 And I'd like to welcome to town helmet rogue who I just met today a new resident on County Road Okay, so I like to open the meeting hearing it's actually hearing that we're gonna open with first and It's a public hearing and informational meeting on the ARPA American Rescue Plan town funds I Can give you a brief synopsis on what's happened to the money. There's still some money left Some money's been spent 470,000 has been committed out of the 760 to 740,000 that we receive as ARPA money, so we've spent We've committed 470,000 302 and 416 has been expended So the remaining funds have to be committed by December 31st We have some thoughts on what to do with the rest of the money, but we want to hear from the public also Any ideas thoughts that they had and Additional to the select board thoughts, so That's the gist of the hearing The next thing is are there any additions to the agenda for this hearing? I Don't see any. Yes. Yes, there are for the hearing Sorry, yes. No. No, that's what I thought. Okay, and there is public comment, but of course, this is public Hearing anyway, so not sure maybe that's redundant But anyway, the floor is now open on the hearing I See a bunch of people here and faces on the zoom Who would like to start This is definitely and I don't hear me. Can you hear me? Yes, I Was gonna make a presentation on behalf of the listeners if you want to start there or somebody Nobody has a hand up so you can go ahead Okay This afternoon the listeners were looking at the ARPA expenditures to date and we realized that Last December when we gave you our annual report We made a couple of proposals or mentioned a couple of things that would fit into existing categories here So we could ask for ARPA money instead of having asked for 2024 budget money if you remember we asked it we asked for a file cabinet be budgeted for 2024 because our oldest file cabinet isn't fireproof like the other three that we have and We could use it for files we have Now currently but also for those that we're going to be generating for the town wide reappraisal And we just thought that file cabinet could fall under ARPA under office furniture since you have that as a line already and Then the next line that you had was digitization of land records the It appears that the land records have all been recorded in terms of the deeds I mean have been digitized. They've been scanned in the deeds all the way back to book one But the scanning of the surveys stopped last June June 2022, I mean 14 months ago And at the time we were told that The expectation was Denise was going to come back after she retired and she had a replacement doing her normal job as a special project she was going to finish scanning the rest of the surveys on that large scanner that we had and You know that transition was a little rocky so it didn't happen what we expected it to but we're hoping that it's intended that the rest of the surveys will be scanned in and Especially the ones that were recorded in the last 14 months because we're about to embark on Maintaining the tax maps and doing all the updates for 2023. So having scans of those maps instead of having to Wrestle those big mylar's on the copy or machine and then tape together the four or five, you know pieces of paper that we have to use to You know, we have to make multiple parts of the map in order to get it on the copy machine at the same You know, we can't fit it along one time. So it's kind of a crazy tape together patchwork kind of deal And it's so much nicer when they were just you know scanned in it We could just pick up the scan it looks like about three dozen of them were scanned and it stopped with the last one was the Map that record got recorded June 15th 2022 and then nothing that got recorded after that But there's a whole bunch before that as well that could be recorded. I think there's probably more than 400 maps that have not yet been scanned So if you want to do them all the way back to the beginning like you did for the deeds That would be a project But at the very least it would be great to have the ones more recent so we can do our tax map maintenance more conveniently and There's one other category which was hold on oh Purchase employee laptops we didn't mention this last December But we used to have three workstations and it wasn't that often But there was one day a week that the three listeners were in the office at the same time And we used to use three computers when we had three available and we thought if we had a third in the form of a laptop It would help us on those occasions when all three of us are in the office at the same time But we could also use it remotely both from home possibly and also in the field when we do site inspections We do that, you know on an annual basis for new construction and when we Embark on this townwide reappraisal. It's something we could bring into the field with us I worked on the 2024 mass reappraisal and at that time we didn't have digital sketches or cloth sheets So we did everything on paper in the field then we brought it back to the office and did the input But now we could take a laptop with us. We've already got a sketch that was done at the last visit and We could conceivably you know update things in the field or take notes right into the program So we thought it might be nice to have a laptop for that purpose as well So anyway, those are the three things furniture computer and land records are three existing expenditures that you had our categories for expenditure and we Thought some of the things that were on our wish list could fall into those ARPA funding instead of regular select board budget Okay, thank you. All right, the next anybody else Okay Okay So You know, I just Thought of a few things that could possibly I know that it makes sense to use this money For town expenditures and then have it available for other things kind of use it but have it set aside because we've used some of it for general funds for other things and I Wondered if we should think about opening it up to some of the town nonprofits in our community For a possible a certain portion of it for some grant Programming such as the senior center four-corner school house Cobra and pond whether flood victims might be interested in applying these small peculiar trails the rec committee Whether or not we should think about doing something like that. Should we think about it? Zabo for the La Pearl farm I mean, there's a lot of creative things we can do at the same time I know there's a lot of needs because of flooding and roads, etc. Etc. So maybe a small amount of money could be set aside for some more creative things. I look at towns like palace and Middle sex that are doing a lot of nice community projects and I think we're falling behind So That's my feedback Okay Thank you, Jane We're taking note. We're taking note So so who's the next? Oh, Ed Deegan. Oh, yeah I Think this money was originally developed by the expense for capital projects So every time you make a decision, I always say look at what's operational The thing that's been on our list of the capital Many years I know that you can consider inputting some of this money into it in summer. It's already been committed To the relevant and from a town resident standpoint Taxpayer not as capital is it I think that's probably a really good use of the money is putting it into that You know one of the things with the capital budget is Sustaining staying, you know our tax rates so that they don't go up too much You've got a couple of big projects that's being one of them and we keep putting it off I think because we always look at no bonding on everything else. I think well when when this one goes away We're doing the next project project, but I don't know how feasible that is in this case when you get a huge chunk of money You know front like this. It's a big incentive to push through and and Motivated because that project Understudy for So we've been looking at that 10 years ago and there's OSHA violation my stuff like that So I know that's a consideration I know you put some of it already to it and from the capital budget side of it for the town I think that that's where I as a taxpayer Well the committee and I think that's a really good use of the money Not that anything else is off the table on the same end, you know, yeah, but some of the you know I don't know the scanning of the meaning of the maps. I would think it's an operational thing We should have been done regardless of this money, you know, that's a Something that was in the works in the ones, you know, that's been a number of years We've been putting money into that for a number of years You know, continue all four continue, but that's almost a little bit more Various ideas have tonight. We just want to gather as many thoughts as we could just Being as open and transparent as possible possible to give people the opportunity to say something about this and then Point pretty soon. We'll take all those ideas put together and decide where the money will get fun Yeah, but right now we just wanted to reach out to everybody and that's the purpose of the hearing is to find out You know, hey, what do you think? It's sort of our democratic Reach out to all the respondees that can send me stuff And that's okay Yeah, it's also complicated Times of the essence of this money you have to deal with Projects are not you know And it's also That's what we do Well, thank you, so thank you so so do we have anybody else here that wants that wants to Comment on my man up our funds or use of our funds of our for funds. This is Renee. Yep Um, I'm sorry. I'm late to the meeting. I only heard the tail end of what it had to say I Think the first thing I want to say is my thoughts were you know, like I'm not sure all of the Constraints that the federal government has on the ARPA money for towns It was my understanding that it's supposed to help towns with you know, like post pandemic type of things and Given some of your neighbors who whose property has been very badly flooded I don't know and Observing what FEMA will and won't cover and what their cap is in relation to The cost of the damage which people are still digging out from I feel like That should also be on the table one of the ways That could be on the table is For our Pimaani to offer the 20% Match amount for the Vermont home improvement program Which is not necessarily flood related. It's related to affordable housing and helping people Get either vacant units or dilapidated units repaired and up for Housing so there are more units of housing and What I understand from the Vermont home improvement program is that it requires the Property owner to have a 20% match And I know there are people that would benefit greatly from that program And have no way of coming up with that 20% match Multiplied by whether or not they had damage from flooding So that was what I came to this meeting To share and I'd be glad to do more research on it if the select board would like that but the other thing having heard what Ed Deegan said at the The end of what he was saying with regard to committee work I reached out to Ed like within a day or two of seeing the select board's request and The only thing I got back in return was I'll get back with you. So if that committee actually met and discussed Then I was excluded. I Just want that to be on the record I don't know I assumed that the committee hadn't met because I hadn't heard back Until I got notification of this meeting and this hearing Here I am So I think Yeah, there was no we did not meet tonight. There was no really committee Jenny and I took one back and forth a little bit Short time frame and we did not have enough output of committed interest To put a committee together. That's why we're doing this tonight. That's why this Okay Whoever reached out to you if you and Jenny were going back and forth and the correct protocol would have been to cross-copy Everyone who reached out to you Even if you felt like you didn't have a committee process We didn't go back and forth that much We didn't go back and forth that much I'm just saying inclusiveness is a really important part of democracy and If there was supposed to be a committee and three or four of us reached out Why not cross-copy everyone every time you have an email? I mean, we don't need to debate it. I'm just saying for the record for the future If there is, you know, supposed to be a public committee process, then you include everybody who has said i'm interested We're we're not debating it because I agree with you. That's what I just said to Seth and everybody here, which is that The committee the the select what is trying to do things in a really good way By reaching out and doing it they made the attempt It just didn't happen and and you know, you know time is a yes With this money So i'm here. I mean you did tell me about the meeting here. I am. Yeah, okay This is this is a committee meeting. Basically How are you trying to set up? So are there any other ideas renee that you had about spending the arco money? Because i've written down and we're noting in the minutes About the 20% match for home improvements. But were there any other ideas that you had? Well, the other one is to you know to um Ask any of the people who had flood damage. I mean you could include a grant program to help make up the difference between any FEMA support that people Didn't get I'm probably not saying this correctly People have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage Some of those people have the wherewithal to dig into their pockets or their family pockets or other resources to get through it And I happen to know that there are some people who are already stretched thin and Can't afford You know the FEMA loan program for a small business for example somebody who owns rental housing That they're not living in Has to get a loan from FEMA and some people just can't manage a loan There are furnaces that need to be replaced There are you know all of the old late 1700 1800s basements that are just granite At this point whenever it rains an inch of time the water is pouring into the basement It wasn't only the flooding the flooding just kind of started the channels so It'd be great to know who in town Had flood damage and if that ARPA money can be used to help Them to secure their property before the next flood which might be wednesday Well, we know that those are my ideas and going back to The revolving loan fund committee that met many years ago And the ideas for promoting affordable housing I'm not sure if anything happened with that but There's a desperate need for affordable housing. There's a desperate need for senior housing Okay, those are my ideas and my thoughts about I mean, I appreciate that taxpayers want some relief Um and many taxpayers need relief And we also have some emergency situations that Are ongoing and have become more critical Okay Well, thank you Rene Yeah, thank you Yeah, I'm gonna stay What's that? I just said I'm gonna stay I'm just gonna mute Okay anybody else have any Thoughts that they want to share in this hearing So the hearing is scheduled for 6 30 and there's no definite end date We can end the hearing anytime There's no one else tuning in And we can start to select board meeting we can wait to see if more people tune in. What do you think are? Hi I don't see anybody in the waiting room. Um, I don't think that anybody's gonna come between now and 7 30 Yeah You're good Okay I suppose if somebody comes in while we're in our select board meeting and says that they have input I'm the ARPA that we could you know in between Agenda items we could ask for their input. Yep We have other business so yeah, so I'm curious to whomever on the select board Seth have you has the select board discussed The select board's ideas for using the ARPA money Yeah We have a sheet that we've put together with some potential uses Um Basically what we're trying to do is just one time expenses Because obviously you don't want to put Expenses that you incur on a daily basis and use ARPA money for those because that would be foolish Yeah, that's listed in the agenda Yeah in the Gg to put up so it's listed on the website Yeah It's on the website. Um, but we do have Some future capital projects one is the old schoolhouse The three to four corner schoolhouse Is trying to remediate some mold and we did commit some money to that. That's a one-time expense There's also the ash removal. Um, that's going to cost the town Roughly another $50,000 or whatever. That's also a one-time expense And then we've also kicked around some other ideas for the town garage But we haven't committed because we wanted to hear from the public Um, and this is part of that process reaching out to the public finding out what they thought We did commit some money earlier One-time expenses it's a broadband enhance. Yeah, the broadband the various other Some various other items that we had in our budget And what we did is we took one-time expenses and we put that money towards it because the tax rate was going to go up Astronomically this year. So to soften the blow on the taxpayers We took some things out of our budget that were one-time expenses and used our money for those expenses and kept the tax rate You know more the increase at a reasonable Jump in the tax rate So if we hadn't done that the tax taxes would have gone up significantly more than they did So that's one way we've managed the money It's worth saying for the record just that the overview that the total ARPA funds that the town has received are 763 thousand dollars and minus the ones that we've committed To the various things that you've mentioned Then the remaining funds are just north of 292 thousand dollars It's i'm not sure if you can hear me. Um, I've been having some The other thing that's important to note as these ideas are discussed is that Funds have to be committed by december 31st of 2024 and spent by december 31st of 2026 It's important to note that what I mean by committed is there needs to be executed contracts We have to have a contract in place with a very specific contractor vendor Any change to that contract would nullify that commitment So the federal government you can't have a contract with con with joe smith And for some reason joe smith can't build what you say you're going to build and now you contract the poll smith You've lost that money. It's gone So what you have committed has to be spent in exactly how you'd said that it is committed by december 31st of 2024 So all these ideas while they're great They have to be solidified very soon And funds have to be committed. So The overarching guidance is to try to spend as much as you possibly can by december 31st of 2024 To ensure that those funds are not lost by any issue with a commitment so Is does the town of east mott pilier still have a revolving loan fund? It does and right now it is on the select board agenda for later The town is actually out of compliance with that revolving loan fund And I am proposing while I am bringing down street to the select board meeting. That's actually next week Um for down street to speak with the select board about assigning those funds to down street for affordable housing This was something that was discussed in 2022 with the board It's either that or we have to return the funds to the state So would that would the funds that you're talking about Going to down street for affordable housing be targeted for east mott pilier That was the plan again down street will be coming next week to speak about that. I can't speak to those specifics That's the point in them coming. That was what was discussed last year cool Yeah, yeah, I remember the discussion but but that's not part of the discussion that we're trying to flesh out right now We're talking about arpa money. So if we can keep that loan revolving loan thing to another So I don't know if you can hear me or not We can hear you but the revolving loan fund needs to be a discussion at another meeting Right. Well, my only point in bringing it up now Is that if that were to be what the select board decided with regard to arpa funding? And if after the discussion with down street you proceeded with the revolving loan fund being administered by down street for affordable housing in east mott pilier Then my question or suggestion would be The possibility that some of the funding from the arpa funding could be designated to the revolving loan fund that down street will be administering to leverage more affordable housing in town or upgrading to The vermont housing improvement program. So i'm just trying to respond to How the arpa funding could be dispersed without getting caught up in the individuals who would be applying for it Whether it's through a revolving loan fund or whether it's through East mott pilier residents home improvement program Okay, well We've taken note of your ideas and we know the direction that you would like For that money to head to and we'll just put that in the pot with the rest of our ideas and figure it out So anyway, thank you. Thank you um So the point we were getting to Was whether we should close the hearing or not? Well, it's seven. What's that? It's seven. It's seven. Yep One question I have for the select board is what are the next steps as it relates to arpa jenny? for example mentioned a lot of organizations Local organizations that could need help. I was sort of hoping organizations would come that was kind of the point of this hearing to bring some things to this so I guess where i'm stuck as a town administrator is i'm not sure How do we engage people that that was kind of the point of this hearing so I'm not really sure how to how to go next steps I mean people need to bring requests to us for us for the town to be able to act on them And that was the intent of this hearing and as we see we haven't I we know and really attended from from any organization. So jenny. Have you spoken with organizations? I know that there is Yeah, I know that there was interest I think if there was a grant program and I think we could a lot a certain amount of money and announce that um on front porch forum and in the signpost and say We're inviting Non-profits to apply for whatever that amount is. Maybe it's 50 000 dollars. Maybe it's 25 000 dollars I don't know what the amount is and and just invite them to come in With projects. I that's my proposal is that we do that And the other idea I had which rena also said was whether or not we want to also have a program for flood victims I would have to look into what stipulations or or limitations there are as it relates to flood I'm not sure arpa was not really designed for that. Yeah And there's a lot of restrictions on federal funds and overlapping of federal funds and covering To your point the you know, kind of what a co-pay is or what someone's required to pay You're you're not really allowed to mix a lot of that As it relates so that that becomes pretty sticky. We would need to reach out to a vlct about something like that I guess the question is for the select board. I'm concerned about timing here December 31st 2024 is going to be here a lot faster than I think we think So select board what is the next step to determine this idea that jenny has That a portion of these funds whatever that amount may be set aside and and again It could be a front porch form post or jenny and ed if that's something you could spearhead that would certainly be great Um to post that to have organizations bring requests to the select board I'm trying to get the ball rolling if you can tell on some of these things because we keep staying in idea mode And in august of next year. I'm this time next year. I'm going to be getting really concerned Okay, so I mean We're kind of putting the carpet for the horse here. We had this hearing to entertain ideas The next step is to look at the ideas and decide where to go So yes scott. I'm uncomfortable with with setting aside x amount of money if we set $50,000 and I'm going to reiterate what jenna has to say and we get grants totaling 20,000 When we say 25,000 and we get grants totaling 75,000 that are all well worth it It is disappointing that This is where they should be today. The other thing that we can do is just directly call the nonprofits there in the community They should pull us and if they don't can call us in that. Yes scott Are you finished? I wasn't sure. No, I'm not. That's okay Okay, but I was going to suggest something analogous to that in that we have the annual funding request process coming up for town meeting and those organizations that are in the habit of asking us for grants for each year's expenses We could just let them know in the packet that we send out to them that We have put aside x amount of money for special requests over and above what you usually request I can remember that it's a one-time request. Yeah, and jenna jenna heads that up and i'm I'm on that committee and it's too late to really do that that i've I actually sent those emails out today already Yeah, okay. Thank you for that information Yeah, but we'll discuss it Okay So I think that we should close the hearing because we've definitely gotten everyone's input that attended this hearing If anyone comes in later, then of course, we will try to make some time for that. Okay So The Yeah, thank you Ed. Thank you for your input. Thank you for everything you all do And include you jenna Okay Okay, so, um, we're gonna close the hearing