 I'll call the meeting to order. It's the Moortown Slick Board. It is Monday, October 7th. We have a full board and there are people here. I hope everyone, if you have an opportunity, or if you haven't yet, if you could please sign in. You can pass that around. So we're gonna open with a general public comment. So let's go ahead and start. I'm not sure who was here first, but the lady in the red sweater. Miss, are you here for? No, I need to talk about the library. Okay, so Peter, are you here for? No, I'm not here for the library. All right, why don't we start with you? Okay. So I actually, actually quickly, I know a lot of the students here from the library, I always tend to say that, but I would like to put my voice in there, but I don't know if all of you know this, but I am actually a librarian in my day job, and I think that the upstairs of the town hall sounds like a great location for the library, especially as temporary fix, as the one I read from the documents, as planning goes on, and it's further researched and all that. I think that sounds like a great plan for this winter, at least if not part of, so I just want to get that out there. The other thing I want to talk about, I used to talk about with you, surprise for us is the ongoing massifications of the each of us, the school board. One, I'd like to thank all of you for following through after many citizens talked in the spring and writing a very powerful and important letter to the board. I think that all of you sharing concerns lends instant credibility to the conversation. It's not just a few so-called angry people or whatever you want to say, it's really great that John spoke up at a couple of meetings, my wife and I were just sending out how great that was for Karim to share his well-being experience and how much we appreciate it. So thank you for that. I then wanted to talk about how, I'm obviously worried about the idea of closure, and while I think that, I guess I should say I'm cautiously optimistic that we can convince them that Moortown is a thriving school because it is, and we're working really hard to help you realize that, and I'm still really worried about the face of this play. But as far as specifically Moortown is concerned, I really saw a view, is that I'm really worried that some sort of so-called compromise is seemingly popular amongst the board that would do any number of things to Moortown past degrees, like pre-cake, inter-garden, first and second graders. Ideas of potentially sending three plus somewhere, five, six to cross at Brook, and so I worry about that for two reasons. The first and the biggest reason is that I think that fifth and sixth graders still deserve the right to attend a public school in their hometown if they want to. I think that their leaders in the school, I think that would really be a disturbance to everyone in the school that those fifth and sixth graders elsewhere. And I think that fifth graders are still very young to be riding on buses all the way, I think that there's some difference. In some instances, I didn't know if I was a visitor, but I'll point out to you on the map that we have a really interesting, but as you know, we have a really interesting geography to our town. Our roads kind of hug the corners of this diamond here. And for example, this is where I live right there in this last property way down here in this corner. And so to get to cross at Brook for a fifth grader would be 18.8 miles. And I don't even want to try to calculate what that would be on a school bus because I know that from this bus stop here at the corner of McGivans Road, it's already 40 plus minutes. It's just to work on elementary school. So I just think that that's something to really consider. Obviously, we have all these folks that live on Harry and Brook, Jones Brook, Lynch Hill. I just think our geography does not lend itself to young elementary students busing all over the large regional district and so on. That's all. I just want to thank you. I wanted to just bring out that concern that while I am cautiously optimistic that people are forgetting our narrative that we're kind of thriving because it is. I'm worried about some sort of compromise coming into the last minute and really, I don't think it is a compromise. And so we might stay diligent. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. I appreciate your efforts as well. Pardon me. In your letters and time you've put in the board as well. I know John and I and maybe other board members did not see you attended last Wednesdays. Meeting up at the high school. And John and I discussed it a little bit last night. So coming out of that, I guess we need a lot of questions answered as well. So we're seeking a meeting with the chair of the board to see if we can at least agree on this. Just to see really where she is at and more to some of the other criteria that they're gonna consider when they're making these decisions at that meeting. So they would be making that decision fairly quickly. Kristen, right next to you can confirm or deny that. So we feel that there's a lot of things that were left out of that presentation that really need to be considered before one makes those decisions. And reading the valid report of this past week I saw a lot of we're gonna make these decisions based on the financial parameters. And all right, if we're going to do that then we need to make sure that we have all the information that's available. You can see everything that's out there. And I don't think that's been done yet. So we're going to try to see if we can't maybe persuade the board chair to look at some of those things. And I might add it's really important not just with the chair but for each and every board member to reach out one-on-one to the board members. I think they need education. I mean this is a big process. Budgeting is a huge process. And when you're throwing in a big, big expenditure like this with really no direction at all it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of education and it takes experience which we don't have on that board. Yeah, I asked one of my last letters with the word I asked them. The question they did, meaning that it has no slight to the superintendent saying that if you were going to undertake a multi-million dollar bond and asking them about their own job or a multi-million dollar project would they just ask one employee to kind of do everything by themselves? Or would they do a much more extensive inquiry? And I'd be kind of asking them an rhetorical question and hoping they would reach the answer to that. Of course they would do a more extensive inquiry and they wouldn't just have one person be the decider or anything no matter how skilled and knowledgeable that person may be. So it's just interesting to me that some of the board members don't seem to grasp what I think is a common sense of point. No, I think you're making a very good point there. Kristen, were you here for public comment? I was just here to be here in case... Anyone had any questions on the schools? Anyone have any questions for Kristen? We could take a moment. I'm also here for the library but I also have one other comment before that. All right, go ahead. So I wanted to follow up on our meaning that we had about the bridge being under construction next June. June to August, right? And the use of what's gonna happen. The pony farm road usage. So as I understand from that meeting the state does fund some of the work and some of the stuff that's gonna have to take place on that road. So I would like to suggest in conjunction with Watesfield that we not only just have signs there that say what the speed limit is that we perhaps come up with a sign that asks people like, hey, you're driving down a road with his walkers and dogs and bicyclists and also joggers, everything. If you go on that road, you see tons of people every day. And just a sign saying, hey people, come on, beware, drive with care or slow down. Watch for all these users. Something like that more than the average, just slow down sign. It might help at either end of that. Yeah. Of that, because that road's gonna be nuts. Yeah, I think that's any suggestions that we can look at them all and try to figure out. I think sometimes those work as well as other speed traps or other speed things like that. I mean, people really making people aware of it. I think a lot of times it's just making people aware. Yeah, to be courteous. Yeah. Could we stand up? There were the library scanner as if we're doing that. You know, it's funny. I used to drive through Plainfield, Vermont quite a bit. There was a guy that would do that. They would stand out in the middle and he had, I don't know what the hell it was, but it was something you always, I mean, everyone in the front of the, you know, so it worked. So everyone tries it. So, Corey, any time. All right, so anyone else for any public comments? Ray, are you here for public comment or just? Well, I did that a little bit. Go ahead. I'm here for something else later. What is, did we find out who the flatbed or the low point that brought up the sidewalk going up the mountain road? No, we did not. I had Sasha checked into, who was it, was it Northfield? Cause we thought it was someone that was doing work over there and they said they didn't have people doing the work so we don't. It went up over again today, pardon me? That same truck went up the mountain road this afternoon. But I was going the wrong way so I didn't find out who it was. Well, if you do find out who it is, let us know. And then Wendell thought he knew who it was and I looked into it and then there was no evidence there that it was that group. Was it a dump truck? What did you see here? A big low bed or? A big low bed and it had a compact or a big compact. And then the other day I thought it was a head wheeler went up or it had the other set of tires in the front and I think it had a load of black top. So maybe you don't have to Sasha, I want you to give Northfield a call again and see if there's anything else going on there. Cause they can't come through the bridges on the other side so that's why I'm thinking it's gotta be maybe something's worth there doing on the side of Ray maybe you could take a ride that way. Well, I was up through there last week and I know that Northfield was painting from the covered bridges up to the town line last week. Pipe was painting. Was it a yellow truck? No. Was it Wendell? I did think it was Pipe. It was Pipe. It wasn't Pipe doing the painting last week up there in the lower town mountain. She puts up with anyone else working with Wendell. Anyone else for general public comment? All right, so none will move on. So we have the library trustees. This one will move up, trustees. It seems like a game show, you know, like it's not going to scoot up the bed. Let me tell you. Thank you, everyone, for signing in. Thank you for doing it. You're welcome. Oh, maybe not. As we know, we can re-grow this thing. I just don't know who it is in the room, so. I left Elga's thing on the shelf. All right, so you guys were going to come back. You had some other proposals, I guess, or you're Elga was looking at building a plot for us. Was that right? So I have a sort of three scenario option sheet that we could go over first, or I don't know what we want to do first. Sounds good. So I've only cut out four copies, so. Do you guys can look on for. This is what we came up with at our last library meeting. It was our special meeting. Uh, do you guys want me to speak to it? There's a shelving that refers to low bookcases upstairs from the current library. So we had a chance to connect with the Historical Society and they would be willing to loan those low bookshelves that are upstairs right now that currently don't have a lot on them. There's one other bookcase to the right of the windows that they also said would be available to us. So let's just start that again. Libraries use only the main floor of the town hall for the shelves and programming. The best entrance for the scenario is the main door on the Route 100B side. Scenario two, shelving only along the perimeter of the main town hall floor, children's collection and toys on the stage and programming in the basement. Either the main door or the side entrance could be used for the scenario. Scenario three, all shelving on the stage, including the adult and children's collection with programming happening in the basement. The side door entrance would be best for this scenario. Some programming ideas that we have that would be coming out possibly even in the very near future would be intergenerational pumpkin carving. There is the simple supper that is coming up and it's gonna be there. We had to reschedule it, but it'll be October 27th. Senior lunch with Canesta. I didn't know it would be Canesta in there. Dungeons and Dragons. Super Bowl Sunday, as in soup, as in soup. Not as in soup, but a chili cook-off, Mrs. Claus, and read and chat programs. So that could be some of the programming that could happen in the basement. And. Thank you, Mrs. Claus. You're welcome. Shh, that's a secret, John. Nobody knows who she really is. We have a lot of information about why we are concerned about putting books into the basement. Elizabeth has some information on mold and she can present. Cory has some information from Stowe Library that's had to re... They've had to replace their collection recently due to a fire. Not flood, but just. No, it was water. It was water. Oh, it was water. It was from the fire. Oh, right. And then there was a fire. They actually had two things happen. Okay, I thought it was just the fire. So Cory has some information on the consequences of that before they keep dropping things. So we can get Elliga's board out if you wanted to look at scenario one, two, or three with the, you know, the real nice, the nice, I guess. It's helpful to you to have a visual. So we could start with any of those. So we have any questions? Well, we had requested a scenario with everything in the basement. You did. And we looked at it and we looked at the mold possibilities and we felt that it would be irresponsible as a library board to even spend any time on that. And we'd be happy to share that information with you. So I put together some facts on mold because it felt a little like a gut instinct for us to say no books in the basement. So we thought it would be helpful to give you some numbers and some facts on some things. So the ideal environment for libraries and archives, and you guys probably know some of this with the vault here, is a little bit different from combined stack and user areas. But in either scenario, you want your relative humidity in the 30s or 40s. And we have been unofficially monitoring the humidity in the basement because we were curious. And it has been in the 50 to 60% range. So that's above what the recommendations are. And I was also really interested to learn that mold growth can start within 48 to 72 hours of less than ideal conditions. So the cooler it is and the more humid it is, the more risk we're facing of mold development in the collection. And it has impacts both on humans and I've listed some here. I think the illness and death is probably a little bit dramatic. But we're talking about people with weak immune systems and if we were to have reading play down there, we've got babies. Cory just had reading play last week with you and me. We've seen tiny, eight babies. She's very cute. And so we wouldn't want to risk our patrons or our materials because mold can weaken and stain the pages of the books. So those are the concerns that we have about it. Putting the entire library in the basement. Or even part of it because the molds could then go back to the library when we move back in the spring and then it can spread. And so the current value of our total collection right now is about $118,564 based on a report that I ran in our cataloging system. I know there's been discussion about insurance covering and so I reached out to Stowe because as you know, well, as you just heard, they had their entire collection lost to sprinkler damage. And basically the insurance was only willing to pay about 40% of the total. They did up that to 60% because Stowe could prove that their publication dates were new. I doubt that would be true of our collection. So if you just use those figures for quick math, that means we could be responsible for up to $70,000 in replacement fees. If we factor in the typical discount we get when we purchase books, that still would be close to $50,000 potentially. And it just seems silly to risk that for a temporary move that we're just asking for a solution for the winter. The other piece that Stowe's really been going through is the frustration of the public and their patrons at how slow it has been to replace the collection. The library director estimates it's going to take, they've been going through at least, they've been doing this for at least six or eight months. She thinks it's going to take another year to get to even two thirds full. So it's no small feat. This collection has been built up over years and years. It's not just something I put together in the last three years. So it's really a legacy that reflects the town's interests and needs. A lot of the books in there wouldn't be replaceable even. They just aren't in print anymore. So I think that that's really the main concern with putting paper down in the basement for this short temporary move that we're asking for while we continue to engage the community on what the possibilities could be. For a long term solution. I also did get one email that I don't know, Sasha had time to forward to you in support. I don't know if I should have given that to you during public comment, but it was another conversation about how a mom with young kids would not be interested in hanging out in the basement that would not draw her there. I could read it if you want or hand it to you. That's right. He said he was in support too. This is from Leslie. Holy moly. Did you see that? Yep. Okay. Roger Strauss as well. Yep. Oh, I don't know. Any other comments, questions? I'm interested in that because if you look at Aldrich Library and I've been there multiple times and you do multiple visits with families there a week. That's a very, yep. Their whole children's section is in the basement of their place. And they have made it an amazing welcoming space. And I'm pretty sure because I went to school in Warren that the school has mold in Warren. So I'd be interested to see what they're doing with their school library because they've got it. I believe that mold was fully mitigated. It was a roof leak issue a few years ago. The school board members here could probably speak to that better. But it's the same thing. It was there with the box. So I'd be interested to see what they were doing about that. And the mold also in the basement was cleaned what last year. Yeah, it was mitigated, but. Yep. So I think we haven't, but if there's, if it's that dangerous, I guess I wouldn't want anyone in the town hall period until we have it looked into. It's not a library issue. It was a library issue. I don't even think it's necessarily black mold, which is sort of the toxic mold. I think it's, any mold in general can destroy a book collection. I understand, so we'll need to have that. And I don't know what the basement is like. The Aldrich library. It's one of the biggest libraries in the state. I'm sure that they are monitoring it and keep it at the right humidity. So I guess what we're saying is that we've come to you and the select board voted for a temporary solution just to help us out because we don't want our town employees using a frozen portal in the safety and all the reasons that you voted that we needed a temporary solution. So we're not here asking for thousands of dollars to mitigate the basement because nobody has voted that a massive renovation needs to be done to the town hall, to the basement to maybe make it what Callie's talking about. Maybe that's where we want to go eventually once we've had a committee, done lots of community engagement. Maybe that is where we as a town want to go. But right now we're looking for a six month winter solution and there's no way that's gonna happen in the next few weeks before winter hits. And we just need a safe place for our awesome employees to be for the winter and patrons to be. And it just seems like we've got the space that's being heated. We've got lots and lots of people that are saying we would really love to be in that historic space. We'd love to use it. We want it to be vibrant. People are writing, people are coming, people in our community engagement have been supporting this. It's temporary. It seems like, you know what? If we do this until spring and we all find out it wasn't great and it didn't work, well, then we know, right? But it seems like it could be a great trial for our town to just see what's it like to use that building on a regular basis. And if somebody wants to use it for a birthday party or a wedding or a God forbid a funeral, come on in. Like there's no reason why it wouldn't be used. Be able to be used. No reason at all. Come on in. I want to recognize we have an amazing town employee here and we really want to support Cori and we want to support her having a healthy, safe work environment. We want to support our patrons. And for me, that's the bottom line. It's like, let's show her we got her back. Scenario three, you have the side door entrance would be best. So why would scenario two, which doesn't seem to be that much different? You have main door or side entrance. I think scenario three, everything's on the stage. So the access for people that can use the stairs would be quicker from the side. Where scenario two, it's around the perimeter. Elba showed you during the last meeting. So I don't actually, I don't think we should be looking at any scenario at this point. I think what we first need to do is have a look at the basement, have someone come in and assess the town hall to see if it's safe. So let's start with that. In the meantime, I'll try to get in touch with the landfill and maybe we can use that building over there for the winter. Is that even work for programs? I don't know. I haven't really ever been in that space. Well, we don't know if we can use it either if the other options are maybe we have to close the library for the winter. I don't know. But we can take a look into it and see. I mean, I don't see what else we can do. I mean, we've been big toll on us. The place is not safe. We're saying the basement is not safe for books. Not that the town hall is not safe. Well, that's right. I'm not one of them here. And you're showing me pictures of babies and telling me you don't want to get them sick. You know what? You're putting me in a spot when you're sad. Actually, I was showing you that picture because it was in reference to an email from a mother with small children. And, you know, if you look at that picture, whether or not they get sick, do you really think they're going to be spending time in the basement on the floor? I don't think it's really putting you on the spot. Well, I think we need to look into the building to make sure it's safe before anything else goes on in the building. That's the other thing is we could reduce the humidity with a dehumidifier. Also, in the winter, I don't think you're going to have humidity problem down there. Not the heat on all the time. There is already a dehumidifier there, is there not? There is, I think it is in July. What's that? I have it in one year in July. You did? No, okay. It's like in July. Okay. When I talked about that, we weren't sure. You know, in the past, we had had one, but we weren't sure. There was one. I don't know if there was still one. Well, it looks like there is still one. Okay. Is there a working or not? Sorry. Is there anybody on the board that is supportive of what a lot of people have been asking of the board, which is to temporarily house the library and the upstairs of the town hall? That's what we want to know, because winter, not to sound games, so throw me this comment. There's support for both. There's support from the community for both using the town hall. And there's also a lot of opposition. Okay, I'm not seeing it. I'm not hearing it. I'd love to see that. Oh, so if you'd like people to come marching in, then we can have that. But quite frankly, I talked to a lot of those people. And what I say to them is we're working on a compromise. Trust me, we're trying to work both sides so it's a win-win. And that's what I met with you when we talked about it. And quite frankly, it has seemed to go on to deaf ears. Quite frankly, I got a letter from Lynn Corrie this week stating that we weren't doing anything for you. I think that's a mischaracterization. I think what I was reaching out to was to try and understand the sentiment by the board of all the opposition that you were hearing from. I was trying to get a sense of the numbers. And I was also responding to Jason's comment that we were bypassing the board by moving into the library avoiding due process. And I was merely stating that the original plan has been at a standstill since April. There's been no further discussion by the select board. We weren't even on your old business agenda anymore. So there wasn't really any movement. We recognized that another winter was approaching. And that's what I was trying to convey. Not that you haven't done anything. Obviously, you voted that we could move for the winter. And I think that's a huge recognition. And I really appreciate it. I was trying to respond to the suggestion that somehow we were bypassing a plan. Because I'm really committed to having a full, as you point out, John, like change takes time. These things take time. And I've been very involved in the school board since 2017 in the redesign. And I've seen how they've chosen to go about things where it's just the panel of the people sitting at the board table making the decisions without really including the community. And I don't want that. So we're asking for temporary housing to get through this winter so that we can get this committee off the ground that was discussed in April that includes a wide variety of townspeople that wanna be involved to come up with something that could be exciting and fun and really build community and bring people to the Village Center. All the things that you talked about when you originally invited us to consider this option in 2017. So I mean, obviously if you tell us it's the landfill or nothing, that's where we'll go. But I think that that's a little short-sighted. Well, I believe we did roll out the landfill. So I think we just have to work on something that will be amenable to both of us. Well, again, I think before John we can do anything we need to have someone come in. I agree with that, yes. I mean, I think it would comfort you folks. I would think to have another assessment done and find out if there is a huge problem that can't be fixed and then we'll have to figure out something else. But it's first, I mean, for what you're telling me. I don't want to put anyone up or down in that building. I mean, we do have a lot of dinners and lunches and so on down in the basement and nobody's ever complained about the facility, so. And, but I think we can have this done fairly quickly. I don't think it takes very long. But I think that's probably the best thing for all of us is that you know what's going on and we know what's going on and we can make the best decision for everyone. Is there any sort of scenario in terms of compromise that you guys can envision that we're using the basement but not storing materials down there? Depending on how much and where you were storing them upstairs. I mean, there's a huge pushback I haven't anything on that. The main floor. And we've talked about that and I said, you know, if you can put things up on the stage somehow and then the problem there is that we got Cheryl in talking about that because we have there's only so much room up there and there's the room that you need for the voting things but I would assume that those things could be moved once a year. Certainly. Definitely. One other thought is handicap to access. The main floor is really the only floor that has handicap to access. That elevator doesn't go to the basement, does it? It does. It does. Oh, it doesn't. It doesn't go to the stage. My mistake. Sorry. Yeah, in fact, that's the better. Okay. It's for this. I just didn't realize it went down there. It went up and down those things. Well, I know it goes up. You just didn't know that it went all the way down. Do you think a scenario like scenario three where we're using the basement for programming and have all the shelving on the stage is going to appease the people who say absolutely not on the main floor with a guarantee from us that we're going to make it in compliance with town meeting and voting space regulations? I think those are the type of things that we're looking for. Yeah. To your point earlier, we value the employee we have there. I mean, we think we have the best and I've said that many times. So I've worked hard to try to make this happen. Really have. Yes, you have. No doubt. Look around. Seriously, you're talking about people against it. I mean, I've talked to a lot of my colleagues here to get them to open up their minds about it. We appreciate that. So I mean, that's why I really need your help to understand where we're trying to come from. We're trying to explain where we're coming from. Totally get that. That's where we're here. That's why we're here. That's why we had that meeting to make sure that we're doing something. You don't do something like that unless you really care about someone, right? Seriously, yeah. And that's what we're trying to do here. We're just, we're concerned that we have pretty, I was pretty astounded at the value of our collection. That doesn't even include labor and just the assets. I just, I feel like it would be irresponsible of us as library board to put those town assets at risk because you guys do a great job making sure that we're not overspending in our town and that we're careful. And we want to be fiscally responsible as well. That's our job. So, if people don't want us to be upstairs, just because they want to be able to sit home and imagine that it's empty, meanwhile, having all of this, our asset at risk, it just seems like it's... Well, I think that's why I think it's gonna do, so we have a professional in there, give us what these numbers are, and then we can make those arguments the way. So let's first, let's look at that. We've already talked about some scenarios where you can have your collection upstairs on the stage area. And we even talked earlier about faring some books back and forth, less popular ones. I think it's gonna be... I think LLASC meeting estimated when we were talking about what we wanted to move in terms of the new books and the part of the children's collection was around 20, 25% and we have 6,000 books. So that tells you what we're talking about. All right, so let us contact someone tomorrow, get someone in there. I think we can probably get that done within a week or two. Why don't we come back? We're gonna do that in two weeks here. I don't know, what, the 21st? Is that the next meeting? Can we guys come back then and we'll have us all then? In the meantime, if there's questions or concerns, just reach out. Thank you. Does that work, everyone? So at the 21st, we'll have a plan voted on, so we can start working on whatever we're doing. That'd be great. One detailed question. Sure. 25% to 6,000 books would be about how many one-year feet of shelf space. I can't give you that answer off the top of my head, but Elda did have that worked out in her two-scale model. So that's back there. And be sure to bring that, hopefully maybe we can work between now and then and have some ideas on this, but make sure you have that for next time as well. Have what? The model. Oh, yeah. I know you have it now, but just next time, so that we can start other questions. If you want to see it, we're happy to bring it to the table. No, we could work it back, I think. Once again, we do thank you for everything you did. We'll be able to work something out. Thank you. I just want the community to have a chance to weigh in before any big decisions are made. No, I think that's, I think everyone wants that as well. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so we're right on time, so Sasha, you have the errors and emissions. So this here, this is from the Board of Districts, requests us to make them changed to parcel ID 13 hyphen 003.000. It's Washington Electric. Value is going from 1.4 million to 1.7. Did you say that was based on the acreage adjustment? Yeah, acreage adjustment. Favor? Yeah. It's going to get a little signature on this. I've sent it to you. It came to me this afternoon. And so he was all set with this? I... You know what, until he signs off on this, I don't want it. That's just an easement for the monoelectric co-op. I think it's fine, but until Martin looks at it, I don't need to do that. And then, so you need... Nine on one? Yep. Riverview drive, boulder drive, or riverview drive? The river's development. So they want us to choose this? They do. So I guess I'd start with the first one. You have to be able to preference? I think the first or the third one was... There's a riverview road in Wigfield, so let's take off riverview. There's a river road in Buxbury. You know, I think boulder drive would be probably the easiest to distinguish. Where is this? This is on 100B. This would be... Rich... I don't know if it's Rich River's, but it's Richer River's Development, LLC. But boulder drive is appropriate. Yeah. If he said he'd rather have his name, I'd be okay with riverview. Yeah, if they had it. I wouldn't say it. Right, there's no preference there, so I'd go with boulder drive. Boulder drive, okay. That's fine. Is that it? Yes. So, you know, we have a little time before we have our next guest, so I want to do a few reports of communications. Does anyone have anything? Well, I did look at the side entrance to the town hall with both Marnie and Joe Gabbari. Mm-hmm. And the solution that we have proposed would be to lower the grade about six inches, dig down to the footing, put stone in, put a trench drain in a slab and have it feed into that footing drain, discharge the water out into the river. And that would be, you know, using the channel pro to do the excavation work around $4,000, I'd say under $5,000, anyways. Joe gave me some pricing, but Joe is not sure he can do the work, so if we have to ask somebody else to concrete and recognize we love it more, so. Okay. We're still under $5,000. Yeah. If you want to do that this fall, we can do that. All right, I think that's something that probably should be done. Mm-hmm. Yes, mm-hmm. Definitely. Regardless of. I would think so that we would want to do it regardless of the library goes there or not. And it will cost us more if we don't. All right. So if, right, if you want to follow up on that. Get it done? Yeah. Okay. Any else? Yeah, a bunch of things. Okay. So after last week's forum, there was an informal discussion which I thought went very well. It was pretty much led by Brian Moore, who lives next door to me. And there were, I'd say, at least half a dozen board members there. And most of the gathering was more town and faced in residence, but I really had the feeling that they're beginning to listen a little bit more. I may be mistaken, but it was pretty obvious that a lot of them were in the dark in terms of outreach into the community. Some thought they had, really, and so on, but we set those people straight. So I know that they're doing another one after tonight's forum, and I hope that that might even be more important since that forum's gonna be loaded with water bird people. Also, on that same note, I don't know if you noticed, but not this past week's value reported, but the week before, Lisa Loomis put in an article on the redesign and the three scenarios. And all she had was the first scenario, scenario A, which underneath that A, B, and C, and smaller A, B, and C rather than the big A. And she said that I called her on it because it was just scenario A, which had more town, closing except for pre-K and early A. So I got on the phone and I spoke with her and she said, oh, well, I just saw the report and went down and I hit the table and I said, oh, here's the table. And I printed it because time was of essence to get the paper out. Of course, she apologized and had a little bit of a correction in this past week's value reported, but this is the type of thing we have to be very, very careful about. Misinformation that's out there, too much, it's just too much going back and forth and you really need to get it focused where it needs to be focused. And that's the school board who runs the show, not the admin too. Thank you for listening to that. Now, on clean water, well, we have a couple things going on in clean water. I have another clean water advisory committee coming up on Wednesday after the Clean Water Network meeting at the epic center in Burlington. So anyway, where we are with the clean water advisory committee is we have put together a letter that's going to go to the trustees of the Central Modern Regional Planning Commission, which hopefully will be forwarded onto the agency of national resources regarding our thoughts on, you know, basically phosphorus and keeping water clean, storm water run off the lights. I'm actually offering my opinion on reducing the number of trees that we cut down. Reducing clear cutting is really amazing what this state does allow, but the best way to get rid of some of the things that are washed out with storm water is to have the trees suck it up. So, at any rate, I'm big on trees sucking up water. And speaking of trees, I went to the annual tree warden meeting on Saturday and it's kind of interesting. A tree like lone pine here, I really should be letting people know, the public know, so I will put something on the front porch for them. Sometimes even have votes on whether to take a tree down if it's a real big tree and I apologize to those who really like that tree. That one over there. The lone pine, I'm sorry. Okay. You don't like the tree? Oh, okay. Yeah, if you make a turn every day, you probably don't like it quite as much. But at any rate, we did find rot and the state is willing to take it down as part of the sidewalk project. So, I did give the okay on it after having a tree expert come up to inspect. And that's pretty much it. I think John. Construction selection. Oh, construction selection. Jason, would you like to? Sure. We have to choose a resident engineer for the town on our project. And we submitted, we selected, let me start over. What we did was we used a special process that's used that's much faster than an open bid. And in order to follow that process, you have to follow a very specific federal and state rules, which we did. And we chose our first preference bidder. They gave us their proposal. And the proposal included someone who graduated, as the resident engineer, someone who graduated in 2018. So, we thought that was not getting what we need on this project. So, we are going to move on to our second choice. That's it. Have you got that with their proposing of the second choice? No. As a matter of fact, I have not heard back from Pat. It's been three or four days. Because he was recommending another meeting. And Sasha and I agreed that that wasn't necessary to have him come out here to meet again. We had already decided to go on to number two. The first firm, did you guys talk to them and said, do you have someone a little bit... No, I was very specific to federal rules. I said, no. We checked with Chris on that. He said, no. He says, if you feel strongly about that, move on to the next one. No, I think that's one of those... And we talked about experience on boards earlier tonight. Experience on, you know, half a million or three quarters of a million-dollar project. It's something I'd want. Thank you. Anything else, Jason? That's it. All right. So I'll lie real quick. So last week, I got the call from Cheryl and kind of a really disturbing call. She just had someone come in, spend about 20 minutes in the base in the bathroom. She was here alone, wrap it on the door, and they ended up coming out and they had syringes in their pocket and such. Their car was parked out to the back of the sidewalk here. They stumbled out. Someone passed out on the car and then Cheryl and opened the door and they took off. So she called me and I got the phone and called the police. So that was the first thing to do. So, you know, we need to... So I talked to Cheryl in about what to do in the future. Sasha as well. It's pretty clear that, you know, if we have that going on, call the police and we can get out. But what I think we need to do, we need to consider budgeting for some security cameras. Just... And I think you can do the records that we have, but seeing who's coming in and out, we didn't direct one either way as well. And Sasha was looking into that as well already. So really nothing to be said there. It's just an awful problem that, you know, someone driving by, I don't know. It was out of state plates. Out of state plates. Just pulled in, walked in, walked in the building and went straight to the bathroom and locked themselves in. They say when you go into bathrooms, not to put your phone anywhere because bathrooms are the prime... Oh, they do. I mean, now you go to all the rest of your building and the needle exchange thing. It's none other than that. Anything that has a flat surface, not to put your phone out because people will snort cocaine off of it and use it for everything and you put it on your phone, you put your phone on to your face and it goes through your skin. Stuff like fentanyl will go through your skin. Good tips. So anyway, Sasha's looking into that. We're looking to see what we can do. I know she's got some proposals back but we'll look through what we have in the budget and then decide on something we can do immediately or whether it's... So, can you lock the bathroom door so people would have to come to get a key before they went in there? I don't know, but that's a good... You can just walk over and see if there's a key. I'm sure everyone has a key to it but she wasn't quite sure if she wanted to go that route. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's an improvement or not. Yeah, I don't think we want... Unless it's something that starts happening, call the police to get out of here and I'm just going to stop people from doing that. I think it would be good to have the security cameras around you. Probably you should only put the building or it would probably be a good idea to have them. But that... Yes, and a security camera covered Simon the door would make sense to... Yeah, exactly. Anyways, so that's all I have for announcements. Could you tell the school about that too, I mean, because she had to because she was going to go get her grandkids and it was about quarter after two and she needed to be over there again. Yeah. Because I don't think they would find that scary as well. Yeah. And that's why that's good they have the locked door over there that year. Let you go into it. So, what do you have on? Okay, so why don't we go ahead and move on to the next agenda item which is the Commons Condo Association. If there's someone representing that, they want to... All of us back here. All of you back there? Is there one spokesperson? If there's one or two spokesperson or if you all speak, come on up. All right. Richard, I don't know if you really want this public. Do you? I don't know what you're here for. So, let's... We need to know a little more. Okay, my name is Angelo in a public town. Thank you. And you are? Tom Martin. And you are? I know you. Thank you. This is Donna Stathouse. She's the other... Board secretary. And you are the board president. I inherited this. Angelo. Yeah. If you think that there may be something that shouldn't be public, you could let the chair know what that is. Pretty much all of this. In what respect? I mean... I have a question to the board here. All of you. I was told that you signed off on a particular problem we had saying that it's the condos problem not the town of Vermont, not the town of Mortown's problem as far as the hoarder goes, as far as grease fires go, because it's a condo problem. Did you do that? You signed off? I didn't say you signed anything. I said you told... Do share with the board what our responsibilities are inside of a condo. What were your Dexon bylaws and how they work there as well? Our Dexon bylaws, this individual has a population of 3 to 4. However, the state fire marshal says that each hallway is a public entrance. From what I am told and you can correct me if I'm wrong that this body said it is a private entrance. It is a public building. You have state statute which I have in mind here that says it's public. This gentleman over there says it's public. We have a health problem in that building. Not only in that building but we have a health problem in the connecting building. What I would like to see done is the constable and the health officer with your cooperation issue a warrant so we can enter that condominium. Because we have taken how many bags of garbage out of there? 67. Like that. Two months ago I took out 12-15 bags like that. Now state statute which I have in here the air quality in that hallway in the air quality in the three four other units in that building are zip. We had another grease fire there two weeks ago but of course this body from what I am told told this man to step down he hasn't gotten involved yet and there's an animal in there and correct me if I'm wrong he was told not to come out and touch that right? Now let me just say this if that particular building was near the Moortown store this body would have police ribbon around it in the first year because it's out of sight it's out of mind now I do have all state statutes on the health code there's an haul of this pack 87 living downstairs from this hoarder and the smell is coming through his no take a look he disconnects the fire alarm because he has fires in that condo constantly and nobody can get in so this some year old lady is living downstairs and this is seeping through his floor through her ceiling and she walks with water take a look so your condominium declarations there's nothing that you guys can do against this guy except come to the town and ask us to do it we have asked we're asking the town to okay a warrant so Ray Richard the fire marshal the electric the fire marshal the electrician inspector the plumbing inspector and the structural inspector all at the same time can enter his building because we put it out there we say we're going to come in tomorrow or in seven days to inspect he will okay that but the day off I'm not going to be here I'm not going to be here at all going in any way he threatens to shoot them you'd say you guys don't know what you mean obviously so you're expecting the the animal control officer because he's been there and he gets the same treatment we're asking for police support so why don't you don't call the police who threatens you he hasn't threatened any of us this year and we probably call the police once we're trying to get the door shut because the smell is atrocious you can keep this so you're asking that I'm not going in a way write it a warrant is that what I'm asking you to do whatever you can to make the situation safe again I don't see where the town it's into condominiums here here here's here's my question if Ray and Richard want to get a warrant would you back them they come to us and look at the warrants yeah I think I would definitely I would want to review what jurisdiction we have I'm not familiar with it if we do it's the jurisdiction well I'm going to check with our lawyer to be quite honest with you before we start I think that would be a wise decision I'd like to point out first of all I didn't even know this guy was still there okay and certainly we've had conversations with Richard he's come in before but there hasn't been anything like this in a couple of years yes I'm feeling very out of the loop here yeah this young lady lives right across the hall from him so if you want to continue public record we can sit and talk to this man for the next couple of days you want a story I'll give you a story I'll give Peter Hirschfeld the story I'll give Neil Goswami the story you want to give the stories we'll give him out there when was the last time you heard anything about this I mean we don't like to be accused of anything that we have not done okay we definitely will back you we hit back Richard in the past okay and we will back you going forward we don't know what's going on we're out of the loop you see I'm glad you came in you need to be responsible as condo owners as a condo association to take care of your bylaws and it's always not big brother the government going to come in and take care of you let me address one thing first and then I'll address that I inherited this I got elected two months ago two months ago if you want to know the storm other than this we should have coffee sometime to answer your question big brother is it's a state statute period I have them all right here on sanitation and this is a sanitation problem so you want to talk to your attorney that's fine you talk to your attorney I have statute here and I'll go one step further that the cooperation you should have him check out statute 18 VSA 6 2 4 18 VSA I'll go to the council so when should I come back to get your answer what answer are you looking for that you're talking to your attorney we'll check with him and see what our jurisdiction is we'll send them a note tomorrow so Sasha my phone number is 802 477 3855 what he is reading is defining the town threats either by the way that was a statement when I threaten you'll know and I don't usually threaten I have dark humor I'd say I'd like to refer to these things the first lines is relationships between the home of association and their select words vary around the state ideally the home association and the select word work together and you gave me your answer you would do that which is greatly appreciated John it's been real I just wanted to be there are a couple things we just haven't heard of his problem for a long time I've never heard about the fire issues yes, three news to us well you know the other condo president came here one time and then left he never pursued there have been bias written up in the reports that tech services there I mean you know basically the last time you came for the board you made the decision that we didn't I didn't have jurisdiction in the condo therefore I haven't been there in over two weeks but the problem continues I still get complaints the odor is terrible up there I feel from all my experiences running the air pollution control program for 45 years that there is a health issue associated with those apartments and the question really gets down to is it a private that is a public building so I and right now nobody can get an inference into who's apartment and if I put out an emergency out the water it has to come to the board anyways for a hearing so I've just been holding back on anything but this problem it's not going away it hasn't in the last 10 years can I just say I'm even newer to the board than Angelo but from my research and understanding of what has happened in the past is that our property management company technical planning has requested inspections because of the complaints and of course they've always been refused I'm I know recently we imposed fine I don't know how much technical planning has slanted in the past the last was 200 but I don't have any time to say fine several to newer somewhere in between I think fine to you know it's well over two maybe three thousand dollars fine yeah we keep fine they have been finding him they've been requesting inspections because he's violating the bylaws but we don't have anything in the bylaws that you know allows us to just go in against his you know I guess whatever and he refuses or threatens to shoot we've been I've already researched with the mental health services in Washington County there's not much if he won't go to a counselor we can't really do anything you know because I talk to them they're like well if he can come into our office and you know we can help him but we can't make him go get help and so ideally you would like Ray to take this or Dick to take this and so we're feeling like we have to go through the court system to force these inspections and start forcing news eviction because he's a danger to the other husbands we're not to doffing in your lap we're asking for your help because the thing is is that once he gets the warrant or Richard gets the warrant then I will be there the board will be there the fire marshal will be there the only way the fire marshal can step in there after the fire two weeks ago three weeks ago is clear and present danger and there was nobody there clear and present danger so we're not saying here this is yours see ya we're out of here because I don't operate they're trying to facilitate the process so does Dick need to tell Dick to go into the place is that what you're asking us to do we're asking you to OK Dick and Ray to get a search warrant from the state so we can enter that place that's all we're asking we're not asking you to issue the search warrant that's what I heard before have you called APS Adult Protective Services I am Rachel sister and I have called Washington County Mental Health I have called this gentleman and he left numerous messages and I have left messages all over even like the humane society what do I do about this animal and that and the bugs crawling through the wall into my sixth sister's apartment she hasn't been able to work for 20 years or whatever she's like a disease that air and air is absolutely disgusting and I'm begging because I have called everybody please somebody help it is unbelievably disgusting the board the select board should you don't even need to go into the apartment whenever you want to take a game trip come out there and just walk in the front door that's all you need to do you talk about property values declining who's going to buy a condo in that building with that stench in that smell I did talk to Dale about social services and you know every possible there is a mental disability of what I'm sort and he's not going to agree to anything we try well we will check with our attorney and see where our jurisdiction lies I think last time that is what we did and that's probably why we told Dick there was nothing that we could do because I think that you several times went out there Dick and I don't know there's a file here I can look at but we'll check with Ron in the morning see where our jurisdiction lies and if we can allow you to get this warrant you know I don't have a problem with it but we just need to make sure where our jurisdiction is and we're not live we're going in and tearing up someone the thing is is that whatever Mike Lorraine is charging him whatever anything else there has been no consequences and the unfortunate thing is the other three owners in that place are paying the consequence okay what has to happen I'm asking the next grease fire and if I'm not there Rachel's not there he burns the place down kills the 87 year old woman next door and then it just continues straight through because it's not only affecting condominiums one through four it's affecting this building over here because they are getting the stench they are getting the bugs they are getting the maggots I forgot to talk to you about all of that what kind of living conditions is that for somebody and these are common buildings if they were private each front door would have a lock and each person that lives there would have a key but that's not the way it is they're common and their statute to back up whatever I'm saying John Redmore alright so we have a plan I know the gentleman in the hat had a comment did you want to go ahead I know I'm a resident and it comes as well for 15 years and I'm addressing the point of way chair about what is your why is it your case that involved in an association issue well just in case we have been trying ourselves there's went to police and health inspectors and the pet guide so we have been doing this progression and so what is our next step if it's not going to you with this we have two women who are health and danger, eight, seven year old and some of them as an immunocompromised disease live right in where the stench is so what do we do next if it's not you or if it's not you helping us to get it done what do we do next because we can no longer go in there and talk to you not cooperate at all which you know visitation, fines or just it's nothing so the point you made is how are you involved in association we have gone forward with steps so now we're asking you are you the next step or not we have to go somewhere else because we have citizens lives health at risk and we just like to know is this your our next step alright thanks I appreciate your comment so thanks we will check it out in the morning to see where our jurisdiction is and if this is the place where you're going to get your next action we'll let you know and if it's not we'll let you know and where you might proceed next to it we can't proceed legally until we get inspected you know so we can't take it to the courts to go further until we get those inspections the question appears to be where do you get your warrant from and if it's from us or through these guys through us we're all for that we'll try to help you get the warrant however you need to get it that's what you're looking for if it's not us it turns out to be through the court system I don't think there's much we can do to help you so we'll find out exactly we'll check it out alright well we'll get you an answer and it shouldn't be very long we should be able to get that fairly quick tomorrow so if there's any other questions you can let Sasha know but otherwise we'll get in touch with I guess you the person or Angelo Angelo does Sasha have your contact information here everything that I discuss I put in writing so everybody can see it and I have to say this again the previous the previous condo president let this fall through the cracks when he came to see you people once twice pardon? twice rest assured I'm not going to let this fall through the cracks thank you for your time and that was not a threat does she have your contact information? she's got it myself alright thank you it sounds like you have a good chair pardon me? it sounds like you have a good chair alright so let's go ahead and move on you're welcome thank you we have blockers thank you we have blockers thank you we have blockers thank you welcome welcome thank you so is there any old business? you got anything old business? Ray? no old business for me John? any new business? yeah anybody? alright so let's go ahead and just look at these reports Ray can I just start looking here John what's that? I think John probably signed that no Ray Ray I was buying that last week or something he might get those plans that I saw we were just signing off on documents is there any general public comments closed but is there anything that anyone else is waiting for Sasha you're not going to be here next week is everyone going to know that someone was looking for Sasha they need to be looking at Arizona to great Wagner would like some approval from you guys to get the street lights out in the parking lot switched over to LEDs I told him before anything could be done he needs to get the quotes anyway so start there you know what if he checks out Efficiency Vermont because they would probably give them new I'm sure there's a program I did for a non-profit and they I don't know they gave thousands of dollars replacing all the outside LEDs yeah it was just a simple lot um Craig is looking for approval to get us prices on healthcare sure I think any time anyone's more competition is better sure you don't think so do you but we'll still make sure we have other options as well okay okay don't know how you got that clip on that's okay also Martin was going to come in tonight obviously he couldn't make it I think he's ready to have you talk to him at all about his dream as well no alright so I think that he may have hurt his arm so we may um oh is that what what do you know about that I know is that his he can't lift his arm he can go here and he's got to go up and it's time for him to get it fixed otherwise it's going to be permanent so he may be out over the winter so I don't know if he thinks maybe he needs someone to do like the pickup truck plan or if he thinks everyone will be fine I don't even know alright so I'll give him a call in the morning just to find out what I know he had intended to be here but we need to think about doing figuring out something for at least pick up plowing and he may think that they'll be fine I don't know alright I'll talk to him and find out and make sure he's taking care of it I think the main thing we want to make sure is that he's doing it and doing it right that was a sign could you anyone else I guess do you mind signing in did you get a chance to sign in whoever's not here I guess I meant to ready to put you down I'll sign you for the library too just as we signed in once so in the morning if you can talk to him on finally you know what the question is the jurisdiction and he can give me a call if he has any questions about now Dick you don't remember last time I seem to recall that we we did get the attorney involved and that's why you couldn't do anything else you shouldn't have a problem getting an inspection a court order on an inspection I mean that under the health regulations that never came up what it really boiled down to was a question is this a public or private nuisance up there and the town between you and the other Tom you guys decided that this wasn't under the jurisdiction of the town and so that's why I walked away from it I continued to do inspections with technical services but they haven't been able to do any inspections at all over the last year and a half and this thing goes up and down like this we haven't heard anything for a few years I don't think Ron wasn't our attorney I don't think we even discussed that I know we looked into it just to be sure because it's the fine line between what's public and private here yeah and they are public buildings they're under water supply and other things it is not just a private residence right but where the town gets involved in those situations I mean it's a little different than saying it's not a public building it's not it's a community association but it is covered on some public building laws such as for water I get the inspection reports I understand but with the town's jurisdiction I understand but we'll look into it but there is a health issue and the question is is it a public nuisance or a private nuisance no I agree I think there probably is an issue but whose problem is it is it the towns or is it the community association basically any other questions, concerns tonight move to adjourn minutes I'll move to approve the minutes alright move to adjourn all in favor