's something that happens that they just decide it's too much and you don't want to go forward, you can make that decision at some point. It helps that we have the ability to cover the match. For this, usually homeowners are more concerned if they're the ones paying for the match, which is sometimes the case, if the cost ends up being too high. But if we have a survey come back and it says it's going to be $40,000 and asbestos removal, we'll have to go back to FEMA and talk to them about it at that point before any of the work actually happens to get that approved. Excuse me. Do we get estimates for all this work before we actually start? So we know that we're OK before we begin? Yes. So the appraisal is usually the first step. But after that, you would be doing a lead and asbestos survey. If that's a concern. Before closing, Stephanie, would we do the lead and asbestos survey before closing? And then? I think it usually is before closing. I can let me check on that and I'll get back to you. Because my concern is that the property owner is going to walk away with a chunk of change to do what she needs to do. And the town is going to be stuck with a very, very expensive project that it now owns. The town will now own the house. And now the town is going to have to mitigate the asbestos, remove the asbestos, just deconstruct the house, remove the house, fill in the septic. And that's way, way more than $26,000. OK. So I will say the town has a chance to back out. But the town won't know whether or not to back out. Right. If the property is already purchased, it's too late at that point. So I'll find out if that typically would take place before. I think it could and that would not be a problem. But let me. Actually, it has to. Yes, it has to because they need a clean site letter for the purchase. Well, that's not how it works. Last time we transferred the property and then we started the asbestos room and the survey. OK, well, yeah. Let me let me dig a little bit on that and make sure that that's going to work out the way that makes more sense to you, which I fully support and understand. So just don't want to be responsible for sticking the town with a big expensive project. Yes, I understand the wages of our town clerk and select quarter system. I'm sorry. No, I didn't actually hear what you said. I guess I guess, you know, we're we're looking you in the eye over the over the computer line here and, you know, we need to be comfortable and we're going to be OK in this. This is not the year for us to have some surprise finance surprise financial disaster for all the reasons that we're all aware of. So when do we when do we need? When is the first go, no, go thing on this? I well, the first the first step is typically once we have our sub grant agreement in place to do the appraisal and then the property owner needs to be happy with that amount and ready to move forward at that point. OK, and then I'll I'll find out about whether we can we could do the lead in asbestos, at least surveying right after that. So have we what remind me what the status is right now? Have we have we accepted the grant? No. So it's. The sub grant agreement is not in place yet. So I think I just looked up. Looks like my are the woman who manages our financial sent out a couple of questions that she needs answered to put the sub grant agreement together, so I'm not sure if Sarah, if you've responded to those yet. But the next step is the sub grant agreement. So you'll get a chance to look that over. Make sure that everything makes sense to you and sign that. Before before moving forward. OK, and you have to have that in place to do any of the reimbursement. So that's that's the next step. Yeah, other questions. Anyone has a question? Does so if there's a mortgage or a lien on the house, does does that get do you pay that off directly first? And then the owner gets whatever the rest of the money is. And what if the lien is more than what the house for whatever reason, you know, had a home equity or something like that? I don't think we've ever dealt with what if it's more? So we'd have to we'd have to handle that if that ended up being the case. But it's the same. The closing process is very similar to any sort of closing. So we will cut a check for seventy five percent of the property purchase. We'll work with the those who are the the match that's being covered. They'll cut the check for the for the remainder and they'll have to pay off any mortgages that they have on the property from that amount. They've got to give us a clear title. Yes. Yeah. Did we, Sarah, did we lose money the last time we did this? No, but we the reason why I'm hesitating is because the bids for the asbestos were so high, and that's why I keep focusing on that. When we got to forty thousand dollars, everybody, the two we had three bidders, two were forty thousand dollars almost on the nose. And one was Jason Merrill, which was twenty thousand dollars. And we went with Jason because we didn't want to be in a place where we were not going to be reimbursed for the forty thousand dollars. And I'm not saying that Jason cut corners, but he probably would not have done what he what the other guys would have done. We got a real nasty gram from the state of Vermont saying next time we're going to be watching you in on asbestos removal. It's like, OK, so I just I that's why I'm concerned because that case, the deal was done. The homeowner walked away with the check and the town had this huge responsibility. And we were very nervous about not being able to get it paid, especially now in this case, we're at the end of the grant run. Well, I'll say there's there's funding additional. If we if we need to request additional funding from FEMA, we do have funding in this grant round to cover. We had a couple of other buyouts that dropped out. So we have a decent amount of funding available if there is a need for an overrun. OK, well, all I'd like to say is again, reminding everybody that. The reason we got into this is to solve a to solve a problem. It's been a problem for the town. It's been a problem for the homeowner. It's been a problem, problem, problem, problem. So it's worth resolving. We don't need another park over there, Mary. I don't think so. There won't be a second. There won't be a second Skinner Park. I had to take my I just I think it's worthwhile doing. I just want to make sure I just want to be careful every step of the way and watch this like a hawk, Sarah and Dorinda and me to make sure that, you know, and Stephanie to make sure that it's working out the way we expected to work. So with that, I think we I think we we wait to get the sub grant agreement. We review that. And if it is what we expect it to be, we sign it. And then we take it step by step after there after that. How soon will the sub grant become with Stephanie? It's it might be a little bit of time yet. I'll have to check in with Melissa, but I'll remind her for this one. I, Sarah, did you get back to Melissa's email? Did you see her email come through? I did. It was a while ago. And I think there were some really basic questions about guns and things like that, which I thought we answered. But maybe, you know, I don't know, with all this covid stuff, I could have been in my living room. So OK, I will. So I'll check in with Melissa if she has everything she needs. I'll just I'll make sure she has everything she needs so she can move forward and then we can we can get that to you guys. OK. Anything else? Thank you, Stephanie. Right. Thank you. You have further questions. I'm still here and you didn't have to drive too far to do this. Did you know it was perfect? And Sarah, I'm around any time you have questions that pop up and we can walk through this one step at a time as we go. All right. Thank you so much for coming to the meeting. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye. OK. More discussion about class four section of Notch Road, Paul Seminera. Unmute yourself, Paul. Well, that leaves her out. Where are Paul? I think he disappeared. Up. There he is. No video, but voice. That's all right. You there, Paul? Not working. My reception is not great. So I might kill. Well, maybe put your picture back up and hear you kill a video and see if that makes it better visual here. The video is killed. Yeah, we don't like looking at you. How are you doing now? Paul, Paul, Paul was coming back. I guess you're the lucky one. Yeah, why don't I step in? Well, you're trying to come back. OK, let's let's have Steve start and see if he can get back in. There he is again. Paul, Paul, Paul, you guys there? Yes, we are. Can you guys hear me? Yes. No, you're OK. Sorry, the lead is helping anything over here in the notch. So I apologize. I can hear you guys. OK, well. Listen in, we're going to have Steve fill in for you. Still not. No. No, you're not. You're not coming in very good yet. Yeah, looking out. So let me let me just breathe. Melody is great when it works. Can you hear me yet? Yeah. Here's the big question. When can we get back to the normal in-person meetings at a socially safe, safe distance? That's why my biggest gripe. I don't know what you're coming in. I can see us sitting at our lounge chairs out in the parking lot behind the town hall. There you go. I'm up in my dear stand as high as my property goes. So here we are. All right. OK, well, go ahead, Paul. Well, I'm going to, Steve, do you want to just go ahead and do a quick brief of everything or do you want me to get started? What's up to you? Well, we're talking about the Notch Road stuffers. So I mean, I can give a brief overview from our last meeting. We had discussed at the Well Life Management, the state area of trying to expand that parking lot a little bit to accommodate a few more cars. Paul and I looked at that. I think that would be easily done to accommodate just a few more cars. Paul's going to mark it out and then have another meeting with the state guy. That's Tim Appleton. And then the other thing that we had decided to do is to put in a small parking area down near the entrance to the pit. We can put in a small area there pretty darn quick with very little cost to accommodate six cars. So we thought we would do that and talk to us about he will be doing something for signage. Who will, Steve? You agree? Who? Lee Rosberg. I can't hear him. You can't hear me? No, I can hear you. OK. Who can't you hear? Can't hear anyone. Uh-oh. You must have spiked us. So that's the brief overview anyway. So we would have a net gain of eight parking spaces. Two up of the existing parking spot and six down at the pit. That's correct. Yep. And signage. Eight or nine depends on how people parked that area up the wildlife management. If people came in there and paid attention, they could probably get six or seven cars in there. But all of a sudden they're six feet apart and there's only five cars in there. But we think, yes, we can have an additional eight or nine vehicles between the two. Steve, I'm going to piggyback off to you. But so one of the board board, our other plan with this is in the next month is to come out. Oh, this is not working. We're running out of a timeline that we'd like to present to the class for a second, but not. We know that there's. Paul. Yes. You're not coming in very good at all, Will. We're just going to, you just come in broken up and then all of a sudden you're clear, but we're not getting anything that you're seeing. Oh, OK. So I think, Paul. Just to summarize what Steve said, the idea is to try and improve the situation up there, spending very little time and very little money. We don't have time and we don't have money. So we're going to try and make the situation better the best we can. Can we and hope that the Conservation Commission can create a trail from the pit parking lot possibly up around the pit and get permission from the landowner to go across their land so that there would be a hiking trail that didn't involve hiking up the road. But whether that can happen or not, I don't know, but that would be a goal because there is a lot of potential in the future to create even more parking where the town pit is. Plus, you get an extra half a mile uphill. What happened to the guy who volunteered to let there be parking his property? He changed his tone. Yeah, and where he was talking about allowing us to create that parking and turn around really was an advantageous for us. But I think there's some potential for long range. And in that last meeting, I'll just briefly touch on it that that we had with the state there enthused about creating a different parking area in the future up above that would in a joint parking area with us that would happen sometime in the future. But we don't know. Well, there's all money problems. That would likely involve upgrading the road, whether we would actually make it a class three road or whether we would just improve, probably more likely we would just improve the class four road to make it viable to drive up there. Yeah. But all that stuff is down the road. What we're doing is trying to make the situation better and spend a little money and a little time. Yeah. Great. OK. So I might still continue here because I don't think we're going to hear from Paul. We had that the form, town highway form. Overall, it was a good meeting. There was a lot that came out of it. Paul was going to talk about a bunch of the items. And he took that very serious and he thought that was a good meeting. We had a lot of suggestions about different things. I won't go into all of the particulars, but I will say one thing on my part, one of the suggestions that came out, and that was actually a bit choir, said they thought that I should maybe at our select board meetings give a brief update of what the town highway crew is doing or what they're doing over the next two weeks or what they have been doing. And I thought that was a good idea. So I'm just going to briefly touch on that. And I'm going to let Paul respond to these other items. And that'll probably get a future date. So anyway, right now, the town crew is still working up at our pit. We've been doing some clearing, trying to get ready for somebody to come in there and screen sand. I met with Fred McCullough up there today. Peter was up there so that he could come in. And we talked about how we'd go about doing the stuff. So we're working in the pit up there still to try to get that ready for that screening process. And before we leave the pit, we had planned on doing that little parking area and then going up and doing the parking area for the state, expanding that one. So that's where we're going to be over the next week, roughly. We are going to be getting some chloride in. And we're going to be, that grader is going to have to go out there. But until we get our chloride in, we just can't grade the roads. They'd be just nothing but dust. But we do have a load of chloride coming in. And as soon as we get that in, we'll be grading roads and chloride. So, Steve, do we get reimbursed by the state for fixing up that wildlife area parking? No. We're just doing it because. Yes, because I don't, I mean, it's hard to tell who is using that parking area. But since we have our town forest up there, the use of that parking area has increased and increased and increased and people are walking up there. So it's probably more from our use than the wildlife management. And the other thing we use it for is it's our snowplow turnaround. Yes. So in the wintertime, if there are winter hikers up there and they're parking in there, it creates a problem because the truck can't turn around, essentially. May I ask a question? Sorry. Go ahead. Steve, when you say you're screening sand, I want to put in the minutes why you're screening sand. Because we use about 5,000 yards at a minimum of sand that we buy every year. OK. So we're getting this out of the pit rather than buying it. OK. For the roads in the winter? For the roads for the winter, yes. Where do you store it? We will store the sand over at our town garage, like normal. We may have a small stockpile left there at the pit also, but we plan on taking what we use normally over to the town garage. So instead of incurring the cost to, where did we get the sand last year, Steve? Barrens. Right. And how far is Barrens from our town garage? Oh, I'll do it in truck time, because that's what we pay for. It's about an hour and 15 to an hour, 20 minute roundtrip. So it's going to be what? 20 or 25 minutes, half an hour from our pit to the town garage? Roughly, yes. Half hour roundtrip. So that's a big savings. Plus, we won't be paying for the material. We have the material. We have the material. So we're going to get 1,000 yards from, you think, from the pit? Pardon? You'll get all of the 5,000 yards we need from the pit. Yes, that's our intention. And I think that's reasonable. I think we can get more than that. But that's what we need for one year's supply. Great. Thank you. I just didn't know what you were doing there. OK. So you were talking, Steve, about the June 6th meeting that you and Paul had with the public. Weren't you? Had I jumped ahead? What about it? Was there anything else you wanted to add about that? No, Paul had written up some stuff and some stuff that came out of the meeting. Like I said, overall it was a very positive meeting. It didn't go exactly as we had planned, but that doesn't matter. It still came out a very positive meeting. There was about 15 people there altogether, Count Paul and I. So it was a good meeting. And like I said, Paul had a few of the items that were there and he was going to address those. He's got his notes for that. So I'm not going to jump into that. I will just try to keep the sled board apprised of where we're headed and what we're doing. And I think that big suggestion was pretty good. So I'll try to do that. And if you have questions. Sarah, if you would make it our practice to make a regular agenda item, highway update or some such thing, that would be great. I think it's great. We'll just have Treasures Update. We'll have Highway Updates. Great idea. Yeah. Perfect. But Steve, what was Vic's idea that you said was a good idea? Well, we were talking about that. Well, we're just, what we're talking about. I guess that we have an update every week. Yes, exactly. As a regular part of our meeting. Yeah. All right. I like it too. OK. Dorenda, you're all warmed up and ready to go. Where is she? You better unmute yourself first. So we've got a small pile of stuff here. I'll start with the RB Technology Bill that I sent you guys today. Yep. Yeah. I'm not really comfortable signing off on this because I think there was several concerns in going through this. Sarah went through it and kind of made she was concerned about I made notes on a couple of things here that I just think that this is a lot of money for what was actually done and the time put into it. I mean, we're at $13,000 in our computer budget. And without actually breaking out the support services, I know just what we pay monthly is $700 a month for support services. And yet we turn around and get billed for quite a bit of stuff as well. So with your approval, it'll get paid. But I just think it's something you guys should be looking at and see what all the work was that was done. I will say the accounting computer is still not 100%. The printers didn't work when it was first installed. When we tried to install the printers, we couldn't get access to the server to install the printers. They should never have walked away from the office without knowing if the computers worked. So she sat there and didn't run check. Then when we finally got Holland to dial in on this, he couldn't even get access to the admin portion and had to reset all the passwords. And it's just a concern, I think. So, Phil, my understanding is that the bookkeeping computer is up and going now, correct? As far as I know, I don't know. He's still missing all of her. She can't have no Google Sheets or anything like that to do any of her spreadsheets. I think there was a part where there was no key to install that or something like that. And then she decided she was uncomfortable installing it. She's uncomfortable because of everything that happens that she doesn't want to be held responsible because there's been so many issues with the computer. I mean, every morning we were getting a backup issue. We finally got that resolved. But it never calls to get this all done. But did the backup issue have anything to do with the new computer installation? They said partially. Partially, OK. Then what were the other parts that were holding up the backup? I guess the other part of it had something to do with the computer system moving upstairs, which was something that we're being billed for through RV technology for their insight on how to do it. OK. I'll come down and install the key. I just heard from Amy today that she actually entered it and then took it out. So I don't know. But I'm perfectly comfortable setting it up. I was looking through this invoice, and I agree with you. There's some things that seem a little bit iffy, especially the stuff around moving upstairs. But the hang on, I'm trying to go through the invoice on my phone while I'm on this call. So the invoice actually netted out at $146. Right. But they used up all of the monthly services we've been accruing. So that means that now we have no bank of support services. But all I'm saying is that's the whole concept of this is when we have something big, we use it up, then we build it up again. I get that. But I think there's things like, I mean, there was an initial call about an inquiry about we had received something from our bank saying that if we had a certain kind of firewall or something like that, that we would not have access to the bank. I contacted them on it. They came back and said, oh, I think you'll be all right. But it was no security there. So I contacted Paul up still. He said that the new computer was going to be installed. Just me contacting Holland to ask him if that was true. When was this going to be installed? He then charged $32.50 just to answer me back to tell me when it was going to be installed. Those are the kind of bills that we should be incurring. I think Paul asked a question, $32.50? They did back out two and a half hours of time. So I'm wondering if that's what they went through and looked at stuff like that and why they backed out those two and a half hours and put them in as proud as Pro Bono. I guess what this brings up to me is if it's going to be, and I don't know what the right way to do this is, whether Phil should review these bills and then approve them for Derrinda to pay or whether we should have Derrinda wrangle with RB, it's a tough situation. But we need to have one point of contact. The I got into it with them a little when what we originally were scheduled, I think, for a Thursday to do that installation. And Holland actually called me and started going through the stuff and expected me to go down to the town office and set up all the computer and install remote software so they could work remotely. And I had to admit, I got pretty angry about who was being tech support and who was getting paid for it. So I basically put a halt to everything for that day. Basically said, I'm not doing this. This is your job. I am not doing this. You guys need to make a decision. You make it right now as to whether or not you want to be tech support. Then Jared called me back and I was still pretty hot because it took them over an hour to decide whether or not they wanted to continue to do that, which kind of amazed me. They must have actually sat around and talked about it for a while. Jared called back. We had a good discussion. He did a lot of throwing himself under the bus. But also trying to make excuses about, well, we're not going on site. I said, well, I'm sorry. That's what you can do to actually call up a select board member and say, will you get down and set up this computer and install all this remote software so that I can charge you to set it up. It seemed kind of ludicrous to me. We finally did get to the point where he did show up on the front end and did the installation. But you're right, Jared, if there's stuff that's not right, that's a concern. So we do need to address that in some way, shape, or form. Peter and I've had ongoing discussions about this stuff from time to time. And I don't think either of us has a really good answer right now, but we're also in a, we're kind of squeezed a bit right now. Wilson, where's Angel? The Windows 8 stuff, I mean, right down to past due, essentially. We had a plan. COVID-19 happened. It messed us up. We've also had to spend a lot of money to dig ourselves out of that hole of having some very old operating systems that should have been replaced in the long run. And I don't know whether, you know, probably they should have been making recommendations about that stuff a while ago. I don't recall anything since I've been on the board, but probably along their somewhere, taking positions is you've got to upgrade these machines. So we're in that process now. Unfortunately, it's just not going very smoothly. The public computers here, Paul is going to come in Friday and he's going to set that up. That should be up and running. And I'll have to talk to him while he's there to make sure. And then if he's there, if you or Amy can give me a list of issues that remain on that treasurer's computer, I can make sure he addresses those while he's there. Well, I think both have been done now except for the fact of her not having access to these Google Sheets. But my point was when they did the installation, the first thing you think of, you have to print, you know, they walked away and the printer wasn't working. Right. See, that was, we shouldn't have had to call them back and sit there and wait for them to respond to our ticket. And, you know, she sat there and couldn't print it. Right. Right. I mean, I looked over Holland's notes and he, you know, he said that Amy said she would install the printers. Unfortunately, he accepted that as an answer. He shouldn't have. He should have said, no, sorry, I'm here. I'm installing the printers. That's my job. You know, I'm going to do it. But he went with, you know, what she was saying. How much just just backing up a little bit and, you know, hey, we all supported this. We all thought we were doing the right thing at the time. And Phil, I appreciate all very much all the time and energy you put into this. But, you know, I I unfortunately think that part of this problem is when we went out of the loop and purchased these computers on our own. And I know we saved some money doing that. But my experience all the years with computers is when you've got a support group working for you, you let them acquire the computers. They set them up, they install them, and they're 100 percent accountable for it. And if they screw it up, then you fire them. I don't know. I mean, if we're going to keep doing business with with R.B., we certainly have to have some kind of a come to Jesus meeting. But I think I think that balance. And I know there was, you know, it's annoying when you come in and you can't print. It's very annoying when you come in and you can't log into your computer. But the fact is, I think our new financial arrangement is working. The fact that we were able to bank enough hours that it took care of all that. And yeah, we can we can argue about an hour here and an hour there. But I don't think that's a productive use of our time. Really, what we want to have is a reliable working up to date computer network. And we've I agree. We've we've suffered because we didn't we didn't update soon enough and fast enough. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. The. The Lister's computer, as far as I understand it, is set up and ready to go. But waiting for Amy to give us the go ahead, because she didn't want to do it until she watched the Grand List, I think was my understanding. Is that they were concerned that they didn't want to. It was such a timing. They didn't want to upset anything anywhere and lose any kind of data or not have access to the data. Yeah, that makes makes perfect sense when you've got some mission critical stuff. So that whenever she's ready to go, that should be able to be done. She also wanted us to hold off on the firewall update because they had sent a ticket on that. And so sure, we'll put that on hold till that I mean, there's some other stuff here. Just quickly. The. This is my train of thought. The wireless access point, they we got a message from Holland, I guess, saying that that is that end of life that needs to be replaced. I asked them for quote, they came in around 150. And then I asked them for what it was because I wanted to see the specs. And I think it's a ubiquity, which is a good, you know, commercial level. Access point. That's probably something we should go ahead and do. Is that for them to have access? As far as to have wireless access in the office, a wireless access. OK, OK, the Paul's computer is is another another situation. I mean, he's been a trooper moving over to the Chromebook and he's he's really starting to get the hang of it. In the midst of that, or kind of at the end of it, the computer just gave up the ghost and. It was funny because we had gone back and forth and asked me to go up and look at it as we don't in my mind. I'm driving up there to say, well, push the start button, you know. And no, no, it died. So I had got I got I think most of his. Now, off the old computer, I know I did not get his email archive files because they they're in a different place and they just didn't come over. So with with that, I think. We're going to need to pull the hard drive out of that old computer. Take it someplace like Staples, where they will just clone it and give us a copy on DVDs or something like that so that I can go through with Paul, we can make sure we've got all of his stuff because he does need some of that email archive. That's not that simple, is it? The printer he has is the old school type that has to be connected to the computer. He's now with the Chromebook needs something wireless. Printers are not terribly expensive. I think I can find something at Staples that'll give him what he needs. And we've chatted about that. So, you know, we've got a few other expenses there. And then I think once we get past that, Dorenda, we still have your laptop to set up. And I think you and Amy, we're going to share that. But we're not completely out of the woods yet. And you're right. I think Peter, you said, you know, come to Jesus moment. We probably need to have that. Liz, did you have a question for me? Well, not really a question. I just wanted to add that I did have a conversation with Ruben Bennett. And Bill, I'm sorry I never called you back. I got sidetracked with all this work stuff and I totally forgot. Anyway, he had just been, you know, he reached out because he felt like he would like to come to a select board meeting and have a meeting, you know, a regular public meeting, not something offline and just, you know, have this opportunity to have, you know, a deeper discussion about, you know, our expectations with having them as our tech group and, you know, maybe some places where we feel like we either haven't been getting enough support or, you know, and allowing them to give us, you know, feedback on where it's been maybe challenging, you know, working with us in terms of, you know, having sort of too many techs in the kitchen kind of thing. Yeah. So anyway, Ruben is basically at our disposal. He'll come to a meeting if we want to put him on the agenda. Good. I think we should. Any other tech questions that I probably can't answer anyway, but. The email is coming, right? Yeah. Once everything else gets done, that'll be the frosting on the cake. So what I and Phil, I really appreciate all the work you've done and the time you've spent. I can't even imagine, but we need to be paying these guys to do this. Yeah. I mean, you know, we we save some money. I hope we save some money. I think we're driving you crazy, which we don't mean to do. And I don't think it's fair for you to be in the middle of this. I think we we say to them, look, boys, you do it until you screw up and we expect you to give us good prices and good service and, you know, if you can do that, that's great. If you can't, then we need to find somebody else. Yeah. Yeah, but I but I think having us get and I mean, I've made this mistake in my in my past life, getting way too involved in these kind of things myself. And in the end, it's it's it's a problem. Yeah, definitely. So that's my that's my recommendation. I think the idea of having him come to a to a board meeting first. And yes, you know, maybe we need maybe we need a few more hours. I don't know. But the fact that we came out within one hundred and forty six dollars or whatever it is on this deal, I think is pretty good because it's a lot of stuff and we're not quite there yet. I know that. Right. Anything else, anybody? All right. That's permission to pay. OK. Yeah. Either is because it's not on the it's not on the order. Right. No, it's not on the order. Yeah, no, but I'll get it in there for the next. I'll get it in there for the next one. OK. OK. The next before we move on. Did you I forwarded you the invoice from Dell for the public computer? Yes, that is in the portables, I think, and I. Excellent. Um, the next one is I sent you some emails regarding the fire department. And we just got another one. So yeah, yeah, another little surprise. Um, so I don't know if I have to hash it out with you or not. But I was questioning why the town paid for the thermal imaging camera when we had been told in December that was something the department was going to pay for. So I reached out to March and asked if this was an oversight or something. And so that was the email I got back. Again, my question is two fold. It's technically the purchases of equipment is over budget. They sent up an invoice that they want paid in this current year for some breathing cylinder for the SCBA that is won't be here for 10 weeks. Um, but they want to pay for it out of the budget that's ending in two weeks. And then we got that new email tonight for an expected $4,000 bill. So before the before the $4,000 with the with the tanks and the contribution of the camera, overall, they would still be below their budget. They would be overspent on their equipment account, but they would be low their total projected budget, correct? Right. So in the financials that you've got tonight, it doesn't include these cylinders, which they did purchase two cylinders back in December and we paid for them in January. So they have already purchased two of them so far in this year. And now they're asking for these others to and then um, so that the second one, though, is not these last two are not in the financials. So they have seven thousand and some dollars left in their budget for the remainder of the year. But they've got a four thousand dollar engine repair coming and then this $1,500 for those cylinders, but they would still be below their total. I don't like that. Don't get me wrong. I don't like the idea of paying for something ten weeks in advance before we even get it just so they can use up the money in their budget. But I was not like what Dorenda said, this was not even like, this is their own petty cash checking account. So we'd not have access to that. Isn't that something different? We don't have access to their their accounts. And I thought that camera was coming from their own money, not from the not from their budget. Down payment and build us for the balance. I mean, the rentals bill, seven thousand dollar camera for one. We never agreed to it. We never just just to be clear, guys. And no, I think we are changing the changing the way we operate. But in the past, what I mean, Marge is correct. In the past, what we've told them is, you know, do the best job you can to estimate your expenses and then come out within your budget. But we don't care that much if you're over on one line item and under on the other line item. And that's that's her point of view. We don't want her to do that if we want to hold their feet to the fire and say, if you have three thousand dollars in your equipment budget, that's all you get. That's a different way of operating that we've been operating. So I, you know, the problem is it's just like the highway budget. It's absolutely impossible to project what the equipment repairs are going to be. The equipment purchases for new equipment. Yes, they should be able to project that. But, you know, when the when the turbo charger goes on the on the fire truck, guess what? You got to replace it and you got to find the money somewhere. So I mean, this this to me all gets back to the whole issue of the fire department and how we operate with them and everything else. But I don't think this is the time to say no, we expect you to live within each individual line item. I think we say and we can decide whether we want to pay ten weeks ahead for those air cylinders. I don't like that very much. But the bottom line is, it looks to me like this is what I was looking at this afternoon that with that with that truck repair and with the camera purchase, they're still under their total budget. OK, but so I am, you know, I I'm sorry. I get so confused about fiscal years because I deal with two fiscal years. And ours is July one, right? This is for the next so they're spending. Yeah, OK, that makes sense. And this is not on typical of what they've done in the past. They hold on to their money and then in the quarter of the year they spend it. Yeah, that's fine. OK, I'm sorry. I got confused. Oh, that's OK. Is so they're I know the whole thing. A noise, Dorinda, and I don't and I don't blame her. But I think Marge is trying to be straight with us. And it's not an annoyance. It's just I don't feel my job as treasurer is to bring these things to your attention when they're over budget or not what we're expecting. And that's why I'm just asking you if it's OK to follow through it. I got my money. Well, and I will say that as someone who who trained with the fire department on that one day where I had to crawl in a smoke filled building, you can't see anything literally. And so these cameras are apparently supposed to help find people, right? Like find bodies. So I think that it's I'm glad we have one. I just want to go back to the air cylinders again. So they they're buying them and they're basically prepaying for them. They won't take delivery until in the next fiscal year. Right. They'll take them after they said that they're 10 weeks out or something like that. Are these the fancy air cylinders or are these to read to just fill up the regular those backpacks that they have now? Remember how they want to get those new ones that are super expensive? No, these are the. OK. For PSI air. OK, I thought we had told them they couldn't get the air. No, those are the fancy ones. Yeah, that was the turnout gear or something like that. But those are the stock packs or something like that that are really expensive. They're like 15 grand each or something like that. So and then we the camera thing, we're going to let the camera thing go, even though they said they pay for it themselves. Well, they are paying for some of it. Well, I thought they said they pay for the whole thing themselves. Maybe they spent the money on something else. Yeah, OK, so the. The problem is, Mary, they they manage their budget. You know, and they make they make decisions about how they spend the money and they don't consult with us. And if we want them to consult with us, we have to devise some kind of a system where they're going to report to us before they do this stuff. That's another subject. That's another. So that's a that's a long discussion that we keep coming back to. It's not like I want to be careful, I would say this. It's not like the money is being disappearing. It's not like they're spending it on, you know, training sessions in the South Seas. I don't doubt for a minute, this is stuff they need and they should have. Um, it's just, you know, it's our money and they spend it and I know that's annoying. Well, I think it comes down to, you know, what we've talked about before. It makes for a very difficult relationship when you have a crucial service in town being run by a nonprofit corporation. Right, right. Instead of the being governmental and they're not accountable to us. Right. Well, they're accountable, but only in the only in the big picture where we cut off their funding. Right. You know, and I saw those, all those stipends. I've never liked those stipends either. I don't get a stipend. I don't like the stipends either. Never did. Why don't I do something? Let's table this. Let's table this for tonight. I mean, I think we've got what we've got to render unless anybody disagrees and I appreciate you bringing to our attention. And the question the question I have is, so what do we have? What do we have left to pay between now and the end of the year? We have what? One more payroll. We have one more payroll. We probably will have power bills that will affect all of the part and telephone bills that will affect all of the part and any kind of fuel, anything like that. Anything that has a joint date on it will get approved back even if we need to fill out the July one. Well, we're going to be, we're going to be in the hall. It's a little hard to tell how much, but clearly we're going to be in the hall, but it's not going to be, not going to be horrible. I don't think, especially considering we had that $62,000 run-anticipated truck repair. So, you know, how did we do with tax payments? We did okay. There was, there was a big number left at the end. Let's see. Darinda, I can't hear you. Yeah, I'm looking at my paperwork. I don't have the number readily available, but it was a significant number. Some of it was just people oversight that it wasn't because they chose not to pay it. Some of it was, oops, I missed it. But we do have a significant number out there left to collect. But you still have to collect. Yeah. And have they been in touch with you, like saying, I can't afford to because I lost my job? Or, or did they just? I'm no longer the doing quintax collector. That's true. You're not about that. Well, what she says is that. I do talk with Dave Smith about it. And he did send out a letter along with the late notices. I don't think he's gotten a lot of feedback. I do know that some people called in and said, oops. Um, but I haven't gotten into the actual detail. Maybe Sarah knows more. We got a we got a whole bunch of I got a whole bunch of calls last week, followed by payments on Monday. We never get we never get any mail on Tuesday, but they were all people who they mean they had their pink slips in the letter. So obviously people are paying my my knowledge. We have not received any calls from people saying I can't pay my taxes. It's a hardship because what I would suggest to if someone does call, you know, we still have, you know, I want to it's not a lot of money, but it's like 4,000 or 5,000 left in our middle sex fund that we're giving out $200 grants to people. And, you know, we have given out quite a few, like 25, I would say. So you're talking about capstone or you're talking about town money? No, I'm talking about the town, the middle sex, that little pot of money that we have. We've given out grants to folks. It's not a lot, $200, but you know, it could be that that's going to help them pay for groceries so they can pay for taxes. So if someone does call to say, I'm having trouble paying my taxes, you should you should let them know about the this the it's really the food shelf money that we have. That was my concern. My grant was whether or not you were talking about actually town funds. No, no, no, just as the middle sex food shelf money. That we're granting out donations. That's from private donations. Yeah, yeah. And we're just giving out, you know, checks, no questions asked for people that need it. So, you know, some people have been, most people have heard about it on front porch form or have been referred to it. But some people might not know that it exists and it may be very useful to them. You did there wasn't an announcement about a month ago, wasn't there? A couple of announcements on front porch form. Yes, Dave Karki, who's managing the the grant distribution. Anything else, Brenda? Oh, I think that took care of my file. Thank you very much. So we have. Just taking it in order here, approval of the May 19 minutes. Either my kids are back and I don't need you don't need my vote on any of these things. So I think I'm going to get off. And my computer is only down to nine percent anyway. OK, Mary, thank you. Bye, Mary. Have fun with your kids. Thank you. Motion on the minutes. Yeah, I'll make a move. I'll second Steve's motion. All in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Aye. OK, we've approved the minutes. Wait, there are two sex, two sets of the minutes, my May 19th and May 21st. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you want to just everybody was there for both? Do you just want to say we approve both of them? Yeah. Thank you. And everybody's favorite subject, the Washington County Sheriff's Contract for the upcoming year. Yeah, I feel like this is Groundhog Day. Everybody see that movie? Yeah. Here we are again. We haven't gone anywhere. Nothing's changed. They don't give up their money and we're right back at it again. And we have no price. And guess what? The Sheriff's Department is more behind and has more work and more stuff to do, and it's only going to be worse. So I saw them during covid like outside Romney. I'm like, nobody's driving. What what are you doing? It, you know, it is what it is, guys. I don't know. I mean, we hear from people that they want speed enforcement. We try and hold their feet to the fire. But they can only do what they can do. And we're not the top priority, needless to say. So it's fine. I proved it. Yeah. Well, wait a minute. You're going to motion. OK, I move that we approve the the Sheriff's plan for next year. Contract, contract, contract. I'm just going to throw in the seventy five hundred dollars and do the math. OK. Yep. OK. Is there a second? Second. OK, all in favor? Aye. Aye. OK. Steve, did you second that? I did. Don't hold it. Do I have your permission to sign on the board's behalf? I will get this docusign thing undone. But yes, OK. Yeah. Yeah, that's a pretty cool little program. Yeah, I just don't know how to take things like that and put it into, you know, how to transfer paper, but I'll figure it out. Hey, I've been signing so much stuff. God only knows what I've done. I probably bought a few missiles and maybe a nuclear power plant or two. I don't know. Probably. Who knows? So what do we think? What do we think? What do we think about starting real meetings again a little soon, a little early? Governor hasn't looked at that restriction. I don't think that's wise idea. No other town is doing that. I am not comfortable. I am a type A blood and I'm at risk of dying. Me too. Thank you. OK. OK. Zoom around where it is then. I agree. I want to be safe. I mean, we could have, we could plan to have a meeting outside, I suppose, but that sounds a little crazy. This actually does work. Yep. Could I say something? As a citizen, it's really easy to participate in meetings when they're on Zoom. Yeah. I agree. We have so many more people coming to our meetings than ever. It's fantastic. It's really good. No, I know. That's definitely been the highlight of this. And I mean, it must be we're unfriendly when people come down to the town hall. I don't know. They don't seem to come. They like to Zoom with us. No, you guys are always friendly. It's just there's just like a barrier to like driving in and going into like a formal meeting. And it feels like a little nerve wracking and like to be on Zoom is just like it's just much easier to listen and participate. So we're very appreciative. Good. Oh, I appreciate that. I really do. And we like, we like having people here. So. Well, and even if we do move to, you know, going back to meetings, we can always have it still be Zoom. Like you can have a computer and people could Zoom in if they want to. Exactly. That's a really good point. Yeah. I mean, that's what I was going to suggest that we make this a practice. And then, and then guess what? If a board member's out of town, like I've been known to do sometimes they can Zoom in too. So. And right. Yeah. No, I think I think it's all good. I think it's all good. Well, I'm off. I'm off to my my cocktails with the motorcycle boys. Important, important business. So I am ready to including, including, we were going to invite Sarah to our motorcycle meeting, but we decided we wanted her to get a little more practice on her scooter first. Did you get your pink helmet? All I could get was a black helmet with pink pink waves on it. Is it just a metal blue helmet? Is it a moped, Sarah? Or what is it? It's 49.7 cc. So it's I don't need a license. I'm just a hazard. OK. I'm just a hazard. Is it fine? It's a little, Molly Supel is a little scary, but what's really going to be scary is when they grade the roads. That's going to be totally fine. You're going to go really slowly. That's for a few days when they grade the roads. You look like you are having a good time anyway, Sarah. It's my big trip to your house, Steve. Thank you very much. Sarah's day out. OK, guys, I'm going to adjourn the meeting. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Thank you, guests. OK. Bye. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye. Yeah. Bye. Bye.