 That isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve, that isn't Steve. All right, we'll call the meeting to order and Lindley is tuning in through the phone this evening because she can't be here. First on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Anybody have any amendments to the agenda? Just the addition of that executive session for personnel matters. So we'll be adding an executive session to talk about personnel matters at the end. We'll also, while we're in there, it's on the agenda, but we'll also talk about the town report, dedication in that time as well. Usually we do it behind closed doors. Anything else? Have you approved the agenda as Lindley? Second. Okay, all in favor? Bye. Bye. Public comment inquiries or anything that's not on the agenda this evening that I'd like to bring up. Big audience tonight. Looks to be about all three people, Lindley. Yeah, be careful leaving afterwards. Yeah. So, hearing none on the public comment inquiry, we will move on. And our first agenda item this evening, there is no appointments, but our first item is to discuss the ordinance, regulate and control garbage, junk, junk motor vehicles, trash, litter and solid waste. And just kind of as a background on this this past spring we had, we had dozens of complaints early this spring in regards to a lot of solid waste type garbage being left around, I don't know, there's probably a dozen or so properties in around the township and so we had a lot of calls, but like we had told individuals, we as a town we really don't have any power to do anything in regards to any trash that may be laying on the curbside or on someone's porch or piled up to the back of the roof and the back of their house. So there is nothing there that we can do other than look towards having an ordinance that would regulate this type of behavior, I guess, on private land. And over the last probably two months we've looked at different possibilities through other towns or villages in the state that had ordinances that were similar to what we were looking for. And we had adopted this kind of unofficially two meetings ago and then we had put it out over the last two or three weeks we put it out. Yeah, I'm gonna say it's a month or more. A month that's been out, a draft version has been out there for comment. We have received a couple of comments through that period. Nothing in writing, but yeah. So this evening would be for the select board to either adopt either adopt the version that's in front of us or to make an amendment and adopt or to not adopt. And then this would once we make the adoption it would go before the town's people on town meeting day to vote before. So. Well I guess actually you wouldn't, you would basically give it up okay to go in front of the voters. Because the ordinance would be a different process. And I did review it again and I have a couple of tweets that I think that we should make. But and I'm assuming that the board read it maybe there's something else that you guys think or maybe somebody in the audience has some thoughts. I did tell people when they called or came in that the select board has the right to adopt the ordinance but they didn't want to. They want input of the residents to try to deal with it. So we have been asking for input. I've had a couple of people come in or call and always said the same thing, read it you know bring it back. If there's big sections you don't like drawn X through it what do you like? Do you not like any of it or ideas or and at this point I haven't received anything back from people. I thought you would enjoy this but it's set up. Yeah no that's perfect that's great I'm so glad I'm here. And for some people I put in the tag we had a couple of people that are like landlords are out of state. And I said you know just send me an email. But and I had a gentleman local and I gave it to him and just said you know X out the parts you like. High like he's like well I like this but I don't like that I'm like that's fine you know. We just want feedback because it's not perfect and you're trying to do a one size fits all and maybe it doesn't and it's and we did take several and try to merge them into one and got a draft to the board and had the board say what do you like about these few ordinances and pull them together and then trying to retweet it and for the most positive actually feedback so far actually has been positive. But you know it's not perfect and certainly I think that's one of the reasons that the board wants to have a public hearing and then also to put it in front of the borders at a town meeting. Because that way you know it's just part of the process and everybody can get where we you know want to be together so. It's just challenging with 12 people that complained about the properties. A lot of times they'll be a hundred people that they like say the truck at the end of the road with Christmas lights on it. And you know everybody looks down the same hallway but they may see something different and it's really a challenging thing to take the people that are complaining and make an order it's because of the 12 where there could be hundreds that may enjoy something or like to ride on the back road and see some stuff. A lot of people have a lot of activities that they do where they go boating. They may go camping but if there's a bad summer and you don't take your camper camping then you're in trouble because not registered. If say terrible summer and you don't take your boat out you know a lot of people juggle their activities. Maybe family don't want to go camping and they'll skip a couple but then they will. Then you can't afford to have everything registered and you know the last time I was here I was here for the Historical Society's Christmas Party. And so that was a great time. All these elderly people brought their food and it was a really good time. Well that's about they had their antiques and a lot of these antiques are gonna be have to get thrown away. I actually see a lot of people actually throwing getting rid of stuff just because they've heard of this. That's kind of like when you say we gotta clean your room you might get in trouble. Well even if it doesn't happen a lot of people have already kind of cleaned their room. Yeah. But I don't like to see antiques and things like that hastily get thrown away because somebody's not liking your thing you want to collect. Do you mean like antique cars because there's a completely different issue for antique cars, right? There's like a lot of stuff. Farm machinery. Yeah. Farm machinery is exactly the way. Yeah. Kind of but if it's sitting around metal. Yeah. It's all in for somebody's perspective. You know if you have flowers in one of your old tractors or something you might not like it. And you may get along with your neighbor right now but if somebody moves in and they don't like your point of view then you may be in big trouble. Yeah. It doesn't have to be your neighbor it can be somebody driving around and say well I don't quite like that. Yeah. One of the big impetus for it was certainly the biggest impetus was actual garbage. Bags and bags of garbage. That you know that we know it's rats and you know that when you clean it up it still does rats are gonna go places and so we have people calling the health officer which is great except the health officer believe it or not has no power. Chris is the deputy health officer and you were told by the state of Vermont that you needed ordinance because there was nothing he could do and in some cases that's really sad when you have somebody renting and it's all they can afford and yet there's this situation which they can't remedy. We have a little challenge of the cost of the dump too. Yeah. So the frame of the dump is so if you bring it by a bag by bag it could be $8 a bag but if you store it in it somewhere and then put it in a truck you can go across a scale for $20. And that's where a lot of people you know try to do it do that more of a bulk bring to the dump and these people come and collect it. But I'm just concerned a lot of people are gonna start throwing it on the side of the road and tires and things like that are just gonna get tossed out because it's very expensive to go dump every week. It's not as a concern that's always a concern in legal dumping and we certainly already is an issue in Bethel and we have some you know game cameras out to try to deal with that because there's some places where people are you know do illegal dumping and certainly I know the transportation as you can possibly know is run by both Bethel and Boyle and they're kind of their own entity. So they work out their rates and unfortunately my experience with that is that it's been a trick because the bottom fell out of the recycling market so things that used to help offset the expense of trash was recycling and now that is not the case. So it is difficult and I think that's a cross for all of us to bear not just Bethel but any town that either has one or like you said you know you have to pay to have someone come and get it or you know that's the truth. Yeah. You have to have a truck. Right. Yeah. In your winter time is challenging and then you know springtime you know snow it's great you know it will cover everything up and as soon as springtime coming everybody's looking you know leaves are off the ground they're looking at you well yeah everybody loves to clean up. I love it. I do clean up today I love it you know but it's it's always right when somebody tells you have to do something. Right. Well it was just a great tour right. Yes. So yes. You're right. I have kids I know that's right. But yeah so certainly the impetus was trash and then there was things that appealed to it and we did try to be cautious about exempting you know farm machinery and I know from you know history personal history it was an issue with making sure construction equipment you know because maybe somebody has an excavator whatever but you know what you're saying about unregistered you know maybe there's the caveat of maybe it has maybe it you know unregistered for more than two years or because you know to make your point which is if you're choosing between camping or boating maybe there's some middle ground there. That's the challenge you know and then with like you know the historical study I mean it's an abuser and I know myself I have some antique cars that I want my son to fix up and drive when he goes to high school. Yes. You know if you can't have those and if your property has gone on a travel lane and to me that creates a you know your property is not worth much. If it's if all of a sudden you can't do anything with your property then what's the value of your property. Right and I think there's a two side that some people say one property you know because one hand's got one hand's treasure one person may say that somebody who has a lot of that a lot of you know unregistered motor vehicles they may feel that it's bringing their property values down and that they have a hard time. So one of the options here certainly is screening you know whether it's landscaping or something so that you can enjoy what you want to enjoy on your property and then but they also at the same time don't feel like somebody else's choices are making their property worth less. It's such a trick to try to find the perfect balance for everybody and it's a trick to prove that too. It's very hard to prove that somebody else's choice of what they drive back and forth to work every day is affecting your property value. You have to physically have to have somebody say I'm going to buy your property three times and then say okay now that is a fact. Right. And if somebody doesn't want to paint their house that affects property value. Right. I mean it's definitely a matter of saying you know that it could be depending on the usage of slippery slope but that's why we're trying to be very specific in it so that it wasn't affecting those things. It's not about. Like the garbage thing like that might I believe a lot of people will but there's too much in here. It needs to be cut. A lot of this other stuff needs to be taken out and then yes garbage for sure. We need to you know the green up day thing. Everybody you know me and my son are in Cub Scouts. We you know we do the thing we help out and things we like to make impacts and but also making an impact is recycling of an old bike or you know he has all of toys that he fixes up. You know this it's not just going to store and buying plastic because that is garbage and you know for Christmas this year it's no plastic toys nothing it has to be metal it has to be something that will actually last and because he can create the whole front yard can be full of kids toys in no time and the neighbors don't like it. And you know that's you know it's what is it and I love to see my son create he would take bicycles and fix and do that. Kid the other day was trying to sell me a snowmobile. He wanted to make some money. That snowmobile does not work much to me right now if everything I have to own has to be registered. So that kid he ain't selling a snowmobile because there's no value if we can't store that stuff. Yeah. I have to agree with some of what this gentleman's saying. I think this whole thing on the junk motor vehicles we're open and big cannon worms I think that the whole thing anyway because I think it was not doing anything to the environment. No oil dripping from it. There's no health hazard to anybody. I think we should leave those kinds of things alone myself. I mean I go down there's people probably say Joanne Marshall's got too many pieces of farm equipment on her front lawn or her side lawn or she got three tractors. She's got a bulldozer down behind the house. But I also go by my neighbor's house down below that's got three toilets on her in her front yard. I've told my husband before when he was working hit him with a bow and just get rid of him for me Doug. Got Americans like I think they're open and cannon worms that it's gonna be hard to manage with as much in here. Who cares really if my neighbor's got five junk cars in his driveway if it's not causing any danger to the environment. That's a good point but what you're saying right there is because that wasn't a concern for a few people about having junk vehicles was are they leaking you know are they, is there oil, is there what's happening with those vehicles and I certainly don't have any right to go on to your property or Alex's or anybody else's and say hey, how was that director? Well you know I'm sure that eventually somehow the state may weigh into that sort of thing you know down the road because there's worried about water quality et cetera et cetera but that is a good point is how do you, right like you're obviously would be very you know environmentally conscious about that you wouldn't have a vehicle that's doing that but how does the, does it fall you know I guess that's a question does it fall to the town to monitor that to make sure those vehicles aren't leaking like you know I don't know someone asked me that and that's a question I was like oh that's a really good point I never really thought about it. It was really small. Yeah. You know the amount of what the, I guess I, my friend has worked for the water company he always says dilution is the solution to stuff and if it isn't like this huge thing there is stuff that isn't state for like the the state people do come around and most of the time when they come around they don't find anything it's just the neighbors are complaining they show up and they, the only time they come is if a screen of big story like there's gallons and gallons and gallons of oil being dumped and that's not usually ever the case but that's what they will come to look for and then they look around and they'll know it's not really so there is stuff in place if people are concerned about that. Oh that's good because that was one of the questions I was asked. Someone said well I'm concerned about the environment what happens with and I was like that's a great question I'm like right now it's you know what there's nothing I could do about it so but that's a good good to know that there's a mechanism for that. Yeah they can go through those, those avenues they don't believe it's the town office's job to do that I think they should say you know you're paying their taxes and that's you know taxes are expensive they go up all the time so they pay in their taxes they have rights to do things on their property as soon as you take those rates away from us tax payers you're gonna get upset because it's hard or not you know the school's having a hard time the school buses are in rough shape they're not maintained and we got people going back and forth to school get pulled over constantly by the council and it's stressful to get your kid to school you're trying to get to school you're trying to do everything and you have him right at the end of the school parking lot and I guess if he's there for safety that's one thing but if the blue lights are flashing going back and forth then you got your six year old asking these questions about this that's I don't know he's gotten quite a few people round up and that was a separate topic I guess because you're saying constable certainly yes but what it is is the you know we got a lot of other issues going on and this could be a pretty big rabbit hole but I'm sorry you have any issues and about constable call me anytime I'm happy to talk to you about that but certainly I'm not sure what board things about them you're doing this job I guess you're doing this job no no not about the constable I mean I'm sorry I didn't catch your name oh you're right oh you're right I thought that was you but I wasn't sure how you want to say it and you're wrong so I'm not sure what the board thinks about what I think there's good things in here but there's a lot like if it went in front of the people I don't think no way would they'd ever be you could never give up this much right so you'd like the trash the actual government support job yeah I like things that look good I like trash to be where it is but I am concerned about the cost of trash yeah which is I mean then that's the cost of everything that's certainly nothing to control the cost of you know obviously this transfer station has its own expenses and then as I said with the bottom coming out of recycling market that certainly makes it difficult because that used to really subsidize it and now it doesn't and whether at this point the transfer station has its own board and I'm not sure if that board is looking at increasing their alliance fee or there's some questions that you know I can't answer about that but certainly I'm happy to let the alliance board know that that came up tonight and actually Mo is on board so I don't need to tell him Mo if he can hear you he could bring it up and say hey you know somebody was here and concerned about the cost of trash Any comments on the board? So Rye the areas that you feel are going to be really difficult to present and accept would be anything having to do with vehicles scrap metal things of that nature yes as opposed to garbage, trash, litter you know those types of items yeah yeah like this where it talks about this junk with you know the brass and iron steel you know people make a lot of stuff of that and the copper and the brass is actually a valuable metal you know people hunt around and get it and they bring it to a place and you know they make money with that stuff What do you think about household appliances? The newer they are, they are you know they have a lot of plastic with them I really don't like plastic But as far as having you know if somebody has you know several or any just kind of hanging out in the front yard kind of discarded you know things like that How is this all going to be policed? Is the constable going to be driving around down going down? Or are you putting it on one neighbor to complain about another name? Is that what we're after? The enforcement section talked about a little bit and it would be some of it would certainly be your neighbor column it could be anyone, any citizen, select board member myself, anyone who whether they're a town official or not seeing him but for me personally if it's just a random guy driving by your house and he doesn't live near you it's really not a big you know to me that's nothing but if it's your neighbor who has a concern then and they feel that that's you know A neighbor who doesn't like you from turning you in nothing, absolutely nothing Even if you don't have that much stuff then the town has to come out and look and march around your property and look around What's to stop that person from then turning in somebody else and this just turns into one big spike fight Well then that's what it can be and you already have that to some degree currently with like zoning regulations you could certainly if you had a zoning permit or didn't have a zoning permit somebody your neighbor or anybody else going by could call up and say hey, Teresa, Alex built up X you know, does he have a zoning permit for that and you know so we get that now so I like to think that people are you know above that and that neighborly people are neighborly and that you know certainly I think you would figure out pretty quickly who is just out to get their neighbor versus who has a legitimate Well you turned in one person now that person just out of spite can go and turn in everybody in town who has because it has to be applied evenly to each and every person so now you get one person who gets turned in and they go well everybody else I'm gonna go and turn in all of these people and you guys have got one hell of a can of worms on your hands No, that's true Well, are you saying that you just let it go as it is? I think it needs to be made smaller I've made it a lot smaller I just don't even do it That's problem what I would say I'd like this thing to die How do you feel about your trash portion itself like garbage on Honestly, I don't like seeing garbage but you know what if it's gonna cause all kinds of problems because the town's gonna end up with potential litigation you're gonna have whoever is going out who should be doing other duties within town whether it's the foreman constable, whatever going out and checking on this property and that property and that property and that property stirring up, you know, making people mad because people don't really like people coming and checking on all their, you know This part of the beginning that we said that I think we may have missed was about the fact that we have had some people with who called because there's trash and sometimes, you know, what it is is maybe it's a tenant who's renting a place and the landlord doesn't take care of something but it's all the tenant can afford so now there's garbage there which is calling animals and it becomes an issue so they call the health officer and Chris is the deputy health officer right now and he's called the state and there's nothing that he can do to help that person when that's all they can afford and yet there's an issue there, you know and so it's hard because sometimes you can't help people like that who have an issue and you know as well as I do that when you have trash stacked outside your property or on your porch, you have rats you have other issues which is, right? Yeah, and what happens is and we can't deal with that the trash were helping because we can't force them to clean that property up so that becomes a problem That was the reason that we went down this road Absolutely We had a lot of people that were complaining about places that had too much junk in trash and they had in one case the neighbors saying the rats are moving to our house now What can we do? We have no organs? We can't do anything Yeah So you can already do an offer to help clean up You know, I hate to put it on the neighbors but We soon are going to have the composting thing where no compost is going to be able to go into the trash and so we're going to have kind of a real issue with the fact that everybody's now got a compost pit they're going to have to figure out that that's going to bring neighbor or a dog that's going to bring rats it's going to bring all kinds of things Oh, I agree That's the state That's state law That's the effect of our one of this last year and that's why haulers have to now take food waste but you're right and that has always been an issue for towns especially with a big village because and I know that we have done some work here and some in other towns certainly we've done free trainings and stuff to teach people the proper way to how do you compost because you're right when that came down the pike that was actually one of my issues I met with a commissioner on the state level who runs it's all the ways I was like, what are you thinking? What are villages going to do? And that's why trash haulers are now required to take food waste Right now we've got place to bury you to dispose of it down to the landfill and it doesn't cost anything right now Yeah, you do have a place? We have, so it's all at home Yeah, yeah, because like people that rent and you know housing development did bunch of people in one place that doesn't have a lawn or doesn't have a backyard or anything that you can create a compost pile that's going to have a problem with and you used to be able to buy solid waste Right mom, could you do some Chad, did you guys sell the composters? Yeah Yeah, or because I know there was Right now we're not charging for solid chemical Yeah, at some point they were selling like 25 or so people were selling little composters that they could put outside Yeah, they were Yeah, that's right Yeah, that's what I'm talking about But you're right, Uriah, that when I was wearing that a few years ago and you know, what are you thinking? Because you're right when you're in villages you've got a lawn, you know maybe you only have a front lawn and you're going to put out your old compost thing and you know appease the state well next thing that you've got the neighbor's dog you've got everybody in the neighbor might not like it that you get this compost That was going to be slogged the neighbor's dog's composting on your land Yeah, but you were at the state and there was some wasn't thinking about the refraction as I was told the other thing we're looking at is if we don't do anything people can go and have their property taxes abated which means everybody's taxes go up because one person is not taking care of their runners Great, great, down there Well, would you want to junk out right beside your house? Depends on the Depends, right, depends You know, I guess it's a what, you know, like newer like I guess newer carers you know, like I am out on one for old cars like I love old cars What's the state calling junk yard? What's the statute on that? On the junk yard? Well, for us, I didn't let me see if I quoted it here I think I see it I just said all I put in here, Mo, was that the junk yard has to be from the state of Vermont I just quoted the statute and let me see if it's defined in your zoning ordinance I think it does the same thing Screw you Now, it's a screen day if you are it's just on the travel road if you're just worried about people that can see Right, that's what it says it says traveled, view of the traveled way of the highway town road adjoining landowners and that actually was one of my changes because or I was one of the things is we don't define screening and that obviously I'm not sure if somebody maybe it was even Alex who's brought that, you know to my attention that I think it was that, it's maybe not but certainly that other towns ended up in a pickle because they didn't define screening and then maybe what was the screening was worse than what was open so and I went to it at the zoning ordinance to see because sometimes there's zoning ordinance actually deals with it and and it didn't in this case deal with the unregistered motor vehicles but certainly and we had talked about you know, I don't know, four months ago when we were getting all these complaints it's tough because you're opening a hand order box, right? I mean, anytime you propose a the ordinance of some sort you're opening up the possibility that you know, what this board and what this town manager perceives enforcement would be on this because we're not going to go out enforce every little bag of trash however you could have somebody that wants to do that or ordinances can turn into more than what they were intended for, right? You could start off with something very small and then over the years it could end up being your lawn's 12 inches and you have to cut it, you know we've seen all these ordinances floated out and I think it's challenging because you know, the trash end of things you know, not talking you know, construction waste or unregistered vehicles or you know, perceived metals that people use for fabricating and whatnot just the trash, what is in in a bag that should be going you know, to a trash receptacle area has been has been pretty much our soul issue and it's not just Alex has two bags of trash out front of his house it's, you know, this person has you know, eight feet of trash piled behind their house you know, I mean it's like this absorbent amount of and we've actually had some issues with you know, we went to some tax sales type stuff last year with his past year we had a property or two that didn't catch anything at the tax sale because there's stuff full of trash and we can't do anything about it you know, there's really nothing unless somebody wanted to volunteer their time and ask the owner to you know, there's nothing we can do and then like we had said you know, there's some of these that you would just think as a a taxpayer, you know that so-and-so has eight feet of trash piled up against their garage that the town health officer should be able to come in there and be able to do something about it, right and see whether it's a trash or it could also be soda cans yeah, that they're waiting to you know, to bring me a redemption you know, there's sometimes sometimes it looks worse than it actually really is yeah well, when you have neighbors complaining about the smell you know, and you know, I mean it's big you know, some of the times too as you know, when you think about one of the pushes for the select board is economic development and bringing more jobs and business to Bethel so that we can get investment into the community and infrastructure and all those things and so sometimes when these locations are possibly at the entryways of your town so the first thing they're driving to town and this is the first thing that people are seeing it's hard to get investment and have businesses say, hey you know, and Sue does the person who did your tax sale last year I did have, I had two properties that people would not bid on because of the because of that, the garbage and they're just like what happens when I go in and clean all that up you know, I'm gonna have to maybe hire someone to come in and just a regular person may not be wanting to handle that and maybe that some of them I have to come in almost like it's like baiting of something to come in and so then you come in with me and he was a tax payer so I can't sell that property and they're not gonna pay their taxes yeah, so you can't even sell it as a I try I didn't think a thousand bucks well, the only thing you're gonna sell it for is you're gonna sell it for what's owed on tax so the minimum bid is always what they owe plus a little bit of legal fees but when someone, if you say someone hasn't paid their taxes in 10 years that's a sizable amount of money that you as tax payers are gonna you're basically taking care of because I'm not putting it out for sale a lot earlier a lot, absolutely but and who knows maybe they have the same I don't know what their issue was before I just know that when I came in and did a massive tax sale last year and I had a couple properties that way and I had gone to the board originally and said I'm good, but I'm not that good like what am I gonna do about this? I haven't done it for a long time I said there were quite a few properties well, unfortunately, I've got a long time and yeah and that's what happened but a $50,000 property if you got $60,000 in back taxes on it yeah so it was certainly and that was one of it then but you know and certainly it becomes a problem when that's your neighbor and all of a sudden yeah those racks that smell that is migrating onto your property and you call us you legitimately ask them for help and we say to you I can't help you and they don't have the means to go clean that person's property up or take care of the trash does put us in a position where you know, obviously we try to help people and we can't and there's not even there's not even a place for me to refer them to because you know, as Chris said there's nothing at the state level because I had gone him and said you know, you're the deputy health officer what can you do? had they approached their neighbors and said, hey, this is a problem I think in one case, yes I feel that a lot of times people would be a lot better off to go over to their neighbor and say, this is bothering me let's work something out instead of coming basically a tattletale to you guys I agree and you know, you guys have so much going on in this town and I've been always so appreciative to come and pay my taxes I love this town I enjoy it and you know, because I use my property I enjoy it I come here Alex donates tents to the thing the board festival you know, the people that are doing stuff in the town a lot of them are in trouble with this well usually that's the first thing I say dog issues or any other issue is the town is not the club to beat your neighbor with if you have an issue with your neighbor then go talk to your neighbor because together you can solve a lot more and that is always the first thing is always, have you spoken to them? if not, why? what can you do? I always try to facilitate the conversation to go knock on the door and say hey, can I help you? what you know, it's just like sometimes it's a barking dog is very common and I'll say they may not legitimately know that their dog is barking while they're gone maybe their dog is scared of something and they don't realize it's happening but you know, certainly that is always the first statement and the approach you take when you first you know, if you show up and you go hey, Rick is not barking yeah, right versus hey yeah, you get more pleasant moments in videos exactly, absolutely and frequently that's not the first interaction people have unfortunately sometimes people just wait until they're just really angry instead of just kneeling with it take a deep breath and saying okay, tomorrow I'm gonna say hey, did you realize that this was happening? really, you're feeling the best of it, can you hear it? yeah so what you're saying basically is we don't need this ordinance so why should we go through it? your neighbors will help you well, you hope but I agree I mean, I'm the one who said we need to deal with the trash because of this issue because as I outlined properties we put to sell because of trash and that's how we got to where we're at so, you know, I'm certain on that I went to the board myself and said, what are we gonna do about garbage? yeah, exactly what I think we should look at here is garbage because are you really getting a lot of complaints about vehicles? I thought a couple, but more about garbage and if we're gonna talk about vehicles maybe we allow people to have a two or three or four unregistered vehicles and that's what it says in here does it, I didn't see that it says two, but that was kind of a we just put a number in there we put a number in there it could be more, I think it was just a number I think that we came up with we just, maybe other ordinance kind of ran in the start well, let's just put two let's put in 10 huh? let's put in 10 yeah, I'm not saying 10 or I just but I'm just saying that I really think the town is the only thing that's trash the garbage, I don't understand all the rest of it, I guess I understand garbage something that's gonna create rats and health issues and something that's gonna cause an issue to the environment oil leaking out of an old car or something but if it's leaking it's probably all out by now yeah well, you just moved your neighbor as well I mean, let's go we're going to, like I said so the shepherd down the road for me has three toilets on the side of the road she's got poses, flowers in them to her, they look like something to me, it's garbage yeah but I'm not gonna come down here complain about it it's not your piece of property it's not my piece of property I'm not gonna come down here complain about it that's insane somebody else may think it's my garbage, it's piece of property I'm afraid of garbage I'm not sure you should be out with that I don't know, I mean I know you were in favor of I think one of the points is I never thought that I'm gonna drive around going past your house or your house or anybody's houses and stop writing down you know, the license plate but if somebody had turned you in and you were like why did you let this go? well, I'm just saying I'm looking at having some kind of an ordinance in place and this is not gonna be the final end all is that if you have a condition with your neighbor, for example and you can't go over and make nice with your neighbor and you feel that your property is being devalued because of certain situation you can, you come down to we don't even have a procedure in place of how this would all happen you make a phone call do you come down to person do you fill a form and this is a backup to that so the town can say okay, well we have this is in place for you to be able to go through this process and procedure where you thought before you had no way out of it because you can't make nice with your neighbor maybe you tried and it didn't work or you're just not the kind of person that wants to go down and get into that whole can of worms this is like a backstop that you can come in and you can make a complaint and if it's serious enough then some action can be taken but I'm not picturing myself driving around, you know and of course, like I said before the challenge here is that well, it's unfortunate that we have to get to this point where we have to think about because of, you know in this case, like you were saying because of maybe 12 individuals in the town maybe not being as responsible as the rest of the residents that we're having to look at in order to do this like this all of the bad happen right and the challenge with these ordinances is that the town needs to have something in black and white it can't be gray it has to be black and white so that you can enforce but then the enforcement really is up to the administration that's in place so this select board and the town manager who, you know, in three, five years could be completely all different new people and then they could take a different look at this and, you know, they you know this whole administration here is really thinking okay, if someone's whole front yard is littered you know, and it smells then we're gonna do something about it but the next administration could come in and say you know, you got four tires on you just took your tires off or when are you gonna stack up there and those are gonna go you know, so the interpretation can be scary because we've seen, I've seen this in towns that, you know have tried to do the good thing and it ends up being tricky You can see it in that choir that's a big time I mean, I know the comments that I have received not many recently but from when we first opened up the Canworms they're back in May so the ones that I had received from people was that they were concerned about was anything that we would have labeled in here as construction waste, junk, motor vehicles, or motor vehicles so which basically brings it right back to you know, rubbish, you know if we wanna get it passed, you know cause it's, there's a difference between something that you throw out that isn't really somebody's property and then all these other pieces that are perceived value to individuals that own property and it's gonna be kind of a way different sell on putting something in so, you know, we could go take those pieces out and go for just trash so that next spring, if we have instances that we could go and enforce this and I still and I, you know, I said before I do fear that if we leave this in that the tax people when they go to vote will not vote this in The other thing too is here so then next spring we're gonna be sitting there with properties that may have trash stacked up to the roof and nothing we can do about it. There's other situation is too which I have seen done before is where your zoning ordinance it can call out and it's different and they say that I have seen it done where the village has it designated of they can't have more than two unregistered motor vehicles but it's the village and it's not, you know, the outer town so I have seen it done there where maybe it's that the village is it's set a certain amount and then as they get out with either a larger number or it does not apply to outer lying areas so I mean I have seen this also mandated through your zoning ordinance. I mean, I guess just my I have baffles but the same just my experience with talking to people I mean there's only, that I know there's only one piece of property in baffle that people have questions with having, you know too many unregistered vehicle, you know that would qualify for somebody to complain about, you know I mean, I guess that would be that would be my take on it. One of the planning commission is doing the new town plan why don't we throw this on them? You, when they get to do the zoning ordinance, yeah because it won't affect your town plan it would be when they're redoing your bylaws and we didn't just get That's all you mean You're talking about like the unregistered vehicles and whatever, you know so they're like there's something other than trash is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Like defining what unregistered vehicle or generally or something like that. It's not generally covered in the town plan it's more. No, it'll be in the zoning bylaws. It'll be more, yeah. Don't they go with them while they're doing the town plan? I think that they usually tackle them in separate processes. The bylaws every what, four years? Yeah. The zoning, your zoning bylaws We have one more year. They have to be renewed I think it's two I think I just did that in the last pack get the grant for, no, that's right. Yeah, so I think that you've got to We have one more year not just coming year after year So I did something So you do have another way to look at that and then you could look at it in a way that is and then zoning and then that actually has a very legitimate process about how that can go through a process and it's very monitored and it's very much managed by state law and statute So instead of it being applied willingly there is a very spelled out process and it also gives everybody the right to go to an environmental court or whatever. So that's just if you chose to go that route and there's just, I've seen it done that way before but so I'm gonna go that route, that's what I'm doing. There's definitely a much more regulated process and that's a couple of years probably a year or two down the road we got this town plan now and then usually they go back and look at the zoning regs and that sort of thing and then it's a little different. Yeah, it could be applied differently because the village could certainly be back. They could be different areas on what you're looking at. Absolutely. What do you think, Dave? Do you have any comments? I think, I mean, I don't know what to keep in or what to take out but I think it needs to be something. Because we sat here two different occasions with a lot of complaining going on and we were sitting here listening and had to tell people we're sorry, nothing we could do and we're two of those places I go by at some point, none of my work and I was like, are you kidding me? I don't have a big enough truck to do it in three trips. So it's certainly to take, go back to Deetree and Deetree and I can go back and then certainly scale it. Well, the thing is we need to have something to move forward this evening if that's a. Well, you still have time. Commended version. I can start working. The warning, this is gonna be fine because the warning, I think I gave you the schedule so for the warning I need to have the warning done by the next meeting or the meeting after but all that we're going to do is in that warning that you're gonna approve is say, I'm not gonna have the entire language in the warning just as it is. So as long as we know what we're moving, we could just rename it and as long as we have the draft because that's all it's gonna be and I can word that in the warning then we can still tweak it a little bit. So we could have something for in the next two weeks have another draft of this with all the motor vehicle stuff taken out and just narrowed down to basically what is putrisable as far as trash and get that underway so that kind of allows us to help people who need the assistance and a process to move forward with. Is that a curiosity? You said a really good thing about how the, cause I have talked to I think three different town managers and visited and had my situation with the fourth class or I would not be able to maintain it where it kind of like make its decision might not be around anymore but that decision's gonna stay and sometimes things may come around where things are different. Like different bad people, bell bottoms or whatever may come in or whatever but the trash is definitely a thing. I don't think you're gonna have much problems with telling, cleaning up trash and stuff. It's when it becomes people's possessions what they, their grandfather's little car or an antique bike that somebody likes and get flowers out in their flower bed or something. That's where it's really challenging but the trash I really think is something that should be gone, should be approached because we're all into creating a better greener town and stuff and I don't think many people disagree with that but the other stuff's gonna be, people have no post in science all up everywhere. Yeah, true. And you guys are gonna be a referee and like you. Yeah. I have a view on that. But yeah, but I think that we could certainly under direction board go back and draft another, you know, not draft another, take this and remove those things and make it more focused on just trash itself. But I think it gives you, if we went to, if we took out those items that I had talked about, pretty much brings you back down to, like a solid waste type trash, right? Yeah. It does give you a living document to start with to enforce maybe three times a year at certain. Yeah. And sometimes it's really. Properties that get extreme. It says that you're mean business. I think you could take care of something. And it does allow you the, it does have a document. So I mean, I guess at any time it could be amended or brought before the people again to vote on. Absolutely. But Mo also made a good point that, you know, on the, you know, let's say definition of like a junkyard or unregistered motor vehicles, you know, that could be looked at by the planning commission through the next bylaws. Because junkyard, those pieces can covered in your, in your zoning ordinance. Cause I didn't try to go back to read. So those pieces can always be covered under those. Yeah. I think that it's fine. I think that if that's what the board, the consensus of the board is, I'm happy to meet with Deetre tomorrow and certainly work on putting out, you know, something else. So we're basically down just to number six, that's it. We'd be down to this. Yeah, you're right. So we'd just be away one page. We'd be pretty much down to garbage, garbage, trash, litter and solid waste. Based on those definitions, you know. Right. I should only think it shows that. Which is basically what you and I would define as garbage. Right. And no, but cause on solid waste, it says tires, household furniture, appliances, clothes and such. That's under solid waste. Litter is anything manmade that would create danger to public health or degrades the environment. Litter includes garbage, newspapers, magazines, glass, metal, you might wanna take metal out of there. And construction waste out. Was that what you wanted out, Chris? Well, I think, yeah. I mean, that, well, that was the feedback that had gotten because I mean, you define construction waste as something. I mean, that could be. Could be somebody has an antique door. You know, you could have a half a dozen, you know, pieces of pressure-treated wood that you didn't finish using on your deck, that you have piled on the side of your house or something that you might use for something else or. Yeah, people snack. You know. So garbage is definitely would make sense. And then. So what was that? Go back to the, what, I'm trying to find, solid waste was. Solid waste is number 13. Okay, yep. And that says garbage or other discarded material, which include but is not limited to tires, household furniture, appliances, clothes and such. It says, and that says what it does not include. So. So would we take that out? So it sounds like you would take that out. Based on the definition. Just basically number six garbage. And number nine. So it'd be six garbage and nine litter, except if we took out of litter, metal and construction waste, because it says any man made material that is thrown discarded of in a matter that may create danger to public health and safety or degrade the environment. Litter includes garbage, newspapers, magazines, glass. If you took out metal, then it would say plastic or paper containers or any discarded object, likely to injure any person, grade a traffic hazard or degrade the environment. So I think. Would you take out metal and construction waste? Yeah. Yeah. Muzzle and glass, too. Because it's always messy to do it in any construction product, it's really. Take out glass, too, you're saying, though? Yeah. Yeah. And. A lot of people like to see the magazine, so you can have a credit area of magazines on your porch that you might want to sit and read during summer, so I think we'd take that out, too. Well, because eventually that stuff would degrade anyways. And it says it has to be thrown or discarded in a way that creates a danger to public health. So it can't be just on their porch. It has to be definitely discard. It has to be somebody's shroom, something, you know. Apple's doing heavy rain, they don't kind of. It's very, but could certainly scale that back. The question that I had for the board was under section two, C, litter prevention and control in adjacent and surrounding areas. One of it says, oh, let's see. The second sentence says, these areas include but are not limited to public and private sidewalks, roads traveled up. I think that the litter prevention and control should only be limited to the property that each proprietor owns. Right. Because this is saying making a business clean up public sidewalks, which I mean, would be lovely if they would do, because it's an entryway to their business. You would think that they would clean up cigarette butts, et cetera, but I'm not sure you can mandate them to do that. So I was thinking about scaling that back a little bit to just the property that they own. How do you feel about that? Yep. And then, I have another question. So you'd be taking out the whole screening. Yeah, because they would be screening, yeah, you can't screen the trash. The trash, I would assume that you would want all the garbage. The garbage would have to be taken to the dump. I guess the only question is, for example, and this happened, actually, this was a deal for somebody, their neighbors did not go to the dump and they loaded a garage or an outbuilding with trash. So it still wreaked, it still had, and eventually something gave, I think it was actually after Irene, and something happened and it kind of came out like that is what that building was full of. And luckily it did not go down the river in Irene, but I think something happened so it maybe got eroded to us so it realized and then people were like, and I think finally somebody, I don't know who, cleaned it up but took it all to the trash. So I think that it would have to be, I guess my question is how does the board feel about this? Do you want this to only be, I mean we define this as trash that's in a receptacle. So I mean maybe that, we stick with that definition because, and I'm okay with somebody keeping trash for frozen in their shed or barrels until they go to the dump in the spring, I mean whatever, but as long as they're going to the dump in the spring. Because it's frozen in the spring. And it's not frozen in the spring. So we always have to think of trash during the spring. Yeah. And then just always have. Yeah, and some people do do that, but I guess we'll make sure that that's still, I think we define that anyways as a receptacle. So I guess the other question I had was really just about, I think it was in there. So okay, that's fine. So let me make those edits to it and then the next board meeting is what, like the 13th or 14th or something like that? I'd have to see a calendar date. So we also need to redo the enforcement part of it too. Yeah, we'll have to redo the whole, basically almost all of it, which is fine. I mean there's still going to be enforcement because, and it's still going to be the same process. If the town has to come in and clean up your garbage, then because you don't, we will lean your property. And I actually have been seeing that done before where somebody beat the town did. They went in, they cleaned up the property, they put a lien on the property because the town had paid to get it done. Got it all cleaned up and then when the property sold, the town got their money back plus interest. But at least it cleaned it up. And that means that the resident who lives there could live there for 10, maybe not sell it for years and years and years. So in some cases, the town may not get their money back for a while, but it also may help in the sense that once it's done, maybe they'll be able to keep on top of it because I do think that once you have that much, it's going to be a financial burden for somebody to go. And I have asked someone to reach out to their neighbors, but they're like, I pay my own bills, I can't clean up their thousands of dollars worth of trash either. So. And it can get that way. It certainly can. Just out of your mailbox, when you go to your mailbox, it is tons of paper and green. And even if you are recycling, it's quite a lot. That is, it's true. I know that we've tried that in a different location, tried going on, taking every piece of, every time you've got a magazine or you've got, you think you get, you should see what the town gets. Sixth magazine, and tearing them up and going through every single one of them, making a concerted effort to try to get off every single person's mailing list under creation. And by the minute that one person ordered again from that company, you know, you get 15 new line magazines or whatever. And so it, it, it certainly adds up for sure. Well, we appreciate the input and the feedback. Pretty large, large amount of people came out tonight for it. So we appreciate all, all four of you might want to, you know, don't all leave at the same time tonight so we can get out of the parking lot. That's what you're feeling, Landon. Let's tell you one, the one example that really drove it home for me. We had, I forget when it was last year, sometime. We had a fellow come in. We had a fellow come in from, had property up on Lillibill, Brooke. And it was a rental property. He, the tenant was just piling stuff. Appliances, trash, garbage, had a garage that had a bunch of dogs and garbage. And he couldn't, he couldn't get the tenant to cooperate. He didn't have the funds to go in and do it. Fortunately, he passed away since. But the neighbors were there complaining about rats because it's right near the, right near the brook. So there's rats on their property, adjoining properties. He's complaining. He comes to us and says, you know, what can you do? Can you help me out here? You know, time manager went up, I think and looked at the thing that the health officer went up, totally powerless to do any enforcement like that. And the neighbors were just all sitting here going, you know, what, now what? Now what do we do? We just let this go. So there has to be something. I mean, it really drove it home. As far as I was concerned. This stock, we still have that trash removal. I don't think they still have it built into their taxes. They used to. Fitzfield. John Benson used to pick stock, which was, but I think they got rid of it. I knew, I knew somebody who was in a duplex there who would go out and pick up trash for next to nothing from other people and bring it back because that's just the way some people, you know, I mean, it could have been that guy up in Lilly's bill was going out and charging people a buck of ad versus, I don't know, what is it? Yeah, no, this is a different situation. This wasn't bad. It's 100% profit. Yeah. I mean, throw it in the shed or throw it in the corner of the yard. Yeah, this wasn't bad. And I'll say that, you know, the properties that we had gotten complaints from this year, it wasn't a, you know, it very well could turn to like out to say, you know, a vendetta type thing. But these were, when you go look at them, they were very, very legit. It wasn't like a, you know, one trash bag versus the other. It was like, you know, a whole porch full and then some or stacked up behind the building or something that really probably took a year or so to accumulate all that, you know. And just, and it was creating what the public would perceive a health issue, but by the law of the state, it's not, you know. So it's, I mean, really, it's, you know, the town health officer really doesn't have a whole lot of power. I mean, even if you had trash piled up inside your house, you know, as a hoarder, let's say, I mean, you really don't even have that power to command and say that this person is, you know, you know, a town health officer's more of a, you know, you aid at a local establishment, you got sick, you know, type deal. And then you go in and just make sure that there's not an outbreak of some sort of bacteria or, you know, the, it's, you know, brilliant, you don't have a lot of power of anything. So, and it makes it, it can be frustrating because you have, you know, like what we were having, we had several, you know, in some cases, landowners that had tenants or in some cases, you know, the adjacent landowner that was coming in and saying, why can't you do anything about this? And you just, you know, really can't. So, but I appreciate everybody's feedback. We'll, we'll make some edits on that. And we'll go back out on the town website. And then usually it's good about making a link for Facebook, you know, front porch forum, that sort of thing. So, certainly, you know, you can follow with that way. And, you know, if someone has a neighbor that they think is upset by something they're doing, then maybe they can reach out to their neighbor and say, hey, you know, what can I, maybe there's a way on their end that they could also resolve instead of just one person who doesn't like it. If the person is doing something they know their neighbor doesn't enjoy, maybe they try to reach out to them to say, hey, you know, what can we do to make each other happy? Because the thing about the track, well, the stuff is you can clean that up. But if you ruin your relationship with your neighbor, you can't get that back. You can't. And, you know, I'm from a place where you pull people out of the ditch, you help them with their firewood, you do stuff like that. So if you want to talk about it, then that works very well. But if you go around the back end and try to get the constable to get in trouble, it will come back to you. You will know who it is. Oh, really? Small count. And you can always clean up your yard, but you can't get back your relationships with your neighbor when that's gone. Life is no fun. And I think it's hard. I think some people just have a real hard time articulating that to the neighbor without, you know, feeling like maybe they're afraid they're gonna start World War III even though they don't want it. And some people just, you know, but if you are the person who thinks you're offending your neighbor, then maybe you go talk to your neighbor and say, hey, you know, I'm not sure you're okay with whatever. And, you know, what could I do to make life better or whatever? You know, life's full of compromise. So, but I think it's great that you both came and I'm certainly very hopeful. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. We're really proud of being part of the community. Absolutely, that's great. That's why this life board didn't pass the ordinance and they could have done it without any input, but they didn't want it because they wanted to know what people were thinking. What can we do about this? What do you want to do? And it's just, you know, we're in it together. So it's easier to do it this way with feedback and, you know, figuring it out, so it's good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you too. All right. So we will move on to our next agenda item, which is the general budget discussion. It can be, is Lindley still, she's still on? Lindley's still on? Yes, I am still here. Okay. Just checking on you. Are you able to hear the conversation well? Budget. Budget. So as you can see, so the revenues did not change, but you can see that I, with some changing, I did come to 2.77% increase. And obviously, I don't remember what my town manager said, but the big deal was the five-year bond, the five-year payment to deal with the storm drains. So I did take, Tim Mills had a great idea and I'm not sure he said, look, Trace, he said, you know, I said, look, this isn't gonna work. I'm not, I can't do this. I can't get the amount of money. The best I could have done was to get 20,000 towards the 190, but their estimate ended up coming in closer to 210. And once they sugared out their engineering estimate and I was like, oh, the best I could get was 20,000, which, you know, better than a sharp stick in the eye, but it wasn't enough for me. And I did end up speaking to a couple people and found out there is a program that if we qualify for it, no, two things, A, if we qualify, B, if the feds fund it again, we could get a bigger percentage. So I am just fiscally frugal enough that I would have been really upset if we only got 20 and two years later, we could have got 60. So Tim said, you know, Trace, what if we just pay for the engineering? We get an engineer, then we have a shovel-ready project, which usually makes you much more appealing when you're trying to get funds, because you can say, we have an engineer and here's the plans, this is what we need to do, and usually funding mechanism is much more favorable. So pulled it out and then I just got the estimate from Aldrich and Elliott to engineer it and it was a lot cheaper than I thought it was gonna be, which is always a pleasant surprise. So it was, so for engineering, I ended up getting, yeah, let's see, the price he came in was, I think it was 14, engineering services, so $15,000. So for that, we can get it engineered. So once I took that 40 some odd thousand dollar payment out, put the 15 in, then I went back and tweaked a couple things saying, okay, now that I have a little bit more money, you know, where do I need to add it to? So I tried to go back and fund a couple things that weren't, that were a little bit underfunded. The other thing was I did make a note here, you know, that I needed a decision from the board on what you're gonna do about the recreation departments, question about $15,000 that they wanted. I also funded in the higher services under, sorry, bounce around, under public works. I added a little bit more money for a grant match in there under the higher services, so that was another, you know, three grand, I think, that I added there. And what would be those higher services? So remember that was to fix that dry hydrant project. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was the ugly part. Okay, so that was the one that we had like 15,000 there last time? Yeah, yeah, so it was to fix that. I had a little money in there so I could get, you know, a pipeline maybe to come through and blow out the rest of the culverts or cross-streams that we could have done this year. And then, so I added a little bit more money there to also pick up for, you know, a grant match because sometimes that's something that we don't, you know, always remember to budget for. So I definitely, so that's where I tweaked those numbers. I think I changed something in the fire department either telephone or something. Yeah, communication. Yeah, I had to go back and fix there. I think it was, I think it was their telephone bill. Constable, I told you that I talked to them. And then under the Recreation Department pro under that Rec Facility Improvement Fund, you know, when Ellie was standing here the other day, she asked for $15,000 and my understanding is and my understanding is from Chris is that at some point when this fund was opened that the select board said they fund it for, you know, $10,000 a year. Well, it's to remind everybody that, you know, a select board cannot tie the hands of a future board. They already have money there. They could, they know what it is for the skate park that they have sitting on. They have some money for trails. And as Chris said, they could take money out of the existing for that. And, you know, to me $15,000 seems like a lot to put in that fund this year. Well, I think we, I couldn't be mistaken by thought we were talking about just sticking with the 10. Because they wanted the 10 plus they wanted five for trails and then we got talking about that their balance was like 75 or 80 grand right now. It was, but you didn't make a decision. You guys had a roundabout. Even if they did the park, even if they did the park, they still have like $25,000 in that fund. Right, exactly. Plus the 10 that would go in. So they'd have 35. And they're coming January 9th. And if they don't have a solid plan to actually build that skate park for 50 grand. It doesn't sound that familiar from the meeting. Then if you put the kibosh to it, they certainly could build a basketball or ice rink for 50 grand. So if you, if you could give them $5,000, you could put $10,000 into your reappraisal fund, which you know is coming, which you know you're going to have to fund. But you know there's never going to be enough money in that. Right, that's true. But I mean, I think at this point, unfortunately to put $10,000 more into that fund, you're right. But the next, we do see the next budget then. And you know that we're going to pay for that reappraisal. We have some money to put a deposit down and then to pay them monthly over two years. But $10,000 is $10,000. And why not? You know for absolute certainty that you're going to have to pay for a town ride reappraisal. You have no idea when they're going to build anything on the facility. So I'm just saying, in my opinion, you certainly will do what you want. Is why not shift $10,000 into the reappraisal? It's just a thought. And you're right, Paul. You're going to have to pay for it. I think the challenge is with the reappraisal fund is something that, I mean, we just started last year, probably should have been started. Well, you've had the fund. Decades ago. But they have only contributed the state funding to what they've never added additional. But what I'm saying is right now, if we know this is coming around here in the next three years, I mean, we talked about at the last meeting, we'd have to probably start putting $40,000 a year to get to our share for the month. So I mean, do you throw $10,000 in it and boost it? Or I mean, I think at this point, we're just going to have to end up in three years to fight in the bullet and, you know, in pain for half of it out of our pockets and hell. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt that's true. I'm just thinking that, you know, why not? Instead of buying a brand to the reappraisal fund, you could make it 15 bucks. Just because, you know, I've been here for two years and you haven't built anything at the recreation center. So, you know, just something to think about. But anyways, I'll make that 10 grand then. I mean, I would just like to see us put the $10,000 in the rec. I mean, we do know that if you take the rec plan, and we talked to them last time that we'd like to see them, just like all the other capital funds, show us money going in, money going out, when they believe that these projects should be going so that we can make sure that we have enough funds. Yep. But I wouldn't feel comfortable putting any more or less at this point in it, just not knowing. Right. Then that's fine, then there's 10. So that gives us five back. Well, it gives you five back that I would put somewhere else. So we talked also about maybe adjusting the gravel. Which I am opposed to doing that. Only because I know right now the way we're going through sand this year. I know that it's not, I think it has too much fine in it. I think that next year we should buy, we need to have something with a little more grit in it. I know we're gonna, we are gonna crush what we have. But also after driving all the roads this year, multiple times in multiple areas with, after what we saw in April, we know we're doing some ditching. We know we're gonna obviously stone line some of that. But there are places that you have graded to bedrock and that two inches is not gonna cut it. So I would rather see, at this point, you don't need to cut that gravel budget. I think that- Well, I think- We should leave it alone. I understand your question. So under the- Let me come up with a plan for road repair over the winter and at least- So under the gravel item currently, so it will show right now that we've spent $20,600 year to date. Of that $20,600, how much is that? Is any of that FEMA related or is that just town-wotted? Well, actually, I did just find out that some of that was FEMA because there was a, so something I was informed when I became intern that the, when I asked that question about gravel, I was told that the gravel that we had used on the roads during the April storm had already been replaced. And then when I had another, I had a meeting with FEMA last week and her and I had a conversation. She's like, Trees, there's no way these numbers match up. So I called Alan, he came down. I said, this is what I was told. He goes, that's what I was told, Trees, but I don't believe it. So we went back and I gave her some more bills from previous purchases of gravel. So we are gonna actually recoup some of that, but I just found that out. But going- Just hear me out. Going back to what I had said last meeting. And I know what he said, yeah. I believe, not just I believe, but going through the math and what I know, we currently have enough money in the gravel budget to sustain our gravel roads for that five or six year period. Right, to sustain. Right, but in the past, we've been, well, we've been doing, in the past, we've been doing 36,000 and I think I said 45 was the number. Yeah. But if you go back and look at that, we haven't spent that budget. You know what I mean? So it's not like we're spending $36,000 a year and we're saying, we have all these roads we're following behind. Every year we've spent a budget and then you'll see that we had 36,000 and we only spent 21. And then the budget that we're in right now, we had $36,000 in there, we've spent 20. Of which you and I probably both know that, probably 10 of that was FEMA. So we've only spent 10. So we're not really actually doing the work that we should be doing. Right. You know what I mean? The money's been allotted but we're not putting the gravel on the road. So if that number is 10,000 or if it's 100,000, we're not doing it then I just. And I agree with that. I find a hard time of putting $60,000 in gravel. Yeah, and I agree with what you're saying but I'm also saying that this winter, then when we create a plan for the roads that that work will be done this year. But I can say this, you can cut whatever you want out of gravel and this 5,000 here. But I think we need to reallocate that money to the highway. We either reallocate that to the Capital Building Fund or the Capital Road Fund because either we know, we know we're gonna be building a town garage in a salt shed. I know I need to put out an RFP, I need to get an architect because that is going to trigger permits for the state and so we're gonna need an architect to come in and do some of that work. And then maybe, yeah, we will get a metal building and certainly we know what we want, we know within the parameters but there is some issues there that we need to. We're going to need an architect for and possibly depending on what the metal building people can offer, we may even need a console in a couple areas, not big areas but a couple areas with a structural engineer. So if you can cut the gravel budget. No, but I think we need to put it in another capital. The challenge we have is if we all of a sudden instead of $50,000 for the Capital Improvement Fund if we decide to put 20 of it in there and say 70, the problem we're gonna have is people are gonna say we'll show me where you need $70,000 for the Capital Improvement Fund. We're not gonna be able to show it right now. Well I think we serve, if you didn't do it. We all know we gotta do it. Our roadmap is not drawn. We don't know when we need the money by. Right, well we do know, well I know this, that we will need money to pay and we could do it as far as in the spring of this year is an architect. We know we have issues at the town office that we're waiting on the results of the testing for the insulation and if that comes back, probably have received our samples and if that is what we think it might be, that could be an expensive abatement process and then we get that abated, then we can have the electrical upgraded, then we can, so there is money to be spent but between the town office, getting the town garage, getting the architect, getting some stuff done and starting that process. So I think we do have a roadmap for that. We also have a roadmap for highway equipment because even if the grader from Nortracks comes down does oil samples and then talks to us about what life is left in the grader. Either we pay for the grader next or trucks and so we know we have issues with the one ton. We know we have two trucks that are of similar age which I forget which year they are and then obviously the one ton. So we know we have issues with town equipment so if we cut 10, five, 10, 15,000 out of here we could certainly divide that number in half than the other and I think when you look at town report you will see a capital equipment plan and a capital building plan that will sustain both of those and answer those questions. What's the increased work out to be with this new budget? 2.77% which was about, I would say about. Yeah the current, did we leave it? The quarter's tax. So if you left it alone, the copy we had tonight. Right, right. The copy tonight was 2.8 cents. If you take out the 5,000 from the bond then it's 2.5 cents. So it's 2.5 cents. I mean you're at 2.7, I'm not, I'm not opposed, I'm not opposed. I'm not sure what, if there's any growth in the grant at the list then obviously that will bring it down. Yeah it didn't seem like it based on kind of looking at the stock market. Yeah and I'm looking, I had a couple of questions for the auditors and then we'll know if we have any undesignation fund balance. But you know, still. It looks like the grant list is probably. Maybe flat this year. It looks very similar to last year. I think we were 1.964 and it looks like what? 1.963 or 4, well it's not gonna really change much. No and you did see a little growth last year which actually dropped to 2.9 so almost 3 cents or less that we had last year and that ended up coming down a little bit. I mean I think right now overall budget growth, the 2.5 cents seems to be a good healthy growth. I think overall number wise, I mean I just, again I just, in some areas I want to be tighter in the budget because. I get it. Especially at the public works because for so many years we just said we have $100,000 in salt and dammit we've spent every damn penny of it, right? But if we say we have $60,000 they're gonna look at that a little harder. I agree. And gravel if we had been going out doing the work 100% then I could say okay, well we can do a little bit more gravel but we haven't even been spending half that. And the other thing is too, let us not forget is even if, like I always say, we're budgeting out 18 months so my crystal ball's kind of foggy but if the wheels come off the bus then I can always go to say the road foreman and say, look, Alan, you're having, which I have done before, you're having vehicle problems so you are gonna overspend your vehicle repairs by five, 10, 15,000. Where are you cutting the rest of your budget to come up with that? And he'll say, well I could save this in sand or I could save this in salt. My expectation is always if you are gonna overspend somewhere else you're still eating it. Oh yeah. You better figure out how you're saving it later. So that's the other trick of cutting every little thing and you can certainly reduce gravel but that's why I'm saying just throw it somewhere else because you just don't know what's gonna happen. And certainly with the job market, as you said last time first unemployment rate is so low right now that when you're trying to get people or retain people or it's a trick right now. And so, you know, it's hard not to. I mean typically, well what if we, I mean typically we fund the highway rehabilitation fund at 130. Yep. And this, yeah. Or between 110 and 130 depends on the year. Right and this year we couldn't because of the gravel. We're down slightly, yeah right because we're paying the whole ERAF. Right. So what if we took the gravel to the 45 and then put 15 into the highway rehabilitation fund. That would be good. Which kind of, because we do know that we have two projects that we need to do. One of which is Sand Hill project that we talked about. Yep. And the other is the Christian Hill piece. Yep. That our priorities here over the next three, three to five years so. So make it a hundred. And we already had to cut out of that because we were trying to pay the ERAF off in one year which is. Which is good. So take the 45, drop this, gravel from 60 to 45 and add it to 100, the 115, which still gives me access to the money. Well I'm gonna say if we need to, if we. Yep. We can come to the select board and say, hey this project's gonna go over. Can I have 5,000 out of the highway rehabilitation? So if we make that 150, I can look at that. Well, you know, looking at the sand side of it, we've consistently overspent. Yep. By almost double, well not double, half again probably. True enough. Well I can tell you one of the issues was in a prior year, what had happened was the rule foreman didn't understand how basically how it works. So he had made a large scale purchase of sand and made a deal which was very nice of the person he was buying it from and said well I will give it to you now but I will bill you in the future year and then unfortunately for him he said it in front of me and I was like you cannot do that but the minute you take possession of it I have to report it in the books. And he was like what? And I'm like so hey don't have these conversations in front of me. So we ended up paying for it in a previous year and then hoping it would accept but I think last year you had a problem with the sand where it was again too much fines so I think you were going through way too much and I had a conversation already this last week with the person, with somebody we bought sand from and said if we're gonna buy sand in that again next year we need to, that needs to be a little bit coarser because when it's too fine you're just, you're going through it so quickly. So I think there needs to be a little oversight of that purchase next year too. They had a lot of freedom right to do like. The last two years you know we could close Plough Snow and the house come home but this is brutal. We've also been burned into a bunch of routine because of that because you get roads and ending up freezing rain and it's a, it's a, I would just rather have it in snow. We can deal with that, but this is rough. And it's been. Oh yeah, I know. So all the crushing that we're gonna do that's to create gravel as opposed to snow. Well some of it will create sand. Some of it, I think that it seems the conversation I've had is that some of this, the rib stone that we hauled out of the river, the debris removal, that that can be crushed and that might add something to our sand pile, which is good. So I think some of that, right, may the crushing may, we'll have to split the crushing. Some of the crushing will come out of sand and some of the crushing will come out of gravel. But it doesn't come out of higher surfaces. It comes out of that line because it's creating that material. Also too, the other, you know, there's a list of topics you need to get through but one of them is the gravel pit too. So I have the paperwork for that. And I think once I get my sheet of town report done, I need to, I need to sit down and revisit that topic, get through your act to 50 permit and figure out what we're gonna do with that. Well, we're getting viable gravel out of it. I've heard, I've heard yes and no. They're not using it right now. So we need to go down and take a look at the product at where you stand with your act to 50 permit which is gonna be up for renewal but you haven't done your reclamation and so. The numbers that we have in here for the human services are those of the updated numbers? Yes, those are the ones that Paul made, yes. Well, you know, there's only one section of it that the Human Services Committee actually looks at. There's a lot of appropriations that kind of, I guess over the course of time have found their way to come directly into the budget. Well, and some of them you can't get. From another angle. Some of them we have to do that. But just the human services ones that we've labeled. Right. Those numbers in there. Some of them you can't get. Because it looks like a lot of them carried over from last year. Yes. And then maybe there was some that maybe weren't here and then come back. And I think there were two or three new ones on like American Red Cross came back and I think there were two new ones. So that's a one mark council on the aging. Yeah. And that was in there last year. It's bad. Yeah. Well, no, it's the first time. There were two of them that are first timers. And then the first time was a Vermont adult learning. Yeah. And then increased the Vermont Center for, no, that was the same from last year. So. Okay. And then one dropout. American Red Cross came back. That was in there last year. Yeah. Yeah. It was about five percent I think from the section that we had controlled. Yeah. I think so. I think that's what you said. I think that's what we were pretty much budgeted in. Right. And then we knew we'd already discussed last time was the ambulance where that was going to. So. So right now, based on the adjustments that we made, we are at. You didn't change it, right? Cause you just made even, even Stephen. On that, but we took the 5,000 out of the. Right. Out of the ramp. Five brands left. That's right. So that would make the amount to be raised by taxes to be 2053. But you could also add, since you know that you, you could add that $5,000 into the. Into the rephrase or the capital improvement reserve fund. So you could do one of the two. I would suggest that you put it in one of the other. Because you know the capital. Thank you, Alex. Have a nice holiday. Thanks, Alex. I think that the capital, you know, improvement fund, we obviously know we are looking to spend that money next, some of that money next year or this year. As soon as we find out what the deal is with the insulation, we're going to move forward with that, the upgrades. And I need to put out an RFP to get an architect to start with some preliminary, you know, assistance for the new highway garage. And that kind of locks that money down. It does. It locks it down. Is there any grant money out there for doing, doing that type of work? I do this for salt sheds. There might be some with like public works buildings. I saw, I did see one, well actually USDA. So that would be probably borrowing. And if you got a little bit of a grant, but for the most part, what happened to the USDA RD is they, most every town is eligible for some free money, you know, grant money. But however, if every town got what they asked for, they just, they don't fund it properly. It also rides on the federal budget. But I do know I have seen specifically money, somewhere else from salt sheds. And that also in part is due to, you know, rivers and that sort of thing. So there is money available for grants for salt sheds and we can look for it. Yeah, two rivers, was it two rivers? I think that had one of their programs. Yep. Yeah, good, that's where I read it. And now you get a bunch of emails, but certainly we know that we have expenses coming and we, and you know that an architect is not going to be inexpensive, but we will need that because there's permits that need to be filed and we need to, you know, I think there's some work we may be able to do ourselves like removing the concrete, I can't reuse it, I hope that I could, but I can't. So there's some work I think that the row group could actually do, which is. But we got to back up for us and figure out what is able to be put on that footprint. Exactly, yep. Before we even get into. Exactly, so some of that also is, you know, being in, you know, all that sort of stuff, which is, you know, what they do. So where were we going to put the $5,000 out? I would say add it to either the reappraisal fund or Capital Improvement Reserve because we know that it's, we'll be spending money in the next two years, in the next year, a few months basically because we've got to start with the highway and I know we're going to have improvements done at the town office to make it more energy efficient because, and I want to remove them. I was there alone the other night, I come here on the snow, I'm like, just stay in the middle of the lake. That's for a moment. Get a cat. There's all kinds of strays. I know, we could have that, but we can't. The next time Oscar gets one. Yeah, well, I'm throwing in the basement. He comes to town, town office cat. 15 pounds. If you pay me under hired services, I can get a loan mine out. Yeah, the cat, I got three. It's good to catch a nice. So do you want to put 5,000 more in the appraisal fund and then have that be 10 or do we want to put it? I mean, I just think the appraisal fund is this point. If the appraisal fund is like this. Then add it to capital improvement reserve. I know, but when it's like this, now it's like this. Then it's like this. Then add it to the capital improvement reserve. You can get it all, I'll take it. Yeah, because the cap, I mean, five grand would pay, you know, it's going to pay for the electrical upgrades at the town office. Yeah. So, you know, there's five grand right there and I haven't tackled the insulation, the broken window, the, you know, to make it more energy efficient so we could save some money. So if we leave that in there, what did you say it was across 2.8? At 2.8 cents. Yeah, which is the budget I came up with just moved around, so put it in the, my vote is for it, which I don't have. We also got to look at capital improvement reserve fund. You know, the budget would be net, you know, net would be going up 2.8 cents. But we're also paying back the whole E-Rap. Exactly. Oh, yeah, no. So, I mean, the E-Rap is six cents. So really, really if you compare this budget apples to apples, you're really under, if we didn't have the spring flooding. No, I think we covered a lot of bases. Which is in a good situation. Well, we still have E-Rap that we're going to pay next year, but. Yes, on the new people over there. You know, we're taking care of our short term debt. The fix is for p-vine that the engineer is an engineer. So, I mean, so really our budget is a level funded budget. I think it's a good, it's a good budget. I mean, but we're seeing more efficiencies out of. We certainly have. Out of the town office and, and Iowa Public Works and, and as long as we can continue to see those efficiencies and we'll be able to build more money into our future funds. Yeah. And we can just get Mother Nature to give us a five year freeze, you know, to get caught up and move ahead. That'd be good. Yeah. I think one thing on this app now. Well, we certainly have, you know, there's, there are, all the routes are designated. Each, each person has a specific route. And, you know, priority is always given to schools, to the school bus and the bus routes. And I will say that an issue that Bethel has had, which continues is buses that do not have appropriate winter tires or chains or, and that becomes an issue for the road crew. And they certainly do a good job going out and standing and calling. But I think it's an issue that, frankly, that the school board needs to address. I'm not sure where they lease or how they get their equipment. I get to think that Supervisor Union owns the buses, right? But the Supervisor Union needs to make sure that those school buses are equipped with winter tires or chains, as we have heard, even though we've put their name on it, it's at least by some way, it's solid. Some people just refuse to use chains while the road goes through the archery. So if they're transporting children, that is sort of, so you'd have to go through the same road. The school bus routes are always a priority for the road crew. I think we do need to look at school buses and the safety of them. I agree. But I have looked at, because when we had talked about, well, when we had talked about salt and sand and things, you know, last year, we had overspent our budget by like $80,000 on materials for winter. Of course, we had a really severe winter as well. But this year, we had looked at more getting into our normal winter budget as well as taking some classes and getting some more efficiencies with the equipment and salt and sand dispersion rates and stuff like that. But there was a lot of perceived, a lot of perception out there, like the school was that, if we're putting less material down, then the school bus routes might be less safe. So that had come up early. And I have been keeping in touch with Dave as well as Owen Bradley. And to date, I haven't had any concerns. And I've been reaching out to them and they said that everything seems to be, you know, as kosher as it normally is, if not in some cases, better this year. Well, they have concerns, but yet I have heard them on the horn calling the road crew because they're out and about. And two examples I asked both of the road crew employees, when you get there, please look at that bus. Please tell me, I want to know what's on it. For tires one said, you looked at it and thought that it wasn't bad. The other guy said, I wouldn't want my kids in that bus. So, you know, it's something for the school board. Well, maybe the school board's principle might be not. You may not know what we know, which is I hear the radio running. They don't need it. He might. They don't want, you know, they don't want to know how bad these buses are. That since the buses have been not being cared by the town since it has moved to butlers, they haven't been maintaining it. And they've been putting stickers on without having them have appointments to get fixed up and stuff. So there is a big, they do their own stuff. A thing going on. Oh, they self-maintenance? Oh, okay. But I really need to go to the supervisor union meeting. Yeah. I mean, there's really nothing we can do about that. Yeah. I mean, we can do just what you're doing. Complain it. But the folks at the SU are the ones who can write the contract, move the contract. Yeah. And they're the ones. But I'm going to tell you, having served on that board for many years, last time the contract came up there was one bigger. One. The whole state. One. This area. Yeah. It is a problem. But as far as on the town level control board. It was the station to get the thing. And that's what makes people feel good. When they see the town out there doing the roads, digging the ditches, creating that, that makes you feel like you're tacked. I know. You don't know. I go at seven o'clock to eight o'clock and get back on between two and four. The roads, they're during the day, it may rain, it's got shitty. Yeah. Between those hours, my van is very terrible. Yeah. But I'm still okay. I'm getting out of the road today. I'm leaving at three. I'm going to get home. Yeah. I told them that the other day I said, it was the day it snowed pretty bad here a couple of days ago. I said, the truck will come up the road here in just a couple of minutes. It was 10 after three. Because our bus comes home for 3.30. Within two minutes, the truck went up the road. And it's been like that. Every all went along before the school bus comes through, the truck's going up the mountain. So it seems like on our end, yeah. You know, the roads are just as safe that they have been. We have had several good comments in regards to like the village areas, sidewalks being cleared earlier and more often. It's challenging because last year, kind of looking at it based on last year where every storm we had last year had like eight or 10 inches of snow, right? So it becomes challenging to plow, right, Doug? You know, it's not, you have these little one inch storms you can come through with the Kubota and then cup it off. But you have the big storms, you're basically plowing it back, plowing it back over, plowing it back over until you can pick it up, right? So we, but so far, I mean, those sidewalks look good and, you know. And we did change the highway hours. So they're six to two, trying to save a little on OT on the early side. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But certainly, it also gives them a little bit more of a head start to make sure that they're, you know, that we're going to plow there. He comes by our house at four past five. My alarm clock goes up at 5.25. I get that extra 10 minutes because he makes the hell of a racket and we don't buy it. Well. But it seems like this year we're having more of a traditional Vermont winter where you, you know, I mean, remember those years where it's January and you still really haven't gotten snow, but you've got like that freezing rain and, you know. It seems like we're getting more of that this year. Last year we had a lot of snow, right? I mean, just dumped. Yeah, but we also had a lot of freezing. I mean, it seemed like we got a lot of rain too in between last year. Just normal rain was just a mix, but, you know, till we can curb mother nature. So if you want to make those adjustments to budget, then I can, if you want to call it a day with the budget, then it's great if I can move forward to the morning and. I'm good with that. What about Lindley? Lindley, you good with that? I'm good with that. I'm good with it. We're making sure you're gonna have to drive in and sleep in at the same time. Where are you, Lindley? Missouri, Missouri, it's only seven o'clock out there. So did you see the paving rate in surrounding towns? Yeah. I put it at your, at your tonight at your seat and I didn't do much about it. There's nothing about it. But here's the information that you asked for about how much select boards make in surrounding communities. The health officer ran off, it was a big pay. And then the other one when Barnard was per hour and the cemetery commissioner and Barnard per hour. So, you know, it's not, yeah, I'm not sure how helpful this was, but that was your question and this is your answer. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I moved the chair and. You know, I think I've always done, you know, if I was, regardless of select board, you know, if I took a position, it would be a civic duty and not expected to be paid, you know, to deal. And I mean, I don't know. I mean, some physicians are paid, some are paid more than others with no rhyme reason. You know, I don't know if like, at some point do we sit down and say, do we take it to the, you know, does either everybody get paid the same fee if you're elected or appointed official, or do we just say everybody gets nothing? You know, because they're trying to make rhyme a reason of why, you know, let's say a select board member makes $200 and the cemetery commissioner makes $600 and the health officer makes $800. You know, how these rhyme reasons came into it. Well, I can tell you that all of those are, you know, if you're in it for the money, here, you're definitely, you definitely don't make anything on those deals. So I mean, you know, it's kind of almost like, I guess my opinion would be that you take them all to zero. I mean, they're elected or appointed position that somebody wants to do their civic duty and you know, shouldn't be looking for any other stuff. I think it's all right. If you have somebody in that position now that as being paid a stipend has been, I think it would be hard to bring them to zero now. And I think one of the way it happens is fruition, basically, and where I came from, it was voted on every year at town meeting what the select board made. It wasn't, yes, it was budgeted for, but it was one of the articles and it came up at town meeting and, well, it would be entertaining because what Paul just showed me tonight, that's the only way you can change it. Yeah, it came up and people would, and very good someone would holler from that. Well, what do you make it now? They'd be like, well, as we'd say, making acts and so much for people. But it's just trying to figure out, like, you know, take the cemetery commissioner, for example, in Bethel, they make a small fee, but they get a small fee, they don't make anything. Yeah, they get a small fee. You get a small fee, which doesn't cover anything, really. But then you go to other towns and the majority of them don't pay them anything, you know? You could do it here as you could move since you were the lesser paid, you could move the select board, and, because I think the cemetery commissioner and the health officer make the same now here, right? So you could move the select board to the same as the cemetery commissioner. No, the health officer gets 600 and the cemetery commissioner gets a five from you. Oh, okay, I thought they're both six. Well, they could make the same way. Yeah, I would say that you could make it. Only five replacements real quick. Yeah, yeah, so, anyways, I don't know. Anyways, do you want the data? So there it is. But it's not really good data in the fact that Royalton's folks are on the town. They don't pay your position. They pay, they have someone they use that way, I think, Rojo Seaman in Royalton. I think she's there. They have administrators. She's a town administrator. She's working for the SU. She's taking a job at the SU. Rose? Yeah, mm-hmm. Oh, I talked to her last week. Well, I talked to the folks this week. Huh? Not this week, last week, actually. And they said that she was coming to the SU. Wow, how Royalton would be hurting them. So, huh? I told them to the chair then. Huh? I saw up to the chair, Rose, John, everything. Yeah, you know, a lot of times in that case they will get a select board assistant, somebody, which I know Rose was budgeting for, so somebody to do their correspondence, do certain things, and it depends. Every town's a little bit different on how they manage themselves. And sometimes, actually, a lot of that responsibility, the select board, dumps on the town clerk. So that also, you know, in every town, whatever, figures out what are working. I mean, I guess my concern would be is if we are paying certain positions. So, health officer or cemetery commissioner, if we are giving them a stipend, is the stipend worth it? You know, I mean, if the person is, if it costs them more money to do the job than they're getting, you know, shouldn't we at least make it whole? Or do we just make it as a civic duty zero? Well, I could certainly reach out to the current. Now, they're great. Whenever they go out, they get paid so much now. Well, we could reach out. I could reach out to the current cemetery commissioner. He's been doing it for several years. And the current health officer, who I believe is going to fill his term, ends March 2020. I could ask them how they feel. Maybe for the health officer, it does cover his mileage and time. I don't know. I don't know how many. And all, as you know, as deputy, it all, in that big zero stipend you get, is it really, it could depend on how many calls they get. They don't get in a year and it calls in a pocket of 500, but if they get a few, then they're fine. Well, I know when I came on to do the deputy role, there was for the first two, two and a half weeks, it was, I think I spent each Saturday, because that's usually the time to do it, right? You know, I just, it's just funny how we have certain, it was no different than when we started looking at fees in the town last year. Like, you know, why do you have a $25 permit fee when it costs us $80 in the office to do all that work? You know, I mean, just these things that just didn't make any sense. And you know, in kind of looking at the same thing we had talked about at some point, you know, looking at the, you know, some of these appointed positions and. I think that honestly, I think for the first time. Does it make sense to have it or not? I'm sure that, that it's just a small token, probably of your appreciation and the realization that they have a lot of time. And it's really probably just frankly, a volunteer position, but the stipend is just basically not to try to take, you know, maybe pay for their gas or something. But so, I know sometimes it's just the way things have come about. There's no real primer reason to it. So the Lister's air and emission report. Yeah, they submitted, so air and emissions have to be done every year before, by the end of December. And this is basically the air and emissions for, they're not really even the Lister's fault. Current use had locked the biobit and so they couldn't access it. And current use is state wide behind. So you had some changes in current use. So that dropped to the grand list, $1,585. The Board of Civil Authority lowered a listed value by $74 and then the Board of Abatement did a reduction of taxes, $113. They had a new veteran exemption, which it used to be you had to file your veteran's exemption with the state or with the town Lister office. A few years ago it went to the state and the state did not notify us that we had an extra veteran. So the whole change in the, in the municipal grand list is a reduction of $2,072. So I mean, I think that this is. Based on those things. Yeah, I think that's, you know, that's not bad. So in this incident, you do need a motion to accept the. The air and emissions report for 2019. Yes, sir. Second. Hey, all in favor? Aye. Aye. It's not like there's anything for us to really debate about it. Not really, no, but it's, you know, one of the state rules. Well, it's not much to do about it, right? State controls all that. No. Malady, town manager for it? So. Did you have something in there? Cause if so, I missed it. Right there in the front. Oh. I just combined. Usually I tell you what's on the agenda, but this time I said, well, why don't I just combine both of these reports? So one of the things that I want to talk to you about was in your packet was that her, the requirement of the state of law, Tim Mills and I did meet on Thursday night with the residents of Crystal Drive. And we had a great meeting. Wonderful people. And it was nice. It was kind of a fact finding mission, certainly for us to find out what kind of water issues they were experiencing on Crystal Drive. So I put in your packet a sample or a copy of, not a sample, the letter that we sent to them. And we had a good meeting. Tim had prepared a packet for them, explaining, you know, what the sanitary survey, the master plan, what it said about Crystal Drive. And we had a great conversation with folks. And part of it was, God bless them. You know, a couple of them were saying, you're in the shower and the water stops. But then if you waited, it comes back on. And they just lived with it and never called. I'm like, oh man, and so obviously we apologized and told them, gave them copies of everything that we had that the state had and said that, look, the state is, you know, we need to go back to the state by the end of December to say, we have met with you. Here's kind of what we're thinking. And he had mentioned to them, you know, like we said here, installing wells. And we also talked about what the $730,000 fix for just them. So we talked to them about, you know, they were concerned that we'd already made a decision. And we said, no, really, we're all in it together. You know, tell us what you're thinking. What have you experienced? What would you like to see? And so got some great information from them. Tim and I have a meeting with the state again and I think things have switched umpteen times. I think it's the 13th or 14th of January. So we're gonna talk to them a little bit about what the residents desires are and ideas. So we're in the process of that. And once we sugar out a couple of issues with the state, we'll, you know, be able to move forward with that. Because obviously if we did decide to move forward with wells, then we, you know, the next thing is getting the engineers in there to do a site survey, make sure where they can go, figure out where everybody's stuck to his, et cetera. But um, great people and they were very gracious and we had a good conversation. So is the cost of whatever this project, whatever, how it ever turns out, is going to be borne by the water users? Or is it infrastructure related? We honestly, we haven't crossed that bridge yet. I mean, in the past, all of those things have been borne by the users, but we don't even really know what to throw at this for a price tag. We know that the 730,000 is irresponsible and just ridiculous, frankly, for 11 users. And even they understood that, you know, Tim said, one of the reasons, I heard it used to be a good steward of the system and the money. And this is crazy. And so we had a really good conversation about that. Found out what people had for existing, you know, issues and infrastructure in their own homes. So honestly, I don't know yet. Obviously with what has happened recently with the 2.8 million dollar bond, hopefully before we go screaming down the rabbit hole here, we will find out exactly how much that galvanized subsidy covered and we'll be able to look at that. And you know what, it may, you know, it may have to go on to the taxpayers. I don't know. And it gets, you know, too premature for to say. But we have some time to act on that. Well, you know, that's the thing is the state wanted, not only do they want to work, do they want to plan. And so Tim and I, Tim and Kraft, the response today, me and I kind of tweaked it a little bit and we want to have a sit down with Patrick Smart to look at it, to get some, to bring some closure to it because the residents had wanted, you know, to the town drill a well and they continue to pay water rent and we lease in the wells. When we asked Patrick Smart about that, he said, no, but now the residents up there actually are interested in doing that. So we need to push Patrick a little harder that why did you say no? Is there a law? Let me hear it, you know, that sort of thing. But they were great and just so appreciate all of them coming out and it was a good meeting. Well, we have some time, I mean. Not much. I mean, I know. I mean, if we had to do everything overnight that the state wanted to do every town and a lot would be broke over time, you know, so there's priorities and. We were stretching it. We were going to go back to them and say, you know, we would manage it in three to five years and maybe sooner we just, you know, because you know, next summer. I think the concern for like myself and I think Paul was alluding to us, let's get through the main street projects, then we'll be able to see how much, how much is it really going to put on the end user? Tell me about it. It may put, will be said, they put a little less on that and then we can jump to the next project and figure out how we best solve that one. Exactly what Tim and I said and we did put in our response that we had fiscal, but in the end, they hold all the cards. We are the ones who, you know, so. They do and they don't. Well, if you're in violation of your permit, you're in violation of your permit, whether they're going to issue you online. They hold the cards. We hold the pitchforks and torches. But we did say that to them in the response. We don't have, we need time to come up with a financial solution and so we are also, we understand, you know, we're doing it, but, but anyways, I just wanted you to know we had a conversation with them and with one of the nine things on the list in the state to deal with. The other thing was you also got a copy of Carol Ketchum. They did agree with Carol's request to, which was, he was very happy about because he had some serious issues with the, you know, always having to turn that money back over from the interest of the Cowdery estate. So he said when his, I believe he said it was in March that his CD will come due and then he'll give us the town the $4,000 he can change so that we can make, in the spring, we can tackle the issues that Jack, Cowdery, and family have had with his mom's memorial. So this is just a one-time amendment to that? Well, what it did was said, yeah, you can leave the balance of $20,000 and they also had agreed to redo the terms of the CODESOL so that the $600 that it used to say that every year, you know, you couldn't give out any interest until it hits $600 and the trust hasn't earned $600 income for 10 years. So they are going to use the amount of the principal over the $20,000, which is a one-shot deal, and then going forward, all income earned by the $220,000 principal will be used as stated in the fee quest. So even if it's $200, then they can use that $200. Yeah, so it makes it easier for Care, all he's happy about that too. So that was very kind of him. He reached Dr. Jack, sent him a coffee, and so I think that was good. And I had just provided you the list of all the things that went up to what we were working on over the last, you know, two weeks. I will give you back to Class 4 Road Policy. I did get some, let's see, Derek Wright was in and gave me something, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it was kind of him to come in and give me some, his thoughts on the Class 4 Road Policy. He's certainly been a great support of his. Were you able to take a peek at the Rochester one that was just... I did, yep, and I gave it to Deetra, yep, and we have made some adjustments to ours, and then I'm gonna read what Rick Wright put in, and then we will see about if there's any changes to incorporate, and then that will come back to you. So yeah, we did. I will tell you, Rochester got in the weeds, so I'm assuming that they had some issues with people. They did have a couple of real... Because yeah, I saw that as like no way. It's been a regular thing. You would be issuing permits, or I would be issuing them all the time. And what happens here is actually it's kind of funny that it's kind of what your audience stated earlier. We have so many people that are really good stewards of Class 4 Roads. I don't want them jumping through groups of buyers so that I have to issue permits every time they look sideways at their road. I wanna make this policy that kind of handles the bigger issues, which is the town doesn't wanna, is not going to update bridges or culverts on them. Really, that was the only intent here, was to put something in writing. And so I feel like there may be some areas that we need to scale back on, so that I'm not having to issue permits all the time for people to do things. We do certainly wanna be able to have the ability to go back on someone if you have a logger who has trashed the road or if somebody has put in a culvert or done some work and not done it correctly. We certainly wanna be able to have some knowledge of that happening so the road foreman can go by and take a peek at it, but I just don't think we need to get too crazy about it. So that'll come out in the future of the update will come out again. So we're talking about that fire. The other thing I did in here was, oh, the fire department bids out for the SCBA units. The job descriptions, Deetre has got me done on my desk for review. I have to go through them one more time. Hopefully tomorrow I'll give them back to her, see if we make any changes and they'll go out to the highway department for review and then their two cents and then once they're good, we're gonna sign on. I met with Greg Russ from the White Group partnership because they're removing the high dam in East Bethel. And so he came in and we had a good chat about that. The town has a dry hydrant in that area. He's kind enough to take that out for us. It can be reused in another area. So I'm gonna work with the fire chief to see if we can't find another location for that in a similar area because as you all know, it affects fire insurance. So it would be nice to be able to reuse that. And he also will be doing a little bit of debris removal which is nice under the bridge in East Bethel. It happens to be the one we need to deal with. So it's the dam is right near the bridge, right? It just, yeah, up a little bit, yep. Below it. Or below it, I guess. Below it, below it, right? I'm thinking to the right. So are they gonna add a little bit of a bridge? No. The bridge is in Tarleburn. No, we're not. There's a parking lot right beside that. I already asked him and he said no. He said there wouldn't be any information. And he actually brought me some pictures and I said, yeah, I know what it looks like up there. So he was great and so we had a good chat about that. So that was all good. Yeah, I could go on the chance canes. So the legal work is out for the acquiring and drafting of the construction easements. That's good. Meetings with FEMA are going great. Getting that information out so we will hopefully start seeing our money. Some of the money is already coming back headed our way. So that is a, so that's happening. So that's all good. So that's it. Just, you know, doing all those things. And once we, now you finalize the budget, I can work on the warning and all the reporting that we need to do for. All right. That's like forward meeting minutes for the night. The thing is on the, it's like founds on the last page. Okay. Oh, no, hang on. Next to the last page. Paul Valley said the human services committee met and they're proposing a five to five increase. Oh, okay. Wasn't it five to six? It was five. Okay. Five, all right. So we'll just change it for five percent. Okay. I can have Kelly. Five? No, no. All right. Anything else? Come on, let me give us a second. All in favor. And there was several, several committees of communication in here. There was a few from the Solid Waste Board. Yeah, Kelly, I thought it was, which is seemed like a majority of the discussion was budget related discussion in here. And we also had the energy committee had their meeting minutes in here. I didn't see anything in there in regards to the charging stations. No, I didn't see something in here about following up when we were renewing a $1,000 grant. I don't know what that was. Well, we ended up having to give them money back. They did have a grant from someone and it was in the payables. We had to give them their money back because they didn't use it. The charging station, I think, is gonna end up on to the wayside. The funding that was available is no longer. Because we're still carrying seven in this budget. But that wasn't for the charging station. That was for that better block grant and about traffic and all that. So that's five walks and stuff. And then the Bethel Recreation Committee had they're in here, which talked about the ice rink. Talked about the trails and the skateboard park. And so they're slated to come to your next meeting. Okay. Is there any further word about the F-250? Oh, yes. I did find out what that was. I actually met with Thatcher Hinton one day last week and I asked him what is the skin with that? I thought it was the trails and the whole legislation that the, in their infinite wisdom, the studies thinking about doing. Actually, no. What the whole boiled down to was when the school built their addition, they had to get an F-250 permit. So now, whenever you do anything that involves the school, it triggers that F-250 permit. So I think he just said it was a matter of maybe writing a letter or something. It wasn't as involved as I thought maybe it was the trail that we're issuing that, but we're triggering that, excuse me, but it wasn't, so. Yeah. All right. Anything else to come before the board, Stephen, before we enter into executive session? I will tell you that I don't have, but I will read it to you when you're ready, the language for your executive session motion. I didn't type it out because I didn't know until today. You could read that if you want. All right. You would need a motion to go into executive session to discuss the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee. Listen to her. Her one VSA, section 31383. Second. Okay. I'm available. 815, executive session. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Did you get all the language there? I'll add it. I'll add it. I'll add it. We're professional organic. Yeah, I'll cover it. Yeah, sorry. I didn't come. Yeah. I didn't have, I didn't know until late morning. Then I didn't come. All right. Thank you everybody for coming tonight. Have a nice.